The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Ivan Ilyin's 'On Resistance to Evil by Force' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Pt. 32

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

58 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.

With election time approaching, political ads will be inserted into the episode, along with other ads that, frankly, I'm not going to like and you aren't going to like. So please ignore them, skip by them, whatever you have to do. I don't endorse any of the ads that are inserted, but it is another way for me to generate income. So I appreciate you guys putting up with them. If you don't want to deal with them, go to the Picanuona Show.com. can subscribe through Patreon. You can subscribe through Substack, which is my preferred one. Because with both of those, you get an RSS feed, only Patreon and only Substack give you an RSS feed. There's also a link to my website, Gumroad, and SubscribeStar, where you will get

the audio files that you can download and listen to or you can stream in most cases through those locations as well. So if you want to avoid the ads, consider supporting the show If not, just know none of these ads get any endorsement from me. Skip by them. Do what you need to do. I appreciate all of you. Head on over to Piquino Show.com. You can get the show early and ad free over there.

If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Ivan Aline. Dr. Johnson, how are you today? You know, you know that I have so many, I work so hard at this. I have so many books going and papers. I don't know why it's like a form of self, it's like penance. It's like self-torture. But I just realized that we're coming to the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

And since I wrote the very first article debunking the 9-11 claims, that very day about Osama in that case, I feel that I'm obligated to write my definitive statement on it, maybe my last statement on it, at this 20th anniversary. I know that there are some young people out there who don't really remember it, the way we do,

and the lives that we're told, and it continues to be told. And so we may talk about that as time gets closer. I found some new sources that no one's talking about. And I think I'm going to put together a fairly lengthy, because everything I do is lengthy, a piece of work on it. I'm just at a point now where if you believe the official theory on it,

that you do so because you have to. It's hard for me to respect someone like that. They can't reject that. because their whole war view would fall apart. And so it's an exercise in dishonesty. You can't be an honest man and believe the official point of view on 9-11. It's that simple. So, I don't know, that's how I'm doing.

It's, you know, I'm kind of tired of it. But I'm not making the same claims that everyone else is that I could guarantee you. Cool. Yeah, yeah. Maybe we can talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. All righty.

Let's pick up where we left off last time. Let's get into this. When confronted with evil, the soul's evil side usually awakens from its moral slumber, as if anticipating the beginning of its liberation. It begins to shake the chains imposed upon it, responding to the appearance of evil with curiosity and sympathy, joy and imitation, attempts to justify and legitimize itself, heightened pretension, and rebellion. The soul experiences a period of temptation and in a struggle.

It loses its equilibrium and requires increased spiritual effort. and perhaps as never seen before, sees itself as far from perfect. Now that really depends on evil itself. If you have a bad habit and you start seeing it everywhere, you start wondering maybe it's not really a bad habit after all. Maybe it's not evil. Maybe I've been lying to. Because everything that evil does is largely based on deceit and really very bad logic.

what's evil within us and you know we all have it sees almost a kindred spirit and so the war begins within us before we actually do any battle with the evil in front of us and in many cases the weak among us may do no battle at all because we find ourselves sympathetic to it um one of the founders of American feminism died today and Gloria Steinem I think it was and she is she's learning what hell is like now and so you know we shouldn't be gloating over that but I can't help myself

I see something like that and I just that part of me just comes out you know the the day just got a little bit brighter you know probably we shouldn't be thinking like that but that is what happened. But for a weak person or a very young person, it's like when they read Nietzsche for the first time. Had I read Nietzsche instead of Plato to my very first introduction,

I may have become a very, very different human being because Nietzsche almost designed his poetry. And he was a poet more than he was a philosopher. He designed his work to go after that evil, everyone has and attempt to release it and justify it. This is exactly what he does. And Nietzsche at this point, I've been dead for 25 years when this came out. And I know Eileen, of course, was quite familiar with him.

