EssentialSalts Misses the Point

[00:00:00]So, they're coming after my boy, Nietzsche, at the US >> think they are. I really don't think they are. I think Nietzsche is a vehicle for [music] linking support for Israel with Christian nationalism.

[00:00:10]>> that Nietzsche's idea God is dead has to be seen in some way culpable or in some way causative of what they would interpret as an attack on religious liberty in the year 2026. So, we can, in other words, >> No, that's wrong. I don't think it has to do with thinking attack an attack on religious liberty. I think the point is that they said Thus Spoke Zarathustra [music] because they knew about its existence, because Thus Spoke Zarathustra has been featured in popular media >> [music] >> a lot, and Jordan Peterson talks about it, and they didn't want to say the word gay. That's why it was That's why it was Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I like Essential Salts as a person. That will not save him, however. He has [music] a a flavorful understanding of Nietzsche's conception of will to power. The point is that belief in God has died, and we have not realized it. The reason why God allows horrible things in the world is for free will to happen. And I I find I just I find it so fascinating. Do you want to know how dumb I am as a human, by the way? Just to be clear.

[00:01:06]>> And so, there could be all sorts of, you know, Nietzsche talks about wars overvaluations. He talks about people throwing themselves headlong into a kind of active nihilism. There will be all sorts of ways to try and get out of this situation, but Nietzsche's project is >> That That can't be [music] right. Like, for Nietzsche, the entire point is that life is not a heuristic for us. We are not the [music] protagonists.

[00:01:32]That's really critical to understand.

[00:01:34]Nietzsche considers us as a disposable moment in the process. I think the issue with Essential Salts is not [music] that he's incompetent. I think the issue with Essential Salts is that his, let's talk in Nietzschean terms, his his drives are not oriented towards producing high-quality philosophical [music] analysis. I think he thinks they are. I think he buys his own [ __ ] to a degree.

[00:01:59]What's our friend Essential Salt going to say on this?

[00:02:02]>> did a video where I gave my analysis and offered an opposing perspective to a video by Pins and Poison about postmodernism. She contends that uh postmodernism is responsible for destroying literature departments or indeed leading literature itself to ruin.

[00:02:24]And the response to that video was mostly positive. But every time I do a video where I touch on this topic, I get some pushback and some criticism that just leads me to think that so much of the thinking around this is wrongheaded in so many ways. I knew I wanted to do this follow-up video and I came across this report by the Religious Liberty Commission and realized it would actually be the perfect jumping-off point for uh bringing forward these arguments. And so uh I think it's just this document it's a perfect example of the kind of uh thought pattern that I wanted to talk about.

[00:03:05]So, let's uh pull up the section I wanted to look at. Overall, the country continued with a strong consensus in favor of uh religious liberty through the 1990s with Bill Clinton signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, blah blah blah. Next section, building walls of separation between church and state.

[00:03:23]In the 1900s, however, a new philosophy emerged in Europe which laid the intellectual foundations for threats to the American religious liberty uh which persist even today. Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others famously embraced the belief that God is dead, rejecting God and dismissing ideals of objective truth and morality as simply pretenses used to gain power. Among other points, this new >> Sunday Jeffy is supposed to get his next hearing for spoliation of evidence on the 27th. Really? I didn't realize they were actually going through with that.

[00:03:54]Well, that's good.

[00:03:56]That's good and that's funny.

[00:03:57]I'm not going to cover it. There's no money in covering it anymore. I'm not going to cover it.

[00:04:01]>> New ideology gave, quote, complete prioritization to individual autonomy. The idea that we decide value, we decide meaning, we decide purpose. And that people who claim to know the truth just want power.

[00:04:13]Quote, that philosophy >> Well, court date maybe hearing is the wrong word. I think that would be a hearing, wouldn't it? Sophie.

[00:04:18]>> Sorry, that philosophy which is becoming >> All a hearing means is that you're making a testimony in front of a judge.

[00:04:23]>> highly influential in our society, rightly sees the classical religions as the chief opponent because they stand for objective moral values. Classical religions stand for God as the ground of those values, end quote. Commissioner Bishop Robert Barron explained.

[00:04:38]>> The funniest thing about that entire court case is that Pixie didn't give any evidence in the discovery phase. Did you know?

[00:04:43]>> I didn't even realize that until after reading this >> I got it. Sorry. We need to focus on this.

[00:04:47]>> religions stand for God as the ground of those values, end quote. Commissioner Bishop Robert Barron explained.

[00:04:55]I didn't even realize that until after reading this just now that it's it's Bishop Barron, that Fox News guy who's who's telling us all of this. So, they're coming after my boy, Nietzsche, the US >> think they are. I really don't think they are. I don't think they're coming after Nietzsche. I don't think this is about Nietzsche. I think I think Nietzsche is a vehicle. Control F. I think Nietzsche is a vehicle for linking support for Israel with Christian nationalism. I think that's the play.

[00:05:21]>> Government doesn't want you to read Nietzsche. You should try reading Nietzsche as an act of resistance.

[00:05:28]Let's make him more popular than than ever.

[00:05:30]>> Like this this is the timing of all this is so interesting. Even Jordan Peterson has just started publishing his Nietzsche lecture series, which is appallingly bad. Like it's it's worse than anything I've seen on YouTube. God is dead isn't even from Zarathustra. Is nobody going to mention this? I mean, Zarathustra is arguably a continuation of the gay science. I I can't remember if God is dead occurs in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Let me let me find the full text here. No, no it happens here. It's in Zarathustra. Thought it was. It's right here. Look at that. When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart, "Could it be possible this old saint in the forest has not yet hath not yet heard of it that God is dead?"

[00:06:03]It doesn't come from it, but it it's in there. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by the way, is a gorgeous book. It's said there. It's not saying God is dead. I mean, it is saying God is dead.

[00:06:12]That's what it's That's what it said there means. So, I'm a little bit confused with what you're saying, Brooks, but it's not a The argument isn't given there or the the the story isn't given there.

[00:06:20]>> But, it's interesting the three figures that they cite here, Foucault, Nietzsche, and Sartre. You know, you could definitely take issue with the way that they're grouped together here. I mean, they would have differed significantly on many things. We have an existentialist here, a postmodernist, Nietzsche's a critical philosopher >> Who used to not call Michel Michel Foucault a postmodernist.

[00:06:39]>> Philosopher comes out of the the German tradition, but that kind of critique is kind of obvious. I mean, that would be boring. That's shooting fish in a barrel, quibbling over that. This this this ideological government document doesn't get the philosophy exactly right or something. The interesting thing to me isn't really how rigorous uh the argument is. Uh for I mean, first of all, we have to ask, what is the argument? What is the point being made here? What are they getting at with this document? And I think within the logic presented here, what it is that really unites these these three figures that they bring up uh is that it's atheism. It's secularism. None of them acknowledge God as the grounding of of reason or of morality. And uh the first >> think it's secularism. I really don't think it's secularism. All of these figures would actually deny that secularism is itself secular in that way. All of these people would deny that there is not, for example, even in institutions of a seemingly secular science uh deep I mean, if Nietzsche's explicit about this. But Foucault is definitely explicit about this. I'm not a big Sartre person, but I'm pretty sure he's read more of Nietzsche than I have. Even even within science, even the notion of scientific objectivity, there is the shadow of ascetic morality or or just asceticism. There is the like there is a deep continuity between uh, our notions of of objectivity, truth, etc. And the same uh, process of I guess morality construction through his onto mont. So I don't I don't think the issue is that. I mean and like obviously like these people are not going to be sophisticated enough to tell that, but I think it also comes out on the surface. Um, that is not the issue here. Nietzsche in particular is not like a Humean type atheist.

