The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Ivan Ilyin's 'On Resistance to Evil by Force' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Pt. 19

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

60 MinutesPG-13Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is a researcher, writer, and former professor of history and political science, specializing in Russian history and political ideology.Pete and Dr. Johnson continue a 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.

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If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Ivan Eileen. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? We have the haze from the Canadian wildfires. I think it's from the Canadian wildfires. You've been hanging over Pennsylvania. Since it's been raining, it's gone to an extent.

But my God, you could hardly see the sun. It was crazy. It was like an orange dot in the sky. Also, I don't want to alarm anybody. But I have three cats in the room, including Stanley. and I make no promises as to their behavior. So, so let's do this quickly before things really hit the fan.

Have you recovered from your feeding adventures this morning? Oh, yeah. It takes, you know, with a diabetic dog, so there's a special diet, a diet that it just so happens, the cats really, really, really love. And so it's, I have to feed, you know, what it comes to, it's nine, seven cats and two dogs.

And yeah, it's a struggle. It's a battle. But Stanley runs it pretty, you know, he has an iron fist or an iron tail, I should say. And of course, he's fed first. And so, yes, I'm doing fine. It's, yeah, feeding them in the morning is a struggle. All right. New chapter. It looks like we're going to be moving into some new territory here. So here we go. Chapter 13, general principles. After all that has been revealed and established, it's unlikely that an unbiased researcher could doubt the need for a renewed and more profound

approach to the entire problem of external compulsion. A true answer is possible only if the question is correctly posed, and correctly posed demands from the questioner a faithful and free exertion of all the powers of soul and spirit, and above all, a spiritually perceptive love and a religiously intense will. There are spiritual faculties that are completely incapable of such faithful exertion. But precisely for this reason, it is wiser and more honest for people of this faculty to admit their impotence and modestly remain silent, not participating in the discussion. of this problem. When a morally noble soul seeks in its love a religiously faithful, strong-willed response to the violent onslaught of evil coming from outside, then people who are timid, insincere,

indifferent, irreligious, nihilistic, or realist, or realist, everything is relative and conditional, quote unquote. Weak-willed, sentimental, who do not accept the world, who do not see evil, can only hinder this search, confusing, distorting, and leading. it down false paths. He could be talking about any number of things, but certainly the Civil War was probably on his mind. Here, Russia is fighting for its life. It gets no assistance from the Allies, despite all the mythology.

The white army is deeply divided. The last thing in the world you can deal with are these weak-willed sentimental people. and they have no right to be talking at this point in time. Precisely because there's no other choice but to use violence. If Tolstoy were there, I guess he would say let the red stick over. That's God's will. So this is the first main general principle that we pose the question, but given our experiences thus far,

and the Bolshevik revolution is the main one, you know these type of people the tolstoyans need to just keep their mouths shut if anyone were to listen to them there would be no russia there would be no civilization the question of the permissibility of external coercion and suppression is posed correctly only if it is posed on behalf of living goodness which has historically struggled in the history of humanity with the living element of evil is it permissible for representatives of genuine living goodness to mentally coerce weak people in this struggle and physically coerce and suppress the activity of the evil, influencing their evil-doing souls and evil-doing bodies?

And if it is permissible, then to what extent, under what conditions, and in what forms? Now is a long question. But the main, the other principle now here is, and it gets into more detail later, is that it's not just being opposed to evil. There has to be a goodness. There has to be a positive purpose to all of this, which is what living goodness means. The rebuilding of all Russia,

Orthodox and the monarchy and everything else. Social justice. That has to be the, you know, there has to be a good end to your fighting evil. You can't just be fighting evil just because it's evil. You know, so it becomes a complex notion. And I know this is a long question,

but it takes all of the variables. into account. And that's what he's trying to do. Obviously, the answer is yes. But genuine living goodness, almost by definition, would not be weak and would be nothing but exhausted by the Tolstoyans around them who are going around telling them to lay down their arms. What do you do with them? So genuine living goodness is is by definition someone who's going to use whatever methods are possible or available to fight evil and have good end, and to be good themselves. The very essence of this question already predetermines and provides for the source, direction,

and purpose of this influence. It must flow from a genuine will to good. It must be self-directed and directed the one compelled toward genuine good. It must have the goal of strengthening and realizing goodness and soul. This is a necessary level of inquiry, below which the entire question loses its philosophical interest and its vital significance. For it is not worth asking what exactly is permissible for a criminal who desires to incite another soul to evil deeds. Nothing is permissible for him. He knows this, and therefore, without asking, he allows himself everything.

