Today's episode is brought to you by Man Animal Love Association, established in Georgia, incorporated in Ashland, Ohio. Mala serves a small community of men who since life can only flourish if lived with the erotic companionship typically found in Barnards. For more information on Mala, please contact g underscore mcd at horse fanatic.com. What is G underscore?
What is G underscore mcd? It's just one of the officers of that association's that you may do a lot of public service. I do a lot of public service. It's mostly yours.
What? Not only the president but also client. They're so disorganized early on. What show is this?
What show is this? I'm Max and you think green. There we go. My name is David Barr.
With me is always hard to point Alex. I'm doing well with me as always as my good friend Greg McBrayer. How are you Greg? A little insulted but otherwise doing just fine.
Greg was always this is good friend. Bessie the pig. Bessie is a cow's name. You guys didn't know your barnyard animals.
Hey pal, you're the one that you're the expert in that realm. That's right. I just learned from you. With me as my good friend, Angel's any bourbon.
But speaking of potential erotic backdoor barnyard ventures, can you tell us about who you've invited to Ashland to experience the local world? So this is tomorrow night. But by the time this airs, we'll be living in the past. But we, my colleague David West here at Ashland University, he's our Romanist slash.
He teaches Latin for us. He's putting on a conference on Roman political thought. A lot of really interesting people. Daniel Capitalist Wayne Ambler is giving a paper too.
Wayne's going to be here. Wayne's going to help teach the education of Cyrus next week. We're going to hopefully have some beers. But we had a keynote speaker for Friday night who due to family reasons, I had to pull out last minute.
He pulled out Tuesday for a Friday. Not blaming him. It's something really emergency happening. David West was just crying tears.
I don't know what to do. I should just jump off a bridge and commit Roman suicide. I said, hold your horses there, buddy. I know a guy who's sort of a world famous classicist and chair classic at the D flagship state university in Maryland.
What are you talking about? Snakebite. I'm talking about Snakebite himself. Who is that?
Who is that? Who is that? Who is that? Who is that?
Who is that? Who is that? Who is that? Who is that?
Who is that? Who is that? Who is that? Who is that?
Who is that? Who is that? What is the title? Who is it that guy who's gonna come?
What is the title? Who Has the title? Where is he gonna be? He'll play out ofrazies on that day.
Where is that guy? I know so many of you know talk about that Iyer isumbling about multitasking. There's a couple of difficulties here at That we went from a friendship of the gas to I admit just a few times in the neighborhood Right comes on the show and you know, of course he hits it off with the two of you and we text with Eric now And it's it's awesome that he's coming. Yeah, wait Other co-host also has expertise in the classical world.
Yeah, but he's still in Denver. Oh, what's going on with that? Well, see Ashland has a bright Ashland has a we're very proud of our Christian heritage and we sort of our mission is to celebrate Christian's you they all values And so we try to bring in people who are sort of consistent with that mission You always said Christian Judeo not Judeo Christian. Does that how you say it's a good question?
We have a Vantison right there. See that's why we don't invite him right there right there I'm not inviting him around my colleagues come on. That's great and and more somber. No Craig you wanted to give a shout out Oh, right.
Yeah, I think we're doing it. Yeah, so my pastor bill He listens to all of our episodes he texts me about it afterwards he calls He's one of the four regulars we have who subscribe and he's specifically praised for me in Alex He did actually think you guys really that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, and so he was an accent with a semi truck last Friday Was pretty bad.
He preached on Sunday two days later and then realized he was in pretty bad shapes We say a month off work. You got a pretty bad concussion. He's fine. You know, he's fine But he's got to get a little bit of rehabilitation.
So bill hope you listen. I hope you're okay I hope to see you soon. I send a nice text joke actually just earlier. It's the joke that I put on Alex's Twitter feed for his birthday What's Justin Timberlake's favorite body of water stuff?
It's the crimey Know this but I taught you a pastor and he said that he actually voluntarily drove into the truck Justin is the punchline Right sounds about right. I hope this episode provides him with some laughs right me too. What is this episode about what we're doing? This we're we're doing a short.
I don't even want to call it a treat us I mean an essay is even discourse the disco. That's right by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Answering the question what is the virtue a hero most needs and who are the heroes who have lacked this virtue? So the Academy of course is gonna propose this in 1751 and Rousseau of course is famous first and second discourses are also answers to Public not challenges. Yeah, that's right contest.
Yeah, I'm gonna say contest basically It was not it was published in an unauthorized forum during his life And then I think it was only published posthumously and it collected works with his Changes he had edited it by hand So this is not like the first two discourses the first and second discourse which won prizes, right? But it's actually and he says this piece is which is that he does but I'm gonna continue to write it for you Yeah, it's a word or that was a fix by the way. I know who knows I don't know but I assumed that first paragraph was fixed later like when he was after he was aware that had been published that Well, that's how it's interesting to know I'm just speculating on that version. That was this crap.
