Pints With Aquinas - The NEW Approach to Education w/ Steven Rummelsburg

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

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Hey, Matt Fradd here, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. If this show has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting us directly at pintswithaquinas.com slash give or at patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. When you do that, even for a dollar or $2 or $10 a month, you help this show to continue and to expand. We're flying people out every week to Steubenville, Ohio, putting them up in hotels, paying for debaters, upgrading our equipment, not to mention trying to pay people who work here at Pines with Aquinas. So any dollar amount would be a blessing to us. Thank you so much for considering. Stephen Rommelsberg, how are you? I'm great, Matt Fradd. Thanks for having me here. Yeah, good to have you on the show. This is the third time? Second time live. Live, yeah. But we did a few.

You were back on the Matt Fradd show back in those days. That's right, way back in the day. Three years ago almost, right? Yeah. Something like that. That's crazy. I'm really happy to be back. It was crazy, his plan to the corner started before Trump was president. Or even ran for office.

That's right. Was there ever such a time? I can't, I can't remember. The world's gone crazy. It has. How was your flight yesterday? American Airlines. Was there ever such a time? I can't imagine that. I can't remember it. Yeah. The world's gone crazy. It has. How was your flight yesterday? American Airlines.

Did you get stuck at home or did you get stuck at the airport? Well, we got stuck at home and at the airport. So we got delayed 6 a.m. to 11. We showed up. Then it was four o'clock. I am so sorry. We were just going to cancel and they said, okay, we'll make it two o'clock to make us go.

So we ended up going, yeah, we were stoked actually. So if you would have canceled they would have lost the money? Because they would have refunded you. No we would have lost the money. I'm sure they would not have refunded us. So why were they incentivized to change say we'll get you on it too? I don't know I'm just happy they did though. I honestly didn't know if we would make it from Phoenix we went from Sacramento to Phoenix I wasn't even counting on going from Phoenix to Pittsburgh. Yeah. So I wasn't sure if that was gonna happen, but it did. Yeah.

It's beautiful. It's a long flight from California. How do you do with those masks in the plane? I find them very difficult. Very uncomfortable. I just flew to North Dakota, a couple of legs, but the thing is that the one thing I like about airplanes is reading.

Okay. And I can't read with a mask on because it fogs my glasses. Am I wearing them wrong? Is that the problem? No, that's intended. Oh, so we can't read anymore? They want because it fogs my glasses up. Am I wearing them wrong? Is that the problem? No, that's intended. So we can't read anymore? They want you to not read.

Yes, I knew it. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. What about you? Does that happen to you? Oh yeah, all the time. So I have to pull the mask down. Yeah.

Yeah. Just long enough not to be chided. Just low enough to read and then not be chided. Yeah. Yeah, or asked. It's almost like they're trying to make the flying experience more and more insufferable. It began with the, I wasn't here of course,

for September 11 and all that ensued after that at the airports, but going through security is an anxious, anxiety-inducing experience. And now you get to wear a mask. And I've been told that there was a time that flying was like a lovely thing and you were treated well. Yeah, they had meals and they were polite.

Yeah, it was really good. No, it's gonna get worse. Yeah, what's the next thing for flight travel? I'm not sure, but I know it's something. Yeah, I'm getting to the point where I'm just trying not to travel. Yeah, same. I'm thinking we're gonna be driving a lot.

Yeah. All over the country. Yeah. very soon What's the longest you would drive because you come from California driving here would have been ridiculous I should like a couple weeks off Make a vacation out of it. I I drive I drive a good ways. We've done a lot of driving. Actually, we've driven to Through Wyoming up to Kansas out through Texas and back. We do love to drive So we're willing to drive quite a bit. And I think we're willing to drive more.

So. Wyoming, there's something magical about that name. I've never been to Wyoming or Montana. Isn't that funny? My goodness. But I'd like to go to both soon. Oh, it's magical in Wyoming. Especially Wyoming Catholic College.

Yeah. Yes. Do you have any kids at college yet? Yeah, we have one daughter who graduated from Belmont Ab College. Yeah. Yes. Do you have any kids at college yet? Yeah, we have one daughter who graduated from Belmont Abbey. Okay. And then another daughter who went to Benedictine, my daughter Kaia. In Kansas.

In Kansas. Yeah. She went there two years and then came home with the COVID fiasco and is now doing a phlebotomy course. So she's living with us. What is that? Thank goodness. It's drawing blood.

Oh. She wants to be a medical assistant and draw blood and she loves needles and arms. She just loves that. I've always been into needles and arms. What could I do with my life? Micaiah, she just loves that. I mentioned my oldest Kenya, who is the mother of our granddaughter. Kenya and Brandon live out in Texas.

I can't believe you all are grandparents. Yeah, we're grandparents. Yeah, and a beautiful granddaughter. Faith, you look great. Grandma? Are you kidding? Do you go by, is it grandma or Yeah, and a beautiful granddaughter. Hey, you look great. Grandma? You kidding? Do you go by, is it grandma or what do you? Nona.

It's Nona and no no. Where did that come from? That's Italian. Rommelsberg? Actually, I was adopted. Yes, I am Italian. From Italy, from Sicily. You were adopted from Sicily?

No, my family comes from Sicily. Okay. The land of the Cyclops. Did you ever meet your birth parents? I did. Wow. I met both sides. What was that like,

and do you even want to go there right now? We don't have to. Well, yeah, I wasn't expecting to go there, but yeah, it was treacherous. How old were you? You know, I didn't meet them till I was in my 30s I met my bio mom side of the family and then I met my bio dad side of the family and it was um, It was everything it was supposed to be good, but it was treacherous. Oh, no, it's horrendous. How so it's just shocking

You know kids are adopted you you have a lot of expectations and maybe fantasies and then yeah when you meet the real deal And you're probably telling yourself not to get your hopes up and not to know you're not I was really I was telling myself To get my hopes way up and but but that was irrelevant But it was it was amazing though to see to my mother and father who raised us They were just really good souls, you know, we would call them secular saints They were just really good souls. We would call them secular saints, but we knew we were so different from them. And then so to look in the face of those people

from whom you came was really incredible to see. Genetic roots, it really is powerful. So that was very helpful. And I think when I met my bio dad as a secular humanist, I almost did a 180 right there, which was very helpful. He was a secular humanist or you were oh Yeah, he was he I don't know what he is exactly and I was a secular humanist Okay, but when I met him, I looked like I was I felt like I was looking into the future 20 years like a big mirror

Yeah, and I said I can't Really something's got to change. Yeah, and you said your adoptive parents were secular saints. Is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah, so were you baptized as a baby? We were baptized at the United Church of Christ in the trinitarian form, so it was a valid baptism, but the church that my parents went to

was sort of like just a social club. Okay. Very nice, and their plan was to say, take them to a church, let them have a choice. Yeah. So that kind of thing. Yeah, sort of religious indifference-ism. Yeah, very much so.

So how did you, I actually don't know this story, how, and I know we've got a long time to talk today. That's what's nice about long-form discussions. We can get to everything you want to get. Right. But how, when did you decide you were a secular humanist or did you not adopt that title, but were just that in essence?

That was in hindsight. You look back and you say, what did you believe in? And we were taught to believe in ourselves. We were taught to do what we wanted to do. So just a summary would be in ethics, I would say, mom, dad, should I go rob a bank? And the answer was, well, weigh the pros and cons and do what's gonna work for you.

They would not have said that about robbing a bank. That's a quote. Oh, well, maybe not about robbing a bank, but other things I don't want to name. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, to this point, though, I remember being home in Australia, and I was inside the house, and outside the house, my family were having a barbecue. And so I was overhearing this conversation. And it took place between my cousin and one of our aunts. And she was talking about moving in with a boyfriend. And the lady actually said, Yeah, do whatever makes

you happy. Right? It's that idea is that idea? Yeah. Which wouldn't be fornicating, presumably. That wouldn't make you happy. But you might think it's not what they mean by that. Right? Yeah. Well, that is kind of what they mean. Move in with your boyfriend. Whatever you perceive that will make you happy. Yeah but and the big key is there's no standard there's no objective standards just a personal self-referencing standard and that's what we had. So the way the pros and cons and do what's

gonna work for you really is about what you think about what's gonna work for you not necessarily the right thing to do really not at all but my parents were moral they would not have robbed a bank. Right. And I think they just assumed neither would we. Yeah. But that wasn't the case. Yeah, my parents were good people, decent people, you know. Ah, decent people. They discovered my, well, my father discovered my pornography stash. He was was okay with it. Mm-hmm I think he just thought the plumbing is working. Yeah, he's attracted to women or something, right, you know So he didn't care right he wasn't raised to think it was a problem, right funny stuff, eh? Yeah

But I was at st. Greg's Academy a couple of years ago. I don't know if you've ever been I've never been but I am People I know from there. I'm gonna have one of the guys on the show soon actually. Oh good. Yeah. Um dear friend Sean Fitzpatrick. Yeah. That's who's gonna be on it. Hopefully this month or next month. Oh wonderful. He's glorious. He is. Yeah. He's a soulmate. Um but he um I was there seeing these boys chant in Latin at the mass play rugby like friggin warriors. They were chanting

this song to the Virgin Mary in French and it was like a war song. And at one point I was tearing up because I thought I wish I had this. And this is perhaps overstating it. But I felt like I was raised on porn, heavy metal and horror. Right. You know, right. That is overstating it. Right. But you know, that's kind of that was I would say the same about us.

Yeah. Yeah. In general terms, analogous terms, just complete secularism. It's very empty and vapid. Leaves you searching for that next thing that doesn't really exist in the form you're going after it. So we were in the same boat. Yeah.

So how did you become a Christian? Well, you were baptized, but how did you? Yeah, I was baptized, which I really look back and I think that you can see, if you look back clearly, you can see that Christ courts you from the very beginning and I could see that. But I really think it really started when I was in the schools with the kids

and I had this revelatory moment. I think I was a high school teacher. Yeah, it was an elementary school teacher. Okay. What happened was I went through school and got my degree at University of California Santa Barbara. Got a sort of degree in history. But I left school with nothing to do but to be a substitute teacher because it was 75 bucks a day and I thought that was great and I had nothing better to do. I get in there, I realize I can't stand children, which was a problem. That is going to be difficult. Very difficult.

But I got a long-term teaching job and I remember one day I just, the kids were in front of me and I saw this kid, Federico, and I just felt like choking were in front of me and I saw this kid Federico and I just felt like choking the life out of him. And they went to recess and I thought I'm 26 years old and I'm gonna have a heart attack and die. I hate this job. Yeah. And I had this revelation out of nowhere. God spoke to me and said, and he taught me in an instant what agape was, what love is. And from the moment those kids came back from recess I've loved every kid for the last 30 years. Wow. Easily. Were you with him then? Did you notice the change too? Yeah. Oh, it was instant and it was a 180. And the real key to understanding why I

can love every kid I've ever met is that you don't love the person for their sake. You love them for the sake of truth. And at the time, I their sake. You love them for the sake of truth. And at the time, I didn't understand you love them for the sake of Christ. And in that sense, everything's breakable. Break that open, what does that mean? So if I said, Matt Fradd, I love you for your sake because you're cool, you're awesome,

you're magnanimous, all these things, and then you fail in those things, you've let me down, and I could not love you. But if I love you for the sake of Christ it doesn't matter what you do fail succeed I'm still gonna love you it allows it gives you the grace to love unconditionally and I think that's the the most core thing a teacher can do and a parent does it naturally they love their kids for reasons other than their own sakes. Now teachers in general don't, which is why parents are

so much more important as educators than teachers. It's a drastic difference but the gift that God gave me in that instant in that moment was the beginning of my conversion and it still took 15 years. Hard head, hard heart. It took me 15 years after that to get the fullness, but I started then to strive after seeking the truth. So what was the path then? Did you go straight to Christianity?

Were you? No, no, I went to everything. First I went to the kids and said, oh, if I love them, and they're bored stiff, they're in educational comas, something needs to happen here. And if I love them, I'm gonna find out what's going on here.

And so that led me down the road of discovering the myths and the fairy tales and the great works and those things. I watched the great works open them up and wake them up, so to speak. Wow, wow. And in that sense, that got me to wake up and because they were being woken up,

I read more fairy tales and myths. Wow. Led me to the Greek philosophers. Yes. I met Plato and Homer. We got into Homer in sixth grade and things like that, and that led me to the philosophers, which led me to the church doctors eventually, the Romans, then the Bible. I was sort of dreading it, but more and more holy things started appearing in

front of me. Why were you dreading the Bible? Well, I was anti-Christian, of course. Our family, we would mock religion. We would say, you know, anybody who believes in a little old man singing on a cloud is an idiot or crazy. And that was just our notion, so we would mock religious people, even though we went to a kind of a church, but it was kind of a social church, but we were very very sophisticated, very sciencey. And so

it was just kind of like I don't want to be a part of that because religious people are weak, which is what we would say. So it's a lifelong build-up of revulsion and my parents, I had trouble in school so they sent me to a private Catholic school, definitely not because it was Catholic but because they thought it might help straighten me out. But it wasn't a very private Catholic school, definitely not because it was Catholic, but because they thought it might help straighten me out. But it wasn't a very Catholic Catholic school. Most aren't. No, and I didn't know that.

So, and I was even more revolted by Catholicism after that experience for just all the wrong reasons, or all the right reasons why somebody who's clueless would not like the Catholic church. Back to the fairy tales, because I love them so much. Oh, so do I. I think you returned me onto them. Oh good.

I've got this lovely edition. I sent a photo of it to you. I'll show it to you tonight. It's a glorious, the kids love them. You found it at a thrift store, didn't you? No, it's way less cool than that. I bought it on Amazon. Okay, great.

It's like the opposite. Okay, shouldn't have brought that up. But no, it's okay, but it's, yeah. What is it about the fairy tales that capture us and why are we not doing that today? Oh, there's so much. And I think I have a really important answer as to why we're not doing it today.

But it's almost an impossible conversation if you don't begin at the beginning. If you don't say something like, what is the nature of reality? It really is about understanding cosmology first to understand the story. Something Peter Crave said that was so beautiful, he said, the universe is the story of time seeking eternity.

He begins there with the medieval cosmology, and this is about stories. The universe is a story of a series of events that Seeks after something beyond itself, which is the creator So Peter creep goes on to say it's like a huge circulatory system where God the creator the heart pumps the blood of time and events through the circular system of the universe and it returns back to God. And this is the image writ large of the story.

And so in a most profound sense, we ourselves are a story because we participate in this cosmology, this universe. And cosmos means to the order, there's a proper order. So before we get to that, I want to talk about what it is about fairy tales that captures that well then. Oh, I was going there. I'm sorry. No, no, I was going there. It's a 20-hour talk. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. No, it's the right question. So the fairy tale is just that there and back again theme. Yeah. Every time, but it's also a micro image of the universe as all good stories ought to be.

So here's the problem today is that right now that is not our collective cosmology. We would say what's the earth? The Big Bang happened, why? On accident. Everything is random. Yeah. Nothing's on purpose. Working out mindless matter. Yeah, they're working out. Yes, exactly. And so what our stories mimic our understanding of the universe. So our modern stories are so... Chaos. They're chaos. Yeah. They're organized chaos

ordered to pathos, whereas the medieval cosmology is ordered to logos. And that's the world of difference. What do we mean by pathos and logos? By pathos we mean pathos pathology is like the emotions. The highest thing in the universe of chaos is your feelings. That shouldn't be too hard to see in the world today is that we hold as the highest thing our feelings. The highest thing in the order of right order is logos. It's understanding, logic, reason, intellect.

