Freedom in Tyranny: Ernst Jünger's The Forest Passage

it can clearly be said that tyranny suppresses and eliminates freedom but on the other hand tyranny is only possible where Freedom has been domesticated and

has evaporated into vacuous Concepts [Music] welcome back to another mind mattress show today we want to talk about

ants to junga and his book Forest Passage which is a kind of a classic and as kind of caught some attention again and

gained some traction I suppose these days and we will probably see why uh yeah to give like a very short background on and Junior

um he's like a a fascinating guy with a fascinating life he was born in the late 19th century in 1895 I think

um fought in World War One was a highly decorated soldier then he published

after the war um he published his book storms of Steel I think is the English titles um it's uh his warm Memoir basically

which made him famous um and he continued to publish lots of essays books until his uh his uh

death in 1996 I think he was uh 98 even yeah so he was I think 102 years old when he died

um and uh yeah just a a very brief sketch in in the 20s he um he was kind of like mingling with the

like the the Nationalist circles with this whole intellectual scene um there uh which uh he was also later

criticized for by by leftists basically or by the by left intellectuals post-war um but he was uh not really

associated with the Nazis or the proto-nazis even at the time so there were like different let's say like movements critical of democracy

um different kind of nationalist flavors and discourse and that was all basically like a big intellectual scene in in Berlin

um and and the Communists were too you know were kind of like in that sphere at the time and they were like all kind of anti-democratic so they all basically

hated the Weimar Republic or many did you know and because it was pretty bad at the time right I mean it's not not really a surprise that people you know

had all kinds of um ideas and stuff uh in any event he then um the Nazis tried to kind of like uh get him on their side when they took

power because he was a war hero and um uh he wrote that famous book about his experience in World War One um so they kind of tried to seduce him

let's say but he he refused he was never like really associated with the Nazis and later um got stationed in Paris as a soldier

again during World War II uh where he um mingled with all the intellectual Elite in Paris at the time and uh

continued writing and eventually was got involved with the stauffenberg plot so the the plot to kill Hitler basically

and but he was only very tangentially involved and they're like all kinds of stories I encourage everybody to check out his Wikipedia entry it's just even

like this wikipedian really reads like a like a crazy novel or something I mean this this guy's life is just astonishing really and uh yeah and so in after the

war uh he um was forbidden to publish by the British uh authorities um because he refused the denacification

program so he basically refused to cooperate with uh you know these kind of questionnaires you know that uh sought

to establish like you know Purity and non-affiliation with the Nazis and he you know he was he was always kind of a contrarian we will get

to that too in his book it's kind of interesting that he refused it so he couldn't publish for like as long as the occupation

um was going on and then I think in 1951 a forest passage was published the book that we'll talk about today so right

after the uh yeah the German German federal republic was um founded then he could publish again and

yeah so that uh so just to to give an idea of the time and I find it also very interesting because

um uh in this this book um we will see that he kind of like um describes like a life or a possible life

of resistance and uh and what a special form of resistance let's say uh and uh you could say that you know he had uh

maybe the Communist and and Nazi regimes in mind so at some points in the book that's pretty obvious but then again he

he didn't write write it specifically like you know with a with it for a specific type of government let's say um and it's interesting that he wrote

that right after like the German federal republic was established right where the the group The Great democracy and stuff and uh but I thought you know

when when you read that book it becomes clear that he saw some of the those totalitarian impulses uh there too right so it's

pretty uh ubiquitous uh that kind of um Dynamic that he he's describing uh which also fits with his like

you cannot really pin him down if you look at his writing at his life yes he was like kind of a conservative um he was at some point had like

nationalist ideas uh in his life so he certainly wasn't a leftist but uh he you cannot really pin him down ideologically

very hard I mean later he was like kind of like experimenting with LSD and stuff and uh he was the you know hated by the conservatives for that you know he was

never really uh religious although he clearly um had a very like non-materialist and very

metaphysical of you let's say of the world um so yeah it's just a fascinating character and uh yeah and as a German

um can say he's he's had a big influence he was very well regarded for a long time but he also was hated by many people

so there's a kind of complexity there and so I might just open the floor um uh I will be interesting interested guys what what did you get out of that uh

German classic well do you want to go a lot no go ahead well we haven't we still haven't finished it you read the book and

recommended it to us so we are still making our way through it um I'm about a third of the way through it's pretty short it's only around 100

pages in uh in English and it took me it took me a few pages to get into his his style because it's uh I don't know how to describe it but um

basically it took me a while to understand what he was actually talking about and then because I did I purposefully didn't read the introduction I just went straight into it I'll read the introduction afterwards so I kind of

just plunged in and I'm like what what is he talking about and so there's every and part of that might be the the German part of it might be the translation where there's some sentences where I'm just like I'm not quite sure what he

meant by that but it all kind of despite that it all kind of comes together and and ends up making sense and there are um it's it's a very interesting book I'd