He was anti-socialist. And most of his works anyway, he was anti-socials, anti-communist. He died in 1900. But his brand. of evil marked a it was a watershed really in what was left to western civilization at the time and so that would be just one example there you know a simple a simple matter of grace i mean it could have just as easily been him or Freud or someone like that but thank god it was plato and so the evil side of me always had the struggle to come out because i had already had all of these understand

And that led to faith in God and the Trinity and all that, which all seemed very rational to me. It's not really a matter of faith. It is amenable to reason, partially at least, because Plato, you know, made these tremendous arguments for the spiritual side of things. And it seems, obviously it's not, but it seems almost random that the Republic was the first thing I ever read of any substance, you know, philosophically as a teenager. but it could very well have been something from Nietzsche or something from Freud or worse. And that has a lot to do with what we're talking about here too. However, beyond all this, it must be acknowledged that an active outward struggle against evil entails specific conditions that make it difficult for a person to wage an internal struggle against their own evil impulses and to find morally sound, harmless forms of outward

expression. Thus, first of all, the person who compels and restrains naturally adopts a stance of negative goodwill toward the evildoer. He does not keep this negative attitude to himself, but manifests it through a sincere and integral act. This means that, in mind will indeed, he accepts the incompleteness of love within himself, affirms it, and works it out through his struggle against the evildoer, and if moral perfection consists in the presence of complete love for all living and existing things, then the spiritually discerning fighter against evil allows a morally imperfect, curtailed, and flawed state to exist within himself and grounds his action upon it. He affirms himself in his inability to shine, like the sun, equally upon the

evil and the good, Matthew 545, and acts accordingly. No matter how well-founded just and, within its limits, accurate and appropriate his negative love may be, it remains a consciously permitted moral imperfection that is actively lived out, and this condition is revealed an experience with particular force and clarity in the ultimate and extreme manifestation of negative love, the taking of a human life. Well, you know, speaking of Plato, especially Plato, in certain cases, the execution of an evil doer is not necessarily even something that's good for the society, like chopping off a limb that has gangrene on, or suffering through chemotherapy, get rid of cancer, which again,

these are both excellent metaphors for that. But it's, in certain cases, the best thing for the evil doer. We die at a certain age so that the evil that we do, and this is certainly before Christ came around, does not spread. Living forever would be a huge problem if evil was to rule that way. I know Mitch Paul and John Labou used to say that all the time. But, you know, execution can be a form of love. And I know you've come across. I've come across. I've come across. us serial killers who say I want to be executed because it is the best thing for me because if I'm ever let out in parole or something crazy like that I'll do it again there is no chance for me here I am just that flawed and just that damage

and if I'm executed the society will be spared any further pain there's been a few the female I can't think of her last name said the same thing. And, you know, according to Plato and these early dialogues anyway, the worst thing that could happen to somebody is that you commit an evil act and get away with it. And then you do it enough times, it becomes a habit. If you're indulged, or if you just get away with it, people don't, people realize you're doing it. Or if you're surrounded by enablers or something like that, that's the worst thing you could do to somebody. That creates monsters. So punishment. even in some cases extreme punishment,

like chopping off the limb for a gangreness so it doesn't spread, could be an act of love for the rest of your body. So it's not just socially good, but it's good for the person being executed. It's good for the person to be punished. And the worst thing that can happen is that someone commits evil and gets away with it. that then creates a hardened evil attitude.

And that's why some kind of punishment, and we've talked about the range that's available to us, even in our personal lives, there's an obligation. No matter how messed up we might be, we can't allow people to get away with things, especially if we love them, especially a good friend always will not just indulge them.

A good friend is going to say when you're messing up, You're drinking too much. You're going to stop. I'll fight with you, but you know, you're not going to, you can't count on Maine for much longer if you don't fix this. An acquaintance won't do that. An neighbor won't do that, but a friend will. And it's the same idea here. Getting away with it and being surrounded by enablers is a horrible thing.

because then that person becomes evil and greater and greater in a more hardened way, even beyond habitual, they become so entitled in their evildoing that maybe society will have. At some point, no other purpose than to put them away for life or even get rid of them entirely through execution, which is taken in a certain way a form of love for that very person. Perhaps ever since man first killed another, and having killed, shuddered in his soul at the sense of sin, committed and the guilt he had incurred. A condemnation of all killing is taken root within him. First is a vague feeling and later is a firm conviction. The gospel deepened and sanctified this view. It clearly showed man that the sin and guilt of murder arise not at the moment the deed is committed,

but at the moment of the inner desire to commit it. Thus, a person who has not physically killed anyone may nonetheless feel like a murderer in his desires and dreams, and consequently, he rightly bears a sense of guilt, remorse, and the need for repentance. 1 John 313. A healthy and sensitive conscience nurtured in the spirit of true Christianity perceives and knows that killing is not limited to the person who physically ends another's life, or participates or in or facilitates such an act, for there are degrees of hatred, malice, and enmity that are morally equivalent to murder. That is reflected in usually in civil criminal law. I'm sorry, criminal law and criminal codes around the world.