[00:08:25]Nietzsche's got a bit of a bit more of a a fuzziness to him. I I really think I really think the move here is to try to tie support for Israel to Christian nationalism and make the the culture war in the university uh, slanted in favor of defending a kind of surreptitious uh, philo-Israelism in Republican discourse.

[00:08:46]I think that's what it is. I think I think that's what it is. I don't I don't think there's even any attention being paid to the fact they're atheistic.

[00:08:51]There are better examples if they were going for atheists. Although maybe they just don't. Who knows?

[00:08:56]>> He says here, what does he say? We decide value, we decide meaning, individual autonomy. That that sort of sounds like it could have come from Sartre or from Nietzsche. And then the other point uh, people who believe who claim that to know the truth uh, just want power. It's just a pretense for >> Uh, I don't think Nietzsche would actually Nietzsche Nietzsche would deny the possibility of individual autonomy.

[00:09:18]>> gaining power that >> So would Michel Foucault, frankly.

[00:09:21]>> Kind of sounds like Foucault. Both statements, frankly. Both of those types of statements could have come >> Wait. Wait. Which statement sound like Foucault?

[00:09:27]>> who claim that to know the truth uh, just want power. It's just a pretense for gaining power. That kind of sounds like Foucault. Both statements, frankly.

[00:09:34]>> sound like Foucault. And the the point is that knowledge is power, not that you gain the truth for power as if power is something is a dirty word.

[00:09:42]>> But those types of statements could have come from Nietzsche. And so these atheist philosophers are a threat to religious liberty because the God as the grounding has disappeared.

[00:09:51]Now, obviously the elephant in the room here is that the document is using an interpretation of the term religious liberty in which our focus should be on the religious liberty of Christians not being in any way curtailed by the government.

[00:10:06]So it's not really the secular interpretation of religious liberty in which the issue would be making sure the government doesn't prioritize any particular religion.

[00:10:17]Here it's being framed as if the the threat to religious liberty isn't the government becoming too religious.

[00:10:23]It's the government going after these sincere believing Christians in the name of atheist postmodernism. But anyway, it's not really relevant to the question at hand. The only quotation here from any of the philosophers mentioned in this document is God is dead.

[00:10:40]From Nietzsche.

[00:10:42]And so just to make things simple, let's forget about Sartre and Foucault and the broader argument being made. Let's zero in on this >> he over the head earphones. I've got this hair that's just going constantly into my eye. Okay, here we go.

[00:10:56]>> little three-word phrase that first appears in The Gay Science and book three of The Gay Science in 1882.

[00:11:05]And this document treats this phrase as emblematic of this new atheistic attitude that threatens from their perspective the rights of Christians to practice their religion.

[00:11:16]So let's take this claim seriously.

[00:11:18]First, we have to ask what is the meaningful claim being made here? And I think we can conclude that >> There isn't one.

[00:11:25]>> from the logic of this paragraph that Nietzsche's idea God is dead has to be seen in some way culpable or in some way causative of what they would interpret as an attack on religious liberty in the year 2026.

[00:11:40]So, we can, in other words, >> No, that's wrong. I don't think it has to do with it being attacked an attack on religious liberty. I think the point is that there's there's a couple of things going on here simultaneously and it's disorganized. That's the major common thread between all right-wing, especially American right-wing critiques of atheist philosophy, is that it is heavily disorganized. So, they are doing three things at once. The first is they are accusing atheist philosophy of being intrinsically immoral and also nonsensical. So, it is not truth-apt because it denies objectivity and it's it produces bad people because it denies morality or the objectivity of morality.

[00:12:16]And a very common thread that you will find, especially in religious apologetic circles, is that an advantage of the theistic stance, regardless of its truth-aptness, is that it produces the kind of person who is capable of being moral. And the circularity of that reasoning is obvious because the the morality is being presumed in the judgment that this is therefore a good thing. Or and even, for example, ranking this morality as opposed to some other conception of morality as being preferable. Because obviously atheists are capable of morality, they have a different understanding of what the significance of what morality entails. Morality is not the following through of divinely ordained permanent cosmic laws, they are the normalization of ways in which we get along with each other. And they they sort of following on like the the the ancient classical notion of morals and and ethics as referring to the customs of a place, right? The customs of a place and then by extension the unique kind of subjects or citizens that those places produce. Originally, we actually sort of still talk about ethos in that sense sometimes, but moralos originally referred to customs.

[00:13:22]Ethos referred to character. This is what Nietzsche means by The Gay Science.

[00:13:25]I don't think there's any reading here.

[00:13:26]They they didn't say Thus Spoke Zarathustra because they read Thus Spoke Zarathustra and found it. They said Thus Spoke Zarathustra because they knew about its existence because Thus Spoke Zarathustra has been featured in popular media a lot and Jordan Peterson talks about it and they didn't want to say the word gay. That's why it was That's why it was Thus Spoke Zarathustra. You're giving them too much credit. You have to like You have to You have to dance on that fine line between treating them as sentient and also treating them as completely without any intentionality whatsoever.

[00:13:55]>> According to the logic of this document, trace a line from the present moment, which is really what we're actually concerned with, and we can trace it back through almost 150 years of history all the way back to 1882 when Nietzsche writes this book in The Gay Science when it's expressed for the first time.

[00:14:16]The claim would be that it is because of what he wrote in 1882 in Genoa that the religious liberty of Americans is under threat, so so to speak, according to their position.

[00:14:30]Um but I can imagine some people want to I would want to hedge the argument at this point say, "Well, obviously Nietzsche's not the sole cause. Obviously, there were all sorts of other I mean, they list multiple thinkers here and there's all sorts of other reasons and factors and development and yeah, obviously, that's true.

[00:14:48]But let's put it as a counterfactual to really draw out what I think is necessary for this argument to hold water.

[00:14:55]If Nietzsche had not written The Gay Science Let's say Nietzsche gets hit by a train in 1880 and the >> Nietzsche had not written The Gay Science, it would be necessary to invent it.

[00:15:05]>> Last book of his that comes out is Daybreak. God is dead as an idea is never expressed by Nietzsche. Nothing equivalent to that is ever written or becomes popular in in Western society or culture. The claim that we're investigating to see if >> almost says the irony being that we call ethical arguments against basing world judgments on edicts produced by an omniscient God go all the way back to Plato's Euthyphro or further.

[00:15:28]Actually, that's fair.

[00:15:30]Um Ambrose has been reading Plato as you can see.

[00:15:33]Although Ambrose has already read Plato, he's been rereading Plato recently.

[00:15:36]We're going to um we should do some Plato readings on the GSL SimCat.

[00:15:41]Please do not please do not bite me.

[00:15:44]There's a very evil cat sitting next to me. I I need to understand this, okay?

[00:15:47]So, if you suddenly see liquid spurting out um I'm going to die.

