How to Have Willpower with Professor Michael Fontaine

Hello friends, welcome to Artidote

Podcast where I, Vash Garminicus, ask

questions to best-selling authors about

their books and ideas. This episode is

touching upon a skill that is

life-changing. Once you master this

skill, your life is going to change. And

what we are going to talk about is

willpower. Very often, great ideas are

born and then they die within our minds.

Whether those great ideas that we have

are going to become real or not will be

defined by how much willpower we have.

In our day and time, we are often told

that most of the things that we have in

life lie beyond our control. Things such

as our addictions are often blamed on

our genetics and we are told that we are

essentially in this kind of prison,

biological prison. And very often we are

told that we cannot achieve certain

academic or financial goals because of

the background we are coming from. And

whilst these arguments have a grain of

truth in them, it is also important to

remember that there are plenty of things

that lie within our control. And these

things were evident to our ancestors to

ancient thinkers such as Plutarch and

Prudentius about whom we are going to

talk in this episode. In order to master

our willpower, to learn how to master

our willpower, I decided to invite the

author of a book called How to Have

Willpower, an ancient guide to not

giving in. In fact, this book by

Professor Mike Fonpa from Cornell

University became one of my favorite

reads of this year. I really enjoyed

reading and it had a profound impact on

the things that I do, on how I lead my

life. But as it often is with great

ideas, there is no final and definite

answers. The best skills that you will

gain in life never have an end. It is

similar with willpower. Willpower is not

something that you attain and then

forget about. It is something that you

need consistently to practice, learn how

to do. And I believe that this episode

is going to be helpful to all of you who

would like to gain more control over

yourself, over your life. Professor Mike

Fontaine is an excellent communicator.

I'm so happy and excited to bring him to

Artidote listeners. Everything will be

linked down in the description. And I

hope you will enjoy listening to this

episode as much as I enjoyed

interviewing Mike Fontaine.

Mike, uh, thank you so much for coming

to my podcast. I'm so excited to discuss

your brilliant uh, book called How to

Have Willpower. It's incredibly

interesting because I think it is

something that we need the most. And

I've got a strange beginning uh for you.

I want you to imagine that we are going

to meet those two great thinkers that

you explore in your book. Plutarch who

was a Roman philosopher, statesman, uh

historian and Prudentius who is uh is

would it be fair to describe him as a

Roman Christian poet?

>> That's that's definitely the way to

describe him. Yeah. Let's imagine like

that you uh have a time machine and you

could meet both of them for a coffee

separately. What do you think they would

be like um personalitywise? Uh what

would they say?

>> Boy, that's a great question. I think

without hesitation Plutarch would be the

more interesting person to meet. Uh he

was a guy who I I suspect was a lot like

you, like me, like people listening. I

mean he loved ideas. uh he was consumed

with with you know thinking an idea

through from its beginning to its end to

see how that could impact our behavior

how we could live happier lives more

tranquil lives you know how you could

look at yourself in the mirror without

flinching and sleep well at night

credentius I don't know the guy was a

government civil servant pretty much for

most of his life and a lot of those

people are not often you know the

world's most exciting people you know

maybe it was just a day job or something

and it's hard to balance that with the

sort of amazing poetry that he started

writing toward the end of his life. Uh

but he I think it would be less

interesting to meet him because he

mostly lived in sort of the villa

culture of late antique Spain. And I I

gather that was kind of a snooze, you

know? I mean, what do you do? Uh you go

to your friend's villa, I'm sure it's

very nice. They come to your villa, it's

very nice, but there's not much going

on. And you really I don't know.

Plutarch was I you know, he had money,

but he was in the thick of things. He

lived near Deli. you know, people always

passing through. He had sort of civic

commitments but a lot of friends and so

on.

>> Is incredible personally to me because I

discovered him as I assume many people

do. I discovered him through his uh

biographies and they were so uh

brilliant, so instructional because

these are not just chronological

biographies. They teach you how to live.

And I would recommend every listener if

they haven't uh uh read Plutarch yet, I

think it's just brilliant. Uh he's just

brilliant thinker. But I was surprised

also to discover uh his works that

perhaps are lesser known to the English

speaking world uh at least to people

like myself that he wrote essays exactly

how to exploring how to listen and

including how to have willpower. So it's

incredible that uh the these two

thinkers are incredible together and I

wonder why why did you think that it

would be great to pair Plutarch with uh

Prudentius? Plutarch is obviously more

um you you might describe it better is a

classic thinker is whilst Predentius is

a Christian thinker is the Christian uh

uh worldview. Why did you decide to pair

them together? These kind of two very

different thing.

>> Yeah, they are two sides of the same

coin. I know that's a sort of overused

cliche, but I think it's really true.

Um,

in the West today, especially in the

United States, I'm not sure about

everywhere else, but certainly here, uh,

willpower is medicalized. Uh, you know,

let's say you're struggling to lose

weight. Well, in America they say you

have like a disorder, you know, maybe

it's genetics or something like and the

one thing you're not allowed to say is

that it's uh willpower, you know, that

it's it's really like a moral failing.

Boy, that's a way to lose every friend

you've ever made if you say something

like that. Um,

>> and so both of these guys lived before

the medical worldview took over. And I

go into this a little bit in the

introduction, uh, but in very different

ways. As you say, Plutarch is as Greek a

thinker as they come. The guy is a

middle platonist like Cicero. Uh he's

very familiar with stoicism. He's very

familiar with Epicuranism like Cicero.

He doesn't really like Epicurionist, but

he knows this stuff. Uh and they regard

willpower uh or the lack of willpower is

basically stupidity, right? You can't

stop playing video games. You can't stop

checking your phone. He would say that's

because you're doing short-term thinking

and you're not thinking about all the

consequences that it's going to have if

you keep doing these things. Predentius

comes along uh and we don't know the

dates exactly but he seems to have

written this thing in the early 400s and

he is a Christian but he's about as

early a Christian a writer as you can

get. This guy has had a a solid

grounding in the Greek and Roman

classics more the the Latin classics and

so he writes this poem about willpower

uh and it is in a Christian worldview

but it's filtered through the anid

Virgil's Anid. He basically writes an

unauthorized sequel to the Aniid, but

instead of the Latins against the

Trojans, it's the virtues and the vices

fighting single combat. It's like mortal

combat inside your skull.

And so it's another way of saying uh

these temptations are real, but there's

some they're coming out of us somehow.

And he explicitly says in a different

thing I quote in the in the

introduction. He says, "Yeah, Satan is

real, demons are real." Now, Plutarch

Plutarch did believe in demons, but not

in the same way. You say they're real,

but if you're doing stupid things,

that's still on you. You can't turn

around and blame Satan for you cheating

on your wife or or or whatever it's

going to be, you know, that one's that's

on you. So, it is Christian, but of a

totally different kind than I am

familiar with uh in a lot of circles

today. You know, if you ask Christians,

why'd you do that? You do something

stupid. You can get different answers.