Now, we're not just talking about, you know, he says, you know, daydreams. That's probably my fault. I shouldn't have said that. We all daydream about, you know, ending somebody. But we have no intention of doing it. It's just a way to relieve our mind of stress. now what he's really talking about is almost to the extent of the men's ray the guilty mind actually thinking about it to the extent that you're planning it

daydreaming about it because you want to do it you actually want to pull them off and not get caught like so many other people that's where the guilt is to be found and when we talk about murder we're talking about the killing of an innocent person or as innocent as a person can get fighting the communists in Korea or Vietnam that was not murder that was that was killing a completely different story God commanded killing all over the the Old Testament including the wiping out of entire groups of people that have become so evil

that it had gotten into the very land that they lived on which means that must have been pretty nasty something that we might be able to um we may have some experience with because we're living in that society right now. So, um, so daydream might have been, I remember the word that was the original was there, but daydream may have been a bad choice in my part. Um, but yes, it's more like hatred, malice and enmity, but also thinking about a plan where maybe I could actually pull this off. Maybe this person deserves it. Maybe I can get away with it. If I plan this out and do it in, you know, there are a lot of murders that are not, you know, even report it, let alone, let alone have a result in court. There's plenty of murders out there that never even get, you know, into a court, courtroom. And there are people who get away with it. You know, this hero killer, their first few victims, if they had stopped there, they'd probably be good, but they can't stop there for exactly what we said in the last paragraph.

The gospel says it's actually quite often where the actual, you know, the act, we can't, we're not going to denigrate the act of murdering somebody. That the act itself does have tremendous psychological consequences. Even if it's legitimate killing, it has tremendous psychological consequences. No, we're talking about murdering people who otherwise are innocent. It's not just the act itself. The sin is committed when you actually start, They dreaming about it in the sense that you have a guilty mind.

You want to get this done. You want to do it. And you want to plan it. That's where guilt and at some point you have to repent of this, even if you never do it. You know, I guess in the U.S. we call it a conspiracy. Conspiracy to commit murder rather than the actual act, assault and battery. You know, assault is the attempt, you know, swinging at somebody. even if you miss, it's still an assault.

Battery is when you actually hit somebody. It all has to do with men's ray, the state of the mind at the time. And that's what the church truly focuses on. And this is only going to come into your mind if there is a tremendous irrationality, hatred, malice, enmity, etc. That would be, under these circumstances, morally equivalent to murder, as he said. This form of killing, wrought by anger, a thirst for vengeance, envy, or jealousy is sewn by every non-physical murderer. It spreads through souls as intangible tensions and discharges of mutual

repulsion, accumulating imperceptibly and creating an atmosphere in which an unstable person can quickly and easily cross the threshold into physical murder. Moreover, a profound and refined conscience asserts that around each of us people are constantly dying a slow death and not that and not without some faults of our own. Some form grief because those close to them failed to love them enough. Others from exhaustion because those close to them failed to help them. Leonardo da Vinci was surely right to point out that people generally live at the expense of others. For each of us may well be well fed precisely because there are others who go hungry. and we enjoy comforts precisely because there are those who lack them.

Moreover, each of us, consciously or unconsciously, may have pushed aside and excluded a multitude of others from the good things we possess, and it's precisely here that we find one of the deepest sources of that absolute mercy, which drove many saints to limit their own food and clothing to the bare minimum, so that they might devote all their strengths to the suffering and the perishing. Here, too, lies one of those ultimate, tribunals before which private property must not be rejected, but rather accepted and affirmed, albeit in a new authentically Christian form, sanctified by a sense of responsibility toward both God and humanity.

I can't recommend E. Michael Jones's book, Barron Medal. It's a great work of economics done from the point of view of really a literature professor, which of course is what Jones was. one of my favorite books of all time. It will change your life. And one of the great evils in the world is what we would call rent-seeking, which is exactly this, parasitism, of which usury is just one aspect. Using a position of power, even just at a personal level,

to extract more from someone than you normally would. And that would be a form of, that's always what a rent is, even something as simple as a bribe. We are called on. The gospel says that our salvation is based on us giving ourselves to the unfortunate. And I've said it before, but I give fairly regularly to two charities. The Ronald McDonald's house Where 100% of the money going there goes to the cause Which is free housing for people who have sick kids

But they have to go out of town To find a specialist, you know, they have to go to another city That's a tremendous place And the other one, of course, is St. Jude's. You know, I had my nephew with cancer when he was three years old. He died at age 30 So I have a personal connection to that There, also 100% of your money goes to the cause. I don't know how pediatric oncologists functioned.

