Welcome back to the new thing. My name is David Barr. With me as always, is my good friend. How are you?
How are you? Doing well, David. How are you? Doing well.
Good job. I'm doing fine. I need a beer cut actually. My bar is actually on a baby right now.
I have to wait until she gets out. I can't cheat on her. I feel weird to get you by somebody else. I think you don't know about David.
I know my earliest numbers of David is him getting a haircut. He couldn't go to his normal DC fruit tree place. He had to go to some backwater, like an appleist place. He gets a haircut.
He's very disappointed with it because he was so short. He didn't have his flowing locks. He complained that it made him look like a Republican. He's back with Barr.
Barr had more liberal leanings. You wouldn't guess it because he works at Claremont. He's always saying stop the steal and he's listening to you. You told me you worked at the Claremont Lounge.
That's what I do in the evenings. It was the Claremont Lounge. A different kind of statesmanship. I don't remember that story.
I'm going to do it. Was I serious when I said that? I think you were serious that you were disappointed with the haircut and made you look more conservative than you like to appear. Yeah, yeah.
Every now and again, we should try out these stories from an appleist. I wish that we had some of Greg's fraternity brothers like B.F. and Slip and S.F. and S.F.D.
What are the names? What are some of the names, Greg? Boogie. Boogie.
He's incarcerated now, right? No, he wasn't incarcerated. David died in prison. Oh.
Well, what are we talking about tonight then? A belight. So what about Republic episodes? Yeah.
Yeah. And never ending series on the Republic. No, arguably we're going to hit a fewer episodes. We did this vote.
Alex, didn't Ben or Dettie spend a year and a half teaching the Republic? Yeah. Robert Goldberg of St. John's College told me a story that he went to Harvard and he took a course on political theory, not by me as the old, but he said two sessions on the Republic and the professor apologized for reading such a outdated and useless work of political philosophy.
He then sat in on the last session of Ben or Dettie's first semester of this three semester course, during which they had only read book one. And then Dettie apologized for going so quickly through such a good fourth book. He did a three semester course leading up to the writing of Socrates second-seighths. And you can actually download audio for that course.
How's the quality? It's decent. I listened to a lecture he gave on September 20, 1982, the date of my birth. So I was born in the morning a little later that evening, then I dedicated an election on the Republic.
Prophecy. So what are we talking about? I mean, the Nobel Life is so well-taught. It means some of the things in the Republic that everybody seems to at least a part of.
And if they happen, it's one of these things that people employ in their speech or writing have no real understanding of how it's presented in the book. I mean, in common opinion, what is the Nobel Life? Or how do we use it in common usage, I should say? I mean, it's one of the most famous phrases and passages in Plato, but also infamous.
I mean, obviously the allegory of the cave, the next time of life is not what living, but up there, I think is this phrase. On that, that's in the apology. What's the matter with you? I'm saying a Plato.
Oh, I'll play the better. All right. All right. I was about to take your card away.
Greg, Greg, you can tell something about Greg. He's always hungry for an easy correction. That's right. I can't get the hard correction.
Greg, that's not a you can get a semi correction, though. I don't know. Greg, how do you think people usually use it? I think people use it almost anonymously for white light, which is not at all what he's talking about.
But I don't know what race has to do with it. But I actually... You're not going to talk, ask the Greg what his favorite animal it was. He said a great white.
They're great white shark. He knows just a great white. That's right, George Boy. I opened that camera.
It's my fault. So if we're doing a general, I mean, our audience is probably someone corrupt. People who are interested in the philosophy. I think the general account of the Nobel is that it's morally despicable.
I sort of... I don't know if you need to go as far as the idea that somehow totalitarian Carl Popper, but it seems to be part and parcel of what people take to be the worst aspects of Plato's political philosophy that he thinks it's necessary to lie to people, that it's sinister and nasty. And that I dated a girl actually briefly in college. And she learned that I was interested in Plato and got very upset with me one night.
Because she's like, what about this live business? And how could you possibly be interested in somebody who defends such a morally important doctrine? So that's my... What's the generally held account of the Nobel?
That's, I think, the common sense view of it. That may not be the generally held... Deeply anti-enlightenment, I think, is your point. Right, right, right.
So it's anti-democratic, it's anti-American, it's anti-enlightenment. It's which is, you know, the enlightenment is the contrast that actually the truth will set you free, and then we should always... That you don't need these, that a society can actually be ruled rationally. And this all seems to cut against that in deep, serious ways.
