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#098_ STORY INSPIRE: How to Spot a Psychopath — The Hidden Signs You Should Know · INSPIRE STORY

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  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. This is the eighth consecutive week of releases
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: from my extensive tour archives. We've been gratified to see
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: that this return to the form that I initially relied
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: on when I started using YouTube is still capable of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: reaching people. More capable, perhaps, than it was in the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: We're attaining combined views and listens across YouTube and the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: audio channels of about half a million people a week.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So that's very satisfying and gratifying. And thank you to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: all of you who are listening consistently. I also spent
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of time this week contemplating Peterson Academy ads.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: We have a wonderful advertising team and have worked on
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: developing cut lines and assessing graphic images and realized this
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: week that we're really reaching millions of people with these advertisements,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: far more in some ways than we reach with the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: lectures from Peterson Academy. And it's an opportunity for us
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to send a cultural message in imagistic form to a
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: huge audience of people. And so we've been concentrating on
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: developing themes of patriotism and respect for the West and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: gratitude for our philosophical tradition and a harsher and more
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  Speaker 1: dramatic view of Christianity that I think is more accurate
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: than the kind of naive sentimentality that often accompanies Christian messaging.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: And so it's been extremely interesting to think that through
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  Speaker 1: philosophically and to work on the Peterson Academy advertisements. Bye-bye.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So I've been writing the introduction to this book. It's
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  Speaker 1: 95% done. It actually turned into three books because it
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: took longer to go through the material that I thought
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  Speaker 1: it might. And so that's good. I was writing the
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  Speaker 1: intro today, the introduction, which is the hardest thing to do, really,
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  Speaker 1: I would say. And I started thinking about how to
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  Speaker 1: communicate the relationship between the transcendent and the immediate, between
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  Speaker 1: our realm, you might say, and the spiritual realm, how
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  Speaker 1: to communicate that so that it's entirely comprehensible. And it
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  Speaker 1: seems to me that this is something that's now necessary.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we're at the point in our
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  Speaker 1: technological cultural development where we can't just believe nothing. That
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  Speaker 1: doesn't work. You can't make your way through life believing
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  Speaker 1: in nothing. Life is too difficult. For you to sustain
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  Speaker 1: yourself without bitterness and resentment. Without hopelessness. Without succumbing to anxiety.
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  Speaker 1: If you believe in nothing. But you can't just believe
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  Speaker 1: like someone believes in Santa Claus either. You have to.
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  Speaker 1: You have to be deeper than that. And I think
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  Speaker 1: we have to be deeper than that now. Because we're
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  Speaker 1: too dangerous to be shallow. And I think everyone can
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  Speaker 1: feel that. We have. amazing tools at our disposal. But
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  Speaker 1: they're very, very dangerous. And so we have to be
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  Speaker 1: as wise as we are technologically proficient. And we're pretty
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  Speaker 1: technologically proficient. And we're not very wise. And that's not
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  Speaker 1: a good combination. And that's why things are shaking. And
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  Speaker 1: they've been shaking for quite a while. They've really been shaking,
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  Speaker 1: I would say, since the end of the Second World War,
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  Speaker 1: when we developed the atomic technologies that led to the
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  Speaker 1: nuclear bombs, to the fission bomb and the fusion bomb.
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  Speaker 1: World destroying technologies. And those aren't the only technologies of
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  Speaker 1: that sort that we've developed. The birth control pill is
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  Speaker 1: a world shattering technology. The computer chip is a world
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  Speaker 1: shattering technology. The large language models we just developed this year,
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  Speaker 1: they have the same nature. So we're going to take
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  Speaker 1: a look at the background of things tonight. And we're
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  Speaker 1: going to start by investigating what's going on behind the
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  Speaker 1: scenes in a relatively everyday manner. This introductory chapter that
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  Speaker 1: I'm writing, I started with a description of someone. I
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  Speaker 1: imagined a man. So I'm a man. I imagined a
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  Speaker 1: man on a first date in a busy restaurant. A
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  Speaker 1: typical situation of Excitement and anticipation and nervousness. Nothing out
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  Speaker 1: of the ordinary. Except insofar as everything's out of the
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  Speaker 1: ordinary if you think about it. If you think about
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  Speaker 1: it sufficiently. Imagine that The scene is set in a
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  Speaker 1: restaurant that's extremely, it's busy and noisy. And the young
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  Speaker 1: man comes in waiting to see the woman that he's
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  Speaker 1: invited out for an evening. And maybe they've met online.
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  Speaker 1: And they decided to meet at this restaurant. And so
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  Speaker 1: he sees her at the table. His initial impression, we'll say,
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  Speaker 1: is positive. He sits down and they start to, well,
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  Speaker 1: they start to what? They start to talk. They start
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  Speaker 1: to dance the way people do when they're talking. If
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  Speaker 1: you're attending to someone when you're talking to them, you
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  Speaker 1: tend to match your movements with them. Depressed mothers don't
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  Speaker 1: do that with their babies. If you film videotape mothers
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  Speaker 1: who aren't depressed... with their babies and are depressed with
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  Speaker 1: their babies and you speed up the films you can
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  Speaker 1: see that the mothers who aren't depressed dance as they're
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  Speaker 1: communicating with the babies the baby moves the mother moves
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  Speaker 1: like there's a continual back and forth exchange of information
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  Speaker 1: but also bodily maneuvering that characterizes an attentive relationship and
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  Speaker 1: you'll notice perhaps if you're sitting with someone and you're
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  Speaker 1: talking to them and you're listening more importantly you're listening
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  Speaker 1: much more importantly, that you'll unconsciously mimic their posture and
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  Speaker 1: you'll adjust your rate of movement to theirs. You start
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  Speaker 1: to dance. When a couple dances together, that's actually one
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  Speaker 1: of the things they're checking each other out for. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: are you capable of adjusting yourself in real time to
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  Speaker 1: the movements and subtle offerings of someone else? That's what's
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  Speaker 1: being evaluated. That's what children do when they meet each
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  Speaker 1: other in a playground and they decide whether they can play.
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  Speaker 1: They send some signals back and forth and they see
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  Speaker 1: if they can get into a communicative dance and if
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  Speaker 1: they can do that, then they can scaffold off that
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  Speaker 1: and begin to play. And we're doing that sort of
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  Speaker 1: thing all the time. And the couple who are just
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  Speaker 1: encountering each other in the restaurant are undertaking to do that.
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  Speaker 1: And they're evaluating each other well that Now, while they're
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  Speaker 1: doing that, they have to solve another problem. It's a
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  Speaker 1: very complicated problem. So imagine they're in the restaurant. Imagine
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  Speaker 1: it's a very busy place, noisy. A lot of background activity,
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  Speaker 1: kitchen noises. Maybe there's a DJ. There's 30 other couples
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  Speaker 1: or families or groups of friends sitting there. And they're
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  Speaker 1: all buzzing away, talking and chatting. And so there's like
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  Speaker 1: 40 conversations going on, plus the activity of the waiters
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  Speaker 1: and the waitresses and the music. Now, what you have
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  Speaker 1: to do in a situation like that is you have
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  Speaker 1: to filter all that out and attend to the person
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  Speaker 1: that you're sitting with. Now, that's a very complicated thing
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  Speaker 1: to do. It's an amazing thing you can do at all. Now,
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  Speaker 1: you can imagine that you're sitting there and, well, maybe
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  Speaker 1: you're nervous. Then you might ask why. But imagine you're nervous.
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  Speaker 1: Your attention is distracted. You're distracted by self-conscious thoughts. That
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  Speaker 1: often happens. You're wondering what the person thinks of you.
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  Speaker 1: You're wondering if they think you're attractive. You're wondering if
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  Speaker 1: you're impressing them. You're wondering what you should say next.
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  Speaker 1: You're wondering how to make the best display of yourself.
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  Speaker 1: And while doing that, you're focusing on yourself and not them.
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  Speaker 1: And while you're doing that, if you're focusing on yourself,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to be anxious. Because it turns out that
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  Speaker 1: there's no difference in a social situation between focusing on
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  Speaker 1: yourself and being anxious. There's no difference between self-consciousness and anxiety.
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  Speaker 1: That's why when the scales fall from Adam and Eve's
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  Speaker 1: eyes in the Garden of Paradise, they become aware of
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  Speaker 1: their nakedness and That's part of what precipitates the fall.
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  Speaker 1: To become self-conscious is to be miserable. It's to descend.
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  Speaker 1: And that's a very useful thing to know. And so
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  Speaker 1: one of the things you could take away from this
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  Speaker 1: talk tonight, if you tend to be a socially anxious person,
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  Speaker 1: is that the next time you're anxious, pay more attention
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  Speaker 1: to the person you're with. Don't pay less attention to yourself.
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  Speaker 1: That doesn't work, because as soon as you start thinking
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  Speaker 1: that you should pay less attention to yourself... you're just
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  Speaker 1: thinking about yourself and then you get anxious, but you
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  Speaker 1: can really, really increase the amount of attention you're paying
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  Speaker 1: to the other person. And if you do that, which
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  Speaker 1: is a hospitable thing to do, by the way, then
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  Speaker 1: your anxiety will decrease. And then, well, then you might
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  Speaker 1: imagine too that you could get distracted by the conversations
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  Speaker 1: of the people around you, right? And so your attention
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  Speaker 1: might wander so that you are eavesdropping on the table
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  Speaker 1: next to you or two tables away or you hear
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  Speaker 1: the music or your attention is fragmented and as a
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  Speaker 1: consequence of that you lose the thread of the conversation
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  Speaker 1: and you step out of sync with the person you're
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  Speaker 1: communicating with. That sets up some awkwardnesses in the conversation.
