True Christians Embrace the Erotic | Notre Dame's David O’Connor

Dustyki's notes from underground and the underground man is like an original incel because he takes so much pride in his

suffering >> to 10% of women in America aged 18 to 24 are on only Only Fans.

>> The incel thing it's really at home in analytic philosophy. It appeals to that

analytic philosophy. It appeals to that combative instinct in a young man's intellect and it makes him feel like he's on a side.

>> The incelss take it as a badge of honor.

>> Most people who are in religious studies departments are some sort of atheist.

>> I think there's a reason that the Buddha had to abandon his family, that Jesus didn't have a family to begin with. The

great entrepreneurs like Elon and Steve C. Jobs have terrible private lives and

C. Jobs have terrible private lives and a lot of the great philosophers, most of them aren't married. Bronze Age pervert or other incel type uh voices. They're

wrong about that because they have such a small understanding of Nietze. Nietze

always comes across a little bit as a >> insecure.

>> He's still going through a puberty, right?

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> He's still showing the tough guyish.

>> Something terrible has happened in modern dating. 5 to 10% of young

modern dating. 5 to 10% of young American women are on Only Fans. Birth

rates have plummeted below subsistence in developed nations and an unbelievable number of young men identify as incelss.

Men who proudly advertise that they can't get any girls. My guest today is Notre Dame's David O' Conor. He's going

to diagnose what has gone wrong, show us how incelss and only fans are two sides of the same coin, and what you can do today to secure a happy love life. In

this interview, Professor Okconor will rescue classical resources from the Platonic and Catholic traditions to help you survive modern dating.

>> What are young men doing wrong in dating today?

>> A lot of young men are actually fearful about letting women know that they're attracted to them. And

it's as if they've lost confidence in their own erotic agency somehow. It's

important that they just are bold enough to let a woman see that they're interested in her as a woman. Uh I've

told students over and over again, I do not believe in this notion that well, we should be friends first. I think that's completely wrong. I I don't think that

completely wrong. I I don't think that friendship and an erotic connection are somehow continuous things. I think they're both

continuous things. I think they're both valuable things, but I think they're quite different things. And I think that uh one of the things that's wrong, and

it can't be wrong just with men, it must be wrong with couples. That that'd be the first thing I want to emphasize. I

think that uh young men and women of that age when their uh erotic sensitivity and therefore their erotic

power is at its greatest. I think that seeing themselves as couples rather than seeing themselves as just men interested in women and women

interested in men, but really seeing themselves as couples. I think that's very diminished in contemporary at least the kind of contemporary elite culture

that the young people I'm around the most are a part of. Uh so that's one of the first things I would tell a young

man that uh have confidence in your own erotic agency which makes you want to be part of a couple. Uh it it's not that

somehow you're on this individual search for something and that thing happens to be a woman. It's that you are looking for somebody else who also feels a

certain sense of incompleteness about themsel and somebody who wants to live as a couple.

And I've talked to lots of young women and I I'm saying young.

22 year olds are not young. From the

point of view of falling in love and using their erotic potency to create a couple. They're not young. They're not

couple. They're not young. They're not

too young.

>> Right?

>> How old is still young? Is 30 young?

It's not. So that that to me that's part of where the energy is is to let people know you're not too young.

That is a fear that they're too young.

No, you're not too young. You're ready.

You can feel the energy in you for this.

And use that energy. You're you're not going to have that in the same way forever.

>> Right?

>> When you've been teaching for a long time, people often ask you, you know, are your students different? And for a long long time I always said nah they're not really that much different.

The when I saw them become different was in the financial crisis in 2008 2009.

Notre Dame families are mostly very secure, very well off. But somehow that financial downturn in 2009,

it embedded an anxiety about the future >> that my students never really had. And

now the college students who are coming to us having caught by osmosis the anxieties of their parents about

their kids' futures.

>> Now this was completely unreal. Notre

Dame families were richer than ever and the children's financial prospects were better than ever. But that isn't what's at the heart of agency, is it? It's your

self-conception and they were much more fearful about

that. So that anxiety

that. So that anxiety gets layered on top of this fearful erotic agency. The notion

that there's something not quite sophisticated or elite about being a young man who when he meets an attractive woman thinks of her as she might be my wife.

>> Right? Uh now I don't say that's the thing you say on a first date, >> right?

>> But >> even that mentality is right.

>> Yes. That that's a a big thing in a human life that that's the way attraction presents itself to you. That

you're finding a woman attractive or a woman finding a young man attractive.

That presents itself to you as tapping into something very deep in your own powers. that power to become that kind

powers. that power to become that kind of a couple.

>> There's an even more extreme version of men losing their erotic agency that has culminated into the incel movement. Are

you familiar with this? The involuntary

celibates.

>> And >> yeah, I'd rather not be aware of it, but you can't really avoid it.

>> It's a huge It truly is a movement.

>> And and if you're around intellectual, high motive young men, you are going to run into language you can tell is coming out of some of this, >> right? And so, of course, there's been

>> right? And so, of course, there's been sexually frustrated men throughout history.

>> I think what makes this movement unique is three things. Number one is whereas before some of them it was embarrassing, right, to to not be able to win over a woman.

>> Yeah.

>> The incels take it as a badge at the very least and sometimes a badge of honor.

>> Yeah. Number two is that whereas before it they might attribute their lack of success to individual issues, you know, >> but now it's taken a political and conspiratorial

>> that uh what they call the Chads, the handsome men and the Stacies, the beautiful women are in some sense conspiring.

The dating apps are sort of making markets too liquid that that there's a there's a there's a there's a active conspiracy like almost like 911. Mhm.

>> And the third one is the very fact that this is a movement to begin with that there's a huge swath of American and I think maybe even global young men

>> are are involved uh in this in this circumstance. So what do you make of

circumstance. So what do you make of that and do you see that as the further escalation of this loss of erotic erotic power?

>> Yeah, the the incel thing uh look I am not a native inhabitant of the online world. I only get it from talking to

world. I only get it from talking to young men uh or reading Bronze Age Pervert and finding out that uh young men actually do talk about living in the

long house, >> right? Which means there's something a

>> right? Which means there's something a little comic about it to me.

>> Oh yeah, for sure. Yes. But I I think it deserves to be taken seriously because

it's it hardens some young men in their sense that the war between the sexes is a real war.

>> Yeah. Right.

>> And that's a terrible place to live. Of

course, that that's an awful place to live. Now, young women have their own

live. Now, young women have their own forms of this, but the incel thing that's focused on men, >> right?

>> And it attracts a lot of very intelligent young men.

>> Oh, yes, of course.

>> So, when I talk to young men who've been influenced by these things, >> I emphasize to them that when you're

still intellectually young, one of the things you're very attracted to is being smart.

And that's quite a corrupting motive.

Sometimes you have to help people get beyond the showoffiness of that. I think

in the incel thing, there's a lot of that young man showoffiness, that being a tough guy thing. I I think that that

is in there. Now, anybody who's worked with professional philosophers knows that's a part just of academic philosophy. the tough guy thing, the,

philosophy. the tough guy thing, the, you know, the make these hard arguments back and forth thing, often with very little attempt to enrich them with a bit

more human experience.

I I find the incel thing, it's really at home in analytic philosophy in a funny way. really interesting.

way. really interesting.

>> Yes. Be because it it appeals to that combative instinct in a young man's intellect and it makes him feel like he's on a side.

>> Right. I see.

>> I I feel that. So, I don't want to respond to it simply as a problem about the structure of erotic desire and of a

lack of confidence in erotic agency. I

think that's in there. But I think it's also important that it's part of being young men that they get attracted to extremist intellectual views that allow them to make arguments.

>> Right.

>> I think incelss aren't that different from the kind of guys who when I was in college, it wasn't incelss. It was

people who read an Rand, >> right? Yeah. Or or NZ or something like

>> right? Yeah. Or or NZ or something like that. Right. like they love extremist

that. Right. like they love extremist views that give them the power, give them the secret key to unlock everything.

>> I see it all. That kind of thing.

>> And that's so interesting because the incels >> started off as a very like >> uh philosophical anthropological movement analyzing data science trends among dating apps and say look this is

where the conspiracy comes from. The top

1% of males get all the females. And so

you're right, it's this highly intellectual movement that that gives a sense of extreme political power.

>> What what I find super interesting about it is that the incelss are squarely on the the the political right. Um they're

they're you know they hate the the woke, they hate the LGBTQ, they hate the feminist movements.

>> But it's very interesting that they take on um what I see to be a a lot of the left's kind of intuitions. they do

intuitions. they do >> in in that they give a systematic analysis of the problem like if you're not 6'4 and white and good-looking it's over for you and like you should just go

to Switzerland and get your face plastic surgery and changed >> um which of course is is is lacks a lot of like individual agency because it's giving a system level argument

>> but also the fact that some of them at least take a lot of pride in their victimhood.

>> They sure do. It's very much like the, you know, the woke and the DEI and and so there's a very interesting mirror between these two rival political factions that hate each other. Yeah.

>> Yes. I'm afraid so. I mean, I just uh recently I've been reading Dusty Epsky's Notes from Underground and the Underground Man is like an original incel

because he takes so much pride in his suffering >> and he realizes my suffering is sort of self-inflicted, but he still has pride that he can inflict suffering on

himself, which is a kind of Nietian point, >> the aesthetic ideal. Right. Right.

>> Yes. So, there is some of that in there.

So, I don't want to go too far and and simply deeroticize what's attractive about the uh the incel

discourse, but I do also want to insist that it it's not only about people's erotic lives. It's about a certain sense

erotic lives. It's about a certain sense of identity of you being in kind of the avant guard of an intellectual elite.

And that's why right and left come together. that temptation to be part of

together. that temptation to be part of that avantgard thing that can be right or left. It doesn't code politically

or left. It doesn't code politically very clear.

>> It's it's the marginalized that that's very much >> and and that's such an interesting point about why they would take it as a badge of honor that they can't attract women because it's a very weird thing to take

pride in. But it's very much the Nian

pride in. But it's very much the Nian aesthetic ideal that like at least I can make this statement or at least right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

>> But is there anything to be said about the erotic or the deeroticized components?

>> I think so. I mean they are uh the there is no doubt that what I call marriage culture >> Yeah.

>> is very much diminished from what it used to be. It it used to be that both young men and young women by the time

they were 20 or so, they thought of themselves as uh potential spouses and not just potential like

>> spouses within the next years. Yes, very

much.

>> And uh that I have found has disappeared almost entirely. There's still a small

almost entirely. There's still a small subculture at a Catholic place like Notre Dame. Uh I've also known a lot of

Notre Dame. Uh I've also known a lot of Mormons uh where that's still a part of their culture, but it has a specific religious cast. That didn't that didn't

religious cast. That didn't that didn't used to be a religion thing >> to to be marriageoriented was not a religious thing. It was just a human

religious thing. It was just a human thing. Uh that at least in elite culture

thing. Uh that at least in elite culture has has greatly diminished. And all you have to do is look at marriage rates.

that. So, uh, they what the incelss are seeing in this big picture is a truth.

