The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Ivan Ilyin's 'On Resistance to Evil by Force' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Episodes 1-10

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

9 Hours and 23 MinutesPG-13Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is a researcher, writer, and former professor of history and political science, specializing in Russian history and political ideology.Here are the first 10 episodes of Pete and Dr. Johnson reading and commentary of Ivan Ilyin's 1925 book, "On Resistance to Evil by Force."Tolstoy's "What is a Jew?"The Lies of Leftism: Ivan Ilyin, Atheism and the Death of Reason in the East and West by Dr. Matthew Raphael JohnsonDr Johnson's PatreonDr Johnson's CashApp - $Raphael71RusJournal.orgTHE ORTHODOX NATIONALISTDr. Johnson's Radio Albion PageDr. Johnson's Books on AmazonJohnson's Law in Action: Venezuela and the Foreign Policy of Mass PresumptionDr. Johnson's Pogroms ArticleThe Orthodox Nationalist: Karl Marx “On the Jewish Question” (1844)Article: Karl Marx’s Theses on the Jews and the Necessity of Free Trade: Zur Judenfrage (1844) by Matthew Raphael JohnsonPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

I want to welcome everyone to our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Yvonne Ilyan. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? I'm doing okay. It's weird starting another book. But my co-hosts aren't here. They're at odds with each other these days. But this is a more difficult book than the soul who needs in one. and 5-in, Eileen was an excellent philosopher, definitely on our side and almost everything,

and is hated by the regime, and all of a sudden, hated by the regime. Every person, every Russian writer that the regime hates becomes Putin's brain all of a sudden, and it's Eileen more recently, and hence Putin's a fascist, because that's what Eileen was, which of course isn't true, nor do they even know what that term means. So a lot of this translation is my own, but I always use the machine translation as a base for something this deep and complex machine translation is very limited. But these days, it's much better than it used to be. I remember when I first came out.

That's how I had to, I knew I had to learn language. It was worthless if it wasn't Spanish or French. So it's shorter than a Schultz-Nitzen-Boot. but it's in greater depth. So this is going to be very interesting. And Eileen gets sighted all the time, gets read very little. And that's why he's an important figure. And he's important in Russia today.

A lot of people read him there. I don't know, Putin has the time to read him. But the media certainly hates him and also doesn't read him. So this is going to be definitely worthwhile for a lot of people. All righty. I'm ready to go if you are. The terrible and faithful events that have befallen are wonderful and unfortunate homeland are sweeping through our souls like a scorching and purifying fire.

This fire is burning away all the false foundations, delusions, and prejudices upon which the ideology of the former Russian intelligentsia was built. Russia could not have been built on these foundations. These delusions and prejudices led to its decay and destruction. In this, our religious and governmental service are being renewed. nude, our spiritual eyes are opened, our love and will are tempered. The first thing that will be reborn in us through this will be the religious and governmental wisdom of Eastern Orthodoxy and especially Russian Orthodoxy. Just as a renewed icon reveals the royal faces of ancient

writing, lost and forgotten by us, but invisibly present and never leaving us, so in our new vision and will let the ancient wisdom and strength that guided our ancestors and built our holy Russia shine forth. Well, there's a few points before I actually get to the topic here is this was aimed both at the Bolivics that had taken over by now in 1925 and also Leo Tolstoy, the so-called Christian pacifist, who was mostly a phylo-Semite. He really is his soul Christianity was his version of the sermon on the mountain. total pacifism, total refusal of violence, including paying taxes.

He died in 1910, so he never got to see Bolshevism, but he saw the beginnings of it, I suppose. So these two groups of people are really the target of this. that Tolstor was absolutely incorrect in his assertion that, you know, violence, even in defense is wrong. And somehow Christ preached that as well again, this is what it leads to the Bolshevik revolution. Now, he's also talking about a few things here. He's talking about the elite having been, we talked about this with Sultan Ethan, too, having been massanified over the years, having been banished. having been badly damaged morally over the years.

The intelligentsia who played with every kind of ideology in a very naive kind of a way, not realizing the true foundations of Russia, which is its royal state. And, of course, you know, the Bolsheviks will be a parody of that royal state. Now, most of the Russian church abroad, because the exile movement was huge at this point, believed that the revolution did have a providential purpose and that it brought the Orthodox faith to people like me who otherwise would never have come across it before. It was strictly relegated to Russia and Greece and Bulgaria.

And now you have, you know, for decades, thanks to this exile movement, massive numbers of converts. And so it's been given a global scope that it never had before. but the Russians are unlike the Jews that Tolstoy loves so much. I mean, Tulsao actually called the Jews divine people, or sacred people, I should say. I sent you that article that he wrote on what is a Jew, and it's not even flattery. It's beyond that, calling them almost gods, apparently having not read the Talmud, even though he cites it in there. So this is what's happening here.

This is renewal because a lot of people either were simply corrupted, especially in the elite levels. We talked about that in their Solzhen situation. The revolutionaries were killing everyone they could, 1905 onward. They took the stability they had for granted. And the intelligentsy, of course, was, you know, every fashion of ideology coming from the West, they adopted. The elite weren't even speaking Russian. They were speaking a really bad version of French like Dostoevsky used to make fun of them for.

And now with these disasters, they're forced to look at themselves and realizing what's important in the world. In search of this vision, I turn with thought and love to you, white warriors, bearers of the Orthodox sword, volunteers of the Russian citizens. The Orthodox knightly tradition lives within you. You have, through life and death, affirm the ancient and righteous spirit of service. You have upheld the banners of the Christ-loving Russian army. I dedicate these pages to you and your leaders. May your sword be your prayer, and may your prayer be your sword. I will forever retain a feeling of gratitude in my soul towards all my friends and associates

who help me in this work, and especially towards the publisher of this book. Yeah, you know, there was a strict, there was a tremendous overlap between the military groups that had fled, whether through Fiamia or anywhere else, and church groups that had fled. The Orthodox Church ended up in, by now, one of three places, an exile, underground or dead. And that was just going to get worse as time goes on. So there was military organizations founded in Yugoslavia. And from there, it's spread to, you know, Germany where he published this book and then Britain and even the U.S., from the West Coast, actually.

There was even a large exile group going into China, nationalist China. So it spread everywhere. So he realized that the whites did everything they could to fight back with no support from the way, no support from anyone going into battle with limited ammunition. And but the cause, knowing full well with the Bolshevian. were what they were capable of of love. They showed themselves right in the battlefield. They shut their own men for insubordination

for anything. And the whites were not capable of that level of barbarity. Lots of they brought a lot of foreign troops in, a lot of mercenaries. They were capable of anything. And they realized that without resisting them by violence, things would have been much worse. And don't forget, peasants were continuously having uprisings all over the country right up until the German invasion,

which I mentioned in the Sultanesean part. So that warrior tradition is still there. The Cossacks were to a great extent destroyed underground. Some of them ended up serving the regime, I guess, and the more hard to get to parts of southern Russia and caucuses. But the Soviets, by this point, 1925, they knew that the, peasantry hated them, but it didn't matter because the West was going to keep feeding them. And that was the most important thing.

The West supported the USSR continuously, contrary to mythology. And the economy, 1925 had tanked by this point. The country that was feeding the world, you know, the Russian Empire couldn't feed itself even to a tiny extent because of putting these Jews in positions of power over agriculture, like they knew anything about agriculture. We talked about that with Sultan Eastern too. And he's well aware of all of this. And so it was a spirit of sacrifice that was something that wasn't really called on,

not since the time of troubles. And not for a long time has this been called for. So the renewal, there's a lot of Russians who saw this, their loss and the burning of Russia as renewal, even if abroad. But the Russian spirit has become more coherent now than it never was because of this, as horrible as it was. And that was very common in church circles too at the time. And you were building converts all over the world. Germany and France were two huge areas than eventually the United States,

you know, where there's, you know, numerous Orthodox churches in every state. that wasn't the case before. No one knew a damn thing about orthodoxy or Russia in the U.S. around this time. The press, as we know, was attacking the whites constantly, especially because they were anti-Semites allegedly. And Tolstoy, if nothing else was there was their God because he saw the Jews in such a psychopathic way. But he seized the spirit of sacrifice.

Eileen was not a soldier. He was a writer, a philosopher, and a very good one. And it never really created a system. Tolstoy tried to, but there was too many contradictions in it. I don't know how anyone can seriously be a pure pacifist. I don't know how that even, if that's possible. And again, not everything Tolstoy said was incorrect. I mean, you know, I've been reading him for a long time.

He's one of the first writers to make red pill arguments about the relations between the sexes in Anna Karinina. I have a paper on that too, by the way. So I've been writing on this man for a long time, and there's a lot to be said. And that was just his dedication, I suppose. And the dedication was to the spirit of sacrifice, and what good can be brought out of this violence and this disaster of the Bolshevik takeover. Introduction. Humanity grows wiser through suffering.

ignorance leads it to trials and torments, but through torment, the soul is purified and gains insight. The clear-sighted gaze is given the source of wisdom. The first condition for becoming wise is honesty with oneself and with the subject before the face of God. Well, this is what the judgment is. The judgment is where your conscience is laid bare. No excuses. None of the typical excuses you could make. You can convince people of things.

No, it's laid completely bare. and maybe something like this, a trauma like this, can force people to think clearly for the very first time. Suffering is necessary for any good thing. I wouldn't be doing any. I couldn't be, you know, people are trying to avoid suffering are making a huge mistake. It's terrible while it's happening. But when it's over, you realize that you loved every minute of the struggle. And it makes you hard.

It makes you tough. and I certainly have been through my share and I understand exactly what he's talking about. In this case, it's a national calamity. And, you know, the Tolstoy idea was, it seemed so absurd to him and yet his movement was growing, even in Western Europe, in the U.S., he had communities all over the place, even after his death, Gandhi singing his praises, and it's utter nonsense

because it led to, at least in part, to this. Tulsway was not a Christian. He rejected most of the Bible. He was as communicated by the church, I think it was a big mistake because it gave him more notoriety than it would have. He can't deny the excellence of his fiction, though. I tend to like books like the Cossacks by him.

War and Peace was too fragmentary for me. I loved Anna Karinna, and I think he really pointed to the, precisely, and this is a Tolstoy now, pointed to exactly the K of the nobility that Elylon is talking about, that needed to be wiped away. You know, that one of the toughest jobs of the Russian monarch was to control his own house, was to control his own, you know, the courtiers around him. I like under the third did a great job, but you had to be made of office. iron to do that. And it was very hard for a normal guy to do it. And Nicholas II, of course, sacrificed himself. He said so. He said I'm sacrificing myself for the sake of Russia. He didn't abdicate the throne, but he was forced out. And that's why he was canonized and remains very popular saint, even among people who have, like me, who have no Russian blood in them whatsoever.

Can a person striving for moral perfection resist evil with force? Can a person who believes in God, who accepts his universe and his place in it, not resist evil with his sword? This is a twofold question that now requires a new formulation and a new solution. Now especially, for the first time. It is groundless and fruitless to resolve the question of evil without having the experience of genuine evil, and our generation has been given the experience of evil with particular force for the, the first time, as never before. As a result of a long gestating process, evil has now succeeded in freeing itself from all

internal dualities and external obstacles, revealing its face, spreading its wings, articulating its goals, gathering its forces, recognizing its paths and means. Moreover, it has openly legitimized itself, formulated its dogmas and canons. It celebrates it no longer, it celebrates its no longer hidden nature and reveal its spiritual essence to the world. One of the main doctrines of, or political doctrines of the Russian churches, is that the monarch was, as St. Paul talks about, the restrainer. When the last Roman emperor, Christian Roman emperor, is removed, there is no restraint on evil. and we see this with everything from the Spanish flu to the nonstop violence. No one had ever seen anything like this with the Bolsheviks.

No one had seen anything like this in World War I. I mean, the mass slaughter that the West was trying to cover up. And Tolstoy, you know, lived a very charmed life. He was a landowner. He was a member of the elite. He had a almost a very naive view of human nature. nature. He didn't believe in private property but was a landowner, you know, crazy things like that.

And he hadn't seen evil before. Tolstoy lived in a fairly good time in Russian history. It was only in the last couple decades of his life that he became that, that he took this position of pure pacifism. And his works on it, I think, are extremely simplistic. And, of course, as this book goes on, we'll see him. make distinctions between physical force, compulsion, coercion, morally and nationally. And these are very different things that Tostoy never deals with.

And why physical violence gets privileged above all other forms of violence, he doesn't understand. You know, mental violence, I think is, well, it's not violent. Mental coercion has far-lasting effects in physical violence. for him violence is physical by definition but this is uh he knows that humanity has stepped into a brand new phase of its existence and um all the old guardrails are gone and he still sees than Russian diaspora a way to a way to bring that understanding to the to the world

and um and we can be so you know dosto er Solzhenitsyn was one of them much much later and still the ignorance of the U.S. of Russia, that didn't really change until, way after World War II. And even that, it was bad. They just took, you know, leftist arguments and took it at face value. Remember the Soviets said they accepted it. Except later on when it came to the Jews.

But otherwise, you know, Eileen was, they tried to relegate him to nothing. And, but people like, Yelzenitsyn, and Dostoevsky and Gogel, they were too important to shut up entirely. So they had to totally remake them, which is what the regime does with those people who can't ignore. Ilin had tried to ignore as long as possible. But as he becomes more and more popular in Russia today, the regime couldn't ignore him.

And now it's gone all out under attack on him, which is why it's important that we deal with him here in his, I guess, I think his most famous book. Human history has never seen, or at least cannot remember, anything equal to this. For the first time, such genuine evil has been given to the human spirit with great frankness, and it is understandable that in light of this new reality, many problems of spiritual culture and philosophy, especially those directly related to the ideas of good and evil, are imbued with new content, acquire new significance,

are illuminated in a new way, and require a substantive, a substantive, a substantive, re-examination. Above all, the moral and practical, religious and metaphysical question of resistance to evil and the true necessary and worthy paths of this resistance must be discussed. Atheism now was becoming, it had been fashionable for a while, but because of the Soviet victory, this was a wave of the future, according to Western intellectuals. This was the gradual de-Christianization of the Western world. this was a brand new time in which he now has said three times and I think you should say it at least three times.

And so, but to rebuild something is the next task and so much of his writing was dedicated to that. You know, he moved around a lot. Ilin did because they did try to get rid of him a couple of times. He understood evil because he had experienced it as that every white soldier. in that war, who of course at this time were all, you know, those that escaped were all still alive. And this was no time for vicaring or fighting, although it didn't happen. And it was the diaspora that was to begin rebuilding. It was almost like a sort of a government in exile, not entirely, but it was sort of a

government in exile. There was always, you know, monarchist groups all over the place. And they weren't that clear prior to the revolution, though. this revolution has forced them to realize what they had lost because you don't know what you have until it's gone and the Russians simply took this for granted and sometimes it's left to people like me who Sarah from Rose people who had no Russian blood

to understand the greatness of what they had Russians take it for granted and this is one of Sarah from Rose's big big statements that they simply was day-to-date for them it wasn't anything special but the violent, extreme violence of the Bolsheviks, I don't think our vocabulary really can match it, that it was ordinary for them to torture and to slaughter without trial or with so trials.

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, they were identical in this regard. They were identical ideologically. And this was something, yeah, the French Revolution was violent. The glory of revolution was violent, all that, but nothing, nothing like this. This was the first totalitarian experiment. It lasted far too long. And you can't have totalitarianism without the total breakdown of society. You can't have the total breakdown of society without the total destruction of its leadership.

All communist governments do that, starting from year zero. You know, like the Vietnamese tried to do, the Cambodians tried to do, like Mao tried to do. It's so, you know, a revolution is a total upending of everything. Not just politics or economics, everything, social life, family life, everything. So it's a totalitarian by definition. And that word, I don't think, was even coined at this point. But it will slowly, they talk about it, but not using that term. We use it retroactively, but it was starting to be built in a way that, you know,

and this was at a time of the experimentation of the Soviet state. The sexual revolution was going on there, which almost destroyed it. Even from their point of view almost destroyed it. They had to stop it. The economy had collapsed. And yet there were still money was pouring in from Western countries. And Western investments were pouring in to rebuild the society. So everything that Marx believed about how the bourgeoisie and the economy, the country,

and the communists were going to interact was put on his head. And to this day, very few people know that. And I think Ilin knew it at the time. But it just makes a mockery of Tolstoy's point of view. Again, it's sort of like not believing in free will. I don't know how anyone can consistently not believe in free will. Because even in the process of not believing in it, you're not certain where those thoughts are coming from.

It's all determined. Truth doesn't matter. So I don't know how you could ever consistently believe that. And it's the same thing for violence. There's nothing wrong with violence and force. I certainly don't think there is. But it has to be under certain circumstances. In the Soviet case, it was under any circumstances.

And they destroyed each other as well. All revolutions lead to civil war. In the Soviet case, it was contained. But with all these purges, you know, Lenin purges as well, Trotsky did his head of the Red Army. purged a lot of people he didn't consider ideologically viable or reliable I should say and this is one of the reasons

that the whites lost they simply were incapable they didn't have this mentality or the evil that was hidden had become completely revealed because when the Bolivics were talking to groups of workers prior to the revolution they didn't say they were going to do this

they lied through their teeth A group of people who doesn't believe in private property say that we're going to give land to the farmers. They never said anything about collectivization. They knew they were going to do it. That's the only thing that makes any sense under socialism. They can't say it. We've got to burn down your treasures.

They're not going to say that either. So they had to hide it. But now, as war was gone, Russia's best, were either killed in the war or driven underground or in exile. and therefore now they have the freedom to do whatever they want. And we know who ran that. We know the Jews were a huge part of it. And this somehow was revenge for the so-called pogroms,

which we know barely existed in the way that the Jews say that they did. So every paragraph here, he's saying a tremendous amount that is not fully understood today, but I think his audience understood it at the time. This question must be posed and resolved philosophically, as one requiring mature spiritual experience, a thoughtful formulation and an impartial solution. To do this, one must first renounce premature and hasty conclusions about one's personality, one's past actions, and one's future paths.

The researcher must not preface their investigation with daunting possibilities or prospects. They must not rush to judge their past or allow others' judgments to penetrate the depths of their heart. Whatever the final solution, it cannot be practical. uniform or identical for everyone. The naivete of an all-equalizing abstract morality has long been recognized in philosophy, and demanding that everyone always should resist evil with force or that no one ever resist evil with force is meaningless. Only an unafraid free spirit can approach to problem honestly, sincerely, and perseveringly, thinking through and discussing everything without cowardly hiding or simplifying, without seducing oneself with affected virtue

or being carried away by violent gestures. The entire question is profound, subtle, and complex. Any simplification here is harmful and fraught, with false conclusions and theories. Any ambiguity is dangerous both theoretically and practically. Any cowardice distorts the formulation of the question, and any partiality distorts the formulation of the answer. What he's doing here is he is attacking enlightenment level ideology that treats people as interchangeable individuals like Thomas Hobbes, like Locke, like Rousseau. They tend to think that everyone thinks like them. Capitalism and socialism have that in common, that they view human beings not as people, but as abstractions. you know, market segments or something like that.

It's, and this abstraction, well, people don't live abstractly. It just so happens I did my doctoral dissertation on this because this was a huge issue with Michael Oakshot. Many years ago at the London School of Economics and Political Science. That when you try to make, you know, ideology, ideology may sound nice on paper, but people don't live on paper either. So how do you make it work in a society that already has a way of life? There's only one way, and that's violence. But it's camps. It's total regimentation.

It's the total surveillance state. There's no other way to do it. And Marxism is the ultimate in all of these. You know, using words like everyone should, everyone have, the words like all in every are so dangerous. You know, we're talking about every single human being or just groups as abstractions. What are we talking about here? It rejects any kind of complexity.

It allows ignorant people to have answers to every question. It makes them sound intelligent, but they really don't know anything. Having ideology is very different from having principles. Principles are very difficult. Ideology is very easy. You know, and all the Enlightenment ideologies tend to have a very simplistic structure that treat all human beings more or less the same. They're equally, they have the equal amount of potential, equally smart, equally dumb, and there's other things on the outside that keep that from happening, keep them from being equal, therefore those other things have to be destroyed. But they're inherently revolutionary.

And capitalism was the same way. the concept that, you know, the old British Whig idea that all countries, all other people in the third world have an Englishman just waiting to be let out, which the regime still has to this day, that they all, you know, long for English parliamentarism and capitalism and so-called free markets. always this highly leveling reductionist you know almost a very naive point of view and Tustold had it and it makes them sound ridiculous when you think about it at any great extent and that's why so much my argumentation usually is what do you mean what what what you know how are you defining these terms

I'm we don't we're not talking on but not using these words in the same way all and every um those concepts barely existed in the ancient world, in the classical world. It didn't exist in the gospel either. All in every are very, very abstract concepts. We're all very different from each other. And in fact, I would say this is Eileen's one of his biggest, Edmund Burke, for that matter.

One of their biggest foundational principles is that we're not the same. We're not equal, and that's never going to change. It doesn't justify the oligarchy we live under today, of course. But there is a legitimate place for aristocracy and monarchy, not tyranny or totalitarianism or oligarchy. But ideology gives people the impression that they know something when, in fact, they don't. And it gives them very easy answers to extremely complex question. For this reason, it is necessary to abandon once and for all the formulation of the question

that Count Leo Tolstoy, his associates and his disciples so blindly and persistently pushed and gradually promoted into philosophically inexperienced souls. Starting with a purely personal, objectively unexamined, and unverified experience of both love and evil, thereby prejudging both the depth and breath of the question itself, curtailing the freedom of their moral vision with purely personal aversions and preferences, failing to carefully analyze any of the spiritual contents under discussion, that is violence, evil, or religiosity, remaining silent about the fundamental principles and rushing to a categorical answer, this group of moralizing publicists posed the question

incorrectly and answered it incorrectly, and then, with a passion that often bordered on bitterness, defended their incorrect solution to an incorrect question as a divinely revealed truth. Well, we know that the left, whether socialists or not, you know, it takes a tremendous amount of faith to believe their nonsense. Today we do have experience. Be a leftist today is just to be willfully ignorant. Back then, maybe, you know, the French Revolution, I think, destroyed a lot of liberalism's earlier prejudices. The romantic movement helped correct things a little bit. The romantic movement was a very good thing when it came to the, you know, herder of,

has always been my main nationalist source of information or theoretical discussion, so to speak. Even words like theory don't work. Because again, it implies that people are a mass, just a mass of undifferentiated elements, rather than at least classes. They hate the idea of complexity. And Tolstoy, too, he might be able to live this way. he might be able to live in a very peaceful way without violence. He could do that.

He had the option. But that doesn't mean everyone can't. He just assumed that this is something that every individual strives to be. He actually came out and said that 1,800 years of Christianity has led to him. He brought out the truth in the gospel for the very first time. And it came to this total rejection of violence and all that. and total pacifism, which again, I can't imagine anyone can consistently maintain.

And that goes for personal, especially personal, but national or anything else. You could have a motivated group of small, a handful of individuals, but you can't impose that on everybody. You know, some Marxists might actually be totally motivated, but that doesn't mean the overwhelming majority of people

are going to be so motivated. They're used to living in a very different way. And unless you use nonstop violence and purges and everything else, you're not going to get your way. And even then you're not going to get your way. He just can't get around that. So, and again, Elyn mentions one more time that he's lived a very charmed life. And he has not come across evil. And he died before it really ever happened.

He didn't live long enough to see World War I. How the scientific, you know, the domination of science survived World War I? World One is a mystery to me because all their discoveries was used to slaughter people didn't have the slightest impact on it. It's like how did the discovery of DNA, DNA not destroy Darwinism? Everything, you know, Darwinism is very simple to a lot of people. DNA is certainly not. And it, when the system revolves around something and it is a high cost for rejecting certain things. You know, so what he's been saying so far is that these people think in abstract terms, but the world is not abstract. The world is actually concrete. And because Tolstoy didn't have

experience with the unbridled evil that Ilin had, that Russia has at this point in time, that, you know, he shouldn't be taken seriously. And in no way will everyone follow that kind of a life. in fact only tiny minorities will agree with a lot of what he said. But for him to say that Christianity has, he said it in a few places actually, was only revealed in him. And the sermon on the Mount was really the only thing he cared about religiously. He wrote a book called My Religion, or an essay, My Religion where he lays this out in some detail.

But he takes everything in the most simplistic way. So Christ said turning your cheek, loving your enemies. He just assumes what love is. He assumes that this goes for every circumstance, all in every word, in every sentence. And there's no reason to believe that. Church fathers didn't believe that. But none of that was actually a Christian in his mind. Christianity came, was really only really discovered with Tolstoy in his communities, according to him.

Since the material of history, biology, psychology, ethics, politics, and the entire spiritual culture did not fit into rational schemes and formulas, such schemes and formulas claimed universal significance and did not tolerate exceptions. Then, naturally, a selection of suitable material and the rejection of unsuitable material began, and the deficiency of the former was compensated for by artistically convincing constructions. A naive and idealic view of the human being was preached, and the black abysses of history and the soul were ignored. An incorrect demarcation of good and evil was made. Heroes were considered villains. Weak-willed, timid, and patriotically dead. Uncivil natures were extolled as virtuous.

Naive ideas alternately were presented with deliberate paradoxes. Objections were dismissed as sophisms. Those who disagreed and rebelled were declared to be vicious, corruptible. selfish and hypocritical people. For example, Tolstoy says, the degree of denial of the doctrine of non-resistance and its misunderstanding is always proportional to a people's degree of power, wealth, and civilization. State rulers are, quote, for the most part, bribed rapists, end quote, exactly the same as highway robbers, quote, recognition of the necessity of resisting evil by violence is nothing other than people's justification of their habitual and favored vices, revenge, greed, envy,

ambition, lust for power, pride, cowardice, anger. Now, in certain cases, that's not entirely false. We could see that in certain governments, in certain circumstances. But he says this about every government that's ever existed, especially Christian ones. I think for the most part, he's really targeting Russia. I think that's his main concern, because that was a Jew's main concern. But if that first comment from law and violence, the degree in denial of doctrine, non-resistance, misunderstanding, if that were the case, Tulsaoy wouldn't have ever mattered.

No, just like Marxism was always a plaything of the rich. And how easy it, I mean, this is one of the core principles here, how easy it is to believe this kind of thing. when you have a professional army protecting you all the time. Now, Tolstoy has been in battle. He was a soldier at one point. And yet, as he got older, again, this only developed in the last few decades of his life. You know, he, and again, he seems to think something, talk about simplicity, that, well, the more power you have, the more wealth you have, the more civil. I don't know what he means by civilization here exactly.

I couldn't find a better word for it. therefore you're going to reject pacifism despite him being a fairly wealthy landowner and it's true quite often if he's in rioters that's nothing to do with the issue it's just that's how they get out

their anger and revenge and hatred that kept being true but he's saying this covers all cases especially in Russian cases and that's simply not true self-defense is of course is not like this and the church has laid out in great detail and he probably knew this where it's justified and where it's not and that gets very very complicated but he had no patience for complexity it's that simple

i always thought that about rioters i have a i've been interested in writers for for some time the psychology of rioting um why would you attack cops who have nothing to do with with creating a policy that you hate so much you know, working class guys and destroying an area making things worse than they were before. You know, you see riders on the street and say in the Western world, they all look like, you know, homeless idiots

guarantee you they could barely put their positions into words properly. Yeah, it is true that a lot of them are there just to, that it's an excuse for their antisocial natures. but that's hardly the case with everybody and that's the criticism here and liberal ideologies of all types anarchism, all the rest of it

is based in this idea that everyone's the same but differences have been imposed from without if we destroy those things that impose differences and everyone will be back to being the same again and because we're all equal, and hence we're all the same. That's what ideology is based on. And to try to force that onto a group of people. Having the Bolsheviks try to force that onto a group of people,

they didn't really believe in equality. They said they did. But trying to force that on, you know, abstractions onto people that already had some socialist institutions that were very successful. Like the commune, like the Artel, like the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross, like monastery. They already had things. Socialist things that were functioning, but not everyone could be a monk.

Not everyone could be a part of that organization. That's only for certain people. But no, they wanted a single, solitary, unitary society. It would have to be. That would have to be the case if everyone's the same and if everyone is equal. And really, they all think like me, but they just aren't allowed to because they have too much money

or something like that. There's no question that a told story was just a fool as he got older. Lennon used to love him before the revolution. He used to say wonderful things about how great Lennon was. But the minute Lenin took power, he hated him again

because that kind of idea was a threat to him. He's useful as a way to destabilize the society. But once he takes over, now that kind of idea has to go. Anarchist was one of the first groups of people that Stalin that Lennon put away. and because again complexity is the problem they can't handle it

using words like the masses is always so angering to me people aren't mad they could be turned into them like maybe the case in the U.S. today they could be made into masses that's also something that's done by force but Tolstoy

lived a trumped life the most part He was correct about agrarianism. He was very good about on agrarian. I used to read him about that all the time. But he read into people and even the gospel what he wanted to. And he didn't have a whole lot of people saying otherwise. And he had become fairly wealthy. He was a well-known writer by the time of his death.

And he just became a megalomaniacal at a time. Boy, this is a lot of work. This is a serious stuff. But it's, it's deadly serious. And that's why this man is so important. Elyn, that is. All the power of the leader's personal gifts and all the fanatical limitations of his followers were directly, were directed towards spiritually imposing their own era on others and spreading their own delusions.

It is natural that a teaching that legitimizes weakness, exalts ego-centrism, indulges the lack of will, relieves the soul of social and civic duties, and, what is much more, the tragic burden of the universe, was bound to have success among people, especially those who are unintelligent, weak-willed, poorly educated, and inclined to a simplifying, naively idyllic worldview. So it happened that the teaching of Count Tolstor, and his followers attracted weak and simple-minded people and giving itself a false appearance of agreement with the spirit of Christ's teachings poisoned Russian religious and political culture.

It was an absolute poison, and it was promoted by Jews to a great extent. And yet it does relieve the cowards of having to fight because there's just no reason to fight, and there's nothing to fight for. it legitimizes abulia or just this this state of inaction he really offers nothing to fight for and he doesn't believe in fighting anyway so that's a big relief for people who had no intention of doing it in the first place if everyone is equal and if you're poorly educated me and a lot of bad decisions well it's someone else's fault so yeah he did bring into himself

a group of people who were just anti-social and this given that the veneer of Christianity as weak as it was is what he means by the poison here and Tolstoy is still being talked about today in this regard politically speaking he's big in anarchist circles always has been and in his writing

Christianity got less and less important anarchism became more and more important because Christ wasn't God he said so over and over again only God's worth Jews according to him. And maybe you can leave a link for that article I sent you from Tolstoy. What is a Jew?

Okay. Which is I had forgotten about that one. That was so awful. What is a Jew? I've never seen that kind of talk about worshipping power. And of course, blaming the monarchist. government for hating them for no good reason. And of course, refusing to talk about their violence,

refusing to talk about the Talmud, refusing to talk about all of this, just having this strictly, idyllic, absurd, and naive point of view about them. And it just made life easy, intellectually easy.

Everything was simple. And so who's that going to attract? And that's what he's saying here. All right, wind you this last paragraph and we'll call it an episode. episode and start on part two. Oh, yes, please.

No, absolutely. Russian philosophy must uncover this nest of empirical and ideological errors that has quietly infiltrated the soul and strive to once and for all remove all this ambiguity, naiv, naivety, cowardice, and partiality. This is its religious, scientific, and patriotic calling to help the weak see and grow stronger and the strong gain conviction and wisdom. isn't it great not to have to deal with all of these names, just stumble over all of these, all these places?

It's got to be, it's wonderful. But what this last paragraph here, this is still kind of goes with the introduction. You know, a lot of the causes of the revolution could be found in Russian elites who began pursuing their own interests, who took social stability for granted,

didn't realize how precious of a thing it was. who didn't feel like following the strict limits of Christianity and so found in masonry and whatever else it could be spiritual, but they could do whatever they wanted. And that that has to be completely eliminated and for those in exile especially, a brand new, you know, far more, far better Russian has to be created,

Russian of many centuries ago to help the weak sea and grow strong. Remember, not to accept their weakness and say their weakness is someone else's fault, but that is perfectly okay. And there's going to be a strong and weak, no matter what system you have, but the strong can't lord it over people. Rule is always going to exist, including Tolstoy himself. He ruled over his whole estate.

I don't know if he used violence or not. He may have consistently. But, you know, there's always going to be strong. He's always going to be weak. you know, he never sold off, he never gave up his lands, and Lennon was right to mock him for that, once he took over,

after his death, but they took the stability and the prosperity of old Russia for granted, and came up with these things that gave the worst elements of society a justification, and worse, a Christian justification. All righty,

as I do at the end of every episode, please go over to the descriptions, the videos, and this will be in the show notes. This is in public domain. It is Dr. Johnson's translation. There shouldn't be any copyright issues on this. So you will find this everywhere, and it will include all the links so that you can donate to Dr. Johnson's work. So please go ahead and do that if you haven't already, just to thank him for 200 years together. Well, what a brilliant thing that was. But as you could see, you're ready. This is a very, very different book than that. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Okay, my friend, talk to you soon.

I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of, is it Ivan or is it Yvonne and it's Eileen, right? Yeah, I usually say Ivan Elyn. Yeah. You could say, I'm sure there's more than one acceptable pronunciation of the last name. Okay. I have an aliens on resistance to evil by force. Dr. Johnson, are you doing today? Before we went on the air, we were talking about cats and mice literally. And it's, I'm becoming an involuntary expert on feline sociology. And the kittens that I have, you know, they just want to play with the thing. Every spring we get a few mice in here.

this is a really six cats, it's a really bad place for a mouse to be. And they just play with it and end up torturing it, not realizing, or they just don't care. Then one of the older cats either just walks away or just has to come in and intervene and kill it, or I have to grab it and throw it out. So, but then out of nowhere, my tortoiseshell cat, Stacy, who I've never mentioned in public before, just lost her temper. with all the kittens and grabbed it, broke its neck, said, screw you guys, you have no idea what you're doing. And that's it, went downstairs to the kitchen with it. Now, I don't know where that cat came from.

I knew she might be a psycho. She doesn't get along with the other cats all that well. She's very affectionate with us, though. And now with Marcel gone, you know, there's a, there's a spot second to Stanley that's missing. I don't know. She may end up taking it. She's four now.

It's really amazing. The sociology of felines, the hierarchy. And, you know, if you fail with a mouse and you're a cat, I mean, that's the one thing cats are known for. You know, they lose it. It goes under the, they lose it. They don't know where it is, even though it's right behind them. It outmaneuvers them.

So I've been dealing with that on a professional level for a few days now. How are you doing? Doing good. Doing good. please remind me when we're not recording. I just put something together in my head when you were when you were talking there. But I don't want that for public consumptions. So after this, I'll tell you something.

I shall remind you. All righty. All right. We're back to it. We're only two hours ago did we release the first episode publicly for this. So we haven't gotten any real feedback yet. We've gotten some feedback from supporters who got it early. And it's basically what a lot, what a few people have said is,

I've tried to read this on my own and I've read it on my own. And it was a difficult read. And they're very happy that we're doing this because hopefully that you can, you'll be able to bring some things out that they couldn't understand. Well, it takes a humble mind to be able to admit that and I like I appreciate it. I said that in the beginning, uh, last time. Um, he is a, both a philosopher and a historian. And, um, he's, um, he's much more difficult than the Schultz and Eason, but this is a treatise of his. This is a big deal in, in his, in his life.

So, um, it doesn't surprise me. So I have to do some basic breaking down. And, um, and I'm really happy to hear that. But it, but again, I have to have someone admit that they read it and don't understand it, that suggests a great degree of humility that I don't see very often. Truly. All right. Here we go. Part two on the surrender to evil.

At the very threshold of the problem must be clearly established that no honest person even considers non-resistance to evil in the literal sense of the word. A mere inclination towards such non-resistance transforms a person from a moral physician and spiritual subject into a moral person. patient and an object of spiritual education. This means that it will be, it will not be the latter who will discuss the problem of non-resistance, but rather the debate about what exactly to do with it and how exactly to resist it or whatever it contains.

Well, this has something to do with why, you know, Gandhi was so, it says something to do with why Gandhi was so taken with Tolstoy. You have to know, you know, Tolstoy's non-resistance is relatively well-known. Gandhi, of course, is a little bit better known. But it's not like, you know, they know that something is evil. We don't necessarily disagree. Their resistance is just a little different. So I suppose that's, you know, there are two different ways.

It's a resistance, but it's a passive resistance. And he actually says this here. transforms a person from moral physician and spiritual subject to a moral patient. Well, patient and passive are, you know, come from the same route. Being a subject is being an actor. Being a patient, that's something that is worked on, something that needs to be educated. So now today, in 2026, we don't agree on what's evil and what's good. Tolstoy, although I have to say, was pretty radical in that regard too, not so much as the Bolsheviks.

Of course, he didn't live to see them take over. He knew of their existence, but he didn't live to see them take over. I would have loved to have known what he would have said in 1917 about nonviolent resistance. Well, that was Gandhi's thing. It's so resistance. We have the same conception of what's evil. it's just our ways of dealing with it and trying to fight it are very different

but the bigger question is we don't have and I think it's the case with the whole story as well this was a time in Russian society where you had a resurgence of the church a resurgence of Russian literature was really an extraordinary time but it was also a falling away of the nobility

and we've spoken about that many times and greater and greater systems developed in Russian society. It never, you know, nothing is as bad as 2026 America where there's no agreement at all on what's evil and what's good. And hence, our reaction to it is irrelevant when we don't even agree what it is. You know, all my ethics courses in grad school, you know, the professor always used the example of someone being murdered. because anything else other than murder, we would not agree, was evil. They'd be factions.

So he had to go that far to make a point. Alistair McIntyre, the center of his research, too, was that. It's not a unified society. It's barely a society at all. Russia wasn't that bad at the time. But being a patient is to be passive, something that's worked on. it's almost he's certainly not a citizen, certainly not a man. You know, and had Tolstoy been alive in 1918, 1919, maybe he would have had a different point of view.

Because given his political theory, there's no way he would have supported the Bolsheviks who were heavily armed. And I've read Tolstoy's response to my critics on these issues, and he really doesn't, he, he, he, he, he, He passes over these questions and redirects rather than takes them on. Basically, what he says is that, well, the violence internally is just as bad as violence that any external enemy would give us. So what difference does it make? Which, of course, in the Russian case, is certainly not true. He thought it was true, but it's not true. So, you know, but for Tolstoy to connect that with Christianity is the worst form of heresy.

He had to have, and, you know, I sent you, and that, I don't know if you posted that link to what Tolstoy thought of the Jews. They're divine people or sacred people. Their resistance is probably, but, you. You know, he was very much into Kabbaling at the end of his life. And, you know, he got more radical as his time went on. He certainly didn't free his, you know, he didn't give his land away. He didn't do anything like that. So, but whether that's inconsistent or honest is a different matter.

but had he been alive in 1918, I have the feeling he would have radically modified this because there was no way there was something that radical, that radical evil, no, Ely knows all about it. Tolstoy didn't. How can you possibly be passive when you're dealing with the Bolsheviks? This is something that no one had expected.

No one had, see a handful, you know, churchmen especially saw it coming. that radical evil. You saw it in medieval Kazadia. Many saints in Europe, especially in Georgia, I thought it was, you know, Gog and Magog had been found in the violence and the evil. But being passive, you know, Gandhi made it work against the British because, again, this is near the end of the British Empire. They were strained as it was.

But this is a totally different story. Tolstoy would have had to either become a Bolshevik or change his point of view or change the definitions of the words he means Tolstoy would have been especially given Lenin's words about him would have been in a gulag or it's been murdered right away anyway

so maybe he would have changed his point of view I'm not entirely sure but Lenin once Lenin took power he claimed he loved him before but once Lenin took power he just saw him as a reactionary landowner weirdo. And so he would have ended up at best in a gulag. So, and again, the world prior to the Bolshevik Revolution and prior to that World War I,

the world prior to that, they didn't know, they had no idea what was coming. the mass slaughter of European men in that four years and the collapse of all existing political systems this is this is not something that anyone expected it was really easy to be optimistic it's really easy to talk about passivity when you're in what most people saw as a stable system other people can take care of the violence for you

so we could be free to have to be as passive as we want I have in my writing is on the Byzantine Empire I have something on Montenegro which I did about six, seven years ago Montenegrin saints were especially violent I mean brutally so

because Montenegro is a tiny little place their warfare against the Turks Now these are the saints. These are the bishop leaders, because it was often run by a bishop, bishop prince, who very existence was at stake. And they revel in the slaughter of the Turks and the Jews that were backing them. They had nowhere to go. And they're going to talk like that because there was just a handful of them.

And they were vulnerable. That's different when you're in the Byzantine Empire. and you say, well, soldiers coming back from warfare, perhaps a fast, you know, because they've killed humans. That wasn't the case of Montenegro. It wasn't the case, you know, but old Russia, too. They had it too good. And it started to breed people like Tolstoy. But you have Orthodox saints in Montenegro that absolutely reveled in the blood of their enemies.

And there's very good reason for that. And I talk about these guys all the time. When anyone talks about passivity or peace or anything like that, it's because their whole world was at stake. So this has to do with the social system you live in, too. The hippies were supposed to be passive too, right? They're supposed to be resistors in that sense. But, you know, they still torched ROTC centers. They get violent whenever they know.

needed to. And the other thing I think it's, you know, Lynn, it's also, it's saying if we agree on what evil is, now we're just disagreeing on how to deal with it. So like I said last week, I don't know how anyone seriously rejects free will. People reject it because it's part of a broader system and they have to, to be consistent. But I can't see how any intelligent person can can reject free will. I don't see how any intelligent person can reject a violent defense of your people and in yourself. Again, we're not talking about personal enemies here. I'm not talking about personal opponents.