But there are two, I suppose we should say, but maybe we should situate it first, Alex. So where does it come up in the text? I mean, why does it come up? What's the...
I mean, the Socrates... Why does he doesn't have to talk about this? Why does he bring it up? Yeah, so it's a good question.
So it comes up... So early in book two, Socrates asked Glaucon, do you think we need to talk about the education or is that just a waste of time? And I demand it to somebody who says, it is not a waste of time. We need to talk about this.
I demand it to somebody who's very keyed up to education. They then spend this like midway through book two, not even. They then spend the rest of book two, all of book three, talking about this. And at the end of it, they say, wow, it looks like this education is the thing that really holds everything together.
From there, it turns out that what's above all necessary is to have some kind of rulers who take care of the education because without it, everything falls. So those rulers are said to have certain qualities. And one of them, they say, is absolutely necessary is that they care for the city. And in light of this need, he says, they need some kind of noble lie.
So the first thing I would suggest... And this is kind of hard because he kind of spaces this point out a bit. But the first thing I think we need to focus in on is saying, well, the lie is necessary if these rulers are really going to care for everybody in the city. That's at least one aspect of it.
But it comes about only after the distinction of different types in the city, rule namely ruler and rule. So the idea that we have to have, they're different classes now, and we have to have some justification for why people are divided into different classes. And now that... We would have one more place to have a quick break.
The the rulers, he's a little bit cautious. It's not exactly certain that this will persuade the rulers. And I think there's a suggestion that it ultimately doesn't persuade them. It might be more intended for the guardians or the auxiliaries and the artisan class because much later in the sort of books five through seven when they lay out, the three waves of laughter into these philosopher games.
And they have to persuade the philosopher kings that they're actually their rule and that they should care for the city. So there's a suggestion, I think even more minimally, it might just be for the auxiliary guardians, these sort of warrior types who are not motivated by a sort of love of wisdom and the artisans who have to dwell with them. And I think when you start parsing out some of the details of the lie, we can see why that might be the case. And a quick question.
I know the lie is utilized ostensibly for the care of the city. Are we supposed to interpret that as genuine care? Not kind of a self-serving. I mean, it's it's maybe why is it Greg going to suffer the lie?
And let's keep that question because I think we have to talk about the details for that, right? That's a great question, David. I mean, I think that I wonder if part of the lie isn't bound up with that. That part of the lie is somehow persuading people to have that care.
So that's not simply selfish. We can go to that and just not. But I guess one thing to say, we keep saying the noble lies in the singular, but we should be clear with the audience members. I'm sure that somebody, Dr.
Tsoff might correct us and say that they're in fact too, noble lies. And they, you know, if somebody were being especially the fantastic, they might say, well, noble is this word that we're all familiar with, right? Tocalan, to Calon, to Calos, whatever you want to say, the beautiful, the noble. And they might say, gosh, is this what we're talking about?
And seriously enough, actually, this is not the word that is used in this context. Socrates is not used the word that is ordinarily translated as noble is not here. All the word is actually well born. So it's a lot, you'll see what is kind of a pun maybe just a moment that the lie is actually well born.
So it's sort of it's noble as far as noble people are well born. So eugenics or something like this, it has a good, it has a good what's maturity or something like this, or what's where, okay. So as Alex mentioned, we've been talking about the education of the rulers. The rulers get subdivided into the rulers and auxiliaries.
And Socrates says, well, you know, we're in half to sort of tell them some lies. He says, in fact, he says, is it or 14 C, just above C, could we then could we, I said somehow, contrived one of those lies that come into being in case of need, of which we were just now speaking, someone noble like persuade in the best case, even the rulers, but if not them, the rest of the city. And so what kind of thing? Well, he's hesitating, he's telling and hauling, he's not going to tell us about it.
So what are they? Well, there are two lies. There's the first and then there's a second that sort of actually brings up the help. And the first is that we're all born from the same plot of land.
So the mother, the earth where we're, our plot of land gave birth to us. So all the citizens were sort of naturally from this piece of dirt. What's there's a word for that? Isn't there a word for this?
Alex, what's the word for? No, that's what the inaccessible singer died of, right? No? Okay, I get that reference.
Thank you. So it's born from the earth. Sorry, I'm really actually confused. Can you explain?
