The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Ivan Ilyin's 'On Resistance to Evil by Force' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Pt. 31

Episode Date: September 5, 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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I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of Unresistance to Evil by Force by Ivan Eileen. Dr. Johnson, how are you today? It just occurred to me that on the 11th, We're at the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And it occurred to me just a few days ago. And I always do a show on it because I am, and I know I said this before, but I wrote the very first 9-11 truth article. As I was sitting in D.C. The day of.

And it was on the fact that they had. Osama bin Laden as the only within within a half hour Within a half hour they had him as the only culprit no one else was mentioned no one else was talked about and I knew of him very few people had known of him but I had heard of him before and I wrote the very first a 9-11 truth article and it was based around the fat of hell because they possibly have known that and there were so many problems with the story just from that point

of you, especially since he had no money at the time. It made no sense. And then, that very day, he condemned whoever did it. Everyone else was taking credit, except for him. So you're looking at the first guy who have done that. And this is going to be a definitive statement. I'm kind of sick of it. You know, but this one's going to be long, I think. And who knows it would be turned into a little booklet. I don't know.

but every day I come across new information, new stuff in terms of physics in terms of I mean, you know, I was at the World Trade Center a hundred times as a kid. And so, you know, we're coming up to the 25th anniversary. I can't believe. I just can't believe it. And the day before that, the 10th will be one year since Charlie Kirk got shot killed. Oh, it's been a year already? Yep. What the, I have not.

no concept of time. I have given up with time. You know, tomorrow's going to be December. I know it. I have no concept of time anymore. None. Well, I heard that, I heard in Israel, September 11th is Art Student Appreciation Day. So, yeah, yeah, they buy a lot of stock and moving companies. Yeah, I'll look forward to that. All right. Starting a new chapter today. Chapter 19, about the sword and righteousness. Quote, Can a person striving for moral perfection resist evil with force and the sword?

Can a person who religiously accepts God, his universe, and his place in the world, not resist evil with sword and force? End quote. This was the fundamental twofold question that gave rise to our entire study. What can and should be the answer to this question when it is posed by a morally noble soul,

seeking in its love for God and his work on earth a religiously faithful, strong-willed response to the onslaught of evil coming from without. The answer we have obtained is unmistakable and definitive. Physical restraint and coercion can be a person's direct religious and patriotic duty, and then they have no right to shirk them. Fulfilling this duty will involve them, as participants in the great historical battle between the servants of God and the forces of hell, and in this battle, they will not only be able to be able to,

be forced to draw the sword, but also to shoulder the burden of human murder. But it is precisely in connection with this final conclusion that a profound and significant complication arises in resolving the fundamental problem. Does someone who kills their neighbor truly uphold their moral perfection? Can such an outcome be morally correct, sinless, or righteous? After all, according to the fundamental question, the answer should satisfy a person's striving for moral perfection. Can a person's conscience, under any circumstances, recognize the killing of a person as a sinless and righteous act? And if it cannot, then how can one be satisfied with such an answer? My God, Ivan, we get it.

Okay? It's the same question over and over again. We get it. I forgot what I'm going to say. It's irritated me. I should have said, by the way, I made an error, I should have said killing instead of murder. Murder by definition is a crime, is a criminal act. Killing isn't.

You know, killing is more of a spectrum. Murder is, by definition, something that should be stopped. But yes, I think we know the question that we're being asked to answer. I think we know it. I think he's laid it out clearly enough. We established from the very beginning that all research and meaningful is meaningful only with complete and unconditional self-honesty, only with the absence of simplifications and omissions, partiality, and cowardice. Here, it is unacceptable and should not be concealed from oneself. On the

contrary, one must open one's eyes to everything and truthfully express everything before the subject, and only then make a final decision, confident that it is unambiguous and correct. Indeed, in the struggle against evil, especially under external coercion and suppression, does not not the personal and moral perfection of the fighter suffer a diminution or distortion? This is something that everyone has to deal with. You know, in the abstract, when we're, you know, sitting around talking and someone says, you know, you kill someone who's committing an evil act, you think, yeah, no problem. But when it comes to that, when it comes to that moment, you know, can you be counted on to do that?

You have no idea what that feels like, I don't. you have no idea what it feels like at the moment and you don't know what it's going to do to you and it's of a qualitatively different order telling someone, no matter how justified it than beating someone up or pushing someone aside or even just arguing with them. That's really the issue here. A lot of my friends in the true Orthodox Church condemn what was left of the church in the Soviet Union by signing a concordat with the USSR essentially supporting their

you know, which sounds absurd, you know, the church would be basically in line with Soviet policy, which is anti-Christian by definition. And get a lot of people very pompously saying, you know, I would never have done that. I said, really? You're looking at not only years in the gulah, You know what Goulog life was like. Looking at even more, they said to him, if you don't sign this, we'll start killing more clergy. And you're just going to say no? I have the feeling, talking to people, you'd be the first one walking up and down with the red flag.