The very image of God on our souls is intellect. So in the modern conception, there is no God. Man becomes his own priest, prophet, and king. And when you're your own priest, prophet, and king you can order things any way you want. And we are encouraged by society to order to the emotions. So most modern stories are very shallow, very vapid. Can you think of a modern one that sort of captures that? Oh, almost every modern one captures that, but what's the... Frozen? Frozen's a great one, yeah.

Yeah, how so? Great way to kill a fairy story. How is that? It just inverts the order of things. It makes, you know, in a modern fairy tale, if you look at Frozen, it's the ice queen from Hans Christian Andersen was the motivation for it. And it's a wonderful a wonderful thing to read that

and compare it to the movie Frozen. Interesting, I didn't realize that. And Frozen turns out to be sort of a self fulfillment and be yourself and it inverts the order. There is no objective order. If your magic, the world says it's bad. No, you make it good because it's yours. So many rotten themes in that, so many dreadful themes.

I know everybody loves the movie Frozen. I don't know if everybody does. Well, I don't know. I know a lot of people that get pretty upset when you keep attacking it. Yeah, well, Frozen's a nightmare. Nightmare, and it's beautifully made. It's clever and it's charming.

It's adorable by appearances. And it really does appeal to that, even the theme song, Let It Go. Let it go, not holding back anymore. Doing your thing. just be yourself. And Elsa's magic hurt people and it didn't matter, it even almost cost her sister her life who in the end becomes the hero. It's just an inversion of everything.

I mean, if you look at man and woman in Frozen, every man in it is pretty much a loser, you know. woman in Frozen, every man in it is pretty much a loser. Kristoff is the one hero guy, and just listen to the troll song about it. I mean, that's another thing, is that the trolls are the light bearers and the healers. Traditionally, trolls are pretty evil, right? Just inverting the order. So Frozen's a train wreck, but it retains some of that

magic of the fairy tale. It's like plundering the Egyptians. They brought these beautiful images in and some really appealing themes, and it looks good. But if you really analyze the thing closely, it's just a culture of death endeavor, as opposed to the Snow Queen, not the Ice Queen. I've gotta read that. The Snow Queen.

Read the Snow Queen. It's remarkably different from Frozen, but you see the images. There's a moose in it and there's a lot of characters that are similar, but it's very well ordered and very beautiful. Is there something to be said though about finding truth and help where you least expected it? Could that be part of the trolls as the lightbearers. Does that make sense? Sometimes in life people who we thought were wicked or bad turn out to be the ones that help us Is that kind of no you're laughing? So then well, I don't know. Yeah, I highly recommend not going to trolls

Yeah for your advice. Yeah, so I don't know about that. You know, what's cool is like you read Lord of the Rings and that is Yeah, so I don't know about that. You know what's cool is like you read Lord of the Rings and that is It's believable. The whole thing is it doesn't portray the wicked as good or the good as wicked and I think maybe that's kind of what You're saying. That's very much what I'm saying. It doesn't invert the order It has a consistent more order that that makes sense. There's a great line from Aragorn When when the writers of Rohan were saying, how is one to judge these times? It's crazy. And Aragorn says, we judge these times as men have always judged times with what is

right and with what is wrong. It was beautiful how he just put it back to the right order. And that's the case with us. Our entire world is turned upside down. The fairy tales are actually off-putting to somebody who's been conditioned. Yeah, you'll hear parents say that that I would not read that to my That's right children. It's too violent. It's scary. I think they banned them actually I would highly recommend anyone listening to this to go pick up a copy of

The Grimms Brother Grimms fairy tales and to read them to yourself And read them to your children. Yes, they are so beautiful. So be and there but they are off-putting at first I remember when I first read them I was kind of shocked. I was just kind of off put they're strange They they rub our sense of they rubbed my sensibilities the wrong way I imagine if you're a faithful Catholic and you believe in the medieval cosmology that they wouldn't be so off-putting Well, not only that they're violent and scary. Yeah, but life is yeah Life is a dark wood that you find yourself in sometimes. Absolutely. And compare the the Grimm's fairy tales with this dark and

scary stuff then and you should look this up. The American Psychological Association has a list of top 10 recommended books. God have mercy. Oh my goodness. And they're exactly the opposite of the fairy tales and things like how to feel great about yourself. You how to I can't remember the names I wish I had them I in front of me but I don't think they would bother people the titles but if you compare them to the fairy tales and the proper worldview they're very troubling and it's it's this coddling and trying to make people feel good and building self-esteem in a completely false way. Whereas this violence, this true portrayal of life

in the fairy tales is very helpful for children to confront these real things of a fallen world in the safety of their homes, in the comfort of their parents' presence. And it actually really forms a soul to be prepared not just for the transcendent, but to face life as it comes. to be prepared not just for the transcendent but to face life as it comes. They're entirely necessary actually for an authentic education entirely and it's funny because it makes sense that the modern world is completely off put of them completely off put. So you started reading these to your kids in the classroom. That's right. And do you remember maybe one that struck them and why it was that their attentions were so gripped?

Yeah, I think almost everyone struck them. And I remember one vividly, this first one I read that really was disturbing. If I have a minute to tell it, there was a maid working in a home in a land long ago far away, a maid working for an elderly couple. And she was their house cleaner. And she'd go every day and clean the house,

but she just couldn't keep up and the house got a little bit messier a little bit messier her her patrons were getting mad at her and one night some some fairies snuck in and clean the house for her she gets up the next day and the house is immaculate she can't believe it this went on for months she was very grateful and there her her masters were grateful too. And finally the fairies revealed themselves to her and came to her room and said, we've been helping you. And she was enchanted and they became friends. And one day these fairies invited the handmaid to a fairy wedding and she agreed to go. So they took her on a walk through the woods and

into a mountain and into a fairy kingdom where she witnessed a beautiful fairy wedding. At the end of the first ceremony she said, that was lovely, thank you, I must get back. My masters will wonder where I am. And they said, well, you must stay three days. Our ceremony's last three days, you can't leave yet. And they convinced her to stay. So she stayed three days.

And then finally said, I must go back. And they took her back. She walks into her home and it's immaculate, but it's empty and there's a single broom hanging there She runs outside and says to the first passerby. Where are my masters? They said who she named him and they said oh They've been dead and gone for 40 years gone for 40 years. So what I'm getting from that is the idea that she was held bondage to her own sort of... Well we don't know. It's terribly disconcerting. It's off-putting even. It's glorious. Yeah. But it's... imagine the confusion. What's nice is not to psychoanalyze these, but to let them work deep down into your heart, to keep reading them to your kids but to let them work deep down into your heart,

to keep reading them to your kids. Keep reading them. But there's something more important. I think it's very dangerous to psychoanalyze or even moralize or even ask what lessons do we learn. Yeah. There's something more profound. We ask, what are the realities to which these words point?

Allow the story to be the lens through which you see and understand the nature of reality and this isn't really done today because we've made an idol out of words. We turn the story into an object and make an idol of it. As opposed to a what? As opposed to a lens or the way in which we come to know and understand things in a more profound way. So there's a lot to discuss in that story that doesn't revolve around morality or psychoanalysis or feelings or how we feel about or respond to it. We ask the question, what are the realities

to which this story points? That kind of thing. And do you want to give an answer to that? No, that's a very complicated question. But let me tell you what C.S. Lewis said. Yeah. C.S. Lewis has a beautiful way of talking about literature and reading stories. And he wrote a book called An Experiment in Criticism that I would highly recommend reading after a while. But he says this, you have a story is made up at

constituent parts. You have plot, setting, and characters, and a sequence of events. And these things are merely a net with which you seek out to catch something eternal, a state that can't be captured otherwise. And this state we're talking about is the nature of reality that we're really looking for. That's the embodiment of what we understand by metaphysics and natural physics and these real things. So it's a thing not dealt with in school because the modern school ignores metaphysics. It also ignores ethics so that's almost a fruitless endeavor to say what's the morality of this story but I think it's a beautiful thing to think about reading these stories for the sake of reading the

stories and rereading them and rereading them again and again because they're profoundly beautiful. Yeah it would be like I've been walking we have a trail at the back of our house. We'll go for a walk this afternoon if you want it's delightful this time of year. Wonderful. But it would be like if you and I were walking breathing in the cold air and I was like trying to draw a lesson out of it. It's like, just enjoy it. It's beautiful. And that's enough.

Yeah. Stories are like that, or they should be, you think. They ought to be. They must be, and they're not treated that way. We treat them like the frog in the laboratory. We dissect them, we analyze them. And remember what the wizard in Lord of the Rings said. Gandalf, he said, he who has to break a thing open

to understand how it works. Left the path of wisdom. Amen, say it again, because I cut you off. I want people to hear that. Say it again, because you were talking about Sauron. Yeah, he spoke to Saruman. Gandalf was talking about Saruman as the wizard, the white wizard who became the wizard of many colors.

You break open white and you have all these colors and Gandalf makes the point that when you break when you have to break a thing open to understand how it works you have left the path of wisdom. That's so beautiful and what he means by that in dissecting it we materialize it. We break it down into constituent parts rather than seeing the thing in its in its unity. It's transcendental beauty and truth. There's a great book called Fathers and Sons by Tegenev. You read that Neil Tegenev? He's a Russian author.

Yes, I've heard of it. Oh, I think almost a contemporary, if not a contemporary of the others, Chekhov and Dostoevsky. He wrote a book called Fathers and Sons, which I highly recommend. One day the son and his friend from university come home To this simple family and one of them's an atheist and he's always dissecting things frogs cutting them up and okay. Yeah To their most base parts, right, which is what pornography does exactly right pornography reduces a mystery

To its base parts and says this is enough. That's right Which is why the beauty of motherhood makes evident the horror of pornography. Yes. The first time I ever saw my wife breastfeed my son, I saw how ugly pornography is. Yes. In a new way. Beautiful, that's beautiful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone smart said, you don't see too much, you see too little. Yeah. Through pornography, yeah. because there's that unity beyond it It really is a very serious thing. It's the same with stories. We divided them up If you look at the modern curriculum, they take the Shakespeare and they read an act just to show what a racist homophobe He is right. You know, this is the it's the death of true literature Which is why it's always more pleasant to read Plato than what others have said about Plato

oh for sure for sure and read him with the same question what's being said here what are the realities to which he's pointing very very important I want to feel free to keep talking I'm gonna find this place and find in a fado because we're talking this this idea of the soul and the body one ought to be the the king that rules you know yes i'll find it here in a second here it is so this is from the fado this is um well this is when he's about to die i suppose i think they're in the prison yeah that's right and fado is recounting his conversation with socrates before he drank the And, well, this is when he's about to die, I suppose. I think they're in the prison. Yeah, that's right. And Phaedo's recounting his conversation with Socrates before he drank the hemlock.

Socrates says, when the soul and the body are united, nature ordains the one to be a slave and to be ruled, and the other to be master and to rule. And I'd love you to talk about this because it seems like for many of us I mean fallen man is apt to invert this order but it also seems that much of our society and even Many much of the schooling system is there to invert that order as well So the reason becomes a slave to the passions correct so if I wish to be a fornicator or an adulterer or a

sodomite or a woman, then my reason must now conform to the insanity of my passions. That's right. Just speak to that. Well, that's exactly what's happening. And Plato has that wonderful image of the chariot and the charioteer as the image for the human soul. You have two horses, the passions and the will and you have the charioteer which is supposed to be the intellect and you direct which horse leads. The charioteer does. But back to this is that we absolutely have inverted the order of reason and pathos or emotions and when you subordinate your reason to emotions, you make the reason rationalizing not reasonable. You rationalize your choices you make

based on how you feel. And that's writ large in the public schools. It's the MO. It's the, and it's terribly evil actually. Ends up being really diabolical in the end to be a slave to your emotions for one thing and that's the kind of society we have. You can look at every news story today it's about well you don't want them to feel bad so here's what we're doing and it's it's a dreadful it's it's the absolute decay of

society and he's making the point there too and it relates to the cave when you judge things by images alone by appearances Your are your emotions can be the arbiter of that truth and interpretation rather than your reason So it's a loaded line. Yeah before we got on here today. You said that public schools are where souls go to die Oh, yeah, I would say That the public schools are soul death camps I would say that public schools are soul death camps. Okay, and so what I want, I'd love you to help me understand is this,

but I also want you to help our viewers. I'm a parent of four kids and it's tough, it's tough enough being a parent. And I just want, I agree with what you said and I wanna talk about that. I also don't wanna turn anybody anybody off who's like bloody hell I'm doing my best and you're telling me I'm sending my kid to a soul death get because I would honestly think that most Catholic schools like maybe maybe 90% of Catholic schools. I'd probably put in the same category

Unfortunately, but let's build the argument make the argument. Yeah, but let's start at the beginning We have to first admit I talked about the cosmology of the medieval age or the ancients where we understand that there's an order to, there's a reason for being. There's an order to the universe and to society and things make sense. But there are two different cities here that we want to talk about. I want to go back to St. Augustine. St. Augustine wrote this great work called the City of God and his prevailing theme in the City of God is that there are two loves, two kinds of

loves, and from these loves come two cities. There's the City of God and the City of Man. And this kind of love he describes like this in the city of God Man loves God so much That he has contempt for himself his own opinion Yes, and this constitutes a citizen in the city of God in the city of man man loves of self so much That he has to have contempt for God and that relates closer to the fatal than any other comment I've made so far that that when you have the two there is an order They're not equal one has to be subordinate to the other So you either love God and truth?

And and subordinate yourself to that or you love yourself and you have contempt for God and These two cities are born out beautifully in an explanation of what's so wrong with the modern school. If we look at the architects of the modern school, they are exclusively citizens in the city of man, where they love themselves and their own ideas about education and about society much more than they love truth. And for the most part, they're atheists. You start with John Dewey, Benjamin Bloom, and all the architects of the modern school. For the most part, experimental psychologists and atheists, they don't believe that man has a soul. They don't believe there's an interior life.

And this is really key. George Bernano says, you know nothing about modernity unless you first understand it is a total conspiracy against all interiority, against the entire interior life. Yeah, please say that again. Okay, I wish I could quote it better. That's okay. I gotta get the right quote.

George Bernano says, you don't understand modernity unless you first understand that it is a conspiracy against all interior life. Yeah. Meaning there's nothing beyond the material. And so the modern school rejects all interiority, all immateriality. It rejects formal and final causality. It rejects all the things that are actually important about a

school including the intellect and free will. The theory behind the John Dewey type school that has morphed into what are now soul death camps says man has no soul, man has no free will, he is genetically and environmentally determined. That alone, that rejection of free will leads to a kind of a soul death. And then the other horrifying thing is that even though we can't not use our intellects, the intellect is ignored because it's immaterial and it's interior and it's replaced by something like the imagination and the memory. And I think David Hume did that in the 18th century. Sort of substit substitute the imagination

for what we understood as intellect. So in the city of man, you have this reduction to materialism that even if the schools have some moral capital from our past, and they do, they essentially in theory are soul death camps. Not all souls that go there die because some souls have families that mitigate that damage, but in theory they are completely corrupt

and that's a thesis that most people wouldn't agree with today. And so we should compare that to an authentic education in the city of man, a city of God that says man has a soul man has an intellect man has free will man has fallen I forgot to mention that the modern school rejects that man has fallen they say man is good and any desire you have is good therefore they invert the order of morality to say if you felt like doing it it was a good and who are you to judge that kind of thing happens in the schools yeah and that's the other inversion of you know emotions take doing it, it was a good and who are you to judge? That kind of thing happens in the schools.

