• 00:01:00 How Thaddeus got into philosophy and theology in the first place?
• 00:05:45 How political pluralism should work? Is the US actually pluralistic?
• 00:12:23 Has liberalism built a super structure of metaethics on top of religions. Are religions (too) boxed in by the liberal structure? How has our consciousness already been changed by this structure?
• 00:19:13 Is the treatment of religions and reality comparable? How should philosophy deal with quantum physics?
• 00:30:03 What did postmodernism contribute to the current state of philosophy?
• 00:35:03 What did Friedrich Nietzsche really try to tell us in ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’? How much of his depression should be attributed Christianity?
• 00:39:03 Why are so many people falling out with active Christianity? Is it connected to the different role of idolatry (the replacement of the divine) between the older Abrahamic religions and the New Testament?
• 00:45:02 What kind of love is the most fulfilling – self-centered or selfless?
• 00:51:02 How does Ayn Rand’s philosophy (Objectivism) fit into the high regard that is given to selfless love by philosophers? Is altruism self love or selflessness?
• 00:53:01 Why do we have this endless potential of addiction? Is addiction a coping mechanism for reality? Does it help us reconcile long-term and short-term goals? Is it better than being stuck in place?
• 00:57:34 Is religion a system of societal error correction? Do religions give you better life goals (and free you of addictions). Have religions become too lazy and are not challenged enough? Has postmodernism shown us how uncontested religious ideas are a problem?
• 01:07:13 Is the catholic church a good model for a ‘world government’?

Thaddeus Kozinski is a professor of theology and philosophy at the Divine Mercy University. He is the author of Modernity as Apocalypse: Sacred Nihilism and the Counterfeits of Logos and The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can’t Solve It.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – Thaddeus ‘the Catholic’ (Pluralism, Liberalism, Postmodernism, Idolatry, World Government).

Big Thanks to our Sponsors!

ExpressVPN – Claim back your Internet privacy for less than $10 a month!

Mighty Travels Premium – incredible airfare and hotel deals – so everyone can afford to fly Business Class and book 5 Star Hotels! Sign up for free!

Divvy – get business credit without a personal guarantee and 21st century spend management plus earn 7x rewards on restaurants & more. Get started for free!

Brex – get a business account, a credit card, spend management & convertible rewards for every dollar you spend. Plus now earn $250 just for signing up (Terms & Conditions apply).

 

 

Today’s welcome to the judgment call podcast really appreciate thanks for coming You’re welcome. Thanks for having me on torsten. Hey, absolutely I looked into you a little bit and there’s two books that you wrote and it stood out and got quite a bit of recognition One is where you talk about what role does religious pluralism have in society? How nation states should actually be a construct and is that even possible which we all think it is right? So that’s kept I guess the consensus and the other book that I took a quick look at is How Catholicism really fits into modern society and what what happened to Catholicism? Because it went through so many changes at least the public perception during the last 100 years So i’m excited to talk about this and you’re also just in that before when we spoke earlier you mentioned A couple of other topics that I think are really relevant to today’s discussion about what’s going on in the world So maybe like my first question is how did you start with philosophy and how do you select those topics? So why are certain things closer to your heart like those topics? We just talked about and others that you come across from what you feel others are not as relevant to you You just leave them by the wayside a little bit well, I I started out in college as a pre med major math and science Towards my junior year I was reading And I wasn’t practicing religion at this point. I was kind of a Nietzschean In my in my behavior and thought even though I didn’t know who Nietzsche was, you know what I mean? I was sort of uh, I was a de facto Nietzschean living for extreme extreme experiences trying to defy uh the status quo you know Trying not to be a conformist all that and I was searching though at that point And I I actually read one particular book which sort of opened up a whole new world to me And was called the screw tape letters by c.s. Lewis Have you heard of the book? I have not no I have not so the screw tape letters are fictional letters written from uh a devil in hell called screw tape To his nephew wormwood and the whole book is about how to How to get this one particular individual into hell and so what lewis does is he incorporates a lot of uh social commentary and spiritual truth in this But what happened to me when I read that was I thought wow, this could be true There really might be the spiritual world out there of of truth of comprehensive metaphysical spiritual truth And I I really felt the the the reality of that from this book It really it really floored me And so at that point I got really interested in reading reading these things. Um reading spiritual works of lewis and uh other other theologians and That got me interested in moving away from the sciences into philosophy and theology and so um I then uh Enrolled in a program called uh saint john’s college uh in anapolis, maryland, which teaches the great books only They’re one of the first great books colleges and I took the master’s program there and read through the whole canon of great works All the philosophy theology literature history that I didn’t really get uh undergraduate Um as I was going through that program. I discovered playdough who became uh, I just fell in love with his writings especially the republic And what really floored me was his discussion of democracy and book eight of the republic Where he basically says that he depicts democracy as a kind of relativistic Carnival of everyone doing their own thing and everybody’s happy and self satisfied Except that it’s the beginning of tyranny For playdough because what happens is is in that vacuum the tyrant Is born and the tyrant is completely a slave to his passions and makes everybody else enslaved to his will And that just floored me. I never I never read anything like that and it he also described the way in which the political order is Uh, a kind of macrocosm of the order of the soul And that was also uh new to me and that got me interested in political philosophy And uh, I had also become interested in the catholic intellectual tradition, particularly its philosophical tradition Combinating in st. Thomas Aquinas So I went to catholic university and and took 12 courses Uh in for my phd. Uh, a lot of them on st. Thomas Um, I discovered allister mackentire’s writings at this point and his radical critique of secular liberalism Um, and I also discovered the social encyclicals of the popes, especially leo the 13th Um, where he talked about what a christian political order looks like and should look like and how it connects to the truths of the gospel And so at that point I decided I wanted to write um, my dissertation on Uh, what I call in my in my book that came out of that the political problem of religious pluralism um Looking at plato looking at Aristotle looking at Aquinas looking at jack baritain allister mackentire john walls Um and seeing what the problem really was Uh in our culture And and that’s what I tried to um Figure out in that book. Yeah, that sounds fascinating. I mean those are I I feel I’ve only even heard of the subset of those books And I’ve only read a couple um of them as well. Um, this sounds really fascinating when when we look into Let’s say a popular opinion is that political pluralism So the the the ability to To and compass all kinds of religion into one nation state kind of what the what the u.s. Um It kind of isn’t because it’s kind of based on a on a christian philosophy, but it kind of Um prides itself in disability to it. So any anyone with any kind of religion and have anyone that have a guaranteed ability to To practice that religion and bring it into this this microcosm of what’s modern, um america First question would be do you feel america is? Pluralist is really pluralist as you would perceive it and be what do you think it’s not working out so well? Uh the answer to the question of whether we have a genuine plurality of And even and even from the beginning of the founding is genuinely pluralist is is no Um, and you have to sort of think about what it means to be pluralist. Um Uh, you know John Locke in his letter on toleration Um said that uh, the the true the mark of the true church is toleration Uh, he also said every church is orthodox to itself And in his uh Other writings maybe including that one as well. He He forbid uh, both atheists and catholics to be part of this New enlightened, uh, social contract. The reason he did that is because he had a suspicion there that Neither the atheists nor the catholic could actually abide by Uh, the kind of implicit rules of the social contract and what the rules are there is a sort of religious relativism Um, in other words, uh, you could you could practice your religion your philosophical doctrines Whatever you think about values, uh, in the civil sphere in the sphere of private life But when it comes to public life when it comes to the laws Uh, when it comes to the the sort of life of the common good, it’s the civil society that determines these things Well, what that means though is that the civil society the political, uh, authority has decided that no religious truth or institution such as the catholic church Has any political authority whatsoever has any