If that was the price you had to pay, don't you dare judge these people? And it's true. In that case, we have no idea how we would react, given what the threat was. these guys rarely made it out of the gulag alive in fact they almost never did you freeze to death you know and this is why

the men who signed that and you know kind of supported Soviet policy abroad and things like that it's really hard for me to judge them I don't know what I would have done I've never been in the gulag but something tells me it was beyond miserable It makes American prison seem wonderful.

And we all know what we're Sultan-Eats and what it was like. And how many of us would simply sign our death warrant? You know, this is a similar situation. Even in the early church, you know, it was nothing through a piece of incense into a fire. And that's it. You get to leave. You don't even have to say anything. In this case, you know, you're signing a document in 1927, you know, that, you know,

we, the Soviet Union is God-given and all the crap like that. You're making substantial statement. But I question those who say that they would never do it. There's certainly some who would. But, you know, and I know those who are scared of being called racist on the Internet, if you're afraid of that, then I'm, I question your ability to put yourself in the gulag if you didn't sign this. And, you know, they end up killing priests anyway. But you're talking about now metropolitan Sergius, who eventually became patriarchsurgia.

It's really hard for us to put ourselves in this position. And what would you do? What would you personally do? And this is what Elyne is talking about here. What would we do if we were forced into a position like this? The simple, even if it was fully legitimate killing, you know, we were drafted into the Marines in Korea. We're fighting Mao's forces. Ain't nothing wrong with it.

But even there, could we have done it? And if we did, how do we know it's not going to destroy ourselves internally? So he's asking for total honesty in what we're willing to, how far we're willing to go in this respect. From the very beginning that the form of this question, harsh, categorical, clearly anticipating the only possible answer, may conceal some serious defect in moral experience or vision, and then it may cause in the soul of the person being questioned. There is a dual impression of naivity and hypocrisy. The question is posed as if the person already possessed personal moral perfection

and possessing it and valuing it above all else in life, fear seeing it diminished or distorted through his participation in the all-consuming struggle against evil. A sinless and righteous man cautiously seeks a righteous and holy course of action, so as to adhere exclusively to it, and never to engage in any other course of action that is not entirely perfect or unconditionally righteous. If, however, the questioner truly believes himself to be righteous and that unconditional and complete perfection is generally accessible to man in his actions, then this testifies to a certain limitation of his moral experience and the naivety of his spiritual vision. If, however, the questioner is aware of his own personal unrighteousness and the doom of all human actions to greater or lesser imperfection, then his question is hypocritical. That term hypocritical is one of these used, one of these terms that are overused and, as always, in American life, is completely distorted.

Most people use the term to refer to simply a matter of inconsistency. Now, that's not what it is. I say here that it comes from a Greek term referring to an actor on the stage. That's the foundation. In other words, it refers to someone who is preaching a doctrine that he himself does not believe. Like a politician, saying whatever his crowd wants to, needs to hear or wants to hear. They don't believe it themselves, but they need their vote. Something like that. of course all of us are inconsistent

especially those of us that have very high you know true Christianity has very high moral standards and so we're always inconsistent there are people out there and I've come across them who go to church and believing they have nothing to confess they don't understand confession because

because they have nothing to confess they're pathologically unable to look at themselves thank God I don't have that problem. But what counts as a sin has always been hotly debated. You know, it's not cut and dry, especially given certain circumstances. You know, the famous example that I always use.

So this is just something that comes before you're asking yourself about fighting evil by force and possibly then getting yourself into a lot of trouble. Now, the early martyrs didn't use any force, partially because it would be absolutely useless. They were a fairly small minority. There was nothing they can do. And often the same thing for the new martyrs, we call them, the Soviet yoke, by the hundreds of thousands went to the camps. You know, often for very little and often simply for being a supporter of the Black Hundred was famous Leninist line. And clergy, of course, were completely decimated. And again, how many of us would have simply said, no, I'm a full support of the U.S.S.R.

