Welcome back to New Think Great. My name is David Barr. With me as always as my good friend Greg McBrayer. How are you Greg?
Man, I'm doing great. Good to see you. Good to see you too. And how are you Alex?
I'm doing a while Greg. What's on your hat? That's a cool looking insignia. No thanks.
It's the logo for a brewery that a friend of mine owns down in Atlantic called Reformation Brewery. You should visit them if you're ever in Woodstock, Georgia. So we at least want to listen from Woodstock, Georgia. Sorry.
I don't remember. No, no, he doesn't listen. What are we doing tonight? So tonight we're going to do something a little bit different, theoretical.
So I don't know if it'll go well. We don't know. But we'll give it a shot and we've decided to come up, each with one question to ask, to post to the rest of the group about anything about philosophic topics. This is kind of a window into our day-to-day lives.
It was hard to think of questions that I haven't already posed to Greg and Alex because we text all day. That's where I had a lot of these things. And then I'll, a lot of NSFW stuff too that we can't unfortunately talk about in the podcast. What do you mean?
That's what we're doing. That means not safe. It's worth Greg. Oh, yeah, we do that.
We're talking about David's ex- Jabel's shameful, shameful, shameful, pre-tribil. You know what church doesn't do that? They probably asked for money. I'm sure Bill needs to squeeze you harder for more dollars.
That's right. I'm sure the Satan worshipers must have something that fire and fish forks and stuff. They got to raise money, don't they? They asked for things like eyes of a newt or liver of glass meaning to you.
They asked for it. Delicious. I mean, all right. Only they read to you.
If only. All right. Here's my, here's my serious question. It's a David Barr and then to Alex for you, my co-host here on The New Thingery.
What was the first book you read that you really read? Or, I mean, I'm not being clear, but you know what I mean? Like, not like, you know, I read to Catcher the Rye when I was 17 and spoke to me because I was a wayward rich kid. I went to Presswools in Northeast and had everything handed me by my French fantasy or family members.
Not that. That's not what I mean. I mean, like the first book that you read where you're like, holy crap, I did not see that. And it really opened your eyes to the fact that there are authors that are worth reading seriously.
I think are we keeping this to political philosophy? No, no. Does any book I think is good? Yeah.
Oh, I remember in high school I read all William Faulkner. That had a real effect on me. Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
A serious effect on me. Because of, it was the first time I encountered the mind of a Southern writer. I had never really inhabited the mind of characters in the book or at least tried to. So, before it was all kind of you read a book and you digest it, but really feeling the difference between reading it and appealing it.
But Faulkner, it was just a lot of it was spooky and it's kind of difficult to track. And his short stories in particular had a profound effect on my interest in reading Southern writers, but reading simply. And then I guess to attack onto philosophy, I think the first book of philosophy that really opened my eyes is Montesquieu, Spirit of the Lost. With Butterworth in the class we were in together.
Yeah. I say all that in my free, you know, asking about the Spirit of the Lost. Yeah, I don't say. I mean, I don't have a lot good to say because they're that's how profound I do a favorite Faulkner book.
No, no, absolutely absolutely. We should do Faulkner at some point in the show. Yeah, a lot of good short stories to choose from. Yeah.
Yeah. What about you Alex? Yeah, I find this question really interesting because well, first I thank you. Let me tell you, let me tell you a story because this is that you're just asking a question reminded me of a girl in high school and way back when everybody was on Facebook, you know, wait, wait, wait, are we not on Facebook anymore?
We're not supposed to be on Facebook. I don't know. It's called the way it's on. It's the new thingery.
I'm on truth symbol. What's the question? I don't think it's launched yet. Truth social truth.
Yeah. Anyways, you know, you could put like a little thing. It was like a little like, here's my thought and I quote whatever. She put something like, I just trust anybody who says a book changed their lives.
Oh, wow. Now this girl was, she's a wealthy girl from Greenwich. She went on to date. Remember John and Kate plus eight?
Yeah. Yeah, of John from John. That seemed like a step down from a for a Greenwich girl. Yeah, she should have read a couple books is what I mean.
Anyway, so but no, the reason I find this question interesting because I immediately, my mind goes, what does it really mean to really read something? Because I remember having experiences reading something and like solving a puzzle or figuring out details even when I'm like in high school or something like that. But I remember, oh, wait, wait, for example, what do you mean? It's like we're reading poems like, I can't noticing little subtle details.
I can't think of a concrete example. Alex is really good at home interpretation. Is that right? Yes.
If I think you have a poem for us to interpret later, David. It's a limerick. It's a limerick if memory serves actually. Well, it's entitled Animal Farm and I found it.
Oh, I can read it. There's an extra on that one. This is a record. You know, if Alex is good, I remember you so impressed that that's a graphic graphic.
