Episode #11: Life After Deconstruction, How to Be Free Without Losing Your Soul: Nikolai Berdyaev (part two)
Contact: subversiveorthodoxy@gmail.com
Instagram: @subversiveorthodoxy
Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation
Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.
Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.
Intro & Outro Music by Noah Johnson & Chavez the Fisherman, all rights reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
To Berdeyev.
Commercial life isanti-contemplative and therefore
anti-spiritual, and it isessentially futurist in its
subjection of the eternal to thetemporal, the spiritual to the
material and the present to thefuture.
Nothing is of value in and ofitself.
Everything is fodder foreconomic development.
I feel that in my life, wow.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, in my life.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy Podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generalJudeo-Christian revelation of
God in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(00:48):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic, outdated and obsolete,may be the very life-giving
power we need to resist thisdistracted techno state.
We're living in full of anxiety, depression and teenage suicide
.
We're living in full of anxiety, depression and teenage suicide
(01:09):
.
It's great entertainment,thrilling entertainment.
It's the inside story packedwith drama.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think in one of Walker Percy's books.
He has a line in there where hesays you know that it's
possible to lose yourselfsitting next to your swimming
pool in your $50 million milliondollar mansion in Hollywood as
easily as it is anywhere else,and it's sort of like your
(01:51):
relationship with yourself slipsaway because it isn't anything
that's.
It really is of a differentorder than than rationality.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know, yeah, and that's why Kierkegaard had to
come up with these terms andthese words for it that nobody
had up to that time made asexplicit as he as he did now,
this next next quote or readingis from slavery and freedom, and
I think this speaks to like ourcurrent cultural issue of like
(02:30):
kind of collectivism where it'slike we all know right and the
person, each person, doesn'treally matter.
It's more like what the, theconsensus is, um, which is sort
of a mob, mob mentality, whichkind of happens on the right and
the left.
Yeah, yeah, so in slavery andfreedom, he said, this is the
(02:50):
value of each person, ratherthan thinking of ourselves in a
binary model.
He says the person is ofultimate value, not the state,
not society, not civilization.
Every system that treats thehuman being as a means to an end
, whether for profit, productionor collective utopia, is an
(03:10):
affront to God.
Both capitalism and socialismin their modern forms are guilty
of this reduction.
They suppress the inner life,they sacrifice freedom for order
or efficiency, efficiency, andthey breed spiritual nihilism.
Only the christian personalismthat sees each human being as
unrepeatable, eternal and calledto co-creation can resist the
(03:34):
mechanization of man.
History itself will be judgedby how it treats the person.
This guy, this guy's deep Imean I, I mean that made me
emotional, like this is like.
This guy was like veryconnected.
Oh yeah, I mean, this is comingfrom a very deep place.
(03:56):
Well, yeah, calling out all ofall forms of everything, like to
call it spiritual nihilism.
It it relates to how I feelabout our culture, where um,
I've had, I've had, you know, myfaith going since 90, 96, you
know, solidly it's.
All my friends since then haveknown who I was, what I was
(04:20):
about, and I can tell you in howmany years is that since 96, 20
, 30, 30, 29, maybe in 29 years.
You know how many people havecome to me and been like Travis.
I'm spiritually seeking.
I want to know some things.
Can you tell me, can we have aconversation?
(04:40):
I think like zero, and it's notbecause they haven't told me
like travis, you've you knowyou're this kind of a christian.
I appreciate you or whateverI've heard some compliments like
that, but like just their does,their lack of desire, their
hunger is not there.
And what?
What?
This, how?
That relates to what whatberday have just said.
(05:03):
He said the, the left and theright, socialism, capitalism
breed spiritual nihilism.
So it's spiritual death.
It's like spiritual nothingness.
Yeah, you do see about, you dosee a um resurgence of
spirituality now, throughmindfulness, yoga.
You know, people are realizingthey have a spiritual need and
(05:25):
they're looking.
They're looking for thatsomewhere, they need it from
somewhere.
So they've turned to the east,I guess, since the beatles right
, yeah, um, and rejecting thewhole, the whole narrative of,
of christianity, for, for someform that they were turned off
by at some point in time.
So you know, obviously, whatBordea is saying is like you're
(05:50):
disconnecting yourself from thesource of it all, like when you
disconnect from truth and beautyof God himself, and like Jesus.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah well, your relationship to yourself as a
self.
You replace it with yourrelationship with the world, or
to an image or something.
In one of Walker Percy's bookshe talks about NASA having a
(06:26):
contest where what would be thequestion that we would ask the
aliens, the first question wewould ask the aliens when they
land, and they had in this novel.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, this is in your book.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, and so all these questions come up.
Oh yeah, this is in your book,yeah, and so all these questions
come up.
You know, can you explain thetime-space continuum?
You know in a way that a thirdgrader can understand, or all
these things.
And the one that won was did ithappen to you?
(07:04):
And they said, well, did whathappen to you?
He says, well, do you have aself that gives you trouble?
Are you, are you dividedbetween yourself and and
yourself, or are you just ahighly formed insect or a robot
(07:27):
machine that has no interiorlife?
If you do have an interior life, is that what sent you to find
us?
Are you looking for friends orare you looking for food?
That's the question.
That's cool, and it is kind ofthe existential question, you
know, are you looking forquestion?
Are you looking for friends?
Are you looking for food?
(07:49):
Am I part of your predatorypower grab, or are you part of
the love that created theuniverse?
What do you identify with?
(08:10):
What is you know?
And and and verdanieff, asbeing part of the french of the
russian revolution and thenbeing its enemy, probably made
it so clear to him where thelines were drawn.
And you know, between between anexistential thinker and a power
seeker, that he just couldn'tstop himself from explaining it.
You know we just, yeah, hewasn't shy about it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Oh yeah, I have one here on on god and atheism.
He's not okay, yeah, I'm gonnahear this one but uh, what you
just said also, like if youreduce it down to food and um,
food or friend, yeah, that'skind of like darwinism versus
christian thought is like foodis survival, yeah, and that's
(08:51):
the theme of darwinism survivalof fittest and what, what's
going to survive.
And then, uh, the the root ofchristianity, christian thought
is, is fellowship, community,right of love, right.
So if you reduce things down totheir hard core, core, it
starts to see things a littlemore clearly.
Yeah, what world do you want tolive in or what view you want
(09:15):
to hold?
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So here's him on an atheist and a God, reading that
he did, or a writing about that.
He said um, it's a, it's in thelarger context of a famous line
that he said they rebel againstGod in the name of God.
And it's from the book, thebeginning and the end Um, so he
(09:39):
says thus it is that atheism inits higher, not in its base form
, maybe a dialectical cleansingof the human idea of God?
When men have risen in revoltagainst God on the ground of the
evil and wrong of the world,they have, by the very fact of
so doing, presupposed theexistence of a higher truth that
(09:59):
is to say in the last resort ofGod.
They rebel against God in thename of god, for the sake of
purging men's understanding ofgod.
They revolt against aconception of him which has been
besmirched by the mire of thisworld.
But as he treads this path ofconflict and anguish, man may
pass through an experience whichbrings him moments not only of
(10:20):
absolute god forsakenness buteven the death of God.
And it's got a they have killedGod, said Nietzsche reference.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Oh, yeah, well, that, yeah, and that is a pretty
powerful reflection, especiallycoming from him.
Yeah, especially coming fromhim that, and also he wrote a
book on Dostoevsky and I haven'tread his book on Dostoevsky,
(10:54):
which I'm going to read beforewe talk about Dostoevsky, so I
can bring Berdenev into theconversation you don't have much
time.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I hope you're a fast reader it's on interlibrary law
Dostoevsky's next.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
But that's one of the themes in the Brothers
Karamazov, where the brotherwith the deepest conscience has
the biggest problem with faith.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Is that Ivan?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, that's Ivan or ivan.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
yeah, ivan and I started.
I started the book on audio.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I'm like a few chapters in yeah and uh, but the
uh, uh, his spiritual crisis,you know is, is there.