And that's the other inversion of, emotions take precedence over reason, because reason has been reduced to rationality, which has been reduced from wisdom to knowledge to information, from intellect to brain. Intellect to mind to brain. This has been the de-evolution of modern education. So when we talk about how you think, we're talking about neurochemistry. In the authentic education, we're talking

about intellection. We're talking about the three acts of the mind, which is diametrically opposed to this even though you see similarities in vocabulary. That's powerful. It makes sense. If you want to educate a human, you should know where they're from, what they are, and what they're for. That's right.

And it seems to me that where you're from, who you are, and what you're for, is if you're gonna answer that, you know, Yeah. opposite to what a Christian should say. That's right. Then you will naturally have a school system that's perverted.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's beyond perverted. They've noticed that children that go to kindergarten stop asking the question why. We stop asking. Really? Kids go to school, you know, little kids are always asking why, why, why this, why that, why that, and it's beautiful.

And they ask why's, but I always think now, you know, I even think back to my own experience, going to kindergarten, it's so sterile. It's so meticulous and ordered in the wrong way, and informational and lockstep, and everyone's in this programmatic, standards-based, outcomes-based learning, where everyone's supposed to have the same outcome.

It really is where all the whys go to die. And unfortunately, even the chromosome. It's actually literally anti-male. It's anti-virtue. There is no virtue and vice in the modern school unless you invert the order of virtues and you say something like tolerance is a virtue, which it's not. Or if you say something like tolerance is a virtue, which it which is not. Or if you say something like empathy is a virtue, which it's not. I have a mentor who told me that he doesn't even think empathy exists. Let's pause a moment and dissect that. Tolerance. Why isn't tolerance a virtue?

Tolerance is a certain sense in which I can see it being a virtue, but maybe it's under another name like meekness Like if you're irritating me, but you're not doing anything immoral It would be good if I was patient with you sure but that's different to tolerance. Maybe yeah, and maybe by virtues I'm making a reference to the higher virtues like the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues Yes, I see people like to say that patience is a virtue But it is I mean it is a virtue. But it is, I mean, it is a virtue. It's virtuous. Or if you don't want to categorize it under the heading of patience, then you have to

put it under something else like fortitude. It depends on what you're being patient about. That's right. Well, that's what I just said, though. If you're irritating without being immoral, that's different. If you're doing something immoral, I don't tolerate it because I love you, I correct you. Right. Unless I'm a coward, in which I don't do the loving thing, right?

Sure, sure. And patience can be a cowardly act. If you're being patient about waiting whether or not to advise somebody about whether or not they should have an abortion or something like that, it wouldn't be a virtue at all in that regard. Okay, well, you tell me what this is then. You have four children in a kitchen, they're all loud dropping things, being annoying. What is that virtue that leads me to sit contentedly

understanding that they are just children and not snapping and yelling and bickering at them? What is that virtue then? I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure. Is it patience? I think so. Okay., patience, meekness, gentleness.

Well, you see a different end. You see that this experience is what St. Paul says, the fruits of the spirit of these patients. Yes. And those are beautiful things. But I when you say tolerance isn't a virtue, what do you mean?

I mean, well, again, it's qualified. We ask, what is it you're tolerating? And if we're asking to be to tolerate abject racism, it's qualified. We ask what is it you're tolerating? And if we're asking to tolerate abject racism, that's an evil. Be tolerant of the kind of racism we're promoting. That's evil. Or to be patient with us as we persecute you.

That's an evil. And it's not even an act of charity towards the person for who you're being patient. So they're just quality, they are, they're fruits of the spirit, but they must be qualified and understood as such. Whereas justice, the cardinal virtues they hold and the theological virtues aren't qualified

virtues in that sense. So it's a different kind of thing. When we invert things in whole, the highest thing we have now is tolerance. That's the highest virtue. We don't even have that. I mean what the left once said we ought to be, they are not. Right. Oh, it's a false virtue. Yeah. Because you and I could say certain things on this channel that would have us banned. Oh, absolutely. Because apparently we have opinions that we've expressed already that will not be tolerated

by a secular dogma. That's correct. There's no place for it. It must be shut down. It's emblematic of the kind of contradictions that are asserted by the schools anyway. We are the most tolerant generation in history and we're not putting up with this. It's just a silly contradiction. A dictatorship of relativism, as Benedict XVI said. Beautifully said, yes.

So as we look at what they hold up as the highest things, these are not high things. And they are goods It is a good to be tolerant in the situation you senses show in the situations you recommend You know allowing your children to enjoy themselves in the kitchen. You know, there's a there's a purpose to that Now if they started destroying things, it wouldn't make sense to be a see vacuum. You're talking well, they're just right kids are being kids Yeah breaking everything that's different being rude to be seen as being tolerant. Well, they're just kids are being kids, breaking everything. That's different. Being rude.

Yeah, being rude and those kinds of things, which we are asked to be tolerant of very evil things in the schools. I think this is something that's missed. And this might be my biggest concern is that when COVID hit and the lockdowns came, the modern school piped their agenda into every home through the computer. And parents saw this. And were horrified. And weren't horrified enough. Well, in places like Virginia they might be

because they just elected a Republican governor over the nut job who said that parents don't have a right to sort of be the primary educators, the children, but it's the state. That's right, but when I say they weren't horrified enough, I mean, I would have expected a massive exodus from the public schools when parents saw that and said, whoa, they're teaching this in the schools?

I mean, there were guys coming out saying, please, parents, promise not to watch our classes. We're trying to condition these kids in anti-racism and LGBTQ agenda and stuff. They really were, and they asked parents not to watch, but even if parents did watch, not enough left the schools. Amen, yeah.

That should have been the end of the public schools in a sane society. Yeah. And that's what I mean by that. Is there any excuse, in your estimation, to send a child to the public schools? And do you need to be a little more differentiating between certain public schools? I don't know. Oh, yeah, certainly. Certainly. I really like to emphasize the fact that theoretically,

even if the schools are bankrupt, which they are, practically good things can go on. You have good neighborhoods with good people that come in and bring goodness into the classroom. So I think it's really a difficult thing to discern. But in theory, the public schools ought to be destroyed because it's diabolical. They are soul death camps. Children go there for their souls to die. You're doing two things though. You're kind of nuancing and then you're saying something very blanket. Yeah. So if they're soul death camps, then it would seem to me there's absolutely no excuse to send your kid to a public school. But then you're also saying you got to discern it. So which is would seem to me there's absolutely no excuse to send your kid to a public school

But then you're also saying you're gonna discern it So which is I think there's no excuse to send your kid to public school But I think there's reasons why we're in the position. We're in today. It's not so simple as to say Let's be like let's be as sober as we were 150 years ago We're not we are we are as a generation. We are brainwashed We are in a state of mass psychosis. It doesn't make sense To tell somebody who we believe now that the schools are an unqualified good So when when the kids are on a covert you're like you're robbing my kids of their soul death here And we think couldn't it's one of the claims they make we shouldn't have a lockdown. So it's true

we shouldn't have had lockdown. So it's true, we shouldn't have had lockdowns. But, but you want to send them back to that when it's been piped into your home, that tells you that we're in a, we're not in a position to say, oh, it's so simple to see. We aren't seeing what's being done in the schools because we've been conditioned for so long to accept these things. So objectively speaking, there's absolutely no reason to send your kids to school. Now, subjectively, we're just in this position where the society forces both parents to work. The society forces, has promoted family splitting up. This makes things logistically very, very difficult. So there's reasons why people in hard circumstances

may not believe they even have an alternative. So I think it's a very complicated question and there's reasons why we send our kids to school. If you ask somebody, do you have a good education? The general answer is, oh yes, I do. I went to public school and I got a really decent education there. And that may or may not be true,

but if it's not true then it's weird that we think it is. That's kind of where we are. Have you interacted with parents who've first been horrified by some of the things you've said and then have later agreed and done the hard work of taking their kids out of schools? Oh certainly many many after the first time we did an interview I had a bunch of people reach out and it kind of perplexed some of them and say, how can I do this?

And a lot of times we've been conditioned to believe we don't have the expertise or the ability to be our kids' teachers. That's the line, that's everybody believes that. And it's not true. It's not true. But everybody believes it. Like we said the last time,

you could stay home with your child and do nothing, and it would be much better for them than what goes on in the public schools. But people need to talk those things through, and they need to discover that it is in fact true that God gives you graces, that nobody loves your children like you do. So it's a very complicated thing, but a lot of people did reach out. And I had people write to me and say, I took my kids out of school because of your interview with Matt Fradd, and I was really grateful for that. Me too.

But I think it's still a hard thing to do. Yeah. I think it's tough. And I would encourage anybody to reach out and have a conversation with me if you're not horrified so far. Would you like to give your contact information out? Absolutely. I love hearing from good parents, and it's just such good people that reach out

and have sincere questions about what's going on with all this? What sure which what if you you'd be sure before you say it because you'll get a ton we did Jacob email money He said he had 300 emails. Oh really he did this. Okay. Here we go. We could maybe put it in the description What's your email? Yeah, Steven Jonathan RC At yahoo.com Wow Yahoo. Yeah, I knew dude. Yeah for you, dude. Hangin' on there. I'm really hanging on there to the dream. I wanna get off, yeah. I'd love to get off the merry-go-round.

You're great. I'm really intertwined. And yeah, and I myself am a product of public schools. We'll put it in the description. Yeah, we'll put it in the link. And if you have questions about whether or not you want to keep your kids in the schools, I would love to talk about or point you

to some great teachers that would convince you otherwise. So. What's the, do you think, I would love to talk about or point you to some great teachers that would convince you otherwise. Hmm So what's the do you think what's the most coherent and maybe persuasive? Criticism you've received So in other words you think they're all bad if someone disagrees with what you're saying about public schools You think their reasons for disagreeing with you were bad. What I'm asking you is what's the best bad objection? Oh, goodness gracious. Yes, okay, unfortunately for me, I've had many better souls, smarter souls than me disagree with me. And so I do want to say that at the outset. I was doing a master's program in theology, a reputable program, and my master's thesis was that theoretically in the public schools there's no baby to throw out with the bath water. And I had a really wonderful, wonderful professor who was really bright,

I know he's a much better man than me and more intelligent, and he said, well, that's not true. And he disagreed and we argued about it. And I didn't find his arguments persuasive, but I believed him when this happened five, six years ago. And I've been searching ever since to understand why he was right. And I haven't found it, which is probably my shortcoming, but what I have found is that I'm more deeply in an understanding of why I believe I'm right on this. Is that theoretically, and I'm not saying practically,

I know a lot of good people come. And his argument was, he said, well, look at the standards, state standards. He said, they teach, I teach, in graduate school, I teach people where to put periods on a sentence and how to capitalize. I do this in grad school. That was his argument. I don't think that's a good argument because if you're teaching grad students basic punctuation, that might tell you something about how the schools have utterly failed something so basic. But those standards in it themselves, the things themselves, periods and punctuation marks,

those are good things and they are in the schools. What they're not is they're not proper ends. Those are just very minor means to a proper conveyance grammatically. And in and of themselves, that's a good. But when you take a good that's a means and turn it into an ends that's not an end that's the problem and so I heard father Augustine Tran he did this beautifully because the good argument is this well shouldn't we plunder from the Egyptians and the answer is yes wouldn't Aristotle say you take anyone in any system and pull out of it what is good and the answer is yes you should do this but father Augustin Tron said if there's anything good in the public schools

it's because they plundered it from us hmm and then they subverted the order of it what about Catholic schools unfortunately you have the same same drill well I mean yeah I because I speak at a lot of Catholic schools I don't not so much anymore. It's always hard for me to justify why a parent should keep them in there. Mainly because everybody walks around with a soul death machine called a phone in their pockets. Yes.

Everyone's sort of bleary-eyed and uninterested. They cultivate kids. They develop, they really form kids to reject their faith. Is it the end of the day? Catholic schools. In general, there must be some fine ones out there. I don't know where they are, but there must be some. There must be. And it's really nice that theology classes have the potential to be good. Weekly Mass is wonderful. If a school does a rosary, that's beautiful. Those are good things. And generally, in Catholic schools,

you have good families coming together. I think there are real benefits to going to a Catholic school. But I think the Catholic schools ought to also examine the curriculum, and they ought to reject what imitates the John Dewey and outcomes-based methodology. I just don't see how outcomes-based education is profitable to a human soul. And like I said, I can name some other people that disagree that are much, much better souls

than I am, and I'm still trying to figure out why this is true. They're disagreeing saying what? They're saying that, no, they're not all bad. Right. I don't know if they're saying they're not soul death camps. It's hard to refute that when you have this, all the ideologies that are very obviously promoted in the schools.

A hot button topic is CRT. It's an utter lie to say that critical race theory is not taught in the schools. It used to be called multiculturalism. It was in the 90s when I had teacher credentialing. It said in the textbook, we want to destroy white hegemony. And we want to promote all cultures

that are equally valid except for the white culture. And it was just blatantly racist ever since the 60s. But really, it goes way back. This goes way back. But there's no doubt that abject racism is taught in schools. I got to the point in my public school where I would sit down with my scholars and say, how many of you hate white people? And everyone would raise their hand. I just did it every year

just for an experiment. And it would be 90 plus percent would raise their hand and say, oh, of course we hate white people. And why? Because they're greedy, rich, and white privilege. I mean, these things are just abjectly racist and they're not true. So that alone, I don't see any redeeming value of putting our children with people that promote that kind of thing. Yeah, isn't that a sort of a counterclaim to the mainstream narrative that one ought to take their children out of public schools because they're racist and not in the way that they might think.

Right, right. And just the opposite. It's really inverted, really bizarrely so. And people believe it. By the way, I did get kicked out of that master's program. He said, we're an impasse, you have to leave. So I do respect that professor for doing that. For kicking you out.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Your wife doesn't. Well, yeah, but Yeah, but we got and it's an open question. What's that? Three years into a masters. Yeah, but it's still but it's an open question Is why I think it's appropriate and and honestly I give the professor credit for knowing more about it than I do What the only cat the only thing I can think of where I might have a slide his opinion again for me So I know what you're going up against. He just disagrees that theoretically there's no baby to throw out with the bath water.

In public schools. Yes. Theoretically. Now I'm not talking practically again. I'm not saying everything. I'm just saying when you look at the design and what the theory wants you to do with things like common core and all its derivatives and all its antecedents, it's theoretically it's just not fit for human souls.

Okay. Can you talk to that a bit more and say something other than what you've already said about outcomes based education? Like the problem with Common Core is what? And maybe you need to say that again. Oh, I think Common Core is just one iteration of what's been going on since really since after the Dewey schools where we decide of a set of outcomes that needs to happen. This is sort of materialism and then we backwards plan. And it's not always bad. It's not always bad. But it can't be the predominant method of education assuming that there's no interior life, assuming that man is not fallen, assuming that man doesn't have free will, all

these things destroy any method when you have the wrong anthropology. So first of all, as the wrong anthropology has the wrong notion of reality, it rejects metaphysics, it's pure materialism, and it has a false understanding of human learning. Those three things preceding a method, if they're wrong, it doesn't matter how good the method is. Really, in fact, the fact that the schools are doing what they would the method actually works for what they want it to do. They want to create cogs in a machine, their stated end is to make you

college and career ready. And those are not proper ends of an education. Those are practical things. They're good things. But they're not proper ends of an education. Those are practical things, they're good things, but they're not proper ends. Yeah, this was my parents fear when we homeschooled our children and we had some really kind of heated back and forth to the point where I said I need you to stop talking about it now. I love you and I know you love my children and I know this comes from a place of love, but you need to stop now if we're gonna continue a relationship It got it got pretty bad and when you're a new parent You know, it's tough. It's tough. You don't want to screw your kids up

And you're hearing these different things from different people but what I found is like my kids are wonderful Yeah, they're bright-eyed and mischievous in the best possible way My son I said to him if he catches a bird he can keep it and so he got a, this is recently, he got a washing basket propped it up with a stick, tied a very long leash to it, sprinkled birdseed under it and sat there cross-legged for over one hour. What just waiting? Glorious. He's such a beautiful boy and as my kids are getting older I see them my son Liam just read the Hobbit my daughter

Avila is currently reading Little House on the Prairie, but what's funny is My parents would never ascribe those Virtues to their homeschooling education that makes sense. You're gonna damned if you do a damned if you don't absolutely So whatever good comes of it, they wouldn't, they wouldn't attribute it to it. Yeah, let me, I should back off from attacking my parents who are very good people, right? But it's like people wouldn't ascribe that.

