Once You Study the "Circulation of Elites Theory, Something Weird Happens | Harry Miller

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I thought they would only care about a suicide note or if I talked about my suicide. But now, like in the past year, all I do is talk about life and vitality and strength and beauty and overcoming. And with that, you know, like Hades can be conquered. Death is conquered. It's just, life is so beautiful. And I think that's when I realized, like, I want to be here and like, you know, it's very funny. Like, I remember like during one of the worst times or something, you know, my mom was just having trouble with what was happening with me. And I think she saw like a psychic or something. And the psychic told my mom, and this could have been just like a gas station psychic. This could have been whatever, but told my mom like that I wasn't going to commit suicide in my life. And I remember being just so enamored with the thought that something else was going to kill me except for myself. And I just thought that was like a treat. That I wouldn't be my enemy and that I would have something. And I really like, that's a huge, like this, just this philosophical idea of you define yourself and what denies you. And so for me, I'm just trying to impose myself against the life I want and to just expand myself and to feel the friction. And I think about like life from the first like prokaryotic cell creating a membrane. And again, the membrane is a no. It says, this is what I am. I am not my environment. And then it develops and it develops. There's the nucleus. Then you have like animals. And it's just like from the dawn of time, like life is saying like, no, fuck you. I want to live. It finds a way. You can't eat me. It finds a way. Like I'm going to have my way. And I just think that's really beautiful. And for a long time, I felt very subject to circumstance and to other things. And I think, and that's what's really dangerous. Because when you feel powerless, and I've written about this elsewhere, you know, it's really easy. You want to, and I reaffirm this, you want to excuse yourself, excuse like excavator, remove cause from yourself. But when you remove cause from yourself, you become a doorstop. You become this inanimate object. So you have to accuse yourself. You have to fill yourself with causation and action and vigor. And it's very hard. Like that's the first step of like me becoming something that wanted to live was. Was accusing myself when I looked at my bed and I realized like if I die, like nobody's going to save me. And I think especially for young dudes, like that's a huge, like that's sort of like, that's the Rubicon moment when you realize like nobody's coming. There is no Calvary. Like you better figure out a way to do this because nothing's changing. I think that's when the chemistry really starts to change in your brain. And at least that's when it changed for me. Why do you think, you know, your story's obviously been very well outlined today. And you're going through all the steps that kind of got you there and like your personal experience. But why do you think we have, you know, this is a kind of heavy word to use, but such like a widespread epidemic in the younger generations of like a lot of young men, especially who are struggling and who have these thoughts more commonly than they have in the past? Well, I think a lot of, I think a lot of, a lot of the veneer and social change. I think a lot of the trust that our parents and their parents had has eroded. I think there's very low confidence in the fabric of like what we have. I think about, I was talking with, it's crazy, you know, when you think about just the way things are. So are you familiar with, with the, are you familiar with like the Thomas Jefferson quote about like the, the blood of tyranny must be. So who do you think he's talking about? And when he says that, like King George and the, and the war for independence. Well, the quote was the, the price of freedom is like the blood of tyrants or. The tree of liberty must be wet with the blood of tyrants. It's, it's, it's mulch or like, like it's right. I don't think he was necessarily just talking about them. No, I think I was, he said it in reference to, and I was just talking with a friend about this in reference to Shays' Rebellion, which occurs. 1796. 1786, like, yeah, 1786, 87, like right before the constitution is written. And so as the constitution is being written, you have Americans going to war against essentially Washington and the young, like not even formed federal government. And Thomas Jefferson is speaking about his own, like the, the tree of liberty is there. The blood of tyrants is there. So it's like, even there's something just so deeply, beautifully pessimistic about the Jeffersonian philosophy right there. Shays' Rebellion being like, you know, a veteran comes back and like, he's been fighting a war and he can't pay on debts. Right. So even at, even at the birth, there's this pessimism and this perpetual struggle. There's this fight. So that's never, that never goes away. And I think, again, for me, I grew up in a post 9-11 world. And I think over the past 25 years, you see the American hegemony, you see dissolve, you see stories not add up over time. And I think a lot of young people, and that's how I felt, you know. Whether it was American pie and college football or Oxford University, just this, I kept asking, like, can I graduate? And the adults were like, we'll get back to you. And for me, and I think, you know, there is this, there is, you know, so again, there's this atomization. And atomization, and this occurs both like when you have, there's the extreme American individualism of like capital and money and just making money. Yeah. Yeah. Which, when everybody acts as individuals, that's also atomizing. And on the other hand, you have like extreme, the notion of like collectivism and identitylessness, both result in a sort of atomized person. I think that's, I think that's a pressure that weighs on people feeling individualized. But, you know, there's, I was reading recently, and it talks about like sort of like in the elite theory, I'm talking about just sort of like the state of like, say, like where we are in like in our country with like young people. There's, revolutions typically occur. So, in elite theory, like mass movements, mass populist movements don't create change. It's typically elites use massive groups to dispossess other elites and like steal the elite's place. And, you know, there's this from. Say that again. Elites use massive groups. To displace other elites. So, it's not, so every, every mob, like whether it's the French Revolution or 1917, like whatever, the people are mass, they're matter. They, they, it's inertia that moves. And displaces other things. But. I'm cooking now. Right? Okay, here we go. Yeah. So, the other elites displace the other elites. And, so I'll try to combine a couple of, I, there's, there's two YouTubers I really like. Nima Parvini and Carlos Perona, I think, who goes by like Yorobos on YouTube. What was the first one? Nima Parvini. Nima Parvini. I just read something recently of his about elite theory, which is like where I'm getting a lot of these ideas. But, in. Can we pull that up, D? Elite theory. So, there's essentially two groups. There's the ruler and the ruled. So, he references like Mosca, Pareto, and Juvenal are the big, at least people that I remember from his, from his book. And, so there's the, there's the theory of like the ruler and the ruled and like the law of oligarchy where an organized minority will always control an unorganized majority. And so, democracy proves a great smokescreen to just move. It's just mass. And you can, especially through, through, through media. If you can control media and opinion forming mechanisms, that mass will largely contour to what the elite want. And so, the ruler and the ruled. Within the ruler, there's the governing elites and the non-governing elites, which create this huge. Yeah. This is the guy? Yeah. So, I really like, I've been reading a lot of his stuff recently. And I found it really interesting. And, because he talks a lot about elite theory, which just is essentially that. It's. It's pessimistic. It's that largely change doesn't occur from like large groups, but from elites and elites use large groups. I think, I think he's onto something. Right? One of, if not the most common DMs I get on Instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are. Well, today's your lucky day because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter, I'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now. 