Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about books and old things and old people put on by people who are not old about old people I mean ancient right elderly. I mean some of them if you can yeah, they're like 2000 years old. That's pretty old, right?
That's how age works, right? This guy's not wait. Oh, actually today. We are not someone who is well, but kind of you said we're talking about Satan's That's like sure no fellow.
Yeah, so yeah, so we talk about here. My name is Thomas Maggie I'm joined as always by mr. AJ Hannenberg me and mr. Graham Donaldson me Don't don't know We're here to announce the classical stuff that I'm using for the classical stuff dancers Actually throughout this entire video.
I'll just be dancing in the background pop stars. You should go to YouTube That's actually true. All right. I already spoiled it But today Graham is leading the episode and he is in fact We're looking at 2020 is been a really hard year looking for kind of uplifting topic and I think you said Satan's what we're gonna Talk about Satan.
Yeah, great. Okay, so we're yeah We're gonna pick up and talk about the next sort of section of René Girard's book I see Satan fall like lightning so we'll do like a brief 30-second recap of what we did last time So it's wait with I see as in like I view I view not I see Satan I see Satan No, I see Satan fall like lightning, but I feel like before we get started. We gotta do a little shout out Oh, yeah, so this is our shout out to you admissions office at Hillsdale College. You are apparently our biggest fans I hope you're going crazy at the office right now with the shout out or you're actually probably all working from home Oh, so hopefully you're doing in your individual home, right?
So if you're working from home, you're your my homies my homies at home Yeah, the campus last week and they wanted to say hi to us and it's right to Graham and AJ were teaching classes, so you know They were stuck with do important Hello Hillsdale. Hey, is that Hillsdale? Yes meeting fans Anyway, so you admissions department at Hillsdale College. Thanks for all your listens.
We love you guys and accept our kids. Yeah Yeah to your college. Yeah, not just like or not. It's like a polite society.
Um, yes, so René Girard. He was a philosopher He wasn't a biblical scholar. He was a philosopher and I even think like a sociologist or something at Stanford and he wrote a book on human psychology and biblical interpretation and what Satan is he's famous for highlighting why Societies have scapegoats and what sort of role the scapegoat plays in bringing peace to society and that's sort of what we're gonna get to today well and um and he and so the the concept that we talked about last time was this idea that human beings locate their desires in Human beings locate their desires in what other people have so that that um, yeah, there's this rivalry that comes up In human society and it usually comes just from us like copying each other or we have this feeling in our hearts like we should I should want something What's my what's my life for? What's my purpose?
And you begin to fill in those blanks by what other people are doing? Why what other people have when everybody is doing something and you're not doing something? It is very rare for the person to say like I'm right and everybody else is wrong. Although those people do exist It's more common for someone to be like what's wrong with me, but I don't want X And so I was trying to get like an example of how these so these rivalries eventually escalate into a very important concept for René Girard called scandals and And he comes to this this word because when Jesus says and I think it's the gospel of Luke and he says blessed are those who are not Scandalized by me and it's sort of like this weird concept Like what's Jesus mean when he says that people are blessed if they're not scandalized by Jesus what actually is a scandal?
So sir, what's this like if you're the word scandal, what do you think of it's like someone who does a bad thing? There's it's a bad thing, but it's not just like it's not it's public disgrace. So it's public known. Yeah, it's it's a it's like a very Like a public public misstep, right?
Yes, something that is so if I'm scandalized by Jesus I think that he is outside of society not appropriate something something is wrong that makes him not fit Does a scandal so there's all it can't just be an individual person has to be an individual person acting either in opposition to Something else like a set norm or yeah I mean the example that comes to mind is if someone cheats on someone else and then it becomes publicly known So it's something that happened between two people but the knowledge about it is public I don't know if it's necessarily just between two people there can be scandals where somebody does something terrible and it comes out And they are the only ones responsible and the only ones involved. Yeah, so the way a lot of large groups of people could be So René Girard has this idea that when human societies begin to go sour They begin by having individual scandals between parties and then the sort of individual rivalries between parties and those rivalries sort of Ratchet themselves up to the point where they become scandals and then scandals begin to be in rivalry to one another So is this scandalous thing that's happening more or less scandalous than this scandalous thing happening and you get these compounding scandalous things and everything sort of Ratches up to one great point where the entire community is what he what he quotes Hobbes when he says the war of all against all And so human societies in their mimetic rivalries have this Mechanism that moves towards like open conflict of everybody against everybody And so I was trying to think of like an example of how this works And there's a couple of other elements in there that are important So the only thing that I could think of is like two best friends who fell in love with the same girl or wanting to date the same girl And in a high school and let's say that beginning it's kind of this friendly rivalry They say hey, you know, I look to fini you look to fini so what we're gonna do is like equal playing field You'll ask her out. I'll ask her out and we'll see which which one she wants and then one guy does one little dirty trick Where he like publicly embarrasses his friends so Tiffany thinks he's bad And then his buddy does something else and it goes back and forth and back and forth, right? We know how that goes that it ratches itself up until you get to conflict until you get you cross some line and then and I think that that's that is what he means by scandal is that you've got this rivalry that's ratcheted itself up to the point of Like healthy society is not existing.