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  Speaker 1: You maybe have to ask the person to repeat what
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  Speaker 1: they said or you misunderstand something and then you say
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  Speaker 1: something foolish and the melody of the through line of
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  Speaker 1: the conversation starts to get disrupted, and the dance becomes awkward.
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  Speaker 1: You're stepping on each other's toes, and that's a consequence
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  Speaker 1: of the fragmentation of your attention. It's called Peterson Academy.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Peterson Academy. Peterson Academy. It's called Peterson Academy. Peterson Academy.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: If you want an actual education. With hand-selected professors from
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: top universities around the world. bringing the best professors together,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: making sure they're not censored in any way, giving them
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the audience and the remuneration and appreciation they deserve. And
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you were true to your word. You gave me absolute
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: intellectual autonomy. I have had it through every course. We
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: figure we can offer people a high quality university level
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: education for under $ 2, 000. Well, congratulations, Jordan. It's honestly brilliant.
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  Speaker 1: Can't wait to enroll myself. Probably doing that straight after this. Fungio.
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  Speaker 1: What does it mean to attend? Well, that's where things
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  Speaker 1: get strange. What does it mean to attend? Why are
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  Speaker 1: you attending? That's the first question. What the hell are
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  Speaker 1: you doing there? Right? Because you can be sure that
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  Speaker 1: the person you're with wants to know that. And you
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  Speaker 1: want to know that too. And so, let's take a part.
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  Speaker 1: Why you're there? You're there... Let's presume this. I'll tell
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  Speaker 1: you something about human social and sexual patterns. We'll approach
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  Speaker 1: this from the biological perspective. In the... Most animals reproduce sexually.
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  Speaker 1: There's complicated reasons for that. It's not strictly necessary. There
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  Speaker 1: are animals that can essentially clone themselves. It's not a
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  Speaker 1: good strategy. Sexual reproduction is a much better strategy, which
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  Speaker 1: is why virtually all species are sexually dimorphic. Dimorphic. Two sexes. Right. Two. Right. Right.
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  Speaker 1: There are various types of sexual strategies in the animal kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Reproduction strategies. That's a better way of thinking about it.
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  Speaker 1: On the one end of the distribution of sexual strategies
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  Speaker 1: are low investment, high reproduction rate strategies. Puffballs have that strategy.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know the mushroom that's a puffball.
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  Speaker 1: It dries and if you step on it, it puffs
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  Speaker 1: out what looks like smoke, but which is actually like
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of spores and immense number of them.
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  Speaker 1: And they just float on the wind and they land anywhere.
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  Speaker 1: And even if there's 100 million of them, there's actually
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  Speaker 1: more produced, they all die, except one on average. And
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  Speaker 1: so we maintain our number of puffballs, but we don't
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  Speaker 1: end up knee-deep in them, which is what would happen
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  Speaker 1: if the success rate was higher. That's a high-reproduction-rate, low-investment strategy.
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  Speaker 1: On the other end of the distribution are human beings,
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  Speaker 1: as it turns out. We're low reproduction rate, high investment
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  Speaker 1: strategy reproducers. And so what does that mean? Well, it
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  Speaker 1: means you don't have very many kids. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: what the world record for number of children for a
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  Speaker 1: woman is. It's something like 70. Right? Right. It's a lot.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very rare woman who has 70. Very... Very, right.
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  Speaker 1: The upper end for men is much higher, but for
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  Speaker 1: women it's 70. But that's not the typical number of children, obviously.
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  Speaker 1: The typical number of children, well, historically, was two on average,
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  Speaker 1: because the human population was very stable for a very
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  Speaker 1: long period of time. In the last 100 years, as
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  Speaker 1: we've become 200, as we've become wealthier, the rate of
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  Speaker 1: survival of our children has increased dramatically, but it was
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  Speaker 1: quite dismal for a long time. Even so, we didn't
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  Speaker 1: have very many children. It's nine months of pregnancy. It's
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  Speaker 1: quite difficult. The human infant is very, very dependent when
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  Speaker 1: it's first born. There's a variety of reasons for that.
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  Speaker 1: We have very large heads. It's hard for the heads
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  Speaker 1: to pass through the The pelvic structure, women's pelvic structure,
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  Speaker 1: is very carefully balanced. Her hips are wide enough so
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  Speaker 1: the baby can pass through, but narrow enough so she
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  Speaker 1: can still run. And that's a very tight competition. And
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  Speaker 1: one of the ways we finesse that is that our
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  Speaker 1: infants are born about a year younger than they might
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  Speaker 1: be for a mammal of approximately our size. And our
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  Speaker 1: infants' heads are compressible. Often a baby, just after it's born,
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  Speaker 1: has like a cone-shaped head because the skull's compressible. It's
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  Speaker 1: a very narrow passageway into life. And it's a consequence
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  Speaker 1: in part of our cortical evolution, the expansion of our brain.
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  Speaker 1: And the price we pay for that is not only
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  Speaker 1: trouble in childbirth, let's say, and the requirement for our
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  Speaker 1: infants to be born in essentially... A quasi-fetal state, you know,
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  Speaker 1: as opposed to, say, a baby calf that can stand
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  Speaker 1: up and walk within minutes after it's born. A human
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  Speaker 1: infant is basically immobile for six months and barely mobile
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  Speaker 1: for nine and can't walk at all for until about
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  Speaker 1: 12 months and then can't take care of itself until
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  Speaker 1: it's 40 and 50. And so they take a lot
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  Speaker 1: of investment. And it's not just a single generation of investment,
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  Speaker 1: it's a multi-generational investment. That's part of the reason why
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  Speaker 1: we're a longer-lived species, because there's some utility from a reproductive...
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  Speaker 1: I'm speaking purely biologically, you understand. There's some utility in
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  Speaker 1: having grandparents around, because the problem of raising children is
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  Speaker 1: so difficult that it has to be born by a
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  Speaker 1: number of closely related people over a very long period
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  Speaker 1: of time. very long period of time. And we are
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  Speaker 1: pair bonding. We're a pair bonding species for the same reason.
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  Speaker 1: It's that the burden of an infant and the opportunity,
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  Speaker 1: the burden and opportunity of an infant is such that
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  Speaker 1: if it's born by only the mother, the chances of
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  Speaker 1: cataclysmic failure are much, much, much, much higher. And so
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  Speaker 1: we tilt towards pair bonding. So we're high investment, low
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  Speaker 1: reproducing species, the long lifespan, very dependent children. Our children
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  Speaker 1: require a lot of investment. However, within the domain of
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  Speaker 1: human beings, there are low investment. There are people who
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  Speaker 1: adopt low investment Mating strategies and high investment mating strategies.
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  Speaker 1: Low investment mating strategy is... It's a hedonistic strategy. It's
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  Speaker 1: a one-night-stand strategy. And... You might ask, well, what's your point?
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  Speaker 1: The point of attention, let's say. Well, you're sitting in
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  Speaker 1: your restaurant. You're having dinner with the person you invited out.
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  Speaker 1: What's your strategy... And how do you direct your attention
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  Speaker 1: in consequence of that strategy? And that is the question
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  Speaker 1: because you direct your attention in consequence of your aim. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so let's imagine that your aim is short term mating strategy, right?
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  Speaker 1: One night stand. All right. You're going to direct your
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  Speaker 1: attention and you're going to organize your actions in keeping
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  Speaker 1: with that goal. Well, how are you going to do
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  Speaker 1: that exactly? We know the goal you're serving now. Well,
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  Speaker 1: do we? What goal are you serving exactly? Well, you
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  Speaker 1: might say you're trying to get what you want. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: that's one way of thinking about it. Depends on how
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  Speaker 1: you define you. You're trying to get what a fraction
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  Speaker 1: of you wants. Let's say you're trying to get what
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  Speaker 1: a desire of yours wants. So what you're doing if
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  Speaker 1: you're pursuing a short-term mating strategy, you want to get
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  Speaker 1: the girl in bed as fast as possible, let's say,
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  Speaker 1: is that you're reducing who you are to that immediate demand,
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  Speaker 1: to that narrow demand for immediate self-gratification. So that's the
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  Speaker 1: you that's having the conversation. Okay, so there could be
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  Speaker 1: all sorts of other yous that might be there. You
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  Speaker 1: might be lonely, so you're looking for a companion. You
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  Speaker 1: might be lonely and serious, in which case you're not
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  Speaker 1: only looking for a companion, but you're looking, we'll step
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  Speaker 1: out of the sexual realm for a moment, you're looking
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  Speaker 1: for a friend. And a friend, think about a friend
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  Speaker 1: from the perspective of a child. A friend is someone
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  Speaker 1: that you can play a game with, but that you
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  Speaker 1: want to repeat the game with many times. That's a friend.
