July 24, 2025 • 43 mins
What if the good news isn't finding fulfillment, but discovering we can never be whole? What if community forms not just around shared beliefs, but shared enemies? What if anxiety isn't something to overcome, but the very evidence of our humanity?
These provocative questions form the heart of our conversation with philosopher, author and public speaker Peter Rollins about his concept of "pyrotheology" – a radical approach to faith that embraces uncertainty rather than fleeing from it. Peter explains that pyrotheology helps people confront the death of God (the loss of certainty) not to wallow in meaninglessness, but because this confrontation transforms how we relate to ourselves and others.
At a time when society seems increasingly fragmented along ideological lines, Peter's insights offer a surprising path forward. He distinguishes between three types of human gathering: communities (bonded by shared beliefs and enemies), commons (spaces where we encounter different others), and communion (connections formed around our shared experience of lack). This final category presents a revolutionary possibility – what if we could form bonds not around what we have in common, but around what we all lack?
The conversation takes fascinating turns through psychoanalysis, existentialism, and the nature of anxiety. Peter argues that anxiety, unlike other emotions, doesn't lie – it reveals the truth of our human condition. Rather than trying to escape this fundamental uncertainty through religion, consumption, or self-improvement, pyrotheology invites us to find freedom in embracing it.
Whether you're wrestling with faith questions, interested in philosophy, or simply seeking deeper connection in a divided world, this episode offers thought-provoking insights about finding joy not in certainty, but in the loving embrace of life's inherent incompleteness.
Check out Peter's work at www.peterrollins.com, support him on Patreon, or watch his videos on YouTube. Peter has agreed to return to the podcast in the future for more conversation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Does it feel like every part of your life is
divided, every scenario, everyenvironment, your church, your
school, your work, your friends,left right, conservative,
liberal, religious, secular?
It seems you always have totake a side.
This is a conversation betweena progressive Christian and a
conservative atheist who happento be great friends.
(00:23):
Welcome to Living on CommonGround.
Do you think if we met today wewould still be friends?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
A mob is known as a mob because they are with him,
man.
So what?
We won a few games and y'allfools think that's something.
Man, that ain't nothing, y'all.
And you know what else?
We ain't nothing either.
Yeah, we came together in camp,cool.
But then we're right back hereand the world tells us that they
(01:00):
don't want us to be together.
We fall apart like we ain't adamn bit of nothing, man.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
For this week's episode, Lucas and I had an
opportunity to sit down withauthor, philosopher, storyteller
, producer and public speaker,Peter Rollins, to discuss
pyrotheology and itsimplications for faith and
belief in today's world.
Peter joined us remotely fromLA and we visited for a little
over an hour.
After about 40 minutes therewas a brief glitch, but after
(01:36):
only a second or two everythingseemed to be restored.
However, when I went to editthis episode, I realized the
online app we use for remoteinterviews had stopped recording
Peter.
Fortunately, we were able torecord some great content and
Peter has agreed to come back onthe show in the future.
If you enjoy the conversationand want to learn more about
(01:57):
pyrotheology and the workPeter's doing, you can check out
his website atwwwpeterrollinscom.
You can also support him onPatreon and check out his videos
on YouTube.
Links are provided in thisweek's episode description.
So, with that being said, takea listen.
All right, so let me thank youagain for coming on.
(02:19):
I greatly appreciate youresponding as quickly as you did
.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Oh no, I appreciate the invitation and, yeah, I love
the idea of the podcast CommonGround two people coming from
different places.
I like the fact that you havelike almost four different
identity markers, that kind ofcoalesce from conservative,
progressive to atheist andChristian, so I find that very
(02:44):
interesting.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, thanks, yeah, and you had asked earlier how
long we've been doing this.
November will be two years.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Very cool.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah, so well, in my email that I sent to you.
By the way, you can see it onour screen.
But I'm Jeff, I'm the one thatwould be called the progressive
Christian.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You want to say, hey Lucas, hey Lucas.
No, that's not what you meant.
Peter, it's very nice to meetyou.
I'm excited about this.
I'll be honest, jeff has beenincredibly excited ever since
you sent that email back.
Jeff has been incrediblyexcited ever since you sent that
(03:38):
email back.
He has been following you for avery long time and he has
talked about you a lot.
I have to admit, I'm get to toknow your work and, um, it's,
it's very interesting.
So I'm, I'm, I'm really excitedto, uh, to get to meet you as
well.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Thanks for doing this I appreciate it, looking
forward to dive in yeah so, um,like lucas said, I've been, I've
been following you for a whilenow uh, that sounds creepy when
I say it but, um, about 12 yearsago I think it was 12 years ago
I picked up the first book ofyours that I read, which was I
(04:11):
wrote it down Idolatry of Godwas actually the first one I
read and then, after I read it,I went back and I bought
Insurrection and how Not toSpeak of God.
And I read both of thoseinsurrection and how not to
speak of God and I read both ofthose and it really sort of
(04:31):
helped me through this momentwhere I was questioning
everything that I believed.
And I remember at one point Iwas actually reading one of your
books and I walked out of myoffice and I just said to people
I don't know actually what Ibelieve anymore, but I do still
believe in Jesus, and that sortof led me down this road.
But one of the things that Iwanted to talk to you about is
(04:52):
let's start with this how wouldyou describe pyrotheology to
people that aren't familiar withit?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, in three sentences, peter.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yes, that is not easy to do, like any of these terms.
Uh, it was kind of invented.
Uh, it was actually a friend ofmine came up with it because we
used to create these, uh, whatwe call transformance art events
that are immersive experiencesthat use music and poetry and
art, whatever.
So we would create theseexperiences and we did one that
(05:23):
was all about fire.
It was funny.
We were doing a festival and wehad a fire alarm going off as
people went in, say, and we saidthere's a fire in the building,
please step inside.
So the fire people hated us.
We got into lots of troublebecause we were handing out
matches to everybody, but anyway, we were wearing burnt clothes
and we had a funeral pyre thathad smoke coming out of it and
(05:45):
we explored this notion ofburning.
Uh, there's a beautiful quote by, uh, the spanish anarchist,
bonif, um, uh, who was it?
Oh, I forget, I'll come back tome in a second, but the quote
is the only church thatilluminates is a burning one.
And, um, we took that phraseand we built this event around
it and somebody said this islike parotheology.
(06:07):
So, in order to kind ofdescribe the theory and the
technology that I'm developing,I thought, oh, that's a great
term, it doesn't exist.
It sounds a little bit 80s,like a little bit like
parotechnology, like, you know,acdc or something with fire, so
I was a bit worried about that.
But yeah, so it's a phrase thatdidn't exist.
But in a nutshell, I'll saysomething and this will actually
(06:30):
connect, I think, with yourwork and what you're doing with
the podcast is I'm veryinterested in what I could call
negativity, what we do not know,the ultimate experience that we
have with the enigmatic or withthe mysterious.
Uh, this has always been anelement of theology.
(06:52):
Uh, both atheism andchristianity have a really
interesting relationship withnegativity.
Atheism, you know,traditionally, in its classical
form, it's about a, anintellectual negation, where an
atheist says I do not believe inGod.
So there's an intellectualnegation.
Christianity, I find moreinteresting because it's a lived
(07:14):
experience, which means theyhave to existentially experience
the negative, the absence ofGod.
But both of them then have acritique of theism within them,
one more intellectual, one moreexistential.
(07:35):
But paratheology, then, becauseit's more in the Christian
tradition, it's designed as atheory and also a practice to
help people encounter the deathof God, the loss of certainty,
the embrace of a fundamentalenigma or mystery at the heart
(07:55):
of reality, not just for thesake of it, but because this
confrontation with an ultimateunknowing, I would argue, and we
can get into why transforms ourway of being in the world,
transforms how we relate to oneanother, how we relate within
economics, within politics,within social life in general.
(08:19):
So that's power of theology ina nutshell.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
So that's part of theology in a nutshell.
So you mentioned sort of how ithas a potential to change the
way we relate.
That was one of the questionsthat I had is, as you, lucas,
and I have had a debate aboutwhether or not everything has to
have purpose and meaning.
But do you like, what is thepurpose for what you do?
Why do you like?
(08:45):
What is your ultimate goal andyour hope with it?
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, so my work is in the tradition that critiques
meaning.
So, whether it's existentialism, absurdist philosophy,
psychoanalysis, these are alltraditions that have a critique
of the notion of meaning,although all of them have
offshoots that reject us.
(09:07):
So, um, you know, even withinpsychoanalysis, you have
psychology, which is a denial ofpsychoanalysis.
Uh, you have debt psychology.
Um, you have, uh, evenlogotherapy, you know.
So you have the return of, youalways have the return of
meaning.
Christianity, I think, as areligion, is a fundamental
rejection of the lack of meaningthat the death of god means.
(09:29):
So you could say the entire, Iwould say the entire oedipus of
religion is an attempt to bringmeaning back to an event that
that, uh, critiques meaning.