Everybody has gotten sucked into this thing and you know what team are you on? So let's call him like Davey and Bucko Call him Jacob and Edward fine. You're right. No, I mean this is the thing So and then you then you start to ask yourself the question.
Who's team are you on right? Who has acted more or less scandalous and the objective rational person will look at this and say you're all idiots But when you're in it you get sort of sucked into the same and you become on one team or another team and It might be team Jacob. I'm gonna be team Edward Vlogical person would say he's a werewolf who is totally jacked and cannot keep his shirt on Oh, do we don't know where we're not we're gonna make the connection? No, I made the connection.
Oh, you're gonna play the bit Oh, no, I mean, obviously obviously the werewolf. I was read an article that Twilight was a Mormon allegory We've heard this. Yeah, it's written by Mormon's written by Mormon. I don't know.
I don't know about no enough about Mormons to be able to say anyway So yeah, if the boys are in competition for the girl, it's so René's your art so eventually a couple of things happen one it begins to suck people into the scandal what what sucks people into the Scandal the rivalry and sort of this competition back and forth so what can sort of start as a healthy competition eventually? It competes basically yeah, you have these scandals as these rivalries that escalate into scandals And then a couple of things happen The object of desire eventually ends up being detested by the ones who are In rivalry for one another at some point there's a moment where they say why are we doing this who did this to us? We were bewitched by the beauty of Tiffany or whatever You know making up characters and you eventually get this point where the object of desire becomes the object of contempt where maybe this object of desire Was placed here to destroy us I mean sort of almost like a prunivistic way of thinking about it Just argument that this always happens or not always happens, but when it does happen it It sort of railroads gets real powerful and can become quite destructive He's eventually going to say that what this mechanism is is the sort of the principle of Satan that yeah, maybe let's sort of maybe Talk about that section because that's helpful when you really break it down When he's talking about memetic rivalry or when he's talking about like desire the way that I think it's helpful to think about it is We human beings have willpower we want things and Gerard is saying that in the universe there's really only two schools of thought that you can align your will with and What basically God in the devil um and what he means by God in the devil is that the school of thought of God is that You your will should be to limit your desires and to desire what God desires So if you're going to mimic somebody and human beings are mimicking creatures if you're going to mimic the will power of something You should mimic the will of God and this is what Jesus does when he's on earth So this is kind of what Paul's getting at when he says if you can't copy Jesus copy me because I'm copying Jesus So that there's that principle and then the other principle is what Satan says and his principle is Abandoning yourself to your inclinations and let me see if I read the little quote where he says this is what Satan Satan's kind of principle is Well, we started this by saying He was looking at the ten commandments and the one command was don't cover your neighbor's house your neighbor's wife your neighbor's donkey your neighbor stuff basically don't cover things right and that commandment is like put a cap on Wanting what your neighbor has your desire if left unchecked is going to be such a destructive fire that God is commanding you not to desire That that was your eyes point and the problem that Edward and what's the word on where we'll call Jacob yet Edward and Jacob both want Tiffany Bella Is that the problem they both want the same person the problem is is that at some point either the ego takes over and the object Becomes secondary to the rivalry got it. It's more.
They want to win over the other person more so than actually You know so if two boys like one girl the gentlemanly way the honorable way to do it Is to actually say present your case to her and let her pick and then and then have a have a good You know a fair winner and a fair loser and we can still be friends after it and I know of no better way to women than presenting a case I am actually solvent. I you think Tiffany would I drive a little though It's not Why if Tiffany is thinking about the future Tiffany would take these things into consideration. This is not nothing Sure financial security is an important part of any I feel like if one guy gives the presentation of the guy rides up and says hey Well Tiffany is losing out. Oh my goodness.
Anyway, how am I the only one not married in this group? The way that you better power one presentation. Yeah, you gotta get better power So the way it should work is when the loser loses the girl He should you know move on move on be able to shake hands and say like that's just the way it is But at some point if they're gonna go into a rivalry The object desire sort of fades into the background or as your art points out eventually even becomes an object of hatred or not or Blames the object for the destruction that has now happened in the community AJ. We used to be best friends until she got in the middle of us Right.
Yeah, I can't believe she did this to us. She didn't do anything else. She's existed Right, but it's that kind of unless she was actively like playing us off each other. She says an hour doing her hair She does it for me Anyway, so the two principles you can try to mimic God or you can try to mimic Satan and what and this is sort of what Gerard says How Satan presents himself Like Jesus Satan seeks to have others imitate him, but not in the same fashion not for the same reasons He wants first of all to seduce Satan as seducer is the only one of his roles that the modern world Condescends to remember a bit primarily to joke about Satan likewise presents himself as a model for our desires And he is certainly easier to imitate than Christ for he counsels us to abandon ourselves to our inclinations in defiance of morality and its prohibitions If we listen to Satan who may sound like a very progressive and likable educator We may feel initially that we are liberated But this impression does not last because Satan deprives us of everything that protects us from rivalistic imitation Rather than warning off us of the trap that awaits us Satan makes us fall into it He applauds the idea that prohibitions are of no use and that transgressing them contains no danger so Then for our example with is Gerard saying that like God is on one side Satan's on another or is Satan almost like the third option of the rivalry like I'm just trying to say that there are right sides and wrong sides in these conflicts over an object of desire or Is the rivalry itself where Satan is present?