authority to determine Um, you know Uh Reality, uh, it’s like like he says every church is orthodox to itself So, um, in my opinion lock was was pretty much an atheist. Um, and his his christian noises were superficial and rhetorical What he’s really setting up was the first secularist purely secularist state And that is indeed what we have in the united states. It’s not a christian, uh, nation It may have been full filled with christian citizens from the the colonies But uh, insofar as you have the constitution and declaration what you really have is a secular regime Uh, where religion is, uh, ultimately privatized And and the church has no political, uh, moral authority whatsoever And so what I mean by saying that pluralism doesn’t mean that it’s not a christian nation Pluralism doesn’t exist is that in order to, um, you know, live in an american culture You have to kind of adopt at least de facto or a modus fivendi A kind of strict separation Of your deepest held beliefs And and the and the common good in the political order, but this is this is a very, um Uh, distorted and perverted way of understanding, uh, your religion Um, the catholic religion for instance has things to say about the common good about the truth and about the purpose of human life It has things to say about, um What political authority is where it comes from and how laws should be made and what and what they should be ordered to It’s not a private institution In fact, it has a higher authority than any state because it was instituted by god himself Now when you when you go around and interview catholics about that issue Um, and I was first introduced to this way of understanding political theology by reading leo the 13 Specifically his encyclical called immortale day on the christian constitution of states Most catholics and christians and theistic believers in general um When you ask them the role of their religious beliefs their practices their church um In relation to public authority political authority the culture they will give you an answer That is more or less lockian Which means that we’re all lockians now, which means that we’re not really pluralist Okay, we have superficial differences in our religious confessions, but we’re all accepting a certain understanding of the relation of church and state of the supernatural the natural of reason and faith of nature and grace of um Of the sacred and the profane We’re all basically accepting a more or less lockian enlightenment Uh liberal view and I’ll just finish with this. Alistair McIntyre says um, what we have in our society are Radical liberals and conservative liberals, but we’re all liberals and there isn’t a place in public discussion where Liberalism itself is put to the critique is put under scrutiny Because what what’s really going on is our our religion is big l liberalism and most people are Are basically practicing denominations of big l liberalism Catholic liberalism protested liberalism even muslim liberalism Atheist liberalism, but the problem is is that the the the main architectonic mode of understanding your own beliefs The relation to your life the relation to public life Uh are all filtered through this ideology Which is antithetical actually to authentic traditional um religious and metaphysical truth Yeah, so if I follow this correctly What and this is this is certainly interesting What do you say we don’t have the pluralism because the flow of the religions on its they don’t really stand on its own they’re not able to To express all the knowledge that they have they stop short of this and we have this this the super meta meta Physics on the method ethics on top of that that actually determine the place of religion So religion cannot grow out of its place of boxing and every religion is hope it’s in a similar box So to speak but the actual That the the meta ethics that we have accepted is liberalism and that is something we don’t really see right So this is something that came off the enlightenment when we talk about religions all the time But we all feel and I I see this slightly different But I think the popular consensus is this is something that helped the old people It doesn’t help us as much anymore. It’s still around but the utility has gone down That’s kind of what I get from most guests here on the podcast They say if it even has the utility it’s so small we can ignore it. I I see that differently I feel there is quite a bit of utility still left But the actual superstructure now is how do we We how do we determine and I mean there’s a nation state. There’s a global government something that we all expect to happen in The year let me just sit on top of that, right? Let me just jump in with the way you frame that it’s very interesting Um, most people don’t see any utility now in religious belief and practice. You see more utility That’s exactly liberalism liberalism, uh makes everything a means to an end Even those things that are ends and so the idea of looking at religion As a useful thing like even george washington or john ams. I forgot who was said, you know Um religion is good for you know, uh american culture keeps people good and you know, okay The whole idea of religion Of truth of god himself is that it can never be Merely a utilitarian good it is that which everything else is ordered to including the political order Uh, and so but I’m just reading i’m just reading nicolas weight. That’s something I I and I think it it goes to the quarter I’m just reading nicolas weight and uh, I think he’s getting to the heart of it as as well as as I I couldn’t he’s really going into so what is the survival value? What is the utility value not just in making us richer, but actually it’s a viable value. So why are Religious groups usually blessed with a higher fertility rate. So that means we have more likely answers to those of more religious people as non religious people there’s especially good example with the roman empire where in the the older greek Parts the fertility rate was terrible kind of what we what we see right now And in the new christian population, which was initially very small. It was a huge fertility rate so they basically took over the roman empire from within and I I strongly believe they this the utility the survival is the ultimate Utility out there because we all need to survive and our genes need to survive and I think this is this group evolutionary um Biology in terms of how would your group can survive and I think it really illustrates as well I think this is where religion fits in so well and I think this is still true This hasn’t changed and I think any kind of superstructure we put on top of this will never change that No, I agree with you that those who get married and have indecisible marriages Tend to have healthier lives too. That’s true too. Um, I mean these are all the benefits. Uh, you might say of of living a A life that perfect your soul. There’s going to be um, you might say fringe benefits, but again What we’re dealing with in the area of religion? um Is something that evolutionary biology can see in from a certain lens, but ultimately it’s it’s not really what it is It’s not what it’s about. It’s not it’s um, again, it’s it’s we’re dealing with so when you mentioned survival as being the only end That’s not true or that’s debatable at least physical survival Um, obviously the the christian religion teaches us that the ultimate purpose of life is eternal salvation, but god this life is a trial It’s not meant to just be a long life or even survival um, and so, um, you know that truth trumps all other true scientific philosophical economic evolutionary biologist biological But let me let me just get back to something. I just want to sort of give you a couple instances of of my thesis about the way in which um Consciousness is transformed by uh, second liberal secularism even in even in religious people um, the the most caricature example is is mario qualmo saying Uh in the 90s, perhaps I forgot it was that you know, I’m personally opposed to abortion, but uh publicly. I support it So we’re dealing with an issue of something where you’re he’s completely divided in his public life and his in his life as a governor um He’s going to promote what what he believes privately is the is the murder of unborn babies Because that’s what he’s supposed to do as as a good, uh, american uh, politician The other example is um, justice kennedy in plan parenthood versus kasey supreme court decision in 1995 Just kennedy is a catholic and he he gave this um This this this statement as a kind of basis for this decision which had to do with abortion rights um at the heart of liberty Is the right to define one’s concept of existence? of meaning of purpose Uh of the cosmos and the meaning of human life So if you think about this, um, that’s like a first commandment. You have the right to determine reality. It sounds like nichia most um And that is the basis of liberty as uh, david dc schindler has uh come out in a book Very helpful. Yeah, I highly recommend, uh, a book called freedom from reality by dc schindler our catholic theologian um He he argues that that freedom has become um, the ultimate end, but what what what freedom is is potency over actuality in other words the constant um multiplication and availability of options Each option is equally insignificant non teleological Non authoritative but as long as you have the option you’re in this Perpetual state of potency to to change your life to to make decisions to change your gender or whatever it is That understanding is a metaphysical understanding. It’s false. Um, it It basically is a kind of a front to the actuality of reality of god. It makes us determiners of reality That’s very well articulated by justice kennedy there And so these are the deep metaphysical Um problems the metaphysics even before the spiritual the metaphysics is what we’re dealing with We have a kind of liberal