Ideas Have Consequences Ch 1-3 Discussion

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We're going to discuss this book and I have my dad and my brother. So my dad is Scott Harris, and he's a pastor graduated from Master's Seminary and My brother is a school teacher in Tennessee.

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One of the things that I wanted to bring you into is the discussions growing up my family would have

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Around the kitchen table usually but we would talk about things that we were reading some sometimes things

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I would read in school Books like this I like ideas of consequences are really

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I think good for that Because there's just a lot of material in it. That's Really thought -provoking.

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In fact, we could probably spend days and days talking about some of the things Richard Weaver brings up and the reason

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I want to do this is because it's a lot different than what I've been doing on the podcast, which is talking about evangelical elites and where they're messing up sometimes and social justice in particular that issue and It can be really discouraging

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I think for a lot of people who everywhere they turn it's bad There's problems there and we're going to talk about some bad things again today

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But I wanted to at least put positive resources in your hands Instead of doing a lot of book reviews on here's another bad book and let's talk about how bad this book is

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I wanted to start giving you authors and books that are helpful in Certain ways and this is a book that I found helpful and people have often asked me how

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I started the podcast where I got my understanding of the issues that I'm critiquing and It's hard for me to answer that because there's a whole bunch of authors and influences but Richard Weaver is definitely one of them

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Weaver is considered a conservative and I want to read for you a Quote from him from a

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Work that he did called life without prejudice. He says this it is my contention that a conservative is a realist

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He believes that there is a structure of reality independent of his own desire He believes that there is a creation which was before him which exists now

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Not just by his sufferance and which will be here after he's gone This structure consists not merely of the great physical world, but also of many laws principles and regulations which control human behavior

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Though this reality is independent of the individual. It is not hostile to him It is in fact amenable by him in many ways

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But it cannot be changed radically or arbitrarily This is the cardinal point the conservative holds that man in this world cannot make his will his law

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Without any regard to limits and to fix the fixed nature of things So you see in Weaver's conception of what conservatism is something that I think a lot of modern conservatives

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Conservative industry conservative thinkers. They've lost this that it's the permanent things it's

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It's this idea that there is a created order and that we ought to conform ourselves to that We it's not just that we have practical ideas that are better than the left

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Better than those who hate God even it's that we actually are trying to live within the natural world the pattern that God has laid down and so Richard Weaver just a little biography about him

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He was the oldest of four siblings his father died when he was six His father owned a library stable near Asheville, North Carolina and after the death of his father's family moved to Lexington, Kentucky, so he was a southerner and that's where his mother managed a

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Millenary business which is hats they made hats Weaver became a socialist in college at the

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University of Kentucky But but rejected socialism while attending Vanderbilt University Where he fell in love with the

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Old South under the tutelage of John Crow ransom And there's a book actually John Crow ransom Contributes to call

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I'll take my stand and we may do one of those That book or one of those essays in the future for this format, but anyway, that's who he studied under and his dissertation was published in a book called the southern tradition at bay and In that book he praised the besieged virtues of hierarchy chivalry and religiousness that he's found in the

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Old South Weaver received his PhD from Louisiana State University, and he taught rhetoric for most of his career at the

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University of Chicago He intended to retire and live in his ancestral ancestral land in Weaverville, North Carolina But a heart attack in 1963 prevented his plans from becoming reality

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Weaver is recognized today as one of the main founders of the traditionalist element of modern conservatism

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Which focused on preserving Western traditions against modern society's technology industrialism and urbanization?

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His prophetic insights ensure his continued relevance through his 20 -year career

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Weaver published 115 book reviews essays and pamphlets eight books are published under his name ideas have consequences in 1948 is his most famous David want you talk about when you first encountered the book and what you thought of it.

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I think I'd recommended it, right? Yeah, yeah, so I think it was probably about five or six years ago, and it was um

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I think it was Before we had gone to that Abbeville conference, but Or right before or right after maybe it was right after so it's probably like five years ago

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But I read it and then a mutual friend of ours who passed away a few years ago

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He read it as well, and we both were really concerned about Weaver's Opinion on jazz because we both enjoyed jazz a lot

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But there was there was a few There was a few lines in particular that kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.

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So I mean Weaver is good at weaving Different sorry different strains of like sort of big picture and smaller picture

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You know aspects of reality and like just the world that we live in and the society that we inhabit

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But the what he really hit me with was And when I was reading through this again

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It again hit me like a ton of bricks was my own My own position sort of in society in in the economy how

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I function as an individual and That really comes across. I know we'll get into specifics, but one

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One particular area that I to me it's probably my Favorite quote in the whole book, but in the third chapter when he talks about The like the development of the modern

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The modern kind of ideal man and he juxtaposes that to Historic and he talks about kind of what was

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I what was the ideal? like man and What has changed is specialization and so it was ironic because when

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I first read the book I had been listening to a conservative talk show host and I was also teaching economics at a high school

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And so I was being really really heavily influenced by like libertarian philosophy and thought because most of the resources the best resources

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I could find on economics came from libertarians and When I read ideas have consequences,

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I realized like this is kind of like empty and It's my

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What would I think of as an ideal man? Because of specialization like in my own typically like my own specific career field

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I think the word he uses is I It's it's it's kind of our emasculation.

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That's the word that he uses. He says it's emasculating basically to be a very specialized to be in you know in your career or your place in Society to be hyper specialized and I realized like oh, this is kind of where I am career -wise

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So I've been kind of pigeon -holed into this extremely specific Role that I'm supposed to be the expert on but then when

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I look around I'm like I This isn't fulfilling, you know, right as a teacher

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I really enjoyed when I was When I was able to you know, teach and interact with a lot of different subjects.

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I taught government history economics Geography and then after I went through grad school.

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I kind of focus on this one particular area and so we were kind of helped me see that That there's more to it than just Your little place that you fit into the puzzle in society and it made me kind of start to strive

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To want to be a more complete man Yeah, I finally figured out how to show the presentation to everyone out there wall.

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You can see us. So sorry about that there's gonna be some kinks I'm gonna have to work out but Yeah, thanks for sharing that David and since I asked you

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I might as well ask you dad So I know that I was the one who introduced you to this. I think a few months ago

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But you've read it a few times. So what were your initial impressions? Why did you think you had to read it again? Because it was thicker just no

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Actually, I'm gonna read the very first quote that starts in the book The past shows unvaryingly that when a people's freedom disappeared

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It goes not with a bang but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for That is the dire peril the present trend towards statism

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If freedom is not found accompanied by willingness to resist and to reject favors rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious

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Will not long be found at all. That was written in 1962. So right from the beginning

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I read this I like As I'm reading through the first reading I had to go back at when did he write this 1948?

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How is that? How is that possible? I was amazed at the insights this man had of where society was going and it explains a lot about where we are that was the first reading is just more of a

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Maybe kind of just a shock of a guy that long ago, you know foreseeing where it's going

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The second reading has been more Thoughtful trying to understand him and as I did it became very clear his tie into the southern agrarians and you know,

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I it would be good to take a look at I'll take my stand and Where those thoughts came out interesting change from him from being an avid socialist into the man he became

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He taught rhetoric, but he seems to be more of a philosopher and he ties a whole lot of things

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Philosophically in trends going and where we were going because as he looked at the past he could see the trends

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So it's been a very good book to read It also came out in my second reading as I'm looking at more closely where some of the weaknesses are is because he

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Tied into southern traditions, which I think he put it as a religiousness or something like that older religiousness.

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Yeah But he himself has a little familiarity with the scriptures, but really not much

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So he keeps trying to tie things back to something. That's more foundational than kind of where we are now is the society and everything's completely transitioning all the time and So there is nothing stable

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But he doesn't tie it that well into what really a foundation though he gives

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Some reference to it and actually it's God right and the world that he's created but from a philosophical point

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That is his foundation and why traditions became so important to him and I think even

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Among the the southern traditionalist now why it's so important that stability So it's been a very good reading.

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I really appreciate you Introducing to me to him. Here's a summary of the book for everyone

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Man's metaphysical dream of the world is fractured because pragmatic concerns in the immediate replace faith and timeless ideals as a result a subjective

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Sentimentality characterizes culture. The only remedy for this is found within the restraints of a harmonized vision

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Chapter one he talks about this vision. He says it's unreachable as long as social hierarchy is rejected in favor of egalitarianism

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Chapter two the specialist is revered above the philosopher. That's that's another barrier to reaching this vision chapter three

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Egotism if it motivates the craftsman then that's another barrier He says in chapter four in the absence of a harmonized vision something he calls the great stereoptagon, which will define later induces societal function

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Chapter five. He says salvation becomes the effortless harnessing of nature for temporary physical gratification and Then in the last chapters, which we probably won't get to today

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He says the restoration of a harmonized vision can come through a respect for private property and an exposure to the forms through an education on linguistics and piety and justice so that's

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Richard Weaver's book in a nutshell and His purpose he said was to account for the loss of standards and values and and we see that in our own society

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He saw in his it's more so now and the challenge Forces that threatened the found anyone to challenge that and the forces that he believed threatened the foundations of civilization

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So the picture he paints is kind of bleak His thesis is that the defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture

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From this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. And so he talks about nominalism

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William of Ockham in the medieval era proposing this

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What they call it nominalism now, but this this idea that Things aren't really that that the categories that unite things

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Don't really exist that our sensory perception is really all there is I'm oversimplifying, of course but he thinks that that led to a rejection of ideals of absolutes of what he calls the transcendentals and When rejecting these we've lost so much now if we were live to see what we see today with the loss of even gender

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He would just be he would say yeah That's exactly you would trace it right back there and say we lost it when we rejected really it's

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Platonism It's it's a kind of Platonism the slackening hand of Plato has led to The the gender issue and all the things that we're seeing where we don't have definitions and language doesn't mean anything anymore

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Because we don't believe in a world in which there's order in which there's reality So Weaver supports a recovery of intellectual integrity which enables men to perceive the order of goods

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So he wants to find a solution to this So with that we'll start the discussion and I'll just give you a quick run -through chapter one

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And then we'll start talking about chapter one in the first chapter Weaver And the title is the unsentimental sentiment

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Weaver argues that people necessarily experience feelings of oughtness from a source of clarification before engaging their rational faculties so in other words people

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People know that there's something there's something they're supposed to do something that's good or bad if you think in moral terms but there's there's a purpose there's a telos and This is how they start out.

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This is how we all start out apart from any sensory perception We know that there's purpose there's design in front of us

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Rejecting the existence of these transcendentals means there is no definition of man which erodes notions of sentiment and hierarchy

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The result is the creation of a world where inhibiting expression is wrong and the heroic ideals

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Disappear this can only bring about the destruction of society as people fail to recognize obscenity and pursue immediate gratification

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Weaver argues that before imposing ideas that can limit this destruction. They must be harmonized by some vision and so that's his first chapter and really what he's saying if I could just Sum it up for myself in my own words is that if you lose standards if you lose the design and the

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Willingness the desire to conform yourself to that that ought that we all know is out there Then what ends up happening is you crumble into societal chaos you get what we had in 2020 you get riots

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Because there is no transcendental anymore. There is there is nothing to bind you to any course of action

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There there's no definition for what man is man's just an animal at that point So, you know, this means that we can level all the hierarchies

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We can we can really we can do what we want because the world is putty in our hands so the question the first question that I thought was

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He says something interesting in chapter one. He says the this failure He's talking about obscenity the failure of having increased obscenity is not connected with the decay of puritanism

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I'm page 26. He says this and I was thinking about how a lot of Christians try to combat obscenity and crassness and just the sexual stuff that's out there now and some do this kind of neo -puritan thing,

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I guess where You could use a different word you don't have to use I mean I'm using the word he uses but they want to imply they want to put more rules in effect

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Essentially and you know keep my kids from being bad, right? And he says that's not the root of this.

