The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Ivan Ilyin's 'On Resistance to Evil by Force' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Pt. 5

Episode Date: May 23, 2026

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

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If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to part five of our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Yvonne Elyne. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? It's 90 degrees outside. I'm not built for 90 degrees. My wife likes 90 degrees. I do not like 90 degrees. So we had to get the air conditioners out.

We don't have central air here in the farmhouse, which in and of itself is a pain. It's bad enough. I have a colonoscopy on Thursday. I can't wait for. But we use those, the portable ones that have the the exhaust pipe going to the window. You're using a portable colonoscopy machine that has an exhaust pipe?

Yes, indeed. It goes right out my window. So those two things are kind of merging in my brain, 90 degrees air conditioner, and then that. So I ask seriously, though, I ask prayers that they don't find anything of any significance. That's really the only thing I'm worried about. Good, good. Yeah, should be fine.

Had one done years ago. and yeah, it's a very typical, very modern procedure. You know, had I not gotten sick, none of this would be happening. I wouldn't have a regular doctor. I wouldn't have this schedule, which they scheduled for me, by the way. They knew I wouldn't do it. So many guys avoided. There are so many positives that came out of getting sick.

And I could honestly say, I feel better now than I did before it first started happening in October. And thyroid, really? The thyroid is so powerful. Who, it wouldn't even have occurred to me. So there's a lot of positives that come out of this. You know, and of course, the generosity of viewer listeners, have I said several times, has been extraordinary.

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

and I thank them very much. They are top of the heap for sure. I don't thank them enough. and often enough, that's for sure. I just got a text, okay? This is just completely out of the blue. I just got a text from a phone number I don't recognize, and Eric Cud I don't recognize.

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

Yeah. Yeah. Out of the blow all the time. They're getting more clever than like when they were, when they started, they were always like, hey, what's going on? Yeah. And now we now, now we have a backstory. And it's in proper English. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look like an Indian. You would think it would be an Indian. I don't think I don't think this is a street shitter. You know, you just you just think of what an old friend would say. I mean, they'd explain in some detail who they are. You know, it would be a paragraph worth of stuff.

They wouldn't just say, hey, or remember that. You know, so you know it's fraud. I'm getting so many on telegram. I want to delete my account. All right. Let's get into it here. Start part four. We will not finish part four today.

So this is a longer section. Part four on coercion and violence. Before turning to a final formulation of the vexing problem of resisting evil by force, a few more efforts are necessary to clear the way. First and foremost, we must clarify what coercion and violence are. Are they the same thing? Or is there a fundamental difference between the two? And if so, what is it?

I remember the late great Edgar Steele, who was a friend of mine at one of the Barns Review conferences many years ago. And they killed him in prison for, you know, or jail, I should say, wasn't even prison. He said the way that they're going to shut down free speech in politics is by redefining the word violence. this is the core idea of critical race theory, which I had to read about it in grad school, which was very painful back in the 90s. And that was the core idea. In fact, the main book,

the central book was Words That Wound. And the redefinition of terms is essential to the left in general. We always have to do it. But we generally don't have an exoteric and an esoteric meaning. there's always you know the ADL always has model legislation about banning what they call hate speech against themselves or whatever and um it it boils down to redefining the term violence to include words um and it's it's it's painful to you know it's been going on a long time the bouts been going on for a long time we know spend longshanks knows uh what that means in practice i don't really know

of our people are in prison in Europe at the moment. I know there's a handful that I know of. Because they've redefined, they redefined that word. Now, they're just what they wanted to shut down radio album is all they cared about. So, yeah, when we say we want to, we want to clarify a term, we mean it. When they say it, they have an agenda that they're not talking to you about. They're not, they're not saying. They're not explaining.