There are parallels andantithetical versions of it in
the other brothers which allowus to see both the strength and
(11:53):
weakness of that conception.
You know, it's a kind of.
It's not just a theologicalconundrum, it's a personal
revelation that emerges, and butwe'll deal with that when we
(12:21):
get to Dostoevsky.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We'll deal with that when we get to Dostoevsky and
for the two little interludesright here.
I found this at the thriftstore the other day for $1.
Oh, really, they found me acopy of the Everlasting man by
GK Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Oh wow, that's a good buy From 1958.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Wow, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is it autographed by him?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
I wish.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And I picked this up in Westerly Rhode Island.
Oh yeah, on the road by JackKerouac.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So my whole library is becoming subversive orthodoxy
only books, and I'm going toget rid rid of other ones that
were not written like at least50, 60, 80 years ago well, when
we get into kerouac catholicism,we'll be in a whole new space.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
By that time, I'm sure yeah, we get there.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's like a few people ahead, yeah, but, um,
could you elaborate on hisconcept of personalism and how
it pushed him away from bothMarxism and capitalism?
We've touched on it a littlebit, but I don't know if you
could do a little more with that.
How did his Christian visionshape his critique?
He didn't think the left or theright upheld the dignity of the
(13:39):
person, because that would bevery relevant to our modern
politics right now.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah well, both sides want to save the world by
crushing the person.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Can you elaborate on that, because I don't think
that's what either one would sayabout themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Well, because they think in terms of numbers and in
terms of team they want tocrush the other team.
Well, I think it's more thatthey don't give the choices to
the people that they're savingfrom themselves.
They think they know betterthan the party which Lenin
(14:48):
wanted to put in service of therevolution, or the old
aristocracy that wanted to takeover the decision-making.
And so he was sort of sayingwell, you know, you can't have
freedom and the dignity of theperson unless you give them the
(15:10):
capacity to make choices overtheir own lives and be part of
the creation of the laws thatgovern them.
And so neither one of theparties want to share decision
making with the people that theywant to vote for them.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It doesn't seem.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I mean they yeah, they're not actually they're not
actually listening to yes,they're not actually listening
to people who say you know?
Well, I don't know, I don't, Idon't want to have people take
care of me, I want to havefreedom to make my own choices
about things.
Well, okay, how do we arrangethat?
You know how do we getdifferent?
(15:57):
You know it was with Chesterton.
You know it's sort of likecapitalism is great if it's
fairly distributed, but if allthe capital is in the hands of
one percent, then it's notcapitalism, it's, it's
authoritarianism of thecorporatism or corporatism, and
the Democrats you know well, ok,but if it's just the number,
(16:19):
the majority, that makes thedecision, that's not really
listening to all the peopleeither, that makes the decision,
that's not really listening toall the people either.
To have a democracy that isgoing to work, you need, you
know, more feedback frommultiple sources and you know
distributive justice and theredoesn't seem, you know, there
doesn't seem to be a working outof those problems in the way
(16:45):
that you would think.
You know, this long intohistory, that we could have
worked that out a little better.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But yeah, a Berdeyev quote totally says what you just
, you just nailed him on that.
He says both capitalism andsocialism fail to respect the
spiritual freedom of the person.
They seek to organize societybut do not understand man.
Yes, like they don't.
They don't really want to hearfrom the individuals and solve
like very complex problems theywant to like coercively.
(17:17):
Either party in any societyprobably wants to create a
platform and then just run withit and ram it, ram it into the
rest of the people.
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Well, well, actual human beings are a
disappointment because they'reunpredictable and they're
irrational and they do, and theydo things that you think are
not in their self-interest,which you know better, and
anybody that has kidsunderstands this.
That you know, to treat yourkid with love and respect means
(17:52):
you're going to have to listento his stupid decisions when
he's 12 and take him seriouslyand give him the dignity and the
respect that will allow him togive you the dignity and respect
, and those are difficult thingsthat you know.
The Gospels are trying toexplain how you do that.
You know how do you deal withthe power, differential or the
(18:20):
roles of people in a culture anddesires that conflict with
yourself?
Know, interest and things.
How how do you overcome allthose memetic, uh, aspects of
human nature?
And there, is.
Can you review that word,because I remember it from that,
that well, I would just gerard,renee, gerard oh yeah, he's in
motion of the memeticimagination, where we all learn
(18:44):
what desire from our, from ourparents, who learn it from their
parents and their peer groups.
And, and isn't it?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
isn't it a desire that I want someone to tell me
like I want to?
I want the guru, or I want themimetic desire?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Well, it's more it's.
It's more subtle than that,it's it's unconscious.
We want the things that thatthe more subtle than that it's
unconscious.
We want the things that thepeople we admire want, and so we
want what dad and mom want forus, because we admire them when
we're little, and then it's onlylater that we find, well, you
(19:26):
know, that probably wasn't agood choice for me, or that I
misread what it was that theyreally wanted for me.
They didn't want me to be thegreatest baseball player, they
wanted me to exercise orsomething.
And I misread the imperative,you know.
And so that's.
You know.
I guess we're still prettyyoung in terms of civilization
(19:49):
to have worked out, you know,the, the debts, we debts and
some karma to pay.
Uh and uh, I don't even thinkwe're.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
We're trying, you know what's so disingenuous
about that is the the notion ofa christian nation and a
religious right.
That that doesn't want to talkabout that?
Yeah, like slavery and nativeamerican genocide, oh yeah yeah
and, along with you, know manyother things, but those are the
two biggest ones in our historythat are just completely not by
(20:36):
a lot, a lot of people and a lotof general broad strokes of
culture do not want to talkabout or acknowledge.
Or it wasn't me, it wasn't youknow, and it wasn't us directly.
It was ourselves, but it was, um, it was a great injustice in
our country and it caused bothof those caused major injustice
(20:56):
to native americans, and it'sstill going on, and to african
americans, and it's still goingon like a lot of a lot of
effects are still happening.
Some friends had a debate withme on that a few years ago.
This was kind of hilariousbecause I wasn't even saying the
(21:21):
idea, but he was just arguingagainst someone about systemic
racism.
And he goes systemic racismisn't in our country anymore.
It's been long gone.
That's way out of here.
I'm sure there's some racistpeople, but there's no systemic
stuff.
And I go dude, I just did mymortgage license class.
We had a whole huge section onredlining which was happening in
(21:48):
the seventies and the eighties.
In my lifetime black peoplewere not allowed to buy in these
neighborhoods that wereredlined, yeah, and it was not
gone in the eighties.
It was.
It was legally gone in theeighties and it wasn't gone.
Just like segregation was gone,but it wasn't gone.
Exactly so these these things,you know.
And then you, you have theargument that, um, slavery was
(22:09):
over, but then massincarceration, and then putting
inmates to work yeah, it's likea whole nother modification of
slavery.
So those arguments are whenpeople, when people just this,
deflect those arguments tooeasily.
I'm highly skeptical.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, well, you know, and it, and part of it,
reflects on our inability todismantle them.
You know, and I'm sure you know,and I'm sure, that well,
dismantle their arguments tosort of free them from that the
shackle of their prejudice.
(22:52):
Oh yeah, Because weparticipated too in some way.
I'm sure Berdenev, when he wason the philosopher ship, had
some interesting conversationswith guys about.
You know why did we lose theargument with Lenin?
You know why did the violentBolsheviks win the argument in
(23:15):
Russia, or did they?
You know how do we come backfrom this?
It's going to be hundreds ofyears before we come back from
this.
It's like thinking of Cortez asa great evangelist.
You know, yeah, yeah, he was agreat evangelist.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
All right, you know, uh, that's, that's historical
genocide of a level that wehaven't even imagined yet yeah,
and that and for that to beplaced on Christian faith in the
sense of what Berdyev istalking about is completely the
(23:53):
opposite.
Yes, right, that's what's socrazy about that.
Critique on Christianity islike well, dude Cortez was
acting in 100% the opposite ofeverything Jesus taught, so how
can we even associate it?
Well, the church was complicit.
