Latest / The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons / The Masonic Roundtable - 0572 - Square of Virtue

Transcript

The Masonic Roundtable - 0572 - Square of Virtue · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:21
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Masonic Roundtable, a weekly
• 0:24
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:31
  Speaker: As a reminder, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are
• 0:34
  Speaker: solely the opinions of the participants and do not
• 0:36
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge statements or positions.
• 0:39
  Speaker: Make sure you keep your conversations open for the
• 0:40
  Speaker: public and on the level to interact with us.
• 0:43
  Speaker: We love seeing you live every
• 0:44
  Speaker: Thursday night and Facebook and
• 0:46
  Speaker: YouTube land.
• 0:47
  Speaker: The comments are always fun and
• 0:48
  Speaker: we can't get to every comment,
• 0:49
  Speaker: but keep your comments on the
• 0:51
  Speaker: level.
• 0:52
  Speaker: And if you can't catch us live, catch us in the replay or in
• 0:55
  Speaker: your favorite podcast app.
• 0:57
  Speaker: You know me, John Ruark, past
• 0:59
  Speaker: master of the Patriot Lodge,
• 1:00
  Speaker: number nineteen fifty seven in
• 1:02
  Speaker: Fairfax, Virginia.
• 1:04
  Speaker: Next up we have Jason M Richards.
• 1:09
  Speaker: I'm waiting for you to take a bite.
• 1:10
  Speaker: And then.
• 1:13
  Speaker: Aaron Burr.
• 1:15
  Speaker: Oh, boom.
• 1:17
  Speaker: Funny enough, I'm having a
• 1:19
  Speaker: peanut butter and jelly sandwich
• 1:20
  Speaker: tonight.
• 1:21
  Speaker: Nice.
• 1:21
  Speaker: Um, Jason Richards passed my certification Lodge number
• 1:25
  Speaker: sixteen in Clifton, Virginia.
• 1:27
  Speaker: Glad to be here.
• 1:28
  Speaker: Finger guns.
• 1:29
  Speaker: Boom boom boom boom boom.
• 1:32
  Speaker: Nice job.
• 1:35
  Speaker: Yes.
• 1:37
  Speaker: Uh, cheers to your.
• 1:38
  Speaker: I love the finger guns.
• 1:40
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 1:40
  Speaker: Cheers.
• 1:41
  Speaker: Uh, Robert Johnson here.
• 1:43
  Speaker: Past master of, uh, couple of lodges.
• 1:46
  Speaker: Um. All the all the stuff.
• 1:51
  Speaker: I'm secretary everywhere.
• 1:52
  Speaker: It's going to be great.
• 1:53
  Speaker: We got a great show this evening.
• 1:55
  Speaker: The M stands for mouthful.
• 1:59
  Speaker: Yeah yeah yeah.
• 2:00
  Speaker: That's yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
• 2:02
  Speaker: Nice turbo man.
• 2:04
  Speaker: All right.
• 2:04
  Speaker: Go ahead.
• 2:05
  Speaker: All right.
• 2:07
  Speaker: Good to have you here.
• 2:08
  Speaker: Let's go to my patrons who support the show.
• 2:12
  Speaker: You guys are amazing.
• 2:13
  Speaker: So, um, thank you for all the
• 2:14
  Speaker: support you've given us over the
• 2:15
  Speaker: years.
• 2:16
  Speaker: If you want to support free
• 2:17
  Speaker: Masonic education for many years
• 2:18
  Speaker: to come, head over to patreon
• 2:19
  Speaker: dot com slash Masonic
• 2:22
  Speaker: roundtable.
• 2:25
  Speaker: That'll buy Jason one more peanut butter sandwich.
• 2:28
  Speaker: Just one.
• 2:29
  Speaker: Just just one.
• 2:32
  Speaker: He gets one a year.
• 2:34
  Speaker: Inflation, man.
• 2:36
  Speaker: That's all you can afford.
• 2:38
  Speaker: I prefer jelly.
• 2:42
  Speaker: Sandwiches.
• 2:43
  Speaker: That's not syrup.
• 2:45
  Speaker: You're jelly.
• 2:46
  Speaker: Jelly jelly man.
• 2:48
  Speaker: All right, uh, let's head over to, uh, Joe's favorite segment.
• 2:54
  Speaker: Who won't be here today.
• 2:59
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 3:07
  Speaker: Sing along on the plane, Joe.
• 3:09
  Speaker: I know you're watching.
• 3:12
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 3:14
  Speaker: Joe, sing along on the plane.
• 3:17
  Speaker: Um, excuses like being mile high.
• 3:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:23
  Speaker: Should be part of the Mile High podcast club.
• 3:27
  Speaker: It's like camp out in the, uh, the airplane lavatory.
• 3:33
  Speaker: Oh, you're doing that, Scott Sherman.
• 3:35
  Speaker: It's good to see him.
• 3:37
  Speaker: Remember him from the Boston University episode?
• 3:40
  Speaker: Good to be with you.
• 3:41
  Speaker: As the new illustrious master of Boston.
• 3:44
  Speaker: What?
• 3:45
  Speaker: Congrats.
• 3:46
  Speaker: That's cool.
• 3:46
  Speaker: Nice.
• 3:49
  Speaker: Two hundred and ninth year.
• 3:53
  Speaker: I feel like it's kind of like
• 3:55
  Speaker: being the coach of like a little
• 3:57
  Speaker: league team.
• 3:59
  Speaker: I'm the head coach.
• 4:01
  Speaker: I'm the head coach.
• 4:04
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:04
  Speaker: What deck do you have?
• 4:05
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:06
  Speaker: Uh, I reached for the closest one.
• 4:09
  Speaker: It's the cosmic tarot tonight.
• 4:11
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker: It's half a word.
• 4:14
  Speaker: Yes.
• 4:19
  Speaker: Tonight we have the five of specimens.
• 4:23
  Speaker: Nice.
• 4:24
  Speaker: Five of cups.
• 4:25
  Speaker: Oh, it's like the five of cups.
• 4:27
  Speaker: Two standing and three fell.
• 4:30
  Speaker: I get it.
• 4:30
  Speaker: I get jokes.
• 4:33
  Speaker: Failure.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Yes.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Well, I won't say what kind of specimens those are.
• 4:39
  Speaker: Yeah, we don't know.
• 4:40
  Speaker: Magical.
• 4:41
  Speaker: Uh, pessimism.
• 4:46
  Speaker: I really enjoy the symbolism of the Five of Cups because, you
• 4:51
  Speaker: know, the dude's, like, upset about the the three that spilled
• 4:56
  Speaker: over, but still has two good solid cups behind him.
• 5:00
  Speaker: Yep.
• 5:01
  Speaker: It's all about framing, all about perspective.
• 5:05
  Speaker: Which is weird, right?
• 5:06
  Speaker: Because yeah, when we look at the card, that's exactly how I
• 5:11
  Speaker: look at it.
• 5:11
  Speaker: Like, hey, it's not about what
• 5:14
  Speaker: you lost, it's about what you
• 5:16
  Speaker: still got.
• 5:17
  Speaker: And exactly.
• 5:19
  Speaker: But but like Waite and his
• 5:21
  Speaker: interpretations, he really
• 5:23
  Speaker: pushes the, the idea of like
• 5:24
  Speaker: pessimism.
• 5:27
  Speaker: And even if it's reversed, he goes with like double pessimism.
• 5:33
  Speaker: It's well, I think the most
• 5:34
  Speaker: positive thing that he's got to
• 5:36
  Speaker: say about it is like
• 5:37
  Speaker: self-forgiveness, okay.
• 5:39
  Speaker: When it's reversed.
• 5:40
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 5:41
  Speaker: But it's still, I don't know, I like your version better.
• 5:46
  Speaker: Yeah, indeed.
• 5:48
  Speaker: Always gotta look for the, the bright side in life.
• 5:51
  Speaker: One hundred percent.
• 5:53
  Speaker: Do do do do do do.
• 5:55
  Speaker: Nice.
• 5:56
  Speaker: Well, let's look for the bright side of the square.
• 5:59
  Speaker: Virtue.
• 6:00
  Speaker: That's tonight's episode.
• 6:01
  Speaker: I think this one was recommended by one Jason Richards.
• 6:05
  Speaker: Um, so kick us off.
• 6:07
  Speaker: What do you what do you think we should talk about tonight?
• 6:11
  Speaker: So masonry impresses upon its
• 6:17
  Speaker: candidates that they need to be,
• 6:20
  Speaker: you know, upright and act in a
• 6:23
  Speaker: virtuous manner.
• 6:27
  Speaker: Masonry doesn't say what that means.
• 6:29
  Speaker: Masonry doesn't define virtue.
• 6:32
  Speaker: They don't say which virtues.