You know, so many of them do die. Now, but he's really talking about here is parasitism. Something like, you know, taking the grief of someone who's in that situation and using it to extract money from them. And that happens. It happens all the time. you know, these stupid miracle cures and phony doctors and all this, where you could take advantage of a desperate mother and father. You know, that is better off you shouldn't be born than to do something like that.

That's living off someone else. That's a rent. That's another form of usury, in fact. It's not just interest. These are all types of rent because you have the ability or you have some, some power, you're able to extract as a parasite more from someone who normally wouldn't. You know, criminal attorneys see a desperate charge a huge amount of money to a desperate defendant who will do anything and pay anything to get out of some problem.

All of this, these are all forms of rent and parasitism. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who's able to live a halfway decent life, lower middle class life, therefore is living at the expense of someone else. Many of us are, in fact, have been exploited rather than the other way around. So the point I'm making here is that you don't necessarily have to give, and you probably should give something to various homeless people that you see. You can't give to every single one, but you've got a big city. It doesn't matter what they do with it.

That's not relevant. That's their business. Rather, you institutionalize this by giving it to reputable organizations that do things like the two groups that I mentioned. That's what forgives sins even more so, according to many of the Church Fathers, St. John Christ in particular, even more so than confession. That's how sins are forgiven by giving that way. you know I talked about last time how Protestantism requires nothing from people and it's no surprise that capitalism comes directly from this mentality you know you don't have to give back money

you simply say God I believe I'm sorry at the end of it you know in certain extreme forms of Protestantism anyway and it justifies wealth and even rent-seeking in certain cases this is just self-interest right So whatever we can do to reverse this And any, any orthodox person, any Catholic person, our salvation is based on it. It does not require us to give five bucks every homeless person.

I mean, I've done that myself. Once in a while, they usually are terrible about it. They usually try to, you give them an inch, they take a mile. I worked with the homeless before. There's a reason they're homeless is because they're insane. To give them a million dollars, they'll be a real money. right back homeless again in two months. The only exception I found there was those who have extremely high child support and

alimony payments, but they simply are homeless for that. I've come across that before. Otherwise, they're normal guys. Other than that, they're usually crazy, I mean, to use a technical term. And so, but that's not relevant to what we're doing. But institutionalizing it does help us as well. because maybe we did at some point gain something at the expense of someone else, not even realizing it.

And our salvation, in the New Testament, is very clear. Our salvation is based precisely on that. And therefore, we are required to do it in one form or another. Praying for them is wonderful, but actually giving ourselves is something that's absolutely required. rather in our cases we're probably the victims of exploitation more than anyone who's doing any kind of exploitation that doesn't however remove the requirement

that we help those who are less fortunate than ourselves and I'm telling you from experience a child with cancer those parents are much less fortunate than we are it is a misery that I didn't have a word for then. I don't have a word for now. I have quite a bit of experience with it, unfortunately. Thus, in every germ of hatred,

in every shade of malice, in every disgust of man for man, and what's more, in every imperfection of love, from simple indifference to merciless suppression, an act of murder is hidden in its beginnings and nuances. Naturally, superficial and capital, cowardly people pass by this, closing their eyes, turning away and ignoring. I can't save everyone. They, without thinking, accept all this life and death connection of people,

strive to grasp its laws with intuition and use them to their advantage. However, a convinced fighter against evil has neither the right nor the right nor the right to close his eyes to this situation. On the contrary, he must recognize and think through. the entire function of negative love and especially the function of the sword. He must deeply understand what he is doing and what he is deciding upon without cowardice or indulging in frivolity. Yeah, sorry about that. It comes up right and right.

I forget what the original was. They mean the same thing. But we don't have that authority. We don't have that right. And the lie that we can't say, well, of course, we can't save everyone. That can never be an excuse. But what he's connecting that to is the idea that making war on the enemies of God is very similar. It's very hard not to hate these people.

Hate is a natural and normal reaction. But it can't be the foundation of what we do. It might be the original origin of it. but it has to be rational. It has to be amenable to reason. Because if hatred is the entire thing, and we know the left is dissaturated with hatred, if that's the entire thing,

then we will be irrational. And we'll destroy our cause. We'll destroy whatever we're fighting for, rather than bringing it to life. But that same kind of charity also worked with any kind of punishment for the evil do, Especially an evil doer who's sensitive enough that once he's being punished, he realizes what he's done is wrong precisely because he's being punished. And it's a balancing act, how to go, especially in the very beginning.