So, basically, in a nutshell,just as in je, you're asking me
what is the form of life?
What I would argue.
Again, I'll do it in shorthandand if you want me to unpack it,
(09:51):
great, but in shorthand I wouldsay we are obsessed with
meaning and purpose.
We are obsessed with to behuman is to experience being
between where we are and wherewe would like to be human is to
experience being between wherewe are and where we would like
to be.
So all of us have what's calleda circle of reality, a
worldview, ideology, and thatcircle of reality we experience
(10:14):
ourselves as not being where wewant to be.
So, as I say, we all have asense of I'm here and I'd like
to be here, and self-help andcognitive therapies and
psychology all try and help youget from A to B.
I want to write a book, so youwant to get to the point where
you've written the book and youcan get advice about how to do
that right.
So, within circles of reality,we experience ourselves as being
(10:36):
between, say, who we are, whowe'd like to be.
The name for the affect betweenthose is guilt.
So guilt is the experience ofnot being where you want to be,
basically, but it can be inanything.
I'm not having enough fun, I'mnot having enough sex, I'm not
reading enough books.
It manifests in lots ofdifferent ways and what I'm
(10:58):
interested in is our whole,whether it's commodity
satisfaction, psychedelics,polyamory, whatever you want.
Someone's giving an answer tohow you can bridge the gap, how
you can be whole and complete,how you can have a meaningful,
purposeful life, like everyone'spreaching that right.
I'm currently in LA, which isthe Mecca of that world.
(11:20):
Everyone is promising wholenessand completeness, different ways
of getting to be who you wantto be, and my work is freedom
from that entire way of being,that entire way of thinking,
which means it's a type offreedom from enjoyment Not
freedom to be happy, but freedomfrom the need to be happy.
(11:42):
Happy but freedom from the needto be happy, freedom from the
pursuit of wholeness andcompleteness, an ability to
embrace radical unknowing andsacrifice.
So for me, it's an entirelydifferent way of being in the
world that can free us fromthinking that some commodity
will make us happy, whether it'sa car or a house, whether some
(12:03):
person will make us happy, someromantic partner, whether some
drug experience or religiousexperience, whatever it is right
.
Fill in the X, whatever the Xis that will make you whole and
complete.
My work is about attempting tofree people from that entire
framework of thinking.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I love that you brought that up.
One of the episodes that Ilistened to of your podcast was
back in 2019.
It's labeled Pirate Theology101.
You were giving a talk to aroom and then taking questions
to say again I'm not, I'm nottrying to blow smoke here.
(12:44):
I had not.
I was I'm not familiar withyour work prior to like a couple
of weeks ago, and I'm I justhave really loved, uh, the stuff
that I've listened to so farlistening to you explain, um,
your worldview for a couple ofreasons.
Number one, um and I'd like toget into this more in the, maybe
(13:05):
later on but you have a realdepth of knowledge of psycho,
psychoanalysis and it seems likeyou bring that to your work
quite a bit that understanding,and so I would like to talk
about that more in a second.
But I had a specific questionwhen you're talking about trying
(13:25):
to free people from meaning,because you did mention this in
the episode that I listened toas well, which is, you know, you
talked about how we have adesire.
You talked about this conceptof guilt being I should, but I'm
not right.
I should be here but I'm not.
(13:46):
I should have this, but I don't.
I should have done that, but Ididn't, whatever it is and that
there's all these differentframeworks that try to free us
from anxieties.
So one of the things that youhad said and I'm going to try to
(14:07):
relate this, I apologize forthe rambling for a second but
one of the things that you hadsaid is that, when it comes to
the anxiety of death that theStoics have this, well, first,
you said that religioustraditions can have an answer,
for that can relieve thatanxiety.
Even if it's not true, right,whether it's true or not right,
(14:28):
we don't actually die becausethere's another life, and so
that can relieve the anxiety.
And that you had said theStoics have their answer, which
is you don't have to worry aboutit because you're not dead yet,
and when you're dead you won'tknow it, and so you don't have
to worry about it, which Ithought was a great way of
summing that up.
But you said that there's notreally a way to, in those
(14:56):
traditions, relieve you of theanxiety, of this need for
meaning, and so my question iswhy doesn't a stoic position
relieve you of that anxiety formeaning?
Why couldn't you use that sameframework of like there's no
(15:16):
meaning?
And if there was, well, I guess.
Anyway, sorry, that's myquestion.
Why wouldn't that work?
Why wouldn't that work?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Brilliant, yeah, so basically, in terms of the kind
of popular view of death isdeath is ahead of us and, as you
mentioned, you know there's,you know whether in the
religious world they say well,we won't die, we'll go to heaven
on the next life or secularforms, which is, we'll download
ourselves soon into the cloud,or we'll be able to augment
(15:45):
ourselves and get escapevelocity so that we'll
effectively not have to die.
Or the stoic answer, as youmentioned, which is a type of
yeah, hey, while you're alive,death isn't here, and when death
is here, you're not, so don'tworry about it.
But none of them have a notionof the idea that basically,
death isn't something that'scoming, death is already here.
(16:06):
There's a form of lack or deaththat is in, that is infused
within us, and so overcoming theanxiety of going to die in the
future doesn't doesn't addressthe anxiety of a type of lack,
because I use death and lack tomean the same death is the
ultimate lack.
But, um, so in something likePaul Tillich's book, the Courage
(16:30):
to Be, he kind of gives threeshapes of lack, and one is the
first one, which is you're goingto die, and that was actually a
big thing in previous ages andin different places in the world
where death is all around you,then that's a big thing.
In previous ages and atdifferent places in the world
where death is all around you,you know, then that's a big
(16:50):
anxiety.
But uh, then as societydevelops and death is more
hidden away.
But we we become more aware ofguilt, which is another form of
lack, and I mentioned that.
So guilt is I am not who I needto be, so that's an infused
type of lack.
And then the third that pillocktalks about bringing us up to
(17:11):
the contemporary world ismeaninglessness, a sense that
that we can't find meaning.
And so, of course, the 20thcentury, the late 20th century,
was, in many ways the greatartists were, and literary
theorists and whatever.
We're exploring how, this lackof meaning we feel a profound
sense of of within acontemporary industrialized
(17:33):
society, we don't get meaning inour work, we feel alienated.
And then we go home and wewatch crap on tv and there's
something in which we just feelinherently like life has no
meaning.
And so for me, you know, andthere's various ways in which
stoicism is attempting toaddress that Also the
pharmaceutical industry attemptsto address that as well by
(17:55):
giving certain drugs, Certaintherapies.
As I said, like mostpsychotherapies not all of them,
but a lot of psychotherapiesare designed to help you
overcome that feeling ofalienation.
The difference with mostpsychotherapies and
psychoanalysis is inpsychoanalysis, and also in
existentialism, with SørenKierkegaard and others, and with
(18:17):
Camus and the absurdisttradition, the idea is not to
overcome alienation but ratherto find a way to embrace it.
That alienation is not an evilthat has to be gotten rid of
through taking some xanax orwhatever, or through stoic
practices or through religion.
Actually, anxiety is somethingthat is evidence of our humanity
(18:40):
.
That's what soren kirkugar says.
He calls it spirit.
Actually it's.
Anxiety is the evidence thatyou're human and the reason for
that is because anxiety is theaffect.
I don't think this is quiteright, but we can get.
But basically, the the best wayinto anxiety is to think of it
as it's not knowing how you fitinto the world.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Uh, you said you said that it's.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but youhad said in that, in that
episode, that, um, that you, uhyou regarded anxiety as the
maybe maybe I'm gonna say thiswrong but as the only true
emotion that there is, that thatwe can have many affect uh,
that are not, uh, that peoplehave this, this idea that our
(19:22):
emotional life is the truestsense of what's real for us.
That that's not actually thecase, which I thought was.
I think that's I would agreewith that, but that anxiety is
the only true emotion.
Why is that?
Is it because what you'retalking about that it's the
sense that I don't fit into aworld that I exist in.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Yes, absolutely so.
This is a brand of Kenyan.
So I I I'm very influenced bythe Kenyan French psychoanalysis
and in the Kenyan school or aFrench school, um uh, you know,
emotions can lie.
You can think that you hatesomebody when you really love
them.
You think you can.
You know, you think you'rehappy, but sometimes if
someone's too happy, happy it'sactually a defense against
sadness.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
You know all of those things that happen well, it's
kind of the core ofpsychoanalysis, right?
Is that?
This idea that I think that Iam angry with my wife but really
I'm sad because of somethingthat happened with my mother or
whatever?
Speaker 5 (20:18):
yes, exactly, exactly so.
The analyst, we, you don'ttrust any of these emotions,
yeah, and then, when the cansays that, basically, he says
I've, like, I had so many greatlittle quips, little aphorisms,
and one of his aphorisms is youknow, the only, the only affect
that doesn't lie is anxiety.
Yeah, what he's referring to iswhen there's anxiety, there is
(20:38):
a sense of kel and practice.