The entire question is posed not from the perspective of the criminal mind, but from the perspective of one who loves goodness and sincerely serves it. In other words, the person who is fighting evil has to be good and has to use, again, whatever it means or available, and not go to excess. As he says, direct the one compelled towards genuine good. It must have the goal of strengthening goodness and souls or goodness in general. Keep in mind, you know, after a mass of Civil War, first of all, you'll have World War I. and that's horrible enough. Then you have the Russian Civil War. I mean, you have PTSD everywhere.

And, you know, half the time with these exiles, you're not dealing with normal. You know, these people have been through the mill in a way that we really can't comprehend. And the fact that they're coherent and fighting is, a testament to their internal strength. This is another reason why they have absolutely no time for the to Stoian movement. Precisely for this reason, any and all attempts to divert this question from the questioning subject from their tasks and intentions are senseless and spiritually dead. Attempts to formally equate good and evil, the noble fighter and the criminal, in a discussion

of their rights to coerce and suppress. These attempts, usually emanating, besides sentimentalists, from cowardly, relativists, nihilists, and shameless sophists boil down to separating the method of influence from its spiritual source from its direction and its goals, and further to condemning this method. I like to use the example here, and when I was translating this, I had it in mind the so-called drug war. Well, it's not a war. We know it's not a war because every soldier for evil gets a lawyer, sometimes several, and has the ACLU behind them, and the police are constantly attacked by the lefts for doing anything against them. How can you even talk about a war if that's the case?

You know, when you talk about Iwo Jima, every Japanese soldier did not have a lawyer. They were simply shot. And that's why he says nothing is permissible for him. him. And it's also why when the Reds took, actually any revolutionary movement took over, the first thing they do is open the prisons. They can create chaos in which they, because they're so cohesive, will then end acting as the savior of the people. And some of these criminals end up doing very well in the revolutionary organization. Moreover, such assertions are usually uttered in a tone that tolerates no objection, as if the matter of boils down to the proclamation of some incontestable moral axiom, which is victorious by its very

utterance. In fact, the supposed axiom is the product not of living, spiritual, and moral experience, but, at best, of an ignorant mind attempting to evaluate the external as such by its formal, abstract attributes as such. Good and evil are not in reality equivalent in value or equality, and their living bearers, implementers, and servants are likewise not equivalent in value or equality. To call someone who stops a crime, a violent man, is only possible from blindness or hypocrisy. To condemn equally the execution of a villain and the murder of a righteous martyr is only possible from hypocrisy, stupidity, or blindness. Only for a hypocrite or a blind person are St. George the victorious and the dragon he pierced equal. Only a hypocrite or hypocrite or a blind person can

maintain neutrality in the face of this feat and appeal to humanity, protecting oneself and biting one's time. You know, what we take for granted in our criminal justice system was utterly inconceivable as Eileen wrote these lines. I know it's a little bit off topic, but our systems of criminal justice were not designed for the level of criminality that has overtaken our cities. It's not designed for it's designed for the occasional crime. I mean, this is why everyone takes a plea.

If you had a trial for every criminal, you would need hundreds of thousands of judges. It's not meant for this. This is why militaries take over government. This is why you have the situation in El Salvador. This is why you have states of emergency. emergency. And by equating good and evil, I mean, ultimately that's what relativism is about. That's what liberalism is about. Liberal state is one they claim that doesn't have any ideology behind it. It simply, you know, enforces the law, enforces contracts.

Of course, it's ridiculous, but that's their claim. But in their claim, they are equated. good and evil. Any kind of indifferenceism will equate good and evil. And it's, you know, dealing with people. It's one of the reasons I don't miss having Facebook anymore because I had to deal with this every day. It's so exhausting with people who aren't catching this here. Bernie gets from, oh, the early 80s in New York City. Do you remember him? I love that when that happened. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was in high school when that happened.

I was, I remember my father watching TV saying, what the hell's the problem here? He stopped a crime. He would have been killed. He did the world of favor. And you had huge factions in New York City at the time calling for his head.