No, I can't. What you're talking about? So I'll talk to you. Yeah, he's the lead singer of an excess diet.
He hung himself. How does that get confused? I'll talk to him. Well, explain to you after the show's overhouse.
Michael Hutchins, is that who it is? Yeah. Let me see. There's a different auto work that there that's used to lead show died of.
Automobile accident? No. Are you doing the thing or idea where you're saying like you don't know, and you actually do know? Yeah, that's correct.
Stick. That's my stick, buddy. You can stop right now. Auto erotic is fixation.
What's that? I don't know. Varysly called asphyxio, filia, hypox, filia, or breath control play is the intentional restriction of oxygen to the brain. But the purpose is of, oh my, okay.
I never mind. Look, Alex, I know we say a lot of stuff about the partially examined life, but can't give away all your trade secrets. Wow, wow. I can hear that there.
So the first lie, the first well-born lie to return back Socrates is that all the inhabitants of our city were born there, sort of naturally. We're born of the earth. We have a sort of natural claim to this particular plot of land. The second related to that is all of us who were born in this particular piece of earth are born with various metals in our soul, four metals in fact.
We either have gold, silver, or iron, and bronze in our souls. And wouldn't you know, there happened to be four classes in the city that Socrates has been describing so far, and the kind of gold that is in your soul corresponds to your place in society. So if you're born with gold in your soul, you're sort of naturally a ruler. If you have silver in your soul, you're an auxiliary, so just a common soldier.
And if you have iron or bronze, you're a farmer or a craftsman to another sort. So these are the two fundamentalized that Socrates insists on telling the citizens of the city. Glaukon and Inamentus are perplexed. They're amused.
They find it apostrous. How in the world can we ever get people to believe these lies is sort of their response? And as he says, it's not going to be an easy task. That's right.
Should we jump into the details of it? Sure. Maybe this is going out. Maybe I'll just say something about the first or...
Okay, go for it. So one thing I'll point out is, so the purpose of the first right is to convince them that they're brothers, right? They must think of the other citizens as brothers, right? Which I think implies that were they not brothers, they might not defend one another.
Well, it's an attempt to sort of make the city like a family. Yeah. So it's an attempt to extend your self-love beyond your self, to answer your question earlier. So why would I ever love anybody as much as I love myself?
Only if they're family. And so if we all have the same mother, we're all siblings, brothers and sisters. So you might be a little softer on big pharma, for example, if your brother works as a scientist for them, right? Exactly.
So you care for your siblings, even if you don't particularly like them as people, right? And I think this is important because part of the reason that Socrates introduces the Guardian class, it dramatically is because glaucon is dissatisfied with the sort of life of sort of laboring for necessities in the healthy city, right? And so there's a kind of contempt glaucon has and Socrates gives it an outlet and it's specifically through military discipline, right? So I think there's a suggestion dramatically that these guardians might have contempt for the artisans, right?
How do you get the military to care for the people in the city who just lack their virtues, who are in certain respects worse than them, right? It's a real problem. I mean, even today, I sort of imagine it was less of a problem when the military tended to be comprised of people who were conscripted. But now that you sort of have a professional military class, I sort of do get the impression that there's a sort of what contempt with which military folks hold people who haven't served.
Anything about the ways in which, even in a generation or two ago, right, Bill Clinton, his candidacy for presidency, the way in which he was despised by people who had, this seems to have gone away by the way to some degree in the last 34 years, but for having not gone to Vietnam, I mean, he surmounted it. So maybe it's not insurmountable in this country. And then now, what do you say, Mayor Pete Serf, because he like, I don't know, slum hash. I mean, yeah, well, it's a typical route from Harvard to the CIA.
That is different, though, than say the World War Two generation, right? Where you did have the children of the elite kids going off and doing the same thing. We're already given a sort of textual example of something we did, Coriolanus, right? Right.
Right. Love of virtue was incompatible with the sort of rising democracy, right? I think it's still an issue when you see... But can we just start?
I don't want to move on with that. I'm starting around. But therefore, I mean, so in other words, I was giving a synthetic, I understand, I switched. I can see why military types would look down upon P.C.
Phaseway, which was like me and David and Alice. On the other hand, I thought, trying to defend them for a second, it seems to me, therefore, that these military types are insufficiently aware of their dependence on an un-military numbers for their well-being. So in the city, even in this city, the auxiliaries and the rulers just in extent as well, like they need the farmers and craftsmen in order to exist. So I don't know, there's a weird way in which their condescension sort of doesn't...