They're like, that's not because all that's in spite of or something. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I would say the opposite. Some people end up out of the schools educated in spite of, not because of the public schools. And you're right. Parents' number one concern is what you said. Well if I were to abandon all this methodological informational whatever it is they do how

is my kid gonna be ready for college or career? Why should they go to college? That's a really wonderful question. Like I keep saying that to my kids my kids want to go to college and we're here at Franciscan right University here and So it would be I think it's a good school, but I don't know why they would want to go right? Why why would you do that? I'm like devil's advocate with them. Yeah, I Exactly. Yeah, there are very few schools in America. I would want my kids to go to my daughter Tommy She's at Wyoming Catholic and what a blessing very pleased with it. Yeah there's a lot of beautiful things going on there and of course we promote Thomas Aquinas College and Thomas Moore and the list dwindles after that rapidly. Yeah. So I

mean in all the in all the world I just don't know why you would send your kids to the kinds of colleges that we're seeing today. What did Peter Crave call it? A Randy man's dream. He says you've got these spineless men and they're free whores. Yes, my goodness. And why that? It's kind of sad, like if you're fornicating, it's like you're worse off than a prostitute.

She's making money, you're an idiot. What are you doing? Yeah, exactly right. And I have to say though, Franciscan really turned this, what was his name father? Who kind of really? Kickstarted Franciscan again his name is escaping. Yeah

But Franciscan was at one point on the top ten party School in Playboy magazine. That's right Deacon Keith 48 told us that city can find his name Neil. I'm forgetting it, but he he came in He had a conversion through the charismatic renewal Deacon Keith Fortier told us that. See if you can find his name, Neil. I'm forgetting it, but he came in, he had a conversion through the charismatic renewal. He was already a priest. Began to believe in the power of God, got rid of all the frat houses and things

and turned them into these prayer houses. Right. Yeah. Yes. Father Scanlon, Joseph. Vincent Michael Scanlon. Vincent Michael, yeah, Michael Scanlon is what he went by. Father Scanlon. Yeah. That's right. Just loved the Lord Deacon and we right now on Franciscan we have this Holy Mass at least four times a day

It's never not full. That's right. It's beautiful Yeah, I was gonna tell you Deacon Keith Forney who works with Bishop Strickland now was with Father Scanlon on the ground floor of that and he relates that story beautifully about the 180 they did. Yeah. Which is nice. I don't know much about Franciscan other than that. Yeah. So I can't really. Speak to it sure. I can't speak to it but in general yeah there are very few schools that form the human person as they ought to and the schools we mentioned at least understand the nature of reality, the proper anthropology, and the nature of human learning, which is really rare but beautiful. And there is a reason to go there because you cultivate your intellect and you get your your will

formed properly. And that's a beautiful reason to go to school. And hopefully you're surrounded, yeah, by good peer pressure, good men. Yeah, you're surrounded by good souls, yeah, fighting the same fight as you are, and the idea is to encounter truth, to end by knowing the logos, to end by being edified by truth such that you can live in virtue. And the schools that do that, they're definitely worth going to, and that's what the home should be, the domestic church. The home should be that place where we cultivate that. Well, your point about modernity being a waging war against the interior life.

Now, let me tell you what I think I mean by interior life and see if we've got the same idea. It's that conversation that goes on within yourself when you're alone that's directed towards God eventually. The contemplating of things. But what does it you mean when you say it? I think you're on the right track with me. I think we're close.

There's a real danger with this conversation with ourselves. There's a distinction between the psychological and the objective. So we talked last time about the fact that the modern school has this interior dialogue they call metacognitive, Where we think about our own thinking. And the modern school would call that the interior life, even though they reject the real interior life. But in the authentic school, you can't avoid psychology, you are yourself.

But you can avoid reflecting on the nature of reality. You can't avoid reflecting on that thing outside of yourself that exists and is real. And so this dialogue between what is objectively true on that thing outside of yourself that exists and is real. Yeah. And so this dialogue between what is objectively true outside of yourself and the interior life, which we call the spiritual life, which is your intellect and your free will, these are the interior constituent parts that are part of that conversation that you're talking about.

Okay. But everybody has an interior dialogue. Yeah. Even the one who's totally self-centered, narcissistic and enclosed in psychological psychodrama. That's- It's just not in touch with reality maybe. Is that it?

It can easily be in touch with reality. But it seems to me, what I thought you were driving at, and which might also be a valid point is, we're all walking around in a noisy world with our noisy headphones and with our phones beeping at us constantly like there's no time to even string a coherent sentence together in your own head. That's right

because you're piping into it the opinions of podcasters like us. Yeah, that's right. But you've made the interior choice to do that. Maybe so you can avoid your best word in there is contemplation. When you contemplate, that's different than thinking about yourself or just really thinking about what you like or what you want. So we think about what is instead. So the interior life, we're really talking about your character, really talking about your habits, your possessions.

What do you own interiorly that's intellectual and moral? These are the things ignored by the modern school and I don't know if they're even ignored they're undelt with in the sense that the kind of informational formation you get leads to a really bankrupt character with vicious habits and and full of intellectual falsehoods. We believe the ideologies in the school so ideology is a huge factor in what's wrong with the modern school. So ask the question, is there ideology in the school?

And the answer is yes. Is that good for a soul to see through the lenses of ideology? And the answer is no. What do we mean by ideology? We should define that. So ideology is a fairly new term, 1850s I think. And if we look at idea ology the study of ideas

it's as Tony Esselstyn told me once it's the worship of ideas it's a religious thing where if you look it up in the dictionary it says it's a set of principles usually directed towards a political end and it's the lens through which you see and understand the world so you might take a a cause like feminism to a feminist who's a true feminist. The ideology of feminism sees the entire world through the lens of that power struggle between a man and a woman. And that's a reduction of reality, that set of issues. So ideologically, even if there's truth in the ideology, to see that as the whole thing

instead of just a part of the thing is the ideological mistake. So it's like trying to see the world through a keyhole kind of thing. Yes. You're reducing the totality of everything. Yeah. And it has to be made to fit into the lens of. That's right. How is faith not that?

That's a great question. It can be, certainly can be. If you take a certain few precepts of the faith, that could be your lens through which you see in order of the world. And if you don't have the totality of all church teaching and know that there's that and God beyond, then you're in danger of reducing things ideologically.

So religion can be an ideological thing, but the authentic, the one true faith can't be. But it's a matter of us encountering that and being open to it and knowing that we don't know all. But to reject any single part of church teaching is to reject the whole thing. In the same way that to assume ideology is the whole of the thing is to reject the nature of reality. Because one of the most important transcendentals is unity. There's a unity of being and to think that we

grasp it all would be a huge mistake. To know that we don't grasp it all is fair enough. To know that certain things are true is fair enough. But to mistake the part for the whole or to shove the elephant into the thimble or to, how'd you put it? It's a great way to put it I forget it was beautiful but it was right oh to look through the keyhole yeah the whole world right it's to invert the order of your vision and to lose sight of the fact that we are finite yeah so this is this is what scientism does doesn't it a scientism is an ideology yeah that simply says the highest way of knowing is experiential or Or even the only.

Might even be the only in the case and it's hard to believe that but yeah. But even if it's just the highest way of knowing is through your own experience, that's tremendously disordering and that is one of the ideologies promoted in the public schools. Because it is based on your experience. It's subjectivism. Subjectivism is another one. Nominalism early on was that you can't know real things, you can only name them. And there may or may not be a relationship between that thing you name in your head and the real thing. This ideology alone damages the intellect or your ability to see things as they are, discover them, and to know what things truly are.

So if the schools don't do that, which they don't at all, they would say something like, who are you to say what a thing is? I should relate the story, Faith and I took, we went into an administrative credential program. I said I had a company around and it was an utter, utter nightmare. And it was just racist and it was ridiculous.

And they started the class off by saying, if you're white, be prepared to be uncomfortable and be prepared to have those hard conversations that make you uncomfortable right and so this was just the constant matter they said read who's at Robin D'Angelo's what's that book called white fragility right fragility I read white fragility we read Ibram X Kendi stamped we read all these ideological rac, we read Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped, we read all these ideological racists. We read them all, you know, I did. I read them all.

They recommended we read them in class, and they were just horrifyingly horrible. And can you tell us why, some instances? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, in general, these race-baiting ideologues like Robin D'Angelo and Ibram X. Kendi, they say there's no such thing as objective truth here. And that's an objective truth claim. They begin with that. And they say, they have, I should make a list

and show it to you, but there are tons of philosophical problems like that, where they say nobody can know how someone else feels, but I know how you feel. They have tons of things like that, and I don't have them off the top of my head. I'm sorry. Interesting.

Drawing a blank, but, and I should come back to that because it's very, very important to understand why those guys are so wrong. I mean, Eberneck Skindee says, to remediate racism and discrimination in the past, we have to have discrimination today. And that's just absurd, which means we'll have to have a different kind of discrimination in the future.

Yeah. But let's not have discrimination because our whole argument is based on being discriminated against. It's just an absurdity that's easy to justify if you say there's no such thing as the principle of non-contradiction. Yeah. So they begin by denying the first principle of all reality. That's how they begin and right there that just makes the whole thing silly. It's just really weird. But in this class, I actually had a teacher reach out to me and say, you use trigger language

in some of your assignments and I'm very troubled by it. And then the administrator of the course reached out and said, I saw some of your writings and it's very troubling. We need to have a meeting. We literally had an hour and a half meeting where these two ladies, they met with me and they started with us saying, we're very concerned. The language you use in your writing is very upsetting. And I said, what's the deal? They said, you

use the words objective truth. They did not say that. Quote, I just quoted. Were you there? This is insane. Yeah, she was there. And I videotaped it. Please give it to me. Okay. I'll try and find some. No, don't do that. Okay. Okay, but the point is... Yeah, I mean, we've skirted around it, but it's a self-referentially incoherent claim to deny truth. That's right. If you say there is no objective truth, this is an objective truth claim. That's right. So it's like saying, I don't speak a word of English.

That's right. I just spoke seven or eight then. Exactly. So it doesn't work. When I told them, I said, do you believe what you're saying? They're like, no. Do you? You know, it's kind of weird. The teacher said, when you said objective truth, you made it made me feel like you were criticizing my teaching. Well, maybe I was. Yeah. And I probably wasn't in that line. No. Her teaching was random. We're not thinking of you. No, no, no, we did think of her.

She's the worst teacher ever. And then they said I was a racist. Well, I told them, I said, it's not right to say in class that everybody's a racist if they're white. And they said, well, Unless you want to redefine racism to mean something intrinsic to your skin color

that you have no control over, right? That's another conversation. Which is an insane way of using words. Well, that's what they said. Yeah. They both, and I said, are you guys racist? They both said yes. God have mercy. One was an Asian lady.

She said, I favor my people. And the other one said, I'm a racist on accident. I don't even know it. The white lady. This is a true story. This was the most absurd meeting I've ever had. It went on an hour and a half where we kept asking each other questions. And they were giving presumably opinions they thought were true, objectively so. They wouldn't admit that. They'd say,

no, we don't think so. And I said, well, is that true? There was just no coherence. It was very unsettling for them by the end of the talk and it was just horrendous. And I'm just gonna say it, they ended up calling my wife a racist because she asserted an opinion that was contrary to the class. Your Native American wife. Yes, yes. And I reached out to the lady who called her a racist.

I said, why did you call a person of color racist? And they said, because she aligns with the enemy. At that point, what's left? And it had nothing to do with race it had to do with economics Yes economic points you was making well It's a way to dismiss somebody if you don't agree with me I call you a very scary thing right a racist which nobody wants to be and nobody wants to be hopefully that's right So it's just a way to shut you down. That is maybe the way communist was used back in the 50s or 60s. Yeah

There's a lot more to calling these people communists than there is the calling all white people shut you down. That is. Maybe the way communist was used back in the 50s or 60s. Yeah. There's a lot more truth to calling these people communist than there is to calling all white people. Well now it's a praise. Yeah, unfortunately. But I went back in the 50s or so. That's right, that's right. So I had dropped out of that program. It was a nightmare.

It was so weird and so sad to think that an army of people are being trained to lead other teachers this way with such utter falsehood and such hatred. Just beautiful. I'm so excited. Yeah. Yeah. But what's coming? I am.

Are you? Yeah. I'm excited. Yeah. You're excited about that? I'm excited to raise. No, not excited about that, but I'm excited to raise my family in the truth. And I'm excited to do it with brothers and sisters in the Lord That's right in this little patch of earth called Steubenville, Ohio

That's right. And should we get run off YouTube and out of our houses? That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah I'm a heretic is fun man a heretic against secular dogma. That's right insanity That's right. May God give us the grace to persist in our heresy May God give us the grace, you know, absolutely Yeah, so it's a tough road to hoe the whole thing if you can get your kids out of the out of the public schools It's highly recommended. What what's your caution to those who wish to align themselves politically? with those who do hold certain true beliefs I politically with those who do hold certain true beliefs. I think many faithful Christians who voted for Trump were still turned off by those who

seemed way too excited about Trump. Sure, sure. I think that's a legitimate worry. Yeah, so I guess that's my point. I mean, in the United States, at least we have caused viewers from all around the world, you can tend even to fall into this false binary where we have the Republicans who are the good guys and the Democrats who aren't. Right. Right. Or vice versa, as if there's no other option. We're not imaginative enough to think of a world that doesn't involve this sort of duality. That's right. But I'm seeing that in the church today as the insanity of the left grows louder and

more frantic, where we're willing to align ourselves with any priest or president who says certain things that the others aren't, like abortion's evil. Right. And we'll be like, yes, and we'll get behind them 100 percent, but maybe he or she are saying things that are like, oh, no, no. It's this nuance is tiring. We would rather it be a simple narrative. We wish.

Yeah. We wish. What's your experience of that been? Oh, drastic. I mean, we grew up in a home that was very liberal, so naturally me and my siblings became Democrats, you know, of course, before we understood really anything about anything. But coming into the church, I immediately had to leave the Democratic Party, of course. There's no doubt that the Democratic Party, they are the ambassadors of a culture of death.

Yeah, there's a wonderful book I recommend called Liberalism as a Sin. It was written over a hundred years ago. I think by Father Felix Sarda, but there's no doubt that the platform, the culture of death, that murder in the womb, that these things that they promote, the LGBTQ agenda, and really even a lot of what's going on globally that is promoted by this party is irredeemably evil. So I don't think you can have a case where you're like, well, I'm at a good conscience, I'm voting with the Democrats. I don't think that's possible. Unfortunately, the Republicans aren't too far behind Ideologically. Yeah, it's like they just they follow whatever the liberals believe ten years ago. That's right something like that I heard somebody say I'm gonna vote for who I think hates me less Maybe I like that. Yeah, that's that's why I would have voted for Trump because I feel yeah

He seems to not sneer at me and for sure Trump gets the vote just for being pro-life yeah whatever else you think of his repugnant lifestyle or his it's amazing that that was our alternative you know when in history like we have this scoundrel that we're behind you know it's well I think part of it was and I'm not saying anything new here but I think people were just tired of these soft-spoken polite people yeah it's like the insanity grew to such a pitch that we were looking for somebody to scream at it or hit it. Maybe. And we want to hit the bill on that.