Well, I was tempted or Satan and his

minions and this sort of thing. And so

it starts to get a little sort of

squishy on the answer and they say,

well, Satan tempted me, but it's still

my fault. So, Plutarch, Prudentius

rather, is interested in exactly that

kind of question. I do agree with you

because like um I participate in

different philosophy groups and uh there

is um a tendency to uh disregard that

there is no um such thing as willpower

uh to a degree and the best definition

of willpower or power of will that I've

got was famous nit who said like that it

is he essentially defined it as um

controlling your impulses not to have

too many that your impulses are aligned

towards something that I think roughly

that's how it defines. I'm curious since

we are talking about um uh willpower

here if you could briefly to illustrate

to our listeners how do um uh how does

it differ for Plutarch what is willpower

and for predentious um how would they

define it? Boy, that's a great question

again because they don't really have

Pluto talk doesn't have a word for it.

And I think it's true that there's not

really a word in class in ancient Greek

or in classical Latin for willpower. I

don't think if you had a dictionary that

went from English to those languages,

you're going to find it there. So they

talk in different uh they use different

phrases that I think are recognizable as

what we call willpower. Uh for Plutarch,

it is basically the sense of restraint

that you are thinking of. you know this

idea that when you feel an impulse in in

this case in the essay uh I translated

the impulse is to make somebody else

happy even at the expense of your own

happiness. I don't know if you do that I

don't actually do this too much but boy

do I know people that do it and boy do

they hate that about themselves. You

know somebody comes and they make an

inappropriate request of you and you

feel this need rise in you to say yes

even though you don't want to do it. And

so for him that's a species of

willpower, right? You don't you can't

control yourself from saying yes or you

realize that it's it's easier to say yes

than it is to say no.

>> Uh so he doesn't have a single word for

it. But I think he would define it if we

had him here with us. He would call it a

species of restraint, which is I think

how the dictionaries today define it

with uh credentious. I think it's a

little more interesting there. The word

that I translated as willpower is the

classical Latin word wertus which is

philosophers are going to translate that

virtue. Normal people are not going to

translate that virtue because uh in

normal English virtue everybody's

thinking of like a like an innocent

young woman who's doing what she's told

right it is taken on this Christian tone

uh of restraint or obedience to you know

a higher power but in classical times

right what does it mean weirdus means

military prowess on the battlefield

right uh that's how it starts off in

Homer with Arite and so forth That's how

Virgil means it. That's how Cicero means

it. And in time, it's like manfulness is

the idea. And in time, that gets taken

over into moral domains. How can you

show that courage in the face of fear or

the face of temptation? And so to me,

uh, when he pit when Prudentius pits the

virtues against the vices, the only way

you can even I could even think to

translate is the willpower against the

temptations or the impulses or whatever.

I actually spent about six months

totally tormented how I was going to

translate vice vices in that poem with

you and finally everybody said why don't

you just translate it vices and be done

with it because I couldn't I said what

are you know what is vice I actually

made that the first thing I talked about

in the book what is vice where is it

coming from since you mentioned it what

uh what do you think um how would you

say uh both of these thinkers treat vice

because one is obviously um

non-Christian let's say uh and

predentious is Christian. How how do

they perceive the same thing?

>> Yeah, I think all three of them and I

think everybody in the ancient world in

Greece and Rome define vice as

stupidity,

>> voluntary stupidity. And what do I mean

by that? Uh I think nowadays vice is

often medicalized in the west. Uh, so

alcoholism might be called a disease.

Overeating might be called a disease.

Smoking, we don't usually give people a

free pass on that one. But when I was a

kid, it was seen as more of this genetic

predisposition and so forth. The

ancients don't talk about it that way.

They say these are stupid choices. This

and I I sort of riff on the the the

great thinker of Isander Spooner. He

said that vice is the self-destructive

pursuit of happiness.

>> Uh,

>> brilliant description. It's perfect.

It's absolutely that's what it is,

right? Why do people Why do people

smoke?

>> Every medical authority in the world

knows that smoking leads often to

cancer. The link is crystal clear. It's

been known for a hundred years. There's

no ambiguity and yet still people are

smoking.

>> Why do they do it? Uh

and so if you don't want to default to

psychiatric explanations of the world

and that's where get you you get into

things like genetics and predispositions

and chemical imbalances and a lot of

other mythology that we don't have the

slightest evidence for then you get

stuck with the oldfashioned answer which

is that you're making dumb choices.

>> I suffer from that elective stupidity

you know like that chocolate bar that I

shouldn't eat etc. you we naturally can

feel that there are certain things that

we have control on if we have if we

exercise certain strength over it. I I

feel that the sometimes the element of

the disease that you've mentioned is

becoming as if the extension of the

elective stupidity and it is very

difficult to have a conversation with

somebody who doesn't think that they

have willpower because you seem to be

living on different dimensions. You

know, you say you say like, well, there

are there is a great philosopher

Prudentius who can tell you how to get

out of the uh of this if you read it

with attention and you should go and get

Mike Fontaine's uh translation of the

book of of it. But they deny it. They

say like, "Oh, well, I can't do it. It

is just I can't choose." I'm curious,

how did you yourself stumble upon these

two pieces of work? Was there just an as

you as an academic discovered these

works and you thought they are

interesting to pair or was it like um

somehow different? What is your story of

discovering Plutarch and Prudentius?

>> You know it's interesting the uh the I

found them separately. The uh the first

one was that I started working on was

Prudentius and I found it because we had

a graduate student here many many years

ago at Cornell. Uh I've been here for 22

years so that gives you some time frame.

uh a guy named Aaron Pelari. He's now

professor at Edinburghough uh an amazing

Latinist and uh he had been a student of

mine once upon a time and then he went

off into the world and started making

his mark and doing great work and he

fast forward and he created his own

textbook of credentius in Latin with a

commentary and I don't think he sent me

a copy maybe he did somebody gave me a

copy and I started reading I said holy

moly this thing is the most interesting

piece of Latin I have read in a long

time I've been reading Latin poetry for

like 30 years every day and I was like

oh have I never heard of this thing.

