Francis Bacon's New Atlantis | The New Thinkery Ep. 29

Welcome back to New Atlantis. I'm David Barr with me as always. This is my cut cut cut. We're not the new Atlantis.

We're the new thinkery. We're doing new it. It's okay. Let's just keep going.

This is what I thought I thought it was a delivery joke. I think it's pretty funny. Keep going. Keep going.

Keep going. No, that wasn't delivered. I'm just looking at the group book. This is the new thinkery.

We're the new things. I'm still David Barr and with me as always is still Alex, how are you, Alex? I'm doing well, David. How are you?

Probably your cognition is declined. Marketly. Well, don't worry, Alex, it's because I have two children and you will soon have your first. You will notice the same decline in cognition.

Welcome to the club. Greg, Greg's cognition is declining for other reasons. How are you, Greg? I'm old.

You're old? Yeah. Greg doesn't have children. So his feast of the family is going to consider stuff.

One gets cracker. Yeah, actually, Alex, we were reprimanded or jimmy-tossed online for being unfair to Greg. Is that right? Yeah, people said that we were unkind to you.

But that's because they're misguided about your character. So they think you're the quote unquote, nice guy of the new thinkery. And I don't know why they think that. Well, because you have this like down home, you know, way of talking and you're almost in kind things, stuff like that.

And you guys, Alex, I got that weird stuff in his background with the Ayatollah and I'm nuts. And so so Greg, it's just by default, you're the nice guy. But we can see him. They realize he looks like some kind of, you know, Cuban revolutionary hiding out in the mountains.

Yeah, and if they could also see him, they would know that he does the new thinkery totally nude. I also don't do that. But Greg does that. So, but what is not the spa of Adam and Eve or whatever it's called?

I almost wore a rope. That's true. So today we're all on because you like me, right? Isn't that?

Oh, yeah, you're just teasing, right? Those are just jokes. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Today, we are well, before I go on, I always forget this. Let's not rush into anything. Yeah, that's right.

If you like what you hear, and I hope you do, please do rate us. We were climbing into philosophy charts. They're on the charts. I get emails occasion.

I didn't update you on this. This is a good time reveal it. We are on the educational charts, top 200 300 in Oman and Russia. Really?

I guess we're big in Oman. I mean, big. Russia. When I go to Oman, that's awesome.

We can vacation there. So we're climbing. We're not the US charts yet. But not at the US, but philosophy never took root here anyway.

So it's okay. Well, our listeners in Oman and Russia. Hello. Yeah.

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If you leave a funny review, we will read it on there. Yeah. Well, I think our last one said something about pagans and then said sad, which I thought was really funny. So we do want to night fellas.

There's that and then oh, sorry. I thought no one more thing. Okay. To give a hint of what's to come.

We've decided to up the number of interviews that T&T conducts. So shortly, you will be hearing, because interviews with Michael Davis, one of Alex's professors, who else? Steve Hayward, who's a wonderful man to hear talk. He's very engaging and missing two more Charles Butterworth, I get a returns.

And I think Professor Goughley Richard Valkley wants to do a follow up to his high digger and Strauss episode. If I'm not mistaken, I'm missing one more person flag Taylor flag Taylor. Yeah, right. Young Blitz, but that'll have already been out.

We got a lot of flatter in the fire. Yeah, so no, it's exciting. And if there's anybody you'd like to hear interviewed or maybe walk you through a book let us know. Yeah, and we're having some trouble getting in touch with norms representatives, but we originally had some contact that went away.

But normally still want you on the show. Yeah, Norm McDonald will free fairly. So today, we're all excited. You can hear it.

We're discussing Francis Bacon. We've discussed it before. We a few episodes back, we did his great installation. Today, we are turning to his new Atlantis.

We also did that episode with Robert Faulkner of Boston College, also on bacon. Who has a book on bacon? Thanks, so so yeah, if you guys are interested in this, our third episode on bacon, I think, aside from Machiaveau, we'll play to obviously, this is maybe our second most popular topic. Yeah, and we'll probably do a few more on him before we die.

So what's right for our cholesterol? Yeah, some of us. What's this book about? Too much bacon.

Well, I mean, it's Greg, you want to get into this? Yeah, just really short. What is it? Oh, me?

What is it? Yeah, why are we talking about this book? Right? Because it's not a it's not a it's not a but describe the book, right?

It's short, but it's also not a treatise or even it's not even really a book. No, it's well, it's um, we're using Jerry Wine. I'm using Jerry Weinberg's translation. Nice.

Yeah, I'll point it out. Yeah, very good. He's wonderful. And his introduction is actually very helpful for us.

What is the new Atlantis? Is it part of the Great Institution or is it it's a separate work? It's a separate work. It's together in Wineburg's edition.

But it's a and it was not published during his life as published posthumously. And so people surmised that it's incomplete, though, I think you can read it says it says it's incomplete at the very beginning, actually. Yeah, but this could be a contrived incompleteness, right? What do you mean?

It's presented as it's presented as incomplete. Yeah, like, for instance, what's it called a restose social contract is presented as incomplete. Yeah, so the new Atlantis work unfinished. That's right.

Yeah, Bacon was doing so much during his life, like writing Hamlet and Macbeth that we can give him a pass. Yeah, I was a busy man. So what is the new Atlantis? It's there's a lot that probably I would sort of run through.

They call it the South and New Hot Lantis. They do Hot Lantis. That's right. It's where I hail from.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's I would call this a utopia. It's a work of utopia, like utopia literature, like, I guess 1984 is dystopian.