That was, that was for me, one of the one of the experiences I really realized you could figure out a work in like work through all the details was reading shortly or in poetry, which is such a good exercise. But for me, the whole, what kind of author is that shortly or poetry? Like Shakespeare's song. Okay.
Or Dylan Thomas was one of my favorites. Okay. But when I was in undergrad, I was originally a physiology and neurologic major and I hated it. And I started reading a lot of Tostoevsky on the sign and then I transitioned from there to Nietzsche.
And then I was reading Zarathustra and there's a passage on... Why are you reading Zarathustra? Just because of the association with Tostoevsky. So just on your own, you picked it up?
Yeah, I just picked it up. And there's a passage there on the leech brain expert. And I suddenly saw that Nietzsche was caricaturing the sort of person that I was studying to become. And it was utterly like reprehensible, this figure.
And it was the first moment I think where I really read something and I got a little bit of self-knowledge in a good sense of how the putative good I was, I was pursuing was not actually good. That's really cool. What about you, Greg? You know, it's funny when I was young, many moons ago, I was a voracious reader as a child.
And then high school kind of beat it out of me because I just didn't enjoy the stuff that we read in high school. And we read good stuff. I just don't think that, I mean, being high school teachers is almost a thankless task because you've got to try and force feed. There was like pearls before swine, right?
These knucklehead kids who don't know what Shakespeare was. I didn't understand it. Maybe the teachers actually didn't quite understand Shakespeare's name. Shakespeare had a teach Shakespeare well.
But high school turned me off to reading for a while, honestly. I mean, I sort of just read the Spanish religion stuff like that. High school. With one exception, I can remember reading just last week, actually recorded an episode with Lowenthal in the book of 1984.
And I do remember being sort of, this is going to sound like a strange confession. But Winston's relationship with female protagonists, I think, I mean, it's Julia. I don't know why, but something about the way that their relationship was described and how they were trying to steal away and discover love under a totalitarian regime, something that spoke to me in a serious way. And I mean, it's just stuck with me.
I was very young. And so that, but I mean, I didn't really, I don't know that I would say that it sort of drove me to sort of read more books or something in a serious way. The real first time I read something that like you were just saying, compelled me to sort of face some opinions that I've had and to show me that they were wrong. And it took me years to work through it was to play this for Tigris.
It was my junior year of college. I wound up in class with Bob Bartlett. And we were reading a passage and I just remember saying, well, that's just not right. And Bob said, well, Dr.
Bartlett first of the time said, you know, why don't you come to class on Thursday and explain why? So I put my mind to figuring out why Socrates was wrong. And lo and behold, turns out Socrates was a weeb bit wiser than 20 year old Greg and Greg. And so now 40 year old in the prayer, you since their past soccer.
Yeah, you've already met 40 I remember that. But that was many moons ago. But yeah. And so honestly, that was the first one that that was the first book that taught me I had something to learn from books, not just something that could sort of move me or sort of enjoy where I actually where the prospect was that this book might actually contain, I didn't know that time and I wouldn't use this word, but now I would in retrospect wisdom, right, that it knew something that I didn't know about this slow reading was something I learned later on in life.
Yeah, exactly. Through political philosophy or careful reading. Yeah, for then it was not speed reading, right? You read it in normal rate, casually.
But reading the hair, that's something that you acquire. What really bothers me is it's hard for me now to read not slowly. I picked up Moby Dick recently and I was like, I'll read this as a fun book. And two pages then I'm taking notes and sort of counting things and sort of trying to make sense of things that seem inconsistent.
And then you just realize that like, dang, every book is a really good book, probably if it's been around a while and the author probably did have some serious things going on. Well, not on Clancy. But I mean, even I would even go so far as the state time claims, you know, it doesn't adhere to the principle of local graphic necessity. There are probably subtle things that you don't pick up on, right?
And yeah, I mean, I like what you were just saying, right? Because there is that experience. I remember when I was in college, I was just sort of finding this read. I started reading Kurt Vonnegut.
And I would just crank through like two books a day, three books in a day. Wow. Well, they're just so readable and they're fun. And then at a certain point I'd gone through like eight of these and like a week.
And I was like, I don't think this is what reading is supposed to be like. I don't think you're supposed to just breeze through it and be like next like next year, you're binge watching TV. Right. That's why I'm so impressed with book reviewers as a class of the I really like writing book reviews.
But it's hard. I remember once I was on Twitter many moons ago, I interacted with the book editor of the Washington Post, Chilean guy. I can't remember his name. I can't remember his name.
He's still the book editor. And I asked him, Alex thought this was really funny. If he was ever bummed out that he had to read so many bad books to read, because it's not like the Washington Post book editor gets to read Xenophon as part of his digest. And he has to read every stupid political book that comes out, Oprah Book of the Month stuff.
