The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Ivan Ilyin's 'On Resistance to Evil by Force' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Pt. 7

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

55 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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I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of On Resistance to Evil by Force by Yvonne Evin Eileen. Dr. John's, this is episode number seven. actually. Hey, we're actually getting into this, man. How are you doing? How am I doing? We're coming to the end of the first batch of translated material. We'll finish it today. I'm doing a lot more translating myself of the next five chapters. And it's very difficult, partially because of how he writes, partially because of the difficulty of the material. but I'm telling you it's all worth it.

I'm translating like the beginning of chapter, I think I'm in chapter eight or something. And once he starts bringing all of these different strands together, you understand why he spent so much time on these kind of things. Now, he is very repetitive. Dugan's that way too. But he's that way for a reason. And hang in with us.

I know I could see eyes glazing over in my mind, I know, but just hang in there. This is all for a reason. And this is not just about Tolstoy or about the Bolshek revolution. It's about our lives. That's all I'm doing. Sounds good to me. I'm ready to get going. Yes, sir.

Those who lack a strong character who have neither a king in their head nor ruling sacred things in their hearts, demonstrate with every action their inability to govern themselves and their need for social education and the tragedy of those who flee this task is that it remains inescapable for them. All people continually educate each other, whether they want to or not, whether they realize it or not, whether they know how or not, whether they care or neglect. They educate each other through every manifestation, response to intonation, smile, and its absence, arrival and departure, exclamation and silence, request and demand, appeal and boycott. Every objection, every disapproval, every process corrects and strengthens the outer facet of the

human personality. Man is a socially dependent and socially adaptable being, and the more spineless a person is, the more powerful this law of return and reflection operates. This is part of the reason why I could never be a libertarian. I mean, individualism is absurd. We're fortunate to that today because there is no community. But not only is language, not our creation, but most of it, as he shows here, is nonverbal, which is why we have, now, I never used emojis till I met my wife.

Then I hope, I guess I like that kind of thing, but that's to give some sense of how you're feeling when you make a sense. statement because you can't see the other person. This is also, you know, education is not just the classroom. The English word tends to imply that. When we come across, you know, and I had students that were not, put it nicely, not collegiate material, not college material, I knew that they had a friend group, something at home that helped make them this way. People who use the word bro every two seconds, this type, what the hell you're doing in a couple?

There's a reason for it. The social communication, nationalism is based around. Nationalism is based around the ethnos, which itself is based around language. But not just any, it's not just words in the sense. syntax and grammar. It's every aspect of cultural life. This is all for, these are all forms of

communication. And therefore, education. This is why our struggle is so brutal today, because we know that otherwise intelligent young people are being deliberately made into morons who's marginally better when we were growing up. But it's worse now. now. And this is really what he's talking about here. And I love how the, the cz, I should have said, czar in their head. That's actually what he said. Zahar in their head, the ruling sacred thing in their heart. In other words, the man has the church in his heart and the czar in his head. That metaphor has been used by other writers, too, in the monarchist tradition. But we educate each other. Therefore, the company we keep,

it's extremely important because most of this stuff is done subconsciously the sort of people you know we become are based at least in part maybe a great part and the people who we spend our time with

do they uplift us or are they the people who say bro every two minutes have you noticed that tendency it's you know it's like the universal language of illiteracy. Mostly males do that. You know, and it has everything to do with their education.

Yeah, they could have gone to college, I suppose. They get pushed through their classes, maybe. But they're not going to be educated because they're the people who they hang out with. and most of it is subconscious. Most communication is nonverbal, which makes texts and things like telegram interesting. Because it's really hard. I've inadvertently offended many people.

I mean, I do that deliberately all the time, but inadvertently because they can't see my face. Even over the phone, you get a tone of voice, but text you get nothing. And so that adds another level of difficulty. But we are socially dependent animals. The last thing we are is individuals. Precisely for this reason, the absence of objection,

disapproval, and protest imbues the outer facet of the human being with a confident abandon, a nasty disorderliness, a tendency toward unbridled force. People educate each other not only by action, by confident reciprocal actions, but also by inaction, by a sluggish, evasive, and weak-willed absence of reciprocal action,

and while, on the one hand, a harsh response, a rude demand, or a spiteful act may not correct, but rather embitter the one against whom it is directed. On the other, avoiding a vigorous, definitively reproachful action can be tempted, amounts of permissiveness, indulgence, and complicity. Now, you see kind of where he's going here.