It seems to hide from them their own dependence or their own intellectual self-sufficiency. Later in the Republic, Socrates will say whereas most cities are made of rich and poor. This is made up of seeders and supporters, right? So the Guardian's saved, so there's a kind of more symbiotic relationship that maybe they do on acknowledge.
Yeah, you see this. They want the praise of those worse than that. Right, right, right. So the way they solve this is for brothers.
Another thing I'll note here is that they're said to be fashioned under the earth or to be molded. It's the word that we get the English word plastic from with their arms and other tools, so with their weapons and the tools of their traits. So they're born for the world. So the first part of the lie, I think, doesn't apply a little bit, the hierarchy of the second part of the lie.
But also, the funny thing is that same word for a fashion there was used during the poetic education, where it was said that not the God fashioned them, but the poets fashioned the models on which their souls are then fashioned. They use the same word throughout. So one thing I'll suggest here is that one of the other points of the first part of the lie is to hide the role of the poets, their agency. In fact, the poet that they've chosen here is said to be austere and to be just like the characters in his poem.
So one thing I think again that's going on here is not only that they're being made brothers, but they're also being given a sort of divine source of why they are the way that they are. Yeah. You mentioned poetry. There's, I guess I mentioned a poet at 414C.
Is there other other explicit references to the notion that what they're doing is like poetry? Because are you saying is the noble lie itself a work of poetry? Or is it necessarily either or I suppose? Or is it a work of poetry that's intentionally trying to suppress its poetic character?
Yeah, I think it's trying to suppress its poetic character. Now that would mean that it is a poem. In order to be successful probably has to suppress its poetic character. It probably has to be contained in a poem.
It's not quite a point of point. If you ask, well, if this is a lie, who fashioned them this way, it's not the god. It was explicitly said to be the poet. So the god hides the poetic character that makes it seem like it's real or based in an actual divine, an active divine rather than human naked.
So David, you said you thought we had banished the poets. I think that that's right. I wondered in the passage I read at 414C when he says, could we not somehow contrive with one of those lies that come into being that Socrates and Glaucon were kind of playing the role of a poet. They're the ones in Greek, of course, the word the verb, boyane, which is related to the noun poet means the maker of these things.
They are making these things. Yeah, I'm just the poet they banishes the wise poet. They are sphere and less pleasing poet. They allow to stay.
So I don't think all poachers banish just anybody who possibly make anything interesting at all. Hi, Dr. Seuss. I have a question for you guys.
This may be premature, but from this passage, are we to understand that it's one lie to get everything set in motion and it doesn't need to be told over and over again versus every generation it needs to remind itself of the lie or their different lies or the lie morphs? I think the latter. And I think that it becomes, I think this gets drawn out later, but I think the idea here, Glaucon says, don't you ashamed to do something like this? Come on.
How could you ever possibly persuade someone? I think that Socrates intimates here, but more clearly later that these lies to be successful, they're more successful, the greater they can come corrupt over time, but there needs to be a certain distance of time to be able to be able to believe these. So, like for example, when he says later on, we have to banish everyone over the age of 10, I think that's because it's a recognition that the people who are live with it are going to believe this stuff. I know my mom, there's Beverly.
And so, I think the idea here is that in order to be a lie, it has to be taught from the parents to the children, from the children to their children, so on and so forth. Yeah. And I think you bring up just that sort of small point where you jump from book three at the end to every end of book seven. That's a great example of how complex the structure of the city is.
For instance, at the end of three, just after the Nobel, I would say, the guardians aren't permitted to have any gold or anything. And then I'd just just like, wait, everybody else gets gold, but then it's actually the best to have gold either. So, there's a sort of slow kind of, it makes you wonder how many, there's so many aspects not revealed, but yeah, it's, this, I think is why would be told after everybody over the ages kick out. It's like a foundational line that would be perpetuated.
Right. In a little sense, I mean, when I teach this sometimes, I sort of teach totalitarian regimes, this is giving some credence to the popper understanding Plato, but you sort of imagine, you say, how do you want to conquer somebody and how do you get them to actually believe something that's completely false? And I think that the threat of death is really powerful. And I think you don't actually get that first generation necessarily to believe, but if you threaten the first generation of death, and therefore they won't say anything, and they habituate their children to believe in the lies of their gene, and then so on and so forth, you can see in fact how this kind of thing would take shape over time.