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  Speaker 1: And so if you're lonesome and you're adopting a companionate strategy,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to be looking to make a friend that
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  Speaker 1: you can play with, and that would be the dinner,
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  Speaker 1: but with whom the game would go well enough so that, well,
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  Speaker 1: she would like to repeat the game. That would be
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  Speaker 1: the second date, let's say, and that what would spiral
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  Speaker 1: up out of that would be a sequence of games,
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  Speaker 1: let's say, and that sequence of games would be a relationship,
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  Speaker 1: and in principle, that might move towards, well, then again,
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  Speaker 1: it depends on your aim. Move towards what? Steady dating.
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  Speaker 1: Living together. Marriage. Those are very different aims, and they're
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  Speaker 1: going to, the consequence of those different aims is going
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  Speaker 1: to direct your attention and your action accordingly. And all
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  Speaker 1: that's sitting there in that dinner, right at the beginning. Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's say that You're not, you don't want the responsibility
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  Speaker 1: or opportunity of a long-term relationship, long-term committed relationship, which
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: is the awkward terminology we use to replace the much
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  Speaker 1: shorter and to the point term marriage. You're not looking
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  Speaker 1: for marriage. What are you looking for? Well, in the extreme,
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  Speaker 1: you're looking for short-term sensual gratification. And that's what's directing
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  Speaker 1: your attention. So the you that's there is the part
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  Speaker 1: of you that wants short-term gratification. Okay, well, what is
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  Speaker 1: that part like? Well, it's hedonistically oriented, obviously, because the
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  Speaker 1: goal is sex and sex is pleasure. And it can
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  Speaker 1: easily become pleasure at the cost of the person you're with.
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  Speaker 1: And it can also easily become pleasure at your cost,
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  Speaker 1: insofar as you are inadvertently sacrificing the possibility of long-term, stable,
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  Speaker 1: committed marriage to the demands of the immediate moment. And so,
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  Speaker 1: by switching to a short-term mating strategy, so to speak,
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  Speaker 1: not only are you already utilizing the other person as
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  Speaker 1: a tool for the gratification of your immediate desires, but
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  Speaker 1: you're also doing the same thing that impulse is also
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  Speaker 1: doing the same thing to the broader you.
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  Speaker 2: Right?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It's not, you can understand that more deeply if you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: think about the difference between a two-year-old and a mature adult.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: A two-year-old wants what he or she wants, no matter what,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: right now. And you can see that when two-year-olds have
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: temper tantrums, which they do quite, or university students, for
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that matter, increasingly. And because they haven't matured past that point,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: because our culture is pathologized enough now so that that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: often happens, and so that pattern of immature demand for
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: immediate gratification is maintained far past its due date, because
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that should really disappear by about the age of four.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: And if it doesn't disappear by the age of four,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: it tends not to disappear. And so part of what
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you're doing when you're a parent, if you have any sense,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: is that you're enticing and disciplining your child towards the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: substitution of a medium to long-term orientation in time and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a communal orientation, one that takes other people into account,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: in exchange for what they want for themselves right now.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And what you want for yourself right now is a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: more instinctive, way of approaching the world. Your drive, so
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to speak, your desires are part and parcel of what
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: you bring into the world. And if you're ruled by them,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you're ruled by whim. And you might think that if
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you're engaging in short-term mating strategies, you're pursuing what you want,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: what you want, but what you don't understand is that
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you're actually serving a master who's a hedonistic fragment of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: your total self. And you're doing that. In doing that,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you sacrifice the possibility of communal relationship, and you sacrifice
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: your own future. Okay, so how do we know this? Well,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: you can say that all you want. You're just, you know,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: making what? You're making a value judgment about the manner
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: in which people conduct themselves sexually. Yes, I'm definitely doing that.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Why am I doing that? On what grounds am I
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: doing that? Well, we actually know as psychologists something about
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the people who default to short-term mating strategies. Let me
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: tell you that story. And here's the reason I'm telling
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you this. It's like with every glance you take, you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: serve a master. Now, you might not know what that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: master is. You might not want to know. But there
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: is no avoiding that. It's built into the structure of
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: perception itself. Your perceptions serve your aims. And that's really
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: something to know. If the world is unfolding for you
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: as a place of dreadful misery, if the world is
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: unfolding for you as a valueless, hopeless, obstacle-ridden, cluttered, friendless
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: pathway forward, you might want to ask just what the
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: hell is it you're aiming at? Your aim is short-term
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: sexual gratification. Okay, so what do we know about that? Well,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: here's one thing we know. One of the most reliable
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: markers of criminal proclivity in adolescence is early multiple partner
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: sexual experience. So that's been known for 50, 60 years,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: independent of moral judgment. It's a clinical marker for antisocial personality,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: for childhood conduct disorder. So that's interesting to know. It's
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a reflection of a person's proclivity to use themselves and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: other people as instruments of short-term gratification. So it's also
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a sign of a radical kind of maturity, immaturity. It's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: also very stable, as I said. If that proclivity is
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: evident after the age of four, it tends to be
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: very stable and permanent. It characterizes most toddlers. It's a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: characteristic of immaturity. I want what I want now, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: look the hell out if you're in my way. Now,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that's not such a problem if the person you're dealing
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: with is two, because they're this high, right? And they're
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: not very dangerous, although two-year-olds are the most violent human beings.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: They've been grouped together. You can group children together in
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: groups of different ages, and by far the most violent
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: group is two-year-olds. So, but again, they're small, and they
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: can't do each other much damage. So... And most of those,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: some of the two-year-olds are more violent than others. But
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: even the violent ones tend to be socialized by the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: age of four. Not all of them. The ones that aren't.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: The violent two-year-olds that aren't socialized by the age of four,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: they tend towards a lifetime criminal path. Okay, so what
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: else do we know about short-term mating strategies? In the 1960s,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: psychologists started to develop what eventually became the technologies that
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: produced the large language models that have come out in
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: recent months. What large language models do is analyze the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: statistical relationship between words or sets of words. And so
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: what does that mean? Well, imagine that you read a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: thousand books, and in those books, the word good appeared,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and multiple times in most books, and then there was
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: some reasonable probability that with good, other words would appear
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: in close proximity. So if you were talking about what
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: was good, you might talk about what was beautiful, you
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: might talk about what was evil. If good shows up,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: some other words are likely to show up. It's like
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: when you're analyzing a word per se, like what makes
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a word? Cat, C-A-T. That's a word. C-I-T isn't a word.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: C-I-T is more of a word than C-Q-T. Why? Well,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: because the pattern of consonant-vowel-consonant is much more common among
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: words than the pattern consonant-consonant-consonant. There are statistical regularities between letters,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: between words, between groups of words, between sentences, between paragraphs,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: between concepts that can be mapped at all levels. So
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: maybe a paragraph about the beautiful is more likely statistically
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to be followed by a paragraph about the beautiful. These
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: large language models, they map all those relationships, billions of parameters.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: They map out the domain of statistical, conceptual... similarity and difference.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: They're maps of meaning, really. Psychologists started to use very
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: primitive technologies like that 50 years ago, and they started
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to map out the domain of personality. If you smile,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: imagine you're happy. If you're happy, it turns out you're
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: statistically more likely to be talkative. If you're anxious, you're
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: statistically more likely to be frustrated. If you're agreeable, if
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you're nice, you're statistically more likely to be welcoming. If
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: you're combative and competitive, you're statistically more likely to say no.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in ideas, you're statistically more likely to
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: read fiction. If you're dutiful, you're more likely to be patriotic.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: If you take all of the descriptors that you could
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: use to describe human personality and you analyze the relationships
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: between the descriptors, you can see that they clump into
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: five dimensions. Extroversion is one. Neuroticism, that's the proclivity to
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: experience negative emotion. That's another. If you experience one negative emotion,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: you're statistically more likely to experience all of negative emotions. Agreeableness,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that's kind of the maternal dimension. Conscientiousness, that makes you
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: orderly and industrious. Openness, that's the creativity dimension. That was
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: all mapped out. When that mapping was occurring, the evaluative
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: words were thrown out. Good and evil. They didn't include
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: those words. And the reason for that was that if
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: they include evaluative words, good, evil, criminal, non-criminal... Where there
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: was a clear value judgment, the whole statistical model tended
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to collapse into something like good versus evil. And that
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't very helpful, so they threw that out. Now the problem, sorry,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: this is a roundabout way of getting to the point,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: but I have to walk you through it. The consequence
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: of that was that the models of personality that we
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: derive didn't flesh out our understanding of so-called psychopathology. abnormal behavior,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: antisocial behavior, troublesome, pathological, narcissistic, self-sabotaging, socially undermining behavior. If
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: you throw out the evaluative words, you can't map that
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: quite as well. So what happened once we established the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: map of normative personality is that some psychologists started to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: study the evaluative dimension. The bad actors. And their analysis
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of how what was antisocial and self-serving made itself manifest,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: revealed initially three dimensions. Narcissism. So if you're narcissistic, you
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: want attention. But you don't want to do any of
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the work that would be necessary to validly obtain it.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're a good guy, you're going to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: get attention from your family and your community because you're
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: productive and generous. That's a good start. You're reliable, honest, productive,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and generous. You can fake that. You can claim status
