231: The Plague

Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about books and ideas and whatever we've been reading recently My name is Thomas Megby. I'm joined as always by mr. Hannenberg.

Yeah, and mr. Graham Donaldson. Hello Hey, that's quite the negative response you guys Guys today. We're gonna talk about the plague by Camus.

I love this book really big fan of existentialism and your negativity. Oh, I'm so furious that you're bringing into this conversation I'm really rejecting I just want you to know that so let's try and get our attitudes up here. Hey, if you could I'll be feeling a little under the weather Oh my god, I'm going to lose it So immediately before this I express my disapproval with a day that we were covering existentialism again I was a dis-provalous Condempting contempt and Which to be fair from the previous existentialism episodes that was much more a grand position than it was at Thomas position So I just you know apparently I've converted both of them. Well, maybe my disdain has been spreading like an illness Yeah, you you're leaving today's episode and I only have positivity and warm feelings for this topic again screw you Okay, first I wanted to say hey, we're sorry.

We had such a long hiatus there was primarily my fault I had a DJ gig that required you know a full-day's attention I also got a weird stomach disaster disease which leads like happily So today we're discussing chemo's the plague and we've done chemo before right what books have been before together I'm a stranger. We've done the stranger before I've this isn't the first you know my first tangle with chemo, but this one's a little bit different I don't feel like I have to retread his life. We've already talked about him I'm not gonna talk about existentialism in its whole form again. We're gonna talk about some other things today I have two kind of big general topics.

We might not get to the second one What's what happens? Well, we got kind of two big questions and then this might lead into a second episode depending on how we do with that second question Which the plague deals with like this is a big question. Yes, big questions from the play Are you gonna pose it or we're gonna like I want to give you a minute now? I don't want to get it right now immediately right now the questions Okay, so the plague is about a it takes place in orran which is some place that can actually live during his lifetime I mean he lived there post-World War two was editing I think a newspaper at the time and where is this place?

How'd you know? North Africa? Yeah, North Africa. I think it's in French Algeria actually So basic summary of the book I'm not gonna give too much to you This is one that you could happily go read on your own I don't think there's any reason to retread the entire plot the plot is fairly straightforward Especially considering that you yourselves have just been through a plague what happens is rats begin to die all over the town And then eventually it spreads to dogs and eventually it spreads to people it turns out It's the bubonic plague right a bubonic plague and it outbreaks in 1940 blank right just some some vague date in the 40s And then the officials of the town do very little to stop the plague they ignore it for a really long time sort of pretend It's not happening and the book centers around the main character dr.

Ryu dr. Ryu does his very best to get the People at the top moving but he doesn't spend most of his energy there Most of his energy is spent directly with patients But he and the other doctors know that the death tolls are rising at an alarming rate and eventually they close the town and we get into Plague proper stuff gets worse and worse and worse and more and more people died It just sort of chronicles the life cycle of a plague and so if you you know having having just lived through COVID-19 you are all generally familiar with this except ours wasn't quite so deadly right the stuff that comes along with the Plague was far more severe in the book now He works with another guy named Taru who is kind of historian He lives in the town and hangs out with artists and just sort of chronicles what's happening there and he and Taru do their very best to work Against the plague as civilians right the doctor Ryu by the way has a wife who is vaguely referred to as being in a an asylum and I think in the book It's supposed to be an illness. This was actually something that happened to kamu as well He had had an affair his wife sort of had a breakdown and he had a center to an asylum for a short period of time So this is I'm guessing that kamu himself sort of identifies with the primary character of dr. Ryu now This book on the whole is an allegory for World War two Okay, you think it's just about an illness But it's not really about an illness here's a little like a slow encroachment of a conflict and all of a sudden like it's happening Yeah, and the people kind of ignore it and then all it's sort of chronicles I mean, it's an honest chronicling of what would happen during the plague But there are a lot of parallels to what would happen in a World War two scenario We're out to town is closed no one's allowed to leave there people trying to escape everyone misses their loved ones, right?

It's very similar Eventually you have a really arresting scene I'm not gonna read that scene But it's where they run out of hospital space and they run out of ways to bury all of the people that are dying I just don't have I mean they they streamline funerals to the point where they toss chucking them in the casket drive them to the Thing get them in the ground get back in like half an hour's time They have to do it really fast because they need to get the body out of everything eventually They're out of space and they have to open these big pit graves and then burn people sure and so the ash from the burn victims comes and settles over The town and obviously it's a reference to the Holocaust right that sort of thing Here's a little section just to kind of prove to you that it's more talking about World War two than it is In general war yeah, it's so here's a section This is after the plague has stopped and the people are sort of coming back to normal life Right they're starting to get the streets the lovers are together everyone is just sort of free and open with their life because they've just escaped This horrible thing and so so here a quote from the book They calmly denied Oh, yeah They calmly denied in the teeth of the evidence that we had ever known a crazy world in which men were killed off like flies or the precise Savagery that calculated that calculated frenzy of the plague which instilled an odious freedom as to all that was not the here and now Or those charnel house stentches which stupefied whom they did not kill in short They denied that we had ever been that hag ridden populace a part of which was daily fed into a furnace and went up in oily Theums while the rest and shackled impotence waited their turn right does that sound like World War two war plague right that's it's pretty close so Real quick I'm gonna read sort of the attitude of Taru and the doctor through the doctor having a conversation and Taru says have you ever heard a woman scream at never with her last graph gasp Well, I have and then I saw that I could never get hardened to it I was young then and I was outraged by the whole scheme of things or so I thought subsequently I grew more modest Only I've never managed to get used to seeing people die. That's all I know yet after all where you fell silent and sat down He felt his mouth dry after all Taru prompted himself After all the doctor repeated then hesitated again fixing his eyes on Taru It's something that a man of your sort can understand most likely But since the order of the world is shaped by death mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in him and struggle with all our might Against death without raising our eyes toward the heaven where he sits in silence Taru nodded yes, but your victories will never be lasting. That's all we use face dark and yes I know that but it's no reason for giving up the struggle So these two men neither really believers in God sort of struggled together against the onslaught of death Taru organizes civilian kind of like crack troops To take care of people they open up new hospitals. They organize the burial of the dead all the while knowing that this is great risk to themselves They will probably themselves get the disease But they see the struggling and all they can do is struggle against the onslaught of death Even if those victories are short lasting right everybody dies.