This is unbelievable stuff. So, right

then and there, I said, I'm going to do

this uh I'm going to translate it. And I

started uh including it in a course I

teach here uh in an old translation for

students. Uh and uh it was only when I

started studying the Latin, I was like,

"Oh, this translation's taking all kinds

of liberties that are actually ex sort

of making it hard to see what he's

getting at because, you know, credential

is very uh he's very explicit about the

antidote for the temptation, right? So

um you know for example uh I mean we

could go look at some of the different

battles but you know for anger the

antidote for anger is patience right and

you think about what that means in your

personal life. I don't know about you I

I am genetically or whatever say

predisposed to anger if somebody slight

me I I'm not the angelic boy scout

that's going to fold my hands. I that's

just not who sort of I am. And so but he

says the antidote is patience. you got

to sit there and steal yourself and

it'll burn itself out. And so he's

giving specific advice, right? That's

exactly what you're supposed to do. So I

I became obsessed with the poem and I

spent uh months thinking about it. Uh

and I was going to do it and then COVID

hit and you know the world transformed

and so it sort of fell off my radar for

a bit and my editor at Princeton called

and he said the world is collapsing. do

you want to do some books in the series

about dealing with a collapsing world

like with coping? And I thought, yeah.

And uh so we did. We ended up doing

three of them together and this is the

last one. But as I finished Predentious,

I found this essay by Plutarch and I

can't remember how I said, "Holy moly,

this thing is just as good." I mean, how

could this uh this essay by Plutarch

just be sitting on library shelves? And

again, it was a matter of sort of the

only translations out there were not

very good. Uh, and the translation,

you hate to say it, but it really makes

the difference between people

understanding what you're getting at or

not. And his uh, Plutarch is trickier

because he's trying to talk about an

emotion. And emotions are pretty tricky

to talk about, aren't they? Right. I

mean, anger, that's primary. Everybody

knows anger. Um,

shame once you get to, you know, but

once you get into the trickier ones,

sometimes you got to go to other

languages. So in English, you know,

everybody likes to quote shoden Freuda.

>> Yeah, that's the the glee you take in

watching somebody you hate when you

watch the poor guy suffering and you

think haha and it's this terrible petty,

you know, awful feeling. We don't the

word in English has to come from German.

So the key word in Plutarch was this

word and nobody had figured out a way to

translate it and so I took the what I

think I hope is a good way out. I didn't

translate at all. I just made I coined

it as a word in English. Um, but people

were calling it compliancy.

I said that's not even a word. So that

makes it hard to know what he's talking

about or badness.

>> Is that dystopia? Am I pronouncing

correct correctly?

>> I think in English we would say

dystopia.

>> Dystopia. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Be care. It's not dystopia.

Everybody knows that one. Dystopia.

That's kind of like uh you know you've

been to dystopia if you pass through

certain towns. That's a bad place. But

dystopia is this Greek word and it

either means uh like your face

scrunching up when somebody makes an

awful request and you feel obligated to

say yes. You go and you kind of squeeze

your face together. It's either that or

the idea is that you you cast your eyes

down at the ground because you're so

ashamed you can't kind of look the

person in the eyes. I said, "Can you can

you stay late at night tonight so I've

got somewhere to be?" He say, "Yes, I'll

do." And so the Greek could go either

way. It's not clear what she means.

>> I think uh that word is really important

particularly in Britain where everyone

is being attempting to be polite. It's

one of the British nature and sometimes

you um you have to say certain things uh

or accept certain things without uh full

um just to be polite. Obviously uh

politeness is a good thing but not when

it is self-destructive.

um when not when it is elective

stupidity as you

>> no but what you said right there is

precisely Plutarch's point what he gets

at Pluto is exactly what you just said

and I should say by the way I've been to

England a number of times and I've been

to Germany a number of times and they

speak a different language in Germany

but it feels infinitely more familiar

than England ever has

you know the cliches about you know uh

speaking the same language but being

different planets I think are true the

level of politeness

uh is totally different. So it'll be

interesting to see.

>> Yeah, it I um I kind of wanted to bring

that analogy. Obviously, it is not a

perfect one because like uh being polite

is good. It is recognizing boundaries

and trying to maintain harmony. But

obviously there is a dark side of it

when um you accept certain things just

to merely be polite. So I thought like

that is a good illustration of this

difference between Plutarch what

Plutarch says we should do and what

Predentius says what we should do. For

Plutarch it seems to me it is more um uh

pacivity to a degree of um trying not to

succumb to external pressure whilst

predentious is more lent in. Am I

describing the difference correctly or

uh

>> you got it perfect. Um Plutarch is

dealing with pressures coming from other

people.

>> And uh it's about social life, political

life, right? And that's exactly what you

would expect Plutarch would be talking

about. He was interested in

organizational behavior in

relationships. uh you know if you read

the lives it's all about how the hero or

or the tragic figure is being you know

um celebrated or abused by the community

and that is what he's interested in and

predentious is dealing much more with

temptations of the kind we were thinking

about a minute ago sort of the cupcake

in front of you the chocolate bar it's

not talking to you not literally but boy

do you want the thing and so uh that's

coming entirely from inside you and so

he's trying to describe how you going

I don't want to make it Freudian, but

how are you going to go to war against

yourself

>> when you're trying to control appetites

and things? And this it does get you

very platonic uh you know with the

divided self and or the divided uh soul

and so forth.

>> But um it's just of a totally different

nature and that's why I thought the two

of them together make a like a complete

handbook of willpower,

>> you know, internal pressures, external

pressures.

>> Yeah, that's very true. And it's when we

when it comes to the willpower in

particular uh since as you said like the

words for willpower are different uh

back in the time of Plutarch and

Predentius and it is really interesting

to see because we often treat um uh

willpower more as a directed inwardly

towards external whilst obviously there

is this uh Plutarchian external

pressures that uh push you. Um I wanted

to like explore like one of the things

that my readers were wanted to explore

in this episode um was uh when I shared

the book they were curious uh to hear

some kind of uh examples of these

battles that prodentious describes and I

found this to be very practically

helpful and useful as well because as

you said when um about the anger that it

is like an antidote

uh is uh patience. So you say like I'm

angry, I need to switch to patience.

Could we explore some other uh elements

of this battle and how Prudentius

describes because I think it is

extremely interesting um in this case.

>> Absolutely. So there are seven of them

and I list them in the front of the

books. I've got them right here. I'm

going to peek at them. The very f and

when we say battles, we got to be clear

here. If anybody listening has ever

played Mortal Kombat or one of these

video games where you you face off

against somebody, you just beat the tar

out of them, that's exactly where it's

the the battles are very graphic.

They're very violent. Uh gruesome in a

way that you hardly expect. You don't

really even see much outside of Homer.

Um so and it's all to be clear, they're

all women fighting each other, too.

>> Uh because the abstract nouns in Latin

and Greek are feminine. So when you

personify these different qualities,

these virtues and vices, it's all women

fighting women, which is another reason

that it's so mysterious. All right. So

the first battle is called faith versus

worship of the old gods. And it's one of

my favorites uh for all kinds of

reasons. First, because faith is u

predentious regards. Faith is the

bedrock value of willpower, which is

exactly the same thing that Alcoholics

Anonymous and a lot of other people will

tell you with willpower. you know, if

you want to change your life, you must

believe that you can change your life.