metaphysics that is Uh, colonizing everyone’s thinking and acting and they don’t even realize it that that’s what I see Yeah, I think this is a fascinating view that I agree with you that isn’t really put out into debate as as much and uh, you know, I just said alexander barton a couple of episodes ago And it’s something he he’s been pondering with is basically when I when I read his books correctly and there’s a lot in there is We we we gonna see reality More like quantum physics and what he means by this is quantum physics basically does away with this one true reality one Unmeasurable reality. We suddenly have maybe multiverses. We suddenly we can’t really say where the particles are We know they are somewhere in that club, but we can’t measure them if we do they go it goes away, right? So I think that is there is in philosophy Especially there is a way to deal with this this problem that the what’s kind of there? What’s newton’s problem right newton felt we can solve this we can find the ultimate truth The ultimate truth is close to where god is and once we find out the ultimate truth We just we just scale up and I think this is what we did with the with the enlightenment But now we we realize that there’s so many different truths out there So the speed of light is the truth, but can we overcome it? Yes There’s a lot of different ways now We also know that quantum physics and on its basic philosophical challenges It doesn’t work with any of the truth, you know spiritual spiritual or physical But the physics can’t I mean if you’re modern day physicists and want to describe That quantum physics you you sound like crazy person you sound like or you’re in some crazy philosophy you sound worse than the Lenin and What I’m trying to say is what do we challenge if we say if we challenge or if we adopt this view that there is not just one single reality Is quantum physics? And the way we see the world there which is it seemingly from my point of view ultimately that there is no single truth There’s no single worldview. Isn’t that what we do with religions right now? And don’t we have to Look don’t we have to be guided by quantum physics and philosophy because ultimately we have to solve that Yeah, well, I think a good author on this question is Wolfgang Smith He’s wrote he’s written quite a bit on quantum physics and theology And he makes a distinction between the mathematical modeling Uh in the natural sciences, especially in the modern enlightenment modeling view a representational view and the sort of deeper perennial philosophy understanding of reality There is of course an interplay between human knowledge and interpretation and perspective and and the real And it’s not as if the enlightenment view from nowhere where all we have to do is come up with this um airtight universal cultureless historic history lists Perfect Cartesian kind of modeling where we can then see reality as it is regardless of perspective Regardless of religious belief Relate regardless of our historical cultural situation I think the good thing about post modernity And and I guess quantum physics is that it’s taken away that naive realism Uh about how we encounter reality, but I think we go too far When we make statements like you made where there’s more than one reality or there is no architectonic, uh, You know metaphysical reality that we can know as it is Um, I could just give you a pretty clear example of how that’s self contradictory. Um The law of non contradiction in logic can never be violated Um, so no matter what you you may think that physics is telling us the statement that For instance, there is more than one truth. Okay, that statement itself is either true or false um, if it’s true then it’s then Then then that statement itself is either true or false about that multiple reality But now you have the easy way out would be making it um Making it relatable to the observer kind of what would Einstein did, right? So if if you move if the if you take the the the movement of the observer into account That’s how suddenly the the space time was suddenly not the same I mean space time is still the same but the the time works differently depending on how quickly well But but see that’s that’s easy way out, but but that statement itself is not perspective. Uh, it’s not perspectival. It’s absolute uh to say something like um reality is is uh Is determined to some extent by the Perceiver is that statement itself? Uh perceptually determined because if it is then someone else might have a different perception and not accept that what i’m getting at is You you you fall you fall against the rockhard reality of the law of noncontradiction Aristotle said uh in his um in his law in his organ on um when he dealt with uh the law of noncontradiction Um, he did not try to prove it That demonstrate the truth of this principle. The principle is something cannot be and not be at the same time in the same respect Okay, x is x Uh x is not not x. Okay, this sort of what do we do about the multiverse? Say let’s assume for a moment the multiverse is is all the possible options in your life and all of our lives They exist somewhere else. There’s an unlimited amount an infinite amount of universe. So let’s assume it for a moment It’s a theory and might never be proven. Whatever. Well, let’s assume it’s true, right? And we what what that actually what the universe could be is just a quantum computer So we’re just a random fluke could be could be Very different anyways So if if we say it’s true in that universe and we by definition can’t see outside the universe But the opposite is true in the next universe just like a one one consciousness away What do we do about that fact? Um, because the highest order that we look at are all the multiverses at the same time And maybe there is an observer that can see all of them at the same time not us. We have limited to one universe All right do about that. I I’m I’m still I don’t think you’re tracking the fact that That you still don’t you still can’t escape the law of non contradiction. Okay if you have one if I say to you that there are multi universes and We can only understand our one universe Um, you should say to me. Well that might that statement itself That you could only know one of the multi universe one of the universes multi universe that that statement itself is only true For the one universe we’re in In another universe. It’s true that we know all the universes now when you think about that When you think about that’s all right another call when you think about that it doesn’t it doesn’t work. It’s self contradictory um It’s either the case that we are limited to our perspective to one universe or we’re not It’s not the case that in some other universe That doesn’t apply. You really can’t deny the law of non contradiction. So let me just get to what I think Is the upshot of of quantum physics and all this it’s this That we do have limited understanding Of reality a great book on this is mysticism by Evelyn underhill. It’s the classic work on mystical knowledge. Okay You read way more than I do and I read a lot Well, no, we read we read different. There’s an awesome recommendations. No, there’s an awesome recommendation mysticism by Evelyn underhill A beautiful a beautiful amazing work by the great mystical writer English writer anglican Um, but what what she gets out of that book and and this is also uh In treatises about negative theology right st. John of the cross for instance um We certainly have um Limited understanding reality is inexhaustible reality is In a in a certain extent infinite. Okay, because it reflects the infinity of God Now at the same time, that’s true. God has given us the power of intellect the power of human reason um, which is able to understand reality as it is um, accurately Not perfectly in the sense of exhaustively comprehensively we never stop learning we never stop plumbing the depths of reality in heaven. I believe We will spend an eternity inquiring and thinking and questioning and wondering Um, the beginning of philosophy is wonder Because we wonder why the thing is the way it is that wonder Uh is concludes in knowledge Okay, where we figure out the cause of the effect that we’re wondering about whether it’s a balloon going up or whether it’s quantum physics That knowledge that we have Uh is maybe accurate, but it’s provisional in the sense that there may be more truths to learn about this But this is but this this way of understanding knowledge as asymptotic and inexhaustible Is not the same as postmodern skepticism Um, I mean there is something called a scientific method. There is something called certainty in metaphysics and philosophy It starts out in the principles of logic. It’s not it’s not like there’ll be another universe Where the law of noncontradiction isn’t true. That’s unthinkable. It’s unreal Um, I mean it’s like saying god can both exist and not exist at the same time And now we know this because of quantum metaph quantum physics What quantum physics as as far as I understand it is teaching us is something about the mystery of being And something about the indeterminacy of matter now. That’s something Aristotle knew 25 hinge years ago. Aristotle said matter is intrinsically potency. It has no determinability It’s determined by form and in so far as form Is never going to fully be able to Uh bring matter to perfection in this life. There’s always going to be a certain kind of uncertain to your Uh Imperfection in our knowledge of material objects as matter itself is indeterminate I think that’s what quantum physics is telling us. There’s an indeterminacy in in in matter As you get to the reality, I think that’s the problem that they can’t perceive reality or that That reality becomes things that we are not used to obviously We will find a higher level of obstruction and then we will maybe come back to the ultimate place of reality Can I can I hold you there