Prof Jiang: 'You Choose Your Own Hell. No One Else.'

[00:00:00]Maybe um Dante will be um out of conscious again and be born again.

[00:00:07]>> Okay. Maybe he'll just faint, right?

[00:00:09]Maybe he'll just faint.

[00:00:13]>> Um okay. And this will signify a rebirth. Yeah, sure. Okay. Um uh Edward, >> could there be a final big conflict with Virgil and Virgil really reveals his his true colors? Okay. Yeah. Maybe a fight, right? A conflict, right? Where Virgil turns into Lucifer or something. Yeah. Okay. Possibly.

[00:00:39]Okay. We We're just using our imagination. Uh do >> uh maybe Dante will feel a bit ashamed because during this journey, he's been kind of like passive uh passive like traveler through purgatory and hell uh and um wardrobeing his guide. And during this journey, Dante Dante himself been has been um like uh he has lost his uh face in Beatric and lost his direction like multiple times, right? I I'll say if I I'll feel like a little bit ashamed to beat Petrice.

[00:01:13]>> Okay. May maybe he's just build it.

[00:01:15]Okay. But the act of revelation is like imagine a um a big boulder and you already know inside it is this beautiful angel, right? So the act of revelation is all you're doing is you're basically just breaking down the border so that it reveals itself to the world. Okay? So all other all the great poets believe this uh and there's no uh differentiation between them. Okay. All right. Any more questions? And yes, Julian, >> well, I had a dream that I could talk about.

[00:01:49]>> Yeah, great. We love dreams here. Yes, >> it's great that you guys are dreaming more. Yes. [laughter] >> Um, yeah. So, I have to say it was a really confusing dream for me. Um, and I don't know how I can really connect it to Dante, but um, so, um, I think it started with me wanting to have dinner with my father and my best friend and we wanted to set up dinner and then there was like an electric cable missing for the grill or something. So I went and tried to find it and then after a while I ended up in a forest and um I had a rope in my hand and it kind of it got stuck in a tree or something and okay so again this is not apparent um in the poetry but what you understand that um Dante is conveying his true paradox and you try to unravel this paradox then the truth slowly reveals itself to you.

[00:03:00]Okay.

[00:03:02]All right. Let's continue.

[00:03:06]All right. The desire they're entering hell because they want to do so. And this is a really important idea if you are to understand Dante. Free will is a fundamental truth of the universe. You do what you do because you choose to do it. You're in hell not because you did bad things. You are in hell because you think that hell is the best place for you. You're happy in hell. Okay.

[00:03:42]All right. So now they are in hell and the first place that they enter is something called limbo and limbo is a place where people go they're good people but the problem is they don't believe in Jesus they don't believe in Christ they never convert to Christianity so these are people like Virgil like Homer like Plato okay very virtuous people but unfortunately they um don't believe in God and so therefore they are due >> if we stop just focusing on the here and now and start thinking about the divine lift our head upwards to the heavens then this is a path forward. Uh yeah Julian did you want did you have a point? So we live more in an aristoian Aristotilian world than a Platonic world because you know from the famous painting Aristotle points downwards and Plato points upwards.

[00:04:44]>> You're completely right. Exactly right.

[00:04:46]So um Aristotle told us what matters is cause and effect. What matters is what happens here. Don't worry about what happens there. Plato's the opposite.

[00:04:56]Right. So so yeah. So right now we live in very much anian framework and we need to to return to much more platonic framework. Okay. I mean it is just horrible how today we're like go to college and study computer programming. That's the future.

[00:05:14]Ignore liberal arts. Ignore philosophy.

[00:05:17]Ignore art art history. Ignore the great books. That's the past. And like if you are truly enlightened, okay, I'm telling you right now, if you're going to university, ignore that stuff. Ignore computer programming, ignore STEM, just read the great books, read philosophy.

[00:05:34]That is the future. The future will be determined not by those who can computer program, but by those.

[00:05:40]>> So, um, status is saying, I was a secret Christian. Okay, so I was secretly baptized and I became a secret Christian. But if you're a secret Christian, are you really a Christian?

[00:05:49]Um so again [snorts] there's there there are many ways that you can interpret this. Okay but obviously this is a paradox and this is confusing Virgil and it's telling us that maybe everything that Virgil says is not correct. Okay. This is actually subtly and with nuance undermining the argument of Virgil. Okay. All right. So now we are moving towards the final uh part of FTOY when Dante is able to ascend to the mountain top where Beatus will come and uh meet him. Okay, keep on going. [snorts] I have at time seen all the eastern sky becoming rose as they begin scene adorned will be blue the rest of heaven and seeing the sun's face rise so veled that it was tempered by the mist and could permit the eye to look at length upon it. So within a cloud of flowers that were cast by the angelic hands and then rose up and then fell back outside in the chariot a woman showed herself to me above a white ve she was crowned with olive bows. Her cable was green, her dress, her dress beneath, flame red within her presence. I had once been used to feeling trembling, wonder, dissolution. But that was long ago.