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That's not the problem. It's not like we had a failure in rules It's not rules went away and no there's something else bigger

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That's going on here. And that's what the chapter is about And if we don't recognize I think the underlying cause of why there's so much obscenity why on television or on the internet or otherwise

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Then we won't know how to even do things like raise kids properly because just putting in more barriers and rules is not getting to the heart of it

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So I'm gonna just open it up for you guys since I've been talking a while David Or dad.

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I mean, what do you think of that? I mean, do you what would you I mean, obviously dad you raised us so Do you think what we were talking about in chapter one is

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Something that you realized in raising children and Teaching people how to raise children that there's they have to have a larger vision than just rules

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Absolutely, you definitely have to have rules children need boundaries Because they're not equipped to go outside those boundaries and deal with the rest of the world

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But your goal as a parent is to raise those children So there's something in the heart that understands what the world's about where it's going

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He's using the term I guess transcendental, but it's that God has a purpose for you being here and your ultimate purpose is to please him

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So that you can hear well done now a good and faithful servant When you pass from this life or Christ comes first So yeah, that's what your mother and I, you know worked real hard at is giving you the moral reasons why we would do something or not do something so that your

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Own convictions as you got older would in lead you into whatever situation you got into to make a proper decision

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Based on something more than what was expedient at the moment Boundaries are not going to work

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When you're away from other people What you're you're doing by yourself what boundary you're going to put there there's always a way around it

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Boundaries help they, you know, keep you on On the path, you know where the edges are if You're driving a car when we're

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Teaching you to do that we try to teach you how to steer and be safe and the boundaries were the edge of the road and when you went off the edge you got in trouble because We're all rumbling around and I would holler at you

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To get back on it But we wanted to train you with the skills to stay on the road and why it's important that way no matter where you were

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Whether there was a fence up or not. He knew how to you know, go on the right path Map reading the same thing all those things that all end up with a moral

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Aspect to it. Did you know what you're doing? Why are you doing it where you were going? So it was training the heart more than anything else

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Yeah, and that's all Christians should have that it's it's a curious thing to me that so many

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I don't think do though so many do think that there a

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Rule is this sort of imposed external thing that you limit someone's choices by which it is but that's like that's all it is and it's because God says so and I Think what we were tapping into here is that there's an order though.

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There's a there's a goodness to the order that exists in creation So it's it's even though we have the curse of sin.

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There's a way that God Initially in Eden did intend for us to live and we're all kind of pre wires

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To know that that exists that there is this thing out there And it's not in we can't find it inside of us and in his what he keeps critiquing in this nominalism

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For those who maybe this will make sense is this notion that you can find the deep truths in yourself

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That it's not out there It's actually in here and that's what he blames for all the problems that we're having pretty much is it's it's through experience that we go ahead and This is before chapter one, but in the introduction that this is one of the

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I think one of the best quotes in the entire book but when he says Man is constantly being assured today that he has more power than ever before in history

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But his daily experience is one of powerlessness Yeah, you know so you you kind of have this that one really is

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You kind of I mean we've got Millennials as Millennials I guess we've been raised with this idea this cultural idea that You know, the answers are within yourself and then you you know, you get into your 20s and 30s

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You start to have kids you realize you actually know nothing and And that's that's when the powerlessness really sets in and so what do you see you see like a mass collapse?

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He kind of gets into that when he talks about like It's a little later, but when he talks about kind of mass anxiety

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Of think of a feeling like you have the answers are found Within you but in chapter one when he's talking about obscenity.

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He says That If you take the the idea that history is moving in the same like in the direction of progress like it's just in this endless march towards progress and then if you combine that with the

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The failure of obscenity that there really isn't anything obscene then you get I think it's yeah

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I have it here. Then you get a virtue of desecration and It's just strange that he wrote that in the 40s because the late 40s because when you think of his time period you tend to Think of the idyllic of that being the idyllic time in history.

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That's the most wholesome time that's the time that you know, we wish we could go back to and I would still in many ways

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I would still hold to that because There would be a lot of present compared to the present, but He's seeing this kind of start to play out and now we live in that Reality and you know that that's the nature.

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I mean, I'm a teacher. I work in school So I'm kind of I'm very familiar with the mass social

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Implications of you know desecration. So the question I have a little one now the question I have is like okay, so how am

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I how exactly am I supposed to raise this child in the midst of a culture that Holds desiccant desecration

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You know Yeah, I think what you're saying is That it's a worse moral evil to limit someone to put up a barrier and say you can't express yourself your authentic self inside of you then that's what people or I don't know how to how to really phrase it, but that that That the experience they have that makes them think that they need to do something sexual or to do something whatever violent

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It's it's a worse moral evil to put the barrier up and say you can't do that Then to do it like whereas I think at Weaver's time

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It's funny because we what you just said that society would have wanted that was the

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Hays Code I mean, they were trying to limit what Holly was was putting out It reads like I know they're trying to live they're trying to direct it toward it would not be something obscene

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Destroying the values of the culture so it was trying to put some guidelines in there because they had

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Lost their way. He actually has a really good quote. I think on what you're talking about here page 24 Top the page today over the entire world there are dangerous signs that culture as such as mark for attack because of its formal requirements down the way of expression of the natural man

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So what he's really getting at there though, he's not saying that way because he's not theological he's philosophical it's this is the the sin nature of man and The Hays Code and things like that we're trying to well defining obscenity

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You can't put out pornography all those things. We're trying to keep this expression of Natural man sinful bent to whatever he wants and thinks it's better For him with some adult guidance is that no, it's not this stuff is dangerous to you this is this is destroy you and Frankly the under the

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Hays Codes the movies were a lot better if you look at the the way they could create

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Ideas without having to be obscene and showing what doesn't need to be seen right me

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John Doe It's a wonderful life the oxbow incident the searchers Mr.

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Smith goes to Washington Yeah, Frank Frank Capra stuff. He he says this on page 26 right after the quote you mentioned

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Making a virtue of desecration He says in the 19th century This change came visibly over the world bringing expressions of concern from people who had been brought up in the tradition of proper sentiment

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Propriety like other old -fashioned anchorages was abandoned because it inhibited something

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So and he says proud of its shamelessness the new journalism served up in swaggering style matter which

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Hero for had been veiled indecent and I can't even say that word Tacit ternary ternity

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I think tacit ternity so it almost reads like Romans 1 he's saying that people were proud of their what they should have been shameful of and and he

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He roots it though in something I think we're not used to rooting it in as people who just grew up in the church and if that's

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I'm talking about the evangelical Church in America if all they're ever exposed to is is that teaching and they haven't been exposed to let's say a wider range of philosophy and I think there's a simple explanation

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That's right that we all have which is that men love evil right and that that could easily explain all this

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But the very mechanism or the justification man's using to promote this evil even without knowing that he's doing this perhaps is

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Is fascinating to watch play out over centuries, and that's what weaver gives us is this time frame does so Chapter 2 he gets into hierarchy distinction and hierarchy and to me this chapter 2 is

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This is in every chapter really this point because he's always coming back to hierarchy And how we've abandoned that to our own peril.

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He argues that Let me pull this up for everyone to see everyone can see this he argues that the elimination of Distinctions in the name of justice produces a society of consumers reduced to their economic interest

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This in turn reduces the role of the state to promoting economic activity pragmatism serving comfort just becomes the highest moral

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Justification and the result is the elimination of public trust and loyalty weaver writes people do not know what to expect of one another

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Leaders will not lead and servants will not serve this creates opportunities for resentment

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Weaver teaches that fraternity and aristocracy are necessary for social harmony if you don't have those you don't have harmony

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Equality is not enough in other words. He said today. He says this aristocracy is sought through education

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So ed they don't they say they're for equality, but education is the let the instrument that Gives us a new elite so if you can pay all this money and go into debt and then get you know go to the

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Ivy Leagues and get into the group of people who are also educated you can that's how you transcend and It's no longer though education focused on perfecting man as a spiritual being but preparing him to live successfully

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And this produces an elite class who failed to develop the era aristocratic virtues that used to exist

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Weaver again argues that people must regain a metaphysic that expresses purpose beyond the consumption of economic man

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This will ensure the possibility of Liberty in the hope of personal Improvement so a lot to unpack in this chapter.

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I was gonna ask you David first though because there's so much about education What did you think because I think it's on page?

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45 he's got this whole description of what modern schools are like and Do you know where I'm talking about?

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He says let's see if I can find the exact he says they've built new

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I'll start early Americans certainly cannot be reproached for failing to invest adequately in the hope that education would prove a redemption

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They have built numberless high schools lavish and equipment only to see them under the prevailing schemes of values

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Turned into social centers and institutions for improving the personality where teachers living in fear of constituents

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Dare not enforce scholarship They have built colleges on an equal scale only to see them turned into playgrounds for grown -up children or centers of vocationalism and professionalism

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Finally they have seen pragmatists as if in peculiar spite against the very idea of hierarchy

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Endeavoring to turn classes into democratic forums where the teacher is only a moderator and no one offends by presuming to speak with superior knowledge

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That's 1948 You know, how could he possibly have seen this at that point when you're juxtaposing it with with today, but I think he hits the nail on the head when he you know a little bit earlier in the chapter kind of talks about the

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The replacement of Metaphysical reality of a you know, a sort of a grander vision of the purpose of life

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And we're gonna replace that with education, you know Education is a and it's not just replacing it with education

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It's replacing it with mass education because you know, I mean I were I live in Tennessee now I work in Tennessee There's a lot of differences.

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There's a lot of cultural differences but yet when you go into the school, there are a lot of Similarities and most things, you know, even in like in my particular field

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All you do is is you just replace some acronyms, you know So like in New York, my field is called

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ENL but in Tennessee, it's called ELL. That's pretty much it Other than that, it pretty much follows the same uniform Plan and It's it's it's failed it's it's it's it's a complete failure not not on an individual level

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I don't I wouldn't say that at all There's lots of great teachers and I'd like to think that I'm a decent teacher and I can make somewhat of a difference but if you look at the whole thing in mass that and the failure is two -part one is it's been a failure of actually imparting useful knowledge to Two generations that are coming up.

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It's and that's that's really the disease of Of making everything about identity personal identity

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I think the word he uses later is egotism like being egotists, but sort of training that into Generations that come up and then the other the other failure would just be because of the lack of any reality beyond You know, we all come in here and we're gonna sort of check our

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You know our metaphysical realities at the door. So it doesn't matter. We're all just democratic We're all just gonna be you know, we're gonna agree that we don't agree on those things, but we're gonna

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Where we have this one goal that we're all going to move toward it's it's education. What does that mean? What what? Does that mean anything?