[00:15:52]>> Fit it it really makes sense would be uh would things be different if that were the case? If would there still be a decline of belief in objective meaning or objective truth if Nietzsche had never written those words? Uh and the same thing would have played out anyway whether Nietzsche wrote God is dead or not, then we would have to say that the cause the causal relationship that's being posited here is somewhat backwards. That would mean the idea is not the cause.

[00:16:23]That would mean that >> I can't move.

[00:16:25]There's a cat that hates me that's just sitting by my legs.

[00:16:31]Help.

[00:16:32]>> Uh the idea is appropriated by the true cause which uh >> The cat is never at fault, this one is.

[00:16:38]I've been nothing but I have been nothing but nice to this cat. She just hates everyone.

[00:16:42]She's extremely territorial.

[00:16:46]This is a well-loved cat that just is is im- imbued with the spirit of Satan.

[00:16:53]>> It could be any number of things, but Nietzsche himself would have argued that more fundamental than the idea is impulse, the drive, or uh just >> Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Okay, hang on. I like Essential Saltz as a person. That will not save him, however. Um we've seen his reading of Klossowski. He has a a flavorful understanding of Nietzsche's conception of will to power.

[00:17:19]Let us Let us see how how well this goes.

[00:17:22]>> of things, but Nietzsche himself would have argued that more fundamental than the idea is impulse.

[00:17:29]The drive. Or to say the same thing, perhaps in different terms, the more fundamental thing is valuation. The the deter >> That's not fun That's not That's not different terms. Hang on. Okay, I need to go back.

[00:17:42]I need to hear this whole thing in context. Let me do this right.

[00:17:45]>> I mean, the idea is not the cause.

[00:17:47]That would mean that here is somewhat backwards. That would mean the idea is not the cause. God is dead or not, then we would have to say that the cause the causal relationship that's being posited here. That same thing would have played out >> apologies. Go back a little bit. Okay.

[00:18:02]>> there still be a decline of belief in objective meaning or objective truth if Nietzsche had never written those words. Uh and the same thing would have played out anyway whether Nietzsche wrote God is dead or not.

[00:18:15]>> No. This is This is a misunderstanding.

[00:18:17]So, the point of God is dead is not that belief in God has died. The point is that belief in God has died and we have not realized it. The point is that we are still living in God's corpse as certain people say, right?

[00:18:31]>> [snorts] >> The point is that we are still living with the shadow of belief in God in various other things, but it has been drained. It's out, but we're still trucking along as if it's not.

[00:18:43]There's latency.

[00:18:45]That's the point. It's the madman who says God is dead, remember? It's not society as a whole.

[00:18:51]>> [snorts] >> Then we would have to say that the cause the causal relationship that's being posited here is somewhat backwards. That would mean the idea is not the cause.

[00:19:00]That would mean that uh the idea is appropriated by the true cause, which uh could be any number of things, but Nietzsche himself would have argued that more fundamental than the idea is impulse, the drive, or to say the same thing >> The the drive?

[00:19:19]>> in perhaps in different terms, the more fundamental thing is valuation, the >> God is a dead whale and his oil will light her. I like that. I like that.

[00:19:28]>> determinations of relative worth that we make according to our own needs and wants and desires.

[00:19:35]That seizes on an idea.

[00:19:37]>> Didn't Didn't Hegel himself write God is dead way before Nietzsche?

[00:19:41]Did he? I don't think so.

[00:19:46]Although the phrase God is dead is always traced back to Nietzsche as most famous and loudest preacher, it is in fact Hegel, an avowedly Christian philosopher, who first literally announced it, claiming it not only for philosophy, but as its loudest principle. That is to say, what this phrase indicates is already put the presupposition and the aim of Hegel's philosophy. This formulation is essentially Hegelian in both its terminology and its significance, as the Phenomenology of Spirit has demonstrated.

[00:20:07]The subject of knowledge in coming to know its other realizes its goal only in a self-knowledge that results in the annulment or sacrifice of this very relation, this very other.

[00:20:14]Science or the knowledge of the other of the subject, i.e., substance, culminates in the sacrifice of both for the sake of their truth, that is to say, culminates in the sacrifice of the absolute makes of itself against itself for the sake of itself.

[00:20:25]In the religion section of his work, Hegel describes the negative side of this result or the loss of the other of knowing in theological terms. God himself is dead. This hard saying is the expression of innermost simple self-knowledge, the return of consciousness into the depths of the night in which I equals I, a night which no longer distinguishes or knows anything outside of it.

[00:20:43]Interesting.

[00:20:45]I've read like three quarters of the Phenomenology of Spirit. I read all of uh the Philosophy of Right.

[00:20:53]I don't remember that. But this is Okay, that is actually That is actually That's That's fascinating. He doesn't mean the same thing, though.

[00:21:00]He doesn't mean the same thing, but the the line is in there. That's interesting.

[00:21:04]How about that?

[00:21:04]>> That that attracts it precisely because that idea justifies what the what the valuations that you hold.

[00:21:14]Um but suppose let's say that you don't feel that way. Let's say that you you think no, like Nietzsche's expression of the idea God is dead is in some way maybe it's not the total cause, but in some way it is causally responsible for current trends in religiosity, current attitudes about religion and and secularism.

[00:21:36]And that you would hold that if Nietzsche did not write The Gay Science, did not introduce the idea that God is dead that >> somebody would write the heterosexual science and write that God is still alive, everybody calm down.

[00:21:49]>> things would be in some relevant way >> Zarathustra didn't say [ __ ] >> in some qualitative way different today in 2026.

[00:21:59]Well, let's look a little further, I guess, into the implications of that argument.

[00:22:05]For me, a key question here is does the idea that the philosopher expresses necessarily remain the same in the subsequent interpretations of it?

[00:22:19]Is it the same idea that influences the broader culture as the one that the philosopher initially expressed? In other words, does the meaning of God is dead in its original context put forward by Nietzsche in 1882 remain fixed in the way that Nietzsche meant it and go on to influence the culture in effect as the influence of Nietzsche himself, right? Because that's that's really what we would be arguing here.

[00:22:45]Well, first we should consider what did the death of God mean for Nietzsche?

[00:22:51]And uh is this meaning the same as the popular form of the idea?

[00:22:58]And here I can only give uh my own interpretation, right? I'm I'm very much ready to admit that.

[00:23:03]>> Not Dead movies would be a great Courses lecture series.

[00:23:07]That would be a fun That would be a fun Patreon exclusive to just go through those in like Discord or something.

[00:23:13]Maybe we'll do that for the next Patreon stream. We'll see if we can we can manage that.

[00:23:18]We'll sort that out when I get back.

[00:23:19]We'll do We'll watch We'll watch the full the full movie. We're not going to do all of them because they get into like anti-abortion stuff and it's just it gets really boring. I think that would be That'd be funny.

[00:23:30]>> that that this is only my interpretation of Nietzsche's meaning.

[00:23:34]That's all one can really have, right?

[00:23:38]But I base my interpretation >> The best part about the God's Not Dead films, by the way, so the first film, which is [clears throat] the only one I know about in detail except for the, you know, the particular culture war bugbears that they're tackling in the sequels, is a Christian student goes to university and an atheist professor who thinks that Ayn Rand is like a great philosopher and also Nietzsche challenges the students to argue to prove that God exists by the end of the semester. It's going to be a debate at the end, which is comical. The idea that a philosophy professor would challenge a student to a debate on a on a culture war bit of nonsense is is intrinsically hilarious and it kind of shows the demented state of mind of these people, but >> [snorts] >> the argument that knocks this philosopher out this philosopher who ostensibly is a lover of Forget Nietzsche. You can just say Ayn Rand, but Nietzsche is that well, actually the reason why God allows horrible things in the world is for free will to happen. And I I find I just I find it so fascinating.