When he says, touching the realand touching the real means it
is touching an absolute enigma.
You don't know how you fit intothe world, you don't know who
you are.
So the other that's the moreprecise definition actually is
you don't know what the otherwants, you don't know what you
should do.
(20:58):
Uh, you're kind of you're thedizziness of freedom.
Soren kirchgaard calls it thedizziness of freedom.
You're like I don't know whatto do.
So every you hit anxiety, it'skind of like a true affect.
It's touching the very depth ofwhat it means to be human.
But most of us I would say allof us want to escape the
dizziness of freedom.
Sartre, of course, said we'recondemned to freedom, and what
(21:24):
he meant by that is we don'tlike freedom.
We want someone to tell us whatto do.
We want to look at tarot cardsor key leaves or look at
prophecies.
We don't want freedom, we wantto escape our freedom, but
anxiety is the evidence of ourfreedom and it's the evidence of
the truth of our subjectivity.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Is that kind of related to?
I think it was Jürgen Gard whotalked about floating over the
fathoms, in terms of the idea offaith being floating over the
fathoms and not reaching for thesolid shore.
And that's exactly what you'retalking about that we have this
drive to try to reach for thesolid shore, that that's where
(22:07):
our salvation will come from, orwhatever.
That's where the relief of getrid of the anxiety Is that right
(22:32):
to go ahead and embrace theanxiety of meaninglessness?
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yes, yes, I mean basically no, no, that's perfect
, that's perfect.
Uh, dig the, the mechanisms forhow to do it we can chat about,
but ultimately, yes, you hitthe nail on the head, which is,
for me and I'm the funny thingis existentialism just very
briefly, because we werementioning existentialism is
like it actually comes from,like that one of the proto
(22:57):
existentialistsentialists was,you know, blaise, pascal and
Pascal, who I love and alsodisagree with Pascal.
The reason why he's aproto-existentialist is because
in his most radical formulationsof what it is to be human, he
goes like to be human is to feelthat something is missing both
(23:19):
in our desire and in ourconceptual abilities.
So in our desire and in ourconceptual abilities, so in our
mind and in our bodies, and hebasically shut the door to the
idea that we can get rid of that.
Just as you said about floatingover the fathoms, there's a
certain sense in which we arelost ontologically, in a sense
of unknowing, and then whathappens is a lot of
(23:45):
existentialists then try to findsome way of alleviating that.
And so for Pascal it was a leapof faith, but for someone like
Albert Camus, in his book theMyth of Sisyphus, camus
basically argues very well.
I just reread the book recentlyas well.
It's in my mind that his work,the absurdist work, the work of
the absurdist, is to endure andenjoy the anxiety of never being
(24:12):
able to kneel down at the levelof the mind full knowledge and
at the level of the body fullenjoyment.
That full knowledge and fullenjoyment are fantasies and we
somehow have to endure and enjoythat alienation that we feel.
So you said it perfectly that'sthe kind of work that's the
(24:33):
good news.
The good news is you can't bewhole, you can't be complete.
Life is shit.
That's the good news.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, you mentioned the good news.
I have written down here one ofmy favorite quotes from your
book, the Idolatry of God.
I'm going to read it.
It says here we start toapproach what can be called the
good news of Christianity youcan't be fulfilled, you can't be
made whole, you can't findsatisfaction.
At first, this can sound likeanything but good news.
However, once we're freed fromthe oppression of the idol, we
(25:04):
find that embracing and lovinglife, with all its difficulties,
offers a much deeper and richerform of joy.
The good news is not simply aconfrontation with the reality
that total fulfillment andcertainty are not possible, but
rather is found in the joyfulembrace of this insight, an
embrace that robs the reality ofits oppressive sting.
So I highlighted that, like Isaid 12 years ago, and it's
(25:27):
something that, as we weregetting ready to talk with you,
I immediately knew where it wasin the book and I pulled it up
Because one of the things youwere talking about is this idea
of anxiety, and my experiencewith this has been that, as I
have jettisoned certainty, Ihave actually experienced less
(25:48):
anxiety in my life and I amexperiencing that joyful embrace
that you describe.
It's also the thing that hasallowed me to be able to sort of
step over and and kind of comethrough differences and just
relate with people yeah, yes,absolutely.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Uh, yeah, I thank you .
I'm thank you for reading that.
I'm glad I said that 12 yearsago, so I I thought you know.
You never know if you'll agreewith yourself, but younger peter
was was onto something there.
Um you there.
This gets to your core.
Did you want to say anythingelse before I jump in?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
No, I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah, you know, I guess the work here is that,
technically, it is precisely innot knowing and in this mystery
that we can find our connectionwith others, and that's what you
were mentioning, and I'd liketo just start about that very
briefly.
(26:47):
I could talk about community.
So community is any social bondthat is forged around shared
beliefs, shared values, sharedpractices and, most importantly,
a shared enemy.
So any social bond we have likeyou know, we all go to a
snooker club because we likesnooker, we go to a certain
(27:09):
religious group because we havethose beliefs.
Communities are not wrong,right, but communities, they say
, they join around sharedidentity.
But there's always and this isvery key there's always.
But there's always and this isvery key there's always
negativity, there's alwayssomething missing and that's put
into the scapegoat.
(27:29):
So the scapegoat is the namefor a negativity.
So a community is boundtogether not just because they
have the shared beliefs, buttheir own community will have a
shared enemy.
Now, it might not be a sharedactual enemy.
Community will have a sharedenemy.
Now, it might not be a sharedactual enemy, it might be a
shared goal or whatever,something that's incomplete,
something that if only theycould get rid of.
(27:49):
You know the conservatives.
Or get rid of the immigrants,or get rid of, it doesn't matter
.
X, get rid of x, uh, get rid ofthe homeless, get rid of the
fat cats, get rid of whatever.
It is right.
If we got rid of them,everything would be great.
So there's a negativity.
Now the thing about thescapegoat is what the scapegoat
does very clever.
(28:10):
It's a fetish object.
It offers it.
It basically renders aninherent impossibility into
something contingent that can begot rid of.
So there's an inherent problemwith being human, an inherent
alienation to being human.
Let's imagine that for a second, without showing the work, and
I let's imagine there's aninherent alienation of being
(28:32):
human.
We put it into the scapegoat,and so then we can fantasize.
If only I got rid of them, theneverything would be wonderful.
And it's actually the scapegoatthat we think.
The scapegoat is what preventsthe community.
It's preventing something, butactually it's what joins the
community.
The very impossibility, thevery thing that you think is the
(28:53):
problem, is the solution to theproblem.
It's what holds the grouptogether.
So that's community.
Anyway, it's community Then.
By the way, one final thingabout communities is they all
exclude somebody.
If you ever see a communitythat says we welcome everybody,
there's always somebody who'snot welcome.
I had a friend who wanted to doa progressive friend.
He wanted to do this festival.
He said everyone's welcome andI was able to rattle off about
(29:15):
four groups that would not bewelcome in his progressive LA
festival.
And that wasn't me digging out.
I must be going like there'salways excluded groups.
Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
No, no, no, I think.
I think that's brilliant.
And then what I was thinkingwhen you were describing the
scapegoat is that my wife is atherapist for the last 20 years
and she would say I think infamily systems and family
systems theory they would talkabout and I'm going to get this
wrong but the actual term, butessentially it's the like, the
(29:46):
identified problem person in thefamily, right and and the exact
same.
It's just a community at asmaller level.
It's the exact same thingyou're talking about.
I think it's, and you said,most importantly for a community
, it's the enemy.
That is the thing that's mostbonding for a community that's
most galvanizing, is that right?
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Yeah, and the reason why I would argue that because
that's a good point, yeah, and Isaid so why is that?
Why is that more important thanshared identity and this will
become clear, actually, when II'll do kind of basically three
different groups, but I'llmention it now is the argument
almost is that negativity alwaysexists.
You can't get rid of it.
So what community does is itrenders it contingent, it puts
(30:31):
it onto somebody else, it putsthe negativity onto another, it
represses, disavows it,forecloses it.
And this, by the way, is 101.
This is why kind of the new ageand fascism are so close.
It's like, so like, uh.
Hitler continually in my campstalked about the world is an
organic whole, the nation is anorganic whole, but there's some
(30:54):
virus that's in it and we haveto get rid of the virus to have
a healthy, sustained whole bodywhere everything works together.
This is called corporatism.
In politics, corporatism iswhere the government works in
cooperation with the unions andthe industrialists.
Everyone works together.
So it's a denial of what'scalled class consciousness, it's
(31:16):
a denial of class antagonismthat everything can work well,
and of course you get thatwithin the New Age as well.
It's oh, everything's one andwhole and whatever, and we just
have to see through the illusion, because there's always
something we have to do.
So we have to just see throughthe illusion, anyway.
So negativity at Argy always issomewhere and in the community
it's repressed, it's put ontosomebody else.
(31:39):
Then the second group that I'llmention is the commons.
The commons isn't a social bondat all.