I wasn't really do it, Peter, like St. Peter in the New Testament. How much of us would have done the exact same thing as Peter did? You know, and even self-defense in a twisted system like today to get you in a lot of trouble, depending on many circumstances. um you know people who are armed in their homes have to worry about that if something really really bad happen there's going to be a prosecutor who may want to make it again you know especially if they don't like you if races are different um i know that there's been policemen who have uh police women in the case i'm thinking of who've allowed themselves to be beaten almost by by black gang members rather than take action

against them, they're, though, terrified of being the next front page. And that's why, you know, the Roman Empire had this deep stoic mentality. You simply do your duty, and whatever happens, you have no control over what happens as a result of doing your duty. Now, that's a much later Roman conception. Stoicism is mostly a Greek idea, and there's a whole metaphysics in which I talk about it, several lectures I did on it a couple years ago. But the later Roman version, most people know the emperor of Marcus. and that was a core of this thing. You do your duty,

and since you have absolutely no control of the consequences of that, you just do it. But that's asking a lot, especially of Americans in 2026, that, you know, have an extremely low tolerance for pain, who lose it at the tiniest inconvenience. These are the people who are going to, you know, this is why history is always made by fanatical, usually very small minorities. The masses.

so to speak, you know, mass of being a modern phenomenon, we'll simply do what their leaders ask them to do. They'll go along. But to get there, it's usually a small fanatical minority that gets all the work done. You know, we talk about 80-20 as beyond 80-20, Pareto, it's, you know, maybe, you know, 95-5 in that regard as far as the, you know, the Pareto ratio. you know, which side you do beyond, especially when you're looking at, you know, your life is going to change forever.

Are you willing to go that far? And I think we're at a point here now. We get it. Ivan, you know, let's move on. Neither naivety nor hypocrisy justify posing the question from the standpoint of moral perfection as a given as something present or generally easily accessible to man in our earthly life. Anyone who has at least once in their life tried to realistically imagine how a truly moral perfect person would live, feel, and act, and who has then tried to compare this image with their own, conscious and unconscious way of life, or the charge of drives and desires, would never dream of demanding absolutely righteous life outcomes from their imaginary holiness. This would be as unrealistic, intelligent, and feasible as it would be for a man, waste deep in a swamp, to speculate on how to return home without a single damp spot on his clothes.

Conceived in sin, raised in sin, and having lived half his life in sin, surrounded by similar people and connected to them by the bond of the universal interaction and evil, man has hardly any reason to pose practical questions of absolute measurement, and the task of immediate absolute purity? You know, the concept of perfection, you know, Christ calls us towards perfection. It's a very odd thing to say. Perfection has more than one definition. And there's, you know, the one that's used more commonly is simply without spot.

You haven't done anything wrong. But human beings, as everyone knows, we live in two realities. we live in a numinal realm is the realm of our mind that you can reach perfection you can have the proper doctrine the proper reasoning behind it there you could have you know

100% the problem is that's not the only realm we live in we live in the also in the phenomenal realm where we're constantly violating that on a regular basis sometimes without even realing in hampter time it becomes a habit you know most of us I didn't convert really until I was in grad school,

meaning that I had all of these bad habits already part of my firmware. And if you want to get technical about it, any self-regarding action, which means any action, period, because everything we do with self-regarding is sinful. So, of course, the other conception of perfection is, is not needing anything, that you're totally autonomous. That's a possibility, but that's not how most people, most people use it. So there's a conception of perfection in the innumeral realm in terms of things like doctrine and politics. We can get very, very close to it.

But that doesn't mean a whole lot. We have the phenomenal realm, which is something that we're also forced to live in, and that has to do with the will. And we know just from our own experience, that intellect and will are two very different things. We know there's something's wrong, and we do it anyway. Sometimes we look back and we don't even realize why. It's a simple habit.

Everyone's doing it. You know, and that's really what he's dealing with here. And this has something to do with hypocrisy as well. And because it's so, it's used all the time that, and I'm always, I've talked about it quite a bit because it's, you know, isn't hypocritical for you to be an anti-modernist and use the internet. I go, I said, it is not my fault that I was born in 1971. I can't help it though I was born and raised with these expectations. That's not the point.

This is nothing to do with me personally anyway. The modernist idea is incorrect regardless of what I expect having been born in the postmodern, post-modern world. And again, I should even have to answer it. It's such a stupid thing to say, you know, trying to personalize something. In the minute when someone personalizes something, you know that they're off, that they really don't have much of an argument. When they start an argument off by trying to read your mind, you know they have very little. So, and he says, you know, living haves his life and sin, well, I certainly did. Most of us did.

Most of us didn't convert until we were adults. And we realized the world around us and how wicked it was. far more and with far more clarity than we ever did before and how we're in serious trouble. Now, we can't conceive of a God that just gives us no mercy in that regard. Of course he does. He is well aware of what this world is and how we were born. Again, not our fault.