[00:24:46]The the confidence with which she would attack something by name having not read a single word of it is astonishing.

[00:24:53]Because the first thing one of the first things that Nietzsche will attack is the notion of the will as even coherent. The attribution of identity, of a fixed relationship between inside and outside to any object, and therefore the attribution of causal causal power to that object. This thing caused this thing.

[00:25:15]Is for Nietzsche a repetition of the soul superstition.

[00:25:20]And by the same token, the soul superstition is also the result of that tendency of granting identity to things and therefore the presumption of an inside-outside relationship such as something on the inside caused something on the outside.

[00:25:33]When in fact, everything is is undifferentiated.

[00:25:36]Um in in in a strict sense. But you live in a multiplicitous world in which everything is is one, but also um there are variations within it that coexist.

[00:25:50]And it free will would not even be a meaningful a meaningful proposition for Nietzsche. It would be the illusion of fixed lines where he has just denied their existence.

[00:26:02]And more to the point, from a god's eye view even in Christian philosophy, where all things emanate from God, there should also be that lack of distinction. Free will, by the way, is not a concept that occurs in the Bible because it requires a whole bunch of modern notions to be combined with each other to even make sense. This is why you won't find free will as an apologetic argument in, for example, um Summa contra Gentiles or or Summa Theologiae. Philosophers who will spend their entire lives just going over arguments for and against the existence of God and the truth of Christian doctrine and such. Doesn't occur there.

[00:26:41]And I I find it so fascinating just the the level of arrogance it takes to name your movie that you've been producing over the course of a year. Paid actors for it. You've written a script. To name your movie that. And to not once even be curious about what the person you're you're parodying actually said is astonishing. That's a level of insanity I find difficult to fathom. I find it fascinating.

[00:27:03]>> Nietzsche, on a thorough reading of his canon that I've engaged in for better part of two decades now.

[00:27:10]Um the key issue for Nietzsche and the death of God is nihilism. The death of God brings about this crisis of nihilism.

[00:27:20]Uh it brings it to the forefront because our moral ideas that were based on the values of Christianity, they nurture this attitude of skepticism, of mistrust.

[00:27:32]And uh that becomes >> No, that's not it.

[00:27:37]>> inculcated into the European psyche. We want a truth. We want a truth at any price. There was nothing that we weren't willing to sacrifice for the truth.

[00:27:45]>> That's not skepticism.

[00:27:47]>> We uh hold the pursuit of truth above all else.

[00:27:49]>> He's he's he's he's getting the order of things wrong. So, the issue with Christianity and why it it it conditions us for nihilism happens earlier, where we invest things into an additional world of being. And then afterwards, because through that investment we also value truth.

[00:28:09]Um as a consequence of that, we have essentially it's like that Bible verse, you know?

[00:28:15]Where your heart is there your treasure where your treasure is there your where your heart be also. So, lay up your treasure in heaven. Well, you put your treasure in heaven and I have denied its existence.

[00:28:23]So, now all of your all of your investments in things, well, you conceived of them as being packaged into this sphere that you've just argued your way through that very commitment into not existing. That's the issue.

[00:28:37]There there's there's there's a there's a genealogical mistake taking place here, which is very frustrating to me.

[00:28:43]Because truth is a follow-up from slave morality.

[00:28:50]It's an elaboration on it.

[00:28:53]Um Christianity entails a particular investment of truth and of all of the things all all all of your values etc. like the the the objects of ultimate concern into a separate domain from the material realm.

[00:29:10]Into a separate realm we can just say in general terms.

[00:29:14]Which then European skepticism also obsessed with truth accurate uh removes from the equation invalidates.

[00:29:23]And so as a consequence uh you have a society that invested that named and invested all of its values in a heavenly realm and then deny that heavenly realm's existence and so is left with nothing. Just a temptation to violate all of these norms and now all of the uh all of the restraining principles taken out of the equation.

[00:29:47]And thus it is that only in modern times can people argue that oh well without without Christian values people would be serial killers. It's like well no.

[00:29:57]No, the problem is is that you told the serial killers to put all of their all of their eggs in that basket. You didn't for example uh bank on um other types of social investments.

[00:30:10]And in fact you used uh you used the fact of that higher realm to displace the need to build up human community at a at a broader scale. What is that? Oh, thank you. Yeah, so it's like I have a really good Bible. Which Bible do you have uh Brooks?

[00:30:27]I bet my I bet my Bible's better, okay?

[00:30:31]But that's the thing though. It's like um you invested in you invested in God crypto and uh and then you lost the key.

[00:30:43]>> all things. Well, if we keep following that through to its ultimate conclusions, eventually we have to question >> Do you want to know how dumb I am as a human, by the way? Just to be clear.

[00:30:53]When I got up to refill my glass, I took my wireless headphones off before I took my wireless headphones off before I moved. Just ponder that for a second.

[00:31:06]>> value of the pursuit of truth.

[00:31:09]Christianity also inculcates a moral skepticism because it holds that people are sinful, that they're fallen.

[00:31:17]And so, there's this kind of difference in the way virtue is seen and the way that a person's potential for morality or virtue are seen compared to the ancient world or rather contrasted with the ancient world.

[00:31:31]Uh Nietzsche points this out that there were actually people, ancient writers who did think people could be more, people could be a good life is possible. Well, Christianity fundamentally holds that >> Wrong.

[00:31:44]>> [gasps] >> It's not what he's talking about.

[00:31:46]Um for example, uh I Is it Croesus?

[00:31:50]Croesus in Herodotus asks a wise man, whose name I forget.

[00:31:55]Uh like uh What is it? It's like It's like How do you have a good What is a good life or whatever?

[00:32:04]And he's given two examples.

[00:32:11]Um Croesus or Croesus, I can never remember how to pronounce his names.

[00:32:15]Maybe I'll pull it up, actually. Hang on.

[00:32:19]Man, I got to read I got to reread Herodotus, especially cuz I'm getting into uh Michel Serres and uh Bruno Latour, and they're bringing up the Greeks again. I I love that I'm going like full circle to all this stuff. That's the fun part of philosophy, honestly.

[00:32:37]Um Let's see. Herodotus' Histories is full text. It won't be a good translation, but that's fine.

[00:32:51]It'll be simple enough. It'll It's a It's a simple enough thing. We can we can we can adjust. I believe it's in the first book. So, Solon, having left his native country for this reason, so after he changed the laws of Athens and then was uh then was exiled because he displeased everybody. Uh left his native country and for this reason and for the sake of seeing various lands came to Amasis in Egypt and also to Croesus at Sardis. Having there arrived, he was entertained as a guest by Croesus in the king's palace and afterwards on the third or fourth day at the at the bidding of Croesus, his servants led Solon around to see his treasuries and they showed him all things great and magnificent they were.