Yeah. But he also did things that weren't horrible. No, of course. There were reasons why you could in good conscience vote for him. I think so. But it is a little dangerous to become sycophantic. That's what's scary. Or to be, or to elevate Trump to something that he's not. I think that's a danger. Or to anyone in the

future. Like some, you know, maybe we're critical of Pope Francis and so we get 120% behind vegan O. He's like, no, just... Because there's certain things that he said that I thought, well... A little bit troubling sometimes, yeah. And he may be essentially on to the truth of a lot of things yeah but yeah it's very very confusing times as smoke of Satan is thick in the air and that's what makes things really hard to see I know that myself politically I'm an independent and will remain as such just because I can in good conscience get behind any party but there is a great difference between the Democratic and the Republican platform that would make it understandable why many would be Republicans. So I can't understand why any faithful Catholic

would be a Democrat except you have some older generations that were part of the Democratic Party when it might have been justifiable to be so if there ever was a time. Where are we in 10 20 years? I mean for goodness sake if I had have asked you in our first interview Where will we be in 2020 2021? I wouldn't have couldn't have predicted Yeah, yeah the difference between then and now is so stark that it should have changed our conversation I hope it did. I hope it's more stark now. Yeah. Yeah, wake up and yes smell the dead souls Wake up and smell do something radical. Yeah radical when. Wake up and yes, smell the dead souls. Wake up and smell something

radical. Yeah. Radical. There needs to be a radical break. There needs to be a radical break. I don't know what that looks like. It's Yeah, I don't know how it's a kind of a waking up from a slumber. I think brainwashing is really, really prevalent in the age. And if you look at mass media, technology and television we gotta get rid of them we've got to you need to get rid of your smartphone I think I think you're right I think you're right yeah if I had more temerity more courage and more virginity and bring that thing in smash it right now why wouldn't you do it but I'm on call right now what if you blame me is that cuz I

think I know who's yes well I have a new job I should probably tell you what I've been doing since my last interview we should talk about why you're not breaking your phone. Because you and I hold similar opinions. I'm not even sure I should have a dumb phone. That might be a nice stepping stone to freedom. It might be a stepping stone. Yeah. Then the answering machine at the house. I'm ball and chain chained to it.

Well, stop it. Well, I got a couple other excuses you might find lame. But I FaceTime my granddaughter every day in Texas from California. I FaceTime my Kenya every day, my daughter. Get an iPad and keep it in the top drawer and use it. How is an iPad any better than that iPad? You don't carry it around with you. Or just have a laptop and FaceTime it through that.

Yeah, I haven't done that. That's a good answer. Yeah. That may not happen today, but I like it. Yeah, think about it. I like this encouragement. I'll buy you whatever dumb phone you want if you get rid of your smartphone. Really? Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna have to get some therapy.

Okay, Faith, we're gonna have to get some therapy and see if you can work through this. See, it's one thing if you and I had different opinions about the interior life and the distraction, then I wouldn't feel so bold as to push that upon you. I'm glad you did because I'm being cowardly in saying no. Well, you might not be. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you think I'm glad you did because I'm being cowardly in saying no. Well you might not be. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think you're right. No I think you're right. But I think you think I'm right.

No I know you're right. So if you know that I'm right then it is cowardly for you not to destroy it. It is cowardly. It's hard to go cold turkey. Then shame on you. Shame on me. I'm ashamed of myself. No you're not.

I am. I am. I don't know if you are. I'm embarrassed. Am I turning red? No. I'm not? No but I don't believe that you're ashamed of it. If you were then I I let's put another way I'm sickened by it. I'm sickened by my

Attachment to the to the media. I I'm on the computer every day. I'm working every day So how do we get out of this then I agree with you? I'm also a coward and this is why I think I'm taking stepping stones out I like this right five years ago. I got off social media somebody else runs that right I started giving my phone away on the weekends to friends and then picking up on Monday morning because I was a coward. So I think it's just this-

I think that's okay. Yeah, so what do we get? We gotta do something more drastic than just make sure notifications don't pop up constantly. Like that's the best you can do. I just did that last week. It's something, it's something, but it's not enough. Yes.

Yeah. I'm on a big stuff I should do. Like what did I do the other day? I, yeah. Yeah, my wife and I were hanging out and I think I said, let's watch a show. And we did. Yeah, I could have done something more beautiful.

And what we watched wasn't edifying. Right. It was titillating, but it wasn't edifying. Coward, shame on me. So I should repent and change. I don't know if you should go that hard on yourself, but yeah, you know, you can identify things like that. You don't want to be puritanical about it, or rigid or materialistic about it.

Yeah, I've got the tentacles of technology pretty deep rooted in my tortured soul. So how will you untwine them? I'm not sure. We're going to have this conversation. I'll text you next week. When I come into the office, my computer's there with email. So it's not like I've unplugged entirely. And people always accuse me of being a hypocrite for running a YouTube channel. But I want them to stop listening to me.

But I want them to get off the internet entirely. I want them to pick up some good books and drink coffee with their spouse or their friend and read Plato together and drink bourbon on the porch and smoke cigars and talk about death Yes, don't listen to this. I don't want you to but if you're online, this is an edifying discussion Most of us is online. Yeah, I think it's a worthy endeavor Yeah, it really is a conundrum and I don't think you're being a hypocrite. No, I'm not being a hypocrite I hope yeah a hypocrite is somebody a hypocrite isn't somebody who'm not being a hypocrite. Yeah, a hypocrite is somebody. A hypocrite

isn't somebody who fails to live up to his own standards. A hypocrite is somebody who demands something of everybody else that he won't accept. You know, so that's not I don't think that's what I'm doing. And we're working towards it. We recognize the difficulty of technology. You said you're reading John senior right now. Yeah. And in Death of a Christian culture, could you talk about him for a while? Because I love what I've read, but I haven't read enough to know much about him except that, well, he was sort of a convert and. It was a convert. He started the IHP program at Kansas. Yeah. Which was a wonderful integrated humanities program. Really wonderful. And he drew so many good souls in and drew converts.

And eventually, I think the school only lasted 10 years because of the rest of the faculty, one of them gone. It really bothered them. They would go stargazing and have ballroom dancing and they would sit up on a stage, smoke cigarettes and just talk about philosophy. That's right. He would have room full of people

and talk with his professor friends and have these great dialogues. And it really drew people into the classical tradition. And then converted them all. Yeah, converted a lot of them. Too many people were converting to Catholicism. That's right, yes. It was a huge problem for the university itself.

And then offshoots like Clear Creek Abbey. Yeah. And then Norcia, some of the monks from Norcia in Italy. That's right. Or France. Oh, is that right? Okay. I think some monks in monks from Norcia in Italy? That's right. Or France. Oh, is that right? Okay. I think some monks in France.

Just a wonderful bunch of offshoots. Schools. I think St. Gregory the Great. They're disciples of— I would say certainly disciples of— Shum Sr. and St. Martin's down in Fort Myers, Kansas. Yeah. Is it Fort Myers?

I know it's in—I believe it's in Kansas. I forget the name. Yeah. South, southeastern Kansas. I think it's Fort Myers. But wonderful schools inspired by that and recovering the poetic imagination and the moral imagination through great works, through song, through poetry. It's just wonderful what Senior did.

One thing I really love what Senior did, there's a story where he talked about a kid who didn't do well and he was going to fail out. He brings the kid in and he says, hey listen, if I just scrap your grades and give you Bs, will you just come back for another semester? He said, okay, I will. And he came back and the grades didn't matter, but he delved into the classics

and became a Catholic convert. I think he wrote a book, if I'm right, about who this was. But really, really important to understand that senior understood the human person, to put that human person above things like grades, these arbitrary kind of false measurements of how somebody does in a school. I just love that about Senior.

I think so much good came out of that. I think it was someone we ought to all look back to. He wrote The Death of Christian Culture. Most people don't know who he is. They don't know who he is, John Senior, yeah. And he wrote The Restoration of Christian Culture. He wrote it, I think it's unpublished, but a thing called The Idea of Christian culture. Most people don't know who he is. They don't know who he is. John Senior, yeah, and he wrote The Restoration of Christian Culture. He wrote it, I think it's unpublished, but a thing called The Idea of the School. Have you seen that? I haven't read anything of his. I haven't. You just started. Yeah, I'm just dipping my toes in. Okay.

Think about how much more radical I'm going to be at the end of this. Oh, it's wonderful. Read Senior if you're at home. We can't have lighting. We need candles, only candles to light the set. That's right. He said smash your televisions Oh, yeah, smash them get rid of them. They're ruining your lives. So why do you have one? Because I'm a weak little pathetic man. Yeah, me too. Same thing. Yeah. I'm a yeah me too Yeah, we took us we took a step when we moved to Steubenville. We got a we got a TV that wasn't a smart TV Oh nice, and so now we just have like good DVDs that we buy from secondhand stores and things and if the kids want to watch a movie you know

it's not ideal. That's the that's maybe that's the problem. I'm not sure your thoughts on the temperaments. I don't know a lot about them. Well okay well if they are legitimate I tend to be of a more melancholic. Okay. Right. I'm very idealistic. I see. If I can't do it exactly right, then I may as well do the opposite or not at all. Like if I can't pray the rosary every night with my family while we kneel on glass, broken glass, then we may. So I just never pray ever. It's that kind of thing that I need. It's not mature. It needs to grow up. Sure. So that's why I find

difficulty and degrees of separation from this stuff Okay, but it's something to celebrate absolutely because we had a smart TV right before right But you know the first month or two the kids were Complaining and begging for it and they stopped now They're there right and they barely go down into our dank cold basement where the stupid TV is they don't want to do it It's ugly and cold. They'll forget it quickly. I'm gonna get rid of the couches soon and just put like metal chairs. Yeah, you're welcome. Get that glass for the vote, we're doing the Roger again on the glass.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, good idea. Faith and I did something similar. I think it was after reading John Sr. We literally cut off cable, everything. We had the DVDs and the TV, but we did that for eight years. Beautiful.

And the kids didn't ask, and we had rules, the TV doesn't go on during the week. You know, and this was good for us, and we did this for eight years, and then we moved back to California And the kids didn't ask. And we had rules, the TV doesn't go on during the week. This was good for us. And we did this for eight years. And then we moved back to California and got the smart TV and we have Amazon Prime and we have just sunk in into depravity as a result. The kids are out of the house mostly.

It's worth striving to get out of, isn't it? It's worth, yeah. No, those were the best eight years of our kids' lives, just to not have that incessant garbage piped into your home. Oh, it was wonderful. It was a great thing. I think senior did inspire us to do it. I remember Faith Red Restoration. Collie, what would he say about today? Oh my goodness. This is back in the day of?

Yeah, in 36 he was a cowboy, right? 36? Black and white televisions? Well, no, I think John Senior when he was, I don't remember how. 50s or 60s. When did he live? Was around then no, he was into the 70s or 80s. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No when he was a young boy He ran away from home. I think that's right and he hit the range. He went and became a cowboy Yeah, is a very young man. Let me let me see the nice thing about this dumb phone is it sends photos. Oh But I sent you a photo the other day and I want to share that one excerpt from his.

Oh yes. That I just found so moving. I haven't got my glasses so we'll see how this goes. The immediate practical purpose of drinking a cup of coffee is to wash the biscuit down. Its proximate ethical purpose is the intimate communion of, say, cowboys. They do exist. Will James was right. Standing around the sullen campfire in a drenching rain, water curling off Stetsons over slickers, splashing on the riles of spurs as they draw the bitter liquid down their several throats

into the single moral belly of their camaraderhip. The remote political purpose of coffee at the campfire is the making of Americans, born on the frontier, free, frank, friendly, touchy about honour, despisers of fences, lovers of horses, worshippers of eagles and women. The ultimate purpose is spiritual. For a boy to drink a can of coffee with cowboys in the rain is as Odysseus said something like perfection. And he was quoting Odysseus from what is this? Alkano's banquet or say you say it. That's how I say it.

No, that's how I say it. Yes. So this is from the Restoration of Innocence. Isn't that beautiful? How do you write like this? You start by smashing your phone. you start by smashing your TV. On points with a coin. Yeah, well, and he ran the gamut. He studied everything

Confucius, Buddhism, I think he looked it all and then he encountered Thomas Aquinas. That's right. He was sort of into Eastern mysticism prior to many were as many were from the Transcendentalists and Thoreau and Walden and Emerson. But yeah, but then he found Thomas and found his most edifying and solid philosopher. And I think that solidified his soul. What's the most beautiful poem you've memorized? Oh.

Or the poem you're most proud of having memorized? Or have you ever memorized a poem? I've never memorized a poem. Shamefully. How about you? What's your favorite? Uh, Grandeur of God. Okay. Yeah, by uh... Are you gonna recite it for us right now?

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil. It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil crushed. Why'd a man then now not wreck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod, and all is smeared with trade, bled, no, seared with trade, bled, smeared with toil, and wears man's smudge, and shares man's smell. The soil is bare now, nor can foot feel being shod, and for all this, nature is never spent. There lives the dearest freshness, deep down things, and though the last lights off the black west went, oh, morning, at brown brink eastward springs, because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with bright wings.

That's beautiful. That's lovely. Thank you. Do you know how much cooler it is to memorize that than some line from The Office? Yeah, that's a lot cooler. Significantly. Yes, dramatically cooler. No, that was beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for that. How do we get back to that? Smash your TVs. Get me to smash my phone. All right. I'll hold you to it.

We need to talk. We need to visit more. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's right. It's so tragic. We're in the grips of something really dark right now. But amidst the darkness there's idiots like me memorizing poetry and sinners going to confession and yes we have the beautiful Latin mass here on the on the

on Sundays here and people bring their gaggle of kids and and they're beautiful they're just beautiful there's a there's a there's a nobility to them. Yes, they want something good. Yes This is a time for that I Think it's a time to wake up to the truth and to value those beautiful things But also it's a time to act it's a time to stand against I think the tide of what's going on To take up arms against a sea of troubles How do you do that? How do you do that while you're trying to?

Have your children raised in what's true good and beautiful I guess it's not either or you're you're trying to teach them about the goodness of the world and the reality of the world and Pushing back against the insanity of it. Yeah, I Think it's a huge risk to stand up against the tide as it. Yeah. I think it's a huge risk to stand up against the tide as it is, to stand up and say that the things being said in public aren't true. I'm terribly disturbed by what we see on the news,

things like, we don't watch the news often, but I do follow the media just as a cultural critic. And to watch what's being said and to see how abjectly untrue things are and how obvious they are but how unwitting the public seems to be about it really troubles me. So I think the first order of business is to go on the quest to recover truth. To ask the question does truth exist? And if you answer no, it's over. You're done. Does truth exist? Is there an objective reality? Can I know it is the next question? Yeah, and then can I know it? And if you answer no to any of those things, then it's a lost cause.