We were born in the late 20th century after the sexual revolution during the postmodern era, which was a revolution of the revolution. illusion. We're surrounded by wickedness that's so normal. We forget it's evil, because it's just every day. God is going to be very quick to forgive us for that, for that reason alone. Christians have to stop considering God as this monster that just can't, just can't wait to find some, any excuse to send us into hell. Especially for us struggling today, and I think the sickest society that's ever existed, the most twisted, almost all. openly demonic decided ever existed. We'd be sitting an awful lot. And judging someone else for that is the height of stupidity. And a simple, this is just being obtuse. And those kind of opinions should be pushed aside. On the contrary, the deeper he goes within himself,

the more keenly he sees the secret nests of his instincts and passions. The more alien the point of view of moral maximalism becomes to him. The more modesty becomes in assessing his own strengths and capabilities, and the more indulgent he becomes toward the weaknesses of others. He learns to understand the gospel commandment of perfection, Matthew 4, 548, and Luke 535, as a long ladder of painful ascent, as a call from above, and as the volitional principle of conscience in the soul, but not as a harsh measure, constantly nailing the weak solar pedantically demanding continuous impeccability. See, I didn't, you know, I hadn't read ahead here, and I didn't realize that the next paragraph was going to be exactly what I said.

We have to be as we struggle, and it is a struggle. And, again, a very sick society. We have to be very realistic. And that first sentence is incredibly important. And I deal with this with young converts all the time. the more you start understanding, the deeper you go in your self-examination, the more doctrine you come to learn,

the more inward-looking you become, the more frightening it becomes. It's almost a, it's sort of a paradox that the more virtuous we become, even if it's purely internal, the more we realize just how sinful we really are. we see things that no one else sees. We have sins that no one else, that no one knows about.

We are all sinners of the worst order. And it's worse when we know, whether doctrinally or just, you know, rationally, that it's simply wrong to do X, Y, Z, we do it anyway. For people who have no idea, who are ignorant, maybe incapable of learning about this stuff, you have to be indulgent. That's, you know, that's an old stoic idea, too.

You know, you can't blame somebody. That doesn't understand. Maybe it's part of your job to bring them to an understanding. I don't know. It depends on your relationship with them. But the deeper, you, the more virtuous you become, the more you realize how sinful you truly are. And when that happens, it's almost a mark of progress. And that's when you become more indulgent.

towards a weakness of others, including your brothers in the church. You know, it's, we never, we never get there. It's the struggle and the refusal to give up that matters. That we fall, we get up again. That's going to be our lives, especially today. And that's why having a good spiritual father, not just a confessor, a very good spiritual father, is essential. How many of those guys are around?

I don't know. And if you could find one, though, always hang on to them. Someone who is not going to be, they're not your friend. They point out what you don't want to see. And that's how you know you have a good one. And that's very important. Because we have the tendency, even as it just as, you know, unreflectively, to paper over these things to justify and rational.

We could rationalize anything. the other paradox is that the more intelligent you become, the easier it is to rationalize your sins. And so this is what he's talking about here. And this goes to what we've been talking about in this entire book, that fighting evil, resisting evil by any kind of force, you yourself have to be on this pan. You can't be doing this stuff, even if you're on the right side

as a way to get your antisocial aspects of your personality out, give it an excuse to be violent, an excuse to be. People like that need to be driven out if they can't be educated. Even the people on our side half the time do more damage than do any good. It's very important to constantly be looking at yourself and getting rid of all the rationales. That's a tall order, I know. Stop rationalizing things.

And when you do that, it starts to hurt. But the more you learn about that, the better off you're going to be. And you realize that, you know, in terms of my actions, I'm never going to be anywhere near perfect. But the struggle is what matters. And God is not going to send you to hell for these things so long as you recognize themselves. It has a sin, and you dust yourself off, and you do what you have to do. and the forgiveness of sins, it only makes a different. It only exists if you have every intention of not doing it again.