The commons is spaces where youmeet people who are potentially
radically different fromyourself.
So parks, libraries, publictransport, places where, as I
say, not only do you meet peoplewho are on different sides of
(32:03):
the political conflict but, moreimportantly, who don't even
interpret the conflict in thesame way.
That's very, very key.
The problem with society is notjust that we have disagreements
, but that we disagree aboutwhat the disagreements are about
.
That's what makes it impossible, because it's not just that one
person you know kind of loveskids and the other hates kids,
(32:27):
right, and it's like it'ssuddenly weirdly like if you
don't agree with my position,then you hate children or
whatever, because children arenot being fed or whatever it's.
You disagree about what thedisagreement is about.
So it's not as simple as that.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Both sides think they care about kids, right you know
, and they think they'refighting a different.
They both think they'refighting a different battle.
They, they can't, uh, theydon't even have the same
language for the uh, for the,for the um uh the conversation.
I can completely see that.
I was just listening tosomebody talking about the
problem with uh blowback.
Um, you know, and part of theproblem with part of the theory
(33:06):
of the problem with blowback isnot just when you know when,
when a government does something, um, uh, in some other uh
country or whatever, and and um,you know, there's ramifications
of.
That's the initial part of theblowback, but the secondary and
maybe worse part of the blowbackis that because the initial
(33:29):
community, the initialgovernment, the initial country
that perpetrated this, thecitizens don't know why it
happened, or that it happened,or therefore they don't know
that, why the blowback ishappening, which means that
there's confusion about what'sactually happening among the
populace.
So they are exactly what you'retalking about.
(33:50):
Then they want a reaction fromtheir own government, which
maybe is completely disconnectedwith the, the reason why it's
happening in the first place.
So they're they're not evenhaving the same conversation and
that's kind of.
It sounds like that's similarto what you're talking about
there.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Absolutely.
There's a very famous essay byClaude Lévi-Strauss, great
anthropologist, structuralist,and in this essay, very briefly,
it wasn't him, it was actuallyanother anthropologist who
noticed that in this there wasthis tribal group and they asked
the people in the tribe to drawa map of the village and the
(34:38):
one group within the tribe drewthe map with um, basically a
circle in the middle where allthe temple were and the kind of
the elite people, and then acircle on the outside where
everybody else lived.
Another group drew a completelydifferent map.
It was still a circle, but itwas a line down the middle and
on one side there was one group,on the other the other, and
basically what theanthropologists going like is.
This is weird, because I wasjust asking him to draw a map of
(34:59):
the village, but there's adisagreement about even how the
village is mapped.
And claude levy strauss reallyexplores this.
He goes like there's no real.
It's not that you could thentake a helicopter and take a
real picture of the map.
It's like the two differentgroups have a totally different
way of mapping reality withinthe same village.
(35:20):
And it's the same in Americanpolitics.
It's not just that there's twodifferent groups that disagree,
they disagree about the entiremapping of the disagreement, and
that's what makes politicspositive a disagreement and
that's it and that and that'swhat makes you know that's what
makes politics positive.
You have to navigate what'scalled the real of that, which
is the fundamental antagonism.
Now, the great thing about thecommons the commons is the place
(35:41):
where you meet people, then,who are so different from you
that they map social realitydifferently, so much so that you
hate them that you probablythink they're awful, but you rub
shoulders with them.
You're walking your dog withthem.
Now, one of the problems withwhat happened over covid is the
commons was, which is alreadybeing eroded very badly, was
very eroded because we were alljust stuck in our own homes and
(36:02):
then we started hanging aboutwith just people who thought
like us.
So there is an erosion of thecommons.
The whole idea of the commonsis you need to rub shoulders
with people who are verydifferent.
You even saw this online wherepeople started to go I don't
want to go home for Thanksgivingbecause my uncle is X, y and Z
and I hate his views.
His views are wrong.
So, in other words, more andmore we were going like we
(36:23):
shouldn't rub shoulders withpeople who are radically
different.
So that's the commons, anyway,is where we do.
So.
There's community, which is asocial bond based on what we
share in common, and an enemy.
The commons, which is justwhere we encounter people who
are very different from us.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I'm sorry to interrupt again real quick, but
one of the things that Jeff andI have talked about is this
concept of avatars that weproject onto people an avatar of
what we see like a fullycaricature, like a full
caricature of someone, and thatwe do the same thing for
(37:04):
ourselves.
We present an avatar to otherpeople and we present an avatar
to ourselves most of the time aswell, and it sounds like what
you're saying is that the and Iwould completely agree is that
the more isolated we are fromthis place you're calling the
commons, the more we are able tokeep solid these avatars of the
(37:30):
other, of the enemy, and of myfriend and of myself, and all of
these avatars can stay verycalcified, and so is part of the
benefit of the commons toconstantly rub down those
avatars.
Is that what you're sayingthere?
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Absolutely.
I mean politically speaking.
That's what the commons, thevalue of the commons, always was
, especially in the UK.
There's a very big tradition ofthe commons.
The value of the commons alwayswas, especially in the uk.
There's a very big tradition ofthe commons, which was one of
the big air, with parks,obviously, but also with uh,
what do they call them?
Um, oh, uh, they're still verypopular in england.
Uh, where you go and you growvegetables in this little uh,
(38:09):
you'll basically have a littlespot of land like a community
garden kind of thing, kind of,yeah, allotment, allotment,
that's the name for it.
So people have allotments andyou go down and you mix with
different people and and that's,and so the idea was, if any
society that does not have ahealthy commons will potentially
collapse into civil war,because if you're not rubbing up
(38:32):
against, as you said, likedifferent and then realizing
that the person you think is ademon has actually got problems
just like you and you can have adiscussion with them and all
that, yeah, without a spacewhere you have the commons,
society generally collapses yeahyeah, interesting okay, sorry,
go ahead just keep going.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I want to hear the next the.
The rest of it yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
well, this is the money here.
Right then, is it possible tocreate a social bond, not on
what we share in common, but onthe fact that we all share lack,
and I call this communion.
So there's the community, whichis we share certain values,
certain beliefs and a sharedenemy.
There's the commons, which isjust we rub shoulders with
(39:13):
people, and then there iscommunion, which is a social
bond based on theacknowledgement that we all lack
, that we all have unknowing andmystery within us, and I call
it communion, because communiontraditionally, is a meal around
the death of god, and the deathof god is the loss of absolute
certainty, absolute meaning.
So death of God is the loss ofabsolute, certainly absolute
(39:34):
meaning.
So death of God symbolizes theabsolute confrontation with the
loss of meaning, and so acommunion is a meal in which you
remember that loss you eat, andAA is an example of this.
I would say AA is a communionnow based around alcohol, but
people who are rich and poor,conservative and liberal and all
(39:56):
of that get together, they eatterrible donuts and cold coffee
and they're all unified around ashared loss, a pain that comes
from alcohol, and theyacknowledge it in a community of
grace, because the idea of setzero zero is like you don't do
anything, you're just in a spacewhere everyone embraces you,
you accept it, you're accepted,but in that some transformation
(40:20):
can happen.
So communion for me is a socialbond on lack.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I can see that you want to jump in.
That just makes so much sensebecause the first part of AA or
a 12-step program is just arecognition that not that I have
power over anything, but Ireally literally just a
recognition that I don't havepower over this thing.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
It is just a recognition of the lab.
That's it absolutely, which forme is is yeah, and that's, for
me, grace.
So the the difference betweenself-help and grace is self-help
is all about getting you from ato b.
Self-help is all about what canbe called r or will to help you
get from a to b.
Um, grace is can be calledattention.
(41:09):
In grace you don't go from a tob, you stay at a and you, you
are set, you accept that youdon't have to change at all.
So in in a, a, you go around,you say my name is pete and I'm
an alcoholic.
Nobody asks you to change,nobody says anything.
You're able to symbolize thetrauma in a community that
accepts you for who you are.
(41:29):
But the trick with grace istechnically and this is where
psychoanalysis comes in, becausepsychoanalysis is the opposite
of self-help.
Psychoanalysis doesn't try toget you from A to B, it keeps
you at A and you start torealize that A does not equal A.
And what I mean by that is, say, I want to write a book and I
can't write a book, so I go foradvice, I go for self-help.
(41:49):
And I find these people who saywrite 500 words a day, and you
know, maybe you know, find anice place to work or whatever
advice they give you, right.
The problem is, there's somepart of you that doesn't want to
write the book, right.
There's a part of you that does, but unconsciously you don't.
So in psychoanalysis, thequestion is why are you enjoying
, not writing it?
(42:13):
Not writing?
It's not.
How can I help you write?
But let's find out why you'renot writing.
Why is it that every time yousit down, your mind goes blank?
Is there a sense in which youwant to refuse to write?
You want to withhold your voice?
Or you feel that your voice hasbeen withheld in the past, or
whatever it is?
And as you accept it, you don'thave to move, you don't have to
change.
You just start to see that Adoes not equal a.