say it's unlike you know it's it's unlike probably anything else that I'd read before but some of the subject matter is the same it's an interesting uh meditation on uh on tyranny and

freedom um maybe to to help guide the trans the or the conversation not the translation I'll read how the book ends which is a

summary the the book itself is divided into 34 kind of small sections or chapters they might be like a page long or four or five pages long

and then at the end of the book I noticed this by skipping ahead he he ends it with a summary where he kind of summarizes each section in a sentence or half a sentence and basically writes a

long paragraph some summing up the whole book or the whole essay or or uh what's another word manuscript monograph maybe monograph I'm

not sure but this is how he summarizes it this will give a give some idea of the overall um the overall points that he's trying to make and then we can get into some details because each of these small

sentences contains a whole lot of cool stuff so he writes the questions put to us are simplified

and made more incisive they drive us into an either or decision as revealed in elections the freedom to say no is systematically

excluded this is intended to demonstrate the superiority of the questioner and it turns a nay into a venture that only one in a hundred will dare the arena for this Venture is

strategically ill-chosen this is no objection to its ethical significance the forest passage is Freedom's new answer free men are powerful even in tiny

minorities our present Epoch is poor in Great Men but it brings figures to the light the danger leads to the formation of

small Elites the figures of the worker and the Unknown Soldier are joined by a third the forest Rebel fear can be conquered by the individual

once he realizes his power the forest passage as free action in the face of catastrophe is independent of the foreground political technicalities

and their groupings it does not contradict the development but brings freedom to it through the decisions of the individual in the forest passage there is a meeting

of man with himself in his undivided and indestructible substance this meeting banishes the fear of death even the churches can only lend a hand here since man stands alone in his

choices the Theologian may be able to make his situation clear to him but cannot deliver him from it the forest Rebel crosses the null Meridian under his own

power in the questions of Health Care law and arms he takes his own Sovereign decisions morally too he does not act

according to any Doctrine and reserves the right to judge the law for himself he takes no part in The Cult of crime he decides what to consider property and

how he will defend it he is aware of the inviable inviolable depths from which the word Rises up constantly to constantly fulfill the world world sorry

herein lies the task of being here and now so he starts with this discussion of Elections and like the questionnaire and

how elections used to be if I'm remembering correctly he characterizes elections in there like free states as an expression of the will and that's how people commonly commonly think of them

they you know they want to make a decision and they they vote and they choose someone to you know act on their behalfs or something like that and whatever the problems might be even with

that conception in a tyranny and he's it's it seems here uh it seems to me that here he's pretty much

um explicitly almost referring to um like stalinism or maybe even maybe even Germany under fascism I'm not sure yeah yeah sure yeah and he describes the

elections and of course you know we all know the the quotation ascribed to Stalin that it's not who who uh how is it it's not it's who counts the votes that matter it's not something

it's who counts the votes that matter um but younger makes this makes the point that so in an election let's say where you get a 98 percent

yes for let's say Stalin or some dictator or whatever um he's saying one of the Just One of the side points that he makes is that it's not that uh you know it's not that they have to fudge the results it's like

you can pretty much you can pretty much believe that the that vote was probably pretty close you know you can Pro even as a even for the sake of argument um he's saying we can accept that 98 of

the people would vote Yes um because this isn't an election he calls it a questionnaire that's one of the things that first commune that first confused me I'm like well what does he mean by a

questionnaire like um like I just didn't understand what he meant by that yeah yeah it's probably the translation thing but uh yeah he's like it's like like

putting someone to the question right now kind of sense right and that's what came out that's what came out after you know in like in like five or ten Pages I'm like okay

that that's more like it it's like it's be it's being put to the question so there's and he he kind of draws that out as he's as he's writing you get the kind of connotations that he's putting into it

that it's not just a question it's a question that's put to you and there are expectations for how you'll answer an interrogation it's an interrogation exactly and again

yeah just to to uh uh yeah uh say that he actually when he develops that argument right when leading up to the his discussion of uh

of Elections and all that um he uh says basically that you know that the the powers that be they they they give you this question

um independently even of like uh elections or something not just the question and you're you're and they're not interested in truth they're not interested uh in

your solution they're just interest you know they're interested in your answer basically affirming the thing right and and that's pretty much like you know

even apart from the election thing right what what we can see uh everywhere with ideologies and and stuff you know when somebody uh just uh expects an answer

basically that that's the point I think and uh tied into something you just said there it's um the way the question is phrased this is how he puts it um he

basically calls them like plebiscites or referenda and they're phrased in terms uh he says now on top of that the statement required of him is clothed

in highly respectable formulations he is called on to participate in a vote for Freedom or perhaps a peace referendum but who does not love peace

and freedom only a monster a nay vote already receives a criminal character here and the bad voter resembles a criminal slinking up to the scene of a crime so he says basically saying when

there's when there's this election you know where where the the the rule the powers that be receive you know 98 vote of confidence