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Education towards what and it goes back to what he calls in the introduction the wig theory of history That you are all moving in a direction of progress, but nobody knows what progress is

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Nobody can define where the the final destination is and when you don't have that you have nothing you have basically

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Just a crumbling, you know a train that the wheels are slowly rusting and falling apart. It's gonna eventually it's gonna

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Just run off the rails that you might argue it already has But he says progress basically justifies everything in the 40s and nothing's really changed in that regard

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We still we don't maybe use the word progress as much but that notion is still there that every innovation that the left wants to foist upon society is justified because This is how we get ahead.

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This is the You know, sometimes progress is used or they'll just say this is because we are moving towards greater equity diversity inclusion so Democracy is another one right?

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No, no one can really tell you exactly These words are just kind of weaponized and used but they're not

34:54

They're not defined not precisely at least so I'd be curious dad what you think because you you've been in ministry for over 30 years you've watched people get married and you know go through counseling situations and just you've seen the changes that have happened and Weaver when he talks about how people do not know what to expect of one another.

35:19

I'm thinking it's not just bosses and employees it's

35:25

Women and men, you know, how do you go from I like you to I'm going to marry you like that there's so much confusion about that because all the standards that once existed that organized and facilitated that kind of relationship are gone and So people there's a lot of insecurity

35:43

I think because of this there's a lot of people are afraid to go on dates They're afraid to go in in social situations.

35:50

They don't know how to because there's no Propriety there's no courtliness. I guess there's you know, they don't even know to open doors for women and that kind of thing

35:59

So, what do you think of that? Yeah, don't ask a preacher those kind of questions you want to keep this short

36:12

Thing is several things in there One of the things that I'm gonna step one step back here He runs through this

36:18

I think that fits in this is the materialistic idea of what progress is as long as you're gaining more and There's more technology and all that that's part of what progress is and therefore that's superior and therefore

36:29

Education is to train you to be able to be the cog in the corporate wheels so you can make a lot of money

36:35

Rather than training you to understand what life is about so that you can make wise decisions So as a broad education or at least that used to be

36:43

So you understand the world God has made and be able to function and think properly towards things and that then

36:50

Definitely figures into what you're just talking about is how to males and females even Relate to each other when it comes to dating and then thinking about marriage

36:59

They don't have any idea anymore because they don't know what marriage is about We've become a sexualized society thinking that it's just about Having some fun or something than realizing there's actually a purpose that God has for it and your marriage is about children and a stability of a family to raise children in the nurse or an admonition

37:19

Lord of what Their purpose of existence is in glorifying him That there are guides lines that he's given to us as well as command specific ones on how to treat one another

37:32

So when you're looking at I Think the confusion you're talking about it exists today.

37:37

Weaver seems to have had a be pre -essence pre -essence Crescent. Yeah, I can't say the word either very prescient toward What is in the commenting and it includes all those things this?

37:53

Distinction about who you are and a hierarchy within it We Destroyed it and so the men have no idea how to treat a woman

38:03

Because there's one side of society that's saying it's all about You know get her to go to bed with you and the other side is don't you dare treat her as a sex object?

38:11

And don't you dare say anything that might say that she's a weaker vessel is first Peter does

38:18

Don't say anything like that because you're going to destroy you So the guy is left. He doesn't know what to do.

38:23

So he does nothing. Yeah So I'm not going to get married and marriage rates you know average age of first marriage keeps going up because the guy doesn't know what to do and the woman's complaining because when she

38:35

Gets the guy Finally, he's just a big boy and he doesn't know what it means to be a man because we no longer define those things right, we have a society that is degenerated the point that we're so against a

38:48

Established hierarchy that actually originates from God and it would be expressed in societies in History and in other nations in different ways but there is a hierarchy that God has created and man is rejecting that and so everybody's supposed to be equal, but yet They're not equal and you see this everywhere because in evangelicalism

39:07

This is so prevalent when the role of the pastor even gets reduced to like I'm just call me

39:13

Bob or something and I'm your buddy and There's no respect that comes with that office and not that you don't want to respect where you're just bullying people obviously some people can use that and some people associate that with hierarchy and we were actually talks about that later how

39:28

This is going to the modernity and the rejection of these absolutes will end up with a bunch of bullies

39:34

Basically, and then people think that's what hierarchy is and no there's there's a proper hierarchy.

39:40

It used to exist I think of a book I like to read by Washington Irving old Christmas or even people who you know

39:46

Watched out in Abbey same thing It's like there there were stations in life that people held and they knew how to treat others based upon their role

39:54

And so they were all working towards this common end Where whereas now it's people want to the everything else to work for them and their benefit and it's not fair that there's any you know people that are over others or we should all be kind of flat -lined and And so I don't know

40:12

I just I see this everywhere and I see the church evangelical church in particular attacking this concept of hierarchy

40:19

Themselves and they like to dance around the edge and say well, you know Paul says women can't be preacher but uh didn't say that she can't be the head of our deacon board or something

40:27

Like it's it's crazy They fail to see what we were saying is that there's there's a design behind all this and if you fail to recognize

40:38

The principles that tie everything together and categorize everything and create these boundaries then

40:43

You will just be lost at sea and that's what I think young men are that's where they are and they're the worst in a way in the worst position because They're told basically that they're terrible for being men and at the same time, you know, they they're they're told by others that they need to step it up and be a man and be self -sufficient and somehow navigate this world where they're supposed to find a wife supposed to find a job supposed to live and No one's reaching out to well in some circumstances tell them how to do it so anyway,

41:19

I I just think So many examples came to my mind that I couldn't figure out how would we were in 1940s see the social breakdown, but he did

41:27

He did and I think there was a reason for it because after 19 Well after World War you saw somebody can start telling

41:34

World War one after World War two you have women go to work The men are out fighting the war.

41:39

The women are at work They're no longer at home the war ends and after World War one the women went back home

41:45

After World War two the women stayed in the workforce because we're in progress toward hey, I can make more money

41:50

This is good. I've had my independence now for you know, four years five years and I don't necessarily need the man

41:59

To provide everything and so there was More direction so there were some clues going this direction, but he still

42:08

You know, I see things from a theological standpoint He sees from the philosophical and it really is interesting reading him to see how his philosophical basis

42:16

Which actually still is grounded in theology Could see what was coming as he's just watching in society and this was definitely one of them this

42:27

Absolute hierarchy. He ends up talking about a lot about aristocracy and Those people who are in those positions were trained to be able to handle responsibilities

42:38

That were going to be under them. They had to think differently. It wasn't a it's all about me

42:44

I mean certainly their exceptions are just selfish people But overall they were trained to understand that they had people they had to be responsible for And had to watch out for them and so it was other centered not self -centered yet those under them understood that the success of the whole was going to be because they were part of something greater than themselves and That's being lost other than I you know, you started to talk about education the specialist.

43:13

He's going to get into that later, too You know, we all kowtow to whoever the specialist supposed to be but especially doesn't know what he's talking about because he can't relate it

43:21

Yeah to the other areas of life and that's part of this hierarchy thing The hierarchy that used to exist was because the person who was in that position actually had a greater broader understanding

43:34

Of everything. I think he calls its centrotism or something like that He understood what was there?

43:41

Whereas we become so specialized. We don't know where we fit So there is no hierarchy except in your one little

43:49

Specialized thing and you think that's everything about life and it's not so It just cascades into everything.

43:56

And so you're right what you said about young men now is they're completely lost They have no idea where they're supposed to fit what they're supposed to do.

44:04

Yeah What does it mean to be a man if they strive toward manliness? They're attacked if they

44:10

Don't do you know other things and they're attacked for that and so they stand over their hands or pockets knowing what to do

44:17

Well, it's ironic because they can they can go into the video game world and a lot of these video games Will implement some kind of a structure in this fanciful world

44:25

So they're it like my wife and I were watching Lord of the Rings last night and I had the same thought as I it's so funny that this is popular because this is a world of of lines of There's there's nobility

44:40

There there's all kinds of different kinds of people that have different places and strengths and weaknesses and they have to form this fellowship

44:47

To destroy a ring and the only way they can do it is working together because they're all different and there's no leveling

44:54

Egalitarian and I think the end of it is, you know, a guy becomes a king the man the Aragon becomes a king

44:59

This is all fantasy But if we were to take some of those principles to apply to our own world, we would be bigots immediately and But yet in fantasy, we're still allowed to enjoy those things

45:12

And so isn't it ironic that so many men play video games fantasy games games about if you think about it

45:18

There's really there's really three acceptable ways of being a man in our day and age You can drink beer

45:25

You can watch sports or play sports if you're a little bit more aggressive and you can play video games

45:31

Those are those are the acceptable forms of being a man and I don't know This is probably a good segue in the chapter three because that's exactly what he's talking about here but when he traces the

45:41

I feel like I got the most out of chapter three when he traces He says in the

45:46

Middle Ages the ideal man he calls the philosophic doctor, so There's a lot of different people you could think about but I actually kind of thought about Martin Luther even though he's he's sort of towards the end of the

45:59

Middle Ages Martin Luther has something to say about everything, but he's also a man of action So he's you know, he obviously is kind of influential and starting a movement, but he's also he's widely read

46:11

He's widely what he writes widely. He's a debater. He debates people in person and He's he's he's a varied man.

46:20

He's he's more he's you can't boil him down to just one thing as opposed to a specialization

46:26

Applied to to the man, right? You have your one job and then when you come home the way to express your manliness is man

46:33

You can have a you can have a six -pack and you can watch the game and that's that's what it means to be a man

46:38

You know and you're also kind of dumb but it's funny and that's basically what it means to me man And that's such a juxtaposition of really what an ideal man was

46:46

He says Milton's ideal of the educated man who is ready to perform all duties both public and private of peace and of war so In the past the

46:58

I the ideal man is it basically the gen the gentleman warrior, right? So you are You know, you're talking about Lord of the

47:04

Rings, which you're kind of going back to the days of nights. That's I guess the the aesthetic But you are you are you're skilled in combat, you know

47:14

You know how to organize men To achieve a goal, but then you're also

47:19

You're also kind of meek, you know, you are you're you're kind and gentle to your wife and with your children

47:25

So you have these simultaneous the simultaneous natures that God gave you to be like the nurturer and provider

47:31

But you're also a warrior. You're ready to go you know, you're ready to go to battle as soon as the threat arises and to me this is basically the this is how

47:42

Applying it personally. This is the alienation that men feel in the evangelical world and in the conservative world because and I think that's why this book is worth reading in a way because it kind of it kind of underpins those

48:00

Those that the lack of You know the presentation of what it really means to be a man in a evangelical world.

48:06

You kind of get that You know drink beer and watch sports and that's it

48:11

That's that's what it means to be a man and then the conservative world like the academic conservative world of today It's really like well, you know

48:18

We're capitalists and you have your special job and you fit into the economy and it's free market That's kind of it and it doesn't really go

48:24

Beyond that but I think weavers kind of showing that there there there was and there is a

48:31

There is a better way of being a man. That is actually more fulfilling. You know some of that I think you could easily tie in to the southern agrarian idea of What life really is about and agrarians understood it.