You start to go oh, I'm full ofcontradictory desires.
(42:34):
I want to write the book and Ialso don't.
You bring that to the surface,but in symbolizing it, you
weaken its power and you find,paradoxically, you can maybe
write the book or you lose thedesire to write the book
entirely.
So a clinical example yes, is awoman.
It's a clinical example.
I heard a woman who wassleeping around a lot and she
felt guilty about it.
She said ah, you know I go outin these one-night stands.
(42:56):
It's dangerous, you know Imight get a sexually transmitted
disease, my parents might judgeme, whatever.
But in the course of analysishe got rid of all the guilt.
All the guilt went.
Why do I feel guilty?
I can do whatever I want.
But of course, when the guiltwent, so did the desire to sleep
around.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Thank you for listening to Living on Common
Ground.
Please follow wherever youlisten to your podcasts and
share it with your friends.
You can also find a link to oursocial in the description.
The more people we have livingon common ground, the better the
world will be.
Does it feel like every part of your life is
divided, every scenario, everyenvironment, your church, your
school, your work, your friends,left right, conservative,
liberal, religious, secular?
It seems you always have totake a side.
This is a conversation betweena progressive Christian and a
conservative atheist who happento be great friends.
(00:23):
Welcome to Living on CommonGround.
Do you think if we met today wewould still be friends?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
A mob is known as a mob because they are with him,
man.
So what?
We won a few games and y'allfools think that's something.
Man, that ain't nothing, y'all.
And you know what else?
We ain't nothing either.
Yeah, we came together in camp,cool.
But then we're right back hereand the world tells us that they
(01:00):
don't want us to be together.
We fall apart like we ain't adamn bit of nothing, man.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
For this week's episode, Lucas and I had an
opportunity to sit down withauthor, philosopher, storyteller
, producer and public speaker,Peter Rollins, to discuss
pyrotheology and itsimplications for faith and
belief in today's world.
Peter joined us remotely fromLA and we visited for a little
over an hour.
After about 40 minutes therewas a brief glitch, but after
(01:36):
only a second or two everythingseemed to be restored.
However, when I went to editthis episode, I realized the
online app we use for remoteinterviews had stopped recording
Peter.
Fortunately, we were able torecord some great content and
Peter has agreed to come back onthe show in the future.
If you enjoy the conversationand want to learn more about
(01:57):
pyrotheology and the workPeter's doing, you can check out
his website atwwwpeterrollinscom.
You can also support him onPatreon and check out his videos
on YouTube.
Links are provided in thisweek's episode description.
So, with that being said, takea listen.
All right, so let me thank youagain for coming on.
(02:19):
I greatly appreciate youresponding as quickly as you did
.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Oh no, I appreciate the invitation and, yeah, I love
the idea of the podcast CommonGround two people coming from
different places.
I like the fact that you havelike almost four different
identity markers, that kind ofcoalesce from conservative,
progressive to atheist andChristian, so I find that very
(02:44):
interesting.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, thanks, yeah, and you had asked earlier how
long we've been doing this.
November will be two years.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Very cool.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah, so well, in my email that I sent to you.
By the way, you can see it onour screen.
But I'm Jeff, I'm the one thatwould be called the progressive
Christian.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You want to say, hey Lucas, hey Lucas.
No, that's not what you meant.
Peter, it's very nice to meetyou.
I'm excited about this.
I'll be honest, jeff has beenincredibly excited ever since
you sent that email back.
Jeff has been incrediblyexcited ever since you sent that
(03:38):
email back.
He has been following you for avery long time and he has
talked about you a lot.
I have to admit, I'm get to toknow your work and, um, it's,
it's very interesting.
So I'm, I'm, I'm really excitedto, uh, to get to meet you as
well.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Thanks for doing this I appreciate it, looking
forward to dive in yeah so, um,like lucas said, I've been, I've
been following you for a whilenow uh, that sounds creepy when
I say it but, um, about 12 yearsago I think it was 12 years ago
I picked up the first book ofyours that I read, which was I
(04:11):
wrote it down Idolatry of Godwas actually the first one I
read and then, after I read it,I went back and I bought
Insurrection and how Not toSpeak of God.
And I read both of thoseinsurrection and how not to
speak of God and I read both ofthose and it really sort of
(04:31):
helped me through this momentwhere I was questioning
everything that I believed.
And I remember at one point Iwas actually reading one of your
books and I walked out of myoffice and I just said to people
I don't know actually what Ibelieve anymore, but I do still
believe in Jesus, and that sortof led me down this road.
But one of the things that Iwanted to talk to you about is
(04:52):
let's start with this how wouldyou describe pyrotheology to
people that aren't familiar withit?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, in three sentences, peter.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yes, that is not easy to do, like any of these terms.
Uh, it was kind of invented.
Uh, it was actually a friend ofmine came up with it because we
used to create these, uh, whatwe call transformance art events
that are immersive experiencesthat use music and poetry and
art, whatever.
So we would create theseexperiences and we did one that
(05:23):
was all about fire.
It was funny.
We were doing a festival and wehad a fire alarm going off as
people went in, say, and we saidthere's a fire in the building,
please step inside.
So the fire people hated us.
We got into lots of troublebecause we were handing out
matches to everybody, but anyway, we were wearing burnt clothes
and we had a funeral pyre thathad smoke coming out of it and
(05:45):
we explored this notion ofburning.
Uh, there's a beautiful quote by, uh, the spanish anarchist,
bonif, um, uh, who was it?
Oh, I forget, I'll come back tome in a second, but the quote
is the only church thatilluminates is a burning one.
And, um, we took that phraseand we built this event around
it and somebody said this islike parotheology.
(06:07):
So, in order to kind ofdescribe the theory and the
technology that I'm developing,I thought, oh, that's a great
term, it doesn't exist.
It sounds a little bit 80s,like a little bit like
parotechnology, like, you know,acdc or something with fire, so
I was a bit worried about that.
But yeah, so it's a phrase thatdidn't exist.
But in a nutshell, I'll saysomething and this will actually
(06:30):
connect, I think, with yourwork and what you're doing with
the podcast is I'm veryinterested in what I could call
negativity, what we do not know,the ultimate experience that we
have with the enigmatic or withthe mysterious.
Uh, this has always been anelement of theology.
(06:52):
Uh, both atheism andchristianity have a really
interesting relationship withnegativity.
Atheism, you know,traditionally, in its classical
form, it's about a, anintellectual negation, where an
atheist says I do not believe inGod.
So there's an intellectualnegation.
Christianity, I find moreinteresting because it's a lived
(07:14):
experience, which means theyhave to existentially experience
the negative, the absence ofGod.
But both of them then have acritique of theism within them,
one more intellectual, one moreexistential.
(07:35):
But paratheology, then, becauseit's more in the Christian
tradition, it's designed as atheory and also a practice to
help people encounter the deathof God, the loss of certainty,
the embrace of a fundamentalenigma or mystery at the heart
(07:55):
of reality, not just for thesake of it, but because this
confrontation with an ultimateunknowing, I would argue, and we
can get into why transforms ourway of being in the world,
transforms how we relate to oneanother, how we relate within
economics, within politics,within social life in general.
(08:19):
So that's power of theology ina nutshell.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
So that's part of theology in a nutshell.
So you mentioned sort of how ithas a potential to change the
way we relate.
That was one of the questionsthat I had is, as you, lucas,
and I have had a debate aboutwhether or not everything has to
have purpose and meaning.
But do you like, what is thepurpose for what you do?
Why do you like?
(08:45):
What is your ultimate goal andyour hope with it?
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, so my work is in the tradition that critiques
meaning.
So, whether it's existentialism, absurdist philosophy,
psychoanalysis, these are alltraditions that have a critique
of the notion of meaning,although all of them have
offshoots that reject us.
(09:07):
So, um, you know, even withinpsychoanalysis, you have
psychology, which is a denial ofpsychoanalysis.
Uh, you have debt psychology.
Um, you have, uh, evenlogotherapy, you know.
So you have the return of, youalways have the return of
meaning.
Christianity, I think, as areligion, is a fundamental
rejection of the lack of meaningthat the death of god means.
(09:29):
So you could say the entire, Iwould say the entire oedipus of
religion is an attempt to bringmeaning back to an event that
that, uh, critiques meaning.
So, basically, in a nutshell,just as in je, you're asking me
what is the form of life?
What I would argue.
Again, I'll do it in shorthandand if you want me to unpack it,
(09:51):
great, but in shorthand I wouldsay we are obsessed with
meaning and purpose.
We are obsessed with to behuman is to experience being
between where we are and wherewe would like to be human is to
experience being between wherewe are and where we would like
to be.
So all of us have what's calleda circle of reality, a
worldview, ideology, and thatcircle of reality we experience
(10:14):
ourselves as not being where wewant to be.
So, as I say, we all have asense of I'm here and I'd like
to be here, and self-help andcognitive therapies and
psychology all try and help youget from A to B.
I want to write a book, so youwant to get to the point where
you've written the book and youcan get advice about how to do
that right.