So, yeah, I'm going to critiquethat church at that time, not
(24:15):
the whole thing, because it'sobviously opposed to Jesus in
absolution.
Like, every form of that is anabsolute contradiction of Jesus.
And even today, like the wayimmigration is of that is an
absolute contradiction of Jesus.
And even today, like the waythe way immigration is being
treated is an absolutecontradiction to Jesus.
Yeah, and that's, that'sorthodoxy, right there.
Like you can't treat peoplelike that, right, you just can't
(24:38):
.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
That's why we're going to, that's why we're going
to read Dostoevsky, because, ortalk about him, because he
started asking those questions.
You know, how do you, how doyou talk about these things in
ways that penetrate people'sunconscious defenses?
(25:00):
Um, yeah, great question thatkeep them from, from registering
anything that might, uh, causethem to doubt their own
understanding of the faith, youknow, and their projections onto
themselves or other people.
You know, how do you, how doyou overcome that aspect of
(25:21):
human nature?
Uh, so that's part of what hewas writing about.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Did he verbalize that or are you saying you picked
that up from Brothers Karamazov?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, it's one of the big themes in Brothers
Karamazov.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's one of the big themes, I know, but did you hear
him actually explicitly saythat, or you can just tell
that's what he's doing?
He explicitly says stuff likethat yeah, that he's trying to
help people to think throughtheir own beliefs, without
causing them like, withoutmaking them defensive.
Yeah, helping them to analyzeinternally.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
That's a powerful question.
There's one scene in BrothersKaramazov one of my favorite
scenes, one of the brothers is astreet fighter?
Which brother he likes to getin fights in bars?
Which brother?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Dimitri Mishnah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah.
And so he beat up this old manoutside of a bar in front of the
old man's I think it's hisgrandson or his son, a little
(26:39):
boy and it was a humiliation.
And Alyosha, the youngerbrother, wants to do something
to make it up to this guy.
So he decides that he's goingto give him 100 copecks, pay him
off and apologize for hisbrother because he knows his
brother's not going to do it.
So he goes to the guy and hesays you know, normally when our
(27:02):
brother beats up people in abar and he does this all the
time, you're not the only one wepay the person 100 copecks, but
we don't have 100, because it'sbeen a tough month.
So would you take 75?
And the old man says you giveme 75 copex.
(27:27):
He goes yeah, yeah, I know, Iwish it were 100, but I can only
give you 75.
And he says are you going togive me a check for that?
He said yeah.
So he gives him a check for 75copex and the old man rips it up
and throws it in his face andsays if you think I take any
(27:49):
money from a Karamazov, youdon't understand what kind of
man I am.
And he walks away.
So Alyosha goes home and hisgirlfriend says how did it go?
Did he take the 75 copex?
And Alyosha says, oh, it wentgreat.
He ripped up the check andthrew it in my face and said
(28:10):
screw you, karamazovs.
And she said, well, thatdoesn't sound very good.
And he says, oh no, he got itoff his chest.
He had to do that and he got alittle bit of his pride back.
Tomorrow I'm going to go offfrom 100.
He's going to take it.
And she said, boy, you'repretty good at this.
(28:33):
He goes.
Yeah, you know, my spiritualdirector, zosima, has told me
about the underground in man andthe need for pride and the need
for dignity and the need to beable to take a hit for the team.
And that's what I'm learning,you know, and so.
(28:55):
So that's just one of the smallthings.
But then he, you know it startsgetting bigger, because then he
starts working with groups andkids and he starts dealing with
people with psychological crisesin their families and stuff,
and he's trying to work out how,how to be a christian that
(29:19):
acknowledges the psychology ofthe underground in human beings
in a way that brings them out ofthe underground rather than
secures them deeper into it andthat's one of the big themes of
the novel.
And of course the two mostunderground people in the novel
(29:40):
are his brothers and his father.
People in the novel are hisbrothers and his father and so
that becomes the big familydynamic that the whole novel is
built around.
So that's on a family level.
But is there anybody?
I'm sure there are people.
I mean, gandhi was trying towork that out in a public domain
(30:03):
.
Martin Luther Gandhi was tryingto work that out in a public
domain.
Martin Luther King was tryingto work that out.
We have some really propheticfigures in the 20th century
Mandela and Tutu, the Councilson Reconciliation.
(30:24):
All those are experiments inbringing Christian love into
modern life.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
We've established that his faith wasn't always
like super orthodox or he hatedinstitutions, including the
church.
Right, how do you think hisfaith in such a way that he kept
resisting secularism but alsoreligious authoritarianism,
which is a common theme?
We heard that in Kierkegaard alot, Blake also.
(30:54):
In what way was his faithsubversive even to the church
itself?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
church itself.
Well, you know, some of theseguys like Tolstoy is another
example and Simone Weil, peoplelike that kind of get labeled
Christian anarchists becausethey're so critical and
suspicious of the wayinstitutional forms distort you
(31:36):
know their vision of Christ.
For the sake of you, knoworganizationalatives and uh in
Kierkegaard too in Kierkegaardtoo.
He called it Christendom.
You know that.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Kierkegaard resisted the last rites of his church did
he really?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I don't remember that yeah he rejected it.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, but you know how much of this for Berdiev,
kierkegaard, I mean speakspecifically to Berdiev, but how
much of this for birdie ofkirkegaard?
I mean speak specifically tobirdie, but how much of this to
simone bay, birdie of tolstoy,okay, yeah.
So how much of that do youthink was their personality or
and or their reaction to thechurch at their time, the church
, the church um, the state ofthe institutional church, of
(32:22):
their location and time inhistory?
Because that was very unique toKierkegaard.
He was, he never left, he neverleft Denmark, so all he knew
was the Denmark church, theofficial church of Denmark.
Yeah, so that's what he'sreacting against.
I don't know what Simone Weilwas reacting against.
I don't know Berdyev was isRussian Orthodox.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Well, you know it's probably.
You know different percentagesof both.
And you know it's probably.
You know different percentagesof both.
And you know, I think, part ofthe key here.
You look in the Bible, you know, and you look at the prophets
in the Old Testament, you know.
And what was?
Wasn't it Isaiah who said youknow, god says your holocaust
are an abomination to me.
(33:01):
You know so that that's likeyou know your, your rituals,
your fundamental rituals ofreconciliation with your god are
an abomination to your god didyou mean to say holocaust, or
did you?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
were you saying for a different word?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
no, that's his.
By holocaust he meant yoursacrifices okay are abomination
to me I never saw thattranslation that's pretty
hardcore uh prophetic language,um, and that would be, you know,
pretty harsh institutional uhcritique if you took it that way
(33:40):
.
Uh.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So there's Well, professor, absolutely, I mean,
that's a great point.
That's a great point.
Is that in the biblicalprophets you have maybe this is
in Bergman or in Heschel Afunction of the prophets is that
they do critique theinstitution at that time.
And yes, I think it's worthreading that passage because
it's very relevant to the pointin Isaiah, because it's
(34:06):
extremely aggressive.
Yeah, he says, I hate yourassemblies, you know?
Yes, yes, and that's crazy.
I mean, that's like and he'sspeaking for God.
He's saying God, is saying this.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Okay, so it's in Isaiah 1, right at the beginning
.
This is Isaiah 1.
So if you think anyone criticalof the institutional religious
gathering of the time isheretical, then Isaiah is
heretical.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He says hear the word of the Lord, you, rulers of
Sodom, listen to the instructionof our God.
You, people of Gomorrah.
The multitude of yoursacrifices, what are they to me,
says the Lord, I have more thanenough burnt offerings of rams
and fattened animals.
I have no pleasure in the bloodof bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear beforeme, who has asked this of you,
(34:56):
this trampoline of my courts,stop bringing me meaningless
offerings.
Your incense is detestable tome, and incense is often equated
with prayers, new moons,sabbaths, convocations.
I cannot bear your worthlessassemblies.
Wow, your new moon feasts andyour appointed festivals.
(35:17):
I hate with all my being.
Oh my gosh, it's like easy God.