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

But when Eileen's talking about it, it's a very different story. In order to resolve this essential question, so thoroughly confused by sentimental moralists, and, moreover, suffering from a lack of appropriate words in the language, one must first turn to a general generic concept, which can be conditionally designated by the term coercion. Compulsion should be defined as the imposition of will on the inner or outer makeup of a person that does not appeal directly to spiritual vision and loving acceptance of the soul being

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

Every compulsion is either self-compulsion or the compulsion of others. Furthermore, this compulsion can be expressed through an influence on behavioral motives, like an authoritative order, a prohibition, a threat, a boycott, but it can also be expressed through a direct, impact on the human body, a push, a blow, tying up, prison, or murder. Accordingly, a distinction must be made between mental compulsion and physical compulsion. Moreover, both self-compulsion and compulsion of others can have both a mental and a physical character. You have to admit, it is a very interesting definition of compulsion. It's actually very eccentric should be defined as the imposition of will on the inner or outer makeup. The outer would

be someone else. The inner would be you, something that does not appeal directly to spiritual vision. So compulsion is by definition a bad thing. It's sort of like the word torture. You know, such thing is good torture or good corruption. Using the word is automatically, it's automatically a conclusion. But that, you know, a monk tries to suppress his passions and his emotions. That doesn't fall under compulsion here. Because this definition is the way that first sentence that you read, the imposition of will on the inner or outer makeup of a person that does not appeal directly

the spiritual vision and loving acceptance of the soul being compelled, rather attempts to coerce it or suppress its activity. Of course, he uses the word coerce in the definition of compulsion, which is a little lippy. You know, Aristotle always made the point that, you know, true virtue is when you don't even have to think about it. You just do the right thing naturally. But we know that we have to think about it. And sometimes we just have to force ourselves.

That's not what he's talking about here. You know, so at the very least, it's a bad thing for us because we know that our drives want to lead us to not do the right thing. You know, and I don't know where he's getting murked. It, a compulsion is also a substitute for the word murder here. Push the blow, tying up prison or murder. That's a lot. That's a huge range there of words. Now, I get the mental and physical compulsion distinction.

But my lord, going from pushing to murder, that's one hell of a, that's one hell of a range. We have to see. He has to keep going here. He has to keep adding detail. Thus, a person who is mentally fatigued or falling asleep or overcoming an unruly feeling or imagination, or performing mental work or mastering something mechanically, memorizing, solving arithmetic problems, certain internal exercises of memory and attention, etc., can extract themselves and the center of their sense of self-willed,

overwhelming element of laziness, sleeper pleasure, shift the center to the purposefully strengthening energy of the spirit and subject their mental elements to a decisive compulsion. A person can internally force themselves, compelling themselves to effort, and even compelling themselves to compulsion. This state of mental self-compulsion can be described as self-coercion. It is clear that voluntary, conviction-based submission to an order or prohibition, removes it from the category of acts of coercion, an organically free subordination begins, on a very subordination on which rests the living force of any worthy and strong social organization. One of the central political ideas of the Slavophile movement,

the early Slavophile movement, was that written laws don't do very much. Now, whether they're talking about Russia or in general, Edmund Burke was referring to, I had the same idea. The minute laws have to be written down, the minute you actually have to threaten someone your society is already now on the road to destruction because Russia has ancient institutions

it's a simple matter of custom there is no compulsion there however he's defining the term you know this is how they're raised there is no other way and it's how they survived many centuries of you know being in a rough area having lots of enemies and bad weather you know the central or northern part

the the the commune didn't really have written laws but it was the most important part of your typical russians day-to-day life um that when laws have to be codified it suggests to the Slavophiles that we have a problem, that now we're talking about abstractions. The biggest problem with diversity in an empire, for example, is that laws become very abstract because you're not dealing with a specific group of people. You're dealing with many people.

And there, almost by the very structure of things, violence is going to be necessary. At the same time, We are always we're a force to you know we have to force ourselves to do things We we don't like it but we know we have to we make a conscious decision To do it so so far I'm gonna confuse as far as his definition. He's kind of all over the place here You know overcoming our laziness all that kind of thing I understand very very well

But but then he uses yeah The sentence, the state of mental self-compulsion can be described as self-coercion. Maybe that's me. That doesn't tell me anything. But talking about a conviction-based submission to an order, you're raised in the commune, in the Orthodox Church, you don't have to write anything down. This is how you've always been. writing things down is the first, meaning like a law code, that's your first step to dissolution.