Okay Yeah, so far you know from the beginning of the book isn't there there's a religious character in the book isn't there? There's a really just that's that's question number two. There's a few religious characters There's a couple of priests and question number two revolves around two of the sermons that are delivered I'm apologizing the audience. I'm gonna read some excerpts from this because I think like with all existentialist writing It's much better coming for it's sort of a not just a strict idea kind of thing it comes from the feeling of the text And so I'm gonna give you a little bit of the background of Taru and then the second question revolves around the two sermons preached by the priest So we'll go through those right so here is Kind of near the end of the book Taru and the doctor decide to go out and take a break from everything They're both exhausted run down by the plague.

It's getting near to the end and the death tolls are just astronomical And they decide to sort of have a chat about each other right they've never really sat down and gone to know each other's friends so Taru tells his background it begins with him talking about his dad who's the kind of guy who reads train Manuals, but you know that when trains arrive and when they leave he can tell you which train goes where he got it on to specific places He had a vice-bud side his dad was that kind of guy who's also a lawyer so he goes to watch his dad He's really excited. He sees this guy condemned to death and rightfully so he was criminal and Taru is disgusted. He says I could not look at my father anymore having known that this person was going to be condemned to die I thought of it as murder so he runs away from home. He can never go back to his mother or his father and then Wait, wait, wait, sorry.

I feel like I just miss something what was the how was his father involved with this his father was the lawyer that Our lawyer got you so father was there argued for this man's death the man died and then to reach like I can't I can't be around you I can't look you I can't even think about trains anymore I'm gone So I'm gonna read sort of the rest of his story about his young life and then we will talk about the after I've had to dwell on my start in life since for me It really was the start of everything I'll get on more quickly now I came to grips with poverty when I was 18 after an easy life till then I tried all sorts of jobs and I didn't do too badly But my real interest in life was the death penalty I wanted to square accounts with that poor blind owl in the dock the guy who died So I became an agitator as they say I didn't want to be pestiferous That's all so my mind the social order around me was based on the death sentence and by fighting the established order I'd be fighting against murder that was my view others had told me so and I still think that this belief of mine was Substantially true I joined forces with a group of people I then liked and indeed have never ceased to like I spent many years in close Cooperation with them and there's not a country in Europe in whose struggles I haven't played a part But that's another story Needless to say I knew that we too on occasion passed sentences of death But I was told that these few deaths were inevitable for the building up of a new world in which murder would cease to be that was also True up to a point and maybe I'm not capable of standing fast where that order of truth is concerned whatever the explanation I hesitated but then I remembered that miserable owl in the dock and it enabled me to keep on until the day when I was present at an Execution it was in Hungary and exactly the same days horror that I experienced is experienced as a youngster made everything real before my eyes Have you ever seen a man shot by firing squad? No, of course not the spectators are handpicked and it's likely and it's like a private party you need invitation The result is that you gleaned your ideas about it from books and pictures a post a blindfolded man some soldiers in the Offing but the real thing isn't a bit like that Do you know the firing squad stands only a yard and a half from the condemned man? Do you know that if the victim took two steps forward his chest would touch the rifles? Do you know that at this short range the soldiers concentrate their fire on the region of the heart and their bullets make a hole into which you could thrust or fist?