I'm sorry that this you have to read this So really quick and then I like to start with the question We are using the addition the Cambridge edition but edited translated by Victor Garevich. It's excellent contains a number of Rousseau's Discourses this was two volumes of Rousseau's political writings ones of the discourses and other early political writings Which is wonderful all these short-rides and then the second one is the later political rights which includes the social contract I think the thing on the government of Poland and it's about right these I mean the translations are really good also the notes are so thorough so helpful. I mean, you know Great only my only goal is that notes are fantastic My only quibble is that there's no indication of the body of the text where there is a note a footnote So you have to I mean of course I'm doing this But you have to sort of go through the footnotes every step of the way to see if there is a note the corresponds or the end notes Excuse me. I'm sure that that Garevich tried to make it so but he's dealing with the British Cambridge man Yeah, I think it's I think it's just so many notes that they would it would have found Yeah, it's sometimes for a single short paragraph We still will just list a bunch of examples and Garevich will indicate what his sources are He thinks and explain certain things that I need to be explained and I think we just get way too clever.
Yeah, that's fair No, it's so he has paragraph Indication so I love that a little bit of a representation great. Yeah, so if you guys anybody's interested shoot us an email or at us or DM us and Or DM me because I don't really think it's a big DM. Yes, I'm Dix and then I'll send you a PDF Picks for PDFs guys is a new initiative by T So can I start with you? Are you good with a quick question just with the title so again It's what is the virtue a hero most needs and who are the heroes who have lacked this virtue?
But if they've lacked this virtue, why is he still referring to them as heroes in the title? I think doesn't criticize the question at one but at least one point in the body of the thing is the question written by the Academy Of course and some of the other discourses he re writes the question he does he doesn't do that here? It's implicitly does I think I mean I think the answer your question is it's the virtue a hero most needs but could possibly do without That's I think maybe what's but he I think tweaks it a little further and says no the virtue you need without which you cannot be a hero Right, so he makes it from superlative like superlatively necessary, but not simply necessary and it changes that to simply necessary like you cannot be this So I do think he tweaks the best and then the second one who is a hero's or blackness virtue He just kind of stops it. I say he doesn't answer that He does talk about he talks about four heroes specifically toward the end But is he's not talking about their what they lack are busy like he talks about so long like Urgus Caesar and Another Roman Cato right no, it's a gossness and Cato right but even see it's Caesar and Cato So can we go to the notice let's start with the notice maybe I'll give it a let me give an overview of the text after the notice where he says I'm a paragraph one this is everything's very good.
Okay. He says the piece is bad, but it's bad because the question is bad Yeah, it's not my if it's not me it's you yeah But I bother to answer you anyway Yeah So then he goes into a discussion of the hero versus the philosopher and he's very critical of philosophy there And then he ultimately at least as a provisional matter comes out on the side of the hero He then goes immediately transitions however to a problem of heroism namely the problem of multiple heroes because we have multiple heroes They no longer are concerned with the public happiness but with beating each other So that becomes a problem then he moves on to the question of really what is the virtue and he spends most of the time I think about 15 paragraphs of the word that 14 for the best on courage or valor is that and that seems to be the obvious candidate for the distinctive virtue After dismissing that because heroes are supposed to be benefactors and a lot of valorous people are actually quite awful and do awful things He moves on to the other virtues justice moderation and temperance which he treats separately But as the same kind of and then prudence and he dismisses all of these and he ultimately arrives it arrives at in the last Well, except for the last paragraph in five paragraphs he treats four to two or four And by which he ultimately means force of soul or strength of soul as the virtue of the hero But only under certain conditions it seems like so he's very cautious and I only defines this and then he finally arrives at a conclusion Kind of concludes the piece and then that's it all right So it's it's initially again a sort of the hero versus the philosopher a problem The obvious candidates some lesser candidates that we wouldn't expect but he feels they need to treat them process of elimination really and then he comes up with this Strange thing to call virtue just fortitude and then he wraps it up right stuff. Yeah, so I'm sort of I don't I do it Myrtupines is a virtue for us. I don't know We can go through this a little later.
I'm sorry I'm just somewhat it's hard for me to separate it from valor. I mean courage Yeah, I'm in certain circumstances is this but he I think he ends up defining it so narrowly that he excludes a lot of people that are commonly Nilliness, right? I mean to keep it simple the last hero he mentions in his discussion of fortitude to Socrates Yeah, and so it's if that's your example of a hero. This is a strange right very limited So does he say that Socrates has this for I mean he returns to it's actually at the end as he specifically said that he had possessed this for it to I think so he says I mean it's into Robin all the end yeah, it's in the okay.
That's in red Socrates had died in his bed. Are you not they put to death in defense of philosophy? I might not wonder whether he was anything more than a skillful sauce supply. Yeah, but he doesn't He doesn't say that it was toughness.
I mean doesn't say it was worth it right? I was surprised that we didn't see Santa fun's name. I mentioned Graevich has them all over the notes Mention of their siblings and there's some other sea or that seemed indicate that he would have had Zenith in mind But I got his slippet Yeah, I'm not actually sure I'm not actually sure how much Russo read Zenith in No, no, he would have combined the philosopher with Right, no, this would be a good extension. No, that's right or Cicero or somebody like this potentially right.