[00:33:27]And after he had looked upon them all and examined them as he had occasion, Croesus asked him as follows, "Athenian guest, much report of thee has come to us both in regard to wisdom and wanderings, how that in thy search for wisdom thou hast traversed many lands to see them. Now therefore a desire has come upon me to ask thee whether thou hast seen any whom thou deemest to be of all men the most happy."

[00:33:48]This he asked, supposing that he himself was the happiest of men.

[00:33:51]But Solon, using no flattery but the truth only, said, "Yes, O king, Tellus the Athenian."

[00:33:58]So, "Yes, O king, Tellus the Athenian is the most happy."

[00:34:01]And Croesus, marveling at that which he said, asked him earnestly, "In what respect dost thou judge Tellus to be the most happy?"

[00:34:08]And he said, "Tellus, in the first place, living while his native state was prosperous, had sons fair and good and saw from all of them children begotten and living to grow up. And secondly, he had what with us is accounted wealth and after his life a most glorious end, for when a battle was fought by the Athenians at Eleusis against the neighboring people, he brought up supports and routed the foe and there died by a most fair death. And the Athenians buried him publicly where he fell and honored him greatly.

[00:34:33]So, when Solon had moved Croesus to inquire further about the story of Tellus, recounting how many points of happiness he had, the king asked again whom he had seemed proper to be placed next after this man, supposing that he himself had certainly obtained at least the second place. But, he replied, "Cleobis and Biton, for these, who were of Argos by race, possessed a sufficiency of wealth, and in addition to this, strength of body such as I shall tell.

[00:34:56]Both equally had won prizes in the games, and moreover, the following tale is told of them.

[00:35:00]There was a feast of Hera among the Argives, and it was by all means necessary that their mother should be borne in the cart to the temple, but since their oxen were not brought up in time from the field, the young men, barred from all else by lack of time, submitted themselves to the yoke, and drew the way, and their mother being borne by them upon it. And so, they brought they brought it on for five and forty furlongs, and came to the temple.

[00:35:18]And then, after they had done this, and had been seen by the assembled crowd, there came to their life a most excellent ending.

[00:35:25]In this, the deity declared that it was better for man to die than to continue to live. The Argive women standing round and extolling the strength of the young men, while the Argive women were extolling the mother, who was lucky to have fallen to have such sons, and the mother being exceedingly rejoiced both by the deed itself and by the report made of took her stand in front of the image of the goddess, and prayed that she would give to Cleobis and Biton, her sons, who had honored her greatly, that gift which is best for man to receive. And after this prayer, when they had sacrificed and feasted, the young men laid down to sleep in the temple itself, and never rose again, but were held bound in this last end. And the Argives made statues in the likeness of them, and dedicated them as offerings at Delphi, >> [snorts] >> thinking that they had proved themselves most excellent.

[00:36:03]Thus, Solon assigned the second place in respect of happiness to these, and Croesus was moved to anger, and said, "Athenian guest, hast thou then so cast our prosperous state as worth nothing, that thou dost prefer to us even men of private station?" And he said, "Croesus, thou art inquiring about human fortunes of one who well knows that the deity is altogether envious and apt to disturb our lot. For in the course of long time, a man may see many things which he would not desire to see, and suffer also many things which he would not desire to suffer.

[00:36:32]The limit of life for a man I lay down at 70 years. These 70 years give 25,200 days, not reckoning for any intercalated month. Then if every other one of these years shall be made longer by one month, that the seasons may be caused to come round at the due time of the year, the intercalated months will be a number of 5 and 30 besides the 70 years, and of these months the days will be 1,050.

[00:36:56]Of all these days, being in number 26,250, which go to the 70 years, one day produces nothing at all which resembles what another brings with it.

[00:37:05]Thus then, O Croesus, man is altogether a creature of accident. As for thee, I perceive that thou art both great in wealth and king of many men, but that of which thou didst ask me I cannot call thee yet until I learn that thou hast brought thee a life to a fair ending.

[00:37:19]For the rich man is not at all to be accounted more happy than he who has but his subsistence from day to day, unless also the fortune go with him of ending his life well in possession of all things fair.

[00:37:29]For many very wealthy men are not happy, while many who have but a moderate living are fortunate. And in truth, the very rich man who is not happy has two advantages only as compared with the poor man who is fortunate, whereas this latter has many as compared with the rich man who is not happy.

[00:37:47]The rich man is able to fulfill to better fulfill his desire and also to endure a great calamity if it fall upon him, whereas the other has advantage over him in these things which follow.

[00:37:57]He is not indeed able equally with the rich man to endure a calamity or to fulfill his desire, but these as good fortune um but these as good fortune keeps away from him while he is sound of limb, free from disease, untouched by suffering, the father of fair children and himself of comely form, and if in addition to this he shall end his life well, he is worthy to be called that which thou seekest, namely a happy man.

[00:38:22]But before he comes to his end, that is well to hold back and not to call him yet happy, but only fortunate.

[00:38:28]Now, to possess all these things together is impossible for one who is mere man, just as no single land suffices to supply all things for itself. But one thing it has and another it lacks, and the land that has the greatest number of things is the best.

[00:38:41]So also in the case of man, no single person is complete in himself. For one thing he has and another he lacks. But whosoever of men continues to the end in possession of the greatest number of these things and then has a gracious ending of his life, he is by me accounted worthy, oh king, to receive this name.

[00:38:57]But we must have everything examined the end and how it will turn out at the last. For to many God shows but a glimpse of happiness and then plucks them up by the roots and overturns them.

[00:39:08]Thus saying, he refused to gratify Croesus, who sent him away from his presence, holding him in no esteem and thinking him utterly senseless in that he passed over present good things and bade men to look at the end of every matter.

[00:39:20]Uh Herodotus is awesome, by the way, and is a lot more interesting than Thucydides, in my humble opinion.

[00:39:26]You're missing out if you haven't read him.

[00:39:31]Um But something else you will have also noticed is that the concern is not with righteousness or with morality.

[00:39:42]It's with happiness.

[00:39:46]And typically in um for ancient Greeks from Herodotus to Plato to Aristotle, etc. Happiness is not uh a feeling. It's a fact of flourishing, right?

[00:40:00]And so there is happiness as the goal, but there is also uh the avoidance of misery, which is sort of second place to that.

[00:40:10]So, for example, her uh Aristotle, and John will recognize this.

[00:40:15]Um Aristotle uh in the, Nicomachean Ethics, will use the example of, um, the king of Ilium.

[00:40:22]Right? King of Troy.

[00:40:25]Uh, King of Troy's name being, oh, shoot.

[00:40:30]Not Per- Per- son's name is Paris.

[00:40:33]King, it's on the tip of my tongue. Oh, god damn it.

[00:40:40]Ah.

[00:40:41]>> [sighs] >> I'm tired, man.

[00:40:45]Priam.

[00:40:47]I knew it was start with a P. King Priam.

[00:40:50]Or Pryam, depending on who it is.

[00:40:52]Thank you.

[00:40:54]Um, King Priam uh, is slaughtered by the son of Achilles.

[00:40:59]Um, who is a uh, cruel and crude and unsophisticated and ignoble person by comparison to his father.

[00:41:08]Um, but by dint of his virtue, even though he was slaughtered amidst the ruin of his city, all of his line is destroyed.

[00:41:15]Uh, I guess Paris technically escapes.