But Thomas Moore is utopia that plays with republic sometimes is called utopian. There's a kind of genre of work that's devoted to sort of a presentation of the best regime or the best city or an ideal city or something like that. Now listeners who've heard us do a few episodes on bacon will be a little perhaps confused because we've stressed Bacon's relationship to Nicola Machiavelli, who was very anti utopian who sort of thought you shouldn't waste your time with imaginary principalities and imaginary publics. Maybe I'll get Alex to sort of tell me what he thinks about that.

So the new Atlantis, it's sort of fictional. It's about a it's about a ship of men sailing from Peru westward. And they get blown off course somehow. And they come upon an island.

The island is ruled. Well, it's not immediately clear actually how the island is rules. But the island has the Christian religion, they practice Christianity. But there's also something called the Solomon house, which is sort of like a university, I suppose, where there are scientists who undertake all kinds of experiments and so it's basically an island where science but there's our in Jewish citizens.

Odds you is all like a member or they're more than one. They're more than one. There are more than one. No, he talks about he talks about all the hell others like him.

Right. Oh, okay. There's a very significant Jewish figure we'll talk about him later. So basically the island is ruled this is written in the 1600 by the way early 1600s.

And it's a sort of futuristic look at what the world could look like if scientists somehow had a greater license to pursue the scientific study, especially obviously following Bacon's method of science. A few other things I'd say I want to ask a question I'll let Alex jump in a minute. But the title New Atlantis tells me about Plato that sort of harkens in my mind. Plato's writings on the Atlantis which is the Tameus and critics is that right?

Yeah, okay, good. I mentioned that it's a sort of utopia. This is from Weinberger's writing on the new Atlantis. He says quote in modernity the literal meaning of utopia is reversed it no longer points to no place but rather lights it's the path to every place.

So I mentioned this is utopia. People who know Greek or at least Thomas Moore's attempts to sort of make weird Greek words utopia typically is translated as no place. And so Machiavelli was anti utopian as far as he was anti imaginary places anti utopian places. Maybe we can resolve that by saying that Bacon didn't think that his utopia was in fact no place he thought it he held out hope that something like it could actually be achieved.

How you understanding utopia I thought it was like the prefix EU plus topia. Well, it's just a place. Yeah, so it's weird, right? It's just you so then it's it's also I've seen it as no place, not utopia which would be strange.

But yeah, no, it's places. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it might be that places.

Yeah. We can come back that just a moment. A few other things I've mentioned. So the connection to Machiavelli is at least on the one hand seems to be different as far as Machia velli was opposed to utopias and this is utopia.

In chapter 25, the Prince Machiavelli says that humans are more or less conquer nature. And I think that Bacon is doing that here in the realm of natural science. I already mentioned how to mention this is a work unfinished. I guess New Atlantis also the emphasis on newness.

I think the big thing that's being renewed is science. So this is what the world could look like if we undertake science on the Baconian model, something like that. There's probably I mean, there's a lot obviously that you can still add for the just the plot. But yeah, a couple things I'll pick up on just from what you said, the Bacon writes two works right with the word new in it the new Oregon on the new Atlantis, the new Oregon on points obviously back to the old Oregon on which is aerosol is logical works and the new Oregon on presents a new way of thinking about the world of reasoning about the world.

The new Atlantis as you mentioned right is is picking up on the Atlantis described in Plato's Critius. But again, it's a different kind of utopia or island utopia. On the Machiavelli connection, I think you're right, there's a weird tension because Machiavelli has this anti utopian aspect in chapter 15. But then he seems also to offer some kind of promise right or ideal as you pointed out in chapter 25 when he talks about, you know, mastering for tuna.

I do think there's a one way to read modern thought generally is the struggle of Machiavelli's critique of the ideal is merely made up or as merely made up or as imaginary and how that goes against the various political projects proposed. I think the car runs into problems here and as just bacon and it's you know, in some ways, you know, 20th century nihilism, right? The rise of nihilism is related to this this failure to be able to believe in higher standards. So I think that's that's a really important point there.

Yeah, I don't really have anything more to have with that. Just have one small clarification. So I'm trying to remember my more. I want to say because I think that utopia is his invention.

And I want to say he's playing on the distinction between utopia as EU meaning good, and OU and Greek meaning not a place. I think he's I think he's playing with that. The reason I think it's just the EU is I think it's obscuring if it's an EU or no at the beginning. That's my recollection is a good place or is it no place or is it both somehow?

Yeah, if I can recommend another edition of people are interested in this theme of utopias, there's a nice addition by disc and clay and India purvis called Four Island utopias. It's got Plato's Atlantis and Bacon's New Atlantis. So you can read them in comparison. It's two works I've never heard of or read you have a lot of the Senis, Pankaya and the Ambaluses Island of the Sun.

And there's also all these interesting. That last one's very shameful. I'm sorry that you recommended that last word. I recommend it.

contained. Yeah, it's not something you read in front of children. So anyways, that's a decision people can grab if they're interested in all this genre. One thing that as we discussed, we should keep in the back of our mind is why Bacon shows to present the contents of the new Atlantis in like a fictionalized form.

Can I just backtrack and talk about the character of the work being unfinished? There's an implication in a note to the reader, which is the first thing one sees inside the book, which was written by I guess as publisher W. Raleigh, the end of the first paragraph. I thought that was him.

Yeah, maybe who knows? No, there's a very little thing. Yeah, he had a very close relationship with that. Yeah.