Remember, cannons aren't laws in the sense that, you know, the penal code of Alabama is a set of one. No, canons are general guidelines that come from specific incidents in the past. it's why a hierarchy exists because the canons don't they are not self-interpreting so so free subordination so from aristotle to the slavophiles you have this idea that yeah we have to we have to force ourselves sometime that's true but the ideal position to be in is simply to do the right thing without even having to think about it. That would be wonderful, but that's only an ideal situation. Similarly, physical self-compulsion is also possible, which is usually associated with mental

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

This state can be described as self-compulsion. Again, he has, you know, active and he refers to muscular effort that everyone, everyone has and everyone does every minute. Now, standing on a pillar, when I first looked at this, my first thought was the stylites. Is he referring to the stylites here? Or is this just a weird example? I think he's referring to the saints. but in that case, you know, there's a, there's a divine energy there. You know, when they first became monks, they didn't say, oh, I can't wait to be on a pillar, you know, 30 feet in the air for the rest of my life.

Obviously, these guys are somewhat eccentric, brilliant, but perfectly normal guys, though. So there's another element, you can't call it compulsion, but it, um, So I don't know if he just means it as a weird example, or is he referring to like simus delitas? I can't tell. It is also possible to force others in a mental and physical manner. With a properly deep and broad understanding, every command and prohibition that does not appeal directly to evidence and love, but appeals to the volitional energy of the spirit, every psychic isolation that reinforces a command, like breaking off a relationship,

expulsion from a club, and every threat, whatever its nature, are forms of psychic coercion. Yeah, now he goes back to his original definition. If it has nothing to do with doing the right thing or love in this broadside, and he's got to define this at some point,

then we're talking about coercion. So his examples are very odd. You know, so if it doesn't appeal directly to evidence and love, which is an odd, you know, those two things, appealing to the volitional energy of the spirit, otherwise you have the will trying to do the right thing. Every threat, whatever is nature, are forms of psychic coercion. So, again, by definition, it's negative. It's a bad thing. The essence of this coercion consists of mental pressure on a person's will, which is intended to induce their own will to a certain decision and, perhaps, to compel themselves. Strictly speaking, this pressure can only complicate or modify the motivational process

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

be conveniently called psychic coercion. All right. Now, now I'm very confused here. Bringing someone to decide for themselves, and then he uses the word influence, obviously someone from the outside, like a spiritual father or your boss or something like that, who knows what weird example he would use. You know, I'm very confused. That's the definition of term as of as of right now. You know, we're not, it's unfortunate that we were born. I was born in 1971. I was raised with a very specific and very corrupt sense of things like, you know,

economy, technology, sexuality, and all the rest. And that's built into the hardwiring of my brain. I cannot be, you can't be. None of us can be. You know, only with the greatest amount of coercion can we do the right thing. It's almost, you know, a Lutheran conception that you really can't do the right thing. I used the example of the bar before, and here it seems relevant again. Clearly, that's a form of coercion.

Someone coming up to you, you know, again, let me repeat what I said. I say this to young guys, especially as concerning sexuality, there's young males. being in America, it's like being an alcoholic and being forced, you have no other option, being forced to work in a bar. And not only that, but you're seeing everyone around you having a great time. It's a great place to be. And even more, you have people coming up to you, like the ideologists, for example, saying, oh, no, alcoholism doesn't exist. You're being too hard on yourself. Come join us when you're done.

That's pretty much what it's like. it's really hard to blame someone when they uh when they fall in that case now um he isn't saying that he's he's kind of all over the place here um because now he's bringing in decide for themselves all the rest of it you know how much of my free will exists in that situation i just the the situation i just gave you um ammanuel kant always used the example well if you had a pistol to your head what you need to do. And well, I don't know, I guess. But an addiction to alcohol, you know, we're, you know, the ancient world, even even right up till, you know, the 1950s, the society wasn't sexualized. Everything in America is sexualized. Every damn thing.