So, within circles of reality,we experience ourselves as being
(10:36):
between, say, who we are, whowe'd like to be.
The name for the affect betweenthose is guilt.
So guilt is the experience ofnot being where you want to be,
basically, but it can be inanything.
I'm not having enough fun, I'mnot having enough sex, I'm not
reading enough books.
It manifests in lots ofdifferent ways and what I'm
(10:58):
interested in is our whole,whether it's commodity
satisfaction, psychedelics,polyamory, whatever you want.
Someone's giving an answer tohow you can bridge the gap, how
you can be whole and complete,how you can have a meaningful,
purposeful life, like everyone'spreaching that right.
I'm currently in LA, which isthe Mecca of that world.
(11:20):
Everyone is promising wholenessand completeness, different ways
of getting to be who you wantto be, and my work is freedom
from that entire way of being,that entire way of thinking,
which means it's a type offreedom from enjoyment Not
freedom to be happy, but freedomfrom the need to be happy.
(11:42):
Happy but freedom from the needto be happy, freedom from the
pursuit of wholeness andcompleteness, an ability to
embrace radical unknowing andsacrifice.
So for me, it's an entirelydifferent way of being in the
world that can free us fromthinking that some commodity
will make us happy, whether it'sa car or a house, whether some
(12:03):
person will make us happy, someromantic partner, whether some
drug experience or religiousexperience, whatever it is right
.
Fill in the X, whatever the Xis that will make you whole and
complete.
My work is about attempting tofree people from that entire
framework of thinking.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I love that you brought that up.
One of the episodes that Ilistened to of your podcast was
back in 2019.
It's labeled Pirate Theology101.
You were giving a talk to aroom and then taking questions
to say again I'm not, I'm nottrying to blow smoke here.
(12:44):
I had not.
I was I'm not familiar withyour work prior to like a couple
of weeks ago, and I'm I justhave really loved, uh, the stuff
that I've listened to so farlistening to you explain, um,
your worldview for a couple ofreasons.
Number one, um and I'd like toget into this more in the, maybe
(13:05):
later on but you have a realdepth of knowledge of psycho,
psychoanalysis and it seems likeyou bring that to your work
quite a bit that understanding,and so I would like to talk
about that more in a second.
But I had a specific questionwhen you're talking about trying
(13:25):
to free people from meaning,because you did mention this in
the episode that I listened toas well, which is, you know, you
talked about how we have adesire.
You talked about this conceptof guilt being I should, but I'm
not right.
I should be here but I'm not.
(13:46):
I should have this, but I don't.
I should have done that, but Ididn't, whatever it is and that
there's all these differentframeworks that try to free us
from anxieties.
So one of the things that youhad said and I'm going to try to
(14:07):
relate this, I apologize forthe rambling for a second but
one of the things that you hadsaid is that, when it comes to
the anxiety of death that theStoics have this, well, first,
you said that religioustraditions can have an answer,
for that can relieve thatanxiety.
Even if it's not true, right,whether it's true or not right,
(14:28):
we don't actually die becausethere's another life, and so
that can relieve the anxiety.
And that you had said theStoics have their answer, which
is you don't have to worry aboutit because you're not dead yet,
and when you're dead you won'tknow it, and so you don't have
to worry about it, which Ithought was a great way of
summing that up.
But you said that there's notreally a way to, in those
(14:56):
traditions, relieve you of theanxiety, of this need for
meaning, and so my question iswhy doesn't a stoic position
relieve you of that anxiety formeaning?
Why couldn't you use that sameframework of like there's no
(15:16):
meaning?
And if there was, well, I guess.
Anyway, sorry, that's myquestion.
Why wouldn't that work?
Why wouldn't that work?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Brilliant, yeah, so basically, in terms of the kind
of popular view of death isdeath is ahead of us and, as you
mentioned, you know there's,you know whether in the
religious world they say well,we won't die, we'll go to heaven
on the next life or secularforms, which is, we'll download
ourselves soon into the cloud,or we'll be able to augment
(15:45):
ourselves and get escapevelocity so that we'll
effectively not have to die.
Or the stoic answer, as youmentioned, which is a type of
yeah, hey, while you're alive,death isn't here, and when death
is here, you're not, so don'tworry about it.
But none of them have a notionof the idea that basically,
death isn't something that'scoming, death is already here.
(16:06):
There's a form of lack or deaththat is in, that is infused
within us, and so overcoming theanxiety of going to die in the
future doesn't doesn't addressthe anxiety of a type of lack,
because I use death and lack tomean the same death is the
ultimate lack.
But, um, so in something likePaul Tillich's book, the Courage
(16:30):
to Be, he kind of gives threeshapes of lack, and one is the
first one, which is you're goingto die, and that was actually a
big thing in previous ages andin different places in the world
where death is all around you,then that's a big thing.
In previous ages and atdifferent places in the world
where death is all around you,you know, then that's a big
(16:50):
anxiety.
But uh, then as societydevelops and death is more
hidden away.
But we we become more aware ofguilt, which is another form of
lack, and I mentioned that.
So guilt is I am not who I needto be, so that's an infused
type of lack.
And then the third that pillocktalks about bringing us up to
(17:11):
the contemporary world ismeaninglessness, a sense that
that we can't find meaning.
And so, of course, the 20thcentury, the late 20th century,
was, in many ways the greatartists were, and literary
theorists and whatever.
We're exploring how, this lackof meaning we feel a profound
sense of of within acontemporary industrialized
(17:33):
society, we don't get meaning inour work, we feel alienated.
And then we go home and wewatch crap on tv and there's
something in which we just feelinherently like life has no
meaning.
And so for me, you know, andthere's various ways in which
stoicism is attempting toaddress that Also the
pharmaceutical industry attemptsto address that as well by
(17:55):
giving certain drugs, Certaintherapies.
As I said, like mostpsychotherapies not all of them,
but a lot of psychotherapiesare designed to help you
overcome that feeling ofalienation.
The difference with mostpsychotherapies and
psychoanalysis is inpsychoanalysis, and also in
existentialism, with SørenKierkegaard and others, and with
(18:17):
Camus and the absurdisttradition, the idea is not to
overcome alienation but ratherto find a way to embrace it.
That alienation is not an evilthat has to be gotten rid of
through taking some xanax orwhatever, or through stoic
practices or through religion.
Actually, anxiety is somethingthat is evidence of our humanity
(18:40):
.
That's what soren kirkugar says.
He calls it spirit.
Actually it's.
Anxiety is the evidence thatyou're human and the reason for
that is because anxiety is theaffect.
I don't think this is quiteright, but we can get.
But basically, the the best wayinto anxiety is to think of it
as it's not knowing how you fitinto the world.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Uh, you said you said that it's.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but youhad said in that, in that
episode, that, um, that you, uhyou regarded anxiety as the
maybe maybe I'm gonna say thiswrong but as the only true
emotion that there is, that thatwe can have many affect uh,
that are not, uh, that peoplehave this, this idea that our
(19:22):
emotional life is the truestsense of what's real for us.
That that's not actually thecase, which I thought was.
I think that's I would agreewith that, but that anxiety is
the only true emotion.
Why is that?
Is it because what you'retalking about that it's the
sense that I don't fit into aworld that I exist in.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Yes, absolutely so.
This is a brand of Kenyan.
So I I I'm very influenced bythe Kenyan French psychoanalysis
and in the Kenyan school or aFrench school, um uh, you know,
emotions can lie.
You can think that you hatesomebody when you really love
them.
You think you can.
You know, you think you'rehappy, but sometimes if
someone's too happy, happy it'sactually a defense against
sadness.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
You know all of those things that happen well, it's
kind of the core ofpsychoanalysis, right?
Is that?
This idea that I think that Iam angry with my wife but really
I'm sad because of somethingthat happened with my mother or
whatever?
Speaker 5 (20:18):
yes, exactly, exactly so.
The analyst, we, you don'ttrust any of these emotions,
yeah, and then, when the cansays that, basically, he says
I've, like, I had so many greatlittle quips, little aphorisms,
and one of his aphorisms is youknow, the only, the only affect
that doesn't lie is anxiety.
Yeah, what he's referring to iswhen there's anxiety, there is
(20:38):
a sense of kel and practice.
When he says, touching the realand touching the real means it
is touching an absolute enigma.
You don't know how you fit intothe world, you don't know who
you are.
So the other that's the moreprecise definition actually is
you don't know what the otherwants, you don't know what you
should do.
(20:58):
Uh, you're kind of you're thedizziness of freedom.
Soren kirchgaard calls it thedizziness of freedom.
You're like I don't know whatto do.
So every you hit anxiety, it'skind of like a true affect.
It's touching the very depth ofwhat it means to be human.
But most of us I would say allof us want to escape the
dizziness of freedom.
Sartre, of course, said we'recondemned to freedom, and what
(21:24):
he meant by that is we don'tlike freedom.
We want someone to tell us whatto do.