And he gave me some answer, which didn't didn't satisfy you. No, no. And Alex Lachie said, David, I hope you implanted the, the seat in his mind that his own career is for nothing and a great waste of his soul. At least he doesn't have to sit in the assessment meetings all day.
That's the real soul pressure and stuff. Hey, Greg, let's take a minute. So I don't want to talk to you about our sponsors. All right.
Have you ever wanted to read ancient Greek Latin or biblical Hebrew? Well, yeah. But you know, I already know Greek and I don't really want to just sit down and translate isolated sentences with addiction. Or I really want to sit down and read in that language, you know, with with ease and and also enjoyment.
It is possible to learn this. No. The ancient language institute is teaching people to do you remember our old friends at the ancient language institute? Yeah, of course.
Just what they do. They're classes. No. I don't.
I don't. It's classes in ancient Greek Latin, biblical Hebrew. And this term begins in May. Shut the front door.
Yeah, they're closing the sign up soon. So you gotta go check it out. Right. I'm going to go to the Atlantic unless you bone up on your Greek.
I will bone up right now. Yes. So they have five online courses. I've got a very I'm a very busy skit.
Oh, all right. It's very flexible. Yeah. Okay.
We say you go to the ancient language institute. Where would I go to find that? Ancientlanguage.com. Oh, that's gonna be good.
Go guess your ancient language on and now. Back to the show. All right. Bye for the question.
That was the money to ask yours. No. So I think I spend as much time reading literature as you guys read philosophy. So I'm deficient and really studying.
I'm always reading something political philosophy, but the deep study that you guys engage in, it's only sporadic for me. Right. And so I was wondering, and let me say one other thing. I remember when I really began to learn Plato, when you are able to inhabit the minds of the characters while simultaneously tracking the logic of the argument, that's really the important pairing.
So the dramatic aspect for us, Straussians, and literature helps without immensely. So my question for you guys is, if you think that would you maintain that philosophy is the surest road to wisdom? Or are there other roads like reading the great works of literature that can get you to the same end, but it's slower? Or will they simply just not get you as far as philosophy?
Maybe in the best cases, but I would say as a general rule. I like literature and I've been trying to remedy for these last four or five years. So I'm the opposite deficiency of you. I've read a lot of philosophy in the last 10, 20 years.
And I recognize that I didn't know a lot of literature. So I'm trying to correct that deficiency and also to check my, I would not say prejudice, but my opinion that philosophy is more serious. So I mean, I read literature with a colleague of mine, actually in English, we've had a re-group going just two of us last time. So I was an instructor, I've been reading literature on my own and literature with my father to test this.
And maybe there are some exceptions, but I would say the best works of literature are works of philosophical poets, but by and large, most, I don't know, I mean, I really like crime and punishment. I think it's an excellent, excellent novel, maybe one of the best. I'm not sure that it rises to the level of philosophy. Now, I already mentioned this book, so I apologize, but I Moby Dick Mike, actually, there might be some serious stuff going on there.
At Homer's, if I were to write, so I'm not sure we wouldn't call that literature per se, I would say that that probably gets close to philosophy, but it doesn't sort of point you there rather directly. I don't know. What about my theological readings, Greg? Is that some sort of philosophy?
I would say that there are two main rivals for the path of philosophy, right? Either wisdom is the beginning of wisdom is in wonder or it's in awe. I think those are the two fundamental alternatives. And so I guess if I were pushed, I would say that most literature tends to point in the direction of the latter and not the former.
It's an interesting, I'll pick up on the example you brought up at the end there, Greg Homer. And there's this moment I always point to at the end of when actor and Achilles, I think I brought this up on the podcast, but when actually Achilles finally sees each other, actors wearing Achilles armors, he decides we'd only want to stay outside of Troy as everybody's fled by Achilles on the rampage. He kind of talks to himself, sort of internal monologue, and he says, you know what? You got to try, you got to try and beat him.
You can take it. Then he sees Achilles in his divine armor and he says, F s and he just cuts right away. And he runs around Troy three times and so it seems to me that it's staying. But there's a kind of a socratic moment there, right?
Where you have an opinion of self knowledge. Yeah, you have an opinion of yourself in the world. And then a counter example or an example or an experience goes against it, right? Now the problem that you mentioned that because that same example, I mean, this idea of somebody being, but that's in the education of Cyrus, right?
One of the guys at Cyrus Bonkers, he actually meant has the Delphicoracle in his context. I thought I was better than you. And you've actually taught me about myself in battle that I didn't know myself. Anyway, I wonder if that's a consistent theme.
I wonder if that's a way that some of these philosophic writers, they would use these military encounters to sort of teach people about self knowledge, just as an idea. Absolutely. And I think it happens in smaller ways too, then like, you know, getting slaughtered Achilles. But I think, you know, there's a way in which that we have theseocratic moments in life where we convince ourselves such and such a thing is going to be good for us.