They know what sells. The male sex drive wasn't constantly being peppered by, you know, being provoked all the time. So, again, I always use the example of how the church father, bring the church fathers and have them live now here, not even at a university, just have them live in America for a year. And what would they say, you know, from Rome or Greece or wherever they were originally from? I think they would have a lot to say. I think that would say you guys are absolutely possessed. No one could possibly be a Christian in this environment. You guys are utterly heroic. So then he says conveniently,

compelling a person, approaching them from the outside, appealing to their soul and spirit, can conveniently be called psychic coercion. So coercion, now I have here, Pino's Dizania, which is a word that's used both for compulsion

and and and and and and and coercion um and i noted that in the in the translation here is how you know i translate this little section here um you know it doesn't have at least in its denotation it doesn't have a negative element but he's saying elin is saying in his connotation it does um so uh such influence compels a person, approach them from the outside, but appealing to their soul and spirit. Therefore, it can conveniently be called psychic coercion. In this case, then, he's saying that it's not compulsion. It is coercion. See, in English, I think coercion is treated a little worse than compulsion. Coercion sounds bad. Compulsion is a little softer than coercion. But certainly

have the case in Russian, clearly. But we all know that without it, without a tremendous mindfulness, we couldn't function as Christians at all. You can't function as anything. Whatever, whatever your standard, you have high standards in any direction. You are constantly under attack, whether you like it or not. You go to a monastery, well, all that's going to do is bring everything that you hand out from the outside on the inside. So that's what I'm getting. I could be wrong here. This could be my fault. But it sounds like coercion is what's better than compulsion. Maybe I don't know.

I think I'm right here. Finally, the possibility of physical influence on others in order to force them to do something does not, apparently, cause any negative opinions. However, it is worth noting that any such influence on another's body has inevitable psychological consequences for the person being forced, from an unpleasant sensation, such as a punch, and a feeling of pain during torture, to the impossibility of doing anything during imprisonment

and the inability to desire or do anything, the death penalty. The vast majority of these influences, with the exception of pathological cases of brutal and hard violence, are carried out precisely for the sake of such psychological reflections or consequences. This explains why those physically forced usually try to get rid of those who are forcing them by assuring them that they agree that union of wills has occurred and that further submission is ensured. Yeah, we've come across this before. I'm reading Souls and Ancient fiction these days. and there's always a character that is very connected to the party.

It's very Marxist, but they don't really believe it. If the society were, I don't know, medieval, they'd believe that. If it were strictly orthodox, they would believe that. And there's nothing to do with that. They'll say that they agree just to get along. How many times, and I can't, I mean, maybe, in my life, maybe 20,000. or 30 have I in person spoken to someone. I mean, this happened after the Las Vegas shootings, if you remember that one.

Ridiculous. You know, it's one of the worst laid out, you know, of their false flags I've ever come across. I don't even know if anyone was killed. And I explained myself in great depth. And they go, oh, my God. Yeah, I never thought of it that way. then later on I see them say something on Facebook that

you know just going along to get along then I realize that such people don't matter they may be nice it may be pleasant but history is made by fanatics history has always been made by fanatic the very opposite of this person makes history but a fanatic is somebody

you know fanatic also has a negative connotation but they're the only ones who get things done politically or anything else. They're the ones who coerce others to go along and do what their job is supposed to be. This happens all the time and certainly in the USSR and it happens personally personally. They'll agree with you just for the sake of being your friend. So, you know, such a person doesn't have principles. They don't agree with anything.

And, you know, these people usually are very pleasant, but you really can't trust them for anything. It is clear that by arresting, tying up, torturing, and locking up another a person cannot directly produce in him the mental and spiritual changes he desires. He cannot command another from within, replace his will with his own, evoking him an agreement based on conviction and behavior based on voluntary devotion. Man is not given the power to compel others to genuine actions, that is, to spiritually and mentally good deeds. Physical pressure on another cannot always even compel a person to perform some external action unacceptable to him, such as the Christian martyrs. And the spiritual significance of such a forced external action, like an insincere confession, a forced signature, etc., depends on the subsequent free recognition. of it by the one who succumbed to torture, the witch trials the legend of Galileo. A person physically compelled by another always has two outcomes that free him from this