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And finally, you can join my Patreon. for early uncensored releases of the full episodes via the patreon link in my description below as always please take one second to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already i really appreciate that also the like button's a big help and you can join my newsletter via the link in the description below and so yeah here and this is largely i guess from the start of the 20th century vilfred pareto um mosca juvenile um and so the ruling class and especially now you develop what's what was called i forget who said this aaron reich maybe there's this i think it's a couple um they termed it by the professional manager o-class pmcs um the bureaucracy so like power the goal of power is to consolidate itself and centralize itself and so among the rulers you have the rulers and the ruled and so pareto has this theory of the circulation of elites and so the elites as any like living organ they have to circulate talent and so typically is this the same pareto's principle same i have no idea i don't know what is that isn't that 80 20 theory yeah i just make that up pareto's principle is that 80 20 is this the same i have no idea this would be vilfredo pareto it is does it say that that's the same guy all right yeah keep cooking look at that oh sick okay yeah this is a genius theory it's basically saying that like 20 percent of results happen from 80 percent of ad i definitely fuck that up but like look it up it's good stuff yeah 20 so yeah so that's the elite theory that's the elite theory that the small minority is like hitting his head against the table over here like god damn the organized minority creates the the effects that we see yes and so he has the theory of this or the the circulation of elites and so the greatest threat to the elites are the best of the ruled class so that would be the the top elites within the ruled class so that would be you know you want to talk about and especially like within dude like our system of like is like a gerontocracy like it's just old people like it's just it's very geriatric and so there's this and that's an old mythological structure of like generational war um and so that's the theory of the elite and so that's the theory of the elite and so that's the theory of the elite and so that's the theory of uranus saturn the and so that's the theory of the elite and so that's the theory of uranus saturn the olympians like that is there's a war between generations and um so they circulate the elites and the benefit is with the elites is that you you skim the talent from the ruled class who would organize the ruled class to revolt against the elite so you're able to sort of poach um the talent from your ruled class by making them conform to your standards and um similarly when you combine that with juvenile he has the high low middle theory so within the within that hierarchy of ruler and ruled there's the central subsidiary periphery and the central power is the power and in order to again the greatest threat is that middle typically that that just that that native block that you're you're just you're general whatever um your general massive group by appealing to a peripheral group um you can sort of squeeze if you combine like the the sort of the circulation of the elites and then high low middle theory you're just sort of squeezing this middle group which is the just a pretty standard run-of-the-mill yeah person or whatever within a society and um make 95 of people fight over five percent of the problems right and and so what's right and so what's interesting is like yeah you're fighting nonsense um your elites are being skimmed and so and i think parvinia asserts this like in some of his essays but and it's probably stated elsewhere like when within elite theory thinkers but revolts occur when those top elites within the not within the ruled class are are prohibited from entering the elite circle and so um right and so like you are so you want to talk about like this this this sort of angstiness i mean that is the most dangerous feeling to like an incumbent power structure and the way they resolve that is to um empower empower a peripheral force to distract um you explain that to people with an example empower a peripheral well i think like and then this is this is um from carlos peron i think his name is um europos on youtube and he has some like video essays um he he talks about tiberius gracchus who that was a huge very sort of shay's rebellion so like he's got very rich oligarchs are eating up all of the land and dispossessing native like romans who are who had who were veterans of the wars and they would um so they're so oligarchs are taking up the land and they are leveraging them out with like really cheap slave labor and so gracchus comes and so that's so that's your that's that's your subsidiary the the romans and then you've got the oligarchs the central and then the peripheral there through unethical slave labor they're essentially entirely dispossessing your your your your your normal base and tiberius gracchus proposes like a distributive effort to give capital to give land among the um the romans the veterans because that gives them something to fight for that gives them possession within their within their um within their body and uh they assassinate him um the senate assassinates him and so that's the example he provides historically but i think you know that's just like a lot of the squeeze it's just a lot of i think people don't realize again it's very elite theory would be is like very pessimistic um it's almost like hopeless but i think people and i guess that's the title there like they need you angry um exactly they need you angry because then you can't and i think and i think especially with a lot of dialogue um i view it i don't know if you've ever seen like a rugby match have you ever seen rugby i mean i've seen it like in passing so like there and watch the whole thing if you i played sevens when i first came here um at old blue shot old blue i think they're national champions last year um old blue was like the club i i played sevens for so you went right into rugby in new york yes but it didn't last long because it was it ended up being much of the same as football and like i just couldn't keep doing it but it was it was i had to like try it and i made good friends um but in rugby if you advance the ball too fast and you don't have any help and you you leave your help behind then you have to give up possession of the ball and because you've left your help and nobody can like pick up the