And then it doesn't work out. And we have to kind of reassess our opinions. And so there's, I want to say on a certain level that philosophy is kind of embedded everywhere in small ways. But there's, I don't want to say, well, it's something something different happening in the platonic dialogue.
It's not just an opinion is then has a counter example, but it's the whole network of your opinions is brought up. And they're sort of brought into tension. And you accept bad arguments. And you start seeing a whole litany of blind spots, presumably you have like this perfect, you know, lock it up like sogreys.
And you are thinking brought up away from just your own opinion, having a mistake about a particular case or something like that to general confusions about the world, about your place in it. And I think there's, maybe it's a difference of degree rather than a difference in kind. But I do think they're, and I can't put my finger on it. So, you know, maybe I'm just struggling with my own sort of ability to find this.
But I want to say there's on some level something different going on. Let me jump in my colleague with my read literature. I think he's trying, I think he's gently chiding me and trying to say that the attempt rationally to understand the world is actually limited. And it distorts things.
And I think he thinks that other things provide us better access to the beings, music, emotion, feeling these kinds of things. That's not my view necessarily. But I think that's his view. And that's the view I'm trying to to work through for myself.
I'm not inclined to that view. I'm inclined to view that I think the emotions distort. Like, when you're, so I ask this sometimes, I'll be like, I do know that you don't understand things more clearly when you're sort of brought to this point of sadness or sympathy or something like this. Like, what made it possible, but no one thinks that you see more clearly.
There's some exceptions like Cleyana. So, it's what no one thinks you see more clearly when you're angry. And so it's, it's not, it seems to me that the emotions cloud are judgment and therefore our understanding of the world. But don't you get the sense that the run of the male peanut farmer sees, sees the world more clearly and understands his or her place in the world more clearly than say Martha Nussbaum, or any member of the University of Chicago philosophy faculty.
I mean, seriously, like you do come across Salty the Earth people that have no education in any of this. Haven't written books about metaphysics or the permedities. And you just are impressed with their, it's not like they're folksy with them because that's, that's to denigrate them. Like, they can see something more clearly with their limits.
It's a lot with World War II generation, people that missed out on college. And it's like they, their insights are when I read interviews with some of these people, it seems like their insights can be more profound than your average philosophy professor. I'm not going to speak ill of Martha Nussbaum, for whom I have nothing but the highest regard, nor any of the academic professors at the University of Chicago. But I will say I have met a lot of academic philosophers in my life.
And I will, I guess let it suffice to say that simply having a PhD in philosophy does not necessarily mean one is very philosophic. And quite frankly, I think sometimes it can be, they can give you a false sense of security on your own, the philosophic character, which I think you're right. In a way, it's misleading. Yeah.
I think what you're getting at David in unflattering language. But I think what you're getting at is they're closer in a way to the primary phenomenon of life. Whereas when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, I tend to understand the world is filtered through this institution with all its conventional aspects, right? And you've got your career, your ego, all this sort of stuff, whereas the peanut farmer is just trying to understand how to live off peanuts, right?
And, and has to come up with some, some idea of what it needs to be, to be good at what you do, right? Or to be, you know, there's, there's a way in which there might be an awareness that's that I mean, it would be, I think, unfair to people who spend all the time thinking to say that, you know, the lowly peanut farmer is their quiver. Why are you a noble peanut farmer? But I understand your point.
Yeah. Most of our farmers say all from Georgia. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to say anything negative about them. Why are you more interested in, I mean, you've said by your own account, you read more literature than philosophy.
So you said that a lot of it because you seem to be very much drawn to philosophy and nevertheless, you spend more of your time and your intellectual energy and literature. Is there a reason for that? Yeah, it's my kids, period. I mean, so I understand.
It's hard to sit down with a great work of philosophy and study it, you know, with an pen and paper in your hand, right? You need undivided attention to do it seriously. The literature you can read not casually, but yeah, casually, but it's, it's, I'm not counting. I mean, you're doing this with Melville.
So you're understanding that book will always be deeper than mine. I do this right. It's probably do the same, but it's just difficult with, with kids. And so I've been reading a lot of literature in history right now.
But I, and I will take notes on books and I'll read commentaries. That's helpful to me too, because in the absence of serious note taking and then the seminar classroom with you guys, a commentary will kind of bring out just what's below my, what's underneath and what I think I could have gleaned how I've been going more slowly. I mean, just get a little bit older. I can go back to a more meditative study.
Should we ask you the next question? Sure. Yeah. So I was thinking, what have you been reading lately?
And just what have you got any thoughts? Like, you know, just sort of, one of the things I like about, you know, I'll say is one of the ideas behind doing an episode like this, what? You got to prep a whole test. You got to come up with some accountability.
When in reality, what are you actually doing? How many of these little flashes of insight, these little moments, or that's pretty interesting. And you want to share that idea. And that's what most of our conversations are like.