for one second? Yeah, go ahead Postmodernism a lot of people describe things to postmodernism that it isn’t and I think a lot of stuff isn’t postmodernism People don’t realize. Okay. Well, what’s your reading of postmodernism? Not necessarily what we just talked about just what is reality, but what do you feel is is is reading with What did it contribute to to where we are right now in philosophy or maybe there isn’t anything useful? well, um In one way postmodernism is nothing more than another Mode or level of modernism. It’s not its own thing. I think it takes certain Patterns and trajectories that are found in the Enlightenment and brings them to a logical conclusion So for instance, if you want to say that Nietzsche is the first postmodern perhaps, right? What did Nietzsche do? Well, he took the Enlightenment inheritance Of this kind of evacuated a very very um anemic understanding of reality that that came from Enlightenment science and social sciences Um, and he looked at it and said, you know, this is this is a house of cards This is this is merely just a prejudice of a kind of uh, the last man as bourgeois emaciated You know nonheroic non tragic Uh, person who wants to be able to control his his life and and have comfort and security Um, and Nietzsche said look this is this is just inhuman. This is disgusting. This is aesthetically ugly Uh, and he was right in that sense now Because the secular Enlightenment ideology was a kind of reductionism Um, it it looked at all those, uh elements of human life, uh the mystery of life drama religion the sacred Uh, the Dionysian and it tried to kind of neuter it with a kind of, uh, soft Apollo apollinary and You know Mathematization and and and Reductionism it is disgusting. Um, and he called and he said the last man blinks, right? God is dead Uh, do you know what we’ve done? Do you know how to uh, drink up the sea and and he blinked the last man blinks because He has no comprehension of even Nietzsche’s question So in that sense what Nietzsche was pointing to was a kind of dead end In the Enlightenment now what Nietzsche did though was he instead of trying to return to or progress towards a more Adequate notion of human reason and human will um He abandoned the whole desire of truth at all And he really rejected the creaturely status of human beings. He basically said we’re not even creatures. We’re gods um The the the the whole sort of uh perennial uh understanding of of humanity beginning with with with homer but but proceeding from Plato and on is that we are participants in Uh reality we are creatures in in a reality that we can know and love and perfect ourselves in uh, Nietzsche wanted to throw all that out because he he saw it uh, resulting in Because it’s misreading of christianity uh, resulting in um, uh, uh, a kind of inhuman Uh bloodless kind of kind of enlightenment science Well, that’s and and heidegger had the same critique, right? Um in his in his writings But but but I think what Nietzsche did was he threw out the baby with the bath water as it were use a cliche um, because in the end We can’t we can’t defy Reality and determine it. It’s there It beckons us to conform to it to participate in it because ultimately it’s the reality of god and so um postmodernism in in its good in a good sense tries to tell us that there’s a kind of mystery and um Uncertainty in our human knowledge in a bad sense postmodernism then becomes the enlightenment Uh on steroids when it makes claims like There is no truth. There’s only perspective. Um, there is no ability to uh to have uh, you know, metaphysical knowledge These are dogmatic ideological Certainties the kind of certainties that it was supposedly upset about in the enlightenment Right. I don’t know where you read those out. Um, I mean, I read some photos and there and they definitely don’t mention this So the idea that there is no truth. There’s multiple truths. Yes, but there is no truth No, or there’s maybe that’s that’s what you’re saying just in different words So maybe that’s that’s what where the confusion comes from for myself Um, but when I read Nietzsche do I feel he is and I just read the the the thus books our sister Uh last week again, and I felt many this guy’s depressed and he’s going to the he’s coming up into the month He’s going to the cake and comes down. It’s like, oh my these people don’t get it, right? I feel he’s not seeing and that surprised me that you you were you totally well I don’t know enough about your model of thought But I felt like he is he is too critical of what’s going on in his own social environment or what’s going on in germany at the time Right, sure. Right. Yes, and he attributes this to christianity, which might be true or not But I grew up in Germany. I know these people are very secular now and they still live in the same very small minded Yes, not great environment for someone who has a philosophical philosophical mind or any kind of Inquiring mind like Nietzsche. So I think he he had the good of all this to christianity, which I think is not true at all Um, there’s a lot of the things you should have made and I think he I don’t know what it was Maybe he didn’t have enough social content. He didn’t have enough people not enough statesmen not enough, um, bishops to talk to He never got there because there’s a lot of greatness in In what the old testament in utah summit can teach us and he was seemingly never interested in this That’s how I read at tsc Maybe he he was and then he got really disappointed never wrote about it But in his books I never see he never explained the greatness of christian dot No, he didn’t he miss he look he had a problem. He was raised by his sisters see I mean, um, look, there’s a lot going on psychologically But and I do I do admire Nietzsche spirit in some ways, but it ultimately became demonic I mean, uh, in other words, we have to always remember that the word became flesh logos the logos Okay, e michael jones is very good on this. He just wrote a book called logos rising on the history of logos and history of Of um, what he means by logos is the being of things the reality of things um And st. John’s gospel in the beginning was the logos the arcay in greek um What this means is the ultimate reason of things the ultimate reality of things we are not determiners of this We are participants in it. We are able to articulate it We’re able to live in it participated, but ultimately We are not its determiners and the ultimate way of living What we’re here for is to conform our wills to the divine will Okay, and Nietzsche said no I am going to determine Reality by my will And who wants to join me now? That’s ultimately satanic Okay, that’s ultimately satanic. That’s ultimately um, a blasphemous rejection of god’s reality Now we don’t want to idolize the language so derrida the deconstructionists I’ve read derrida. I understand what he’s doing. He’s saying that words um Are referencing other words. We have to be careful not to idolize our linguistic apparatus as if it were The same as the the deep reality we encounter. I can understand that um deconstructing um language Uh might be a way of allowing god’s reality to come forth. This is this is what the negative theologians say This is what meister eckhart says. This is what the cloud of unknowing says st. John of the cross um catholic theology understands that although our language Derives from and is able to penetrate into reality because god is language. He is the word We have to recognize that they’re still created things our concepts are created our words are created the uncreated Um is an infinite uh distance between anything created. We don’t want to become idolaters So in so far as deconstructionism post modernism A quantum theory however you want to put it in so far as it works as a hammer to destroy idols Which masks and counterfeit reality? I think it’s a good thing, okay? But in so far as that post modernism deconstruction itself becomes an idol a counterfeit And deprives people of participation In god’s reality. I think it could be demonic and evil And so that’s that’s how I that’s how I would put it That’s an interesting interesting way to look at this. You know, I I talked to a lot of christians And many of them are not practicing christianity much, you know, maybe a christmas Um, yeah, me too I find this a really odd thing there in there. You know, I asked a lot of people Why did you kind of leave the catholic church or why you end up practicing and they’re like, um, They don’t really have an answer But then they seem to know it’s the right thing to do for them personally, right? And they seem to be in good company because when I go back to germany, for instance, this church is everywhere But literally no attendance outside of christmas but What what I find that interesting a lot. I feel like when I when I read the Quran and it’s really strict rules on idolatry Yeah, I think makes a lot of sense that to me goes all the way back to the Torah and it’s just taking it It’s spelling it out the Torah is a too, but it’s kind of it’s not spelling it out as much I don’t know why maybe because there was a lot of little polyistic stuff going on during the Really developments of israel. Yeah, but I feel christianity or he deat on it not israel What I feel christianity is so open to idolatry. There’s saints some just saints everywhere in christian history, right? there is Things that symbolize um, and I think jesus itself is you could argue that there’s there’s Replacements for god all over the place in christian history and they seem to have no issue with this So I feel like christianity was always very easy going on idolatry. They didn’t really well wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. I wouldn’t put it that way Um, it’s easy going on incarnational religion. Okay, so what christianity tells us is that god comes into The very warp and wolf of human life. He becomes a human