And that could only come from hypocrisy, stupidity. or blindness. I think there's a fourth option, and that is that they're a part of the criminality itself. And I've dealt with the issue of why the left really loves criminality, why they support criminals to such an extent. I know that there's false accusations. I know there's false convictions. I understand that. But that's only going to increase when you overload a system that's not meant for mass criminality. The American criminal justice system was not meant for this overwhelming crime, to the point where police departments have been cut in half. Gangs control

entire region, especially of Detroit, places like that. This is what happens. And yet the cops are still condemned for taking action. Really pretty much any action now, so long as the races are right. And what message is that sent to the criminals. When Detroit had to, had to, was so broke that they had to eliminate their anti-gang unit in their police force, gangs then got the message and took over entire sections of the city. I don't know if you remember this. It was back when Bing was a, was the mayor, former MBA star. The cops were, um, when you entered the city in the highway, they had signs saying we cannot guarantee your safety here.

This is a war zone. And he eventually resigned saying it's impossible to deal with this city. You have, you know, 50% illiteracy and everything else. And the only thing that the media, the Jews, the left cares about are these non-white criminals. and so that would be inconceivable to him back then but he is he's seeing it an outline he's seeing this mentality I don't know what he would do if he were if he were alive today

again he would he would just think that everyone's possessed just like the other example you know or that this is just a criminal system regime it has to be destroyed by regime. You know, my definition of the word regime was probably what he would say. It's inconceived. You know, that would just absolutely blow his mind.

It is precisely the nature of goodness itself that determines both the question of the admissibility of physical coercion and suppression and the answer to it. For living goodness, living in its bearers, executioners, and servants is a true source, direction, and goal of coercion and suppression directed against the evil ones among us. That's extremely important. You have to be good yourself. And, you know, so this is not Machiavellianism. It's not, you know, the end justify the means necessarily, except in the most extreme of circumstances. That's very difficult to discern. So not only are you fighting evil. You have to have a sense of the good that you're fighting for, and you also personally have to be good. and that gives the criminal element a massive advantage. By their very essence, good and evil are a mental, spiritual nature, and their seat is the human soul.

Therefore, the fight against evil is a mental and spiritual process. Evil is conquered by the one who transforms it into good, that is, from the depths transform spiritual blindness into spiritual sight, and the power of petrifying hatred into the grace of accepting love. This is the fundamental essence of the fight against evil and the victory over it, and therefore every measure directed against evil must ultimately serve precisely this goal, deriving meaning and significance from it. That is why physical coercion and suppression have never been and never will be a sufficient means in this fight. The one who, depriving a villain of freedom or life, thinks that this is the main thing and that more is needed. understands neither the nature of good and evil nor the fight against them.

He sees nothing but the external symptoms of the disease and ignores the illness itself and its activity, despite its superficial usefulness, may prove harmful, in essence. Physical coercion and suppression acquired their full significance only within a system of correctly directed social education that observes the laws of spirit and love. When we spoke of the Solzhenitsyn book, we spent quite a bit of time, or at least I did, talking about the fact that Zaris Russia didn't have a prison system until it was absolutely forced on them,

pretty much at the end of its existence. Usually, well, crime was extremely low, and the commune usually took care of that kind of thing. Monasteries were places where criminals were sent, their families had to pay the fine you know and and he had to work out his problem again assuming they weren't just

absolute mental cases but you didn't have much of that back then today it's everywhere it was only at the very only one until terrorism got so bad in all Russia that they had to create some sense I mean even sending them the Siberia that sounds bad remember we talked about that

and they all came back and then crossed the border and ended up in Switzerland. No problem. With plenty of money and plenty of support from the West. And it's a shame. You know, wise Arniglis didn't just order the execution of Lenin to shoot the guy. Of course, it's, you know, not here or there. Or would that have done it?

Would someone else have taken over? Totsky have simply taken over. But this last sentence is incredibly important. The use of violence, physical coercion, only really matter systemically. Social education that's directed to the good that observes the laws of spirit and love. Hatred has a purpose when people you love are under assault. Of course. It's an engine.

It's a motivating factor. But it certainly can't be the only factor. and has to be very tightly controlled. Everything has to be based on reason and the understanding of natural law. There's no getting out of it, which in the moment may seem almost impossible. But we're talking about systems here, not necessarily individual. And again, it's those three things. The fight against evil, the fact that you have an actual agenda, this is something, by the way the White Army never had.

There were factions of the White Army, like Dietrich's group, who wanted to return to the Monarch. and stuff like that, but the White Army in general claimed to have no ideology. Colchak and the rest of them just wanted an insituent assembly or something like that, pretended not to have any ideology. They weren't necessarily monarchists. Only small factions were. Kappel. Notice that the non-Russian names seem to be the most royalist.