That's very good. Yeah, I'm struck by the virtues by the way You were sort of going through this in a way that made sense to me at the very end he goes through these four Alternative possibilities. He's already gone to courage then justice then moderation and immediately in my mind I'm going to the five cardinal brief virtues And then you get prudence Okay as a kind of maybe replacement for wisdom since the philosophers are out but then instead of Well, then you get temperance which seems like okay, how is this distinct from moderation and he does distinguish it perhaps but what strikes me is odd and maybe it's just My concerns in life would be this seems to replace piety as the obvious fifth Greek cardinal virtue That's missing and so then I thought well who cares maybe this then the other bit Would there be a reason that Russo is leaving piety out is the is the implication here and there are these these heroes Some of them do claims for a divine paternity or this ancestry is this implicitly a conceiting that these heroes in fact are not pious Especially insofar as they're sort of claiming to them in other words, and not it's all a shame They're not really descended from the gods and so therefore only an empty as human being would declare himself to be you know Descended from Zeus or something like this I think that's right. I think I tend to think that when he's discussing so he says moderation and temperance together Then he goes to prudence and back to temperance right I took that to mean that The four cardinal virtues are courage moderation justice and then wisdom But again, I think you're right philosophy is gone So prudence so prudence seems to be obvious at least as far as like practical virtues are concerned right But I think I think temperance has He dismissed his moderation and then I think it comes back as temperance And it has I think it has a kind of claim at the end of the to have an important role in what makes a hero I took him to be distinct.
I mean here's the distinction I took him to draw between moderation and temperance incorrect me if I'm wrong on this But um this is section 29 Temperance he seems to connect to financial Financially and temperance because he talks about how much some of these other folks were profligate and then with Temperance its bodily pleasure. I would have expected moderation to be respect to pleasure. He seems to connect pleasure to temperance and not to Moderation if that makes sense. Yeah, so in 31 he says temperance is still less so a virtue hero Yeah, because there's so many in temperance heroes.
Yeah, so he says as it is the virtue which heroism itself As it is the virtue was hers itself, which is nothing but an intemperance of glory appears Normally to exclude so it's almost like a contradiction in terms right but then when he gets 38 Well, I was just holding right there and still 31 right like so it seems like it's about honor or glory But then like read the rest of the paragraph so and so died during a fatal debauchery just like David Barr hopes you one day He would have killed his friend. You know wouldn't anyway like cesar was chased But this other guy was consumed with pleasure also by these was in temperate with respect to sex Right, so even Cato. Well, this is punderminds my earlier money loved money and wine. So I really don't My thought here we correct him.
I took it's an intemperance of glory. Look at every other aspect of the life And you'll see how pervasive their intemperance is like sex money when he gets the 38 He says the following about fortitude. He says this is what's strength of soul or fortitude accomplishes This is how it can enlighten the mind expand genius and then dial all the other virtues with energy and vigor It can even make up for those who lack for someone who might be neither courageous nor jossing or wise nor moderate by inclination And this is the crucial point will yet be so by reason Okay, weird that reason comes in all of a sudden as the sort of crucial thing Raining unfortunately continues as soon as having overcome his passions and vanquished his prejudices He senses how much it recounts to his advantage to be so as soon as he is convinced So that's the effective reason you're convinced of something that he can realize his own happiness only by working for that of others So I think what might be going on here This might be quick by the way That's the answer the answer is for to fortitude is the virtue that most marks the hero But it requires to direct it correctly, right? Because he talks about a lot of people who are heroes who seem to also be kind of horrible right and Elotane mortality.
I think what he's saying here. It requires Temperance by reason right so it's an intemperance of glory, but it might be destructive Um and villainous were reason not to persuade it that he can most get what it wants by helping people by sort of being Film-probic in that way and so then my sort of thought here is so maybe what keeps heroism in check is a kind of rational moderation Right on a marginal level right that it pulls you away from mirror villainy Right and sort of infamy or something like that towards something like public benefit action Does that make sense that there's there's something that seems to be moderating it if you were tempering it Yeah, but you know it's you know, I was thinking a lot about while I was reading this is to know that Rousseau's insight in a way Places him above the heroes of which he writes so those distinctions They don't see them themselves and so they need categorizing and threshing right this definition of hero And so in a way without Rousseau one wonders, uh, you know where we are what these men are. Does that make sense? I think so.
Yeah, I mean I don't know. I don't I didn't articulate I think that I think this is one of the problems with the question right is they want an intellectual Exposition on heroism to talk about the virtues and to demonstrate in effect what the virtues are So they want to fill a topic of heroism But as Rousseau points out right on page one philosophers are capable of being heroes and choose not to be right So it's like it's doomed to fail from the start right you want to fill a topic of here with him No, I mean Socrates is the philsovic hero, but he does not die for the people's felicity He dies for the sake of anything. It's for philosophy, right? So it seems like you've got this The question itself is loaded in favor of the philosophers But trying to get them to praise a way of life that they have explicitly chosen not to live So the problem the problem with this the question that this discourse raises is it wants the non-hero?