You have to believe that the system will

work for you, right? Not uh and it's a

form of humility in the sense that like

um I know somebody she was trying to

lose a lot of weight and you know, the

diet wasn't going very well in the

beginning and she she didn't really

believe that if she just kept at it that

it would work. And I said, "You got to

believe your body is no different from

my body or anybody else's body. like you

must have total faith that this system

will work. If you deprive it of

calories, you're going to lose weight.

Uh and it does work over time. So, but

what about worship of the old gods? So,

if you're a Christian reader and you're

reading this, you're thinking, "All

right, that means paganism, right?" Uh

and there is plenty of that in there. Um

because the the vice comes out and she's

wearing like the headdress of ancient

traditional Roman religion. But what

else would it mean? Worship of the old

gods. I think of it in terms of

addictions.

Right? Uh what do people the old gods

they worship? They might worship vaping

or they might worship pornography or

they might worship alcohol. And when you

want to change your life, this is what

every psychologist is going to tell you,

right? You got to really make a change.

You've got to turn your back on these

old enablers and you got to just get

away from and they can be other people

by the way. They often are other people.

So I that's what I think the worship of

the old gods is getting at. So that's

sort of the fight, right? We got faith

in some better value or faith that

change is possible against worship of

all these old ideas.

And when they go to do battle, faith

back and just bashes away, starts

smashing worship of the old gods in the

face. And the image that came to mind

that keeps coming to mind when I read

that are the people I knew back in the

early 90s. They were all trying to quit

quit smoking back then. And they all

said, "Oh, it's genetic. It's

impossible. Can't do it." And so forth.

And so you would see some of they would

take a pack of cigarettes when they're

trying to quit. They would stomp on it

on the ground, you know, they they empty

the cigarettes out on the ground, they

thrush it underfoot or I uh I knew

somebody there was a half a container of

ice cream not that long ago. She was

trying not to eat it. So she ran water

on it over the s out of the sink.

Oh my god. And I was like, "Why don't

you just put it in the freezer? Don't

eat the ice cream." She goes, "No, it

doesn't work for me. I have got I got to

ruin it. I've got to crush it and make

it impossible to go back to the ice

cream. So, as it sort of disgusting

puddle went down the sink, I was like,

"All right, well, that's what works.

That's what works." I'm sure that's what

he's getting at here.

>> So, it is more like um from how I

understood it, it is not uh it is

exactly melting the ice cream. It is

destroying even the source of the where

that comes from. So it's not because um

I have uh examples from the people that

I know who successfully they lost weight

in their battle and what they were doing

was a little bit opposite. They were

like even getting used to temptation. So

like there was a smelly nice food. They

were like smelling it like to blond

their senses to that trigger. So like in

Credentius's case, it would be just

throwing it away like out of sight, out

of mind, that kind of uh

>> Well, yes, he definitely would not do

what your friends are doing. But it's

not just throwing it away, it's

crushing. Let me read to you. So faith

is facing off against worship of the old

gods. It says, "No sooner said, an

opponent accepts, gathers strength, and

approaches. The first who dares take a

swing at faith is worship of the old

gods." Faith takes note of the menacing

face, the fine headdress of rivets. Then

cocking back, she bashes away till her

enemy's reeling, forcing the

bloodstained mouth, it was gluted with

animals like white blood into the dirt.

Faith stomps.

He stomps on the head of this thing. She

grinds her heel on the eyes. They're

bulging out in death since the life

breath foul and malignant is getting

choked off and so on. So it's not just

about her throat. You got to go gung-ho.

Yeah. Predentious would not say leave

the the smelly delicious foods to the he

would say no no no no. You need to take

the will and go to battle. And and

that's interesting. You know the title

of his his poem is Psycho Makia. You

could translate that the battle in your

soul or the battle for your soul, the

battle of your soul or for your life.

And but for him it really is a battle,

right? You're really battling.

>> Uh and you got to keep fighting. So

that's one of the battles.

Uh what else? one of the chastity versus

lust. That's kind of interesting. Uh

when it's when he says chastity, it's

not clear. I'd love to, you know, sit

down with Predentius and say, when you

say chastity, do you mean abstinence or

do you mean monogamy?

>> Uh you know, because or or or maybe not

even monogamy, but lust. I mean, lust is

uh that's the habit, you know, porn

addiction or sex addiction people call

it today. And so the two of them um they

fight it out in this dramatic battle and

Chastity is sort of this tomboy looking

you know warrior and Lost has these

massive breasts and you know and so it's

it's really I mean certainly it's not

very politically correct but again they

go to a battle and um they do battle and

and Chastity defeats lust in this sort

of sword battle and uh the whole thing

is Christianized briefly and um Chastity

says look you know when Mary gave birth

to Jesus that made it clear that we

don't need lustful conduct any longer

>> uh to be happy and so forth. So, some

readers might say, "Well, that doesn't

really work in my own life." But when

you think about the antidote for lust,

um it's worth thinking and talking about

with other people. What is the antidote?

Um and I think about this, I talk about

these things with with students

sometimes. You know, what is the

opposite of of lust? Is it total

abstinence? Well, when you look around

the world, are adults do are they

typically totally celibate?

They aren't right. I mean, once people

are out of childhood, celibacy is a

pretty rare and almost unnatural or

maybe it is unnatural state of being.

When most people become sexually active,

they don't then become celibate

afterwards for the rest of their lives.

You don't see that too often. So, I

think predentious is getting something

something like that. You need to

moderate desire. I had a feeling that

there is um every uh inclination that we

have can fall into one of the two

buckets essentially. One is of course

you can either be patient or anger. It

is kind of like a road that goes in two

opposite directions. And I think the

last one that you brought up here is

interesting because um abstinence

doesn't bring to a particular direction.

And it just as if it it stops you. It

says like just don't do that. Whilst

perhaps the uh the Christian worldview

would correct me if I'm wrong of course

is that the direction should be the

dedication and love to uh to your

partner. That's the lust is more kind of

directionless

uh thing that we all know about whilst

um love is like being dedicated truly

like to a particular person or

particular cause that's how I imagine

that uh that particular part yeah I

don't know if my interpretation is

>> it sounds it's exactly right to me

that's you said it perfectly right I

mean lust is sort of this you know uh

instrumentalizing other people for

sexual pleasure and that whatever the

Christian worldview is is not that right

and so but you're right he's not saying

uh in any of these battles I think uh

total abstinence from any of the vices

is not really what he has in mind it's

going to be the classical idea of

moderation in all these things right

that's what the the virtues are going to

be um a matter of degree rather than I

mean yeah you can't just say no to sex

all the time. People don't do that. They

It It almost looks like they can't. I

mean, we hear about people that make

lifelong vows of chastity. Many of them

we hear about in the newspaper, they

often call it not keeping those vows.