I think it's the rivalry is where Satan is present Yeah, and maybe our example of the two guys want both desire in the girl is a bad one I think it's it's when it goes from Tiffany is no longer considered and Tiffany is no longer cared about and it just becomes I need to beat this guy over to this thing and You eventually locate your behavior your action and you're very being based on the behavior and actions of your rival and he's doing the same thing to you right It becomes a race to the bottom and so it becomes it so it becomes a sort of race to the bottom and that is the That is the trap that Satan doesn't tell you you're gonna fall into and that is the trap that do not covet your neighbor's stuff is Trying to prohibit you from falling into okay So Satan says give into everything you have desires and you should go for them and little do you know that that's going to put you in opposition to everybody and This is reminding me of are you guys aware of the OTO? No, you know the OTO is He references last time like the cold Satan or something. Yeah, I mean they call the church of Satan It's not really but they it's the or no template orientis and they're one thing It's Alist or Crowley ever to him Alistair Crowley He's kind of the floss behind the thing and do what thou wilt is the whole of the law and there's another podcast out there I occasionally listen to they are there skeptics are pretty much everything and it's oh no Ross and Kerry and what they do is they get into Things like this anywhere. There's a claim of supernatural or pseudoscience and they get as far in as they can they experience it It's kind of like gonzo journalism for the super natural and occult and so they went to this thing And they pointed out that do it that well does the whole of the law is fine until two people in the organization Will opposing things like my will is to leave my get rate here and have it when I come back Someone else's will is to drink my Gatorade and that's that's when we automatically get into this opposition They're like it'll go fine for everyone just do what they wanted well.
No, it's a really short side of philosophy It's just making me get go that you're pointing out the exact Yeah, this is the exact problem with it because it's literally called like often They call it the church of Satan which is just the funniest thing and then the next step is like okay When the person has done what he's wanted and drank your Gatorade You haven't you now have created a rivalry and that person is going to be in rival You know and then you've created this sort of opposition with one another that eventually Right is not the only way either it either has to ask it either has to escalate to violence or someone's a bigger man and just sort of Off but your eyes point is that that that usually escalates into violence wait if it doesn't It eventually will like you that person is now arrival in your mind in the smallest way and maybe the Gatorade doesn't rush into violence But the next time they do something is another little tick. I'm not gonna be leaving my Gatorade around anymore because of that guy Yeah, yeah, and then and then the next time then you know what I'm gonna leave my Gatorade I'm gonna work in it and then he finds out that you work in the Gatorade when you drink it and you know and then off and then off we go right so Yes, so then these things escalate into what these are called scandals and then eventually scandals are in competition with one another That conflict is the scandal so on the Gatorade It's whether you put it on the desk or not is the scandal well the scandal is yes I guess the scandal is as soon as the person has taken that sort of next step into escalating it And the scandal is when it escalates to so much to such a point that it bleeds out into the rest of the community and everyone's like Oh my goodness, this is all the OTO now knows that like AJ and Craig all right rivalries And we're all the duet thou wilt is aimed at the other person and then someone's like well Let me get here's my big long Facebook post about how Greg is fine And here's my big long Facebook post about how AJ is justified and then somebody else is like I'm staying out of it I don't want part of this and it's like well by staying out of it. You're already picking a side You don't care about the community you don't care about the community So there's an interesting point when that person comes out and says well I'm staying out of it and the other person says you don't care about the community You've now created another rivalry those who don't care about the scandal and those who do care about the scandal and now You've got a second rivalry and that's going to ratchet up So to the point where these little things build up and then eventually what you get is what's called the war of all against all So you have the scandal that escalates to the point where everybody is against everybody And something's got to give okay now. This is This is where it gets kind of really interesting That so Jesus in the Bible Satan's got a couple of names So how does Satan like refer to was his Bible quiz?
What are you saying some of the names are some of the like titles he gets the accuser Principal eyes into the power of the air. Yeah, print this is the one prince the power of the air or the prince of this world And so René Girard take latches on to that concept and he's like why Satan called the prince of this world? why did like a prince indicating that he's got authority over this world and And so why does he have this name? So Girard says that at some point it gets real interesting that if this is true This that these memetic rivalries turn into Okay, we're doing great time these memetic rivalries turn into scandals And then eventually these scandals start playing off each other that the scandals become their own memetic rivalries And you get to the point where everybody is all riled up and you have the scandals competing for public attention If left unchecked that will So that will destroy the community people will just start straight up killing each other or the the community will rip apart to the point Where like fine will have OTO and a spin-off OTO or whatever right or will have, you know the methodist any night I'm at this you will have some sort of rift, but then there's gonna be scandals and those things so If Satan's principle is left to if you that program is left to play itself out Why haven't why hasn't humanity destroyed itself?