No, you didn't know all that those things that are never spoken of for the plague stricken their peace of mind is more important than human life Decent folks must be allowed to sleep easy at night It's mustn't they really it would be shockingly bad taste to linger on such details That's common knowledge But personally I've never been able to sleep well since then the bad taste remaining in my mouth and I've kept lingering on the details Bruding over them and thus I came to understand that I anyhow had had plagued through all those long years which paradoxically enough I believe with all my soul that I was fighting it I learned that I had an indirect hand in the deaths of thousands of people that I'd even brought about their deaths by approving of acts and principles Which could only end that way others did not seem embarrassed by such thoughts or anyhow never voiced them off their own accord But I was different what I'd come to know stuck in my gorge I was with them and yet I was alone when I spoke of these matters they told me not to be so swamish I should remember that great issues were at stake and they advanced arguments often quite impressive ones to make me swallow what nonetheless I couldn't bring myself to stomach I real replied with the most eminent of the plague stricken the men who wear red robes also have excellent arguments to justify what they do And once I admitted the arguments of necessity and force majeure put forward by the less eminent I couldn't reject those of the eminent to which they retorted that the surest way of playing the game of the red robes Was to leave to them the monopoly of the death penalty. I believe that's people in the courts, right people My reply to this was that if you gave in once there was no reason for not continuing to give in it seems to me that history has Bored me out today. There's a sort of competition who will kill the most they're all mad over murder And they couldn't stop killing men even if they wanted to in any case my concern was not with arguments It was with the poor owl with that foul procedure whereby dirty mouths stinking of plague told a fettered man that he was going to die and Scientifically arranged things so that he should die after nights and nights of mental torture while he waited to be murdered in cold blood My concern was with that whole in a man's chest and I told myself that meanwhile so far anyhow as I was concerned Nothing in the world would induce me to accept any argument that justified such butcheries Yes, I chose to be blindly obstinate pending the day when I could see my way more clearly I'm still the same mind for many years I've been ashamed mortally ashamed of having been even with the best intentions even at many removes a murderer in my turn It's time when dawn I merely learned that even those who are better than the rest could not keep themselves nowadays from killing or letting others kill Because such is the logic by which we live and that we can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody Yes, I've been ashamed ever since I've realized that we all have plague and I've lost my piece And today I'm still trying to find it Still trying to understand all those others and not to be the mortal enemy of anyone I'm only know that one what that one must do what one can to cease being plague-stricken And that the only way in which we can hope for some peace or failing that at ease of death This and only this can bring relief to men and if not save them at least do them the least harm possible and even sometimes a little good So that is why I resolved to have no truck with anything which directly or indirectly for good reasons or bad brings death to anyone or justifies others Putting him to death that too is why this epidemic has taught me nothing new except that I must fight it at your side I know positively Yes, for you I can say I know the world inside and out as you may see that each of us has the plague within him No one no one on earth is free from it And I know too that we must keep endless watch on ourselves less than a careless moment We breathe in someone's face and fastening affection on him What's natural is the microbe all the rest health integrity purity if you like is a product of the human will of a vigilance that must never falter the good man the man who infects hardly anyone is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention and So on so this is I think that's where I can stop here His essential point is that this guy wasn't activist against against the death penalty But merely in being an activist he had to sanction killing right to make what he wanted to stop stop why why Because in activism against like changing the current order involved the deaths of a few people to make it happen Oh, he had to like blow up a car or something like that Or at least sanction it like his his sect so he was like so he was an activist like how the black hand was an act Like he's one of those he's a real real deal. I'm not just standing on street corner with a sign gotcha so he was like, you know and French basements with the smoky bars plotting Like assassinations of its it is funny how accurate that is because during World War two He actually edited the rebellious newspaper the underground newspaper He was involved with the rebellion So chemo himself was a part of this and this came of course written after World War two had ended Okay And so he is I think he was probably taking another view of what he had done and said I had to sanction death too And so note that the use of plague here isn't just used to mean the micro Yeah, what is it mean plague means the attitude whereby you want something happening?

So you sanctioned the death of another plague is the willingness to kill other men Yeah, is it that specific or is it just is it like a like is he just talking about sin in this context? That is the plague the plague is where the infection whereby you sanction the deaths of other men You have a vision of something better in the future and you're and you're willing to kill people in the present for that to happen Yes, that's the plague. Okay, so extra context sure While he was in or around the place where he wrote this thing The French had occupied Algeria right that was French Algeria and he the the French Algerian War was still one of the is still one of the bloodiest wars that has ever happened when Algeria tried to gain independence from the French I don't know how that turned out. I don't really know the history I do know that initially Camus had tried to broker a piece between all these people and People protested his speeches and called for him to be hung on the gallows and eventually he withdrew from public life And just said I'm done with it and a direct quote from him is Let's see Oh, please don't throw it down Okay, when speech can lead the remote lead to the remorseless disposal Let me try that one more time when speech can lead to the remorseless disposal of other people's lives He would go on to say silence is not a negative position after resigning from the express and remaining silent about it So he got away from the newspaper said I'm kind of done with this and then said because my speech could lead to the killing of others My silence is not a negative position.

Sure. I'm simply maintaining my silence to sort of get out of this And that's the position that to retake and dr. Ryu take in the book because they don't actively try to make the administration take responsibility for anything They simply fight against the deaths of men. It is the role of sympathy They're trying essentially to become saints even if they don't believe in God, right?

How to become a saint without believing in God is the question So I guess my question to you guys is Is that the reaction that men should take should you take sides on an issue which will require the deaths of other men? Or is the only sensible position to withdraw from the discussion and maintain silence? I think you can toy I think you can spread the plague No, I think you can take the side where you can sanction the death of the death of other men sounds like this first doctor Rose's name to Ru Well, there's Ryu and his to Ru who's a story to Ru's so and to Ru was one who was like was not cool with his dad Yeah, not cool with any sort of so I mean I I understand the immediate sort of sense of oh my goodness this Person is what this creature is gonna die or this you know, but the other the other side of that coin is Neither either abandoning any sort of form of justice or doing some sort of punishment that isn't a death But is lock in someone away for the rest of their life, which is as Essentially what we're doing now, isn't it? Yeah, that's not my I mean would you prefer death healthy?