But the sense of entitlement that comes from people who just simply get away with everything, that never hear the word no. At some point, that has to end. and the longer you wait to finally say no to someone like that, the worse it's going to be. And if that ever leads to something where they commit a crime severe enough,

require execution, that is an act of love towards them. I'll say it again. It's not just a way to protect society. Putting someone in prison for a while might be the best thing that ever happened to them. In fact, I've heard it myself.

I've heard people say that. The only way I can get clean. You know, I went to certain programs. I realized when I did, I'll never go back there. But if he had gotten away with it, day after day after day, trying to be, they're always the enablers, you know, sometimes parents, he may be dead now. And the most extreme version, of course, as he says, is execution.

And in some cases, stopping them that way is the only way. Because they're simply incapable of reason. you know, if you put down a dog, which I can barely consider, because he's rabid and it's hurting people, then certainly you can put down a human being who's rabid in another way and is hurting people, and in fact, is killing people. You can't have a dog suffer with a disease like that. That's why you put them down. Same thing goes for a human being who we know is incapable of reason, incapable of love, incapable of sensitivity. And, you know, if the state can't do it in, you know, eras of, you know, chaos, the fall of the West Roman Empire, for example, natural law states that if the state isn't there, it's up to the people themselves to take action and fight for their homes. And that itself is a tremendous balancing. That's where virtue initially comes from.

You know, how far can we go and still consider this an act of love other than an act of contempt and vengeance? Jealousy, I know he's mentioned jealousy here, is a huge one. You know, someone who walks in on their wife having sex with a neighbor and empties his 45 into the guy or, you know, girl, which makes more sense. It's really hard to be, it's really hard to condemn that. and in fact, crimes of passion are punished less than if it were just a murder for its own sake. Sometimes that rush of anger and hatred and jealousy that comes up, turns someone into an absolute beast for a short time. And that has to be taken into account as well. And the law actually does that, at least in certain places.

But in all cases, and that's not one of these cases, but in all cases, we have to be subjectively aware that what we're doing, is based not on jealousy or contempt, but on the best thing for the people who we're dealing with. And sometimes some kind of violent punishment is the best thing for them, not necessarily just for us. Yes. Negative love is a love that is curtailed, flawed, functionally incomplete, and negatively directed toward the criminal. It is such already in its first manifestations. Disapproval, lack of sympathy, and refusal to cooperate. And already in these manifestations begins that separation, that opposition, that denial, and suppression, which reached their maximum and external consolidation in the execution of the villain and murder in war. Probably should be killing in war. Yeah, killing.

Yeah. All this is precisely so. And in all of this, there is no perfection or moral sanctity. And yet, the one fighting the villain can and must accept this. you know occasionally you'll hear from a pacifist they'll they'll point to the ten commandments and say you know and look the one about about killing well it's not really about killing because in that very chapter or i'm sorry in that very book god is commanding the death of certain people um so clearly it's not that it's murder and it's murder based on your own self-interest

not based on love at all not based on the social good and in fact Not based on your good either. You think it's your good, but it isn't. It's never in your interest to act like that, even though at the moment you may think of it. So, you know, it starts with, you know, how do we begin this? You know, separation. We can't be with such a person.

The denial of, you know, suppression, refuses to cooperate. Lack of sympathy. That's the very beginning, you know. and hopefully over time that will allow the person to think about it, and it won't go beyond that. You know, we red pillars, we know something about hot girls, hot women, that they're so used to being agreed with and being told to the most wonderful person around

and there's him saying what they say. When they come across a man who actually does say no to them and says you're acting like a jerk, you're acting like a bitch, she really likes them. and it seems to be counterintuitive. But in a way, that guy is her hero because she's finally, yeah, maybe I am, is my problem. Maybe I am the problem here. And to an extent she's recognizing that maybe I've gone too far.

And this guy's the only one who gets to say anything about it. This is a guy who I'm going after. Not the Simp who tells me that I'm the smartest woman in the world and everything I do is wonderful and rationalizes everything she does. She has an army of men who will do that. It's the occasional, you know, good looking to and have some money and all that. But it's the occasional guy like that that says no. Frankly, I don't want anything to do with you because of how you act.

She will be impressed by that. And part of that is because she is finally given a realization that she is entitled. Now she has gone too far. And therefore, this is for my own good. And I then respect this person who's willing to talk like that to me. Very similar here in what we're talking about. It is clear that all negative modifications of love from simple disapproval to the physical suppression of evil not only fail to ease the inner struggle against one's own evil impulses, but actually complicated it.