So I thought maybe if there's anything you've been reading, you just had had a thought based on that. Maybe there's something you want to share. I don't have a good answer about a deeper answer that. But I would just say since we're talking about Melville, I was reading Will Morrissey's Melville's Ship of State, which is a commentary on Moby Dick.
So very much like what David just said, I was trying to spend a little time in the commentary on the work of the literature. What else am I reading? I've been teaching the discourses on Liby's, so I've been reading that. That's a hard book.
I feel it's so funny. I always feel guilty teaching a book like that because I just feel like it's so far above my, what I'm, I know there's so much that I'm missing in that book. And so I just feel woefully inadequate when I teach the students. But then I try to console myself saying, well, you know, I probably know this book better than most people, like way most people, but I still just like once you realize, I mean, what it would take to know that discourses like I know the republic is five to ten years of deep study.
And I just don't have that. I have a good knowledge of it. So that's kind of frustrating. I was reading Harvey Minsville's commentary on the discourses that was helpful as well.
Was that one new words in order? Is that one that was going? Right. Yeah.
So I've been reading that. I'm reading Jane Austen with an English professor I mentioned earlier. We get together and we read about it chapter a week. So I'm making quick progress.
It's hard for me to keep all the characters straight. I'll come back to what I'm learning from these. That's a good question. I'm not entirely sure.
David? I track what I'm reading now because again, with kids, you can go for two days and not read anything serious. And it produces this thickness sensation in my body. I get really irritable if I haven't had my time to read.
So so when I'm reading three different things, those Spanglers, Dick Klein, which is interesting and tough going, I'm about halfway through the first volume. I'll tell you about it in a month. What I've done with it. And then a friend said to me, or I remarked to a friend that they were no good living American writers anymore.
And I think that I'm correct, but he said, what about Cormac McCarthy? I was about to ask actually. And I said, you know, what about him? I had never taken him seriously because people I didn't respect really liked him.
And that's not at least the best the best thing to go by. So I've been I've just decided to read everything he's ever written, which isn't hard. It's only about 10 or 11 books. I've read seven of them in the past month and a half.
And I've only read one of his the road and I wasn't I wasn't inclined to go the second. Yeah, I just decided well, because my friend, Berkman, Sean McGlinn, if you're listening to this powerhouse, lobbyists, he really likes Cormac McCarthy. And so to stick it to him, I just decided I'm going to read everything I ever wrote. But it's not a great lift as people that know his work will tell you.
But it's about it's very bloody raw, almost biblical writing about the West and Mexico and the border, the borderline and lawlessness. It was very, very interesting aspects of his writing on apocalyptic. And he weaves through his through his books, incredible commentary and reflections on the divine and things like this. So I'm finding him to be an interesting writer, smart writer.
I mean, I was going to share something from teaching the Republic, but I feel like you guys don't know it. So I mean, I just had to give a paper on the Republic over at Shivi University, shout out to Neil Wergachowski for inviting me. David, he spoke for a few, by the way. He said, you were about him in Forbes and it helped him with his visa or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. About George Washington's address to a Hebrew congregation and he gave me an excellent quote for it. So that was that.
So David's a good guy. Don't believe the persona goes forward here of a devil. Miss and throw. Miss do the reverse that you guys do that I constructed listeners to do with Greg.
You flip our on-air personalities and you'll really find who we are. Oh, no, no. Yeah. So what did you learn from teaching?
Yeah, so I was just writing it out and I kind of realized I hadn't really put this well for myself and we talked about Republic once. I mean, this could be almost like a follow up thought, which is another thing I think would be good for episodes like this, our sort of thoughts we never got to on prior episodes. Yeah. But you know, I, you know, the, at the end of soccer, he's a conversation with Paul Marques.
He asks what is justice, but in the context, he's really asking what is justice that you think it's human virtue that you think it's simply good and she always leads to benefiting people, right? In a way, he's asking him to define this expectation that he has or define justice in life as an expectation. And it just struck me that this was probably the most honest point of the Republic where Paul Marques is really he's the most open book through Simekes, obviously, is very duplicitous. Glaucon, I think, is extremely confused as is Idemantis.
And it struck me that the rest of the Republic is through Simekes intervenes and that's the rest of book one. And Glaucon sort of takes out the Simekes critique but tries to make it more precise and clear. And that's just the rest of the book as a whole. It turns out that you never really returned to that.
And it makes the rest of the Republic seem somehow beside the point. But it struck me that there's a difference between asking what was Paul Marques's question, which is what is justice that you think gets this good, right? Being honest with yourself. And what the rest of the book is, which is defend justice against its critics, right?
Which in Glaucon's case, he's defend justice as perfectly good, which is soccer's that don't think wants to do or at least he doesn't think he can do, right? And it seems like the immoralist critique that you get ignores, I think it's true of Glaucon, emphysemitives, ignores your genuine attachment you have to justice, right? And the sense of shame you'd actually doing anything wrong. Whereas Paul Marques is far more in front.