ball and so there's a turnover and so i think similarly like anger and being an articulate it advances the ball without help like you need to and that's why and that's just why i like like writing and talking because you can sort of if you can articulate and make people aware of things there's your help and then you can slowly like you can sort of calmly educate groups of people and um um but yeah if you just get angry that's you being a freelancer you advance the ball too fast congrats like you moved the ball but now you got tackled and the ball is turned over i think you have to do something with it and that's the problem this is the curse of humanity the anger takes over yeah people don't step back i think to get attention on something you have to express especially when something evil is happening or something is very clearly wrong and people are getting hurt yeah you have to express something emotionally such that people go oh maybe i should pay attention to this the problem is our nature then lets us attract other people who are just going to do nothing but that and then we're incentivized to just keep doing that keep on crashing out just over and over and over again that then eventually it kind of drowns out in the noise where people are too much for me but again that's why that's like the whole like that's the whole like predator principle where like it just sort of it's unorganized yes um and without unorganization like that's that's why some metals aren't magnetic is because when it's magnetic all of those dipoles are facing the same direction that's why some metals aren't magnetic because when it's magnetic they're facing the same way and so the force is coherent and can move a body whereas an unmagnetized piece of metal they've all got their they've all got their dipoles they've all got their atoms or whatever but it's unorganized and so it's just it's inert um and uh so yeah i think it's very important just that's and that's why i think um i don't know i think articulation and i always think like i'm always amazed that's why i love writing because i think about you know just the kind of and that's what and i was talking with somebody recently just about especially with social media you want to talk about like money careers selling out saying things and being paid to say things or whatever you know i guess there's like sort of two schools of of public personality or writer where it's like you can you can cash out and that would be lovely but then you think about like if you are really interested in writing and you're a writer and you're a writer and you're a really writing something that matters it typically ends up like an execution imprisonment or exile and like i i wonder to myself like very often um salman rushdie do you have the what happened to him he got excommunicated didn't he have to leave iran and then they'd have fought well against oh right for what he wrote they still try to i think is he still teaching in new york city you might be right about that i'm not sure about that um but yeah and then and then that becomes like a gut check where it's like do you have like the balls to do that you know um that means you're really over the target right hitting them right right i don't think there's you know i i don't say this to be like dramatic about it but i don't think there's much in this world more inspiring than art that evokes a that hits a nerve that hits a spot where people go a lot of people go they just get it and they're like what he said right there yeah you know that's true um i think like gustav leber said like good art should scare people um and i really do think like something that is And that's also why, again, that's why I think social media is great because it is so. Get tickets now. to trystamps.com risk-free for 60 days. It's not gatekept. It's not hierarchical. It's lateral. And it's. The barrier to entry is very low. And, you know, it makes the. I remember. Oh, there was just. There was a point I was going to say. Yes, it's good. Oh, yeah, the point of, like, in terms of. Where, through the typical avenues, like, I've written things or I've applied for things. And I think there would be nothing more terrifying as an artist than to go to a studio or to go to a bona fide source of media. Give them something that you've made and they go, yes, this is exactly what we were looking for. Because I think if you make something that is exactly what people were looking for, you're already 10 years too late. Like, you're responding to a trend. I think if you're actually making. If you're actually making something that is real, it should confuse people. It should bewilder people at first. People should, like, hiss at it. And, you know, it should cause some disorder. It should cause a ruckus. There's one place I'd push back on that. Uh-huh. I agree with your point, but not necessarily the end result. I think there's a time and a place where you're absolutely right. Something can literally evoke it so much that it's ahead of its time. I think there's also something where you create a piece of art. That is so good, people didn't know they needed it until the second they looked at it and said, oh, fuck yeah. Right. You know what I mean? Right. Well, that's why I think, like, I think that is genius is when you produce something so clearly. It's just so obvious. It's just, it fills you with hindsight and it's just, it's so pure. And, no, I agree. And I think a lot of the, a lot of the, yeah, I'm very excited. And I've, and I've, and I've, like, written about this and I've made videos about this. Like, I'm very excited for, um, the next, like, aesthetic steps that are to be taken. The next aesthetic steps. Just in terms of, like, I think about, like, I really, like, every epoch of styles. Like, I just recently made a video about, um, in Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. He ends it by talking about musical dissonance and praising musical dissonance. And so this is at the time, this was maybe, like, 1870s. All right, so bring that into English for people. Musical dissonance. Musical dissonance. So, like, just, um, a chord that sounds harsh. And, like, he references Richard Wagner who is playing with chromaticism, which is essentially just, like, lots of half steps, small intervals that make it sort of, like, tense. And it, and it sort of, like, shakes. And he ends praising musical dissonance and saying that, so tragedy began tragedy, which we now probably just view as, like, plays or movies, but tragedy began as, um, a pure, like, Dionysian chorus, a pure, it was music. It began as music. Tragedy began as music. Yeah, so it began as, as, as, as the chorus. It began, um, only as the chorus in the orchestra. And then with Thespis, um, where we get the term thespian, he becomes the first actor to interact with the chorus. And then Aeschylus, Sophocles, they introduce the second actor, the third actor. And that's now, now we have plays. We have tragedy, Attic tragedy, classic Athenian tragedy. But before, it's just music. And so he says all art forms are sort of appealing to, like, music, to dissonance. Um, and so, like, in tragedy, like, the dissonance of a movie is, like, rocky. Like, everything has hit the fan. Like, there's the moment of dissonance, and then the chord resolves at the end where he's a champion. And so, like, it's all, it's all so musical. And I was just sort of, like, writing about, um, just how, like, I really love, like, the new genres of, like, new wave or shoegaze. Like, genres that. That really play with musical dissonance. And, um, you know, there's, there's these underlying truths within, like, aesthetics