48:44

It's more about living life in God's world and understanding and enjoying it and Being grateful for it and having a broad knowledge in many things rather than what we've ended up with in in cities and Where you're a cog in a corporate wheel and it's just I go to work

49:05

I do this one little thing there and I go home and then what am I experiencing? You know, I can experience by watching the idiot box on you know

49:13

Television or something like that rather than actually going out next God's creations join something there.

49:20

There's there is definitely a tie that he has into these Southern agrarians and it starts showing up in all these kinds of things.

49:28

He understood what life is about. You know, sort of You know, we're talking about being a man or something. He understood it because it was

49:35

Part of you name his own upbringing in the South Louisville, Kentucky, wasn't it?

49:41

Yeah. Well you North Carolina and then Louisville, North Carolina, Louisville, Kentucky and I guess being brought up by a

49:48

Mississippian myself and and the things he instilled in me, which I tried instilling to you were against that kind of I guess fragmentation that goes into it's this

50:05

There is a hierarchy and it ultimately goes back to God and I'm gonna be under him. I That it has to be there.

50:12

It can't be Defined by a society that doesn't even know what it exists for anymore.

50:17

Other than we're just gonna make more wealth and Those who have more wealth will make more wealth and those who don't have it though.

50:26

Yeah want it and well, you know There's a small town.

50:31

I mean you do see this expressed in some of the movies David mentioned earlier from Frank Capra there there's a

50:38

Sense in which You know who your family is They've gone back generations.

50:43

They have an investment in the land so you have a tie to the lands people know who you are not just because of your life, but also the lives of others who sacrifice to give you your life and and vice versa, so, you know them in relation to their the what their contributions to the community and over the span of generations and So when it comes time to choose a leader, even if it's not a formal choosing in a political setting but actually a

51:13

Simply just who do we respect? You're not looking for the person that has the biggest bank account necessarily

51:21

That could mean that they're a wise steward of their money, but it may not be They could be the city person who moved in it was no tie to the land

51:27

It doesn't want to talk to anyone that they're not getting respect because they have money It's not because you have the highest level of education

51:34

Even though there's some respect that can come with that if you worked hard to get there and gain some good knowledge it's more the investment that you've put in over the long haul and That's the kind of world

51:45

Weaver. I think fell in love with and that's what got him out of socialism was he he realized there was this decadence to the

51:52

The world that he lived in that was just reduced everyone to an economic consumer At least that's what he when we get to the stereoptagon.

51:59

We'll talk about it he felt like That there needed to be an alternative to this and so when he was young he turned to socialism as that was going to be

52:06

The thing but then he realized that that that created that that was actually a byproduct of the same thing like a bourgeois

52:13

Capitalism and socialism both reduced man to an economic These are his terms

52:19

Consumer and and he wanted it's it's ideology. It's narrow and he saw man is so much wider

52:26

So in the chapter 3 which is what we've been talking about He argues that rejecting transcendentals destroys the possibility of wisdom and traps people in the present

52:33

Man narrows his focus from pursuing truth to pursuing facts this destroys the outmoded hierarchy that once honored the philosopher and then the gentleman by Replacing it with one that comprises itself of specialists on the he called he says that's on the borderline of psychosis

52:50

And I have a picture of Anthony Fauci everyone can Put it up here because I'm like, that's the epitome of it.

52:57

It's that that's what we all did in 2020 We well, he's a specialist. You can't question him But This metric prohibits value judgments this in turn emasculates men through multiculturalism.

53:09

It's funny He he predicted the political correctness. We're dealing with he said you can't criticize anyone from another culture That encourages emotional instability in urban living where workers are confined to small tasks

53:20

Creates a small group of elites who manage a mass of workers and leads to moral horrors and he talks about this with in relation to what we did with the

53:29

Manhattan Project and what the Nazis did in just being Well, I'm part of like the moral accountability doesn't apply to me

53:36

If I'm a low -level worker, it only applies to the person at the top because they're the specialist They're like the prophets from on high who tell us what to do

53:44

And so he says his conclusion is wisdom does not lie on the periphery Instead we need to get back to revering the philosophers over the specialists and and I should just say real quick He doesn't mean philosophers like go to your local college and find the philosophy department.

53:57

He means something different. He means We would think of it today more as the Renaissance man kind of idea.

54:04

So someone who Is wise wisdom is what he's talking about the person who would him, you know

54:09

Be described as a Solomon Solomon would be the epitome of this the philosopher King. So Anyway, that's that's what he argues and Let's see.

54:19

I have questions written down for all these I've been ignoring it, but how would this impact? Hiring Who we

54:27

I don't even know what I wrote here scribbles. How do we this impact? hiring and who we trust so I think what

54:35

I'm trying to say there is When you're hiring for a company today They look for certain things.

54:42

They make a lot of short -term decisions. I've noticed just in my experience and They they're not hiring.

54:48

They don't have a metric based upon someone's in character Responsibility. It's like what level of education did you get to right?

54:56

And and maybe what experience did you have at a previous job, but that's it and Character means so much more nurturing those eternal qualities is going to make you a better worker and so Would you hire the specialist right or would you rather hire the person who can think for themselves?

55:18

and So maybe we could get the discussion started with that. Who would you are we talking about my job or well, it's not

55:24

Yeah, I know. It's I'm at every job, right? That's what he's if I had somebody to hire I probably hired a specialist because I don't want somebody

55:30

You know, I just want them to follow the bureaucratic rules. You're ruining my Your that's what he lives in, you know, you have the specialist

55:41

The idiot who can't think out of the narrow box that well, I would never hire the specialist

55:46

No, absolutely not. I would you'd want to know that somebody I so can't if I can just really quick I mean and this is not a knock.

55:53

I have a lot of friends who do this for a living and they're you know Smarter than me and you know are gonna would make way more money, but I'm coding.

56:03

All right, so coding is Kind of the what's the saying learn to code?

56:09

Yeah. Yeah, so coding is, you know You sit at your computer and you're kind of figuring puzzles out and writing

56:16

Software language and stuff right and you can get paid a lot to do this And you can just be at home doing it and that's you know, really cool for a lot of people

56:24

I think it's in chapter four. He kind of gets into this but he talks about how

56:30

There's been a shift from In work, right, so if you're just working for the

56:39

For the consumption of whatever it is that you're making I think the example uses as a chair like if you're just if you're making the chair for somebody to consume the chair to use it, then

56:49

You there is there's no there's no hierarchical higher I teach

56:55

English. We're having a lot of hard times. You're pronouncing stuff. Yeah, I can say in Spanish better There's no

57:03

That there's no hierarchical aspect in Your your work, right? So that's

57:10

That would be juxtaposed to You're putting excellence into the particular thing that you're doing you're you're doing it because you actually have a higher you know, you have a higher goal right and You know, it relates to the scripture do everything hardly as the

57:26

Lord and not for men but We kind of you know I always think of the like all those the pictures you'll see on social media of you know churches today versus you know

57:41

Renaissance churches and stuff and the way that this is kind of outflowed in architecture and Different mediums to where like the work is is just for whoever's gonna come and consume it

57:51

All right, but then work is sort of gotten boiled down to you know, it's not even sounding physical tangible anymore

57:57

It's you're just doing a task on a computer for somebody to and even that now is gonna be probably taken over about by AI A lot of that work.

58:07

And so then we're left with just the question. What is work? What is it for? What's the point? What's the purpose and you get back to these?

58:16

Why we're doing what we're doing to begin with You do remember what Joshua did to AI I'm sorry, is that the illogical joke

58:29

Yeah, I'm sorry There are places for a specialist but the specialist doesn't understand the general things behind it

58:40

They become foolish and he does point that out. They become so specialized in something. You don't understand how it fits together and So you end up with real problems and we certainly see that in our day and age to a huge degree

58:55

We've He taught, you know the philosophy doctor that's not an equivalent to the

59:01

PhD of today there was someone who was trained in a lot of different areas and could

59:08

To help you transition to see how it fit into what you know, he was for interest in metaphysical

59:14

It would be the theologians theologians as well We now have specialists that don't understand what got them to that specialty

59:24

Certainly you wanted a specialist if you have a particular disease you want to talk to someone who knows something about that disease and How to treat it properly and what's known about and all that that's helpful

59:35

But the specialist never the going to be the one that actually got you to finally, you know to move you toward that diagnosis

59:41

That's going to be the general practitioner Who has a wide array of knowledge and can point you the direction you need to go

59:48

And that might be a good analogy of some of the stuff he's talking about here Is that we if as society and he's looking for seeing where this is going to go.

59:58

We're now living what he was foreseeing you have all these specialists who get a high degree of attention or Weight in their argument because they have whatever degree or their specialists in this but as you point what dr

01:00:14

Fauci supposed to be this specialist, but the man was a fool He had no understanding of what he was doing how to get economics then you find out he's a liar

01:00:23

He admits it you find out it really comes back down to him and his ego and yet he's accorded all this weight in his

01:00:34

Opinions because of his position and no it was the common doctor who was fighting kovat and helping people to live and not losing patients and I think that's a probably good analogy for where he was weavers actually looking to this is where we're gonna go.

01:00:50

We're in it I think that's why you mentioned Fauci earlier Jonathan. Is that this is a pity of you the guy that Demonstrates the foolishness of our society

01:01:00

Who would I hire? It depends on what it's doing it for a church. I'd always want the generalist

01:01:05

Yeah, I don't want a guy who's so good at preaching He doesn't know how to pastor doesn't how to deal with people doesn't know how to counsel them or comfort them

01:01:13

You know, okay. He's a pulpit here. He's an orator wonderful, but that's not what

01:01:18

God calls to do he's called pastors be pastors teachers to equip the the church for the minute, you know, the

01:01:25

Saints for the work of the ministry not just be orator and so he can gain a lot of Followers on the media or something it but that starts becoming what we end up doing

01:01:38

Even in something like ministry if you have someone who's building a house Yeah, you appreciate that there's somebody who's really good at plumbing and you have a plumber but the plumber better know something about the rest of the structure the

01:01:49

House reason I start cutting through Supporting Studs in order to put his pipe in to collapse the house so They have to have a general knowledge to it

01:02:01

Weaver makes a good case for that of the importance of that and what the danger is Is that the direction we're going in that we are now in?

01:02:10

Yeah, no, he is very prophetic in that respect I thought we were going to get through probably six chapters, but we've only gone through three so far and I think

01:02:23

I think we're gonna stop it there and and Then we can we can talk about what we've already talked about some more.

01:02:30

But since there's nine chapters, maybe I'll have to do three episodes or something

01:02:37

We have 88 people streaming right now, I want to open it up for and by the way You if you need to go doubt or David, it's totally fine

01:02:46

I'm gonna open it up though for people who are patrons right now if they have a question or if they have a

01:02:52

Comment about this and we'll just give each one of them Just add this really quick. Go ahead.

01:02:58

What what we have talked about so far We've only scratched the surface of what this guy has said. I know I would

01:03:03

I do highly recommend the book There are weaknesses in it you know and we could point those out but If you want to kind of understand where we are a society

01:03:14

This is a very good book to read and his last chapters though I had to admit are a little confusing and I have to reread them again to understand kind of what he was really talking about He gives some very good things about what how do we get back to where we need to be?