I don't have the same Death is the final most terrible thing that should be avoided at all costs kind of squeamishness that they do And that's probably born out of a sense of the afterlife. I know it's maybe a little What's we're looking for maybe it's a little too hand-wavy to say but I've always really enjoyed when C.S. Lewis talks about like two soldiers Who are fighting where they don't really want to fight and end up killing each other having a good laugh about it in the afterlife Like I have more that to me is more of an ascribing Yeah, that sort of sentiment I find a lot more sort of attractive than like death is it like death is the end and we must fight everything against it It's I mean I just started thinking about this when you said in order to frame the argument actually to read the text because the way to the Text presents it is part of the argument and that to me just sounds like this is an argument That's going to be based on sentimentality an argument It's gonna be based on moving of the emotions through language as opposed to saying let's strip back all the facts and like You know ask ourselves all right. Do we want a society where there's justice?

Yes or no? Well, yes, we do Okay, so is the death penalty Is there a potential where the death of somebody is the only possible outcome that needs to happen? You have that debate saying no there is and yes There is but if you if you take sort of the existentialist and bring it down into that kind of like language and strip it Sentimentality then I Existentialism to me like loses its root loses its power or its spell You're gonna love this but it's not to mentality like part of human life like if our emotions are moved does not say something about the argument sure But it doesn't It's not that it's not only is the deciding factor only the movement of the emotions is not the is not the the solid ground upon which to build policy or government decisions or judicial decisions or like if the men if everybody in World War two was Camu and they said like being quiet is an answer and they all like retreated off into Their little chateaus in the woods Evil men would have their heyday in this world and that's that's I think the point is that the existentialists don't have any sort of belief in Ultra that they don't have any sort of altruism that good men will sacrifice themselves for good reasons So So you know so the argument is I'm going to what like abstain from life as like a rejection or as like a You know middle finger to God or whatever That kind of what's happening in this story though Just the way you're like Ryu and Taro are I think you described kind of this optimism at first There's kind of a freedom that they can experience in the city But they're committing their time to like helping people they're trying to help people recover from the plague But there are other characters who aren't there other characters who are profiting off of this this one specifically start smuggling and Making or the religious people are kind of gathering followers during this kind of just People stop kind of stop going to church because I get sick of the whole like yeah God is punishing you I'm just wondering if this story is a part of commutes answer to what Graham is posing that there are still heroes in the story that Taro ends the story as a hero correct Taro is the hero But because I think maybe this is the answer to yours I'm is that you can labor against those terrible things without being like championing one side that means death And so for example in the French-Algarian war I can take part in it But I would try to take part as a healer someone who drags men off the battlefield nurses them back to health Which is what these two are doing right? They're not seeing on the sidelines.

They haven't retreated They are in the thick of it But they aren't blowing up the governor's house because the governor isn't doing anything about it They're not spreading the plague they are simply taking a secondary role and trying to preserve human dignity in a time of darkness Are you pacifist? Just war in your mind you know I have not Solved this question for myself. We talked about this. I used to be pastors back in the day Yeah, I don't think I'm a pacifist, but I want you to tell me why Why should I join a side and pick up a gun rather than being the medic dragon people off the battlefield?

Well, why because there needs to be someone there eventually needs to be somebody who's holding who's picking up the gun to stop labor force whatever force is coming especially if that force is is quite clearly in the wrong and So that I mean that that to me is enough of the argument is that there there Part of me wants to say like who am I that gets to sort of have the privileged position of getting to stand up and say I'm not sullying my hands with this human bat with this human conflict I'm going to be the healer only like part of me is like that seems I don't know That kind of like moral superiority seems like if I was a guy getting dragged off by the medic after getting wounded the medics Like I'm only I'm doing this because I couldn't even see myself entering into your beast deal human confidence I'll be like you know what guy screw you like I want somebody who's in this with me, but I will take a morphine Yeah, I want somebody that's like, you know Is aligned with me on this you're not just sort of like To get my point sort of saying yeah, you take the only way you can take moral superiority is because there are people holding the guns Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's to me the existentialist sounds like he is this is gonna sound really bad But he is really like leaning into the privilege he has of not having to be a soldier or not having to be a common person going off and and getting caught up in the In the cares and concerns of this world he has This sort of opting out sense But to do that if you're gonna opt out that means you're gonna ban your family and you're gonna ban your loved ones and you're gonna have to be like an isolated person who has nobody else or nothing to fight for because You wouldn't fight for them because you hold this position of I want to sort of opt out of spreading the plague of really condemning any other man to death when if that man is like in your house and is Like approaching your wife and you're like, oh man, I just can't bring myself to Again, but that seems to be another like in the moment. Yeah, I don't think you can go out somebody and say I'm only gonna have this I'm only gonna sort of allow myself to have a proportional violence in order to protect my love when I think you go all in Anyway, that's my that's okay I hear you but if we're talking about what attitude would you like to spread worldwide right the continuous like I must take up arms against the supposing force If everyone has that attitude people keep dying if everyone like as if I'm going to take an example of of the attitude I would like to see everyone have the attitude of human dignity preservation of life and Sympathy helping rather than hurting if that were to spread I don't have those problems right? I want the world where pacifism is the answer right? That's what you're getting up not if the only way to get there is a detachment from humanity and that's not a call that attachment why would that be detachment because you're saying I'm Basically the existentialist has alike It's all or nothing like everyone needs to be perfect for me to opt in and when there is human imperfection I am not going to opt into humanity because I don't want to be culpable for the imperfections that the race has Can you explain what you mean so you mean that by opting into me like taking up a side?