it's um it's pretty much who will Who will argue against a vote for Liberation or peace or stability and so he's basically saying the vote the the

the majority in this case the majority vote Yes is meaningless it doesn't matter if it doesn't even matter if there's a majority that agrees that there there's something different going

on here this isn't uh this isn't an election this isn't an expression an expression of people's will either individually or collectively this is being put to the question and there are

all kinds of other forces and things going on to to to make this situation what it is and one of the one of the important points and how this relates to the

forest passage is he's talking about this two percent the two percent that vote nay the two percent that say no and in that little summary it it uh it came

out he basically says this isn't the this isn't the best course of action in fact it's it's strategically or tactically ill-informed but still it's a good it's it's a it's still a good sign

of something but you know if the people voting nay understood what was really going on maybe they wouldn't even vote in a because this is he points out that in this type of system in this

totalitarian system the the ruling Powers would not want a hundred percent of the vote in fact he said if they were to receive a hundred percent they would then fudge the

numbers to receive 99 or 98 because they need that little sign that things aren't quite perfect because if everything was perfect then there would be no need for police there would be no no need for it

would imply that everything was perfect and then the the the the the contradiction that is apparent in the the way the society is structured would just be you know would blow everything

up because because everything is obviously not perfect if you need so many secret police officers for instance it also preserves the illusion of a

democracy it it creates the uh perception that see people disagree with us and we allow it because this is a democracy and it's only two percent it's like but at the same time those two

percent can be dangerous so we have to watch out for them and those are the evil people that we that are always there and we've always got to be vigilant because that two percent uh you know it's gonna have to capture and torture them and throw them in

concentration because it's interesting I mean that same Dynamic I was just thinking you know when you when you said that um like in the US like it used to be like you know the Clans man you know

like all the the neo-nazis who like are like a ridiculously small minority right and nobody really cares but they were always held held up you

know like as the evil you know and that's why we need all that uh you know all that stuff and all that internal like police and uh spies and whatever so

yeah yeah there's that same Dynamic and but now it's shifted to the point where it's all Republicans who are Neo-Nazi yeah right so then presumably if things were

to follow their course and you know the United States becomes what it essentially is now is like a one-party State then then the votes will go up to like 98 and then it'll just be those two

percent who are the the Republicans like ah those Republicans that two percent Republicans it's like I mean we're a democracy we got to let them say what they want but but they're always there

and then uh yeah it'll be it'll be something like that well I have to say Luke um you know there were moments uh I got

about halfway through the book myself and uh there were a number of times I was reading it and thinking God this guy

just absolutely Nails it uh in his deep understanding of what totalitarianism is and uh it gave me the feeling like the

book could have been written yesterday it it could have been uh you know some contemporary uh work of analysis on on exactly what we're seeing today

and I think that speaks to a few things and that is how um Universal or or cyclical

uh and perennial uh all of these uh psychological um structures uh uh are and how they

exist through time through the generations through you know in in you know in Germany in Western Europe uh 70 years ago and and in the west and the us

today and I really I felt like um it reminded me quite a bit of uh Roger's live not by

lies which is a book I you know I love and and we um repeatedly come back to uh which described how Eastern Europeans

mainly dealt with the uh communist totalitarian uh political structure of what was then the USSR and how they

preserved emoticum of of Independence and uh freedom to practice religion where there was all of this oppression but this book The Forest passage seems

to be a um first of all I think it's a great compliment to that book because it what it does is it it gives uh a kind of

philosophical um explanation of what these people were doing uh as Roger examined in that book

and it it just it goes through all of the different ways in which um a person can come to think about

their own independence uh a middle way he calls it um that is not not quite a reaction but a response to

um the oppression and and why we want to think on oppression we want to meet it head on in a sense um

albeit in a way that maybe isn't always obvious to the people who are doing the oppressing um so I'm really looking forward to reading the second half because as you

said just before we I think just before we started the show it gets even better uh uh and there are a couple of other things about it

um he he talks about in much the same way that I think Peterson does the importance of

Mythology and story and uh symbolism and Poets as as the the

strength or the the material um from which we can draw the lessons of dealing with the ogre the totalitarian

monster um and that all of this material is it's readily available should we choose to access it

um and and find this you know this way to a part of ourselves uh that also draws upon