So, it's pretty clear it's pretty strong

drive. And it's the same with eating,

right? So, if you go on a starvation

diet, you say, "I'm not going to eat

anything." That's not going to last very

long. You're going to go crazy. Uh so,

the idea is trying to pair up the right

antidote in degrees. And you mentioned

patience versus anger. Again, he

doesn't. Credentius doesn't say turn the

other cheek over and over and over. A

later Christian might say that,

>> but Credentius doesn't. He He just seems

He says, "Seal yourself." It's quite an

interesting battle actually. It's one of

my favorites. Patience. Uh it's one of

the most dramatic battles. Um anger is

this ferocious frothing at the mouth.

Opponent comes out screaming abuse

trying to bait patience, calling her all

these names. And patience just stands

there. And then anger grabs a spear and

throws it right at patients. Hits her in

the stomach and Prudenti says it's a

total kill shot. It hits her directly

head on and you think, "Oh no." And then

you turn the page and it says, "But aha,

patience was wearing a bulletproof vest.

She's got on this jacket, this chain

mail steel jacket, and the the shaft

hauls in the dust." And so she had

literally stealed herself, as we say in

English, for this onslaught. And so you

think in your own your own life, right?

Well, what would that mean? You know,

you're with I don't know, a part.

Usually, it's going to be within the

family because if somebody gets this

angry at me about at work, I'm calling

the cops, right? You can't do that

within the family. So, the family is

really the domain for where these things

are going to work. And so, you know,

maybe it's your your partner or one of

your kids or your parents, and they are

just blowing their stack. They're so

angry.

>> And he's saying, "Don't take the bait.

Don't fight back. Don't repeat that kind

of abuse. just sit there, do all you can

to take it. Might hurt. Uh, you know, it

might hit you right in the gut, but it's

not going to kill you. And, uh, give it

some time. And anger doesn't last that

long. I find I I find this so profound.

Uh, you know, but it's not like

Plutarch. He doesn't say this stuff. You

have to really think about it.

>> It is really interesting. And uh the

particularly uh it's interesting to see

that uh how these two thinkers explored

the same subject from so um such a

different writing style as well. Um the

whole battles that are going on in

Predentius and Plutarch's very organized

logical kind of form the way they

explore the same thing. And I was

wondering as you were describing that

battle and I really like that scene as

well is that uh you know of uh of having

the bulletproof vest there. How would

you say they both how do we build that

bulletproof vest of patience? Because

it's easy easy to say like oh just be

patient about it but how do you thicken

that uh bulletproof vest actually

withstands that uh spare?

>> Well I would say be prepared right

because that it seems to be the implicit

lesson. be prepared for somebody to be

angry. Uh I don't know if but I bet this

is true of you. It's true of me. It's

probably true of most of us listening

here. When somebody's really angry at

me,

it's usually not a total shock. It means

I've done something, right?

Uh you know uh like

uh it would be almost psychopathic to

have somebody come home and just like

furious and you have literally no idea

why. You said what on earth? like you

would have literally no but you know

usually when somebody's angry you say oh

yeah actually I did kind of do what so

and so is upset about and so if you know

you've done something wrong or something

that could upset somebody you got to be

prepared for when they come into the

room that's what I would say and I think

we do this at work uh more than the

family certainly I do I'm better at work

about this than I am at home uh and I

don't think that's uh all that unusual

because I know at work I could get in

huge trouble if I take the bait somebody

comes in and are unhappy and they're

students like to get pretty angry at us

professors, right? Come in, they don't

like their grade and if I take sometimes

they get pretty heated and if I take the

bait, well that's the end of me.

>> Uh so I in those cases I know to steal

myself before the appointment.

>> Uh and I think partly in the home most

of us don't do it more often because we

know that blood is thicker than water

and the family's not really going to go

anywhere and

>> uh makes it easier to to fight back. So

I think that's where you know um this is

sort of stoic wisdom right uh the stoics

were always into senica's into this you

know how do you maintain perspective on

things where you kind of zoom out he

says you know somebody you got an a

fender bender somebody hit the back of

your car you get out of the car you know

it's bad your car is damaged but it's

not like another galaxy which is

currently exploding into black holes

if you think a dent car bumper is bad

let's just sort of you know zoom out a

little bit and think about things

>> so uh stoic wisdom could be pretty

helpful in that regard. It reminds me of

Marcus Aurelius because he obviously as

a Roman emperor was thinking like one

things like what um how do you zoom out

if you are already ruling the one of the

largest empires that history will like

that is at that point let's say and he

writes obviously he says like imagine

yourself from cosmos from above you know

like you're a tiny thing and you you

think how wise is that you know that the

Roman emperor who's at the highest point

looking at the world. He says like there

is a thing even higher than myself.

So it's these are very incredibly

interesting u thinkers and um

>> well hang on can I just can I just

follow up on what you said? I love it.

Um and I love Marcus Aurelius for

exactly that reason. you know, he writes

about anger and he says, you know, I'm

the Roman emperor, but I got to work

with these people and they drive me

crazy and I still have to work with but

so Credentius gets it exactly that what

you were just saying, what we were just

saying about zooming out. He codes that

that idea into one of the battles uh

that I translate as humble attitude or

we would say humility, but he doesn't he

doesn't call her that because it won't

fit in the poetry. Humility versus

pride. and he has all these beautiful

images about pride and she's riding her

high horse and she's looking I mean

these are the same images we have right

she of course falls into a pit because

pride always goeth before a fall um but

the antidote for pride is this humble

attitude that you see even in the Roman

emperor like you say Marcus Aurelius the

most powerful man on planet earth still

has this sense of humility about

everything and it sort of guides his

conduct in in dealing with other people

or running business administration and

so on. And so that's one of the battles

I would really love to see people read

in this particular book. Uh it's one of

the best written battles as well. But um

but the terms already sound so Christian

that I think uh they might lose a few

readers who don't come from that

background or maybe are not really

interested in Christian stuff. This is

not Bible beating stuff. You know, this

is not so well Jesus said this and

credential is not interested in any of

that kind of Bible thumping stuff. He's

interested in the practical virtues. Um,

and this what makes it so compelling.