• 6:34
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:36
  Speaker: And so I thought it would be helpful to have a conversation
• 6:41
  Speaker: about like Masonic virtue and like, what that really means.
• 6:47
  Speaker: Um, because that's another thing depending on how good your
• 6:51
  Speaker: mentor is that you could just kind of completely gloss over.
• 6:58
  Speaker: Well said.
• 7:00
  Speaker: Yeah, your hot take Robert on.
• 7:03
  Speaker: Do you agree or disagree with what Jason said?
• 7:06
  Speaker: Yeah, I, I agree, um, we have,
• 7:09
  Speaker: we have the idea of um, defining
• 7:14
  Speaker: something within masonry is in
• 7:19
  Speaker: my view, a negative and it's an
• 7:22
  Speaker: epidemic.
• 7:23
  Speaker: Uh, we almost always refuse to.
• 7:29
  Speaker: Put, put down boundaries around what something can be.
• 7:34
  Speaker: Um, and then when we do, it's always sort of reverting to some
• 7:41
  Speaker: sort of nonsecular thing.
• 7:46
  Speaker: And we, we kind of end up with This ambiguity that exists.
• 7:54
  Speaker: And the issue I find with that is we are a fraternity that is.
• 8:03
  Speaker: It exists to make men better.
• 8:07
  Speaker: And in so doing, um, there has
• 8:12
  Speaker: to be a, a definitive level of,
• 8:15
  Speaker: of what any of these things
• 8:17
  Speaker: mean.
• 8:19
  Speaker: Uh, in particular in this, you
• 8:20
  Speaker: know, we're talking about
• 8:21
  Speaker: virtue.
• 8:22
  Speaker: What is virtue?
• 8:24
  Speaker: And if we leave it up to the individual to define that for
• 8:30
  Speaker: themselves, I think for the most part, I think we can do that.
• 8:37
  Speaker: But we have to be completely honest that without guide rails
• 8:41
  Speaker: around that definition defining it, there are individuals who,
• 8:47
  Speaker: um, definitely don't.
• 8:54
  Speaker: Give that for for you know, we don't steer them close enough.
• 8:58
  Speaker: The worst analogy I could think of is like going to a doctor.
• 9:00
  Speaker: And he's like, you know, you
• 9:02
  Speaker: should probably do better or get
• 9:06
  Speaker: fit.
• 9:07
  Speaker: Like, okay, doc.
• 9:08
  Speaker: Yeah, I can't disagree.
• 9:09
  Speaker: Like, what do you want me to do?
• 9:11
  Speaker: Well, do better, do better, do
• 9:14
  Speaker: better than what you're doing
• 9:15
  Speaker: today.
• 9:16
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 9:17
  Speaker: Now I think, yeah, I think it's, it's a hard question because
• 9:23
  Speaker: like, we don't want necessarily like individual freemason's
• 9:30
  Speaker: interpretations of virtues.
• 9:32
  Speaker: We don't want them to force those definitions on others.
• 9:37
  Speaker: Right.
• 9:37
  Speaker: Right.
• 9:38
  Speaker: Like if you know someone is, uh, you know, a particular way in a
• 9:46
  Speaker: particular religion, you know, it's, the you know.
• 9:50
  Speaker: Well, it's it's virtuous for me and my religions, which means
• 9:55
  Speaker: you have to do it as well.
• 9:57
  Speaker: And like, that's, that's not what this is about.
• 10:01
  Speaker: But I think one of my questions
• 10:04
  Speaker: coming into this show was, are
• 10:07
  Speaker: there.
• 10:10
  Speaker: Is there a blueprint or are there some universal virtues
• 10:17
  Speaker: that could be a template for how how to live a virtuous life?
• 10:27
  Speaker: Agreed.
• 10:29
  Speaker: Uh, so, you know, words mean things.
• 10:31
  Speaker: I like to start in the beginning.
• 10:33
  Speaker: So what is a virtue?
• 10:35
  Speaker: Let's, let's get that out of the way.
• 10:36
  Speaker: Because I know I can only speak
• 10:39
  Speaker: for myself that as a young
• 10:41
  Speaker: master Mason, I didn't really go
• 10:44
  Speaker: dig into what, what what are the
• 10:46
  Speaker: virtues?
• 10:46
  Speaker: Like what is something that I'm supposed to be following?
• 10:49
  Speaker: Um, and, you know, Robert's the, uh, philosophy major here, but,
• 10:56
  Speaker: uh, I'll take a stab to say, here's the Wikipedia definition.
• 10:59
  Speaker: A virtue is a trait of
• 11:00
  Speaker: excellence, including traits
• 11:01
  Speaker: that may be moral, social, or
• 11:03
  Speaker: intellectual.
• 11:05
  Speaker: Um, I, when I've given some
• 11:09
  Speaker: talks before, is that these are
• 11:13
  Speaker: character traits that we expect
• 11:16
  Speaker: to observe.
• 11:18
  Speaker: Expect to see.
• 11:20
  Speaker: Um, so whether that be something that, um, you know, uh, virtues
• 11:25
  Speaker: can be, um, mostly good.
• 11:28
  Speaker: Uh, but it's like something that
• 11:29
  Speaker: you can say, hey, I can, I can
• 11:30
  Speaker: tell that that guy is charitable
• 11:32
  Speaker: because he donates a lot to his
• 11:35
  Speaker: favorite charity.
• 11:36
  Speaker: We can see him doing that.
• 11:38
  Speaker: Or, uh, is very kind because we
• 11:40
  Speaker: see him take care of, of the
• 11:43
  Speaker: homeless or we see him take care
• 11:45
  Speaker: of, his children or to the
• 11:46
  Speaker: community.
• 11:47
  Speaker: And so, um, get kind of jumping the gun here, but you're
• 11:51
  Speaker: actually going to observe the virtues in action, right?
• 11:56
  Speaker: And then we all kind of agree that is a good thing to do
• 11:59
  Speaker: compared to other behaviors that the person could do.
• 12:02
  Speaker: Robert.
• 12:03
  Speaker: Where did I get it wrong?
• 12:05
  Speaker: No, I think you're, you're spot on.
• 12:06
  Speaker: Um, two concepts that I think a
• 12:09
  Speaker: lot of people, um, in philosophy
• 12:12
  Speaker: will start like once they unlock
• 12:16
  Speaker: this one way of thinking, it's,
• 12:19
  Speaker: um, it's kind of a, it's a
• 12:21
  Speaker: bummer.
• 12:21
  Speaker: Um, because you, you open up this, bring us down.
• 12:25
  Speaker: Robert.
• 12:27
  Speaker: You're open, you're opening up a can of like, what if, right.
• 12:32
  Speaker: And so the idea is subjective and objective.
• 12:36
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 12:37
  Speaker: And ultimately each individual person Has what they feel is
• 12:47
  Speaker: good behavior, bad behavior, and sort of in between.
• 12:56
  Speaker: Like it's not bad or good.
• 12:58
  Speaker: It's, you know, whatever.
• 12:59
  Speaker: Self-Sustaining.
• 13:01
  Speaker: And each person has those.
• 13:05
  Speaker: And when we live in communities,
• 13:09
  Speaker: these people, uh, trade values
• 13:13
  Speaker: and sort of have a common agreed
• 13:16
  Speaker: upon lowest common denominator
• 13:20
  Speaker: type of, of good behavior and
• 13:23
  Speaker: what's bad.
• 13:24
  Speaker: And so ultimately, it's not
• 13:27
  Speaker: necessarily that we have virtue
• 13:31
  Speaker: or not.
• 13:33
  Speaker: We have an agreement within our locality, within our culture,
• 13:39
  Speaker: within our society, our communities of what is virtuous.
• 13:46
  Speaker: So the best we can hope to do is
• 13:49
  Speaker: to exemplify that for our
• 13:53
  Speaker: community.
• 13:55
  Speaker: And as humanity moves along, we sort of move away from what we
• 14:03
  Speaker: call, you know, barbarisms.
• 14:05
  Speaker: Right.
• 14:06
  Speaker: And we move into, um, you know, some people, uh, are very, um,
• 14:12
  Speaker: Christian about their thinking in this way, right.
• 14:15
  Speaker: Do unto others.
• 14:17
  Speaker: And the golden rule and do no harm.
• 14:21
  Speaker: Like, and then those, those philosophies start to blossom.
• 14:24
  Speaker: And we sort of end up with this virtue must be.
• 14:32
  Speaker: Making like we, we've, I think we've all agreed, humanity has
• 14:35
  Speaker: agreed that virtue does good things to people.
• 14:39
  Speaker: And good things mean People are
• 14:42
  Speaker: thriving in health and in
• 14:44
  Speaker: happiness, right?
• 14:46
  Speaker: And so it's it sounds so basic, right?