Uh, but it's a truth that's inside them as much as it is inside some scary bunch of Amazon women out there, >> right?

>> So, uh, they may think they're all living in the long house, you know, the house that the moms run. Uh but

they're defining themselves that way too, >> right?

>> And a lot of them have never actually asked a woman on a date, >> right, >> that was recognizable as a date.

>> Right. Right.

>> So, one of the things I find when you talk to young women is they're often very confused by young men who are so prissy about asking them out as if

they're attracted to them that they're not quite sure. like he he he I think he asked me on a date, but I'm not sure. He

said it was just coffee. So, it was like he asked me on a date at the same time.

He said, "But it's not really a date."

>> Right.

>> Right. So, uh I I think some uh young men just their confusion is that they

they've been told or what they've heard is that to respect a woman is not to think of her as a potential erotic partner. But of course they think of her

partner. But of course they think of her as an erotic partner. She's attractive.

Well, that's an impossible place to be.

And you've got to be willing to run the risk of elevating your erotic attraction into an attraction to the whole person.

That's part of what becoming a couple would be, >> right?

>> Uh so uh do do I think uh some form of advice is useful here?

You kind of start out by saying, well, what do you say? Uh

I'm more story based. I would say that I'm argumentbased in this regard. I try

to describe a potential future about how approaching a woman because you find her attractive, how that becomes a kind of love story. A

lot of love stories have kind of unhappy endings. Just listen to the song. But it

endings. Just listen to the song. But it

only takes one happy ending, >> right, to make it worthwhile.

>> Yes. And

I I feel like that helps young men to take the first step.

And if they take the first step, you often don't have to give them much more advice about any more steps because

they'll find a woman who thinks, you know, it's actually kind of nice that a young man said something clear enough. I

knew what he was talking about, >> right?

>> At at Notre Dame, and I've I've said this to students, too. the the murkiest uh interactions between men and women

are among theology majors because they've embedded a certain kind of Catholicism as niceness picture and

man then the the likelihood that the women are going to find the men confusingly being interested but withholding their

interest as if That is the way to stay dignified, >> right?

>> Uh that dignity is one of the things that I talk about in my book in Plato's bedroom. Uh I focus on it in the chapter

bedroom. Uh I focus on it in the chapter that's on Thomas Man's death in Venice.

Uh you know, wanting to be somebody's sexual partner is not essentially a dignified thing. Uh, of course it can be

dignified thing. Uh, of course it can be elevated into the marriage relationship, but I if you're trying always to hold on

to your own dignity by treating somebody else with so much dignity that that person isn't can't be acknowledged as sexually attractive to you. Now dignity

has become a blockage of something human rather than an expression of something human.

>> Right? So, uh, for for myself, I've never found a more powerful working through that than Thomas Man's novela, Death in Venice.

>> I see >> the And it's curious when I first started teaching uh, man's nolla, the obstacle to it was the

homosexuality.

that that was the the place where people would find something that might block them from letting the book really work on them.

Over time, that disappeared because everybody wanted to be pro- homosexuality, but they didn't want to be pro pedophilia. Oh, now that became a real

pedophilia. Oh, now that became a real blocker, >> right? Uh but what I found then I

>> right? Uh but what I found then I started to hit a third stage and the thing that was blocking it was simply sexuality.

It was sexuality as such that was the blocker and that is just a weird place for people to live.

>> Yeah.

>> Because there there's something that's not being acknowledged.

>> Right. And to go back to the tough guy aspect of the incel uh identity, uh they're

they're making too big a deal out of something because they don't want to acknowledge the loss, what what they've lost. So

they're trying to make >> right make it scientific or >> it that's it. And that move to making it scientific.

Again, this is right out of Dusty. They

should all read Notes from Underground.

It's like the mouse man who lives underground that they're he's their man.

Uh I think that is something you can escape from with one good first date.

>> Yeah.

>> Just one now.

>> Or or one good novel. Well, look, novels are really good prep, >> right? Right. But you need the real

>> right? Right. But you need the real thing.

>> You need the real thing.

>> You need the real thing.

>> And so, obviously, the the million-dollar question is what causes this? Is it is it the corporatization of

this? Is it is it the corporatization of of of of university? Is it

>> uh maybe >> um like the the Me Too movements and males not wanting to get caught up in all of that? Is it a broader nealism spread through culture? What what has caused this?

>> Yeah.

Boy, the uh causes are always hard. Let

let me uh pick up the corporatization issue.

>> Yeah.

>> Because that that's a real issue and that issue falls onto the women much more personally and directly than it does for the men. M

>> the uh young women are taught and they realize that the way that high-end corporate

careers work.

Your late 20s through your mid30s are the crucial moment when you break through a certain plateau.

And to do that uses all your time.

That's also the moment in your life when your fertility goes from high to low.

And I don't think that that problem is solvable in contemporary corporate structures. I think that is the shape of

structures. I think that is the shape of careers. I think young women are right

careers. I think young women are right to perceive this >> right. In other words, it has to there's

>> right. In other words, it has to there's a fork in the road. Either become a mom or become a career woman.

>> There is if you're going to make partner in a law firm, that's very hard to do if you also have three small children. If you're going to

become a tenur professor, hey, lots of women in the academy while they're graduate students will be told

by their mentors to put off having children.

Exactly. Because it's the same sort of pressures that there are in any other corporate form of life. University

careers are highly corporatized in that regard. So,

regard. So, How solvable is that problem, Jonathan?

>> Right.

>> Uh >> I mean not not solvable, right? Like

>> every problem solvable by opting out, >> but that seems like a very extreme, >> right, >> thing.

I'm I'm old enough to remember that debates about feminism, let's say round about oh early '7s, first half of the

70s, a lot of those debates or discussions were about reforming corporate life broadly speaking.

>> I see to make moreospitable. Yeah.

>> Yes. I thought that was a very rich time.

I don't think anybody came to conclusions but they were asking the right question. I think that question

right question. I think that question kind of went away. Wait, but but in some sense society has answered that question and the answer is marriages later women freeze their eggs, right?

>> That's that's what that was the answer became a technological answer. But I

mean what other possible answer is there if you want if you want the >> the answer that people were trying to explore is can corporations structure

jobs for both men and women as if they have a primary responsibility to their marriage as procreative.

That was the central question.

>> Right? And unfortunately the answer that people fell into was, you know, doesn't really have to be procreated, >> right?

>> That was the direction things went. And

really the uh I I remember when you first started to see mainstream articles about, you know, ambitious elite women

while they're in college should freeze their eggs and save those because then when they're in their late 30s or early

40s and their career path has already gotten over the plateau, then they can go back And I thought at the time that was completely unreal because who are they

going to go back with? Are there lots of 40-year-old men seeking a wife to unfreeze her eggs with her, >> right? There there was something so

>> right? There there was something so unreal about that.

>> Although with the current insult movement, they might get that. Yeah. You know, happy

get that. Yeah. You know, happy >> coincidence.

I I feel like uh the the whole IVF technology as a way of addressing the kind of problems about women not being

able to find men when they're in this very highintensity career phase. Uh I I think that is a

career phase. Uh I I think that is a very false promise to women.

>> Right. I see. Um I want to explore more about the issues facing uh women in modernity but let's go back to one point you said about men about how these

incelss are giving an over masculine uh or like depiction of of what has gone wrong and I think that's interesting because in your book you claim that the

first symposius to speak in the symposium are also given an overly masculine picture about love and and Socrates eventually corrects it. So, so

tell us about that and um what resources there may be uh to help us in in modernity. Yeah.

modernity. Yeah.

>> In Plato symposium the the you get a whole set of speakers who are all basically defending

pedarasti. They're all defending a

pedarasti. They're all defending a social form in which an older man uh usually say in his 30s uh is erotically

attracted to a man who's a mid to late teenager.

You kind of hit your erotic expiration date when you first started to really grow a beard when you were around 20.

Right? So that that's the social form.

And uh it's clear they were racked with anxiety about this. They thought, "Oh, I don't know. I mean, it seems like you're

don't know. I mean, it seems like you're feminizing the young men just when they should be becoming real men. How are we going to do that?" Well, we'll try to say it's educational.

Yeah. Then why you touching my thigh, teacher? You know, something's not quite

teacher? You know, something's not quite right there that it's like there's something they're not saying about the erotic attachment. Uh so the uh Plato is

erotic attachment. Uh so the uh Plato is working with all of those social anxieties in a way that is thoroughly comic. I mean it's very funny to watch

comic. I mean it's very funny to watch these guys trying to justify the life they want by describing some other life that's not really the one that they wanted there.

>> Right? Uh and so this this worry that there's something that undermines a certain picture of manliness as a devotion to reason particularly a devotion to reason.

>> Right.

>> What how reasonable is being erotically crazy about somebody?

>> Yeah.

>> Right. That so Plato's poking people about that. Now in the end he thinks

about that. Now in the end he thinks Aeros uh can be a very power powerful elevator of human desire and human

aspiration and that includes the life of the mind. But he also thinks that we

the mind. But he also thinks that we have to recognize that we can't just argue our way into an erotic life

either. So he sets us up so that the

either. So he sets us up so that the first three speakers really all want to show that, you know, you can be a really

smart guy and have Aeros just be one controllable bit of your life. You but

it's controllable and we don't want it's tameable.

>> Yes, it is. It's it's a tame lion. we

we've got that, you know, and uh Plato breaks up the party on that with the speech of the great comic writer

Aristophanes. Aristophanes is the one

Aristophanes. Aristophanes is the one who says, you know, I'm going to give a speech not at all like your speeches.

And the core of his speech really is uh not to allow relationships between an older man and a younger man to be the

centerpiece. Uh and he's the first

centerpiece. Uh and he's the first speaker who makes erotic procreative erotic relations between a male and a female a central part is of his account

of Aeros. And that changes the dialogue

of Aeros. And that changes the dialogue entirely. From that point on, the

entirely. From that point on, the question of whether a human life can be androgynous u in the sense that it integrates

something that's masculine and something that's feminine through something that is procreatively erotic. That becomes

the central question. So I think Plato already got there and

the the high point of that discussion is the notion that the erotic life is reproduction is procreation in the

beautiful. That's what it is. And

beautiful. That's what it is. And

Socrates uh in his account of it does suggest that spiritual children are higher than

merely physical children. But of course real children are spiritual children.

You know virtues.

>> You sure do. I mean you're taking on a long educational task when you have children. And that's part of the glory

children. And that's part of the glory of having children. you want that task, >> right?