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your handsin prayer, I hide my eyes from
you, and even when you offermany prayers, I am not listening
.
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash and make yourselves clean.
(35:38):
Take your evil deeds out of mysight.
Stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right.
Seek justice, defend theoppressed, take up the cause of
the fatherless.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Plead the case of the widow.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Amen.
So yeah, you can't write thesepeople off if they're critical
of the institution of their day.
Oh, yeah, yeah, which I think alot of my evangelical academic
brothers and sisters might havea tendency to do.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, yeah, I mean, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And Catholic scholars as well, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Well, you know, we all want to have our cake and
eat it too, right?
We want to be respecters of theprophets, but not quite yet.
What was it?
I think Was it Augustine thatsaid you know, I'm going?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
to it already sounds good, whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I'm going to give up sexuality, but not yet.
Or something I'm going to giveup sexuality, but not yet.
Or something I'm going to giveup my sins, but not yet.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
That's really good, so I think we encourage them to
listen.
I've told a few friends whohave no faith just check it out.
(37:17):
It's coming from a generalenough angle with a bunch of
different thinkers that it's notsome one thing trying to
convert you or anything.
This, this podcast, is like avery general approach to a bunch
of different thinkers from abunch of different angles, and
oh yeah I think.
I think there's so much all ofthese thinkers have to offer the
(37:38):
um to the artist, to spiritualsee, and those are disillusioned
with modern life, like a lot ofthis stuff's very
disillusioning.
I mean I've had multiplefriends this last year.
They're like I'm just trying tosurvive this dumpster fire.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And you know, some of that's just politics, but some
of it's beyond politics.
It's in tech Like I'm sick ofsocial media, I'm sick of fake
news.
I'm politics.
It's in tech like I'm sick ofsocial media, I'm sick of fake
news, I'm sick of all of thisand it's creating like a, a type
of despair yeah so I thinkthat's where this podcast and
your book, and, like these,these thinkers, are giving us so
(38:16):
much to work with, of hope andof depth and of like anchoring
to deeper things that areconstants, no matter.
No matter what is happening inthis day and age, you know
constants through their, throughour, through stalin, through
lenin, through uh, any, any, youknow hitler, everything like
(38:37):
these are people that livethrough these times and it's
just phenomenal what they'rebringing to the table.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Well, it's almost like they're saying what God
don't you believe in, I don'tbelieve in that God either.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, most of the time.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Or like when, pasternak, you know, I lost my
faith in atheism, yeah.
Or Berdynieff, you know, thegreat socialist revolution
turned out to be no revolutionat all.
A disrespector of persons.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I want to end on our, uh, last reading of your book,
um, the, the second half of that, that section which I feel like
it's worth reading because itwas so well written.
Professor, like, seriously,seriously, those, those friends
who have read and are readingalong, they've all agreed with
me that your writing was very,very good.
It's very dense and quick.
(39:28):
You get a lot in a short amount.
You have to go back and rereadit.
We've all agreed that.
So your writing is verypowerful and dense, so that's a
compliment.
And so back to this bit thatBerdyev was saying, and I just
want to read this as aconclusive bit to leave you with
(39:49):
, to leave everyone with, likewhat he was saying and a couple
of his quotes.
So I think that's a good way toend it.
Okay, so this may seem likeblasphemy to modern day, modern
free thinkers who think ofthemselves as christians, but
for bide of, anything that putmaterial development before the
kingdom of god was suspect.
(40:09):
It was not enough to pursuematerial gain six days out of
the week and holiness on sundays.
The bourgeois was not reallyhypocritical.
They knew what they were doing.
It was just that they forgavethemselves too easily and
justified their avarice as theform, as a form of pragmatic
realism, just as blake hadpredicted they would.
(40:30):
The materialism of descartes,lock and newton had replaced the
invisible god of transcendencewith the god of progress and
commerce.
It reminds me of merchants inrevelation, the merchant class,
basically, which is theoligarchy, basically, yeah,
bertie of explains, and this isfrom, actually I don't know,
probably the same book as quotedbefore yeah, History, meaning
(40:54):
of history meaning of history.
So in in that book he also saysthis civilization, as opposed to
culture, which has given up tothe contemplation of eternity,
tends to be futurist.
Machinery and technique arechiefly responsible for the
speeding up of life and itsexclusive aspiration toward the
future.
Organic life is slower, lessimpetuous and more concerned
(41:16):
with essentials, while civilizedlife is superficial and
accidental, for it puts themeans and the instruments of
life before the ends, whosesignificance is lost.
The consciousness of civilizedmen is concentrated exclusively
upon the means and techniques oflife, considered as the one
reality, as the only reality,while its aims are regarded as
(41:36):
illusory.
To Berdeyev, commercial life isanti-contemplative and
therefore anti-spiritual, and itis essentially futurist in its
subjection of the eternal to thetemporal, the spiritual to the
material and the present to thefuture.
Nothing is of value in and ofitself, everything is fodder for
economic development.
(41:57):
I feel that in my life, wow,social change, technological
growth and industrialproductivity, even leisure and
rest are valued for what theyadd to one's productivity or how
we can make money off of it.
Time is money and money ispower.
This view of time as acommodity, indeed of life,
spirit, health and meaning ascommodities, creates a new human
(42:20):
type focused upon personalachievement.
Again Berdiav remarks as areaction against the medieval
ascetic ideal, man puts asideboth resignation and
contemplation and attempts todominate nature, organize life
and increase its productiveforces.
This, however, does not help tobring him into closer communion
(42:40):
with the inner life and soul ofnature.
On the contrary, by masteringit technically and organizing
its forces, man becomes furtherremoved from it.
Organization proves to be thedeath of the organism.
Life becomes increasingly amatter of technique.
The machine sets its stamp uponthe human spirit and all its
(43:01):
manifestations.
Thus civilization has neither anatural nor a spiritual, but a
mechanical foundation.
It represents par excellencethe triumph of technique over
both the spirit and the organism.
Sheesh, talk about what modernwork has done to us.
Yes, in our cubicles, sittingon our laptops.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
All right, my friend, thank you so much, all right,
well, tell, tell our next timewith with those day epsky, we'll
have fun, I'm sure, with thatthose jfc's death.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
This one's going to be two parts because we've gone
about an hour and a half yeah umdulce fc.
I expect to be two or moreparts because I need the
audience to pray for us.
Professor taught BrothersKaramazov for 20 years or 25
years, so how is he going to dothis?
How am I going to harness inthe professor's knowledge?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
on.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Dostoevsky.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
We'll do notes from underground first, and then
we'll do a shortened version ofthe Brothers Karamazov the
second time.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Well, two episodes on Brothers K.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
I'm sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
And I'll probably need you to section that out in
your head, professor how you'regoing to approach that.
Yeah, well, because I will notknow how to manage you on that
if you know that much about it.
Okay, so yeah just for audienceto know, Professor's
specialties are in Dostoevskyand especially Merton.
He wrote like three or four orfive books on Merton.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
So when we get to Merton, I think three.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Three, maybe seven, yeah, but on Merton also we have
a special surprise which is uhpart of the professor's faith
story had to do with merton yeahwhich I love okay until next
time.
Thank you, professor okay, adiosadios, thank you for listening
(44:57):
to the subversive orthodoxy.
If today's conversation stirredsomething in you, whether
you're a skeptic believer orsomewhere in the middle of
deconstruction, know this thisisn't about reclaiming an old
religious philosophy.
It's about realizing that thereare ancient constants that
challenge the very things inculture that are dehumanizing us
.
As we speak, we're going tocontinue exploring what it means
(45:18):
to live a life of deep meaningin this world that often feels
fragmented and nihilistic, andthis prophetic imagination
doesn't seem to come to us fromthe expected places.
It's not confined to pulpits orseminaries.
The prophetic voice is breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
charity work, art and theunexpected corners of culture.
We hope you'll continue to joinus in this ongoing conversation
(45:40):
.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
If you found this meaningful.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Please leave a five-star review, subscribe and
share with anyone who mightresonate with this conversation,
adios.