or, like, within art. But, like, each generation finds its new technology to communicate itself. And, um, no, I'm just really interested, um, in how technology, like, is. Okay, here's, like, a. On the topic of technology. I don't even know how to explain this. I can, like, see the wave, like, the physical wavelengths that happen in his brain while he's going. And then suddenly he's, like, right there. It's great. It's beautiful. Cool. Keep it going. Um. There are some thinkers. And, like, I've also. Have you seen. Did you see The Back Rooms? No. Okay. So, The Back Rooms are essentially, like, a modern telling of the labyrinth, of, like, the labyrinth and the minotaur. Um, okay? Yeah. And I really liked The Back Rooms. And so, what's interesting, I make a point. So. Is this a book? Movie? Movie. Movie, and then it was, like. I saw the OG ones on YouTube. Of course. Yeah, right. But it's the new A24 film, Young Kid Me. It was good. I liked it. I gotta check it out. It was good. I'm sad it didn't work. And. Dave's very based with culture. Nice. He's. I do, like, I love watching, like. Again, and that's why I think. So, we're talking about, like, aesthetics communicating a timeless phenomenon within the current. Yeah, so there's The Back Rooms. Um. And so, The Back Rooms. Can you look up, like, pirate mascot Back Rooms? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, this is the pirate. Interesting. Okay. So, he is the sort of. He is the mob that lurks in the Back Rooms and is chasing our protagonist. And so, this is on the topic of techno-capital, technology and capital. So, capital. Capital is. It's money and technology. And it's seeking to self-replicate. And so, I'm gonna try to get this right. the back rooms and is chasing our protagonist and so this is on the topic of techno capital technology and capital so capital capital is it's money and technology it's and it's and it's seeking to self-replicate. And so I'm going to try to tie a lot of things together here. Capital comes from the root cap, meaning head. It referred to heads of cattle. And so capital was originally stock, livestock. It was animals. It was cattle. And so with the domestication of agriculture, the animal was the first machine. So the animals, you hook a bull up to a plow and the bull drags the plow. And I do believe Europos, who I've, the YouTuber who I've referenced, he talks about sort of what I'm about to talk about. And I think he really influenced me. But when you understand the cow, the bull, as a form of technology, as a machine, the Minotaur is a cyborg. The Minotaur is a mix between man and machine. And so before there were corporate office spaces, for a man to communicate his fear of being conformed to capital, of being technologically possessed and losing his identity, that would be the minotaur. That would be the bull man who lurks in the labyrinth, which is, there are no like straight lines and right angles in nature. And so the labyrinth is this artificial man-made maze that the bull man, the cyborg roams around. And so the modern manifestation of this occurs as the mascot. So the mascot is the protagonist. His profession, he has to emasculate himself and embarrass himself by wearing his job's uniform. And so he's like, he sells furniture as a pirate. And so he strips his identity and his minotaur is him in a costume, him in a corporate costume. That is techno capital stealing his identity. And that's the monster that lurks in the modern labyrinth. Forcing you to be something you don't want to be for the benefit of the audience that they create. Right. And like into the world where it's like, he is the, he is the bull on the plow. He is the machine man. And then of course the end game of this would be like Terminator or matrix where, you know, in Terminator, the robots take the form of man. So, so now you go from bull man to corporate man to robot man. So that's, so that's technology at its final set of stealing the human form. And then you have, um, in the matrix, like they're not even human. They're just using humans for batteries that's right and um this is like a really fun uh this is like a fun i was reading so i guess this sort of like goes this is like nick so nick land wrote a wrote a like a manifesto i guess called meltdown and talks about accelerationism um and and this is also i think also an interesting comment on like sort of like the difference between left and right where a lot of like rightism is, it's called a reaction because it looks towards an idealized history, whereas a lot of progressivism looks towards an idealized utopia, a future. So it's like they're pointed in different directions of where their ideality is. - I don't think I've ever heard someone put it that way and that is fucking perfect. - Yes, right, so like Spangler talks about that, where, and it's even in the language, like conservative, you're conserving a past, progress you're progressing into the future it's it's fundamentally like a conflict of time and so wow and so what's interesting is that with technology there is this idea um and again a lot of this is from europa's there's this idea among like um like silicon valley bros and of this idea of like a future techno singularity where man human form becomes obsolete and it becomes you know entirely replaced with with techno with the um with the machine and um no it's just really interesting like i think it's important to realize like we are not in you could say we're like in a secular world but we are not in a world without like we are not in a world without gods or supernatural powers or compulsions and so really even like the modern the the the future utopia the progressive utopia is the is the christian like apocalypse the christian the eschaton the end of days right so it's they both view a future singularity at the end of time um for for the christians they say you know we will be it'll be the resurrection of the flesh right which is a sort of a liberation from from the body whereas for like the the the techno singularity for the progressive there is this sort of the it is freedom through technology it is it is the breaking down of like even like sexual differences where like the human form is now negotiable reality is negotiable and what's in so but those share the same identity where um you know this is like a lot of ideas to break down but especially if we're going to keep it just specifically to capital you know in genesis there is the idea of you know god produces the world and like man is in the image of god and he is told to um to multiply and to subdue nature and this idea of like subduing nature creates the basis of like of ownership and of capital and um and a man at the center of things which is which is a unique idea and by the time you get to especially the protestant reformation um there is the the lutheran idea of of work and of holiness and the protestant work ethic and so now you have um it's sort of broken so this the establishment between work and labor and capital and religiosity has been created and then especially in america where you have like the the wasps come over to america and that's a mercantile that's those are mercantile colonies um over the course of time you know the the religiosity of um the protestant work ethic which is at first very spiritual over time degrades and of course this coincides with the enlightenment in which the uh i am that i am of like the old testament sort of gives way i had to car would have been i guess you know 17th century gives way to i think therefore i am and so now the locus of of progress and of control and the alignment move towards moves towards man creating his own values and so