>> So, uh Plato, as surprising as it may be, he actually found his way to something that to complete it, I would say, and I don't think Plato did

complete it, to complete the intellectual project of the symposium, I think you have to elevate marriage as such. And that is a great challenge to

such. And that is a great challenge to the way philosophy has identified itself through all these centuries, >> right?

>> How many great philosophers were great husbands or great wives, >> right? Or or even had wives, right? Like

>> right? Or or even had wives, right? Like

Yeah.

>> So Plato challenges philosophy, self-image in his own time as something that yeah, women, you know,

they're kind of emotional. Well, they're

not really rational.

Men, when we talk to each other, that that's man stuff, right? He challenges

that. Well, that's an extraordinary cultural achievement to have been able to do that.

>> Yeah. Because what's very interesting is that in the book you said not only do these uh men much like the incelss give a overly masculine picture of love to try to tame it in the same way that the

incel gives an overly analytical picture of what's gone wrong to sort of control their anxieties.

>> But you also said that philosophy itself was overly masculine and that that's something that Plato is trying to to to correct. And by that I suppose you mean

correct. And by that I suppose you mean that um philosophy itself also needs to bring in the nonrational elements or tell us about that. Yeah.

>> Yes. And of course philosophers to say we need to bring in the nonrational elements. That's a good starting point.

elements. That's a good starting point.

But of course that already presupposes the masculine thing. Okay. The rational

elements are these things, right? Uh

well, if you teach intro to philosophy, it's almost inevitable.

You're going to teach a couple of techniques.

Okay? You got to be able to tell the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. And you've got to

sufficient conditions. And you've got to know the difference between a valid argument and a sound argument. Now,

valid and sound, that way of using those words just is not normal English. So you

you've got to get on our team about regimenting how you make arguments. Uh

and then if you're really good, the next thing we'll do is teach you how to do counter examples.

I mean that is that's bro world right there. Right? There's a certain picture

there. Right? There's a certain picture of what philosophy is that makes learning those techniques the thing that you got to have to be a

philosopher. Now, those are all three of

philosopher. Now, those are all three of those are really useful intellectual techniques and I'm all for them. But

there are a lot of other things that go into thinking as well. So, there's a sort of narrow view of thinking, call it rationality,

that seems to me in competition with a much richer kind of thinking, call it thoughtfulness.

And Plato is so good at the rationality argument forming. So he can make

argument forming. So he can make arguments just like that all day.

>> Just be just great at it.

>> Uh >> but he has this deep thoughtfulness that also sees that there's a specific motive

especially for the clever young and clever young men particularly to love the arguments more than they love the thing they're arguing about. In the

republic, he has this famous Socrates has a famous description of how Yeah. If

you teach dialectic to the young too early, they're like puppies who just tear apart shoes.

>> Yeah. Right. No philosophy before 30.

>> Yes. Yeah. You got to you got to wait for a little while in there. Well, uh,

the symposium's doing some of the same kind of work there that there is a way of presenting yourself as there's a way

of presenting philosophy as something that really you've got to become a man to do. Whether you're a man or a woman,

to do. Whether you're a man or a woman, you got to become a man to do it because you have to push away these other things. And then you can demote all

things. And then you can demote all those other things culturally and say, "Yeah, those are kind of fit for women."

Plato didn't believe that, >> right?

>> So, if if all you've got are arguments, you're not going to know how to be thoughtful with stories, >> right?

>> And that's going to be a pretty disastrous place to be, >> right? So, let me try to square the

>> right? So, let me try to square the circle. Uh, in the domain of love, when

circle. Uh, in the domain of love, when you're overly masculine, you try to tame it. Maybe you give a a scientific

it. Maybe you give a a scientific explanation of love and think that's the end all beall is one the symposi do. Or

maybe you uh give an account about how love makes people better warriors.

That's quite that's quite manly, right?

>> One of the funniest of the the moves, right?

>> Well, yes. I there's there's nothing that would make a better army than a a bunch of pairs of lovers.

>> Oh, what how wonderful that would be, >> right? And so to be open uh to the let's

>> right? And so to be open uh to the let's say the feminine or or or to not be constrained by the masculine, let me put it that way in love >> would be to be open to the ecstasy of

love. The fact that it can make us a bit

love. The fact that it can make us a bit uh divinely mad and make it makes us a bit crazy.

>> Whereas in philosophy to not be limited by the masculine means to open us to the sensitivities of life, right? And so so that we are not just constrained by the analytical the agonistic kind of

argumentative form but to have a a fundamental sensitivity and openness to life. So so that that's what Plato is

life. So so that that's what Plato is trying to do. That's the isomorphism between these two spheres that he's trying to demasculineize. Is that fair?

>> Yes, I think so. And it you know to take a philosopher who is important to both of us that Nze is interesting to think about this way.

Nichze is a wonderful and wonderfully funny critic of hyperrationalism, >> of course. Yeah.

>> But he also, it seems to me, embeds an anxiety about whether he's sufficiently manly. And so he's also very critical of

manly. And so he's also very critical of women and of things that don't look tough guy

enough. He he he lapses into a rhetoric

enough. He he he lapses into a rhetoric that you could see somebody like Bronze Age pervert or other incel type uh voices

thinking well I'm really going all nichi here. Uh

here. Uh they're wrong about that because they have such a small understanding of Nietze. But it is fair to say that

Nietze. But it is fair to say that Nietze himself, I think, lapses into that kind of rhetoric. And Plato doesn't

lapse into that kind of rhetoric or at least he does it very little because he's so confident in what he's

achieving. I think Nietze always comes

achieving. I think Nietze always comes across a little bit as a >> insecure, right?

>> He's still going through a puberty, right?

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> He's still showing the tough guyish.

>> Yeah. That's what uh Robert Pippen when we discussed Nietze he says by the fact that NZ had to state I am so great you can tell the kind of anxiety there right

never says in the dialogues and then my books will be read for 2,000 years and they have >> yes >> and the only the only author in antiquity that has come down to us completely unlost and >> yeah yeah that's interesting

>> so let's let's move on to to talk about the issues facing modern modern women and you described one of them which is this corporatization and and the issue with career

But I mean the stat that is incredibly frightening to me is 5 to 10% of women in America aged 18 to 24 are on only

Only Fans like like selling pictures of their like naked like like help me help me understand this because like >> like how does like the culmination of

like 300 years 200 years of like >> women empowerment end in like the mass commodification of like of like women.

Yeah.

>> Yeah. It it is a terrible thing. You

know the uh and of course it's presented as empowerment >> as entrepreneurial. We're entrepreneurs.

We're content creators.

>> Yeah. The desire

to be visible and to be attractive is a a natural and wholesome desire.

But every natural and wholesome desire is susceptible of a corruption

when it's made partial and it's not balanced or integrated with other desires.

Uh the what what is it that attracts enough

contemporary women to want to be seen with erotic desire because they know >> they're they're being used as a masturbation tool.

>> Oh, interesting. You read that as a desire for recognition. I I thought it was more like monetary that that they >> I don't think Jonathan that

It's an economic people make money.

>> So, it's true. Some people make money and money is always relevant, >> but I don't think that could drive the phenomenon, >> right?

>> You know, I look, there are there are plenty of women who put pornographic images or videos of themselves online

before there was a way to monetize it.

>> Right. Interesting. And it I think it's that felt visibility that that's a very potent thing in a human life.

>> Uh you know we we could go all Hegel on recognition and things like that. I I

would want to go back to that as the the center of the only fans phenomenon.

I think it's that desire for visibility that takes many different forms. Uh sometimes uh the greatest gift you

can give a student it's never praise it's visibility it's that >> you

that moment when you think >> my my teacher is actually interested in what I'm doing that is a formative moment in the life

of an intellectual because it gives you somewhere to go uh and that that moment when

somebody reveals to you you're attractive to me. That's a very important moment in a growing relationship.

>> Right.

>> And one can want the pleasure without the structure.

>> Yeah.

>> Without the structure. That's the way I think of the only fans thing.

>> Interesting. I I think of it as intensely lonely >> and therefore we can read that as almost the the counterpoint to the incel movement and the weakness of the the the

male urge to show that recognition, right? It it might be read as the

right? It it might be read as the natural consequence of men not being able to reveal their physical attraction in real life >> causing this sort of starvation of recognition.

>> I think so. I've read Jane Austin novels with students a lot over the years and when I talk to students about Jane Austin,

one of the things they're always struck by is how important dances or balls are.

Mhm.

>> And they're important because everybody knows that balls are constructed to be places where

safely without loss of face, men and women can express sexual interest in each other.

>> Right?

>> That Jane Austin wasn't stupid. She knew

dancing is sexual, >> right? Uh but of course it's elevated

>> right? Uh but of course it's elevated and it points forward somewhere.

Uh all over universities students will say they wish there were more chaperon events. They won't use exactly that

events. They won't use exactly that language.

>> Right?

>> There used to be events called mixers.

Right now nobody calls them that anymore except with great uh irony. But people

sort of wish, men and women wish there were places where to

express an interest in somebody as attractive and to accept that interest weren't so close to being sexualized.

You know, right?

If if he asks me out for coffee, does that mean that if I say yes, I'm accepting having sexual intercourse with him? Well, no wonder a man doesn't want

him? Well, no wonder a man doesn't want a woman ask a woman out on a date if that's the emotional load it carries, >> right? But

>> right? But adults have given up uh have abdicated

the moral responsibility of creating a space where young men and women can express interests without there being

>> right >> all on them. The question of yeah but what's the limit on that? If saying uh I

would like to go out with you is heard as I expect to sleep with you.

You can't expect happy results for young people under those conditions. How do we get that toothpaste back in the tube?

>> Yeah. And I I'm not sure how to get that toothpaste back in the tube. But this is why reading older things with students

is often very helpful to them because I don't say that then they figure it out, but at least now they have a name to put on what the issue is for themselves, >> right? And they they know that there's

>> right? And they they know that there's an alternative, right?

>> They do. It's really interesting because you you begin the book by highlighting not not how um the reality of our love life has been so uh diminished but how

the language of our love life has been so diminished. So tell us about that.

so diminished. So tell us about that.

Yeah that in ancient Greek uh the word for the

conjugal act is just a plural form of the things of Aphrodite.

Aphrodesia, which is a wonderful, beautiful word, >> divine.

>> Yes.

uh because there's something that we feel as coming from outside about erotic desire and something that we feel is

elevating about it but dangerous.

You you don't get to ascend without danger. That's the way erotic life is.

danger. That's the way erotic life is.

So the the very basic vocabulary of what we would call sex or sexuality doesn't exist in ancient Greek. It

doesn't exist in English until the second half of the 19th century.

Uh the use of the word sex to mean sexual activity.

Uh that's a very recent innovation in human life and in English. in the

English language. So that the language that sounds sort of polite about erotic

life uh and its uh achievement, its accomplishment in English. Uh it all comes from the language of public health. It's a medicalized language.

health. It's a medicalized language.