We're talking about those wicked ones from the inside or the outside that want to hurt us. So that's what he's starting off here. and the argument he's going to build is that passivity, when you're dealing with people like the Mulsivix, this was written in 1925, it is ultimately the surrender to evil, and then you become evil yourself. I included the link to that article on Tolstoy on the Jews and the show notes, and I will copy it over on every episode we do on this one. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. All right, moving on. Indeed, what would non-resistance mean in the sense of the absence of any resistance?

It would mean accepting evil, allowing it into oneself and granting it freedom, scope, and power. If under such conditions the rebellion of evil were to occur and non-resistance continued, then this would mean subordination to it, surrender to it, participation in it, and finally turning oneself into its instrument, its organ, its breeding ground, enjoying it and being absorbed by it. This would be, at first, voluntary self-corruption and self-infection would ultimately be the active spread of the infection among others and their involvement in their own destruction. He who does not resist evil at all also refrains from condemning it for condemnation,

even if entirely internal and silent, if such were possible, is already internal resistance, fraught with practical conclusions, intentions, struggle, and resistance. Now, for our purposes, he is talking about resistance, meaning violent resistance. And the argument has been made a thousand times. What he's saying here? Someone breaks into your house and you refuse to resist because Christ told me to turn the other cheek and he does horrible things to your family.

This is as much on you as it is on the people breaking in. And it's the same thing for, you know, the mass migration or an invasion from the outside or a tiny revolutionary clique like the Bolsheviks. It's the same argument. And after a while, you end up identifying with it. This is what evil. Evil wants this. Evil wants people who are so alienated that they'll refuse to resist you. So it doesn't matter whether we agree on what evil is.

if you don't want to resist it violently. We're talking about violent people. We're not talking about a neighbor we don't like. You know, Christ was talking about personal enemies here, not enemies of your nation, not enemies of the church, not enemies of the family of the nation. And that's what many of these Christian passivists completely get wrong. If your passivity leads to evil,

in a real concrete sense doing awful things, and it might not have happened had you resisted violently. It's on you, as much as it is, on the evil people who are doing it. Moreover, as long as disapproval or even a vague aversion lingers in the soul, a person still resists. He may not rebel wholeheartedly, but he is still divided. He struggles within himself, and as a result, the very acceptance of evil fails him. Even when completely passive externally, he resists evil internally, condemns it, becomes indignant, exposes it to himself, does not succumb to its fears and temptations, and even when partially succumbing, reproaches himself for it, gathers his courage, becomes indignant with himself, turns away from it, and purifies himself in repentance.

Even when choking, he resists and does not drown. It is precisely for this reason that the complete absence of any resistance, both external and internal, demands that condemnation cease, that censure subside, and that approval of evil prevail. Therefore, one who does not resist evil, sooner or later comes to the need to convince himself that evil is not entirely bad and not evil, that it has some positive traits, that they are not insignificant, and that they may even predominate. And very conveniently, they don't have to do anything. They don't have to put themselves in harm's way.

you know, citizenship, I don't care what kind of political system you have. Citizenship is quite demanding. And when you talk about passivity, you know, this is great. I don't have to do a damn thing. And other people, of course, are putting themselves in harm's way. And I suppose he would be condemning them. The fact that Tolstoy was a landowner in 19th century Russia, late 19th century Russia comes from the fact that Russia had to be carved out by violence.

You know, it grew up in a very rough neighborhood. And he's for the most part talking about physical violence. Again, given year, he's writing this in Berlin in 1925. Again, he's talking about two separate events, the Bolsheviks and Tolstoy. The concept being that Tolstoy is one of the things that harmed the resistance against the reds. But once you say, I'm not going to resist, you know, you didn't think this stuff was evil in the first place.

And how do you rationalize it? You rationalize it by saying, oh, it's not really evil. And this is the argument so far. this isn't really a position someone holds. This is a rationalization that comes after evil has prevailed or has done something awful. You could have stopped it. You call yourself a passive resistor. And in addition, you don't have to do anything.

Only as he succeeds in persuading himself, speaking out his healthy aversion and assuring himself of the whiteness of blackness, do the remnants of resistance fade and a full surrender is realized. When the aversion to evil subsides and evil is no longer experienced as evil, then acceptance imperceptibly becomes complete. The soul begins to believe that black is white, adapts and assimilates, becomes black itself, and finally approves and enjoys and naturally praises that which gives it pleasure. This is a spiritual law. He who does not resist evil will be consumed by it and will become possessed,

for evil is not an empty word, not an abstract concept, not a logical assumption, and not the result of a subjective assessment. You know, he's not talking about just any society, healthy societies. It's not just any society that ever existed. If you resist an invader in your society's unhealthy, you're part of the problem. The Old Testament prophets reveled in the fact that the Babylonians were going to Gerrit Jeremiah in particular, sought the Babylonian invasion and said, you deserve it for being as corrupt as you are. So there's an underlying and very objective moral concept here. The assumption is, and I think he's

right, that Russia is, for the most part, a moral and just society, and therefore to want to harm it is evil. And if you refuse to stop that, then over time you become associated with that evil. It's almost a form, is a lack of, lack of gratitude. There's so many inconsistencies. And again, in Tolstoy's work in responses to his critics, he doesn't even talk about this either. And I read that, I hadn't read it in ages until.

very recently and it's disappointing. It's very, you know, as a great writer, though he was, and keep in mind, this has nothing to do with his, his fiction is still beautiful. We're not talking about that at all. You know, Anna Karenina is a first-class critique of what today we call the sexual revolution at a very, very early date. I have an article that Anna Karenina and Vronsky, etc. this was a very early statement of the red pill. And I'm reading this and I'm saying, my God, this could have been written, you know, a week ago.

So it had nothing to do with that. But this political point of view, do you remember after in 2020, they wanted to get rid of the police departments? I remember, yeah, I remember, yeah, they were claiming that they wanted psychiatrists and psychologists to be dispatched to gangland, you know, to deal with these people. But how long have right-wingers been saying that they don't think this stuff is evil in the first place?

Every revolutionary group that has ever taken over, the first thing they do is release everyone in prison. They don't think what they're doing is evil. In fact, they tend to support what they're doing. I have article after article where a country defeats, that wins their drug war. drugs are eliminated in the society. And U.S. government and all the NGOs condemn and condemn and condemn to the point of sanctions when the Biden presidency existed. I'm talking about El Salvador in that particular case. But there's a war on drugs in the U.S.

They condemn any actual victory of the drug war. So then you question, do they think this is all really all that evil? and you have every reason to say, I don't think they think that. They'll say it in public, but not in private. They're hypocrites in the true sense of the word. Evil is, first and foremost, a human inclination inherent in each of us, like a passionate urge within us to unleash a beast, an urge that always strives to expand its power and achieve complete control.

Encountering refusals and prohibitions, encountering persistent obstacles that support the spiritual, and moral boundaries of personal and social existence, it strives to penetrate these barriers, lull the vigilance of conscience and legal consciousness, weaken the power of shame and disgust, assume in acceptable guise, and, if possible, undermine and disintegrate these living boundaries, these building blocks of the personal spirit, as if toppling and crumbling the walls of the individual's Kremlin. Spiritual education consists of constructing these walls,

and, more importantly, in imparting to man the need and ability to independently build, maintain, and defend these walls. Now, of course, by wall, he's being metaphorical. We have our, now he's talking about internal battles, hence he's not necessarily talking about violence necessarily. This is, you know, the sexual revolution. Breaking down barriers, that's considered a good thing for the most part in a rotten. society. And they break down barriers not because they have this great moral cause. It's because it's a personal insult to them.

They want to do whatever they want to do. And they don't care. And they hate the fact that there's someone who tells them otherwise. I think a huge number of atheists have this problem. That they hate the fact that there's this moral objective law that they can't do anything about. And if they have a bad habit, then it's much easier just to deny it than to try to reform yourself.

But your internal Kremlin, you know, it's very difficult. We all know how difficult it is. You know, fasting and everything else. And when we fall, and, of course, we all do, and get condemned by people. who have no standards at all, you know, at least it leads to anger. When you have no standards, at least outwardly, your life is easy. But the life of the citizen, the man, if he's truly integral, is difficult. Virtue is not easy.

It's so easy to, you break down the wall, then all society goes down. Because then because following passion is a lot easier. than listening to the moral law and the voice of reason. If something is immoral and, you know, it's not reasonable, which is something we differ with, you know, the positivists and others by saying things like that. Yeah, and weakening the power of shame and disgust. You know, this is, and he was dealing with it. In the Soviet Union in 1925, the sexual revolution was at its end,

But Colentai, Alexander Colantai had engaged in it, making divorce easy. Most revolutionary movements, though, in Northern Europe, the radical Protestants and people like that had the so-called community of wives, which is just fornication. That was always a part of the revolutionary idea. It harmed the economy so much. People just weren't showing up to work. And so eventually it had to be, that had to be.

to be changed. And this is why Stalin gets the false appellation of being someone who was virtuous and a nationalist, which, of course, he was not. It was simply a matter of self-interest. The sexual revolution that began in the early part of the Soviet Union's existence was destroying everything. And it had to be stopped. It wasn't because they believed in some moral law that God was going to punish them otherwise. It was just because they just couldn't, you know, society was falling apart. And society, you know, if you were Bolshevik, society falling apart before you take power. It's wonderful.

Falling apart after you take power, that's a different story. A sense of shame, a sense of duty, living impulses of conscience, a need for beauty and spiritual joy in the living, love for God and country, all these sources of living spirituality, working together, create in man those spiritual necessities and impossibilities to which consciousness gives the form of convictions, and the subconscious gives it the form of a noble character. These spiritual necessities to act correctly and the impossibilities to act otherwise impart unity and certainty to personal existence. They constitute a certain spiritual structure, a living backbone, as it were, of the personal spirit, supporting its structure, its formed being, imparting to it

its power and dominion. The softening of the spiritual backbone, the disintegration of the spiritual structure would mean the spiritual end of the personality, turning it into a victim of evil passions and external influences, returning it to that chaotically resolved state where there are no spiritual needs

and the spiritual possibilities are innumerable. This is an extraordinary statement. Again, he's talking about passionate impulses in the individual. Now, of course, like Plato, He's going to connect it to the broader society later on. But the impulses of conscience. He was the philosopher, and this comes straight out of Aristotle.

This has to do with your education, which is not just going to school. It's how you're raised. Edmund Burke called them prejudices, not in the same sense. We use the term. But where it becomes inconceivable to act otherwise. for the good, that these walls are imparted almost from birth. That's what a solid society needs. The communists realized they needed that too,

or else their society was going to fall to pieces. They couldn't base it on the same things that the monarchy did. But this has a lot to do with Aristotle's conception of virtue and his view of political science. and the best way to keep that fall into the passions from happening. When I say passions, I'm talking about the drive for power,

the desire to get what you want in matter what. I'm not talking about enthusiasm. People say, oh, it's my passion to do this. That's not what I mean. Passion in here is a very negative thing. It's anti-human because it's not reasonable. It has nothing to do with reason.

passion and patient are pretty much the same thing. It's where your drives work on you and rule on you. And once they do, claiming to reject, claiming the free will doesn't exist, well, that's very convenient at that point. This has a lot to do with education. And it took a while for the, say, in the U.S., for the sexual revolution to break down some of these internal barriers.

I had to destroy the family first, and a strong family, especially with a strong father figure, is necessary to create the subconscious understanding of the moral law. And trauma, things like, say, the Vietnam War or World War I, are very convenient for revolutionary groups because sometimes trauma is necessary to break those down. And since this is all just about, power, you know, the will to power here of a very unprincipled and immoral party or movement.

And ended up, of course, the totalitarian USSR. But even they realized that they needed their own walls. You know, and I don't know if you recall when the so-called Russia gate nonsense, I still, if anyone actually believes that, I don't know if anyone really did. Did people actually believe that? The stupidity, you had to have been incredibly stupid. I'm sure there were people that believed it

because, I mean, there are some people that are just absolutely, they really shouldn't be allowed to go out in public. I agree. Yeah, they certainly, or at a minimum, shouldn't be allowed to vote if you believe in something so stupid as Russia game.

You had these people talking about patriotism all of a sudden. They would never talk like that under normal circumstances. But because their agenda was being harmed, all of a sudden, you know, they talk about patriotism, the need for the U.S. to be for Americans. They wouldn't say this in any other way. And, of course, it's hypocritical. It shows you that they have no principles whatsoever. ever. So these last two paragraphs have been very, very important.

It is clear that the more spineless and unprincipled the person is, the closer he is to this state, and the more natural it is for him to not resist evil at all. And conversely, the less a person resists evil, the more he approaches this state by trampling on his own convictions and undermining his own character. The one who does not resist breaks down the walls of his spiritual Kremlin, accepts the poison that softens the bones of the body. Yeah, those with very low, you know, self-esteem, those with very low self-esteem end up being people pleasers. Anybody with power, whatever the trend is, they want to go along with it.

They don't want to seem like they're, they're troublemakers. And that leads, of course, these are spineless and unprincipled people, regardless of the origin of this total lack of integrity. And let's make sure we define what integrity is. You know, integrity is when essentially having the same principles all the time, being the same person in all situations. The opposite of integrity would be hypocrisy. Hypocracy doesn't mean that you're inconsistent. We're all inconsistent.

No, hypocrisy is when you preach something that you, in fact, don't believe. for the sake of some good, you know, politicians do it all the time. So, so, you know, I don't know if those phrases were used at the time, probably not. But breaking down the self-esteem, for example, self-esteem of white people in U.S., which certainly has been the case, the less they are to resist pretty much anything. Because they don't think they're worth it. Naturally, from non-resistance to evil, evil passion expands its dominance to its fullest extent. Fragments of passion already ennobled strip off the vestments of their nobility and join the general rebellion.

They no longer maintain boundaries and limits, but surrender themselves to the former enemy and boil over with evil. Evil obsession becomes integral and draws this soul along its paths according to its own laws. The non-resisting person possessed by evil passion rages because he has rejected everything that restrains, directs, and shapes. All resisting force has become the force of the most storm-bearing evil, and the breath of destruction is fed by the bitterness of the perishing one himself. This is why the end of his frenzy is the end of his mental and physical existence. Madness or death. Yeah, this is a psychological matter here. you know, Orthodoxy, the ancient church fathers were masters of human psychology.

I love it when I read a book on psychology and they come up with something. They think that they're discovering something. And I smile and say, you realize this concept existed in the monasteries of Palestine, the Orthodox monasteries in Palestine almost 2,000 years ago. And that's what's happening here. This is we're talking about inside of the person's soul. That non-resistance, very quickly, in fact, it rips open the concept. Your conscience is exposed to everybody.

Yet you never thought this stuff was evil in the first place. You go from non-resistance, and then when evil takes over, well, what are your choices? You either have to say, well, this is, you know, I help them, or it's not evil. and one of the worst things to have in your life is cognitive dissonance. Sociopaths don't have to, sociopaths do not experience cognitive dissonance, but normal people do. Having to hold two completely opposite points of view at the same time. And that's what he's getting at here. Non-resistance to evil and evil taking over.

Evil, hence its victory being your fault, that's very difficult for a person to to carry for the rest of his life. And cowards have this, are always going to have this problem. So they will, just for their own psychological peace, side with evil, side with the enemy. I want to make so many comments right now, but I'm going to save it. We need to get through this. Such a decomposition of spirituality and the soul can occur in a weak person in adulthood, but it can also originate in childhood,

and either the original seat of spirituality, potentially present in every person, was not at all stimulated into living activity, or it turned out, as a result of internal weakness and external temptations, to be creatively non-viable and sterile. In all cases, a picture of internal malaise emerges that has extraordinary psychopathological significance and interest.

His personality can be mistaken for character, and his particular views are mistaken for convictions. In reality, however, unprincipled and spineless remain a slave to his evil passions, a captive of the developmental mechanisms that possess him and are all powerful in his life, devoid of a spiritual dimension and composing the curve of his disgusting behavior. One example that immediately came to mind when I was going through all this, translating parts of it, was the anti-war movement in Viedom. It's amazing that when the draft was eliminated, I think that was in 72,

or somewhere around there, when the draft was stopped, the anti-war movement just completely fell off. It had nothing to do with them, either supporting Marxism or being against warfare or thinking that war is used, evil or that we have no right to be no it had to do they didn't want to go over there they didn't want to they didn't want to be drafted you know they tell themselves a story uh and it's

amazing at this early date talking about you know the the the um the role that childhood has to play you know um having a strong father figure is absolutely essential thank god i had one uh it's not just having a father it's having a strong father figure and that's very important. Of course, Freud was writing. This was just starting, and he's ahead of the curve here talking about this. Now, as we all know, people completely exaggerate the role of childhood these days.

It seems to be an excuse for every damn thing that people do. It may be a partial explanation. for what people do, but it certainly isn't an excuse for it. And as I said, these are, you're mistaken for character. These aren't about principles. It's about the fact that they don't want to have to do anything. They don't want the responsibilities of citizenship, which is really ultimately what passivity is all about.

What we're doing here right now, this is a, what citizens are supposed to do, especially in Aristotle's work. Citizens are supposed to be talking about things like this. and taking the time and educating themselves and the rest of it, it's a lot of work. But we also know that we come across people who know just enough of the slogans. It sounds like they know something, but in fact they don't.

They want the reputation without doing any of the work. I could spot that a mile away. And those people tend to fall apart really very, very quickly. you know the unprincipled and spineless slave to the evil passions whatever the cause this is that that's the opposite of what we do here the you know life of the spirit you know spirit being non-mechanical it's not part of the you know it's not um part of the scientific universe that is cause and effect It's the basis of both reason and freedom. Reason and freedom are two sides of the same coin. That gives a tremendous responsibility to somebody. You know, we're living in a dying empire. We're living in a time, an extraordinary time. It's often the case that political theory explodes in times of, you know, as an empire starts to die or is, you know, declining because people are looking for a way out. And they're looking at Americans.

Certainly, those that care enough, those aren't infected with Bulya, they are looking for answers. Edmund Burke said that the people, meaning the population of citizens of any given country, they are usually correct when they know something is wrong. They know something's wrong, but as far as it details as to what it is, they don't know. And citizens are supposed to be searching for these answers. And talking about someone like Ivan Elyan, who lived after the most violent revolution and the totalitarian USSR where he escaped it. And how could this possibly happen in a society that was healthy just a few generations ago? This is extremely important.

This is what citizenship is. It's a lot of work. It's similar to the situation that someone who refuses to help you in a fight, when you win, they'll come and say, I was with you the whole time. This is the mentality that he's doing. This is the opposite of integrity. This is the opposite of being integral. You end up being a slave to passions or whatever is fashionable at the time.

You want to please anybody with power. The lick spittles. The worst possible thing. You could be politically speaking. Dragging himself along in anti-spiritual passion. He expresses his nature in a corresponding anti-spiritual ideology, in which radical and comprehensive atheism merges with a mental illness that is inexorable for him, an complete moral idiocy. Naturally, spiritually healthy people only cause irritation and anger in such a person,

and kindle in him a sick lust for power in the manifestations of which outbursts of megalomania inevitably alternate with outbursts of persecution mania. after the spiritual troubles that befell the world in the first quarter of the 20th century, it is not difficult to imagine what could create such a group of people possessed by malice and aggressively fanatical. He's talking about what happens when one of these totally people without integrity come across people or groups of people that are integral. They go through a host of emotions.

They know that they're second-rate or third. third rate. And you notice he's saying here, he's making the argument that it kindles in them the lusts for power. These people can't exist anymore. I want power to destroy them. Manifestations of megalomania. It's a concept of believing you have power over someone and you don't.

But remember, it's the belief that you actually possess power over somebody. And of course, we all know about persecution, meaning. All of these are just means of trying to destroy a healthy group of people, including a healthy society, that makes you feel second rate because you are second rate, because you are a coward. And he mentions atheism here, and hence you would have to talk about, you can't be an atheist without being a materialist. Because otherwise, you'd have to explain where spirit comes from. and then again, mentally mental illness. Now, this is fairly new in the Russian language. And when you're talking about resistance to evil,

not just talking about a society, but the people who make it up, and what sort of a person, actually I have been through a few papers by Ilin on, what sort of person becomes a communist? And maybe at some point we could talk about it, It's actually kind of funny that the mental illness. Now, you know, the Jews, that's one thing.

That's just an engine for their seeking power. But no, he's talking about Gentiles, the ordinary person, who ends up backing the communists. It actually takes action, you know, as a terrorist or something like that to support them. And there's a little bit of that here. He has an entire paper on it. and so he Ilin has always been interested in psychology

what makes someone act like this remember the word idiocy I think he means that quite literally we get the word idiosyncratic for people who

have such a low intelligence that they couldn't function in society they exist on the fringes of society because there's nowhere else for them to be. And that's what it's like. If you have a healthy society, you are unhealthy. The first thing you want to do is destroy those that make you feel second-rate.

And I go through this in my book on the Soviet experiment. You would think if the Soviets really gave a damn about labor or communalism and stuff like that, why would the first thing they do is to destroy the monasteries to destroy. to destroy the communes, to destroy all of the labor artels. Actual spiritual socialism had existed in old Russia for quite some time, but on a completely different foundation

than what they wanted. Two very different things. One was social, the other one was anti-social. No, they spent time and money to destroy that. You would think they would want to support it if they truly were socialist in the literal sense of the word. But no, they weren't. And this is what he means here.

In contrast, every mature religion not only reveals the nature of the good, but also teaches a struggle against evil. All pre-Christian Eastern forms of asceticism has two slants, a negative, combative one and a positive uplifting one. This is a very warfare not in the flesh that the Apostle Paul explains to the Corinthians. However, nowhere, it seems, is a situation. inner resistance to evil developed with such depth and wisdom as among the ascetic teachers of the Eastern Orthodoxy.

Objectifying the origin of evil in the form of immaterial demons, Anthony the great Macarius, the great Mark the ascetic, Ephraim, the Syrian, John Clemachus, and others teach tireless internal warfare against the unnoticeable and nonviolent attacks of evil thoughts, while John Cassian directly points out that, quote, no one can be seduced by the devil except the one who wishes to give him consent to his will, end quote. Yeah, and now he's laying out specifically what I've been saying since we started here. There is a connection between being a true citizen of a Christian state and being an aesthetic. I've always made the statement the church always has too,

that there's not much difference between a soldier and a monk. much is demanded of them. But if you're a coward and a fraud and you have no self-esteem and you don't even think anything is worth fighting for, which is really what a bullion means, it's not just passivity, but passivity because you don't think anything matters,

this is what we're talking about. This is, you know, and the more of those people that exist, the more society decay, There's got to be a critical mass there somewhere where society can't function after a while. And we know about this far more than Tolstoy or Ilin did. I don't think the church fathers could have even have a language to describe what we deal with every day. They predicted that at the end times, the sufferings of the church at the end are going to be beyond the ancient.

sufferings, but they never explicitly said what it would be, and there's a good reason for that. Imagine taking Ephraim the Syrian and putting him in a, at the University of Penn State, you know, or the University of Delaware. Yeah, they wouldn't, they would run away screwed. They'd say everyone's possessed, at least. They'd go bonkers, and they wouldn't even know how to explain it. This is what happens when the coward, the spineless, um, forms, uh, finds each other and is actually able to impose their will on society.

And not to mention, it's true. When he's talking about the pagan, and I'm glad he uses pre-Christian, asceticism is universal. The conception of the war against the flesh is this is part of natural law. It's not merely a theological thing. It finds its completion in the prophets and in Christ of course. course. But this has always been a part of human nature. So the leftist is fighting against everything, including the very human nature itself. And this is why they're, that's why they

exist in the realm of deceit and fraud. Everything they do is based on an agenda that they never admit to themselves or anyone else. And I've been writing about this my whole career. And, you know, with certain people, you know, especially professors, and you pointed out to them, you better watch out. It's like waking up a sleepwalker. The bursting of bubble is, can lead to extreme reactions. Human spiritual experience testifies that those who do not resist evil do so precisely because they themselves are already evil, because they have internally accepted it and become it. Therefore, the suggestion that sometimes arises during periods of acute temptation, quote, to surrender to evil in order to outlive it and be renewed by it, end quote,

always comes from those layers of the soul or, accordingly, from those people who have already surrendered and thirst for further decline. It is the hidden voice of evil itself. Why don't we just go along? Why don't we just watch TV, worry about celebrities, buy the things they tell us to buy? Wouldn't our life be so much easier if we just accepted the regime as it is? and not be these, you know, crazy people who are at war with it and are suffering as a result.

Why don't we do that? There's a reason we don't do that because we are, we are integral people. And integral people couldn't possibly do that. You could try it. But your conscience would destroy you after a while. You simply couldn't do it. people ask me what would I do if society were healthy I said I don't know I'd be a funeral director I guess like my father um you know so um but the first sentence here those who do not

resist evil are evil they're already evil that the the non-resistance is just an excuse they won't admit it to themselves they won't admit it to you but they are on the side of evil and there's not just things, you know, by force, these are also things internally. It's so much easier just to give in. If you don't have a conscience, if you weren't properly raised, if you don't understand virtues and you're not an integral person, if you're a con man and a fraud, your life is a lot easier because you don't have standards. They can go along to get along.

We can't. And if it leads to a gulag cell, well, we have no other option. I don't know. That's really what he's saying in here. Non-resistance, come on. If you think something's evil and you refuse to resist it or you resist it by the most weak, in the weakest way possible, you know, there's a disconnect here. It makes no sense. You must be evil yourself or at least heading in that direction.

There is no doubt that Count Tolstoy and the moralists who had here. adhere to him do not at all call for such complete non-resistance that would be equivalent to voluntary moral self-corruption. Anyone who tried to understand them in this sense would be wrong. On the contrary, their idea is precisely that the struggle against evil is necessary, but that it should be transferred entirely to the inner world of man, and moreover, precisely to the man who is waging the struggle within himself. Such a fighter against evil can even find in their writings a whole series of useful advice. The non-resistance of which they write and speak does not mean inner surrender and joining in with

evil. On the contrary, it is a special kind of resistance, i.e. non-acceptance, condemnation, rejection, and opposition. Their non-resistance means resistance and struggle, however, only by certain means. They accept the goal, overcoming evil, but they make their figurative choice of ways and means. Their skill is a teaching not so much about evil as about how precisely not to overcome it. Yeah. Precisely not to overcome it. You know, reading Tolstoy for the first time,

you realize that he's very much open to interpretation. And how rare it is to find such a complimentary, such a charitable explanation of your opponent, as with Ivan Eileen. Now, of course, today, it wouldn't matter because we don't agree on what's good and what's evil. You know, we could read Anna Karinana and realize, yeah, the sexual revolution was evil, even though it only existed in the upper classes at the time in Russia, thanks to the Freemasons and groups like that.

Because it is irrational, and it leads to the situation between Anna and Voronski. So many people get hurt, and you don't really think that way. So, but back then, it's a different story. Yes, I've been reading a told story for a long time. And there's so much good in there. But when you read other things, it kind of destroys that. And he's not just talking about Tolstoy. He's talking about to those communities,

his communities grew up all over the world for a while. And he's saying, I refuse to believe that all these people are, inherently evil, or they just don't want to do anything. They do want this fight to be internal. But ultimately, it opens the door to the victory of evil, both psychologically and politically and socially. It goes without saying that only this struggling nature of their non-resistance provides grounds for philosophical discussion of their assertions. However, such a discussion cannot accept either the formulation of the question they put forward or even less the answer they provide. When I was a professor, I taught three-hour classes once a week. I did it almost every semester.

How the heck did I do that? Because, of course, I lectured constantly. I mean, there were breaks and everything, but I lectured nonstop, just like my radio show. I mean, you know, I've just taken the classroom and I just put a microphone in front of myself. But this is deadly serious stuff. I'm just very happy that he brought up the church fathers because none of them accepted the idea of, none of them believed that force was inherently evil. Force can be a very good thing.

It's sort of like when you could mentally torture someone their whole lives and because you can't see it. It doesn't leave a bruise. You get away with it. but the minute that pert you slap them all of a sudden now you're in trouble that violence gets because you could see it because it's

you could quantify it it ends up being privileged above everything else so you know there would be honest Tolstoyans out there but I can't imagine an honest tostoyan in 1917 and he's hinting at that very much here It really explains why the overwhelming majority of evangelical leaders that if you were to bring up Franco to them, Franco is basically the same as Hitler.

They would rather the Spanish would have laid down, been murdered. The Catholic Church would have been slaughtered in Spain than Franco did what he did, somebody who went to Mass every day and took the Eucharist. every day. These people are absolutely fucking insane and I mean, I don't know how to share a country with them. Yeah, and that's exactly what I

what I've been trying to get across and what Elyne's trying to get across here. We don't even use language in the same way. We don't believe, how can you talk about, you know, abortion is murder and see, and except the Israelis destroying maternity wars and hospitals. You want to talk about cognitive dissonance.

But I mean, but come on, come on, Dr. Johnson. The Hamas is hiding under all of those incubators and the children's nursery. They hide behind every murder, every murder by a Christian in the West Bank. There's a Hamas fighter hiding behind them. And in many cases, I've had people say that, you know, all of the Catholics that are left in Gaza and the West Bank are all on the side of Hamas? I like the Franco example, and it makes not studying him, not learning about him. There's a great incentive not to study or learn about him.

Ignorance is always bliss in these cases. God forbid they study about him and they realize something. They realize his point. So just connecting him with the third right, or that, I don't have to talk anymore. It's a short circuit in the brain. But we don't share a country. The U.S. is not a nation by any sense of the term, not even civically. And, you know, what holds it together essentially is the economy, and that's not lasting very long.

All right. I'm going to encourage everybody to go over to the show notes. This is out on the podcatchers. and all of the ways that you can donate to Dr. Johnson's work, all the ways you can donate to my work are there. And we appreciate it when you do that. And we appreciate getting comments about the work we're doing here and the work we've done now for pretty much 17 months in a row.

So, yeah. But you notice this is a very different kind of a project. You have to approach it with a very different kind of a mind. and damn, it's exhausting. And what we said in the beginning of the, you know, people that this is very difficult for me to grasp, therefore, you know, often when I was in college and I started to study a philosopher, I'd often start with the secondary sources. That's when you're dealing with someone like Spinoza or Hegel.

You know, Hegel's especially Hegel or Heidegger. Yeah, yeah, Heidegger, yeah, they're unreadable. But starting with secondary sources, at least gives me something to some firm ground to stand on. You know, so I'm hoping to be that secondary source here because this work is very important. I mean, if you look up, just put Ivaniel into Google, not our search engines, but Google. Most of the results will have something to do with him being a fascist and he controls Putin,

or mentally controls Putin. So clearly there's something about him that the regime is upset with. were upset by and it's still on their minds today. That means he said something very well. He was a brilliant man put in an awful situation in exile. No one wants to go into exile. Seeing their country torn to pieces by civil war and by totalitarianism. And he went from country to country.

It is a very specific form of suffering, which helped his brilliance along. all right dr johnson so i'll see you in a couple days thank you very much all right my friend bye bye i want to welcome everyone back to part three of our reading of on resistance to evil by force by evan ilene dr johnson how are you doing today i got a question for him and maybe maybe we should have we should have thus set it off off air but how much steely dan do you think is too much you lead in. In other words, how much, you know, listening to it so much that you would have to say, okay, Matt, wait, wait, there's a problem here. We have to talk. You know, how much would that be where you would start worrying? You know, you start talking to me. Oh, my God, how much would that

be you think? Every day, all day for like a week in a row. That would be, that would be the line you would say. Yeah, yeah, I can get into, I can get to the point where I just listen to one band, like on repeat for like a week, but after that I got to move on. Well, I'm that way too, but certain bands just, they dig in, so to speak. Um, it's not like, I'm not going to ask you to call me Dr. Wu or anything, but, um, I just want to make sure that, you know, I guess it would, it would have to be so much that it would interfere with daily life. And I guess so far it hasn't. So, I mean, that's kind of the line I'm drawing here.

But it is always a psychological concern. So I just wanted to, I just needed someone else to give some idea so I know, you know, where the line might be. Yeah. So, okay. All right. I feel a little bit better. All righty. You ready to continue this one?

Let's go. All right. Part three. About good and evil. The problem of resistance to evil cannot be posed correctly without first determining the location and essence of evil. Thus, first of all, the evil whose resistance is discussed here is not external, but internal. No matter how greater elemental external, no matter how greater elemental external, no matter how greater elemental external, material destruction or annihilation, they do not constitute evil, neither astral catastrophes nor cities

destroyed by earthquakes and hurricanes nor crops withering from drought, nor flooded settlements, nor burning forests. No matter how much man suffers from them, no matter the tragic consequences that entail, material nature as such, even in its most seemingly inappropriate manifestations, does not thereby become either good or evil. The very application of the idea of evil is to these the very application of the idea of evil to these phenomena is a legacy of the era when the all animating human imagination discerned a living spiritual agent behind every natural phenomenon and attributed every harm to some malevolent agent. It is true that natural disasters can unleash evil in human souls for weak people can hardly bear it. Well, this is something

it almost goes without saying. Now, most the church, fathers would say that evil does not have an essence. It's the perversion of an essence or a lack of an essence entirely. They always treat it as a negation. They don't want to go down the Gnostic route where it's an entity in and of itself. You know, Satan would love for the world to think that he's an autonomous agent. He's not. God decides what he does and what he doesn't, as we see in the book of Job. He has to ask permission from God to torment Job. I'm sure he despises that. But, and he hates it and he wants everyone to be convinced that he is not, that he is, he does what he wants.

But natural disasters or the action of animals, you know, natural disasters always have a positive element. You know, volcanoes will bring up all kinds of nutrients from the center of the earth. you know, forest fires, you know, eliminate a lot of brush that kills things and inhibits the growth of the forest floor. Yeah, there's always a positive element to every natural disaster, no matter how much damage it might do. But, you know, even in the Old Testament, there's still some concept that, you know, natural phenomenon is still controlled by guns. in a way, like the torments of the Egyptians, for example. But those aren't normal natural disasters

for, you know, the dividing of the Red Sea. That's not the same thing as a volcano erupting. So what he's trying to say is that, you know, obviously he's not talking about that. No matter how institutionalized evil might be. even in a state, in an army, whatever, it's still an individual matter in the sense that it, that's what he means by internal, the human soul. The human soul, of course, always has external effects, but the main battleground is eternal. I think that's what he's talking about.

Those in danger of death quickly become demoralized and give in to the most shameful desires. However, those who are strong in spirit respond to external calamities with the opposite process. Spiritual purification is strengthening in goodness, as is amply demonstrated by the surviving historical accounts of the great European plague. Clearly, the external material process that awakens divine powers in some souls and unleashes the devil and others is neither good nor evil in itself. Yeah, we could see how people react to things. how many times a day do you hear a secular man or even an atheist saying that why would God allow these terrible things to happen? Innocent suffering, for example, as if to say that God should create a utopia for you. My answer for that is always this. How far are we going to go?

You don't like evil things to happen? somehow this is God's fault okay so why just stop there why just stop with innocent suffering why doesn't he just create a utopia for us and in that case of course as Dostaski always said

we would destroy it a true utopia paradise would destroy free will and because we have free will we would absolutely annihilate we would be so bored you would completely destroy it.

These negatives spur us to action. Now, I know, and he's absolutely right, of course, we're certain people who don't care to begin with us are demoralized. This stuff is always happening to me. What's going on? God has abandoned me or God doesn't exist or whatever it was. You know, unfortunately, my father was that way. He barely survived the Korean War in the Marine Corps

And he never looked to God again And maybe at the end I had some influence on him I'm not sure But that was very much his response To this And of course hating Harry Truman with every bone in his body But these huge plagues For example

The Great European Plague That brought so many changes to European society. It's one of the things that you know that ended the Middle Ages people a lot of people lost faith. The best of the clergy who were out there helping people were dead leaving only the worst behind. It wasn't the only thing that ended the Middle Ages but it was one of the thing and in my mind it's a terrible thing and it one of the things that helped create the the play thing of the wealthy called the Renaissance in Italy.

But Europe lost the third of its population. And you did have more intense religiosity in some cases, and in others a complete abandonment of it. So, of course, he's right. But as we said last time, personal calamities, in my case, and I've had so many of them, I can't help but look back and say these were

these were positive things not when I was going through them but spiritual purification you know the orthodox reject purgatory most unions do too on the simple grounds that we're living in it we're constantly being purified

by the evil that we have to suffer and the pain we have to suffer um it's constantly you know And if we do this to the name of God, these sins are increasingly forgiven this way. But that's not everyone's response. And it's an interesting psychological issue. People don't respond to even right now.

People don't respond to calamities or even death the same way. Many abandon God at this point because he doesn't do exactly what he wants, which is very irritating to hear. In other cases, they double down. And in my case, I doubled down. And I realized that these things ultimately were positives. At the time, they seemed negative. But what I do and who I am would never have happened if it wasn't for those, it was crucibles of suffering that purify you and move you to the next level.

I don't know what I would be without the sufferings that I've been through. And I think that's what he's trying to say here. It really depends on their starting point. And it's a shame to see people just so demoralizing something. A list of things happen. God has abandoned me. That's why Job is in the Bible. And even cursing God because I do everything right.

and yet you still punish me, these kind of things. Satan goes up to God and says, yeah, you know, Job is a wonderful man. All he does is pray to you and everything else and thank you. Yeah, it's because he's wealthy, because you've allowed him everything. Let's see what he does without all those things. God says, okay. And that's kind of the intro to the book. And that's why when people are suffering, that's the book you have to go to.

Evil begins where man begins, and not the human body in all its states and manifestations as such, but the human soul spiritual world, the true seed of good and evil. No external state of the human body in itself, no external action of man in itself, that is, taken and discussed separately, detached from the soul spiritual state hidden behind it, or that it gave rise to it, can be either good or evil. Thus physical suffering can lead one person to baseless malice and animalistic brutality, while another to purifying love and spiritual insight. And it is clear that, while it may become a catalyst for evil for the first and a catalyst

for good for the second, it is not and has not become in itself either evil or good. It was precisely this duality of physical deprivation and suffering that the wise Stoics emphasized, teaching people to neutralize their poison and extract spiritual healing from them. Yeah, it's always reading the Stoics Stoicism was mostly a Greek phenomenon Although The only real complete work we have is from Marcus Aurelius He was the very

The very end of that school But don't forget The Stoics also advocated suicide If you have no more to give This is everywhere In fact, Marcus Aurelius says so If you had a point with nobody That's a bad idea under any circumstances.

How do you know you don't have any more to give? But, well, that's a separate issue for a separate time. But, you know, you think of, you consider illness what people do. People, you know, when someone comes back to the church, I forget the exact slogan, but it's usually because of something like divorce, drugs, debt, the 3Ds, some medical problem. You know, it's a trauma that in and of itself is neither good nor evil, which is what he's saying here. But it's precisely that trauma that shocks people out of their normal comfort zone. In fact, they don't have a comfort zone anymore.

and now they have to think for themselves, what am I going to do? And that's where free will really comes in. Am I going to abandon a gun as I've been doing? Or am I going to finally realize that he's in charge and that these things are not necessarily, they seem negative. But in fact, they're not. This is why the church fathers always say

that evil does not have an essence. It's a negation of something good. Without suffering, we wouldn't be anything. You think of anything that's worth getting. I mean, think it's childbirth. Anything that's worth getting, an advanced degree, what I went through to get that, anything that's worth having comes with suffering of one kind or another

and struggle and discipline and insight. people who win the lottery are usually destroyed psychologically. I think that's pretty well known at this point. They didn't work for any of this stuff. When a company that's founded by one man gets into the hands of his kids, they usually destroy it. They didn't really work for it. They didn't suffer for it.

They were born with a silver spoon. Yeah, suffering is a negative. Suffering doesn't have an essence, but it helps create one later on. And you realize you look back, I do it all the time, I do it every day in my life. And I realize that I enjoyed every minute of the struggle. It's easy to say now because I know how it turned out. But when you don't know how it's going to turn out, it's a different story. And when you don't know how it's going to turn out, that's where free will comes in.

You have a clear, stark choice one way or the other. And even your previous spiritual condition may not even be relevant. The thing about trauma is that your completely, this train has derailed. Everything you thought was good and normal isn't there anymore. I know exactly what that feels like overnight. Thank God everything I went through. I never lost faith for a second. And I started to realize that that suffering is,

is the only reason that you push yourself forward. Yeah, there's been people in my life who have hardly suffered at all, and they sound like spoiled brats all the time. This is where entitlement comes from. And so, while it's not good and evil in itself, the choice that we make in any of these traumas, I mean, if it's truly traumatic,

the words kind of overused these days, but if it's truly traumatic, free will then is something that you can't deny. There's nothing deterministic about your choice at that point. And sometimes the Stoics went a little bit too far in that regard. The Stoic idea was very simple, at least in the Roman idea, was that if you can't control it, don't even consider it. You know, it's a simple logical idea that if you can't control it,

getting upset about it doesn't make any sense. if people are bothering you, even tormenting you, you have to realize that people are stupid and you have to expect it. And hence, you know, you maintain inner peace. The Stoics were, you know, it wasn't really a system, it was a systematic philosophy among the Greeks. Stoicism has become a bit of a fad these days.