capital the work ethic and the capital is becoming more and more powerful the the godliness is sort of disappearing the power of man's intellect the enlightenment um which is rather sort of like that is that is in the in the in genesis the serpent says like and you will be like god conscious of both good and evil the awareness of man is increasing it's called the enlightenment light loose the loose the luciferian realization the awareness the waking up and um you know a lot of these a lot of writers like i think about i think about spangler and man and techniques like heidegger talks about technology techno capital the machine almost breaks containment um and so now technology and i guess kaczynski talks about this technology starts to progress at a rate ted kaczynski yeah the unabomber and he is like he has a man in his manifesto industrial society in its future he talks about scientists so scientists become sort of techno priests where they serve technology and now technology um like you think about people joke about this like waking up one day and it's like how we had all of this and we invented excel spreadsheets and now the man had domesticated bull to till his land and now man wakes up to serve the computer and so they move you farther and farther away from earth figuratively right but then it becomes literal and it and so now essentially like the neo as a battery in the matrix is not far removed from a man who spends his entire waking life in front of the computer and he's like i don't know i don't know i don't know serving the machine um and so and so yeah so essentially what was formerly the clerical priesthood that the church might have fulfilled um and all of that godliness gets replaced with the state and so you see like at the top of the at the top of the dollar bill is the the all-seeing eye so like the state the the collective group replaces what was previously the function of god technology continues to improve and sort of escape our powers um yet what's strange is even as our in some cases very much for the worse here if people start to think of the human race as just a bootloader for something else i would argue that's obviously not how i see the world you know the elements of human nature don't change that's what's so strange to me the things we do just are in a different medium or in a different context from what guys in drunk with power say we're doing 2 000 years ago 4 000 years ago 10 000 years ago it's just manifested in a new way because of the environment we have well that's why and then so that becomes the central argument of the enlightenment between like rousseau and the idea of like this wasn't rousseau i guess it was uh lock like tabula rasa blank slate man says you know rousseau says man is born free but everywhere he's in chains um the idea that man is programmable man is man is a programmable machine versus you know he can he's often like um compared to like the marquis de sade who where we get the term sadist or some of the other like some of the other people who believe in sort of like inherent sin or who believe in like marquis de sade wouldn't believe in that because he wasn't a christian but this idea of the natural infallibility of man um and his natural his ability to do awful things and dostoevsky says you know something along something along the lines of um in beginning with total freedom i end with total slavery or like total tyranny um the the pretext for um rousseau like rousseau rousseau by saying that man is naturally good now creates the pretext by saying if man is not good then we as society must program him to be good which then sets the stage for um collectivism and for you know marx steps in and talks about now now we're now we're changing the environment or really we're changing man to fit an ideal environment um and bastiat frederick bastiat um in the 1850s writes the law and again i was talking earlier about sort of the negative capacity of the law thou shalt not um in believing that what's very dangerous is a so what's very dangerous is a law that says thou shalt because now the law is force and if the force acts in a negative in a negative sense where if a man commits a crime he is punished that's that's just like but for the law to go out of its way to compel a man to do a thing that's just pure force and so like ultimately i think what gets in the way of my agreement because like marx makes a good point about deteriorate capital de-territorializing the earth and sort of thomas carlyle calls it the cash nexus or the gospel of mammon where can you yeah explain yeah so the only things that connect man which previously would have been social bonds is money and so money just flattens everything into it's it's the it's the it's the machine and it's the machine that's the machine it's it's everything becomes flat so they and their theory then with socialism is flatten the money and it'll solve the problems well for for marx so he says you know it turns capital turns everything solid into air and again like i'm very open to rebuff on this and like i'm just thinking out loud and trying to like recall what i've read um you know marx views the issue as the um the centralizing of capital forces much like gracchus did right where it's like in the oligarchs it's reached these sort of like points of attraction where now the middle class can't even access it right and everybody's just a proletariat um and which is like okay fair points but of course then the consequences which bastiat refutes is that now you're having to use the law in a prescriptive sense to say this person gets this this person gets that and that's why he says if the law was perfect elections wouldn't matter because nobody would care because it would only act in negative sense when a crime was done but because the law is imperfect that's why elections matter so much because now we can get into the legislative powers and say um tax this group give this so that's that's why elections are so contentious and he actually has a really um beautiful sort of section in the law on what he calls philanthropic tyranny which he he sit in 1850 he it's he calls it philanthropic tyranny where like even for the for the good of man the pretext is like we're trying to um equalize man and like serve man to forcefully compel man to do things you normally wouldn't do he normally wouldn't do um but it's really hard so and then on the inverse so you have like total um total collective subjection subjugation but then on the other hand like nick land points out about Adam Smith writes The Wealth of Nations, and he references each man acting individually in service of the invisible hand, right? And so what's ironic is the invisible hand ends up sounding incredibly like a god. And so like Thomas, so Carlisle calls it the Gospel of Mammon, so like when the spirit of God leaves the Protestant work ethic, it's just pure techno capital growth and progressivism towards the utopia, towards paradise. And so then there's this sort of like collision course where like the end time, the eschaton, is this sort of singularity where man is freed from the body, some people-- - Freed from the body. - Right, where it's like he's been, the body's been become, the body has been made obsolete. - That's dressing up. That's dressing up. - That's dressing up something evil with angelic. - Right, right, right. And so that's, and so that's like, that is the, those are sort of like the undercurrents of like, you know, when identifying the ideas that head towards this point. And I just, all of this to say that even among the most ardent atheists, there's still a, the fervor is still very religious. There's still, there