If you do it just to, you know, wipe it away, it's not, this isn't a magic spell. This is connected with a lifetime of war. And it's a struggle and it's an unpleasant struggle a lot of the time. But it's a struggle that's demanded of us. Man is not righteous and he does not wage war against evil as a perfectly righteous man or even among the righteous. Concealing the seeds of evil within himself and struggling to overcome it, yet far from having completely overcome it,

he finds himself compelled to aid others in their struggle and to curtail the attacks of those who have already given themselves over, have given themselves over to evil and seek universal destruction. The one who curbs evil stands in the swamp, but his foot has planted itself on firm ground, and now he is helping others. who are being sucked into the quagmire to reach firm ground, striving to protect and save them,

and realizing that he himself can no longer emerge unscathed from it. You know, this gets such levels of heaviness that I had to put something funny in there. You know, you could click quagmire. It's actual a picture of quagmire. You've got to do that once in a while because this just gets very, very painful even in reading it. But, you know, when I got deeper,

into this movement. And I was, I've always been, I've been an activist since the 80s, but with the TWP and groups like that, my Facebook friends list went from, let's say, 500 to 1,500, almost overnight. And most of them were young people, younger people, who needed my advice on these kinds. And I talked about this sort of thing all the time. And I noticed that I'm extremely indulgent with,

them not with myself but um and that you know usually don't take my own advice i'm very indulgent with them but the very same reasons that i should be you know you take action always you always take action but it could get so bad your self-condemation that you don't get out of that pit it's a it's a balancing act and it's an awful balancing act um and it got to the point where i simply couldn't answer everybody on facebook I was getting 200 substantial questions from people a day. All of a sudden

and I had to get under arrest I can't get to everybody and I'm not noticing themes and this is precisely the issue. You know, how far are we expected to go? Young men talking about sexual things. I really expected not to do anything in this day and age before marriage and that's, you know,

it's very difficult to, to demand that of someone, especially today, such with the women that you're more likely to meet. And this balancing act is absolutely brutal and painful. But that's one pattern that I noticed is that I was very indulgent with these guys, and my indulgence was based on a lot of very rational arguments, but I never, ever applied that indulgence to myself.

And the father's tended to believe that that's a good thing. But like everything else, you can go too far in that. Again, the struggle is what matters. I hear from young people, even now, I hear from young people all the time who are just on that border of what he says being sucked into the quagmire. It does not refer to this family guy character, as I initially thought it was. It does not refer to like a, you know, almost like quicksand, a quicksand of your own sins and stupidity. does not refer to the family guy character. And sometimes they're despairing.

They don't see how it's even possible for them to get out of it. Given the people that they know, the society they live in, what they're used to. They haven't even converted yet. And they're already in despair. And I thought I did pretty well in talking to them. I think I have an understanding of human nature such that I know. And I just simply, you know, use my own experience. And to think that I've overcome the things that they're talking about is insane.

That's the first thing I tell them. I am no spiritual father. However, I could use my own experience and my tremendous amount of reading in the subject and see how it might apply to you. But the worst thing any of us can do is rationalization. And rationalization is, again, the more intelligent, are the easier it becomes we can i i certainly can i could rationalize anything i could see evil done right in front of me and if i like the person um i'm going to find every possible excuse and the ultimate excuse for not doing anything is tolstoy it's not merely this theological

pseudo theological argument it gives people a way out i have no right to judge When, of course, what's evil is right in front of you. You have no choice but to judge it. I can't judge. I can't take action because this is not Christian as they pretend. And isn't it wonderful and convenient that, therefore, I don't have to do anything. I don't get myself into trouble. You know, the old saying is, if you don't have a lot of enemies, you're doing something wrong.

And in this case, it is absolutely true. Again, his use of quagmire here does not. refer to the family guy character, despite the fact this was many generations before that show ever came into existence. Of course, from weakness and from the abyss, you cannot help or strengthen anyone, but from the slightest glimmer of strength, vision, and faith, the beginning of salvation can already emerge. He who sinks into the quagmire and drowns is, of course, neither a fighter nor a helper, but he who has established himself is already a helper and already a fighter, even though he himself is standing in the swamp. And wouldn't it be strange to see his

complete indifference to those perishing and hear the hypocritical justification that only he who stands on the shore can help and that he will also help someone when he himself has climbed out of the swamp and is completely dry, but even then, only so as not to get his own clothes wet. you know the old saying and I think there's some truth of it that if someone is drowning to think of it in a literal sense

you jump in after them that's something you have to do and if that person begins pulling you under then you can't continue and to some extent that's what he's referring to here I always tell people

I simply can't respond to everybody and it's I feel bad but I can't but you're a friend of mine you're even a brother of mine if there is a chance that we're going to end up in the same gulag cell together there's any chance of that then you are you are a friend of mine

that's my that's my criterion for who's a friend and who isn't But I've also dealt with people who get angry because they don't hear what they want to hear. And people who agree with what I'm saying don't do anything about it. And then contact me a month later with the exact same thing over and over and over. And that's more common than I realize. The same problem over and over again, they've done nothing to improve themselves. And there you start to realize that I'm wasting my time.