I mean I mean by opting in I mean like yeah I mean because they're opting in right he's the one he is trying to help He's just not helping in a way that means the death of others He's the one on the front lines of the plague just as if I was in say World War two I could be there helping the injured helping the downtrodden making sure people get food I could even perhaps I can even perhaps hide Jews. What is my problem? My own risk? I guess my problem with it is then you're also not Cheering on those who are doing the things that you're unwilling to do to bring about the bright ending Which is the fighting if you want to celebrate the overthrowing of the Nazis in Germany, but not actually take up arms against them Right and so then and so if you're gonna wag your finger at people about the men who come home You're like you did what to to solve this what you you you firebombed resident like and to say like this It's not even worth winning or it's not even worth defeating fascism if that's going to be the price it costs It's like I don't know man I don't know if you can like that that that seems to be a a position that you can only take once you've won and you're safe Or you can say I wish this had spread everybody I wish we didn't have to carpet bomb Because I want both the nice and my side to put down their arms, which is fun.

Yeah, can I bring up a yeah Go for something. I've heard you say a few and see how you know like it's it's it's a no I'm just saying it's that's just it seems very like a naive to say like oh man I just wish that everything was perfect and when and in order to And so I'm going to have a moral a sense of sort of moral superiority superiority over those people who have gone off and have I Guess it's like okay You have the soldier and the soldier believes in his country Sure, and he has and he's been he's brought up and he's been he's Pledge of allegiance and he loves the flag and he goes off and he has a belief in the idea of what is America And he goes off and he is told that this is the right This is a course of action Your country needs you to go off and do this and he does and when he's there the horrors and the reality of war happened and bad things happen To him and he has to do bad things and he comes back and everyone's like where are you some kind of moron for believing this? I can't believe you went off and did such terrible things. Oh, it's all I'd rather us not even be involved in this kind of stuff that to me is so Like two-face like like I guess that's what it is is I realize that my position is going down to why can't the existentialist just support the troops But there's sort of part of it because he's giving himself an intellectual out for Supporting people who are going off and doing something with just the same.

I'm trying to fix it mindset that he has They're just doing a different way. They do it is what he has a problem with yes And the way they're doing it has a problem with and so then if he wants to say like I don't want to be involved Anything that involves killing in this world well, then it's like well, you know, sorry buddy like like this is The world like the world that we live in has has violence in it. So you take like a Machiavellian stance It's what's practical kind of a Machiavellian if it's also aligned with the idea that like who quick promo we have Machiavellian episode If you want to talk about Machiavellian go back to that that death is not the worst sin that can befall me Okay, so I think that is probably the crux of your difference with Camus is that human death is for him the ultimate evil Yeah, and for you, it's not it's not that it's not that it's simply a blip in the timeline Like could you how would you live with yourself if a terrible thing happened to your loved ones? And you had the capacity to stop it and you didn't stop it not because you were a coward but because of like I Don't like an intellectual it like you sort of have said I hold up the you know this this is my own person doing violence in my home I cannot take their life so I'm gonna allow them to take the life of an innocent and you're getting murdered him No, I'm against I'm against that pacifism that allows Innocence to suffer when you have the capacity to stop it.

Okay, I feel like we're I Martim is being killed for the sake of your faith not necessarily because someone breaks your house and stealing your things Just those would be different situation But in this case this is essentially his faith He says I don't want to be involved in the killing of other men and so I'm not going to kill you and that is what I would murder for Wait, I don't just dismiss him. You have to take away from what I mean his position that stands the the Pessimism or absolute sanctity of human life. I guess it's only just that you don't think that is a thing worth being Kind of and also that maybe there's only any sort of pre-ins to that maybe that's like the highest you can get with being an atheist Is human life sanctity But for no other reason than a fear of death Yeah, I'm with you on that I'm rounding in the human sanctity in some sort of a mago day or the grounding of the human sanctity in anything It's human life is sacred because of the tremendous fear of the unknown of death and therefore we got to keep everything from ever approaching death and that is No way to live you're right that so the book doesn't really attempt to say here is why human beings are are you know Saint I don't want to say sanctification sacred sacred. Yeah, here's why human life is a sacred thing They this is where I think the appeal to emotion kind of comes in because we do have a really arresting scene where a kid Dies and all of them are gathered around this poor child who's fighting plague and eventually succumbs to it That's rough and then we also have the death of Tarrou spoiler near the end of the book It's okay.