I mean, he's putting, these are the strands that will soon be brought together into his argument why evil needs to be confronted with force. But just as it stands here, there are numerous czars in, you know, Russian life. The czar himself, then there's the head of the family. there's the head of the commune. These all just are like nesting dolls of legitimate authority. In our situation, you know, kids who have a strong father figure are very different from kids who don't.

And it's my opinion that homosexuality in both genies derives from the lack of a father figure. I think the propaganda aside, I think that's a strong. strong ingredients. You don't get that what is natural love from the father you look for it elsewhere. But the mere possession of having a father is not good enough. Father has to be strong. And sometimes that you actually have to be your actual, you know, biological father. It can be a father figure. And I see, I see if you read the comments, YouTube, these kids, they're looking for father figures in anybody.

There's a guy teaching guitar. I was watching and the kid says, oh, yeah, you've been like a father figured him. Really? They're searching for it anywhere. I mean, the theory of the gangs is that with the collapse of the family, gangs at least provide some sense of mutual acceptance. And this is deliberate.

E. Michael Jones went to the Rockefeller Archives. in Philadelphia, and showed the programs that they were involved in to destroy the family. And when I say that, I mean, the father. We know how fathers are depicted in, you know, like the Homer Simpson types, Malcolm in the middle, always this bumbling idiot. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's a bumbling idiot. There's a reason for that.

the destruction of the father figure makes create such moral chaos that then the regime itself can then mold them into whatever they want they become more and more receptive to pretty much anything the Soviets did that and the right after the revolution

didn't it didn't last long because it was such a disaster but but and then after that all of a sudden they're all about you know father and then that and then at the end the last 20 years of the Soviet Union, the family was a huge interest of the Communist Party. The Communist Party in the 80s is one of the most conservative institutions in the world.

And the party even today, you don't know you're reading. If this is a Communist Party, the Americans would have no idea what they're even looking at. Yeah, they may mention London was a great guy once in a while. But, you know, Lenin was there and promoted the cult of personality to replace the father figure, to replace the czar. This is what people need. And if they don't get it, they'll search anywhere for it. And that's the recipe for disaster. In the mutual social education of people, both juniors and seniors, both superiors and subordinates, what is needed is not only a gentle no in the aura of persuasive love, but also a firm no in an atmosphere

of impending disunity and the estrangement that has already occurred. A person commits villainy not only because he is villainous, but also because he has been conditioned to it by the weak-willed self-abasement of those around him. Slavery corrupts not only the slave, but also the slave owner. An unbridled man is unbridled, given not only by himself, but also by the social environment that allowed him to unbridle himself. A despot is impossible if there are no opponents. everything is permitted only where people have permitted each other everything.

Yeah, I laughed a little bit. Sorry about that. An unbridled man is unbridled. I could have done better there. Yeah, so in other words, a criminal exists not necessarily because, I mean, there can be a mental issue and stuff like that. But, you know, mental issues have gone through the roof since the family has collapsed. but also because he's been conditioned to it by the weak world self-abasement of those around him.

And you go to popular culture and you see the fathers and how they are depicted. If they're strong, they're evil. If they're weak, well, they're at least funny. But I remember, you know, Little House in the Prairie. That was a show based around Michael Landau, the least strong father. figure. It didn't matter what happened. They got through it because of it. Good times in the 70s. John Amos played the most powerful father figure, possibly on television. And, you know, the no, it's not just a gentle no. Sometimes you have to go farther than that. Sometimes you have to

make sure that your kids are not hanging out with the person. person, it's going to make you say bro every sentence. It's true. And Hegel, you know, and he gets that from Hegel, that slavery hurts the slave owner more than the slave. And he's not given one of these 1970s sort of everyone's good on the inside until society corrupts him. No, he's talking specifically about the czar, not just the czar in Petersburg or Moscow. but the czar and the family and everywhere else. There were czars at every level. That's the only way to a corrupt society.