This has been a SubversiveOrthodoxy podcast with Travis
Mullen and Professor EnchastiChastity.
Thank you.
To Berdeyev.
Commercial life isanti-contemplative and therefore
anti-spiritual, and it isessentially futurist in its
subjection of the eternal to thetemporal, the spiritual to the
material and the present to thefuture.
Nothing is of value in and ofitself.
Everything is fodder foreconomic development.
I feel that in my life, wow.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, in my life.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy Podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generalJudeo-Christian revelation of
God in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(00:48):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic, outdated and obsolete,may be the very life-giving
power we need to resist thisdistracted techno state.
We're living in full of anxiety, depression and teenage suicide
.
We're living in full of anxiety, depression and teenage suicide
(01:09):
.
It's great entertainment,thrilling entertainment.
It's the inside story packedwith drama.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think in one of Walker Percy's books.
He has a line in there where hesays you know that it's
possible to lose yourselfsitting next to your swimming
pool in your $50 million milliondollar mansion in Hollywood as
easily as it is anywhere else,and it's sort of like your
(01:51):
relationship with yourself slipsaway because it isn't anything
that's.
It really is of a differentorder than than rationality.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know, yeah, and that's why Kierkegaard had to
come up with these terms andthese words for it that nobody
had up to that time made asexplicit as he as he did now,
this next next quote or readingis from slavery and freedom, and
I think this speaks to like ourcurrent cultural issue of like
(02:30):
kind of collectivism where it'slike we all know right and the
person, each person, doesn'treally matter.
It's more like what the, theconsensus is, um, which is sort
of a mob, mob mentality, whichkind of happens on the right and
the left.
Yeah, yeah, so in slavery andfreedom, he said, this is the
(02:50):
value of each person, ratherthan thinking of ourselves in a
binary model.
He says the person is ofultimate value, not the state,
not society, not civilization.
Every system that treats thehuman being as a means to an end
, whether for profit, productionor collective utopia, is an
(03:10):
affront to God.
Both capitalism and socialismin their modern forms are guilty
of this reduction.
They suppress the inner life,they sacrifice freedom for order
or efficiency, efficiency, andthey breed spiritual nihilism.
Only the christian personalismthat sees each human being as
unrepeatable, eternal and calledto co-creation can resist the
(03:34):
mechanization of man.
History itself will be judgedby how it treats the person.
This guy, this guy's deep Imean I, I mean that made me
emotional, like this is like.
This guy was like veryconnected.
Oh yeah, I mean, this is comingfrom a very deep place.
(03:56):
Well, yeah, calling out all ofall forms of everything, like to
call it spiritual nihilism.
It it relates to how I feelabout our culture, where um,
I've had, I've had, you know, myfaith going since 90, 96, you
know, solidly it's.
All my friends since then haveknown who I was, what I was
(04:20):
about, and I can tell you in howmany years is that since 96, 20
, 30, 30, 29, maybe in 29 years.
You know how many people havecome to me and been like Travis.
I'm spiritually seeking.
I want to know some things.
Can you tell me, can we have aconversation?
(04:40):
I think like zero, and it's notbecause they haven't told me
like travis, you've you knowyou're this kind of a christian.
I appreciate you or whateverI've heard some compliments like
that, but like just their does,their lack of desire, their
hunger is not there.
And what?
What?
This, how?
That relates to what whatberday have just said.
(05:03):
He said the, the left and theright, socialism, capitalism
breed spiritual nihilism.
So it's spiritual death.
It's like spiritual nothingness.
Yeah, you do see about, you dosee a um resurgence of
spirituality now, throughmindfulness, yoga.
You know, people are realizingthey have a spiritual need and
(05:25):
they're looking.
They're looking for thatsomewhere, they need it from
somewhere.
So they've turned to the east,I guess, since the beatles right
, yeah, um, and rejecting thewhole, the whole narrative of,
of christianity, for, for someform that they were turned off
by at some point in time.
So you know, obviously, whatBordea is saying is like you're
(05:50):
disconnecting yourself from thesource of it all, like when you
disconnect from truth and beautyof God himself, and like Jesus.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah well, your relationship to yourself as a
self.
You replace it with yourrelationship with the world, or
to an image or something.
In one of Walker Percy's bookshe talks about NASA having a
(06:26):
contest where what would be thequestion that we would ask the
aliens, the first question wewould ask the aliens when they
land, and they had in this novel.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, this is in your book.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, and so all these questions come up.
Oh yeah, this is in your book,yeah, and so all these questions
come up.
You know, can you explain thetime-space continuum?
You know in a way that a thirdgrader can understand, or all
these things.
And the one that won was did ithappen to you?
(07:04):
And they said, well, did whathappen to you?
He says, well, do you have aself that gives you trouble?
Are you, are you dividedbetween yourself and and
yourself, or are you just ahighly formed insect or a robot
(07:27):
machine that has no interiorlife?
If you do have an interior life, is that what sent you to find
us?
Are you looking for friends orare you looking for food?
That's the question.
That's cool, and it is kind ofthe existential question, you
know, are you looking forquestion?
Are you looking for friends?
Are you looking for food?
(07:49):
Am I part of your predatorypower grab, or are you part of
the love that created theuniverse?
What do you identify with?
(08:10):
What is you know?
And and and verdanieff, asbeing part of the french of the
russian revolution and thenbeing its enemy, probably made
it so clear to him where thelines were drawn.
And you know, between between anexistential thinker and a power
seeker, that he just couldn'tstop himself from explaining it.
You know we just, yeah, hewasn't shy about it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Oh yeah, I have one here on on god and atheism.
He's not okay, yeah, I'm gonnahear this one but uh, what you
just said also, like if youreduce it down to food and um,
food or friend, yeah, that'skind of like darwinism versus
christian thought is like foodis survival, yeah, and that's
(08:51):
the theme of darwinism survivalof fittest and what, what's
going to survive.
And then, uh, the the root ofchristianity, christian thought
is, is fellowship, community,right of love, right.
So if you reduce things down totheir hard core, core, it
starts to see things a littlemore clearly.
Yeah, what world do you want tolive in or what view you want
(09:15):
to hold?
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So here's him on an atheist and a God, reading that
he did, or a writing about that.
He said um, it's a, it's in thelarger context of a famous line
that he said they rebel againstGod in the name of God.
And it's from the book, thebeginning and the end Um, so he
(09:39):
says thus it is that atheism inits higher, not in its base form
, maybe a dialectical cleansingof the human idea of God?
When men have risen in revoltagainst God on the ground of the
evil and wrong of the world,they have, by the very fact of
so doing, presupposed theexistence of a higher truth that
(09:59):
is to say in the last resort ofGod.
They rebel against God in thename of god, for the sake of
purging men's understanding ofgod.
They revolt against aconception of him which has been
besmirched by the mire of thisworld.
But as he treads this path ofconflict and anguish, man may
pass through an experience whichbrings him moments not only of
(10:20):
absolute god forsakenness buteven the death of God.
And it's got a they have killedGod, said Nietzsche reference.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Oh, yeah, well, that, yeah, and that is a pretty
powerful reflection, especiallycoming from him.
Yeah, especially coming fromhim that, and also he wrote a
book on Dostoevsky and I haven'tread his book on Dostoevsky,
(10:54):
which I'm going to read beforewe talk about Dostoevsky, so I
can bring Berdenev into theconversation you don't have much
time.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I hope you're a fast reader it's on interlibrary law
Dostoevsky's next.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
But that's one of the themes in the Brothers
Karamazov, where the brotherwith the deepest conscience has
the biggest problem with faith.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Is that Ivan?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, that's Ivan or ivan.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
yeah, ivan and I started.
I started the book on audio.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I'm like a few chapters in yeah and uh, but the
uh, uh, his spiritual crisis,you know is, is there.
There are parallels andantithetical versions of it in
the other brothers which allowus to see both the strength and
(11:53):
weakness of that conception.
You know, it's a kind of.