It's still good book You should still read it and and both of those scenes are so heart-wrenching that I think it is it is that that heart-wrenching quality of death That compels you as an atheist to to fight against it And you know what I don't have a huge problem with that death is a pretty scary thing Right if that's the thing the place where you land as an atheist is that human life is worthwhile and I should fight for it You know there's other places you could end as an atheist that are far worse than that and But I'm but I'm with you in saying that there doesn't seem to be good reason for it outside that we just really don't like death I can trust this with another book that deals with a healer who is healing during the plague and It's a book. It's a Russian book that was translated English and came out in 2015 It's called Lars yep, and it's exactly it's similar story except it's in the 16th century 15th century and Lars is a medicine man and he heals people of the plague in his Little Russian village and he seems to have a particularly special ability to heal based through his faith in his prayers and he can almost like take the illness from the person and Take it on himself and then sort of he takes on the suffering instead And he ends up healing the like the the daughter of the head of the town and all this sort of stuff and in it his motivation is his You know his belief in that everybody is made in the image of God He will touch the leper and he will also heal the king's daughter and everybody sort of has that equality in his eyes And he's going through the healing and it comes from the fact that when he was young there was a woman that he loved who had a child He couldn't heal anyway, and I just think of like that kind of saintly motivation versus the Oh, man, we got him to fight against that. Well, not just grew up It's also the like oh man, we're never gonna win but how honorable it is to be fighting death It's like okay. I find that there's there's a sense of like maybe just a sense what I don't like about is the romanticism of it But but there's that but I mean in the faith at least for Lars or the Christian faith There's the idea of that one day death will be defeated and in the meantime We are fighting the death throes of death that exist in the world still and so when you are when you are with someone who dies, it's not this great big like oh, you got another one death man this like this you know, you you know, we're never gonna win this war it's this person has died and one day we will see them again and you pray over them and And you know, there's the old the soil claps its hands on its way to heaven, right?

Like that's there that to me is such a The reality of life after death colors everything it really does. I agree with you I was gonna bring up we used to do a question in senior thesis where it was if we all got Plunked onto an island hunger game stun had to murder everybody what would be your plan? My was out mine was always go real weird because nobody tankers with the crazy guy that's willing to man you and not kill you So I'll do some aiming. I got real dark real fast.

Oh my gosh No one wants to go there. Yeah, so grams was I will stand in the middle and call all of you to something higher Yes, this was your answer for years And you would call everyone to the nobility of humankind and encourage them not to kill one another for sake of entertainment I get cut down first and of course you do not bear striking similarity to calling men towards something higher and not what are they calling us to? What is camp? What is the doctor Ryu and Tim?

Not murder. That's it. That's it is not as do no harm And what are you calling them to your games place? Don't murder each other.

Oh, okay But in the hunger game scenario like we that's the game. We can't get out of the game But the whole game of life is not murder or don't murder those only two options that exist sir There's a tremendous amount of dehumanizing and hatred you can bear to somebody and keeping them alive So there's a problem that it's not an all-encompassing thing that he's promoting like the problem is it's too small So he's opposed to the death penalty. Yeah, willing to do whatever it takes to overthrow the penalty That's too small of a goal or what's the my other reason I brought this up is because you seem to say that if someone broke into your house And was threatening you that taking up arms against them is an okay option. Yeah, I mean I've been out of two games Yeah, well basically is the reason I said that with the Hunger Games is like Because you're afraid of the naming guy me.

No, it's it's um I want to also give a bit of a like middle finger to ever put me on an island Well, I think that's the same attitude the existentialists are taking right God stands silently by so give a middle finger to God Yeah, but that's only true if you think that God has sort of put us in this That's only true if you think that God has put us in this game and everything that is wrong with the world is wrong With the world by God's design whereas in the Christian witness That's not the case that what's wrong with the world is our disobedience and God has actually come to die to fix it Which is another wrinkle in this sort of existential things like Anyway, I was gonna talk about the death of God being a good thing Okay, well, I have another further question that takes this one step further and maybe a little more political So silence is maybe not at least according to you the great answer to the death penalty, right? But by corollary is silence consent and so what I mean is often there are there are cries that if you are not for a cause If I'm not for the legalization of gay marriage, then I am consenting to hurting those people so do you have to take a side or is silence an appropriate response to a lot of controversy not just You know like taking up arms against those who are wanting to kill somebody But do I like am I obligated as a person in this world that someone who's advocating for good to take sides on things? What if I don't vote am I in the wrong? What if we as a podcast don't take a position on the lgbtq agenda are we in the wrong do we need to come out and say hey We as a podcast are for x y or z like are we by our silence?

Complicitly supporting the wrong side or a silence. Okay, response to these conversations. Silence is totally okay. Responsities Are we being a not to violence?

But not to something like not see us. I'm but the earlier question was is it yeah? Yeah, should the person kind of withdraw and not engage in it? You said no they should fight for the thing that they care about now You're saying that silence is a viable option.