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

This is his responsibility. And to be harsh is far more loving in a negative environment than letting them do whatever they want, including violence. Violence and love are not mutually exclusive. And that's going to be a huge part of this book, the rest of this book. It is so arranged by God and nature that people influence each other not only intentionally, but also unintentionally, and this cannot be avoided. Just as a mysterious process of inner purification by spirit and love inevitably, though involuntarily, expresses itself in a look, a voice, a gesture, a gait, and just as inevitably, though often unconsciously, has a calming and inspiring effect on others, as if evoking a reciprocal chant, with its hidden song. So too does an energetic will act strengtheningly, shaping, and captivatingly on those around it, as if evoking a creative rhythm with its creative rhythm.

Well, my father always used to say, and thank God I had a good thought. Thank God Almighty. He was an alcoholic, but he was an alcoholic you never knew. Sobriety, big problem. Alcohol, not really a problem. You never knew. It was impossible to tell if he was drinking or not. He was a very, very good father. He rarely raised his voice. When he did, I still have nightmares about it.

My mother screamed all the time, so it didn't matter. So there's a virtue here. There's a virtue of moderation here. My father used to say, I can tell, because he was in the Marine Corps, First Marine Division, Korean War. He said, I could spot a Marine just by how he walks. And he was never wrong. Didn't come up very much, but he did see it.

I could spot a Marine just by how he walks. Strength isn't just in your will, your mind. It's in everything you do. We're not talking about tyranny. We're not talking about, you know, despotism in our sense. We're talking about legitimate strength. and that gets so difficult. Now, I raised, thank God in the heavens,

I raised two boys that are a credit to the world. No problems, no difficulties. I don't know, if I had daughters, I have no clue what I would do. And all I did, I did what I remember my father doing. That's simple. I was never nervous when they were born. I knew exactly what I was going to do. And, you know, there's times to say yes.

There's times to say no. And, you know, the virtue, especially in Aristotle's things, the virtues require a tremendous knowledge of context, being able to read the room, so to speak. So, but that kind of strength, you grow up. And, of course, this is totally subconscious. grip with a strong father figure you feel safe you don't realize you feel safe but you do without it you grow up in constant fight or fight fight mode which is awful for your help um

so so this is what he's getting on here isn't necessarily talking about the father of the family i think he has that in mind really any leader a male any males or leaders i mean he's talking about a man um so So, but that strength is, you may have it, but it's very difficult. I mean, I thank God I did a good job. But it was a lot of work and a lot of thought went into how to do things. And my father was the same way. And if he's talking about the father specifically, that's what he's,

but he's talking about many levels of strength. And it creates, and everyone under him, a sense of safety. And yeah, inspiration that even, you know, maybe I didn't even know I was giving, that he didn't know that he was giving. Mostly subconscious. But that means we grow up completely different. All of the things being the same. We grew up completely different than the kid who does not have one and is always stressed out because he doesn't have this safety. He's always in flight or fight mode because he doesn't have that bulwark.

that's a, this is a big deal, and he's at least partially talking about that here. However, consciously and deliberately avoiding this influence is possible only through groundless suspiciousness and a sad misunderstanding. A suspicious person has an exaggerated fear of causing harm, and therefore causes even worse harm, for they act indecisively and act with complacency, fostering weakness of will within themselves and sewing it around them, creating self-doubt in themselves and evoking in others the perception of their own disloyalty to goodness. If they convince themselves that they have stepped back and left others to do as they please, then, to top it all off, they are deceiving both themselves and others.

When I was in high school, I was a musician, as you know. I was in several bands. my mother against all of it. She was vehemently against all of it. My father, thank God, being the strong man he was, kind of said, we're going along with it. Later on, I found out pretty much what he said. He said, what could these kids be doing otherwise? These kids would be doing all kinds of nasty things.

But music and playing together give an outlet to things that otherwise could be very bad out there. This is something you should be happy about, not upset about. I don't care what kind of music they play. It's, it's, and, and, and so, you know, my mother was against pretty much everything. My father, and there were certain limits, of course. Those limits, you're not going to be perfect, but those limits are a matter of reason. But I think by that point, we already knew what those limits were.

And rarely, if ever, um, um, uh, cross them. This is what he's talking about here. How do you know how there's suspicion that everything is bad so you don't allow anything to happen? Don't allow them to leave the house after you know, there's a there's and I know fathers of daughters are far worse off in this regard It's I I thank God that I didn't have Daughters. I really feel bad for those guys I think it's a lot more work with how guys are, especially today, guys without father figures, where it's going to be very different. You could always go to the father if the guy's acting improperly.