01:03:31

So Again I thank you for recommending the book to me and I've enjoyed reading it. Well, we'll do more of this.

01:03:37

You're welcome Lord willing when When I find some other books In fact, there's a number of them already thinking of but I want to introduce some good books to people

01:03:47

Because we get so much junk out there and I've noticed too a lot of Christians tend to be insular in their

01:03:54

Whatever not even denomination. It's like the evangelical guild I guess and we have the the books that life way and You know sees other big publishers produce and I want to just give you some some really good books that will

01:04:07

That aren't you know cheap. They're not fluffy. They're not shallow, they're deep and They're rich and they'll change the way that you even think about things for the better And I think

01:04:20

Richard Weaver's books are like that ideas of consequences Being one of them. All right.

01:04:26

Well, let's um Let's transition really really really quick. Yeah, just before before we go to the two questions just as like a personal plug for this book this book like revolutionized my own understanding of kind of where I stood within like conservatism and Where where I was going like politically because I realized that something was missing something was wrong with Kind of I guess not what

01:04:53

I had been taught at home Dad but What I'd kind of where I'd rather see where a lot of the sources that I kind of ended up.

01:05:01

Yeah getting like how they were in affecting me and impacting me and that there was more so one of the one of the biggest reasons for reading it is if you feel like This there's something's off something's wrong.

01:05:15

Like I this is very empty, you know, whatever Listening to talk radio or like reading the fluffy evangelical books.

01:05:22

It's a good place This is a good book to start to start identifying like where? Where did where is this wrong?

01:05:28

Where do we go wrong? What's missing from this picture? And I think it's helpful in that way Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

01:05:33

All right. Well, let's transition since it's already 924 here Barbara Barbara Assebry, I'm hoping

01:05:40

I'm pronouncing that name, right? I'm just giving you a little bit of a heads up before I press admit here

01:05:46

There's a number of people in the queue here. So hopefully we can I'll stay here as long as I need to but This is for patrons and again, we're gonna still live stream but for the patrons who want to come on All right.

01:05:57

I'm admitting Barbara now and seeing what she has to say You know

01:06:04

Barbara Barbara Oh Barbara turn off your live stream while we're talking here We'll see if she comes back and give her a minute here.

01:06:12

But Yeah, one of the things you were just talking about That you feel like disconnected or isolated

01:06:20

The way I phrase that is I felt like there was no one Representing me like I couldn't find a voice hardly anywhere even in political conservatism that represented my interests and I want to defend

01:06:33

The things that matter to me. That's I think what we all want We all there's things that matter to us and they're not at all abstractions

01:06:40

There's ways of life that we live in and we think they're worthy of defending and it even comes down to cuisines

01:06:46

Right, it comes the lobster fisherman in Maine, right? Is he upset that the windmills are gonna come in and ruin his lobster fishing?

01:06:52

Yeah, but it's not just because it's an economic thing of like well, I'm not gonna be able to make money or something

01:06:58

It's it's cultural. I'm a lobster fisherman. I've been that for My parents were lobster fishermen.

01:07:05

This is our way of life. You're not destroying my means of income. You're destroying my entire

01:07:11

Identity not entire but you know a big part of it and We see in the

01:07:16

Old Testament. I think safeguards for this kind of thing. That's why the land goes back to the Tribes right after 70 years of Jubilee It's it's um,

01:07:26

I don't know. It's just there's an assumption that People take pride in their work the craftsmen who went to the temple, right?

01:07:37

They weren't just doing it because they're getting a paycheck they're doing it because this is my purpose in life

01:07:42

Don't take away my purpose and and that's what Weaver gives us and that's what a lot of modern conservative

01:07:49

Pundits, unfortunately don't and especially the more libertarian minded ones Alright, we'll see

01:07:54

Barbara you there See if I can I'm asking to unmute here Barbara all right, we're gonna

01:08:06

I'm gonna see if Maybe we can have someone else come in. I'm sorry Barbara.

01:08:11

I'm not Hearing you. All right, we're gonna go to Mike I think

01:08:22

Mike so get ready Mike at the microphone Mike, can you hear me?

01:08:28

All right. We'll wait a second with him and See if he comes on But anyway other thoughts that you've had is we've gone through this these first three chapters of Hierarchy Education we talked about the roles of men and women to some extent

01:08:51

Well, maybe one caution he He speaks it quite a bit against science and I just say it's the caution is this he's actually speaking against scientism the philosophical aspect of science

01:09:04

Proper understanding of science does increase your overall knowledge But you still have the same problem you become just specialized in one

01:09:11

Position and don't understand how all the different sciences work together. You're probably gonna have a trouble That was just one thing.

01:09:18

I kept seeing throughout it. He is using the one term, but what he's really talking about is the the sign scientism the philosophy behind a

01:09:28

Materialism rather than sciences the Christians were pursuing at the founders of many fields of science of understanding

01:09:35

God and His creation that we may Fit in with his creation better Because we are stewards of it

01:09:44

Mike can you hear me? Are you there? I don't hear Mike Maybe I'm gonna have to come up with a better software

01:09:52

I'm using zoom for this which it's what I'm used to but some people recommend stream yard and other services and Maybe that's what

01:09:59

I'm gonna have to do All right, well Evan Evan get ready because I'm coming to you next

01:10:09

Well other other things that weaver You know mentions and other works have been profound to me

01:10:17

Evan. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Oh we have it does work. All right.

01:10:22

Let me try and silence you guys Well, he means on the

01:10:28

YouTube Stream and you know Barbara just mentioned in the chat that she goes

01:10:33

I am here So I don't Barbara. I'm sorry. If you want to come back in the waiting room, we can try again, but So Evan what's on your mind?

01:10:41

So, well, first of all, thank you guys so much for doing this Really enjoy it. This is a book that I very much appreciate

01:10:50

I guess one of the one of the big takeaways that I had when I read this book was Weaver talks a lot about what he calls universals and what he means by that is these

01:11:03

Transcendentals that exist outside of human experience right that are like universally true that Like our aspects of God's character, for example that are supposed to be controlling our worldview but what's interesting about that is a

01:11:27

Lot of the people who want to deny these universals tend to sort of universalize humanity

01:11:34

And there's there's there almost seems to be a connection there between this

01:11:42

Universalizing of humanity and refusing to acknowledge these universals that exist outside of Humanity and I haven't quite been able to put my finger on it yet But look and clearly

01:11:53

Weaver does not do that. He recognizes like you guys were saying these Hierarchies these distinctions between Human beings.

01:11:59

I don't know John if you have any thoughts about that why that might be the case. Are you saying that he people who reject these universal absolutes

01:12:10

Intangible things that he what does he call them transcendentals that they instead impose that on Humanity itself you mean that they that's a globalist instinct.

01:12:20

Okay. Yeah, so so they tend to When you reject these Things that are exterior to human beings you tend to sort of want to flatten humanity itself to make all human beings the same

01:12:33

Okay. Yeah. No, you're saying that humanity becomes an abstraction at that point, right? Yes.

01:12:38

Yeah exactly Yeah, no, I totally agree with that humanity is for the modern left and unfortunately now for even elements of the right

01:12:46

When they talk about people you can hear it even in their language they They can talk about You know world peace or something like that like Wanting to bring about some you know, what's the song that they do?

01:13:03

There's a man who imagines one of them. There's an there's the one that Michael Jackson did years ago, too That come keeps coming up.

01:13:09

We are the world. Yeah, and it's just like I mean, no, you're not You're not the world.

01:13:16

Actually, you're you're a person in a particular place. There is a particularness to this But the the way that particulars can relate to one another which we're all particulars

01:13:25

Is that there's certain things that we have in common the number one thing being the image of God for the fact that we're sinners

01:13:30

Where you need of salvation? But when it comes to like things like language and culture And lineage and you know all these very tangible things that are part of God's created order

01:13:41

We don't have those in common with each other and they create barriers and guess what they're supposed to to some extent

01:13:46

It doesn't mean barriers in a bad sense It just means like like we have borders around our country and the globalists do seem to want to reduce man down to something so abstract and basic that none of those barriers ought to exist and there should be

01:14:04

They won't tell you this because it's in the name of equality but they want to have a global hierarchy where their specialists are in charge of the whole world and and that will prevent the bigotries of nationalism and You know other local bigotries from you know, what do you guys think?

01:14:19

I mean, that's my take on it He mentions this Weaver mentions this directly in chapter 3 says since liberalism became a kind of official party line

01:14:26

We have been enjoined against saying things about races religions or national groups for after all

01:14:32

There's no categorical statement without its implication of value and values begin divisions among men

01:14:38

We must not define subsume or judge We must rather rest on the periphery and display sensibility towards the cultural expression of all lands and people and then he says this is a process of emasculation

01:14:50

So when you remove those distinctions, you've now you now a mascot you've taken away all the oomph from You know from yourself as an individual within you know a context

01:15:03

Yeah, if you can't honor your father's and your your lineage those who will come after you who will share your your type

01:15:11

Your way of life and you don't have a society because society is a communion of the living and the dead and those yet to be born right so That's a good point dad.

01:15:22

You have anything on that or no? Yeah, well, thanks

01:15:29

Evan I appreciate you that's a good point and I'll have to choose some more on that. Thank you

01:15:36

All right, I'm gonna come to Earl next I think If Earl is there

01:15:44

Earl just get ready. He's about to join us

01:15:51

Yeah, that's the globalists are probably like the specialists and globalists run together like every specialist wants to be a global elite of some kind like They don't just have loyalties or responsibilities duties to their particular context local area people marriage duties, maybe even they want to They want to sweep the forges of other people and That and they take

01:16:17

I mean I've seen this in You know Education contexts where professors tend to be in my experience the most insecure people

01:16:24

I've ever met and it's like why you have all these degrees But that's the only thing they have is this specialization and they've sacrificed all these other things sometimes to get there

01:16:33

That would normally confer identity in natural ways Earl can you hear me?

01:16:39

Yes Hey, it's good to hear from you. Good to see you. I was gonna say see you

01:16:44

You can turn on your mic if you want, but you don't have to oh Well, I'm I'm on my couch wrapped in a blanket.

01:16:51

So oh not not quite fit for I don't need any other details So yeah, just share the question

01:16:59

Well, thank you for putting this together this has been an edifying evening My question has to do with Discerning between the legitimate hierarchies within life right the the natural

01:17:13

God ordained hierarchies like parents over children, let's say and What Thomas Jefferson called the aristocracy of merit

01:17:24

Versus arbitrary purely arbitrary hierarchies such as say a hereditary monarchy, right?