How do we still have a culture and a community in civilization mutual need? Interesting long or at some point so if there's a disagreement the question is who is right so someone has to say who is right? Yeah, we create an authority structure that says the person at the top gets to say but even then like that that will that breaks itself down So if the authority structure itself becomes enmeshed in scandal or then people are gonna be like well screw you and then you got a civil war or whatever He eventually says what happens is There's this mechanism in this destructive rivalistic memetic rivalry that ratchets up to scandal and he says it eventually coalesces onto one universally hated Subject and that subject all of the wrath of the community gets poured out on that subject and that subject needs to be destroyed And when that subject is destroyed you have a sort of a a calm or you have a release You've got this great release of the rage and this sort of contagion of rival emotion poured out on the subject and when that subject is killed and destroyed then it's almost expunged like a disease and Interestingly enough when one side so when the great act of violence comes and this is where we get the terms This where scapegoats come from so all of the sins of the community or all of the rivals of the community get put on to this one object So how do the bros become friends again without like Tearing everything apart and escalating to bloodshed. Well, they eventually either they have to both of them Now that's that's a small and unviolent way to this place itself out and we have sort of you know like buddy movies built around that very What's called that very sort of plot point but when it gets into a violent mob you get all a thing where you can have an innocent Subject that where all the rage gets puts upon when that subject is killed Then both sides start imitating each other in being calm again.
So There's this great release that comes in the violence and ha we got it great We got rid of the problem great job you guys We did it and then the guy over there that doesn't feel like we did it sees that everybody else feels like they did it He's like I should probably feel better about this too And then you've almost got this like quote-unquote positive contagion if you had a negative contagion of everybody getting ratcheted up to violence after the violence You get almost this like positive contagion of we did it you guys We defeated the bad guy we defeated the enemy which was Tiffany or whatever or this is when people talk about like the 1950s being It's like awesome time of unity. This would say it's because we beat the Nazis Yeah, that was our unifying moment. We could all talk to each other is you know common Americans What's wrong with our what's wrong with the city? Well, there's a witch we got your river and as soon as we burn that which We can go back to the way things were And so he says that that this is still Satan at work that this is sort of Satan's pressure-release valve is that the way that Satan keeps his power so the only thing Satan knows how to do the only Action that Satan does is to try to is to try to get you from following God's law and to live for your own desire But Satan's problem is that as soon as communities start to live for their own desires It is going to destroy them So what Satan does needs to do is then as as soon as everybody's desire is to kill everybody else because everyone's Sort of gotten into this state of madness.
He then funnels all of that rage and hatred onto one single Victim and then when that victim is killed there is a reset and then the desires can go back to its base state And then the cycle can start all over again. And so this is the idea of the scapegoat and so Yeah, the sudden harmony that comes out of the discord is still a mimicking So when the crowd begins to see that others in the crowd have been Satiated with the death of the innocent they are satiated and then the desire kind of gets, you know, pushed down So and this is I think just because we're gonna be studying this book in senior English next up brave new world I think Hoxley's getting at this too with a lot of the sort of religious elements that he has woven into the brave new world Society that human beings can't live Getting all of their needs fulfilled without some kind of pressure release and that's why they have the orgy porgy Thing going on there. So I know for those of you who really like Hoxley's brave new world that element is that play in there? But anyway, so do you buy this you say more about what you think about all this?
I buy it I buy it in the fact that like you see it happening in You see it happening in society. He actually goes what he begins to talk about This concept of scapegoats he goes and he finds a story of well, let me just sort of read this story He finds this book by Phyllis Stratus Velostratus a Greek writer who is in the second century second century Anyway, who's after Christ and he's a sort of guru and so here this guy named Apollonius of Tiana so Apollonius of Tiana is this sort of guru spiritualist Miracle man and Ephesus has this problem Ephesus has a plague and so here's I'm gonna read this little story to you So this is coming from this book the life of Apollonius of Tiana So the Ephesians cannot get rid of an epidemic they have much they have all these remedies and nothing works and they go to Apollonius who says this take courage For I will today put a stop to the course of the disease and with these words He led the population entire to the theater where the image of the averting God had been set up And there he saw what's seen an old mendicant artfully blinking his eyes as if blind and he carried a wallet in a crust of breadness There's a little poor guy just like living in the temple and he was clad in rags and was very squalid of countenance Apollonius therefore arranged the Ephesians around him and said pick up as many stones as you can and hurled them at this enemy of the gods Now the Ephesians wondered what he meant and were shocked at the idea of murdering a stranger so manifestly miserable He was begging and praying them to take mercy upon him nevertheless Apollonius insisted and egged on the Ephesians to launch themselves on him and not let him go And as soon as some of them began to take shots and hit him with their stones The beggar who had seemed to blink and be blind gave them all a sudden glance and showed that his eyes were full of fire Then the Ephesians recognized that he was a demon and they stoned him so thoroughly that their stones were heaped into a great care and around him After a little pause Apollonius bade them remove the stones and acquaint themselves with the wild animal which were they had slain When therefore they expose the object which they had thought they had thrown their missiles at they found that he had disappeared and instead of him There was a hound who resembled in form and look a melosian dog But wasn't sized the equal of the largest lion their hilly before their eyes pounded to a pulp by their stones and