But so at the very beginning, right, the title is a new Atlantis and unfinished work. And then Raleigh says his lordship, Bacon thought also in this present fable to a composer frame of law is where the best state or mold of commonwealth. But for seeing it would be a long work, his desire of collecting the natural history diverted him, which he preferred many degrees before it. So the implication in this note to the reader is that the unfinished character of it is that it's missing the politics.

So that there's there's there's no political teaching to the new Atlantis, but I think that that's wrong for its work. I think there is a political teaching here. So maybe we can talk about the form of this. It's it's set up as a communication between the narrator and some unknown audience.

It's not clear how this communication is taking place. Is it the form of a writing or is it the form of spoken speech? Right? Are we supposed to imagine this narrator actually speaking to somebody?

And this might shed light on the ending where it says it's incomplete, right? Is the text itself? The rest was not perfected? Is the text itself not finished or in a way this letter or something not finished?

The reason I say this is because they travel it tells the story of them finding their way by chance to this island called Benselum with a city called Benselum. And they're given the option to stay there to go home. And one of the questions I have is, did he stay there or go home? The guy now the narrator had to have gone home.

We don't know that. How else would the text have been? I said that in a letter he could have sent it back with somebody else for all we know. That's a good possibility.

That's not it's not it's not it's not it's no. No, no, that's fine. Sure. Okay.

Okay. All right. Anyways, so but we don't know and and this narrator, the reason he's the one narrating is pretty clear. It's that he is brought there's kind of a general group of about 150 men that brought from their ship onto the island.

They're seen more and he is selected from the smallest group of them to go and hear alone about the secrets in Solomon's house, the scientific Institute that's at the heart of this island, very secretive scientific Institute. And so we have a sense of ways and the guy who communicates with them all the things that are there says, go back and tell your your people there in a way tell them how great our lives are, right? Among other things, right? Greg, you want to jump in?

Just a real small point, a great institution also incomplete. Yeah, but it was published with the new organ on, I believe, it's incomplete. Well, we talked about this, but it's the whole thing is incomplete. Yeah, it's supposed to be completed by later generations.

So sort of striving in that sense. I'm not sure. I guess the other reason I brought that up in this in this circumstance was because, you know, it's almost like her bacon incompleteness is a theme, right? And it makes sense if this is part of his scientific project, if his project is sort of very future looking, future oriented that his entire project is sort of, by definition, incomplete, like he's he wants it to go forward.

And this, and this, this utopian island, we could put peace together the background a bit of time, what's gone on, there's actually quite complex, because you go back there used to be a time where all the nations of the world would sail and be able to do that. Everybody was very technologically advanced. Then this flood happens. And it turns various of the continents more sort of uncivilized, where they don't have the same institutions of technology, you know, the Americas, the new world being one where they're just sailing from Peru, Europe being somewhat, somewhat pushed back.

But then for whatever reason, doesn't get as damaged. So they're able to continue going forward. But they're in a way, the only advanced place, the technologically advanced. Sometime after this, there seems to have been a Christian revelation on the island.

And so this leads somehow to the present circumstances, which is the religion is Christian, by and large, there's obviously this Jewish population. But also, there's the scientific institute that predates the revelation. We know this because they tell of the revelation. And in that period, we hear that there's already an existence Solomon's house, which raises interesting questions of whether the revelation is genuine or it uses the technology that they have.

Even the name of the island is Hebrew, right? I mean, Ben-Solem, how's it some of peace or something like this? There's a lot of questions to that you want to raise about names because the founder of Solomon's house was named Solomon. It's not exactly spelled like Solomon, like King Solomon.

And you wonder whether there's some sort of attempt to allied both traditions that might have been just sort of similar sounding in the name of the people. But then we come to the present age when this is taking place. And it's clear that Europe is trying to catch up a bit in their technology. They're starting to explore the world.

They discovered the Americas. The sailors are coming from Peru when they're blown off by the wind. They're not as technologically advanced as Ben-Solem, right? So this is sort of how they find their way to this island is just by chance, not by art.

And it seems like the inhabitants of Ben-Solem are starting to realize that their isolation is not going to be taken for granted. And so they want to communicate via this Spanish explorer back to Europe, how they do things there. I think the hope being that just as they went from technological to a Christian sort of technological state, that Europe can go from Christian to a more technological state. And somehow is through love of the peace and prosperity of Ben-Solem, I think they can things that this could have some kind of effect.

So I think it's trying to show is trying to affect a reverse movement of what is already taking place on this island. Now, a sort of historical point that my friend here at CU Paul to do brought up to me, bacon before he died had started this sort of secret philosophic society, which became the Royal Society of the Sciences or something like that. And British Royal something? Yeah, something like that.

But they beseech the king for funding. This is after Bacon's death. But this group, and they were meant to be separate from the actual ordinary university system. And there's very little to go from there's just a couple letters and people overstretched what exactly it's going to be.

But it does seem like what they envisioned was a kind of secret scientific society devoted to making discoveries in the sciences and making people's lives easier. And this would be disseminated. And it seems like the new Atlantis, the work in pencil and the city within it is meant to be a kind of highly sophisticated later version of what this might have looked like or kind of thing to be dreamed for into aspire for for Europe. Maybe we could be like this.

What one small point you mentioned that Solomon is a name that figures fairly commonly, it's Salomon and Solomon. And you also mentioned that they've been on the silent for a long time, the inhabitants of pencil. This is on my page 51 of this edition. It sort of says that they've been there for 3000 years.