being. Okay He becomes a baby everything material everything individual idiosyncratic and particular and messy god has now become one with right So that’s where the karan and the Torah depart of christianity. They and playdough too, right? all of them would say that that’s that represents a kind of Desacration of the divine to come that low The catholic church teaches not only does it become a human it becomes a piece of bread And a particle and a drop of wine the eucharism. Yeah Yeah, and and these saints and these relics and the liturgy And the sacred sites and the pilgrimages and the sacrament sacramentals. These are all a manifestation and A participation in that one incarnation now. That’s not idolatry to worship the human nature of christ Okay, as um as francis taught us that we should nobody can see the pope or other institutions Well, hold on. Let me just let me just finish my statement about to worship to worship the human nature of christ It’s not idolatry because that human nature is Intimately connected and in a sense one with the divine Okay, so it’s not idolatry idolatry is when you take human concepts human language and Forget neglect the infinite difference between anything created And god and remember the church herself is both human and divine so in its human element It’s going to be full of sin and messiness and betrayal and crime In its divine element. It’s pristine And that and that combination is there throughout history if you want if you want to reject it You could become a purist like calvin Or have your own little bible believing church because you reject the corruption, but remember Um, that’s that’s departing from the nature of the the church that christ set up human and divine with all its messiness And it’s very But it’s it’s I find that interesting that we use the word idolatry in a very different way than I would expect that I know you’re coming from a different standpoint. Well, let me know. Well, how do you use it? How do you using it? Well, I for me it’s always and this might be not not the The the the official way, but it’s anything that could be a worship in place of god. Yes Anyone who has divine authority in place of god, this is what all the religions are worried about right? I agree with that Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, so mohammed is just this dude and he got he got some he got some Very special revelations from god But actually, you know, don’t worry so much about mohammed really worry about a lot And I think this is the Torah message and christianity went all the way to the other side and it’s okay I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this. I’m just saying it then still saying idolatry It’s redefined if you say you you you’re worried about idolatry and christianity because it’s already happened, I feel Well, wait a minute. So The way that you worship god, okay, so the first first of all, let’s put it this way God himself wants to be worshiped Through the mediator. He’s given us jesus christ who is both god and man Okay, and so Well, so okay, so if that’s true Um, then god likes mediators. Okay, he likes that We’re the the medieval understanding of the cosmos is sacramental everything is both a symbol an image um a pointer a Participation in god and it’s also not god. Okay Um, the father Is the ultimate principle the son and the holy spirit are equal But there’s a kind of sense in which the son reveals the father the holy spirit You know participates in the love between the father and the son The trinity becomes man and jesus jesus establishes a church which is physical and human And there’s a tradition. There’s liturgy. There’s sacraments None of this is idolatry from a christian perspective because all those things Are mediators to the eternal father jesus himself being the ultimate Participate so I mean to me. It’s very simple. The reason why I’m a christian is because There’s only one consciousness That was ever United with the ultimate reality of things that was jesus christ. He was that consciousness Christianity enables me To be in an intimate participation in that consciousness so that I experience the father the way His son experienced that’s the gift of grace Uh, they call it theosis in the eastern church becoming god Deification christianity permits and And celebrates and and is its whole purpose is to deify every individual to make us one with god to make us god By participation jesus was god by nature All of us are able to become god by grace now if that’s true. That’s a pretty good religion I would say your german friends who don’t go to church don’t believe that’s true Or they don’t want it to be true. They don’t care anymore. They don’t they don’t care writers I think they’re free writers, you know, they you live in certain value systems and you you feel like And I think this was coming In the middle ages is that warriors would go out. They would live a very cruel life Right, they would kill anyone who comes their way and they would take slaves And then but he also had a priest and he wrote the priest was to not just necessarily tell them what you should do I mean, obviously they would listen to him maybe sometimes But he would really absolve them and they would become christians just before they died on the battlefield Right, so you have like your last moments and then you can go to heaven I think those are the free writers and I think this is a bit what we see in modern society We have people who who kind of take the benefits out of it But they’re like, why would I invest in this because for me myself? It doesn’t make any difference in their from their point of view is kind of like you’re wanting this one vote makes no difference Right, that’s corrupt. That’s a corruption. That’s a big corruption of religion to use it again We get back to that original thing we talked about. What is it going to do for me? Right, so a typical kid goes to mass and says, what am I going to get out of this? I’m not getting it. They look at it as entertainment in other words What you have is a kind of self centered self absorbed individualistic almost narcissistic attitude Where everything becomes Normal Examples all over what do you mean by normal? What do you mean by normally people question the benefit of believing in god? This is like tour all over the place and there’s even people who say there’s this one book in I don’t know where where this I think it’s book number 15 Where the whole book is about why would I believe in god? It makes no sense. Why restrict myself so much and I’ll got it Yeah, what do I get out of it? And I think this is very very natural for everyone because I don’t have this You need certain self centeredness, right? Okay. It’s natural in the sense that it’s beginning We all are you familiar with Kirkegaard’s three levels of consciousness? Yes, but it’s been a while. Yes. Well, so there’s the aesthetic level Which is the lowest level where everything is just a sort of means to the end of kind of diversion pleasure aesthetic Sensibility then there’s the conversion to the ethical where Um now now you give up your pleasure your self centered desire for satisfaction Therapeutic well being all that whatever it might be and now you seek to live according to ultimate moral values and And you’re not seeing those moral values as something that could do something for you You are obeying it almost as if it were the end not your own personal satisfaction, but conforming to that moral value That’s like Kant Emmanuel Kant kind of the categorical imperative, but that’s not the highest the highest is the religious Where you even transcend the ethical now and and that’s Abraham. That’s Abraham for kirkegaard Because he he overcomes the ethical now what you’re talking about with this idea of like what is it going to do for me? That’s still the aesthetic level. It’s very low level of consciousness. Um, I mean, you’re still looking at at yourself as a kind of Um, it’s like, you know, you’re the center of the universe, right? I’m not saying That religious consciousness does away completely with arrows. That’s kind of arrows, right? You’re trying to be filled by something, right? Yeah, but the whole point of of religious consciousness And this is true of all the religions. I think is to put you into the mode of um a kind of uh selfless Uh obedience to something that is absolute, which you know will fulfill you ultimately better than anything else And you actually become kind of united with this so you become a source of of goodness to others This is agape love, right? The love of self giving self sacrificial love In other words, there’s a great quote by Benedict Pope Benedict before he before he resigned. He says the the arrows Eros Desires agape So in other words, the erotic love of the Greeks and the and the pagans Actually finds its fulfillment in the love of agape Which is self giving love so eros and agape are actually unified. It’s not just one of the other, right? It’s not like you have to be either the self centered esteed or the selfless saint. It’s actually that your ultimate desire For fulfillment is is fulfilled in the love of god Um, so anyway, that’s a paradox, right? It’s a mystical paradox. Well, maybe it’s also the way of life, right? It’s where the stages we go through from being very young and having a certain eon reality and then being old and seeing seeing Obviously the same reality if we may say so, maybe it’s has changed But we’ve come to different conclusions One thing I always goes on in my mind. I don’t know the conclusion Maybe you’ve seen this or maybe some people have thought about this when you read in rand and your Her objectivism, right? So it is that’s more of that’s more economic theory than this But it’s very very centered. Yeah, how do you reconcile this with with kicker guard or You know, there is selflessness is the highest form of what you just said, right? Selflessness would be the highest