But one of the reasons that they lost, one of the many reasons is that they never had an agenda. They never can go to people saying, this is, we want to. a return of the monarchy and the commune and everything else. This is our agenda. The communists, the Reds, were able to do that. And a lot of it was a lie, of course. But they had a very bumper sticker-like ideology that they could speak to even ordinary people with. And it worked.

Of course, they would never talk about destroying the church and all that, but, you know, giving land to the peasants who already had it. destroying landlord, you know, they at least had an agenda, but for in the Maine, the White Army did not have one. And so you had the fight against evil, yes. But you didn't have a system that was dedicated to proper social education. These men were actually very good. The general and commanders of the different white armies. Unfortunately, we all know that that's a disadvantage when you're dealing with someone like Trotsky, who had no conscience whatsoever

but saying that you have no ideology it allowed the Reds and the West to tell everyone what these people were all about they're going to bring the landlords back or something stupid like that and not responding to it made them look terrible they had no conception of propaganda

the monarchy never had a concept you know it's beneath the monarchy to to deal with propaganda. Unfortunately, you know, they paid for it, but this is a problem. It's,

it's, you know, and I guarantee you he's thinking about this, at least part of this, you know, there was no sense of the good in the white armies. They didn't have an agenda.

They were so divided, and they allowed their enemies to define what they were fighting for. So all you had was the fight against evil, and the fact that they were, you know, personally decent men. There was that second one, the key one, the agenda, fighting for a good thing, a system of education,

that they didn't have, and it cost them. Furthermore, good and evil, being essentially sole spiritual entities, reside within man and a realized through man, and therefore through him, enter the world of the body and matter. clearly if man were purely spiritual and completely incorporeal being, the struggle against evil would be limited to sole spiritual efforts and accomplishments, and then physical influence between a good and evil-doer and an evil-durer would be impossible. But in reality, the world is structured differently, and such influence is entirely possible. Likewise, if man experienced evil solely through his soul and possessing a body, were deprived of a human. of the ability to manifest evil boldly and vent it in external action, or if man's soul and body

were not naturally linked in a living, organic, symbolic union, and did not directly transmit their states and changes to each other, then physical restraint and compulsion would fall away as unnecessary and meaningless. However, in reality, man is constructed differently. He actually vents his inner evil and external actions, and his body actually transmits to his soul the protest of another against his evil deed. Conversely, if man were a purely corporeal being devoid of soul and spirit, then physical restraint and restraint would be the soul and exclusive means of combating evil. However, in reality, this is precisely not the case. Well, that latter part would be Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbs did not believe in the soul. He was an atheist,

materialist, more or less. And all he had was a Leviathan, something strong. than any group of people that can impose its will. Only spiritual beings, well, that sounds like the tostoyans, this internal selfishness, they retreat into themselves as, you know, the font of purity, and claiming that anything that happens around them is just the will of God, which couldn't be more destructive in, during the Russian Civil War. And, you know, these guys were in exile because of the Russian Civil War.

There's no doubt it was constantly on their mind. Not to mention the fact that they were hunted, you know, they were hunted by the NKVD all the time. You know, they had to move and keep moving. Some of these guys were targets. Elin was definitely a target. Solzhenitsyn was a target. Dostoevsky was well, of course, people followers

Dosteiski in Slavophiles who were in exile were targets. But Bredaiev was a target. And they were aware of that. The NKBD was far more concerned with internal stuff, however. But those are the two elements. Either you have the Tolstoyan

naval gazing on the one hand or Thomas Hobbs' violence on the other. That's what we're talking about here. but man is a union of body and soul. Christ is, and so I always will keep saying this, the most significant feat in European history is the Council of Telcedon, which laid out in detail, the concept of Christ as God and man,

connected in a voluntary union, each one having their own will. they preserved the human side of things in a voluntary union with the divine side of things. Almost everything that we Europeans believe from then on derives from them. If you were to stress the divine too much, then man's free will would disappear. If you were to stress man's will too much, then God would be inaccessible. That was the nature of the heresies in the first millennium. people who don't think they matter. Oh, they mattered. They mattered. So it wasn't just the God's Christ's makeup, but it also was reflected in the men that were created by him,

by logos. It's a similar connection. But notice that when, you know, Charles made it clear, divine human. The divine includes everything, the church, all that stuff, sacrament. Human includes everything, nation, states. But they have to be voluntarily connected, which means that each one has to have, each nature has to have its own will. And a lot of people didn't like that. The bunch of emperors tried to smash it.