It's not just a theologicalconundrum, it's a personal
revelation that emerges, and butwe'll deal with that when we
(12:21):
get to Dostoevsky.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We'll deal with that when we get to Dostoevsky and
for the two little interludesright here.
I found this at the thriftstore the other day for $1.
Oh, really, they found me acopy of the Everlasting man by
GK Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Oh wow, that's a good buy From 1958.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Wow, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is it autographed by him?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
I wish.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And I picked this up in Westerly Rhode Island.
Oh yeah, on the road by JackKerouac.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So my whole library is becoming subversive orthodoxy
only books, and I'm going toget rid rid of other ones that
were not written like at least50, 60, 80 years ago well, when
we get into kerouac catholicism,we'll be in a whole new space.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
By that time, I'm sure yeah, we get there.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's like a few people ahead, yeah, but, um,
could you elaborate on hisconcept of personalism and how
it pushed him away from bothMarxism and capitalism?
We've touched on it a littlebit, but I don't know if you
could do a little more with that.
How did his Christian visionshape his critique?
He didn't think the left or theright upheld the dignity of the
(13:39):
person, because that would bevery relevant to our modern
politics right now.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah well, both sides want to save the world by
crushing the person.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Can you elaborate on that, because I don't think
that's what either one would sayabout themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Well, because they think in terms of numbers and in
terms of team they want tocrush the other team.
Well, I think it's more thatthey don't give the choices to
the people that they're savingfrom themselves.
They think they know betterthan the party which Lenin
(14:48):
wanted to put in service of therevolution, or the old
aristocracy that wanted to takeover the decision-making.
And so he was sort of sayingwell, you know, you can't have
freedom and the dignity of theperson unless you give them the
(15:10):
capacity to make choices overtheir own lives and be part of
the creation of the laws thatgovern them.
And so neither one of theparties want to share decision
making with the people that theywant to vote for them.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It doesn't seem.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I mean they yeah, they're not actually they're not
actually listening to yes,they're not actually listening
to people who say you know?
Well, I don't know, I don't, Idon't want to have people take
care of me, I want to havefreedom to make my own choices
about things.
Well, okay, how do we arrangethat?
You know how do we getdifferent?
(15:57):
You know it was with Chesterton.
You know it's sort of likecapitalism is great if it's
fairly distributed, but if allthe capital is in the hands of
one percent, then it's notcapitalism, it's, it's
authoritarianism of thecorporatism or corporatism, and
the Democrats you know well, ok,but if it's just the number,
(16:19):
the majority, that makes thedecision, that's not really
listening to all the peopleeither, that makes the decision,
that's not really listening toall the people either.
To have a democracy that isgoing to work, you need, you
know, more feedback frommultiple sources and you know
distributive justice and theredoesn't seem, you know, there
doesn't seem to be a working outof those problems in the way
(16:45):
that you would think.
You know, this long intohistory, that we could have
worked that out a little better.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But yeah, a Berdeyev quote totally says what you just
, you just nailed him on that.
He says both capitalism andsocialism fail to respect the
spiritual freedom of the person.
They seek to organize societybut do not understand man.
Yes, like they don't.
They don't really want to hearfrom the individuals and solve
like very complex problems theywant to like coercively.
(17:17):
Either party in any societyprobably wants to create a
platform and then just run withit and ram it, ram it into the
rest of the people.
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Well, well, actual human beings are a
disappointment because they'reunpredictable and they're
irrational and they do, and theydo things that you think are
not in their self-interest,which you know better, and
anybody that has kidsunderstands this.
That you know, to treat yourkid with love and respect means
(17:52):
you're going to have to listento his stupid decisions when
he's 12 and take him seriouslyand give him the dignity and the
respect that will allow him togive you the dignity and respect
, and those are difficult thingsthat you know.
The Gospels are trying toexplain how you do that.
You know how do you deal withthe power, differential or the
(18:20):
roles of people in a culture anddesires that conflict with
yourself?
Know, interest and things.
How how do you overcome allthose memetic, uh, aspects of
human nature?
And there, is.
Can you review that word,because I remember it from that,
that well, I would just gerard,renee, gerard oh yeah, he's in
motion of the memeticimagination, where we all learn
(18:44):
what desire from our, from ourparents, who learn it from their
parents and their peer groups.
And, and isn't it?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
isn't it a desire that I want someone to tell me
like I want to?
I want the guru, or I want themimetic desire?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Well, it's more it's.
It's more subtle than that,it's it's unconscious.
We want the things that thatthe more subtle than that it's
unconscious.
We want the things that thepeople we admire want, and so we
want what dad and mom want forus, because we admire them when
we're little, and then it's onlylater that we find, well, you
(19:26):
know, that probably wasn't agood choice for me, or that I
misread what it was that theyreally wanted for me.
They didn't want me to be thegreatest baseball player, they
wanted me to exercise orsomething.
And I misread the imperative,you know.
And so that's.
You know.
I guess we're still prettyyoung in terms of civilization
(19:49):
to have worked out, you know,the, the debts, we debts and
some karma to pay.
Uh and uh, I don't even thinkwe're.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
We're trying, you know what's so disingenuous
about that is the the notion ofa christian nation and a
religious right.
That that doesn't want to talkabout that?
Yeah, like slavery and nativeamerican genocide, oh yeah yeah
and, along with you, know manyother things, but those are the
two biggest ones in our historythat are just completely not by
(20:36):
a lot, a lot of people and a lotof general broad strokes of
culture do not want to talkabout or acknowledge.
Or it wasn't me, it wasn't youknow, and it wasn't us directly.
It was ourselves, but it was, um, it was a great injustice in
our country and it caused bothof those caused major injustice
(20:56):
to native americans, and it'sstill going on, and to african
americans, and it's still goingon like a lot of a lot of
effects are still happening.
Some friends had a debate withme on that a few years ago.
This was kind of hilariousbecause I wasn't even saying the
(21:21):
idea, but he was just arguingagainst someone about systemic
racism.
And he goes systemic racismisn't in our country anymore.
It's been long gone.
That's way out of here.
I'm sure there's some racistpeople, but there's no systemic
stuff.
And I go dude, I just did mymortgage license class.
We had a whole huge section onredlining which was happening in
(21:48):
the seventies and the eighties.
In my lifetime black peoplewere not allowed to buy in these
neighborhoods that wereredlined, yeah, and it was not
gone in the eighties.
It was.
It was legally gone in theeighties and it wasn't gone.
Just like segregation was gone,but it wasn't gone.
Exactly so these these things,you know.
And then you, you have theargument that, um, slavery was
(22:09):
over, but then massincarceration, and then putting
inmates to work yeah, it's likea whole nother modification of
slavery.
So those arguments are whenpeople, when people just this,
deflect those arguments tooeasily.
I'm highly skeptical.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, well, you know, and it, and part of it,
reflects on our inability todismantle them.
You know, and I'm sure you know,and I'm sure, that well,
dismantle their arguments tosort of free them from that the
shackle of their prejudice.
(22:52):
Oh yeah, Because weparticipated too in some way.
I'm sure Berdenev, when he wason the philosopher ship, had
some interesting conversationswith guys about.
You know why did we lose theargument with Lenin?
You know why did the violentBolsheviks win the argument in
(23:15):
Russia, or did they?
You know how do we come backfrom this?
It's going to be hundreds ofyears before we come back from
this.
It's like thinking of Cortez asa great evangelist.
You know, yeah, yeah, he was agreat evangelist.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
All right, you know, uh, that's, that's historical
genocide of a level that wehaven't even imagined yet yeah,
and that and for that to beplaced on Christian faith in the
sense of what Berdyev istalking about is completely the
(23:53):
opposite.
Yes, right, that's what's socrazy about that.
Critique on Christianity islike well, dude Cortez was
acting in 100% the opposite ofeverything Jesus taught, so how
can we even associate it?
Well, the church was complicit.
So, yeah, I'm going to critiquethat church at that time, not
(24:15):
the whole thing, because it'sobviously opposed to Jesus in
absolution.