01:17:30

Because anytime in a modern context if I say that hierarchy isn't bad that's immediately what the radical egalitarians run to and I Guess as I've been listening to this this dialogue with the three of you gentlemen

01:17:48

Something that stuck out to me is that character is is as important as competence

01:17:55

Hmm so you you have to have the Renaissance man you have to have the well -rounded generalist

01:18:03

But if he doesn't have the integrity or the courage to use his knowledge

01:18:12

He's not really fitted for a leadership position yeah, and that seems to me to be one of the reasons why the radical egalitarians hate people like say

01:18:26

George Washington or Robert E Lee Because they weren't they weren't just competent they they were

01:18:35

Men of great character too and there's this it seems like there's this envy of You know

01:18:42

Tennyson called it pairing the mountain to the plain to leave an equal baseness So, I guess my question is how to respond to the radical egalitarian types on You know what what qualifies someone to be at the top of a legitimate hierarchy

01:19:03

I'll keep my answer short. I mean number one. I would point out hierarchies inescapable Even the radical egalitarians have a hierarchy whether they admit it is a hierarchy or not, you know, that's up to them

01:19:13

I guess but if they're being honest They have to realize especially if they're communist types that at the top of their hierarchy are people

01:19:20

Or a government structure that includes people because there's no structure that doesn't include people People that is going to have a godlike

01:19:27

Status and so that's a hierarchy that's beyond anything that we've seen even in I would say natural aristocracies and so what they're proposing is worse in its

01:19:40

Capacity for abuse than anything that has come previous to this an all -knowing state with the capacity to implement a social credit

01:19:47

And right so, you know where I'm going So so I would say that first that's my like critique of them but second

01:19:54

I would just say that You know, I I think What we're arguing for is the fact that hierarchies do exist

01:20:02

Some of them I think you like you can't come and impose sometimes like an exact This is what it should look like because it's going to be tailored to a situation

01:20:10

Like I've been in social experiments where they did this when I was doing nam training you go into a room and they give you a task and there's like 10 people someone naturally arises to become the organizer of that task it all week is the task has to get

01:20:23

Done and not every person can be a chief You have to have a chief and Indians and if there's two chiefs they duke it out, right?

01:20:29

Or they figure out how to work together. So a hierarchy emerges even in that situation And so some hierarchies

01:20:36

I think are natural the divine right of Kings that whole idea that created the problems that led to things like I think

01:20:43

World War one and it I Mean, I'm not in favor of that I understand there are people returning to that because they're sealing the failures of democracy

01:20:54

But I mean it's gonna be there may I mean obviously Christ is going to come back. So we want

01:21:00

Something that's going to be suited for the population if it's a population that's responsible. They don't need a king if they're irresponsible

01:21:06

Right, man. They may need some something to come and limit their evil decisions. And I mean,

01:21:12

I think of the warnings that Samuel made of having a king but sometimes it is it's necessary to limit decisions so I we want in general the principle is local control that's suited for the people and their needs and the level of responsibility they have in particular areas and it's gonna look different in different fields to whether it's government or Ecclesiastical or whatever.

01:21:35

So what David or dad? What do you think? Let me tell you about the glory of the British Empire You are live

01:21:48

What do you think dad I'm a pastor. So I meet links for the first Timothy three and Titus one and saying as God has already set forth certain qualities and he's filled them out pretty clearly there

01:22:04

Even the Old Testament you have the same kind of thing is there's character qualities Even for elders the character qualities are first and the abilities come second and it's the character of the man that you need for any kind of hierarchy and that's what you always should be looking for part of the problem of our

01:22:21

Current Republic is our degeneration of our political system is that we're looking at specialists the guy who's been in politics for a long time rather than the guy who's

01:22:33

Demonstrated his character in business or you know, whatever he was then military guy or something

01:22:38

You should be looking for character in any field first and foremost for the the person is going to be in the upper echelons of Whatever organization it is whether that's

01:22:50

National government state governments local governments And a in a business, you know, if you were responsible for hiring

01:22:59

You know who's gonna be the the guy who's gonna be our girl who's running up to Lead within that organization look for the character character qualities are listed out is what we should have

01:23:13

One just one thing. I would say I mean this this isn't necessarily going to you know the promotion of a specific, you know organizational structure of society, but You know for the radical egalitarian

01:23:29

Our society is radically egalitarian and pretty much every institution promotes that idea

01:23:34

The only thing they haven't really successfully promoted is why that's good. Why is it good for people to rule?

01:23:40

Why is it good, you know voter franchise? Why is it good for everybody to you know Weaver in his other book the ethics of rhetoric one of his big points is

01:23:49

You know arguing from first principles. So the argument from first principles would just be all right.

01:23:55

Well You know the people need to decide why why is that good, you know, try it with your you know I'm a teacher.

01:24:00

So try that with your students in class and see how that works out You know, why is that the best thing?

01:24:06

Why is that a moral good and yeah work up from there, I guess Universal suffrage has not been a good idea

01:24:14

It's been bad because you get an equal weight of Influence by those who are least capable or least knowledgeable or have the the most despondent character

01:24:27

To decide how things are supposed to be compared to those who have the greatest character and abilities. It's been bad

01:24:34

Yeah, and it was a bad idea We had it right early on in the Constitution continue to expand voting rights to anybody and everybody under the

01:24:43

Sun That's been kind of based on the idea that the more people vote the more the closer you should be to what reality should be

01:24:50

And in the reality is just it enables for a greater Aspect of manipulation of for popularity, so, you know, the most popular is the one who gets in position rather than one who's actually competent in the military and history when the troops would vote to Have their leader that didn't always work out.

01:25:15

So well Sometimes not any better or worse than a politician putting him in but you need competence characters part of that Well, I am going to thank you, by the way,

01:25:28

Earl we're gonna switch to Hannah Smith now and Hannah if you hear me,

01:25:33

I'm gonna ask you to unmute. Oh, you're gonna show us your video. Thank you for doing that People don't have to do that.

01:25:41

But yeah, so can you hear me? I can yeah good to see you So yeah, what are your thoughts?

01:25:49

Oh my gosh, so many first was I my education is way lower quality than I ever

01:25:56

Because I'm reading this. I'm like, who's that? What's that? What's that word? I have the same thing. Yeah With a dictionary it was it was excellent though And I actually enjoyed how he could condense such big thoughts in just a few words so I did want to I had two questions.

01:26:16

The first one is I was just gonna preface with Kind of a short commentary. I'll try to keep it short, but At the very end where he was talking about the positive aspects of what we can do

01:26:28

The second thing he he talks about is language and in words and This paragraph stood out to me

01:26:35

He said in recognizing that words have power to define and to compel the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language

01:26:45

Which is the source of their vexation and in an attempt to rid of that quality they are looking for some neutral means which will be a

01:26:55

Non -conductor of the current called emotion and it's con commit mittent of Evaluation they are introducing into language in the course of their prescriptions exactly the same atomization

01:27:09

Which we have deplored in other fields they are trying to strip words of all meaning that show tendency or they are trying to isolate language from the numinal world by writing speech of tropes and All I could think of was when

01:27:26

I first started engaging in like the social justice conversation And I was working

01:27:31

I was working in law enforcement So when I saw a lot of this stuff coming up, you know, I would what do you mean by that?

01:27:37

and what are your thoughts and you know trying to engage in good faith with friends and You know at first it kind of started as I'll listen to our stories like no just like we just want to express our stories

01:27:49

I was like, okay great. Tell me your story and then you'd engage with the story. They say no, no, no No, I just want you to listen and then that very quickly turned into Your silence is violence

01:28:01

You need to speak up and then you speak up and participate in the conversation again which would turn into those are the wrong things to say, here's what you need to say and And then also what would happen, you know?

01:28:14

So the language was always coerced the definitions were always on their terms but then also what would happen is

01:28:20

There would be and I know you've talked about this with like TGC and some of the other evangelical

01:28:25

There's always this emphasis on we must define our terms, which can be very good and meaningful.

01:28:31

But often it's like Kind of plays into we can't understand one another unless I give you my very own specific definition to this conversation, so one of the things

01:28:45

I remember kind of Decisively trying to do when I was like, how do

01:28:50

I even respond to this conversation? Was I don't I'm tired of equivocating? I'm tired of trying to speak to their emotion and trying to like lower down the emotion so we can have a conversation

01:29:01

That's clearly just being manipulated but I actually found like over time

01:29:07

I Just lost the ability to even know how to speak directly, you know

01:29:14

It was almost like you lose that skill so My first question was just what advice do you have for people?

01:29:22

You know who are want to both Like speak without equivocating and then just confident that what they're saying is true

01:29:33

I mean obviously like that has a spiritual dimension, too But you know,

01:29:38

I think a lot of times people tend I saw this too I was joining like a lot of mom groups I was a new mom at the time and You know, there's there's this idea of well, no one can tell someone else what's true or what you can do, right?

01:29:53

It's whatever is best for yourself. So there's no common understanding So, how do we speak?

01:29:59

How do we get better skilled at speaking truth and confidence and that it is true?

01:30:07

Well, you're the English major David, oh, okay I was gonna say well, I mean I could

01:30:12

I can I would just set that up for it because I feel like that's I mean as Christians that's really where that's where we shine the most because we are rooted in Specific language.

01:30:24

So, you know, I I mean think about if you think about the implications of AI, right?

01:30:29

So now we're in a position where you know If I want to I can open a website and I can say hey write me an essay about Richard Weaver And it will produce a you know

01:30:39

Believable essay that I could submit to my college professor and then you know, they probably could get away with it at this point

01:30:46

Unless he has some software that can determine or detect that that's fake and so what what we're probably on their precipices at least what

01:30:54

I assume we would be is just chaos of learning and education because nobody will be able to verify not only whether something is original but what something means and You know, so definition

01:31:05

I your point about like your point about always beginning a conversation or an article with definition and actually

01:31:15

Doug Wilson does this a lot and I don't mean that to pick on him because I actually think he's very good at doing that but You know the fact that you know the last time someone picked on Doug Wilson on this show

01:31:29

I've gotten a lot from his stuff partially because of You know providing a lot of answer providing this modeling this because in November he doesn't do it.

01:31:39

He just says, all right We're not doing any more definitions. We're just gonna go no quarter November. So and that's the only time

01:31:45

I generally read that stuff But we you know, we're rooted in We're rooted in You know in the

01:31:53

Bible so that's that gives us a foundation that gives weavers sort of I mean that is the metaphysic

01:31:59

Because it's it's it is specific language. It's it's the only Solid rock in a stormy sea.

01:32:07

So pastor, what do you have to say about that? Seems like it's been most the time of my sermon defining words so that we can understand what is in there

01:32:20

The idea that actually I think it is a good idea to find your terms Before you you speak and even more important when you're dealing with, you know, these people are talking about make them define their terms

01:32:32

They can define what they're talking about and then don't give them any quarter on it Because you can saying is then you're being very foolish and redefining a term.

01:32:40

You don't change reality by redefining the word This is what the word means. This is what it's always meant. So, you know

01:32:47

You go on truth Is not compromised you go back to the truth you tell them the truth and then let

01:32:54

God take over from there which we can't part of the reason that we end up in trouble is

01:33:02

Let's say this a nice way The last couple weeks

01:33:09

I've talked about What Peter says about the role of women role of men and I've been pretty straightforward with it

01:33:15

But one of the things I generally find that women want to make sure the relationships.