So if they were there in the early 1600s, that puts them on the island roughly 1314 hundred years before the birth of Christ, which means strangely enough, they would have been on the island before the rule of Solomon and the Hebrew Bible. So it's paired with Solomon, but it's a great one in some way, which is really strange. So Solomon, I was thinking about that name, I'm like, what could it mean? It sounds like almost like it means one alone or something from Latin or Greek roots, right?

It doesn't sound Hebrew in the way that it's written. But that's an interesting point I didn't think about it. Yeah, so it predates King Solomon's reign. Yeah, and the other funny thing I'll say is if it is from the Hebrew, so then as the name of the town where they are, and Solomon, the name Solomon, they're both derived from the Hebrew word Shalom, right?

So peace. So there's the connection between the name of the island and the name of the main person. It's interesting to discuss also the touching point between the men on the ship and emissaries from Benselum. So they, a great deal of the crew is voluntarily ill.

In fact, everybody's on the point of starvation. Some people are just sick and starving and others are simply starving. So they're all set to expire or eat one another and then expire within a few days, right? That's the sense of also my imagination.

No, no, it's not your imagination. That's what the men when they first arrived, then so that's one of the things they ask them directly one another if no, if they had done that recently. Oh, well, okay. Yeah, I am.

Well, great minds right. And and so they the I don't know if it's great that the first thing you and I both went to is cannibalism. But yeah, fair enough. I can find the page for it just one of the I think it's the second person because the first one they first arrived.

So very quickly, because they don't arrive, but I just want to be clear on right. So that the ship from Peru is that sale is our narrator and some other sailors, they're just adrift at sea. They get blown off course and they're sort of lost. They finally encounter the Bensalom, a favorable wind blows them to a Bensalom, apparently, by chance apparently.

And the first guy says go away and then the second guy says, okay, you can come and then he asks them I'll see if they don't say hold on, hold on. They send a ship. So they spot land. They spot the island of Bensalom.

They see people that look like they have spears. They can't quite tell what's going on and the small dinghy or this craft or is up to them, sales up to them and says, listen, tell us who's on the boat, what you guys need will give you anything that you want. And then you know, you can go on your way, but we want to ensure that you're well taken care of. So, and at first, they're given, I think, a parchment with different languages.

So the Bensalom lights are trying to communicate four languages, four languages, be very Greek, Latin and Spanish. And the Latin is the University of Latin, right? So it's really funny that these are, that these are the languages that the Bensalom lights are initially trying to communicate. And with, they want the sailors to continue on their way.

So they there's, it takes a while for them to get comfortable to allow any of them on the island. They also refuse any payment the sailors try to give for the house. Just on that point of when they finally sort of let them come ashore or whatever, one of the questions I asked is on page 40 halfway down the page, one of the Bensalomites says, if you will swear all of you by the merits of the Savior that you are no pirates, nor have shed blood lawfully nor unlawful within 40 days past, you may have licensed to come on land and quote. So that's where I inferred that have you done any killing of one another because they don't want those folks ashore.

Eating, eating one another. Well, it doesn't say that explicitly to be fair. But the other thing is essentially about that. You read Greg, you're gonna pack.

I know. I'm a little bit peckish. But what's crazy is, have you shed blood lawfully or unlawfully within 40 days past that it's almost like the temporality is more important to them than the distinction between lawful and unlawful. For what I mean, right?

That's just sort of strange. They seem not to have a we'll talk about this later. They don't really have. It seems at first blush that they're concerned with religious rights, but really it's kind of like a scientific religion.

I wonder if all of these questions that are put to the soldiers or to the men on the ship at first are simply questions that that is the pencil lights way of sussing out whether the crew is an honest Christian loving crew, but they get the idea from books or something like that. So they have they have they're very clear that what they they're clearly driven by some mercy, but a cautious mercy, right? He said, we'll give you all that mercy prescribes, right? But they don't just let them right on to island when they do learn on the island they're in the strangers house because they might be sick, right?

It's kind of quarantine, right? We know all about this in age of COVID. But they're very cautious about those sorts of considerations. They're also cautious about what they reveal to whom, right?

They kind of check on people to see and then they show them their ways. But once they have assurance, right, but for instance, the first thing I asked is, how did you come to be Christian on this island? Right? And the guys like, Oh, that's great.

That's what you care about. First of all, and not, you know, this that or the other thing that we seem to have or medicines or anything like that. That's great. So they feel trusting that regards they're very protective, but still merciful, right?

This is in a way that religion religious part of this the relationship between the scientific aspect of the island and religious part of things really interested. It is curious, right? I mean, how did this island of people who apparently departed Europe 3000 years ago, how did they come to know the religion of Europe? How did they come?

Because people keep sailing into their people keep washed the last or the answer is prophecy. No, it was a miracle, right? Isn't it as a miracle that that's how the the pencil might become religious become? It was their spies.

They sent spies all over the world. Well, the officials, a little casket wash, wash, or shore, right? A prophet would contain the book, the New Testament, some other book. Well, you just drink that.

You just drink that potion and believe the lies of Ben's love. I'm just saying what it's difficult. Well, there's a question, right? So Solomon's house exists at the time of the revelation when we get to Solomon's house, we hear all this technology of explosives and light and very clear kind of glasses, all this kind of technology.

So it's possible that this could have been a contrived revelation. We also know that they send out spies pretending to be from other countries that, you know, so they'll show up and you're like, Oh, hey, look at these Phoenicians, but the Phoenicians are actually Ben's, Ben's, and they will they will try to collect books and all sorts of knowledge and experiment and bring them back so they can advance. So there's this, I mean, it's remarkably precious because it's basically what the Chinese do. Yes, it's information, you know, warfare, right?