To praise the hero so for most people that's fine because we all sort of admire We'll look up to heroes and so we can talk about what's great about them The same the soul human being who does not look up to them Would be the philosopher. This is in paragraph two of the discourse on the question right? So if I were not an Alexander said the conqueror I would want to be diagens With the philosopher who said if I were not what I am, I would want to be Alexander I doubt it right and so the philosopher Rousseau I suppose then you're Seems to be what you're implying would not want to be a conqueror because he's capable of going almost seeming But but doesn't want to do so only the wise man He goes on to say the one who would choose not to be a hero only the wise don't want to be yours They're whatever the rest of us would it seems that the heroes need philosophers to tell them what they are I think that's the that's the payoff here right is that Rousseau is in the position it would be silly of him to blame the hero right he says they are In Paragraph or he says if we consider them in their relation to the interests of society new reflections Will soon produce different judgments and restore the heroic qualities to the preeminence that is due there So they're due this program is and that here's a crucial qualification by common consent Right, so it's this is a common opinion has been granted in all centuries Right, so he admits this is a common prejudice a sort of San fraternal prejudice people like heroes because heroes help them They're useful to them as he puts it elsewhere So from society's point of view beginning of that paragraph the society prefers the hero to the wise man So from society, we don't build statues for philosophers And so from from our point of view from everyone else's point of view the hero superior So the question tree supposes the point of view of the common man I think so or I mean he's in a hero Yeah, he's in a weird situation which is if he's as a philosopher tell it so the philosopher's capable of heroism it sees seems He's also the most capable and demonstration right so he would be the most capable to write a discourse So he's in a position of either being honest about the preferably of the philosophic life right or of praising the hero Which is what they really want right and to complexify maybe to make it more complex heroism But not to simply undermine it right so he's forced to be more flattering than he would like I think this is why the piece is bad in his opinion is that he's kind of painted into a corner Right. I mean I I'm jumping all around because of the comments you're making this paragraph where he talks about fortitude and then he gives These examples he's been giving us examples here is all along with talk about somebody's always but here when we're settled on the fortitude What are the examples it's Cato Okay, so a statesman Regulus if you say that i don't know David West will correct me on my and snake by will correct me on my pronunciation also statesman By the way both had problems right now regulus was martyred and cateau was denied to consulship But then epic teetis.
Let's just say a philosopher Is no no less lustrous than the triumphs of alles andron Caesar so statesman statesman soccer t's non-stating So i'm just trying to work through like what's it seems like all of these guys when we get here They all had it seems like they've all met bad ends So part of what it means to be a hero is to sort of be have a sort of strength of soul It seems like in the recognition that death is what i don't know if you got a die young only the heroes die young or something like this Yeah, we're at 70 in cybers well i mean that's the that's the outlier here right i think i mean i don't know how long Any these people live but well epic teetis is being crippled that was when he was john right i mean when he was still asleep And also cateau is i mean he was denied the consulship that's not really that big of a deal He failed to save the republic right i mean he got afforded to but he didn't succeed in what he wanted to do so Yeah, i mean it's it's i mean the range of examples goes from your warriors to founders and legends so he talks about like her this and so he gives examples of heroes throughout complicated examples right but Right, yeah the ones that when he gets to the end here and then but to understand he also cites bacon right Bacon explicitly at the end and maybe it has a arrow but as a source and under right right right but so this quote of bacon is interesting because he quotes bacon The beginning so this is in paragraph 38 14 is then the virtue which characterizes heroism An argument which i derived from the reflection of a great man So he's not a hero but he's a great man bacon so bacon taught him this all the way at the beginning so that the whole book or the whole discourse Tasting at the very beginning i if i were not alizanter that's my dear t-mart's indeed this edition So this is this quote at the very beginning if i were not alizanter said the conqueror i would want to be diogenes now gravitch tells us that their roose quoting bacon Without attributing that quote to bacon but that bacon is getting that from stanaka Chris kelly who i've also read on the discourse concerning heroism he says that this quote comes from Plutarch's life of Alexander i double checked and it's in both so i don't know what you want to do with that The idea here is that if it is bacon as gravitch says this whole thing seems to be framed framed by bacon in other words Like there's this first paragraph and then there's the meat and then there's the penultimate paragraph Which is right i really wasn't making a bacon joke there There's the intro and conclude there are two paragraphs at the very end and then the second one and the penultimate one are bacon And so he seems to frame which is an odd choice for somebody who's like i don't think about bacon writing about human ambition and virtue and These things i thought that bacon writes about these great creators to come yeah he does yeah, but that's not that's not the but that's not these types right Oh, the icy yeah, yeah, um I mean he does talk about bacon in the first discourse right is one of the great benefactors Yeah, oh, oh, oh, so paulosse is blamed for sicy because it's not benefiting humanity But bacon seems to be the exception that he's the philosopher who's benefiting humanity This might actually swear this other puzzle that i had because we all know about Rousseau from you know undergraduate days that he's the he's the uber democrat Right the small be democrat loves democracy and he loves equality which means there's very