external pressure, hypocrisy or death, and only he who is afraid of death or who could not internally bear the split personality necessary in hypocrisy speaks of coercion as of a possible and accomplished event. But he too should remember that his coercion will fade away by itself at the moment of his personal, spiritual, purely internal rebellion and the affirmation of his true conviction and sincere devotion. That is why it is more cautious and accurate to speak not of physical coercion, but of physical compulsion. Well, that last few sentences would apply to somebody

who has all of these New Year's resolutions. Every gym in America is packed on the second and third of January is empty on the second and third of March. But in the beginning of this paragraph, he uses the word around, I'm sure that's right, arresting, tying up, torturing, locking up another. You cannot directly produce in him the mental and spiritual changes and desires. Well, the penal system in the U.S. anyway is dedicated to just that. That's the whole idea of all of this programming. You know, the idea of forcing them. It's why it's called a penitentiary.

They're supposed to be penitent. A diet of bread and water is forced fasting that for the first time may get the criminal to see what he's doing in the most clear way possible because fasting does clarify our thinking now we know given the nature of american society it doesn't work that way but at least in theory at least when you know the u.s was a far more a healthy place there was something to that um arresting somebody and you know forcing them to confront the evil of their actions using every manner of force possible including prison That's really the whole center of it all. Maybe, maybe, you know, this may be the last choice,

the last line of defense for this person is finally do the right thing for one. You know, so, and then, of course, the torture, again, one of these words that's inherently bad. It's really very difficult to trust anything that a torture victim would say. Because under certain circumstances, they're going to say whatever it takes to get the pain to stop. And we all know, we've read about special forces who are trained to deal with torture. So I don't even see the use of it. There's always the example, again, of all people, Alan Dershowitz used this example.

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

you know, that's certainly compulsive. So in that case, torture is not a bad thing. It's a bad thing for the person who's losing fingers, but, you know, in his case it would actually be compulsive, not coercion.

That's a different story. Now, when he says hypocrisy, he's using the word hypocrisy in the right way, believing or preaching something, being forced to preach something that you don't believe. Every politician does this, depending on his constituency. That's what hypocrisy is. It's not being inconsistent. Everybody's inconsistent. That's not what hypocrisy is. Just when you have a high standard, we're going to be inconsistent all the time.

Problem with hypocrisy is that unless you're a sociopath, the sociopath, they have no dividing line between good and evil true and false. It doesn't matter. That's why the lie detector doesn't work on them. Unless you're a sociopath, it's hard to live with that. We call it cognitive dissonant. I thank God. I thank God. I've never. well, I can't say never. My first marriage, I had to live. Yeah. But other than that, thank God I've never had that situation.

I think many people in corporate America, especially certainly in academia, are forced to preach things that they would never otherwise preach or believe. Because if they don't, they're gone. I've always said to my white male professors over the years, I said, you know, if you were a plumber, I mean years later, of course, if you were a plumber or an electrician, you would never be as liberal as you are. You're this way because of the corporate culture of academia. Sometimes they agree. It depends on how much beer they've had. Sometimes they don't. So he's making a distinction between coercion and compulsion, but it's the opposite of what we would think in English. Coercion is okay, compulsion is not, generally speaking. It is finally clear that physical coercion can be directed at someone else's action or inaction. In the first case, it is extremely limited in its capabilities, powerless to elicit a coherent act, forced always to anticipate defensive hypocrisy on the part of the coerced.

It can only rely on the slow influence of the external regime and its penetration into the person's soul. In the second case, however, physical pressure can more easily count on expediency and success. It can curtail a certain activity, prevent a specific person from doing something. Of course, not everyone and not in everything, or force them to not do something. I can't imagine that the Stalin's, the church that Stalin created in 1944, only three bishops. I can't imagine that they believe the things that. they said about Salon afterwards, especially when he died. You should, I mean, I have them, I think I've published them, my translations of what,

the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, that he was a saint, that he was a man of God, that he brought Russia from atheism to orthodoxy again, that he was an aesthetic, that he would never hurt a soul, on and on and on and on. There's no, I can't imagine they actually believe that we all know that there's the phenomenon where you just if you hear it enough times eventually if you're weak-minded it's good you're gonna eventually believe but do you really it depends on how strong of a person you are the same time a forced conversion say to Christianity doesn't work there is no grace there if you're if you're converting to orthodoxy just to satisfy your

your wife or your husband no there's no way and the priest has to be very clear if you're doing it just for that reason then I can't bathe there's there's no way it doesn't work that way you have to actually believe the no and then believe the doctrine yes it's very difficult but you know or some other kind of force now in in the middle ages right up until you know the early modern era Baroque era You really can't talk about forced conversion. I have this conversation all the time. People instinctively follow the religion of their leaders.