[00:41:18]Um, all of his line, actually, does Paris escape? Anyways, Menelaus does get Helen back, but leaving that aside. Um his line is ended, his city's destroyed, and nonetheless he is able to sort of keep his dignity in a sense, right? He's a full, uh Paris doesn't escape. Aeneas does. I know Aeneas escapes.

[00:41:40]I just can't remember off the top of my head if, uh, this is actually an explicit account of Paris being killed.

[00:41:46]Paris is dead by the time of the death of Priam.

[00:41:48]Yeah, that makes sense. In my head I've got the, uh, Orlando Bloom portrayal.

[00:41:53]That movie was so bad. That movie was bad, but it had a killer cast. I loved Brian Cox as Agamemnon. That was so good. That was legitimately so good.

[00:42:01]Brad Pitt was a decent Achilles, too.

[00:42:04]But I digress.

[00:42:07]Um point is uh there is uh [snorts] flourishing and there is uh dying is the kind of thing which is capable of flourishing.

[00:42:21]And then there's the third part which is Achilles' son, which is even in victory you are an object of disgust and revulsion. And there's a shadow of what Nietzsche would call slave morality there.

[00:42:33]But there's also something else, which is uh a a a tint of the uh a tint of of the the the conquering ethos which simply sees equals with which it identifies in in a in a worthy adversary, right?

[00:42:57]Um I as a film, it's like it's it's a If you want to talk You know what I find funny? Nobody talks about Troy as a horrible rendition of Homer.

[00:43:11]But it's far worse than anything that this Odyssey film can bring up. In fact, I actually I I actually quite like what this new Odyssey film by uh by Nolan.

[00:43:20]I actually like that they're modernizing the speech.

[00:43:24]Um because it's it's not a rendition of the poem.

[00:43:29]The point is it's a rendition of the story. The poem still exists.

[00:43:36]Anyhow, let's go back to uh this so we can wrap this up and get to the next thing.

[00:43:41]>> So, that's not true. There are no sinless people.

[00:43:44]There are only those who are forgiven and those who are not forgiven.

[00:43:48]And so, Christianity creates this kind of self-interrogation.

[00:43:54]It invites the us to this self-interrogation, this interiority where we're invited to question is that really What is the true motivation behind my actions?

[00:44:05]>> He's like he's not wrong in terms of Christianity originating this obsession with the private nature of morality.

[00:44:12]The problem is he's wrong on Nietzsche, which is really frustrating because the And again, like it's actually a very simple case that Nietzsche's making. It is the investment It is the investment of all of your objects of desire, all of your commitments into the separate realm that then gets canceled out by the obsession with truth, capital T truth.

[00:44:34]That is itself also an echo of this projection of a separate realm.

[00:44:39]Right?

[00:44:42]>> Is this actually >> The act of verification is the comparison of a claim with a separate realm of fixity and factuality and truth, right?

[00:44:55]Like there is that doubling of the world in there. You can sort of understand this in that way.

[00:45:00]>> uh motivation that comes out of goodness and faith and all of the, you know, the Christian virtues or is it actually my my sinful, selfish vain glory that is at uh opera- that is the operative force here. There's an asceticism uh the the ascetic ideal of Christianity. It's a morality of self-denial.

[00:45:21]It's a morality of renouncing, of giving things up.

[00:45:25]And Nietzsche says that this prepares us for the asceticism that then takes a new form in scientific realism, scientific materialism. It prepares us for renouncing metaphysical flights of fancy, for renouncing moral interpretations of the world because we find through scientific >> Those are not equivalent.

[00:45:46]>> investigation, through uh hard-boiled, cold, rationalist investigation of the world that life, nature, and history are thoroughly immoral.

[00:45:55]>> Jamal, you're misunderstanding what we're objecting to. I've been here long enough to know how long you've known Sunday. I'm arguing against how much you know about Christianity.

[00:46:02]Uh Jamal knows a good deal about Christianity, actually.

[00:46:07]>> And so, uh this is the meaning of the death of God for Nietzsche. Again, it's my own interpretation.

[00:46:12]>> One of the problems is that American I don't want to presume your ethnic gender, so to speak. One of the problems with Americans is that they really don't understand their own history as as Christians at all.

[00:46:26]It's actually really embarrassing.

[00:46:28]Um they generally think if they have the Bible as an instruction manual they can intuit through the intervention of a divine will.

[00:46:36]And uh they just uh their their role in life is to basically just beat the opposition. And it's very silly and and very dumb. If you want me to explain that turning into a public spectacle I'm on Discord. I can't I can't do Discord calls right now. That's why this isn't a Patreon stream because I can't do Discord calls right now.

[00:46:54]I'm on someone else's computer, so.

[00:46:58]>> Because that's all we have.

[00:47:00]But uh Christianity was always driving towards this nihilistic end. The the nihilism was contained within Christianity from the very beginning.

[00:47:08]And the death of God is the dawning awareness uh the moment at which the unbelievability of Christianity as a result of this skeptical tendencies and as a result of this asceticism as a result of truth at any price. All of these factors eventually makes Christianity unbelievable. And the the death of God is a moment where that dawns into our consciousness. That we can't believe in this anymore.

[00:47:32]And now of course for Nietzsche the nihil- >> Wrong. It's incorrect. It's a madman once again who proclaims the death of God.

[00:47:38]>> -ism that existed within Christianity.

[00:47:40]>> that it's the madman is kind of critical here. It is It does not dawn in our consciousness. We have not actually realized it.

[00:47:46]It is the madman at dawn wailing about it.

[00:47:50]It is not. No. Wrong. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[00:47:54]I'm sorry. I I appreciate that you're trying, but no.

[00:47:58]Very very much not so.

[00:48:00]>> And the identity driving this whole process doesn't disappear with the death of God.

[00:48:05]In fact, it gets worse because man is the measurer. Man is a valuer. He's he's the judge of existence. Life is judging, preferring, evaluating according to Nietzsche. And so, if Christianity becomes unbelievable, and that was the basis for it for all of our moral judgments.

[00:48:22]>> What?

[00:48:23]>> And and now it seems as though our judgments >> Life is judging and evaluating according to Nietzsche? What?

[00:48:27]>> arbitrary and human all too human.

[00:48:30]Um that creates a very dangerous situation because man would rather will nothingness than uh to will nothing at all. And so, there could be all sorts of uh you know, Nietzsche talks about wars over evaluations. He talks about people throwing themselves headlong into a kind of active nihilism. There will be all sorts of ways to try and get out of this situation, but Nietzsche's project is >> That That can't be right. Like for Nietzsche, the entire point is that life is is is not concerned with knowing.

[00:49:00]Therefore, life life can't be an evaluating. Life is an evaluating in the sense of it is a constant adapting and contention between differing parts of the world.

[00:49:12]But I don't I don't understand this.

[00:49:15]>> is to articulate a new principle of evaluation.

[00:49:18]A non-Christian evaluation that could perhaps guide us out of this moral interregnum in which we find ourselves with the death >> No, reevaluation of all values is not a guiding us out of It's not a guiding us out of The entire greatness of man for Nietzsche is that we are a bridge to something else. We are disposable in the process.

[00:49:40]Right? So, what's really critical here is that life is not a heuristic for us. We are not the protagonists.

[00:49:50]That's really critical to understand.

[00:49:52]Nietzsche considers us as a disposable moment in the process.

[00:49:57]>> God.