vomiting foam as mad dogs do Accordingly the statue of the averting god named Hercules had been set up over the spot where the ghost was slain So that's you know pretty rough miracle There's a question that essentially this was actually a support by a man that yeah So drought is saying that in that miracle that When this happens a lot that in ancient world when they talk about a plague in a city sometimes it's bacterial But other times it's a spiritual plague that when something's wrong in Ephesus, it's just that like there's just some in the air There's just something wrong in the community people don't trust each other people don't like each other everybody thinks everyone's out to screw them And the gods are not blessing the community with prosperity There's just there's no more harmony and that that kind of thing was also called a plague in a community that the gods were just frowning and all of our Our normal human actions just aren't working themselves out But that when Tiffany chose AJ, you know Craig just couldn't just wouldn't let it go and There's just nastiness in the air and that's that's also a plague and so Gerard is saying that Apollonius is recognizing that this is what is wrong with the Ephesians and by finding an outsider by finding somebody that everyone could that he thinks everyone could agree to dislike And killing that outsider that all of those angry negative passions that that sort of that toxicity of relationship that gets built up Gets expunged and now everybody can kind of get back to regular life and the and the plague is gone And then so the fact that there's a dog, you know a demon dog underneath it is just That's maybe the part of the story. That's that's kind of like the apocryphal. It's tacked on to make you feel better about it What should I guess feel better is that the Ephesians initially were like I don't want to stone this guy But his point is that that this was a this was a thing that in the pagan world the ancient world They understood or at least the sort of like self-help community gurus understood That's sort of the same concept of like you needed like a communal bloodletting or you needed to pour out there The community needed to pour out all of their rages and frustrations on an object and then everybody would sort of feel better now Ultimately, he's going to go on in the book And we're not gonna finish the book on the podcast But ultimately he's going to go on and talk about how God subverts Satan's scapegoating by giving Escape goat that perfectly destroys the power of Satan's Mamedic desire in Christ.
So by having Christ be this ultimate scapegoat Christ Christ's perfect sacrifice ends up destroying the power that Satan has of the world Which is to get everybody, you know I'll geeked out about their own passions to the point where they're willing to shed blood and then And then shedding blood and everybody feeling okay again But by bringing the scapegoat back to life and opening up a path for people to live without having to be stuck in the cycle of sin and desire That actually the scapegoat ends up destroying Satan's tool tool for ruling the world and something so that's just your art It's kind of like reading of these archetypes or reading of these stories and I think it's a great It's really fascinating and really interesting As you speak to why there is still conflict like that now. So if that tool is broken People still get worked out people still have scapegoats. Yeah, but now you have or you what we should be having is we should have the church who is Showcasing how the way to live without being a slave to Mamedic rivalry should go And so in the New Testament when it talks about people lived together and held their their Their things as if they were one or as about acts to it's not just because like the leaders of the writers of the gospel of acts wanted to like leave us little socialist policies in the Bible for but it's that this is this is sort of how the community ends up like a Community that has abandoned the quest of following their own desires and is actually following that do not cover your neighbor's stuff It is going to be a community that doesn't get you know, they're shorts in a wad over these slights of of Desire or these that this yeah It's interesting your example earlier kind of got it denominations Which is a kind of splitting of that unity that kind of started things off It's almost a reframing of the importance of they're being one in the nice The one holy Catholic and apostolic church Catholic meaning universal. Yeah, not Roman Catholic and so far as you know If those divisions are because The divisions are moving us so there's two takes on right the divisions are other moving us back to Purity or those divisions are just mama rivalries that can't be worth themselves that can't work themselves out if they're the latter Well, that's sort of the more satanic principle if they are the former well, then it's almost like a healthy expunging and you know The jury's out on you have to sort of look at it by case by case basis to figure out which one is which mm-hmm now When Jesus so when Peter Now he says to Jesus hey I want to be at your right hand when we take this thing down like let's go let's throw at the Romans and Jesus says get behind me Satan This is what Gerard says why he calls him Satan Peter becomes the object of this rebuke when he reacts negatively to the first prediction of the passion So yeah, when Peter says you can't die you got to throw out the Romans Disappointed by what he takes to be the excessive resignation of Jesus the disciple tries to breathe into him his own desire His own worldly ambition Peter invites Jesus in short to take Peter himself as the model of his desire So Jesus you should want what I want If Jesus were to turn away from his father to follow Peter He and Peter both would quickly fall into memetic rivalry at the venture of the kingdom of God would melt away an insignificant quarrels So when Jesus tells Peter get behind me Satan He's rebuking him because what he's saying to Peter is By asking me to want what you want as opposed to what my father wants you are acting like you are enacting the satanic principle in the world right now Mm-hmm.
That's pretty harsh. Yeah Because how was would you you interpret that passage what is what is common between Satan and what Peter's doing at that moment? Mm-hmm. It's interesting.
It's just yeah I feel like someone need to think more about now, um, and I'm gonna need your help on this. So We last podcast we talked about the great Man of Theory and Dostoevsky And I think you can take this Gerard principle of the rivalries that ratchet themselves up to the point where each individual person hates everybody else as What is going on in the epilogue in crime punishment? So do you want to just give like a brief? We didn't talk about less Last podcast you want to give a little brief overview of that of Raskolnikov's dream.
Oh gosh It's been a little while since I read it. Do you know better than me? Uh, did you teach it when you did it with your seniors? Okay?