Like, every form of that is anabsolute contradiction of Jesus.
And even today, like the wayimmigration is of that is an
absolute contradiction of Jesus.
And even today, like the waythe way immigration is being
treated is an absolutecontradiction to Jesus.
Yeah, and that's, that'sorthodoxy, right there.
Like you can't treat peoplelike that, right, you just can't
(24:38):
.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
That's why we're going to, that's why we're going
to read Dostoevsky, because, ortalk about him, because he
started asking those questions.
You know, how do you, how doyou talk about these things in
ways that penetrate people'sunconscious defenses?
(25:00):
Um, yeah, great question thatkeep them from, from registering
anything that might, uh, causethem to doubt their own
understanding of the faith, youknow, and their projections onto
themselves or other people.
You know, how do you, how doyou overcome that aspect of
(25:21):
human nature?
Uh, so that's part of what hewas writing about.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Did he verbalize that or are you saying you picked
that up from Brothers Karamazov?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, it's one of the big themes in Brothers
Karamazov.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's one of the big themes, I know, but did you hear
him actually explicitly saythat, or you can just tell
that's what he's doing?
He explicitly says stuff likethat yeah, that he's trying to
help people to think throughtheir own beliefs, without
causing them like, withoutmaking them defensive.
Yeah, helping them to analyzeinternally.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
That's a powerful question.
There's one scene in BrothersKaramazov one of my favorite
scenes, one of the brothers is astreet fighter?
Which brother he likes to getin fights in bars?
Which brother?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Dimitri Mishnah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah.
And so he beat up this old manoutside of a bar in front of the
old man's I think it's hisgrandson or his son, a little
(26:39):
boy and it was a humiliation.
And Alyosha, the youngerbrother, wants to do something
to make it up to this guy.
So he decides that he's goingto give him 100 copecks, pay him
off and apologize for hisbrother because he knows his
brother's not going to do it.
So he goes to the guy and hesays you know, normally when our
(27:02):
brother beats up people in abar and he does this all the
time, you're not the only one wepay the person 100 copecks, but
we don't have 100, because it'sbeen a tough month.
So would you take 75?
And the old man says you giveme 75 copex.
(27:27):
He goes yeah, yeah, I know, Iwish it were 100, but I can only
give you 75.
And he says are you going togive me a check for that?
He said yeah.
So he gives him a check for 75copex and the old man rips it up
and throws it in his face andsays if you think I take any
(27:49):
money from a Karamazov, youdon't understand what kind of
man I am.
And he walks away.
So Alyosha goes home and hisgirlfriend says how did it go?
Did he take the 75 copex?
And Alyosha says, oh, it wentgreat.
He ripped up the check andthrew it in my face and said
(28:10):
screw you, karamazovs.
And she said, well, thatdoesn't sound very good.
And he says, oh no, he got itoff his chest.
He had to do that and he got alittle bit of his pride back.
Tomorrow I'm going to go offfrom 100.
He's going to take it.
And she said, boy, you'repretty good at this.
(28:33):
He goes.
Yeah, you know, my spiritualdirector, zosima, has told me
about the underground in man andthe need for pride and the need
for dignity and the need to beable to take a hit for the team.
And that's what I'm learning,you know, and so.
(28:55):
So that's just one of the smallthings.
But then he, you know it startsgetting bigger, because then he
starts working with groups andkids and he starts dealing with
people with psychological crisesin their families and stuff,
and he's trying to work out how,how to be a christian that
(29:19):
acknowledges the psychology ofthe underground in human beings
in a way that brings them out ofthe underground rather than
secures them deeper into it andthat's one of the big themes of
the novel.
And of course the two mostunderground people in the novel
(29:40):
are his brothers and his father.
People in the novel are hisbrothers and his father and so
that becomes the big familydynamic that the whole novel is
built around.
So that's on a family level.
But is there anybody?
I'm sure there are people.
I mean, gandhi was trying towork that out in a public domain
(30:03):
.
Martin Luther Gandhi was tryingto work that out in a public
domain.
Martin Luther King was tryingto work that out.
We have some really propheticfigures in the 20th century
Mandela and Tutu, the Councilson Reconciliation.
(30:24):
All those are experiments inbringing Christian love into
modern life.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
We've established that his faith wasn't always
like super orthodox or he hatedinstitutions, including the
church.
Right, how do you think hisfaith in such a way that he kept
resisting secularism but alsoreligious authoritarianism,
which is a common theme?
We heard that in Kierkegaard alot, Blake also.
(30:54):
In what way was his faithsubversive even to the church
itself?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
church itself.
Well, you know, some of theseguys like Tolstoy is another
example and Simone Weil, peoplelike that kind of get labeled
Christian anarchists becausethey're so critical and
suspicious of the wayinstitutional forms distort you
(31:36):
know their vision of Christ.
For the sake of you, knoworganizationalatives and uh in
Kierkegaard too in Kierkegaardtoo.
He called it Christendom.
You know that.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Kierkegaard resisted the last rites of his church did
he really?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I don't remember that yeah he rejected it.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, but you know how much of this for Berdiev,
kierkegaard, I mean speakspecifically to Berdiev, but how
much of this for birdie ofkirkegaard?
I mean speak specifically tobirdie, but how much of this to
simone bay, birdie of tolstoy,okay, yeah.
So how much of that do youthink was their personality or
and or their reaction to thechurch at their time, the church
, the church um, the state ofthe institutional church, of
(32:22):
their location and time inhistory?
Because that was very unique toKierkegaard.
He was, he never left, he neverleft Denmark, so all he knew
was the Denmark church, theofficial church of Denmark.
Yeah, so that's what he'sreacting against.
I don't know what Simone Weilwas reacting against.
I don't know Berdyev was isRussian Orthodox.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Well, you know it's probably.
You know different percentagesof both.
And you know it's probably.
You know different percentagesof both.
And you know, I think, part ofthe key here.
You look in the Bible, you know, and you look at the prophets
in the Old Testament, you know.
And what was?
Wasn't it Isaiah who said youknow, god says your holocaust
are an abomination to me.
(33:01):
You know so that that's likeyou know your, your rituals,
your fundamental rituals ofreconciliation with your god are
an abomination to your god didyou mean to say holocaust, or
did you?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
were you saying for a different word?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
no, that's his.
By holocaust he meant yoursacrifices okay are abomination
to me I never saw thattranslation that's pretty
hardcore uh prophetic language,um, and that would be, you know,
pretty harsh institutional uhcritique if you took it that way
(33:40):
.
Uh.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So there's Well, professor, absolutely, I mean,
that's a great point.
That's a great point.
Is that in the biblicalprophets you have maybe this is
in Bergman or in Heschel Afunction of the prophets is that
they do critique theinstitution at that time.
And yes, I think it's worthreading that passage because
it's very relevant to the pointin Isaiah, because it's
(34:06):
extremely aggressive.
Yeah, he says, I hate yourassemblies, you know?
Yes, yes, and that's crazy.
I mean, that's like and he'sspeaking for God.
He's saying God, is saying this.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Okay, so it's in Isaiah 1, right at the beginning
.
This is Isaiah 1.
So if you think anyone criticalof the institutional religious
gathering of the time isheretical, then Isaiah is
heretical.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He says hear the word of the Lord, you, rulers of
Sodom, listen to the instructionof our God.
You, people of Gomorrah.
The multitude of yoursacrifices, what are they to me,
says the Lord, I have more thanenough burnt offerings of rams
and fattened animals.
I have no pleasure in the bloodof bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear beforeme, who has asked this of you,
(34:56):
this trampoline of my courts,stop bringing me meaningless
offerings.
Your incense is detestable tome, and incense is often equated
with prayers, new moons,sabbaths, convocations.
I cannot bear your worthlessassemblies.
Wow, your new moon feasts andyour appointed festivals.
(35:17):
I hate with all my being.
Oh my gosh, it's like easy God.
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your handsin prayer, I hide my eyes from
you, and even when you offermany prayers, I am not listening
.
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash and make yourselves clean.