You go ahead, Dave. Right. That's, that's helpful, actually. I think so since most of our listeners are familiar with the concept of the noble line, the abstract, could you give an example?
Could you make it real? It doesn't necessarily be from history, but how would you, what's an example of a noble line in keeping with the conversation of the republic? Sure. I mean, I think that historically you could look at, I mean, I guess my first answer to every regime, but let's give some concrete examples.
Rome, I mean, the founding of Rome is highly mythical, right? Romulus and his son were exposed in the woods and raised by wolf. That sounds a little liey to me, and it is about the birth. So it is well born in a certain manner speaking.
Think about the founding of Sparta and Lycurgus' role. Zenithin, I think, intimates that there may never have even been an historical lycurgus that the F-4s may have invented this historical person as the source of their laws. Think about, to take a more sinister example, think about modern day North Korea and the lies that they tell about the little Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-il, and all those guys, that there are semi-divine, they don't poop, these kinds of things. They're ridiculous.
But you do wonder to what extent some people believe so. If you were raising a regime that sort of didn't allow people to ask questions about that, I think you would see that people would believe it. To take an ex- Sheri Teretsi. We do it to a degree.
I think we idealize our own founding fathers. I think that- Call fathers. I mean, we're talking about the English- Call fathers. There you go.
Or mother, Russian, or something. We co-opt familial language for political allegiance. I mean, the word very word, patriotism, means commitment to the fatherland. And just another example from our own past year in the United States, America, the noble lie, the second noble lie that actually tells is a lie that grounds natural inequality, or it's a defense of inequality.
I wonder if we are lies in the other direction that we sort of assert in the definition of human equality. And I think that at least when I teach this and I've taught it half a dozen different types of institutions, the belief in equality is firmly imprinted in the souls of the American youths. To sort of get them to take seriously the possibility that there is natural inequality is quite a task. And I would say that maybe it speaks simply the truth of the claim, maybe there is natural equality.
But if not, it speaks to the power of what the regime tells its citizens. So there's a few examples, I don't know. No, that was great. Yeah.
I think that's- Let's move on to the next part. Yeah, sure. Maybe I can just pick up on something you said. You talked about how there's a kind of natural inequality in the second part, right?
That's stated in terms of a conventional hierarchy of gold, silver, iron and bronze, right? And the first one you could say takes a conventional aspect of life that we live here versus there. We're born from the earth here. And it gives that a kind of natural expression.
I'm giving this from Ben and Dettie who says, I'll just read his line because he says, beautifully nomic, but he says, the first part of the lie naturalizes the law, the second legalizes nature. And there's- I think that- Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. And so I think- And then one point he makes, I think is really interesting.
He says, well, the second part is in terms of monetary value. And so on the one hand, it's meant to speak to the guardians. You've got the real golds. But on the other hand, it seems to be meant to speak to the artisans and tell them they have gold in their salt.
Don't worry. Like the gold you have in your hands, this is also immensely valuable. So it's things in terms that they get. So there's, I think, there's a multi-vial on ass with the second part.
Don't you think, though, that it's that the story of gold, silver, bronze, iron is meant to capture real natural inequality, but to give it an outward story or something that they can visualize that will make people tolerate it. Because most people, I mean, most people when they look around the world probably do believe something closer to a natural equality. So if Socrates is saying there actually is natural inequality, there is a hierarchy of people, but most people are going to really not like that. And so the only way we can make them see the truth- in other words, this is sort of an image of the truth.
There is natural hierarchy, but people aren't going to be like, I smarter than me. So I see, but if you can get them to believe in this lie somehow, that there's gold still over bronze. I mean, I don't want to take this too far up here, but I mean, we had when we had Jim Carreon a few weeks ago, and we talked about the caste system, right? I mean, like this has worked, like almost this exact lie that Socrates is talking about, I'm not implying that the caste system is lie.
But I'm just saying, that's the base you want to cover? I want to defend our 14 listeners from India. But you know, in all seriousness, like that's the idea that there's something in- All our listeners are untouchables. Oh, that is the easiest to cast.
That seems fair. They weren't before they are now. But I mean, that's a serious real world example where people do believe or have historically glutes in the natural hierarchy of human types on the basis of something like what Socrates is talking about here. I mean, I would go even a step further and say, even in our radically egalitarian society, there are vestiges of this, right?