01:33:21

Okay, so you'll You'll accept a whole lot more than a than a man will but most of our men have been emasculated

01:33:29

And so they've been taught the same thing of kind of how you're describing it is, you know, listen to my story, etc

01:33:35

Etc. And then they want to keep changing the parameters of the discussion. It's like you can't let them do that He's like this is truth and you're gonna have to deal with reality whether you like it or not

01:33:43

And here's what God has said about it. And when God has said it, that's it. This is reality. He determines it not us

01:33:50

We've been to him And I think that's true in every area of life we have to make sure that we're speaking the truth

01:33:57

We're trying to understand the truth or humility comes and trying to make sure we understand the truth correctly but then making sure we're also

01:34:06

You know holding others to account to the same thing. Don't let people redefine words, that's

01:34:13

Right, yeah, I'll leave it that point there the other thing I'm going to add from a theological standpoint

01:34:19

Satan's One of Satan's tragedies has always been to destroy the language by redefining terms

01:34:26

That's why when you look through the etymology of The return you just see so many different Changes of this over time is because it it just leaves language confusing

01:34:39

We end up we're not talking about the same thing we need to be talking about it But we end up we're not talking about the same thing because the language means something completely different that happens

01:34:49

So often theology and that's why if you're reading theological statements for like a you know true statement of faith

01:34:54

They get longer and longer and longer because we have to add more terms To define what we mean because other people have redefined it into something doesn't make any sense anymore.

01:35:04

So yeah Now what is concupiscent? No, I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna Yeah, I mean it's true though I see this all over the place that you spend more time sometimes trying to figure out how someone's defining a word and there's it's

01:35:20

Partially because I think of this destruction of language C. S. Lewis talked about it to that language is weaponized to to carry a

01:35:29

Emotion that's negative and and it's like touching an oven every time that word comes. It's like that's hot

01:35:35

I don't want to touch that and so today if you're called a racist, let's say to pick one example

01:35:41

It doesn't really mean anything. There's no actual definition It's just a nasty thing you can say that conveys a nasty emotion that no one wants to stick to them

01:35:51

And so I think one of my main thing is this is super short because this is something

01:35:57

I've had to learn over time and I still am struggling to learn it, but I Developed somewhat of a thicker skin and you know what someone calls me a racist or whatever other pejorative

01:36:07

You're you know, it's kind of like the meme Lord of the Rings meme, you know, you have no power here Sorry, like you you can call me that all day, but that doesn't actually mean anything and for you to just be

01:36:20

Bandying about nonsensical Terms, you know makes you the the one that should be embarrassed and we have to return to that somehow and the only way is people are

01:36:32

Gonna have to do it one at a time So, you know if everyone listening here just said, you know what next time

01:36:37

I'm called a racist I'm not gonna like get all Offended right away and like try to prove that I'm not, you know

01:36:44

I'm not saying don't do that and don't prove that you're not but But you have to figure out what they're saying first Like it makes no sense to go into like well, here's all my friends who are

01:36:55

Hispanic or like They have no right to just call you a name without any justification or definition if that makes sense, so This is what

01:37:06

I have a problem with a lot of political conservatives for because they do this kind of thing They're called homophobic and like they're like, oh no,

01:37:13

I have gay friends and it's like What you should ask them. What do you mean by homophobic like define if you can't define it?

01:37:21

I'm not even having a conversation with you. It's pointless, you know, so Anyway, yeah, but I hope that helped.

01:37:29

Did you have another question my last question? Go for it. I did it's super short

01:37:36

And it's just what historical hierarchies. Do you think did it? Well in terms of what Weaver's talking about?

01:37:44

And all right You know, this is like a very dangerous question here we

01:37:51

I I'll tell you what Weaver said. I mean The short answer is

01:37:59

Weaver thought the old Yeah, we were thought the Old South was idyllic and and because it carried it preserved this kind of medieval relationship that existed between the

01:38:19

The Landed gentry and you know those who work the land there was a relationship of mutual affection

01:38:25

And so Weaver's not he doesn't justify slavery or anything like that, which is why you you have to be careful in how you present you actually have to read his whole book really to figure this out the southern tradition at bay, but What he's talking about is very similar to what like Roman Catholic teaching was concerned about In like the 1850s and there were some encyclicals the

01:38:49

Pope made That where he was trying and he even used the word social justice It's one of its earliest uses and it's not what we think of today as social justice and he was just describing

01:38:58

Well, there's a relationship that exists between people who own the land the people who work the land and it's a mutual affection

01:39:04

And so their lots are tied together. They one fails. The other one fails. They need each other

01:39:10

It's a symbiotic relationship and it's it's a good thing And if that if the

01:39:15

Industrial Revolution shatters that what do what do we do? And so the Catholic Church was trying to tell the captains of industry.

01:39:22

Well, you still have a responsibility to provide for these people and and provide for their well -being you haven't just because it's a you know, there's a paycheck and it's a different kind of arrangement doesn't mean there shouldn't be mutual affection still and A lot of that's been destroyed though.

01:39:38

We don't even have hardly you have to go back to these old literature You know older literature to find out what it used to be like and there was a mutual affection

01:39:47

It's the poor didn't hate the rich. I mean, that's a novel idea so So yeah, it's hard to give me to give you a specific answer

01:39:55

I don't think there's any perfection obviously in any example I give someone's gonna try to poke a hole in it But we were thought that early

01:40:02

America Had something unique that's been lost and I think he's probably right about that.

01:40:09

So anyway All right. Well, I'm gonna move to Yeah, they do describe it and again they don't defend slavery and that's the thing that everyone thinks they're like, oh you're gonna know

01:40:22

It's that that's you gotta think you gotta take two intellectual steps back and you got to think through How this class of people who had been molded by these virtues in the sense of Responsibility how they thought and how they took their responsibility if you just assume presentism, it's like everyone was just a like like you like your boss today man of mine then then you would think that anyone in a

01:40:46

Hierarchy over you is is evil or something and it's they didn't have that view but you could go to England You could go to Europe You could

01:40:54

I mean I'm thinking in the Western tradition, I'm sure there's other places but in the Old Testament you had that Abraham Oh my goodness.

01:41:00

I mean, but hey, thank you. Hannah. Appreciate it very much All right, we're gonna go to Andrew Sorry, you've been waiting patiently

01:41:11

Andrew. Thanks for dropping in. Well, what's on your mind? Ah That's okay.

01:41:18

You can hear me. All right. Yes Yeah, that's cool, yeah, I was I'm gonna be here anyway, whether you bring me on to ask a question or not, so Yeah, thanks.

01:41:27

I I didn't read the book but I I joined tonight to hear you all give an introduction of the author in the book and It sounds fascinating.

01:41:35

I'm gonna have to pick it up and read it. Um, you you definitely wet my appetite for it um, but the question

01:41:40

I asked I think is a Pretty pretty short one or a simple one. I actually want to know if this is an over Simplification, you know you've been talking about These you know problems with like hierarchy and meaning and eschatology from a philosophical

01:41:57

Angle that Weaver took in this book and his other writings But like a lot of Christians it seems to me or maybe it's just the ones that I know

01:42:05

They wouldn't really take part in this kind of a conversation They would be lost five minutes in or they would really overwhelmed

01:42:11

And they would just maybe they would maybe even ask the pastor this call. Hey, you just simplify this and show me

01:42:17

What's the theological error what's the part of the Bible I need to shore up and know what what practice

01:42:23

Do I need to make sure I'm not overlooking that that people in Weaver's time?

01:42:28

We're overlooking and what what I keep thinking of is like there's this ministry You all probably heard of answers in Genesis or Ken Ham's ministry and they constantly go over different cultural issues

01:42:42

That we have been facing or continue to face in Western culture and they just keep simplifying it down to into that these problems are rooted in a rejection of Genesis 1 to 11 and That that the read the reason that's been rejected is largely because of the acceptance of Darwinism It can be tied back to that Do you um, do you all think that's an oversimplification or the theological angle is pretty much just right?

01:43:10

it might just be that simple that the rejection of Genesis 1 to 11 or Compromises like organizations like by logos have engaged in and other

01:43:18

Pseudo -evangelical organizations and that how that's affected the church I know I I was a part of a conservative church that They would tell you in private the elders would that they believed

01:43:28

Genesis 1 to 11 They just didn't care to bring it up very much in ministry Because it's hard to keep

01:43:36

So, I I just wanted to know what your thoughts on that were if that theological problem corresponds to the philosophical problems that Weaver brings up in this book

01:43:45

Okay, I'll take this one Go for it. It's my hobby horse, too As I was reading through Weaver's book,

01:43:56

I Found he basically is simply presenting a philosophical approach that the exact same problem

01:44:03

He doesn't define it. Well, I can see his own loss because he doesn't have a strong theological foundation

01:44:10

Is this a cultural theological foundation? That's why you know religiousness among the

01:44:18

Southerners that held sway for the culture But still what is still underlying it is this loss that he sees and he can call it transcendental

01:44:28

Transcendental transcendentals. Yeah What is transcendent Yeah, thank you the transcendentals

01:44:35

He can call it that but what's really been lost is the foundation that there is a God who's created everything

01:44:41

There's an order at this creation there's a hierarchy in this creation because there's a purpose for this creation and I just find that he's actually just making the philosophic arguments for that very same thing

01:44:52

I find AIG is very good at taking you back to the foundations when the foundations are lost

01:44:58

Everything else is going to start crumbling and that is true and it's true in theology

01:45:03

When pastors elders the churches will not take a stand on what the Bible actually says their ministries already crumbling

01:45:10

They don't even realize that if you can't stand on what God said in Genesis You've lost all basis for the rest of your interpretation.

01:45:18

You've already made Jesus Then claiming to believe things that aren't true And and you're you're compromising everything so AIG actually does a very good job in taking you back why these foundational issues are so important to cultural issues

01:45:37

Practical issues to the gospel of Christ as well. I don't find it is not an oversimplification

01:45:45

It's it is the foundation the foundations are lost or you're done

01:45:51

Yeah, weaver does go after Darwin by the way in the book In two places, but he

01:45:57

I'll just read the first one. I think is where he says The social philosophers of the 19th century found in Darwin powerful support for their thesis that human beings act always out of economic

01:46:10

Incentives and it was they who completed the abolishment Yeah abolishment of freedom of the will

01:46:17

So he's saying that what's going on in science When also took place in philosophy and And so I think he'd be critical of Darwin the thing

01:46:30

I Know what you're saying in that, you know, a lot of Christians would just they just Would want to simplify it down to give me the

01:46:38

Bible verse and what I need to do And I think what I'm trying to say the reason I'm doing this Book and while we'll do other books some might be similar some might be different but I I'm okay with this level of academic approach is because I want to call

01:46:53

Christians to a little bit of a higher standard as far as Understanding the times in which we live

01:46:58

Like there's no way I would have been able to critique or notice some of the things that I've seen I think if I didn't not just know scripture, but also know the world

01:47:06

I was living in So I'm not saying know the world as an authority, right the that's not like a final authority the scriptures my final authority

01:47:14

But I need to know how to apply it And if I don't know the world I live in it's hard to know how to apply it I have seen and I'm be very careful here because I love answers in Genesis.