(35:38):
Take your evil deeds out of mysight.
Stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right.
Seek justice, defend theoppressed, take up the cause of
the fatherless.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Plead the case of the widow.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Amen.
So yeah, you can't write thesepeople off if they're critical
of the institution of their day.
Oh, yeah, yeah, which I think alot of my evangelical academic
brothers and sisters might havea tendency to do.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, yeah, I mean, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And Catholic scholars as well, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Well, you know, we all want to have our cake and
eat it too, right?
We want to be respecters of theprophets, but not quite yet.
What was it?
I think Was it Augustine thatsaid you know, I'm going?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
to it already sounds good, whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I'm going to give up sexuality, but not yet.
Or something I'm going to giveup sexuality, but not yet.
Or something I'm going to giveup my sins, but not yet.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
That's really good, so I think we encourage them to
listen.
I've told a few friends whohave no faith just check it out.
(37:17):
It's coming from a generalenough angle with a bunch of
different thinkers that it's notsome one thing trying to
convert you or anything.
This, this podcast, is like avery general approach to a bunch
of different thinkers from abunch of different angles, and
oh yeah I think.
I think there's so much all ofthese thinkers have to offer the
(37:38):
um to the artist, to spiritualsee, and those are disillusioned
with modern life, like a lot ofthis stuff's very
disillusioning.
I mean I've had multiplefriends this last year.
They're like I'm just trying tosurvive this dumpster fire.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And you know, some of that's just politics, but some
of it's beyond politics.
It's in tech Like I'm sick ofsocial media, I'm sick of fake
news.
I'm politics.
It's in tech like I'm sick ofsocial media, I'm sick of fake
news, I'm sick of all of thisand it's creating like a, a type
of despair yeah so I thinkthat's where this podcast and
your book, and, like these,these thinkers, are giving us so
(38:16):
much to work with, of hope andof depth and of like anchoring
to deeper things that areconstants, no matter.
No matter what is happening inthis day and age, you know
constants through their, throughour, through stalin, through
lenin, through uh, any, any, youknow hitler, everything like
(38:37):
these are people that livethrough these times and it's
just phenomenal what they'rebringing to the table.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Well, it's almost like they're saying what God
don't you believe in, I don'tbelieve in that God either.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, most of the time.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Or like when, pasternak, you know, I lost my
faith in atheism, yeah.
Or Berdynieff, you know, thegreat socialist revolution
turned out to be no revolutionat all.
A disrespector of persons.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I want to end on our, uh, last reading of your book,
um, the, the second half of that, that section which I feel like
it's worth reading because itwas so well written.
Professor, like, seriously,seriously, those, those friends
who have read and are readingalong, they've all agreed with
me that your writing was very,very good.
It's very dense and quick.
(39:28):
You get a lot in a short amount.
You have to go back and rereadit.
We've all agreed that.
So your writing is verypowerful and dense, so that's a
compliment.
And so back to this bit thatBerdyev was saying, and I just
want to read this as aconclusive bit to leave you with
(39:49):
, to leave everyone with, likewhat he was saying and a couple
of his quotes.
So I think that's a good way toend it.
Okay, so this may seem likeblasphemy to modern day, modern
free thinkers who think ofthemselves as christians, but
for bide of, anything that putmaterial development before the
kingdom of god was suspect.
(40:09):
It was not enough to pursuematerial gain six days out of
the week and holiness on sundays.
The bourgeois was not reallyhypocritical.
They knew what they were doing.
It was just that they forgavethemselves too easily and
justified their avarice as theform, as a form of pragmatic
realism, just as blake hadpredicted they would.
(40:30):
The materialism of descartes,lock and newton had replaced the
invisible god of transcendencewith the god of progress and
commerce.
It reminds me of merchants inrevelation, the merchant class,
basically, which is theoligarchy, basically, yeah,
bertie of explains, and this isfrom, actually I don't know,
probably the same book as quotedbefore yeah, History, meaning
(40:54):
of history meaning of history.
So in in that book he also saysthis civilization, as opposed to
culture, which has given up tothe contemplation of eternity,
tends to be futurist.
Machinery and technique arechiefly responsible for the
speeding up of life and itsexclusive aspiration toward the
future.
Organic life is slower, lessimpetuous and more concerned
(41:16):
with essentials, while civilizedlife is superficial and
accidental, for it puts themeans and the instruments of
life before the ends, whosesignificance is lost.
The consciousness of civilizedmen is concentrated exclusively
upon the means and techniques oflife, considered as the one
reality, as the only reality,while its aims are regarded as
(41:36):
illusory.
To Berdeyev, commercial life isanti-contemplative and
therefore anti-spiritual, and itis essentially futurist in its
subjection of the eternal to thetemporal, the spiritual to the
material and the present to thefuture.
Nothing is of value in and ofitself, everything is fodder for
economic development.
(41:57):
I feel that in my life, wow,social change, technological
growth and industrialproductivity, even leisure and
rest are valued for what theyadd to one's productivity or how
we can make money off of it.
Time is money and money ispower.
This view of time as acommodity, indeed of life,
spirit, health and meaning ascommodities, creates a new human
(42:20):
type focused upon personalachievement.
Again Berdiav remarks as areaction against the medieval
ascetic ideal, man puts asideboth resignation and
contemplation and attempts todominate nature, organize life
and increase its productiveforces.
This, however, does not help tobring him into closer communion
(42:40):
with the inner life and soul ofnature.
On the contrary, by masteringit technically and organizing
its forces, man becomes furtherremoved from it.
Organization proves to be thedeath of the organism.
Life becomes increasingly amatter of technique.
The machine sets its stamp uponthe human spirit and all its
(43:01):
manifestations.
Thus civilization has neither anatural nor a spiritual, but a
mechanical foundation.
It represents par excellencethe triumph of technique over
both the spirit and the organism.
Sheesh, talk about what modernwork has done to us.
Yes, in our cubicles, sittingon our laptops.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
All right, my friend, thank you so much, all right,
well, tell, tell our next timewith with those day epsky, we'll
have fun, I'm sure, with thatthose jfc's death.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
This one's going to be two parts because we've gone
about an hour and a half yeah umdulce fc.
I expect to be two or moreparts because I need the
audience to pray for us.
Professor taught BrothersKaramazov for 20 years or 25
years, so how is he going to dothis?
How am I going to harness inthe professor's knowledge?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
on.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Dostoevsky.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
We'll do notes from underground first, and then
we'll do a shortened version ofthe Brothers Karamazov the
second time.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Well, two episodes on Brothers K.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
I'm sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
And I'll probably need you to section that out in
your head, professor how you'regoing to approach that.
Yeah, well, because I will notknow how to manage you on that
if you know that much about it.
Okay, so yeah just for audienceto know, Professor's
specialties are in Dostoevskyand especially Merton.
He wrote like three or four orfive books on Merton.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
So when we get to Merton, I think three.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Three, maybe seven, yeah, but on Merton also we have
a special surprise which is uhpart of the professor's faith
story had to do with merton yeahwhich I love okay until next
time.
Thank you, professor okay, adiosadios, thank you for listening
(44:57):
to the subversive orthodoxy.
If today's conversation stirredsomething in you, whether
you're a skeptic believer orsomewhere in the middle of
deconstruction, know this thisisn't about reclaiming an old
religious philosophy.
It's about realizing that thereare ancient constants that
challenge the very things inculture that are dehumanizing us
.
As we speak, we're going tocontinue exploring what it means
(45:18):
to live a life of deep meaningin this world that often feels
fragmented and nihilistic, andthis prophetic imagination
doesn't seem to come to us fromthe expected places.
It's not confined to pulpits orseminaries.
The prophetic voice is breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
charity work, art and theunexpected corners of culture.
We hope you'll continue to joinus in this ongoing conversation
(45:40):
.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
If you found this meaningful.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Please leave a five-star review, subscribe and
share with anyone who mightresonate with this conversation,
adios.
This has been a SubversiveOrthodoxy podcast with Travis
Mullen and Professor EnchastiChastity.
Thank you.
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