So one of the things I was just thinking about is just when you look at that, what you just have to wonder what is Paul Marques thinking as he sees this crazy conversation. I don't think speaks to him. He clearly finds it interesting because he follows the argument extremely carefully as far as we can tell from his objection in book five. And seems to know to shut up and let the conversation go.
I mean, it's amazing self-knowledge to realize that I'll learn the most if I just speak quiet. I think he seemed into just quiet. No, I don't think so. Paul Marques, no, I don't think so.
I think he realizes, yes, something to learn. Now, to be fair, I talk a lot when I don't understand because it's sort of the way that I try to figure things out. So I don't, I mean, quiet isn't the only response one could have. I sort of have a question to understand.
I take things to something sometimes I've fairly seen a little bit aggressive. But last time I talked about the fall, it would happen. It's pretty common, actually. I think people just, they take things very personally.
I'm just trying to get to the root of whatever the conversations about. I'm sure you've had that experience before. No, my good one. Okay.
I'm nodding it. Yes. Okay. I know you're telling why.
Sorry. In the fall, I talked to the Republican. I finally think to the ball to notice that you gave me and just some careful attention to stuff. I was really dissatisfied with my understanding of the fingers section, the fingers number section of the public.
I think I finally made a great deal of progress on that. And strangely enough, I think it actually helped me to understand his account of the forms that it falls on the heel of. And actually, sort of a human explanation for account of the good as opposed to sort of this fantastic account of the forms in the heavens. So, I wish you probably just do an episode on it.
I mean, I can do it quickly. But I would like to do a little, just a little thought. A little sweet. The first thing you have to add to your taste.
Yeah. Here, I'm going to lay it on. First taste three day. So, when you're looking at the fingers, for a long time, I just read it.
And I would just hold fingers up to myself and be like, I know you would tell this time about it. And then I think I realized you'll help me out here, Alex, because it's not fresh in my mind. But what he would say is, like, your thought arises when your mind is compelled to reflect on something that is both the same and different than. And so, it's like, when I look at my two fingers, hold up your four fingers and your middle finger.
On the one hand, these two phenomena striking me is the same. They're both fingers. But on the other hand, these striking me is different ones bigger than the other one. Sticker one has a scar from a bar fight in Phoenix.
And one doesn't. And so, you're sort of compelled to sort of try to understand things by contrast. And then, I think, all is actually the point of what's not like that. What two things aren't, don't sort of compel your mind to think about them.
And then I don't know how much do you want to connect this to the good. But I suspect that the primary access to human beings have to the good is, I'm going to back up a whole lot, is this edible or not? Like dividing. So, in other words, finger finger, finger that division, we don't really care about that.
But the real fundamental division for human beings is, is this good for me or not? And so, like, imagine like very primitive man. And so, he's summoned upon the idea of the good, right? And this is edible.
This is not edible. So, good, bad. This woman is pleasant. She's good.
And so, it's then the multiplicity of good things leads you to try and ask or reflect on the question of what's good simply. And so, it's the way that the idea of the good compels you to think about things without there actually being some fantastic form of the good or something like this. Like, meat good, berries good, woman good. What do they all have in common?
Yes. Yeah. And there's a way in which certain experiences compel you to sort of something to explain it, a kind of cause, right? That's the language you use it, right?
Like the phenomenon, I can tell your mind to reflect on the difference. So, you have to take recourse to some kind of cause or some sort of principle you can even say. But if you make that too strict or reified and you want it to be simply in control, right, of experience, then you end up with the sort of hardcore play in this version of the... It's not compelling.
I found that there's just having a public line here handling. There's a 523, just before B. This is in book seven. So, I've got to say, here I show, I said, if you can make it up that some objects of sensation do not some of the intellect to the activity investigation because they seem to be adequately judged by sense.
While others bid it, the intellect in every way to undertake consideration because the sense seems to produce nothing healthy. So, your mind recognizes the efficiency and the sense perceptible. And so, you start reflecting on the things such as they are. So, that was a great insight.
And I've taught that book for the last 10 or 15 years. That's the first time I'd sort of picked up on that. So... Yes.
Well, I mean, we got a lot of listener questions. Should we move on in discuss those? Yeah, I think so. Unless David has...
Did he do a question yet or did that one follow up? No question about literature. Oh, okay. I do have a follow up question.
That's unrelated. But it's something that happens to me and I was wondering what happens to you and Alex. You guys ever... It's a growing problem, David.
Never... It's a water school. Yeah, that was pretty good. That's pretty good joke.
Thank you. So, are you ever reading anything and then you get an insight but it slips away almost immediately. Like a feeling steals over your body. Like something profound, you've discovered something profound but just as quick it just slips out of your mind and you feel weird inside your body.