little place he does Which would mean there's very little place for you know hero appreciation or admiration that work unless that hero is somebody like a bacon This is helping you this was helping clarify something that i think is attention Maybe it's resolving it if bacon is his model hero then he's a sort of democratic hero because he's the he's he's the philosopher Which is seemingly more impressive than the statesman like alla that's finally turned to the good of the community you got it You might not just say that i'm sorry I don't really i don't know because He calls this a bad essay He'll turn away people that would be turned away by such a right comment and invite those who suspect more is that play But then why keep it below the white keep it subterranean i don't know if i could answer that well i think he has i think he has to temper it a little bit I mean he's out his ultimate conclusion is that the hero is is a villain save in light of philosophic moderation my joke about We don't build statues for philosophers i've forgotten the new atlantis bacon They do build statues for the scientists and philosophers They're trying to they're he's making this very intentionally trying to reframe who we look up to So i think it's only within the college that they're in like a little oh is that right? Okay, it's not for everyone else to see only for the scientists to encourage the scientists to happen What a lame what a lame little hallway to walk through others george the chemist and Can i pick up on on that connection to the social contract is what you're talking about right? Yeah, I Wanted this is something i were like five yeah But recently i learned from Richard valkley when i took a course on Rousseau It was one of the best courses i've ever taken and um, but the thing he he noted i think he's written an essay on this Which i encourage everybody to go read the thing he uh He likes to note was that everybody when they read the social contract they focus on the general will right Right, but the only way to make the general will actually come into being right so you have the general will the general will decide the legislator Well, what decided to make the general will start so there's a kind of infinite regress right? So how do you get people to start being uh social it turns out you need laws you force them to be free He says right exactly i need a legislator you know logiver the logiver who according to the standard general will he says his authority is in yel Right is his new authority right and yet uh he ought to do this and then he turns out he puts words in the gods mouth and he I think what does he say he honors them with his wisdom i mean it's just like when of course uh you can tell why we're so is Perfiled burn books so in five he says assaulted by a grown man So he says in paragraph five the philosopher may give the universe some salutary instructions But his lessons will not ever correct either the great who despise them or the people who does not understand them This is not the way men are governed by abstract views They are only made happy by being constrained to be so and they have to be made to experience happiness in order to be made to love it This is the object that he was careless and talents right so I think this is uh almost it seems almost like he's uh Got you know his the same thought mind is in the social contract Right this idea that if you can enforce somehow freedom on people right if you can compel them to bear the Lawless which is what he also said then they might eventually be able to be subjected to the authority of reason right So it's the philosopher can do anything only by virtue of good loss right this only condition So I think you're absolutely right this is a problem in the social contract But in a way in this tiny little writing he's way more to write about the need of these great heroes and any complicates it further on And it should be obvious to folks the problem I was sort of maybe rushing to the solution and sort of laying instead of laying up the problem that heroes are by their very nature Undemocratic right they deny equality.
They're sort of they are the superior human beings. It should be somewhat obvious Yeah So in the first paragraph is the notice where he says this book sucks two through seven. He decides I fixed that to all of Alex's books Yeah, I think libraries do too. I mean yeah, they even keep it I think they just get my book just so that they can have a for an eventual book burning book So paragraphs two through seven Which I'm gonna I give her a prank by thinking by the two mean I was gonna have my daughter got this little like this is a little There's a little anecdote as a digression got it got it got it My daughter got one of those little things that they climb up to be at the counter and they can cut like food and stuff at it but you get your daughter knives Yeah, they're baby knives.
Okay, not nice for cutting babies Jesus. I like these no no no he was He found that so absurd Greg and seemed frozen. It didn't look like he broke I decided to just let that sit so that If I listen to time to see how immoral the person you are but I wasn't me. I was assuming your immorality just wasn't a little short Right like there's different levels the top levels too high so I put it the second level and A little short I thought I put Greg's book under feet and be like she was a little short but all better Post-the-patient Yeah, look if somebody else who I don't quite care for you should have done it for me.
That would have been great. I can still do it. Yeah, yeah Yeah, both of our listeners will know but that's it So anyways, so at the end of paragraph seven at the beginning of this sort of I would put it as a trial between the floss where the hero he concludes as follows he says Um, in assigning uh, so let me read the whole paragraph. I've said this paragraph seven I've said nothing here of the legitimate glory.
It's legitimate Oh to great deeds. I've not spoken of the force of genius or the other personal qualities heroes need he will eventually and which without being virtues often Attribute more than do virtues to the success of great enterprises in assigning his rank to the true hero I've relied solely on the unchallengeable principle Cannot be challenged that among men he who makes himself most useful to others should be foremost There's an odd there as the principal and then he goes I have no fear that the wise will appeal a decision based on his next right? So there'll be no appeals right next paragraph Uh, it is true. I hasten to admit so he's immediately qualifying Uh that this way of viewing heroism gives rise to an objection right?