You need to go to someone more skilled than I am and you cut them off. There is just full justification for that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that if you put your time in and you realize this person has no desire to do anything. If it's just the same thing over and over again with no excuses and new rationalizations, they just are waiting for you to finally state what they want to hear. And you start learning that. And these people are time wasters. They're what they used to call energy vampires, and you realize they have no intention of changing.

This sort of, it's like the drowning victim, you know, there has to be a point where you can rationally cut them off, and there is no moral issue with that. A man who loves sincerely and is guided by will struggles even when their strength is meager and offers help even when they are poor. They begin not from the top, from an ideal, but from the bottom, from the reality of trouble and need, and they are right to do so, for it is rational and realistic in the struggle against evil, not to start from a pinnacle of moral perfection while turning a blind's eye to one's own unrighteousness and the sinfulness inherent in all, but rather to start from the actual situation,

the clash of evil passions and noble will, seeking the minimum possible sin and the maximum possible assistance and strengthening. This does not mean that a person should extinguish the will for moral perfection. On the contrary, that will is essential to them until their very last breath, but it does mean that the naive fantasy that such perfection is easily attainable is absurd. Being a saint in one's dreams is not the same as being a saint indeed, and it is through grasping this distinction, through a profound understanding of it, that the human soul grows wise and tempered. A person must constantly cultivate and strengthen the will for moral purity, a pure and sincere will for the fullness of spiritual love and its integral outpouring into the deeds of life.

Yet they must not imagine that this will come easily or quickly. However, the more they achieve in this regard, the less unrighteous, or put another way, the more righteous, a solution that they will manage to find. He who seeks everything achieves more, yet it can happen that an unreasonable insistent demand for everything deprives a person even of the lesser. For there are certain life situations where one should consciously seek not righteousness or holiness, but the least evil and the least unrighteousness. In such cases, practical maximalism is invariably a sign of naivety or hypocrisy.

Often it's the former, and I've come across this many times. Someone is, in my case, you're going to convert to Orthodoxy, which is very strict, you know, fasting and everything else. And they're very excited. They're reading everything that could get their hands. They're kind of like I was, you know, many years ago. They're reading everything they get their hands on. And before they take stock of themselves,

they're saying to themselves, same to me, I'm going to start fasting tremendously. I'm going to start, you know, staying in prayer, you know, for half the day. I'm going to work at the homeless shelter I'm going to fight the good fight matter what happens, all of this stuff and the person is barely converted yet

I felt that temptation as a much younger man I pulled myself from the brain I did have very good Gert and fathers at the time what often happens is that they fail and they fail spectacularly massively

and then And as a result of that, they go into an extreme depression. So the first thing these guys have to learn is you're coming out of the most wicked society that's probably ever existed. And one of the reasons I say that is because it's not like the Soviets were so ham-handed. They threw people in the gulag they shot them. Here, the regime bases a lot of its power on psychology, getting into your mind. changing the definitions of words, a more decentralized form of psychiatric control. It's not based on physical violence often.

At the time, they don't need it. Can you think of a worse society conducive for the long process of making even small improvements in your life spiritual? Americans don't think that way You know Americans like fast food You know It's a last group of people Who could be a big idiot

But they have to Anything worth having Is painful In the process Anything worth happening is going to take A long time Um The hypocritical part

Is the person who Tries to find shortcuts And of course it's a big problem for me, the pseudo-intellectual type. They want to be known as an intellectual, but they don't really want to go through the years of struggle, and I mean struggle, to get to the point where you can have, you know, deep,

understandings of things. They would rather not do that. But so long as they're among people who don't know anything, they've memorized just enough slogans to come off as, they may dress the part, you know. They wear a beret or scarf trying to sound, you know, And they look, to me, I could spot this a mile away. The pseudo-intellectual is, that's everywhere.

I can, you know, it's something that I hated for a long time. I cringe at some of the things that I did when I was, you know, very presumptuous. But the very fact that I'm cringing about it means that I've come to understand it. And I realize that. And that's what you've got to be indulgent, but, you know, you got to tell these people to shut up at a while. trying to become a saint overnight, which is a very American thing to do.