God and and higher levels of being uh that can protect us that can uh make us strong uh in the face of of all kinds of

things that we're seeing um so I'm really looking forward to seeing where the second half goes because uh he he gets into the minutia

of all of these kinds of attitudes and and um and ways that we perceive things that that can be

um changed and and altered for the better one of the things that uh well this relates to one of the things you said in there Elon um that opens up the question for

well for me the the next two-thirds of the book but I assume the the second half as well in section 13 he writes this is the section on fear

he writes might it be possible to lessen the fear even as the automatism progresses or as can be foreseen approaches perfection would it not be possible to both remain

on the ship that is like the Titanic heading for the iceberg and retain one's autonomy of decision that is not only to preserve but even to strengthen the

roots that are still fixed in the Primal ground this is the real question of our existence so he's basically saying that even even in this state of of automatism

and uh and tyranny is it not possible to actually um refine oneself in that process to actually like not only escape the fear

but um but to to approach like a different kind of perfection and that will be like the forest passage it's not the it's not the kind of ineffectual nay

vote he even says um I didn't find it but on on the subject of the nav vote space he basically says that

like someone who takes the forest passage might even be able to um to vote yay to vote Yes like with a clear conscience because because the

even as a joke um or even as a statement in itself just to point out the absurdity of the problem of the situation and he so when he's taught back to the subject of the

election he's saying um that you know everything's everything's different this is a totally new relation of power as he says so the old rules don't even apply anymore it's not like like it is it is courageous to

vote in a because there are all sorts of dangers associated with it it's just not very effective he said you can vote Yes and still make an effective protest even

just by he gives a progression of of like graffiti says um even writing on a bridge I I voted no when you voted yes is a much bigger

protest because um because everyone can see it and everyone and all the people who agree can say ah you know I know what that means and he says you don't even need to make it a sentence you can just write no

and everyone will know what that means just writing no everyone will be like okay yeah I know what that means and he says or you know you can even just write a letter you can write the letter R and everyone will know what that means

because it'll be it'll mean like Rebel um you know Revolt blah blah all these r words and even that small symbolic gesture will be many times more

effective than voting nay because by voting nay you are just giving them what they want because they want that two percent they want that two percent like for all the reasons we said to show that

it's a real democracy um to to justify the police presence to justify their um the the whole system that to justify the fear to be able to to demonize

whoever the you know the the scapegoat of the minute will be um there are other ways other ways to uh

to be effective and I presume that he'll get into more of that in the in the second half and that's where he like some of the things that he's talking about with that

like you know he gave the specific example of uh you know writing resist or the letter r on a bridge uh and that has you know very specific you know time

oriented like markers to it you know like in order to have a bridge you have to be in a society that has Bridges um and that kind of a thing but his

point is timeless and then a lot of what he writes about is timeless and it's all geared towards and that's why I think Elon what you were saying about

how you know this this feels like it could have been written yesterday is be is because of that fact that he was able to touch upon the essence of what's

going on and and he even he says as much in in the book uh at several points where um you know let's not get caught up in

the details of the time you know uh whatever whatever it is you know whatever mask that tyranny wears will

change over time over epochs you know what was true of tyranny in ancient Rome that mask

you know has a different face now than it did then but the Tyranny Remains the Same like the and and this is another thing that's interesting about how he

both wasn't religious and yet used religious themes uh uh it ties in with this because it's you know he I don't remember if he uses the

word demonic but he does does he yeah so he so he even uses religious language to describe the face of but that that

to describe the thing that lies behind the mask uh of tyranny in our time you know he's pulling the The Mask down to show you the real face of of what it is that

we're up against and it is this archetypal you know religious you know these are the only kind of Frameworks in which it really exists fundamentally is

outside of the specific situation and yet is embedded within it and so I was I was really just uh struck by his ability to

to see past the culture wars of his time much like a lot of people in our time get caught up in the cultural World

cultural Wars of the day and miss the the subtlety and the Nuance of what's really going on which is this this

uh the seeking of control through connivances and and is and he seeks to

I guess teach people the way like the the middle way a third way uh in in developing one's own conscience and

ability to resist and withstand and um maybe even a fourth way maybe even a fourth way yeah there's certainly like

parallels with uh you know good good gifts uh some of good gifts uh ideas and uh he he even mentions him I think in a funny way

um in in the book he says like this really strange kind of uh I don't know like it was funny funny

formulation but I he must have been uh in Paris around the same time if I'm not mistaken so maybe they even had I mean he sure knew of him you know so I'm not

sure whether they had more contact but uh yeah no um it's it's really about I think inner transformation that's what what he's after right and and Forest

Rebel the word in German is actually a forest Walker so it sounds a little less um you know like a band of armed rebels in the forest so it's it's more like a

Robin Hood yeah it's more like a metaphor right um but uh yeah and and he said also says that freedom it it kind

of at some point it always words like Freedom uh or like democracy things like that they always become like stale at some point and just you know

Shield like a slogan and but that's only because people have forgotten about their meaning and and uh and he kind of

saw that these faces of tyranny and and are actually a great teacher so to so that people or at least the minority is

able to do it um Can can get in touch you know with their with their inner freedoms and and can uh be transformed so to say and become a force of renewal

and yeah well yeah hold that point I just want to read a really quick quotation on that point he says fundamentally freedom and tyranny cannot be considered in

isolation although we observe them succeeding each other in time it can clearly be said that tyranny suppresses and eliminates freedom but on the other hand tyranny is only possible where