Tell me more. Well, I mean, for example, if you go to Harvard or something like that, then you're passing through that institution makes you somehow worthy of that. Or if your parents are wealthy, famous, successful, whatever, that means that you French finance years exactly their virtues and their success somehow carries not to you. It's interesting you bring that up.
I grew up in a wealthy area. It's interesting to see a lot of these parents who were successful through their own work and education and all that, having these kids who were just kind of lackluster turds, learning through life. And because they never bothered trying because they thought that somehow their parents' excellence sheds onto them. So there is, I think still this notion that those who have gold in their souls and do achieve something, necessarily will have gold in children.
And often, this undermines. Why can't people hold both those thoughts in their minds at once? That there's natural right? There is this equality, a baseline equality, but that God bestows the certain relishes unequally.
I mean, I think even Jefferson, the radical egalitarian, he recognizes, when Jefferson says that all he's better grade equal, what he means is that all men have a certain equality as far as they have natural rights. Like he was like, don't rule me without my consent, but he's perfectly willing to grant that there's a hard to do types, right? And he says, Newton and Locke, and these other guys were far superior to anyone, just doesn't give them a right to rule. And in this letter to Adams, he talks about the natural aristocracy, that there are people who are superior by nature.
They just don't have that doesn't entitle it to rule. Whereas in Socrates's case, ostensibly it does entitle it to rule. I mean, I think it's possible to hold them both in mind, but I think you have to at some point come down on any particular issue one side or the other, or you have to come up with some reconciliation. And that's a matter of great dispute, right?
We do have, I think one of the points of the lie and the reason it's well born, meaning it has a kind of a real connection to something real or beyond itself, is because it is getting at, I think, a basic fundamental issue, right? The city has to be unified on the one hand, but it all has to be structured so that the right people are ruling. And too much in either direction is going to undermine the city as a whole, right? So, I don't want to move on too much, but since David asked that next question about, can you give examples?
One of my defenses, this young lady in college who was so mad about Plato, one of the things I tried to explain here is that I don't think that Socrates is necessarily actually endorsing him. He may be in the pain, but I don't know that he's necessarily endorsing the noble is trying to teach us something about the nature of political communities. And I think one of the things he's trying to, if you're uncomfortable with this, I think you're uncomfortable with life. And so far as what I think Socrates is up to here is trying to show you that this is how political communities are.
They all rest on this kind of these noble lies, right? So, this is, I mean, Manifest Destiny being kind of a silly example, right here in the United States, but I mean, it's Israel, right? They think that they have a claim to that particular, this is the Holy Land. This is our land.
We're all talking this all, not quite all talking this because they came there out of Egypt, but right? This is our land. I mean, this is a story that people tell, we're Germans, this is our land. You know, when I teach the Pelopnesian War, when the Athenians sort of took to the seas and like took down the walls of the city and abandoned their particular plot of land, this was looked at by the rest of Greece as being Holy Impius, right?
There's nothing wrong with you. You can't do that. Like, that's where you are. When I taught in Kentucky, I used to say, all right, imagine students I could just round us all up and I could move us all to Alaska and be like, we're in Kentucky.
No, there's something like, Kentucky is the bluegrass state and really bad weather and, you know, bourbon and horses and stuff like this. So, people really do, I think, tend to believe in the special character of the place they're from. I think that's a big part of what it means to be the boundaries between our city and your city are real. They're sort of sanctified by God or nature or something like that.
But it's a necessary part of political life. Right. But I think it's also important to emphasize how poorly it sits with the tenets of modern liberalism. Sure.
And that's why, for instance, I mean, all the issues we're having with our own border, where it seems like a faction, small but fervent faction wants to say that what borders are necessarily unjust, right? But there should be freedom of movement has to do with a notion of human rights, right? And human beings don't know borders. But if you say, I think this would be the sort of platonic response, no, no, no, no, to be human is always already to be a citizen of some community, to be from somewhere.
You never meet a human being. You meet human beings who are American or Chinese or whatever regime they live under. And they have that sort of particular language and customs and location. And that may be to a certain extent arbitrary, but that doesn't mean it's not necessary, right?
And so this is what I mean, Strauss talks about this. We did an episode on German isleism, but for this reason, I think that you get these somewhat nativistic, even racist, sometimes reactions to... Yeah. So if you're two cosmopolitan, I think you provoke in feeling to give the reasonability of the closed community, it's due.