But it really, they refer only to the Romans. The Greek metaphysical Stoicism is a very different story. I have a lecture on it. I did Radio Albian a year ago. And I think people who like the Stoics could be very surprised about the metaphysics behind it and everything else.

There really is no God there. There's a natural order there, but there is no God there. No one asked them how the natural order came to be, but I guess. But there certainly is. But the Stoic ethics comes directly from it.

And people come to this, usually because of some level of suffering. Almost everybody that I've known that has abandoned the church for a while and comes back to it, they're there for a reason. Something terrible has happened. In my case, it wasn't the case at all.

I had to read myself into it, which I guess in my case, the way I do it is usually traumatic, but I have to read myself into everything. But normally it's some kind of severe event or set of events that forces people to look at the world as a brand new place. And hence they return. The suffering itself, what causes it, that's not good or evil. Your reaction to it is.

Likewise, all the bodily movements of a person, which make up the outward appearance of his actions, can stem from both good and evil motives and are in themselves, neither good nor evil. The most ferocious facial expression may not conceal any evil feelings. The most offensive discourtesy may stem from absent-mindedness caused by deep grief or scientific concentration. The most abrupt body movement may turn out to be an involuntary reflex. The most offensive words may be uttered on stage or in delirium. The most severe. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't, I didn't finish that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry about that. I forget what it was off the top of my head, but I think you get the point here.

Yeah, he's one of the first people to notice resting bitch face, which is partially what he's talking about here. Just because someone has a certain facial expression doesn't mean they're feeling what that expression normally entails. They don't even know that they're, you know, that they have it on. And none of that, that can't be. that can't be attributed to the will. So he's kind of making the same point over and over again here,

but he's getting to it exactly what good and evil are and where that dividing line is to be found. And I think for the most part, everyone would agree with him up until now. The blow could be accidental or intended for salvation. The most horrific cut on the body can be made for surgical or religious purifying reasons. In human life, there is not and cannot be either good or evil of a purely corporeal nature.

The very application of these ideas to the body, the bodily state or bodily manifestation, outside of their relation to the inner world, is absurd and meaningless. This, of course, does not mean that external bodily expression is completely indifferent in the face of good and evil, or that a person can do whatever they please externally. No, but this means that the external is subject to moral and sexual. spiritual consideration only insofar as it has revealed or reveals a person's internal, mental, and spiritual state, their intention, their decision, their feeling, their thought, etc. Well, another slogan here that he's getting at is that you can't judge a book by its cover.

It's very similar to the previous paragraph. Now, in my case, I think I'm right to... There's a book by each cover maybe 95% of the time. When I'm wrong, I'm colossally wrong. About, you know, how someone's general affect, what it says about them. Half the time, I walk down, you know, I walk in the store, people feed me as just some biker. You know, they have no idea who I am. The cover does not at all suggest to them what's inside.

when I was in the ER and at Johnstown, I was I think, I think, when I had my kidney stones, I was on the ground. I think they just thought it was some drunk biker. And, you know, that's, they must have. You know, because of, you know, how it was dressed on my hair and everything. And until some old lady grabbed my university lanyard and put it up and said, hey, this is who this guy is.

He's not just some drunk idiot. that's the only way and they treated me. But of course those people are also used to drunk idiots coming into the ER who don't necessarily deserve immediate treatment.

But more importantly the inner the inner psyche can't be held back for very long. It's going to have an external expression. For the most part you can just a book by and to cover

but because of that 5% of the time when I've been very, very, very wrong or wronged, you have to be very careful. And that's why you have to actually investigate. The fact is that the inner, even when not externally manifested at all, or at least not perceived by anyone from the outside, is already good or evil or a tragic mixture of both. The external, however, can only be a manifestation, a revelation of this internal good or evil or their tragic mixture,

but cannot itself be either good or evil. In the face of good and evil, every human action is what it is internally and from within, and not what it appears to someone externally or from without. Only naive people think that a smile is always kind, that a bow is always polite, that compliance is always benevolent, that a shove is always insulting, that a blow always expresses hostility, and that causing suffering is hatred. With the moral and religious approach,

the external is evaluated exclusively as a sign of the internal. That is, the value is established not of the external, but of the internal manifested in the external, and further of the internal that gave rise to the possibility of such an external manifestation. I was very lucky, and I think it's providential. that the very first philosophical work that I ever read when I was 17, I don't even know why,

I was 18, was Plato's Republic, which was deceptively simple. I mean, he was a very good writer. And I'm blowing through it thinking I'm understanding it. Of course, little did I know how deep it really was. Later in Plato's career, he talks about the mixture because there are three parts of the soul. All of our conceptions of the soul go back to Plato.

And it was the very first time I heard an argument for the spiritual life. He wasn't a pagan. He wasn't really anything. He was murdered by those for rejecting the pagan gods, which of course he did. Or treating them as I do, as intellectual ideas rather than actual literal beings. There's always a mixture. And the church understands that because even the greatest saints do things incorrectly. I mean, there's a meme about me floating around.

I don't know if it's still around. It's a quote from me saying, how can the greatest of saints say to themselves? They're the greatest of sinners. I mean, empirically, that can't be true. well there's at least two realms here the numinal realm or the spiritual realm which we can organize and actually be perfect perfect in the sense of wanting

we have it correctly wanting nothing from without not perfect the sense of flawless however we have to live in the world and in matter how well our internal life is going is organized the minute it gets into the empirical world evil's going to seep in

to the point where any action we take is self-regarding. Technically, every action we take is sinful because it's self-regarding. We're doing it for us. No matter how minor or how major. However, it's,

you know, and it gets worse, the more corrupt society is. So long as you maintain the internal order of your soul. And again, this goes back to stoicism. If you maintain the internal order of your soul, the sins that you commit are, you know, are secondary. That just simply comes from existing. We can't avoid it, especially now.

And, you know, unless you deliberately do it. But it's just the empirical world, the world of cause and effect of physical life in a corrupt and dying system. Of course, even the greatest of saints are going to sin just like everyone else. What's internal, the organization of your soul, that has to remain the same. And then that's where you get your spiritual peace from. So the mixture hopefully isn't within.

The mixture is without. I've committed terrible sins in my life. we all have stuff we would never talk about in public but we recognize them as such and some of those sins were committed even as a fully committed orthodox man fully understanding the implications

it often comes from the world we live in as well as our free will so he's saying the same things over and over again I'm trying to make it more interesting here but the point that he's been making thus farm is that good and evil is purely an internal matter. Because whatever an evil person does externally, that in and of itself isn't evil.

It might be bad. It might be painful. It might be negative, but it's not evil. Evil is from the person who does it and their free will. Someone who orders someone to murder somebody. the person who orders it is in more trouble than the person who actually does it you know the mob boss is always in trouble because he doesn't do it himself he orders other people to do it

um and uh there's still in the concept of men's ray or or the criminal mind you know and the concept of yeah not every cut is is banned you know someone can slice you in a fight or someone could do that exact same slice in surgery therefore slicing you is neither good nor bad. Smile is a really good one. He has tremendous insight. Smiles can be sarcastic, smiles can be deceptive, although even there, I think a lot of people can tell a fake smile from a real one.

You know, and around here, of course, people have no conception of sarcasm, which I learn the hard way. I don't, doesn't bother me. I still use it, but. but the very fact that the exact same external sign could be one of the other you know guys with long hair and beards they could either be at a at a at a iron maiden concert or in a monastery they look exactly the same so um uh was the joke I've made many times in the past but so that means the external posture in and of

itself uh it is is meaningless you have to know what's going on in internally, and by internally, I mean the ordering of their soul. And in Plato's case, it's the rule of reason over both your spirited part and the passionate part. Or, you know, the will has to be brought under the control of reason. And reason itself has to be connected with global reason or logos. You know, this is why St. Justin Martyr said that Plato was the prophet to the Gentiles. There's so much, not everything, of course, he said a lot of wrong things. too, but so much in Plato's philosophy, I became a Christian because of Plato. Justin Martyr became a Christian because of Plato. My whole life, I've never heard an argument for the spiritual life before I read the, I never heard it before. I didn't even know it existed. That faith was always blind.

I couldn't believe it. It was, you know, the first time I was blown away by something. and from that book onward I read the Gorgias was my second book also by Plato so you know I've been to Platonist since I was a kid pretty much and one of the reasons is that you know he talks about this very topic

and and you know when the Platonic Academy fell apart it split into many parts one of those parts was stoicism and it yes it derives from Plato to a great extent someone who is nice to you and seems pleasant, that doesn't mean his life isn't an absolute hell. He just knows how to control it. And we hear about this stuff all the time.

Sometimes we just refuse to listen. We get into road rage fights. We have no idea who we're fighting with what they're capable of. And this stuff can get very, very dangerous. But even that's not evil. turns out it's your own stupidity that caused it. So he's getting, you know, he's getting, he's whittling it down where there's simply no doubt as to where good and evil can be found. This is precisely why two seemingly identical external actions can turn out to have completely different, perhaps even directly opposite, moral and religious value.

Two donations, two signatures on the same document, two enlistments in the regiment, two debts in battle. It would seem that Christian consciousness would need not such almost, wouldn't need such almost axiomatic explanations, but if, therefore, the true location of good and evil is precisely in the inner, mentally spiritual world of man, then this means that the struggle against evil and its overcoming can and must be achieved precisely through inner efforts, and transformation will be precisely an inner achievement. No matter what righteousness, or rather, more fidelity a person achieves in their outward manifestations and deeds, all their achievements, despite their social usefulness, will not have the dimension of goodness without an inner

qualitative rebirth of the soul. I think everybody who hears this knows about the public and the Pharisee. In the Orthodox world, it's very early in Lent, we are forced to look at that. The Pharisee does everything right. He follows all the rules. He donates huge amounts of his money and time. Outwardly, he is as pure as can be. People love him.

But he does it not because he loves God or even believes in God. He does it because of pride, how it looks. Of course, the publican is somebody who is largely hated. And all he says is, God, please have mercy on me at the sinner. Which one is God going to be with? And, of course, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's a part. Republican. And this is what I've been saying, your external empirical lives, especially from the outside. And we've all, you know, aren't indicative. We've all known people like the, like the, like the, like the, like the Pharisee. You know, I've dealt with them many times over the phone and person. And you get the impression that they're trying to be righteous, not because they're. they believe in God, but because they want to be perceived as righteous and absolutely no other reason.

And when you tell them that, you know, again, watch out. And that's where, I mean, I haven't been wrong because they actually come out, you know, talking like that. Oh, you know, judgmental in the true negative sense, not in the sense of people use it. But this is where, you know, Christ's condemnation of judgment comes from. you don't quite know. If Christ didn't use that as a moral example, many of us who are just standing there may see the Pharisee as the righteous one.

He follows the law. This is one of Christ's big, big issue. His big issue was that the external law doesn't mean much anymore. That was just a first step. Of course, we have kind of law and everything, but they're not laws in the same sense of the Pennsylvania Penal Court or laws.

their guidelines not laws in the same sense as they were in the Old Testament Christ is a law so but the mere following of canons you know the church that Stalin built in 1944

yes they followed the canons exactly but what was their mentality who were they following what were they supported they were saying that Stalin was God's gift to the world and yet people who don't think very deeply or don't want to think very deeply we're going to look at the public and say oh I wish I could be like that not realizing what the real motivation is and we don't know what the motivation is Christ tells us what the motivation is

that forces us to look at ours why are we doing what we're doing do we donate because I want people to see how wonderful I am or that's my sins can be forgiven Which one dominates in my mind? It's rare that you're going to admit that you do it just so people can see how wonderful you are. It's very rare. But trauma sometimes can force it on you. And a terrible event that happens to you can force it on you.

You're forced to look at yourself for the first time. This is why suffering and pain can be very positive things because they push you out of your comfort zone. And they force you to see things totally brand new. And that's what we're talking about here. An external right of kindness does not make a person good. They remain a morally dead Pharisee, a whited tomb. Until the very depths of their personal passion tremble with their last roots from the ray of God's self-evidence and respond to this ray with a holistic acceptance of love,

joy, and mortal resolve, no external correctness, restraint, or usefulness will grant them victory over evil. You know, I love the example of using the, the, the, Stalin's church, which was never very large. That was really a Potemkin village for, you know, being in the WCC and things like that. But you had thousands of Orthodox clergy in the camps that were doing liturgy. I think I've read with a grape and a little piece of bread having to do it from memory because they didn't, you weren't allowed any books like that.

And then Stalin's Church had all the big cathedrals that they left open. Now, from the outside, you know, who was truly righteous there? Where was the Eucharist truly to be found there? In extreme situations, like the gulag, yeah, a grape and a little piece of cracker, that's much better than the utter canonical perfection of, you know, Stalin's people in the Kremlin. But the Archbishop of Canterbury coming over and seeing that, in the Kremlin, having no idea of not being told about the Gulag. And it goes back to Britain and says, oh, my God, you should see these beautiful churches in Russia.

They have full religious freedom there. And it's all Stalin's doing. I think in his case, it was simple stupidity. He just doesn't have the capacity to think any any deeper into the matter. Critical thought is tough. Critical thought doesn't come from nothing. you're not born with critical abilities critical abilities

you have to develop them specifically and it often sucks because sometimes you don't like where it's going as I've always said it a hundred times no one really likes an honest man an honest man is someone who is critical in the positive sense of the term someone who could see the essence of things or the lack thereof

though we know where God was to be found it was to be found in the gulag yeah they didn't have anything nothing what they were doing was was strictly canonical with a flipping grape that's all they had versus the gorgeous i mean perfection of the of the cathedral of the church that solompson's solom bill now that doesn't mean that we could all use grapes and pieces of cracker and we could all be clergy that's not what it's saying but in these extreme conditions we know uh we know and it certainly wasn't in their interest to do it Because if they were caught, what would happen to them would be awful. Sarah from Rose always said this about the church that went underground in the USSR. We know that they were truly motivated, that they were the true Orthodox people, because if they were caught, they knew where they were going.

Those who were just Sunday Christians, well, you know, they weren't going to go. They weren't going to do. They weren't going to risk anything. I think we have to ask ourselves, you know. A lot of Orthodox people in America condemn those who went to, you know, the official church and not the underground churches. Well, what would they do?

What would I do if I were there? I have the feeling, given what the gulag was, I would pretty much do anything that would keep me out of it unless there's a bit of grace there that brought me to it. Because there was nothing more painful than Stalin's gulag, especially up in the north. Would we be, you know, way, in the red flag. We didn't believe it, of course.

But just to keep our families safe. So how dare they condemn those? Unless, of course, those people in the churches were in fact communist. But I had the feeling that at least some of them were going along because they had them with the choice.

I think it takes a tremendous grace, tremendous internal strength to go underground. And many of them were caught. And many of them were executed. as Black 100, I think they were called, we talked about it with Sultan Easton's book, Black Hundred Clergy. That's what they were called.

That was automatic execution. But, so, you know, it can't be universal rule. But it takes it, you know, going underground meant that the Orthodox world understood who was truly faithful. It was traumatic, obviously. the massive trauma of the war and then the civil war and on top of that all, the totalitarian system of the Soviet Union.

And if they still maintained their inner peace such that they're willing to risk it and go underground, those people are your best bill. Those are the true orthodox. I'm not saying you judge those who don't because they don't necessarily want to see their families go to the gulag, which they would have.

Bishops signed papers because they said we were to kill another 100 unless you, unless you, if you don't, we can't judge those people. But, you know, the point has been made here. These traumas, these suffering were necessary in Russia. It was awful and evil as it was. One of the positive things, the silver linings here, is that the church realized who its true followers were.

There's no different than friends who stay by you, even when something terrible happens, you lose everything and you become very difficult to be around. Those people who stay by you are true friends, as few as they are. And the same goes here. This is precisely what he's getting out, getting out here. And this is all a matter of internal struggle. For systematically unmanifested evil never ceases to live within the soul and perhaps secretly possesses it, It often even infiltrates all the seemingly correct actions of a moral person, poisoning them with the venom of ill-will, envy, malice, revenge, and intrigue.

Of course, external influences from nature and people, from the fragrance of a flower and the majesty of a mountain to the death of a friend and the example of a righteous man, can pierce a dead soul with a ray of divine revelation, but the transformation itself and its final transformation have always been and will always be an internal. soul spiritual process and state. To evoke within oneself this astonishing, mysterious encounter of one's personal, passionate depth with the ray of God, and to consolidate it with the power of spiritual conviction and character, this means to combat evil at its very core

and to overcome it. This happened with Solzhenitsyn too. I give an explanation, and that's exactly what said in the next paragraph. Of course, I read this, I helped translate it, but I didn't really, remember it. And I say something, and it's in the very next paragraph. It's happened twice so far now. He's talking about trauma here. You know, the death of a friend is one of, you know, any kind of loss like that changes you. The world doesn't look the same anymore. If it doesn't look the same, how do you react to it?

and of course grace has to be there as well but God arranges these things this is what providence is Christ made this very very clear you know the tragedy of King Solomon for example in the Old Testament is that God he has sent so many of these things to him

begging him to return and he refused there was too much money to be made in trade deals with the pagan states and his pagan wives and everything else. He was having too good of a time. He was given every chance in the world. And, of course, the trauma occurred afterwards

where Israel split in two. Who follows the law and who doesn't? It's not so much in the external manifestation, but the internal, the arrangement of your soul. But that doesn't give anyone the excuse to not follow the law. One has nothing to do with the other. And I actually have heard this before with people who refuse to stop doing something saying that, oh, well, external actions don't matter.

No. That's not what this means. It means doing, you know, the right thing for the wrong reason or the right thing by force. You know, so he's talking about trauma here. He's talking about suffering here. Suffering isn't in and of itself evil. It isn't really anything. derailing the train, you have a point, an inflection point, free will.

You decide how you're going to react to it. And he said that like five times now, pretty much. And it's a very profound point, and it should be made many times. And again, he keeps whittling this down, where is good and evil to be found? Anyone who truly wants to resist evil and overcome it must not only suppress its external manifestations and not only stop its internal pressure. He must have achieved the point where evil becomes the passion of his own soul from its own depths, having turned, saw, having seen it caught by fire, having caught fire,

it was purified, having been purified, it was reborn. Having been reborn, it ceased to be in its evil guise. The one who experiences this is present within himself at the conversion of his personal Satan, a mysterious fire, his own and at the same time greater than his own, burns through the eternal incorrigibility of his soul to the very bottom, from its very darkness, from the ultimate abyss, through the lips of this abyss, a prayer of Thanksgiving and joy rises. The soul is completely healed and completely shines with light,

and already in a new way, turns to God, to people, and to the world. Such a state of the soul is attainable only through the inner paths of spiritualization and love. I think the regime is counting on this, and it's worked in many cases. Well, they can't necessarily penetrate to the soul. If they surround the person with evil long enough, that that will change him, there's only so many times someone can say no. Young men have asked me about sexual temptation. And I say, think of it like this.

it's easy to talk about that in the fifth century but in our case it's like being an alcoholic who is forced to work in a bar not only that sees everyone having a great time and has everyone coming up to you saying

oh come on come on you're not really an alcoholic here here here here here here that's what it's like that wasn't the case a thousand years ago or a hundred years ago that's what it's like especially in that area of sin but in some others too

that means when you fall what do you think God's going to say that's going to immediately condemn you to hell like I said last time get one of the church fathers resurrect him and bring him to Harvard and have him live there for a month he'd be screaming

he would he'd say everyone's possessed the world has ended you have no idea what to do with it it would be considered so evil to him for us you know we're born in a certain years It's not our fault. I was born in 1971. I was born at the beginning of the sexual revolution. That's not my fault. It's everywhere. You cannot avoid it. Even if you go to a monastery, you bring this crap into the monastery. But this is not to say that it's merely an individual matter. We talked about the corruption, the slow corruption of the nobility in the Souls of Needson Book. That Freemasonry, almost pretending to be Christian. it's lower levels, offered something a little bit easier

and confirmed them in their money and their wealth. But you're still a Christian, though. Everything's fine. Those from the upper degrees never told them what the upper degrees are. By the time you get up there, you're already corrupted. All you knew, you know, you've already been corrupted. So the internal peace and order of the soul, that's one thing.

but being surrounded, being encased, being just drowning in evil. That's a completely separate issue. And I always said to the young guys in the sexual realm, I said, if you fall, come on. You know, I mean, it's not God's fault. But certainly the regime has created this. You're not sinning necessarily. You've been sinned against.

by drowning in this pit. But it's in the struggle. It's in the battle against it where salvation can be found. Well, you realize just how important your inner peace is. And this is why we have confession, which is why we have, you know, giving to the poor and our personal sufferings. This is how our sins are forgiven. You know, I was a musician until, you know, everything happened in Eastern Europe.

And when the Chalcchescu's were murdered, Christmas Day, music seemed to me very trite. An empire just fell. A massive empire just fell without even a war going on. Just collapsed in on itself. I need to get in on this. What the hell's going on here? And I'm still 35 years later. It's the same kind of thing.

Eventually, you come to, but unfortunately, too many of our people. And you don't get angry at them. you have to guide them. We know what it's like. Whether it be in a university campus, I can't imagine. It's trying to say pure. You know, but it's in the suffering.

It's in the struggle. It's in your numeral realm internally is what matters. The external realm, you're going to mess up constantly. That's all right, so long as the numeral realm remains the same. again, that doesn't give an excuse for evil behavior, but it does explain evil behavior. All right. I think we're going to leave it right there.

There's no way we're going to finish this part today. So he's just really... I think we made our point. I think we made our point many times. Yeah. He wrapped up and now he's moving on. So, yeah. Yeah.

We will pick this up next session. I encourage everyone to go to the descriptions on the videos and go to the show notes of the episodes and donate to Dr. Johnson's work. You can support my work as well too there. And yeah, I'm enjoying this one greatly. And I think this is going to be completely. It's going to be very different from what we did in the first one. But I have a feeling that the impact of this one may be more hard hitting if more limited.

Yeah. Yeah, his appeal was not universal like Sultan Easton's was. He didn't win a Nobel Prize. He was just an exile writer, very talented exile writer, who had experienced evil firsthand, not to mention trauma. I mean, what's more traumatic than exile? And having seen everyone get killed.

So he's not merely writing because he's a good philosopher. He's writing from personal experience. All right, Dr. Johnson. So I'll see in a couple days. Thank you. Okay, my friend. See you then. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Yvonne

Aline. This is episode four. Dr. Johnson. How are you doing today? You know, let me give you, let me give you an example of excessive steely day and listening. I had to rush getting set up for today because I had to hear Kid Charlemagne for the eighth time. Not seven times.

I had to listen to it eight times. and when it was over then I had to just rush to get everything put together so so this is kind of why I asked you last time I'm asking a lot of people what is what is too much here but beyond that I have my co-host is over there this time my Turkish Angora who's sleeping on a pillow which I think is an ornate pillow which I think

ethnically correct she's deaf so she can't hear a damn things going on so she's sleeping Leaps better than every other cat in the house. Pure white. I mean, white, white. I mean, shockingly white. I mean, no color at all. It's not like, you know, the creamy stuff.

Now, it's, when we first got her and I saw her, I had to go, my God. I mean, white, like an Arctic fox. It blew me away. But she was born deaf, so everybody doesn't bother her. It doesn't seem to affect her functioning. And absolutely stunning, a cat. you know, capture my hobby

outside of this crazy field. And frankly, I think that given the nature of this field, everyone needs a hobby totally outside of it. It has nothing to do with it. Just to, you know,

bring down their brain a little bit. You know, to keep them from going crazy from high blood pressure and heart problems. How you doing? Good. I'm hoping that it's kind of

to be a few days until we record again, maybe a week. And I'm hoping that by the time we come back, that you will be listening to somebody else. Yeah, it's cyclical. Always has, but this has been going on my whole life. I always have a song in my head, 24 hours a day. It's in the background when I'm working, you know, always, 24 hours a day, and when I'm dreaming, always. and the song that I have when I'm dreaming I have to listen to when I wake up Who knows? I'm predicting maybe Boston

Maybe yes I'm not 100% sure But they've been out of rotation for a while So that's simply That's simply how I go And so many bands that I were I mean they were all before my time But you know

The 80s bands that I hated at the time When they first came out When I was in high school Now I'm starting to appreciate for the first time So who knows what it's going to be. You get whatever we want on YouTube, which is incredible. I can't remember the last time I bought an album. I think it was Joey Ramon's solo album in 2001.

You know, a CD. It was probably the last thing I ever bought. Everything else I either stole or, you know, downloaded or just it's on YouTube. It's incredible. Could be the Ramones. Could be the Ramones. That'd be a nice break in departure. I do fear.

All right. I do fear Boston, though, because feeling satisfied was in my head for two months. So I'm a little nervous about them, but I don't know. Cheap tricks, another option. All right, let's go. All right, here we go. Picking up where we left off last time. Good and evil and their essential content are determined through the presence or absence of precisely these two combined characteristics.

Love and spirituality. A person is spiritual when and to the extent that they voluntarily inspirely, spontaneously turn toward objective perfection, needing it, seeking it, and loving it, measuring life, and evaluating its content by the measure of its true divinity, truth, beauty, righteousness, love, heroism. However, spiritualization acquires true strength and integrity only when it is carried by the fullness. Pluroma, I don't know that word. Pluroma. of a deep and sincere love for perfection and its living manifestations.

Without the pleroma, the soul, even with the right direction, is fragmented, extensive, cold, dead, and creatively unproductive. This is an excellent point. Ploma is a Greek word. I have it here. It means to fill up an empty thing. to complete an incomplete thing in Greek. It's a classical term. I don't know if it's used anymore,

but it's often used in biblical studies. And let's be careful. Using the word perfection, I mentioned this last time, perfection does it mean, we think of perfection as having absolutely nothing wrong with it. No, in this case, we mean having everything in order, that we need

we need nothing in addition. It's having the virtues in order, for example. Now, the thing is, you could have these virtues but have a negative end. You know, criminals sometimes have excellent virtues but aimed at the wrong thing. In addition, you have those, and I saw this, you know, I saw it quite often. where you have traditionalists of either orthodoxy or Catholicism

who seem to have the virtues and they know their Thomas Aquinas, you know, they know their church fathers and yet they are cold. There's nothing, you know, they're rule followers. They have a quote for everything,

but they're generally, you know, unpleasant. It's hard to tell if they just, or just for show or what. So this is what he's talking about here. Perfection doesn't mean you do nothing wrong. We're in the, you know, phenomenal world.

I was calling it the empirical world before. It's a phenomenal world. By its very structure, we're going to do things wrong. I said the last time, you know, how do you square the fact that the greatest saints say that they're the greatest sinners? They all did. Does that make any sense to you? Obviously, they're not the greatest.

Well, what they mean is perfection is something that you maintain internally. It's never going to be 100% objectified in reality. It can't be. And that gets, and regardless of their interior disposition.

But I've known, I think we've all known Christians who, you know, canonically are, you know, perfectly fine, that's it. They quote canons, they quote, you know, scriptures, and that's pretty much where it ends. They're almost mechanized. There's a lot of people like that. And they think that's sufficient. And there's a certain level of Phariseism there. So the virtues that he lists here, truth, beauty, righteousness, love, and heroism, or courage,

all of those have to be in the person at the same time internally for it to be perfect the person's never going to be perfect because we live in the real world that doesn't mean we can't organize our soul perfectly perfection there is symbolized usually by a circle and of course all of these five things are connected

and one of the things that connects them is humility oftentimes I've come across people approaching me just when I had a Facebook account looking for advice on something but they're not really looking for advice on something they just want to prove to me how wonderful they are this happened more times than I was ever expecting

there's a lack of humility there I lack humility I guess we all do at one point or another it's more connected with love love than anything else. Love is something we'll end up having to define at some point. I don't, you know, the word has been so manipulated in, in our postmodern world. It did mean something different back then than it means now.

I think Americans automatically associated with sexuality or, at best, you know, relationships from marriage, at best. But that's only one very, very small aspect of it. when you grow up reading Plato, you understand exactly what it is. So he's talking about the fullness. He's talking about not just those virtues, which are fine, not just knowing your canons, not just knowing your church fathers or, quote, St. Augustine with no problem. You know, I could do a lot of that stuff, me personally. But sometimes I do catch myself.

That's really all I'm doing. I'm not internally perfect. Because I think that that's sufficient. It isn't sufficient. And once you gain that extra element, that extra element of humility, and because, you know, unity, nationalism, subordinos, all of these terms require you to be able to work with others. A nationalist is a communitarian by definition. We're talking about groups of people rather than individuals.

But working with any group requires humility. you're not always going to be the main character. And half the time, nationalists, myself included, if things were to improve drastically and there were the ethnic unity, our people were like that, you know, what I like it.

It's one thing to talk about it in the abstract, it actually worked with it. Now, I've done it before, and I guess I did okay. But there's one extra thing here. There's one extra thing to make those virtues perfect. and that is humility. Any social system,

I don't care if you're even, even the weird are libertarians. That still requires humility because you're living in a society no matter what. I think libertarians are inherently contradictory with what they think stressing the individual

while living in society. But no matter what you are, you have to learn to listen to people, you have to be able to work with people. And if you don't, the system's going to fall apart. you start thinking that you're irreplaceable, you learn very quickly that you can very easily be replaced. And humility is, I think, one of the toughest things to learn.

That's not something you could read in a book, which is my big problem. And you know, every one of those virtues that he lists here has its opposite. But someone can be virtuous with the improper end, and that has a lot to do with humility as well. A person is loving when to the extent that he is turned toward the content of life by the power of receptive unity, that power which establishes a living identity between the receptive and the receiver, increasing to infinity the scope and depth of the former and imparting to the latter feelings of forgiveness, reconciliation, dignity, strength, and freedom. However, love acquires a true object for its unity and its true purity only when,

it is spiritualized in its direction and choice, i.e. when it turns toward the objectively perfect in things and people, accepting precisely this and entering into a living identity precisely with it. Without spirituality, love is blind, biased, selfish, subject to vulgarization and ugliness. I didn't realize I was getting ahead of myself there. He's basically saying what I'm saying. You know, humility is absolutely necessary for things like reconciliation and forgiveness. You one big red flag with somebody is someone who just carries grudges for a long period of time, who doesn't know how to get past something.

Now, dignity has to do with your station, your function in life. You know, how to comport yourself as a whatever you might be, as a scholar, as a musician, whatever it is. And, of course, freedom has to do with integrity, that you're not manipulated by outside or even inside force. So you're not manipulated by the society around you in a negative way or internal passion. That's not how the American defines freedom whatsoever. Now, I don't think what he's saying here, love is blind, blind. I don't think that's love in that case.

It's not love at all. It's a facsimile of love, but not love at all. So that the truth of the church is really what he's talking about here. Love is blind bias. That means it's not love in the first place. it's something that looks like it but isn't

you know love sometimes gets defined by the organs and a body that everyone does their specific job for the sake of the whole one thing goes away and the whole falls apart your willingness to work at your station which he mentions here in terms of dignity and work very hard, knowing full well

that you couldn't function without all the other thing. Individualism doesn't make any sense. I'm not going to deliver my own mail. I'm not going to build my own house. I don't know how to do any of these things. We are totally dependent on others for pretty much everything.

The language that we speak, obviously the books reread, certainly the religion that we believe. All of these things come from outside come from the community, from the society. You know, the only time an individual actually matters is in these very, very brief periods of choice we talked about last week. And even there, you know, you're still making a choice based on the positive goods of the

community itself. Individualism did not really exist in any organized form until industrialization, which is really ironic because it was the last thing you consider individual individuality. It's a factory of the 18th, 19th century. But the mentality was there to justify the so-called free market and capitalism, especially Darwinism, which is capitalism based on. So it's not just having the virtues. It's having humility.

And humility itself is based on love. And that's just one. I mean, love, I've tried to get me. my brain around what love actually is. There's a thousand different definitions going back to the Old Testament. And it's a word that I don't like using unless I define it first. Love and marriage. Okay, this is what I mean there.

He hasn't defined it yet. But he's talking about you're functioning in society. So it is closely connected with humility. I love someone so much. I will suffer for them. or even die for them in extreme cases, as Christ did, as Arnichaelus did. That's closer to what he's talking about here. Society doesn't function without that mentality.

According to this, good is spiritualized love, while evil is anti-spiritual enmity. Good is the loving power of the spirit. Evil is the blind power of hatred. Good is by its very nature religious, for it. consists of a clear-sighted and holistic devotion to the divine. Evil is by its very nature anti-religious, for it consists of a blind, decaying aversion to the divine. This means a good is not simply love or simply spiritual insight, for religiously unintelligible passion and cold pretentiousness will not create holiness. And likewise, this means that evil is not simply enmity

or spiritual blindness, for enmity toward evil is not evil, and the hell is not evil. And the helpless wandering of blind love does not constitute vice. Only the spiritually blind can praise love as such, accepting it as the highest achievement and condemn every manifestation of hostile aversion. Only one dead in love can praise true spiritual taste as such, accepting it as the highest achievement, and despise the sincere and complete error of a spiritually blind love. Such is the essence of good and evil,

and perhaps it is enough for the Christian conscience. to recall the greatest commandment of the gospel, the fulfillment of love for the perfect father, for the last doubts to fade within it. Well, Christ gave the ultimate, you know, you think of what Jesus did. Here is God who had a huge part in the creation, you know, these logos, so the forms that exist in the world are manifest in him. and he permitted himself to be attacked and abused

and then eventually murdered by people so inferior to him objectively that it's almost inconceivable actually it is inconceivable yet he did it anyway and sometimes people forget about that that's a form of love that when you read accounts of demonic possession

demons never understand it they mention it but they don't get it. That's the one thing that they can't comprehend is that level of humility. That's an extreme humility. That they'll allow people who he actually created and the world to torture him to death. And of course, not do anything about it.

He could have, but he didn't. Because he was there to conquer death. And he was going to work out okay. But, you know, that, you know, he permitted it to happen, knowing in addition that the apostles were going to run away, the first sign of trouble. You know, I love people saying, you know, the first synod that ever took place was the apostles running away. And Peter denying him, which, you know, again, like I said before, it's tough to, you know, it's tough to condemn him for that. He hated himself for it. He was forgiven for it, but it's hard to, you know, when you're surrounded by a mob,

it's very hard to judge what would you do in that situation you know enmity well you know we hear especially you know

he's ignorant clergymen talk about you know love meaning indulgence we should bring in unlimited immigrants because of love which doesn't make any sense they're objectively harmful to the societies around them

not necessarily individually but as a group they most certainly are. And we could prove that they are. Somehow love is supposed to cover all of that, and it's nonsense. It's an invading force. This was the whole problem with him in Tolstoy. Tolstoy's ideology taken to its extreme, and I guess he held it to an extreme,

and if your house is invaded, you don't do anything. You call the psychiatrist in to reason with that. the person. That isn't love. That's not even indulgence. You are responsible for what happened. Blind love isn't love at all. You think it is.

But if we consider love is. Now, indulgence can mean forgiveness, so that sometimes that is a loving reaction. But not all the time. Hatred is also a legitimate reaction to someone doing you harm, physical harm, then you could do something about.

And you're not necessarily hating someone on your own, for your own benefit, for the society around you. I mentioned before, the saints of Montenegro, the warrior saints of Montenegro, they're all canonized, and yet they were blood-curdling in their, in their, because, you know, it was either us or them. And these were Muslims. They would have destroyed the church.

they would have destroyed the nation, had they not almost all of them sacrificed themselves in the field? There's absolutely a contempt there, an enmity there, of course. That's a responsibility. You don't do it just so you can be considered glorious, though. You know, Christ talked about our personal enemies, not enemies of the church or enemies of the community.

that's just irresponsible. There is no way that he meant that, especially since he never negated that part of the Old Testament anyway. You know, love, and all of these, I think, are aspects of love. All of them are. Hostile aversion is a manifestation of love in a very specific way because you're showing your love for your nation. You know that the body politic is dying

when they refuse to take action against invaders. Just like in your own body, if your white cells don't attack diseases, you're going to die. You're moribund in that case. And that's another anatomical manifestation of this. It's a love in a very eccentric sense, obviously. There's no decision being made.

But, you know, throwing yourself in the heat of battle to protect your family and your nation, if that's truly your motivation in the church, of course, and going into it with enmity, I need to kill these guys, or else everything could be destroyed, that is a holy endeavor, if it's done legitimately for that reason.

And that's exactly what the saints of Serbia and Montenegro say over and over and over again. Now, beating at the guy that made fun of you in fourth grade, that doesn't count. But these other legitimate aspects of this hostile aversion is love. And the regime uses that term hate so many times and now it has no meaning. We know what they're talking about. Anything right wing, really. But all of these things are aspects of love. But when it's false, you know, a false humility, seeking your own glory, that kind of thing,

it feels like love, but it isn't. It's in fact the very opposite. And love, therefore, is very closely connected. with humility. In this state of affairs, the interlocation of evil and its interconquerability become quite obvious. True conquest of evil is accomplished through the profound transformation of spiritual blindness into spiritual insight, and in denying hostility into the grace of accepting love. It is necessary for not only hostility, but also love to be spiritually enlightened. It is necessary for not only spiritual blindness, but also spiritual insight, to be ignited by love. In a soul liberated from evil and transformed, spiritualized love becomes the true deepest source of personal life so that everything in the soul becomes its living transformation, the daily

service and the perception of music, and the reading of papyrus, and the contemplation of a mountain thunderstorm, and that highest strict impartiality in which the monk, the scholar, and the judge maintained both themselves and others, and even that merciless hostility to evil in oneself and in others, which is necessary for the profit, the statesman, and the warrior. You know, the things that we do mean you are motivated by love and humility. I could have been a very, very wealthy, successful funeral director if I wanted to, but I went into this field because I knew something was wrong. I knew it wasn't going to make me wealthy.

It wasn't going to make me even loved by people. It was going to cost me a lot. I did it anyway. and that that says to me that, you know, I did the right thing. You know, when you start losing friends over this stuff, sometimes losing friends is the best thing that weren't friends of yours in the first place. You know, so all these things are, depend on the situation. It's, in transformation is done usually by grace, but you have to cooperate with it.

you know, the monk, the scholar, and the soldier, I've always thought, and maybe the father said the same thing, are similar. You know, they're sacrificing a huge part of themselves for the greater good. I don't think the people in academia are scholars for the most part, but you figure, you know, a soldier going through, let's say, in the U.S., a Marine going through Paras Island gets a chick beat out of him, my father used to say. He was there. They're not doing that because they hate you. They're doing it because they want you to survive. You live in almost aesthetic life.

That has a different end. But the ends are connected. The monk, essentially, his whole life is one boot camp. Again, for the same end, but coming from two different points of view, one from the church, one from the state. And in a small country, surrounded by enemies, that gets even more in the same end. intense. There you can't even consider the individual. You can't consider your individual glory when at any moment you could be destroyed. And I keep using Montenegro because I love the, I'd have three-part lecture series on that I did in 2020. Then I had the paper from that too,

which I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't know where I got to publish somewhere. And because they are small, they're surrounded by treachery everywhere. and Turks everywhere, and of course the Albanians who had converted to Islam were at war with them too. They had no choice. Suicide is a sin. It's a deadly sin. And their lack of bloodthrishness would have essentially been suicide. So a true monk and a true scholar and a true soldier, Marine, whatever it is, their lives are very similar.

they're sacrificing a lot. They give up a lot. They have to have a certain tremendous discipline. Now, a soldier working for the U.S. government today is a problem because the ends of foreign policy are evil. Therefore, I don't think anyone should be signing up. However, Montenegro, medieval Serbia, yeah, a different story. They were actually defending the church here. Today, they're simply, you know, defending the investments of the oligarchy and defending

Israel, essentially mercenaries. Sometimes they don't know that. Sometimes they do. American desertion, as I think we've spoken about before, is pretty high. Remember those pictures of the soldiers and Marines putting the paper in front of their face saying, I didn't join up to fight for Israel? There's a certain love for that. I'm not going to be your mercenary.

This discipline has to have the proper end. The proper end is to defend my people, our people. my family and your family and I'm willing to suffer for that but certainly not for the greater glory of those who hate us very different story and those guys

I think those who deserted in the Vietnam case were wrong I think those who deserted in the present case are correct same action two very different contexts and I think they were wrong to abandon their posts in Vietnam because of what North Vietnam was.

Connected to the Soviet system that literally wanted to conquer the world. That was their poem. Marxism is by definition global, global. And what they did to the South once they were removed and they cut aid from South Vietnam, knowing what was going to happen to them. Anyone who was caught left behind went to the camps. That's why I thought they would be wrong. So the same discipline, the same idea.

but to an incorrect end or to a correct end. Dersion, therefore, in today's case, is also an act of love. It is another manifestation of the discipline and the asceticism that a true soldier or marine requires. And that's kind of sort of what he's getting at here. It's not just the virtues. It's not just the discipline. It's also to what end it's being put towards.

and that has to be a huge part of it. Such a transformation can only be achieved through men's inner spiritual initiative, for love cannot be ignited and spiritualized by another's command, and spirituality can blossom and be saturated with fullness only through a long religious and moral self-pureification of the soul. Of course, the help of others can be great and powerful here, from those close and distant, from family and the church, and in the free teaching of the spiritual path,

and in the awakening of love through living love through living love. It is clear that the more fiery and insightful the spirit, the more it will teach others in free communication, both by word and deed, by rebuke, consolation, act of mercy, and generous concession. And the deeper and pure of the helping love, the easier and more fruitful it is, is its fire, transmitted to the soul of another, not burning.