• 14:50
  Speaker: Like virtue is, is doing good,
• 14:53
  Speaker: but we don't know really what
• 14:55
  Speaker: good is.
• 14:57
  Speaker: You know, Nietzsche would say it
• 14:59
  Speaker: goes beyond good and evil right
• 15:02
  Speaker: there.
• 15:02
  Speaker: Just the whole world is just it is what it is.
• 15:08
  Speaker: And man's subjective nature defines what those those are.
• 15:18
  Speaker: And in masonry, we are a. We're
• 15:22
  Speaker: not a religion, but we are
• 15:24
  Speaker: religious.
• 15:27
  Speaker: And so I hate that expression.
• 15:29
  Speaker: I, I know it's it's most people don't know the difference.
• 15:34
  Speaker: So so we're a religion then.
• 15:35
  Speaker: Got it obtuse and confusing as fuck.
• 15:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:39
  Speaker: I mean it is.
• 15:41
  Speaker: like.
• 15:42
  Speaker: And they coined these terms when the majority of the fraternity
• 15:51
  Speaker: followed a specific route.
• 15:55
  Speaker: Uh, you know, in religious terms.
• 15:56
  Speaker: And, and that doesn't always translate, um, for, you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker: people who might be following the daodejing or, you know,
• 16:05
  Speaker: whatever it is.
• 16:07
  Speaker: Um, and so we have this, this
• 16:11
  Speaker: ambiguity that still exists in
• 16:15
  Speaker: the craft because what is the
• 16:17
  Speaker: virtue?
• 16:18
  Speaker: What, what is the, what are these virtues?
• 16:21
  Speaker: And can we sit here and, and go down the list?
• 16:24
  Speaker: Right.
• 16:24
  Speaker: Like Washington had his, uh, as a handwriting experiment.
• 16:28
  Speaker: He did you know the virtues.
• 16:30
  Speaker: He wrote all the virtues down from this handbook.
• 16:33
  Speaker: And some people think that Washington made those up.
• 16:35
  Speaker: Now, he was just copying them, and he actually graded himself
• 16:38
  Speaker: against each one.
• 16:40
  Speaker: Like, how am I doing with this?
• 16:43
  Speaker: Do I scratch myself in public?
• 16:45
  Speaker: Do I pick my nose?
• 16:47
  Speaker: Have I broken wind?
• 16:49
  Speaker: You know, like all of these sort of social virtues.
• 16:53
  Speaker: Uh, but what's it what's a Masonic virtue?
• 16:56
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 16:58
  Speaker: And for the people screaming them in the comments.
• 17:02
  Speaker: We will get there, I promise.
• 17:04
  Speaker: We're building up to it.
• 17:06
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 17:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:08
  Speaker: Yep.
• 17:09
  Speaker: So let's let's talk masonically then.
• 17:12
  Speaker: Um, I was trying to pull from
• 17:16
  Speaker: our public installation, um,
• 17:19
  Speaker: stuff because that is, you know,
• 17:21
  Speaker: publicly accessible and from the
• 17:24
  Speaker: officer's installation.
• 17:26
  Speaker: Here's a quote out of the
• 17:29
  Speaker: installation part where we're
• 17:30
  Speaker: actually installing the master
• 17:32
  Speaker: of the lodge, and it says the
• 17:35
  Speaker: square teaches us to regulate
• 17:37
  Speaker: our actions by rule and line,
• 17:38
  Speaker: and harmonize our conduct by the
• 17:40
  Speaker: principles of morality and
• 17:42
  Speaker: virtue.
• 17:44
  Speaker: They didn't say which ones.
• 17:45
  Speaker: Yet the compasses teach us to
• 17:46
  Speaker: limit our desires in every
• 17:48
  Speaker: station, that, rising to
• 17:50
  Speaker: eminence by virtue and merit, we
• 17:53
  Speaker: may live respected and die
• 17:55
  Speaker: regretted.
• 17:56
  Speaker: The rule directs that we should
• 17:58
  Speaker: punctually observe our duty,
• 18:00
  Speaker: press forward in the path of
• 18:02
  Speaker: virtue, and neither inclining to
• 18:05
  Speaker: the right nor to the left, in
• 18:07
  Speaker: all our actions have eternity in
• 18:09
  Speaker: view.
• 18:11
  Speaker: So one paragraph, three mentions of virtue and just says, no
• 18:15
  Speaker: definitions do good.
• 18:17
  Speaker: Well, okay, so in the Facebook Oscar Allen right.
• 18:23
  Speaker: Worsh.
• 18:24
  Speaker: Um, he said, what about the
• 18:26
  Speaker: reference to the four cardinal
• 18:27
  Speaker: virtues?
• 18:28
  Speaker: They are spelled out, uh, Thomas Aquinas.
• 18:31
  Speaker: Four cardinal virtues are
• 18:32
  Speaker: spelled out in the ritual
• 18:34
  Speaker: fortitude, prudence, Justice and
• 18:38
  Speaker: temperance.
• 18:39
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 18:39
  Speaker: And so what those mean in masonry.
• 18:44
  Speaker: It is spelled out, but it's also spelled out.
• 18:48
  Speaker: I think we run into an issue in that the the the nineteenth
• 18:55
  Speaker: century and eighteenth century lexicon is completely different
• 19:00
  Speaker: language than man speaks today.
• 19:03
  Speaker: I have often thought if I took the charges or the virtues or
• 19:08
  Speaker: whatever, and I put it into language of today based on the
• 19:13
  Speaker: etymology of those words when they were written.
• 19:17
  Speaker: Oh, interesting.
• 19:19
  Speaker: Would half the members be like,
• 19:22
  Speaker: cool with what they just agreed
• 19:23
  Speaker: to?
• 19:23
  Speaker: Like, oh yeah, I got that.
• 19:24
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 19:25
  Speaker: You know, justice.
• 19:27
  Speaker: That's a complete, really interesting one.
• 19:30
  Speaker: It always comes up because it's looked at today as, uh.
• 19:34
  Speaker: Um, you know, eye for an eye.
• 19:38
  Speaker: Um, uh, the idea of, of, of legal ramifications through
• 19:44
  Speaker: bureaucracy is justice, but that's not at all what that is.
• 19:50
  Speaker: When it was written, when it's
• 19:51
  Speaker: written, it's literally, I'm
• 19:53
  Speaker: sorry to say this, it's totally
• 19:55
  Speaker: woke.
• 19:56
  Speaker: All right.
• 19:57
  Speaker: It's social justice.
• 19:58
  Speaker: It's complete equity, which is why we have lines in ritual
• 20:03
  Speaker: talking about condescension.
• 20:05
  Speaker: Again, another term, it just means coming down from a station
• 20:10
  Speaker: of, you know, it's it's the CEO working with the mechanic.
• 20:15
  Speaker: It's not necessarily on the
• 20:17
  Speaker: level and not having a bunch of
• 20:19
  Speaker: levels.
• 20:20
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 20:21
  Speaker: Yep.
• 20:22
  Speaker: And, and so one of the things that we see with that, well,
• 20:27
  Speaker: that's a different show.
• 20:28
  Speaker: But yeah, I, this, this is an issue, right?
• 20:31
  Speaker: So we have these, these virtues, the four cardinal virtues, and
• 20:33
  Speaker: we spell them out.
• 20:35
  Speaker: Um, and and what do they do for us?
• 20:38
  Speaker: Well, next you're going to tell
• 20:40
  Speaker: me that charity doesn't mean
• 20:42
  Speaker: charity.
• 20:43
  Speaker: Oh, I'm pretty sure that's about
• 20:45
  Speaker: as common knowledge today as the
• 20:47
  Speaker: fact that George Washington was
• 20:49
  Speaker: a Mason.
• 20:50
  Speaker: You know what they say about, uh, common sense?
• 20:53
  Speaker: Not so common.
• 20:54
  Speaker: Not anymore.
• 20:55
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, but those pain has a lot of it, though.
• 21:01
  Speaker: Yeah, but so that idea though, right?
• 21:04
  Speaker: Take masonry in two thousand and eight, twenty ten, even when all
• 21:12
  Speaker: of us are youngsters in masonry and we're hearing guys like
• 21:16
  Speaker: Michael Powell or whoever else.
• 21:19
  Speaker: And, and they're talking about these ideas of mistranslated
• 21:25
  Speaker: words and ritual.
• 21:27
  Speaker: And we're like, oh, that's whatever.
• 21:28
  Speaker: Who cares?
• 21:29
  Speaker: Yeah, I'm a Mason.
• 21:31
  Speaker: I know what's up.
• 21:32
  Speaker: And then it's like reading
• 21:35
  Speaker: Robert Alter's translations of
• 21:36
  Speaker: the Pentateuch.