It's a lost cause. It's ironic because the people that answer no to those things said yes to believing those things. It's very bizarre. Let me, um, let me unspool here for a little bit and get your take on it. One of the reasons I love pints with Aquinas is I like the frank free, perhaps too free conversations that take place at one in the morning in a rundown bar you know with some bloke or sheila about life and in vino veritas. I love that. Drunkenness is evil and ugly and a sin, to be clear. But there's something when people let their guards down and they can share openly and honestly that's lovely. And it seems to me, and I've shared this in the past, but that there are

five fundamental questions we are all very interested in. And you can tell me if you think there's another one to these. Have you heard me say this? I don't know. Where where did I come from? Who am I? Why am I here? How should I live? And where am I going? Can you think of another one? Those are profound. Those are vital. I can't think of anything more profound than those things. But it seems to me, and I'm open to being challenged or wrong about this, that if atheism is true, we have dogmatic answers to each of those questions. That's right. And you know,

here's how I'd put it. Where did I come from? You have been coughed into existence with the whole universe by a blind cosmic process that didn't have you in mind. All right. Good. Why am who am I? You are merely the result of matter plus time plus chance. Why am I here? And to quote Richard Dawkins, at least in this case, why is a silly question, at least objectively speaking.

If there is no objective answer to why the universe is, then it follows, it seems to me inescapably that there cannot be an objective answer to the question, why am I here? There is no reason. There's no reason to the universe. You're part of that. There's no actual mind-independent reason. You know. Okay, right. So, but then you might protest and say people find meaning in many things, you know, they they want to end this thing or fight for this cure or But these seem to be like self-imposed illusions to get us through the long days and longer nights. All right, right You can think that's the meaning of your life. It isn't it might make you feel better and maybe that's nice to feel better That's more pleasant a feeling

Okay, how should I live? I've never been able to get on board with an objective morality that doesn't have an independent mind issuing the commands. If there is no God and there is no meaning to the world or to your life, how you should live is really up to you. This is the one life you have. And you might decide to live in a way that's conducive to the flourishing of your group and your society. And people will give you badges and clap for you and tell you what a good person you are. But you might decide to be a bastard and hurt and rape and people do these things, they're deciding

to do these things. And suppose you say, well, why are they wrong? Well, because society has said they're wrong or something. But society is just other yous and you have no moral authority over me. You're an equal to me. If you say, well, it's been sort of bred into us somehow through evolution. Well, this process that I now understand and can articulate is beneath me. Surely that can have no claim upon me.

Well, you say, well, it's so that we can live a more pleasant life that we've come up with these rules. That's why you've come up with them, but it doesn't show that they actually grounded anything ontologically substantive, you know? And then finally, where are we going? This is like the opposite of a Matthew Kelly talk, but he's very positive positive you're going to die sooner than you expect and People won't care Just yesterday or two days ago a friend called me and said his son-in-law

just died of an overdose alcohol, you know, and he was in his early thirties. I was sorry for him. I said a prayer for him indeed. But I don't care in the sense that it doesn't impact my day. I went home, had dinner, forgot about it. That's what we'll do for you. When you're dead, there will be a time that somebody thinks of Steven Rammelsberg for the last time There will come that day some will think of you and then they'll die and then no one will ever think of you again That's some point that'll happen So we're gonna die individually, but then cosmologists speculate that even as a species We will die as the universe continues to expand and uses up energy

It'll eventuate in what they call heat death So you've just got this broken up universe scattering through infinite space forever. And I forgot who it was that said it, but this is the horror of modern man, because he ends in nothing. He is nothing. All right. And he begins in nothing. There's my little preachy.

That's the worldview today. Now, I don't know how to get around that. Now, that's not an argument for God's existence. No. Not at all. It might be that bleak. That's a description of if God doesn't exist. It seems to me that's what is. You know. And as Joseph 6 said, all things are permissible. That's true. There's just no, there's no limits to the depravity or the, or anything. Nothing matters. That's so nihilistic. It's nihilism. Yeah. So it's not an argument for God, but it's an argument to question your atheism. Because it's not beneficial to live a hopelessly awful, drab, bleak, meaningless life. I'd rather that not be the case. So I need to be self-reflective. Well, it's important to ask,

well, is that true? Is that the ground? And the modern world says yes it is. That follows Cartesian methodological doubt that turned into skepticalism which today turned into radical skepticism or hyperskepticism. The life of disbelief. So that's your choice. You're either like Augustine who says I believe it in order that I may come to understand or you're like Descartes he says I doubt it doubt everything until you can prove it to yourself that kind of thing so that's just an extension of Cartesian radical doubt so at the heart of reality then is order or chaos in a sense that's right yeah yes that's your choice either you recognize the order in the cosmos or you assert it's chaos.

It's meaningless. And if it is meaningless, it's just bizarre. What results? It takes quite a bit of faith to believe this is meaningless. Quite a bit more faith to believe it's meaningless than to believe that there's order. Every single breath you take and notion you have and thing you do presupposes that there's an order. I want to throw this out here too. It was Lewis who said, you know, sometimes as a Christian I have these moods where I think the whole thing's very unlikely and it seems very strange and I begin to think that maybe I've bought into some mass deception. But he said I also had those thoughts when I was an atheist. So it seems to me that without faith one can

either be a solid Christian or a solid atheist. And I just sometimes think that the moments that occur it just strikes me like this is very strange. Maybe this is just bullshit. Like maybe the whole thing is rubbish. But then I think, okay, well, it might be. I don't think it is. But just playing devil's advocate with myself. But how much, how very strange is life? Like, I might not know how to explain how I get from here to heaven or what heaven is, but it seems to me a lot more difficult to explain how I went from nothing to here. this very very strange thing that I call reality right that has fingernails and ear hair that grows an alarmingly fast rate the age the older you grow for reasons I cannot

fathom I don't want to distrust my body right I presume it knows what it's doing need those but why I need it to grow content but meet me up chaos or chaos order those are your only two choices But isn't and but for many of us or all of us I see what you mean deep down. It's that yeah at the deep down Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to deny. It's hard to deny order When every single aspect of your life adheres to it in to some degree even if you choose disorder, that's the order you chose So it it's really a bizarre thing. It's a very difficult thing to say today I'm going to choose to try to discover the truth. The

one who says there's no order says I'll be the arbiter of truth. And that's a tough thing. I read this little line here. I'll see if I can find it again because I found it very compelling. Socrates is talking about what it's like when you think something's true and then you discover you're wrong and this happens repeatedly. You begin to doubt the reasoning process altogether and make the claim that we actually can't know truth. Let's see if I can find that. But that is a position that many people are in, isn't it? Yes. Was it the ancient Gorgias who said there is no truth and if there were truth we wouldn't know it and if we could know we couldn't speak about it?

Yeah, there's a three self-referentially incoherent statements. Yes, exactly. All asserted as truth claims. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I can find it now. Yeah, it's a beautiful line and it captures where we are today. It captures the heart of this sophist. Yeah. Who says, yeah, you can reason yourself into believing there's no such thing as reason. And then you find yourself to be quite the most reasonable of men at that point. Yes. You deem yourself to be. It's a cynicism. Yeah, it's a form of cynicism.

Chesterton said that everyone in Insanus Island, they're not unreasonable, they're only reasonable. What does that mean? I've heard him say it from orthodoxy, I think, but I don't really know what it means. It means that reason untethered from reality It can lead to its own sort of insanity. Oh, I see so it's reason detached from reality Right only reason if there's only reason it can evolve into rationalism very easily But you have to reason about something if you reject that that something exists and you only have reason then you have self-re referential echo chamber. So there's an interesting epistemological principle that the intellect is infallible. Think

about that for a minute. No one would allow that. The intellect is infallible meaning what you think. You have three things the mind does. It apprehends what is, it makes judgments, and it reasons to new knowledge. That process happens no matter what. Now there's a lot of things that can go wrong with it, right? Depending on free will and how we choose to order things. But the three acts of the minds themselves happen we have we have the capacity to abstract from an object a

Universal principle of understanding a form and it becomes a concept in the soul We we do that. We all do that infallibly So it's not to say that the intellect knows everything perfect not to say that to say that at all. It's just to say the intellect works. We are reasonable beings. We are rational animals. And that's just universally true, barring defect. But the modern world wouldn't say that. They would say, it's like trusting the senses.

We would also say epistemologically that your senses hold out the capacity to infallibly take in what's there, to receive what is there, barring defect. If you're blind, you can't see what's there. But your senses can take what you are around and know what, and take it in as a proper perception. But you see the modern world attacks,

you can't trust your senses, that's what the modern world says, and then you can't trust your senses. That's what the modern world says. And then you can't trust your thinking. So these two things are beneath. So what do you live with? Your feelings. Yeah. Right?

So you can't even trust your senses anymore. And the key there is that sure, you can trust your senses. What you can't trust sometimes is your interpretation of what the data you're receiving. Have you ever read the Space Trilogy by Lewis? I read it. It's been a long time. I'm not gripped by it. You're not? No, it's my fault.

I know. So I'll keep plugging away. Plugging away. But there's that bit at the beginning where he pops his head out of the spaceship for the first time. And there's this wonderful line. Lewis puts it far better than I'm going to. But something like he didn't he didn't know what he was looking at. Yeah. And it all seemed like colors to him, because in order to sort of make far better than I'm going to, but something like, he didn't know what he was looking at,

and it all seemed like colors to him, because in order to sort of make sense of it, you have to sort of know what it is. So there's this simple apprehension, but then a judgment has to be made about the thing, which as you say, furthers our knowledge. But I thought that was a really interesting point of his. It's a great point, right?

If you encounter something you've never encountered before at first. You don't know how to grasp it yet. You may not know how to grasp it, but in a sense, you may know how to grasp it. It may be different in some really foreign place like outer space, but here on earth, you could see a new species and not be too terribly alarmed, right? Kind of grasp and take, form a concept of the idea that that thing is probably one of many similar things, things like it.

So the gift of abstraction, that's something animals don't have. They don't perceive an abstract, a formal cause. No. Or an essence, we understand an essence of a thing. So the human mind works the way it works. And I find it amazing that that's not known in the public schools.

The three acts of the mind don't exist in the public schools. There's no discussion of them. The highest, they have these things called higher level thinking skills, critical thinking skills from Benjamin Bloom. And he has those as, what's he call them, understanding. He has this list of higher level thinking skills

he called critical thinking skills. And they're all material. They're all below the line of intellection and free will and deal with your interior senses of memory, imagination, common sense, and estimated sense, and your five senses. So it's really interesting that they call those the higher level thinking skills and they ignore the three acts of the

mind. So there's no direct cultivation of the intellect in the modern school. And you can't not use your intellect, but you use them to focus on these informational reductions of it's really materialism. So you've studied this more than me and just to put it real simply or hopefully not inadequately although I guess it will be you got Descartes, you've got Hume who I believe denies causation. We have instances of things that happen after something else and we attribute causation to them but we can't know it, we can't experience it.

Even the self I believe Hume was skeptical of. You have Immanuel Kant who tries to save science in a sense by saying that while we cannot know the world as it is, we can know it as it appears to us. Right? A sort of, what do you say? No, but ideal us. Yeah. Right? It's sort of, what do you say? No, but idealism. Yeah. But then it seems like the next step is, no, the world is as it appears to me, not us, me. And I don't know if I said that right. Maybe you could fill in the gaps there. Yeah. I think we're talking about Bishop Berkeley there. Okay. Who said to be is to be perceived.

He was an Anglican bishop and the one for whom the People's Republic of Berkeley was named I think. Bishop Berkeley, have you heard of him? Yes. And so yeah, he bridged that gap between us and are we and me, right? To be is to be perceived so we get this notion of if a tree falls in the wood and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? And Bishop Berkeley says, no, of course not.

To be is to be perceived. And that makes it radically subjective. And that's sort of taken a hold of the modern imagination and that's sort of the new thinking. So much so that you see Irvine, I heard a professor say, if we're looking at the moon, that's not a moon. It's something different for everybody. If we're not looking, it doesn't exist. But if you're seeing the moon and I'm seeing the moon, it's actually not a moon. It's something different for everybody. If we're not looking, it doesn't exist. But if you're seeing the moon and I'm seeing the moon,

it's actually not the moon, for you it's an existential threat and how you deal with it will determine your survival. And for me, whatever it is, it's an existential threat. That's sort of the thinking today. It's utter buffoonery. But this is UC Irvine profession. In fact, there's a video online of this guy,

can't remember his name, who explains that kind of radical subjectivism. It's almost as if you as the perceiver make the whole reality around you. Well this is transgenderism. Solipsism. Oh absolutely. Yeah, I mean I looked into transgender surgeries and they'll take a bit of your body fat and make a penis for you if you're a woman.

Is that right? Well they can make you a vagina. Right. We don't sell them at Best Buy yet but one day they might and we could do that and get you a vagina for yourself and the fact that we can sit here and stomach this insanity. That's insanity. Oh and you would be in a lot of trouble for saying that in public. Yeah well I just did. I'm glad this isn't being recorded. Yeah. Live. Imagine if it was live. Oh even worse. Can't take it back. This would be really bad. Yeah so so you wouldn't dare say that in public but Live. Imagine if it was live. Even worse. Can't take it back.

This would be really bad. Yeah, so you wouldn't dare say that in public. But isn't it insane today? And that's the kind of stuff being pushed in the public schools as well. This kind of thing. That you are what you perceive yourself to be. And anything of the objective order that runs contrary to your wishes is violence. Yes.

Including the body. That's right. Including wishes is violence. Yes. Including the body. That's right. Including God's law. Yeah. Which is a delight to the soul. You and I were reading that Psalm this morning. That's right. God's precepts.

Greater treasure than gold. Great, yeah. That's what we want to get back to. Yeah, and it's terribly disconcerting. I have a family member, a niece who tells us all she's a boy. Yeah. And it's just heartbreaking. Bless her. Just heartbreaking. And she's going down the full road of doing this thing and my family calls her a he. Which it just reminds me of 1984. It's a lie. It's just untrue. Yeah.

And when my mom or my sisters call her a he, I say, that's a girl, you know? And they look at me like I'm crazy. No, because you love her. You want to have compassion. But compassion cannot be given through a lie or a series of them. That's right.

Yeah, and my beautiful daughter, Tommy, told her, listen, we love you, but we're not okay with you going down this road because it harms you. Yeah. And it wasn't taken well, but my Tommy really gave it in the spirit of charity and truth. I'm very proud of her for doing that. Bless her.

But it's a very difficult conversation with my own family, and it's separating us even further. Yeah, it will. We're pretty separated. We don't agree on anything anymore. And I mean, almost anything at all. But this has made it much more difficult for us to relate to our family.

So it's very divisive. You know what I've loved about this conversation is, even though we're looking into the black hell that a sort of materialist universe leads us to, we're also, I think equally so in this conversation, have spoken about beautiful things. Yeah. And sometimes conversations like this can just degenerate

into look how bloody awful everything is and without hope. But I mean, we've been reading poetry, talking of Plato and beautiful walks and you summed up a fairy tale for us. Yeah, yeah. No, I suppose that's important, isn't it? It's very important. We have to remain in what's beautiful. Beautiful walks and you summed up a fairy tale for us. Yeah. Yeah No, there are I suppose that's important. Isn't it? It's very important man And what's beautiful easy to get it'd be easy to get desperate Be easy to get be dejected or even even despondent in this climate, but I think there are Really? There's no shortage of good people out there good souls good faithful souls

But I still believe there needs to be a much greater awakening to what's really being done because it's just this sort of soft tyranny that washes over us like a warm bath. And I think that's very dangerous. The future doesn't look good if we don't come together and wake up in true charity. Charity and honesty and action with manly virtue.

That's the thing that needs to be recovered. You know, manly virtue, yeah. Jordan Peterson offered a prayer on his YouTube channel like two days ago. Did he? It was glorious. Did you see it, Neil? It was really lovely.