He doesn't have a father. You've got to go to him. So, you know, and we see this in popular culture, you know, the father or sometimes even the mother, usually someone religious, you know, like in the Stephen King Kerry, this crazy cult she was a part of, and she was against her doing anything. What's that going to lead to? You know, if my mother had her way, I don't know what I'd be doing. My father said, wait a minute, what they're doing is okay.

They're not hurting anybody or themselves. They're playing music. What is your problem? This is great. This is what you should be happy for. And this is a very common thing. My father, of course, you know, made the money. And he had, you know, of course, he's a Marine.

He always had that around him. He was always able to keep her under control. When he died, everything changed in a very negative way. But that's exactly the point. When he died, everything changed. When the Tsar was gone, London couldn't take his place. It was utter chaos. And that's when you had Alexandra Kolentai promote her sexual revolution,

possibly the first sexual revolution, deliberately promoted easy divorce, abortion, God knows I did abortions back then, actually no real marriage, you know, every revolutionary movement up until, well, every revolutionary movement, starting with the radical Reformation types, I think almost without exception, had the rejection of marriage, the so-called community of wives. Well, isn't that convenient as their, as part of their agenda.

It was always at war with the family because these revolutionaries were trying to remake society. You can't do that with strong father figures, especially strong father figures that have some resources behind them. Then you have a huge problem. There's always a balance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

where he shows that in great detail. Not to mention the same, the psychological aspect of it all. Now, that first sentence is interesting. Proof, we give evidence, it's going to come up later. We give evidence in hoping that the mind will change. Well, but the will is different. The intellect and the will are two different things. You know something is right, but if you have a weak will,

you won't put it into action. We see that we do that sometimes. We do that all the time. That's almost the very nature of sin. Our conscience says it's wrong, but it doesn't matter. Our will is weak, and so we don't do it. But, you know, the last part of this, the awareness, the vague feeling of another person wants me to do with, then he's not talking about people pleasing here.

That's an abuse of this concept. he's talking about someone where you have, even in the economic life, it's not necessarily just a family, although it's very easy to talk about the father, that, you know, I can't, I can't do this because I'm going to get in trouble. At first, it's just an imposition. His Higelianism is showing here. At first, it's an imposition. I just don't want to get in trouble. But pretty soon over time, you just don't want to do it. Not just because you'll get into trouble. This is just a wrong thing to do. It's a stupid thing to do. He also makes it, talks about authority. Now, it's very important. I think I've made the distinction before.

I'll make it again. Authority and power. Two very, very, very different things. Power, in this case, is just the ability to coerce someone for any reason. You could be a mugger, anything. Authority is when you have to be a mugger. the right to course somebody. That's a very different story. You hear the old stories when, I guess I came in on the end of this, that when you, in the old days, you would, if you did something wrong, the neighbor's parents would smack him. So it's not just a father, it's a collection of fathers and even mothers. The Hegelian idea, and really the Aristotelian idea, is that at first something feels like it's just an aim in a position.

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

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

and uselessness of these benefits. It's always been my opinion that puberty is a recapitulation of the fall of Adam and Eve. In fact, they are parallel in a lot of different ways. All of a sudden, you're worried about clothes. All of a sudden, you're worried about yourself image. You go and hide from the father figure. you think you know things, you're listening to all the wrong people. Prior to puberty, kids are a joy, generally speaking.

It's when they go through that hormonal change. Now, I don't remember my kids. I mean, it was just one straight shot. I don't, you know, because they had this list of things, parents, the church, teachers, maybe not the state. but we made sure that there was a strong figure in each. Thank God we also had good teachers. My kids went to public school, but in rural America, and they were great.

Never had to worry about anything. I knew them all. But there's this break that occurs at 12 years old, 13 years old, and I hate it. It's the fall. But what happens then? Everything that you did just because, you know, you love your parents. Now you have to learn how to do it rationally. Before, when you were a kid, you loved your parents. You'd have to think about it. After, you fully have to come to understand why you love

your parents and why you follow it. The reason comes into it. This wasn't supposed to necessarily be this way, but this is why Christ came on earth. This is why the church exists. It's why the law exists. Don't underestimate that puberty is very similar to the fall of Adam and Eve. And again, I think it's harder with daughters than with sons. But that's when their self-will, just like in Genesis. Self-will develops, all of this. But, you know, if you make it easier for them to understand why you love your parents and want to please them, they can be 15 and still do fine. Well, if there are no parents, it's a totally different story.