Because we had a little extra time. So yeah, so at the end of crime punishment when Raskolnikov who has if you're confused You can listen to last week's podcast when Raskolnikov confesses and begins his path of confession and faith and repentance He goes to jail in Siberia and he has this dream wherein he has a dream where? Well, let me just actually read a little bit of it because It's a dream where his own terrible philosophy works itself out. I was impressed You like literally just open up books and flip to the right page.
I teach them. I'm gonna mark them or anything Yeah, I'll start by you. This makes you feel better. Okay.
I thought you was like straight up opening the book to the right page No, no, so Raskolnikov. So he dreamt I'm gonna read a little passage from this. I may read the whole thing It's so good, but he dreamt in his illness that the whole world was condemned to fall victim to a terrible unknown pestilence So again that like language of a contagion, which was moving on Europe out of the depths of Asia all were destined to perish Except it shows in few a very few there had appeared a new strain of trick and a microscopic creatures parasitic in men's bodies But these creatures were endowed with intelligence and will people who were infected immediately became like men possessed and out of their minds But never never had any men thought themselves so wise and so unshakeable in the truth as those who were attacked Never had they considered their they considered their judgments for their scientific deductions or their moral convictions and creeds more infallible whole communities whole cities and nations were infected and went mad All were full of anxiety and none could understand any other each thought He was the sole repository of truth and was tormented when he looked at the others beat his breast rung his hands and wept They did not know how or whom to judge and cannot agree. What was evil and what was good?
They did not know whom to condemn or whom to acquit men killed one another in senseless rage They banded together against one another in great armies But when the armies were already on the march they began to fight among themselves the ranks disintegrated the soldiers fell on their neighbors They thrust and cut they killed in eight one another in the towns The toxins the toxins sounded all day long and call out all the people but who in some of them and why nobody knew and everybody was filled with Alarm the most ordinary callings were abandoned because every man put forward his own ideas his own improvements and there was no agreement The laborers forsook the land and then he goes on and on it talks about how people say we got to get back to the way Things were but they can't agree and how the way things were and it just sort of disintegrates into this into this sort of great unraveling Does he say that there are some people who were immune to this? Yeah? Yeah, he says there are some people that were immune to this disease and they were the ones who were gonna survive this The coming whatever ultimately all the ones who are infected kill each other I think he wakes up before the dream ends, but you sort of see how when I read that passage I think to myself like this is kind of what Gerard's getting at. Yes, but there's no other way of dealing with this There's no cure to that disease.
I guess is what I'm trying to say. Well, Gerard says the cure to disease is in fall in Basically the cure diseases and following Jesus and what he means by that is Instead of opening yourself up to following your desires. That's gonna eventually put you in violence you Quote do the will of my father now what that exactly is as far as your art is concerned. I don't I don't really feel like I have a good handle on Wanting what God wants yeah, or not seeking conflict would be the specific example here, right?
Yeah Something else by saying you don't know what Gerard would want I mean, it's just he says that Jesus showcases us the way that that someone should live who desires what God desires And so when you see basically like Gerard would agree with the what would Jesus do bracelets, right? Because he like that's actually the principle you need to have is do what Jesus does because he's someone that has control over his desires And follows the law of God and if the law of God is set up to put Guard rails on our desire so we do not fall into memetic rivalry and ultimate destruction and death then do what Jesus does sure You think this has anything to say for right now? Are there any? Yeah, I don't know I you seem lost in thought do you do you think it's fair to say that?
Dossy FC's great man theory is related to this sort of It's like the satanic principle if you want to call it that well sure he wanted he wanted to be like other men He thought he would work great. I am yeah And that's kind of the rivalry right like yeah I want to be Napoleon this sort of abstract person that I can oh and I can just sort of lob my own desires onto he thinks All other men are louses. Yeah, he's wondering if he's one of those two. Yeah, right power over the whole and he's just he has no high opinion of his fellow Man.
Yes, what I'm wondering about is his reading of the get behind me Satan passage and his view of the Christ event as the Christ That's really I don't know clinical way of saying when Jesus died thinking of that as as a scapegoat I I see where this theory is going to me It feels like at the risk of doing the fallacy of argument from personal inquiry like I just don't buy it Yeah, it seems like one of those things that's logically internally coherent but unsatisfying as an explanation for all of human events And here's what I mean. So the the explanation of Jesus is death as the ultimate scapegoat event is okay But I see a disconnect between the analogy you gave and Jesus, right? We're not all standing around looking at Jesus saying like thank goodness We got rid of that screwball. He was really messing up the community The crowd was the crowd was but we all look at that crowd and most of history has looked at that crowd and said what a bunch of Dinks those guys were to us He was a good man that was killed and so if we're talking like yes, Jesus was a scapegoat Jesus was a scapegoat for the theories of God the father not the community at large So I have trouble with that and I also have a little bit of trouble with him explaining the get behind me Satan thing there too I personally kind of doubt that Jesus was thinking all of that terminology.