is still this point that we're racing to, and that's why-- - They have to not believe in something by believing it. - They have to not believe in something by believing in something. - There's always, you're always gonna have something. There's always, and that's the thing about priorities. Like there always has to be some kind of priority in your protocol of like belief and action. - Do you believe in God? - Absolutely, yeah, I would say, I'm a Christian. So like, I believe, you know, just in the miracles I've experienced, in the life I've experienced. - The miracles you've experienced. - This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures' "Focker and Law." Spend this Thanksgiving with the Fockers. The beloved "Meet the Parents" franchise returns with a twist. Robert De Niro and Ben Stitt, killer of "Back," joined by Ariana Grande as the newest member of the family. "Focker and Law," rated PG-13. Get tickets now. - Observe the North American dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang." That's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. - Yeah, just I've experienced healing. I mean, this is a whole other crazy thing. All in the memoir, which hasn't been released yet. - I was gonna say, I wanna link it down below, but we need it. - One day, maybe. I'm hoping. - Just dump it. - Right? - We need it. - I know, and I do believe, I do believe. No, I believe in Christ. And so that's why for me, you know, again, I'm sort of pessimistic where it's like the, I forget who, maybe it's Lewis, where it's like all of like the whole Christian timeline is pretty much just like a perpetual retreat. It's just losing ground. - It's losing ground. - It's just losing ground. I don't know who said that. I think it was Lewis. It might've been GK Chesterton. - You're fired if you got it wrong. - Right? - You're outta here. But no, it is, Bill Cooper talks about this where it's like everybody's sort of playing by the same playbook where even with different intentions, the finish line is the same thing. And that becomes sort of Nick Land's accelerant towards the singularity is that, and this is what's trippy, is you have a lot of like these, like these Silicon Valley bros talking about encountering demons on these like psychedelic trips. - Mm-hmm. - Nick Land makes an intro, and I guess like, Deleuze, - Mm-hmm. - makes an intro, and I guess like, Deleuze, and Guattari also talk about this. We were briefly talking about like Oedipus earlier, this whole idea of like the war between generations, Oedipus killing his father. The Terminators of Skynet killing John Carter, like not John Carter, but- - Yeah, be careful, soon thrown Oedipus out there. - Right, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - People are gonna start thinking about that the wrong way. - But there is this sort of like, and that's like Nick Land where he says the children move back in time to kill their parents. And so whereas the Christian would view sort of a, a second coming and eschaton, the end of times, and the resurrection of the body, you know, isn't it curious how, how did the first spell book for conjuring demons get produced if not a being that was to be produced was able to travel back in time and give instructions to produce it? So there's this element of time leaking backwards to create itself, and that's why, I think it's Deleuze talks about desire being a, this mechanism which creates the future. And so that actually that like the past doesn't move towards the future, but that the future creates itself out of the past between these sort of two singularities. And then again, that's what, that's just, that's just what becomes so trippy is this sort of just this weird black hole at the end of time that like, and I sort of, I made a video about this, comparing it to Solitaire where, you know, that it feels like there's this freedom of choice, we're playing this game, but as you approach the end of a Solitaire game, same thing in a chess game, like there's a mid-game complexity where you can make the most possible moves. But once you pass the mid-game complexity, the number of moves decreases. And eventually, for example, every game of Solitaire always ends with a king being put away. So like the last move, I can 100% predict how the last move of Solitaire ends in every single game you play. So in certain games, which obey the law of conservation of energy and matter, there's a script that has to be followed at the extreme beginning and end, which I just think is really interesting. I have no thesis out of this, but I just think all of that, I think is a very interesting, this has all been a schizo ramble for the past like 30 minutes. - No, it's great. You have a beautiful mind, I love it. - But yeah, so that's, so I think that's really interesting. All of the, I say all of this, really all of this to say that we should be more curious. Things are so much bigger than like what you see on the television. Like if it's on the television, it's probably already garbage. 'Cause it's like, if it's gone through all of those avenues of approval, it's trying to manufacture consent and create an opinion out of you. And I forget who said it, but it's like, Homer will always be fresher than the newspaper. Like the modern state of like, as a rule, I just try not to consume things that are coming out right now, unless it's your podcast. But yeah, I just think everything is just so, everything is beautiful, everything is awesome. Like how can you not get amped up about it? Like the story is, this is the great, this is the only story that's ever told. Every other story is derivative of this main plot line. Dude, I haven't even talked about like Nephilim and like giants and stuff. Do you know about that? That'll be another time. - No, we can do that today. Can we just put a pin on that for one second? 'Cause I don't want to lose this thought. Like what is, what does happiness look like to you? And I'm going to bring this back to something you talked about a half hour ago, but I really want you to define that first. - I think happiness is ultimately service. - Service. - Yeah. I think, I think will, the will, and this is as like Chopin puts it, the will precedes the intellect, the will. And I think in the Lord's prayer, it says, in the Lord's prayer, it references the will, the universal will, and it conforms the personal will to the infinite will. And it says, "Our Father who art in heaven, "our Father who art in heaven, our Father who art in heaven, "hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done." The prayer opens by saying, not my will, but yours. And Jesus says that in Gethsemane, he says like, if this cup is not for me, let it pass, but not my will, but yours. I think ultimately, happiness is in renouncing your personal ego to the universal will. And ironically, and anybody who like, anybody will, this will be the result. Nobody else finds, but like hedonism and selfishness and greed, anti-service towards the universal will will only leave one feeling completely dissatisfied. Easier said than done, but I think ultimately, it is renunciation of the, of just all your personal shit and just being of service. That's a great answer. Well, the reason I was asking is because when you were going on that pretty biblical rant there, it was really good. I liked that a lot. Did that stick? That makes sense? It did stick. It was not a schizo rant. You have a beautiful mind, it's great. But like you were talking about, and I'm gonna fuck up how you phrased it, but like the story we're in right now is being written by the past and all that. And it's actually like a great moment. And like, it's