form Well, hold on. I so there’s two opposite extremes and they’re both wrong One is the the the on randy and self centered uh individualism where there’s just ego get get over it We’re just egocentric beings who want power and control and uh termination Forget the stupid loving of what she says Well, wait, but but she does dismiss Mercy and and love of others right as a kind of principle for life. Doesn’t she I mean Yes, but but that’s more she’s focused on outcome She’s kind of uh, you know, you do whatever you want, but give me the best possible outcome and this is from her view of history The best input for the best possible outcome. That’s kind of well what what she’s rebelling against is this hypocritical altruism idea altruism is the opposite altruism is Instead of acting for my self interest. I’m going to act for someone else’s self interest And it’s it’s irrational. Why would you act for someone else’s self interest? What about yourself? Public public is the altruism, but yes in private. It’s give me more, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Now this industrial process and industry complex here in the in san francisco, right? It’s supposedly in the interest of homeless, but actually you just want to make your company who gets 90 percent That’s right. That’s right. So all altruism is really hidden self interest, right? So but that’s the problem with altruism is it’s not true love. Okay? true love is St. Thomas Aquinas has a very interesting image for this in the love of caritas charity What happens is is yourself? Extends its scope to encompass and include the good of another so that when you love another You’re actually loving yourself because yourself has now been identified with that other. It’s almost eastern, right? It’s almost like hindu because there’s just one self right big s Yeah, but all the major religions seems to me from the eastern to the theistic have this notion of escaping from the ego to some extent, right? And that’s what we’re talking about the limited narrow Torturous desires of the ego that can’t be fulfilled. How do you how do you? How do you escape from that? And the first step is to want that escape? It’s like the addict who recognizes that he’s at the bottom and his addiction is just endless and infinite and insatiable And so he desires another mode of consciousness something other than the addictive now Maybe he becomes addicted to religion or something right there, but at that point he’s not transcended Yeah, well, this is this is this is a very difficult call to make that’s something that I’ve been thinking about recently And maybe that’s that’s an old old deal in in in philosophy Why are we getting so addicted so easily? Well food addiction addiction to sex addiction to religion could be anything And alcohol and it’s tons of substances that we have discovered that all makers addicted coffee another good example Why is that and why do we have that and you could say oh, well it’s these chemicals But we had a disability idea that we want to get addicted It seems to be hardwired into our system. What I felt like is the addiction is like an emotion, right? So that it’s we it’s too many variables. That’s why we have emotions sometimes our rational mind can’t solve it Probably most of the time to be honest. Yeah, and but we still have to move forward We can’t just get stuck and stay in bed for a while. I’d never leave our caves. That’s why we have emotions, right? So we can solve really complicated equations in a in a heartbeat And the same is maybe true for for addiction. This is my little theory because What are we actually motivated by and you’re not motivated? We’re motivated by really complex stuff Let’s bring simple stuff and really complex stuff long term so and how do we reconcile this? Well, maybe for the dictions because it’s better than having no motivation at all being in our cave the whole day and just Wanted being suicidal. No addictions at least drive us somewhere on the way Maybe find something useful, right? We find out about something that’s Well, you go to to other people run doesn’t be in come up with some inventions because we want more coffee, right? We want it cheaper. That’s what it is. We want more caffeine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that I mean it kind of it kind of makes addiction almost a coping mechanism Um for the complexity of life. I mean, there’s nothing worse than being suicidal and having depression with no no attractions whatsoever So maybe addiction is a way of um At least getting out of that and giving your sense. I mean, but I I guess I I feel like in the end We’re we’re going to be addicts to the day we die because um, the addictive mode is more or less The the the mode of somebody who hasn’t completely fulfilled his spiritual nature. Um, I don’t think Jesus Christ was an addict Um, I don’t think Mary the mother Mary was an addict Um, I think addiction has something to do with sin In other words choosing the particular good Uh over the universal good Um, but we think this is very good on this. Uh, but we think this is consolation of philosophy That’s one of the classics of uh, the philosophical tradition. He was a fifth century Um, roman, uh curator and and catholic. Uh, he was killed executed for supposedly betraying the goth uh king at the time But he was set up. Anyway, he wrote a book in prison called the consolation of philosophy and he said, um, you know Lady philosophy comes to visit him and he says come on boy. If you’re you’re you’re crying and whining because you don’t have your freedom And you’re gonna die. You have everything you need And he says what do you mean everything I need he says you have the truth you have the ultimate good All you have to do is love it And what she says is is that all the particular goods in the world? Um, they’re all desirable because they are bits and pieces and Participations in this universal absolute goodness, which we really desire and the key to life is to Desire that wholeness more than the particulars. Well, that’s easier said than done Hey, isn’t it? Because it’s not like there’s this big ball of being and goodness that we could just choose like on a menu, right? It’s always this deferral Right this deferral and I think ultimately addiction can only be overcome by grace the gift of god and through prayer I mean, it really can’t be overcome by human effort What I always feel like religion is a big error correction system So it has utility, but it’s the error correction of pure self interest, which is 99 percent in my for my point of view The right answer for human endeavor, but one percent of the time It’s really a bad idea because we need there’s lots of other functions of religions in terms of trust building and but it is this error correction figure and if we have this error correction in in religion It obviously will once you could say once you ascend it to being properly religious You don’t need to be addicted anymore because you have you have Something to to orient yourself towards so you have real goals, right? It’s more the more complex goals The trouble obviously with that is is that you have to accept something that’s really old that 100% work for our ancestors or at least more than more it has 51 percent, right? So I feel like they won the kid in the casino because they read the right book That’s kind of my answer. But is that true in the future? Maybe most likely but not necessarily so right? So it’s kind of like the the past results of a mutual fund didn’t necessarily predict the future results Most likely they will still be true But it could be that housing suddenly tanks and then beyond means a lot of money So I feel that’s that’s another problem as more people join in and just you know Those are a margin along in what religion teaches us and not the difficult stuff in the Torah But like you know the 15 rules from Deuteronomy If that’s all they really do then maybe it’s not as useful anymore That’s what I’m trying to say And I think this is also a postmodernist argument if we all in this bubble and we don’t really look out of it Then maybe the usefulness of that religion has expired. You need to push against, right? You need someone needs to discriminate against you. That’s what I’m always saying We need more discrimination because then our strengths come out. We have too little of this, right? We do a bit. I know why why we we go into this might bubble But we need other people to push against us and we’re like, okay This is good and I mean we can be good, right? But if Religion isn’t challenged anymore or maybe I don’t know how you look at this But I feel the the persecution of early christians really It made it shine and made a bubble and made it spark but if If nobody’s really interested in religion, that’s kind of often what I see out there people This is like the 15th most important priority. Nobody really cares about religion either way, right? It may be a little bit because they say oh america shouldn’t be 100% christian But besides that people are not that interested in religion. I think this is the problem needs to be sexy again And that’s kind of only happen if people really push against it Well, I think it’s happening. Actually, um, there’s a movement in america called traditionalism Uh people young people especially having a lot of big families going to the latin mass um being very much interested in st. Thomas Aquinas and john of the cross and Kind of a very robust rich um Catholicism there’s there’s a movement. Um in political theology too dc schindler is one of them. I mentioned freedom from reality has a book called Politics of the real there’s a journal called new polity Um, these are people who are advocating for a kind of almost a renaissance of a medieval understanding of religion um radical orthodoxy john millbank, um these people um, there there is this movement and Is it a mass movement and obviously obviously