Maybe yes He was I think it kind of works out where it's the same That's one kind of lost in thought is Peter wanted a certain thing to happen And the thing is I see like what Satan did to Jesus was tempted like we have the temptation for we days And so if what he said was like you shouldn't die we should go overthrow Rome I wonder if that wasn't like almost a direct temptation to Jesus. Jesus clearly did not want to want to die, right? If you can take that Yeah, we're going to get some of these and so if Peter's like hey man forget all that death nonsense and come with me Let's overthrow Rome Jesus could have right and so There's a little bit of temptation there, and I'm wondering it's like a granny quiz that are all over again Yeah, I'm wondering if it isn't just like this this fellow Gerard kind of really shoehorning some events into a personal theory And I think that's a fair criticism and I think the whole Like memetic rivalry as the problem and the abandonment of passions is the Jesus way to go But it's not just the abandonment of passion and I think you were talking about this just now It's the attunent of passion the ordering of your love But that's the thing is sometimes true ordered attuned passions can lead to conflict in the community that is good conflict And that is how you test whether or not every rivalry is a good one if someone is Doing terrible things to the poor downtrodden and the widow I should as a Christian try to somehow fix that problem ideally through forgiveness and absolution for the offender but But there are conflicts that might sometimes arise and this is where you get into the difficulty of like should Christians always be passive Well, this is what we were even talking about with with schisms right sometimes That's a conflict that should arise because there's a doctrine that has been precisely yeah, and so and so like conflicts Yeah, concepts are conflicts aren't if so facto satanic No, I don't think so and my other point is that like when you asked how to community survive well one of the most accepted ones is mutual need It's not just like whoa, we got a scapegoat this time. It's like we have to stay together Maybe I should raise the question of how do communities survive when those rivalries get to a fever pitch that's maybe that's the point I think I mean yeah scapegoat maybe other times life just moves on people forget about it Like I can't spend all day posting on Facebook and at some point I have to go to my job and figure out something else Do I need a scapegoat to make that happen?
No, sometimes just fades But doesn't the anger and the hatred and the toxic the toxic relationships of a community build up to a fever pitch where something's got to give I mean that clearly has to be sometimes what gives is just people get tired of it. Yeah, I don't know I think I just don't see that always give me an example where it was teetering on a knife edge of destruction everyone was like You know what? For example, all right, this is what it bleeds over into the crowd. That's that's I think what Okay, so here here it is here's one example way back in the ancient days of air toss There were a whole lot of people up in arms about what appeared to be sort of nepotism, right?
There's a lot of shoot necks that work at this school fair and I am related to the shoot next and so was my sister and so I like that's that's all these things and there were there's some other teachers that had left and so there was this divide between the administration and the Common folk right and it got to kind of a fever pitch where people were demanding certain people to step down And there were all these emails sent and eventually a meeting was held. It was just like hey Let's shout it out. Yeah, and they chatted and it ended like it was over. They addressed some concerns We had a talk was their scapegoat.
No, we didn't pick we didn't like take Jeff Fowler and boot him and say thank heavens We got rid of that scapegoat. Sometimes we can talk things out. Sometimes we just forget like that conflict. It's like a come to Jesus moment Yeah, I come to Jesus moment sure I think that's I think why we call it come to Jesus moment But that's that's my point is like his theory is fine But it feels unsatisfying to me as an explanation for your experiences Yeah, he's he's a question of what happens if the two parties aren't reasonable and things continue escalate So neither party is willing to be the bigger person neither one's willing to listen to the other side What ultimately happens at the end of that so what happens if people are only sinful but People he's giving an answer to when you look at permanent religions or you look at pagan the pagan world And you see that things are centered around sacrifice where an animal or You know heaven help us a person a baby some kind of thing is determined to be the great evil that needs to be expunged And then there's health to the community.
That's a mechanism that exists in societies And so he's trying to give an example to what is happening with those like that sort of anthropological phenomenon What's going on there that the blood of an innocent or the blood of an outside thing ends up bringing health to the community? And he's sort of saying and this is his his sort of his take on that This is also his explanation of like the sacrificial system. I think so Yeah, I mean I take huge beef with that because part of the reason for the sacrificial system is to point forward to Jesus Christ I'm talking about like greeks. I wasn't like the Greek sacrificial system sure because yeah, it's not just Hebrews that had that Yeah, well even just a if we're in our nitpicking point the the scapegoat for the sacrifices that go that gets away It's not the goat that's killed.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm straight up at Leviticus So Jesus isn't the scapegoat. It's Barabbas who's the scapegoat. He's the one who's released and then Jesus is the one who's anyway That's that's an issue point.
Yeah. Um, and I don't know again He's doing these things more allegorically than he is like what is the actual application of Leviticus to the correct event Yes, he's reading this almost in like a he's using allegorically or even call it This is almost like archetypally. He's sort of saying like there is The Jesus way and there is the devil way and these are the two and you know the healthy community needs to do what AJ just described which is to sit down and talk it out and Basically put a cap on the desires that are running away from the community right and that's the and that's the healthy way And so I mean I think a someone who doesn't even believe that Jesus was the son of God could read I see state and fall like lightning and say like oh, that's a really interesting take on human psychology using the Bible as Using the story of the Bible to to interpret to yeah, speak into how human beings behave, right? And so It just makes me think of which is why why he's not saying Ranger It makes like the application of this theory I get it that in certain and I agree that in certain instances this theory makes a lot of sense and but it reminds me of a quote from JK Chesterton's father Brown mysteries that a man warmly concerned with any large with any large theories has always a relish for Applying them to any triviality right right take any large theory like this and it's his favorite thing to apply anywhere But I don't know that's what's happening.