Freedom has been domesticated and has evaporated into vacuous Concepts and that was exactly what I had in in mind the the this passage yeah uh and just to

to the um discussion about like the no on the bridge and and things uh I I found it interesting that he uh he basically

doesn't give like a blueprint uh how how to become a rebel right or how you to resist tyranny because he knows that that just doesn't work right so it's more like this inner transformation

thing and and everything like the examples he gives there are like examples you know to to illustrate more or less but the the Dynamics are in interesting

because that he makes the point for example that um you might even be handing the regime basically a list of dissidents right if

you let's say you you vote no or there are other contexts where you know if you get organized or do some action or some it's in some situations you might

actually be helping the regime and uh so it's it's really not so clear-cut and uh I was reminded I mean that that's maybe

part of the reason why this book um in general has become popular again so to speak I mean that the whole covet thing was just the perfect

um example of how this kind of stuff is still so relevant um and and we all had these decisions to

to face right I mean you could some people just stirred up the pot so to say right made made a big scene uh and and maybe some got even in trouble right

with the authorities because of their like refusing to wear masks and whatever like making a point and so but sometimes

that just got them into trouble with the authorities right and and maybe a nice graffiti on a bridge would have been more effective so it's and we saw that

here in France a lot there were like really good graffitis at very prominent uh places so the French if you don't want to know something about protests

you know that's that's the country to be uh no but yeah and that's just uh I I thought as you said Elan um this book is

it's just so relevant in a sense and and so Timeless and I think part of the reason might also be that um because of jungle's fascinating life

and that he wasn't was never like um part of some ideology or political movement really uh and he he because a

lot of like intellectual life you know in in Germany after after the war and stuff it kind of switched over to this kind of okay now we have the the great democracy or whatever and you know

there's our yay you know like ideology and and he always kept like out of everything in a sense uh and and was uh was just a very good Observer and I

think that's part of the reason why he was able to suss out these these deeper Dynamics on the topic of observation uh

so he he lived through the period of Nazi Germany where the kind of high level of technocracy

was brought to its ultimate um kind of higher limit for the time I think uh uh there are books uh IBM and

the Holocaust about how technology was being implemented in wholly new ways to

uh by the Nazi government to automate um I identification to automate uh

genocide to automate slavery uh and so he had to have been privy to some of this uh information I think being in the

military being connected to people having his ear to the ground uh and also Nazi Germany was censoring letters in Paris that was part of his

job he was was a censor so you sure got to know a lot of stuff so he was effectively uh you know the guy from 1984 you know sitting there at

his desk uh you know with the with the magic marker and and and putting back the uh the the news bit in the vacuum tube you know sanitized uh so he was the

guy in the the main character in the lives of others at the end when he gets put in the the letter Department unsealing people's letters and just boring reading reading people's

correspondence for for subversion yeah and this and these were all just you know lower Tech versions of of all of

these misinformation uh websites that are being run by ngos and and uh intelligence agencies that we're seeing

today this is the kind of precursor the uh the the original version in in more contemporary times of all of these uh forms of censorship and and

propagandizing that that were reading stories about now um so I think having lived through that period and that that place uh he was in

a very good position to um understand what it meant and and what it means for individuals to

um to find that Forest passage that place that finds freedom from all of it and and kind of shakes it off and and

uh but not only reacts to it but but seeks to you know he also has a passage about listening to other people who have done

the research who have some knowledge uh embracing the the wisdom of friends of a family of lovers anyone in your network in your circle that's going to

um help lift you uh from you know what is or what sometimes seems like this incredible Behemoth of a of a control

system um so I I really appreciate that about him as well in addition to

like the the no on the bridge he gives one other example of a kind of um a kind of resistance

let me see where to start here so um so this is again back in this in the section on elections so then come the spoiled and empty

ballots so he's talking about the people um the people who are counting the votes um and he's envisioning the environment so you know you've got these people in the back room of the voting station now

they get to to count the boats votes there they open up and they're they're going through and they're counting and um well maybe I'll go back a bit further so I'll read the whole paragraph because

it's good the committee the committee we meet here is also in uniform though perhaps in shirt sleeves and exudes a spirit of familiar sociability it is

composed of local representatives of the sole ruling Power Plus propaganda experts and police the atmosphere is that if a shot that of a shopkeeper counting his take but not

without suspense since all present in the room are more or less responsible for the results the yeas and nays are read out the First with sympathetic the second with

malignant satisfaction then come the spoiled and empty ballots the atmosphere becomes most uncomfortable when the epigram of some Joker pops up

certainly a rarity in these days humor together with the rest of Freedom's entourage is absent in tyranny's sphere of influence yet the

wit is all the more cutting when the Joker puts his own head on the line so I read that just for that last line about humor and uh so it's a funny it's a it's

a funny image of the the vote counters who are these completely humorless beings um you know only concerned about their um you know their own motives good for

the yeas because they need to meet their vote quota for the the higher-ups and they need a certain amount of Nays but there's still a little bit of of tension because they need the right amount right

they can't have too many A's can't have too few Nays and then all of a sudden they get the spoiled ballot where someone just writes this Ripper of a joke and

in that situation well they're not going to laugh but so again it's one of those um it's one of those futile um acts of resistance where you only get

satisfaction out of it for yourself and maybe the imagined response of pissing off some you know some guy in the back room that's actually counting the vote but the the the principle is there that

that last principle yet the wit is all the more cutting when the Joker puts his own head on the line and that's the that's the great thing about uh well and that's Illustrated for example in V for