You provoke a unreasonable, even angry reaction. I was saying it's a small and bi-grateful note here, right? I grew up in the military bread, you guys know, and I moved around a lot as a kid. And I do think I always felt a little odd in that way.
I never felt, and I think there's probably pretty common for military brats, but you just don't feel like you have that placeness. And so, in a way, I've always felt like I've tried, I've seen sort of arm's length, this and other people. I see that people are much more attached to place. And the one thing when I was younger, especially long for it, was sad that I didn't have it.
But I think it did help me to see this about people. I still see, I'm very much formed by the American regime, but America is such a big country that it seems to be much more, your rudeness tends to be much more localized. And I just don't really have never had that. Which was the idea.
I mean, the increasing nationalization politics is what makes it so difficult that local sentiments have no outlet, really. But that's interesting, Greg. That reminds me a little bit of Pole Market. He's a young man.
He's now from Athens, right? Yeah. And I think that he has a kind of patriotic sort of streak in him, but no patria, no vaudeland. I mean, he's his father's with Syracuse, right?
And so, they're just sort of there. And it's interesting that I think that makes him actually more amenable to Socrates and to philosophy than it would have been otherwise. I wonder if that's his or his or her sister. That's a kind of a, I definitely think that's been in case.
Family is a kind of, it's one of the more awesome families that you can belong to also. Don't you guys feel? I don't know when I started learning about political philosophy and meeting people. It's the community I most strongly identified with.
You mean, I was a family and sort of, no, I mean, definitely the two of you. I'm not aware of them, these kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah.
And then you don't like to convince me you two of my brothers. And then maybe your father. Iron, iron, and so on. Yeah.
Sure. And then just the text that we read, right? Like you feel, I feel a kinship with these people, not that I'm on their level, but you feel like you're part of this conversation that the same concerns that animate them, animate you in a very serious way. That's the most profound community is this community of political philosophy.
I think that's a great note to pivot to the Twitter question. I always say, you got something right. You look like you're about to. No, it's fine.
I think that's great. I mean, I agree. I think that it helped me. I think one of those biggest impediments to philosophy can be an overattachment to particular things.
And I think that I think that you're right, it opened me up to this other community in some ways. Yeah. I definitely credit having moved around with partly being my openness to philosophy. So I think we have, as Greg noted earlier, a number of great questions.
I'll start with our friend, Ball Pine Outlaw at Rad Underscore Surewoodism. Yes, three questions. We'll just tackle the first. It's a good one, I think.
Is there a significant difference between a noveli in romanticizing or oversimplifying actual events in the nation's history? I mean, don't we? I mean, it's better. I mean, it employed this phrase, noveli in a sloppy way.
Yeah. I think there's a difference for sure. I mean, I think they're sort of born of the same spirit, as it were, a recognition that one needs to make the founding very important and that it may not ultimately rest on things that are simply true. But yeah, it seems like the one is a much more watered down version.
Whereas the former, the noveli seems to be the very intentional crafting by some kind of poet founder who's making legislation specifically that's not true. Listeners, you go check out our episode on Westerners with Greg's colleague, Chris Birkett. Oh, right. Prince Legend.
Yeah. Yeah. Prince Legend. That made a shot.
That made a shot. It's a great example of how the two can be co-extensive. Obviously, the latter is not always the case. Obviously, what's being depressed here is the fact that they kicked all these children's parents out of town and then taught them a bunch of nonsense.
That's not true. But I think there is a kind of remancissization of an actually quite brutal event, right? What parents are going to just give out over their children? They probably have to resort to violence.
Right. Okay. He's a question from our friend, John Peterson at the John Peterson. He has three questions that are all tied together.
I'll ask the central one. Well, I'll ask the first two. So do all regimes have some version of the lie? Is it possible to have a regime without it?
No. It does a republic answer this question. Yes. There you go, John.
Which is really what at the oil, 193 said? They responded to John's tweet with, yes, no, yes. That's not exactly what you just said. Oh, that's funny.
It's a good question. I'll give a less look and answer. You've always used to have it, yes. A little while ago, I tried to go through some various examples, right?
Sorda Rome, United States of America, North Korea. So good and bad regimes, I would say. That's kind of one of the reasons I gave a variety of examples. The second question, Ken, one exists without it.