>> Sexual intercourse.

>> Sexual intercourse.

>> Now mouthus, right? Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. It goes back to Mouthus essay on population, >> right? which is an essay on

>> right? which is an essay on contraception, >> right?

>> A worry about >> Yes, that's where it comes from. Uh when

he used the phrase sexual intercourse and he's obviously pointing toward actual physical intercourse, the act that makes babies. Uh

it was a complete euphemism because sexual intercourse when he wrote it would have just meant what a mixer used to be at a college campus somewhere

where men and women got to know each other. But of course he was assuming the

other. But of course he was assuming the completion of the mixing.

Uh but very quickly then the term starts to be used as a specific term. It's

medicalized. it becomes part of a public health discourse, >> right?

>> Sexual intercourse, it doesn't even sound like anything you would want.

>> You know, it's like, no, I I don't really want to have sexual intercourse.

I think I'll go have my teeth cleaned. I

mean, it's it's from the same part of language. And I very few lovers except

language. And I very few lovers except in moments of again irony would say to each other the phrase, "Would you like

to have sexual intercourse?" That that's just right. It doesn't So we're very

just right. It doesn't So we're very impoverished because our language often is the portal to our feelings too and

our aspirations, >> right? Yeah. Whereas the the ancient

>> right? Yeah. Whereas the the ancient languages whether it's aeros or aphrodite or the romanized Venus Venus are are all kind of uh

>> divine kind of connotations today erotic is pornography aphrodesiac is like a is like a drug and veneerial is a disease right and we so

we we've uh even the language of love has has been corrupted >> I see that but how do you reconcile that with the idea that in mity love has also

been elevated to an extraordinary degree >> whether it's for example making love a constitutive quality of marriage which was not the case like before let's say Rouso or something like that

>> or just how love seems to be the only elevated feeling today that is still acceptable rather than say glory or something like that. So how do you make sense of on one hand of the linguistic

poverty but on the other hand the rise of love as a cultural ideal? Yeah,

>> I think people overstate the uh [Music] the distinctiveness of love as a part of

marriage being very specifically quite modern.

>> Interesting.

>> I I think that uh cultures where there are what we call arranged marriages, people always fell in love. the I it's

just that the mediation of the young people who are of marriageable age finding themselves

uh had a lot more uh social thickness in it than it does for us. And that can take lots of different forms. You know,

when you read Jane Austin, the old adults kind of know what they're setting up when they set up balls, right? They are setting people up to see

right? They are setting people up to see if they want to become marriage partners. So, that's those are pretty

partners. So, that's those are pretty arranged marriages, too. It's just it's not as explicit as it is in some other

cultures now still. Uh so uh I think that uh people always expected a profound personal affection and

commitment to be a part of what the marital relationship was.

So uh I I push back a bit >> right on the rise narrative. Yeah.

Right. For you it's more of a decline narrative.

>> I I think so. I I I don't want to throw away the notion I think you're right that the the notion that a marriage

between a man and woman uh can't just be focused on having a successful household.

There's a personal relationship between the two of them that has to be sustained and deepened.

I think that that is a more important question for modern couples than it used to be. But I suspect that married

to be. But I suspect that married couples always had a lot of that.

>> It's a natural thing emphasis. It's not

a brand new. Yeah, I see.

>> Yes. So

>> I want to uh critique your suggestion of elevating union, marriage, intimacy as well as reproduction. But internally

from these these two traditions, the Catholic tradition, the Platonic tradition >> um three critiques.

>> The first one is as you mentioned uh Plato puts physical re reproduction as the lowest. Yes. And even though you

the lowest. Yes. And even though you could say well raising a kid is spiritual reproduction, inculcating virtues >> in the symposium itself when this is brought up the examples that Dotima the

sort of priestess who's lecturing Socrates that she gives is like bounding states managing states together right poetry as the highest forms right so philosophical reproduction is just higher than than than physical

reproduction >> yes >> the second critique comes from the Catholic tradition which is that up until Vatican 2 I believe chastity was the higher ideal even over an an

observant uh a married man or married woman. And the third one is

woman. And the third one is I don't see any of the importance of marriage that you're picking up in Plato because I don't think Plato sees union

or intimacy or joining two to one flesh as as that important >> and I think you can see this in how flexible the arrangements the erotic arrangements are in Plato where in the laws it's monogamy but in in the

republic it's like a communal shared kind of marriage and Socrates you know has a wifey but he's still chasing young beauties around falling in love, right?

He does have children though.

>> Yeah, he does have children. Yeah. So,

so how do you respond to that these kind of concerns?

>> I don't think Plato got all the way.

>> The uh but uh e each dialogue is interestingly different. Uh so, uh

interestingly different. Uh so, uh certainly the laws uh the centrality of of marriage that really depends on a

kind of personal fidelity between the spouses. That's an important aspect of

spouses. That's an important aspect of the laws, but it's not a primary focus of Plato's exposition there. The

republic famously uh in effect eliminates marriage as a personal relationship and makes it a

civic relationship. And now we would get

civic relationship. And now we would get into all of the debates about how we read that. Is is that meant to be a

read that. Is is that meant to be a serious practice? Is it meant to be a a

serious practice? Is it meant to be a a demonstration that look, if you're going to go all the way down this road and say that unity is the most important thing

for a political community, >> the greatest obstacle to unity is families, >> right?

>> So, you got to get rid of it. Here's the

cost. Uh so I actually read that more >> as a critique >> as a critique as saying yeah if if this is what philosophy is this is where it

will take you in the end.

>> I see.

>> So I I think there's a challenge to philosophy already embedded in that account in the republic >> like as being the only masculine rational kind of philosophy. If we're

going for pure reason, pure unity, this is where it's going to take.

Interesting. Fascinating.

>> The Republic, the Republic does talk about Aeros.

>> Yeah.

>> But it talks about Aeros much more like those first three speakers in the symposium did. And I think Plato meant

symposium did. And I think Plato meant us to see that.

But but that's a complex conversation about the republic and about how one learns from it. And I'm tipping the Republic in the direction of the

symposium when I say I think that that discussion of the community of women and children, which is really the

destruction of the personal family.

I I think that readers are meant to see there. There's something in me that

there. There's something in me that would take me there, >> right?

>> And I need to I need to examine what if it would take me there. I need to examine >> the validity of that thing. Right. I

see. Yes. But how do you respond to the the objection that uh in Plato um it seems like >> a union is I mean at least secondary if

it's a if it's a goal at all to the elevation and rise to to philosophy.

>> Yeah. Yeah. The uh so the way it works itself out in a symposium.

great speech on unity and the one that sounds the most like our own ideals about what what marriage would be >> is Aristoph >> is Aristophany's speech and of the seven

speeches it's the middle one it's the fourth one right and after uh Socrates reports Datima's speech

Aristophanes is going to respond to the critique but he can't because a crazy bunch of revelers burst and lots of neat stuff about that. But Plato is asking

you what would Aristophany's response have been? Because the fundamental issue

have been? Because the fundamental issue that's raised is whether we fundamentally seek union or

whether we fundamentally seek the good.

And is there a tension between those two things?

>> Right? Could you go back to Aristophan's speech preserve Aristophan's

really marvelous uh discussion of how broken we feel >> without the wholeness achieved in erotic

connection?

Could you retrieve that for philosophical aspiration or is there just a fundamental tension?

>> Yeah.

>> Between unity and a kind of intellectualized procreativity.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh I think Plato left that as an exercise for the reader. I don't think he ever fully achieved it myself. So

when I see uh some specifically Catholic understandings of how unity and procreativity,

those aren't just two independent goals of marriage, they're mutually interpreting goals. The specific type of

interpreting goals. The specific type of union that marital union is is different from just the unity of friendship, >> right?

>> Because it has built into it that pro procreative potency. So I think of uh

procreative potency. So I think of uh myself as working as a a Catholic thinker on this as trying to complete

Plato's project not not rejecting it.

>> Right. Those are different relationships.

>> Yeah.

>> And I so I don't say that everything I find in Plato is already there is already there.

>> Right. But you're saying it's latent or or Plato's giving you an imitation.

>> I think so. I I think Plato gets uh to to use a very traditional vocabulary here, Plato gets as far as natural reason can get.

>> I see. Uh so this is why I think the the most difficult challenge to what you proposed so far must be the internal Catholic suggestion that chastity,

right? the non-union, nonprocreative

right? the non-union, nonprocreative life devoted solely to God is higher than the perfectly uh you know like observant married life. How do you

reconcile that?

>> Yes. And uh

let me start by saying that I think you're quite right that since Vatican 2, a lot of Catholics have wanted to back off of the notion that the life of

priestly celibacy or of vowed celibacy for women is in an important way spiritually higher than the life of

vowed marriage. Now vowed marriage,

vowed marriage. Now vowed marriage, right? So that's also a supernatural

right? So that's also a supernatural relationship right?

>> It's under vows. So

>> which makes the claim even stronger.

>> It does make it stronger, >> right?

>> And I would point to a really central aspect of this. Uh there is something

of this. Uh there is something sacrificial from a merely natural point of view

about the life of vowed celibacy compared to the life of vowed marriage.

There's there's something sacrificial about it.

That sacrifice can only make sense if there is some higher spiritual good that is achieved and pursued in that life of

celibacy.

And I think the tradition has always wanted to focus on that. So that the priest becomes in a way an exemplar for

married couples because celibacy shows an even greater willingness to take on what is from a

natural point of view a sacrifice for a supernatural end. And Catholic marriage

supernatural end. And Catholic marriage as vowed marriage, it also has a supernatural dimension that will need to

take on sacrifices that a merely natural marriage would not.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> So that's the direction that I would go.

Now, I wouldn't expect to carry every reader, every student, every conversation

to that same view. I And partly because I wouldn't expect to be successful in convincing everybody of my view of marriage.

>> Right. Right. Even that is a Right. Even

that is is a stretch. Yeah.

>> Right. Um, another critique, this is a more personal rather than uh imminent critique I have of your proposal of getting married earlier than you think.

Like like have children earlier. This is

your advice to young people.

>> Yes.

>> I guess my own hesitancy towards that is it's also easier because I'm a man and not a woman >> is that being single offers a kind of personal

exploration.

>> Uhhuh. and a kind of ability to pivot that is difficult or that may be limited in a relationship. You had this wonderful line in your book that you said >> only a child thinks that every

limitation is a restriction on one's freedom.

>> Um and and my response to that would be and only a fool would think that every limit every restriction is is is an enhancement of freedom. Right?

>> So there are I'll give you a very practical one.