[00:07:14]Still though my soul now she was feel could not see her directly by way of hidden force that she could move. I felt the mighty power of old love. Okay. So, Donnie has not seen Beatatrice in a long time, in decades, and his his heart has loved Beatric all his life. And so, he's really excited that Beatrice is before him. Okay? His entire body shakes. And his first response is he wants Virgil to share in his happiness because he owes everything to Virgil. It's Virgil that brought him through infernal and brought him through purgatory so that he may finish his journey with Beatrice. Okay.

[00:07:57]So that's what Donnie wants. He wants to share his happiness with his teacher um Virgil. Keep on going. [snorts] >> As soon as that deep forest has struck my vision, the power that when I had not yet left my boyhood had already transfixed me. I turned around and to my left, just as a little child, afraid or in distress, will hurry to his mother anxiously to say to Virgil, "I am left with less than one drop of my blood that does not tremble. I recognize [snorts] the signs of the old flame." But Virgil had deprived us of himself. Virgil, the gentlest father. Virgil, he to whom I gave myself for my salvation. And even all our ancient mother loss was not enough to keep my cheeks though washed with you from darkening again with tears.

[00:08:45]>> Okay. So he is extremely happy. He's ecstatic to see Beatric. He turns to Virgil and he doesn't assume that Virgil is beside him and he says and he wants to tell him how happy he is. And then when he sees that Virgil is not there, Virgil has disappeared.

[00:09:03]He becomes despondent. his ecstasy becomes um a depression. Okay, that's how high he's gone and that's how low he's fallen because all he wants is shares happiness with Virgil but Virgil has run away. So this is a paradox again. Okay, the divine comedy is nothing but paradoxes.

[00:09:27]Why did Virgil run away?

[00:09:31]Right? Okay, this makes absolutely no sense. First of all, Virgil should be proud and happy for Dante, right? He loves Dante. Dante wants to be with Beatric again, and Virgil made it happen. You would think that he would want to see Dante and Beatric together again. Okay, that's one problem. Another problem is that [snorts] Beatrice was the one who asked Virgil to take Dante on this journey. So Beatrice owes him a favor. And you would think that Virgil can say, "Hey, um, Beatrice, I did you this favor, so maybe you can do me a favor and like get me into heaven." Right?

[00:10:18]This is like really strange. And the third uh problem is that this is like really awkward.

[00:10:28]Okay, this is like really strange.

[00:10:33]The least you can do is basically say to Beatrice, listen, I brought Dante here and now he's yours. Okay, that's a polite thing to do. This is like not typical of uh Virgil. So, this le this leaves a huge question in our minds as to why Virgil did this. Okay, keep keep on going.

[00:10:56]>> Dante, though Virgil's leaving [snorts] you, do not yet weep. Do not weep yet.

[00:11:01]You'll need your tears for what another sword must yet inflict. Just like an admiral who goes stern and proud to see the officers who guide the other ships, encouraging their tasks. So on the left side of the chariot, I turn around when I heard my name, which of necessity I transcribe here. I saw the lady who had first appeared to me beneath the veils of the angelic flowers look at me across the stream. Although the veil she was >> Wait, stop. Okay. Right. Okay. So what's even strangers Beatric is saying to Dante, Virgil's gone. Forget him. He's not important. What's important is your mission in paradise. Focus on that, Dante. Let's forget Virgil. All right.

[00:11:43]Let's forget him.

[00:11:49]And this creates a huge paradox in our minds.

[00:11:54]What is going on here? Why did Virgil run away?

[00:11:59]Okay. And again, you can interpret this as many ways as you want, and there's no right or wrong answer, but one interpretation is that Virgil is first and foremost um he believes he is right. He is in hell because he believes that he should be there.

[00:12:22]No one put him there. He should put himself there. and he believes he should be there because God can only let in those who are Christians. Okay? And along the way we discover that's not actually true. Kato who is not a Christian is a guardian of purgatory. Status who is a sicker Christian, he's able to ascend to heaven. So clearly Virgil's framework is wrong.

[00:12:53]Virgil does not want to see Dante and Beatrice together again. Okay? Because the relationship between Dante and Beatrice is the opposite of the relationship between Virgil and Ditto. Okay? Both are literations.

[00:13:15]The difference is that Dante put Beatatrice into paradise [snorts] whereas Virgil put Ditto into hell right in the infernal.

[00:13:30]Dante believes that love is fun fundamentally about giving whereas Virgil believes that love is fundament about receiving and conquering. Okay. So these are two major economies and Virgil does not want to see the power of Dante's love for Beatrice where Beatrice rejected him. Beatrice was never with him but Dante loved kept on loving her.

[00:14:01]Okay. Dante was willing to give. He understood that living that true love is about sharing. It's about bestowing.

[00:14:10]It's about giving yourself. Whereas Virgil has always claimed that love is about taking, about consuming, about controlling.

[00:14:20]Okay? So that's why Virgil had to leave because he did not want to be wrong.

[00:14:29]Okay? He did not want his worldview to be destroyed. So he would rather burn in hell for all of eternity than to say I am wrong. Okay.

[00:14:42]All right. So already in the beginning we have to question the authority of Virgil. Okay. Virgil is an unreliable guide.

[00:15:00]And for us to truly enter paradise, for us to truly discover God, we need to recognize he is unreliable ourselves.

[00:15:09]Donnie will never tell us.