And then this sounds odd but this happens to me from time to time. I was wondering if it ever happens to you guys. Yeah, for sure. The weirdest things are like when you'll...
I mean, sometimes we'll have worked something out in the middle of the night while I'm sleeping or in the shower or something like that. But then I sometimes it just is in my brain and so forth. Totally. And just like you mentioned.
Yeah. I mean, I have... I take tons of notes as a result. I type out when I'm reading.
I type out almost every thought I'm having. So, you ever go back over notes and you do... Greg, you know, you ever be teaching something? You're like, oh, this is interesting.
I mean, you look at your old notes and five years ago. You're like, have I kind of stupid or I feel like... Everybody talks with me all the time. Like, dang, that is super insightful.
But everybody talks about going back to notes and being embarrassed. But like, how about being embarrassed with your current thoughts? Yeah. That happens to me way more frequently.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I was on top of my game way back in grad school, right? I mean, I was just like, I mean, you're still young. So, like, I think I've gotten better things.
But the... I don't know what's the computer analogy that's appropriate. But like, just things aren't as quick as they used to be. The only synapses you have to apply are Mel and Greg.
So, that actually... Alex's comment about grad school, we can go... We have some... We solicited questions online from Twitter.
One of them was, if there's anything you could change, from your experience in grad school, would you do anything differently? And my answer is, not drink. And that's about what I would change. A second is probably not started, doctorate, but I'm not going to finish.
And then third is... I think those are my top two. Yeah, that's pretty good. So, what was the question?
Like, what would you change from grad school? If you would change anything, you and Alex are both successes. So, in a way, I don't know anything wrong. I mean, it's funny, like, the two-hour stuff that you regret, but I'm talking about...
Sure. I know students always ask me about grad school and they look at you and they're like, oh, you're successful. And first off, I mean, I don't think I'm that successful. But let's just grant it.
I am. What they don't see is, I'm old. I'm on Death's Door. It took a long time to get to this.
There were years, decades of toiling and misery and poverty, working in places that decent people shouldn't work under bridges. Like the basement of Fraternity Home? I lived in a fraternity house for four years. That was one of my jobs.
I mean, I don't regret that as far as it enabled me to save a lot of money and I don't know if I could afford it otherwise. But it wasn't exactly human flourishing. I worked in a... So, I lived in Fraternity for years.
That's absolutely true. One evening, someone threw a cinder block down the stairs and it missed me by a fraction of a second. Oh, really? What'd you do?
I was just pointing the call to the... It was close as I ever came to put one of those kids down. They weren't intentionally... You think I'm murdering?
Putting down has a range of meetings. That's why I chose that. We're kissing them. That's why I chose that equivocal term.
To be completely honest, it took some restraint not to do some serious physical damage to a kid. He almost killed me. Was he apologetic? Oh, yeah, yeah.
He didn't mean to do it. He just stupid kids acting recklessly. I wish I'd studied Italian instead of French Navy. Because I've become much more interested in Machiavelli.
At the time, I remember thinking Machiavelli is the only thing I'd want to read in Italian, whereas in French there's Montshew and Rousseau and Tocqueville. And I do enjoy Ringo's guys. I think I've actually... I think I might have some interesting things to say about Machiavelli if I were to.
If I knew Italian, if I were to keep pursuing that. But that's a silly... I'd rather study Italian. Yeah.
I wish I'd spent some time studying bacon. I study a lot of Descartes and it's only in the last five years, maybe that I've really started putting effort into bacon. And I feel like I didn't appreciate how much of a visionary was and how eye-opening he is. Or I have to wish...
I don't know. I took all three of the courses in grad school. And I wish that I had a really excellent professor teach me a really good survey. Just kind of kneeling down.
Because I mean, I studied stuff like good teachers and excellent teachers, but teaching very sort of narrow things. But I feel like I've been filling in a lot of gaps that other people I know who had professors like that, they just kind of have that lay of the land. I think the best graduate program in political philosophy would be one where there were two courses running concurrently. And this almost happened to me basically.
Do you remember that Ben Barber was at Maryland when I was there and he taught basically all of Russo one semester, which was nuts. I remember you suffering through that incredible amount of reading. It was nuts. But at the same time, I took a course with Butterworth on Russo and we read just the Emil or something like this.
And so like pairing those together, I thought was fantastic. I mean, I became familiar with all of Russo, but I didn't learn any of that well in that class. But then I did learn it well in this other class. And so I go ahead and I think that's a good way to study.
It's like all for its Greek Global Thought class, which you sat in on with me, was like that. It was a nice survey of Greek Global Thought. But it wasn't particularly demanding in the way that a Butterworth class on the Republic or the laws was. Yeah.