But when you understand the significance of Chalcedon, You see how that created Europe. That created a mentality that's in line with precisely this definition of the human being, that's soul and body. And there's no way to overstate the significance of Chalcedon, and he's hinting at it right here. In view of all this, the use of physical force and the fight against evil is possible and not without meaning, but by no means exclusive or self-sufficient. but a secondary and subordinate means in the general system of spiritual life, and, moreover, a means applicable within the boundaries of spiritual permissibility and necessity.

For its external physical nature is alien and inadequate to the principle of evil that is being overcome. Physical coercion and suppression deal not with evil itself, but only with its external manifestation. It does not penetrate to the necessary depths of the hardened soul, and the level to which its positive influence reaches remains comparatively superficial. Therefore, it is powerless to transform evil as such and overtakes it only when the spiritual transformation has no longer taken place and evil has succeeded in pouring itself out into external action. As an insufficient, secondary, and subordinate means, it must conform not only to the laws of the

spirit and the good, but also to the nature of the main means and to the needs of the main struggle. It should in no way encroach on replacing spiritual efforts and measures with physical ones. It should in no way harm a person's spiritual transformation. Physical coercion is an extreme measure of struggle and their scope of application begins only with internal measures when, where internal measures prove ineffective and insufficient. I've said this in the past, and it was something that was believed by a Western conservative like Edmund Burke. but also by the Russian Slavophile movement, that if a government has to use force to impose its laws,

then the laws aren't legitimate. This is why the Slavophiles had a very, very negative view of the Petersburg monarchy. To them, it was the, you know, they could focus on foreign policy, but everything else was done in the commune and in the Artel. That itself was a system, you know, I've studied in great detail, but even they had to deal with people who were just, you couldn't deal with them anymore. Their physical violence is necessary.

And also, that the use of physical violence, and if you have to use it a lot, you know you're in a lot of trouble. That goes for a state as well as a person. If a state has to constantly use violence to impose its laws, then it really should be wondering, maybe these aren't the right laws. or there shouldn't be a state you know diversity means that the loss has to become very abstract doesn't refer to a specific people anymore

there's no real reason to be loyal to it in that case but you also have to keep in mind that this use of violence shouldn't and it often does change the person using it and you know whether it would be PTSD or

some other form of mental problem that comes from the absolutely necessary use of physical violence. The person might be good. The end might be good. It might be clearly delineated evil, which you did have in the rest of the Civil War and other things. And yet some of those soldiers come back. And despite all of that are not the same meant they've been negatively impacted.

There's nothing I can do about it. But that's the nature of the beast. So that's why, that's one reason out of many, that violence shouldn't be used, should only be used as an absolute last resort. Because it does change. It doesn't get to the inner source of the problem, the criminal, with the evil entity. It also can turn a good guy into a bad guy very quickly. This means that physical coercion, firstly, should not attempt to evoke knowledge, recognition, acceptance, conviction, belief, or confession in a person's soul.

Any such attempt is doomed to failure. At best, it forces to coerce person onto the path of hypocrisy. At worst, it undermines the very capacity for conviction and faith, and perhaps extinguishes this capacity altogether, spiritually crippling the person. Prisons, torture, and executions are powerless to move the soul toward discernment, conviction, and faith. They can only lead it to either betrayal or stubbornness, which culminates in martyrdom, which is far from being meaningful.

Physical coercion must, under all circumstances, preserve a person's sense of truth without suppressing his sense of his own spiritual dignity or shaking his self-confidence. This is why all forms of physical coercion that destroy a person's mental health and spiritual strength must be condemned and rejected such as the deprivation of food, sleep, backbreaking work, torture, imprisonment with career criminals, humiliation, etc. And this is something for one of the most. right-wing writers of the 20th century to say he may as well be talking about the American prison system this is what happens all over the place imprisonment with career criminals

I love how that's a and I checked it I double checked it I triple checked it that's exactly what he says here you come out of prison at least in America far worse than you went in because you had to conform to that that reality. But it's sort of like what he's trying to say,

if you have, if you're beating somebody in his prison cell and you're saying this is done in the name of Christ, what's you going to think? He's going to associate Christ with this beating and hate him from there on in. That's why he says it should not evoke any kind of knowledge or legitimacy. It should just be. It's done because it has to be done.