A soul resisting evil needs love and spirituality for victory, and he who gives its spirit through love and love and spirit aids its victory and resists evil not only in himself but also in others. The transformation of evil can only be accomplished by the power whose blind distortion evil consists in. Only spiritually cited love itself can take on this task and victoriously resolve it to the end. only it can find access to that abyss of blind bitterness and godless self-interest from the depths of which conversion, purification, and rebirth must begin.

And for the Christian consciousness, it seems, there can be nothing controversial or doubtful here. You know, life, you know, I was born in 71. You're close to that. That's not our fault. We can't help that. We can't help the fact that we were born in a pretty much an atheist. his country, dedicated to self-interest in the sexual revolution. Even though I had a great father, I think you had great parents, that's not relevant. We were still brainwashed at a very early age to treat evil as good. What was, you know, the acquisition, lust, these were all perfectly fine and should be engaged.

By the time I converted, I was in grad school, I was in my 20s. I was already habituated to all of these things. And so once you convert, it was certainly not in my interest to do so. I was utterly convinced of the truth, and therefore I had to take action. And here I am 30 years later doing the exact same thing, struggling in the exact same way, but for a proper end. you know my life um you know my radio show is called the orthodox nationalists so those are two separate things but they have the same end orthodoxy meaning the church nationalism is talking about

politics community in the state two things seen from two very different points of view um and you know the the orthodox monarchy the christian monarchy whether you're talking about ossego hungry or or or Russia is the almost the perfect manifestation of those two things together. And it's funny, you know, we're talking about monarchy. A monarch has to understand that he may have a tremendous amount of power, but he is therefore responsible for everything that happens, especially if it's not his fault. He knows, and especially, you know, in the late 19th century,

Russia, there's a good chance he's going to die. The early Christians, Orthodox in the Soviet Union, there was a good chance they were going to be killed in the worst possible way. So if you maintained the faith in that situation, you're pretty,

you know, they're extraordinary. And you just have to not care about self-interest. Whatever happens happens. St. Nicholas especially was well aware that there was a very good chance that I would be killed either assassinated or the system were to fall apart. Regardless of how well the system was doing, it was under tremendous pressure from the outside. Vladimir Putin's like this now.

He's like so many assassination attempts at this point from the U.S., really. I think he's insulated from that, but these things are manifestations of love, certainly not self-interest. The oligarchs that he threw in prison, that's pure self-interest. They'll just strip the assets of the country and go to an island somewhere. That's the very opposite of love. Satanism, Prometheanism, Luciferianism, they function by inversion. They imitate the virtues, but towards a completely inverted end. Courage for all the wrong reasons.

they claim not to for many of them claim not to believe in God but I tell you there's one person who truly believes in God and knows him and hates him is Satan himself for Muthes didn't bring fire to people because he loved them

he did it because he wanted to piss the gods off you know I think we were kind of we were getting the point here blind bitterness godless self-interest what we do is not in our interest, if defined in the libertarian kind of a way. Not financially, not emotionally.

We're under a tremendous amount of stress. Anything could happen. Any law could be passed. You know, Sven Longshanks went to prison for two years over next to nothing. I don't blame some guys for dropping out in England after that. I don't blame them. Some guys kept going. Because there's something more important than their self-interest.

and that is defending Great Britain from the invaders. But the system over there is so obsessed with these invaders that they'll send people to prison for even talking about them in a negative way. They'll break their own laws for the sake of it. Yes, that's fanaticism. That's a tremendous discipline in the point of the state, but for all the wrong reasons. This is what he's talking about in terms of love.

We are not archetypes by any means. but, you know, living a life against interest, there has to be a reason for it. And, yeah, our enemies will say there's a mental illness maybe. There might be a little bit of that. But for the most part is that we know what the truth is, and we don't care what anyone says. We know what the truth is. I've maintained the faith in my understanding of right-wing nationalism throughout grad school, where it was nothing but liberalism and Marxism

from the minute I got there, the minute I left. That means my understanding is very sharp. I know their arguments better than they do. They don't know ours. But we all know it was going to be a struggle. If I was a... Just thought of it went along to go along, I'd be a professor somewhere now with tenure.

But what the hell would be the point of that? What is the point of going through all this work getting a PhD and just going there and repeating the slogans of the regime. What's the point of that? Now, the things that we go through, this is exactly what E. Lynn is talking about in this. There's conversion, purification, and rebirth. You know, people in Orthodox countries, I know there was one monk in Athos who couldn't believe that they were in a non-Orthodox country and non-Orthodox ethnicities

who took up the faith and suffered for. that blew their mind. They didn't know that was possible. We hear all the time, the church fathers say that the sufferings of the end times are going to be worse than the suffering of the early church.

And we know that's true for a whole bunch of reasons. And yet we maintain it anyway. This is what he means. This is what love is in this case. And we have to maintain a tremendous mental discipline or we're going to fall ourselves. We're surrounded by people telling us

it's perfectly okay. Remember the, the, alcoholic example I used last week, that's pretty much what our life is. And we get, we have to maintain. And it's exactly what we do. And, you know, when Sven Longshank went to prison, you know, that was a big part of what he's talking about here in terms of love.

Remember, these guys, Elyne writing this, he knows many of his friends are dead, been killed in the Civil War or in camps or whatever. they didn't have to do that. They could have waived the red flag. They didn't have to mean it. And it would have been fine. But they refused. That's not mental illness.

That's what love is in the way that Eileen is describing it here. When Tolstoy and his associates call for internal overcoming of evil, for self-improvement, for love, when they insist on and emphasize a need for strict self-judgment, the need to distinguish between man and the evil within him, The incorrectness of reducing the entire struggle against evil to external coercion alone and the spiritual and moral superiority of conviction. Then they followed the sacred tradition of Christianity, and they are right.

The mysterious process of the blossoming of good and the transformation of evil is accomplished, of course, by love, not by coercion, and evil must be resisted out of love, from love, and through love. In other words, Tolstoy isn't all wrong. you know, I started reading his political, you know, not theological works, but his, well, he does have a paper called My Religion quite some time ago. And, you know, much of it is true. But somehow he privileges violence as something that you could never do. Everything is reduced to internal conversion. It turns out that what he was converting to was nothing anyway. he saw himself essentially as a Judaizer. That article, which I hope most of our people have read by now, should tell you everything you need to know about Tolstoy and his what is a Jew. It's really weird for a non-Jew to write something like that what a Jew is.

But certainly Jews reveled in that. I've seen copies of that on Jewish websites all over the place. But there's a disconnect there because violence, also can be an act of love, and that's what he keeps trying to get at here. He's finally getting to the point that physical coercion, violence against a certain group of people, done for the right reason and the right context, is an act of love, and that's something Tolstoy couldn't understand. Anyone who acknowledges this on the ground set out above is not only not only not obliged to, but also cannot accept the rest of their teaching, which fundamentally denies compulsion as such.

Indeed, if spiritual love has the ability to transform evil, does this mean that, in the general, immediate process of resisting evil, compulsion is completely powerless, pointless, harmful, and destructive? One might also conclude from the necessity of voluntary self-improvement to the necessity of allowing villains to commit evil voluntarily and unhindered. If I am obliged to create moral purification within myself, does this mean that the villain has the right to live out all evil through external villainy? It is impossible to influence a person in such a way that this influence is beneficially transmitted to the evil that dwells within him. It is impossible to conquer evil by compulsion alone. But does that lead to a complete rejection of compulsion? Does the deeper exclude the more elementary? and is the creative transformation of the soul only possible when the villain is externally constrained?

Unconstrained. Think of it like this. We all, we debate people all the time. Social media is now the way to do it, but sometimes we do it in person. We recognize that even though they are supporting objectively evil things, we speak to them very pleasantly and very nicely because we get the impression that they don't know that. And maybe they're open to, you know, they're actually open to listening to you. They're seekers of something. You could never be nasty to that person.

You know, that would destroy it. You need to slowly bring them to the truth. I mean, many of us have tried to do this with varying degrees of success. So many of our people were former, you know, leftists. A lot of the people in the White Army were former leftists. Leftikimidov, former member of, the anarchist group, Land and Liberty in Russia, former terrorists, in fact. However, there is a point where you simply can't get through to somebody.

There's something wrong with them. There's a short circuit in their brain. When that short circuit affects a large number of people, we have to take action. If the state does or if it can't or won't by natural law, we have to. And compulsion can mean a whole lot of things, cutting them out of our lives at a minimum. But the state then has a right to neutralizing them, has the obligation to neutralize them,

less than that poison everybody. Poisoning is a problem because it's so much easier to slide down into the passions than to slide up into the virtues. Virtues are hard. High standards are difficult. You're always going to fail. You know, having high standards is terrible

because, you know, you're always struggling. having no standards is easy. So if you're preaching no standards, it's really easy to get people to listen to you. Now, we live in an age now where we know what the sexual revolution did. We know what feminism did. We know, you know, we're in a good position.

We know what the regime is, and it's exposing itself all the time. I'm finding more and more people are very interested in listening to us. They can't do much about it, but they definitely want to listen. there you speak in the most pleasant tones possible you don't condescend to them

you speak to them as a human being you agree with certain things that they say that might be true don't alienate them but then there are others like antifling and they use violence you know by their very structure the state has to eliminate them they are a terrorist group

I've faced them before personally many times see for younger men now but that's a different story there's certain people who cannot be converted there are certain people who cannot be reason with

when the irrational dominates the soul completely it's almost like they're not a person anymore as Aristotle says humanity is defined by the possession of reason and freedom if you see someone who has a apparently no conception of reason, therefore they're not free,

and they wouldn't know what to do with freedom. I don't think most people know what to do with freedom. Well, the regime then gives them the ends to follow. Here's what you do with your freedom. And it's usually completely wrong. Yeah, and when those groups take up arms, when those groups, there's not just one individual anymore, the state has an obligation to take action.

St. Augustine said this many times. That was his justification, among other things, for the use of force in conversion. That we're going to force them to look at the truth, and maybe that will, over time, lead them to understand it better. Maybe that's true, maybe that's false. That was St. Augustine's position. Now, he was iffy about that in his retractions,

but force always has a role. And compulsion is a little bit more vague. We'll get to that here in a little bit. Actually, the next section on coercion and violence. You know, violence is directly physical. Compulsion doesn't necessarily have to be. But it comes down to the fact, you know, people aren't born with free will. This is a point I'm going to make a lot in this discussion.

Free will is something that we have to fight for. To be able to choose among alternatives without internal or external influence is very difficult. It's so much easier just to go along. to go with the flow, which a lot of people do. Most people do. It's so much easier. It costs so much to go the opposite direction. Of course, there's love involved in that,

to go in the opposite direction. Most people haven't used their free will in so long. I don't know if they can. People who live through celebrities and consumerism and, you know, trends and everything else, they have no free will. I mean, they may have the potential for it. but who knows what it would take, well, it would take economic collapse maybe, to bring up their actual freedom.

Freedom, free will is difficult. It's not something you could just, you know, call on. Making the right decision at the right time could be extremely difficult. So people blame people, you know, it's not my fault. You know, I made this decision, but people were giving me wrong advice, whatever it is. It's hard. And that's a key concept here. Free will is something we have to fight for.

We become ascetics precisely to liberate free will. That's what asceticism is to make sure that our decisions are not subject to internal force, let alone external force. All righty. I'm going to wrap it up there and pick up part four when we come back. I'm going to do, as I always do, go over to the show note. I'm sorry? I think that works.

Yeah, we got a little bit of a delay. It happens. Oh, okay. Go over to the show notes. Go over to the descriptions on the videos and donate to Dr. Johnson's work by his new book. And we'll be back in a few days to continue with part four. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. No, thank you, my friend.

I'll talk to you next time. I want to welcome everyone back to part five of our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Yvonne Elyne. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing it? It's 90 degrees outside. I'm not built for 90 degrees. My wife likes 90 degrees. I do not like 90 degrees.

So we had to get the air conditioners out. We don't have central air here in the farmhouse, which in and of itself is a pain. It's bad enough. I have a colonoscopy on Thursday. I can't wait for. But we use those, the portable ones that have the the exhaust pipe going to the window.

You're using a portable colonoscopy machine that has an exhaust pipe? Yes, indeed. Okay. It goes right out my window. So those two things are kind of merging in my brain, 90 degrees air conditioner, and then that. So I ask seriously, though, I ask prayers that they don't find anything of any significance. That's really the only thing I'm worried about. Good, good.

Yeah, should be fine. Had one done years ago. and yeah, it's a very typical, very modern procedure. You know, had I not gotten sick, none of this would be happening. I wouldn't have a regular doctor. I wouldn't have this schedule, which they scheduled for me, by the way, they knew I wouldn't do it. So many guys avoid it.

There are so many positives that came out of getting sick. And I could honestly say, I feel better now than I did before it first started happening in October. And thyroid, really? The thyroid is so powerful. Who, who, that wouldn't even have occurred to me? So there's a lot of positives that come out of this, you know. And, of course, the generosity of viewer listeners,

have I said several times, has been extraordinary. I do, I have excellent insurance, but I also have medical bills. You know, I have been to three hospitals. you know, they're still coming in, actually. So I hate asking for money. I despise asking for money. I don't feel right doing it. But it's something, you know,

your listeners have been exceptionally generous, and I thank them very much. They are top of the heap, for sure. I don't thank them enough. and often enough, that's for sure. I just got a text, okay? This is just completely out of the blue. I just got a text from a phone number I don't recognize an area code I don't recognize.

It says, remember when we plan that epic road trip that turned into Netflix and takeout? I get those all the time on telegram, at least three a day. Yeah, I get a couple of them over text, too, but it's mostly telegram. where I get crazy things like that. It's just a spam thing. Yeah. Yeah, out of the blow all the time. They're getting more clever than, like, when they were, when they started,

they were always like, hey, what's going on? Yeah. And now we, now we have a backstory. And it's in proper English, right? Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't look like an Indian. You would think it would be an Indian. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think this.

as a street shitter. You know, you just, you just think of what an old friend would say. I mean, they'd explain in some detail who they are. You know, it would be a paragraph worth of stuff. They wouldn't just say, hey, or remember that. You know, so you know it's, it's fraud. I'm getting so many on telegram. I want to delete my account.

All right. Let's get into it here. You'll start part four. We will not finish. Part 4 today. So this is a longer section. Part 4. On coercion and violence.

Before turning to a final formulation of the vexing problem of resisting evil by force, a few more efforts are necessary to clear the way. First and foremost, we must clarify what coercion and violence are. Are they the same thing? Or is there a fundamental difference between the two? And if so, what is it? I remember the late great Edgar Steele. who was a friend of mine at one of the Bar Interview conferences many years ago.

And they killed him in prison for, you know, or jail, I should say, it wasn't even prison. He said the way that they're going to shut down free speech in politics is by redefining the word violence. This is the core idea of critical race theory, which I had to read about it in grad school, which was very painful back in the 90s. And that was the core idea. In fact, the main book, the central book was Words That Wound. And the redefinition of terms is essential to the left in general. We always have to do it. But we generally don't have an exoteric and an esoteric meaning.

there's always you know the ADL always has model legislation about banning what they call a hate speech against themselves or whatever and it boils down to redefining the term violence to include words and it's it's painful to you know it's been going on a long time the ballot been going on for a long time we know Sven longshanks knows what that means in practice I don't really know how much many of our people are in prison in Europe at the moment. I know there's a handful that I know of. Because they've redefined, they redefined that word. Now, they wanted to shut down radio album is all they cared about.

So, yeah, when we say we want it, we want to clarify a term, we mean it. When they say it, they have an agenda that they're not talking to you about. They're not,

they're not explaining. America is not ready for this. 2020, I think, was the watershed year with the make-believe George Floyd nonsense. And if you recall, after that, every advertisement was black people. Every voiceover was black, or at least mixed. And they've had to pull back a little bit from that now. The Trump election forced them to pull back. or at least they think they should.

So, yes, it's central to that movement, to redefine the word violence. But when Eileen's talking about it, it's a very different story. In order to resolve this essential question, so thoroughly confused by sentimental moralists and, moreover, suffering from a lack of appropriate words in the language, one must first turn to a general generic concept, which can be conditionally designated by the term coercion. Compulsion should be defined as the imposition of will on the inner or outer makeup of a person

that does not appeal directly to spiritual vision and loving acceptance of the soul being compelled, but rather attempts to coerce it or suppress its activity. It is clear that if a preliminary appeal to spiritual vision is made and evokes a state of obviousness in the soul, then a free conviction will arise, and then the resulting action of the will will be organically free, not coercive. Similarly, if a preliminary appeal to loving acceptance evokes a state of love in the soul, then agreement and unity will arise, and then the resulting action of the will be organically free, not coerced. Such a compelling imposition of will on human life can be accomplished within the confines of an individual being. A person can compel themselves, but it can also occur in interactions between two or more people.

People can compel one another. Every compulsion is either self-compulsion or the compulsion of others. Furthermore, this compulsion can be expressed through an influence on behavioral motives, like an authoritative order, a prohibition, a threat, a boycott, but it can also be expressed through a direct impact on the human body, a push, a blow, tying up, prison, or murder. Accordingly, a distinction must be made between mental compulsion and physical compulsion. Moreover, both self-compulsion and compulsion of others can have both a mental and a physical character.

You have to admit, it is a very interesting definition of compulsion. It's actually very eccentric. should be defined as the imposition of will on the inner or outer makeup. The outer would be someone else. The inner would be you. Something that does not appeal directly to spiritual vision. So compulsion is, by definition, a bad thing. It's sort of like the word torture.

You know, such thing is good torture or good corruption. You know, using the word is automatically, it's automatically a conclusion. but that, you know, a monk tries to suppress his passions and his emotions. That doesn't fall under compulsion here. Because this definition is the way that first sentence that you read, the imposition of will on the inner or outer makeup of a person that does not appear, directly the spiritual vision and loving acceptance of the soul being compelled rather attempts to coerce it or suppress its activity of course he uses the word coerce in the

definition of compulsion which is little little if he you know Aristotle always made the point that you know true virtue is when you don't even have to think about it you just do the right thing naturally but we know that we have to think about it And sometimes we just have to force ourselves. That's not what he's talking about here. You know, so at the very least, it's a bad thing for us because we know that our drives want to lead us to not do the right thing. You know, and I don't know where he's getting murdered. Compulsion is also a substitute for the word murder here.

push the blow, tying up prison or murder. That's a lot. That's a huge range there of words. Now I get the mental and physical compulsion distinction. But my lord, going from pushing to murder, that's one hell of a range. We have to see. He has to keep going here. He has to keep adding detail.

Thus, a person who is mentally fatigued or falling asleep or overcoming an unruly feeling or imagination, or performing mental work or mastering something mechanically, memorizing, solving arithmetic problems, certain internal exercises of memory and attention, etc., can extract themselves and the center of their sense of self-willed, overwhelming element of laziness, sleeper pleasure, shift the center to the purposefully strengthening energy of the spirit, and subject their mental elements to a decisive compulsion. A person can internally force themselves compelling themselves to effort and even compelling

themselves to compulsion. This state of mental self-compulsion can be described as self-coercion. It is clear that voluntary, conviction-based submission to an order or prohibition, removes it from the category of acts of coercion, an organically free subordination begins, on which rests the living force of any worthy and strong social organization. one of the central political ideas of the Slavophile movement, the early Slavophile movement, was that written laws don't do very much.

Now, whether they're talking about Russia or in general, Edmund Burke was referring to, I'd add the same idea. The minute laws have to be written down, the minute you actually have to threaten someone, your society is already now on the road to destruction. because Russia has ancient institutions, it's a simple matter of custom. There is no compulsion there.

However, he's defining the term. You know, this is how they're raised. There is no other way. And it's how they survived many centuries of, you know, being in a rough area, having lots of enemies and bad weather, you know, the central or northern part. The commune didn't really have written laws, but it was the most important part of your typical Russians' day-to-day life. That when laws have to be codified, it suggests to the Slavophiles that we have a problem. That now we're talking about abstractions.

the biggest problem with diversity in an empire, for example, is that laws become very abstract because you're not dealing with a specific group of people. You're dealing with many people. And there, almost by the very structure of things, violence is going to be necessary. At the same time, we are always, we're forced to, you know, we have to force ourselves to do things.

We don't like it, but we know we have to. we make a conscious decision to do it. So so far, I'm a little confused as far as his definition. He's kind of all over the place here. You know, overcoming our laziness, all that kind of thing. I understand very, very well. But then he uses the sentence,

the state of mental self-compulsion can be described as self-coercion. Maybe that's me. that doesn't make, that doesn't tell me anything. But talking about a conviction-based submission to an order, you're raised in the commune, in the Orthodox Church, you don't have to write anything down. This is how you've always been. Writing things down is the first, meaning like, you know, a law code, that's your first, your first step to dissolution. Remember, canons aren't laws in the sense that, you know, the penal code of Alabama is a set of one. No, canons are general guidelines that come from specific incidents in the past.

It's why a hierarchy exists because the canons don't, they are not self-interpreting. So free subordination. So from Aristotle to the Slavophiles, you have this idea that, yeah, we have to force ourselves sometimes. That's true. But the ideal position to be in is simply to do the right thing without even having to think about it. That would be wonderful. But that's only an ideal situation. Similarly, physical self-compulsion is also possible, which is usually associated with mental self-compulsion.

Such are, for example, all types of physical labor performed without direct passion or even attraction to it, or performed by a tired person. Such are many types of physical treatment, such as immobility during painful operations. Such are all ascetic exercises associated with physical suffering and not accompanied by ecstasy. In these cases, a person exerts himself mentally in order to forcibly induce certain bodily states. either active, muscular effort, or passive, standing on a pillar. Person can, in fact, not only mentally compel himself, but also force himself to physically perform or not perform certain actions. This state can be described as self-compulsion. Again, he has, you know, active and he refers to muscular effort that everyone has and everyone

does every minute. Now, standing on a pillar, when I first looked at the third, this, my first thought was the stylites. Is he referring to the stylites here? Or is this just a weird example? I think he's referring to the saints. But in that case, you know, there's a divine energy there. You know, when they first became monks, they didn't say, oh, I can't wait to be on a pillar, you know, 30 feet in the air for the rest of my life.

Obviously, these guys are somewhat eccentric. brilliant, but perfectly normal guys, though. So there's another element, you can't call it compulsion. But it, so I don't know if he just means it as a weird example, or is he referring to like Cimus delitas? I can't tell. It is also possible to force others in a mental and physical manner. With a properly deep and broad understanding,

every command and prohibition that does not appeal directly to evidence and love, but appeals to the volitional energy of the spirit, every psychic isolation that reinforces a command, like breaking off a relationship, expulsion from a club, and every threat, whatever its nature, are forms of psychic coercion. Yeah, now he goes back to his original definition. If it has nothing to do with doing the right thing

or love in this broadson, And he's got to define this at some point. Then we're talking about coercion. So his examples are very odd. You know, so if it doesn't appeal directly to evidence and love, which is an odd, you know, those two things, appealing to the volitional energy of the spirit, otherwise you have the will trying to do the right thing.

And every threat, whatever's nature, are forms of psychic coercion. So again, by definition, it's negative. It's a bad thing. The essence of this coercion consists of mental pressure on a person's will, which is intended to induce their own will to a certain decision and, perhaps, to compel themselves. Strictly speaking, this pressure can only complicate or modify the motivational process

in the soul of the person being coerced, imparting new motives not yet accepted by, conviction and devotion, or strengthening or weakening existing ones. It is clear that this influence can encounter such a strong resistance in the soul, such a strong spiritual will, or such a passionate obsession that its full force proves insufficient. For psychic coercion, without restricting the external freedom of the one being coerced, seeks to induce the recipients to decide for themselves whether to do something or not do

something. Such influence compels a person approaching them from the outside, but appealing to their soul and spirit, therefore it can be conveniently called psychic coercion. All right, now I'm very confused here. Bringing someone to decide for themselves, and then he uses the word influence, obviously someone from the outside, like a spiritual father or your boss or something like that, who knows what weird example he would he would use. You know, I'm very confused. That's the definition of the term as of right now. You know, we're not, it's unfortunate that we were born.

I was born in 1971. I was raised with a very specific and very corrupt sense of things like, you know, economy, technology, sexuality, and all the rest. And that's built into the hardwiring of my brain. I cannot be, you can't be, none of us can be. You know, only with the greatest amount of coercion could we do the right thing. It's almost, you know, a Lutheran conception that you really can't do the right thing. I used the example of the bar before, and here it seems relevant again.

Clearly, that's a form of coercion. Someone coming up to you, you know, again, let me repeat what I see. said, say this to young guys, especially it's concerning sexuality, here's young males. Being in America, it's like being an alcoholic and being forced, you have no other option, being forced to work in a bar. And not only that, but you're seeing everyone around you having a great time. It's a great place to be. And even more, you have people coming up to you, like the ideologists, for example, saying, oh, no, alcoholism doesn't exist.

You're being too hard on yourself. Come join us when you're done. That's pretty much what it's like. It's really hard to blame someone when they fall in that case. Now, he isn't saying that. He's kind of all over the place here. Because now he's bringing in, decide for themselves, all the rest of it. You know, how much of my free will exists in that situation?

The situation I just gave you. Emmanuel Kant always used the example. Well, if you had a pistol to your head, would you do what you need to do? And, well, I don't know, I guess. But in addiction to alcohol, you know, we're, you know, the ancient world, even right up until, you know, the 1950s, the society wasn't sexualized.

Everything in America is sexualized. Every damn thing. They know what sells. the male sex drive wasn't constantly being peppered by being provoked all the time. Again, I always use the example of how the church fathers, bring the church fathers and have them live now here, not even at a university, just have them live in America for a year. And what would they say from Rome or Greece or wherever they were originally from? I think they would have a lot to say.

I think that would say you guys are absolutely possessed. No one could possibly be a Christian in this environment. You guys are utterly heroic. So then he says conveniently. Compelling a person, approaching them from the outside, appealing to their soul and spirit, can conveniently be called psychic coercion. So coercion.

Now I have here, P. News Dezniya, which is the word that's used both for compulsion and coercion. And I noted that in the translation here. That's how you know I translated this little section here. You know, it doesn't have, at least in its denotation, it doesn't have a negative element. But he's saying, Elin is saying, in its connotation, does. So such influence compels a person,

approach them from the outside, but appealing to their soul and spirit. Therefore, it can conveniently be called psychic coercion. In this case, then, he's saying that it's not compulsive. It is coercion. See, in English, I think coercion is treated a little worse than compulsive. coercion sounds bad. Compulsion is a little softer than coercion.

It's certainly not the case in Russian, clearly. But we all know that without it, without a tremendous mindfulness, we couldn't function as Christians at all. You can't function as anything. Whatever your standard, you have high standards in any direction. You are constantly under attack, whether you like it or not. You go to a monastery, well, all that's going to do is bring everything that you hand out from the outside on the inside. So that's what I'm getting.

I could be wrong here. This could be my fault. But it sounds like coercion is much better than compulsion. Maybe I don't know. I think I'm right here. Finally, the possibility of physical influence on others in order to force them to do something does not, apparently, cause any negative opinions. However, it is worth noting that any such influence on another's body has inevitable psychological consequences for the person being forced, from an unpleasant sensation, such as a punch,

and a feeling of pain during torture, to the impossibility of doing anything during imprisonment and the inability to desire or do anything, the death penalty. The vast majority of these influences, with the exception of pathological cases of brutal and hard violence, are carried out precisely for the sake of such psychological reflections or consequences. This explains why those physically forced usually try to get rid of those who are forcing them by assuring them that they agree that union of wills has occurred and that further submission is ensured. Yeah, we've come across this before.

I'm reading Souls and Ancient fiction these days. and there's always a character that is very connected to the party. It's very Marxist, but they don't really believe it. If the society were, I don't know, medieval, they'd believe that. If it were strictly orthodox, they would believe that. And there's nothing to do with that. They'll say that they agree just to get along. How many times?

And I can't, I mean, maybe, in my life, maybe 20, or 30, have I in person spoken to someone? I mean, this happened after the Las Vegas shootings, if you remember that one. Ridiculous. You know, it's one of the worst laid out, you know, of their false flags I've ever come across. I don't even know if anyone was killed. And I explained myself in great depth. And they go, oh, my God.

Yeah, I never thought of it that way. then later on I see them say something on Facebook that you know just going along to get along then I realize that such people don't matter they may be nice, it may be pleasant but history is made by fanatics history has always been made by fanatic the very opposite of this person

makes history but a fanatic is somebody you know fanatic also has a negative connotation but they're the only ones who get things done, politically or anything else. They're the ones who coerce others to go along and do what their job is supposed to be. This happens all the time,

and certainly in the USSR, and it happens personally. They'll agree with you just for the sake of being your friend. So, you know, and such a person, doesn't have principles. They don't agree with anything. And, you know, these people usually are very pleasant,

but you really can't trust them for anything. It is clear that by arresting, tying up, torturing, and locking up another a person cannot directly produce in him the mental and spiritual changes he desires. He cannot command another from within, replace his will with his own, evoking him an agreement based on conviction and behavior

based on voluntary devotion. Man is not given the power to compel others to genuine actions, that is, to spiritually and mentally good deeds. Physical pressure on another cannot always even compel a person to perform some external action unacceptable to him, such as the Christian martyrs. And the spiritual significance of such a forced external action, like an insincere confession, a forced signature, etc.,

depends on the subsequent free recognition of it by the one who succumbed to torture, the witch trials the legend of Galileo. A person physically compelled by another always has two outcomes to free him from this external pressure, hypocrisy or death, and only he who is afraid of death or who could not internally bear the split personality necessary in hypocrisy speaks of coercion as of a possible and accomplished event. but he too should remember that his coercion will fade away by itself at the moment of his personal, spiritual, purely internal rebellion and the affirmation of his true conviction and sincere devotion.

That is why it is more cautious and accurate to speak not of physical coercion, but of physical compulsion. Well, that last few sentences would apply to somebody who has all of these, New Year's resolution. Every gym in America is packed on the second and third of January is empty on the second and third of March. But in the beginning of this paragraph, I'm sure that's right. Arresting, tying up, torturing, locking up another.

You cannot directly produce in him the mental and spiritual changes and desires. Well, the penal system, in the U.S., anyway, is dedicated to just that. That's the whole idea of all of this programming. You know, the idea of forcing them, it's why it's called a penitentiary. They're supposed to be penitent. A diet of red and water is forced fasting that for the first time may get the criminal to see what he's doing in the most clear way possible because fasting does clarify our thinking. Now we know given the nature of American society, it doesn't work that way. But at least in theory, at least when, you know, the U.S. was a far more healthy place,

there was something to that. Arresting somebody and, you know, forcing them to confront the evil of their actions, using every manner of force possible, including prison. That's really the whole center of it all. Maybe, maybe, you know, this may be the last choice, the last line of defense for this person is finally do the right thing for one. You know, so, and then, of course, the torture, again, one of these words that's inherently bad.

it's really very difficult to trust anything that a torture victim would say because under certain circumstances, they're going to say whatever it takes to get the pain to stop. And we all know, we've read about special forces who are trained to deal with, to deal with torture. So I don't even see the use of it. There's always the example. all people, Alan Dershowitz used this example.

He sees torture justified. You know, there's a bomb that's going to go off. There's a guy we have in custody. We know. He knows something about it. He doesn't want to tell us. We just start chopping off fingers. And so he tells us where it is we can get rid of it. It's hard to, you know, that's certainly compulsive.

So in that case, torture is not a bad thing. It's a bad thing for the person who's losing fingers, but you know it's in his case it would actually be compulsive not not coercion that's a different story now when he says hypocrisy he's using

the word hypocrisy in the right way believing or preaching something being forced to preach something that you don't believe every politician does this depending on his his constituency That's what hypocrisy is. It's not being inconsistent. Everybody's inconsistent. That's not what hypocrisy is.

Just when you have a high standard, we're going to be inconsistent all the time. Problem with hypocrisy is that unless you're a sociopath, the sociopath, they have no dividing line between good and evil true and false. It doesn't matter. That's why the lie detector doesn't work on them. Unless you're a sociopath, it's hard to live with that.

We call it cognitive data. listen. I thank God. I think God. I've never, well, I can't say never. My first marriage, I had to live, yeah. But other than that, thank God I've never had that situation. I think many people in corporate America, especially and certainly in academia, are forced to preach things that they would never otherwise preach or believe. because if they don't, they're gone. I've always said to my white male professors over the years, I said, you know, if you were a plumber, I mean years later, of course,

if you were a plumber or an electrician, you would never be as liberal as you are. You're this way because of the corporate culture of academia. Sometimes they agree. Depends to how much beer they've had. Sometimes they don't. So he's making a distinction between coercion and compulsion, but it's the opposite of what we would think in English.

Coercion is okay, compulsion is not, generally speaking. It is finally clear that physical coercion can be directed at someone else's action or inaction. In the first case, it is extremely limited in its capabilities, powerless to elicit a coherent act, forced always to anticipate defensive hypocrisy on the part of the coerced. It can only rely on the slow influence of the external. regime and its penetration into the person's soul. In the second case, however, physical pressure can more easily count on expediency and success. It can curtail a certain activity, prevent a specific person from doing something, of course, not everyone and not in everything, or force

them to not do something. I can't imagine that the Stalin's, the church that Stalin created in 1944. There's only three bishops. I can't imagine that they believe the things that they said about Stalin afterward, especially when he died. You should, I mean, I have them. I think I've published them, my translations of what, the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate,

that he was a saint, that he was a man of God, that he brought Russia from atheism to orthodoxy again, that he was an aesthetic, that he would never hurt a soul, on and on and on and on. There's no, I can't imagine they actually believe that. We all know that there's the phenomenon where you just, if you hear it enough times,

eventually, if you're weak-minded, it's going to eventually believe it. But do you really? It depends on how strong of a person you are. At the same time, a forced conversion, say to Christianity, It doesn't work. There is no grace there.

If you're converting to orthodoxy just to satisfy your wife or your husband, no, there's no way. And the priest has to be very clear. If you're doing it just for that reason, then I can't bathe you. There's no way. It doesn't work that way. You have to actually believe no and then believe the doctrine. Yes, it's very difficult. but, you know, or some other kind of force.

Now, in the Middle Ages, right up until, you know, the early modern era, Baroque era, you really can't talk about force conversion. I have this conversation all the time. People instinctively follow the religion of their leaders. Because they're leaders and they've conquered others. That must be on their side. So you can't talk about, you know, and religion wasn't a private thing. in that period, you know, for almost right up until the 19th century.

Religion was not a private matter. It was very public and very much a part of the Constitution of the society. So it's a very different story back then. So this is a new issue that he's dealing with here. That a false conversion will lead to cognitive dissonance because you're doing it just to satisfy someone else

or avoid something or make someone happy like George Costans are converting to the Latvian Orthodox because of you know how long would that have lasted that's a comic example

but you know that would never be that would never work and the clergy in that case should completely reject it he's only doing it for one reason and he's getting at it here but you know he's

it's getting muddled I think more than it's not being clarified it's being muddled but the one thing that you're trying to avoid is well the other word for it is double-mindedness saying one thing

and believing another double-mindedness is the frankly the foundation of the left the left especially the socialists they never give their full agenda. They never lay out their full agenda at first. The European Union was created by the European coal and steel community.

Oh, it's just coal and steel. Well, wait a minute. Everything is based on coal and steel. So very quickly, everything else was added to it. It was a scam. It seemed limited, but it wasn't. That's how it works. I've said this 100 times, but, you know,

know, in Rome, the right hand was a sword hand. You saluted with your right hand when you weren't armed. The left, that was a dagger hand. You're shaking somebody's hand until you're not armed. You grab your dagger with your left hand. You plunded in his guts. That's where left and right came from. It had nothing to do with where they were in the assembly after the French Revolution.

It's not true. Because it's question begging. Why were they put that way in the first place? It comes from Rome. It comes from this notion that left is, that left are deceptive. They have an agenda. I remember when I was in grad school, one of this, actually the very same professional I was talking about. Poor Wild Bill, he said, America is not ready for a female president.

I said, what the hell does that mean? Not ready. It could only mean that there hasn't been enough. propaganda thrown at us so that we'll eventually just accept it. What else could it mean to not be ready for? It has to have to do with propaganda and compulsion in this case to the point so that people will actually vote for that. So that's sort of what he's getting on here.

And a lot of it is common sense, like, you know, coerced confession. I mean, that gets thrown out of court immediately. but some of it does not. He says above, you know, this coercion will fade away by itself at the moment of his personal, spiritual, intellectual rebellion, the affirmation of his true conviction

and sincere devotion will come out. So that's why he makes the distinction between physical coercion and compulsion. So in this case, compulsion is the more negative thing. Coercion is is positive. It's something that we would use. We would coerce ourselves, not compel ourselves, we would coerce ourselves to do work we have to do, even though we don't want to do it,

something like that. These are the main types of coercion in general, self-coercion, self-compulsion, mental coercion, physical coercion, and suppression. It would be a profound spiritual error to equate any coercion with violence and to attach central significance to this latter term. The very word violence already conceals a negative assessment. Violence is an arbitrary, unjustified, outrageous act. The rapist is a person who transgresses the bounds of what is permitted. An attacker, a harasser, an oppressor, an oppressor, and a villain. Violence must be protested against.

It must be fought. In any case, a person subjected to violence is offended, oppressed, deserving of sympathy and assistance. The mere use of this value and effectively charged term evokes negative tension in the soul and prejudices and prejudges the question under investigation in a negative sense. To prove the admissibility or legitimacy of violence means to prove the admissibility of the unacceptable or the legitimacy of the unlawful. Really, spiritually and logically proven will immediately prove to be effectively rejected and vitally controversial. The wrong term

divides the soul and obscures the obvious. So again, violence is like compulsion. It's inherently negative. Nassilia in Russian. At least in my opinion, that's the term to use. And it's not just punching someone in the face. It's having that done systematically where you live in fear. One of the things that Sultanisian brings out in the first,

circle, one of my favorite books by him, is that not everyone has to be arrested for the system to work. People just have to think that it could happen to them at any time. That's the key element. It's that it can happen to anyone. There's nothing you can do about it. So now he's only talking about this. Again, there may be, I think he's going to expand the concept of violence later there obviously is a legitimate use of violence but in terms of, you know, tyranny

or our own personal life punching someone in the face rarely converts somebody. I suppose it's conceivable. They would be forced to consider what I'm saying it might be true. But rarely doesn't work.

In fact, the first person to use violence in a debate tends to be the one who's losing. So he's just getting started with that one. And this is really the key issue. Coercion, compulsion, and no violence. For this reason, it would be appropriate to retain the term violence to designate all instances of reprehensible coercion emanating from an evil soul directed toward evil and to establish other terms to designate non-reprehensible coercion emanating from a benevolent soul. or compelling one toward good. Then, for example, the concept of self-coercion will subordinate.

On the one hand, the concepts of self-compulsion and self-coercion, and on the other, the corresponding forms of mental and physical self-violence. Yeah, self-violence would be something like those flagellants, those who use the whip on themselves, which, quite frankly, I think may associate whatever temptation that is with the pain that you have. I'm not sure if that actually works. But that's the only thing that you have the self-violence that he's talking about. I don't think he's talking about mental illness.

We're like cutters. I don't think that's something that he was cognizant of at the time. Self-violence would only be. And there were certain very, very extreme old believer sex in Russia that did crazy things like that, those who just burn themselves a lot. that kind of thing, rather than work for Antichrist. That's what he means by self-violence. Further, the concept of external coercion will subordinate.

On the one hand, the concepts of mental coercion, physical coercion, and suppression. Did I read that one? No. No. I don't think so. I'm going to start again. Who knows? My apologies.

Further, the concept of external coercion will subordinate on the, the one hand, the concepts of mental coercion, physical coercion, and suppression, and on the other, the corresponding forms of mental violence against others, and only then, through this clarified terminology, will the very problem of non-reprehensible coercion and its varieties be revealed for the first time? Yeah, this is, you know, most of the time, torture is a bad thing. the very term

we hear it and we should cringe up a little bit but that one example that I gave you know there are certain times where torture

may be the only way to get someone to say something that's very important you know the bomb somewhere I hate to quote Alan Derswitz

but that was the example he used when that came up defending torture in Israeli prisons. So I apologize, but it does work in that abstract case. And you note suppression,

you know, mental coercion, physical coercion, suppression is when it's institutionalized, where it's a state run. It's not just, don't remember, it's not just the state, it's society as a whole. Yeah, we have the First Amendment in America, but you go around in a Woff and SST shirt, you know, you're going to have,

you're going to have problems. You'll have problems at work. You'll have problems with, you know, that's a non-state version of suppression. So he's saying that, so up into this point, he's using the generalized terminology. Now he's saying,

we need to clarify even further because all of this stuff can have a positive element. That's the whole purpose of the book. He's had to go through all of these. to finally get to the point, and the rest of the book is going to deal with it, where sometimes these things that we think normally is negative are positive,

there's a big difference between murdering somebody and killing somebody. It is remarkable that Tolstoy and his school completely failed to notice the complexity of this entire phenomenon. They know only one term and precisely one that prejudices the entire question with its emotional connotation. They speak and write only of violence, and by choosing this unfortunate, repulsive term, they ensure a biased and blinded attitude toward the entire problem.