We want to look at tarot cardsor key leaves or look at
prophecies.
We don't want freedom, we wantto escape our freedom, but
anxiety is the evidence of ourfreedom and it's the evidence of
the truth of our subjectivity.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Is that kind of related to?
I think it was Jürgen Gard whotalked about floating over the
fathoms, in terms of the idea offaith being floating over the
fathoms and not reaching for thesolid shore.
And that's exactly what you'retalking about that we have this
drive to try to reach for thesolid shore, that that's where
(22:07):
our salvation will come from, orwhatever.
That's where the relief of getrid of the anxiety Is that right
(22:32):
to go ahead and embrace theanxiety of meaninglessness?
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yes, yes, I mean basically no, no, that's perfect
, that's perfect.
Uh, dig the, the mechanisms forhow to do it we can chat about,
but ultimately, yes, you hitthe nail on the head, which is,
for me and I'm the funny thingis existentialism just very
briefly, because we werementioning existentialism is
like it actually comes from,like that one of the proto
(22:57):
existentialistsentialists was,you know, blaise, pascal and
Pascal, who I love and alsodisagree with Pascal.
The reason why he's aproto-existentialist is because
in his most radical formulationsof what it is to be human, he
goes like to be human is to feelthat something is missing both
(23:19):
in our desire and in ourconceptual abilities.
So in our desire and in ourconceptual abilities, so in our
mind and in our bodies, and hebasically shut the door to the
idea that we can get rid of that.
Just as you said about floatingover the fathoms, there's a
certain sense in which we arelost ontologically, in a sense
of unknowing, and then whathappens is a lot of
(23:45):
existentialists then try to findsome way of alleviating that.
And so for Pascal it was a leapof faith, but for someone like
Albert Camus, in his book theMyth of Sisyphus, camus
basically argues very well.
I just reread the book recentlyas well.
It's in my mind that his work,the absurdist work, the work of
the absurdist, is to endure andenjoy the anxiety of never being
(24:12):
able to kneel down at the levelof the mind full knowledge and
at the level of the body fullenjoyment.
That full knowledge and fullenjoyment are fantasies and we
somehow have to endure and enjoythat alienation that we feel.
So you said it perfectly that'sthe kind of work that's the
(24:33):
good news.
The good news is you can't bewhole, you can't be complete.
Life is shit.
That's the good news.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, you mentioned the good news.
I have written down here one ofmy favorite quotes from your
book, the Idolatry of God.
I'm going to read it.
It says here we start toapproach what can be called the
good news of Christianity youcan't be fulfilled, you can't be
made whole, you can't findsatisfaction.
At first, this can sound likeanything but good news.
However, once we're freed fromthe oppression of the idol, we
(25:04):
find that embracing and lovinglife, with all its difficulties,
offers a much deeper and richerform of joy.
The good news is not simply aconfrontation with the reality
that total fulfillment andcertainty are not possible, but
rather is found in the joyfulembrace of this insight, an
embrace that robs the reality ofits oppressive sting.
So I highlighted that, like Isaid 12 years ago, and it's
(25:27):
something that, as we weregetting ready to talk with you,
I immediately knew where it wasin the book and I pulled it up
Because one of the things youwere talking about is this idea
of anxiety, and my experiencewith this has been that, as I
have jettisoned certainty, Ihave actually experienced less
(25:48):
anxiety in my life and I amexperiencing that joyful embrace
that you describe.
It's also the thing that hasallowed me to be able to sort of
step over and and kind of comethrough differences and just
relate with people yeah, yes,absolutely.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Uh, yeah, I thank you .
I'm thank you for reading that.
I'm glad I said that 12 yearsago, so I I thought you know.
You never know if you'll agreewith yourself, but younger peter
was was onto something there.
Um you there.
This gets to your core.
Did you want to say anythingelse before I jump in?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
No, I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah, you know, I guess the work here is that,
technically, it is precisely innot knowing and in this mystery
that we can find our connectionwith others, and that's what you
were mentioning, and I'd liketo just start about that very
briefly.
(26:47):
I could talk about community.
So community is any social bondthat is forged around shared
beliefs, shared values, sharedpractices and, most importantly,
a shared enemy.
So any social bond we have likeyou know, we all go to a
snooker club because we likesnooker, we go to a certain
(27:09):
religious group because we havethose beliefs.
Communities are not wrong,right, but communities, they say
, they join around sharedidentity.
But there's always and this isvery key there's always.
But there's always and this isvery key there's always
negativity, there's alwayssomething missing and that's put
into the scapegoat.
(27:29):
So the scapegoat is the namefor a negativity.
So a community is boundtogether not just because they
have the shared beliefs, buttheir own community will have a
shared enemy.
Now, it might not be a sharedactual enemy.
Community will have a sharedenemy.
Now, it might not be a sharedactual enemy, it might be a
shared goal or whatever,something that's incomplete,
something that if only theycould get rid of.
(27:49):
You know the conservatives.
Or get rid of the immigrants,or get rid of, it doesn't matter
.
X, get rid of x, uh, get rid ofthe homeless, get rid of the
fat cats, get rid of whatever.
It is right.
If we got rid of them,everything would be great.
So there's a negativity.
Now the thing about thescapegoat is what the scapegoat
does very clever.
(28:10):
It's a fetish object.
It offers it.
It basically renders aninherent impossibility into
something contingent that can begot rid of.
So there's an inherent problemwith being human, an inherent
alienation to being human.
Let's imagine that for a second, without showing the work, and
I let's imagine there's aninherent alienation of being
(28:32):
human.
We put it into the scapegoat,and so then we can fantasize.
If only I got rid of them, theneverything would be wonderful.
And it's actually the scapegoatthat we think.
The scapegoat is what preventsthe community.
It's preventing something, butactually it's what joins the
community.
The very impossibility, thevery thing that you think is the
(28:53):
problem, is the solution to theproblem.
It's what holds the grouptogether.
So that's community.
Anyway, it's community Then.
By the way, one final thingabout communities is they all
exclude somebody.
If you ever see a communitythat says we welcome everybody,
there's always somebody who'snot welcome.
I had a friend who wanted to doa progressive friend.
He wanted to do this festival.
He said everyone's welcome andI was able to rattle off about
(29:15):
four groups that would not bewelcome in his progressive LA
festival.
And that wasn't me digging out.
I must be going like there'salways excluded groups.
Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
No, no, no, I think.
I think that's brilliant.
And then what I was thinkingwhen you were describing the
scapegoat is that my wife is atherapist for the last 20 years
and she would say I think infamily systems and family
systems theory they would talkabout and I'm going to get this
wrong but the actual term, butessentially it's the like, the
(29:46):
identified problem person in thefamily, right and and the exact
same.
It's just a community at asmaller level.
It's the exact same thingyou're talking about.
I think it's, and you said,most importantly for a community
, it's the enemy.
That is the thing that's mostbonding for a community that's
most galvanizing, is that right?
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Yeah, and the reason why I would argue that because
that's a good point, yeah, and Isaid so why is that?
Why is that more important thanshared identity and this will
become clear, actually, when II'll do kind of basically three
different groups, but I'llmention it now is the argument
almost is that negativity alwaysexists.
You can't get rid of it.
So what community does is itrenders it contingent, it puts
(30:31):
it onto somebody else, it putsthe negativity onto another, it
represses, disavows it,forecloses it.
And this, by the way, is 101.
This is why kind of the new ageand fascism are so close.
It's like, so like, uh.
Hitler continually in my campstalked about the world is an
organic whole, the nation is anorganic whole, but there's some
(30:54):
virus that's in it and we haveto get rid of the virus to have
a healthy, sustained whole bodywhere everything works together.
This is called corporatism.
In politics, corporatism iswhere the government works in
cooperation with the unions andthe industrialists.
Everyone works together.
So it's a denial of what'scalled class consciousness, it's
(31:16):
a denial of class antagonismthat everything can work well,
and of course you get thatwithin the New Age as well.
It's oh, everything's one andwhole and whatever, and we just
have to see through the illusion, because there's always
something we have to do.
So we have to just see throughthe illusion, anyway.
So negativity at Argy always issomewhere and in the community
it's repressed, it's put ontosomebody else.
(31:39):
Then the second group that I'llmention is the commons.
The commons isn't a social bondat all.
The commons is spaces where youmeet people who are potentially
radically different fromyourself.
So parks, libraries, publictransport, places where, as I
say, not only do you meet peoplewho are on different sides of
(32:03):
the political conflict but, moreimportantly, who don't even
interpret the conflict in thesame way.
That's very, very key.
The problem with society is notjust that we have disagreements
, but that we disagree aboutwhat the disagreements are about
.
That's what makes it impossible, because it's not just that one
person you know kind of loveskids and the other hates kids,
(32:27):
right, and it's like it'ssuddenly weirdly like if you
don't agree with my position,then you hate children or
whatever, because children arenot being fed or whatever it's.
You disagree about what thedisagreement is about.
So it's not as simple as that.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Both sides think they care about kids, right you know
, and they think they'refighting a different.