It's it's hacking and stealing state secrets. And they're able to do it pretty competently. So it is feasible that they came across this book and thought this would be a wonderful edifying sort of religion for the island. Yeah, I mean, you're coming in, I mean, you're hinting at already in direction that I would have probably weighed a little bit of yeah, how nefarious are these people?

Or how how secretive are they about all the things they do? I mean, we talked about what they do yet. Oh, sorry. No, no, no, we've kind of jumped out in the room.

Yeah, when you say Solomon's house, can you tell the readers you don't mean listeners, the listeners that Solomon of old, we covered this, but there's a scientific institute called Solomon's house. Maybe we can talk about some of what what they do. It's highly secret. Highly secret.

A lot of their work takes place deep in caves underneath the ground, three miles deep, or on high towers, they have these hermits that hang out there. I don't really quick know what's going on with these hermits. But they send these people down there and a bake all sorts of foods. One thing that's interesting is this island has been virtually isolated for like, how long has it been?

Greg, 300 years, 3000 years, yeah, 3000 years, it's been isolated for 3000 years, and yet they built up massive tools of war, which I was thinking about in breeding, you know, didn't you think about that? They're Benselamites. Okay, not catamites. No, man, but you can't just have an island alone for 3000 years, few hundred people, they're gonna look like, you know, a bunch of Habsburgs.

It's not that it's a few hundred people. I think it's quite larger than that. It's about the size of Australia. It's huge.

But how many people inhabit it? I don't know, but I don't think a few hundred is suggested. What do you think, Greg? I think they'd have other people from their pleasure.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. In any case, there's, I mean, in the Institute alone, there's like 37 people, and they have multiple attendance and servants and stuff like that. And then there's the Hermits.

So I think even there, you already had probably like 150 to 200 people, at least, right? But in any case, they've built up all this technology, they have a massive war chest like all these engines and guns and things like that that they can use for war. It's not clear why they have this except for maybe a rainy day. But obviously, letting this guy know so he can bring this back and say, Hey, don't mess with us.

Like we are ready to go for it if the time comes. It's worth going through some of the things that they actually, they're scientific discoveries and vengeance. I'm is that worth something? Yes, pretty.

We're not sure. I mean, it's cool. Yeah, it is really cool. So I counted 24 for what it's worth.

And by the way, they say the goal is to understand nature so as to be better able to expand human empire. So that's the whole that's the purpose of why the hell is possible, right? Yeah, it's fun. So they have the caves you mentioned, but that can't be right.

Right. Because if that so their stated goal doesn't seem to make sense with their with their practice of staying inbound on their island, unless they've been waiting for the moment to sort of stop being isolated. It seems like they've been they've been hanging back spying, right? Advancing themselves, and they're ready for two possibilities either people get on board with their project or they fight, right?

They're kind of set up for both and now seems to be the time. I just want to mention a few of these. I'm not gonna go through all 24 hours, right? The highlights.

You mentioned the war stuff. So they have engine houses, they have all kinds of stuff related to war. A lot of it's related to making good food, which is worth interesting, right? Medicine, drugs, right?

The mechanical arts, they know how to make heat, they figured out how to air condition, right? So how to heat and cool some other importance, you mentioned how they're deceitful, they have one of the things they have is a house of de seats where they represent all manners of feats, false apparitions and illusions. I'd work there. Well, this is to your point earlier about where their revelation come from.

Maybe they figured out how to do that. The big one, I think that's important. I think we touched on this when we did bacon before was they have, they have these caves in where they try and mine to find things that will cure diseases or prolong human life. They have wells and fountains devoted to prolong human life.

It seems clear that part of what's going on here in the installment house is the attempt to conquer death. So the idea is that eventually science can we can conquer human mortality. One more, they'll just mention them, move on to whatever's next. They have this huge lake where they develop fish and foul.

So I guess they which makes some sense. But they also in that same context have figured out a way to harness the power of wind and how to make big winds, which then calls into question how accidental our ships arrival in Benselum was in the first place. It would seem to imply it would seem to imply. I mean, you mentioned chance earlier, Alex, I don't know if you did they arrive by chance.

But if you read this passage about the how they were going to harness the power of winds, it seems as though the Benselum might have actually been able to. In other words, what you see as a chance encounter, the sailors happening upon the island of Benselum may have actually been orchestrated by the this Hollitt Solomon's house in fact. So it wasn't accidental at all. So in other words, to your point about why would they why would they do X, Y and Z if they're trying to stay isolated?

I'm suspicious that they no longer want to stay isolated. They want to make it now want science to be out there in the world, which which recalls big and other work in which an island is ship is contrived to land on an island. Yes, exactly. Well, that's that's another thing I maybe we should do an episode on the Tempest right?

But the Tempest is an interesting parallel to this kind of the island here is called new Atlantis is called almost magical and angelic, right? It seems to be almost divine in the powers that it has, but it's all done through art, right? Similar to what's going on in the tempos. Also, in the the experimentation is a very, very advanced animal husbandry, right?

They're making new species through through mating. That was something that with the fish and fellas, that's right. That's right. And one of the things I think is important to grasp in relation to big and more scientific writings is he's really trying to lay out what would happen if you were able to understand things on a smaller level than the senses.