>> I admire uh Dante's Divine Comedy. Like

I'm obsessively read it. And when you

read it, there is um I I don't want to

kind of uh get attacks on me, but um

there is everything makes sense. There

is not like um no preaching. Maybe I'm

drawing wrong parallels here, but in the

same way as essentially the entire

Dantis Inferno is about shedding out

going through the circles of your own

foolishness to realize what is like what

is wrong and then creating antidote to

that in the purgatory etc. I felt that

Prudentius maybe it is their both their

Christian background that obviously

they're they are united by but like

Prudentius has this balance of like

Aristotilian misura you know like of

that you need to have a measured

counterbalance to your anger it is the

patience that brings you to the

stability if if that makes sense maybe

I'm going on t but I felt like that

those visual particularly those visual

images that Predentius has are those

extreme v um visuals that Dante has in

his Inferno and that's why many people

read it read Dante's Inferno and they

love it because it's so visually re rich

if you know what I mean you know you

just sparked two thoughts one I did

think about before the book the other I

didn't think about before the book you

know and I wish I had because until you

said it it didn't really lock home you

know so Predentius is a Christian here

but he's not interested in the Ten

Commandments ments

>> and the ten commandments are, you know,

I think the sort of the the load star

for a lot of people today and why should

I not do this? Well, God tells me I

shouldn't do it.

>> And these are old arguments, right? You

get them in Plato. He writes about this

in in the youth of pro and other

dialogues in divine command theory. You

know, I'm not going to drink because God

says it's a sin. He's not interested in

any of that stuff, right? It's not

obedience to a command. It is a

concerted effort of the will inside

yourself to crush your your desires

which could get you in trouble. The

other the thought I did have before this

and this is really interesting. You were

exactly right that these battles are

graphic.

>> Uh and the evidence suggests that

Prudentius himself commissioned an

illustrated edition of this poem when he

first wrote it. Uh this was the

hypothesis. I know it's quoted by uh the

former student I have now, the professor

in Edinburgh, Aaron Peltari. I don't

think it's his own idea, but it might be

his own idea. So, I got to be careful

when I give credit here. But um we have

all these manuscripts of credentials and

there are hyperlinks to them. I include

it in the book so you can look at them

online for free if you have a like an

ebook. Uh and the battles are all

illustrated and they're all illustrated

in sort of versions of the same obvious

they have, you know, they go back to

clearly the same original Uh, and so it

looks like Credentius, who I guess had

some money, probably called an artist

and said, "I want you to draw me this

battle scene and uh, draw me this battle

scene and that battle scene." And they

caught on. So that some of the battle

scenes are illustrated like on the

medieval cathedrals in Europe. The most

famous example is the Strawborg

Cathedral where the the virtues are

fighting the vices, but there are others

in various places. Um

but otherwise I would totally agree with

you with Dante. The visual impact that

he gives it you know you give people

something they can they can see they can

imagine with our mind's eye makes it a

lot easier than

uh within Judaism you know you forbid

even sort of in Islam you forbid any

depiction of God you forbid any

depiction of the prophet and so forth

makes it harder I think for people to

kind of

kind of grapple with the ideas. So I

like the cinematic aspect of this.

>> Apologies for switching to Dante, but

like the visual images that you get as

you read, they are like uh they kind of

get imprinted on your mind a lot. And as

you several times mentioned throughout

our conversation, you mentioned the

battle itself and how it's visually

done. and we instantly start discussing

the bulletproof vest and how we can

thicken it. You know, it's uh it's much

better than the sometimes abstract

philosophy descriptions that we can get

today, you know, where it is there is no

visual imagery and a lot of logic. So,

it's incredibly interesting like to

explore these things. And I want um I

wondered if you could like um tell us

since we're getting close to um uh

end of our conversation. We have I think

12 minutes. I I'm pretty flexible but I

don't want to take a lot of your time.

Um I was wondering if you could describe

like just uh um if uh Lutark and

Predentius would uh be advisors to us

and we could combine them. Uh what would

be practical kind of steps that

redentious would tell us to do? Like

they you would say like well if it comes

to anger be prepared as you said you

know why people would be angry with you.

Uh so train your bulletproof rest and um

what how would uh Plutarch treat the

same um the same issue would what would

be his approach?

>> Yeah so uh Plutarch has an entire essay

on anger. So for that particular one, we

could go and look and see exactly what

he has to say. Um, in terms of putting

these things into practical advice, the

one the the battle I keep thinking, I'm

looking at it right here in the book is

the fifth battle, temperance versus

indulgence. He gives this very uh

graphic description of what he calls

indulgence. The Latin word is luxuria,

which can mean anything from addiction

to luxury. Uh, but it means overdoing it

or excess. and she rides in this

beautiful car.

It's a chariot, but there's like this

blinged out car with all kinds of jewels

and everybody's staring at it and

everybody wants it. Uh, and of course,

she's been drinking far too much and

she, you know, she's stumbling around

and stepping in pools of wine and

everything. And so, the antidote is

temperance, right? It's not abstension.

He's not saying the alcohol alcoholics

anonymous will say you should never have

a drink for the rest of your entire

life. Uh, it's the only way, but that's

not the the traditional advice. it was

find ways to curb it. Uh, you know, get

practical advice and that for that sort

of thing, you might have to go and ask

other people for it. Glutar says some of

the same things in his advice. You might

want to solicit opinions from other

people. You see this in Theodimus and

the other ancient philosophers too that

you need straight talk from somebody who

cares about you. But Plutarch's advice

is very concrete. Uh, you know, he gives

you these 10 examples. I think it's 10

examples. And we made a little index out

of them in the back here just so people

have a cheat sheet. Uh but it it could

be like an airport book, the kind of

thing you buy at Hudson News next time

you're passing through, you know, a

terminal. And we have all these books

that are telling us the same things, but

he gives this is we call it Plutarch's

recommendations and overview. And then

we just extracted these things. I gave

him a little bit of an English uh

contemporary tweak. You know, how do you

resist pressure? His first one is really

interesting, right? He says, "If

somebody toasts you, let's say we're at

like a wedding reception and everybody

raise your glass. Let's celebrate the

bride and groom. And you're like, "Oh

god, I've had too much to drink already.

I don't want this." He says, "The answer

is simple. You set the glass of wine

down on the table after the toast."

Nobody, and he implies, nobody's going

to come along and say, "Hey, you pick

that glass up and you drink that wine

right now." He says, "That's not the way

the world works. Nobody's going to do

that."

>> So don't be pressured into having an

alcoholic drink that you don't want.

>> But the number two one here, I think

this is brilliant. He says, 'If somebody

calls you a chicken, and this again is

peer pressure, the solution is agree

with them.

>> Yeah.

>> He said, "What's the matter? You're not

going to have that drink? What are you a

chicken?" You say, "Yeah, yeah, I am a

chicken. I'm not going to have it."