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: that you don't deserve. You can draw attention to yourself.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: You can capitalize on that attention without making any of
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the relevant sacrifices. And if you do that, then you're narcissistic.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So that's one dimension. Another dimension is Machiavellian. Back to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the date. Well, first of all, if you're narcissistic in
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the date, you're not going to be listening much to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: your date. You're going to be talking a lot about
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: why you're so great and how much attention you deserve.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: And you're going to be checking that other person out
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: pretty hard to see if they're granting you the attention
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: you deserve. And if you're a man doing that, you
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: can often pull the wool over your date's eyes, especially
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: if she's young and naive, because narcissists mimic competence. Young
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: women who have some wisdom are looking for competent men,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: but they assess competence with confidence, and narcissists mimic confidence.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Which is why there's a trope, a romantic Hollywood trope,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: that the girls like the bad boys. Well, why? because
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: they look confident, and the girls confuse that with competence,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and that's the narcissistic game. It's one element of the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: narcissistic game. If you're ruled by the spirit of narcissism
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and you're on a date, then you're going to use
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the date as a stage where you can display your
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: hypothetical virtues so that you can garner attention. Machiavellianism is
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: another one of these dark traits. What do you do
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: if you're a Machiavellian? That's what a con man does,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: or a used car salesman. You know, like, you go
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to a used car lot, maybe you go to a store,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: not a store you'd go to twice, and the person
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: sees you as a means to an end, and the
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: end would be, we'll have your money, thank you very much,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: which is fine if there's some service required, Returned for
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the money. Because then it's a fair exchange. But. The
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Machiavellian thinks. If you're enough of a sucker. So that
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I can. Talk you into. Opening your wallet. Then I
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: should have your money. Because you're too dumb to use it.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And so. And that's a hell of a way. Of
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: evaluating a social situation. And so. For a. For a Machiavellian.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: In a conversation. You're just. Something to be manipulated. With words.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: To deliver the goods. That's Machiavellian. Manipulation. Right.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: And.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: A good Machiavellian will watch you so they can tell
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you what you want to hear so they can direct
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: you to go where they want you to go. Now,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: in the case of the date, and you're the unfortunate
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: target of the Machiavellian, if that's going to be into
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: sexual exchange as rapidly as possible. That's the example we're using. Machiavellian.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: That's not all. There's another dimension. that goes along with this, psychopathy.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: What's a psychopath? Well, you know what a psychopath is,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: because you go to movies. And the psychopaths you see
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in movies are usually narcissistic and Machiavellian too, because that's
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: what makes them charming, right? And they're very cold-blooded, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: they want just exactly what they want from you right now,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: regardless of the cost to them or to you. Why
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: to them? Being a psychopath is actually not a very
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: good strategy. lots of psychopaths end up in prison. If
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: you interact with a psychopath a couple of times and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work out so well for you, which is
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: kind of the point, you tend to remember that. And
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: so if you have the option as you move forward,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: you avoid that person. And so psychopaths are often wandering itinerants.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because they have to
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: move from community to community because they burn their bridges
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and everybody knows who the hell they are. And so
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: they have to move on. And that's the kind of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: wandering thing con man that's the origin of the wandering
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: con man archetype right if you're gonna screw everybody so
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: to speak in your social circle then you have to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: make trucks for new territory so what's the technically? A
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: predatory parasite. So what does that mean? Predatory means whatever
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: you have, that can be mine, thank you very much.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: That's the predatory aspect. The parasitical element is more subtle,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: it's more long-term. Someone with a parasitical lifestyle. Will manipulate you.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: By whatever means necessary. So they can live without effort.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Off the fruits of your labor. Right. So that's the
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: parasitical element. And the real criminal types. 1% of the criminals.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Are responsible for 65% of the crimes. By the way.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: The real dark criminal types. Tend towards the psychopathic. You
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: know you get the odd person in prison. Who did
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: something spectacularly stupid once. And. You know, that's not okay,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: but that's way different than the repeating pattern that characterizes
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the personality whose traits I'm enumerating now. So that was
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: called the dark triad, and people studied that. The first
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: person to study this really was a guy named Dale
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Paulus at the University of British Columbia, and he studied
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the dark triad for a number of years. Then he
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: started figuring out what it was associated with. Short-term mating strategies. Right,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: so that's entertaining. So then you might think, well, let's
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: add another layer just for amusement. Turned out that didn't
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: exhaust the network of meaning on the dark side of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the personality, in the personality realm. It didn't exhaust the
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: full manifestation of what was dark in the personality realm.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: As the research into the dark triad progressed, and more
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and more questions were asked about just exactly what this
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: pattern of behavior, just exactly how this pattern of behavior
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: could be characterized, another term entered the diagnostic lexicon. Sadism. Sadism.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: The positive delight in the suffering of others. That's the
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: dark tetrad, right? A lovely tetrad. Striving for undeserved attention
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: with no reciprocity. Using language and action instrumentally to gain
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: a narrow end. Predatory and parasitical orientation. Plus, if I
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: can hurt you so much the better. How much of
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: that spirit's in the date? So these are the things
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that lurk behind everything we do at every moment of
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: our lives. That's on the dark side of things. So
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I said, your aim determines your pattern of attention. Right.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Your aim determines your pattern of attention. So if you're
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: aiming at short-term hedonic self-gratification, then the spirit that you've
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: invited in to direct your attention and orchestrate your actions
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: is the spirit that's at the core of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: and sadism. And you might say, well, that's a dark
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: spirit indeed. Right? That's a psychoanalytic, now conceptual, descent into
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: the underworld under human interactions, right? That's the character behind
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: the scenes. You might ask yourself, well, how do you
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: become that spirit? And the answer to that is, you
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: invite it in. I'll give you an example of that.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: In the story of Cain and Abel, it's the second
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: biblical story. It occurs after Adam and Eve are expelled
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: from the Garden of Paradise for the sin of pride.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: God tells Adam and Eve that they're going to have
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: to work now because they've fallen. Here's a way of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: thinking about that. You can work in your life or
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: you can play in your life, let's say. When do
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: you play? Well, you play when You play with others
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: when they want to play with you. You play when
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you're pursuing something good and communal joyfully. You work when
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you work brutally in the aftermath of an error that
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: has made your life much worse than it might have
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: otherwise been. say that's an error of pride. You bite
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: off more than you can chew. You end up in
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: a situation where you have to toil madly to rescue
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: yourself from the hole that you dug. There's an insistence
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: in the Judeo-Christian ethical pantheon that suffering enters life with sin.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: It's a hard idea to swallow given the omnipresence of death,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: let's say, and the reality of pain, but If you
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: understand that story in the manner that I just described,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: then you also understand very rapidly that a lot of
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the very difficult work that you have to do and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of the suffering that befalls you is a consequence,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: not so much of the structure of existence itself, but
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: of your proclivity to cause for yourself, because of misdirected aim,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: way more trouble than you would actually have to have.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: And that's what happens to Adam and Eve, and that's
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: why they have to struggle forward Work is established as
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: the pattern of life in that story. And then Eve
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: gives birth to Cain and Abel. They're the first two
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: human beings, really. Speaking biblically. Adam and Eve are made
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: by God. They don't count. Cain and Abel are the
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: first two human beings. They're the first two... They're the brothers.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: The first brothers who emerge in the profane world of history. Right?
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: They establish two patterns. Very deep patterns. Two opposed patterns. Cain... Abel.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Abel aims up. And he brings his best to the table.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing to think about in relationship to
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the date. The man who's there with the woman that
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: he has an interest in could aim up and bring
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: his best to the table. That's one strategy. Cain, by contrast...
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Offers what second rate? Well, you can understand that in
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the confines of your own life. You could imagine that,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: first of all, you could imagine aiming up or not.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: That's easy to imagine. Sometimes you're aiming up and sometimes
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you're not. And then even independent of that, to some degree,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: is how much sacrificial effort you're willing to put into
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the attempt. Right? Because you could imagine at the best
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: times of your life that, You were all in. You
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: put your best on the table. You hit it with
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: everything you had. And perhaps, if you were fortunate, the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: consequence of that was that you had some success commensurate
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: with your effort. Or, alternatively, you could take the variant route,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: and you could pull the wool over your eyes, and
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the eyes of your fellow men, and God himself, and
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: you could bring what was second-rate to the table. presuming
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that the ease that that allows, if the effort was successful,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: would justify the deception. And that's what people do who
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: bring what's second rate to the table. They make the
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: prideful presumption that the offering of what is less than
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: is best will be sufficient. And it's a foolish notion
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: because a moment's reflection informs everyone that life is far
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: too challenging and difficult for anything but everything you have
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to be enough. And so what happens to Cain is
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: that he fails. And he could fail and learn. Because
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: you can fail and learn and then the next time
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you don't fail quite as much or maybe even you
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: partially succeed and you can keep doing that. You have
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: to do that You do that if you have some humility, right?