Negative love is not only joyless and painful for a person, but it demands such intense feelings and willpower that the soul becomes accustomed to not giving into tenderness, compassion, and most importantly, joy. It becomes accustomed to living not by the bright, not by the, not by the soul, bright but by the dark rays of love, which make it harsher, more rigid, more abrupt, and easily succumb to petrifying bitterness. This can cause it to lose that luminous lightness, that melodious tenderness, that emotional flexibility and solubility so highly valued by the great teachers, the philocalia, philocalia, and so necessary for everyone to combat their own evil impulses and passions.

The Philocalia is a, I have it here, is a collection of the earliest church fathers. I have an abridged version of it, but there is a full version of it, put together by St. Paeisius and a few others. And it's both not just monastic theology, but also moral theology. And, you know,

orthodox people tend to, to read a little bit of it every day. A lot of the Hesekist mentality is to be found there as well. So, and these people were all very, very, they were first-rate psychologists. They understand how sin functions and how the demonic, the evil, never just show me. The demons don't show themselves, their horns and all their, you know, the stereotypical, They show themselves as wonderful, wonderful people. And they tend to show themselves in form of fantasy.

That if you do this, if you get this girl, you get all this money, you're going to live a happy life. And it will show you images and give you fantasies, what it's going to be like. And so you do whatever it takes to get there. And even if you do get it, you start realizing that it's not that great after all. That has turned you into a bit of a monster yourself. because you thought to get there. This has been your only real goal. And that achieving this is nowhere near like the fantasy that you thought it was.

It's a huge amount of work. I think about getting the hot grow all the time. You know, I've been there and I'm here to tell you that only in fantasy does not actually look good. If you're able to get something like that, it's so much work. They're so difficult. every guy you know is hitting on them. You're always worried about that. Never get a good night's sleep again.

They're in such a demand. They're used to, you know, Sims. They're used to all. And it's, you know, even if you get someone like that, it's so much work that it's just not worth it. And there's a handful of us out there who got the hot girl who was not like that. Because maybe she wasn't always hot. The ugly ducking syndrome.

is a wonderful find. But beyond that, what he's talking about is even if you deal with, everybody used to call this tough love in the 80s, they're talking about punishing your children, even separating yourself from your children, if they simply won't listen, if you're forced to do that all the time, if you're living in a society like this one,

that's so evil that you're living in that kind of mentality, it will start to affect you. It will habituate you to this. And it will no longer be a matter of love. And it says right here, it'll turn, it make you harsher, more rigid, bitter. The other side of love, you're not experiencing really at all. It might not even be your fault. But because you're constantly, you know, you're living within corruption.

From the 60s until now, children have been told to rebel against their parents and pursue things that, you know, corporate America has told them to pursue. and parents are you know it's painful thank God I had two good boys 500 daughter I don't know what I do having two boys made my life much easier

and it's not I didn't think it was all that hard but for others who may not have the proper faith may not know what we know it is very difficult they don't know how far to go they don't know the real

purpose of punishment or even what natural law is or anything like that. They want to be their kid's friend rather than a father, which in and of itself is very hard to do. But a person in constant punishment mode, not only will they be eventually ignored, but it will affect you. All of these kind of things ultimately affect you. It's not just something you do to others. It will begin affecting you. Killing in warfare will affect you. Will affect you. It will affect you. negatively no matter what it is no matter how justified it is you always could tell a phony

in their combat stories they always spot a phony my father used to say when they start yacking about it to just anybody that's how you know that is that is absolutely certain that the person didn't do what he said my father talked about his combat stories

twice to me and to no one else that's one piece for you know it's they're real because these guys don't you know don't don't talk about it and talk about how many people they killed, you know, look how tough I am. Guys who actually did that kind of stuff never talked that way. Because even for a righteous cause, killing, you know, Mousikung used child soldiers,

swarm tactics where, you know, so many, they took massive casualties in the Korean War, far higher even than we realized. There's no way. You have to be a sociopath for that not to affect you, no matter how justified the war might been, no matter how evil Mao may have been, and saving South Korea for living like North Koreans do. So, and doing that for a long period of time, the longer you do it, the more damage it's caused, again, no matter how justified you might be. I think this is the only time he mentions the fetal conalia.

It's most, well, a good chunk of the saints there are both Catholic and Orthodox, but some of them are, some of them are post-sism. But it's a... The Philalcah was one of the things that rebuilt orthodoxy within, you know, Turkish-controlled areas and where it had died in places, you know, due to corruption or something like that. Philo O'Calia was literally a godsend.