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

and in this concentrated and consolidated form, are passed on from generation to generation. Impersonal reservoirs of external will are formed, sometimes hidden behind the elusive appearance of decency intact, sometimes manifesting themselves in a stream of orders and laws, sometimes supported by simple and impersonal public condemnation, sometimes reinforced by the action of an entire system of organized institutions. The main goal of all this personal coercion and super-personal pressure is, of course, not to force.

It would be impossible to physically force people to engage in certain behavior. This would be impossible and unnecessary, and the very intention of achieving this could never be conceived, in a mentally healthy person. No, the person being educated, both a child and an adult, remains, under all circumstances, a self-governing autonomous center, an individual, a subject of law, a citizen whose expression of will and initiative cannot be replaced by anything external, and the purpose of this influence on their autonomous will is to induce them to the necessary and spiritually correct autonomous self-coercion. Now, I know we still have the page to go,

here, so I'll make it quick here. I'm not necessarily a Kantian, but there is a distinction between how liberals use the word freedom and the word autonomy. I accept Kant's definition of autonomy as the real one. It's when you make a decision without any internal pressures, meaning your passions or fantasies you might have, or external pressure. Now, he doesn't mean, he doesn't mean that you're an isolated being. He means that once you, you know, at a certain level of intellectual maturity, you really don't, you know, you love the centers of authority, but you just don't need them because you're going to act in the proper way anyway.

Unfortunately, we can't say that about everybody. When you come up with an act that is free, that is to say, autonomous, is something that not you've been forced to do. I mean, you're not a criminal, you're either internally or externally, but especially internally. You've learned that your passion, your desires need to be shut down much of the time.

Therefore, you can make an autonomous decision. And you learn that growing up. The right thing is usually the hard thing. Without very good examples, Aristotle talked about examples being very important. Without good examples, you can never be autonomous. Freedom is just a lack of restraint.

That's a meaningless term. Autonomy means that really the only person that can enslave you is you. And if your passions are allowed to run wild, that's all you're going to be doing is trying to satisfy them on all times. The only person who's going to profit is the person who offers to satisfy them for a price. The task of socially organized psychological compulsion boils down, to strengthening and correcting a person's spiritual self-compulsion. This applies not to a person already strong and evil.

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

psychic pressure from outside compels him either to first make these efforts to comprehend in his inner experience the laws of justice and reciprocity that build a healthy community and then freely perform the necessary actions or to first subject himself to self-compulsion and then figure out what happened to him. It is less necessary to recognize that legal and state laws are not laws of violence but laws of psychic and legal coercion pursuing precisely the goal and addressing autonomous legal entities in order to suggestively inform their will of the correct direction for self-guidance and self-education. In its fundamental idea and in its normal operation, legal law is a formula for mature legal consciousness, anchored in thought,

advanced by will, and coming to the aid of an immature but developing legal consciousness. this is this is a combination of play-dell aristotle and hango with a little bit of con sprinkled in um you know this is stuff that i i had to master the conception of this stuff and in gradual and afterwards um any government or any family for that man who has to use violence I mean, physical violence, to get anything done, to get anyone to listen to them, either you have a very evil population, or more likely, you shouldn't be ruling anybody. You know, in old Russia, coercion wasn't the norm. You didn't have a prison system.

You know, everything was local. Everyone knew you. The extended family was the dominant thing, and you had a czar on top. And then, of course, you had the commune and it's on top of that. This is what creates legitimate autonomy. And again, if you have this, you know, I mean, these are these, you would think that some of these, like the commune is a socialist style system. And yet, why was that the first thing that the communist destroyed? Actual functioning idealist in Christian socialism, they destroyed and put in its place just collectivism.