01:47:23

I've been to the Ark I've been to the Creation Museum a few times very positive. I have noticed though. There are times when

01:47:29

I think they will try to Pigeonhole issues into it's a it's a

01:47:35

Genesis issue because it's so fundamental most issues are but Like for instance the issue of critical race theory is it to pick one example, you know

01:47:44

That's that's an issue that does Genesis address this it does but it's not maybe in the simplistic way that I've heard at least people influenced by Some of the creation science have framed it because and the reason is because they don't understand it most of the time

01:48:01

They don't understand what critical race theory actually is Create they misunderstand it and they think what critical race theory is is

01:48:07

Thinking some races are better than others and you can you have racial prejudice on the basis of that and they will go back to Biological evolution being wrong and then they'll knock it down with an argument that we're all made in the image of God the problem is critical race theory though is

01:48:22

Postulating the idea that there are that race itself is a social construct. It doesn't really actually exist in the in the real world

01:48:30

So what AIG ends up critiquing something they I've seen this at least I'm not saying all their articles are like this but I think

01:48:38

They want to take an issue that if they had a little bit sometimes more of a philosophical Understanding what that issue is

01:48:45

They could maybe do a better critique and I'm already regretting the way I'm phrasing this because I really I'm not trying to get down To Angie because I love

01:48:51

AIG. I think everyone should support them I hope what I'm saying is making sense. Maybe one of you can save me so that I'll save you.

01:48:58

Yeah I think all you're really saying is that I think it goes with Andrews Question, is it an oversimplification?

01:49:07

And sometimes you just wish they would add a little bit more so that they're hitting the foundation

01:49:12

But that needs to be expressed a little bit more In this case critical race theory and the philosophical aspects of what the issue really is

01:49:20

How's that? Yeah, I mean, that's basically what I'm saying. Yeah, they need to look at The the idea that God actually did separate people at Babel and did want people in certain places to have unique characteristics

01:49:34

That was part of his ordained will at least That would answer critical race theory that that particular section of Scripture more than well

01:49:41

He created us all in his image if that makes sense because you're actually applying right? so the Bible is sufficient, but not everything's in Genesis 1 through 11 because God gave us an

01:49:50

Entire Bible and it's all right Profitable so yeah,

01:49:56

David you have anything on that? I mean just just I mean you just mentioned Babel That's what I was thinking of.

01:50:02

I I think that's kind of the beauty of Christianity is that you can talk at an intellectual level.

01:50:08

That's a lot higher you can dig really really deep you can get into all sorts of nuances and you know argumentations, but You know somebody with I don't know somebody with Down syndrome

01:50:19

Somebody who is mentally challenged could understand the concept of you know

01:50:25

A bunch of people came together and said we're gonna make a tower That's gonna reach towards heaven and nothing will be impossible to us and God said no you're not

01:50:32

I'm gonna confuse your languages And it was you know, and they were dispersed across the earth and yet there seems to be a

01:50:39

I don't know what I would probably call a satanic plot to bring Babel back and You know you could fit most of the central planning and the globalism and all this stuff into that box

01:50:49

And it's as simple as that so we can get into all these nuanced discussions and everything, but at the same time Yeah, it's that simple.

01:50:54

It's Babel. Yeah. Yeah, we were fighting that So yeah, does that help

01:51:00

Andrew you got a lot more than you bargained for? Yeah Hey, I appreciate you coming on thank you and And the book is unaudible by the way if you like that kind of thing

01:51:12

I should mention that to everyone That's how I listen to it first cuz I didn't have time to sit there and read it Anyway, all right.

01:51:18

Well, we're gonna bring Mary Beth back in. Can you hear us Mary Beth? Yeah, can you hear me?

01:51:23

I can yeah. Oh, okay I'm glad it worked out. Yeah me too. I was not very

01:51:31

Technological, I'm not good as you can see neither am I? So I Was just I don't have a question or anything this has been great and I was just listening last night, too.

01:51:48

I don't know if you know of George Grant Yeah that name Parish Presbyterian Church, he's in Tennessee and He's doing this three week once a week

01:52:04

Christ and culture and last night he went into Just the history of how we got to where we are

01:52:13

I mean even a little before Darwin and they have but It's it was really great

01:52:20

And then next week he's going into you know, how we make a difference Where we are today is the body of Christ George Grant, he's got to be what 60 70s

01:52:35

Yeah, he is 67 Yeah prolific writer, especially in the 80s 90s

01:52:46

Yes. Well even now I mean he does continue to write some But yeah, he does a lot of teaching his history is great

01:52:59

He has a series on four

01:53:05

Aspects of the history. I mean for I'm sorry. I'm nervous. Oh, you're fine to talk.

01:53:12

So Yeah, so you just want to plug his cycles It'd be great to find out what

01:53:19

George Grant thinks of Richard Weaver Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah Well, if I had a better memory,

01:53:26

I wouldn't tell you it. He's probably Somebody that he would recommend reading.

01:53:32

Yeah, and last night he was recommending like amusing ourselves to death that book

01:53:44

You know So You go to his website the parish press

01:53:56

Church website People can view that watch what he did last night.

01:54:02

So that's all cool. Well, thank you I appreciate that Mary Beth. Thank you stopping by and letting us know so Yeah, that's something interesting anyone listening.

01:54:12

Go check it out. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else or is that uh,

01:54:18

No, it's just been great Yeah, I'll figure out the technology better too so we're it's a work in progress but Yeah, I wanted to do just some more positive things.

01:54:31

So I appreciate you Coming in the chat, and maybe we'll talk some more next time Sounds good.

01:54:38

Yeah. All right. I know God bless you get back in the queue Yeah Barb I don't think so.

01:54:48

That's the first one. Did she get back in the queue? I Don't yeah, I don't see her

01:54:55

James Starbuck writes in the live chat. I'm here to pick on Doug Wilson. Ask you to define concupiscence and slam answers in Genesis I know and I I was the warning signs were going off in my head and I didn't and I probably blew it

01:55:14

Is the issue of front -loading all of your disclaimers

01:55:21

I have to like disclaim disclaim, but there's only one thing that is heard like Yeah, that's what's gonna happen so answers in Genesis, I love you and would love to have you actually

01:55:34

I probably should have asked Ken him if he wants to come He's probably too much of a star to come on this podcast. Maybe not.

01:55:39

You never know. I should ask him You I think what you're doing matches much what fits in well with what he's trying to do

01:55:48

Well, yeah same objective we want to go back to a biblical standard and Yeah, we yeah,

01:55:54

I mean he's just in a different arena and that's and that's which is fine. He's fighting a different battle and It's a battle that needs to be fought.

01:56:02

There's no doubt But you know one thing I forget go ahead. Sorry. I just said we're glad we're on the same team

01:56:08

Yeah, we're on the same team one of the things I forgot to say At the beginning and I wanted to start the whole thing with this is that Richard Weaver is the anti Tim Keller?

01:56:19

because Well Tim Keller well Tim Keller every name that name how many times

01:56:24

I'm not gonna get in trouble for that Tim Keller Yeah, probably

01:56:29

Tim Keller though his whole scheme I've talked about it many times before is that the cities are the place where God's He almost acts like it's he's most at work there

01:56:39

And we should be most invested there and like cities are important to be invested in but he acts like it's God's purpose though It's it's it's kind of a weird view.

01:56:47

He's got that big and he says because look God ends the whole the New Jerusalem's a city he ends everything with the city and that's part of factors into why we should value cities so much and Richard Weaver Basically is it's sort of the anti urban guy like a lot of what he says ideas have consequences

01:57:06

Is basically a critique of urban living and it wasn't cities per se it was these crazy

01:57:14

Megapolis things that we have now like you go back to the 1700s They didn't have cities on the scale we have now and you include the suburbs and everything else so He thought it was an artificial environment.

01:57:26

We're actually not to that chapter yet, but he talks about it in the the one he about spoiled brats that that artificial living gives you the impression that man can science and man can provide everything for you and You forget

01:57:42

God and and anyway We need to be in the cities for sure But that's one of the things that I think struck me about Weaver especially reading so much color

01:57:53

Which cities do we need to be in? No, just New York City Chicago, Los Angeles just Americans, I don't know

01:58:03

Yeah, I mean Anything But it's okay to be like, you know at a small church somewhere in this country like that's like that's also a mission field and His whole outreach is city to city, which you know, we need the cities, but we need we need everywhere people.

01:58:19

It's people It's not city. So Anyway thought I just mentioned that about Weaver if you really don't like Tim Keller read

01:58:25

Richard Weaver and you'll you'll not like him more So any final thoughts before we end the live stream?

01:58:35

Well, I appreciate being invited in there into this my first reading through Weaver was like what is he talking about And then

01:58:44

I am amazed That he wrote this in 1948 it seems like he must have been writing it last week or something

01:58:53

I do recommend reading it. I think it'd be good read for people to be challenged

01:58:59

Just take in mind that he is writing from a philosophical standpoint That parallels a theological one

01:59:08

But he's not writing as a Christian Or at least not it not a born -again

01:59:14

Christian. Yeah he's writing as the sense

01:59:19

I get is He uses a lot of biblical illustrations Christian, yeah, he's a cultural

01:59:25

Christian. Yeah Yeah, a couple of One would be just in thinking about specialization, so that's a

01:59:37

You know, that's a topic that is really just not touched a lot in in the conservative

01:59:43

Sphere, I guess blogosphere but I remember the first time I ever kind of Realized that that might be an issue that was kind of wrong was

01:59:53

I was in college and I took a Shakespeare class and my professor He was a professor of Shakespeare, but he had a very specific expertise.

02:00:02

He was the authority on the history of The putting on of the play the historical putting on of the play

02:00:11

Twelfth Night So he would he would be called to different universities. He would do different fellowships and that was his thing.

02:00:18

That's what he was known for Internationally was if you wanted to know not about the play but about how the play had been performed historically that particular play

02:00:29

Then he was the guy and I remember just having this huge impression of oh my goodness That is sad like this guy's in his 70s and his life has amounted to this, you know

02:00:39

And you know, he enjoys Shakespeare great. I mean, I love Shakespeare. I did it before I took the class he helped me a little bit kind of discover a love for Shakespeare, but I Mean how sad is that, you know to get to the end of your life and that's all you got is just hey

02:00:51

I can tell you how this play got performed you know, so That's just one thing that I guess to think about maybe critically and then just the challenge of the book is it's good to You know, it's a beneficial thing to challenge yourself intellectually, you know, it's like phones are extraordinarily addictive and you know it's very very easy to get in the habit of just kind of being a scroller because everybody's doing it and You know one way to try to fight that is to put your phone away sit down with the book like this and you know

02:01:22

Challenge yourself a little bit Intellectually to you know to you know, try to be more of a whole person

02:01:29

You know Like the thing he puts is if you're if you're hyper specialized Or if you're just kind of going with the tide of culture, then you're not a whole person.

02:01:38

You you are You're kind of a divided person. So, you know, it's just something to To take into consideration

02:01:45

You know challenge yourself. Well, maybe piggyback on that one is read histories as well Obviously Weaver's understanding is because he he must have some good understanding of history or he wouldn't be able to see those trends

02:01:58

Yeah, no, very true. Well, we're gonna end it. Yeah. Thank you everyone for participating.

02:02:03

You've kind of been welcomed into My living room and discussions that might have happened around my table growing up and We're gonna take suggestions on how this could be made better in the future

02:02:15

So some of you might want it longer believe it or not Some of you are like that some of you probably more of you might want it shorter or you might have suggestions on Different format and and I already

02:02:27

I'm aware of the technological things. I'll correct those for next time but let me know if you have any other critiques or Suggestions because I'll take them into account.