This is natural. One doesn't even need to be a sentimental moralist to answer the question of the acceptability or praiseworthy of embittered ugliness and oppression in the negative. However, the singularity of terminology conceals a much deeper error. Tolstoy and his school failed to,

to see the complexity in the subject itself. Not only do they call any compulsion violence, but they also reject any external inducement or restraint as violence. Generally, generally speaking, the terms violence and evil are used by them as equivalent, so much so that the problem of non-resistance itself. Yeah, sorry, another sentence fragment there.

I apologize for that. Tolstoy, you know, there's one area where he agreed with the Slavophiles where, you know, written law implies violence. It implies a penal system. Russia never had one. We talked about this with Solstin. Russia never had a prison system. Russia had a very medieval understanding straight.

It was the leftist violence, Jewish violence, that forced them to create one at the very end of the, of Zaharist life. Middle Ages didn't have a prison system. you were either, you know, for the most serious crimes, you were executed, and otherwise you would be put to work for the person you've erred, or there'd be a system of fines, the code of Dushan in medieval Syria, Serbia. This was very typical. In my opinion, I don't think that nonviolent crimes should have prison terms. That makes no sense to me.

someone like Bernie Madoff to send him to a country club prison to do nothing doesn't make any sense well his money should be taken away but also he should be forced to teach not his crimes but basic elements and finance

to people who otherwise wouldn't have access to it community service so to be but real community service that was the that was the conception Sometimes, you know, the only prisons that you had in medieval Europe were monasteries. The whole purpose of that was to convert them. We're talking about normal citizens here.

You did not have a prison system. You didn't have a penal code at all. So again, you bring someone from there to this country. They would say your society is totally ungovernable. You need all of this. You need this massive penal system. How does this? Your laws aren't taken seriously at all.

Edmund Burke in the British Parliament said You know said the same thing The minute you need to start using physical violence To defend your laws Means that your society is already beginning to To disintegrate Now whether that's true or false is another matter But I think I understand what he means

The Slavophile says something very different Even writing them down It meant that you have a problem even using abstract terms means people aren't going to take it seriously because it's not theirs and the worst of all is international law I don't remember ever voting for international law

talk about nonsense no one can enforce it it's used only in rhetorical ways and that's about it now Tolstoy did accept you know internal reform and asceticism forcing yourself to do things.

He did accept that. But he would categorically say compulsion, coercion, violent, these are all negative things that have to go in the way that he's been defining it so far. And the most dangerous thing, as I said, we're dealing with now, is redefining terms such that words now are acts of violence.

And I think it's a very common idea in universities, and it is the law in Britain in the EU, where words themselves are acts of violence. The minute you start thinking in those terms, then you have a totalitarian state, then you remove any conception of legitimate free speech. You know, free speech existed, not for pornographers or for, you know, musician. The freedom of speech was there for scientific religious and political debates. That was a, that's purpose. Not enough people talking about it long enough

who will eventually get to the truth. You know, that's just perfect. In many ways, there's a mild form of compulsion in this definition there. Well, you're wrong, you're wrong. I remember distinctly when I stopped being a human event style

conservative. I remember when I simply couldn't be a capitalist anymore. I was just a kid, I was, you know, 19. I had a subscription to the National Review. There was no internet. I thought this was what conservative was, and I couldn't accept it anymore. Too many things started to happen.

And I wasn't going to be, I wasn't going to live double-minded. And it wasn't very long where I was paying, passing out copies of the spotlight in front of the commons under the assumption that this was free speech is a university, right? Well, I was very, very wrong. Thank God I wasn't thrown out, but there was talk about it. So what he's saying here in terms of Tolstoy,

violence is inherently evil. Well, we think of that with torture too, but we know there are times or the inflicting of pain on someone can have a positive outcome. The bomb example, there are cases. Torture normally is just an inherently negative thing. It's not just a thing as good torture.

Well, maybe in this case, the case of the bomb, maybe there are very isolated examples of good torture. I think we should stop it right there and come back and finish it. Yeah. This has been particularly difficult to translate and to go over because he's talking about words that have slightly different meanings, only slightly. Violence stands out.

You know, we're talking about a punch in the face. That would also include compulsive. So I'm more confused now as far as this book's concerned than I was when we started. I know where he's going. I understand what he's doing. But if I stopped reading here and never read anymore, I would be very, you know, I wouldn't know anything. All right.

I encourage everyone to go over to the show notes and the descriptions on the videos and donate to Dr. Johnson's work by his new book. That's another way you can support him. And I'm showing how much you appreciate. Not only what we've done here, but of course 200 years together, which is in the past now. But I don't think it's in the past.

I think it's going to be something people are going to look to in the future, just as I hope that this will as well. So don't get down because Aline is writing in a way and using terms. It don't make any sense. He's going somewhere. This is one of the problems that great books have is there's always a section in a great book where the person who there's a there's a certain kind of person that drops out because you're like, I'm not following it. Don't worry. You'll get there and we'll get there.

That's right. That's exactly precisely correct. All right. So it's you in a couple days. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. And enjoy your colonoscopy. I, my lord. Okay.

very good very good hopefully but please seriously though pray for me they find nothing but please please pray for me they find nothing nothing Syria I know the chances are very low but come on you know I will take care thank you I know you will all right my friend

bye bye I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of on resistance to evil by force by Yvonne this is episode number six Dr. Johnson, how are you doing? I'm doing very well. You know, I think stand-up comics have totally ruined the colonoscopy for people. It was no big deal.

It was very easy. I was out of the hospital two and a half hours. Thank God Almighty Clean. You know, even the fasting the day before, it's not going to kill anybody. You're not, you know, they talk about explosive. If that wasn't, and nothing like that. And it's a so, you're out, you know, it's a very simple, very simple thing. Although I was told that, and I didn't, I don't remember this, but I was told that as I was going out, I yelled out, don't take any of my organs.

Organs or worse to that effect. I don't remember saying that, but apparently I did, and it was loud. also I would I would I would I would I would I would I would I would I would I would I would I would ask for Versed Versed is one of three of God's great gifts to mankind you have the two being caller ID and air conditioning um verse said you know it totally wipes your memory it's the reason that I'm not scared of or worried about medical procedures anymore it's a it's a beautiful thing and um But under colonoscopy, guys, if you're putting it off, you're putting it off for no reason.

It is so simple and so fast. It's not what, you know, I'm going by these stand-up comic. It seems like every stand-up comic has a colonoscopy joke. And it's nothing like that. It was very, very simple. I think I was told that the last time I was put out for surgery, the last thing I said was, I want my four-skin back. but that that may be they may be lying about that no i i'm pretty sure because i was thinking about that uh i don't remember saying it i said other things too they didn't they didn't share with me

but um yeah don't don't take any of my organs as i was going out in a in a high volume i didn't have anything over my face i just had the the thing in my nose so um but boy uh but But anyone putting it off is foolish. It is no big deal. It's not anymore. It used to be, but not anymore. It's a very simple thing. I was in and out, no pun intended.

But, you know, thinking it's a big deal comes from these comics. It's just not, it's very simple. All right. Ready to get serious. I thought I was being serious, but. But yes, I'm getting even more serious. You can't get more serious than Ivan and Lynn, so yes, I'm willing to get even more serious. Picking up where we left off last time.

The problem of resisting evil with violence is sometimes formulated as the problem of non-resistance to evil with evil or repaying evil with evil. This is precisely why violence is sometimes equated with Satan. And its use is described as the path to the devil. It is clear that resorting to this satanic evil is forbidden once and for all, and without exception, so that it is better to die or be killed than to resort to violence. Moreover, one of these moralists even tries to establish that the one who conquers by force is always an invariably wrong, for truth in God are always in the vanquished. I'm not sure who he's talking about here. This was one paragraph that I was very unsure about. the machine translation

I had to change a few things we know he defines but we're talking about physical violence here the phrase equated with Satan is kind of awkward the past devil you know live died by the sword that's not what that means but

I'm not sure who goes this far I don't think Tolstoy everyone this far better to die or be killed than to resort to violence I've mentioned this a few times I'll mention it a few times more if you want to know at least the Orthodox point of view on violence

go to the great saints of Montenegro they are bloodthirsty and it's because there's so few of them and the Turks were so many and the Albanians were so many and you know it wasn't because they're my personal enemy it was because they were this close to losing everything and um and they were canonized and you see this in many serbs as well

it's easy for someone to be a pacifist living say in in in the u.s you know a hundred years ago, or in the Byzantine Empire where you have the most disciplined army in the world protecting you. But when you're on the verge of extinction, that stuff goes away real fast. Justice demands that we acknowledge that all these condemnations do not apply to internal self-compulsion, which is simply characterized as violence of the spirit over the flesh and is permitted in the order of moral action. However, the permissibility of compulsively of compulsion is limited to the boundaries of one's own body. Foreign flesh has its own master, and therefore violence directed at another is not necessary. After all, it is impossible to prove

that another is incapable of true self-government from within. Therefore, any going beyond the boundaries of one's being is recognized as not justified by any benefit, not caused by necessity, intruding into God's work, sacrilegiously replacing the will of God as allegedly insufficient. It's, it was, this has been very difficult to, to translate, because we're dealing with words that are very similar to each other. Violence, you know, 90% of the time here refers to physical violence. it doesn't mean necessarily killing somebody. I understand that the tit-for-tat stuff sometimes never ends and is therefore irrational.

Now, yeah, of course, we can't prove... This is straight from Tolstoy. We can't prove the person that we're fighting is incapable of reason. But there are plenty of times that we know very well. Judging a book behind each cover, you know, I'm right. 90% of the time, judging a book by each corner.

10% of the time is they're massive. I'm massively wrong. But, you know, there's a reason that, you know, I think that, you know, prisons exist. They didn't exist back then. But prisons exist, I think, only for violent criminals. They have to be separated from the rest of society. Of course, in middle ages, you didn't have a prison system. filing criminals, you know, rapist and murders were just executed.

Everyone else had it then go to work for the person that they wronged or pay fines or whatever it was. Or the family had to. And I don't know how practical that would be today given the family structure, but that's how it was done. And so you were either executed for severe crimes or your family had to cough up money or you had to work for them or something like that. that therefore prisons were not necessary. So, you know, this is, that's what, that's what stands out to me here. You know, the principality of compulsion will be to one's own body. Well, you know, should I have said violence there?

I'm not sure. But I think, yeah, well, it's impossible to prove another's incapable of course. But quite often, again, we use them on much. Negro example, you know, the Turkish forces, they were there to destroy them. They were there to destroy them and take over the country. So whether or not they were capable of true self-governments are relevant, they were following orders. And thank God for the mountains, which is Montenegro was named after, because, you know, Calvary was a third big thing, didn't work very well. They eventually did fall, but damn, it would not not without a

fight and even even falling you know it didn't last very long and there was always guerrilla warfare out in in the forest so um so he's talking here about a personal confrontation that may be a different story rather than a national confrontation or even a family confrontation i think he's talking about one's person here individual you know not resisting being mugged or something like that We must leave others to themselves and completely stop the external struggle with evil as unnatural and unfruitful. We must stop arranging the lives of other people and understand that whoever committed violence or for whatever reason it was done, it will still be evil without any exceptions. All those who do not once understand this and continue to commit violence,

highway robbers, revolutionaries, executioners, spies, ministers, monarchs, party leaders, and all political figures in general are essentially lost and mostly bribed people, indulging in their habitual favorite vices, revenge, greed, envy, ambition, lust for power, pride, cowardice, anger. Sometimes Tolstoy is correct, not necessarily in the Russian case, but he was an anarchist of a sort and his view of the modern state, especially the Western state at the time. he was often on target a party leader who pushes for war

is responsible for what happens today we just simply lied to thank God for me because I'm able to find the truth of the matter but arranging the lives of other people I guess here he's talking about using force

someone's behaving, let's say, in your family or something like that, in a way that you don't like, therefore you try to use every means possible to get him to change. He's saying here, and maybe not without reason, that no one could really be forced into this stuff. However, he refuses to understand that there are groups of people, large groups of people, who only understand or at least respect violence. so I'm very clear here that he's talking about violence that means revolutionaries he is as anti-revolutionary as you can get

he would have been vehemently opposed to the Bolsheviks he wouldn't have done anything about it I guess maybe he would have maybe he would have thrown all this out the window but you know you talk about you talk to you debate a Marxist about revolution and violence and death and even mass death, that's built into the Marxist system, not just the Bolsheviks system, cleansing the society, that's built in the Marxist system. It's, you know, Marx said it,

Engels said it. You know, our people sometimes, you know, in the past, military governments and stuff, they use violence just as occasional, even an aberration. It's not built into the system. No, Marxism has to cleanse the society. But if you have a revolution, a violent revolution where a revolutionary group is going up against an army connected to the state, the only people who are going to win are the most Machiavellian, are actually those who are the most evil, who will do anything to win, which is exactly what the Bolivics did. one of the many reasons the whites lost so he's mixing up a few different things here

individual relations versus you know entire societies in the ancient Greek Polis when they voted for war they had to go out and fight it you know Sparta an obvious case but Athens too

now these guys send other people to war and it was understood this is why it was a male-dominated policy was the male-dominated things because only males fought violently

so if they voted for it they had to go and do it can you imagine that today and right up until the 19th century monarchs Russia when war was fought

they were right there at the front Nicholas II was no exception. Again, can you imagine, you know, George Bush at the front in Iran? So there's a very, very different relationship to violence, and it was somewhat going out of style here, but it's inconceivable now. But it's just a blanket condemnation of physical violence here because you can't arrange the lives of other people by force. it's put it at that. Thus, of the entire sphere of volitional coercion,

Tolstoy and his associates see only self-coercion, violence against one's own body, and physical violence against others. They approve of the former, but unequivocally reject the latter. However, at the same time, they clearly relegate physical coercion of others and suppression of the sphere of rejected violence,

and apparently completely unaware of the possibility, of psychological coercion of others and psychological violence against others, reject everything outright as unnecessary, evil, and godless interference in the lives of others. You know, it's interesting in American penal law, you know, and I've come across this many times, a wife could torture physically, you know, mentally a man for decades. And there's very little you can do about that, you know, legally. but when he snaps and cracks her, then he's arrested.

There it's something obvious. There's a bruise. There's something like that. Talking about, you know, a decade of, you know, cheating. That's a totally different story. Physical violence somehow is privileged in the law, and it was no different back then. but being against violence, but not being against psychological coercion, well, that doesn't work either.

That's another inconsistency that he is uncovering. They are, if you're, you know, the hippie movement was so phony because they were violent all the time. They were violent all these riots. The only reason that they were pacifist was that we were fighting, communists. If it was 1944, they wouldn't be pacifist. And the minute was in their interest, they used violence again.

So I'm pretty sure burning down the ROTC building is violent. None of these guys ever punished, of course. So, you know, again, he's going back and forth between, you know, a nation, a society, a family, an individual, and we've got to be careful

to separate these things. But violence, according to Tolstoy, in any of those areas, is wrong. And what Elyne is saying here is that he is ignoring, say, psychological torment, say, to merit, that is far worse. Physical wounds heal. Those psychological wounds sometimes do not. Part 5. On mental compulsion.

In spite of all this, it must be established that the one who is forced to commit evil is not evil, but not only when he forces himself, but also when he forces others. Thus, it hardly needs proof that all the fundamental forms of self-compulsion and self-coercion are crucial in the process of external civilization and internal human culture. All states of laziness, bad habits, gambling, heavy drinking, and the many so-called problematic, unsuccessful, fallen, and even vicious natures are rooted in an inability to exert such mental and physical self-compulsion. either a disproportionate weakness of the compelling will or a disproportionate strength of evil passions or both. This is a crucial paragraph. Once civilization is established,

people begin taking it for granted. You see this all over the place. Leontief and Gazette, you know, Revoltairev of the Masses, that it just is. Forgetting the intense amount of, of work and knowledge and cooperation that has to exist for even basic civilization to function. And as society becomes wealthier and it's been established and then it becomes wealthy, it expands, laziness, bad habits, all this stuff, this becomes more common because, you know, they start

taking it for granted. And by the time they start to realize that it's going to fall, it's too late. I think you know exactly We're talking about the U.S. absolutely He wrote this in Berlin in 1925 This is almost a law If civilization is going to function That kind of discipline is absolutely necessary A liberal

Has to be parasitic on the Christian tradition Because in a liberal system you still need basic self-control, but they're opposed to self-control. So how could a society function like that? From pure self-interest, how can that possibly be? So it's very often, and these days it's, you know,

the cost of technology is so extraordinary. People think it's just a price tag, but the cost of technology is so extraordinary. this entire web, this intricate, what am I trying to say, this web of power, of the utilities necessary and all the specialized areas of knowledge that often are not talked about

or not even understood. People are just, you know, they're used to it, and so they take it for granted, and a society can't function that way. so self-compulsion self-coercion is essential to any political system working to any you know a healthy society could make any political system work could make any economic system work the only problem is some encourage this kind of laziness and lack of gratitude more than others we suffer with that today people don't realize the

cost of a civilization in general or their own. And don't think that human sacrifice isn't a part of it. Technology requires human sacrifice. It requires constant warfare. It requires an empire for the sake of resources and everything else. Yeah, just because human sacrifice isn't done in a religious way, doesn't make it any less human sacrifice. Anyone who has ever managed to deeply understand and reflect on the problem of spiritual education must have understood that its deepest foundation and goal lies in self-education and that the process of self-education consists not only of awakening self-evidence in love within oneself, but also in the effort of a compelling and self-compelling will. Sentimental optimism in the spirit of Rousseau and his modern supporters

characterizes people naive in the experience of evil and always gives the right to ask whether they themselves know what self-education is, and whether they themselves have always been given the organically free and integral action of willpower in the direction of the highest good. He who spiritually educates himself knows well what self-compulsion and self-coercion are. I've gone back and forth on Rousseau for a long time. Believe it or not, I have a paper around him. when I was in college he was one of the first political theorists

I ever came across it was Hobbs-Lock-Rousseau those were the first three in my first political theory class that's what I ended up like what I ended up doing from there on in he is an enlightenment figure

but is very anti-modernist he himself went back and forth on that there's been many nationalists over the years that have used his concept of the general will to refer to, you know, this is what nationalism requires. There is something that exists above the individual, and it takes a tremendous amount of humility to make sure that that develops. And it might not be in your immediate interest at the moment. It will be in the long term. But that's not how, you know, a lot of people think.

Thumbs Hobbs saying the precise opposite of that. But ultimately, anything worth having, politically or anything else, requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline. I personally, I'm in the wonderful position that studying this stuff, which is my vocation, which is why I'm here, is not work to me. Sometimes, reading Hegel, that's work. but this is just what I do. If I were independently wealthy, I'd still be doing this.

You know, it's a totally different story there. But that's not everyone has that. Most people are forced themselves to get up and go to a job that they'd rather not go to. But without it, they couldn't function and the division of labor couldn't function if everyone acted like that. So as far as the highest good is concerned, you know, I've always, always taken, as has a Lynn, Hegel is a right-wing nationalist figure. I've always believed that. Not everyone does. But when you have a free market, what Hegel calls civil society, people come to understand that there's a division of labor, that we are

dependent creatures. I can't deliver my own mail. I can't build my own house. I can, and once that's understood, they start realizing that. that's when the nation comes into view. You know, we're speaking the same language, have the basic, you know, religion, and we're dependent on one another. We could never function without each other, and therefore, we'd sacrifice for each other.

And I think that's ultimately Hegel's political theory in the philosophy of writing. Again, a very difficult book, I think, is last, and it's connected with everything else, but it kind of stands on its own. but everything Hinkle does is difficult. But remember, you know, these guys, anyone who wrote before World War I

is going to sound very naive about people. World War I changed everything. This mass slaughter for no obvious reason, I mean, millions of the best European and Turkish men, I still, you know, I mean, we know it was, for British interest, but, you know, your average soldier, even your average general doesn't know why they're fighting each other in World War I. They had better propaganda in World War II. The propaganda of World War I was so ridiculous.

You know, that destroyed the very naive optimism that existed prior to that. I still don't know how science went on the offensive after war. World War I because everything that was science that was practical science machine guns poison gas how they how they weren't constantly on the defensive after that I'll never know but

remember World War I changed existentialism came into its own in World War I after World War I it changed how human beings thought about the world and I don't think possibly I don't think it changed enough

but it was just a permanent PTSD situation in Europe. Everyone knew somebody or was in a family that someone was killed or maimed, and that changed everything. So the naive optimism prior to World War I is somewhat understandable. There was a period of relative peace, not in the Balkans, but,

and that's where some of these theories developed prior to World War I changed everything and all this stuff was thrown out the window it's possible that postmodernism came into its own really after World War I and people started to realize many people started to realize that science was being used by the state

for the sake of slaughtering people again for reasons that they weren't quite sure what they were and that the slaughter was massive no one was ready for this and it changed everything It is clear that one can force and compel oneself not only for good but also for evil. Thus, mental compulsion, forcing oneself to forgive an offense or to pray, will not be an evil

deed, but forcing oneself to bear a grudge, to deceive, or to prove a deliberately false and spiritually poisonous theory, or to compose a flattering ode, will be a mental forcing of oneself to evil, self-inflicted violence. Similarly, physical, strictly speaking, psychophysical, forcing oneself to muscular work to take bitter medicine, to undergo a strict regimen, will not be an evil deed, but self-compulsion. But one who forces oneself, contrary to one's inclination, to smile falsely, to flatter ingratiatingly, to deliver demagogic speeches, or to participate in blasphemous performances, forces oneself to evil and violates oneself psychophysically. I think I've mentioned this before, but, you know, the

greatest TV show of all time, Sopranos. I know it very well. I mean, I know the area very well. They're always mentioning towns that I knew. I never forget when Vito, once it was discovered, he was a fag. He left Jersey and he went up to New Hampshire. And he got a job as a carpenter. I didn't know he had that skill.

and he absolutely despised it. He couldn't take it. In fact, it was so bad in his mind that he went back to New Jersey, tried to get back in with Tony and was murdered immediately. Not by Tony, but by Phil. But that's how, you know, he was so used to just essentially sitting around

and getting people to pay him that actual labor was just beyond the pale for him. He couldn't even conceive of it. The no work job. or eventually there's no work job but they sit around. I don't know how you do that with what guys actually working around you

but that's what they were used to. He was out. Vito was out, but he did not have the capacity for self-discipline. So he went back to Jersey pretty sure he was going to be murdered. He would rather be murdered than live life as a carpenter

or any kind of work. Partially that's because he had been doing it for so long that he can't think of anything else. You know, those guys are usually born into that life. You don't kind of wander into it. You're born into it.

But the other element here is ends, purposes. You know, being remember the mafia requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline. That doesn't make anything good. They have a code, which for the most part,

they follow. why did the mafia, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, they tend to do it anyway. It wasn't because, you know, it's at some extent, you know, they didn't want families to destroy, but, but, you know, it was because, you know, the prison sentences were getting so long, people were turning on them, turning state's evidence. Um, so, uh, the self-discipline was a big part of that life. There's certain things you simply couldn't do, or you risk, uh, violence. But the end, the purpose wasn't good. So a virtue, in order to be an actual virtue, is not just a matter of being very self-disciplined and being. It has to have an end that's also rational. Reason is not just the mechanics, the process of getting somewhere.

The end, the goal also has to be rational and therefore cannot be evil. And that's what he's saying here. In this regard, the task of every person who is spiritually educating himself is to correctly find the line between, self-compulsion and self-coercion, on the one hand, and self-violence, on the other hand, strengthening himself in the first and never turning to the second, for self-violence will always be equally dangerous and equivalent to spiritual self-betrayal. This was a very hard paragraph to translate.

Machine translation was pretty good. I had to go back and redo it in certain, you know, the fine line between. Oh, I said, five, that was a misprin, between self-compulsion and self-coercion. But self-violence then is going too far. And the only thing I could think about, that it's come up already, or the flagellants, people who have a bad habit, and they're so dedicated to getting rid of it that they actually hurt themselves physically to get rid of it. I don't know if that is, if that works. I think that the bad habit,

it connected with the violence, not destroyed by it. Or fasting way beyond your means. Or if you're a family man, you fast to the point where you can't work and you betray your family as a result. We've been through the difference between compulsive and coercion, but as this book goes on, those two terms, they're very similar to one another.

As we talked about, it's the same word in Russian, but there's definite differences in usage. Hence, there's justification of compulsion on the one hand, coercion and the other. Violence stands out because we're generally talking about physical violence. But I think, you know, fasting, for example, to the point where it really damages you, it damages your stomach it damages your kidneys that is a form of violence it's pretty much the same

you get punched in the kidneys you know it's direct it's like people who commit suicide by just not taking care of themselves they don't have the balls to shoot themselves in the head they just don't take care of themselves and eventually you know

nature will take care of it for them that kind of thing yeah I guess that is that is a form of violence but violence doesn't work in the spiritual realm. Self-compulsing, self-coversion. I struggle in this book to find the differences between the two, but self-violence here is, like I already said, it's someone who fast so much, who wants to be pious,

he's a family man, or has many responsibilities, he fasts to the point where he can't do those responsibilities anymore. But he thinks he's being righteous. He's not being righteous, and he's hurting himself in the process as well as everyone else. Good self-compulsion is called upon to wage an active struggle against the anti-spiritual, embittered, stubborn. I don't want to. Inability to wage this struggle is the first manifestation of spinelessness, and it is precisely the inability to compel and constrain oneself, this weakness of will in the face of the power of evil passions, that raises the problem of spiritual resistance, i.e. mental compulsion

emanating from others. in vain would a naive morality, believing in the unconditional freedom of will, appeal here to personal effort, which supposedly cost nothing to do? The problem of spinelessness is incomprehensible to an indeterminist. In vain would a naive opponent of violence believing in the unconditional power of weak-willed evidence and weak-willed love, attempt to convince and ignite a spineless soul, the problem of education, Yeah, this is in other words, this is a problem of education. I've done this several times before. I apologize for that. Indeterminous means someone who believes in free will.

I don't know how anyone can seriously, consistently not believe in free will, although it is a struggle getting there. We're not born with it. We're born with the potential of it only. You know, spinelessness is a form of tremendous laziness. It's the people-pleasing. idea that I'll do whatever makes others around me happy, even if it's stupid. They can't even conceive of the idea that I, you know, I'm going to do something,

I'm going to do the right thing, but I'm going to alienate everyone. This is the person, and it drives me crazy. I explain something to them, politically speaking, you know, it convinces them. They know it's true. Remember this happening with the Las Vegas shooting. I explained to somebody, one of my neighbors, how ridiculous it was. And he went, damn, I never thought. You're right, you're right.

It wasn't that long ago on Facebook. I heard him talk saying the opposite stuff. Just the opposite talking about, oh, horrible this was. I can't believe someone would shoot other people. I didn't even say anything. It's that spinelessness where he's saying what he thinks he should, even though he has no excuse now. He's already agreed that this probably didn't.

happened the way that the system says it happened for a whole bunch of really good reasons for some reason i really got into that with a vagus shooting i don't know why above all the others but it was just so stupid it was ridiculous the way it was stated or shanksville uh i may do a whole show on on shanksville because it's right off the street here um crash which is so anyone who believes in that you know they believe in it because they want to because they aren't spineless and When it comes to, you know, religion, when it comes to your relationship with God, I'm not sure how spinelessness could ever work for you. How wonderful it would be for the spineless person, the weak person, to be a total determinist,

then they don't have to worry about it. If everything just happens, you know, cause and effect, then they don't have to worry about anything. They never have to take responsibility for anything. Having someone take responsibility for something is so rare. It's painful. But it's rare. No one wants to, you know, everyone wants to talk about free will, but when they do something wrong, they blame everybody else. When the military fails in the U.S., which is where they fail all the time, they blame the Pentagon, they blame money, they blame politicians.

Well, when they win a victory, I don't see them praising the politicians. No one takes responsibility for anything. That takes a tremendous amount of work. and the more spinelessness you have in a society it reaches a point of critical mass Sultan Isson talks about it these people who were just party members because they had to be

they didn't want to rock the boat you know and then when the system collapsed they said oh yeah I was with you the whole time you know this sort of person almost every every of Solzhenyzen's novel has someone like that in there

usually a couple of people like that how can you be weak-willed and fight against the passions that we're fighting against every day, especially today, it's inconceivable. Anything good, spiritually or otherwise, comes from pain, comes from sometimes brutal self-coercion. Again, thank God I didn't have to worry about that. This is what I love to do.

I did very, very well. That wasn't an issue with me. I loved it. But other grad students, I remember, who didn't, they didn't love it as much as I did. and they were constantly forcing themselves to do things. For the most part, I didn't have to. The only time I didn't like it is when a professor told me to do something.

I was doing my own thing most of the time. It was academic, certainly, but not what I was supposed to do. Still, it was a tremendous amount of inherent self-discipline that I had, as I said, it's inherent in my case. For the most part, that's not. There has to be a lot of compulsion. I'm the sort of person that has to read himself into everything. I can't make a decision unless I know the literature very well,

especially on something important. And that takes a lot of time and people think I'm crazy. And it's, you know, I have notebooks piled up and everything else. And then maybe I'll make a decision. Well, that makes some sense. But can you imagine a spineless person or what are the masses doing that? The masses are almost institutionalized spinelessness. A society can't function that way.

No society can function that way. No society can function with constant people pleasing. You do the right thing, and if people hate you for it, you have to deal with it. And that's a lot to ask. It's a lot to ask today. You've done it. I've done it. Many of our listeners have done it.

If we can do it, others can do it. The problem is insoluble for the sentimentalist. One can help a person incapable of good self-compulsion either by weakening the strength of his passions, the cathartic path, which the indeterminist is incapable of, or by strengthening his will, the imperative path, which the sentimentalist is incapable of. Educating a weak-willed child, or what is almost the same, a weak-willed adult, means not only awakening spiritual insight and igniting love in him, but also cathartically teaching him self-compulsion and imperatively accustoming him to self-coercion.

For a person incapable of good self-compulsion, the only path leading him to this art is the experience of external pressure emanating from others. I've always stated. I've always believed. I got some of this from the great Ukrainian philosopher Skowbrador, but I've added my own elements to it. As far as our work in society is concerned, there are three levels There's the job There's a career Then there's a vocation

A job is something you generally hate You got to do it because you don't want to starve You don't want to be homeless So you do it If you were independently wealthy You'd quit immediately It has nothing to do with you Your personality

You just have to do it You take anything That's what a job is A career is a bit more than that It's not entirely your personality but you put a tremendous amount of effort. There's far more rewards for it. You get a lot of satisfaction from it.

But if suddenly you win the lottery, you'll probably quit that job or that career, your career. A vocation stands by itself. I thank God every day that I have a vocation, not just a career. That's when your work is who you are.

You are this. you have no question as to why God put you on earth. That's a gift. That's an absolute gift for anybody to know why you're here. I know exactly why I'm here. We're doing it right now. It's a wonderful thing. But it's, I don't know how rare it is.

I think it's pretty rare. Usually talk about, you know, a calling in the clergy, but I'm talking about a calling could be anything. getting people to discover a vocation. It's hard to do, but then it doesn't matter whether you're weakwolds or not. Because when you discover while you're here, I mean, it has to be, it can't be the stamp collection, it has to be something of some social value.

You have to be able to make a living from it. Even if you fail, even if you struggle, it doesn't matter. if you couldn't do it anymore, you wouldn't be you. You would be a wreck. That's only from a vocation. And that's why Scovrero made such a big deal about it, because it undercuts all of these problems. A vocation means that, generally speaking,

you do a lot of work and everything, and sometimes you don't feel like it. But you're doing what you love. A career, you know, sometimes you get a lot of satisfaction from it, But that's as far as it goes. Again, if I were suddenly a multimillionaire, I'd still be doing this every day. It's inconceivable for me that I could do anything else or be anything else. This is who I am.

You discover that, and the nature of your will is irrelevant. But now, in addition to that, I want to, we need to find out, Later on, he talks about what a actual sentimentalist is. And it's generally someone who believes that people are born good, like Rousseau. They're born good, but society makes them evil. That's kind of out of style today. But in the early to mid-18th century, when Rousseau wrote, it was more fashionable.

Of course, Thomas Hobbes didn't believe that. But that's what he means by sentimentalism. So that's what we're talking about. Now, I'm also not sure how a child can be weak-willed unless he becomes that way because of the adults around him. And I think a child, I don't know what age he's talking about. If the child is weak-willed, especially at a young age, and there's something going on at home. Or there's a mental problem or something like that. but he also mocks the adult

he was almost the same as a child a weak old adult and he says awaken spiritual insight and igniting love in him that's pretty much what he means by a vocation finding out what's really going to move this person

and maybe it isn't anything in which case your life is going to suck but still that has to be the goal of anyone raising children educating. Education is not just in the classroom. It's your entire upbringing, as Aristotle

talked about. People talk about education, and most Americans, I think, still think about, you know, college, high school. That's not what they mean. They mean the entire social process of growing up and hopefully finding your place in society such that it becomes a vocation and a calling. But, you know, in an oligarchy, I think that's almost impossible. And even if, Even if I, you know, I suffer because of this vocation, as you will know, financially in every other way. But I didn't care. I didn't care because this is what I'm here for. And that's what he means by igniting love in him.

But even in a vocation, there are still moments where you have to coerce yourself into doing things. You know, I had to fight my way through grad school. But it was worth it. I did, I told you I had a technique for doing it. Grad students, if you're in grad school now, I know exactly what to do. Maybe it's different now than it wasn't in the 90s when you're a minority politically. But when if this is your calling, I knew it very early. When this is your calling, you'll do pretty much anything to make sure that you're able to somehow function

and keep doing this. I can't believe I still can do this outside of a university or a thing tank, but I can't, thanks to your, thanks to your listeners quite a bit. And that's what he means here by igniting the love. We have a long paragraph, and I think this will close it out for this session. All right, sounds good. It is clear that a person needs this assistance to this spiritual help from outside. All the more so, the less his life is structured by the forces of evidence and love, and the less capable he is of self-compulsion. Such a person's very behavior, his words, his expressions

of will, his actions, cry out to everyone around him for volitional assistance. He himself, perhaps, does not ask for it, partly because he does not understand what exactly he lacks and is unaware of possible outside help, and partly because he is hindered in this by a lack of humility. Bad pride in a sense of false shame, but his very life silently begs for salvation, or at least for help. And since the root of his suffering lies in a weak-willed inability to compel himself, he needs neither persuasion nor the arousal of love, but precisely spiritual and psychological compulsion. A weak-willed person becomes exhausted, incapable to cope with the task of spiritual self-education. He fails to define and limit himself by will. He objectively

needs outside help, and, not finding it, he gives into the unbridled flage. of passions and vice. It would be vain. It would be in vain to refer to an alien master and personal self-government in the face of this task. And any actually representative government with a group of people like this.

This generation that's coming up now, guys in their 20s, they get called this all the time. They could take everything for granted, that they don't care. and far more than my generation did. I mean, every generation gets called this by the older people, but not to this extent.

This is constantly. If you're unable to compel yourself for something that needs to be done, you know, unless your father's a millionaire, you're going to lead a miserable life. And speaking of fathers, a strong father figure is absolutely essential here. That's one of the things that a strong father figure does. without it, men become like this. Often homosexual, homosexuality is caused by the lack of a father figure.

Girls become sluts without a father figure. I think everyone knows that by now. But it's because that father figure stands in the place of God as far as the education of the child. There's no such thing as a weak world child. It's a child that is raised in either a society or family where self-compulsion isn't a big deal where people just kind of give in to the kid, you know, to make him happy in the short term, a terrible, terrible thing.

So this is, you know, this is extremely profound here. And often such a person doesn't know he needs outside help. Either he's too prideful or he just is ignorant. Or outside help would force him to do something he doesn't want to do. society can't function this way society requires a division of labor that's rational with rational and virtue with people with a common end bound by what we call ethnicity

without it's not a healthy society it can't function it ends up in oligarchy pure self-interest and then people who don't have people outside of the oligarchy just say well then what's the point if they're just pursuing their self-interest, why can't I? And when you're oppressed by the oligrant, if you're just pursuing your self-interest every day and your weak,

and the oligarch oppresses you, well, you have nowhere to stand. Because the onigarch is just doing what you're doing. If you could pursue your self-interest, he could pursue his. And, you know, we live in a society that's so wicked, that's so twisted, that oligarchy was the only place you could go. The only absolute is the Holocaust. you know and that's and the fact that it's lasted this long you know we know that they fudge the figures

unemployment and everything else they're far higher suicide rate of white males is tremendously high because they don't see the point the destruction of the family destruction of the society destruction of the existence no existence of a father figure means that this kind of self-coercion and self-compulsin doesn't exist or often doesn't exist. Without the family, and the nation is just the extension of the family, without that strong father figure or a monarchy, you get something called a bullio. I learned this from Michael Hoffman.

The Greek word, sometimes it's translated as laziness, but it's not just laziness. It's a complacency, not complacency, it's laziness based on the fact that you don't think there's anything worth doing. Any goal worth getting, because there's no point. Abulia is one of the great social evils. I haven't talked about it in a while, but I used to.

And it's a very complex Greek word. There is no American equivalent to it, English equivalent to it, I don't think. But this, you know, they're not incapable of self-compulsion. They just don't see any reason for that kind of self-discipline. and they're surrounded by idiotic adults and idiotic media and God knows an idiotic professoriate that doesn't give them any reason for and we're right here right now

everything that Eileen is saying at the time he didn't know how bad things were going to get someone who was talking about this stuff in 1925 how God can you imagine them if they showed up here they'd be they'd have no words for what's going on now they had no idea how bad this was going to get and no society can function for long. That's where this debt comes from.

No society functions for long this way, unless something severe. You know, one of the reasons I was in favor of the Taliban in Afghanistan is that you have a group of people who were tormented by war for decades and decades and decades. Their moral system had totally collapsed. You know, their religious system had totally collapsed. The only way that that society was ever going to function ever again in peacetime was a very very, very, very strict religious group of people who were going to go to the heroin growers and put a gun to their head and say, if you grow this stuff again, we're going to shoot you.

And the poppies, heroin production went to zero, which horse pits the U.S. all. But for a society like that, that was at the brink of extinction that, you know, decades of warfare destroys all human relationships, all family relationships, all national feeling. there's nothing left only death you know life is cheap the only way

society like that could ever function is with a group like the Taliban taking over and being very strict forcing creating this compulsion from the outside and then hopefully over time educating people that are capable of self

compulsion the new generation possibly if ever get any any period of peace. I was very, very specific as to why I thought the Taliban was a good government for Afghanistan. Because of society

in that condition that's the only hope they have. And I'm right. Otherwise, they'd be drowning in drugs under American control and, but they defeated the U.S. Talk about self-discipline. completely defeated and humiliated the U.S., as they did the Soviets, a couple generations earlier.

But strictness, even brutality sometimes, is necessary for a group of people that has absolutely no moral code anymore. It's not their fault, but that's what happens when you are multi-generations of constant warfare in death. All righty. Yeah. We knew this was going to be a deep one, and it just continues to, continue to dig deeper and deeper. I hope I'm helping, you know,

expanding some of these things. A lot of what he says is not obvious. Some of it is maybe is my fault. But I think I'm getting the point across. But I hope I'm explaining it in such a way that people can grab onto and understand what Eileen is trying to say, bringing it, you know, because this was written exactly 100 years ago,

which didn't occur to me until now. And I hope I'm succeeding there. Well, I've definitely heard from people that they've read this before, struggled with it, and you're helping them to understand more what they read as they go back through and follow this. Well, thank God for that. everyone head on over to the show notes head on over to the descriptions of the videos donate to dr johnson's work keep him uh keep him going so that we can keep doing this and uh keep this

project going and yeah that's it as dr johnson mentioned in in this episode that um you know he's able to do this because of so many so many of you that are reaching out and um and donating to him. So please, you know, go do that. Yes, thank you very much. All right. See on the next episode. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. All right, my friend. Bye-bye. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of on resistance to evil by force by Yvonne Elin. Dr. Johns, this is episode number seven, actually. Hey, we're actually getting into this,

man. How are you doing? How am I doing? Um, we're coming to the end of the first batch of translated material, we'll finish it today. I'm doing a lot more translating myself of the next five chapters. And it's very difficult. Partion because of how he writes, partially because of the difficulty of the material. But I'm telling you, it's all worth it. I'm translating at the beginning of chapter, I think I'm in chapter eight or something. and once he starts bringing all of these different strands together,

you understand why he spent so much time on these kind of things. He is very repetitive. Dugan's that way too. But he's that way for a reason. And hang in with us. I know I could see eyes glazing over in my mind. I know. But just hang in there.

this is all for a reason. And this is not just about Tolstoy or about the Bolshek revolution. It's about our lives. That's all I'm doing. Sounds good to me. I'm ready to get going. Yes, sir. Those who lack a strong character who have neither a king in their head nor ruling sacred things in their hearts,

demonstrate with every action their inability to govern themselves and their need for social education and the tragedy of those who flee this task is that it remains inescapable for them. All people continually educate each other, whether they want to or not, whether they realize it or not, whether they know how or not, whether they care or neglect. They educate each other through every manifestation, response in intonation, smile in its absence, arrival and departure, exclamation and silence, request in demand, appeal and boy, Boycott. Every objection, every disapproval, every protest corrects and strengthens the outer facet of the human personality. Man is a socially dependent and socially adaptable being, and the more spineless a person is, the more powerful this law of return and reflection operates. This is part of the reason why I could never be a libertarian. I mean, individualism is absurd.

we're fortunate to that today because there is no community but not only is language not our creation but most of it as he shows here is nonverbal which is why we have now I never used emojis until I met my wife then I hope I guess I like that kind of thing but that's to give some sense of how you're feeling when you make a statement because you can't see the other person This is also, you know, education is not just the classroom.