a positive outlook at a moment where you opened up that arc by saying, I'm a post 9/11 baby, right? Yeah. And so I've lived in this world where I've seen a 9/11, endless wars, financial crash, wealth gap fucking forming at a level that's never been seen before, political unrest, social unrest, and the worst of humanity attacking itself from within with the pandemic and all that. Like you've seen all this stuff that the fourth turning lays out as like the crisis generation. So of course you've read that. I haven't read that. It's on my list, but I'm familiar. Yeah, good, good. Yeah, I'm almost, with your bibliography, I'm almost shocked you haven't read that. It's on my, yeah, it's on my shelf. Fucking unbelievable. But like, you're a part of the artist generation, the Gen Z generation. that grows up effectively in the crisis and is very, very molded by that. And it's not to say like it's a negative generation, but things you point to are all things that are falling apart. And yet you're able to see some light at the end of the tunnel here by seeing the good of what we have around us. And you've even lived that arc yourself by still being here as well and being excited about the stuff that's there. So do you see this as like a moment of, a very long moment, but a moment of like major civilizational strife around the world that we can overcome to build and come, almost like cut off a piece of ourselves to come back stronger? Well, if you want to be a hero, the one time you'd be prayed to be born in is at like the end of the world. Like what else, what are you looking for? Like I sort of probably like, and again, it's like very, like Spengler says, like optimism is cowardice. Like it'll probably, like it'll probably get worse. Things probably get worse. But there's something about like, and again, I view it like in a forest, like there's these beautiful old growth forests. There's a fire and it burns down and now it's being decomposed and eaten by mycelium and being repurposed into these new forms. And like for me, you know, growing up, whether it's whatever institution, you knock on the door and they say, and I wrote this, I wrote this like in an essay one time where I was like just talking about trying to find a job in New York City. And, you know, I said, you know, I asked somebody who had a job, like, you know, how'd you get it? And he said, you know, somebody gave me a chance. And then I said, well, can I have one? And the guy said, no, we're all out. And like, there's this just, this is the chance. Like chaos is an opportunity. It's just pure, it's pure flux. It's pure raw material to build it however you want. It's terrifying. It's very scary. And like, that's what my only advice is really just to guard your soul. Like that's all you can do. You will lose your soul. Like, and that's the whole, the whole idea of the Palantir, the orb and like Lord of the Rings is that you lose your soul looking at far off things, worrying about far off things that drive you crazy. So all you can do, and Martin Luther says, you know, like if I was told the world was going to end today, I would still, if I was told the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree today. Like all you can do is just do the daily work. Cultivate your soul. And I think ultimately like in the book of Hosea, also on the top, Hosea says ultimately like my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And there's just this huge, and sometimes I feel sort of like, I feel very, it's easy to be, there's just so many grifters and like that's a huge fear of mine as to like to succumb to cheap parlor tricks and wordplay. There is- I don't think you're in danger of that. I try, I try hard. In Trojan Women by Euripides, it says, you know, eloquence allied with wickedness it is a terrible thing. And I realize, you know, I have a gift for talking. Like I just talk to, I talk and I love to hear myself talk selfishly. And like, like God help me, God guard me against, you know, if I would ever advocate for something wicked, like I really don't want to, I really don't want to. The fact that you think about that though as a guardrail is really the most important step because you're constantly self-evaluating. Right. Yes. But yeah, I think you can't help but get excited and yeah, you just like, there's just something so beautiful. There is in like Horace's ode, I think three, three, two or three, three. I think it's three, two. He talks about a man, the virtuous man, even if everybody's yelling at him, even if like the winds from the Adrian seer, like blowing against him, even if everything crumbles around him, he just stands there on flinching at the debris. And I think all you can do is just, just not flinch at the debris. You can just, you can only just be yourself and, and not like I detest fear. And I used to be so scared all the time. And how'd you get rid of it? I became desperate enough. Like I think about again, when I stood up my bed and realized if I died, there would only be the smell and it's like, okay, like that's the game we're playing. Those are the stakes. I have nothing to lose. Um, I had to, I had to become more desperate and there's just so many like beautiful, like mantras. I keep to myself. Like DH Florence says, I've never seen a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen that have a tree without ever feeling sorry for itself. There's a beautiful, um, it also doesn't have the wherewithal to do it though. Doesn't even know. Cause again, that's also the bird has no fear because it has no ego. It's just pure will. It's just pure fulfilling its function. Like every problem I've ever had was because I was thinking too much and being too personal by our own ability. And that's what Zen is. And like Zen is just sort of like stripping that ego from yourself. Um, I love if I have advice, I always get like reading recommendations. I think the Bhagavad Gita is a beautiful book because that whole book is about, have you ever read it? I've never read it really good. Essentially Arjuna is this Prince with an invincible, like an indestructible bow that he's just like, he's, he's a bad-ass and he has to go to war, but he doesn't want to go to war and like fight his, his family. And then Krishna comes. And long like long story short, Krishna says to like lay up all your fears in me and just perform your duty, perform your Dharma. You're the righteous act, perform what your role is in this world. And essentially this, there's this PR there's this idea of Nishkama karma. So karma you're probably familiar with is like action. Like that's what you do. It's action and your fate. What you do is what you receive. Nishkama means without desire. And so Jesus simply says like, let not, you know, let, don't let your left hand know what your right hand does. Like when you give Nishkama karma is you perform things without any desire for fruits. You just do it because it's your Dharma. That's right. And so, and especially when you read like a, a symbolic interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, it's Krishna and Arjuna are in the chariot of war. Arjuna is the personal ego. Krishna is the soul. It's the will, it's the impersonal, the universal and the ego serves the universal and it fulfills and it fulfills the star money says, you know, better, better ones. On Dharma, no matter how, no matter how imperfect, um, than another's Dharma, no matter how perfect, um, all you can do is be yourself. All you can do is fulfill your will and your nature. And, um, you know, it could mean, I mean, it could be death. You're going to die anyway. Um, which is actually a pretty great thing because it