There's a lot of comments of, Oh, we can, you know, get a thing smaller than you can see, right? And therefore find all these new things and manipulate them. If you can, just as you can manipulate billiard balls on a table, if you can get to a really small level where things are even, you know, manipulable even then at that smaller level, then you could possibly produce even more outcomes, right? Instead of, you know, hurting livestock, you could change the inner makeup of the livestock.

So he's basically predicting without having the language for it, something like genetic engineering, right? If you really start going, yeah, that's it. You know, it's interesting to me, the sailors are given, first of all, it's not all the sailors, right? That's, they have to stay locked up and it's unclear.

The passage of time in this work is unclear. I can't tell it's compressed to just a few days. Or if you know, it's like, okay, you know, this afternoon, we're going to give you a tour of, you know, our NSA and a few other facilities, right? Is it just like a passage of a day or two or what's the deal?

So we don't know that and it's unclear unless you guys have a sense. And so to me, the big question I had is how much of these inventions and the time to be inventing these things is brought to you by the by a permanent underclass or class of slaves. Alex brought up the Tempest, we have a Caliban who, you know, even the Prospero has magic, which is a kind of like enslavement of nature. But but he also has, he also has Caliban to fetch wood and do other seemingly necessary things.

And or an aerial, sorry, his magic is, you know, he has a sprite named Ariel who does his bidding, who is like, in fact, she is his slave. And he frees her. So I don't understand who are the rest of the people in Benselam, are we given any hint whatsoever? Or maybe this is a good time to talk about one, he passed the job in the work entitled The Feast of the Family.

Yeah, so that those those there's the citizen slash subjects that referred to as both. I think it's it's unclear whether they're much of any government at all, right? But they are referred to as both citizens and subjects, I think mostly as the city is called Renfusa, or infusa, which means cheap like or something like this. So the people that's a good point.

That's right. People seem to be, I didn't detect anything like a slave class like you were talking. I wonder if the science and the technology is able to take care of a lot of the menial tasks. It seems like the people are constantly stressed, Greg.

No, no, that's right. Sure. Couldn't have been in it. To be my said, I apologize for coming.

No, no, I just look for my people, my people mind is is that I got the sense that there was a class of like our cons, essentially that like total rulers. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, totally apart. Who know that the science of the wins and things like this, and then everybody else is kind of.

Oh, yeah, I mean, look, I hinted at the beginning where he says this is work unfinished in the part that's not included as the political part. I think the political part is there. What you have is the rule of somebody seems to be above the scientists that enables the sign that harnesses the power of science to be able to rule. So there's a kind of super scientist over the top, I think.

But I mean, I don't have a lot of it to that. Can I throw in one part one detail that me throws a wrinkle in that he says, when he's talking about the secrecy of Stalin's house, he says, we have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences, which at the time also just meant experiment, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published and which not, and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret, those some of those we do reveal sometimes to the state and some not. So at that point, it seems like the state is privy, most of all, but but there are some things that they know and they say we should not let the governing bodies know about this, right? They they decide it's better not.

Now, as regards to the possibility of slaves, there is actually right before that, that same paragraph, this is like the last two pages, he says, we have also, as you might think, now this isn't apprentices that the succession of the former employment do not fail. So when you know, the older scientists kind of die off, they have people who can come into your place. But then besides that, besides the successors, there's a great number of servants and attendance men and women. It's not clear what exactly their political status is or how they live.

That's literally all we hear about. Do we want to go on to the face of the family now? Somebody has to scrub the petri dishes. He's to the family.

Barbara, why don't you do it? I don't really understand the spark. But this is before so we skipped ahead. So we were just discussing is the last third of the book where we have in a seat, you know, five pages, I think back to back, it's just, and this is the part of society.

I mean, and this is where they invented these things. And this is where they did these things, just all of their inventions and kind of their capabilities. And it reads kind of like a list, is that fair to say? Before that, we have a snapshot of family life.

I don't know if that's even fair to say. But one day, and again, how time operates during the short stories on clear, the narrator is invited with two of his company, or one other person. So there are two or three people are invited to something called the Feast of the Family, which is what they call it. And a feast of the family is this cannibalistic great day of no, it's not this day of celebration.

I think that the state that Ben-Salem pays for underwrites, once you've hit 30 people in your family, right? It's unclear. So so let's say Alex continues his merrymaking with his wife. So he has a daughter on the way.

And then she'll have kids, I think once the tribe, it's 30 living, the state throws a big bash for everybody. And during that bash, the estate of the family is discussed. Problems in the family are discussed, people will separate from the feast and they'll hash internal problems out. If somebody is going broke in the family, they'll get money.

It's a really weird digression from what's otherwise a kind of like a linear plot line that I don't quite understand. Yeah, I think I think one thing you're just bringing out is it's very ritualistic. There's a lot of very particular rituals and I'm sure people can try to make sense of them. I can't make sense of all of them.

But it is a very particular ritual. And it's conferred on to people who are remarkably fecund as as fathers. And this is a kind of reward for providing, I guess, the state pays for this, the state with new citizens. This should be paired with the fact that bachelors are highly condemned.

Right? It's really, it's really thought to be, yeah, I know, I know, David, you want to say, well, no, no, let's hold off. Yeah, I mean, I mean, Greg McBrayer isn't going to do well in pencil. No, no, he would have to be one of the Petri scrubbers.

That's right. That's right. You probably will tell me about his beard. You want to the hermits up in the tower watching the clouds.