The English word tends to imply that. When we come across, you know, and I had students that were not, put it nicely, not collegiate material, not college material. I knew that they had a friend group, something at home. that helped make them this way. People who use the word bro every two seconds, this type, what the hell are you doing in a couple? There's a reason for it. The social communication,

nationalism is based around. Nationalism is based around the ethnos, which itself is based around language. But not just any, it's not just words and syntax and grammar. It's every aspect of cultural life. This is all, these are all, These are all forms of communication.

And therefore, education. This is why our struggle is so brutal today because we know that otherwise intelligent young people are being deliberately made into morons. It was marginally better when we were growing up, but it's worse now. And this is really what he's talking about here. how the czar, I should have said,

czar in their head, that's actually what he said, czar in their head, the ruling sacred thing in their hearts. In other words, the man has the church in his heart and the czar in his head. That metaphor has been used by other writers, too, in the monarchist tradition. But we educate each other.

Therefore, the company we keep, it's extremely important because most of this stuff is done subconsciously, The sort of people, you know, we become, are based at least in part, maybe a great part, and the people who, you know, we spend our time with. You know, do they uplift us? Or are they, the people who say, bro, every two minutes?

Have you noticed that tendency? It's, you know, it's like the universal language of illiteracy. Mostly males do that. you know, and it has everything to do with their education. Yeah, they could have gone to college, I suppose, to get pushed through their classes, maybe. But they're not going to be educated because of the people who they hang out with. And most of it is subconscious.

Most communication is nonverbal, which makes text. and things like telegram, interesting, because it's really hard. I've inadvertently offended many people. I mean, I do that deliberately all the time, but inadvertently because they can't see my face. Even over the phone, you get a tone of voice, but text you get nothing.

And so that makes it as another level of difficulty. but we are socially dependent animals. The last thing we are is individuals. Precisely for this reason, the absence of objection, disapproval, and protest imbues the outer facet of the human being with a confident abandon, a nasty disorderliness, a tendency toward unbridled force. People educate each other not only by action, by confident reciprocal actions, but also by inaction, by a sluggish, evasive,

and weak-willed absence of reciprocal action. And while, on the one hand, a harsh response, a rude demand, or a spiteful act may not correct, but rather embitter the one against whom it is directed, on the other, avoiding a vigorous, definitively reproachful action can be tantamount to permissiveness, indulgence, and complicity. Now, you see kind of where he's going here. I mean, he's putting, these are the strands that will soon be brought together into his argument why evil needs to be confronted with force. But just as it stands here,

there are numerous czars in, you know, Russian life. The Tsar himself, then there's the head of the family, there's the head of the commune. These all just are like nesting dolls of legitimate authority. in our situation, you know, kids who have a strong father figure are very different from kids who don't. And it's my opinion that homosexuality in both genies derives from the lack of a father figure. I think, I think the propaganda aside, I think that's a strong ingredient.

You don't get that what is natural love from the father you look for it elsewhere. but the mere possession of having a father is not good enough. Father has to be strong. And sometimes I have to be your actual biological father. It can be a father figure. And I see, if you read the comments, YouTube, these kids, they're looking for father figures in anybody. There's a guy teaching guitar.

I was watching, and the kid says, oh, you've been like a father figured him out. Really? They're searching for it anywhere. I mean, the theory of the gangs is that with the collapse of the family, gangs at least provide some sense of mutual acceptance. And this is deliberate. E. Michael Jones went to the Rockefeller Archives in Philadelphia

and showed the programs that they were involved in to destroy the fans. And when I say that, I mean the father. We know how fathers are depicted in, you know, like the Homer Simpson types, Malcolm in the middle, always this bumbling idiot. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's a bumbling idiot. There's a reason for that. The destruction of the father figure makes, creates such moral chaos that then the regime

itself can then mold them into whatever they want. They become more and more receptive to pretty much anything. The Soviets did that, right after the revolution, it didn't last long because it was such a disaster, but, and then after that, all of a sudden they're all about, you know, father, and then at the end, the last 20 years of the Soviet Union, the family was a huge interests of the Communist Party. The Communist Party in the 80s is one of the most conservative institutions in the world. And the party even today, you don't know you're reading it.

This is a Communist Party? The Americans would have no idea what they're even looking at. Yeah, they may mention Lenin was a great guy once in a while. But, you know, Lenin was there and promoted the Cold of Personality to replace the father figure, to replace the czar. This is what people need. And if they don't get it, they'll search anywhere for it. And that's the recipe for disaster.

In the mutual social education of people, both juniors and seniors, both superiors and subordinates, what is needed is not only a gentle no in the aura of persuasive love, but also a firm no in an atmosphere of impending disunity and the estrangement that has already occurred. A person commits villainy not only because he is villainous, but also because he has been conditioned to it by the weak-willed self-abasement of those around him. Slavery corrupts not only the slave, but also the slave owner. An unbridled man is unbridled, given not only by himself, but also by the social environment that allowed him to unbridle himself. A despot is impossible if there are no opponents. Everything is permitted only where people have permitted each other

everything. Yeah, I laughed a little bit. Sorry about that. An unbridled man is unbridled. I could have done better there. Yeah, so in other words, a criminal exists not because, not necessarily because, I mean, there can be a mental issue and stuff like that. But, you know, mental issues have gone through the roof since the family has collapsed. But also because he's been conditioned to it by the weak world self-abasement of those around him. And you go to popular culture and you see the fathers, you know, and how they are depicted. If they're strong, they're evil. If they're weak, well, they're at least funny.

But I remember, you know, Little House in the Prairie, that was a show based around Michael Landau, the strong father figure. It didn't matter what happened. they got through it because of it. Good times in the 70s. John Amos played the most powerful father figure, possibly on television. And, you know, the no, it's not just a gentle no.

Sometimes you have to go farther than that. Sometimes you have to make sure that your kids are not hanging out with the person. It's going to make you say, bro, every sentence. It's true. And Hegel, you know, and he gets that from Hegel, that slavery hurts the slave owner more than the slave. And he's not given one of these 1970s sort of,

everyone's good on the inside until society corrupts him. No, he's talking specifically about the czar, not just the czar in Petersburg or Moscow, but the czar in the family. and everywhere else. There were czars at every level. That's the only way to a corrupt society. And when you have that,

it doesn't matter what political social system you have. You can make it work. I always love good times because, as matter how poor they were, they made it work because you had a very strong father figure. I think you even got an award from some conservative group for that. Always liked the guy.

Of course, this is a very strong. despotism, this is an arbitrary violence, this is his responsibility. And to be harsh is far more loving in a negative environment than letting them do whatever they want, including violence. Violence and love are not mutually exclusive. And that's going to be a huge part of this book, the rest of this book. It is so arranged by God and nature that people influence each other, only intentionally, but also unintentionally, and this cannot be avoided. Just as a mysterious process of inner purification by spirit and love inevitably, though involuntarily, expresses itself in a look, a voice, a gesture, a gait, and just as inevitably, though often

unconsciously, has a calming and inspiring effect on others, as if evoking a reciprocal chant with its hidden song. so too does an energetic will act strengtheningly, shaping, and captivatingly on those around it, as if evoking a creative rhythm with its creative rhythm. Well, my father always used to say, and thank God I had a good thought. Thank God Almighty. He was an alcoholic, but he was an alcoholic you never knew. Sobriety, big problem.

Alcohol, not really a problem. you never knew. It was impossible to tell if he was drinking or not. He was a very, very good father. He rarely raised his voice. When he did, I still have nightmares about it. My mother screamed all the time, so it didn't matter. So there's a virtue here.

There's a virtue of moderation here. My father used to say, I can tell, because he was in the Marine Corps, First Marine Division, Korean War, He said, I could spot a Marine just by how he walks. And he was never wrong. Didn't come up very much, but he did see it. I could spot a Marine just by how he walks. Strength isn't just in your will, your mind.

It's in everything you do. We're not talking about tyranny. We're not talking about, you know, despotism in our sense. We're talking about legitimate strength. And that gets so difficult. Now, I raised, thank God in the heavens, I raised two boys that are a credit to the world. No problems, no difficulties. I don't know, if I had daughters, I have no clue what I would do.

And all I did, I did what I remember my father doing. That's simple. I was never nervous. When they were born, I knew exactly what I was going to do. And, you know, there's times to say yes, there's times to say no. And, you know, the virtue, especially in Aristotle's sense, the virtues require a tremendous knowledge of context, being able to read the room, so to speak. So, but that kind of strength, you grow up, and of course, this is totally subconscious.

Group with the strong father figure, you feel safe. you don't realize you feel safe, but you do. Without it, you grow up in constant fight or fight mode, which is awful for your help. So this is what he's getting on here. He's not necessarily talking about the father of the family. I think he has that in mind, really any leader, males or leaders.

I mean, he's talking about a man. But that strength, is you may have it, but it's very difficult. I thank God I did a good job. But it was a lot of work and a lot of thought went into how to do things. And my father was the same way. And if he's talking about the father specifically, that's what he's, but he's talking about many levels of strength.

And it creates, and everyone under him, a sense of safety. and yeah, inspiration that even, you know, maybe I didn't even know I was giving, but he didn't know that he was giving. Mostly subconscious. But that means we grow up completely different. All of the things being the same,

we grew up completely different than the kid who does not have one and is always stressed out because he doesn't have this safety. He's always in flight or fight mode because he doesn't have that bulwark. That's a, this is a big deal, and he's at least partially talking about that here. However, consciously and deliberately avoiding this influence is possible only through groundless

suspiciousness and a sad misunderstanding. A suspicious person has an exaggerated fear of causing harm, and therefore causes even worse harm, for they act indecisively and act with complacency, fostering weakness of will within themselves and sewing it around them, creating self-doubt in themselves and evoking in others the perception of their own disloyalty to goodness. If they convince themselves that they have stepped back and left others to do as they please, then, to top it all off, they are deceiving both themselves and others. When I was in high school, I was a musician, as you know. I was in several bands. My mother against all of it. She was vehemently against all of it. My first was vehemently against all of it.

my father, thank God, being the strong man he was, kind of said, we're going along with it. Later on, I found out pretty much what he said. He said, what could these kids be doing otherwise? These kids would be doing all kinds of nasty things. But music and playing together give an outlet to things that otherwise could be very bad out there. This is something you should be happy about, not upset about. I don't care what kind of music they play. it's it's um and and and and so you know you know my mother was against pretty much everything

my father and there were certain limits of course those limits you're not going to be perfect but those limits are are a matter of reason but i think by that point we already knew what those limits were and rarely if ever um uh crossed them this is what he's talking about here how do you know how there's suspicion that everything is bad so you don't allow anything to happen. You don't allow them to leave the house. You have to, you know, there's a, there's, and I know fathers of daughters are far worse off in this regard. It's, uh, I thank God that I didn't have, uh, daughters. I really feel bad for those guys.

I think it's a lot more work, um, with how guys are, especially today. guys without father figures where it's going to be very different. You could always go to the father if the guy's acting improperly. He doesn't have a father. You got to go to him.

So, you know, and we see this in popular culture, you know, the father or sometimes even the mother, usually someone religious, you know, like in the Stephen King Carey, this crazy cult she was a part of, and she was against her doing anything.

What's that going to lead to? You know, my mother had her way. I don't know what I'd be doing. My father said, wait a minute. What they're doing is okay. They're not hurting anybody or themselves. They're playing music. What is your problem?

This is great. This is what you should be happy for. And this is a very common thing. My father, of course, you know, made the money. And he had, you know, of course, he's a Marine. He always had that around him. He was always able to keep her under control. When he died, everything changed in a very negative way.

But that's exactly the point. When he died, everything changed. When the czar was gone, Lenin couldn't take his place. It was utter chaos. And that's when you had Alexander Colentai promote her sexual revolution, possibly the first sexual revolution, deliberately promoted. Easy divorce. abortion. God knows I did abortions back then.

Actually, no real marriage. Every revolutionary movement up until, well, every revolutionary movement, starting with the radical Reformation types, I think almost without exception, had the rejection of marriage, the so-called community of wives. Well, isn't that convenient as part of their agenda. it was always at war with the family

because these revolutionaries were trying to remake society you can't do that with strong father figures with strong, especially strong father figures that have some resources behind them then you have a huge problem there's always a balance you know the balance between

strength and being a tyrant that's something that keeps fathers up at night good fathers up at night it's okay you know, the very fact that you're worried about it means you're going to do all right. But if you have a father that doesn't even want to do this, it just wants to, I'm not just talking about the ones that just go to the store and never come back,

but the ones who, you know, they're afraid to be seen as not with it, they're not, they're afraid to be seen as it's uncool. They want to be a friend more than a father, so they let all kinds of crap happen. They use that stupid excuse. Well, so long as they do it in the house, rather than do it in the house than out there, the worst cop out ever.

That's the type. So even having a father, in that case, could even be negative. You know, I wouldn't be the sterling man I am today without Walter Johnson. I thank God for him all the time. That's what he means here. Just as proof helps another see and acknowledge, and strong, sincere love helps another become

ignited and fall in love, so too does a strong, formative will help another make a decision to find themselves and maintain the spiritual aspect of their personality. This occurs not only through the act of will acting through its direct example, contagion, guidance, and suggestion, but also through the will to another's will, helping the weak will to carry out an active will. People become so accustomed to this participation of someone else's will in strengthening and educating their own in early childhood, they later, having accepted this participation and utilized it,

forget about it and begin to sincerely deny it, its significance, and its usefulness. The awareness or even a vague feeling that another person wants me to do this or that has always been and always will be one of the most powerful means of human beings of human education. And this means is all the more powerful, the more authoritative the person is. The more definite and unwavering their will, the more certain it is before God, the more imposing its expression, the more responsible the decision must be, and the weaker the will of the person being educated. I can't remember the name of the book, but the author I think is Paul Vitz.

many of our listeners know the book I'm talking about. Those that do not grow up with a strong father figure are far more likely to be atheists than those that do. Those without a strong father, I should say, a strong father, have a tough time perceiving a strong and just father in heaven. It kind of makes sense. But he goes through, you know, pages of statistics. where he shows that in great detail.

Not to mention the same, the psychological aspect of it all. Now that first sentence is interesting. Proof, we give evidence, it's going to come up later. You give evidence in hoping that the mind will change. Well,

but the will is different. The intellect and the will are two different things. You know something is right, but if you have a weak will, you won't put it into action. We see that we do that sometimes. We do that all the time. That's almost the very nature of sin.

Our conscience says it's wrong, but it doesn't matter. Our will is weak, and so we don't do it. But, you know, the last part of this, the awareness, the vague feeling of another person wants me to do with, then he's not talking about people pleasing here. That's an abuse of this concept. he's talking about someone where you have, even in the economic life, it's not necessarily just a family, although it's very easy to talk about the father, that, you know, I can't do this because I'm going to get in trouble. At first, it's just an imposition. His Higelianism is showing here.

At first, it's an imposition. I just don't want to get in trouble. But pretty soon over time, you just don't want to do it. not just because you'll get into trouble, but this is this a wrong thing to do. It's a stupid thing to do. He also talks about authority. Now, it's very important.

I think I made the distinction before. I'll make it again. Authority and power. Two very, very, very different things. Power, in this case, is just the ability to coerce someone. For any reason. You could be a mugger, anything.

authority is when you have the right to course somebody. That's a very different story. You hear the old stories when, I guess I came in on the end of this, that when you, in the old days, you would, if you did something wrong, the neighbor's parents would smack him. So it's not just a father, it's a collection of fathers and even mothers. The Hegelian idea, and really the Aristotelian idea, is that at first something feels like it's just an aim in a position.

Damn it, I want to do this. But after a while, you come to see the reason in it. And the only reason you come to see the reason in it is that you're forced not to do it at first. This is a very important concept. As you mature, as you get more experience, as you get more knowledge, you look back, we all do this. We look back and we say, God, my father was absolutely correct on that. At the time, I didn't think he was. I thought I knew everything, but now, you know, and this is what happens.

At first, it's just a, you know, just a general no, but later on, you realize just how rational that no one. From childhood, man absorbs into his soul the flow of another's edifying will. Even when the power of evidence is not yet awakened in his soul and the power of love has not yet been spiritualized for self-education, The will of others aimed at defining, shaping and strengthening his will, seemed to flow into his soul. Still unable to build himself independently, he constructed himself as an authority imposed upon him by the will of others, parents, the church, teachers, state authorities, learning true, firm will direction, and only the all-consuming work of the unconscious could subsequently allow him to forget the volitional benefits he had received and proclaimed that. doctrine of the perniciousness and uselessness of these benefits? It's always been my opinion that puberty is a recapitulation of the fall of Adam and Eve.

In fact, they are parallel in a lot of different ways. All of a sudden, you're worried about clothes. All of a sudden, you're worried about yourself image. you go and hide from the father figure, you think you know things, you're listening to all the wrong people. Prior to puberty, kids are a joy,

generally speaking. It's when they go through that hormonal change. Now, I don't remember my kids. I mean, it was just one straight shot. I don't, you know, because they had this list of things. parents, the church, teachers, maybe not the state. But we made sure that there was a strong figure in each.

Thank God we also had good teachers. My kids went to public school, but in rural America, and they were great. Never had to worry about anything. I knew them all. But there's this break that occurs at 12 years old, 13 years old, and I hate it. It's the fall. But what happens then? everything that you did just because

you love your parents now you have to learn how to do it rationally before when you were a kid you loved your parents you didn't have to think about it after you fully have to come to understand why you love your parents and why you follow it the reason comes into it this wasn't supposed to necessarily be this way

but this is why Christ came earth this is why the church exists is why the law exists don't underestimate that puberty is very similar to the fall of Adam and Eve. And again, I think it's harder with daughters than with sons. But that's when they're self-will, just like in Genesis. Self-will develops, all of this. But, you know, if you make it easier for them to understand why you love your parents and want to please them, they could be 15 and still do fine. Well, if there are no parents, it's a totally

different story. If you don't have any legitimate authority, you might have people in power, like cops and stuff, then how can you conceive of any rational order to the world? There's no rational order in your life, and the regime has continued to support a system like this, pure chaos. They know what happens. They know what's going to happen, and they're evil for doing it. In the process of humanity's spiritual growth, reserves of correctly directed volitional energy accumulate are detached from individual subjective carriers, find new undying, socially organized sensors and methods of influence, and in this concentrated and consolidated form, are passed on from generation to generation.

Impersonal reservoirs of external education, educational will are formed, sometimes hidden behind the elusive appearance of decency intact, sometimes manifesting themselves in a stream of orders and laws, sometimes supported by simple and impersonal public condemnation, sometimes reinforced by the action of an entire system of organized institutions. The main goal of all this personal coercion and super-personal pressure is, of course, not to force. It would be impossible to physically force people to engage,

engage in certain behavior. This would be impossible and unnecessary, and the very intention of achieving this could never be conceived in a mentally healthy person. No, the person being educated, both a child and an adult, remains, under all circumstances, a self-governing autonomous center, an individual, a subject of law, a citizen, whose expression of will and initiative cannot be replaced by anything external, and the purpose of this influence on their autonomous will is to induce them to the necessary and spiritually correct autonomous self-coercion. Now, I know we still have the page to go here, so I'll make it quick here. I'm not necessarily a Kantian, but there is a distinction between how liberals use the word freedom and the word autonomy.

I accept Kant's definition of autonomy as the real one. It's when you make a decision without any internal, pressures, meaning your passions or fantasies you might have, or external pressure. Now, he doesn't mean that you're an isolated being. He means that once you, you know, at a certain level of intellectual maturity, you really don't, you know, you love the centers of authority, but you just don't need them because you're going to act in the proper way anyway. Unfortunately, we can't say that about everybody.

When you come up with an act that is free, that is to say, autonomous, it's something that not you've been forced to do. I mean, you're not a criminal, either internally or externally, but especially internally. You've learned that your passion, your desires need to be shut down much of the time. Therefore, you could make an autonomous decision. And you learned that growing up. the right thing is usually the hard thing.

Without very good examples, Aristotle talked about examples being very important, without good examples you could never be autonomous. Freedom is just a lack of restraint. That's a meaningless term. Autonomy means that really the only person that can enslave you is you. And if your passions are allowed to run wild, that's all you're going to be doing is trying to satisfy them on all times. The only person who's going to profit is the person who, who offers to satisfy them for a price. The task of socially organized psychological compulsion boils down to strengthening and correcting

a person's spiritual self-compulsion. This applies not to a person already strong and evil. This will not help them, but to a person weak in goodness, but not yet strengthened in evil. For them, psychological compulsion, coming from outside and appealing to their will, can and should be a powerful aid in the matter of self-education. Of course, the idea of goodness, injustice is also accessible to their experience for this subject in itself is always open to all, but the testing of this subject carried out through an act of conscience, and very often providing people with categorical instructions that are ill-suited to their personal self-preservation,

too often remains an abstract possibility and an unrealizable ability. This testing requires personal spiritual effort, and people are too often ready to shirk this effort. Psychic pressure from outside compels him either to first make these efforts to comprehend in his inner experience the laws of justice and reciprocity that build a healthy community and then freely perform the necessary actions or to first subject himself to self-compulsion and then figure out what happened to him. It is thus necessary to recognize that legal and state laws are not laws of violence, but laws of psychic and legal coercion, pursuing precisely the goal and addressing autonomous legal entities in order to suggestively inform their will of the correct

direction for self-guidance and self-education. In its fundamental idea and in its normal operation, legal law is a formula for mature legal consciousness, anchored in thought, advanced by will, and coming to the aid of an immature but developing legal consciousness. This is a combination of Plato, Aristotle, and Hangel with a little bit of cons sprinkled in. You know, this is stuff that I

had to master the conception of this stuff and gradual and afterwards. Any government or any family for that matter who has to use violence, I mean, physical violence to get anything done, To get anyone to listen to them, either you have a very evil population, or more likely, you shouldn't be ruling anybody. You know, in old Russia, coercion wasn't the norm.

You didn't have a prison system. You know, everything was local. Everyone knew you. The extended family was the dominant thing, and you had a czar on top. And then, of course, you had the commune and a czar on top of that. this is what creates legitimate autonomy. And again, if you have this, you know, you would think that some of these,

like the commune is a socialist style system. And yet, why was that the first thing that the communist destroyed? Actual functioning idealists in Christian socialism, they destroyed and put in its place just collectivism. Again, it goes to show that socialism was not their concern, and their concern was neither the worker nor the peasant.

Anyway, that's a separate story. Moreover, it is precisely the volitional element of law that represents the beginning of psychological coercion. Legal law, in no way, coerces a person, does not trample on his dignity or abolish his spiritual self-governance. On the contrary, it lives, acts, and perfects itself solely from the free personal acceptance and self-imposition. However, at the same time, he powerfully compels a human psyche, both the by the direct imposition of authority and by the form of an order prohibition permission, and by the consciousness of socially organized opinion, and, finally, by the prospect of probable and even certainly upcoming unpleasant consequences, disapproval, publicity, appearance in court,

losses, and perhaps even exclusion from a certain social circle, and even physical coercion and suppression. and all these psychic forces for the fear of physical coercion acts not physically but psychically urge him to make those internal efforts for discretion and volition that were necessary, which he could make, but which for some reason he himself had not yet accomplished. We have this idea now that if you do something because you're forced into it, or you do something, if you do the right thing, I mean, because you're forced into it, or you're terrified of a lawsuit.

That's not exactly a virtuous act. Even today, we have that understanding, believe it or not, if it's done by force. No, virtuous action is something that you just do because you are properly educated and you have a society that accepts that education and even rewards it to some extent. Now, we don't live in that society.

Virtue is assaulted. and yet as much as we can, we do it anyway. In a healthy society, honesty is a virtue. People like honest men. In an unhealthy society, everyone despises honest men. Last paragraph. Yep. What if all this mental coercion proves insufficient,

and the person being coerced still prefers not to discern or subject themselves to the necessary act? then two options remain. Either grant them the freedom to act arbitrarily and maliciously, except that the command and prohibition are supported by nothing but censure and boycott, thereby enticing the vicious and evil will to embrace the tempting idea of external freedom or resort to physical force. Reminds me, I have a paper of the great leader of El Salvador, Bukalekle.

His country was falling apart. It was a whole huge swath that were controlled by the gangs. He decided enough is enough. He declared a state of emergency and, you know, had roundups. Cops know where everybody is. Things like habeas corpus. Yeah, that's okay in peacetime, but not when your society is controlled by gangs. He literally declared war on them.

Other stuff can be sorted out later. prior to that you had governments asking the gangs not to kill people like on a Tuesday it's Sunday don't kill that many people that's actually what you had you had it in Chicago not that long ago

how could the gang ever respect anyone if the state's asking them you know in other words okay we've beaten us just please let's try to get along no who Keli opened up all these new prisons

sent them there huge numbers the rest unfortunately came to America and now in many areas of the country social life is rebuilding people aren't scared anymore

and so they could function as they always have the cancer has been removed and Bukala was the chemotherapy. So this is what he took up here. I'm going to give granted them the Freedom Act. But, you know, he's not really talking about stuff like that here. And you notice he's not even talking about an invading army or anything.

He's talking about this stuff in general, family or the intermediate levels up to the state. But there was no way that you could grant him. freedom to act arbitrarily to this large number of gangs in El Salvador. The country would be destroyed. This is why military governments come into existence. I have a whole book on this. Maybe the only one in English defending the military governments of Latin America. They didn't just take over for fun or that, you know, they like power.

Military men usually don't like that kind of thing. They took over because they were the last line of defense. the country was falling apart. The communists were blowing up buildings. The economy was in a free fall. Inflation was to the roof. And there was another option. That's why they're popular when they take over.

And they hang a bunch of people. It makes them even more popular. That's the only way that society could function with any kind of normality. In El Salvador's case, it was a, declaration of the state of emergency it was continually extended. His approval ratings last I checked, or something like 87%,

condemned viciously by the Biden administration. Not so much by the Trump administration. It's a different story. The Biden administration, same thing for the Philippines. You know, anytime a government actually wins their drug war, Afghanistan, the Philippines, El Salvador,

the U.S. condemns them, put sanctions on them, will do anything to get rid of the government that's able to do this. And it's for the stupidest of reason. You know, there was no, that he couldn't let them run wild. He had a responsibility. Talk about fighting evil by force.

He's built some of the largest prisons in the area, and they're stuffed. All these guys in face tats and, you know, NGOs all over the world. world have condemned him. I think they're condemning him because his policies worked, not because of any so-called human rights abuse. The rule of gangs is a human rights abuse. And it's very suspicious that the Biden administration, the NGOs, were all condemned him in every way possible when he actually freed the country and the arbitrary rules of organized crime. And

in part he's talking about things like that here. He said I have two options. And he took the option of harshness. I have no choice here. I've been elected. If I do what everyone else has done, this country's going to disintegrate. And it was disintegrating economically and socially.

And it affects how people interact. Ordinary people interact. If this is what gets, If gang activity, which gets rewarded, people are being raised in that, well, how are they going to, what's their valuesism going to be? That can't be allowed to occur. Bukkele, the hero of Central America, smash these gangs, massive police and military action. The people love them. The elites despise them.

All righty. Got part one done. we will come back in a few days with with some new material. I'll have it done. I'll have it. Cool. I want to encourage everyone to go over to the show notes

and to go over to the description in the video. Donate to Dr. Johnson's work by his book. Join his Patreon. Send him something on cash app, some Bitcoin. Do what you got to do. But support Dr. Johnson's work. And yeah, we'll be back to continue

you this much deeper topic than the last one that we that we tackled. And I want to assure listeners that once these strands of argument come together, it's going to be very profound. This is why E. Lin is such a famous philosopher among the emigrates. We're just dealing with the strands right now. I'm translating stuff. That's getting to where the strands are brought together again. and it's very important you guys hang in there.

I know it can be a little difficult now, but it is getting more and more profound as I'm reading ahead. It's all worth it. I agree. All right. So I'll see in a couple days. Thank you.

All right, my friend. Bye-bye. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of Unresistance to Evil by Force by Yvonne. Dr. Johnson. How are you doing today? Well, I'm proud of myself. I mean, I put so much work into this.

I ended up having to translate a lot of this myself. The machine helps quite a bit, but I think it's Elin's fault. He writes in such a way that, I mean, he's a Higalian. I mean, you know, maybe it may be just, it just soaked through where, you know, the machine is of limited value. So I had to go through, you know, sentence by sentence, which gives me a headache. But it was a labor of love. It's something that has to be done. I love doing it. It reminds me of years ago when we didn't have Google Translate or anything like that. I was forced to learn on my own. But Ilin is very repetitive. Wherever you see an ellipsees, it means that he's

he's repeated the same thing again using different words. So, you know, he can be maddening at certain points. So I tried to simplify a few things. And I hope the, the, I hope I got it, I got it correctly. But there's pretty much anyone can do this better than me. And I hope that I get some kind of a, you know, good job for, for this, but, but it's not easy material, and it's getting more difficult as time goes on,

which is also why Google Translite is increasingly useless, or Yandex is increasingly useless because of the nature of the vocabulary. So, I use the, I know we have Russian speakers who are listening. I put the original Russian, both in Latin and Cyrillic, for words that are controversial or I think are controversial so just they could see what was there in the original so which is a common practice um so you know let's see where this goes this is going to be this is going to give everyone a headache but it's going to educate a lot of people and it's going to expand a lot of minds all righty so part six uh is a physical coercion and suppression and you have, do you want to just comment real quick on your definitions of coercion, how you got

them there real quick, or in suppression? Well, the Russian for suppression could also mean to clamp down on something. So in the sense that a government will clamp down on crime, something like that. So, you know, usually don't use that phrase individually, but you use it. for a state hardliners clamping down on something. So they're two very similar words. So I just include the Cyrillic for the titles almost every time. All righty. Here we go.

Part six of physical coercion and suppression. It is in this context and only in this context that the problem of physically coercing others should be approached correctly. For this form of coercion, is, first of all, not self-sufficient and not detached from other forms, but rather serves as their support and reinforcement. Physical force on others constitutes the final and extreme stage of compulsion. It appears when self-coercion fails and external mental coercion proves insufficient. Of course, simplified and crude nature's impulsive, unbalanced, and evil people are prone to overlook this gradation. However, this is a very much. However, this is a very nature of the same. However, this

not fundamentally changed to the matter. There is no means, no medicine or poison, which people could not abuse through frivolity or excess, and all of these abuses in no way discredit these means as such. I also reread Tolstoy's, The Kingdom of God is within you, which is one of his main works laying out his point of view on pure pacifism, and it's an extreme form of pacifism. I've read the other stuff before. I spent a lot of time on the King of God within you here.

And he does make his arguments often depend on extremes and abuses as if it's normal. His argument is always something along the lines of using violence to stop evil is just

another evil. We don't know the motivations of those who are using violence. We don't know this. He also doesn't believe, I don't think he believes that evil actually exists. And he also doesn't believe that they're, you know, crude natures, impulsive, unbalanced people. I don't think he believes that either. That's something that people who use violence use to justify their acts. So, you know, when you read Tolstoy, you know,

And there's just enough truth in what he says in other areas that it sucks you in. Not to mention being a very good writer, obviously. And he had a charismatic, he had a huge following, especially outside of Russia. As I mentioned before, Gandhi was a red Tolstoy all the time, talked about him all the time. He is Quakers. He's one of the fathers of modern. pacifism. So I could see why people would be sucked into his point of view.

And we'll talk more about poll story explicitly here as it comes up. But then he gets so extreme in his point of view that it's really hard to take him seriously. And I think he's writing about not defending yourself or anything. And I think he's going to say, well, that's an exception, but he never done. But what Elyne is saying here is something that we would call common sense. If someone is doing something wrong, you don't just punch them out. Depending on who they are and depending on your motivations, you use every motivation first. You try to be nice to them.

You try to explain to them the problem. You use everything possible. And then when that doesn't work, at the absolute last resort, you use the minimum of physical violence necessary. And that's what he's saying here. And Tolstoy would say that I think I sent you a quote from him. Maybe you could actually put it in the description, I think was the central quote in that whole book, where he says, well, you know, you're not in any position to judge when these other things have failed.

Nonviolent things have failed. You're no one to judge whether or not this person is intelligent or not or what evil is. You know, I think he kind of deflects a little bit. But he mentions more of Tolstori in these next five chapters than he has in the past. Excess comes not from the means, but from the immoderate person.

The inappropriateness or untimeliness of a given medicine does not indicate its evil properties. Arsenic can poison, but can also cure, and is it not naive to think that an incompetent and inept surgeon who also imagines that surgery is a penicia is comprising surgery? Amputation should not be performed without extreme cause. Does this mean that amputation itself is evil? Is money to blame for the profligate's waste? Of course, those who have succumbed to temptation tend to blame everything on the tempting circumstances,

while the weak person blames all their falls on the beguiling devil. However, there are more worthy and spiritually sound outcomes. The analytical considerations set out above force us to admit that physical coercion of man by man is not evil. And further, that evil is by no means. reducible to causing physical suffering to one's neighbor, nor to influencing the spirit of man through the medium of his body. I'm sure at one time or another, we have used arguments like this.

I can't believe pacifists actually exist sometimes. It's sort of like, you know, when a vegan says that you see how these animals are so poorly treated before they're killed. And I said, okay, so if they were treated well, you were starting to meet again? And of course, they said, well, no, of course. So that's not really the reason. So let's get to the reason. And that's what Tolstoy does.

Now, I have to admit, I cut out like a thousand questions like this, the amputation, the profligate. He just went on and I, okay, we get the point. Things are in and of themselves are neutral. It just depends on how you use them. Sometimes amputation is just, there's no other option. The arsenic case is a great one. It could do both things. It's poison.

It's also used to be used as a medicine. So violent coercion. That's what I mean here in that last, he means in that last sentence. By means of the body, the physical stuff, in and of itself is neutral. And he'll explain why and how here at a minute. External physical compulsion or influence as such is not evil for the simple reason that nothing external can in itself be either good or evil, as it can only be a manifestation of internal states.

Anyone who morally condemns the external either commits an absurdity, applying moral concepts without any sense or without realizing it, condemns not the external. external, but the internal, which may not deserve condemnation. Thus, it makes sense to say that ferocious revenge is evil, but it makes no sense to say that a bloody cut is evil. Similarly, it makes sense to say that hatred that leaves to poisoning is evil, but it is meaningless to say that the act of injecting something into another's body is evil. He's going up higher levels of abstraction, and you see this. It really is a fallacy in and of itself. you know, but I was actually shocked by how many Russian, you know, I don't remember ever needing the word mesh revenge, but there's a thousand words in Russian for revenge that actually might say something. But what he's starting to get to here, external acts aren't evil or good. They simply are.

A dog by, you know, the dog is just, you know, unless you could blame it on somebody, but something. like an earthquake or a volcano, they're not evil or good, they just are. So that's what he's getting at here. Evil exists in our internal states only, the state of our soul. If someone were to claim that every act of physical coercion on another is evil because it was intentional, then this, too, would be untenable. Every intentional physical influence on another is, of course, a manifest of an action of will. However, an effort of will in itself is not evil, for it can directly serve the demands of truth and love. It can strive to meet them. It can conditionally proceed and temporarily replace them. The will can be evil, in which case it proves that it is malicious.

It is torn from its vision and from its deep, creatively constructive power, becoming blind, groundless and destructive and is thus turned into a mechanism of malicious obsession, but it may not be evil, in which case it remains true to its nature. It sees and chooses. It is not drawn but guides. It creates and builds even when, in appearance, it destroys something. Therefore, it is not enough to point to the intentionality of physical coercion in order to condemn and reject coercion as such.

In view of this, external physical coercion is not subject to condemnation either by virtue of its external corporeality or by virtue of its volitional intent. Both features can be present without a crime occurring. Thus, the strictest prohibition against a willful child going on a boat in a stormy sea, a prohibition accompanied by the threat of locking him in and, finally, resulting in the carrying out of the threat in the face of disobedience, cannot be considered a crime. physical restraint will occur, but to condemn it as violence would be to show complete inattention to the moral essence of the act. Yeah, now he's going to start using examples, just like Tolstoy tries to do. You know, Tolstoy's point of view is, you know, one of the things that is extremely irritating about Leo Tolstoy is that he speaks like he has solved the problem of Eastern theology. This is what Christianity is. This is what it is, what it isn't.

He presents it as an absolute fact that Christianity is incompatible with the state. Well, we know what his church fathers had to say about that. It's certainly not true. There are states, and then there are, you know, there's monarchs and their retireans. There's, you know, a huge literature on that. So the example of the child on the boat, actually I know I have some experience with this, depending on how old the child is, there may be some actual violence here. You have to tie the kid up if he's going to go, you know, he's going to be destroyed. I'm not sure what Tolstoy would say about that.

He doesn't bring anything like that up. But it is an act of violence. It is an act of physical force of one kind or another. So what he's concerning is not just the will itself as a manifestation of the condition of the soul. That can go either way. I'm not saying he's a utilitarian. But someone who uses this kind of violence is looking towards what could have happened. And you've got to do what you've got to do.

do, which is a very famous phrase, especially in the East Coast, saying you do whatever means necessary to keep this terrible thing from occurring, and no one's going to be upset with you, except a little told story. Similarly, if my friends, seeing that I am overcome with violent rage, that I am bent on murder and will not listen to persuasion were to tie me up and lock me up until the fit of anger had past, they would not be committing violence against me, but would be doing me the greatest spiritual favor, and naturally, I would retain gratitude toward them for the rest of my days. On the other hand, an extortionist order to pay unpaid money accompanied by a threat to torture

a kidnapped child, and ending with the carrying out of the threat upon non-payment would be a genuine atrocity, and only spiritual and terminological blindness could equate all these actions and a general rejection of violence as such. All this means that the question of the moral value of external physical coercion does not depend on the external corporeality of the impact and not on the volitional pre-intentionality of the act, but from the state of the soul and spirit of the person physically acting. You know, those last two, you have no idea how long I spent in those last two paragraphs. I redid them and redid them and redid them and redid them

trying to but I think I think the point is made. Someone can see you tying up a I don't know, maybe he has a mental problem, whatever tying up a kid

because so he doesn't go on that boat but they don't know about the boat. They just see you tying up the kid. I'm like, God, you're a lunatic. I'm calling the cop. they don't see the whole story. The point is, the word violence and what it covers is so humongous, both in the ways it's carried out and the reasons on both sides, the victim and the actor, is so huge that to have a blank in condemnation makes absolutely no sense.

You simply can't do it. And the argument is actually at this point very simple. the only thing that matters here is not the means but the state of the soul of the actor you know a ruler has such and such a policy that may use a lot of violence if the state of his soul if he's a balanced man if he's a virtuous man you know you're the president of Columbia in the 80s

you know he had no choice but to use huge amounts of violence He didn't want to, but that was the nature of the situation there. So long as he acted for the good of Columbia and for nothing else, then what he did was correct. So that's the only thing that you could really judge is the state of the soul of the person who either orders it or does it. Physical compulsion would be a manifestation of evil, if it were, by its very nature,

level on. However, in reality, it is in no way hostile to either the spiritual life nor love. It is a manifestation of the fact that the one who compels appeals in the one being compelled, not directly to the truth and love, which are essentially and completely free, but to the will, subjecting it through the body to coercion or direct external restraint. Such coercion or restraint may not originate an evil, may not impel a person. toward evil and may not have an evil goal in mind. Physical coercion would be irrational if it sought to put an end to the spiritual education of the man being coerced by undermining his will, damaging his reason, or by seeking to suppress the reason and his will altogether.

But this applies only to special, specifically evil methods of physical influence that destroy the physical and mental health of the man being coerced. Yeah, I think he's being very clear here. It's the goal. For example, in Russia, given the nature of the weather, the size, the short growing season, a strong state is always necessary. The Bolivics were a strong state. Therefore, the Bolivks were necessary. That does not work.

It might logically work. but there's an equivocation there in terms of strength and the purpose of Bolivism was something completely different than the monarchs of medieval Russia. That's what he's arguing. That's what he's arguing here. It is evil when you seek to harm somebody's reason or will.

When you seek to harm the unity of the nation, the health of the nation, and you use force to get that. And I've been watching Narcos with my wife the first two seasons, you know, with, which is brilliantly done. And how, and it's more or less historically accurate. And when Escobar, you know, blew up that plane, putting bombs in shopping centers, he lost the goodwill of the people. he thought that people would forget about all this his drug dealing and everything by building houses and everything and he's from there

but he went way too far and he lost the support of people there for this and he started to lose his mind near the end but he was using this violence for the sake of his cocaine empire not for anything good his soul was badly badly badly badly badly damaged. So violence against that, any president would have no choice, but use violence against

that. So long as that's being done solely for the good of Columbia is perfectly legitimate and is good. The violence that Pablo Escobar did for his purposes is not good, even though the violence might be identical. They didn't take down a plane, but even though if they use the same methods did the same things. Tolstoy only sees the abstraction. No, they both use violence. That doesn't mean it was evil in both cases. However, the harmful nature of this coercion does not indicate the harmful nature of any coercion. In fact, the purpose of physical violence is precisely the opposite. Not to weaken the will, but to stimulate it to effort. not to suppress the will, but to provoke its spontaneous action in the right direction.