Oh, really? Yeah, it was something to the effect. He begins with dear God and ends with amen. Quotes our father, you know. But it has to ends with our men quotes the our father you know but it has to do with the way in which our country is tearing itself apart right now and yeah yeah he's he's awake yeah yeah i think he's coming to it hopefully yeah hopefully he's he's a man who has good conclusions um common sensically a lot of good common sense. Yeah, we need more of that. Yeah, really, I think it's such a dreadful time

because men are being called to stand up and I think men can. But when men do, they get viciously savaged. They get attacked. I think the term toxic masculinity is the club with which you hit any man who stands up and says it stands up with manly virtue. Yeah. Which is a thing that's just not acceptable unless you're watching a woman do it in a movie or something. Yeah.

It's very very bizarre, very strange, but um but that's what we really need essentially we need men to step up with virtue and with charity and to stand against the tide of lies. And I think that as we've been saying or alluding to, certain radical breaks need to happen because we're soft. And we lull ourselves into insanity with Seinfeld binges, which is very clever, very, very clever. Se very clever something's very funny makes lovely observations that are very insightful but it's also filled with fornication and And the insanity of that it's very sad to watch Seinfeld because it seems like

Back then the country was running on the fumes of Christianity. Yeah, and so, you know you have these You know Seinfeld has parents, he has aunts and uncles, like an intact family that he refers to. That's right. But he lives like a gigolo. That's right. Yeah. And it is sad for that reason.

And you see now where it leads to this, this is what it led to. Yeah. But we just, we're sitting around justifying our entertainment. And I understand what you mean when you say we don't want to, I think I understand what you mean when you say we don't want to be puritanical or rigid. Although, you know, we could maybe stand to bend that way. You're probably right. Yeah. You're probably right.

I don't, yeah. Do you think I'm rigid or puritanical? No, no, no, no. How would one know that one is? You're taking baby steps in terms of disentangling. That's so not at all. I think the thing you were mentioning before, you want to get the big picture. You want to get the whole thing. You're taking baby steps in terms of disentangling. So not at all. I think the thing you were mentioning before, you want to get the big picture.

You want to get the whole thing. I think you do. Definitely. I didn't mean to sound accusatory. You didn't. Good, good. But my point in asking that is who is rigid and puritanical knows that about themselves? Well, yeah.

We need somebody to tell us or point out why. I think I was hinting at something else. This isn't a prescriptive like you do these 10 things. That's right. And it's done. This is a work of character, which is probably not really. Not done on the outside either. It's something interior. It's an interior work where by desire, by a well-ordered desire, you want to attain to the truth of it. Yeah. You want to attain to the truth of it. Yeah, you can detach from technology and be a bastard. That's right. That's right. It's not a matter of just smashing the phone in the TV. No, no.

There's a lot of interior work that has to happen. And in fact, the smashing the TV will probably be a fruit of the good interior work. So I was making a reference to the period tentacle being a list of things. If you do these 25 things, then you're a good man. So I would have, like I'd have a problem, right? If someone came out and said like to watch Seinfeld,

just to keep using it as an example, is intrinsically wrong, right? I'd have a problem with that and I would offer my reasons in response to why they shouldn't say that. But I think we might have to, to your point about the warm bath running over us, we sometimes talk as if that applies to everybody

but ourselves. Because to the person who's being lulled into sleep by the so-called warm bath, we would say, violently resist, get out. Okay, so we should probably apply that to ourselves and what does that look like? And I think many of us just sort of unwilling to disengage from the propaganda

that's under the veil of entertainment that we continually ingest. That's right. That's right. I think you're right. It brings to mind this inversion of there's the fact that we exist, that we are. We are beings. And then the world, and by virtue of our being, we have an essence, and from that essence comes this playing field of potential activities, and we do things. So we talk about the fact that we exist, and then because of our existence and our attributes, our form, we can do these certain things, but we've inverted that order and come to tell ourselves that

what we do determines what we are, rather than what we are will determine what we do. So when someone asks what ought I to do they ought to rather ask how ought I to be. This is the version that we need to cover. We need to really recover these habits of being because that's where the interior work takes place. Is that cultivating the habits of being, habit means to own, to possess, a permanent disposition and from that disposition we act and we tend to think that from the way we act we acquire the disposition which is also true. It's reciprocal but one's primary and one's secondary and the habits of being become the

four habits of being. That has really kind of infiltrated our language. We say to our children what do you want to do when you grow older? We never ask. As opposed to what about children what do you want to do yes when you grow older yeah we never as opposed to what kind of man do you wish to be should you be yeah yeah what kind of man is a good man well and that's the other things we don't know that good and true as transcendental realities exist as such we reduce those to material constituent things like kids you ask kids in school what do you want to do when you? I want to have a good job and a good house. You know the things they want to have are exterior, right, and require money. So I want to

work at a good job. They tell you what they want to do, not how they want to be. And that's universally problematic today. And the inversion, the materialism says that what you do is what you become you know Batman says it it's not who you are underneath that matters it's what you do you know it's exactly the opposite so that's a hard it's a hard it's not what you do that matters it's what's underneath yeah it's what's underneath because what's underneath will determine what you actually do it's a value you know the well-ordered man is less likely to commit a crime than the criminal who's

trying to behave himself. You know. Yeah, this is sometimes brought home when you see somebody who from all appearances is a vicious person. Yeah. They're very, very rough, shouting in public at their wife or their kids, and swearing at the top of their lungs, and I've swore here in this show, so, hypocrite, perhaps. But there seems to be like a baseness. We've all, we've perhaps encountered people like that. And you see how unfree they are.

And then you have to do the hard work of applying that to yourself and see how unfree I am because of my baseness still and the lie is if I were virtuous I'd be less free less happy more constricted that's the lie but if you can see someone who's base and vicious and then contrast them with somebody who's fully alive and loves the Lord, you know You're like, okay, that's the way to life not that way. Yeah That's a that's a perfect point because the material freedom of doing whatever you want is completely different than the interior freedom of Possessing habits of virtue which is truly liberating

Truly truly liberating truly truly liberating as opposed to doing whatever you want and you see it people do whatever they want what you know in the pride parade those things are really terrifying yes they are and and those people are living in the delusion that they're free when they're truly interiorly slaves to viciousness that anybody sober and sane would be deeply disturbed by. So I think it's the great way to put it that materially freedom looks completely different than it does interiorly and the kind of freedom we strive for is in the book of John, right? If you abide in my

word you will be my disciples and when you're my disciples you'll know the truth and when you know the truth that truth will set you free. That's really really vital to understand in the interior life. Yeah what I want to do is take a quick break and when we come back we got a lot of questions no doubt from people in the comment section great and we'll chat about some more things there cool All right. did or old people did or rich old people did, I didn't realize it was something that I should be looking into as well. And when I began looking into it, I realized I don't want to invest in companies that are doing immoral things. And that's where Ethos Logos Investments comes in. They were founded to work with individuals and institutions within the United States that seek

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It's not like new age mindfulness apps that lead into wrong ways of thinking. This is 100% Catholic and it's super sophisticated. If you go to hello.com slash mattfrad and sign up there, you'll get a few months for free before deciding if you want to pay a minimal amount every month to have access to their entire app. Now you can download the app right now and you'll get access to certain things for free. So be sure to check that out if you just want to, you know, play around with it and see what they have to offer. But if you want access to everything that

they have, like sleep stories and Bible studies and all sorts of beautiful things like that, you have to pay a certain amount every month to get access to that. If you want access to everything for a few months, just go to hello.com slash Matt Fradd, hello.com slash Matt Fred and sign up there. Thanks. And we are back, Steven Rumelsberg. What is Rumelsberg? It's a German name. Yeah, it sounds German. Yeah, it's a German name. It means noisy town.

It's what they used to call the circus. The Rumelsberg. Yeah. Interesting. Noisy town. You are part of an endeavor down in Tyler, Texas that I wanted to ask you about. Yes. Tell us, tell us about what's going on down there. Yes. I think a lot of people have heard about this. There's a new community developing called

Very Taught to Splendor. And it's a kind of a long story, but it began with Rich and Carrie Beckman, who about 19 years ago founded Regina Celi Academy, which was a small hybrid homeschooling co-op. And this idea of drawing good families together to homeschool their children, but to meet two days a week and have wonderful instructors kind of caught on around many communities. And today there are 25 Regina Celi Academies, 23 in the United States and two in the UK. God bless her.

Yeah, God bless her. What a good woman. Yes, and if anyone has interest in homeschooling, leaving the public schools, this is a really good alternative because it draws together really, really faithful families. And the curriculum that's made is designed, they're aiming for classical Catholic education. But I think the real magic of the Regina Celi Academies are the people it draws together. Good, faithful people who want to be for their children what they're supposed to be and get support in doing so.

So that's I think a wonderful alternative for people that are trying to find ways to get out of the public schools. With a group of 25 parents, you can open a new Reggina Celi Academy. And they spent a lot of years developing the curriculum. So a lot of really developing the curriculum. So a lot of really difficult work is done for you and you can afford to just be with your kids in a really healthy way. So that started 19 years ago and to try to

make a long story short, all that had happened with the pandemic and the shutting down the churches and the withholding of the sacraments led to this inquiry by Kerry Beckman and Janet Smith to start the Easter people where they were seeking out diocese that still had their doors open and were distributing the sacraments. The most profound diocese they found, the most beautiful and open diocese they found was in Tyler, Texas under Bishop Joseph Strickland who? Can't had on the show. Yes, you've got a nice seat. Oh my god. What a man. What an honor Yeah, what a wonderful soul what a great bishop and a great leader of souls

He's a Fisher of men and he's honest and good and he kept his doors open. He distributes the sacraments He's sober and wise and sees things as they are. He's humble too. He's humble. You listen to that interview I did with him. If I would try to ask a question, did the bishops make the right decision, he'll say, well, I can tell you how I failed. Everything kept coming back to how he failed.

It was really an example. He's a remarkable, remarkable soul. I have great, great admiration for him and the work he's doing. And so did the Beckmans because they got together and decided, Kerry and Rich Beckman decided to sell everything in Atlanta and buy 600 acres of property in north of Tyler, Texas. Just empty land in which they have the vision to form a community of souls and several institutions, the most important of which is St. Joseph's Oratory, where we will have a community of faith centered at the heart of it is the church

and the patron state of fatherhood, St. Joseph's. And beside St. Joseph, there will be K-12 Regina Celi Academy and a university, a Catholic, classical, faithful, authentic university. And then the rest is a formation of houses and properties where people will come together, we will form souls there in the hopes that we will send them out to be in the world as salt and light. So besides the university, they have six other institutes planned around culture, life, media,

liberty, law, and human rights. And we want to have these centers to form apostolates for people to go out and open centers, things like pro-life centers that learn the philosophy behind why life is so important. And then they learn practical things like how to fundraise and lobby to work in societies that we ought to to reform the law to make it correspond with natural law.

And you're moving from California there. Yes, yes. Are you excited to move out of the insanity of California to paint with a broad brush? Absolutely. There's very good people there for sure. No, this is, it's a dream come true to participate in this endeavor, to help form a university that's faithful and authentic, that holds out the potential to intellectually

and morally form souls to be salt and light in the world. It's a dream job. It's been an answer to my prayers since my conversion to participate in the reformation of our beloved Catholic schools. And I get to work with this project in a profound way. And that means the world to me. That's beautiful. Yeah, and there is a very providential fingerprint of God, I think, on all this.

I got a story for you after this too that was remarkable. Somebody prayed, they saw something. We'll get to that in a second. Okay. It's remarkable. Okay, it's remarkable Okay, but what's the fingerprint you're talking? This is remarkable too. I think as a sign and my prayer after my conversion was that I would be able to be instrumental in reforming Catholic education and bringing it back to its To its glory and its beauty in the right way inspired by the grace of God and of course

under as a pencil in God's hand and when I look at to where I was called to do this it's just remarkable because it's in the diocese of Tyler and it just turns out that on my birth certificate my name was baby boy Tyler really before my adoption yeah and further than that it's in Smith County. And on my adoption paper it says, Baby Boy Tyler Smith. Wow. That was my name. So I just thought that was a nice, providential fingerprint thing. Indeed. I meant to come here and work for the Lord in the vineyard. And that's what this is. It's going to be a labor of love. And I hope.

Is there a URL for that right now? Yeah, I think it's very taught to Splendor.com. Would you mind putting that in the description, Neil, for those who want to learn more about it? If you want to see that. And we're in the process of developing a website for the university. So I mean, we knew the Beckmans in Atlanta. And we were sitting down having a meal just on a double date, Rich, Carrie, me and Cameron. And that's when this idea was first proposed.

And Carrie said she feels like the Lord's calling her to do this thing. And I say, if there's any woman out there who could do it, or any human who could do was first proposed and Carrie said she feels like the Lord's calling her to do this thing. And I say if there's any woman out there who could do it or any human who could do it, it's Carrie Beckman. So it was really cool to kind of be there from the beginning. Yes. And I was discerning whether or not we should move there. We eventually chose here, but I flew down with Carrie and some others to Houston and then this very wealthy, generous fellow flew us from Houston to Tyler. We had not seen this property yet.

So we were going and Janice Givens, is that her name, Neil? Janice Givens, what a woman. Man, she's like a prayer warrior. So we're all in a hotel the night before. Janice has come to pray about whether this is the Lord's will. Not if she should move there, but if the Lord wants this to happen here in Tyler, Texas. So that night, Janice and another lady in temperament, you know, and she said, well, let's pray and let's ask our good father to give us a sign as to what he whether or not this is what the Lord wants. So how do I do that? That's a bit strange. Well, that's okay. Good God, he'll give you an image. So they prayed and prayed with this woman first. What

image are you getting? The woman said, just this piece, just a deep piece, which is like, might be true, but like a super easy answer to give. Janice prays and she says, I'm getting pin the tail on the donkey and mushrooms. What is that? Are you on mushrooms? Where is this coming from? She is telling us this on our way to the property if she had have told me this after the property I would have wondered if she kind of like accidentally made it up or Made it more dramatic than it was but I was with her before Janice or I had ever stepped foot on this property knew Nothing about it. It was big chunk of land so we show

up and lo and behold we see a donkey without a tail and the owner previous owner said yeah the other donkey bit its tail off we thought well that's very strange yeah and she said you don't have mushrooms on this property do you you? No, he was quite convinced there was no mushrooms. A few minutes later they found a tree with mushrooms around all the lower part of the trunk. Oh, interesting. Isn't that lovely? Yes. How good is our Lord? So good. Again, if she had told me that after the fact, I would have been like, did you really think that? Is that, you know? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love it. There's gonna be providential signs all over the place. Yeah.

I think. And to do the Lord's will is full of dangers. Yeah. And full of trials and tribulations. Amen, yeah. So it is a real question. If this is of God. Buckle up.

Then let it be. Prepare yourselves for an ordeal. Absolutely buckle up for the attacks. It's already been, there have been many, many attacks which are to be expected. It's not been, there have been many many attacks which are to be expected. It's not a bad sign. So we're expecting a really really difficult road but it's so exciting. It's just yeah so exciting. And I'm in the process right now of writing what's called we're calling the Green Book, which

is sort of an imitation of Thomas Aquinas College's Blue Book, which is their governing and foundational document. I thought it was beautiful to read. It's a beautiful document, and we want to write one similar to it that's appropriate for the age, which I would say we are most definitely in an apostolic age, as opposed to an age of christened. So there are dramatic differences between this age, and yet it's always the right thing to do to seek after truth. Yeah.