would, it would suck if there was a way not to die because then you would actually be afraid. Then you would be thinking like, because you don't want to die because you don't want to die. Then if there's a, if there was a way out, that would be fear because then you would just be fucking clammed up and bitching all the time. Um, Do you fear death? I want to be a hard-O and say like hell no. Um, I think, I think death like in, I think it's in Egyptian, it's called mat, which is also like the word for mother. I think death is a change of when, when a sperm cell meets an ovum, when a sperm meets an egg, the sperm loses its identity and so does the egg, but life is born out of it. A new, a new being. And I think similarly when, when my, when my body is lost, whether it's like cremated or whatever, buried or like if it's was trampled under a tank tread, that's the sperm meeting the egg and like that's, it's a release. It's, it's a change. It's an ontological change of being. Um, you could say that the sperm is dead. It doesn't exist anymore, but there's something bigger. There's life that came out of that. Um, and so I want to say, I want to say no, I'm not afraid. Um, it's always when you say hard shit like that, that you get your bell rung and so I don't want to be haughty and I don't want to be proud and be like, nah, man, I don't give a shit about death. Yeah, you're not a braggart in the face of it as if you're a honcho, but you're just answering it honestly. I also think it's braver to stare it down when you are scared like that. That's what the courage is. You know, there's a quote about that. Like that's isn't that from gladiator where all you can do is smile back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, gladiators got some bangers. Um, it does. It's going, it's so good. Right. Um, and uh, so yeah, I think no, but I think it'll be beautiful. Um, I think it'll probably feel like sex. I think it'll be, I think it's, I think you'll feel it when that happens. I mean, I guess how fast it happens. I think, I mean, there's been times where I've stood up too fast and gotten lightheaded and I thought I was like I've had like my life flashed before my eyes. Um, I had, okay, actually on the topic of death when I harmed myself very badly one night, this is, this also helps alleviate my fear of death. I let the blood dry and then I went to bed and when I went to bed I had a dream and in this dream I was on a sort of like I was on this couch that was covered in plastic wrap that you would see it like some like grandma's house or something. Right? Yeah. And I was laying on it so it's pure black. There's only a couch with like this floral pattern and there's plastic on top of it. Um, I'm laying on it, my head's on the left side, my feet are kicked up and I'm watching it from the third person like a stage play almost. And then this guy, um, comes up to me and, uh, covers my mouth and slits my throat and it cuts and then I wake back up and I'm now in, um, this entirely white place with all light and no shadows and the floor is like quicksilver or mercury. It's like, there's just, liquid reflection on the ground that sort of like ripples out from my feet. And there's this long table prepared in front of me, left to right as far as the eye can see in both directions. And it's covered in food and there's a feast prepared and everybody I've ever loved is at this table, all of my friends and family. And then people who had never interacted with each other were like laughing with each other and sharing drinks. And so like my grandmother who had never met one of my teammates was talking to him like they had known each other forever. It was just, it was purely familiar. And I look around and this table is full and then I look, I see my chair and then I look at the chair next to me and it's empty. And at that moment I feel a tap on my shoulder and I look and there's a line of all the people who had hurt me in my life. And one by one they hugged me and we apologized, quote, for all the things that we did not know in this life. And they were my first guests at the table. And then I woke up. Who was the first person that hugged you? That's a secret for now. I'm going to keep that a secret for now because it's kind of compromising. But soon, one day. And that's, and for me, that's what, that's what heaven is. It's a place, it's a place so beautiful you'd want even your worst enemies to be there. And a place with no partitions. And I think that's a beautiful place. And so I think that, you know, somebody can shock that up too. I think that's a beautiful place. And so I think that's a beautiful place. And so I think that's a pure ephemera of the neurons in my, in my lizard brain. But for me it was beautiful. And I think that helps alleviate and remove a lot of the fear I have for it. And again, I also think, I think there's something so exciting about if you live beautifully and if you live as, as magnanimously as possible, as big as possible, death only enhances the myth. Um, if you, you live so well that even like your enemies, you'll bad for you missing, I think would be a beautiful thing. So there's really no downsides. Um, if you protect your soul, um, easier said than done, everything is conspiring to distract you from it. And again, I think that's the biggest thing where it's like, it's very easy. All that's necessary is that you're distracted forever. And you'll never even ask the question. You'll, you'll never even. And I also think I wrote about this one time where it's like, I also think there's this really sort of, um, angsty idea of like when you die and this idea of like heaven and hell and eternal punishment, um, you know, and people feel sort of like they've, they view this all as like a gotcha test with a really douchey vice principal who like didn't give you a studying packet and said, Oh, you got, I didn't, you, you fucked that up. And now you're going to get detention for the rest of your life and you're going to get a ruler across your knuckles. Um, but I view it much more in like a sort of, um, if you view every time you deny the impulse to perform the kill, to perform the vice that would harm another, or like, you know, every time you deny that you're denying the flesh and you are, you are developing the sovereignty and the, and the discipline of the soul of your, of your noose, you're renewing your mind, you are developing your mind and your soul. And if you don't do that and you conform to the flesh, your, your soul and your flesh are like, you're, you know, you're just, you're just so enmeshed in the carnality and the desire. Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help. And if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below. This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures, Focker and Law. Spend this Thanksgiving with the Fockers. The beloved meet the parents, franchise returns with a twist. Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller are back joined by Ariana Grande as the newest member of the family. Focker and Law rated PG-13 only in theaters this Thanksgiving. Get tickets now. Share comfort and joy this holiday season at Tecovis. Our boots are handcrafted in over 200 meticulous steps and have a broken in feel right out of the box with styles for everyone in the family. Our expert staff can help you get the most out of your family. You pick the perfect gifts and we have free in-store gift wrapping to help make the holiday season truly special. See you soon at your local Tecovis store or shop with us anytime at tecovis.com. Introducing Pandora's Holiday Collection. 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