Not to damage or suppress the will, but to curb the external violence of blindness, thereby paving the way for the opening of the inner eye and perhaps for its insight. Physical coercion in itself, of course, cannot evoke reason. But, for example, the isolation of a passionate man, forcing him to stop the external accumulation of his bad inclinations and passions, encourages him to concentrate on his inner state. in which his soul can and should be under favorable circumstances, burn out and be transformed. For many people, deprivation of the freedom of external violence

is the first condition for acquiring inner freedom, that is, for spiritual purification, insight, and repentance. Thus, bad types of physical coercion and suppression can spiritually harm the one being coerced, but this does not mean that all types of coercion are evil and harmful. There was a time I think, well, I think in some states you still have it, where prisons were called penitentiaries. The word penitent, penance, is in there. And the point was to bring these people to consider their actions.

Now, that was a long time ago. You know, it's certainly not the case now, although it does still happen. how many times do you hear someone saying I went down the wrong path and somebody said my father or someone else smacked me across the face and said you're not doing this anymore and I hated him for it but today I thank God for it it was only the act of physical violence because everything else had failed it was only the act of physical violence that got him got his attention

and got him to or even get lock him in his room whatever you have to do, then they say eventually, I realized, you know, as I got older, how necessary that was or else I would have been maybe dead today. You hear that all the time. And that's what he's, that's what he's talking about here. Here's the act of acts of violence that are not only positive. It doesn't just create simmering resentment in the victim. Eventually, unless he's a sociopath. The sociopath see no difference between good and evil, you know, unless he's a sociopath, the person, the victim will eventually come to realize that he's earned it

only if it's done through love. This is why father figures are so important. You spank a child, not because you're angry, but because you're trying to keep him from doing something again. And, you know, that's a tall order sometimes. But that's the big difference. Doing it because you're angry is not right. Doing it to keep him from ever doing it again, that is right.

The exact same action and may have the same effect. But for older people, you know, being sent to prison, getting sent to isolation, that might be the one thing that this person needs to finally get on the right path again. Likewise, physical coercion would be wrong if it replaced, suppressed, or put an end to the unity of a people, manifesting malicious hostility toward the one coerced, coercing him to malicious hostility, or calling on all other people to hate the man coerced or the community.

But all this applies only to special, specifically evil methods of coercion and suppression, which precisely because of this approach, violence, and are subject to rejection. However, the evil nature of such coercion does not at all testify to the nature of all coercion. Yeah, I apologize for that sentence. You know, I must not have deleted something here. And I mentioned before, and I have here in brackets, that is Tolstoy's whole argument in the kingdom of God within you. He rejects even self-defense right in chapter one.

It's a quote from Aidan Baloo, as you could see, but he cites it with approval. I thought it was him at first, but no, he's citing it, but he's citing it because he supports it. even self-defense is out of the question in Tolstoy's case. You want me to read that quote you sent me? You know, I think it would be a good idea because it will situate, this is what he's responding to.

And I think the quote I sent you is so programmatic and essential to so many of his writings on this. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. This is from King of McGarro is within you chapter two. The third kind of answer is still more subtle than the proceeding consistent, asserting that though the command of non-resistance to evil by force is binding on the Christian when the evil is directed against himself personally, it ceases to be binding when the evil is directed against his neighbors, and that then the Christian is not only bound to, is only

not bound to fulfill the commandment, but is even bound to act in opposition to it in defense of his neighbors, and to use force against transgressors by force. This assertion is an absolute assumption, and one cannot find in all Christ's teachings any confirmation of such an argument. Such an argument is not only a limitation, but a direct contradiction and negation of the commandment. If every man has the right to have recourse to force in face of a danger threatening another, the question of the use of force is reduced to a question of the definition of anger for another. If my private judgment is to decide the question of what is danger for another, there is no occasion for the use of force which could not be justified on the ground of danger

threatening some other men. They killed and burned witches. They killed aristocrats and garandists. They killed their enemies because those who were in authority regarded them as dangerous for the people. I sent you that quote, and I'm happy you read it. Now, that was from the, what you said, Chapter 2 in it was a response, that chapter two was a response to his critics. And of course, he was responding to the argument that, well, Christ doesn't, Christ forbids, you know, violence against your personal enemies, not the enemies of someone else, your nation, your family, everything, and that was his answer to that. But you see that he can't even write about that without getting all of

emotional and talk about they burn witches, you know, which is completely irrelevant. It is a deflection. I think that's wildly overstated. There's a ronists and everything else. There's no getting around that. That's simply because man is sinful. That's going to happen. That has nothing to do with the legitimate use of physical violence. These are these are extreme versions of what happens when a lunatic is in power and thinks that there's danger when there isn't one. Well, you know, he doesn't live in our era. We know precisely the extremely violent danger to our people. There is nothing.

I mean, and I don't know why. Well, I do know why. It wouldn't surprise you to know. that he's rejected the Old Testament. He thinks that Christ has completely removed the old testament. He did not. Christ was very specific in the areas that he was replacing. Is he rejecting it not on Marcyonite, like Marcyonite terms, is he?

Oh, well, that's a whole separate issue. He's a Judaizer, therefore there's narcissism in him, and hence that. that there's a whole literature on that that I'm not we can't get into but he rejects it I think mostly because it

completely destroys his argument as I've said before Christ didn't really have a political agenda because it's already been settled the prophets settled it you read the prophets

that is the political philosophy of the Christian world and sometimes it could be quite violent but only, you know, for the best of reasons. Jeremiah wanted an invasion of Israel to destroy it because Israel deserved it because they had sinned so badly that the only thing that would fix any of them is to have the Babylonian, you know, that's why they threw them into a soar.

So he can't be. He can't believe in the Old Testament with things like that. I could go to Psalms. There was a 121? 121. It's this extreme violence on people that I don't like. I forget. I think it's 121.

So he essentially, his Christianity or the words of Christ, and even there, some words of Christ. And that's it. because there's certain other words where he does accept. I mean, you know, turning over the tables, you know, this is very common, commonly mentioned, of the money changers, they're the usurers. Within the temple itself, that's a condemnation of Solomon, he whipped them. He beat the crap at them. I mean, they can't say that. I don't know what that would be in Aramaic or Greek, but he used a whip.

he went outside and fashioned a whip at it. You know, the famous comment to his apostles that you need to sell whatever you have so you're armed. Doesn't mention that. But the question is, why, I mean, the whole just war concern of St. Augustine and so many others deals with all of this stuff. So, you know, essentially what Tolstoy is

saying and an argument is that you can't judge what's dangerous for someone else. All right. Yet maybe in some cases you can't, but that is not an argument. So that chapter, chapter two is a response to his critics, and it's an argument that a lot of us have made in the past. That crisis is not, this is not a suicide pact. And yeah, if if you're invaded and you do nothing about it, then you're just as bad as the invader. Of course, Tolstoy can't handle that and rejects it. There is no self-defense in Tolstoy. Now, he says something correct. He'll say things like revolutions are evil because the violence that brings them to power only rewards the most Machiavellian.

Well, that's true. I don't know why that wouldn't be the case in his ideology. I mean, anarchists have to be revolutionaries. They want the state to be eliminated. maybe not violently. I don't know how he wanted this to happen. But Christianity, in his definition, was anti-statist, and no physical violence could be used. He's iffier on, you know, mental violence. I don't want to say mental violence in the sense that, you know,

words are not acts of violence. We know that. But they could be just as harmful. That he doesn't get into either. So he brings us such a level of abstraction that, oh, yeah, yeah, we hate it when they burn wishes, which is that was terrible. God, I guess the state shouldn't exist. We shouldn't have coercion and violence is wrong.

That's not an argument. It's a deflection. It is true that it happens that people, by forcing others, fall into bitterness or become professional suppressors of internal malice, but is it permissible to generalize that to the effect that everyone who participates in coercion or suppression hates or that coercion is carried out for the sake of mutual animosity. Is there any business or profession in which people do not fall into malice or hatred? Those who practice state coercion or suppression need not do so from malice, but impartiality, not hatred, but a balanced spirit, not vindictiveness, but justice.

True. They need willpower, severity, and personal courage. But is this the same as malice and hatred? They must be free from indulgent sentimentality and groundless pity. But is this the same as love and spiritual unity? I know I'm plugging a book here, but I do have a book defending the military dictatorships of Latin America, which is on Amazon. And I go through many countries. You can't go through the mall. There's so many of them. but I even use Central America too, not just South America. Military men don't want to take political power. They have enough to do being just normal military men. They all know that taking political power hurts their own military readiness.

They don't want to do this. But these men usually are from the lower classes, peasant classes, who work their way up the officer ranks, and they see that politicians simply can't fix the problems. Violence everywhere, inflation through the roof, parties incapable of coming to an agreement, no matter who's elected. And if they don't intervene, the society will disintegrate. They don't want power, but they have to take it. This is one of the reasons that they should be, they're not evil, as most people will say that they are.

we say that with Bashar Assad he did not want power he had wonderful ophthalmologist practice and think it was in Britain he didn't want power which is probably the right person to have power but his brother was killed in the core accident

for whether that was real or not he had no choice so you have that's the nature of the you know a virtuous person who is brought to power and is concerned now only with the good of the names. The military men who take over, they're not doing this for egocentric reasons. Pinochet was, he was asked by the parliament to take over because Elende had completely violated the Constitution. They recognized his 38%.

Only insofar as he maintained adherence to the Constitution, he didn't. They asked Pinochet to take over. They don't like this kind of thing, but they have no choice but to do it. Willpower, severity, personal courage. You want to stop, you know, left-wing violence in Latin America at the time. What else are you going to do? So that just occurred to me as you're reading this, that just occurred to me that the nature of a military coup overthrowing a civilian power that is simply incompetent, and the country is disintegrating, literally disintegrating in front of their eyes,

they took an oath to defend this country. Therefore, they take over. It hurts their readiness. You know, I mean, they're not like Noriega. You know, they'd rather just get back to being a general. They have enough work there. And that's really what he's, what he's talking about here. There cannot be vindictiveness. There has to be a balanced spirit. there has to be justice and impartiality. Then physical violence in many of these cases is absolutely essential, but necessary. It must be acknowledged that physical coercion and restraint are almost always unpleasant and often even mentally tormenting, not only for the person being coerced, but also for the one doing the coercing,

but only a completely naive heedness could think that everything unpleasant is evil. while everything pleasant is good. In fact, it is all too often the case that evil is pleasant to people, while good is unpleasant. Yes, physical restraint deprives a person of pleasure and causes suffering, but a true educator knows that love for the person being educated should not be expressed in providing them with pleasure or cautiously shielding them from suffering. On the contrary, it is precisely through suffering, especially when sent to a person in wise measure, that the soul deepens, strengthens, and gains insight.

Tulsa uses the word love quite often. Americans use the word love quite often. And I'm not popular when I ask, or compassion is another one. When I ask what the hell they're talking about, because they don't really know, it's some kind of syrupy indulgence. It comes down to, you know, love can, And I think I've already said this, but love can require physical violence.

And so long as that's really the motivation, then it's perfectly okay. Aristotle made the distinction famously in his politics. You have an aristocracy, the mirror image is oligarchy. You have a monarchy. The mirror image is a tyranny. They look the same. But they're not. The difference, he says, is that an aristocracy, in a monarchy, in a legitimate democracy, functioned for the interests of the society. Their opposites, their mirror images,

exist only for their own interests. That's the difference for a tyrant and a monarch. A tyrant exists only for his own interests, and acts only for his own interests, whatever they might be. And oligarchy, as we all know, because we live under one, functions only for their own profit, and they don't care about anything else. Sometimes in old books from the 19th century, they used the word aristocracy when they should use oligarchy. But to say that because oligarchy exists, therefore there is no such thing as aristocracy is irrational. It doesn't exist that way. Sometimes people who use violence don't like it.

I didn't like, you know, I spanked my kids. I didn't like it. It was not a pleasant experience, but I knew it was necessary. And it tended to work. You can't do that with cats. Cats don't listen to anything. You can't be disciplined whatsoever.

But with human beings, it's, and you don't like it. You just simply, you simply, it hurts to do it. As the old saying goes. However, it's true.

Evil is pleasant to a whole. lot of unbalanced souls. Utilitarianism, the concept, the only thing that matters is to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain, well, that's not much of a theory, even though it's very, you know, still dominant in the West. Adam Smith was utilitarian. You know, they reject the concept of rights because they're certainly talking about pleasure and pain. Defining it, that's very difficult, especially in, of course, they lived in a much. much healthier societies in us. Defining pleasure and pain now would be absolutely absurd.

Frankly, I think that many people deliberately seek pain or irrationality or self-destruction. We all know this. We've come across this before. Using coercion of one kind or another to stop that is a requirement, whether you're a father or whatever. And that's something that Tolstoy would reject by saying that you're in no position to judge whether or not what they're doing is wrong, among other things. It is precisely in pleasures, especially when wise moderation is not observed, that the soul gives into evil passions and becomes blind. A person who has been roughly

pushed, crushed, bound, perhaps even in prison for a long time, experiences unpleasant, perhaps agonizing hours and days. But this does not mean that someone else's malice has fallen upon him, that he has become an object of hatred, or that all this compels him to reciprocal bitterness and the extinguishing of love within himself. On the contrary, the unpleasantness and suffering he has experienced may have been inflicted on him by a will that wishes good for both him and others, and may become for him the source of the greatest good in life. Well, we've said that already. He's simply mentioning in a different way.

It's very common today for people to condemn the more extreme forms of imprisonment. But they simply don't ask why these people are there. They're so vicious that they can't be housed in a normal prison. Even in protective country, they can't be housed. They're so vicious towards everyone. Tolstoy believes that there is no such thing, well, really is no such thing as evil, except for people like me and you.

But that there is no such thing as an evil person. And he makes his generality about human beings. And that's someone who is simply irrational permanently that simply can't live in some. society, it also always say there is no such person. Well, we know such people exist. An unhealthy society could get more than before, but I'm sure every society has some of those people. What else can you do? Only violent offenders belong in prison, not nonviolent offenders. That doesn't even make sense. They're there to reflect on their actions, various programs,

and to keep them away from us. That's not because we hate them. although sometimes we do. But, you know, it's because we have no choice. The drill sergeant of Paris Island beaten the crap out of Marines, especially back in the 50s. He doesn't do that because he hates them or because he has on a power trip.

He does it because he's concerned, this is what combat's like. And if you can't take this, then you can't take combat. I can tell you stories my father said about Paris Island in 1950. But that was, he always said that. He said, do it not because they hate us. It's because they, they want us to survive. And this is something that Tolstoy can't grasp at all.

He would see Paris Island and just freak out. Of course, he hated the military, you know, the draft and everything else. He hated paying taxes too, which is, I guess in certain cases kind of cool. but so as we've said sometimes these acts of violence would be imprisonment or something else the guy looks back and says if it wasn't for that I would have gone down a path of total destruction and that's the point here so far true malicious violence often though not always evokes evil in the soul of the victim but here we are not talking about maliciousness or violence it is possible to admit that even physical restraint, not out of malice, will evoke evil in the criminal, but is there

any action that is guaranteed to be free from a reciprocal evil feeling? Of course not. Similarly, if physical coercion is necessary but evokes an evil feeling in the one being coerced, this does not mean that one should refrain from coercion, but rather that nonviolent compulsion must first take place and then other nonviolent physical means must be taken. so that the evil feeling can be overcome and transformed by the embittered soul itself. Now, that makes sense. That makes sense. And even in, you know, in any our lives, you do everything, especially in society. You know, you do everything besides, you know, an act of physical, physical violence is the very last resort. And you do it because you're in pain.

The person who is forced to commit this act of violence is in pain. I can't believe that everything I've done so far has failed. What's wrong with this person? You say, you're a father. You start to blame yourself. Thank God never had to worry about that as an adult. But when I became adults. But this is almost a common sense kind of thing.

You know, someone does something wrong. You punch them in the face. That doesn't, no. That doesn't make any sense. you do everything over time and then only when that fails, you know, do you then take it to the next level? Again, this is something that Tolstoy does not mention. He, on his, Tolstoy was in the Army. He never, he had, he had workers at his estate, never freed them.

but he was kind of he lived in his own little world he was protected by a very very large fairly healthy empire I know I keep mentioning the Massachusetts the the Montenegrans they were always fighting for their lives that's a totally different story and when you live in peace in a beautiful farmstead protected by

a professional army. There, you can indulge in this crap about pacifism. It's easy. But when you're like, when you actually, you know, I don't think Tolstoy ever had was ever in a position where his life was at stake and had to make a decision. I don't, I don't, I could be wrong. I don't think so. And actually, Eileen talks about that, not about him, but in general, about who gets to

make that decision answering Tolstoy's answer to his, to his, critics. But at a certain level, this is a simple common sense. Everything nonviolent has to be tried first. Then you've got to do it. And then, therefore, you don't feel bad about it. You might be in pain. You might be depressed about it, but you don't feel guilty about it. You've tried everything else. This is possible because coercion is a manifestation out of malice, but of spiritual exactness, firmness of will and severity. These are not at all contrary. to love and the task of coercion does not consist at all in the installation of enmity and hatred.

But on the contrary, in the suppression of the mental mechanism of hatred and enmity, which strives to break out and consolidate itself in irreparable actions. But perhaps the viciousness of physical coercion and suppression is rooted not in the malice of the coercing spirit, but in the very way in which man, influences man. Yeah, I'm not quite sure that the question mark is in the original. I don't think that's a question. But he's made this point now five times.

Emnity and hatred. If the violence comes from there, you have a big problem. He's talking about reason. He's talking about love. And the two things work together. Reason and love are not abstract things. What Tossoi does is wrong. wrong because he, as you've already read, he brings things to a level of attraction where it

becomes a dodge. It becomes an equivocation in many of the words you use it. You know, the kid who wants to take the boat onto a storm, he won't listen, he won't listen, he won't listen, so eventually you tie him up someone. Your Karen neighbor looks at it, oh my God, he's tying up his kid. I'm calling the cop, having no clue. Why? Let me tie him up, whatever it might be. You're locked him in his room, screaming out of him, whatever it might be. You know, if that's all you see, this is awful. And this is his major point. The context of physical coercion or physical violence in all of its forms is absolutely essential,

both in the person being coerced and in the coercion. But the common sense idea is that you absolutely have to try everything else first. That's the important point. It has to do with the state of your soul. And that goes for governments as well as individuals and especially fathers of families. All right. Part six down, part seven the next time. I will encourage everyone to go over to the show notes and go over to the descriptions of the videos and donate to Dr. Johnson's work. Sign up on Patreon.

Buy his books. His books are on – he has books on Amazon. He has books on Lulu. And, yeah, you can throw me a couple bucks, too, if you want. Yes, please do. Please do. Please do. It's not just me.

Yeah. But, yeah, I think this is going well. And as you encourage people the last time, hang in there. This is building upon something. That's the way this works. Absolutely. All right. Talk to you in a couple days.

Thank you. All right, my time. See you then. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Ivan Eileen. I think this is episode number nine. Dr. Johnson. How are you doing? I think the episode with Thomas went extremely well. For those of you who haven't seen it, or listen to it, we have, we have completely contrasting personality. And I think that actually works, you know, there. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's electrical.

And I know there's been a lot of positive comments about it. He's a great guy. But very different. Just his general persona is so different for me that I like how it goes. We're going to be doing it again soon too. Yeah. That's episode 1377 of my podcast. the Piquignonez show for those who just tune into the episodes that Dr. Johnson and I do with readings.

So, yeah, that went well. A lot of good comments. It just went public yesterday, so I'm sure there's going to be more comments. And like you said, we're going to be doing it again soon. So everybody buckle up. This is going to be a lot of fun. All right. We are picking up on Chapter 7 here about power and evil.

and I will, I'll do the first paragraph and then you can go back over the, uh, over the words here that I am not going to pronounce. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, anything in brackets, that's for me. You don't have to go through it. Okay. Apparently, physical coercion and suppression as a means of influence have three aspects of, that may seem irrational. First, an appeal to human will is,

such, apart from evidence and love. Second, an influence on another's will regardless of its consent and, perhaps, even contrary to it. And third, an influence on another's will through the body of the one being coerced. Indeed, all three aspects are inherent in this method of influence, and not separately, but in a mutually fused manner. Physical coercion and suppression appeal not to reason and love, but act upon the body of the one being coerced, contrary to their consent. It is precisely this combination of all three features that often produces an impression on sentimental souls that evokes indignation, protest, and a rejection of this outrageous violence. I include once in a while the original Russian for what I think might be controversial words.

That can be translated a million different ways. And that's mostly for our Russian speakers, who I guarantee you are better at this than I am. But at this point in the story, you know, he's putting it very nicely here. But acting on the body of the one being coerced, contrary to their consent, that's exactly the issue. And it is that combination that creates, not just among the custodians, but even today, people have gotten so soft that, you know, even spanking is considered outrageous in some circles. I guarantee you if there's a study out there between how kids who are spanked and those who weren't turned out, we know what the result's going to be. Absolutely know what the result's going to be. I was spanked. I remember it, you know, vaguely. My kids were spanked.

But as I've said before, you only do that to correct their behavior, not because you're irritated. And that's the issue for Aristotle's political science. That's a difference between a tyrant and a monarch. The difference between an oligarch and an aristocrat. the main difference is that the one serves the common good and the other serves their own interests an oligarchy that we live under in the U.S. is secretive and they have no problem with using violence. They also have no problem with using pacifists and they don't like a war, which they did in Vietnam. Pacifism got a new lease on life during Vietnam because the big issue was. draft deferment.

Thank God we don't have that anymore. Although there's always talk about it. And then, you know, these are some of the same people who want females in combat roles, but they have a huge problem with physical violence as a matter of discipline. Well, well, you know, it just gets more and more complicated as time goes on. Using the word influence here is a very nice. diplomatic way of talking about it. We're forcing someone to do something using violence for their own good. However, physical violence, while truly encompassing all three of these elements, does not

necessarily become an evil act. This is its essential difference from violence, and it is precisely to this extent, and only to this extent, that is a subject to spiritual and moral acceptance. Indeed, human spirituality consists in the fact that he himself autonomously seeks desires and has in mind, objective perfection, educating himself to this vision and creativity. It is precisely in this nature and in this breath that man's inner freedom is sacred and its external manifestations inviolable. It is precisely in this direction that the focus of the spiritual eye on perfection sanctifies the power of inner freedom and imbues a person's external actions with the significance of a spiritual event. It is precisely the power of inner freedom. It is precisely the power of inner freedom,

that shapes the personality of a spiritually perceptive person, and then their external behavior requires no suppression and tolerates no coercion. In the earlier platonic dialogues, you have this issue coming up, and it sounds very much counterintuitive at first. And Socrates, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, obviously, Socrates says,

a rational man wants and seeks out punishment for his evil deeds because he wants to improve it's in his interest that he gets sent to prison or whipped or whatever whatever what was the case

that is a part of his own improvement so you know this is and you know moral acceptance this is the entire issue here and a man you know again using

using the platonic idea man can't really, and especially today, in this world, cannot expect to be rational and lead both a rational and spiritual life without being punished, especially as a young man. Not necessarily because you're whipped at 19, you know, but something like, you know, boot camp. You know, always starting off at the bottom, being told that you're dispensable. the reason why I wouldn't want to be young again for anything. That's a part of being. And you should seek that out.

You should want that. You should enjoy that. And of course, you had many hedonists fighting Plato on that issue in some of the earlier dialogues. So when someone is being punished, there's only one person that's benefiting. And that's the one who is being punished. Moreover,

as long as the power of spiritual, volitional self-guess, governance is intact within a person, an error in visible content requires neither suppression nor coercion, but rather solitary or collaborative correction. As long as the volitional focus of the eye on perfection is intact within a person, the weakness of autonomous self-determination requires neither suppression nor coercion, but loving assistance in the efforts of self-development. This is why I'm of the opinion that nonviolent crimes should never be punished with prison. Especially, you know, state prison here in the U.S., you know, the hardcore stuff. Why I think things like house arrest make the most sense, if anything.

You know, what was a medieval conception of criminal law? Well, mostly we relied on fines. for minor crimes. You had to work for the guy to make up for it if you couldn't. Usually, you know, you're talking about it on an individual who's talking about families. Family had to cough up this kind of money.

Or for serious crimes, you were executed. And we talked about this with Sultan Eaton. There wasn't a prison system in the Russia Empire until the left forced it on them in the very late 19th century. And even then, it was never quite a penal system like we have that we have today. here he's talking about a weak world a weak world man and this again is platonic connection here is clear

you know Plato what I'm sorry Hegel was a platonist to some extent um I've always been Plato when I read Plato my whole world changed when I was 17 whenever it was talking like this that free will is something that has to be fought for you're born only with the potential for freedom. Normally, we just give in to whatever passion is the strongest, you know, hunger, sexual, whatever it is. That's irrational.

No society can function that way. So that goes right back to the botanic conception here. So weak will person who knows what's right and just can't do it, violence would be completely inappropriate there. prison actually would be counterproductive because my God, you know, if they weren't, if they weren't violent before, they'll be violent now. You know, I always thought with people like, I think I said this before. I don't remember Bernie Madoff, he should have been forced to teach economics. Of course, it should take all its money, you know, pay people's, you know, mortgages off, whatever it is.

But to be teaching, you know, this is what I did. Not that you should do it, but this is. how the system works, how it should work and how it shouldn't work. He obviously was a highly intelligent person saying, you go sit in that box over there. It doesn't make any sense. The only time that prison matters and works is if you have, as it says here, as if you have someone who really wants to change, you know, drug addicts have to go through withdrawal in prison, which I can't imagine. It's got to be the worst thing. drugs are available in prison obviously but

it takes a lot of time and you get to go into debt and there's all these terrible things that can happen to and it functions very much as a mental war I mean there's mental health parts of prisons which from what I've heard are terrifying but you know the medication there's always you know med calls and everything else

Most of these guys do have all of these, all these kind of problems. How many of them are just weak-willed and who went along with somebody else? That person might not benefit from violence. The loving assistance in their efforts of self-development. Loving in this case means nonviolence. Loving in this case means, you know, building them up, using methods to encourage them to have a backbone. and especially for white males, that's almost a crisis today. Black males, no problem.

They have self-esteem way beyond their contribution to society. White males, as we know, with the suicide rate they have, are immensely depressed or taught to hate themselves, do hate themselves. And so many of them need this kind of treatment. because it's just a matter of weakness and brainwashing. You know, this is what we do. We take someone who is brainwashed, semi-brain-washed, and we slowly bring them out of it. Here's what's going on.

Here's the truth of the matter. You start off with something small, and then you get bigger and bigger and bigger. You know, you can't just talk about the Holocaust. It didn't happen, you know, the first day, but you slowly bring them out of it. That's what he's talking about here. But he's also talking about the will of the person who's coming out of it.

You know, it's a good one, but just can't stop giving in to its drawings. You know, I'll say this here now, and I've said it before. Satan is incapable of creating anything. So he can only manipulate that which has already been created. one of the ways he does this is through fantasy or fantasy. It could be, you know, I'm going to be a billionaire, I'm going to get the hot girl, I'm going to get whatever it is. And even if they get it, it's never as good as they think it's going to be. Because their fantasies are so ridiculous.

And that's what motivates people who don't understand how to control their passions. They're using reason in a completely incorrect way. Satan functions through giving an image to us. Actually, it's right in Plato's Republic. On Plato's Republic, it has the captive people who are sitting there with a fire behind them and almost like puppets being in the background. That's their reality. they've never seen the sun, they've ever seen anything like that. And even they get very philosophical about it all.

It's not real, but they don't know that. The person goes out and sees a son for the first time and is terrified by it. It's so bright and then he goes back. He tells people about it. What are they going to say? You're out of your mind. That doesn't exist. What's wrong with you?

And that's straight in, out of the republic that images are used by demonic forces and in Plato's case who's just talking about you know oligarchs but

images fantasies are used to motivate people and these fantasies are totally a product of their imagination and they don't necessarily get them but even if they do it's never anything

what they thought it would be and in the meantime they become a rotten person because they've done anything. The grass is always greener on the other side. And you realize, you know, when it's over, I probably shouldn't have done this. Fantasies are just that. And this is how Satan functions dealing with human beings.

And today, he has a news media. He has a, you know, beyond their conception centuries ago. anyone's conception centuries ago to create a whole brand new set of images that's now systematized so in other words you have what would have been a very good person a very good man

who is just used to all this does not want to leave it no one wants to leave the cave life is you know no one wants to be the first one to say okay I'm you guys I'm screwed you guys it's too costly you know

I know historians that I have convinced the myth of the so-called Holocaust of the of the Jews, that sacred event that only affected the Jew. But when they go and they teach or they talk, they never, they never talk like it. They have to have a double mind. They have to have cognitive dissonance there. It just costs too damn much. So, but this is our job. Exactly what he's talking about here.

loving assistance in the efforts of self-development. We know there's certain people we're never going to be able to reach. Not in a billion years. Okay, let them go. Always remember, history is made by determined and fanatical minorities, not masses of people. However, if a person uses their freedom for evil deeds, abusing their freedom and thereby distorting their spirituality, then their personality finds itself in a profound internal split. On the one hand, their freedom potentially remains undiminished, somewhere in its unfulfilled depths.

It retains the ability to turn its eye towards spiritual perfection and embark on the path of self-restraint and self-governance, and only specific thought. Testifying to the presence of absolute villainy can force one to completely disregard this possibility. On the other hand, it turns out that the powers of their soul are actually consumed by wicked aspirations. Their spiritual eyes closed or blinded. Their passions and actions breathe hostility and disunity. It was a big controversy. I don't know what year it was when Ronald Reagan said that there is no word for freedom in Russia.

And I think he got properly blasted for it by the Democrat. Most common word that comes up is, of course, it's Fboda. That's what, you know, general freedom. oftonomia, it actually comes from, you know, some version of autonomy. That's normally, it can be applied to individuals,

but mostly it's countries and regions. Volnostia is taking liberties. Sometimes it's a negative thing. You're doing things you shouldn't. You're taking liberties in a negative way. It's a wistamus. It's another one. That means independence.

normally these other words are used for groups of people, not individuals. So when you come across, so we have freedom and autonomy, which people confuse all the time. Russian has the one main word. And if you use another word, you have to explain why you're using it because they're not often used when you're talking about individuals. And remember, the way we talk about freedom is, a purely negative concept. And Hegel talks about this at great length. It's simply a negation.

We can do what we please and have no one tell us tell us no. That's all it is. That's what 95% of the people think freedom is. However, autonomy is a very different story. That's the free will. That's the will. It takes a lot of work to bring out. That's the will that is not being,

manipulated or harmed either from our internal passions or external forces. You know, Thomas Jefferson and many others, especially the anti-federalists, talk about the yeoman as the core of any Republican system. And why? Because the yeoman had enough. He had enough land to function. He wasn't, you know, a huge landowner, but he wasn't destitute. He didn't work for anybody.

You know, Jefferson really said, if you work for somebody else, I'm not sure how you can really be. a free man. And that would be the economic version of autonomy. You generally speaking don't answer to anybody or don't have to answer to anybody. However, you do live in a society and the representatives were supposed to come from this group, you know, fairly small group of them, rotating people every two years in Congress. That's the best, in the lower house, of course, that's the best chance anyone ever has for, for representation. So autonomy and yeomanry, these are very similar, very similar ideas.

You know, and the worst part is when people, especially women attend to this, believe something, usually something liberal, because it is fashionable to do so. and we see this in the immigration rallies pro-immigration rallies in Europe are almost exclusively female almost almost and Antifa as I said many times before in America

is about 60% female maybe more now I know this from from street experience and that's important to that's important to bring up anyway They realize not their spirituality, but rather their anti-spirituality and their inherent power of loving acceptance is distorted and destructive. Logic does not govern her will. Love does not saturate him. He lives and acts not as a spiritually free master of his soul and his behavior, but as a helpless slave to his evil desires and mental mechanisms. He becomes neither what he is potentially called to be,

nor can he become what he is in her unrealized inmost being. His personality consists of a deadening spirit and intensely living anti-spirituality from fading love, cold, indifferent cynicism, and burning anger. I can't help but think of addiction when I read this paragraph. When I translated parts of it, that's the first thing that popped into my head. I grew up with it.

Thank God I never fell into it. Thank God Almighty. But I grew up with it. And the alcoholic, when he's justifying himself, becomes a genius. The mental gymnastics are almost admirable they come up with to justify himself. their behavior. They're masters at deflection, certainly masters at deflection. And the you do a two kind of thing. I question whether or not the intervention is really a positive thing because all it does is make them make them defensive. But searching, you know,

whether it be a fantasy that you can't get rid of or an addiction. There's lots of addictions out there. Pornography is one of the worst and most destructive ones. I tell you, anyone out there who's addicted to pornography listen to me. I never got into it. Thank God Almighty in heaven. Part of the reason is because I read about the business. Read about what they do to those girls.

There are former directors, former financiers who have written books. I came across the Pink Cross Foundation when you used. to rescue, if no one does this voluntarily, rescue, usually females, and almost deprogram them, and the tortures. They hate what they do. They are physically broken. Most of them can't have sex anymore. Most of them can't have kids.

You know, the person who ran the Pink Cross Foundation was a porn actress briefly, and she said, More than once I saw the whole colon laying on the ground. Of course, you had to go to the ER for them. But this is what happened. When you read about this industry and what they do, and in fact that these Jews don't give a damn, what they do to these otherwise beautiful 18-year-olds, well, you will have a tough time, a very tough time

watching pornography ever again. What it does is it short-circuits the family. You want to believe that they're into this kind of thing. Oh, I'm just a sexual person. It's all lies. When Belladena broke down on Diane Sawyer, she wasn't supposed to, but she did, explaining what they make us do. It was, you know, it broke the fantasy that most men have. You know, whether it really worked or not, I don't know.

that was part of her, the fact that, you said before, Jameson hates the porn consumer, or especially people who watch her dance. I hate you because there's a market for this. No one there is the, so these kind of things are part of the, are part of the means of breaking the connection to fantasy, breaking the connection to addiction. And it's just a very powerful example, it's destroying. manhood in this country right now. And also, you know, any other kind of addiction where, you know, this is all you

really care about. Drug addicts and alcoholics, true, not just people who like to drink a lot. I'm not talking about that. Talking about people who really kind of have to. This is all they think about, 24 hours a day. And they'll destroy whatever they have to destroy to make sure that they get access to whatever they want. and that's to a great extent, you know, in Germany, or he wrote in Russia,

now Russia did end up having something like this later. This is written in, well, his haggle work, this is in 1925, the sexual revolution was imposed on Russia at this point. And because of the insanity, easy divorce, abortion, all that, they had to stop it. So if the Soviets have to stop it because it's too radical, then you realize how seriously bad it is, what we take for granted. So it's very important. Addiction occurs to otherwise decent and intelligent people,

and it turns them into something that they're not. Sometimes I wonder about those who make their profession, you know, addiction counselors. I roll my eyes a lot with them. But just because of my experience in the matter, but none of them, no matter how intelligent they might be, how much money they might have, logic doesn't govern any aspect of their will. There is no love. Whatever love there is is distorted and destructive, as he says. He is a materialist, whether he wants to be or not, a helpless slave to evil desires and mental mechanisms.

that is the victory for demons. Demons love that. Turning someone who has the potential of free will, which is spirit, it has to be. It can't be material or else it wouldn't be free. So it's the spiritual element and blocking it, destroying it. That is how they give the finger to God all the time.

And it's, you know, in a liberal society, that's what you're going to get. And we are saturated with it. it in this country. And so many of you listening know exactly what I'm talking about. It is precisely the dual nature of his personality that poses the task of coercion to other spiritually healthy people. It is already clear that anyone who resists such activity by such a person is fighting not the spirit, but an anti-spirituality and is opposing not love, but shameless malice. Their energy is directed not against the villain's unrealized deadening innermost self, but against

the realizing element that possesses the soul and saturates their external actions. From the very beginning, it is undeniable that the malicious persons appeal to water not only does not preclude a parallel appeal to their self-evidence and love, but on the contrary often makes it possible for the first time. For the malice-filled person, until he curbs his obsession with his will, is incapable of heeding a persuasive voice and the rays of someone's, someone else's love only blind and irritate his frenzy? I note here, for those of you who are listening and can't see it,

I don't know what the reference to water, you know, the easiest word, Ovoida, in this case, OVA normally, I triple-checked it. I don't know what he's talking about. He never mentioned it again. I'm missing something. so the appeal to water, it's not, I can't translate it any other way. And I don't know what he means.

But this paragraph is just a continuation of what we've been talking about here. The addict who was forced to stop in the beginning is going to be a malice-filled person. And he even used the word obsession. But those who are addicted, obsessed, they are incapable of heeding the persuasive voice, as he says here. and even worse that any any love like something like saying intervention, something like that, just makes them angrier and anger.

So is coercion necessary here? I think this is a person by person case, but one of the good things about going to prison is that generally speaking, your normal guy can't get drugs there. Some guys can, but generally speaking they can't get drugs there they have to detox and and and that might be the one real positive thing that comes out of their experience of you're nonviolent this nonviolent drug addict

it's caught with some on them um you have to detox in in prison you have no and that's got to be horrible especially with something like heroin um that's got to be that's got to be horrible but it's what we would call tough love here that would simply be blatant physical coercion leading to your suffering, but with a proper end in mind. He cannot curb his obsession with his passions without the assistance of someone else's compulsion and restraint. The more complete the villainous soul in its irrationality, the weaker are those spiritual organs capable of heating spiritual vision and being moved by love. For the passions that overwhelm it, in their intensity and ceaseless exhaustion,

consume precisely those very powers and faculties of the soul. in whose transformed and ennobled action love and self-evident truth flourish. The villain could love, if he had not channeled the entire force of love into the pleasurable flow of cynical, hateful torment. The villain could see God in the heavens, the power of goodness and conscience, the beauty of the earth, and the freedom of man, if all his powers of vision had not been lost in evil cunning and calculated twisting intrigue. He who stops this eruption of malice, whoever cuts off this outward flowing stream, places a soul in a state of external impasse, a fruitless accumulation of internal energy, and its inevitable burnout in restless and gnawing suffering.

Well, this is some excellent prose here. This is most certainly not what especially the older machine translations would come up with. He's referring to a decent man. He's referring to a man who otherwise would be a benefit to society. The man who is dimly aware that it doesn't have to be like this, he doesn't think he has any choice. This is a man who has to shoot up heroin, not to get high because he can't get high anymore, but just so he doesn't go into an awful detox state. That's when it's really awful.

what Dave Mustaine from Megadeth, I think he said 17 times in the, in rehab. He died twice, heroin. You know, Black Sabbath had a song about every drug. The one negative song, however, they had, was against heroin. Of course, you know, meth, I don't know if meth really existed back then, but he's going to, you know, he doesn't even know that in the Vimarst state in Germany, this stuff is actually going to matter in terms of physical addiction. This stuff's going to develop for the very first time.

Think the Jews who run that society. This is written in, you know, it's written in 1925. He was probably in the middle of it, or at least in the beginning of it. Around him, he's seeing this occurring that in a healthy society would be just the most bizarre and outrageous kind of behavior. For us, it's normal. for us to stay today. And eventually, though, I mean, the big question is how long does it take for even the potential for free will to be destroyed?

Is that possible? The ability for the man to not be able to see any natural law outside of him anymore. Is that possible? I'm not sure. But if it is possible, and you come across such a process, person, you really can't do anything with him. If you really, the free will is gone and he just follows these, these terrible fantasies, whatever they might be, you, um, you know, unless they're, you know,

socially beneficial, you know, like Patch Adams, you know, you have this vision of yourself as, as, as, as helping a kids as a doctor, okay, all right. But that's not what we're talking about here. And then, of course, there's a question as to why, let's say, we're talking about drug addicts or porn, whatever it is. Why do you need that in the first place? What led to this even, what did you say I need to break my normal consciousness? I don't want it anymore. And the ceaseless exhaustion, he says here.

And it consumes those very powers and faculties of the soul that normally would have love. and truth. Now they're perverted. It's like a hijacking. Hijacks them and forces them to do the bidding of, ultimately, of demons. It's fantasies. The way that the fantasies are how demons communicate. And they can't create anything.

So the closest they come is to have us think of things that don't exist and can never exist. that short-termism, short-term thinking, all of this you find en masse in an oligarchy. And, you know, Eileen actually is writing at a time where this is beginning in Germany. And he's witnessing it around him. Of course, he spoke German without an accent. You know, and he lived there for a long time. But this is, you know, this is, you know, what started then, We know now as a day-to-day normal aspect of life and what you do with people who possibly could never see free will again, I don't know, but certainly they have to be coerced violently.

However, when he addresses the villain's will, he encounters not a healthy inner force capable of self-compulsion and self-restraint, but is shattered, corrupted, and restless lust. If this is will, then it is blind, not guiding but obsessed, not choosing but burdened, and if it is dominant, then under the sway of malicious passions. This is a will that knows no restraint and has no desire to know it, and, moreover, is so internally motivated that the force of psychic compulsion coming from without proves impotent and ineffective. However, it is still a will, revealing and objectifying itself in the flow of external actions and deeds, that provide it with vital satisfaction. To insist that external pressure on this will is permissible only with its prior consent is something only a spiritually and psychologically naive person can do. For only that evil, for only spiritual naivete or naivity can revere the autonomy of evil lust,

and only psychological naivety can allow that evil lust would consent to external interference depriving it of its place. pleasures. Tolstoy lived in a generally healthy society, talking about, you know, not needing to fight evil with violence. He wasn't thinking of people like that. And he couldn't figure out that if his anarchist agenda were actually put in a motion, that this sort of person is going to be everywhere. It's not just going to be people reading Plato and being as rational and free as it could be. It's going to be, you know, what would happen if the, I used to say when I had a Facebook account to women, friends, female friends of mine who were against the cops after 2020, you know, all that nonsense. And I said, you know, if the state were to collapse, if the cops were to disappear, you would be the sex slave of the local oligarch drug dealer.