• 21:37
  Speaker: Completely different stories.
• 21:40
  Speaker: You're like, what the heck did I just read?
• 21:43
  Speaker: Uh, the context is everything.
• 21:45
  Speaker: And so with those four virtues,
• 21:47
  Speaker: like, I automatically think
• 21:48
  Speaker: temperance, um, have one less
• 21:52
  Speaker: beer, right?
• 21:54
  Speaker: That's the default setting that,
• 21:56
  Speaker: that we think in the temperance
• 22:00
  Speaker: movement.
• 22:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:02
  Speaker: I mean, so being an Illinois
• 22:04
  Speaker: Mason, uh, our lectures are
• 22:09
  Speaker: completely open and I'm going to
• 22:11
  Speaker: pull up our, uh, the lecture
• 22:14
  Speaker: that goes over those four
• 22:16
  Speaker: cardinal virtues.
• 22:17
  Speaker: And while I do that, I'll just let you guys do whatever.
• 22:22
  Speaker: So, you know, spoiler alert, we
• 22:25
  Speaker: do have some theological virtues
• 22:28
  Speaker: as well.
• 22:29
  Speaker: What?
• 22:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker: Faith, hope and agape.
• 22:38
  Speaker: No, that's that's not in my ritual.
• 22:41
  Speaker: It's charity.
• 22:43
  Speaker: Right?
• 22:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:44
  Speaker: That that means we, uh, we give charitably to the poor.
• 22:49
  Speaker: Right?
• 22:49
  Speaker: That's that's all that it means.
• 22:51
  Speaker: Yes, we.
• 22:51
  Speaker: That's the only thing.
• 22:52
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:53
  Speaker: And by that stand outside of
• 22:55
  Speaker: the, you know, grocery stores
• 22:57
  Speaker: for the Salvation Army ringing
• 22:58
  Speaker: the bell like, and we crush
• 23:00
  Speaker: cans.
• 23:01
  Speaker: Yep.
• 23:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:02
  Speaker: That's, that's what we do.
• 23:05
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 23:05
  Speaker: So yeah, so we do have, we, you know, we are taught in masonry
• 23:12
  Speaker: at least seven explicit virtues.
• 23:18
  Speaker: Um, not necessarily charged to,
• 23:21
  Speaker: you know, we're not, we're not
• 23:22
  Speaker: being graded on those
• 23:23
  Speaker: necessarily, but we are exposed
• 23:26
  Speaker: to those, you know, the
• 23:28
  Speaker: temperance, fortitude, prudence,
• 23:30
  Speaker: justice, faith, faith, hope and
• 23:31
  Speaker: charity.
• 23:32
  Speaker: And so hopefully that's the the basics, the foundations we need
• 23:37
  Speaker: to, to get started.
• 23:39
  Speaker: But we probably shouldn't stop there either, right?
• 23:43
  Speaker: As Masons, you're like, ah, I'm good.
• 23:45
  Speaker: I got my seven.
• 23:46
  Speaker: You know, I can, I can not think for myself after that.
• 23:53
  Speaker: Right.
• 23:54
  Speaker: And so this I think this starts
• 23:55
  Speaker: to get into the heart of what
• 23:57
  Speaker: Jason, when we were talking in
• 24:00
  Speaker: the, you know, in our green room
• 24:01
  Speaker: before was.
• 24:04
  Speaker: All right, we have this sort of ambiguity that exists.
• 24:08
  Speaker: And with that ambiguity comes a, a really difficult time trying
• 24:13
  Speaker: to figure out how you're supposed to exemplify those
• 24:15
  Speaker: virtues out in the world.
• 24:18
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 24:22
  Speaker: Do you find that presentation yet?
• 24:24
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 24:25
  Speaker: Oh.
• 24:26
  Speaker: Um.
• 24:27
  Speaker: So. Let's find out.
• 24:31
  Speaker: Uh.
• 24:32
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 24:33
  Speaker: Nope.
• 24:33
  Speaker: I guess I didn't find it yet.
• 24:36
  Speaker: Um, those are my.
• 24:38
  Speaker: That's my favorite word.
• 24:39
  Speaker: Um.
• 24:40
  Speaker: Um.
• 24:42
  Speaker: Ah. So we have the tenets of a Masons profession are brotherly
• 24:49
  Speaker: love, relief, and truth.
• 24:51
  Speaker: And we sort of gloss, we have a bit that talks about the
• 24:55
  Speaker: exercise of brotherly love that we're taught to regard the whole
• 24:58
  Speaker: human species as one family.
• 25:01
  Speaker: Everyone.
• 25:02
  Speaker: Um, we talk about the relieving.
• 25:05
  Speaker: The distressed is a duty
• 25:06
  Speaker: incumbent upon all men, but
• 25:09
  Speaker: especially in particularly
• 25:11
  Speaker: Masons.
• 25:13
  Speaker: Okay.
• 25:13
  Speaker: So that's one truth, a divine
• 25:16
  Speaker: attribute in the foundation of
• 25:17
  Speaker: every virtue.
• 25:20
  Speaker: And then we talk about the four virtues.
• 25:23
  Speaker: So temperance it says temperance.
• 25:25
  Speaker: Is that due restraint upon our affections and passions, which
• 25:32
  Speaker: renders the body tame and governable, and frees the mind
• 25:38
  Speaker: from the allurement of vice.
• 25:42
  Speaker: So in English, right.
• 25:45
  Speaker: It is your ability to restrain yourself from.
• 25:51
  Speaker: Sort of enjoying or imbibing in things you have an affection
• 25:55
  Speaker: toward or a passion for.
• 25:58
  Speaker: And it is the virtue that allows your body to remain governable
• 26:03
  Speaker: within those things.
• 26:05
  Speaker: Um, so I think in general, right, the temperance, it's
• 26:09
  Speaker: pretty universal, but it can be applied to everything.
• 26:14
  Speaker: Uh, we have.
• 26:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker: Fortitude says it's a noble and
• 26:18
  Speaker: steady purpose of mind whereby
• 26:20
  Speaker: we are enabled to undergo any
• 26:22
  Speaker: pain, peril or danger when
• 26:25
  Speaker: prudent, When prudently deemed
• 26:28
  Speaker: expedient.
• 26:30
  Speaker: So the ability to be of a singular purpose and to, you
• 26:34
  Speaker: know, make sure you're doing what you're supposed to do.
• 26:37
  Speaker: Uh, prudence teaches us to
• 26:40
  Speaker: regulate our lives and actions
• 26:41
  Speaker: agreeably to the dictates of
• 26:43
  Speaker: reason.
• 26:45
  Speaker: And is that habit by which we
• 26:46
  Speaker: wisely judge and prudentially
• 26:49
  Speaker: determine on all things relative
• 26:51
  Speaker: to our present as well as our
• 26:53
  Speaker: future happiness.
• 26:57
  Speaker: Sounds like, you know, rhetoric and logic might take a, uh, take
• 27:03
  Speaker: a big role in that.
• 27:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker: Which is difficult, right?
• 27:06
  Speaker: Because we don't, we, we, we teach people how to argue.
• 27:10
  Speaker: We don't teach them how to debate, which is like, right,
• 27:13
  Speaker: this is the golden opportunity to, to sway with, with, uh, uh,
• 27:20
  Speaker: just like to sway an opinion with grace and power.
• 27:24
  Speaker: Right?
• 27:25
  Speaker: Right.
• 27:26
  Speaker: And then just we teach, we teach people to, uh, to like, plug
• 27:30
  Speaker: their ears and go.
• 27:31
  Speaker: No religion and politics and logic or out of lodge no
• 27:36
  Speaker: religion and politics on this Facebook group ever.
• 27:39
  Speaker: Yes.
• 27:40
  Speaker: Yes.
• 27:40
  Speaker: Like, keep out of my chat.
• 27:42
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker: And justice is a standard or boundary of right, which enables
• 27:47
  Speaker: us to render unto every man his just due without distinction.
• 27:52
  Speaker: This virtue is not only consistent with divine and human
• 27:55
  Speaker: laws, but is the very cement and support of civil society.
• 28:00
  Speaker: Um, so those, those are our
• 28:04
  Speaker: virtues that we're taught,
• 28:06
  Speaker: right.
• 28:07
  Speaker: And how do we, how do we bring those into, into the world?
• 28:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker: So let's segue off of that.
• 28:17
  Speaker: We've, we've kind of listed some of those and what we are
• 28:20
  Speaker: explicitly taught in masonry.
• 28:23
  Speaker: Okay.
• 28:23
  Speaker: So we can't claim pure ignorance of which virtues.