So he says there will be no appeals that it cannot happen that my argument is a little objection right by paragraph 13 He says the following so we have the court at first the court has decided it will be no appeal and just a little objection by 13 We read the following right about courage is being the heroes foremost Richard says let us dare to appeal his blind judgment to the court of reason and make prejudice so often the enemies and conquerors of reason learn to yield to it in turn So it's very funny. This this kind of um, this is very classic. So it's very classic I love that this is one of the reasons I love reading so Is the the way in which he characterizes his discourse is very dramatic reminds you of Plato where Socrates will throw out These sort of illusions to a court in a certain situation right or illusionist acts in another situation here Right the court that decided against the philosopher where he cannot make an appeal It turns out that court where a philosopher would not make an appeal is the court of reason right? So immediately there's an objection we figure out who the court is just a few paragraphs later by the end of it I think uh the philosopher ends up being the sort of Cure for rampant heroism a rampant valor or a cure for heroism Yeah, and that they'd still a kind of moderation sort of moral restraints in whom in a potential heroes, right?
I see because the black house abidies was restrained by Socrates. Yeah, ultimately. Yeah, in the end what? Yeah, okay, all right.
We've talked about this. You have a footnote in one of your papers Thanks to my turning you onto this observation by better daddy, right? Also by these goes off. He's a temperate He realizes the foolishness of his ways he comes back to Athens and urges them to be more restrained, right?
We talked about this in key talks also. Yeah, that's the anti-like 20 conversations About the relationship remember. Oh, yeah, so many good ones I wanted to tell this joke about Rousseau and his confessions It's not the right episode for well He's a pretty lady walking by and then he escapes into the dark recesses of a cove in jack saw And that always stuck with me is it's very funny You're gonna talk about the pissing of the pot. That's also funny, but Jake Jake will cut all this This woman had to get this off my chest.
I was thinking this woman goes to church and while she's at church he pisses in her pot And then he says what kind of a pot like when she drinks on it like cooks food. Yeah He has no remorse for this either He's like from a school of stealing a ribbon and getting one of the servants bired He's very without a story. He's at church. He pisses in her pot and he says I must confess You expect to be like I feel horrible though.
So he goes I must confess I still laugh about it. Yeah He said to be like a little upbeat of the advantage of the pious boy, right? But instead He feels bad He still can't I'm reading the reveries right now with some students and and they're just I can tell they're so put off by Because it's just so despondent and like everything's the worst and just a cranky old lady. He's emo.
Yeah, he's emo. Yeah, but Yeah, but he's much funnier than the emo Great. He went all his way Me or bar you went through a coffee. I thought what it was the actual gothic era of human history.
That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah It was the way back You guys have other things you want to talk about? I got other stuff. I guess what you got?
I mean, I talked about how he loves his country. That's kind of key to being a right type of this love of the fatherland being born. I don't know Yeah, though. No, no, no, no, no, one question I had is so he here has an opportunity by answering He's so it's 1761 have what books have come out 50 Oh, so this is a 60 right?
Yeah, yeah, 63 so this is a decade prior to serious fame But I may be miss I probably mistaken he was famous. I think after the first discourse right? I got him a reputation also those are prior to this right? I want to say 1730 something about 1750.
He was the year before oh is the year before? Yes, and he's really on a hot street answer all these essay competitions. You know, he's like, this is this is my career But you do this thing was it'd be so much fun. It is so much more people don't care anymore.
It's your undergraduates, you know, okay But he has an opportunity here to really Especially if he had already started his relationships with the Philosophs and the encyclopedist right to To shift thinking on on hero what hero is and then hero is him For for a france badly in need of this kind of sorting and instead he writes a really like a weird essay And I always thought that I don't know that it was curious like he could have written in a more direct fashion But instead he chose not to well, I think Greg was right this conflicts with this sort of egalitarian message that he said even in the social contract I mean so many people focus on a general will may raise so many questions about it Nobody focuses on the sort of surface problems right the attention to general will the wall give for example You know, that's already complicates things in that text this text. I think He's forced to justify a way of life that he might not be able to otherwise, right? Ultimately, I think my thought is that he would say that fortitude exists Both in the hero and in the philosopher, right? I'm not so sure actually I mean you push back.