[00:49:59]Now, this is not a a question, I think, uh the broader question of our inquiry so far about the relation of the idea to the later interpretations of it. I don't think it's really a question about whether a given interpretation can be correct or not. I don't think that's the relevant issue.

[00:50:15]As I've said, I think there are multiple interpretations that are always possible of the text, and yet there's a a horizon of possibilities that's bounded by what's in the actual text, what's actually written there.

[00:50:28]But there can be almost innumerable interpretations within that horizon.

[00:50:32]There's always a multiplicity.

[00:50:34]And so the the real issue I see is the inevitability of that multiplicity of interpretations. The death of God has been interpreted in the most various ways that can't all be correct because many of them are mutually exclusive, but it's been interpreted by uh Deleuze, by Heidegger, by Carl >> Oh, no.

[00:50:52]>> Karl Jaspers, by Kaufmann, by uh Carl >> White Kaufmann.

[00:50:58]>> by Jung, by um Jordan Peterson in recent years.

[00:51:03]>> What's that? You didn't Nietzsche call for commanders and free spirits?

[00:51:05]Nietzsche called for anything that would press the limit and break stagnation and strike out and do new and varied things.

[00:51:17]That's all.

[00:51:22]Free spirits because uh people who would do things that were not Nietzsche has one thing that he casts an evil eye upon more than anything else.

[00:51:33]This is very crucial. He casts an evil eye on it. This is a line he will say explicitly. He does not condemn it as immoral or wrong or bad. Okay, he wants to say yes to everything.

[00:51:43]He casts an evil eye on stagnation. But he also recognizes that that which appears nasty and unwholesome to him may also be that which is winding some some gear tighter some spring tighter and tighter and tighter eventually to watch hours.

[00:52:03]And I did that thing as a meme by the way where I draw the bow and then I let go of the bow part.

[00:52:11]>> And part of the reason why this is possible is because the idea of the death of God is presented by Nietzsche initially in this sort of ambivalent way.

[00:52:23]>> JP Stant says Sunday is right though most Christians generally have no understanding of the broader traditional or literary literally any theology and that's me speaking as a former evangelical pastor.

[00:52:33]Fascinating. I would love to talk to you sometime when I'm able to actually talk to you on Discord.

[00:52:38]Um if you're in the Discord maybe I'll maybe I'll uh If you guys haven't joined the Discord yet, join the Gay Science Laboratory.

[00:52:45]We're reforming the previous Discord the cathedral at the moment. It's also been updated. Um the cathedral is going to be the main politics space.

[00:52:52]The GSL the Gay Science Laboratory is going to be the philosophy space. Join there. That's what we're kind of actively constructing at the moment. I would love to talk to you there.

[00:53:03]Um I can do so on my tablet. I'll have somebody else record.

[00:53:07]Um that would be that would be very interesting. Yeah, I wasn't sure what to recommend. We're in sort of a limbo phase right now. So things have been very weird and complicated largely because as a consequence of recent events on the platform. Um We've kind of lost the ability to kind of sort of naively associate with leftist creators in general.

[00:53:30]So um we're kind of we're kind of revamping our entire approach to networking and and content.

[00:53:44]>> Hey which on the one hand we have the madman passage where he's he's speaking to the atheists in the marketplace telling them that God is dead. God is dead.

[00:53:55]But who who are we to unchain the earth from its sun? Who were we to wipe away the horizon? What is holiest and noblest has bled to death under our knives?

[00:54:04]How will we tell where when what direction we're plunging? Is there still any up or down? So we're totally disoriented. This is a real real crisis. It's a real dangerous situation.

[00:54:14]There's about to be this crisis of nihilism and none of you atheists can understand that.

[00:54:18]But on the other hand in other passages he expresses a wish to even banish the shadows of God from our interpretations of the world.

[00:54:28]Where he says that uh we still have all of these deifications of nature that are hangover >> I don't think he would abide by the idea that these aren't equivalent.

[00:54:40]The shadows of God are God.

[00:54:44]For all intents and purposes there is no meaningful distinction between those two things.

[00:54:52]>> from the Christian interpretation of the world.

[00:54:55]Uh metaphysical ideas that that color our interpretation of the world.

[00:55:00]And that we need to even get over those.

[00:55:02]And so you could latch on to one side or the other of the the two sides of that same coin.

[00:55:08]Uh the danger of the event or you could say the opportunity that it becomes possible because of the event. And what does that depend on, right? That depends on what you as the interpreter wish to get out of Nietzsche.

[00:55:20]And uh depending on your current needs and your current uh concerns and your current goals and your current desires um you're going to interpret according to those things would be my contention. And more important than the interpretations of any philosopher by the way are the ways in which the idea enters into the culture and is reproduced again and again by people who have no philosophical education at all. And I suppose that one way to put this issue might be that >> So, this is why I disagree with Brooks, by the way, about hating Essential Salts.

[00:55:56]Essential Salts actually like Brooks.

[00:55:59]No offense.

[00:56:00]Um is self-educated.

[00:56:04]And uh hasn't been to the university system and bears the marks of not having internalized like a particular disciplinary approach to the material.

[00:56:14]Now, Brooks is a lot better, like orders of magnitude better. Brooks is one of the only people on this earth who is very clearly an amateur philosopher uh who I take as an authority that I take with a grain of salt, to be clear. Um but I respect I respect Brooks.

[00:56:33]Um I don't respect Essential Salts in that sense.

[00:56:39]Uh but that being said, I think the issue with Essential Salts is not that he's incompetent. I think the issue with Essential Salts is that his Let's talk in Nietzschean terms. His his drives are not oriented towards producing high-quality philosophical analysis. I think he thinks they are. I think he buys his own [ __ ] to a degree.

[00:56:58]But I think his drives are actually oriented towards producing analysis that is rewarded by a largely right-wing {slash} edgy shitposter edgelord Nietzsche audience on YouTube.

[00:57:14]And even if he critiques, for example, people like Jordan Peterson, it's the same type of audience. It's a jaded disillusioned Jordan Jordanian audience that sort of follows this kind of thing, which is one of the reasons why he networks very well um with a lot of charlatans, like a lot of really big charlatans, and is comfortable to a disturbing degree with allowing these charlatans to use the association with him as a way to kind of um whitewash is the wrong word, but to grant unearned legitimacy to their own philosophical chops by saying, "Look, we talked to this committed uh Nietzsche obsessive on YouTube, okay?"

[00:57:59]And I think he could reflect a little bit more.

[00:58:05]Hey Sunday, I don't know if you meant like later tonight, but if you did, let me know because I actually have good audio equipment, but I don't have it set up. We're going to get on a call and get my gear out.

[00:58:13]Give me a few days because I'm going to be camping for the next couple of days.

[00:58:15]I'm not going to be streaming for a few days until uh the 18th, I think.

[00:58:19]Um and I'll stream again then.

[00:58:24]The main thing is uh I don't have Discord on this computer. So, I literally can't talk to you live.

[00:58:31]What I can do is I can get somebody else to join us for a call and record.

[00:58:36]But Ash Kitty says, "Like I said in a past stream, he wants to make a business of critique, which you can't really do without putting as little effort as possible into the critique." That's not true. Like for me, for example, um my strategy has been, and once again, like this has to be said, just to be consistent. And consistency is important insofar as you're trying to be intelligible to people you want to network with in a positive, constructive sense, right? Not in a cynical sense.