That's why it's doomed to failure. And the hypocritical element are that people will just do things correctly just because they have to, not because it's in their soul to do. This is what he means by hypocrisy. That's a real definition of hypocrisy, saying or doing something they don't actually believe just to get by. Or like a politician, you know, depending on his audience. So this is a pretty extraordinary thing for. guy like Yelian to say.

And it can only come from a Russian, I think, because, you know, they're reluctance to build a prison system. They're aware of what prison systems could do, what they end up being. European civilization didn't have a prison system its entire existence until roughly, what, the end of the 19th century. And that has to be explained. Secondly, physical coercion should not attempt to compel a person to feel love. That is personal devotion, party allegiance, consent to marriage, fidelity, or patriotism.

Any such attempt is doomed to failure. At best, the person being coerced will embark on a path of lies. At worst, their soul will be imbued with contempt and hatred for the one coercing them and the things being forced upon them, hardening to the point of being completely incapable of love. Prisons, torture, and execution chambers cannot evoke either love or fidelity in the soul. Love is either voluntary and sincere or it is not. Therefore, physical coercion must, under all circumstances, preserve a person's capacity for love, seeing it as a fundamental transformative force of life and spirit. I couldn't help it, but when I was working on this paragraph,

I was thinking of a guy, a man, usually you see him quite often, with a very beautiful woman, he's terrified. the woman could go with someone else. So he does a lot of mate guarding. He stays very close to her. It doesn't like when she looks over there. It gets jealous at the tiniest thing. You know, after a while, she's going to say, I'm with a, you know, I can't be with this guy anymore. It's very unattractive. Love is either voluntary and sincere or it's not.

She's going to cheat. She's going to cheat. And you grabbing her by the hand isn't going to change that. you have these lunatic criminals who you keep, you know, partners locked up in a room. Please love me, you know, as if that could ever work. And they may even say it just for the sake of getting out of it, getting out of the situation. Now, that's an individual level, but that's what I was thinking of when I translated this, this notion that you can force love out of a person. Physical coercion just has to be.

Love is a completely separate thing. You know, a woman you're with, if they aren't satisfied by you anymore and they're going to cheat, there's nothing you can do. I don't care how close you hold her or how angry you get when she looks at someone else. She's going to find a way to leave and to cheat. That's what I was thinking of the whole time I was right. And this paragraph in particular. This is why all forms of physical coercion that harden a person and bitter him and turn him into a blind hater and avenger must be condemned and rejected. rude, insulting treatment, depriving a prisoner of all signs of love and attention,

not allowing religious services and a spiritual father, supplying him with misanthropic literature, torture and corporal punishment, and so much else. Wow, they're just describing, he's just describing the future state of Israel. There has to be, always has to be a legitimate way, you know, it can never be excessive, but only in the sense that, it has to have a very clear purpose. These kind of treatments are going to just harden the person into the hatred they already have. It's not going to do anything.

And these guys get released out into society again. After things like this. You know, allowing religious services and a spiritual father, it's very important. You know, what was the bread and water diet? it all about. It was a way that bread and water allowed with a strict fasting rule, and strict fasting allows the brain really to be freed and to be able to think about the crimes that they've committed. It's not to torture the guy. It's to, it's to, you know, anatomically speaking, to permit the brain to function without being weighed down by heavy foods. That's why we fast.

It's the whole point of it. Now, not. It's really hard to defend the American prison system, although it would be impossible to reject the necessity of the American prison system. It's a lot of people who don't have a lot of alternatives. There has to be a way out for these people. And the use of physical violence has to, you know, he's sort of violating another principle, but it has to have at least sense that the person who's suffering,

knows why it's being done. But it's something that maintains his humanity. And he sees that the good, or the people who are using the violence, aren't really all that bad. And they're doing this because they have to. They're making them do it. And that might be successful.

But the American prison system, the very fact that there's nonviolent people in prison doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. But you also have nonviolent people being put in in state prisons with some of the worst criminals out there. And what happens to them, you know, we all know what happens to them, unless I have money. And this satisfies absolutely nobody. This does no one any good.

And if anything, there is hate the system a million times more. Any system. This is why the Russian monarchy was still based on basic medieval principles, which is a very good thing. Capital crimes were punished by, for the most part, execution after a trial and everything. Otherwise, it was done through fines or having to work for the person. And then its family, of course, family meant a lot more back then. The extended family had to come up with the money for the fines. That's how it worked.