This is why Protestantism is the only. You don't have to do anything in Protestantism. All these conversions, you know, a mafia guys, heavy metal guy, you know, Nico McBrain, who I love, of course, Alice Cooper, they all come to these

Protestant theologies that means that really have to do anything. They just have to make a statement and read the Bible once in a while and that's about it. Isn't that convenient? That's not Christianity. That's a disease. There, they could really almost become a saint overnight,

and even pretend to have some knowledge about theology. That's why Protestantism is so convenient. But Christianity has never been like that. East or West, it's never been like that. It is a lifelong battle. It is a lifelong struggle. It's painful. And there will be times when you want to give up.

because we live in a regime where they come up with new ways to sin every day and new ways to rationalize that sin every day. This is a brutal time to try to start this. They're very freeing yourself from the intellectual assumptions of postmodern life. That takes years. I believe that I've mostly done it. you know, assuming that the argument, I say nominalism, for example, assuming that that's true. That takes a long time to get out of using the regime's own terminology.

It takes a long time to get out of to decode their words, their arguments, decoding them and understanding what they're really saying. It takes a very long time. It can't be done overnight. And now that I'm in my 50s, I could spot that so easily. and yeah there's a few things that I cringe about with myself but I wasn't nearly as bad as some of the people who have come across and then of course there's a naive version the guy who just wants to do everything he's so excited that he's found the truth and he's reading about all these great saints I want to be just like on good mount Athos and everything and I'm going to be a they want to be a hermit right away you know which is absurd

and when they invariably fail because they expect us to once in a themselves, they go into depression. Therefore, the way to do this. And it was just everything to do with the battle against evil, because you can't be evil yourself and pretend to be a fighter against it, just as a way to get your anti-social passions out. You know, I see, I'm doing the right thing, aren't I? You know, until I can do whatever I want there. There has to be small steps that are realistic that you can do and even then you're going to fail slowly but surely with the right people uh with the right people around you um so many of my lectures i'm aiming to that person uh bringing them slowly out of the how the regime it's it's brutal

i think i'm quite skilled at it but it took me many many many years and a lot of this non-stop work to get to that point. And even there, you know, I fail quite often. I'm talking about an intellectual point of view, not in terms of behavior. So it goes back to what I said originally. There's a concept of perfection or completeness. Intellectually, that is, it is conceivable. You know, the doctrine you have, what you believe, they could all be proper and properly arraigned. But when it comes to applying that, it's a totally different story. we all know people like this people who could spout doctrine all the cannons um constantly and we're actually rotten people you know i could be like that sometimes uh my sins are are have been

pretty bad over the years as of as of all of ours and but we start realizing that and that's the best thing we could possibly have happened to us is we start realizing just how rotten we really are and that realization allows us to slowly but realistically start to conquer them. We only have a few years to do it, especially if you convert late. And remember, God is not looking for any excuse to condemn us. He's looking for any excuse to save us. And this struggle, falling, getting up again, that's exactly what's going to save us. All these considerations should in no way extinguish or leave unanswered the question posed by the moral maximalist.

He may be practically wrong, whether out of naivity or hypocrisy. However, theoretically this question is full of profound meaning, and moral philosophy is obliged to explore it. We have no right to avoid answering it, so it is posed again. Does he who resists evil with force and sword satisfy all the requirements of moral perfection? Does his soul remain pure and undisturbed in his own disturbed in his own? conscience, satisfied and calm. It would be difficult to imagine that a person with a deep and keen moral sense could give a positive, reassuring answer to this question. This is clear from the above reasons, that is, that an imperfect person's actions are necessarily imperfect,

both when he prays to God for goodness and when he struggles with evil. Willingly and unwillingly, knowingly and unknowingly, man is always unrighteous and sinful. It is possible to think that he will suddenly find himself perfect and holy person is it possible to think that he will suddenly find himself perfect and wholly precisely in his turn to evil on the contrary one should assume in advance that the perception of evil will inevitably evoke in his soul indignation temptation confusion and overwhelming efforts in a word everything that cannot help but erupt in the soul of an unrighteous person living with passions and naturally that is how it usually happens I used to have a problem with anger, anger at the left in particular.

And I've become calmer over the years. And it started to worry me. I know a lot of guys who are even angry than me. I've settled down a lot. It's somebody more rational to do that. But when I was much younger, I would, you know, I was on the verge of a tantrum against these people, against Antifa, against the people who rule over us, the fraud and the lines,

especially when you're younger, especially when you come across it and you start getting deeper into it for the first time. If you're not extremely angry, there's something wrong with you. It's one of the great things about getting older and more experience is that you see this thing from a different point of view. but that also can be turned inward in the worst possible way where you say there is no chance there is no way we can defeat these through the Jews have us coming and going and so they go from extreme anger to extreme depression and I've come across this with many people

who coming out and say that you know um We're sacrificing so much of our lives to fight this, and there's no chance of victory. And I say to them the following. Well, I say two things. Number one, look how quickly the Soviet Union collapsed. It was an irrational system. There was no invasion of the USSR. It wasn't even a real massive economic crisis.