• 28:27
  Speaker: Um, however, so that dances into a topic that I've been
• 28:33
  Speaker: fascinated with lately, which is called the category of virtue
• 28:36
  Speaker: ethics, where unlike other types of ethics where you're trying to
• 28:42
  Speaker: think about like, um, the trolley problem or, um, is it,
• 28:48
  Speaker: is it ethical to go back in time and kill Hitler?
• 28:50
  Speaker: Like those kind of questions are, are great business ethics,
• 28:55
  Speaker: business ethics, it, ethics, uh, hated that class.
• 28:58
  Speaker: Um, but virtue ethics are easier to grasp and because it dumbs it
• 29:04
  Speaker: down for me, it's basically, can you practice these virtues?
• 29:09
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:09
  Speaker: And in the repetitious application of universal good
• 29:17
  Speaker: behaviors, can we be, can we be better humans along the way?
• 29:22
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:22
  Speaker: That's how we're taking good men and making them better.
• 29:24
  Speaker: We're actually trying to teach.
• 29:25
  Speaker: I'm I'm positing that we're trying to teach Masons to apply
• 29:29
  Speaker: virtue ethics and to say, here's a here's a short list.
• 29:33
  Speaker: Go off and start using these as
• 29:36
  Speaker: tools, working tools, dare I
• 29:37
  Speaker: say, to actually practically
• 29:41
  Speaker: take what you've been taught,
• 29:43
  Speaker: apply them differently than what
• 29:44
  Speaker: you may have heard before, or
• 29:45
  Speaker: now that you have the
• 29:46
  Speaker: information, go off and be a
• 29:48
  Speaker: better person.
• 29:50
  Speaker: Uh, now that you're a mason because you have, uh, you can no
• 29:53
  Speaker: longer claim ignorance.
• 29:56
  Speaker: Uh, so that leads me to, I know
• 29:59
  Speaker: some, uh, some other folks in
• 30:00
  Speaker: the chat who brought it up the,
• 30:02
  Speaker: uh, Benny.
• 30:03
  Speaker: Frank.
• 30:04
  Speaker: You guys know Benny?
• 30:04
  Speaker: Frank?
• 30:05
  Speaker: Benjamin Franklin.
• 30:07
  Speaker: He's been around.
• 30:08
  Speaker: He was also that Benny Frank.
• 30:10
  Speaker: He was also a Mason.
• 30:12
  Speaker: And I didn't know if you guys knew that or not.
• 30:15
  Speaker: No, but he did a thing in his autobiography.
• 30:22
  Speaker: Where he actually.
• 30:23
  Speaker: This is actually taken right out of his his matrix.
• 30:28
  Speaker: His matrix.
• 30:28
  Speaker: You got hit.
• 30:29
  Speaker: You made a good chart, a good matrix.
• 30:31
  Speaker: And what we have here is an excerpt of his.
• 30:36
  Speaker: Uh, for those listening at home,
• 30:38
  Speaker: uh, a big grid of, um, columns
• 30:41
  Speaker: and rows.
• 30:42
  Speaker: And at the top, the top row has
• 30:45
  Speaker: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
• 30:46
  Speaker: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
• 30:47
  Speaker: Saturday, and then down one
• 30:50
  Speaker: side, the first column lists
• 30:52
  Speaker: abbreviations of different, um,
• 30:55
  Speaker: virtues.
• 30:57
  Speaker: And what, uh, Benjamin Franklin did was he carried around this
• 31:01
  Speaker: little checklist and he would go through the week and he would
• 31:05
  Speaker: mark in, I think he checked the box when he either when he
• 31:10
  Speaker: failed it or when he applied it, I can't remember what the
• 31:12
  Speaker: actual, um, was checking good or bad, I don't remember.
• 31:18
  Speaker: Uh, it's, it's literally, you know, if you're listening, it's
• 31:22
  Speaker: a it's like, think excel.
• 31:23
  Speaker: Yeah, it's an Excel spreadsheet.
• 31:25
  Speaker: It's a Benny Franklin spreadsheet.
• 31:28
  Speaker: But what I, I just think about,
• 31:30
  Speaker: you know, Ben Franklin was such
• 31:32
  Speaker: a iconoclast.
• 31:35
  Speaker: It, he, I can just, I picture
• 31:38
  Speaker: him in like a cartoon or
• 31:40
  Speaker: something, you know, like
• 31:41
  Speaker: somebody like, please, sir, can
• 31:42
  Speaker: I have a, you know, a little bit
• 31:45
  Speaker: of money?
• 31:47
  Speaker: He like whips it out and he
• 31:48
  Speaker: goes, sorry, I already did that
• 31:49
  Speaker: one today.
• 31:50
  Speaker: Ask me tomorrow.
• 31:53
  Speaker: You know, how about a hug?
• 31:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker: Okay.
• 31:56
  Speaker: I can check that off.
• 31:57
  Speaker: I'm all out today.
• 31:58
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I would totally gamify it that way.
• 32:02
  Speaker: Um, so actually, um, I'm going
• 32:05
  Speaker: to go on one, one additional
• 32:06
  Speaker: side tangent.
• 32:07
  Speaker: So this is a bonus for the, uh, the knights and squires and the
• 32:11
  Speaker: patrons who support the show.
• 32:12
  Speaker: Um, I have built a web app That actually is interactive.
• 32:21
  Speaker: It is mobile friendly.
• 32:23
  Speaker: It, it, um, and it keeps track.
• 32:25
  Speaker: It stores your checkboxes.
• 32:27
  Speaker: So as you go through, um, you
• 32:29
  Speaker: can say, okay, today I did some
• 32:32
  Speaker: temperance, some silence, some
• 32:34
  Speaker: sincerity.
• 32:35
  Speaker: These are the thirteen that John never does.
• 32:38
  Speaker: Silence.
• 32:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:39
  Speaker: Let's skip that one.
• 32:41
  Speaker: With a with a house as busy as his.
• 32:43
  Speaker: No I can't.
• 32:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:46
  Speaker: And, uh.
• 32:46
  Speaker: Yeah, it'll save it.
• 32:48
  Speaker: And so, um, you can run this on your phone.
• 32:50
  Speaker: You can run this on your
• 32:51
  Speaker: computer, and then you can
• 32:54
  Speaker: examine yourself to see how well
• 32:58
  Speaker: you did.
• 32:58
  Speaker: That's awesome.
• 32:59
  Speaker: So I'll share that with, uh, nice job man.
• 33:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:03
  Speaker: So it looks kind of cool.
• 33:05
  Speaker: Um, because I dig it, right?
• 33:08
  Speaker: It's, it's what we're trying to, um, trying to adhere to.
• 33:12
  Speaker: Now I picked his thirteen maybe, uh, we'll go crazy and start
• 33:15
  Speaker: picking some new ones in the future, but, um, but that's
• 33:19
  Speaker: really, that's the intent that I think we should be focused on is
• 33:23
  Speaker: how do we actually hold ourselves personally accountable
• 33:28
  Speaker: for at a bare minimum, as Masons, the seven were taught.
• 33:36
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 33:37
  Speaker: And hopefully like keep stacking those up for bonus tracks.
• 33:40
  Speaker: Like what, what do they call it?
• 33:42
  Speaker: The kids call it virtue maxing.
• 33:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:43
  Speaker: We need to do virtue maxing.
• 33:46
  Speaker: We just need to collect all the
• 33:47
  Speaker: virtues and try to apply them
• 33:50
  Speaker: all daily.
• 33:51
  Speaker: And guess what?
• 33:51
  Speaker: You're not going to get like Pokemon cards.
• 33:55
  Speaker: You know, you're gonna fail.
• 33:56
  Speaker: You could gamify it as you said,
• 33:58
  Speaker: but also, and there might be
• 34:01
  Speaker: some guys who are going, oh,
• 34:03
  Speaker: that's silly.
• 34:04
  Speaker: But to be quite honest, it is an exercise in self-reflection.
• 34:10
  Speaker: You have to like even let's, I would almost say, put it in your
• 34:15
  Speaker: pocket all day.
• 34:17
  Speaker: And then at bedtime, you know, my sister in law and her husband
• 34:23
  Speaker: do all all have always done this, you know, pits and peaks
• 34:26
  Speaker: every day, right?
• 34:28
  Speaker: With all their kids.
• 34:29
  Speaker: What was your favorite part?
• 34:30
  Speaker: What was your down part?
• 34:31
  Speaker: And it really forces kids to be reflective.
• 34:34
  Speaker: Um, and in the same way, you could very much sit there and
• 34:39
  Speaker: go, did I give grace today?
• 34:42
  Speaker: Did I?
• 34:43
  Speaker: Right.
• 34:43
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 34:44
  Speaker: Was I sincere today?
• 34:47
  Speaker: Um, and only you can answer that
• 34:49
  Speaker: question, you know, so I mean, I
• 34:54
  Speaker: think, I think that could be a
• 34:55
  Speaker: really powerful tool for some
• 34:56
  Speaker: folks.