This is David's favorite meteorological book actually tries to say that the answer to this is no, we can have a society based on truth. That's Pierre Vail's reflections on the occurrence of a comet where he believes that a society of rational ideas is possible. I would encourage you to read that book for the alternative view. He's like translated by my old prophet Robert Bartlett, who, and so Vail does argue that no, you don't need it.
And then what was the third question? I forget. I forget. I forget.
It's a republic answer this question. Oh, yeah. So I'll joke aside, we're going to do it up so at some point on the algorithm cave and the limited prospects for human enlightenment. And so I think that you could tie that together with what we're just saying, right?
So Pierre Vail is an enlightenment thinker. He thought people could be enlightened and therefore you don't. Eventually, we could reach a stage where society wouldn't need you, so I mean, the republic, I think, shares played on Socrates, you know, because the prospects for flossier, so slim, all regimes will always be steeped in myths. Tom Cleveland is usual.
It's not a remark. I hope you distinguished between Kalos and Ginoes. Greg did. I did.
deal with that, Tom Cleveland for real. Okay, let me let me let me throw out. Real quick, I want to cover I want to cover two more. Okay.
I got to actually, yeah, two more than I want to pose. Let me pose a question to you guys and then let's do the other two because there's a good ending one. So we talked about how, you know, democracies like our own in their egalitarianism push against the second part of the line. We've also talked about how modern liberal liberalism pushes against the first part of the line.
So if and since Greg has just revealed simply that this is that we are indeed based on a lie, wouldn't our lie necessarily be ignoble if it goes against both parts of the noble line? Depending on what makes it ignoble, is it the actual birthing of the lie that's the noble part or is it the content? Same where we need. What is it?
Is it the well born lie? So is it the content is the baby that's made or is it the process of birthing the baby that makes it? What I'm implying is that maybe the combination of humanism and egalitarianism is a particularly ugly combination or are noble, lowly born combination. I'll say the following.
I think the question you answered, you asked a moment ago David about do all regimes need these? I would say that the United States of America moves in the direction of trying to move away from a founding myth. I don't know how successful it is, but I mean, think about it. Read the Federalist Papers, read Federalist One.
We are trying to come together for the first time in human history and to form a government as a result of reflection and choice, not by force and by the way, Hamilton omits fraud, but not by fraud, which would be the noble lie. So I think that the United States of America is trying to do, is trying to move in the direction of what B.A.L. is talking about a perfectly rational society. I don't think it's entirely successful.
I think Madison, for example, is fully aware of that. We talked about the need for reverence of the Constitution. Yeah, that's a great great point. Now, this one, since Greg listeners, who had the chapter six of the Prince episode where you settled the B.A.L.
and saw how you thought like Ethan's was the product of like inside. I don't know what it was. I didn't say that at all. I don't know.
That's not asking the question. If you want to set the records, Athenian stranger, our good friend Athenian stranger asked the following. What does it say about the status of divine providence? If it is the case that the most authoritative element of justice in the best city is and must be grounded in a lie rather than truth.
Consequently, is this perhaps a way of receding the quote unquote theological political problem? That's for you, Greg. You have to mutter your harsh truths. Here's your harsh truth.
Are you ready for it? It rains on the Justin on Justin like. Greg just did a drop in the mic. I don't know either.
It means that justice is not powerful enough in the world on its own. That the people who are just are exposed to those who are unjust. That justice does not have enough support in the world. If you have been your Sunday school people, you know that I'm actually quoting Jesus Christ when I say that.
How like went to his services on Friday? Right. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right. Right.
Right. What's the last one? My services were in the middle of a pentagram little fire. So last one, I thought this was a funny one to end with from Jack Guipre, Guprey.
I thought this would be a funny one that we could respond to. What is an ignoble truth? What are some examples? Pictures appreciated.
There is no Santa Claus. It's an ugly truth. We're descended from monkeys. If you think that that's true, that's I would say that's not a pretty truth.
One day the son will destroy all life as we know it. Life is better after menopause. I don't know. I don't know.
Jake, get it that one out. No, no, keep it going. I could just warn, I heard it out. I could just warn, I heard some advertising.
See that? Like I see Alice Percher was on. I don't know. I don't know.
That's great. I think this episode was I was skeptical. I'm not going to lie. Considering we didn't do as much prep as usual.
Are you not going to lie? Or is that itself the lie, Greg? Like us, subscribe, send pics. No, don't do that.
Bye everybody. Bye.