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Because you note your failure. You presume that maybe, you know,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you've got some sorting out to do. You make the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: sacrifice necessary to sort yourself out and you start walking
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: however awkwardly and poorly uphill. Cain doesn't do that. He
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: gets resentful instead. And he gets resentful enough to call
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: out God. Now, people do this all the time. And
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: it's understandable. You know, there'll be times in your life,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: for example, where something dreadful happens. Someone you love becomes
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: seriously ill, for example, and seems entirely unfair. Perhaps I'm
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: not making a suggestion that it isn't in this case.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: And you're so... upset, disheartened by that, that you lose faith.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Not only do you lose faith in yourself and in existence,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: but you see within you emerge a strong proclivity to
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: shake your hand at the sky and curse. And that's
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: what happens to Cain, although with much less provocation. He's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: bitter because he made second-rate sacrifices and they were rejected.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: He's not bitter because life itself... has an element of
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: arbitrariness and misery associated with it. And so he has
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: a little chat with God, because that's the sort of
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: guy Cain is. It's not his fault that he isn't
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: proceeding happily in the world like his undeserving, successful brother Abel. It's, well,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: whose fault is it? Well, obviously the creator of all things.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: And so he has it out with God, and he says, essentially,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing the story, as a consequence of familiarizing myself
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: with multiple translations, he says something like, what sort of
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: cosmos did you create here? I'm breaking myself in half,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: which is a complete lie, trying to get ahead, and
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: nothing's working out for me, and I've got my brother,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: and no matter where he goes, the sun shines on him,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: and everything's perfectly bloody delightful. It's like, how do you
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: account for that? That's the spirit of resentment. orienting his aim.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: And God says, if you did well, you'd be accepted.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: That's actually kind of a definition, you know, it's an
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: interesting definition, because the impetus there is that if things
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: aren't working out for you, in the most fundamental sense,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: that's on you. Now, you might think that's a pretty
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: dreadful judgment. It's like, yeah, it's not as dreadful as
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the alternative, because if you're miserable because the cosmos itself
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: is structured badly and set against you, well, you must
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: just throw in the towel now. But if it turns
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: out that there's some stupid thing you're doing, no matter
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: how trivial, that's tilted you in a direction that you
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be going, and you could be on your knees
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: with sufficient humility to discover it, there might be the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: possibility that you could set it right and start wandering
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: uphill instead of farther down. And that's essentially what God
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: suggests to Cain, but he's already possessed, so to speak,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: as we'll see, and that's just not going anywhere. And so,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: and then God says something even worse to him, and
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: that's not so good, because what's already been said is
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: not good. He says to him, if you did well,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you'd be accepted, and you've brought what's insufficient to the table,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: and that accounts for your misery. And more than that,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: sin crouches at your door like a predatory, sexually aroused animal.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: And you've invited it in to have its way with you.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: It's a brutal metaphor and it's very interesting one. So
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: sin is an archery term. It has to do with aim.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: To sin is to miss the target. Three different languages.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Greek is hamartia. It means to miss the center of
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the target. It means you can miss by not aiming
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: or you can miss by not being skillful or can
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: miss by aiming in the wrong direction or not aiming
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: at all. To sin means to miss the target. Sin
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: crouches at your door. The temptation to miss the target.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: And you invited it in. So what does that mean?
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: It's not like you're possessed exactly by the spirit of resentment.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: It's not like it visited you by some accident while
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: you were unaware. For something like that to gain control
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: of your aim, you have to open the door and
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: invite it in. And so that's what God tells Cain.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: You're miserable inside. in account of your failure, but you're
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: resentful and bitter and unhappy because you invited that spirit
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: to take possession of you. And then it's worse than
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: that even because it's not exactly possession. You know, you
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: might think, well, you're kind of naive and you don't
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: know what you're doing and you open the door and
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: something comes in, so to speak, and now it's in
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: you and that's the, you know, it's got you. And
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: in a sense, you're innocent in proportion to your naivety.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: But that isn't what God tells Cain. He says, um,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: You invited it in to have its way with you.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: It's a sexual metaphor. And what it means is that
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: God accuses Cain of inviting in the spirit of resentment
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: and entering into a creative relationship with it. Brooding on it.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Brooding on it, right? Brooding on resentment. People do this
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: all the time. They're angry. They're unhappy. They fantasize. They
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: fantasize about revenge. They fantasize about how the world has
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: treated them brutally. They fantasize about what they could do
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: to all those people who did them wrong if they
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: only had the opportunity. They dwell on that. They revel
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: in it. They brood on it, maybe for thousands of hours.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: If you ever wonder how someone gets to the point
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: when they're 15 that they can take a high-powered automatic
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: rifle and shoot up an elementary school, that's how. A
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: couple of thousand of hours. A couple thousand hours of brooding.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: And you'll end up in one hell of a dark place.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: And so that's the pattern of Cain. And God tells
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Cain all that. And you can bet that doesn't make
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: him very happy. Because it's exactly the last thing he
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: wants to hear. Right. Your failure is to be laid
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: at your own feet. You've multiplied your failure by yourself.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the invitation you offered to sin, which you conspired with
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: to magnify your bitterness, and that's all on you. So
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: what happens to Cain? He kills Abel. He destroys his
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: own ideal, and he does that to shake his fist
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: at God. And Cain says, my punishment is more than
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: I can bear, which is Always the case for someone
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: who destroys his own ideal, because how are you going
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: to live without an ideal? You've got nothing to aim at.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: You've got no pathway forward. You've severed your tie with
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: everything that could give you hope. You're done. But that
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: isn't where the story ends. Cain's descendants become genocidal. Right?
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: And so that's a story of how, what would you say?
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Second-rate sacrifices open the door to a creative union with sin.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: That expands into fratricidal murder and morphs into the genocidal impulse.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: And the next story is the flood. Right. Back to
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the restaurant. Well, now we've opened a door, right? We
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: can see the background of the forces that are directing
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: the attention of the participants in the dinner. If I
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: want nothing more than what something low in me demands
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: this second, I'm going to direct my intention in accordance
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: with that aim, and that aim is a reflection of
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: what I've allowed to possess me. And that's a manifestation
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: of the Machiavellian narcissistic psychopathic sadism that I've brooded over
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: and allowed to take possession of me sufficiently to justify
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: my manipulative aims. That battle with temptation, that's going on
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Inside you. Every time you move your eyes. You can
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: imagine this. Imagine this. Imagine this.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: So.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe your date is wearing something provocative. Somewhat provocative. And
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: your eyes slip down from her face to her... To her...
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Displayed breasts. And she says something like... My eyes are
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: up here. Now, you know, that....
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: So.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that can be a game on her part, and she
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: can be provoking that response, and she can be playing
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: the same manipulative game that you're playing, although in the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: sexual situation, it's less likely for women to do that,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: because they pay a much higher cost for sex. And so,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: in that particular domain, they're less likely, women are less
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: likely to engage in short-term mating strategies, because the cost
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: for them is way, way higher. That doesn't mean that
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: women aren't characterized by their own set of proclivities and temptations,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: but They vary with sex. Imagine the couple goes dancing
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: right now and the woman is evaluating the man and
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: what's she evaluating him for? Well, let's assume for a
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: moment that her aim is higher and that she'd actually
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: like to find a decent man. and who is pursuing
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: a longer-term goal, who is communally oriented, who is not
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice his future self for his whim-predicated hedonic
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: desires in the present. Well, how does she evaluate that? Well,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: she's going to evaluate in the dance to some degree,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: because one thing she's going to find out is whether
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: her partner has the self-control, discipline, maturity, aim, to keep
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: his damn hands to himself. Or at least to proceed
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: with next stage exploration in a manner that's voluntary, playful, awake, wise, cautious,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: and not too precipitous. And that's all being evaluated in
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: the exchange of movements that characterizes a dance. And all
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: of that's a reflection of It's an attempt to use
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: the interaction of the moment to assess the nature of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: the spirit that characterizes the people in the dance. That's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: what we're doing when we try to get to know
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: each other. Can I trust you? That's really what I'm
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out. Can I trust you? Can we
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: play together reciprocally and productively across a long span of time?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Are you mature enough to take your turn at bat
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: and then to give me mine? To dance in this
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: way that's mutually beneficial across time. Particularly relevant if you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: want to establish a marriage because it's an infinitely repeating
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: game that at least has to be stable and with
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: God's grace, you might say, can be a game that
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: improves as it's played, which is the ideal situation. That's
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: the ideal friendships, the ideal relationships. If that's the sort
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: of relationship you want, that aim is going to dominate
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: your patterns of attention and action right from the beginning.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: And when people are evaluating each other for first impressions,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: they're trying to get a snapshot of the person's character.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Your character is your aim across time. That's a good
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: way of thinking about it. We really want to know
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: what someone's aim is across time because that's how we
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: understand them. That's how we evaluate them. That's also how
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: we understand ourself. When you go watch a movie, what
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: you're seeing is the revelation of the character's aim across time, right?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: So you see the person in a variety of different situations,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: in a variety of different snapshots of aim, and you
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: infer from that their overarching aim. Is he a good
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: guy or a bad guy? That's the evaluation you're making,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: let's say, in the typical movie. Is this a hero
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: or a villain? And you extract that realization by watching
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: how his character manifests itself in different situations, his patterns
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of attention, his patterns of action, and you do that.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: You might say you do that so you can figure
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: out who to cheer for, but that bears examination too,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: because cheer for means something like admire, right? You admire
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: the hero, if your head's screwed on straight in a movie. Admire,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: what do you do with someone you admire? Admiration is