• 34:57
  Speaker: Hey, uh, Andrew, I do have a
• 35:04
  Speaker: closing charge, but it's
• 35:06
  Speaker: actually just at the end of our
• 35:08
  Speaker: third degree.
• 35:10
  Speaker: We don't do it at every meeting.
• 35:11
  Speaker: Um, f y I boom.
• 35:14
  Speaker: Um, but I have often thought
• 35:19
  Speaker: that every time I visit a
• 35:20
  Speaker: foreign jurisdiction and they do
• 35:22
  Speaker: that at the end of a meeting, it
• 35:25
  Speaker: is beautiful.
• 35:27
  Speaker: It is a constant reminder of that thing.
• 35:32
  Speaker: So yeah.
• 35:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:36
  Speaker: Um, so the big question that I have for you guys tonight is
• 35:41
  Speaker: I've gone through, you know, what, what is a virtue?
• 35:44
  Speaker: Where do we see it in in masonry.
• 35:47
  Speaker: What are the ones that we're explicitly taught.
• 35:49
  Speaker: And then how do we start applying them?
• 35:53
  Speaker: This is almost a final question question, but I decided to throw
• 35:56
  Speaker: it in early, which is, um, how about the modern Mason?
• 36:00
  Speaker: How about the modern man?
• 36:01
  Speaker: What virtues.
• 36:04
  Speaker: Um, beyond the traditional ones.
• 36:07
  Speaker: Because again, like you said, Robert, maybe they might not
• 36:09
  Speaker: resonate the classical virtues, the cardinal virtues, the
• 36:13
  Speaker: theological virtues, whatever.
• 36:14
  Speaker: Maybe they don't.
• 36:15
  Speaker: Maybe they don't gel with you, but you know that you should be
• 36:18
  Speaker: exhibiting some good behaviors.
• 36:20
  Speaker: What would be some some new ones
• 36:22
  Speaker: that you would maybe recommend
• 36:24
  Speaker: to a brother who wants to virtue
• 36:26
  Speaker: Max.
• 36:31
  Speaker: It out.
• 36:34
  Speaker: Jason, do you want to go first or literacy.
• 36:38
  Speaker: Oh, that's a good one.
• 36:41
  Speaker: Wow.
• 36:41
  Speaker: Yeah, that's that's a hot take.
• 36:43
  Speaker: Read a book.
• 36:44
  Speaker: Unpack that.
• 36:46
  Speaker: Well, I think to be a force for
• 36:49
  Speaker: good in this world, you have to
• 36:52
  Speaker: be familiar with the conveyance
• 36:56
  Speaker: of ideas.
• 36:57
  Speaker: And you.
• 36:57
  Speaker: And you need to be well read and deeply literate.
• 37:02
  Speaker: Um, not just in the things that, you know, serve your own
• 37:09
  Speaker: confirmation bias, but you need to read kind of across the
• 37:12
  Speaker: spectrum and you need to understand, um, you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker: multiple facets of an issue or a set of issues.
• 37:23
  Speaker: Um, and, you know, we're in the middle of a literacy crisis in
• 37:30
  Speaker: this country and we're, you know, people are reading less
• 37:35
  Speaker: and less and less.
• 37:36
  Speaker: Um, and I, I think, you know, literacy in and of itself can be
• 37:45
  Speaker: virtuous in the sense that it teaches you to have a
• 37:49
  Speaker: well-rounded worldview and it teaches you to better convey
• 37:54
  Speaker: ideas and better receive those ideas that are conveyed.
• 38:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:00
  Speaker: I almost think about the old
• 38:03
  Speaker: saying, readers are better
• 38:05
  Speaker: writers.
• 38:06
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker: Uh, we you, when you read, you are exposing yourself to ten
• 38:15
  Speaker: words you've never heard before.
• 38:17
  Speaker: Maybe you got curious.
• 38:19
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:19
  Speaker: You're exposing yourself to any
• 38:22
  Speaker: number of of different concepts
• 38:24
  Speaker: that now when you, you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker: want to write or even speak to
• 38:29
  Speaker: something intelligently, you,
• 38:32
  Speaker: you have a claim to that
• 38:33
  Speaker: conversation.
• 38:35
  Speaker: Uh, you can be a part of a conversation rather than a quiet
• 38:40
  Speaker: bystander or, uh, more often than not, somebody who is just,
• 38:47
  Speaker: you know, they're, they're putting their two cents out
• 38:49
  Speaker: there for whatever reason.
• 38:51
  Speaker: Usually I find that it's because
• 38:52
  Speaker: they have a, they don't want to
• 38:55
  Speaker: feel embarrassed or like less of
• 38:57
  Speaker: a person for not knowing
• 38:58
  Speaker: something.
• 38:59
  Speaker: So they'd rather make it up than know it.
• 39:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:01
  Speaker: And to be honest with you, that never works out.
• 39:05
  Speaker: Um, if I don't know, I say I don't know.
• 39:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:09
  Speaker: Intellectual humility.
• 39:10
  Speaker: Intellectual humility.
• 39:12
  Speaker: Yeah, that's actually probably.
• 39:13
  Speaker: I'm gonna I'm gonna jump right
• 39:14
  Speaker: off of that and say that's
• 39:15
  Speaker: probably another one I didn't
• 39:17
  Speaker: think about.
• 39:18
  Speaker: Um, intellectual humility as a virtue.
• 39:21
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 39:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:23
  Speaker: Um, my life changed.
• 39:25
  Speaker: Death, ego, death.
• 39:27
  Speaker: When I said it's okay to not know something.
• 39:32
  Speaker: It's okay to admit you're wrong.
• 39:34
  Speaker: It's okay to say I don't know
• 39:38
  Speaker: the answer, but I can help you
• 39:40
  Speaker: find it.
• 39:41
  Speaker: Or I'm going to go find it.
• 39:43
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 39:44
  Speaker: Because.
• 39:47
  Speaker: Early in my career.
• 39:48
  Speaker: Right.
• 39:48
  Speaker: You're trying to establish yourself.
• 39:49
  Speaker: You're trying to be you're an expert in something.
• 39:51
  Speaker: You're trying to find your niche.
• 39:53
  Speaker: And so you, you, you want to be
• 39:55
  Speaker: the go to guy, the answer guy or
• 39:57
  Speaker: gal.
• 39:58
  Speaker: And yet maturity is in understanding that you don't
• 40:03
  Speaker: have all the answers.
• 40:04
  Speaker: And sometimes even the answers you thought you knew were right
• 40:08
  Speaker: may not apply all the time.
• 40:09
  Speaker: So having that intellectual
• 40:10
  Speaker: humility, intellectual humility
• 40:12
  Speaker: every day would be a great
• 40:14
  Speaker: virtue to stop and reflect, you
• 40:16
  Speaker: know?
• 40:16
  Speaker: Pull up a Benny Frank's chart and say, hey, did I, did I shut
• 40:21
  Speaker: my mouth when I was supposed to?
• 40:22
  Speaker: Did I admit that I didn't know something?
• 40:25
  Speaker: That would be a really cool thing to make sure that I keep
• 40:27
  Speaker: myself in check.
• 40:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:34
  Speaker: How about you, Robert?
• 40:36
  Speaker: Uh, man, um, I think.
• 40:42
  Speaker: I think something that's lacking today is probably the idea of,
• 40:48
  Speaker: uh, sort of like this.
• 40:52
  Speaker: Uh, how do we say it in our daily lives?
• 40:57
  Speaker: We're not always standing up for the right things.
• 41:03
  Speaker: Um, and not in the name of masonry, but that masonry does
• 41:07
  Speaker: demand of us moral courage.
• 41:11
  Speaker: So like, granted, I, you know, at the top of the show, I was on
• 41:17
  Speaker: this diatribe about that there really is no true good or bad.
• 41:22
  Speaker: There's what your society thinks.
• 41:25
  Speaker: But living within that and under the idea that we do good unto
• 41:31
  Speaker: all us, we often don't have.
• 41:38
  Speaker: We have to have courage to speak
• 41:40
  Speaker: out against, you know, any sort
• 41:42
  Speaker: of, uh, not just political or
• 41:47
  Speaker: social, but all kinds of
• 41:48
  Speaker: injustices.
• 41:50
  Speaker: And we have to be able to also,
• 41:53
  Speaker: um, hold ourselves as well as
• 41:55
  Speaker: others accountable, um, to
• 42:00
  Speaker: objective truth.
• 42:02
  Speaker: Right?
• 42:03
  Speaker: So our society's truth, um, I would like to see more of that.
• 42:07
  Speaker: I feel like our our fraternity hasn't been spared the, um, the
• 42:18
  Speaker: sort of vacuum that's occurred in this space in civic space.