It collapsed on its own irrationality, and very quickly. That's the first thing. the second thing is that you are implicitly by acting like this you're saying that God has no role in this that you know when you read the great judge actually is his

title Gideon God deliberately had him put together an army initially what was fairly he was against the medianites in this case and he forced him to have a very small army.

He was disqualifying people for various reasons as he was putting us all together. And Gideon is saying, this is a, you know, mid-range empire. What am I? And the point was, is that when he was victorious, and he was victorious, Gideon knew that it wasn't because of him, was because of the quality of the men he had, was because of his leadership skills. It was because God was on his side.

And we see this many times in the past. Christianity went from a despised tiny minority to St. Constantine. And that was fairly rapid too. And then, of course, the great Theodosius, Empathodosius. Things happen so quickly. The other reason why suicide is so irrational. What you're so upset about was destroying you right now, that can disappear.

In 10 years' time, it's going to be gone. Whatever it is. It's such a, you know, is your typical overwhelming emotion, short-term thinking. The assumption, you know, depression really is a form of delusion. It creates a world that really doesn't exist. Everything is black. Everything is worse than it really is. You filter it that way.

You project that depression onto the world. It is a delusional state. and suicides sometimes are caused by that. You're not seeing reality. Even your good things or bad things in your mind. Even good things happen to you are bad things. And the world's better off without me. And that's pure delusion.

And that's why it's such an irrational point of view. Anyone who reaches that point, thank God Almighty. Thank God, in my worst days, I never even conceived or consider. never never and for a few reasons number one how i know where i'm going is it going to be better in the situation i have now and number two what if i screw it up i end up a vegetable i do everything wrong in my whole life i'm going to do this perfectly there's very good reasons um not to do it but you know putting yourself perfection is a theoretical goal but recognize yourself as sinful and making these realistic steps that's the only way to do it um

we're sitting constantly and we can sin unknowingly that's not a kind of sin that that you know is a matter of our volition the things you know that's that's that's something that's you know our own struggles it's grace is going to have to take care of it if we're as a scripture say as the church fathers say if we're judged by our deeds No one is going to be saved. Nobody. Justice has absolutely nothing to do with our salvation. It's mercy and how we treat others, but also in how we treat ourselves.

And the indulgence to people who you see are in a position that you were in 20 years ago. That's a key element. And I'm hoped to God that will be sufficient for my own personal salvation. and everyone has to come to that, you know, in their own version of that in their lifetime. And again, this is the worst possible society for any of that to take place. Everything is so damn superficial. And everywhere you go, wickedness is not only present, but is justified in a million different ways. And you're the one who has a problem.

That's very tough, especially when you're by yourself. It's supposed to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Exactly. We're going to leave it there, pick it up because it's going to be going in a different direction now. Yeah. So I'm going to encourage everyone to go over to the show notes and to the descriptions in the video. Donate to Dr. Johnson's work. Join his Patreon by his new book.

Just send them a one-off and show them how much you appreciate the work he does. Well, I want to address your listeners here. Sure. And it has to do with my good friend Pete's personality. I went through a lengthy discourse on Quagbire from the family guy, and he didn't say a word. Not a syllable. He just let me go and continue. You screwed this all up.

I was going to sign off with a giggity, and you fucked it up. Not a syllable. Not a syllable. I was going to sign off. and end this with a gigady, and now you just screwed it up. My great apologies. My apologies for that. But that is your personality, though.

Send is like that, too. I say things, and there's a silence for a while, and then he continues. That makes me laugh. I tell you, it says a lot about you. You're a great foil for me. Well, you know, I'm a very serious person. I'm a very, you know, there's a lot over here, you know. I don't know many jokes or laugh at all about anything.

Yeah. You know, I've always been, and I've been accused as being in a very intense person. I don't know. You think that's unreasonable or not. A very intense person. And I know that's true. So you can't be like that all the time. You're going to dive a heart attack.

So I have to do things like that. However, briefly, and I had a fully serious tone. Excellent, excellent delivery. I have to do stuff like that, precisely because what we're dealing with here is so difficult. And there has to be... How often, before we start recording and after we finish recording, do we talk about anything serious?

No. No, our brains can't take it after a while. You can still sign off a giggedy, though. That's good. I'm sorry? You can still say giggedy, though. I won't condemn you. Okay.

All right. All right, everyone. We'll be back in a few days and continue where we left off. Yeah, giddy. Okay, my friend. Talk to you then.