I mean, you're right the text seems to be out But I'm wondering if he isn't sort of implying that Socrates and paragraph 38 He decided he would be a kind of hero he put on he or being a hero as it were because he recognized because because Socrates recognized The truth of what Rousseau said earlier that society doesn't recognize the superior or the philosophic type And so sotertis isn't actually a hero He pretends to be a hero in order to be able to accord the philosophy the kind of honoring glory that is accorded to political leaders I mean the apology he likens himself to Achilles So there's a way in which it's a kind of um exploitation of popular understanding of heroism Like he's doing this very intense as far as it's not real. He's just dressing up and he's dressing up like Achilles He's not Achilles I think I think that's right, right? Two things. Well, one is more fun if you disagree with me I do disagree, but let me okay good your characterizations right and that would make me hesitant to say that I don't know sotry's does not right but yeah 70 yeah, but he's still he dies So it's not like it's not like he plays hero and then luckily doesn't die But I do think he so there's this is where I think the distinction between courage and fortitude is important Okay, so courage seems to imply a willingness to die for the sake of something and I'm willing I'm willing to I'm willing to admit I think this is true really that sotry's might not have been as far as his public death as concerned courageous in this way They might be really afraid and oh, yeah I think he was I think he was very afraid actually But fortitude the way that he characterizes it includes so when he when he gets to it includes people and his examples of heroes includes people like Loggers, right?
Who's whose heroism includes stuff like like hergus not coming back to see to take now or something right now Right, so if fortitude if we think of fortitude as a virtue that might lead to dying for the sake of something but doesn't necessarily Right, then I think you could say and it's the cause maybe of some in temperance in the seeking of glory But maybe in temperance as well in the seeking of wisdom, right? Then maybe there is a kind of fortitude to Socrates not in his public activity, but in his private activities. Does that make sense? Oh, I see so um this is something I was gonna bring up earlier actually.
Yeah sure it takes a kind of strength of soul to persist reflecting on arguments that might not be salutary that even I mean there's a little way in which it actually just takes like energy and Sort of toughness to just like literally stay awake and think about things and keep reading and keep thinking but the more serious ways There are there are Potentially psychologically challenging or harmful or damaging truths and it takes a kind of toughness to face those clear-sidedly Yeah, I think a lot the less tough human being would look at the central central chapter of man's field's book on manliness is about this Is that right? It's well. I mean the central chapters mainly nihilism. Is that right?
Yes So it's uh, I I To ask about this on the show, but there are five chapters That's the central one and I always interpreted that as the courage to look into the abyss something like this Yeah, to look at heartless topic truths. Let's say yeah, there's many. I mean that's one obstacle I think there's many obstacles. I mean a simple one is velocity involves realizing you don't know and I think a lot of people would just be like Well, I don't know I give up right there's only that there's a real fortitude to keep thought about it though.
You don't know Now so there's there's that and so then but then there's another thing that point that he says in 38 that the hero just needs to be Convinced by reason to be concerned with working for the benefit of others right that implies that the hero needs to be get a dose of Moderation in the way in which their fortitude is exercised and it needs to be directed towards the common good And how does the philosopher do this? I guess they write treatises on more of which or something like that right? They're like the Nicki and ethics or something like that or the republic right which encourages this kind of uh this kind of uh courage or Boldness and glaucomon and and tempers it that makes it more philosophic and that might be a way in rich I think if that's the case if it's fortitude but fortitude properly tempered then it seems like the core virtue would be the kind of temperance about about your own happiness right or your temperance about about the ends of your life the goals that you Pursue that would be akin to this philosophical moderation that he mentions earlier so that and this is maybe i'm overly reading into this My own like understanding of like play to our airstyle but it seems like here courage and moderation kind of map on or fortitude and moderation map on right Kind of you admit that you don't know but you're still willing to to push forward right the hero only as a hero by virtue of getting a Small dose of that moderation right that temperance Sound right we left anything out is a good anyway Maybe we're gonna talk about david's jujitsu but I guess we'll just do that later time Carrying one more line. Yeah Uh, as is in 36.
So this is one of the points. I was like wait What the hell is going on here? It says everything is great and generous and a strong or forceful soul because it is capable of Capable of discriminating between the fine and the specious reality and appearance and the fastening on its object with the firmness that dispels illusions And overcomes the greatest obstacles right so there's a weird mix of like moral virtue like the fine and overcoming obstacles with the kind of philosophical Sava virtue dispelling illusions distinguishing reality from appearance right he's really telling a line between philosophic Excellence and right who wrote it? So philosophic excellence seems to even be rarer than this political excellence and so this would even be sort of even more Undemocratic it seems to me.
That's right. Yeah, you know He can trust it with the vulgar right in constant sleep of quality consciousness and aviary that characterizes most people That's all I've got folks. I love this essay. This is a fun essay I took over a classic I used to teach his class all political ambition.
I was taught in that But I did always give a nice like this room. He'll have a great syllabus for that Yeah, it was a lot of fun This one is one of the ones I would cycle in it was a lot of fun But I feel like it works better if you know it was so well because you can see that it brings out some attention to some of his other works That we talked about first century this because he's the first and second discourse Uh social contract and so on but I love resource resource resource resource resource resource So you think the heroes in the back of this is out of funds I don't think so I attention between the philosopher and the tyrant who's not quite a hero but Maybe I mean I'd have to look I don't know I didn't see anything in the text that pointed to that but there were some I thought there were some big indications about Xenophon even al-subaiit section. I think went to the Hellenica Rather than probably Thucydides even because when I taught Thucydides in the past and students are never My impressions are never very impressed by al-subaiit on the basis of Thucydides alone It means sort of seems to mess things up. He's kind of a Coffee little kid But in the hell of a few I see him I sort of successfully masterfully conducting military and strategic affairs.