Vendetta with just the you know the cheesy Vaudeville show and where they they send up the the chancellor and it's just a silly a silly little joke but in

the context of course I mean it gets him you know gets the secret police to his door for for putting on that production and so humor is this essential thing it's it's an essential way of of

Bringing Down the the clowns that are that are at the top that are in the positions of power and the joke is all the more cutting when you're actually putting yourself on the line and you can

see that that's what that's that should be what the like stand-up comics that's what a lot of stand-up comics today are saying is that you know it's that's our

that's our job is to point out these these controversial topics and speak in such the way and speak of them in such a way that uh you know that that people can laugh and see the Ridiculousness of

it but at the same time they're putting themselves on the line they could not only be canceled or beat up or um you know conceivably even worse

but um but humor is that essential that essential thing when I was yeah when I was when I read that part uh when I read

that line uh what came to me was y'all's discussion on uh at the tonic seven on on that channel where

um maybe John Carter was uh talking about the essential nature of humor in in robbing tyranny of its of its bite of

its teeth yeah and it's seriousness yeah it's very serious it's all it's all very serious and so if you can disarm it

um if you can disarm your fear with humor and I think that was one kind of like essential like Point wrapped in that one little

line that if you can rob not only the Tyrant of his teeth but also uh death of

its sting that you Empower yourself just as much as you disempower those those other things and so it you know humor is

essential and should not be underestimated and I I would love to you know if

there's some kind of way of you know having something like that where you can you know scribble on a little like uh an election ballot for like you know you just have you draw a little picture of

like Joe Biden sniffing a kid or something for on a bad like that would be just hilarious and you know would just

it would be really fun I think for her for whoever might be so inclined and and any joke can work it's like imagine that your your televised show trial and um you know you've just been

sentenced to death you know execution for treason and they ask for your final words and then you just let out like a little fart it's like the lowest brow of

humor just acquires this uh you know this level of uh of the sublime Sublime resistance um just to show the how ridiculous the

whole situation is but back I wanted to bring it I wanted to make a different point this was something that um that you brought up I think Luke

um and this was yeah about the what did you say something about there will always be you know people who will just resist the the Conformity or something I can't remember how you phrased it but

this reminded me of of a couple of a couple of threads or strands of stuff that I've been thinking about and reading lately and one of them comes up in in

lobachevsky's logocracy which I've been summarizing on uh on my sub stack and it's this idea of like the idea of a lot of a logocracy

as opposed to other systems of government is to attempt to make a system of government that accepts the realities of human nature

and that accounts for them and works with them as opposed to trying to reshape them or to ignore them um completely and so part of this

I would say I've said this in a different context before is to take into account that there will always be people who will resist

being told what to do or what to think simply on principle and that of course you'll get some people like that who will just be Psychopaths because they you know they're they're totally anti-social to

begin with but there's this weird dichotomy that it's also the people who are the most developed and who are the most free thinking and the most let's say Advanced you know spiritually or

mentally or whatever or emotionally that it just it rubs them the wrong way even if they agree with it so this was in the context of something you'd said about younger how he didn't fit into any box

and so he um you know he he was a notification thing right right right so he wasn't a fascist but when it's like denotification it's like oh and now now you want to you know tell me tell me

what to think and make sure I have the right thoughts well no screw you um you know exactly Nazi but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna prove it to you I'm not gonna you know you know bend over

for you the party member I think so yeah right so there's this there's this kind of person so it's very easy and I think a lot of people get even a lot of even

um you know non a lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily be totalitarians who will get caught up in this authoritarian type of thinking it's like well if only we just forced

everyone to Agree to Agree um you know for the greater good if we just you know we we need Unity so we just we have to kind of push people a little bit um to get that you know that full

Conformity and um you know as long as it's good as long as as long as the the government actually fulfills its its role and just you know just requires that no one disagree with them well

that's you know that's okay let's say no that that even if there are even if you can imagine and even if there would be positive outcomes from that there's something fundamentally anti-human about

it because you are you are automatically cutting off and and um well you're automatically cutting out that segment of the population which is

the the youngers of the world who are probably some of the most um I wouldn't necessarily say intelligent but the most like important and talented

and and you're cutting them out of the of the process because you're you're forcing them to do something that even if they would agree with your policies that that's fundamentally against their nature so you're going to create a Critic out of them and if you create a