• 42:25
  Speaker: Uh, I would like to think masonry has kept that alive.
• 42:28
  Speaker: But as Jason said, and you said
• 42:32
  Speaker: no politics or religion in
• 42:34
  Speaker: Lodge.
• 42:35
  Speaker: Well, I, I agree with that, but, you know, within the confines of
• 42:41
  Speaker: the sacred space.
• 42:44
  Speaker: Right.
• 42:44
  Speaker: But also that is I, you know, a non-starter.
• 42:49
  Speaker: I, I, a non-starter for me.
• 42:50
  Speaker: And I'm, I don't know about
• 42:51
  Speaker: John, but I know, I know, Jason,
• 42:53
  Speaker: you and I are kind of the same
• 42:55
  Speaker: fabric here.
• 42:56
  Speaker: For me, human rights isn't political.
• 43:01
  Speaker: And that if you ever say it is, it's a non-starter.
• 43:04
  Speaker: Right?
• 43:05
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:05
  Speaker: Uh, I'm never I'm never going to debate people's ability to live
• 43:08
  Speaker: and be who they are, right?
• 43:09
  Speaker: Like, but like, we don't have an
• 43:12
  Speaker: ability to, to, you know, if we
• 43:15
  Speaker: want to stand up for something
• 43:16
  Speaker: like, I wish we would get more
• 43:18
  Speaker: civically engaged.
• 43:20
  Speaker: Um, I don't care what side of the spectrum you're on, but like
• 43:24
  Speaker: use, use masonry to push.
• 43:29
  Speaker: Oh boy.
• 43:30
  Speaker: The progressive moral science.
• 43:37
  Speaker: Interesting.
• 43:38
  Speaker: You can say that.
• 43:44
  Speaker: Um, this is one that's kind of interesting.
• 43:46
  Speaker: I know that, uh, Oscar brought this up earlier.
• 43:52
  Speaker: Um, begins with I and ends with integrity.
• 43:58
  Speaker: Right.
• 43:58
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 44:00
  Speaker: Uh, doing what you say you're
• 44:02
  Speaker: going to do And doing it and
• 44:06
  Speaker: doing a mea culpa when you don't
• 44:08
  Speaker: do it.
• 44:09
  Speaker: Yeah, that that goes a long way.
• 44:12
  Speaker: Holy smokes.
• 44:13
  Speaker: Do you ever feel like people say
• 44:14
  Speaker: mea culpa because they're
• 44:15
  Speaker: uncomfortable with saying my
• 44:17
  Speaker: fault?
• 44:19
  Speaker: Yeah, it's it's, it's different language.
• 44:21
  Speaker: It's it's all it's the same thing.
• 44:23
  Speaker: But you can't bring yourself to say it.
• 44:26
  Speaker: I'll, I'll say it in this dead language.
• 44:28
  Speaker: That doesn't really exist anymore.
• 44:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:32
  Speaker: I mean, hey.
• 44:35
  Speaker: Oh my gosh.
• 44:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:37
  Speaker: That that's that is.
• 44:43
  Speaker: That's a, that's a great point.
• 44:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:45
  Speaker: I think integrity for sure.
• 44:47
  Speaker: Uh, and that seems to be universal.
• 44:50
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 44:51
  Speaker: Taking any sort of
• 44:53
  Speaker: categorization of whether
• 44:56
  Speaker: something is good, bad or
• 44:57
  Speaker: indifferent.
• 44:59
  Speaker: The virtue is your ability to do what you say you will do.
• 45:05
  Speaker: Yep.
• 45:06
  Speaker: That's an interesting one.
• 45:08
  Speaker: As a worshipful master, you know, I explicitly told my
• 45:11
  Speaker: officers, I said, um, you know, we need people to volunteer for
• 45:16
  Speaker: this committee or we need this, but do not half commit.
• 45:21
  Speaker: Like, I want to know if you're, if you're really going to do it,
• 45:23
  Speaker: do it because I don't want you to like, feel guilted into it.
• 45:27
  Speaker: Just tell me no. And that'll be much better than a yes.
• 45:30
  Speaker: That and then you bail on me.
• 45:32
  Speaker: Uh, just please tell me no up
• 45:34
  Speaker: front, and I'll be okay with
• 45:36
  Speaker: that.
• 45:36
  Speaker: And I'll find someone else.
• 45:37
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:38
  Speaker: Because it's a whole ass.
• 45:40
  Speaker: The entire thing.
• 45:45
  Speaker: Yep.
• 45:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:46
  Speaker: That's true.
• 45:47
  Speaker: That's very true.
• 45:49
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 45:51
  Speaker: Any other ones before we go to final question.
• 45:54
  Speaker: Any any modern virtues that we should practice daily?
• 46:02
  Speaker: Active relief over handing over the check.
• 46:06
  Speaker: We mentioned it earlier.
• 46:08
  Speaker: Faith, hope and charity.
• 46:10
  Speaker: And the idea of love and loving everybody is a difficult thing
• 46:14
  Speaker: for a lot of people.
• 46:16
  Speaker: Um, and if you want to sort of play on the side of, of, of
• 46:23
  Speaker: charitable and relief for others, then be active about it.
• 46:28
  Speaker: Uh, don't just throw money at a
• 46:30
  Speaker: problem, like be, be a part of
• 46:33
  Speaker: the solution.
• 46:34
  Speaker: I think, I think that goes a long way.
• 46:36
  Speaker: And if you want to wear a Masonic t shirt while you do it
• 46:38
  Speaker: like I don't like, that's fine.
• 46:40
  Speaker: But photo op selfie.
• 46:42
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:46
  Speaker: Yep.
• 46:48
  Speaker: Cool.
• 46:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:49
  Speaker: Um, the other ones that that kind of came to mind too.
• 46:53
  Speaker: I know that, uh.
• 46:57
  Speaker: We had some in the chat about like, oh, uh, watching my
• 47:00
  Speaker: passions on social media, right?
• 47:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:03
  Speaker: I mean, a lot of these ones about temperance.
• 47:05
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:05
  Speaker: That could also apply to online temperance, right?
• 47:09
  Speaker: Um, is to apply those in a modern setting.
• 47:13
  Speaker: So don't think of temperance
• 47:14
  Speaker: just as, uh, stopping a drink
• 47:17
  Speaker: early.
• 47:18
  Speaker: No. It means temperance.
• 47:20
  Speaker: And your thoughts, your actions.
• 47:22
  Speaker: Right.
• 47:22
  Speaker: Um, those are all important.
• 47:27
  Speaker: AI, temperance, or at least diversify the prompts.
• 47:33
  Speaker: So not all Masonic flyers look the same.
• 47:37
  Speaker: Damn.
• 47:39
  Speaker: Ouch.
• 47:41
  Speaker: Um.
• 47:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:44
  Speaker: Yep.
• 47:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:46
  Speaker: I got nothing on that.
• 47:47
  Speaker: That is legit legit af.
• 47:52
  Speaker: Thank you for that one.
• 47:54
  Speaker: That made my night.
• 47:57
  Speaker: Awesome, man.
• 47:59
  Speaker: Let's end it on a high note then.
• 48:00
  Speaker: Uh, let's go over to final
• 48:03
  Speaker: thoughts for tonight's episode,
• 48:05
  Speaker: and, uh, we'll head over to flip
• 48:09
  Speaker: a coin, Robert, for his final
• 48:13
  Speaker: thoughts.
• 48:13
  Speaker: Okay.
• 48:14
  Speaker: Um, virtues outside the lodge.
• 48:20
  Speaker: They're important.
• 48:23
  Speaker: No, uh, facts.
• 48:27
  Speaker: The virtues in masonry that we
• 48:29
  Speaker: teach, I feel, are if you unpack
• 48:33
  Speaker: them and we do what we do, the
• 48:35
  Speaker: work, you have to do the work,
• 48:37
  Speaker: right?
• 48:38
  Speaker: Which is being self-reflective, looking in the mirror, because
• 48:42
  Speaker: we have to admit that any of our preconceived notions, our
• 48:45
  Speaker: preconceived biases, all of those things are up in the air,
• 48:50
  Speaker: just like Duck Hunt, right?
• 48:53
  Speaker: And your job is to blast them out of the air.
• 48:56
  Speaker: And you have to.
• 48:58
  Speaker: Sometimes it's uncomfortable.
• 49:00
  Speaker: It is always uncomfortable.
• 49:03
  Speaker: Um, and the thing also to remember in this, I feel like,
• 49:09
  Speaker: is this idea that virtues in and of themselves within masonry at
• 49:13
  Speaker: least were such a traditional organization, um, that people
• 49:19
  Speaker: tend to um.
• 49:24
  Speaker: They stick to the tradition as a sacrosanct thing.