>> I'm dating a very beautiful Catholic girl now. I'm still kind of seeking

girl now. I'm still kind of seeking seeking myself on my my own religious convictions and and she's told me I will only marry a Catholic man, >> you know, and so

>> if I were to marry her, like that one thing is incredibly important part of my life that I am in all earnestness exploring, >> I would have to make a very strong commitment there. And that's just one

commitment there. And that's just one one example, right? Where you live like the the depending on the person, the political commitments.

So, is there nothing to be said about letting the individual blossom a bit before finding someone to be joined with?

>> No, there's nothing to be said for that, Jonathan.

So, >> case closed.

>> Yes. Now, let me put it this way. what

you are as an individual is essentially uh described by your power to couple.

And so I'm very skeptical about thinking that well I should develop for a while before I become a

couple because that might constrict my development. It will definitely

development. It will definitely influence your development but I can't see that development as a constriction >> right but but surely you see okay let's start with

>> if you married the wrong woman it would be >> right >> but you know what the you'll make yourself the right man by

finding the right woman the the growth is mutual and the growth is always a greater union as Oh, >> I see. Right. So, so the claim is not

the extreme claim that any union will obviously accelerate the growth. It it's

that the best union will accelerate the growth growth than the best individual.

That's the kind of claim.

>> Yes, I think so. But I I don't want to emphasize the word best too much, right?

>> As if it's a market.

>> That sounds like a blocking word, doesn't it?

>> I see.

>> Best. Well, yeah. So if one of your friends say, "Yeah, but is she the best one for you?" Oh, best.

She's good enough one for me, right? And

you you grow into being married.

>> See, one mistake I think sometimes happens with young women when you talk to them about men they're interested in is they when they describe the ideal

man, they pretty much describe a guy who's been married for 20 years and raised three children.

Well, they're not going to start out like that. Okay. But they'll grow into

like that. Okay. But they'll grow into that as you will grow into that too,

>> right? So the uh I have more confidence

>> right? So the uh I have more confidence in marriage as for most of us

uh marriage is the context of moral pedagogy. That's where we will grow and it will teach us to grow most

directly and in the most focused way.

>> It's not slowing down. It's not settling down. It's speeding up. Right.

down. It's speeding up. Right.

>> No, there >> but but sorry conditional on finding the right person.

>> Yes. But there are a lot of right people.

>> Right.

>> See, this is why I want to push back on the best thing.

>> Yeah.

>> See, that sounds like an avoidance behavior to me.

>> Right. Right. like am I is she really the right as as an excuse almost so so let me ask you this >> um obviously right uh we don't want to set the constraints too narrow such that it has to be this you know angel

gladriel or something like that for Lord of the Rings >> but we also don't want to set the the constraints too wide such that >> uh you know anyone we could see ourselves married with is empirically just not true so

>> I guess my question is given that we aren't being married to the perfect wife or perfect perfect husband who has had 20 years of experience >> Mhm. Mhm.

>> Mhm. Mhm.

>> What should a young person look for um when they are selecting someone with potential but not actuality?

>> Yeah. Take the case of a young man who finds he he's falling in love with a young woman who's a Catholic.

>> And for her when she sees herself as a married woman, she sees herself married as a Catholic, >> right?

>> Which means she wants a Catholic spouse too, >> right? Uh

>> right? Uh The most important aspect of that deep desire is

at the natural level. The most important desire at a supernatural level is uh she wants someone who uh where you'll help

each other get to heaven and raise children who will get to heaven. Put

that way, it's a little corny, >> right? Uh but at at a deep

>> right? Uh but at at a deep >> passing the DM at a deeply human level

she wants to know you won't leave.

>> Right. I see. It's the marriage the commitment of the of the marriage.

Right. Yeah.

>> Yeah. She wants to know that when you say the vows you have the moral agency to mean them for better for worse till

death. Now I I don't say that the only

death. Now I I don't say that the only men or women who can mean those vows >> are Catholic

>> are Catholic. But I I do say that if you find yourself becoming the man who wants to mean those vows, you will find a lot

of aspects of being a Catholic attractive as the fulfillment of that identity. So I if if I were going to

identity. So I if if I were going to have a kind of a mentor relationship to you to talk about that, these would be

things we would talk about. And uh now we get into very complicated questions here about well how much do I have to believe it?

>> Yeah. Exactly. Because as a philosopher, as a philosopher, surely I don't want to >> believe in the resurrection because I want to get married to a girl instrumentally right?

>> Yeah. I I'd push back on surely. I mean

I think that one reason start certain religious things start to make sense for you

>> is that you can see now so to speak the system to use John Henry Newman's word the system that they fit into and part

of that that's a lived system that's not just an intellectual system and right that woman is what is creating in that

system. So to start to believe certain

system. So to start to believe certain things because they make sense out of the kind of love you have for a particular woman, that's not

anti-filosophical, though it's anti- oneway philosophy to see itself.

>> In other ways, you're reminding me to not be too masculine in my philosophy, right? To be open to how life's demands,

right? To be open to how life's demands, to be sensitive to life's demands.

Interesting. And of course that is one way of being masculine, >> right? That that that's a side that the

>> right? That that that's a side that the incels lose.

>> Yeah. But again, let me let me push back again on this like >> but making you happier.

>> Yeah. Like

surely for these religions the the metaphysical question is primary, right?

Which is did Jesus rise from the cross?

Like do we reincarnate? Did Buddha find the the path to Nirvana? Like

>> surely that must be the the primary and I'm not saying we can directly answer those primary metaphysical questions >> but but surely that is what is significant right?

>> Yeah. Um the the way you've just described things and I think this is quite common in philosophy.

You've made metaphysics a foundation.

I don't see metaphysics as foundational.

I see metaphysics as a capstone.

So I think your metaphysics is held in place by the pressures of all the other parts of your belief. I don't think it's

a foundation stone on which you build up all of the other beliefs.

>> Right? So uh I think of metaphysics as the top of the ascent rather than as the base of the ascent.

uh >> obviously there's a lot more one could say about all of that >> but as a teacher I I try to deflect

uh students uh sometimes students who are certain kind of toist for example uh other students are certain kinds of arisatilians and they feel like no I've

got Aristotle now I'm safe right I I don't think that's really the way metaphysics works I don't even think that's the way Aris style and Thomas really work.

So the what you're describing is they have to get the metaphysics right.

I think that's true, but I don't think it's true as a foundation.

I think that we're always going to have uh doubts, incompleteness

in our religious beliefs.

uh the uh you know uh Pope Benedict back when he was still Joseph Rosinger uh he said something really important

that the the heart of a Christian is not a set of beliefs it's

a person that person is Christ and he was trying to get people to reorient orient their own sense of intellectual aspiration. I mean, he's talking

aspiration. I mean, he's talking primarily to fellow theologians when he says that if you reorganize your sense of

aspiration from something like a system of beliefs to something like a completed ascent of

love, it it's going to look different. It's

going to look different.

>> Interesting. So, so faith is less like uh a rational system rather than like the process of falling in erotic love.

>> Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And they look there's a lot of thoughtfulness about falling in love.

>> Right.

>> Right. That is not a a thoughtless thing. That that's one of the difference

thing. That that's one of the difference from just quick rush of infatuation and the actual adult falling in love and the thoughtfulness that goes into that and

it place a conversation in that too.

>> But it's not grounded on on thought alone right?

>> It's not the thought has an a power of ascent. I mean

in this way I am very much a platonist >> that thought is motivating and it's motivated >> and I think that we can't eliminate that

by having a kind of neutral stance where we're just trying to get the facts lined up right or the arguments lined up right.

>> Right.

>> That that's that's why in my book John Henry Newman comes up so early along with Ralph Waldo Emerson.

>> Yeah. because they both took on the burden of saying, "No, my thought is personal."

personal." >> Yeah. I think this is a good place to

>> Yeah. I think this is a good place to bring up something that's been troubling me on my kind of seeking path. And then

we're going to weave our way back into love, but I'll talk about this religious problem. And it has to do not with

problem. And it has to do not with modern skepticism, which is what I what I take Newman to to to be addressing and successfully addressed, right? Which is

we can't fully rationally know what is the role of faith. I I'm convinced there already. Like I'm ready to take a leap.

already. Like I'm ready to take a leap.

But my question is leap wither and the kind of skepticism that I'm wrestling with in my seeking path uh is ancient skepticism. The skepticism of sexist

skepticism. The skepticism of sexist empiricists namely equivalence.

>> Yeah.

>> That it's not that I don't find what you say compelling and convincing.

>> It's that there are other compelling and convincing systems that are directly against the claim that you just made and I have no way of differentiating. And so

my response to you about treating religion as less like a scientific exercise but as a exercise in love and where your heart follows and um grounded

on reason nonetheless is simply to say >> and and the other faith say the same >> and there are the great theologians of let's say Islam the the the agazalis of the world who

>> are incredibly thoughtful and and he opened his heart and it led to Allah >> and I would push you that maybe the erotic domain do is different from the

religious domain in the sense that I don't need to get the erotic domain right in the sense of finding the exact

right person in the one billion people >> in order for me to have success in that domain. Whereas in religion, because of

domain. Whereas in religion, because of the difference of metaphysical claims and potentially the different things you need to do to secure your eternal salvation, the stakes are are much

higher, right? Or or like what you need

higher, right? Or or like what you need for success is much higher. And that's

why I'm totally comfortable with falling in love with this one girl even though I could totally fall in love with with another girl, whereas I'm not comfortable making the leap of faith, if that makes sense.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes. the you know I think you're right to look at ancient skepticism here uh their strategy of equipoise

right that you try to find uh beliefs that are counterweights to each other so that you don't feel rationally committed to either one of them

>> right >> uh it's important that that's a very motivated uh uh philosophical doctrine or way of

life and it's motivated by the desire to avoid uh spiritual turbulence the Greek word

ataroxia.

Uh so part of what makes an ancient skepticism actually humanly much deeper I think than more enlightenment skepticism is

that it understood that it had a motive.

And its primary motive is to have a life of a kind of spiritual peace.

>> Right?

>> Notice it's not primarily truth seeeking.

And it's utterly deeroticized because of that.

So ancient skepticism, it understands thoughtfulness as needing peace.

>> You you can't be all stirred up, >> right? No divine madness.

>> right? No divine madness.

>> Yes. And to do that it it quite uh intelligently and systematically looks at the way you know there are arguments on this side there arguments on that

side and the way to avoid yourself getting all stirred up by one argument is to have other arguments that kind of leave you in this nice >> neutral place >> right

>> uh that's a very powerful human ideal but I think it's a false ideal and it's not an ideal ideal I would embrace for myself and it's not an ideal I'd have you embrace either,

>> right? Because it's non-committal.

>> right? Because it's non-committal.

>> It is. It is. Now we've got an interesting place cuz now now it's not the arguments uh uh between Islam and Judaism and

Christianity but the uh to feel like you know I'm actually pretty happy being a scholar of religion rather than having a religion because I

can see all these things have good arguments on their side.