And it's, you know, essentially a greatest hits of the great church fathers on many of these very topics. And there's no such thing as an Orthodox person who doesn't have this. Either the abridged version, I think that the full version is, I don't know how many volumes it is, but the abridged version is just as good. And you'll see that the tremendous psychological knowledge that these men had,

especially when it comes to the fantasies, the images that demons rule by. They get you to do things, because they give you a false image of what it's going to be like to do something evil and make it look like it's not evil at all. You're doing something wonderfully. All the excuses, all of this stuff that out of judgment will be taken away. A soul accustomed to fighting evil-doers and perceptibly developed a peculiarly negative

and suspicious approach to people. Its spiritual vision becomes accustomed to registering evil in them and often ceases to notice their living goodness. It becomes accustomed to confidently perceiving the reality of evil and imperceptibly loses faith in the reality of good. It is impossible to leave a trace to accept the villainy of others without harm, especially if it's constant and prolonged. Even the most consistent and heroic rejection of evil does not free the fighter's soul

from the need to embrace its dark nature and adapt its experience and perspective to it. Naturally, in this forced adaptation, the weaker soul becomes imperceptibly affect while the stronger one hardens. Yeah, and that the term hardens, you know, that's both, it can be positive, it can be negative. This paragraph was very personal. When I first started along this path, you know, to be a scholar, with the sole purpose of fighting this regime and its lies, intellectually, trying to delegitimize it in matter where I could. I knew that doing this for, you know, 15 hours a day will have an effect on me. You know, by the time I was in grad school, I realized that I wasn't like everybody else.

And as years have gone on, that's become even more pronounced. Now, the way I deal with it is, you know, things that we've done already on this show. humor is always very important watching mindless things like The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live having a hobby that has nothing to do with this stuff raising cats is a great one especially there you get into the positive elements of love

you know they're not going to conspire to destroy the economic system although sometimes I wonder but because we are saturated with this stuff 24 hours a day this is our profession to fight this stuff it is going to affect us. And we have to be extremely careful what it does to us. Not everybody is self-aware. Not everyone can look at themselves.

And I think that's something that I'm capable of doing, almost to a fault. And there's a few things you can do to keep it from going too far. But there's no question that living in a corrupt society and doing this for a living is going to create in me, you, maybe some of our listeners, a very different sort of a person.

We're far more difficult. We're just harder in terms of our emotional aspect. We do see evil everywhere because it is everywhere. We're suspicious. And we're suspicious because we have good reason for it. We see it everywhere because it is everywhere. We see how people rationalize their behavior. Even people we love.

And we're not afraid to say something. about it. I have friends, I mean, that we are in agreement politically, but I have friends that are really non-political. And yes, they agree with me on that stuff, but that's not what our friendship is based on. That is extremely important to go and do, you know, music trivia from the 70s, as I did last night. That's really important. Get your brain finally away from this stuff, not the stuff like this. Listening to Steely Dan and laughing about it like we do is something that's a way to ease the pressure on the mind. My father used to say,

this stuff is not worth a heart attack. And if I just continue without a break, I would get one. I would have one. And he was right about that. This is what we have chosen to do. This is my vocation. I have no choice but to do this.

This is who I am as a man. But for some of us who are like this, do this full time, we have to be very careful that we don't end up just being complete hard asses all the time. Having kids, young kids, that really helped a lot, reading stories to them and everything. That helped a lot. That broke the constant pressure and constant cynicism. These kind of things are ways of mitigating the pressure on us. And it does have an effect on health, has an effect on our mental life. There's no getting out of it.

And I think that's exactly the things that he's talking about here. And everybody who does this stuff, even, you know, part-time. You really can't do it part-time, but, you know, members of organizations have a normal job or still, you know, having a normal job may be their salvation. Because they're not constantly saturated with this kind of stuff, 24 hours a day. And everything seems to be politicized in our minds. that it shouldn't be and we get to be

intelligent enough so we realize it's not and we can have normal relationships and normal this and normal that and can lead a normal life and that's what he's saying here and it's extremely important and every one of us who does this stuff has to keep that in mind

because this does affect you even if you think it doesn't it does I'm going to read this last paragraph and then we should be able to finish this chapter on the next episode. Okay. To this is added further, the circumstance that, due to the natural connection between the physical