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: the instinct to imitate. And so if you go see
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: a movie and you watch the hero and you realize
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: he's a hero and he makes himself manifest on the
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: screen as a hero and you admire that pattern, that's
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: an impetus to imitate. And what you're attempting to do,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: this is why you want to go to the movie
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: to begin with, is you want to figure out how
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: to embody that spirit. That's what fiction does. Fiction presents
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: you with a sequence of Spirits to embody. And the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: dramatist characterizes the aim of the hero. What's the aim
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: of the hero? That's the question that the stories of
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: the Bible are trying to tell. What's the characterization of
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the proper aim? I outlined already the nature of the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: improper aim, let's say. just in relationship to the date,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: what might be the proper aim? We could start with
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: something that's essentially indistinguishable from maturity. Okay, so when you're
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: a toddler, an infant, you Your mode of being in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the world is very instinctively predicated. You know this if
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: you have two-year-olds, because two-year-olds are fascinating creatures, because they're
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: sort of all in every moment. They're exciting to be around,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: although it's quite tiring. They're unbelievably happy when they're happy.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: One of the things that was painful about being a
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: parent was I found myself stopping my children from being
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: so damned happy all the time. Why? Because they run around,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: and they're really noisy, and they cause all sorts of trouble,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: and they exhaust themselves, and they get hurt. And so
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: you're always calming them down. It's like, don't be quite
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: that happy, right? And positive emotion is associated with impulsivity.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: And so it actually does need to be not so
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: much inhibited. That's not the right approach. Regulated. Regulated in
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: relationship to what? Well, a child might impulsively grab the
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: spoon from Like, say, you've got a two-year-old child and
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: a one-year-old child, and the two-year-old impulsively grabs the spoon
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: from the one-year-old. And they do that in a fit
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of enthusiasm, but it's not a good strategy, because if
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you grab other people's stuff, they don't like you. And
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: so it's a bad long-term strategy. And so one of
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the things you're doing with your kids is you're telling them,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: don't let your momentary enthusiasms motivate you to act in
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: a manner that other people find undesirable. Well, why is
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: that arbitrary? It's like, not if you want them to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: have friends, right? Because the definition, having a friend means
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: that you've entered into a reciprocal relationship, right? A child,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: children actually can't really have friends till they're about three.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is they're actually not, you know,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: it varies to some degree, but the reason for that
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: is they're actually not capable of reciprocity until they're three.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: They can't take turns. You can put two-year-olds together in
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: a room, and if you're not paying attention, you think
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: they're playing together, but they're not. They're playing side by side.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Each child is playing their own game. When a child
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: hits the age of three, they can start what three-year-olds
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: will do, like a boy and a girl. Let's say
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: they'll get together, and they'll have a little negotiation, like
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: you have with your wife all the time, about how
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: to play house, and The boy will ask the girl,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: or vice versa, do you want to play house? And
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: that's the first invitation. And in order for the play
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: to occur, the answer has to be yes. It has
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: to be voluntary. Children who force other children to play
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: their games don't have friends. They're just bullies. And they're
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: not popular. And it's not a good strategy. And it's
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: not a good strategy because it doesn't work out very
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: well for the bullies. There's no reciprocity in it. It
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: won't sustain itself. The other kids will try to get away.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: And if your kid is a bullying... is an impulsive bully,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: adults won't have anything to do with him either. And
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: then he won't learn anything because adults, you know, they
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: know things. That's what makes them adults. And if the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: adults around your child don't like your child, it's like
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: your child's in for a dismal time. And so they
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: have to, children have to learn to integrate their impulses
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: in a manner that allows for the expression of those
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: instincts in accordance with reciprocity with other people and in
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: relationship to the long term. You can't do something that
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: you want today that's going to cost you tomorrow. You
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: can't do that all the time because you end up paying,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: doing nothing but paying tomorrow for today's idiocy. You know,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: that sort of defines... teenagehood in some ways right teenagehood
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: is the state of paying today for yesterday's idiocies and
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: hopefully as you mature you stop doing that right and
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: there's a sacrifice in that you sacrifice your maturity and
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: there's no real difference between that and cortical maturation psychophysiologically
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: speaking so as you mature the newer and more sophisticated
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: parts of your brain mature the Parts of your brain
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: that are capable of regulating your behavior in relationship to
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: other people, your friends, your family, the broader community. all
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: of those things, and also regulating what you do now
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: in relationship to what you need to do tomorrow, and
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: next week, and next month, and next year, and five
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: years down the road. You might say, in some ways,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the more mature you are, the longer a span of
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: time across which you calculate the consequences of your behavior,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: and the broader the range of people across which you
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: calculate your impact. And so, you know, if you start
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: in the process of maturation... You know, maybe you get
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: yourself to the point where you can plan a week
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: ahead and you can take care of yourself. And maybe
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: if you push it and you mature further, then you
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: can plan a year ahead. and you can start to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: take care of your wife. And maybe if you get
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: that together to some degree, the two of you can
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: plan five years ahead and you can take care of
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: your kids. And so you can see that you're establishing
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: a kind of harmony of function across multiple levels of
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: community and time. And that's a good way of defining family.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: The target of maturation. The. Okay. Now imagine. You're back
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: in the date. And you decide that. You're tired of
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: being alone. You're looking for someone. To what? Let's say
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: your aim is high. So what are you looking for now?
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Because your aim is high. You're looking for someone to love.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: And vice versa. And so what does it mean to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: love someone? Well it means to. It means to care
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: for them. It doesn't mean to protect them and make
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: them secure precisely, because that's not good enough. If you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: love someone, you care for them, you offer them security
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: and predictability, you're honest with them, but you also encourage them.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: And you can see the love that you might have
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: for a child if it's optimized, is there's a certain
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: amount of protection that goes along with that, because children
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: need a certain amount of shelter, but a fair bit
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: of that is, you know, get the hell out there.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Get out there in the world and push yourself and
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: develop yourself and Dance on the edge so that you
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: become who you can become. And it's the balance of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: those two things. That's sort of the balance of the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: maternal and the paternal, by the way. That balance between
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: security and encouragement. That's like the essence of love. That's
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: a good way of thinking about it. That's one of
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: the characterizations of God in the Old and New Testament. Right?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: So you could think about that as a spirit. It's
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: like the spirit we talked about already, except on the
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: other side of the universe, so to speak. That you
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: could invite in and have possess you. Right? And that's
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: what you're called upon to do. That's the essence. That's
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: one of the ways that the essence of religious practice
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: can be conceptualized. How... So you're at your date and
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: you decide that you want to find someone to love.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: And then that directs your actions and your attention. Because
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: now at the date, the frame of reference that you're
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: using to... elicit the words you speak and the glances
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: you take and the pattern of dancing, the pattern of
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: attention is that this could be someone I could love. Well,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: that's going to be a very different date. Now, obviously,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: if you're wise, that initial investigation is tentative and you
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: look for a dance-like response and The possibility of that
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: love expands as the relationship develops, but it's important to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: get the aim right at the beginning. That's why this
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: is a leap. Maybe it's worth making now. There's an
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: insistence in the biblical corpus that the firstborn is to
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: be sacrificed to God, right? Dedicated to God. Why? Well,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: because how you establish your aim determines how things go. Right,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: and so when you undertake something, if you want to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: do it properly, you aim at what's highest right at
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: the beginning. Right, right. What's highest? Well, one of the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: ways we characterize this, you know, if the short-term mating
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: strategy that's associated with the dark tetrad is exploitation for
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: narrowly self-centered hedonic purposes, then love would be the opposite
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: of that. I mean, something obviously in and of itself.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: We talked about that a little bit. Security, predictability, an
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: honest relationship, honest words, forthright actions, no deception, encouragement. And,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: you know, if you were aiming high, you'd think, if
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: you could stand yourself, that that's what you'd want for yourself, right?
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: So it's funny because you might think that if you...
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: are doing nothing but manipulating someone to get them to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: crawl in bed with you as soon as quick possible,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: you're being selfish. But it's a very strange use of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: the word self because it's not any better for you
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: than it is for them. If you were being properly selfish,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: you'd search with every glance for everything that was best
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: for you as well as for them. And that's a
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: real optimization. Aiming up and treating the other person as
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: if they're you, right? That's the great commandment to do
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: both of those. That's the commandment that Christ posits as
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: the source of the 10 commandments that are handed to
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Moses themselves, right? Upward aim, radical reciprocity, right? And that's
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: the opposite of the spirit of bitter exploitation, right? And
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: that's operating in the background while you're at the date too,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: as it is operating in the background with everything you
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: do and every word you utter. And that's the underlying
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: religious landscape. Now that spirit that aims up, I'll characterize
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: it some other ways. It's the spirit towards which proper
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: sacrifice is directed. These are definitions. That's what happens in
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: the story of Cain and Abel. Abel offers his sacrifices upward. Well,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: if you're going to establish a long-term, beneficial, reciprocal relationship
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: with someone you love, you have to offer what's best
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: in order to manage that, and you have to sacrifice
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: everything that interferes to pursue that goal. That's also why
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: there's such emphasis on sacrifice in the biblical corpus, is
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: because there's no difference between sacrifice and work. And The
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: work you engage in towards an end is the sacrifices
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: that you make in relation to that aim. And that's
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: the pattern of your life. Human life is sacrificial because
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: we work. There's no difference between work and sacrifice, right?