• 49:29
  Speaker: Uh, we are a progressive moral science.
• 49:31
  Speaker: Uh, again, going back to what that means when the time was
• 49:34
  Speaker: written, that means progressive as in progressive moralities.
• 49:42
  Speaker: And so when any society or even
• 49:45
  Speaker: a lodge or for that matter, is
• 49:46
  Speaker: treating yesteryears, uh, sort
• 49:49
  Speaker: of subjective values as their
• 49:51
  Speaker: eternal, sacrosanct thing,
• 49:54
  Speaker: they're failing.
• 49:56
  Speaker: Like they're they're failing not
• 49:57
  Speaker: only the craft, but like
• 49:58
  Speaker: they're, they're failing the
• 49:59
  Speaker: founding fathers of this
• 50:00
  Speaker: country.
• 50:01
  Speaker: Not to say masonry is only American, right?
• 50:03
  Speaker: But like it is that idea.
• 50:05
  Speaker: Um, we have to have a progressive moral evolution.
• 50:10
  Speaker: Uh, and that is the progressive moral science.
• 50:13
  Speaker: And so we can't be sort of slaves to outdated norms either.
• 50:18
  Speaker: Not to say we're throwing anything out, but we have to be
• 50:21
  Speaker: able to further define what those virtues are as our society
• 50:28
  Speaker: changes over time.
• 50:31
  Speaker: Uh, um, it's just the way the world works.
• 50:36
  Speaker: Uh, our, the future of humanity and whatever that brings is
• 50:41
  Speaker: dependent upon, uh, our ability to fundamentally change who we
• 50:52
  Speaker: are generation to generation.
• 50:55
  Speaker: Uh, and I think that's really
• 50:56
  Speaker: important when we're thinking
• 50:57
  Speaker: about virtues.
• 50:59
  Speaker: Uh, I think the Masonic virtues are a great place to start.
• 51:05
  Speaker: They're not the end, either.
• 51:07
  Speaker: Very cool.
• 51:08
  Speaker: Jason.
• 51:10
  Speaker: So I would, I would argue that the seven or seven plus one in
• 51:18
  Speaker: terms of the integrity, um, virtues that we learn about in
• 51:23
  Speaker: the Masonic experience are wildly relevant and very much,
• 51:28
  Speaker: you know, missing in, in a lot of, um, what we see, especially
• 51:35
  Speaker: online, um, today.
• 51:38
  Speaker: And so.
• 51:41
  Speaker: I think a critical piece that's missing is understanding what,
• 51:48
  Speaker: what the virtues are, you know, that we talk about in our ritual
• 51:52
  Speaker: and what they, what they meant in the context and the time in
• 51:55
  Speaker: which they were written.
• 51:57
  Speaker: Um, because again, charity case in point.
• 52:03
  Speaker: Right.
• 52:04
  Speaker: We largely today charity is
• 52:08
  Speaker: confused as charitable works,
• 52:10
  Speaker: charitable giving.
• 52:11
  Speaker: Um, when charity meant love, not just not just any love, but
• 52:16
  Speaker: agape love, you know, Christ like love, right?
• 52:23
  Speaker: And that's, it's very, very
• 52:26
  Speaker: different than simply performing
• 52:31
  Speaker: an act of charitable, um, giving
• 52:36
  Speaker: or service.
• 52:37
  Speaker: Now, you know, charitable giving
• 52:41
  Speaker: and charitable service is a
• 52:43
  Speaker: natural second order effect of
• 52:47
  Speaker: living your life with charity at
• 52:50
  Speaker: the forefront.
• 52:51
  Speaker: But it is very, very important.
• 52:56
  Speaker: For us to understand what those
• 53:00
  Speaker: who authored our ritual actually
• 53:02
  Speaker: meant and what those virtues
• 53:04
  Speaker: meant in the context of our
• 53:05
  Speaker: times.
• 53:06
  Speaker: And I think, you know, we it's difficult to do any more than
• 53:14
  Speaker: than pay lip service to our virtues unless you actually
• 53:18
  Speaker: understand them and in context.
• 53:20
  Speaker: So it's like, it's like the party's approach.
• 53:24
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 53:26
  Speaker: You can't just read at surface level, but it's easier that way.
• 53:33
  Speaker: Oh, well.
• 53:35
  Speaker: All right.
• 53:35
  Speaker: Life's hard.
• 53:37
  Speaker: Life is hard.
• 53:37
  Speaker: Takes a lot of work.
• 53:39
  Speaker: Don't be.
• 53:39
  Speaker: Don't be a mason if you're not ready to work.
• 53:43
  Speaker: So Brother Jose has a great question that he's been priming
• 53:49
  Speaker: the pump here.
• 53:51
  Speaker: So why the square?
• 53:53
  Speaker: So why is the square an emblem of virtue?
• 53:57
  Speaker: We talked all about virtues, but we never really connected it to.
• 54:00
  Speaker: Why is the square a symbol of that concept?
• 54:03
  Speaker: It makes a v a v for virtue.
• 54:06
  Speaker: That's right.
• 54:06
  Speaker: Flip it up.
• 54:07
  Speaker: There's your V. Uh, that's how I
• 54:09
  Speaker: remembered it, actually, in the
• 54:11
  Speaker: ritual.
• 54:11
  Speaker: Um, and morality square morality is like two squares, like a m
• 54:17
  Speaker: and a V. Yeah.
• 54:18
  Speaker: There you go.
• 54:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 54:19
  Speaker: See, use the old brain.
• 54:21
  Speaker: But, um, I'm gonna quote Pike
• 54:25
  Speaker: where he says that the square
• 54:30
  Speaker: represents the essential
• 54:31
  Speaker: appetites and animal passions,
• 54:35
  Speaker: whereas the compasses are like
• 54:37
  Speaker: heavenly things.
• 54:38
  Speaker: So we are supposed to try to tame our square.
• 54:44
  Speaker: And the best way to tame that is
• 54:45
  Speaker: through habitual practice of
• 54:48
  Speaker: improvement.
• 54:50
  Speaker: And so that's, that's, that's the connection I can make as far
• 54:54
  Speaker: as the, what the square represents and then how it
• 54:57
  Speaker: connects to a square of virtue.
• 54:58
  Speaker: Why is it a square virtue?
• 55:00
  Speaker: Because we're trying to control the material part of ourselves.
• 55:06
  Speaker: Uh, I resonated with what RJ said.
• 55:08
  Speaker: Um, one practice that I do as
• 55:10
  Speaker: often as I can do it or remember
• 55:12
  Speaker: to do it, which is why I put it
• 55:13
  Speaker: on my calendar is to do an
• 55:15
  Speaker: evening examine.
• 55:17
  Speaker: So this is inspired by the Ignatian spirituality, where at
• 55:24
  Speaker: the end of the night, um, just like Robert was saying, you try
• 55:28
  Speaker: to reflect back on the day and whether you use Benny, Benny
• 55:31
  Speaker: Frank's, uh, checklist or you have your own way of just
• 55:35
  Speaker: rewinding the day to say, what did I do?
• 55:37
  Speaker: Well, what do I need help with?
• 55:39
  Speaker: How can I be better tomorrow and do that from a spiritual aspect
• 55:43
  Speaker: as well as a virtue aspect?
• 55:45
  Speaker: You'll be you'll be crushing it
• 55:46
  Speaker: and You know, if we are to be
• 55:50
  Speaker: our brother's keeper, then I
• 55:51
  Speaker: think, um, the last thing that
• 55:53
  Speaker: we should do as Masons is be
• 55:55
  Speaker: each other's accountability
• 55:56
  Speaker: buddies.
• 55:57
  Speaker: Right.
• 55:58
  Speaker: Um, wouldn't it be great if, you know, it's almost like having an
• 56:02
  Speaker: a, a hotline, right, where you could call a friend and be like,
• 56:04
  Speaker: oh, man, I was this close to like crushing it with my virtues
• 56:08
  Speaker: today, but I sucked and I, and I messed up, right?
• 56:11
  Speaker: Just to have someone who could check in with us and say, you
• 56:14
  Speaker: know, are you, are you living, living your virtues?
• 56:17
  Speaker: Are you living who you say you are or want to be?
• 56:21
  Speaker: That would go a long way.
• 56:22
  Speaker: And we have a great vanguard
• 56:23
  Speaker: fraternity that could help us do
• 56:24
  Speaker: that.
• 56:24
  Speaker: So one day we'll get to that, hopefully before twenty forty.
• 56:28
  Speaker: This has been a great show.
• 56:29
  Speaker: I talk about virtue ethics all day, but we have to wrap it up.
• 56:32
  Speaker: So I want to thank you all very much for watching and keep
• 56:35
  Speaker: searching for more light.
• 56:36
  Speaker: Have a good night.