Critic out of them you're not going to get their support and they're not going to they're not going to back you um with 100 of their being they're not going to to be there to to offer their support you're pushing them into a

corner so any government that that um that for whatever reason like um for whatever reason antagonizes that segment of the

population they're doing something fundamentally wrong and that is that is where this and so these are the people that would basically follow the the forest passage

they'd take a walk in the forest and that relates so that was something else I wanted to point out from the summary so this is the part of the book that I haven't read yet but he it's the the point he makes about

um even the churches can only lend a hand here since man stands alone in his choices the Theologian may be able to make his situation clear to him but cannot deliver him from it the forest

Rebel crosses the null Meridian under his own power so this is a very like dabrowski and view of of the of the individual and so

dabrowski I've I haven't read dubrowski in a while so all the terminology is isn't at the Forefront of my mind but basically the there's the the third Factor so you know the anti-conformist anti-you know

socialization there's the basically thinking for yourself and making choices for oneself being authentic to oneself um it's also maladjustments yeah that

was the word so you've got adjustment and Mal adjustment but you've also got positive and negative versions of each and so um one of the points that dabrowski makes about

um like people at high levels people at high developmental levels is that they they will reject any kind of externally

imposed or in extrinsically imposed um like moral value or something it's like and it is that just that that rebelliousness it's like no you just

because you're telling it to me and just because I agree with you you know I I'm offended that you're trying to force it on me I'm not going to I'm not I'm not going to accept it just because you you tell me to if I'm going to accept it

it's going to be it's going to be my choice I'm going to come to it authentically from my own you know I'm going to freely choose choose to accept this ideal or not and the fact that you are trying to force me to do it is a

sign that you don't get that and uh so that that just makes me not trust you even further even if you're saying all the right things I cannot trust you if you're trying to to coerce

me into agreeing with you and so it's a very yeah I just found that to be a very dubrowskian point it's like you you we're leaving the crowd

leaving the herd the the the herd mentality to come to to make to to fully make one's choices and to establish one's one's character and one's

convictions on one own on one's own without uh without the coercion of even even a well-intentioned nanny State it's like no there are no nanny States for

the for the like the individual in this perspective and what seems to you know rile the as you put it the the universe of the world up like especially or like

even it that maybe that it's the main point is not so much um obedience or the demand of an authority to obey right I mean I mean

you know was a soldier right I mean it's like um it's not necessarily bad

but it's first and foremost the uh the the the the power if the state uses the power to force you to think a certain

way or to accept certain thoughts or to like um reiterate certain thoughts like this being put to the question kind of thing right that that's uh what people that

are like non-conformists or like think for themselves what just drives them nuts right I mean you can obey even if you don't really agree with something you

can you know you can always obey Authority out of like utilitarian reasons or like you know because you understand that sometimes

you just gotta shut up and Obey you know it's part of life but uh yeah where it crosses the lines really when when you when they try to control your thoughts

and and we can see that playing out today as well right I mean the soul um Mass uh

Awakening kind of thing or like um contrarianism we're seeing today it's not it's not necessarily because people don't want to do this or do that but

it's because of this like insufferable you know Nanny uh you need to think a certain way otherwise you're bad you know kind of thing and that's yeah I

think that was a good point actually it was uh so to backtrack just a little bit um another interesting thing that I that I found about you know the way he was describing

um like totalitarian systems and the developments of it he uses the word uh optimism or automatism um and you know essentially referring to

the functionaries of these kinds of things as automatons uh which you know going back to what we discussed earlier about maybe his you

know semi-familiarity with gerchief um you know gurjeff uses a similar language for for people who haven't developed themselves at all they they are just mechanical reaction machines

they are automatons and and so I found that really an app description for the the types of people who you know are the functionaries of whatever totalitarian

system who you know put people to the question or hand out uh the the ballots and then count the ballots they they aren't you know well developed or highly

developed beings in themselves they are just you know caught up in the moment uh of the time stream as it is at that you know particular point where you know

they cannot see beyond or outside they are just you know basically robots and should be regarded as such in in certain ways

um so you want to well the this passage speaks uh to that pretty directly and um

that wasn't what you spoke of uh he writes however these same men are not just fearful they are also fearsome

the sentiment changes from Fear to open hate the moment they notice a weakening in those they feared only a moment before it is not only in Europe that one comes

across such congregations where the automatism increases to the point of approaching Perfection such as in America

the Panic is even further intensified there it Finds Its Best feeding grounds and it is propagated through networks that operate at the speed of light

the need to hear the news several times a day is already a sign of fear the imagination grows and paralyzes itself in a rising vortex

the Myriad antenna Rising above our mega cities resemble hairs standing on end they provoke demonic contacts and and that's where the

what you were mentioning before Adam about this this sense that there is something almost demonic that he evokes in his language

um in in the propagation of of fear of making people terrified of uh what is occurring and uh this is something that

we're you know watching uh on a daily basis unfold in the U.S cable news is is covering the the mass shootings and the

derailments and the uh and the various um destructions uh that are occurring uh mainly in the U.S or so it seems to me

right now and it is all in effect an effort to keep people uh scared shitless and glued to the