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: Work is the sacrifice of the moment to the community
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: and the future. Right, right. So what's the highest form
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of sacrifice? Well, that's the other mystery that the biblical
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: stories attempt to unfold. In the final analysis, the offering
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: is child and self. That's why Abraham is called upon
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: to sacrifice his son. Everything is to be given up
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: to what's highest. And the pattern of the crucifixion is self-sacrifice.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: And the crucifixion itself is the combination of the sacrifice
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: of son and self. It's an exemplification of the highest
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: conceivable form of sacrifice. And what does it represent? It
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: means everything is to be offered up in service to
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: what's properly highest. That's the core of community. That's why
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: in town based on the European model, which is in
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: turn based on the Judeo-Christian model. You have a cathedral
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: at the center of the town or church in the
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: shape of a cross, right? That's the place of self-sacrifice,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the cross. There's an altar in the church and the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: altar is the place of sacrifice. Why? Because community is
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: founded on sacrifice. Right. And then the question is, what's
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: the highest form of sacrifice? Well, we walked through that already.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: It's the Willingness to offer your best. Well, what's the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: core of your best? Everything you are. Right. Right. And
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: that's the... What does that mean? A society that's predicated
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: on the spirit of voluntary self-sacrifice does not require a
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: tyrant to govern itself. Right? That's something to know. And
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: so one of the things you might ask yourself is,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: When the tyrant's looming, like now, is to what degree
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: do you make manifest the sacrifice that no longer requires
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: the hand of the tyrant? And that's literally the sacrifice
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: of everything, right? That's the willingness. It's very straightforward. All
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: the responsibility that you do not take upon yourself will
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: be taken from you by tyrants and used against you. Right?
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: In your country, I'm a Canadian. watched your country a lot.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: Your country knew this better than any country that's ever been,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: I would say. The reason that you have been so
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: stunningly free and prosperous for so long, even though that's
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: threatened now, is because your country was predicated on that
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: sacrificial responsibility.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: And you weren't inhabitants of the land of Cain. Because
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: one of the things that's remarkable about your country, and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: I've been in many countries, is that You people actually
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: admire genuine success. Now, there's variability in that. There's no
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: shortage of resentment, even in your culture. But all things considered,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: this was the shining city on the hill where the
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: spirit of Abel was celebrated. Right. Right. And look what happened.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Look at the miracles that took place as a consequence
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: of that. The freest and richest and fairest nation that
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: was ever established. Established not on the basis of the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: rights that every fool now clamors to have, what would
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: you say, respected and regarded, but on the responsibilities that
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: made the citizens of the United States neither slaves nor tyrants. Right,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: and that's a reflection, and we'll stop with this. This
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: is another characterization of God. In the opening chapters of Genesis,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: God is presented as the spirit of Logos that broods
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: upon the waters. prior to the emergence of the order
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: that's good. These waters, it's a mystery, because the waters
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: are there before creation occurs. And so, a critical reader
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: will be stumped by the order of affairs. But water
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: in the biblical context, in the initial act of creation,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: it isn't water in the sense that we understand water now.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: The word is actually tohu vabohu. And in Hebrew, that
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: word means something like Confusion and possibility. Right? And it's
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: presented as water because possibility is deep like water is deep.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: And possibility gives rise to form like water bears form. Right?
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: And water, out of water, life emerges. And out of possibility,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: creation emerges. And what do I mean by that? Possibility
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: is what you confront when you wake up in the morning.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: It's what you can wrestle into the shape of the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: world as a consequence of your decisions during the day.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: The Logos that inhabits you, which is the spirit that's
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: made in the image of God, is the consciousness within
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: you that wrestles like God himself at the beginning of
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: time with possibility and brings forth order in consequence. The
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: order that's good if the aim is upward, if the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: aim is towards love and the effort is undertaken in
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: the spirit of truth, the order created is good or
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: very good. That's what you do if you're a good
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: father in the confines of your home. You establish a
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: little walled garden. That's what paradise is, a walled garden, right?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Where everyone, a walled garden that keeps everyone secure and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: encourages them to the point where they can play forever,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: so to speak. The same idea is walking with God.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: There's an insistence in Genesis 1 that human beings are
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: made in the image of that creator. And there's an
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: insistence that that creative spirit is the same spirit that
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: bears the cross of catastrophe up the hill of suffering.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: And what does that mean? It means that insofar as
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: you bear the responsibility for the world on your shoulders,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: that you're participating as an image of God in the
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: creation of the order that's good. That's what that all means, right?
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: And the idea that you have intrinsic value, which is
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: the idea that your society is predicated upon, right? Made
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: in the image of God with inviolable rights and responsibilities
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: that transcend even the state. This isn't a gift from
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: the government. It's not a gift from other people. It's
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: a reflection of your intrinsic nature. Why? Because your aim
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: is the because the world depends on your aim. That's why.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: That's true. And that's a terrible thing to know. And
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: now you know it. Thank you very much. Well, thank
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: you for putting up with that. All right, Mick. Way
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: we go.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Is it working now?
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: It's working now. Thanks for the claps. The two people.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, thanks. That's not that. I didn't mean to ask
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: for that accidentally. I didn't know if I'd get from
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: the restaurant to heaven and hell and back. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: Every day, basically.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: Okay. I've chosen some questions.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: We have.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: I've been told we have 17 minutes, so we're going
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: to get through as many questions as we can, which, knowing.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: Dad, will be one.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: Hmm. Okay.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: So a bunch of people wanted this question, and I'm
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: curious about it too. It was, is there something specific
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: that you've wrestled with God about? Something that comes to mind?
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Well, Yes. It's a hard question to answer because it's
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: true all the time. You know, I mean, one thing
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: I do, for example, when I'm speaking on stage is
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: weigh the words. You know, so what's the aim? Well,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: my aim in part is to get somewhere further, right?
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: Further in my investigation. Because it's a communal enterprise. My
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: aim is also to take everybody along with me. And
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: that's a challenge. So that's. Ridiculously entertaining.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: It's. It's. It's.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: It's like juggling plates. Or it's more like juggling fire. Really. But.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: And so that's a wrestling. Match. You can. You can
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: come to learn that. You wrestle with God when you speak. You're.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: Aim with your words. Your words are arrows that should
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: be striking the center of the target. And you can
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: feel that. And you can really learn to feel that.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: The words that are true put the foundation that is
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: firm under your feet. The words that are false fragment
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: you and allow you to be washed away when the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: storms come. And you can feel that with every word.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: It's a terrifying thing to learn because the first thing
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: you learn is that almost everything you say is a lie.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: And that's a terrifying thing to learn. When God banishes, no,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: when God bars the way to Adam and Eve, bars
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: the way to paradise from Adam and Eve, That story
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: is often interpreted as God banishing Adam and Eve because
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: of their sin, but that's not exactly right, you see.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: That's not exactly right. Adam and Eve are outside paradise
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: because of their pride. They bit off more than they
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: could chew. And now they're alienated from God because pride
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: alienates people from God. Now there's a pathway back to God,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: so to speak, pathway back to the paradise, back to
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: the kingdom of heaven. That's another way of thinking about it.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: But the pathway is barred by a sword that, by
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: terrible monsters, cherubim, and by a sword that is on
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: fire that turns every which way.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: Well, why?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Well, what's a sword that turns every which way? Well,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: it's a blade. And what does a blade do? Well,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: a blade slices and cuts. And what does something on
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: fire do? It burns. And so what does a burning
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: blade do? It cuts and burns. And what does a
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: burning blade that turns every which way do? do it
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: cuts and burns no matter it cuts and burns everything
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: away what do you mean everything everything not fit to
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: be in paradise so you pay attention to your words
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: and you learn 95% of what you say is a
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: lie all that has to go and so that's a
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: terrible thing to understand the alternative is worse because the
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: pathway to hell is paved with lies And hell itself
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: is the dominion of the lie. And you might say, well,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that. It's like, first of all, that's
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: only because you don't have any idea what you're talking about.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: And second, you can make the case in a manner
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: that's not the least theological. A totalitarian state isn't freedom-loving
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: innocents striving toward the light dominated by the brute Hitler
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: or Stalin. One man can't control 20 million people A
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: totalitarian state is the state that exists when every single
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: person in the state, bar none, lies about absolutely everything
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: all the time to themselves and to everyone else. And
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: that's hell. And if that's not hell enough for you,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, you know, have it your way. Have
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: it your way. You know, when God comes to Abraham...