it’s not a mass it’s not a mass movement But but there is a populist movement. I think among catholics in america for instance There’s a priest now named father james ultiman L al t man He has just been reprimanded uh by his bishop callahan of wisconsin taken away all his faculties He can’t say mass publicly. He can’t hear confessions publicly. The reason this has been done is because he has been an outspoken uh In his sermons and in his public life against abortion Against the democratic party for being supportive of abortion Against uh homosexual behavior as a sin. He’s also come against the vaccine mandates and uh, uh, covid 19 propaganda um Because of that his own bishop has reprimanded him doing doing the bidding of the secular Uh kings you might say who? Uh, who do not like to see this kind of dissent from uh, liberal liberal secular cultural norms and so He is being defended by a lot of catholics. I mean a lot of the people in his diocese We have right now an elite of bishops in america who are really just kind of Uh middle middle management bureaucrats Uh, just trying to keep the status quo and we have some renegade holy priests and holy laity who are fighting against these bishops So it’s an interesting uh drama going on right now in in the american catholic church um I don’t think the same thing’s happening in europe exactly. There are some bishops like bishops schneider um Who who are also um, you might say very rare profits at this time Um calling out the gospel trues against them. I don’t see I don’t see Yeah, you know, I that’s that’s really great. Um, and what what i’m missing what i’ve always been missing the last few years is a real public um Public um debate within the catholic church or other churches, especially by the bishops um That they actually they they they stick out the future of of their own church Of what’s not their own church, but they are the ones elected to run it, right? Yeah Um And it’s not happening this public debate doesn’t it never comes to me Maybe it’s happening with inside the churches and it’s all good and it’s like a political party But you know, we we perceive political parties more like entertainment as a show right now There is an element of we we put things out there. We see what happens This had never happens and from my point of view and this is because I maybe only watch certain Um, only have a certain view in reality. I’ve never seen bishops and I won’t see that right. I’m interested in them, but I they’re not I Um, what what are you can you explain to me? What would they be debating exactly? The future of their own church and I’m like elements. You just said that that they are doing this, but this is not public to me This is not oh, no, you’re right. You’re right. It doesn’t happen. Okay. What happens is is that those there’s only a party line It’s like communism. It’s like there’s a party line. That’s it. Anyone who just sent from this party line I mean, is there actually a public debate now on whether or not There should be mandated vaccines. No, if you if you say you’re against this you you’re censored you’re canceled doctors and and and scientists and Politicians anyone ago? I mean what we have now this gets back to the beginning. I was talking about this unreality. We have We have this kind of totalitarian party line and on many on many issues climate change and Covid 19 and Canceled That’s kind of what was the implicit assumption that are already baked in. That’s what they were going on about And kind of you know, it turns now. It’s there. It’s it’s other assumptions more from the political left They’re not just speaking to the cake. So but let’s see the problem with postmonitor postmonitism says on the one hand that it’s against any imposed ideological Truth on society and culture human behavior and choices But on the other hand, this is the problem with postmonitor. It creates a vacuum because you cannot you have to have certain natural law Political truths as the basis of any conversation or political order if it’s all up for grabs, you know what happens and this is this gets back to the beginning This is what play dough said you want to know what the first month postmodern society ever depicted It’s play dough’s republic book eight when he describes a democracy It’s perfect postmodern play land one day you choose to uh walk your dog on the other day you play your instrument on the other He and he says there’s many many color. It’s like a many colored Jacket Socrates says something like that everyone has their own lifestyle and everyone could do what they want and right right at the beginning I’m sorry, right There’s a latent totalitarianism coming and that’s described in the next phase of the devolution because the tyranny comes right out of the democracy And why is that? Why does postmodern relativism and skepticism? and denial of any overarching Moral or or spiritual or metaphysical truth that we could know and abide by Why is the rejection of that? tend to lead to What Benedict the pope called the dictatorship? Listen to this dictatorship of relativism The dictatorship of that’s a paradox. How can relativism be a dictatorship? Right. Yeah, you can’t know I can see that but There’s a lot of good to this relativism too So I’m not convinced I and especially I see this in the sciences and I see this in a lot of other fields Where they put their potential this relativism to be extremely good now. Okay. Yeah, we do it 100% of you vote You know, this is America. We overdo everything but then usually we come back to the middle line Well, I hope we come back Right. So it looked really bleak and then we are probably one of the most advanced in the covid response anywhere on the planet Because we’ve overdone everything but we we’ve also focused on what works. Um, fortunately finally Um, I want to go back a little bit into political philosophy And that’s one thing I think that a lot of people are They have fear about this and they don’t really know how to think about that but I think the the catholic church is a really good answer to this and The the so we have this the set up of nation states around us, right? So they we don’t really know whether you’re versatile successful We can make up theories now But at the moment of time everyone got behind the nation states and they are the political Thing to live with for the last 200 years before it was, you know, nobody even thought about nation states really or maybe they thought But it wasn’t popular And wasn’t widely adopted So we have the system and it might be there forever or it might actually go into a world government And what what a lot of a lot of people make that claim? I think it’s true Pretty much anything you touch now is going to be a global problem sooner or later We saw this with the al Qaeda rights of global terrorism just starts out in afghanistan and tomorrows in new york So there’s more and more things that we see with the global warming or not global warming, but it is a global issue If we assume that it’s going to be a continuous drive for this global government Do you think that will happen a b? How could it look like is it model after the catholic church who was kind of the first global government kind of organized like the roman empire but with a with a theology behind and see What should we expect? Who should this whole relative isn’t get worse? Maybe gets better and what do we expect of of how much? Subsidiarity will we see in there? So what will happen to cities or will happen to states or will happen to other countries? Will they all just become one super global empire or but how independent can we think about these items? Yeah, these are these are some sophisticated questions. I don’t have a lot of on the ground experience or knowledge in these realms I would just say that I think we just we pretty much disagree about What’s going on right now? I in terms of the the the covid stuff I I don’t know if you’re familiar with the great reset claus schwaab the world economic forum the fourth industrial revolution Um, and the billen millen the gates foundation And the kind of movers and shakers um in these in these areas They are planning for us. So it’s called the global reset. Um, which is a kind of nightmarish Hunger games type situation where you’ll own nothing and be happy claus schwaab said in a uh video Um, and we will all be renters in other words serfs to this sort of technocratic, uh regime Of of ai and digital tracking and uh bio Bio digital kind of uh, technocracy to me. This is a nightmare This is certainly not subsidiarity. This is not democracy. This is totalitarian global It’s global totalitarianism to mean the likes of which we’ve never seen that makes soviet union look like disneyland That’s the nightmare scenario. That’s being played by have to accept it, right? No, no, no, that’s my point My point is that that’s what these psychopaths want and they’ve said it. They’ve stated it. They’ve come out It’s not even a conspiracy theory. They have told us what they want society to look like it’s got youth and it’s got a kind of Um, eugenic component. It’s got this nightmarish, uh, smart city surveillance state Security state. I mean just look just if you want to know more about this the best one of the best spokesman through this is james corbett Uh, james corbett is an independent, uh, journalist He has a program called the corbett report very worth looking into maybe even have it on your program Now when you just said we don’t have to accept this i agree This gets back to the positive remember you mentioned say something positive. Okay. Um, there is there is there is a possibility now for a kind of resistance to this to these elites and If that were to happen, uh, if people were to find their spiritual center um, their source if they were to find their dignity and their rights if they were to, um You know stand up against, uh This this this the propaganda and the and the