and mental makeup of a person, all bodily tensions and movements of external struggle, a push, a blow, a fight, an action with a firearm, et cetera. Inevitably, although sometimes imperceptibly, evoking the soul in the form of an echo and reaction, a whole series of hostile or even embittered impulses and feelings that must be extinguished and rendered harmless later, and precisely because at the moment of struggle, they are expedient. No matter how kind and self-control the person may be, if he is forced to pursue and arrest a criminal, disperse a crowd, or participate in a battle, the very nature of the actions for which he prepares, for example, training in weapons, and which he actually performs,

things like pursuing criminals with a police dog or charging on horseback, easily arouses his passion and flames him, gives him a special thrill of excitement, fills him with hostility and stirs within him, ferocious and bloodthirsty instincts. Keep in mind, its instinct is the key word here. Of course, we have an instinct. It's part of natural law that we need to defend our families and our nation.

This is what the Iranian army is doing right now. This is not an imperial war for them. They're defending their homes. Hezbollah the same thing. They're defending their homes from an outside power that was never invited in and an extremely hostile power in the Israelis. Yes, of course, it's going to be ferocious and bloodthirsty instincts. But that's only the beginning.

It can't stay that way. the regime gives us this ridiculous picture of the police and these racist scumbans but of course the truth is that most violent crime is non-white inner city police are non-white

for the most part but to think that they're going to just be totally unaffected by their brothers being killed on the job is absurd and yes they insist on that they have a standard for them that would never give to anyone else that would never associate with anybody else

to think that you know ferocious and bloodthirsty instincts yes that that that has a place but that's only the start of your action it'd be something wrong with you if you know your wife was murdered by an invading force and you said whoa that is immoral of them to do that that's your reaction yeah there's something wrong with you if you do that you are going to be ferocious and bloodthirst as a result, if you have any menliness in you at all. But it can't just be that. And I think, you know,

he's made this point about 80 times already that it can't eat your soul. You want to take action against them. There's ways to do that. It's so hard. You know, I, every once in a while I read about a guy who comes home to his wife, ruin someone, and he shoots them. Thank God I've never had that.

Never had that problem. And it's so hard to be unsympathetic to the guy. It's even hard for me to treat that as murder, especially because of the intensity of the passion in the moment. I can't imagine what that would be like. You know, that's why treating with a married woman, I tell you, you are playing with fire. You are playing with fire.

A guy could shot over that all the time. And most people have sympathy for that person. or killing a child molester in prison. You are really, it's not just the crime of being a child molest, it's that if you go to prison, you're probably not going to make it out because it stirs in these guys, ferocious and bloodthirsty instincts, especially among guys who already have that, that are already irrational.

They're in there for serious crimes, serious crimes of violence. But he's making a very similar point here again, no matter how kind, matter how good, in matter how self-controlled you're going to be, If you are a policeman in American inner cities, you're being shot at every day that you've lost comrades. And on top of that, the regime is just waiting for you to do something wrong. You know, you know that you're outgunned, you're outnumbered, et cetera, et cetera. And that's been, the regime has created that situation for you.

There are ways out of this problem that you're not allowed to engage in. So, you know, the concept of Stoicism here is extremely important. You do your duty no matter what, even if you're killed as a result. That's hard to do. It goes against every instinct that we have, but this is a matter of reason. We're called on to do something. This is a vocation. Not a career.

This is a vocation. This is who we are. and that means that even though we are occasionally driven by, you know, these negative passions, we always have to make sure that reason dominates them at some point. That might be a motive force, but it can't be the only force. And people get into serious trouble when their reasoning faculties are not well developed and are at some point able to take over and rule their action, rule the will, and bring the will under a rational category because, and sometimes you don't blame these guys for this.

It's hard to blame them for this. You have to get in trouble anyway because they can't control themselves after a while. And, you know, I've always thought that a prisoner that kills a child molester, they're giving back, they're repaying their debt to society. I've always thought that. It's fun, you know, it's, I laugh when I hear about stuff like that. even those guys have standards. You know. But of course, you know, if they're in for 20 years, now they're in for life.

You know. So this is, you know, these are a few examples. What he's talking about here and what he said many times over is that the more corrupt the society is, the more vicious a fight is going to be, and therefore the more damage that's going to accrue to us as a result. All righty As I said before We'll come back on the next episode Finish up the chapter

I'm going to Recommend everybody go over to the show notes And go over to the descriptions On the video Donate to Dr. Johnson's work There are links to There are links to everything there Every way that you can

You can support his work And yeah Like I said We'll be back on a couple days And I appreciate you I appreciate you rearranging the schedule for me here. Thank you. Oh, no problem.

Anything for you, my friend. All right. You take care now. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.