That's what happens when states go away. It's not freedom. It's just the strong men take over. You know, the drug dealers or whoever, but those, you know, with the most arrogance, with the most money with the most weapons. What they're going to do to you? They're going to turn you into, you know, and what do they think is going to happen? I couldn't get over the abolish the police thing, which, of course, was totally,

no one actually believed that. That was as promoted by them. by the regime after they had completely made up an entirely false story about what happened in Minnesota. But, you know, Tolstoy is looking at, you know, the Russian aristocracy and the very pleasant peasants on his farm. He's not talking about, you know, he had no, he didn't really talk that, had no access to this. and you go to downtown Philadelphia and you see the addicts an entire street

see it on YouTube sometimes of people simply just laying there laying in weird positions the meth addicts especially it doesn't work in this case not everyone is rational anarchism implies that everyone is capable of being rational

or is rational and the only thing that has to happen is the state will disappear and everyone will be free and productive. I guess, you know, some people will clean the toilets and work in the shores. These people have no idea of what goes into the division of labor, what creates a civilization. But what Eileen is talking about here, and he's dedicated his career to what I have. And you have.

The war against liberalism. because liberalism creates this personality and it creates the personality that has citizens saying you know you can't really punish these people you can't really hurt these people you can't spank your kid

you know and it gets worse and worse as time goes on and it's it's an absolute outrage and it's what postmodern capitalism has become under a worldwide oligarchic system

and now of course Ilin couldn't possibly have known what was going to happen but he was witnessing it starting this is somebody who is dead you've seen people with dead eyes a thousand

you know a thousand yards stair these people are dead inside what do you do with these people um Tolstoy completely completely ignored this sort of person.

No, if the state were to fall tomorrow, it would become an oligarchy. You would just become where groups of strongmen take over and people ran to them for protection. That's what happened when the Western Roman Empire fell. That's what happened when the state totally collapsed in Russia. You had a Jewish oligarchic. I don't know what the thing is, it's so ridiculously naive,

and he uses that word here. He's talking about Tolstoy here in particular. and sometimes, well, actually all the time, I don't think there can be a consistent anarchist. I think this is just a negation. They're at war with things that they hate, and it's just very emotional attack on anyone with power. But consistently, I don't think they're well aware.

Educated people are well aware what would happen. Tolstoy was living in a lot of people. his own little dream world. And it shows in his writings. Therefore, one should not be blinded or embarrassed by this. The evil-doer, of course, disagrees with this out of malice, and this is natural. For evil would not be evil, but a good-natured weakness, if it tolerated resistance, but the resistor, compelling and thwarting, outwardly striking the active evil lust of the evil-doer must appeal to his potential spirituality and the confidence that this spiritual will, insofar as it is still alive, is on his side.

The autonomy of the villain would only be scared if it remained the manifestation of the spirit in malice and in evil deeds, but in reality it is a manifestation of anti-spirituality, and its essence is no longer in autonomy and not in self-control, but in lawlessness and self-indulgence. Finally, all this compelling and suppressive resistance does not at all become a manifestation of evil or an evil deed because it is transmitted to a person through the medium of his body. When you have weak-willed, especially in our society, weak-willed white people, educated, weak-willed white people go along because her wife wants them to do it or the system wants him and do it. That's just death. That's just future death. Um, and they're not necessarily evil.

They're just too weak to do anything about it. Um, there's difference that he says in the first sentence between someone who was evil and someone who is just, what would he say, a good nature weakly. So, um, this is, you know, this is just more of the same here. Uh, actually. Uh, actually, actively outweedly striking the active evil lust of the evil doer must appeal to his potential spirituality. And the confidence, spiritual will, in so far as it is still alive, is on his side. People know exactly what I mean. You know, he's talking about approaching somebody who's in serious trouble, who otherwise would be, you know, otherwise as an intelligent person, trying to appeal to that side of him.

He seems to suggest to you that he does believe that the potential for free will can be destroyed. And that means, you know, this guy's head careening towards his own destruction in one way, either death or prison. Insofar as they're still alive on the side. Remember, liberalism deals with freedom, purely negative concept. Christian point of view is the ascetic point of view, that is autonomy, allowing your reason to flourish because you have fought a war against your your own passions, let alone against evil doers around you. And that is an aesthetic life. There's no getting around it.

Which is why people who want to do that today are in such trouble. As we all know how difficult it is to be the one who comes in and says, you're all rotten people. You're either weak or you're evil. Well, this is exactly what the, precisely what the prophets did in the Old Testament. and the prophets except for one were murdered well Jeremiah was thrown into a sewer I guess

I think they sawed Isaiah in half he was of the upper classes but that's what they did they came and they told the truth some nobody comes into the assembly and tells the truth and it freaks them out to such a because they know he's right it freaks him out to such an extent that they have to get rid of him that way

And so those who are in the midst of fighting this, we're not talking about autonomy here. You're talking about, or some people say liberty and autonomy are very similar. Freedom in the way that Americans use the term is just this negative. I could do whatever the hell I want, which isn't true. It's whatever the regime tells you to do, whatever the latest fashion is. It's not whatever the hell you want. And when you meet someone like this, it's very hard to convince them otherwise. And sometimes you realize that it simply can't be done, even with violence.

He's switching to a more concentrated attention on the body right now. I think this may be a good place to cut it. What do you think? I agree. I thought that as well. Totally agree. All righty. Everyone, go over to the show notes.

Go over to the descriptions on the video. donate to Dr. Johnson's work, buy his books, buy his latest book on Ukraine, and reach out to him, join Patreon, do what you got to do, just support his work and keep him unemployed. That's what you want, right? Yeah, well, in a sense, you know, we don't have real jobs, and yet we work, what, 12 hours a day? my ex-father-in-law used to say he just didn't understand a lot of people don't understand

I don't punch a clock it doesn't mean I'm not working our job is of essential and critical importance and unfortunately I'm not independently wealthy and I need the occasional donation from our friends

to keep going to remain autonomous and I've been able to do it so far without having to get another job. Oh, I can't even say that without getting a headache. Oh. Because, you know, eventually once you do that, you're stuck within the system and you never go back again. Yeah. Yeah, somehow I don't see you, picture you bagging groceries.

It doesn't seem like that would be a, that would be like something out of a really weird kind of British skit, skit show kind of thing. Let me tell you a brief story before we go. After my freshman year in college, I got a job at Jenkinson's Pavilion, which is down the Jersey Shore, Point Pleasant, where I live. And somehow these guys thought it would be a good waiter. They were mistaken. One of the things, the problems with the new, they had awnings, and whenever it would rain, the water would collect.

and someone needed to push the water up and out. You know, you know how it would just hang there. I know. I know exactly what you're describing. You know what I'm saying? So I went and I got a poll, not a person, not an actual poll. And I did it in a couple of places. Third place I did, it went.

There was a whole family there with kids crashing down onto them. The place erupted in laughter. I walked away, didn't never look back. The kids thought it was part of the whole show. The kids thought it was great. We're down the shore, right? This is what happens. The whole thing was everything.

The plates went everywhere. I never looked back. I never looked back. I just said, keep on walking. And I eventually had to deal with it. I got fired, but I was rehired as a bus boy. And that's what I did for part of that summer. 1990.

I didn't give a damn. You know, the kids, if the kids didn't love it, it would be a different story. The kids absolutely were laughing, saying this is so great. It's starting already. You think this is, this is amazing. They had fun. That's great. All right, man.

I'll talk to you in a couple of days. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. All right, my friend. See you then. Bye-bye. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of Unresistence to Evil by Force, by Ivan Eileen. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today?

Well, I have to warn everybody. It's very important. Cocaine's totalitarian, the new Maine Coon, is at my feet. He may or may not make an appearance. He's very rambunctious and is very interested in computer stuff, apparently.

So he may make an appearance today. I don't want to kill anyone from cuteness. The toughest guy in the world falls apart when looking at this kitten. I'm telling you right now. And judging by his grandfather and his family, he is going to be a big boy. As of right now,

he's being protected by Stanley. The other cats are struggling a little bit with him. And, of course, Stanley's ahead of the hierarchy, head of the house. And he just kind of, when a cat hisses, whatever Stanley just walks in between them, and it stops.

In other words, I'm here. I'm not putting up with any bull. you know, leave them alone. So, and so they've been hanging out today quite a bit. And his sister, Susie Creamcheese is his sister. They have the same father and their mothers are sisters. So her mother, you know, and both of them. So they're pretty much full brother and sister from different litters.

And they're getting along very well. And she's humongous. And I got a chance at the breeders' house to meet Maximus. I don't know if I mentioned this. The largest cat I've ever seen in my life. Of course, it would be a man Koon. He is an absolute monster. Those poor dogs over there, you know who runs the house.

Those poor dogs probably get, you know, get, you know, whipped around on a regular basis by him. But no one's breaking in. No meth head is going to break into a house with two humongous Maine Coons. They're just going to see, my God, they keep wildcats as pets here and find another house to break into. So they're definitely worth their weight and gold, in my opinion. Awesome. Look forward to the updates on his growth. Yep. Yeah. All righty, picking up where we left off last time. Here we go. Indeed, a person's body is neither higher than their soul, no more sacred

than their spirit. It is nothing other than the external manifestation of their inner being or what amounts to the same thing, the materialized existence of their personality. A person's body conceals both their spirit and their passions, but conceals them in such a way that it reveals them bodily, as if expressing them in another sensory external language, so that a discerning eye can, as it were, read a person's spiritual speech behind the organic allegory, of their external composition and their external manifestations. He's making something very clear here. The way that we think of violence like in the court system,

physical violence is easy to quantify. So it gets privileged over things like, you know, emotional violence or emotional abuse. That's very tough to prove. Physical violence is a different story because you have bruises and broken bones and things like that. so it tends to be privileged, but more important than that. You know, Leo Tossoi was a more or less a Gnostic.

He doesn't really talk about this explicitly that I can remember. I was spending a lot of time on him recently, of course. But the Orthodox Church and a Catholic church as well has made it very clear that soul and body are two aspects of the same thing. one of the reasons that death is so unnatural coming out of our being kicked out of the garden is that it's tearing something from tearing the soul from a body and it's a violent act

because they belong together the soul perfuses the body it's not a thing like a liver it's not also not entirely just the mind it's a the soul and body are unified completely in the person and I think this is true also

of families and nations and stuff but certainly in individuals Nazis of course reject this idea saying that the body is just a meat suit and the soul is all that man that has tremendous implications for

metaphysics and even for basic ethics. But you know what, before we go any, any farther, let me quote Tolstoy here. I was, it's from his my religion. And it makes me smile. It's not really about individuals.

It's more about nations. And I just want to give a, and give the readers an idea of how Tolstoy is thinking about these things and why it was so important for Elym to, to write this. Now, he quotes New Testament. I love your enemies, pray for them to persecute you, he that makes his sons arise on the evil and the goods, etc.

Tulsui then says after that. He says, I understand now that true welfare is possible for me, only on condition that I recognize my fellowship with the entire world. I believe this, and that belief has changed my estimate of what is right and wrong, important and despicable. What once seemed to me right and important,

love of country, love for those. my own race, the organization called the state, services rendered at the expense of welfare of other men, military exploits, now seem to me detestable and pitiable. But one seemed to me, shameful and wrong, renunciation of nationality, the cultivation of cosmopolitanism, now seem to be correct and important. When now, in a moment of forgetfulness, I sustain a Russian in preference to a foreigner and desire the success of Russia or the Russian people, I can no longer in my lucid moments, allow myself to be controlled by illusions so destructive by welfare and the welfare of others. I could no longer recognize states or peoples. I could no longer

take part in any difference between peoples and states or any discussions between them, either oral or written, much less in any service in behalf of any particular state. I can no longer cooperate with measures maintained by divisions between or should be among states, et cetera, a collection of customs duties, taxes, and, of course, ornaments, mill, et cetera. So it's like this. That's almost at the very end of his book, rendered my religion in English. And I quote it because it's very programmatic and it's this mentality that made Tolstoy so immensely influential, not just in Russia, but throughout the world. and really provoked

Elyne, especially after the revolution. Now, Tolstoy, I never saw World War I. You never saw the rest of the revolution. I just, I saw, I wrote somewhere, I said, when God returns, you know, how's it going to be if he sees you cowering in fear? Because you won't fight the enemy.

So, this is the kind of stuff that the pure cosmopolitanism is what he was promoting and somehow is identical with pacifism. You note, we talked about the Jews and what he said about the Jews, of course they're an exception.

There, he'll talk about the differences between Jews and everyone else. So that's always an exception. He doesn't mention it. He mentions the Jews not at all in that book. I think one small part. He doesn't mention them in all. But that quote is violated

only one of the ones. comes to the Jews. There, he makes a great distinction. So superior are they to the rest of mankind. So I think that's instructive. Perhaps the language of the body, this material fabric of immaterial goodness and malice, is more elemental, more crude than the language of the soul and spirit, but in our life, people, sheltered separately by their individual bodies, are not given the ability to communicate with one another except through their bodies, their glances, voices, gestures, and touches. They convey their inner states and relationships to one another, signaling voluntarily and

involuntarily. And if it is inevitable and permissible for one person and physically express sympathy, approval, or acceptance of it to another, then it is equally inevitable for people to physically convey to one another disapproval and rejection, that is, spiritual condemnation, righteous anger, and willful resistance. We have to remember that language is the core of the nation, language and religion, and the moral ideas that are accepted within it. Language, though, is a lot more than just, I think I've said this before, but it's worth saying again. It's not just words.

It's all of these things that he mentions here, glances, voices, gestures, touches. you know, conveying interstates and relationships. Only a real sociopath can completely bury his feelings and act like everything is fine. Some people can do that. I can't. If I'm upset, everyone knows it immediately.

Some people can do it. I think it's harmful. But this is also why, in general, we can, in general, we could judge a book by its cover. Why shouldn't be saying this? because I've been judged, you know, you know, who's that biker talking to Matt Heimbeck, you know, working out, that kind of thing. Still, generally speaking, I'm right about 90% of the time.

And it's because the soul usually manifests itself in the way that a person acts, the way that a person functions. I'm wrong sometimes. We all are. I'm usually insanely wrong when I'm wrong. every once in a while but he's saying that because soul and body are the same things seen from two different points of view

the actions of the soul will manifest in how the body acts and even those who are able to suppress feelings and act like nothing's going on eventually they'll snap you can't do that forever it's only a temporary it's only a temporary measure

and this goes to the heart of I'm glad I quoted told story here. This goes to the heart of of nationhood. Nationhood has nothing to do inherently with the state. There's plenty of ethnic groups that don't have states. It has to do with the ethnoculture, linguistic and religious. It's very hard, you know, historically

a state that doesn't have a dominant religion is very difficult to pull off. Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox Catholic and Protestant, those are Catholic and Protestant have two very, very different moral codes. And they create two very different personalities. That's very hard to pull off. I mean, even in the U.S., you had a dominant religion amongst the founding fathers. The Celts were slightly different. And, of course, the state of Maryland was Catholic.

But otherwise, you know, the founders were, you know, a white Protestant group. It's why the culture comf was so important to, at the expense of Catholics, unfortunately, in the early years of United Germany. Because without that religious element, it's very difficult to have a true sense of nationhood. You see a country like Iran motivated entirely by the Shiite Islamic faith. It doesn't mean you persecute minorities, and Iran never has, unless you're the Kurds, but everyone hates the Kurds. however the Kurds are an example of an ethnic group not a state and because of American support

they have a very strong sense of self for the most part so this is a very important paragraph and again to the person listening to hang in there I know this is odd we thought you'd be talking about

you know pacifism and governments and wars no he's building an argument here concerning what counts as violence what counts as a person with the soul is with the body is, and it all does pay off in one of the most profound arguments in favor of using force of one kind or another against evil, which always seemed to me to be the most obvious thing and the easiest

thing to argue for, but Tolstoy was too tremendous of a mind to be ignored. Therefore, physical coercion on another person against his consent and as a sign of decisive volitional resistance to his spiritually disapproved external behavior can prove to be the only spiritually precise and spiritually sincere word of communication among people, and moreover, this influence while mentally straining and shaking both sides and formulating their spiritual divergence and struggle in the language of physical force, in no ways becomes hostile to either correctly understood spirituality or love. A spiritually healthy person cannot help but be indignant at the sight of evil

triumphing internally and pouring out externally. He cannot help but feel that non-resistance to him is not only approval and silent encouragement, but also complicity in his actions. Considering the criminal in good conscience a raving hotbed of irrationality and seeing the futility of spiritual and verbal coercion, he cannot refer to it. refrain from external suppression. For a person's body is not higher than his soul or more sacred than his spirit. It is not an inviolable sanctuary of malice or an impregnable refuge for vicious passions.

Again, he's deepening the argument. There is no reason to privilege physical violence over any other kind of coercion. Soul and body, the same thing. They both have destructive element. In my personal opinion, I think verbal abuse over a long period of time, that's far more damaging than getting beaten up a couple of times. Those wounds heal. An abused child or something like that, those wounds may never heal. And that's part of what he's trying to say here.

This is also not necessarily an argument for vigilanteism. For the most part, vigilanteism comes into existence when the state is no longer present or is weak. Remember my failure. Remember the great Roof Koreans? You know, they helped stop the L.A. riots back in 92. When the state either can't or won't suppress evil, natural law is very clear. That falls to the people, and not just the people, the best. the best of the people like sheriffs used to deputize the best in the community to fight

if they didn't have enough resources in uniform and i don't know if they still do that from time to time i think sheriffs are a lot more important down south than they are in pennsylvania um that's that's an example what we're talking about what he's talking about here is when you witness it there's no question that this kid is being harmed for example um And you walk the other way. There is no way that the normal mind is not going to rebel against that. You need to, at great, at great risk, do something about it. And it doesn't matter whether he's bigger than you.

It doesn't matter. Certainly, you know, abusing an animal, anything like that. I mean, the guy's obviously a coward for doing it. And if there's no one else around, you can't simply call 911. Who knows? this blue supposed to be dead by that point. It is, it is morally imperative that you do something about it.

Or else you have participated in whatever happens. Now, you can't just hear from somebody. Oh, I heard this guy is a molest, you know, that's not good enough. What he's talking about here is someone that you're actually seeing. There's no doubt that this person has done something wrong. And something terribly wrong.

And it's, you know, in the U.S., we know that the, be Castle Doctrine, you know, you shoot somebody, it's still going to be a brutal court process. Self-defense is not something that's, I mean, yes, some people have been acquitted, but not everybody. And the Castle Doctrine has so many limitations now. It's, if you shoot someone in legitimate self-defense, you're going to be in court for a long time. And you may be convicted of something. if you recall during the

George Floyd riots in 2020 that couple in Missouri remember the one guy had an M16 his wife had a pistol they were arrested for defending their property and there were no cops around

it was this horde that came into the suburbs in other words he was supposed to just let himself be destroyed by this mob again thank God nothing came of that but it's the same kind of situation. So, you know, the mind, by its very structure, rebels against not doing something when you witness it directly.

I have a personal history with that. I won't get into right now where I did intervene and I got into a lot of trouble, but eventually it all came out in the end. You know, there was sympathetic, too many sympathetic witnesses. So, and, you know, this happens unfortunately all the time. And if you walk away from something like that and you don't, you're not beating yourself up for the rest of your life, then you are probably a sociopath. The criminal's body is his instrument, his organ, it is not separate from him.

He is present in it. He is infused into it. And though it pours himself out into the world, and through it pours himself out into the world, his body is, the territory of his malice, and this spiritually devastated territory is by no means extra-territorial for an alien spirit. A reverent awe before the body of a villain who does not tremble before the face of God is unnatural. It is a moral prejudice, spiritual cowardice, weakness of will, and sentimental superstition. This awe, which paralyzes to healthy and faithful impulse of the spirit with a kind of psychosis, leads a person under the banner of non-violent resistance.

to evil to complete non-resistance to evil. That is, to spiritual desertion, betrayal, complicity, and self-corruption. I translated this. I was iffy on the word awe. I didn't have the original here. I should have. I don't remember it, though. There's awe, and it also bleeds into fear. Now, when I saw awe there, I'm thinking of the American love affair with the mafia, how well the mob movies do. You know, you even, in Sopranos, greatest TV show of all time, you come to sympathize with these murderers, you know, to the point where the show has to show them doing something awful so you don't just completely identify, you know, reminding you what these people really are.

Now, an organized crime, it's a very different story in terms of intervention. They have far more power than just some individual meth head doing something awful. Still, the mind rebels against it.

They don't usually do things to civilians. The Jewish mob does, but the Italian mob doesn't. So it doesn't really apply to them as much. But to some of you intervene, and something with them, it's a completely different story. Still, you have an impulse.

The mind is create natural law as such that it's really not necessarily even a reasoned response. It simply happens. But if I interpret it, if I translate it the other way in terms of fear that this person, let's say, is much bigger than me, is notorious in the neighborhood, whatever. and you don't do anything on that basis. That is cowardice. That is simply cowardice. That is desertion, betrayal, complicity. And you don't know how that person is going to react.

We live in an age today in the MMA age. We don't know what a stranger can do. We don't know what a stranger is capable of. Which is why road rage is such a really a bad, getting out of your car, such a stupid idea. You have no idea what the other guy. he's capable of. Today, used to be just a punch here and there. Not anymore. And of course, people have weapons in the car. I certainly do. Normal people certainly do. But this is simply a matter,

but even there, that doesn't make any difference. Our minds are subject created in such a way that to respond to it is not necessarily even a rational decision. That's not irrational. It's just subrational. It's non-rational, probably the best word for it. Yeah, it might be frightful. See, that might be bigger than you or whatever. But if you walk away and you're watching this guy do something, you're going to hate, you know, a normal person is going to hate yourself, hate themselves for the rest of their lives. That is worse than intervening and maybe getting hurt very badly. And I've seen, you know, we've seen videos of this, especially when, you know, non-whites are doing something to whites

that white people simply walk by terrified that they'll go to prison for a hate crime if they try to intervene. We've all seen those videos. I've seen hundreds of them. And that adds another level of awe and fear. And, you know, the people who are refusing to do anything internally,

they are they won't soon forget this and they'll be terrified of it but again their only reason that they're fearful is not because the guys are bigger than they are or you might be an MMA star or something like that it's because they're terrified of being called

the races which is far worse in their minds than being beaten up or even killed or the crime that's actually going on so the awe and fear difference here bothers me and they both work, given the context of this paragraph. Physical force exerted against another person's will manifests itself spiritually in life every time their inner self-control fails them,

and there are no mental and spiritual means to prevent the irreparable consequences of a mistake or evil passion. The one who pushes a careless traveler back from the brink, who snatches a vial of poison from a hardened suicide, who strikes a revolutionary in the right place, who knocks down an arsonist at the last minute, who drives shameless blasphemers from a church, who rushes with a weapon into a crowd of soldiers raping a girl, who ties up a deranged person and subdues a possessed villain,

is in the right. Will they show malice in this? No. Condemnation, indignation, anger, and a genuine will to prevent the objectification of evil. Would this be a violation of the spiritual principle within man? No, but by a strong-willed affirmation of it in oneself and a strong-willed call to it in another, revealing its own inadequacy. Will this be an act that destroys loving unity?

No, but an act that faithfully and courageously demonstrates a spiritual separation between the villain and the good. Will this be a betrayal of God's work on earth? No, but a faithful and selfless sacrifice. but a faithful and selfless service to him. This is something, believe it or not, Tolstoy has made very clear. Yeah, there's a little delay there. Sorry about that. Tolstoy actually goes so far as to say yes to all of those statements. I was a little liberal with the translation here.

because translation is always interpretation. There's no getting around it. But this delivers a very powerful conception of what he's really talking about here. For Tolstoy, well, taking a vial of poison, actually for him, I don't think would be violence. But lots of others, lots of these others are. You know, if you just stay in a corner and pray for victory or pray that this stop, it still has to be stopped by somebody. You know, pushing a careless traveler back from the brink, like from a brink of like a cliff or something. I don't think Tulsa would consider that violence.

Some of these others, though, he certainly would. But the most important thing to take from this is that all of these. are fully consistent and even tremendous manifestations of love, spirituality, and the maintenance of a loving unity. And by loving unity, of course, he's referring to either the family or the region of the nation. Because this is not just individuals. He's referring to individuals here as examples. This can refer to any level where this sort of thing is done. and he's also talking about stopping irrationality

his people who are doing this kind of thing for the most part are either ignorant or irrational something's wrong with them oh and I love the phrase and this is exactly there was no doubt about the translation here who strikes revolutionary in the right place that reminds me of at one point I had a weird

obsession with South Korean riot techniques against the communists. And one of their tactics was to take a, they used their riot shields both as offensive and defensive weapons. And to put it on, you know, hold it horizontally and push it right into the throat of the communists. They used to do that a long time ago. They did it very well. It's almost like, almost they shoot it out and then pull it back.

And that's what I thought about when I saw this. and certainly Tolstoy would be vehemently against that kind of thing. Now, would he be against it if Jews were to do this? That I'm not sure about. He doesn't deal with it explicitly. I just read a letter about the so-called programs when he just, you know, he's one of these guys who thought this government organized it and all that.

But because Jews in his mind were superior to Gentiles, as we've, a few weeks ago, and I think you have a link to that letter back then that he wrote or that little article he wrote, maybe this stuff would not apply to them, but I can't say that for certain. Perhaps this would still be an act of violence. Not every use of force against the dissensure is violence. The perpetrator says to his victim that he is merely a means to his interest and his lust, that the victim is not an autonomous spirit, but an animal.

things subservient to me. In contrast, a person who exerts coercion or restraint on behalf of the spirit does not make the person being coerced a means to their own interest and lust, does not deny their autonomous spirituality, does not invite them to become a submissive thing, and does not make them a victim of their will. It does remind me of Aristotle. Of course, Ilin is more than literate in history of Western End. and Russian philosophy.

And for Aristotle, the difference between, let's say, for example, a monarch and a tyrant is whether or not that ruler, a monarch being a good thing, tyrant being a bad thing, the ruler serves his personal interests, which would mean that everyone around him, even their countries a whole, was just being used for his own agenda. or as you had in Russia at this period of time, true monarchs who were concerned with the common good. And that was shown blatantly by the murder of Zarniklaus where he said, I will sacrifice myself for the good of Russia.

He said that more than once, in fact. He didn't realize his whole family would be involved, but he said at least at one point in his captivity. So in here, he's giving almost a way to tell the difference. If an act of coercion is used, if it's for your own, because you're angry, you're upset, and you want to, that's different than when your motivation, I mean, you could still be angry, but your motivation is justice and righteousness. you're not just using the person to make yourself feel better.

No, you're doing it out of a certain level of love. Someone who does these kind of crimes is usually nuts, you know, on meth or something like that. It's irrational. It is completely ignorant. There's something else wrong with them. Therefore, the reason somehow has been damaged or maybe totally destroyed. as, you know, methamphetamine and many other drugs do. But so stopping them, you're not stopping a reasonable individual.

You're not stopping someone who has any rationality at all. And in fact, because of that, isn't entirely human. The very definition of being human is to be both rational and free in the sense of being autonomous. Reason doesn't make any sense if you're free. Animals don't have either freedom or reason. They simply respond to instinct and problem solving. But that's what a man is. Freedom doesn't make any sense without reason.

Reason doesn't make any sense without freedom. If something is damaging that, whether it's their own fault or not, that makes them at that moment a bit less than human. Therefore, you're not dealing with an equal here. You're dealing with someone with maybe it's drugs or something like that, that has annihilated their reason, and therefore it is an act of love to stop whatever they're doing. Because, let's say it's a drunk, beating someone up, beating up his wife or something like that, and you stop it. That drunk, I think we've mentioned this before, actually, is going to thank you later on.

You know, that wasn't me, they'll say. My reason was totally destroyed. You know, you're not free in that case. This is what he's saying here. You're not dealing with, you can't go there and to a meth head and start, you know, talking about the ethics of what he's doing. And there he'll say, oh, you're right. Kant said that.

Yeah, I'll stop. That doesn't make any sense. They don't have their mind, so to speak. We use a phrase out of their mind. Reason doesn't work. So you're not dealing with a human being in the normal sense. You're dealing with someone who's very essential. The essence of them being human has been damaged by something, mental illness or whatever it is.

And therefore, it's not quite the same thing as smacking someone who irritates you. We all want to do that. We want to do it a lot. But that doesn't work. And remember, this is, you know, you're watching something, on an individual level, you're watching something take place. You don't hear it third hand. That is completely illegitimate in that case. You can see it.

There's no question as to the guilt of the person. There's no explanation for what the person's doing that'll ever work. That's what he's talking about here. That's what, I mean, he's using that, you know, these examples are extreme examples, of course. But those extreme examples are enough to make his point. Rather, he seems to say to him, look, you are managing yourself inattentively, erroneously, insufficiently, poorly, and are on the brink of fatal irreparability. Or you are humiliating yourself.

You are going wild. You are trampling on your spirituality. You are possessed by the breath of evil. You are insane. And you are destroying and perishing. Stop. Here, I put an end to this. And by this, he does not destroy the madman's spirituality, but lays the foundation for his self-restraint. He does not humiliate his dignity, but compels him to cease his self-abasement. He does not trample on his autonomy, but demands its restoration. He does not violate his conviction. but shakes his blindness and introduces his lack of principles into his consciousness. He does not strengthen his malice, but puts an end to his overflowing hatred. The rapist demands submission to himself, but those who use principled coercion demand obedience to the spirit and its laws. The rapist despises the spiritual principle in man, the other honors and defends it. There are some similarities. Both the rapist and the one who stops it do not persuade,

or caress, but act upon a person, contrary to his consent. Both do not hesitate to influence his external acts, but what kind of perspective is required to assert, on the basis of these formal analogies, the essential sameness and spiritual equivalence of violence and suppression? Oh, the very fact that we use the same word, this is the fallacy of equivocation to some extent. Yeah, the guy who beats up his wife because the ravioli is cold, that's an act of violence. Stopping that person by punching him out or whatever you do, that's also an act of violence. Now, it might be easier to say, you know, it's like even words like torture, torture is one of these words that are inherently bad to torture somebody.

but there may be certain circumstances where it would work. Violence is also another one of these words. It seems to be, but isn't really, an evil. Violence and coercion often are seen that way. But clearly, while both being acts of violence, they have nothing in common. And this is what people like Tolstoy don't understand. Sometimes even the American courts don't understand this. the man who beats up his wife because the pot roast is cold

to steal that, I stole that from Bill Burr, is not, there's no rationality there. He hasn't gone through a logical, you know, there's something wrong with him. He's probably drunk or there's something else wrong with him. You're not dealing with a normal human being in this case. but it is an act of illogic to say that because they're both violent acts, because I'm against violence, therefore both of those are identical because they're both violent acts. That doesn't work. That's a complete logical fallacy. It's a fallacy that Tolstoy uses all the time, and people like him.

Thus, the entire idea of the malicious nature of physical coercion and restraint directed against a criminal falls as unintended. as prejudice and superstition. It is not coercion or restraint that is anti-spiritual, but malicious violence. When a person commits it, he is always wrong, by being evil, by objectifying his malice, by disdaining another spirituality, and by turning another into a means of his lust, and his wrongness remains, regardless of whether his action ultimately brings moral benefit or harm to the victim, and perhaps even to himself. I could be wrong, but he's thinking about Emmanuel Kant in the sense where, you know, when we begin with a person using violence, criminal using violence, is not someone who is being rational.

He has not consented rationally to what he's doing. But Kant also says that one of the ways you can tell the difference between right and wrong actions is whether you are doing something with a free will that is an autonomous will or you're using someone for your own ends. You always say that. You're just using me. You're using me to a means. That's an inherent evil, it seems. That's a different story. When you've had a bad day at work and you beat up someone who you've heard might be a criminal and maybe is, that doesn't work.

That's an act of malicious violence. That does not work. That is not a moral act. And again, we tend to use extreme and very obvious examples here. Sometimes they're not so obvious. And that requires quite a bit of experience. You may have to go get advice. You know, I've heard this person's getting beaten up for no reason.

I've seen him. I've seen bruises. You need to talk to people. You know, he's not going to go to the cops. The cops won't do anything. whatever it might be, and then maybe, well, what do I do? It falls on me. What if he kills this person?

So there it takes a tremendous amount of rationality. Anyone who commits the acts that Eileen is talking about is not rational. Neither is Tolstoy when he, you know, I've written on Tolstoy in bits and pieces before, and I always make the same comment. it's really easy to be a pacifist when you're surrounded by a very professional army and protected in a large empire with a strong and popular monarch. It's easy then. But if he was in a Hobbesian world, would he believe this? I think I use the example of Montenegro.

Would he believe this if he was born and raised in that society? it's really easy to be a pacifist you know let's say the 1960s in the U.S. because you really get you don't want to be drafted but it's easy to be a pacifist at any time because you know U.S.

you're not you know unless you're talking to count the immigrants you're not being invaded by anybody you live in a country unlike you know Montenegro or or Syria or something like that that's constantly under military threat and he was living a very peaceful life. How easy it is to be a pacifist in those circumstances.

He never addresses that issue, and it's something very important. And again, as I mentioned, I think I mentioned this before, that Socrates said, you know, his mouth was, you know, Plato had Socrates as a character, even though he was a real person, saying that the person who's being pulled up, punished for a crime is benefited. And if the punishment is done rationally, the person may actually rethink. And if someone is that irrational,

doing these things on a regular basis, maybe his reason is almost totally destroyed. The only thing that will ever stop him is violence. That may be the only thing he understands. But that kind of violence didn't exist in Russia, in his era. It existed after the revolution, but it didn't exist at this point. He was living in a society where, you know, the stuff that we're talking about

was just not a common event. Maybe it never so rarely existed. He was living in a society where making this point of view to be very, very, very easy to maintain. Would he feel the same way if he lived in Montenegro during the Turkish invasions? That's a very different story. And he did lead a pretty privileged life being on. landowner and all that. And his opponents, Ilin, among them, always point this out. And it's important to point this out to it. Coercion directed against a criminal and malicious violence are not the same

thing. Mixing them is unfair. But if the physical coercion of man by man is not evil, then evil is by no means reducible to the violence on man through his body or to the infliction of physical suffering on his neighbor. Indeed, evil can and usually does manifest itself in ways far on physical violence and the physical torment associated with it. It would be naive to think that the villain's activities are limited to physical assault, theft of property, injury, rape, and murder. All these acts usually cause little or no distress to the criminal's soul, and by damaging the external goods of others, villains inflict vital, emotional, and spiritual

damage on them. Moreover, violent criminals colluding and organizing can cause incalculable harm to the spiritual life of not only individuals, but entire communities, generations, and all of humanity. And yet, physical violence is neither the only nor the main, nor the most destructive manifestation of their villainy. We live in an era where a mental illness is everywhere. 19th century Russia was not one of those eras. the only kind of insanity that you had was

congenital you know people who were simply born that way but we live in a society where you know depression and schizophrenia are absolutely exploding medication and all this and

there has been estimates of how many sociopaths live among us and it's a tremendous number now let's be clear they don't use that psychology can be so ridiculous, don't use that phrase anymore, that word anymore. But a sociopath may know what good and evil are,

but that has no impact on them. A sociopath can pass any lie detector test. If truth or falsehood are exactly the same in his mind. And he can do something awful to somebody and just walk away. He's one of the few types of person where he could witness an evil act, not do anything and be fine with it. Because good and evil absolutely have no impact on him.

That's specifically what we mean by a sociopath. That type was rare in the classical world, medieval worlds, and even in the early modern world. It's only in our postmodern world where these conditions are just completely off the charts. And there's plenty of people to profit from it. at the same time. Again, another reason why it was every ease for him to be a pacifist.

You don't know who is capable of evil around you. It can be the most normal guy. Often it is the most normal guy. Their, judging a book by its cover, is incredibly stupid, but there's no way to know. Sociopathy is increasingly common. The only way you could describe that is from social causes. That's how we're rational and twisted this system is. The powerlessness of most of us create tremendous.

Suicide is a white male phenomenon. That has to be explained. It won't be explained, but it has to be explained. That kind of powerlessness creates misfiringes in the brain that are completely non-congenital. You're not born this way. You're made this way. The structure of the family especially. physical abuse

These are things that other societies only dealt with on very rare occasions. People don't believe it because they're only used to a sick society, but healthy societies did exist at one point. What Tolstoy would say in 2026, I'm not entirely sure in that respect.

Where we're surrounded by sociopaths, people who the regime, with the capital R that I use the phrase regime, it's ruling clans. Getting to the top of that requires sociopathy. You can't live their lives without being one, or else you eventually just kill yourself out of total cognitive dissonance. It's almost a requirement for that job. The constant pursuit of personal self-interest is destructive,

both socially and psychologically. But again, Tolstoy wasn't living in that kind of society. Man perishes not only when he grows, starves, and dies, but when he weakens in spirit and decays morally and religiously. Not when he finds life difficult or can't sustain himself, but when he lives humiliatingly and dies shamefully. To bring a person to this self-surrender, to non-resistance, to submission to the enjoyment of evil and

devotion to it is often much easier not by physical violence, but by other gentler means. Moreover, physical violence often leads to the opposite result, to the purification of the soul, the strengthening and tempering of the spiritual will. Well, it's clear that now he's getting into a very different area, and that area is also extremely profound. This paragraph is describing, and we'd get into this in greater detail, the concept is that there's worse things than death. Life is a coward running away from some poor creature being abused because you're scared. That's got to be absolute torture unless you're a social ban.

A normal person, it's got to be torture. To live in humiliating conditions. to be constantly abused by everyone around you. I think, you know, I've always said that a life sentence in a state prison is far worse than the death sentence. We all know, we've all seen the documentaries, we've all spoken to people. You know, unless you're, you're an MMA guy, you're going to live in humiliating submission. That is worse than death. and I think that's his general point here

that death isn't just the body decaying but it's also when you simply don't have the virtues you don't have the courage to do anything with your life you don't have the courage intervene in rough situations when you you the conception of morality starts to decay I don't know because maybe you're just you're simply too weak of the men

man, you're simply just a weakling, you're not strong enough to do anything, either physically or mentally. That itself is a living death that Eileen is bringing to the reader's mind that often is not thought of. There are worse things than death. There are deaths that are, you know, it's easy for us to say. I mean, I'll sit behind a desk here in rural Pennsylvania, but the phrase death before dishonor. to be killed for a glorious cause or to live as a coward, I'm not entirely sure which is worse. And this is what he's talking about here.

You know, I've always thought that the soldier and the monk are very similar. They both live under tremendous discipline. They both fight an external enemy. Well, the external enemy, in the monk's case, it's an internal enemy. their cause is just in both cases. And in some cases, he says here, this last sentence is fascinating. Moreover, physical violence often leads to the opposite result, the purification of the soul, the strengthening, and the tempering of the spiritual will.

And I'm 99% sure he's talking about the user of physical violence. you know Hegel for example was not against war he thought war was something that brought nations together that even defined what a nation is he's not talking about it but it also works on the other side that to be physically attacked because you're going to do something wrong

would be the best thing they ever happened to you their drug addicts they get sent to prison if they can't get their hands on drugs there they go through withdrawal that's the only chance that they ever have of actually getting clean and physical violence is everywhere there. So physical violence isn't inherently a bad thing under any circumstances,

both for the victim of the violence or for the person who's using it. It could be extremely positive, but it always goes back to the motivation, whether or not this is done autonomously, in other words, you're not being forced to do it, and it's being done because you're, you have certain virtues that others around you don't have,

even if it means quite possibly you may be killed or badly injured. And that's where he's still at the psychological level here, but that's the argument so far. I think we should end it right there. Yeah, yeah, he's getting into other things here. So how evil enters the soul is definitely changing topics here. This is a perfect place to stop. Awesome.

All right. Everybody, go over to the show notes. Go to descriptions on the video and donate to Dr. Johnson's work. I'm also linking in the show notes. There's links to that on the descriptions of the video. The recent episodes that Dr. Johnson is doing with Thomas 777 on right-wing Hagellianism, I've posted up his articles on Hegel on my website, and I've linked to him in the show.

notes. So go check those episodes out too. I think that there's a it's a much deeper subject, but if you can handle this, you can definitely, you should be able to get something out of the Hegel talk as well. I agree. I think, well, Hegel is the most difficult philosopher to ever write anything. I don't think anyone who knows history of philosophy will, will disagree. There are certain areas that are simply just impenetrable. No one knows what the hell he's talking about. But his profundity is extraordinary. He was a conservative nationalist.

He is a leader in that movement, which is why Karl Marx hated him so much. I have taught in various classes, Hegel, to, you know, a lot of students before. I think I'm able to bring Hegel down to a way that is accessible. but for someone like Hegel, even that's a big if. It's a big if I can do that. I think I can. And Thomas brings out a lot of good points as well.

That gets me to bring out other points. And so I think, although this is extremely heavy, no one on the far rights doing this anywhere, I can guarantee you that. But once you get the hang of it, it'll change your life intellectually. I guarantee it. All righty.

I will see you in a couple, we'll talk in a couple days, and we'll continue this and continue the Hegel talk. I look forward to it. All right, my friend. I will as well. Talk to you soon.