again it goes to show that socialism was not their concern and their concern was not was neither the worker nor the peasant anyway that's a separate story moreover it is precisely the volitional element of law that represents the beginning of psychological coercion legal law in no way coerces a person does not trample on his dignity or abolish his spiritual self-governance on the contrary it lives acts and perfects itself solely from the free personal acceptance and self-imposition. However, at the same time, he powerfully compels a human psyche, both by the direct imposition of authority and by the form of an order prohibition permission, and by the consciousness of socially organized opinion, and, finally, by the prospect of probable and even certainly upcoming unpleasant consequences. Disapproval, publicity, appearances in court, losses and perhaps even exclusion from a certain social circle, and even physical coercion and suppression. And all these psychic forces for the fear of physical coercion acts not physically, but psychically, urge him to make those internal efforts for discretion and volition that were

necessary, which he could make, but which for some reason he himself had not yet accomplished. We have this idea now that if you do something because you're forced into it, or you do something, if you do the right thing, I mean, because you're forced into it or you're terrified of a lawsuit, that's not exactly a virtuous act. Even today, we have that understanding, believe it or not, if it's done by force. No, virtuous action is something that you just do because you are properly educated and you have a society that accepts that education and even rewards it to some extent. Now, we don't live in that society. Virtue is assaulted. And yet, as much as we can, we do it anyway. In a healthy society, honesty is a virtue. People like honest men. In an unhealthy society, everyone despises honest men.

Last paragraph. Yep. What if all this mental coercion proves insufficient, and the person being coerced still prefers not to discern or subject themselves to the necessary acts? Then two options remain. Either grant them the freedom to act arbitrarily and maliciously, except that the command and prohibition are supported by nothing but censure and boycott, thereby enticing the vicious and evil will to embrace the tempting idea of external freedom

or resort to physical force. Reminds me, I have a paper of the great leader of El Salvador, Bukala. His country was falling apart. It was a huge swath that were controlled by the gangs. He decided enough is enough. He declared a state of emergency. and, you know, had roundups. Cops know where everybody is.

Things like habeas corpus. Yeah, that's okay in peacetime, but not when your society is controlled by gangs. He literally declared war on them. Other stuff can be sorted out later. Prior to that, you had governments asking the gangs not to kill people like on a Tuesday.

Oh, it's Sunday. Don't kill that many people. That's actually what you had. You had it in Chicago, not that long ago. How could the gang ever respect anyone? If the state's asking them, you know, in other words, okay, we've beaten us. Just please, let's try to get along. Now, Buckele opened up all these new prisons, sent them there, huge numbers.

The rest, unfortunately, came to America. And now in many areas of the country, social life is rebuilding. People aren't scared anymore. And so they could function as they always have. The cancer has been removed and Bukala was the chemotherapy. So this is what are two options are going to grant them, just grant them the Freedom Act. but you know he's not really talking about stuff like that here

and you notice he's not even talking about an invading army or anything he's talking about this stuff in general family or the intermediate levels up to the state but there was no way that you could grant freedom to act arbitrarily to this large number of gangs in El Salvador the country would be destroyed This is why military governments come into existence.

I have a whole book on this. Maybe the only one in English defending the military governments of Latin America. They didn't just take over for fun or that they like power. Military men usually don't like that kind of thing. They took over because they were the last line of defense. The country was falling apart.

The communists were blowing up buildings. The economy was in a, you know, in a free fall, inflation was to the roof, and there was another option. That's why they're popular when they take over. And they hang a bunch of people. It makes them even more popular. That's the only way that society could function with any kind of normality. In El Salvador's case, it was a declaration of the state of emergency.

It was continually extended. His approval ratings last night checked, or something like 87%, condemned viciously by the Biden administration. Not so much by the Trump administration. It's a different story. The Biden administration, same thing for the Philippines. You know, anytime a government actually wins their drug war,

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

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

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

And it was disintegrating, economically and socially, and it affects how people interact. Ordinary people interact. If this is what gets, if gang activity, which gets rewarded, people are being raised in that, well, how are they going to,

what's their values system going to be? That can't be allowed. about Muker. Bukele, the hero of Central America, smash these gangs, massive police and military action. The people love them, the elites despise them.

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

notes and to go over the description in the video, donate to Dr. Johnson's work, buy his book, join his Patreon, send him something on cash app, send him some Bitcoin, do what you got to do. But support Dr. Johnson's work. And yeah, we'll be

back to continue this much deeper topic than the last one that we tackled. And I want to assure listeners that once these strands of argument come together. It's going to be very profound. This is why Elyn is such a famous philosopher among the emigrates. We're just dealing with the strands right now. I'm translating

stuff. That's getting to where the strands are brought together again. And it's very important. You guys hang in there. I know it can be a little difficult now, but it is getting more and more profound as I'm reading ahead. It's all worth it. I agree. All right. So I'll see in a couple days. Thank you.

All right, my friend. Bye-bye.