Because they're leaders, and they've conquered others, that must be on their side. So you can't talk about, you know, and religion wasn't a private thing in that period, you know, for almost right up until the 19th century. Religion was not a private matter. It was very public and very much a part of the constitution of the society. So it's a very different story back then. So this is a new issue that he's dealing with here. That a false conversion will lead to cognitive dissonance. Because you're doing it just to satisfy someone else or avoid something or make someone happy.

Like George Costanz, are converting to the Latvian Orthodox because of, you know, how long would that have lasted? that's a comic example, but that would never be, that would never work. And the clergy in that case should completely reject it. He's only doing it for one reason. And he's getting at it here. But, you know, he's,

it's getting muddled, I think, more than, it's not being clarified, it's being muddled. But the one thing that you're trying to avoid is, well, the other word for it is double-mindedness, saying one thing and believing another. Double-mindedness is the, frankly, the foundation of the left. The left, especially the socialist, they never give their full agenda. They never lay out their full agenda at first.

The European Union was created by the European coal and steel community. Oh, it's just coal and steel. Well, wait a minute. everything is based on coal and steel. So very quickly, everything else was added to it. It was a scam. It seemed limited, but it wasn't. That's how it works.

I said just 100 times, but, you know, in Rome, the right hand was a sword hand. You saluted with your right hand when you were an arm. The left, that was a dagger hand. You're shaking somebody's hand until you're not armed. You grab your dagger with your left hand. you plunged it in his guts. That's where left and right came from. It had nothing to do with where they were in the assembly

after the French Revolution. It's not true. Because it's question begging. Why were they put that way in the first place? It comes from Rome. It comes from this notion that left is, that leftists are deceptive. They have an agenda

I remember when I was in grad school, one of this, actually the very same professional I was talking about, poor Wild Bill, he said, America's not ready for a female president. I said, what the hell does that mean? Not ready. It could only mean that there hasn't been enough propaganda thrown at us so that we'll eventually just accept it.

What else could it mean to not be ready for? It has to have to do with propaganda and compulsion in this case to the point so that people will actually vote for that. So that's sort of what he's getting on here. And a lot of it is common sense, like, you know, coerced confession. I mean, that gets thrown out of court immediately. But some of it does not. He says above, you know, this coercion will fade away by itself.

At the moment of his personal, spiritual, intellectual, intellectual rebellion, the affirmation of his true conviction and to fear of devotion. ocean will come out. So that's why he makes the distinction between physical coercion and compulsion. So in this case, compulsion is the more negative thing. Coercion is positive. That's something that we would use. We would coerce ourselves, not compel ourselves.

We would coerce ourselves to do work we have to do even though we don't want to do it, something like that. These are the main types of coercion in general, self-coercion, self-compulsion, mental coercion, physical coercion, and suppression. It would be a profound spiritual error to equate any coercion with violence and to attach central significance to this latter term. The very word violence already conceals a negative assessment. Violence is an arbitrary, unjustified, outrageous act. The rapist is a person who transgresses the bounds of what is permitted. an attacker, a harasser, an oppressor, an oppressor, and a villain. Violence must be protested against. It must be fought. In any case, a person subjected to violence as offended, oppressed, deserving of sympathy and assistance. The mere use of this value and effectively charged term evokes negative tension in the soul and prejudices and prejudges the question under investigation in a negative sense. To prove the admissibility or legitimate, of violence means to prove the admissibility of the unacceptable or the legitimacy of the unlawful.