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and tells him that he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: He tells Abraham that if, well, Abraham makes a bargain
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: with God, and he says, well, I don't think you
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: should destroy the cities regardless of their sin. And God says, yeah,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's time to lay some waste. And Abraham says,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: what if there's innocent people in the city? And God says, well, yeah,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think there is. And Abraham says, well, what
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: if I find 40? And God says, hey, 40? No problem.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: If you can find 40, I'll spare the city. And Abraham,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: who's kind of pushy, says, well, how about 30? And
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: God says, okay. And I think Abraham bargains him down
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: to 10. If there's 10 people who tell the truth
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: in the city, then it'll escape destruction. Well, what does
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: that story mean? You're called upon to be one of
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: the ten. Right, that's what that story means. It means
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: more than that. It means if there's ten people in
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: a city who still tell the truth, that's enough to
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: save the city from destruction. Right, that's how important it
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: is to say what you have to say. You want
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: that hammered home? You look at the story of Jonah.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: Jonah is called upon by God to utter the words
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: of truth that will redeem the city of his enemies, Nineveh.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: And Jonah thinks, yeah, I don't think so. I'm not
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: going to the city of my enemies, 150,000 of them,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: to tell them God is outraged and that they're in trouble.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: I just assume they were wiped out anyways. And there's 150,000 people, 150,000
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: of them, like one of me. So he does what
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: any sensible person would do, hypothetically, and makes tracks in
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: the opposite direction, jumps on a boat and gets the
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: hell out of there. And unfortunately, God is not so
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: easily thwarted and the ship is enveloped by a storm.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: And what that means is that if you run away
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: when you have something to say, then the ship that
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: bears you will be threatened. That's what that means. And
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: so the sailors are concerned about this occurrence and they
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: decide there's probably someone on board who isn't right with
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: their God, and they cast lots, and they choose Jonah
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: as the victim of interrogation, and he's asleep, because that's
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: what people do when they flee from their conscience, is
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: they fall into unconsciousness, so that they don't have to
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: contend with the reality of their refusal, and they wake
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: him up, and they say, well, the ship's in peril,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: and the waves are rising, and we think maybe you're
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: not exactly right with your God, and Jonah says, matter
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: of fact, I was told to do something. And that's
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: the voice of conscience, by the way. And I didn't.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: And the sailors say, well, who's your God? Because they're
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: thinking it's like God of the local cavern or something.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: And Jonah says, well, he created the heavens and the earth.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: And the sailors think, well, you probably shouldn't piss him
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: off then. And he tells them to throw them overboard
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: because he knows there's no hope. And the sailors try
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: mightily to reach the shore, but they can't because God's
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: not so easily thwarted. So they throw Joan overboard. And,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: you know, the story could end there because what that
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: story means is that if you flee from the dictates
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: of your conscience, if you refuse to bring forth the
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: words that you're called upon to say, then you put
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: the ship of state in peril and you'll end up
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: in And your own life will end up threatened. And
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: you might think, well, that's pretty damn dismal. And it's like,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: that's not nearly bad enough. That isn't even, that's just
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: where it starts. Because the beast from hell itself comes
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: up and takes Jonah in its jaws and pulls him
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: down to the bottom of things where he's, where he
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: lies for three days, right? In hell. Because that's the
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: next thing that happens if you're quiet, when you're told,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: when you're called upon to speak, right? And so, no,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: we'll leave it at that.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, we got two in.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: How do you forgive someone that's wronged you greatly without
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: becoming a martyr and continuing to let them have a
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: negative impact on your life?
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: Well, forgiveness is a very complicated matter. You know, if
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: you're pursuing the religious path in the traditional judeo-christian manner
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: when you ask god for forgiveness you confess repent and
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: atone right what does confess mean well look if you
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: if you you and i have had a scrap about
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: something and i feel betrayed and i want to set
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: things right i want to find out like well what's
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: the story here what happened And if I have any sense,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to confess my part in it too, right?
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: Because if there's something that's standing between us, it'd be
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: convenient if it was just you. But there's a reasonable probability, well,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: there's some probability that it was just me, right? And
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: if I don't want to replicate the mistake, I might
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: want to find that out. It's a very useful thing
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: to know if you're fighting with your wife or your husband.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, it's probably them. But it might be you.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: And so why bother finding out? Well, because then you
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: don't have to be stupid again. Right. So you want
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: to confess, here's what I think happened. And, you know,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: if you have a real dispute with someone and they
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: just tell you exactly what happened, like, honestly, you're 80%
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: of the way to repairing the relationship right there. Like,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: often what you want to know from someone is, do
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: they at least understand what the hell happened? Right? But
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: then let's assume that, I don't know, we have a
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: scrap and we decide it's like 60% you and 40% me.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: And so then what do we do? It's like, well,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: I figure out what I have to offer you to...
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: I have to indicate that I'm sorry. That's the repentance.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: Then I have to atone for it. It's like, well,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: what do I need to do to set things right?
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of a two-pronged issue. It's like, what
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: do I have to do so I feel I can
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: forgive myself... Because you hold yourself accountable if you have
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: any sense, and then I have to figure out, well,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: what do you need so that we can put this
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: behind us? And then we have to negotiate that, and
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: then you put it behind you, and then you have
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: a friend instead of an enemy, and that's a good deal,
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: unless you want to collect enemies, and that's not wise.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: One enemy is a lot of enemies, but, you know,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: five or six, and you're pretty much done. And so...
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: That's the process of forgiveness. It's very, very complicated. Now,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: you might say, well, someone did me wrong long ago,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: and I need to let go. That's different. That's different.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can't have the repentance or the atonement
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: then on the part of that person. Maybe they're no
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: longer alive, for example. Then usually what you have to
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: do is, well, you have to figure out what you
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: contributed to it the same way that you would if
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: you were actually discussing it with someone. And then you
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: have to understand what it was that brings a state
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: of affairs like that about, so that when you move
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: forward into the future, you're not likely to fall prey
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: to the same circumstance. Because otherwise, it'll just haunt you.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: It haunts you partly because you're set up so that
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: once you fall into a pit once, any time you
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: approach the territory defined by that pit, you're going to
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: be apprehensive. If you haven't figured out a way of
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: navigating around that obstacle, the obstacle signals threat to you forever, forever.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: It'll never go away. It'll never go away. And so
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: you can clean all that up, but you have to
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: do a very careful analysis. I'll give you an example
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: of that. So often soldiers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: it's always often conceptualized, by the way, as a severe
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: moral injury. They often develop PTSD because Not because of
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: something terrible that happened to them, but because of something
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: terrible they saw themselves do. Right? Because you can be
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: a naive, you know, corn-fed Iowan and end up in
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: a foreign land in a very dreadful circumstance and watch
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: yourself do something absolutely ungodly and really enjoy it. And
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: then you'll understand very rapidly that you know absolutely nothing
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: about yourself or the depth of the soul or the
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: nature of human beings. And your attempt to live forward
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: in that state of ignorance will be indistinguishable from trauma.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: And then you might say, well, how do you recover
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: from that? And the answer is, you develop a philosophy
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: of evil that's as deep as your sin. That's how. Yeah.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: And then maybe you can forgive yourself, because you can
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: see your capacity for the commission of sadistic atrocity, you know,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: in the light of the eternal battle between good and evil,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: that characterizes the cosmic landscape. It's something like that. You know,
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: and the atheist types think, well, no, it's like, if
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: you think that, you've never dealt with someone who's had
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: a severe moral injury because if you ever have you'll
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: find out very soon that the landscape of good and
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: evil is a lot more real than you might think
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: and if you don't know that you should be on
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: your knees every second of your bloody life thanking God
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: that that terrible knowledge has not been yet revealed to
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: you and Yeah, that's for sure. One more? Sure.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: Even though I was told not to do that?
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: I'll be quick. Okay. Find a quick one, if you can.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is kind of a cute one. We'll see
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: if we can keep it cute. My wife and I
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: are having our first kid in four weeks. Congratulations. Neither
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: of us have a relationship with God but want to
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: raise our kids in church. Please give your advice.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, you can do a good thing badly. I mean that.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: I mean that. Look, look, it's very much in keeping
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: with what we talked about tonight. Regardless of the state
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: of your religious belief or lack thereof, you can make
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: the decision to place your child in a situation where
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: he or she can learn the fundamental stories of our culture.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: And you can't be, you can't be a citizen of
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: the West without knowing those fundamental stories. Those are the
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: same thing. Like, inhabiting that narrative world and being a
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: citizen of the West, those are the same thing. And so,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: you can provide them with that. And every single person,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: and this will include your own children, have to wrestle
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: with God within the confines of their own soul. And
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: You can facilitate that process by educating them in the
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: traditions of your people, so to speak. And so go
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: to church and listen and see if you can learn
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: and participate in the community. And if the church isn't
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: everything you think it could or should be, then you
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: can work to rectify that and That's a useful thing
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: to do too. And, you know, I didn't bring my
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: kids to church when they were kids and that was
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: a mistake.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: There was one time we went to church.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: Mom brought us to church and we went to a
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: church in Toronto and.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: They're all woke.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: They're really woke now. But this was like 15 years ago.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: I think I was in grade six and they started
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: the Lord's Prayer with our mother, father, who art in heaven,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: and we just got up and left. Now that was
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 2: our experience with church growing up.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Well, and you know, you could say too,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: and I certainly would have been likely to think that
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: way at that time, that if you go to a
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: church and it's woke, then you should leave. And that
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: might be the case, unless they're all like that, in
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: which case you're in some trouble. But the alternative strategy
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: is to take back the territory, right? And if you don't, well,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: all of you, all of you have to think about
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: this in relationship to your duty to your community, because
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: part of the reason that the woke mob has prevailed
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: is because the responsible people abdicated their responsibility. And so
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: why are the school boards full of woke people? Of confused,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: woke activists. Well, because they took the job. And so,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: there you have it. And if you want to do
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: something about that, think, what should be done? It's like,
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: take the job.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: And so, and that's the only way out of this mess. So,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: it's the same on the church front. You know, you
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: have a responsibility to rebuild churches. Well, what are you
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: going to do? You're either going to rebuild the damaged
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: institutions of your community or you're going to abandon them.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: Those are your options. And if you abandon them, well,
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: then what? Then what do you have? You're in the
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: desert then. And the idol worshippers come calling pretty quickly
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: when you're lost in the desert, as you can see
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: if you look. And on that cheery note, thank you, everyone.