You don't need a prison system for that. And this is where, you know, it's almost impossible. And the prison system creates much tougher, more hardened criminals or people who, even PTSD can't explain what they're going through or what they've been through. It does nothing good for them. There's nothing good for anybody. Finally, physical coercion, appealing judgment. directly not to spirituality and love, but to the human will, and moreover, with the demand for self-compulsion and self-coercion, must preserve the human capacity for willing, but, on

the contrary, strengthening it and facilitating its spiritual development. Any form of coercion that corrupts the will makes its own goals unattainable and meaningless. It is not to reduce him to a complete incapacity for volitional self-governance and thereby permanently turn him into an object suppressed. This is why all forms of physical coercion, the damage and do not strengthen a person's will must be condemned. Forced idleness, meaningless work, the hopelessness of a life sentence, dehumanizing punishments, etc. Again, you have another list from the most right-wing Russian, probably the most right-wing Russian writer of the 20th century. And it makes a lot of sense. It comes from

the very mentality of the old czar system. You know, punishment has to maintain the dignity of the person, if there's dignity there in the first place. But we assume that there's dignity there. And they have to know that it respects their dignity. And the punishment is their own fault. It's kind of like you spank someone and you a kid and you say, this hurts me more than it hurts you. It's that mentality now. on a on a public scale and you know these lists are really important because he was kind of um

you know force idleness is what you know god the american prison system what a waste of manpower um you know meaningless work well that's most of humanity um and you know life sentences well in certain cases we understand why that's imposed but uh people with with a life sentence have to have any dignity anymore. There's no programming for them. They're never going home. So there has to be reason has to dominate. Physicality can never be dominated by passion, no matter how good the person is or how good the system is or how good the goals are. But reason has to dominate it. And in the moment, that could be very difficult. You know, like for example El Salvador, the country was falling apart.

The economy was crashing. People weren't leaving their homes because the gangs had gone so large. They took chunks of the country to themselves. What's the government supposed to do? The normal system, it was like in Colombia, back when Escobar was alive, judges had to wear a mask. This is why. when a military takes power, for example, they give a list, here's why we're doing this.

We don't want to do it. We're doing this because of all of this. And this is why we use the violence that we use. And, but this is a third list he's given here of things that are done to individuals, you need to say in a prison environment, that really point directly to the American prison system today. and frankly I don't think the old Russia ever had a prison system at all

there was there was a piece a sort of a part of the beginning of it before war started a lot of it was being a mental mental institutions like war number six by chukhov but the monarchy never was comfortable with the prison system it's because it engaged in all of these lists the things that he's listing here. You know, in a different context, you would say this is a leftist talking. You're a typical Republican, but you're not understanding the context of saying all of this here. Now, it implies,

it assumes that there is dignity to be had. I mean, it's possible there's people with such a low IQ that, I don't know, you know, the word dignity doesn't make a whole lot of sense. or the criminal who just can't do anything else. But that's probably a minority. But if there's dignity to be had, these sorts of things, although he's what, 10, 12 things that he's listed here are just going to make things worse. And he's pointing to what in the future

would become the American prison system, especially at the state level. This already clarifies the limit at which physical coercion. and restraint become meaningful and permissible. It cannot evoke either reasoned lover's spiritually holistic, positive action, much less a moral religious transformation of the soul. Wherever these forces and abilities live, act and govern a person, it is unnecessary and unacceptable.

Wherever a person works to acquire the virtues and love and maintains self-control, where the power of spiritual and volitional self-governance is intact within a person, and where the principles of honor and duty reside within their soul, the individual should thus cultivate himself through the power of self-compulsion and self-restraint, where the soul is not possessed by criminality and malice, and even where simply mental coercion, simple mental coercion emanating from other people proves sufficient. The question of physical coercion and restraint should either not be raised at all

or should be resolved negatively. Yeah, well, the simplest way to understand this is that physical violence, any kind of coercion is the very last resort. There's a million other things to do before that. And if they fail for whatever reason and you have someone who's incorrigible, then you have no choice in the matter. I guess in the U.S. system, you have, you know, first offenses. it kind of a slap on the wrist for certain things, but you keep doing it, and off to the state prison, you go.

But it all comes down to the fact that, you know, in Plato's mind, and this was adopted by great saints like Justin Martyr, asceticism is about reason, dominating passion in the soul. I know that there's a lot of anger involved. There's, you know, slaughter of people, invasion or something like that. And that's true in the moment.