But so I think one of the points of the feast of the family is to say, okay, where are normal citizens sort of sense of accomplishment or having achieved something above the average going to come from? And it's going to be by having a large family. In fact, the larger the family, the greater the presence, the greater the sort of ritual, the scientists have a hall of people who have accomplished something and they put them up there and they say what they did. And this is a kind of way for them to achieve scientific fame among their peers, right?

But for the average citizen to keep people in mind, they have to direct their sexual energies away from sort of promiscuity and toward reproduction. And that seems to be one of the functions of this ritual within the community. You know, the other thing that's interesting about is which on your right, I want one two quick points. One is that during this feast day or days, they frequently take to calling out for praise, great men like Abraham and Jesus.

So there's that like religious element to it. But on the other hand, property in the division of property factors into the feast of the family in a prominent way, at least that's what jumped out at me. So for all of the relief of man's estate, that the science of the island seems to have promised or to have made real property is still unequal. And that was that was interesting to me.

And there's also inequality among the citizens, right? So like the the father of the family chooses one of his sons to live with him, I guess, for the duration of his life. So like honors are appointed on some but not all. And you wonder how that happens.

But also not everybody in the family, like not all of his offspring would be apportioned the same amount of land. And you would think that they would solve this problem of scarcity and land or something like this, one of their many invention houses. So there seem to be political issues still on the island. And I don't know how to feast factors into that or if I'm making too much of this.

I don't think you are at all. I mean, let me just take a step back and situate us and tell us you're right. It's weird that there's so much attention is focused on this sort of familial institution. So I think one could say that the the entire book consists of let's say four main parts.

The first part is dealing with the sailors at sea and then how the sailors are received in Vencelum. The second part we get a sort of overview of the history of Vencelum, which includes their account of how they became Christian. The third thing, which I would say is one of the longer parts is the description of the institutional marriage among the Vencelumites. And then the last part, the longest part is the description of this scientific secret university place called Solomon's House.

So it's those four parts. And I mean, so marriage and the familial stuff is one quarter of the treatment for this utopia for us. So it's it's so it's, you know, like people study bacon and you know, we've we're going to mostly focus on the scientific stuff, right? But somehow for bacon, this family stuff is really important, which means I think that part of his project recognizes that families have to be changed in some significant way if we're going to have the kind of scientific progress that we want.

It's not entirely clear to me how you're right that they want people to have lots and lots of babies. I don't really understand why I guess, you know, it's an island. So maybe it's very important. But just a couple of things.

So it could seem, you know, we could start getting checks from, you know, folks on the family for this episode because they were so happy for how we're celebrating family and having to have kids and bachelors are bad people. I admit that that's true. I was a pariah for a number of years. So we change you.

I don't know why you guys got it with a filth flarr filth, but I understand why. But there's a couple of places where bacon lets so this could sound very conservative in other words, that people should get married and have kids. But he actually says that the feast thing he says is a lots bargain was he say they call it lots offer, right? So there's this which is a reference to a lot the whore with the yes, he's not a whore.

He's the one who I know that I know that. Yeah, he gave his daughters up or whatever. Right. And so there's this indication there in the text that there's actually something kind of nasty on here.

This is a he got drunk and slept with his daughters because he thought the world was being destroyed. No, that's they slept with him because they thought the world was destroyed. Yeah, they got him drunk and then they but also he offered his daughters the other thing he did was offer his daughters to men who were coming to town to kill people to persuade them not to kill to distract him from killing men. That's in the Genesis chapter 19.

So yeah, so in other words, you're right, there's all this sexual impropriety going on with with a lot and I can't believe we haven't talked about this yet. I can't believe we've gotten 47 minutes into the episode we haven't talked about Adam and you fools for goodness sake. We're going to save that for the mailbag but it's two it's too scandalous. I definitely want to talk about it.

We save that for the mailbag. No, bring it up, Greg. Greg, you've worked. You've worked so hard to repair your way of life.

I hate to see you fall off the wagon. Just talk. So they're we'll get to this a little later. I'll lay it out now.

I'm on my daddy. dip your toes in the pool. I'm gonna dip my toe on the other knee pool. So they they greatly prefer monogamy and pencil.

They don't like warehouses. They're very proud of fact. They don't have prostitutes or whorehouses. They don't like adultery.

They don't allow for swinging. Sorry. Just terms are very Allison David. No swinging is allowed.

The sex and disro worker houses. Whatever you want to call them. Woke Alex. And so the point is like they don't allow that.

So there's a very strict there appears to be a very strict sexual morality. There's no adultery. There's no promiscuity. But then so then you know, how do you know, you know, because men and women apparently would like have sex outside the institution marriage or they'd like to know what they're getting into before they get married.

How do we guarantee that I'm going to have that my person I'm marrying is actually suitable sexually? Well, they figured out a solution to this and pencil. And the solution is I think David and Alex is rational as they are. Isn't this how you guys handled your your weddings?

This will be good. All right, Greg. Let us know what they do. What they do is they you guys said you said he's your best friend 100 times and I know that you're both very serious people.

So I do we did we did go to the Adam and Eve pulls you went to really grow up man that is that's gonna get you canceled. So they what they do in Benselum is when a man wants to get married and a woman wants to get married, they allow their best friends to go check out the person they want to marry to make sure that everything's okay on the body. This is basically this happens. This is basically like a what do they call the former Brilis cronies?

Are they bonga bonga parties? Yeah, it's basically what it is in the krado. Yeah, bonga bonga parties, right? So this is supposed to be rational.

We'll talk about that later. I guess it's weird. How do you? How do you?