I I've got to ask how stable a place that is or why is it an attractive place?

>> Um so let me clarify here.

>> I would be uh incredibly happy if I could commit to a religion. Yes.

>> Okay. So, so even if that what you say is true for the ancient skeptics that it's this intellectual move to avoid to be non-committal that at least, you know, given my subconscious could be

could be different is is not consciously what I'm trying to do. I I'm trying to actually find the truth. And so, but but nonetheless, the intellectual problem

that they raise >> raises problems for me that prevents me from giving it my all and taking a leap.

And so let me maybe let me just ask you this, which is I I imagine as a as a scholar yourself, you haven't investigated the most sophisticated forms of other religions response to

Christianity, right? It's just almost

Christianity, right? It's just almost impossible if you think about all the religions.

>> Yeah.

>> So how can you be sure? Because like one of the reasons that Hegel set up his phenomenology in this chain of exhaustive sequences is to address

equivalence that you have to show that >> every part of the set is not right except for this one part.

>> Yeah.

>> And so think about what you would say perhaps to a Jew who's for for whatever reason never come across Christianity, right? You would say,

right? You would say, >> "You're so close.

>> Just just take a look look at this and see how we complete you."

>> Mhm. Well, that I mean, spoiler alert, is how some of the Buddhists interpret Christianity.

>> You guys are so close. And if only you understood the truth of emptiness and you see how Jesus worked as best as he could with the materials in in of the time.

>> Yes.

>> But you have to investigate this. And so

that is what is preventing me. So, so

how would you go about addressing that?

Yeah.

>> Yeah. Well, in order to address it, what stance do we have to have to each other on the one hand you can have a stance

and this is very common in the academic world of I've got arguments that I give to you as a kind of advisor in that sense.

Think of your relationship to what I say under those conditions to a quite different relationship that of a counselor

when if you come to me as a friend and what you want is counsel and what I give you is advice something didn't go quite right because

to give you counsel I have to find something that is internal to the movement of your own thoughtfulness, >> right?

>> I have to meet you where you're at, right?

>> It's a different kind of conversation, you know? So, I think a counselor has to

you know? So, I think a counselor has to help you find uh both

uh what desires or motives elevate you and therefore make you attracted to certain solutions.

and also have to help you identify where your reservations or your fears are that make you hesitant of going in certain directions.

I think the way that you're describing the hesitations uh

I would want to think about that the because it's a very uh academic kind of hesitation that the the evidence seems

to be no stronger >> for X than it is for Y or for Z.

>> Yeah. Maybe let me add add this one qualification which was I was raised Christian somewhat so I had a subjective experience >> and I also practiced in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Yeah.

Buddhist monastery. Yeah.

>> So it's not a merely and that's not what you were saying but it's not a merely rational evidence examination. It's an

experiential. It's a first person. It's

a first person. Like

>> I could see how I could totally commit to to Christianity.

>> And then I could see how >> this Buddhist worldview is coherent. And

then when I when I see those two things and then I read about the great lives of the great let's say Sufi mystics of the great Islamic theologians of the of

Islamic golden age and their genuine and earnest devotion to their tradition.

>> That is the the trouble that has that been stirred in me. Yes. And that those those uh the hero stories of the saints

uh the more they ascend, the more they start to look rather alike.

There's something really striking about that.

>> But but clearly it's different, right?

Either Jesus is deceitful, he's the Messiah, >> or he's only a prophet. Like it's at best it's one of >> Yeah. Can only get one of those guys

>> Yeah. Can only get one of those guys gone. Yeah. No, I I think that that's

gone. Yeah. No, I I think that that's right. the uh so uh I don't think you

right. the uh so uh I don't think you should expect uh something that looks like an argument

for superiority of one system, right?

All of these have been developed for >> oh by genius by complete geniuses. Yeah.

the uh so they all have a powerfully systematic character so that if there are a thousand things in Buddhism in

Judaism in uh Christianity and Islam uh if there are a thousand things they are all mutually supporting

>> right it's coherent yeah >> uh and that's a part of their glory but none of us activates all thousand at a time.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. That that's that's just too much to ask for.

>> So what what do you expect is going to break the equivalence of anything for me?

>> If it's not a kind of rational examination, what what's the Yeah, >> I I think being in love with something,

then that that doesn't have to be a person, >> right? And and now we're back to the

>> right? And and now we're back to the conversation about love.

>> I think so. Right. I see. Yeah. So I I think thought is essentially personal and of of course I think part of the way

that we enrich and indeed find the personal is through something like being a scholar. I mean that's I've been doing

a scholar. I mean that's I've been doing this a long time, right?

uh the but I still think there is something that's essentially personal about what thoughtfulness is, >> right?

>> And that would be I suppose that would be my offer to you. I because I think the way you describe the uh the problem

of I always like to call it equal poise because I >> I like that word for it >> and I think that sense of maintaining your poise really captures

>> part of what's so attractive about it.

>> Yeah. Uh

I've I've been much influenced by John Henry Newman about this particularly about his account of why a gentleman would it's a wonderful thing to be a

cultivated gentleman but it doesn't make you a Christian >> right what's next that makes you a Christian

and in a certain sense what makes you a Christian is that you Don't live by your taste about yes, this makes me more

cultivated. Nah, this is kind of vulgar.

cultivated. Nah, this is kind of vulgar.

That's a good thing. But you understand yourself to live under judgment. And

that's what Jesus gives you. Jesus is a judge.

Uh when uh St. Paul in Acts is reported to have uh gone to Athens and he gives a sermon on the Aropagus, the hill of of

Aries. Uh and it he famously starts out

Aries. Uh and it he famously starts out by saying, you know, I've been looking around at all your shrines. You guys

must be the most religious people there are. That word religious also means

are. That word religious also means superstitious there. Uh and I noticed

superstitious there. Uh and I noticed you add a shrine to the unknown god.

Well, I'm here to tell you about that unknown god. And he goes through it's

unknown god. And he goes through it's really a natural uh theology about the created order of the universe and how

that makes us think of a god. But when

he ends it, he says, "But the one thing you don't have is Jesus Christ as our judge."

judge." And now we get into a point that can be developed uh phenomenologically through our

experience of conscience. And that's

where Newman went. that the the thing about being a gentleman who's governed by taste,

>> including intellectual taste, that you never quite get is conscience as something that you experience as from

the outside. It it's not just that I

the outside. It it's not just that I have made myself a polished man.

It's that I confess myself as a fallen man.

>> Right?

>> And uh I think that's part of what the offer is that Christianity uh Christianity has in a very specific

form. Now I don't say that other uh

form. Now I don't say that other uh religions don't have similar things. I

think they do. But that's one of the paths in to feeling like this is going to in the end this is going to be religious. There

there's something that really sets up as religious about this.

>> Let me ask a final question here and then I mean we never left love, right?

But but but but I want to tie back more more directly. But here's my final

more directly. But here's my final question, which is uh you said it's not going to be something evidential or even phenomenological that's going to break this equipoise for me. It's going to be

an act of love where I can't help but but be devoted to to to one way or the other.

>> And my only question for you again because equipoise is not just on the level of argument. It can be on the level of sense perception. It could be or or even in love.

>> Yes. And so when you look at the great theologians of Islam, Judaism, let's say the you know Hinduism, Buddhism and you

see their love for their religion.

>> Wh why does that not cause a kind of despair of like it prompts the further question of well then is my love legitimate or or how do we >> know this love is legitimate? If if

everyone is reporting earnestly that I feel a great love for for my religion, >> how do you then navigate that?

>> Yes. The you know, it it's interesting to think of the case of love for a person.

>> Yeah.

>> Both in ways it's similar, in ways it's different here that when you break up with somebody and you feel distraught, >> uh they tell you there are a lot of fish in the sea,

>> right?

>> That's the strategy of equal.

Interesting, right? But

>> the reason they say that to you is not really that they think there are a lot of indifferent fish in the sea. They

think you'll find your fish if you go out and fish some more, right? So, it

sounds like they're recommending equipoise. Ah, you know, there a lot of

equipoise. Ah, you know, there a lot of fish in the sea. that the

uh then that's in there as comfort, but as actual provocation, it's to tell you to get out there and fish, >> right? It becomes uh from type to one,

>> right? It becomes uh from type to one, right? Like like the the type view of

right? Like like the the type view of relationships is, well, I like blondes who are above 5'8, right? But when

you're actually dating a blonde over 5'8, you don't think that. You think, I like this.

>> Yes. Right. uh and you don't think that because there's a list of attributes it's that person

it's not some set of attributes. So in

the uh the case of choosing a religion if we have to use that language >> uh of of letting a religion uh come to

have an authoritative draw on you. Uh I

think that uh there are a lot of fish in that sea as well and they're really good fish.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh and now the the question is will you feel like you've just netted one at random

if you pop for one rather than another?

And I think that the question is as superficially convincing about choosing a lover as it

is about choosing a religion. But I

think in the case of choosing a lover, we see that it's superficial. There's

something superficial. Obviously, it's

obviously >> that you know, people write constantly about how one of the main problems about people falling in love now is that with dating apps, there are too many fish in

your sea, so you won't commit. Uh I'm

actually pretty skeptical that that's a fundamental thing. Uh the uh the issue

fundamental thing. Uh the uh the issue about uh religions that's more interesting to me about whether we're

disarmed or call it unmanned in our truth our power of choice exactly because of the the avalanche of

cultural knowledge that we have >> and and this is a Nietian point.

>> Right. Right. that

>> the surplus of culture is suffocating us right?

>> Yes. It it makes it impossible.

Uh it's it's the abuse of history, right? It it falls upon us and disables

right? It it falls upon us and disables choice for us.

>> I I take that seriously uh as something that happens to scholars.

This is why most people who are in religious studies departments are some sort of atheist or agnostic.

>> Right. Interesting. Religious.

>> It is the equal poise. It is the equal.

It is. Wow. Wow.

>> Religious studies was invented for people who are besided by religion but who aren't in a particular religion.

>> Right?

>> They don't have a commitment to a particular religion.

>> Right? and they so they love it all.

>> Yeah.

>> Is that the way to make a great intellectual department or would it be better to do what Notre Dame did, have a Catholic theology department? That's

what we're doing. We also have scholars.

We have Jewish scholars who are do deeply committed to being Jews.

>> Right. Well, I feel like you've deepened the problematic for me. Um, but I still don't think it's satisfying in the in the following sense, which >> as you suggested, there are structural

differences between choosing a lover and choosing a religion. I mean, the structural similarity is that >> before you choose, it's it's a type, >> whereas after you commit from the inside, right, everything kind of makes sense and is coherent.

>> Yes.

>> But the difference, >> you'll even laugh a little bit at the type stuff.

>> Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. In the same way you do in in romant romantic relationships. Yes.

relationships. Yes.