[00:59:08]Um my attitude towards content is I try to make I try to marry the cynical and the uh the earnest together.

[00:59:24]So, I try to make it so that my selling point is that I do an earnest, sincere, careful critique of what I'm doing.

[00:59:33]And that is what people are paying for, largely. Which, by the way, on that note, if you like my content, you want to support it, I live off of tips and off of patron support especially.

[00:59:45]Um there will be a new essay very shortly, a new big one. I'm actually really excited for this one. Uh it's going to be called Angela Nagle here in the physics of fascism.

[00:59:55]And that'll hopefully be done being written before I'm actually done this trip.

[00:59:59]Um but uh that will be on Patreon. And there are exclusive patron streams, etc., etc. Uh please consider joining that if you want to support the content and help support um really ridiculously over over researched video essays on philosophy and pop culture and science fiction and so and so.

[01:00:17]So and so on.

[01:00:19]Such and such.

[01:00:20]And whatnot. Etc. Um but I try to make that kind of my my selling point. So that I'm not tempted to cheap out and make stuff on the quick without doing my due diligence. The downside of this is that sometimes my deadlines uh tend to get over overshot because I'm one of the consequences of reading for your video essays really carefully is that the scope of your project always increases. You're always learning and so on.

[01:00:52]Um and so I'm I'm working a little bit on uh of what kind of flow's basis in terms of what kind of video essays I produce.

[01:01:01]Um which is why we had the chess one come out recently because it was on my mind and I was able to produce it fairly quickly.

[01:01:07]Um the Angela Nagle here one is on my mind and I'm ready to produce it. So that'll be the next one.

[01:01:12]Um and but uh yeah, if you appreciate that stuff, uh get into the gay science laboratory or the gay cathedral as Four Fash he has called it.

[01:01:22]Uh Bloodborne next video went That one is actually scripted out. I need to publish that to Patreon. I'm going to do that when I get back from my trip. Um that one's going to be the next one after the Angela Collier video. And they will all have been improved by the weight because I read a thousand 2,000 pages since the initial one came out.

[01:01:43]Um and it'll all be one big video at the end, but the Bloodborne part two video is coming out soon. Um but if you want to help support the channel, um we need to keep it above 1.5 USD in order to make it viable. Uh we are at 1.54.

[01:01:58]So, if you like this content and you want to keep it rolling, um it is especially important right now to uh join the Patreon. And there's again, like additional content there as well.

[01:02:08]And um certain tiers of Patreons uh get uh merch as well as um there's like mugs and so on.

[01:02:17]We're going to be adding custom bookmark printouts soon.

[01:02:20]Um as well as uh higher uh tier Patreons get stream requests, stream segment requests, as well as video essay requests. So, after the Bloodborne video essay, what I'm going to be working on over the next couple of weeks is uh a late video uh essay request, my apologies.

[01:02:37]Um which is a critique of uh Rachel Wilson's book Occult Feminism.

[01:02:43]And then uh there will also be a video on Foucault's The uh The Order of Things, which will be coming out shortly afterwards.

[01:02:55]Bloodborne is the best FromSoftware game in terms of its setting and its lore. In terms of gameplay, it's eh, but in terms of the realization of its setting, it is phenomenal, except for Sekiro. I think Sekiro is better.

[01:03:11]By a slim margin. I think uh I think Bloodborne crawled so Sekiro could fly.

[01:03:21]But I love Bloodborne.

[01:03:24]Sekiro is kind of Bloodborne too in a lot of ways. People don't give it it's due credit in that way. But it is it is great that way.

[01:03:31]>> See or I can find no processor no mechanism by which the idea would remain fixed across interpretations.

[01:03:42]That a popular idea's significance always will escape its original meaning and be utilized by people for the most various ends and goals because the populace at large has no onus placed on them whatsoever to [snorts] take the idea within its uh broader context, to thoroughly read the philosopher's work and understand the idea in relation to the philosopher's other ideas and how the philosopher comes to that idea and what how the idea can be gain new layers of meaning or interpretation from being cross-referenced >> Because if you want to if you want a preview for what's going to be talked about in uh Bloodborne part three because it's a three-part series. Part two's done basically in terms of the thought process behind it.

[01:04:25]Part three go look at a book by D.H. Lawrence.

[01:04:31]You might rem- remember the name Lawrence from Laurence the First Vicar in Bloodborne uh called Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious.

[01:04:39]I'm not kidding. You will find everything in Bloodborne there. It is wild.

[01:04:45]>> other ideas in their work. And so, you know the populace at large gets their ideas from uh pop culture or in songs or in movies.

[01:04:54]And you know very often online a sentence is just plucked out of a chapter and then we put it up as a quotation on Goodreads or on WikiQuote or you know you repeat it in conversation to sound erudite or to sound cultured.

[01:05:12]And we might say that >> See, this is why I have I cannot I cannot hate essential salty. He also pronounces erudite as erudite, not aerodite.

[01:05:21]Erudite just sounds better. I'm sorry, not so erudite.

[01:05:26]>> that the more popular an idea becomes, >> Who has the worst and who has the best take on Nietzsche in your opinion? Will Durant, Peterson, Deleuze, Hicks, Kołakowski, or Soltes?

[01:05:37]Who has the best take? Kołakowski.

[01:05:41]Easily, 100%.

[01:05:43]Better than Deleuze.

[01:05:44]Because Deleuze is taken from Kołakowski.

[01:05:47]Um but Kołakowski.

[01:05:51]100%.

[01:05:54]Who has the worst?

[01:05:58]It's a tie between Hicks and Peterson because neither of them understand Nietzsche at all.

[01:06:03]>> Which is really to say the more memetically powerful an idea is, the more abstracted from its context it becomes, the more it is unmoored, untethered from that context. When a philosophical idea becomes a meme, the very premise of its transmissibility as a meme is based on its ability to be removed from its context.

[01:06:29]The more >> Okay, long story short, we're going to wrap it up here cuz I need to go deal with life stuff. Um But uh hey, we got a stream working on this channel while I'm traveling, so that's good.

[01:06:41]We'll be doing a lot more of them.

[01:06:44]And uh I'll be maintaining my posture so I don't have this awful double chin showing up because I am a proteanly proteanly My physiognomy is protean in nature. I'm different looking depending on so many different things.

[01:06:58]Um I'm going to raid into somebody else.

[01:07:00]Let's find out who's live.

[01:07:02]I'm glad this This is sort of an experiment. I'm glad this worked.

[01:07:07]Um we'll try to do a Patreon stream at some point this week. We'll see if we can make that function.

[01:07:13]But uh in the meantime, who's live right now?

[01:07:18]Is Jordy live?

[01:07:21]No, he is not.

[01:07:23]Uh Quarantine Collective, do you want to go live?

[01:07:27]Present Sunday, what would Nietzsche think of Eastern Christianity? Uh the same thing he thinks of Western Christianity. He's he's disgusted by the um the will to uh Well, let's not use Nietzschean language. He's he would be disgusted by the desire for comfort and the willful stagnance.

[01:07:46]>> [snorts] >> The willful stagnation that results from attempting to uh secure your current feelings and identity uh in an institution that prevents you from having to reckon with the violence of lived ex- of lived existence.

[01:08:05]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]