How does the end is life? So it's unclear we've got the elephant doesn't say really this guy and it's unclear. There's two accounts of his death in blue tarp And they're both pretty bad. One is that he um Was shipping some princess in Persia and the brothers got upset and burned the house down The agent for you clam.
Yeah, and the other one's very similar actually It's just the other one is the king of Sparta gets his revenge. So he was living in his house They said fire the house. Yeah, but he's not hard as no That's the in both cases. It was the fire right?
So it was either him or the sisters of the other version and he runs out and he gets and he runs out and he gets and the arrows in the one in one case Right, but nobody knows exactly. Yeah, we did it. Yeah, right? Right.
There's this beautiful page of the book talks also by his this semester and I always wait to compare this with Aristotle's great soul man. He mentions greatness of soul and also I'm sorry, heres the home uh in another not in the ethics when another writing mentions Socrates and else by his examples of great soul Right and one of these russo brings out really well here is that And then I think heres so does too and it's kind of an enemy is that these guys are actually jerks Like they're people don't like them. You know, they they sleep around a lot. They have you know huge appetites.
They You know, so far David Barr is a hero. Yeah, that's uh, that's exactly what I'm here. Yeah Well, he says this is a civilian expedition debate with nikki. He's like he's like look everybody like me during their times They hate them later on.
You're gonna like me later. So happy. They're so happy that they exist They're gonna put they're gonna like me so much you're wrong to pretend to be my relatives That's what he does. He's like you're gonna be like, uh, I'm the great grandson of also body He's not gonna keep an eye on your wife.
They probably will be That jolly is about smarter when he knocks up the king of swar's wife. He says, uh, he's now the king might come from my line Yeah, it's like I have to ice if my kids were king so smarter. Yeah, probably not and work out so well All right, folks. Well, don't forget who rate Yeah, I think actually we talked about doing the letter to the lembert and also chris kelly A second time on twitter agreed to be a guest on our show.
We have to take him up on that offer. We do. Yeah, yeah, let's ask him What he wants to do with her. Perfect.
And if you guys have any recommendations of any we saw you'd like us to do I want to do this. I say I'm an original language. That's a great one Also in this book or we could do a Russo gossip episode where we just tell hilarious stories from his life I think that's a great idea. They're all fantastic.
Let's do a lightning round for yourself Yeah, favorite philosopher That could be a lot of fun. Who would be resource favorite from lost lutarch? Gotta be I feel like yeah, he's got a pluto Favorite non philosopher. It's gotta be he likes to foe right he likes the runs in person who wrote the adventures of phlegmus That alone, I think he likes that too.
Good. Okay, what else first car The woman down the street greatest physical punishment jumping over a great taint so it's not to be killed when I was Except he got his whole face busted him. He got jacked up. He's teeth are like pushing not to teeth out He pushed him back in the most people I thought he was His physical accomplishment is not getting good advice wife after giving up all their kids Any nicknames dead be dead or dead of the year That's whatever so but I made some rusev joke about that in front of brother he goes mr Bar he gave them his gifts to the state Which is true because they're all smart right like all this kid right?
Well, I told you I mean isn't there some question whether or not this is actually true or maybe that story. Yeah, yeah You don't know so many things in like so many things of uh in the confessions are so allegorical like when he's a Right, right right on your outside the city walls in nature and then get caught up there They close it and then his apprentice He was an apprentice to a master and the master would beat him and so he ran away outside the city walls There he comes into like a religious conversion And so there's like all this obviously allegorical stuff about the philosopher this yeah, but what's not on the nose I think what's very serious where he deserves credit incredible credit is Just how he was an auto-dydact of the first order. I mean there's no He was so was totally self-h He was like oh, yeah, you really don't think we're so soft plays Yeah, I was like you read the stuff and he's like oh, this is horrible. You should do that as a con though chris scallowing less than on this chris scallowing notes this is on the zenofon question that There is a an addition of zenofon the number really well.
No. No, there's a yeah It was the memorabilia he's just works at a library the last person to check it out was Rousseau right the only person he said I thought Oh, yeah, maybe the only person certainly the last person And there was a dog ear on the is it with you dote? Yeah, yeah, the the court isn't and we're just likely to do So it's basically a positive gets her to sleep with him for free But he that was doggy here and he said he was the last person to check it out We have not dusted to book for fingerprints. It's Joe, but that's hilarious Like rate rate scribe.
It's okay. How are your friends? No, it's your why it's tell your dogs tell your your guys our audience is like 99% right? That's not true.
I mean I need them to spread the word to all the ladies We'll see you next week on the new thinkery feel better past your bill. Oh, thanks. That's really sweet