If humans, how do you constitute human nature? So it's not like rebel in a violent way against letting another man sleep with your fiance before you know, he's just looking at her and letting you know that everything's in order. Oh, I read that I read that is more than looking. I think you're probably right, David.

Yeah. Yeah. So right. Yeah.

Well, so it's like it's sort of like a measure for measure when we talked about how they got rid of all the the sex industry worker houses in the town, but they let the ones they open on the outskirts, you have to give it an institutional way out. You have to give some concession to human pro promiscuity. Yeah, that's right. So you think Greg in a way that with all of the scientific advancement of Ben's home, they don't they're still just like us in human nature, right?

I think that's right. I think they sense that when you give people a life of comfort and sort of ease with all the technology, you're getting them used to a kind of hedonism and you need to make an outlet for that, right? Where is it which is much of a strange like you can have a culture that's so decadent yet still pushes for marriage. I mean, like our own, right?

There's still a lot of marriage and we still have families and people, you know, you see it the most velocity that's with friends of ours, right? That they live, you know, lives in their twenties and then we don't even know. They're family members. All of a sudden, they're family men, you know, that's a rectal proper and I wouldn't name names nobody in this podcast, but certain folks I know they don't listen to this thing.

But you know, there's a sense that they're they've got to kind of decayed morality and and a kind of, you know, a gesture towards religion where it doesn't seem to really guide their lives in a really serious, but maybe there's a good way to transition to Joe and how he lives because he's a religious ostensibly a pious Jew and yet he seems to hold Christ to be a virgin born, right? He's basically buys into Christianity, some of its tenants, even though it's, you know, not part of his religion, he talks about how they've basically integrated Judaism within this Christian society. It's similar to what we see now, right? We have basically, you know, secular secular Jews who will just sort of, you know, there's not like a strong division.

Yeah, the interesting question is why bacon is including the sort of Jewish figures and what is there any deeper significance or is just sort of a character that's different. So Joe Bean is the guy he has a lot of interactions with our narrator. I don't know how you pronounce the name Joabine, I suppose, something like that. Anyway, but again, you've already talked about Solomon, we've talked about the Bible, there's all kinds of, we haven't gotten this nearly sufficiently in my view, but there are all kinds of quotations of the Bible for us for King James Bible, which Bacon obviously wrote.

And so here again, with Joabine, this, I mean, if you're if you're a Sunday school goer, among our listeners, this should sound like Joab who was David's right hand man in the book of Samuel for so long. He allowed me to get checks specifically. Well, he did he did a lot of nasty stuff for David. Yeah, so the one is the one is the funny thing is we just mentioned the bads where supposedly like you get to see your buddy's wife before they get married.

So he goes into things will be proper. But then the mention of Joab, Joabine should recall Joab who's David's all woman of bath and then things didn't go so well from there. Although we got that beautiful song about it. So I guess it all even down the end.

But that's you right. And so Joabine was this sort of nasty guy, he was some people who've done the Machiavelli with us will see that he was like a mess or a mirror to or go to the Machiavelli. Right. So there's this the Jewish character, his namesake in the right is this sort of really nasty character from person second Samuel who does all the nasty things for King David.

When David falls in love with Bathsheba, he arranges to have Bathsheba's husband killed in battle. There's two or three attempts and he's only killed on third attempt, but any of any gets him killed. Joab kills Abner. Right.

So he does all these nasty things. By the way, one of my favorite parts about the David stories, David's dying words in the Bible. And this is in first Kings chapter two, I think it's verse 11. David's dying words.

This is a fun thing. Yes, to have students by when I teach the Bible. Like, what did David's dying words? It's probably like, Oh, live long and follow God.

David's dying words are to his son Solomon. Don't let Joab's gray head hit the pillow without dying. Like kill Joab or is that's King David's final words. Like, that's it.

I mean, he says it twice. He's like kill Joab. Kill Joab. Now, what's he saying?

What does this mean? What does that mean for the texture? So I'll try to connect it back to the text for us. Our narrator says that Joavin, that's the character in the bacon piece was a wise man who was learned for us.

He said to possess great policy. Now, that doesn't mean a lot to us. But at the time, great policy meant he sort of understood politics. And so the idea here is, and this is I'm not entirely sure if you guys should free jump in that Jibin's house probably politically connected.

If he's not in charge, he's the guy who's helping the guys who are in charge run things for what's worth seems to me. Now, then the second question, okay, so if a Jewish guy is sort of the one who has the political wisdom, what does that tell us about bacon? What's it tell us about Christianity? The island is Christian for obviously for us were maybe this is a concession to the fact that Europe is predominantly Christian, but it's kind of a Jew for Jesus.

And so I'm wondering if that acceptance of Jesus is a recognition that if Ben Slum is going to go out into the world and it's going to have to be Christian at some point. By the way, in the real world in the West, science comes before Christianity in in Ben Slum, actually in the real world Christianity comes before science in Ben Slum is the other way around, right? So science comes first and then Christianity. But I was wondering if bacon is insinuating actually that by having this Jewish character be so important politically that the law is a better basis for a political community than Christian than faith, for example, for example, right?

So that rule somehow might be better. I don't know, you guys should jump in if you have anything on that. It does seem like there's a Christian morality in the place. It does seem to get all the way into Solomon's house.

I've never been able to make sense of this figure. I really liked how you connected it to the story of King David. I think that that really does help to make sense of it. And by the way, so I was killed by Solomon, right?

So the same name. Yeah. And he and it's Joe and he says, look, hey, the guy's going to let you come see him, right? So it's almost like he green lights it a little bit.