They both think they'refighting a different battle.
They, they can't, uh, theydon't even have the same
language for the uh, for the,for the um uh the conversation.
I can completely see that.
I was just listening tosomebody talking about the
problem with uh blowback.
Um, you know, and part of theproblem with part of the theory
(33:06):
of the problem with blowback isnot just when you know when,
when a government does something, um, uh, in some other uh
country or whatever, and and um,you know, there's ramifications
of.
That's the initial part of theblowback, but the secondary and
maybe worse part of the blowbackis that because the initial
(33:29):
community, the initialgovernment, the initial country
that perpetrated this, thecitizens don't know why it
happened, or that it happened,or therefore they don't know
that, why the blowback ishappening, which means that
there's confusion about what'sactually happening among the
populace.
So they are exactly what you'retalking about.
(33:50):
Then they want a reaction fromtheir own government, which
maybe is completely disconnectedwith the, the reason why it's
happening in the first place.
So they're they're not evenhaving the same conversation and
that's kind of.
It sounds like that's similarto what you're talking about
there.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Absolutely.
There's a very famous essay byClaude Lévi-Strauss, great
anthropologist, structuralist,and in this essay, very briefly,
it wasn't him, it was actuallyanother anthropologist who
noticed that in this there wasthis tribal group and they asked
the people in the tribe to drawa map of the village and the
(34:38):
one group within the tribe drewthe map with um, basically a
circle in the middle where allthe temple were and the kind of
the elite people, and then acircle on the outside where
everybody else lived.
Another group drew a completelydifferent map.
It was still a circle, but itwas a line down the middle and
on one side there was one group,on the other the other, and
basically what theanthropologists going like is.
This is weird, because I wasjust asking him to draw a map of
(34:59):
the village, but there's adisagreement about even how the
village is mapped.
And claude levy strauss reallyexplores this.
He goes like there's no real.
It's not that you could thentake a helicopter and take a
real picture of the map.
It's like the two differentgroups have a totally different
way of mapping reality withinthe same village.
(35:20):
And it's the same in Americanpolitics.
It's not just that there's twodifferent groups that disagree,
they disagree about the entiremapping of the disagreement, and
that's what makes politicspositive a disagreement and
that's it and that and that'swhat makes you know that's what
makes politics positive.
You have to navigate what'scalled the real of that, which
is the fundamental antagonism.
Now, the great thing about thecommons the commons is the place
(35:41):
where you meet people, then,who are so different from you
that they map social realitydifferently, so much so that you
hate them that you probablythink they're awful, but you rub
shoulders with them.
You're walking your dog withthem.
Now, one of the problems withwhat happened over covid is the
commons was, which is alreadybeing eroded very badly, was
very eroded because we were alljust stuck in our own homes and
(36:02):
then we started hanging aboutwith just people who thought
like us.
So there is an erosion of thecommons.
The whole idea of the commonsis you need to rub shoulders
with people who are verydifferent.
You even saw this online wherepeople started to go I don't
want to go home for Thanksgivingbecause my uncle is X, y and Z
and I hate his views.
His views are wrong.
So, in other words, more andmore we were going like we
(36:23):
shouldn't rub shoulders withpeople who are radically
different.
So that's the commons, anyway,is where we do.
So.
There's community, which is asocial bond based on what we
share in common, and an enemy.
The commons, which is justwhere we encounter people who
are very different from us.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I'm sorry to interrupt again real quick, but
one of the things that Jeff andI have talked about is this
concept of avatars that weproject onto people an avatar of
what we see like a fullycaricature, like a full
caricature of someone, and thatwe do the same thing for
(37:04):
ourselves.
We present an avatar to otherpeople and we present an avatar
to ourselves most of the time aswell, and it sounds like what
you're saying is that the and Iwould completely agree is that
the more isolated we are fromthis place you're calling the
commons, the more we are able tokeep solid these avatars of the
(37:30):
other, of the enemy, and of myfriend and of myself, and all of
these avatars can stay verycalcified, and so is part of the
benefit of the commons toconstantly rub down those
avatars.
Is that what you're sayingthere?
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Absolutely.
I mean politically speaking.
That's what the commons, thevalue of the commons, always was
, especially in the UK.
There's a very big tradition ofthe commons.
The value of the commons alwayswas, especially in the uk.
There's a very big tradition ofthe commons, which was one of
the big air, with parks,obviously, but also with uh,
what do they call them?
Um, oh, uh, they're still verypopular in england.
Uh, where you go and you growvegetables in this little uh,
(38:09):
you'll basically have a littlespot of land like a community
garden kind of thing, kind of,yeah, allotment, allotment,
that's the name for it.
So people have allotments andyou go down and you mix with
different people and and that's,and so the idea was, if any
society that does not have ahealthy commons will potentially
collapse into civil war,because if you're not rubbing up
(38:32):
against, as you said, likedifferent and then realizing
that the person you think is ademon has actually got problems
just like you and you can have adiscussion with them and all
that, yeah, without a spacewhere you have the commons,
society generally collapses yeahyeah, interesting okay, sorry,
go ahead just keep going.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I want to hear the next the.
The rest of it yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
well, this is the money here.
Right then, is it possible tocreate a social bond, not on
what we share in common, but onthe fact that we all share lack,
and I call this communion.
So there's the community, whichis we share certain values,
certain beliefs and a sharedenemy.
There's the commons, which isjust we rub shoulders with
(39:13):
people, and then there iscommunion, which is a social
bond based on theacknowledgement that we all lack
, that we all have unknowing andmystery within us, and I call
it communion, because communiontraditionally, is a meal around
the death of god, and the deathof god is the loss of absolute
certainty, absolute meaning.
So death of God is the loss ofabsolute, certainly absolute
(39:34):
meaning.
So death of God symbolizes theabsolute confrontation with the
loss of meaning, and so acommunion is a meal in which you
remember that loss you eat, andAA is an example of this.
I would say AA is a communionnow based around alcohol, but
people who are rich and poor,conservative and liberal and all
(39:56):
of that get together, they eatterrible donuts and cold coffee
and they're all unified around ashared loss, a pain that comes
from alcohol, and theyacknowledge it in a community of
grace, because the idea of setzero zero is like you don't do
anything, you're just in a spacewhere everyone embraces you,
you accept it, you're accepted,but in that some transformation
(40:20):
can happen.
So communion for me is a socialbond on lack.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I can see that you want to jump in.
That just makes so much sensebecause the first part of AA or
a 12-step program is just arecognition that not that I have
power over anything, but Ireally literally just a
recognition that I don't havepower over this thing.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
It is just a recognition of the lab.
That's it absolutely, which forme is is yeah, and that's, for
me, grace.
So the the difference betweenself-help and grace is self-help
is all about getting you from ato b.
Self-help is all about what canbe called r or will to help you
get from a to b.
Um, grace is can be calledattention.
(41:09):
In grace you don't go from a tob, you stay at a and you, you
are set, you accept that youdon't have to change at all.
So in in a, a, you go around,you say my name is pete and I'm
an alcoholic.
Nobody asks you to change,nobody says anything.
You're able to symbolize thetrauma in a community that
accepts you for who you are.
(41:29):
But the trick with grace istechnically and this is where
psychoanalysis comes in, becausepsychoanalysis is the opposite
of self-help.
Psychoanalysis doesn't try toget you from A to B, it keeps
you at A and you start torealize that A does not equal A.
And what I mean by that is, say, I want to write a book and I
can't write a book, so I go foradvice, I go for self-help.
(41:49):
And I find these people who saywrite 500 words a day, and you
know, maybe you know, find anice place to work or whatever
advice they give you, right.
The problem is, there's somepart of you that doesn't want to
write the book, right.
There's a part of you that does, but unconsciously you don't.
So in psychoanalysis, thequestion is why are you enjoying
, not writing it?
(42:13):
Not writing?
It's not.
How can I help you write?
But let's find out why you'renot writing.
Why is it that every time yousit down, your mind goes blank?
Is there a sense in which youwant to refuse to write?
You want to withhold your voice?
Or you feel that your voice hasbeen withheld in the past, or
whatever it is?
And as you accept it, you don'thave to move, you don't have to
change.
You just start to see that Adoes not equal a.
You start to go oh, I'm full ofcontradictory desires.
(42:34):
I want to write the book and Ialso don't.
You bring that to the surface,but in symbolizing it, you
weaken its power and you find,paradoxically, you can maybe
write the book or you lose thedesire to write the book
entirely.
So a clinical example yes, is awoman.
It's a clinical example.
I heard a woman who wassleeping around a lot and she
felt guilty about it.
She said ah, you know I go outin these one-night stands.
(42:56):
It's dangerous, you know Imight get a sexually transmitted
disease, my parents might judgeme, whatever.
But in the course of analysishe got rid of all the guilt.
All the guilt went.
Why do I feel guilty?
I can do whatever I want.
But of course, when the guiltwent, so did the desire to sleep
around.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
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