>> And but the obvious difference is if these religions are to be taken on face value, >> the success function is very very different

>> between the two. Right? If I choose, you know, the 10th best woman for me in the world versus the first >> You're doing great.

>> Yeah. I I'm doing great.

>> If I choose the second best, the second most accurate religion, well, oftentimes I'm probably going to go to hell.

There's so many, you know, assumptions there, but but but I think >> that's 998 of the thousand, right? That

there's Yes.

>> And so that that that's why like I I don't sit around, frankly, with with the women problem and being like the eco boys doesn't bother me that much.

>> Yeah.

>> And so, yeah, that that's what making this your suggestion of love of of transplanting the erotic sphere onto the religious sphere not fully satisfying for me. Yeah.

for me. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I so I suppose it's not going to help you to read Pascal either.

>> I'll try I'll try.

>> The his famous wager.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Look,

>> I am not content with the language that is kind of in the background of some of what you said about making the leap.

Right.

>> Right. That's a very curian leap of faith kind of thing. Uh that's really not how Newman thought of it

>> because he didn't have that fidest moment in him that you well at some point you just decide to have faith whatever decide to

have faith sounds a little funny >> right >> ultimately I think Newman's council is you you have to give up your aspiration

to overcome overcome all your doubts.

In the end, we're called to live a life and

we can't live a life that's disabled by our doubts. Our doubts are just a part

our doubts. Our doubts are just a part of living, >> right? You know, Socrates is famous for

>> right? You know, Socrates is famous for philosophy as a way of life kind of Pierre Edo kind of things. uh but

uh where's the place in Plato's dialogues where we see Socrates really overcoming all our doubts >> right

>> there there aren't any he he provokes us to live better but he doesn't show us how to live without doubt >> right in other words this is not to say

don't investigate the different religions don't don't compare the first experience But don't maintain the illusion that you're going to break the equipoise in a way that sexists would be would be happy

with.

>> That's what I would say. No, in in the end, I think Newman's picture is very chasening.

>> Yeah.

>> To a certain kind of philosophical aspiration. And that aspiration,

aspiration. And that aspiration, >> I mean, it's we we wouldn't have become pros at this unless we identified with

that aspiration. And so it's it's a good

that aspiration. And so it's it's a good thing, but it's not the only thing, >> right? And and perhaps we're back to the

>> right? And and perhaps we're back to the uh relinquishing the masculinity of philosophy thing. I think so. Yeah.

philosophy thing. I think so. Yeah.

>> Um okay, let's take the conversation back to your proposal of marriage because I want to give you another kind of critique, right?

>> Okay.

>> Which is >> I wonder if not for the average, let's say, for the average person, let's say this is totally fine, but for the great

man, one who has great aspirations, whether wife and children uh may not be a good idea and I I can think of two philosophers who've argued as such or can be interpreted as such.

>> Um why not have have a wife or romantic partner? Rouso argues the desire for

partner? Rouso argues the desire for recognition comes in many species. One

of which is to be the best.

>> And Rouso thought marriage was a great way to satisfy this desire for recognition because we can't all be the best at uh for everyone, right? We can

all be uh the best basketball player, but with marriage, we can be the best for someone.

>> However, if you take the negative of that argument, it's that >> if you don't have a romantic partner who gives you that kind of recognition, you yourself are more motivated to win it in different domains. And I see this

different domains. And I see this amongst the great entrepreneurs that I you know I built tech companies for a while that uh once they are in a satisfied romantic relationship some of

their motivations kind of transform and some of their more agonistic uh motivations also are reduced and the argument against having children would

be niche uh in his uh I think it's the third essay aesthetic ideal about uh essentially why great philosophers don't get married and it's because uh great philosophers g win their immortality

through their books.

>> And so by having children, >> he got that from the symposium, >> of course. Yes. And so my challenge to you is, you know, I think there's a reason that the Buddha had to abandon his family, that Jesus had to have a

family to begin with, that >> uh, you know, the great entrepreneurs like Elon and Steve Jobs have terrible private lives and a lot of the great philosophers, most of them aren't married.

>> Is there something to be said there?

>> Yeah, I think there is something to be said there. the uh life is full of

said there. the uh life is full of choices and uh nobody stated this with

greater punchiness than Jesus himself.

But so after Jesus says uh look Moses gave you a law allowing divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. But I

say no marriage is not something you can dissolve.

>> Right? and uh his disciples like his boys, right? They're like talking to

boys, right? They're like talking to each other saying, "Did you hear what he said? Like, you can't get rid of her no

said? Like, you can't get rid of her no matter what." That I mean, and given

matter what." That I mean, and given that, it's better not to get married at all. And and Jesus hears him say that.

all. And and Jesus hears him say that.

He says, "You know what? That's right.

It's right that it for some people it's better not to get married at all." And

there are some people who make themselves a unic for the kingdom of heaven.

>> An even more rigorous idea.

>> Even more. And I think there's a secular form of that too.

>> I think it is true that for certain kinds of lives, you will not be able to be a good father or a good mother.

And you may not even be able to be a good spouse. Although that's a that's a

good spouse. Although that's a that's a bit more controllable.

>> Why? Why?

>> Children are much less controllable about your time commitment, about your focus. One of the great things about the

focus. One of the great things about the academic life is it takes a lot of time but

your time is pretty flexible compared to a great entrepreneurial life for example.

>> You're a general basically.

>> Yes. Right.

Uh so uh that means that the academic life is actually more open to married life than as the

man of action versus the man of >> Yes, I think so. Let alone the woman of those things.

>> Right.

>> So uh I I think that the challenge to marriage that you state is a true challenge.

uh I think there are lives that make marriage uh very difficult. Now I I don't

uh I don't want to make that an abstract general theory about greatness because I would want to scrutinize okay what what's this form of greatness you're

talking about what's it actually take right because there's a lot of excuse making for having been a bad husband or father right >> well yeah I was at the office all the

time did did you do anything at the office all the Right.

>> It's an open question sometimes.

>> So, I don't want to give the game away, but I I want to concede the point because I think Jesus Christ himself conceded the point. Now, he was talking about

>> uh priestly devotion.

>> Yes. About giving up marriage for the kingdom of heaven. But the the next thing that happens right after that is

Jesus is resting and some of the disciples are hanging around and people are bringing their little kids to Jesus to bless and they're like shoeing away the little kids saying, "Hey, the master

is resting. He doesn't have time for

is resting. He doesn't have time for these children." And Jesus says, "Bring

these children." And Jesus says, "Bring the children. If you don't become like

the children. If you don't become like children, you'll never get to heaven."

So the the writing in that passage is really interesting that there's there's both the call to accept you might be

called to a sacrifice of family life altogether for the kingdom of God. But

but don't think that these children are distractions from the kingdom of God.

They're also embodiment of it. So

does it does it make sense to say that for certain kinds of great solidness of magnanimity >> right >> of having a singular life a singular focus right

>> uh that that will be inconsistent with married life it does make sense >> and uh you can't have everything in a human life and so you'll be sacrificing

a great good will you be accomplishing a greater good >> that's the question that's the question and at with supernatural resources you

can make sense out of it as a greater good.

>> Can you make sense out of it just with natural resources?

>> Secular resources.

>> I think you can.

>> I think you can.

>> Yeah. Like a great artist or >> Yes. And I would not criticize a man or

>> Yes. And I would not criticize a man or a woman as having been somehow selfish or foregoing

having a family in order to have a company.

>> Yeah, I see.

>> I I wouldn't say that at at the human level that they're stunted or something like that. I do think that they probably

like that. I do think that they probably won't have certain resources of moral growth that family life gives one.

>> Yeah.

>> Living before witnesses all the time, which is what happens when you get married and then when you have children.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh that will make you a better man, >> right?

In fact, you said that the single greatest maturation force for a man tends to be living up to your woman's kind of ideal or expectations of you.

So, but but yeah, why is that? Why is

that?

>> The uh here I'm drawn on Plato's Fedrris. So, the other great erotic

Fedrris. So, the other great erotic dialogue and we we've both profited a lot from Renie Gerard too, but so this

has a little bit of Gerard in it as well. The notion that uh

well. The notion that uh uh someone who's loved gets reflected back to him or her the view that the person who loves you

has of you and Plato has a beautiful image of it that you see yourself reflected in the lover's eyes as a mirror

>> and but it's an idealizing mirror.

And one of the things that happens is you think, I'm not I don't think I'm really quite as good as she thinks I am.

And so you try to live up to it. And it

makes you a better man.

Uh, and when you're with your children, uh, a man who has daughters is going to realize that everything he

says to his wife is teaching his daughters how a man who loves them should talk to them. And if you belittle your wife, you're teaching your

daughters to accept being belittled.

And the first time you hear that creeping into your tone of voice and you're living before witnesses, that will help you become a better man.

And if you have uh sons, you're teaching them how to talk to women all the time, every time, every day, you'll be a better person.

So or at least the energies are there, the social energies are there that are supportive of moral control there. Yeah.

Right. Right.

>> Yes. And so uh I think that for the vast majority of adult men and women,

it's that intimate context of marriage, especially with child rearing that will make them better morally themselves. in

part because they need to be exemplars, >> right? I see.

>> right? I see.

>> They're they're not just teachers by precept right?

>> They're teachers by example.

>> Um um let's talk about uh the proper role of what many people conceive to be the lower things in love. That's

physical beauty, physical attraction, and sex itself.

>> What do you think is the right role of that in one's love life?

I I think enjoyable sexual relations uh between spouses I think are a a mutual celebration of

love and a mutual recognition to to be visible to your lover as an attractive sexual partner.

>> Right.

>> That's a very fulfilling part, >> right? Only trans girls were lacking,

>> right? Only trans girls were lacking, right?

>> Yes. Yeah. So that that's a those are all very good things. Uh because sex is never just sex. It's never just bodily.

It's it's animate. That is it's body and soul.

>> Yeah. Well, let me give you a quote uh from your book.

>> Uh this is you commenting on a literary character.

>> He now feels he has never made love with anyone. All he has done is people

anyone. All he has done is people and he is angry with himself for living this way.

>> What is the difference between these two modes of having sex?

>> Yeah. Here I'm I'm pushing hard on the notion that marriage is really the only fully honest context for

for conjugal relations.

It's the only one that's fully honest because it's the only one where the physical acts, the pleasure-giving acts

say I love you with the fullness of the vows.

I think that uh sexual intercourse to to use that terrible term uh the aphrodesiac action

I think it's meaningful in the same way that our words are meaningful and with the same depth not just of every word when we say I love

you those mean something too but of what it means when you stand before the altar and say the words of the vow that are

the public affirmation of a lifelong love. And in the Catholic tradition, the

love. And in the Catholic tradition, the marriage sacrament is not complete just with the public vows. It's only

completed with the act of sexual consummation, which is the private part of the vow.