It's just what they remind me of Thomas the question You said do you have any sort of application for this today not in the present moment? Although I'm sure we could freak ourselves out if we did this but that we should never yeah That that principle that happens when why does the witch who is clearly innocent to the eyes of the historian looking back on her? It was like blazingly obvious that this poor child was not a witch. Why do seemingly rational people end up?
Straight out murdering her in this kangaroo court for the health of the community And we would be arrogant if we think that we were immune to those kinds of things today And so and so the the great outsider is always going to be Yeah, so yeah that that when a community gets into a place of sort of toxic rivalries back and forth It should not surprise anybody when the threat of violence of all against all becomes targeted towards one one person one group Yeah, it's like the purge all right that movie I brought that up last time we talked about although I think in the purge it that's more just like a go out and kill whoever you want to get out of your system The real the René Girardi in purge movie would be that everybody votes on one guy to die Or does that movie that old short story the lottery do you guys know this short story? I don't know where everybody gets together like oh today's the day of the lottery And oh who's gonna be who's gonna win the lottery and the person wins a lottery the community stones into death And then the community goes back to being like healthy again So if I think if I'm remembering that's pretty cool So it's that kind of thing right that that communities ritualistically have yeah ritualistically enact unjust violence for that sort of psychic spiritual health of the community and As far as your art is concerned the death of Christ frees us from having to do that as a community that there is a way to come together and and to sort of Reorient our desires as opposed to having to have the sort of contagious wrath fall on the milky white head of an innocent or whatever No, I'm with you I agree with a lot of that but the example you brought up with of the clearly in which was clearly innocent which according to the historian Well, that only functions if the historian is not being himself arrogant and she was truly innocent It's easier for us to look back. She actually was a witch Like that's the thing a little bit of my mysticism here but if I am a Christian I believe in demonic forces and if there are demonic forces then which is may exist and a lot of people I've talked to have had run ins with things like that and at the very least they're these suspicions and in communities not American and so like Things like that if there really is someone trying to work magic So the crucible you're two thumbs up and I'm just saying it's easy for us to look back into modern sensibilities and voice them on people who Who like you are assuming that you are smarter than the entire peer to community fair that did that and that seems hubristic to me I haven't see do you ever watch? Did you watch the movie the witch?
Yes, I did Is there I mean, I haven't watched it, but I've read enough about it to know the whole plot of it I think it was just free to crap out of me if I watched it It's kind of goofy and spots, but it seems like it's kind of got this like the satanic element Is that play in that movie too right like the oh absolutely the father is too proud and he he develops this Revolistic animosity with the community and he eventually has like go off by himself into the woods And it's that it's that sort of pride and arrogance of not being told how to live that is the seed of his family's destruction, right? It's also that the goat is literally Satan. Well, yeah, that is also a seed of destruction I think not just the dad yeah, anyway, I haven't seen it so I can't speak too much like I I'm Yeah, I would be like yeah, the dad was partially at fault, but also a Satan goat. It seems to be a large force Anyway, so that's where nature are I don't think we're gonna do a third part or even though we're only like We've probably not even we've probably covered a third of it And the rest of the books where he sort of builds up well Let me do it where he builds up his deal or his a rationality of the scapegoat and so we read part one part two is called The enigma of myth resolved so the horrible miracle of the polliness of tianas what we talked about Talks about mythology sacrifice the founding murder powers and principalis and then part three is the victory of the cross where and I assume It's been a long time since I've read part three.
I assume that's where he lays out his how the death of Christ ends up undoing the sort of the tool that Satan's got for keeping keeping people in this kind of loop of Rivalries getting ballooned up and then you need some sort of pressure release So the whole thing doesn't collapse and then rivalries getting ballooned up and and in so doing the devil can harvest his souls Whatever anyway, so that's that's where nature are interesting stuff anyway I'd be curious to get the rest of it, but I just need to go pick up the book I'm just why I'm I'm just wondering if we've if we've come to the end of our discussion on it Maybe we've got no like the bummer stuff. I'd be curious like what I'm planning on finishing it So I like it any other final comments before we wrap up just that we have Patreon and I'm sorry It picks at the end of every episode where I feel like I feel like it's gonna be some kind of yeah No, I mean like I can get my head all so like wound up about someone's Big overarching explaining theology, so I think or explaining mechanisms is always very good to be like well But this always doesn't always happen. There are mediated discussions Those are true points that really hard has to All right, so this has been classical stuff you should know you can find us on patreon the program just said you can Find us patreon.com slash classical stuff you can find us on Twitter at kliscoll stuff CLS CAL stuff you can find us on email you can email us at the guys at classical stuff.net you if you send us memes you become Our favorite person immediately, so thank you for that. So thank you to people who continue doing that and not pronounce me Me's when I first read it in whichever Dawkins book it is that's how I thought it was in college Was but I contend this was before memes were a thing and none of us knew how to pronounce it I want to say the professor pronounce it that way too.
It was a manate at UT I mean it's like it doesn't really mean like ideas or something. It's a it's like a Greek word. I think Anyway, we'll talk guys. So yeah, this has been classical stuff.
Thank you all for listening and we will see you next week. Bye. Bye