totalitarianism that’s coming To them in the name of safety and health and security and all this If that were to happen, believe me, there are a lot of resistance right now. Robert F. Kennedy jr Is one of the greatest heroes right now. Um, children’s health defense. Uh, riner fulmick Um, is another one to look into f u e l m i c h. He’s a german, uh, and california and the lawyer Um, the these two are our heroes. David martin is another one. There are groups that are populist groups um grassroots groups, uh People defending parents rights children’s rights small business rights. Um health health rights health privacy rights autonomy bodily sovereignty And i guess there’s also ones, uh, you know new california state for instance is one trying to develop a new way of Understanding how to run, uh california, which is subsidiarity true democracy not these elitists. So there is a there is a movement And it’s growing and it’s it’s a war. I think we’re in a war and so I don’t know what’s going to happen It’s either going to go in the nightmarish direction Or in the direction of of a true beautiful, um Almost utopian true democracy where truth and goodness reigns Uh and where people have are are are are treated with dignity and respect Now I think that’s not going to happen unless there’s a spiritual revolution happen That’s going to happen that needs to happen And and and I for one thinks it’s going to come through um the grace of jesus christ and our lady Uh and something called, uh the flame of love which has been prophesized Um, but I think this spiritual movement is always is going to happen within the religions as well. Um, where the people Uh reject their counterfeit leaders and the counterfeit Enlightenment last man religion and and really go back to the roots of tradition their traditions, right? Not this counterfeit that we see Um, I do feel do yeah, I mean, I I I know where you’re coming from and I think he’s a very valid concern What I feel do is And that’s a bit bit based on my experiences Because creating a worldview that incorporates those things But also incorporates the future, right? So the the reality is always more in progress and you can say well, maybe we just leave the things that work and we don’t touch it That’s that’s a certainly an approach And I think you’re also we have to give people more credit than what it’s do. Yes We all go crazy in social media and we all are influenced by the feeds But people are still people and they can’t make up their mind. It might take them a while. It might take them a few years, right? but they’re not idiots and They they can filter out and the brain adopts really quickly to these two propaganda, you know I lived in for just a few years out of socialist propaganda Every single person that I I interviewed later and talked to later They knew that the official newspapers never only like three or four. They were all propaganda So you would wait did they know it at the time or only later? No, they all knew it the whole time I’m maybe not in 19 I don’t know 51 but in Europe in 1955 everyone knew everyone involved So you assume the exact opposite now. You still don’t know what else is going on. So that’s a problem But you never believe what’s in the newspaper that everyone knew that wow, that’s good to hear But you couldn’t say it right you could you could not I mean you could say it to somebody really trust Do you think that’s true now though? I mean, I know I’m in marin. I’m in marin county, california and It doesn’t seem like too many people recognize that they’re being lied to no It’s it’s say you go down. Wow. I was just not about my dad would be a big it’s not a debate right everyone’s going to agree with you and Yes, it takes a while to trickle through the population But people going to get there and they’re going to be on the internet and be open about it because then Cancel culture. Yes. Yes. Say first, right? So a silent majority you’re saying kind of yes, and I think this will drive Um, in the end the the major developments and also we see what makes money, right? What what makes sustainable amount of money and alexander bart was telling me about this You know what influences are doing seems to be very short term because they’re selling a reputation for money That’s great. But it isn’t a long term thing The long term thing is to get the tension is to get eyeballs what people are really interested in monitor that also will will derive a real um A real stream of money And this is I think what would you see out there if capitalism is so valuable? And if this uh, democracy survival, then it needs to defend itself a little bit, right? So if it’s the first little war it already gives up and it’s like nobody wants it anymore Then maybe it wasn’t that great in the first place. Yeah, that’s what I always say So if you know, we would have all lost against nazi germany Maybe because we deserved it because nazi germany was better and it turned out it wasn’t better And we figured this out pretty quickly. Yeah, right six seven ten years And I think the same is true enough is China if China is so much better than we are maybe we are going to speak Chinese And this is going to be fine. I think it’s not going to be our future But it’s I mean not it. I don’t want to speak Chinese But I’m saying the worldview that we have it needs to be challenged and it needs to overcome obstacles And we shouldn’t just throw in and say oh the old government’s all going to be the end No, no, I mean there’s a lot going on that people can still Change there I like your idea. So what you’re saying is these these represent challenges Um, even the evilest of them to um, you know in a sense forced people to um To choose what they really want to be what they really want and if they don’t Then maybe they should be Uh in a way taken over by these things or in other words, I get what you’re saying It’s a sort of opportunity to sort of determine and if you don’t have if you don’t have those challenges, you don’t grow Uh, I guess yeah, that makes sense It probably the Roman Empire, right? So it fell apart Yeah, nobody really knows why but it actually because nobody wanted it anymore And it was better to have Roman ideas but outside the Roman Empire. That’s really blossom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah like the Germanic and all that Yeah, I mean um, I guess my only question is what I find is so many people because of the fear that’s been put into them um And and just they’re they’re trying to make a living Uh with with so much Inequality and so much taxation and just and just so difficult, especially with the lockdowns right now I think people are in a trauma traumatic state A lot of people and I don’t know how well they can actually accept challenges in that state, right? I mean, you know And a lot of people don’t understand what propaganda is even they can’t they can’t tell the difference Or they like the propaganda Um, they just like it it it it pushes some buttons on it flatters them Yeah, and and I mean you might say well, they deserve it then but it’s like I kind of feel like they’re victims Like they haven’t been prepared well to determine Um, not a lot of people in America have a good classical liberal arts education that teaches them how to think I mean, they they haven’t been given that um because you didn’t need it, right? It was not required what you want. That is a tech job. We’re basically right. That’s right You don’t care about anything else. You just do some coding and yes, basically just repeat the lines you get from from Yeah, yes, that’s what made money, right? But that’s maybe we are at the end of this cycle Well, maybe I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. No, I think I mean what’s needed more than ever are people who can think outside the box literally and and and have a sense of their identity and history and culture I mean, I feel like sometimes we’re in the kind of 1984 Or brave new world a synthesis of the two. I mean 1787 I feel we’re more Adline, but yeah, who knows we will know afterwards, right? So but I’m really happy that we overcame came a nice go to other countries They have all kinds of they depicted certain covid responses But they stuck to it for for quite some time in us all the states that are different approach Well, only few states had a very different approach And but we all came together now and we have the best covert response. We’re over this right more or less With my comeback who knows but we found solution that seemed to be the best for our economy and that is gold I mean, that’s not an easy challenge this this covert thing, especially mentally Well, we’ll see what happens. I I don’t trust I don’t trust that they I think this was an opportunity For a lot of bad people to use this Um, in a way that gave them more coercive power and control Um, and for rights to be taken away 9 11 was very similar with the patriot act and all that Um, so I don’t know if they want to let go of this. I I really do hope that you’re right that the people will um Ex respond to what’s happening in a way that brings out the best in them Um, but again, I I do think this has to do with spiritual awakening And a kind of repentance a detachment from From their idols and from their from their addictions and to choose courage. I think courage is the most important Courage by far is the most important virtue right now for people um to develop Yeah, well, I’m in you. I hope this is actually gonna gonna change things to the better Um, why don’t we why don’t we see what happened in like six months from that? I’ll talk again Hey, I’d love to already see some good stuff. All right. Let’s do it. Sounds good. It was awesome. Thanks for coming It was so interesting and I gotta read up on all the books that you mentioned All right, some golden ones in there. I feel yeah, thanks for talking to me dorsen Absolutely. There’s toxin. All right. Bye. Bye. Take it easy