Really, spiritually and logically proven will immediately prove to be effectively rejected and vitally controversial. The wrong term divides the soul and obscures the obvious. So again, violence is like compulsion. It's inherently negative. Nassilia in Russian. at least in my opinion, is that's the term to use. And it's not just punching someone in the face. It's having that done systematically where you live in fear. One of the things that Sultan Ethan brings out in the first circle, one of my favorite books by him,

is that not everyone has to be arrested for the system to work. People just have to think that it could happen to them at any time. that's the key element. It's that it can happen to anyone. There's nothing you can do about it. So now he's only talking about this. Again, there may be, I think he's going to expand the concept of violence later.

There obviously is a legitimate use of violence. But in terms of tyranny or our own personal life, punching someone in the face, rarely convert somebody. I suppose it's conceivable. They would be forced to consider what I'm saying. It might be true. But rarely doesn't work.

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

Yeah, self-violence would be something like those, the flagellants, those who use the whip on themselves, which, quite frankly, I think may associate whatever temptation that is with the pain that you have. I'm not sure if that actually works. But that's the only thing that you have, the self-violence that he's talking about. I don't think he's talking about mental illness. We're like cutters. I don't think that's something that he was cognizant of at the time. Self-violence would only be,

and there were certain very, very extreme old believer sex in Russia that did crazy things like that, those who just burn themselves alive, that kind of thing, rather than work for Antichrist. That's what he means by self-violence. Further, the concept of external, coercion will subordinate. On the one hand, the concepts of mental coercion, physical coercion, and suppression,

did I read that one? No. No. I don't think so. I'm going to start again. Who knows? My apologies. Further, the concept of external coercion will subordinate.

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

and we should cringe up a little bit. But that one example that I gave, you know, there are certain times or torture may be the only way to get someone to say something. That's very important. You know, the bomb somewhere. I hate to quote Alan Derswitz,

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

suppression is when it's institutionalized, where it's a state run, it's not just, don't remember, it's not just the state, it's society as a whole. Yeah, we have the First Amendment in America,

but you go around in a Woff and SST shirt, you know, you're going to have, you're going to have problems. You'll have problems at work, you'll have problems with, you know, you know, that's, that's a non-state version of suppression.

So he's saying that So up into this point he's using the generalized terminology Now he's saying we need to clarify even further Because all of this stuff can have a positive element That's all purpose of the book He's had to go through all of these To finally get to the point And he's going to the rest of the book is going to deal with it

Where sometimes these things that we think normally is negative or are positive. There's a big difference between murdering somebody and killing somebody. It is remarkable that Tolstoy and his school completely failed to notice the complexity of this entire phenomenon. They know only one term and precisely one that prejudices the entire question with its emotional connotation. They speak and write only of violence, and by choosing this unfortunate, repulsive term, they ensure a biased and blinded attitude toward the entire problem. This is natural.

One doesn't even need to be a sentimental moralist to answer the question of the acceptability or praiseworthy of embittered ugliness and oppression in the negative. However, the singularity of terminology conceals a much deeper error. Tolstoy and his school failed to see the complexity in the subject itself. Not only do they call any compulsion violence, but they also reject any extortion. inducement or restraint as violence. Generally speaking, generally speaking, the terms violence and evil are used by them as equivalent, so much so that the problem of non-resistance itself. Yeah. Sorry, there's another sentence fragment there. I apologize for that.

Tolstoy, you know, there's one area where he agreed with the Slavophiles, where, you know, written law implies violence. It implies a penal system. Russia never had one. We talked about this with Solstinian. Russia never had a prison system. Russia had a very medieval understanding straight. It was the leftist violence, Jewish violence, that forced them to create one at the very end of the, of Zaris' life.

Middle Ages didn't have a prison system. You were either, you know, for the most serious crimes, you were executed. and otherwise you would be put to work for the person you've erred or there'd be a system of fines the code of Dushan in medieval Syria Serbia. This was very typical.

In my opinion, I don't think that nonviolent crimes should have prison terms. That makes no sense to me. Someone like Bernie Madoff to send him to a country club prison to do nothing. Does it make any sense?