So we don't end on before we go to the next questions. I didn't mean to be so glad with my answers or some negative. No, no, sure. One thing I think I did correctly in grad school, and this goes out to any listeners who are graduate students, especially in doctorate programs, who sense given the stark reality of the job market that they may not land a tenure track job.
One thing I did that I don't regret is every summer I took a like in an internship. I did it with consulting firms. I did it in the private sector, good internships. So what I lost with that, of course, was reading and studying, which some of my classmates did and went on one of them to get a tenure track job.
She left the writing world, which is funny. But that's one thing I did. So if you even have the slightest inclination that the road ahead of you is fraught with impossibilities or, for instance, you meet somebody that you want to marry, they're eager to have children, they're going to be read with then start interning, get your resume, get something on your resume that's just not academia. Yeah, that's good advice.
Yeah. Yeah. So we have some interesting Twitter questions unless you guys wanted to do some sort of questions. That was a Twitter question.
So here's another one. Are there any thoughts about Socrates and Xenophon's writing that cannot also be found in Plato's dialogues? This is a great question. Oh, yes.
I mean, gosh, we can do a whole episode on this. I think that Zenitha is consciously writing after Plato and trying to correct or counterbalance Plato's presentation of Socrates. And I'll just give up my favorite one, Alice is probably tired of hearing me say this. Zenitha mentions in passing that Socrates conducted reading groups with his best students.
And you don't get that in Plato. And I think that that's one of Socrates's, that's one of his chief activities, it's central to his way of life. And it's funny because in a way, I think I think we all must have sensed that because we all talk about Socratic style seminars, where we read a book and talk about it. So we must have somehow intuited that that was what Socrates was up to.
There are other things that he's, I think Zenitha lets on in a way that you could get in Plato, but it's less clear that Socrates was a natural floster all the way to the end of his life. So there's just a couple of things. Last one, third one. I don't think you get this in Plato to the same degree that Socrates was a hard-nosed, realized about politics and understood things and taught men how to be good at politics, including Zenitha.
That's a good answer. That's clear. Another question. I'll have to use one for my Twitter.
Oh, yeah, sorry. I'll take it from here. Yeah, this one's from a good friend of the show, Joseph M. Keegan.
Was Lyndon LaRouche a political philosopher? Yes, this is obvious. And he provides an excerpt from LaRouche's Wikipedia. No, yeah, this is obviously a joke.
Joe is a good guy. He's definitely a joke. People won't recall, or if you're of a certain age, you may recall if you were studying Strauss stuff at the time. During the second Iraq war, LaRouche became fascinated.
The LaRoucheans became fascinated with this guy with some political guy, a minor figure. Made him ran for president, racist and anti-Semite, too. Was he a senator at some point? Nothing wrong with him.
That's L.D. J. Alex. He's going to get to Google again.
So no, he was not, I don't think you were LaRouche was a senator. Can I say I think you ran for president? And once I was driving my old Ford pickup truck, this is a true story. It was a presidential election year.
I was driving my old manual pickup in rural Virginia. And then ad comes on the radio. I kid you not. It's a LaRouche for president ad.
And he specifically mentions Leo Strauss as being the source of all the trauma. That's right. That's right. I mean, like, who are you advertising to?
Like me and three other people who know the name Leo Strauss on the radio? It was just nuts. So I was in 2005 or something like that. They must have been around in the year.
They had a conference at the new school about Strauss that had a who's who list of people there. Stanley Rosen was there. Harry Jaffa was there. A Werner Danhauser.
I'm trying to think like everybody was there and Bill Crystal was there. And when Bill started speaking or when they started taking questions from Bill's panel, because he was on a panel, he talked about a few Strauss's works. There's Linda LaRouche guy. Game up and started, Bill Chris, blah blah blah.
I did change. He blah blah blah blah. I just going off and went shopping. I was like screaming and three of the manliest Strauss.
Oh, that's like saying in the land of the world. And he's just grabbed this guy and threw him out like he's Jesse Jeff. We have a similar experience. David DeWashan tells you.
Yeah, I didn't see this firsthand, but it was reported Butterworth tells the story in a gentle way because he's so polite. He's a gentleman. But that some LaRoucheans burst into the graduate seminar because he started accusing Strauss and Butterworth of Lord knows what. And I think Butterworth was kind to them.
And he tries not to philosophize with them, but to be reasonable. Right. This Butterworth gives a lot of people the benefit of the doubt that their philosophy, I mean, it was nice to me for the better part of the decade. Yeah, yeah, me too philosophically inclined.
But at some point, they just they were too thick scald and obviously had an agenda and truth be told, I think we're just mentally unwell. These are the kinds of people that are attracted to these movements. And so they were forcibly removed by our good friend, Wasim. I see, my old man or Wasim, my old man or Wasim.
I've never seen him say a bad word about anybody. He's still he's physically escorting them out. Yeah, yeah. Pretty impressive.
Very impressive. I have one. Okay. The Rob Burns asked.