authoritarian messaging that would seek to Corral them into a certain way of thinking and feeling and that can be that can be in one of two ways it can be

either in uh in causing someone to seek out Authority even more and uh in the hopes of feeling you know safe and secure the government's doing something

about this or it can be among uh a certain percentage of the population a reaction uh knowing full well that um that a lot

of these uh events and and developments are to some great degree manufactured and and designed to keep us uh terrified and and

um and so that that in itself uh can be something that people fall prey to in in their in their reactions in their uh

anger and their hatred and so I think I think younger is speaking of that as a as something to watch out for as well that we don't um we don't you know if we can see what's

going on we don't want to be reactive to it uh in a way that's going to necessarily get us in trouble and part of the fear um or how to battle

the fear is also I think it might be later in the book but uh he gives the example of that we are living under the illusion

that the Tyrant basically protects us right and and it starts um even with basic things like protection from like a

robbery in in your apartment or in your house and uh and he says that uh basically like it's kind of funny

um it's like the the the the the basic defense line is the father and the son with an ax in their hand you know in the front door or something like that so

that's basically like the um that's the reality of it right and and the the state and the Tyrant they're building this like whole system around it where

you you're under the illusion that this is not this is not the reality the reality is that the police or whatever will always like protect you right and and I found that interesting because it

doesn't necessarily like um argue for like wielding access you know in your front door necessarily but it's like a it's a thought experiment

where you um that can help you get over your fear right if you if you accept that this is the basic reality right you and then ax

and uh and if you kind of accept that image and and maybe even draw some conclusions right maybe you want to be in shape and maybe who knows maybe you

even want to have an ax somewhere in the house um but uh it's like uh it's it's it's just this cultivation of of a fierce

independence of Mind and Spirit and soul I think that he's he's talking about and that helps us

um get out of this fearful State because if we if we think oh my God you know if the state uh we need the state to protect us in in everything and other

otherwise they're coming for us you know the January 6 protesters will get me and uh you know and whatever it's uh is the

the scare story of the day um and it's a way to yeah to to distance yourself from from this overwhelming

like abusive relationship almost you know with the with the tyrant and he also you know there's a passage about

about being armed to the teeth and uh and being prepared in such a way uh so as to meet force with force and

how you know the danger in that is that you can actually attract those types of events to you being so identified with

responding in such a uh or being prepared to respond in such a violent and physical manner and this gets back to

um the points that that you you guys made repeatedly earlier about uh younger being so difficult to pin down because it's not only ideologically

it's sort of as though he's saying you know you you know you you do want to you do want to find the Forest passage and and rebel but think about it you

know think about it in terms of limitations as well and and you do want to be prepared to do what you need to do but think about how

that may be it so far in reaction to uh what you fear that that's gonna that's gonna attract certain negative events to your life so he's he's really

quite nuanced about it he's he's constantly bringing you to the edge of the the circle the the end of the spectrum of um

of reaction and response and saying well this is where you may want to consider the fact that taking it too far or too

little in either direction is is not going to be constructive and um it's kind of a uh it's kind of like a a

balancing act he's trying to impart on us in the way that we think about um how we want to respond and how we want to think about those things that we're facing

so very nuanced in many cases here and um and I appreciate that a lot it's it's you know far too often you know especially in alternative media where

we're getting uh you know advice and insights and suggestions that that take things um

uh perhaps too far in in some direction and uh it just gets back to you know what you mentioned earlier Adam this middle

way or the fourth way uh this uh this way of staying on the Titanic and not being sunk with the Titanic uh not letting yourself you know jump into the

ocean of of chaos even though there's going to be a certain amount of chaos on the boat should you decide to remain um so he's uh he's really

um you know at all points looking for literally a middle way uh that we can find a a moderate way but that is

nonetheless decisive and um and forwarding uh in whatever situation we we find ourselves in well Luke do you have any uh any final

thoughts maybe we'll return to this return to to the book once we've all finished it and we can cover more of the ideas in the second half but did you have anything to kind of wrap up with

uh no except uh to recommend it uh it's as you guys said it's a very short book and from the quotes you read I can tell that the translation is seems to be

pretty good as well because uh one thing is really like his his uh German it's just very beautiful so it's it's a very

poetic uh language but still very clear um that also gives you this kind of um yeah this

uh this is almost ambiguity at times that speaks to the nature of the thing right that it's not black and white and that it's not really

um it's it's not just an essay about polit politics or like political philosophies also poetry in a sense right so but from what I can tell the translation

um is very good so yeah get the book it's really very um uh very relevant to our times and also from what I understand is that

um it Jung's thought gets as I said in the beginning gets a lot of traction and and just even as um if to to stay on top of that and to just have your ear you know a little bit

on the on the ground what what is brewing in the culture you know in the alternative culture and I think also from that perspective it's it's interesting to read him because he has

kind of a bit of a Renaissance uh yeah and uh see you in the forest [Music] foreign