>> And so he says, "You got to practice

saying that kind of thing and you'll be

okay." Um, one of his recommendations,

the fifth one, I love it, is um, it took

me a while to translate it. He says,

"Practice saying no to irrelevant

people." And you say, "Ouch, that's not

very nice." everybody is relevant. But

that's not what he means. He means if

you're driving, you're passing through

some town and you're never going to be

there again and you go in to buy a cup

of coffee at the what do you guys have?

Uh what is the big British chain? Cost a

coffee. They're all over the place. I

see them everywhere. And it's let's say

it's five pounds for the the cup of

coffee and then they flip the iPad

toward you and they ask for a two pound

tip on top of that. And you don't really

feel like tipping somebody. All they did

was pour you a cup of coffee. He said,

'You just that person in this town

you're never coming back to, that's an

irrelevant person. So you just tap no

and you go on your merry way. And then

next time we at like a holiday

celebration and you've got this, you

know, cousin whose life is a mess and

the cousin asked to borrow 5,000 bucks

and you say, "Oh, you're my if I lend

you 5,000 bucks, I'm never getting them

back." So he says you can work your way

up to refusing requests like that by

doing these baby steps with the

irrelevant people. I mean this stuff is

magic, right? He really thought hard

about this. I I've read your your book

around two three months ago and the that

chicken example. Um that recognition is

so liberating when you understand it's

like

>> yeah I don't want it sorry like you know

yeah I I cannot right now on the go

bring an example where I used it

although I used it several times but

that recognition saying like yes I'm

flawed or yes I don't want to like and

attach whatever label is very liberating

and

>> it's a superpower isn't I mean being

able to say no is a superpower and the

beauty I Uh, I mean that sounds silly,

but it really is amazing how often

people will say yes to something that

they're totally against uh because it's

the path of least resistance as we put

it today. But Plutarch is really careful

for that same reason. If you remember in

the essay, he says, "Well, uh, what's

the easiest way to stop saying yes?"

Well, you could say no to everything.

>> And then, you know, then you become the

person that never says yes to anything.

But you don't want to be that kind of

person. You know, if your grandma is

trying to carry your groceries upstairs,

you say, "No, grandma. I'm not helping

you with that. You carry your own

groceries." This is that's not the kind

of person you or I want to be, right?

So, it's got to be a balance. He

compares it to Greek wine. You know, the

ancient Greeks mixed water and wine. He

says, "We got to formulate this blend

of, you know, an appropriate sense of

shame or susceptibility to shame with

becoming a shameless person." Because if

you say no all the time, you're known as

a shameless person. M

>> I don't know if you know people like

this, but I know people that you cannot

embarrass them.

>> Uh you catch them doing something truly

awful and they just it's like water off

a duck's back. They don't care.

>> It is very strong and very like thin

balance. It is knowing as you said right

at the start, it's knowing what is um

harmful, being able to say no to harmful

things like that drink or something that

you don't want to do and know that it's

going to cause harm to you. And as you

said like you know being able to say no

you know um I've got millions of

questions to you but there are uh three

uh essential ones that I have to ask

before um I'll let you go because I

would love to explore Plutarch as well

which focused on credential so much um

but like Plutarch is amazing in himself

and he's um the idea that you perfectly

describe in your essay that he says that

it this healthy sense of shame uh this

element of us not being able to say no

comes from um healthy root but it grows

into something it's just the whole idea

one can record uh a whole podcast about

it but the questions that I wanted to

ask you there are three questions if you

allow me it's the first is that if you

would take your book and let's imagine

that um both Plutarch and Predentius

speak English perfectly and you hand it

out to them, what do you think they

would say uh separately? What how would

they receive it? What would uh Utark say

about your introduction, your

translation, and maybe what he would say

about Prudentius's thoughts and the

other way around, of course.

>> Yeah, I flatter myself to think that I

did a pretty good job with the

translations in these two. I think they

are some of the best I've done. Uh I

think I caught Plutarch's style very

well. I hope anyway. I hope people think

so. Uh people who can read the Greek as

well. Um good very chatty pros. Plutarch

is a chatty kind of guy. It's very

casual. Um and I did I really worked

hard to get that especially in the

section you were just talking about with

the shame where he talks about the

healthy sense of shame. There's this

huge allegory that he develops and he

repeats the key words. There's about 15

keywords and in my original draft I

colorcoded them cuz he repeats the shame

in the uh human being with the plants

growing out of the ground. And I um I

think I went with a one for one

correspondence in the English. Nobody

will ever notice this but I did my best

to get it right. Uh the introduction I

think he would be totally baffled and I

think this true of Predentius as well

but less so. Uh, I spent some time in

the introduction talking about how we

got to the world we're in now, which is

to say that in Plutarch's time, people

thought vice was elective stupidity. In

Predentius's time, they thought it was

elective stupidity. But the idea that it

was sort of invited or even caused by

Satan and his minions and witches and

demons, uh, that was starting to creep

in. And then as the Middle Ages go on

and they give way to the Renaissance,

that worldview takes over completely.

And I think Plutarch would have been

stunned to find that people were blaming

all their troubles on being bewitched.

Now, if you know your European history,

there were 100,000 people, 100,000

people were put on trial uh or more or

executed and lynched as witches.

It's a lot of people mostly in southern

Germany, but all through Europe and and

a few in America. And uh all of those

people were innocent because they didn't

actually bewitch anybody if you don't

believe in witches. uh and these are

people who were blaming their problems

on somebody causing them to do this

stuff. And so what happened in the

enlightenment when they got rid of some

of these ideas, this medical worldview

came in. The idea that it's our genes

causing us to do this or it's our uh

chemical balances. Uh you know, the

chemistry in my brain is out of whack or

the serotonin is low and that's why I'm

feeling this way or doing these things

in his head and say, "How did you people

get off on the wrong foot?" Um, so I

hope he would be very pleased with what

I wrote. I know some people are not

uh not happy at all, but uh but the goal

was not to make people happy. The goal

is to get him to think. Um,

Credentius is a bit more of a mystery.

There's no sense of his personality

comes through in his poem whatsoever. I

don't know what he would think. I'd like

to buy him a glass of wine and ask him.

I think you'd be happy with the

translation that I can say because I

translated his poem into hexameters in

English which is the original meter. Uh

so that took an enormous amount of

effort. My editor thought I was stupid

for doing it but I said well I'm going

to do it anyway and we printed it as

pros so that people wouldn't be scared

by poetry but if you are interested in

the rhythms they are coming through

subliminally if you read a little bit

aloud. Um so maybe that answers a bit of

your question. My second out of third

question is like um I always ask um my

guests to recommend at least three books

that they think um everyone should have

on their shelves of course besides

yours. Yours should be like on the

shelves already. So um what would be

three books you can save for how as many

as you want but what are some books that

you think uh world and a person I think

a person any person would be better if

they would read them?