But overall, there has to be, you know, this control over the violence has to be. It can't just be a mass slaughter. All that's going to do is ruin the people who are doing the mass slaughter and then making them hated by their enemy. So, you know, above he says that we just read that. violence should not try to give information. He must be saying that in a different sense because clearly the whole rest of this list, he's sort of saying it should. There should be a mentality behind it. The extreme example I use is definitely out, you know.

You can't have someone associate being beaten with the church. That's terrible. you know, he's going to associate those two things and end up hating you forever, assuming he's a normal human being. So the basic notion is, well, even more basic, is that if the society is healthy, the whole question of physical violence should be a rare one. Unfortunately, you know, we don't have that luxury today. That was the case in all Russia for a long time, except for the upper levels of the ability. But you did have a healthy society for the most part. I'd like to point out that Iran, prior to the war, had the lowest, or one of the lowest suicide rates in the world.

There's something about that kind of system and that kind of education that provides a sense of dignity and duty. There has to be a reason for that. you know, in the Third Reich, South Korea under General Park, you had this tremendous belief. Oh, my God, we're blossoming again. Everyone has to do their part. Not a whole lot of coercion is necessary there. Everyone can see it around them, that things are just, you know, a lot of optimism there. So in a healthy society, this should only be an issue once in a while, but we don't live in a healthy society.

And so this question becomes far more complicated, even than Eileen understood it at the time. I think this is the last paragraph, and then he's going to, there should be enough to wrap up the chapter for the next episode. I agree. And also, yeah, he starts jumping into applicability. That's right. While appeals to virtue and love or to the rational volitional principle of man do their job, and insofar as they do, physical coercion. and suppression should not take place, remaining, as it were, in reserve, for they form precisely a substitute and replenishing reserve for the main fighting force. It is clear that these means,

fulfilling the function of a reserve, must be ready, in a certain proximity to the internal means of struggle and subordinate to them. Moreover, unlike a military service, they must be known in advance to the receiver as a threatened sanction, and must always be introduced into battle in a very measured and gradual way so that the dose of physical coercion is always individually adapted and not excessive, neither in terms of the form of punishment nor in terms of its duration. Well, even in a healthy society, good citizens realize that the laws are their own, this is very Hegelian, the laws reflect who they are and they are part of a people, they're part of a nation

they see themselves in others they're not strangers there is still the possibility of coercion if things start to fall apart there's no way that could be the the main motive of

of of being you know it's not rationality it's simply it's simply going along so you don't get killed or sent to prison or something like that that's not reason when the laws agree with reason, as you have in Plato, as you have in Hegel, as you have in old Russia, I mean, it has to have a specific application.

Roche is a great example of it. Serbia under Emperor Douchon is another example of it. People had a purpose, people had a mission, people had a class that had its own sets of rights and duties that you're born into. It makes a lot of sense. so clearly they don't have the endless the mental issues everyone in their mother has today I think to a great extent comes from this drive to individualism

except that the individual doesn't matter but you know he's using a military metaphor but he's not really talking about military you're not talking about armies at all he's just using that as a metaphor it's always there and it has to be there

but and I think one of the hidden subtext of what we've read in this in this episode is that there always has to be someone that does the physical violence does the beatings that you know that person can't be ruined by doing it so soldiers coming back from war in matter how just their cause you know they come back erect and so it ends up being very complex and sometimes you can't you just can't help it that's the nature of a warfare although I do think that was less the case than than Vietnam and afterwards so the dose of physical coercion individually adapted that's the key thing and that's saying a lot that's saying a mouthful that's very hard to do you have to have a

rational society in present to begin with for that's even be considered. People go to prison. Why am I obeying the law? I pay taxes because I'm forced to pay taxes. I don't want to go to prison. That's why. Not because I want to assist the government in what it's doing because it reflects me.

Two very different things. And that's the subtext of everything that's been going on and what we've been reading here. All righty. Wrap it up there. Finish this chapter out on the next episode, as I do at the end of every episode. I'm going to encourage everybody to go over to the show notes. Donate to Dr. Johnson's work. Pick up his new book.

Join his Patreon. Yada yada. Go support what he does. Please. Yeah. Yeah. Please do. And that, absolutely.

And that's it. I'll talk to you in a couple days, Dr. Johnson. Thank you. Right, my friend. I'll see you then.