That's not inconsistent If you say if silence is a viable option you pick what you respond to right? Isn't that the answer to the contradiction you're trying to set up? What do you mean so like there are you know part of the problem is kind of like I'm not commenting is Completion with whatever position is there so many positions to take so many issues to take positions on that it's you would be spending your entire time taking Positions on each of those different issues so by definition you have to pick and choose which things you talk about which ones you support Which ones you know after right so in this case this person would be saying I'm opposed to death penalty That's the issue I care about but kind of by definition they're taking silence on all other issues I think I'm tracking but you think does that inconsistent some way that so I'm having trouble putting together the argument My question is just like if I'm not allowed to take time take Stepping away from the death penalty but you could are you opposed to that gram to what stepping away from the death penalty as the As this issue that someone cares about isn't that your question? I mean that wasn't always established earlier that the saying I don't want a piece of this and I won't take part in anything That means the death of another person isn't a viable reaction like we are not allowed to do that if not He is a thing we should be picking up a gun then isn't that the case in every other Situation where there is no a good or evil.

There's gonna be scales to these things right like there's some there's some different There's something different between fascism taking over a country and the implementation of Nazism versus Some issue that's only gonna matter in 2023 You know like see salt or normal salt Yeah, there has to be some difference in those different in those issues and so so at some point you should yeah You need to take a position and do something about it Yeah, and like I think most people should probably like not respond to every Your take your see salt one is a silly example But like things of that level you shouldn't be commenting on all the time like what yeah What do you mean by commenting like take aside by taking aside and miss sort of becoming having like a building up a public persona About some sort of kind of issue I think every man needs to have some needs to know where they stand on issues in case they find themselves in a position where they need to Make a decision where that issue is very pertinent in their life But that everybody needs to like sort of Write out exactly what they think and then like widely distribute it as if there's needs to be some sort of press conference on what Graham Donson thinks about stuff is like not only very silly and also very arrogant on my part to think that anybody should care But then what you can consenting to whichever side is in the wrong? No, no because there's so many different ways to understand an issue that it's not this binary thing It's not it's it can't be if you're other with us you're against us So saying if you're not for X you therefore defacto must be against X in these five ways It's like you have no idea what I think about X I could have a very nuanced and charming position on X So say for trans rights like you you abstained from talking about it doesn't that allow the rights to be taken away? No Because the other part is that no matter what Graham tweets about that it's not gonna change anything like he is not in a position to be Influencing policy one way or the other other than voting or blowing the stuff up I guess yeah But then that's just we just have a distaste of violent protests right? I didn't know this is this is all who has to write who is sort of is who has the vision that they can inject themselves into Society and say this is the way things need to go and I'm gonna use violence in order to get to it like that's every soldier No, no, because every soldier is coming from commands from a government So this really just comes down.

You know, it's a question of like that What do you do you place any degree of this the government have any authority over your life or not? It's also a question I think not just governmental authority But at what point do you draw the line where you're saying okay? This this is an issue that is serious enough that I need to involve myself that either requires human action I guess that's an issue is and possibly disobeats, but if I'm safe fighting for trains rights I don't know that that requires disobedience. We're not mean it might might might just mean writing my legislators But at what point do like I guess my next question is where where is that line?

Like where do you guys draw your line where should our listeners draw their line? Like this issue is serious enough that I need to involve my I need to become socially engaged in somewhere yes That's your question. Do you I don't even know how to answer this question? I feel like Graham's probably yeah You're gonna say that there's some point where you should be promoting certain positions And I feel like I usually end up it like most people should live a quiet life and raise a good family and like to think that Your purpose is to like have some kind of motivation for social engagement is just setting yourself up for disappointment earlier No, I think I agree with you on that Tom's yeah I mean I asked this partially as a personal question because I'm typically not involved at all in politics I refrain from commenting I often don't even comment to my students I say here the two positions here the problems I see with each so is Am I in the wrong that I am not spending my weekends getting more involved in situations where people are being actively hurt?

No, I don't I think most of the this kind of like setting up of issues and they're being one side for another I think that's all marketing like I think that's all to put people into boxes that are easy to sell things to be that a political figure be that like actual products like I think Graham's answer is on to something of like All issues are complicated. It's fine to have personal nuanced opinions on lots of things But if you're able to boil it down to I'm for or against the slate of current topics like you've been marketed Like a built yeah, you've been built You are being sold political media and the one that will fit you into the right slot And that's the purpose of like all and again This is kind of a tangent from what you're talking about But I just think that we as individuals have such a little impact into those issues I think it's important to vote I think it's important to be informed but to like be on Twitter all day like talking about your political opinions Like I think that's that's hell on earth, right? Like there's no good that comes from that and there's also there's Things that get lost in the nuances that there are the answers can change based on the like subsidiary So you somewhat it is perfectly reasonable to me that somebody has a position that they think would should be In trying into law for America that they would not allow their they would have a very different position for how their family is governed Or have a very different position of what they think that their how their church should behave So like you know someone could say I don't I think it's silly to take cell phones away Or to not like have cell phones for children, but they are not having in my family Or like legalizing weed I think it's fine for weed to be legal in Texas but my kids won't be smoking it Like that kind of thing And so and I think that yes so then and So then what it's like even summarize your position on social media Or even to say like so where do you stand on these issues? It's like I'm full of a chair like this is gonna take this is gonna take some time So I think I mean another way to answer your question your favorite question Is what has to happen for somebody to decide that they are the person to run for political office Like I think that's a very legitimate question.