>> Oh we could be here till the sun sets.

But let me give you at least a few

ideas. one uh we were talking just

before we started uh I'm going to be

mailing it off to my editor uh this

afternoon uh is my translation but you

get any translation Plato's apology

>> that to me is the single greatest work

of western civilization boy is that a

big claim or what Plato's apology is a

manifesto for thinking for yourself and

holding fast to your principles even

when the whole world is against you

>> and it also sort of is a a road map for

how you're going to get on a collision

course with society if you do maintain

your beliefs. Um, and you have to decide

about what's important to you. So, I'm

going to be I have a long introd not not

that long, but I have an introduction.

I've worked my behind off for this book.

Um, but you'll find a lot of smart

people in any translation will comment

on some of the same things. So, I would

urge everybody to read Plato's apology

in any translation you can get.

>> Uh, second, I would say uh especially

for this group uh a book of Schopenhau's

apherisms.

I don't know if you cover Schopenhau.

>> I I have his maxims and afro apherisms.

I didn't manage to conquer the world as

will and representation yet, but yeah,

his apherisms are

>> Oh, I love him. I could read them all

day, every day. The third is a name I

don't expect too many people will know,

but I would love for more people to know

it. And it's Thomas Sass, and that's S

Z.

Thomas Sass. Who was he? He was a

psychiatrist, not not so far from where

I live here. He died about 10 years ago,

12 years ago. And he was, I believe, the

last enlightenment thinker.

>> He was a psychiatrist who was against

the whole concept of psychiatry. And he

wrote a book that everyone should read.

It's called The Myth of Mental Illness.

Came out in the year 1961. It was

reprinted in a 50th anniversary edition.

And he tries to explain some of what I

went into in this book here about how we

got to this medicalized worldview that

is as we right now is colonizing all of

human behavior, pathizing all of human

behavior.

>> Everything is now uh a mental illness.

Crime is a mental illness. Temptation is

a mental illness. Every anything you

want. And there's a there's a diagnosis

for that. And even worse, there's a pill

for that or a surgery for that. Saw

thought this was a category mistake of

the highest order like calling a whale a

fish. You know, whale sure looks like a

fish.

>> Yeah.

>> But if you open up a can of tuna fish

and there's a whale in there, you got a

problem, right? So, uh he thought so

psychiatry is the dominant worldview in

the West, in every Western society. It's

not true in every society, but boy is it

true here. Um because only a heretic, of

course, would say, "Oh, no. This stuff's

all wrong and you shouldn't be How could

you withhold medicine from people that

need this stuff?

>> Yeah.

>> So, I already I'm sure some people think

I'm a bad guy even for saying that. Some

people might want to get me fired even

for suggesting that. So, have a look at

Thomas Sass. Go to sass.com sz.com

if you want to get started. It's

maintained by a brilliant friend of mine

who wrote his own book. Uh you should

read. It's called Addiction is a choice

and I quoted it in the intro to How to

Have Willpower. Um, that's by Jeffrey

Shaylor, also a he was a psych is a

psychologist, denied tenure for writing

that book. I don't know about you, but

that makes me want to read the book.

>> Yeah. Yeah. It's um I was watching a

video of um of a list of prohibited

books by the church and like and the

host was saying like you should read

those books because they were sky and

mart etc. So if somebody bans it, that

means you should read it.

>> You got it exactly right. You say, "Oh,

this pretty tempting." He went, what he

did there was he studied Vietnam vets

coming back after the war. Many had used

heroin while they were there. And when

they got back, a whole bunch of them

just stopped.

>> And he says, "Well, if that's true,

there's no such thing as chemical

addiction. Not with heroin, anyway.

>> The belief that the chemical is causing

you to keep taking it." And that that is

a widespread belief. Certainly it was

even more 25 years ago. Uh and he sort

of said that's not the case.

>> So that was unmentionable then.

>> So there's four books but uh at least

the first three I would I would urge all

four. I would read them all.

>> It is brilliant. Um I really love I'm

I'm going to get the SAS book definitely

because um as we talked in the

conversation and um I've witness in uh

in daily life in conversations with

different people these topics appear and

my own opinion is very similar to yours

but like obviously I would like as a

person who is seeking truth I would like

to know if I'm right

so because like um yeah that makes what

that's what rational person is when the

facts change, the opinion change, right?

Um um I think my last question is more

for you already explored and that is

that uh Plato's apologies is the next

book that will be coming out. So my

question is usually what um our viewers

and listeners and your readers should

look uh out for what's coming next and

uh where is the best place to find you

online? Is it a website or is it a

social media account? Well, whichever

you prefer, something that will connect

uh more people to you and that would be

brilliant. Sure. I've got a website

called classicsprof.com.

Class ss

p r o ff.com. Classics professor is the

idea. And I don't really use it much. Uh

but I do put stuff on there uh when it

comes out. I am happily not on any

social media and I got to say that is

more conducive to happiness than

probably anything else. Uh I'm much more

of I try and stay off of screens. I I I

am on screens as much as anybody but I

try to get outside and and enjoy the

real world and nature and so forth. But

um if people have questions they could

email me at fontaine.c cornell.edu. I'd

love to hear from people. Um, so Plato's

Apology, that'll be out next year. And I

got other projects in the work in the

works of various kinds. Nothing nothing

concrete at this point, but I'm I'm

toying in these days about writing a

book about an American rock music

composer. So that would be something

completely different.

>> Um, as a huge fan of rock music and

everything that stems from it, I'll be

looking forward to that one. I grew up

on metal music and

>> Oh, yeah. Listen to it. Um, is there

anything that we haven't explored that

you uh would like to uh explore more or

to say more? Uh,

>> no, it's the opposite. I'm delighted we

spent so much time on predentious uh

because so far when people are getting

the book, they're reading Plutarch and

it's easy to read and they're stopping

there and they say, "Yeah, I don't

really understand." It's the second part

is really, I think, the more

interesting. I I do think Plutarch is

fantastic, but the predentious is

profound. And so it's been wonderful to

talk about that and I think we hit all

the highlights.

>> It is similar with uh when you go to the

bookshop and you look at the divine

comedy you usually get only inferno.

What happens about about reaching

paradise nobody interests is interested

in that. It's just like even publishers

just have like inferno but the rest of

the poem is not interesting.

Thank you so much for this wonderful com

conversation. As I said like we could

have like made a 4-hour conversation.

They they are such profound thinkers. I

would really recommend to all our

listeners to go and have this book in

their libraries in their on their

bookshelves and just read it because I

do believe that willpower is something

that is incredibly a miss in our day. Um

I think we could do more of that uh in

our lives. Thank you so much my

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