Oh, his money should be taken away, but also he should be forced to teach, not his, you know, his crimes, but basic elements and finance to people who otherwise wouldn't have access to it. Community service, so to be, but a real community service. That was the, that was the conception. Sometimes, you know, the only prisons that you had in medieval Europe were, were in monoccurves. The whole purpose of that was to convert them. We're talking about normal citizens here. You did not have a prison system.

You didn't have a penal code at all. So again, you bring someone from there to this country. They would say your society is totally ungovernable. You need all of this. You need this massive penal system. How does this? Your laws aren't taken seriously at all. Edmund Burke in the British Parliament said, you know, said the same thing.

The minute you need to start using physical violence to defend your laws means that your society is already beginning to disintegrate. Now, whether that's true or false is another matter. But I think I understand what he means. The Slavophile says something very different. Even writing them down meant that you have a problem. Even using abstract terms means that people aren't going to take it seriously because it's not theirs. And the worst of all is international law. I don't remember ever voting for international law.

Talk about nonsense. No one can enforce it. It's used only in rhetorical ways, and that's about it. Now, Tolstoy did accept, you know, internal reform and asceticism, forcing yourself to do things. He did accept that. But he would categorically say impulsing, coercion, violence, these are all negative things that have to go in the way that he's been defining it so far.

And the most dangerous thing, as I said, we're dealing with now is redefining terms such that words now are acts of violence. And I think it's a very common idea in universities. And it is the law in Britain in the EU, where words themselves are acts of violence. The minute you start thinking in those terms, then you have a totalitarian state. Then you remove any conception of legitimate free speech. You know, free speech existed not for pornographers or for, you know, musician. Freedom of speech was there for scientific, religious, and political debates.

That was the purpose. And enough people talking about it long enough who will eventually get to the truth. the truth you know that's just perfect um in many ways there's a mild form of compulsion in this definition there well you're wrong you're wrong i remember distinctly when i stopped being a human event style conservative i remember when i simply couldn't be a capitalist anymore i was just a you know i was a kid i was you know 19 uh i had a subscription to the next uh the next uh the next uh the National Review. There was no internet. I thought this was what conservative was, and I couldn't accept it anymore. Too many things started to happen. And I wasn't going to be, I wasn't going to live

double-minded. And it wasn't very long where I was passing out copies of the spotlight in front of the commons under the assumption that this was free speech is a university right well I was very very wrong thank God I wasn't thrown out but there was talk about it so what he's saying here in turn to Tolstoy violence is inherently evil well we think about it with torture too but we know there are times or the inflicting of pain on someone can have a positive outcome the bomb example there are cases torture normally is just an inherently negative things no such a thing is good torture well maybe in this case and that you know the case

of bomb maybe there are very isolated examples of good torture I think we should stop it right there and yeah come back come back and finish yeah yeah this is um it this has been particularly difficult to uh uh you try translate and to go over because he's talking about words that have slightly different meanings, only slightly. Violence stands out. You know, we're talking about a punch in the face.

That would also include compulsive. So I'm more confused now as far as, as far as this book's concerned than I was when we started. I know where he's going. I understand what he's doing. But if I stopped reading here and never read anymore, I would be very, you know, I wouldn't know anything. All right. I encourage everyone to go over to the show notes and the descriptions on the videos and donate to Dr. Johnson's work by his new book.

That's another way you can support him. And I'm sure how much you appreciate not only what we've done here, but of course 200 years together, which is in the past now, but I don't think it's in the past. I think it's going to be something people are going to look to in the future, just as I hope that this will as well. So don't get down because Aline is writing in a way and using terms. It don't make any sense. He's going somewhere.

This is one of the problems that great books have is there's always a section in a great book where the person who there's a there's a certain kind of person that drops out because you're like I'm not following it don't worry you'll get there and we'll get there that's right that's exactly precisely correct all right so it's you in a couple days thank you dr. johnson and enjoy your colonoscopy i i oh my lord okay very good very good hopefully but please seriously though pray for me me they find nothing. But please. Please pray for me. They find nothing. Nothing, Syria. I know the chances are very low, but come on. You know I will. Take care. Thank you.

I know you will. All right, my friend. Bye-bye.