Yeah, I think everybody needs to ask themselves at some point No, I can't run for office in the US probably good. You could I can't see what happened Don't tell them how to get deported. Yeah But I mean so you can't run for any office like sheriff to be sure I'm not a citizen You might be sheriff. I don't think you can't know it.

I don't know Should I find that right? Can't you know this? Anyway, so Yes, but I think I think Thomas is bang on when he says that the sort of modern landscape We have about like issues and being socially active is 100 marketing and is Like I mean they sell a lot of products to people who are products media. I mean, that's the idea selling products you're selling politicians You're selling lifestyles.

Yeah, because then the lifestyles like you get this kind of grouping of brands that would be called so quote unquote conservative Quote liberal and then like a nice or push. Yeah, but yeah, the reason yeah So it's just pushing us a lot that makes it easier to get you get silly things like there are people for whom they're like their professional careers They are a professional protester and they like will go from city to city whenever there's some kind of rally that happens and they have Financial backing for them to go be organizers of like local constituents over x issue and they just travel the country doing this Just paying their bills whoever has some sort of vested interest in whatever their cause is that they're fighting for Right, so so is it when I'm trying to draw where the line is is where when evil begins to ride rough shot over good and triumph in the world? Is that when men should stand up? Like when good people are dying is that the issue?

I'm gonna get invaded invasion. I guess and then that's how you come to a justification for World War II just since fighting the Nazis We started this like people say oh man We should have we should have gone after Hitler beforehand and taken him out But we're doing that with 2020 hindsight right like we didn't know the monster He was in 1937 and in doing that like and we've used that to justify things saying like oh well, you know What's his face in Syria is the same thing with Hitler? he's gassing his people and and we use that as justifications for incursions and I don't think I'm cool with that kind of thing. I don't that kind of reasoning of Anyway, maybe it's a case by case scenario, but but there's yeah, there is something about Having a society that allows freedom for people to raise families and to practice their faith and to Enter into commerce.

So like the very foundation of Western society of the United States and then protecting that way of life I don't I don't see the moral hand. I don't I don't I don't I don't I want to know what the existentialist would have against that Okay, that's probably the other question. I don't think we have enough time for it for my second question. I was today.

No, sorry No, okay, it means that there's probably gonna be a part two we have to discuss the sermons given by the priests if I don't get to it You should read the book. I mean the priest says some very interesting things But I think it'd be a we haven't ever done a podcast on problem of pain. Have we and the honest book no just the problem problem I don't like so you did the Odyssey at some point. We made that the Odyssey We made that joke.

Yeah, that's exactly really We might have that up already if we don't I'll be making it next time You know us and anger I think it I mean they cut that off for support Silence is an option If you don't email us we can assume all sorts of things about you Or complicit with our redoing of episodes you let our evil run rough shot over that good Is it your same a dustin episode is that the one where you want to talk about the Thing is literally nothing. Yeah, I mean we talked about that But we haven't talked it we haven't done like a rundown of here are the answers to the problem of evil I think it was in your same custom episode was it maybe not I could be making this up for the listeners That was about why evil it doesn't exist. Yeah. Oh, are we at the class with you are wrong section of the book?

So we got a class with you we got wrong. Well, it's not really a class In our last episode we did like months ago There was at the end we're like we're gonna do a fun fact for people that stay and listen to the podcast and I talked about the beer song Yeah, so wrong on that my so my memory might have My memory has mushed two things together one all you need is a fiber and a sober driver is a song called beer run Oh, and it's B. W. W.

R. You in beer run beer run. There's a song. I'm not liking this at all That's great song.

Okay, um and then sometimes you run up So so there was a beer run song and then there was the beer beer beer beer Bubba beer which was another song Canadian culture and I'm wish those two things together thinking it was one ad But really there's a song called beer run and there wasn't a bucket of beer. It was called a Bubba a Bubba of beer And basically what it was was a mini cake. Oh, yeah, Bubba beer and so I can play this But I think what happened is you're just a marketing G. Yeah, so so for all those people that met texted us or messaged me and said like I'm thinking I think you're thinking of this like Alabama country artist who sang B.

W. R. You ran beer run and And I was like and I yeah, so that was class with stuff. I got wrong.

I don't even call it back emails Yeah, we can even tell the time We always tag all emails that you need to reply to For a while but anyway, like you weren't replying to emails I haven't even opened it forever. So there's any like hey you guys are great. I've been seeing those or hey you guys are Anyways, but thanks for those emails email's I just don't read them I just don't read I will have as I lost my smartphone I was going through that that email box and I just haven't checked it at school So yeah, I think because I forgot our password left it shouldn't tell me now I Enjoy what you guys read them. I don't think existentialism is the plague these guys This has been classical stuff you should know I think I just said it But the email addresses the guys at classical stuff that you can find us online at classical stuff not net you can find us on patreon Where we post our in-between discussions after each episode and our monthly AMAs which I get which we will be recording today So patreon comms slash classical stuff.

We are on Twitter Twitter comms slash classical stuff CLLS CAL stuff And I think that's it I think I'm forgetting. Nope. Well, thanks everyone and we will see you all next week