Well, let's see if people in the live stream, if you have a question, if you're a super chat, we'll get to you. And thank you if you do that. Neil, feel free to. Yeah, so we have one from Rewire the West, which says, question for Steve, what is your favorite work of literature

from the classical Western canon? Wow, unfair. Unfair question, but I love the name. What was that name again? Rewire the West. I love that name. Good, yeah, Rewire the West. Listen, it's got to be the Bible, of course, but I really find myself enthralled with The

Odyssey and about a hundred other books, but those really stand out. I've been reading The Republic a lot lately. There's just so many things, the works of Thomas Aquinas. All right, you go to an island, and you've already got the Bible in your backpack. You're out on only one other book. Only one other book?

Now, the answer doesn't have to be, this therefore is my favorite. It might be for some other reason, but what other book of Western literature other than the Bible do you take with you? You're only allowed to read the Bible and this other book. What is that other book? Oh my goodness? This is tough well, but we have five seconds because the ships leaving okay, so figure it out The Odyssey or the Lord of the Rings Wow that's what's gonna be today Wow, you know I've never read the Odyssey you haven haven't? Yeah I'm ashamed to say it. Can you

help me? Yes. Okay. Yeah let's read that together. I would love that. It's such a heart-rending book. Yeah. So beautiful and so important. Okay. About coming home. Beautiful. Yeah. We have another one from Ryan Casey. Oh Ryan Casey. You know Ryan? I know Ryan. How? We just met at Napa what a guy I ran into him and I worked with his little sister Nila she was the first lovely young soul to come up to me at Holy Spirit it could be a different Ryan Casey couldn't it he's redheaded that's my Ryan yeah redhead beard just got married did he get well congratulations right all right I know that what's the question no this is he says g'day how do we grow and nurture wonder in our children inside of school Congratulations, Ryan. I didn't know that. What's the question? No, this is Ryan. I know Ryan. He says, good day.

How do we grow and nurture wonder in our children inside of school and outside of school? How do we get them to keep asking why? Oh, number one, keep them out of the public schools. And number two, just be there with them. Just be there with them. And then number three, get great books. Get great stories. Start with Aesop's. And not just great books, but good books.

Good books. Yeah, get good books. Absolutely. To talk about the distinction. Yes, yeah. No, no, good books are the leading up to the great books. You're right. You know, I mean, you don't get your kindergartner the Iliad. But definitely start with the fairy tales and start with the good books. There's a huge list of good books. I'm trying to think of, if you read Michael O'Brien's Landscape with Dragons, in the back there's a glossary of all kinds of good books you can get. Really helpful. So read with them, be with them, celebrate the sacraments with them, take them to Holy Mass, daily adoration. These are the things you can do. Get out in the open, get rid of the screen, smash your TV. Just be with them,

be present with them and cultivate virtue in the home. And find other friends that you love to journey with. Yes, find other like-minded families. They're out there. Matt was just telling me about his neighbors that are just lovely. Yeah, you're going to get to meet him tonight. You'll love them. All of them. They're so beautiful. I can't wait. Yeah. Can't wait. I wonder if that was our Ryan Casey. Cause Ryan doesn't have kids yet. This guy has a fetus in the oven. Oh wow.

Okay. Yeah. We just got married to a Sheila Ariel. I think her name is. Fantastic. Yeah. He's redheaded okay Ryan Casey is that your boy I'm thinking it from Atlanta yeah no that's different I think oh is

this a different rank easy I might be wrong anyway any other questions there or should we just keep Haley Louie asks nice names she's wonderful yeah she's one of the moderators. What does Mr. Rumelsberg suggest for parents of disabled children? She says public schools seem to have the most access to services. Good question. But if you don't want them to go to public school, then what are some other options or thoughts? That is a really tough question and it's one I hear a lot because what's said is that a charter school or a Catholic school or a private school will not have the services for special needs or disabled children and I think materially that's true but

we I like to ask questions about well what what is it that these services render and what is it that the program really is to help kids with special needs. And if the program's disordered for kids that don't have special needs, I wonder how it could be possibly ordered to kids that do. So I think that's a legitimate concern, and a lot of parents I know are really worried about that. So I don't have a great answer for that.

I tend to believe that the services, and it really depends on how severely disabled or what kind of needs there are, it really depends on that. If there's some of the lighter things like ADHD and other disabilities that we call in schools, then they're really not worth it at all in the public schools. If they are occupational therapy issues, that's a different question, I think. So I'm not sure which she's referring to. But they tend to do to special needs kids,

or what we call special ed kids, what they do to regular kids, only more of it, more repetition. I don't think that's terribly helpful or respectful of the human person. I think that the modern public school is an insult to the dignity of the human person and I don't know enough about the kinds of services they rendered special ed programs but I don't see why it would be much different. Reiterate that because they wouldn't have heard that. Okay, my lovely wife Faith, she tells me that the public schools are a one-stop shop for all services, but if you keep your kid home, you can apply to the state and get those same

services. Yeah, and I would still encourage a real honest evaluation of what those services render Asking about the ends and the means and the purpose of them. Yeah, so it's a really complicated question Yeah, I love your humility and answering it Anything else I have a question. Hey, so having grown up in Regina Chaley The kind of objection I hear a lot to homeschooling is that there's no sort of larger social group that you grow up as a part of and there's no like kind of audience or kind of background group of people to which to kind of contrast yourself to or have a definition separate from or you know

if you're creating some work of art to put that in front of people and see the reaction to it. So that's what I would say is what would be your response to people who say you know how are you going to socialize your children because in some ways the you know well they're going to have friends and they're going to have you know things that they do, that's a good answer. But the other side to it I'd say is it is really hard to grow up without a large group of people that are, you know, different from you and to be plugged into that world. Thank you. That's a very complicated question and really wrapped up in a lot

of what people are concerned about today. Often complaints you hear from homeschooling kids is that there aren't enough people, but you have to really ask, what's the value of this large group of people, which we might say each human soul is intrinsically incalculable, valuable, right? So it is a value to no more people for sure, but I'm not...

Feel free to push back to Neil. Yeah, push back on this one if I offend you. But I tend to think that we're caught up in sort of false false virtues of like diversity or experiential learning where the more experience you have the better. That's not necessarily true. You know, you can go to a large gathering of people, you go to Holy Mass which has tons of people, or you can go to a rock concert. And the difference really matters. So you might ask a question, would you rather be around 10 families who are holy, faithful, and good, or a thousand families who are going to socialize your kids in the ways of the

modern world? That may be the question you're facing. And one is infinitely preferable over the other. But there is that question. Why do we want our stuff in front of thousands of eyes is a good question. Feel free to come back at that. Why do we want our stuff in front of thousands of eyes? Because I feel like you're getting at something and it's not as surfacey as it might first appear.

You're not, you're not, I don't think you're just saying, uh, how do kids become social? It's like, well, you're social. You went into a genital, you're aware that people can be social. So what is it you're? I guess what I'd say is, um, growing up, I saw a sort of world that was Christian and of, um, not of the world, but also not really in the world. And so there's kind of things and understandings outside of what I was seeing that I kind of felt very,

separate from, how do I say this, let me think. Just kind of very disconnected from the world and having sort of everyone else outside of this bubble villain eyes. Yes. In a sort of way, which I think is. One thing I see sometimes if I'll, you can keep talking, but someone I'll see maybe you see something of a defensive posture against the world. There's not a willingness to dialogue because they're the pagan, they're the heretic, they're the enemy. Right. So there's a there tends to be even this sort of smugness that can come about when

you've read these classical works and now believe yourself to be superior. Yeah, that's what I'd say is I say that. If if if our faith is a place of security and it seems to me that we could be sending our our kids, and as long as they were well enough educated by us in the first place, then they would have a beacon of truth to carry and to be, you know, if at war with the people around them, at least able to live in the same room with them and not be totally turned into something else. Very understandable. No, that's a great point. And the question becomes, when do we know

that our children are prepared to encounter society at large? And I think it's a bad idea to read the classics and allow that to puff you up. What we can learn most from the classics is for that not to be the case. But it often is, and you're right. And I think it's a horrible idea to put yourself in a bubble and raise yourself above everybody else. We're all fallen, we're all in the same situation. But I would really encourage you not to see your children as salt and light in the world

before they're formed. So we're responsible for protecting the innocence of our children. In general, the large groups in the large schools utterly destroy innocence. Utterly. And I don't know if that necessarily makes those groups our enemies. But the form of the modern public school is the enemy of our children. Because it destroys their souls on purpose. And I don't think that's good for children under any circumstances

But I'd rather have you do it when you're 20 than when you're 10 But there is something to be said for For being able to engage the world as it is The other thing that perhaps needs to be brought up too is that just because I'm part of a Catholic community It doesn't mean those Catholics are healed, flourishing people. They could be rigid in the negative sense, puritanical in the negative sense, judgmental of others in the negative sense. And if that is your primary experience of the Christian life and you're in a bubble, I can see how that would also be detrimental.

Yeah, I think, yeah, and I think that's what Neal's onto. And I think you're right. There's a there's a sense in which there's a kind of damage that comes from that. The bubble that misinforms and says we're better than them. There are enemies. St. Paul says our enemies are the powers and principalities. And so the enemy is not the particular people in the school. It's the system.

It's the theory that is a rejection of truth. Does that make sense? So I think you're right. As St. Paul would say, we need to recognize who the enemy is, and if that bubble insulates and inculcates pride and viciousness, that is terrible. There's no sense in which that could be helpful.

So I think that's a tough question. You're asking a very complicated question that deserves a better answer than that. But I always, it would err in favor of protecting our children's innocence before they go out into the world. And we want them to go into the world. And we want them to be salt and lime.

We want them to be- How do you help your children? I'm experiencing this now with a wonderful 13-year-old boy. He's terrific. How do you allow them to start experiencing the world in a way that's helpful? That's a really tough question, especially for a 13-year-old. You send them to St. Greg's is probably the best thing you could do. It's probably the best thing you could do.

I mean, other than having a plan at home that you but I love the idea of Sending your young man to st. Greg's where he will be out in the world where they butcher animals and butcher animals and they Live like men. Yeah, they live like freemen. Mm-hmm So yeah one thing I don't think I realized when I had little children is that they would grow up and mature intellectually and physically as they were encountering the world because I think when I had little children I thought how could I ever possibly and there was this real fear but you know I mean might just be that

my son's particularly bright but we talk about certain things very openly pornography these sorts of thingsianography, these sorts of things, transgenderism, ideology, these sorts of things. And he grasps them and is passionate about them and, you know, wonderful. Yeah. And that's not right for every 13 year old in every household. No, no, no, that's right. Yeah, it depends on a lot. I mean, so if your kids are not generally exposed to those ideologies, I think it's better to hold off and cultivate their souls in the great literature and the

wholesome activities in the outdoors. And then when it's encroaching, then those dialogues need to be addressed. It's gonna, like Neil would bring up, it's awfully shocking for a young soul from that bubble to go out into the world, isn't it? It's awfully, awfully shocking. Yeah, there's also different temperaments, isn't there? I mean, there are certain children that I have who are very aware of everything around them. Some are more sort of introspective,

like, what's his name, from Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha, very sort of silent and thoughtful. There are others who are very aware of everything. And so this one particular child I'm referring to was addressing things far before I thought he had any knowledge of. How do you even know of this thing? But of course, what do you mean?

We live in a society as... Yeah, and the kids are probably gonna know more than you think they know. Even in a protected bubble. Tough times. Cool. know, you know, even in a protected bubble. Yeah. Tough times. Yeah. Cool. All right. Anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap up? You have a wonderful course on logic.

Yeah, I did want to talk about that. I want to I want to make the the suggestion that that to recover an authentic education really ought to be in the highest consideration of what we call the liberal arts. The three, the trivium and the quadrivium. Very, very important considerations in a real authentic education. And I think those words, speech has been abused so much in this age. I mean we were talking about 1984 and how they've taken these words and redefined them or even the Ministry of Truth, who redefines history.

It's getting rewritten left and right all the time. So even when it comes to grammar, logic, and rhetoric, these terms are used, but not in the way that an authentic Catholic classical education ought to use them. So in response to a request from the Scully Sisters, I made a course on the liberal art of logic and I made an eight-week course that I'm remaking into a 16-week course for parents to become acquainted with the principles that undergird the liberal art of logic. And it's dealing only with the first act of the liberal art of logic and it's dealing only with the first act

of the mind. Yeah and it's accompanied by a book written by Dr. Thaddeus Kosinski. The book itself has a preface from Peter Crave and it's I think a really wonderful introduction for seventh, eighth through twelfth graders to just begin to get a grasp of what the liberal art of logic really is. And in fact, it's the liberal art of liberal arts. It's a liberal art through which you see and interpret all the others, including grammar, rhetoric, and all the arts, which are the vias, the ways into philosophy and theology. These are the means by which we study them properly. So I would highly encourage parents that want to homeschool or parents that want to work with their children

To have a look at this logic course and see if it makes sense for you yourself To become acquainted with with logic Yeah in the liberal arts sense and so that you can pass it on to your children So there will be a link on the page below where you can see Testimonies from parents who have taken it before And you'll get an idea about there's a syllabus there and everything so you can see testimonies from parents who have taken it before. And you'll get an idea about it. There's a syllabus there and everything. So you can see that.

I highly encourage it for parents. What do you want to do for the rest of the day? I can't wait to hang out with the Frads. What do you want to do, Faith? We're gonna hang out with the Frads. We're gonna enjoy sauna later. Cigars. Bourbon.

More cigars. Yeah. Holy Mass is at four. Holy Mass at four. Yes, we'd love to do that. Love good to go. I'd love to do that. I'd love to go on a hike with you. Love to go on a hike. It's so lovely. You'd love it if you feel up for it. Yeah. Absolutely. We love the outdoors. We love to get outdoors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not to interrupt your private... Hey, super chat. All right, super chat. This is from Ryan Casey.

private. Hey, super chat. All right, super chat. This is from Ryan Casey. I know Ryan. He says, how do you feel about STEM education or even STEAM education? And this is a thought I was having too is it seems as though there are some things which are just very hard to get without college like an engineering kind of knowledge. Right. I'm slightly horrified by STEM and STEAM programs in general, which shouldn't be confused with the authentic material sciences. Their engineering is such a vital course of study vocation, and the material sciences are amazing to the point of miraculous and very, very important, but they are not foundational

in authentic education. You could read the idea of the university by Cardinal St. Newman, and you could see where he says that philosophy is the science of sciences. Theology is the queen of the science. Philosophy is the handmade theology, but philosophy must be the lens through which you see and order all the other sciences. So the STEM classes, while vitally important as hand servants of philosophy, need to be seen as such. But there's been this almost exclusive emphasis on STEM and STEAM before we've even delved into literacy. So I think it's hugely problematic. It's just a matter of being out of order. So if somebody is literate and are geometrized, if they have the quadrivium and the

trivium in soul, then they're beautifully prepared to delve into the material sciences. But before that, I don't think they are. And I think things tend to get out of order, and it leads to scientism, which is probably one of the major problems of the age. So I de-emphasize those things, and I encourage anybody to delve into any material science that piques their interests. But in education, first things first.

Let's become literate. Sweet, cool. Thanks everybody for being here, for watching. If you haven't yet, you could like, you could subscribe if you want. What else could they do? You could smash your phone and computer. Smash your TV.

But if you're not gonna do that, you may as well have YouTube pushing my stuff at you. We got some great guests coming up. Really amazing people. This is such an honor just to sit across from people just to talk to them. What a gift. Agreed. Thank you, Matt. Yeah, thanks for being here. I really appreciate you making the time out. My pleasure. Enjoy.