>> Right.

>> Right. So, uh, the, uh, >> well, well, do you think, let let me ask you this. Um, do you think that you

you this. Um, do you think that you could defend that in a purely natural secular context as well, like like that that uh lifelong monogamous marriage is

only the is the only valid kind of expression of of love? Yeah. I think

that what uh a couple wants from each other when they pursue marriage

and particularly when they complete the physical expression of that in a way that's open to children.

I think it does point toward permanency >> even on naturalistic level >> even at even at a natural level uh

because of what children are now some people I suppose would push back on that and say well no >> after they're 20 >> what if what if when the children are

gone what what way would you see your wife your husband thinking that

when we're roughly 50ish, now we get to decide again.

And I don't think I've made that persuasive in this instant, but I think lingering over the story we have to tell about

what our relationship has been if we think it's it's >> you have to renegotiate later on. Right.

I see.

>> I I think a lot of people would feel the pressure of that.

>> Right. I see. So um despite you saying that uh sex and and physical attraction and beauty can be this very elevating thing in the right context, I do find it

very curious that both in Plato uh as well as in the Catholic tradition, nonprocreative sex is still not allowed even in legitimate marriages. Right? In

Plato uh the highest kind of lovers only has sex for children like like Socrates.

Yes, the middling lovers are the ones who occasionally indulge just for just for sex and pleasure. And of course, in the 20th century, famously, the Catholic Church banned contraception, right?

>> So, if sex can be this beautiful thing, >> uh that increases intimacy >> as a lifelong commitment of I I love you and I'm here for you, >> why does it need also to be procreative

in order for it to be legitimate?

>> Yeah.

uh to close a particular act of marital union, of sexual union to

procreation is a withholding of something that was pledged to each other. Even if if both

parties are accepting of that withholding, >> right? And even if there's children

>> right? And even if there's children already and Yeah. Yes. So that is it intrinsic to the very meaning of the

sexual marital act that it accept the possibility of children. Now the Catholic Church has

children. Now the Catholic Church has never uh insisted any maximizing

tendency about sexual intercourse. Uh

but the idea was and and still is that the specific love but that's marital

uh sees children as the completion of that love.

>> Right?

>> And so that doesn't mean you have to try to have as many children as you can. But

it does mean when you uh repeat the sexual act,

it's a constant receelebration of the very words of the vows >> of that open giving to each other.

>> Right? So

to so to speak protect the meaning of every act of marital intercourse, >> right, >> requires every act of marital

intercourse to bear the full weight of what that commitment is and to celebrate it.

>> Yeah. But but then the issue is I believe the resolution so to speak is like natural family planning and to and the advice is well if you don't want children you still want intimacy and sex

just have sex in the infertile periods of the menstrual window. But but there I I I don't see how that's functionally any different from contraception. Right.

Of course, it would be possible for a couple to avoid sexual intercourse during a woman's fertile periods

uh in a way that was uh reserving themselves from each other,

>> right, as withholding. Yes, that that's a theoretical possibility, but it's not much of a practical threat. Uh

most couples who uh for some period of time avoid intercourse during a woman's most fertile periods.

uh they don't see that as an indefinite or a permanent avoidance.

They still want to have children together, >> right?

>> So that their acts of marital intercourse outside the fertile period still express that sense of relationship

to each other, >> right? Uh so to avoid an act of

>> right? Uh so to avoid an act of intercourse during a fertile time seems to me quite a different thing from

taking some technological intervention or it doesn't have to be terribly technological. Condoms aren't very fancy

technological. Condoms aren't very fancy machines after all. uh to uh to actually change the

act of love making itself.

>> Right?

>> Those seem to me to be two different things.

>> I see.

>> Now, I I can see why somebody might say, you know, even if I accept that they're two rather different things. One is just not

celebrating your marital vows sexually during that time. and the other is celebrating it but saying well not really this time

right okay I so I think those I came to be convinced that the church's teaching was right to say no it's each and every act it's not just the marriage as a

whole this was a big debate back in the 60s actually >> I see and this is not one of the infallible ones uh ex cathedral so this is not one of the the dogmatic claims

No, but then there are very few claims that have been made with that particular formal statement.

>> But uh it's it's a very very old teaching. It it didn't I mean it goes

teaching. It it didn't I mean it goes way back. It's like more or less

way back. It's like more or less co-equal with the Christian communities.

It's true that it became a much more fraught issue uh really in 1930 when the Anglicans uh at the Lambeath Conference which is

was their annual big conference uh when they came out with this very very limited statement about using contraception within marriage and the

Catholics immediately responded by saying no that's not right and that was very strongly embraced by Catholics, there's a sense of Catholic identity, >> right?

>> It was only uh around late 50s when everybody knew the pill was coming, >> right, >> that things got a little trickier, >> right? Right.

>> right? Right.

>> So, uh I mean I I understand uh why this can be difficult for couples. It is. It's sacrificial.

couples. It is. It's sacrificial.

>> Right. Right.

>> It's sacrificial.

>> Right. But yeah, geez, the church never said nothing was sacrificial.

>> Yeah. Right.

>> Certainly not about sex, >> right?

The Platonic concern against sex seems uh a lot more deep >> than a Catholic in the sense that >> I'm I'm pretty sure Plato wouldn't even

be okay with natural family planning because it's not >> just the tilos of of uh of sex that is important for Plato, but it's also the

act of sexual pleasure itself that can inflame the appetite and take away from contemplation.

Right. So, so the tension between the good life and uh and and one's sex life is a lot greater in Plato than it is in the

>> Yes. It certainly uh tends to be and uh

>> Yes. It certainly uh tends to be and uh you know most of these passages Plato is thinking not so much about marriage

between a man and a woman. He's really

thinking about pedarasti >> right? uh so that it's always tricky to

>> right? uh so that it's always tricky to know how much to generalize something that seems so socially specific in a particular thinker.

>> Right. I see.

>> Uh and I think that uh many of Plato's attitudes to sexual pleasure as uh something that can become

anim animalistic.

uh it it can uh nail us to the body to use language from the fetto. Sometimes

that language strikes me as more therapeutic than it is analytic >> i.e. it's try to shock you in the right

>> i.e. it's try to shock you in the right direction even if it goes a bit too far like that. Right.

like that. Right.

>> Yes. I can't think of a passage where Plato talks about what in Catholic lingo would be the unitive effect of sexual pleasure between two

lovers >> in the laws. I think he he does he mentions that he mentions that as a consequence in the laws I believe >> because he's really thinking about marriage there but it's not a very

extended reflection.

>> It's one yeah one two lines. Yeah.

>> Yeah. So uh and married couples surely have known about it for a very long time. Right.

time. Right.

>> Right.

>> That uh so uh Plato is not in that direct way much of a resource I'd say for thinking about this.

>> Right. And I think many texts and even in the Christian tradition uh they still have a lot of this scaring you away >> right

>> from sex aspect >> right that that's therapy rather than philosophy >> and I don't want to make that distinction between therapy and

philosophy too strong because philosophy has therapeutic >> desires as well >> right >> uh but I think sometimes we we have to

do some of our own work on this. You

know, the the tasks of philosophy are not over.

>> Yeah. And so, let me ask you this. Uh in

Plato, >> yeah.

>> Um love is so powerful that uh even though it's not necessary, but it's sufficient if you know how to follow it to take you all the way, >> right? Uh erotic love. Do you think

>> right? Uh erotic love. Do you think erotic love has the same centrality in the Christian tradition? Um, it clearly can improve you in these ways that we

described, but does it have that that kind of strong power? Yeah. Because

there's there's other forms of love like God's love for for us like agape, right, that may have that, but erotic love itself.

>> I think it it doesn't have erotic love as such doesn't have the centrality that it has for Plato. I think lots of people

in the Christian tradition tried to use those Platonic dialogues often filtered through later thinkers like Platinus

uh to to uh they wanted the energies that Plato's eroticism gives to you but that doesn't dominate the tradition I

would say uh partly because you've got other models uh for example the model of the good Samaritan with his open charity.

uh there's nothing eroticized in that model or uh the another great model uh from the New Testament would be the story of the prodigal son and the way

the prodigal son he has this whole speech about father I've been terrible you don't have to treat me like your son anymore I'll just I'll just work for you

before he can get a word out his father runs and embraces him right that that's a model of of those models are not

eroticized at all. And so uh that but Plato's so powerful within Greek culture

that when Christianity emerges, it emerges in a thoroughly helenized culture. And so you you can't get away

culture. And so you you can't get away from Pltonism.

And as soon as Christianity starts to develop itself intellectually, it develops itself as a platonism.

So that strand has always run through Christianity, but it's had lots of other resources as well. So it's not as central.

>> I see. Um you mentioned the uh you you mentioned that uh lifelong monogamy can be defended you think even within a naturalistic context

>> but to say that you know the ideal outcome of of marriage is is is beautiful children and lifelong commitment. It would be weird

lifelong commitment. It would be weird to renegotiate at 50.

>> That doesn't seem to rule out that if it gets bad enough, >> right, that divorce is still an option.

So I'd like to ask you about that. But

also I'm just curious because in the Old Testament monogamy is not the the only no uh the only sort of >> no the patriarchs who have many wives.

>> Yeah.

>> Exactly. And so so what about Jesus's coming you can see why like the biatitudes and how he uh re reconceives of the laws and to his own virtues.

>> But why was this aspect of marriage reconceived by Jesus as well? Those

would be my questions.

>> Yeah. you know, in so far as there's a scriptural answer, and of course, a scriptural answer is always too narrow, right? That it's never just that. These

right? That it's never just that. These

things aren't just little proof texts, but it it is so direct and explicit in the New Testament

that uh when Jesus was asked explicitly about divorce, he explicitly said

no to it. and gave the explanation of why and this is very unusual in the New Testament that he actually contradicted a law of Moses.

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> Very unusual.

He said Moses gave you that for your hardness of heart. But I tell you no, and

that deserves a lot of reflection about how divorce is a part of hardness of heart of a of a kind of again a mutual

withholding that we both kind of implicitly have in the contract.

You can get out.

And uh what a challenge it is in the New Testament and there it's been a challenge through below these 2,000 years, >> right?

>> The Anglican church was formed because of it. Yes.

of it. Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> That uh and it it's always been couched around with well yeah but are there certain conditions on whether the vows

really did you really mean them? Right?

Things like that. For me, uh, I've decided that it is so authoritative and so specific, >> right? Definitive and clear, right?

>> right? Definitive and clear, right?

>> It's made me look at my hardness of heart. That's what it's that's where

heart. That's what it's that's where I've taken that. I see.

>> That's what I feel I had to do. And I'm

not willing I I wasn't willing to make myself a unic for the kingdom of heaven, >> right?

>> So, I had to to scrutinize my hardness of heart. And believe me, I haven't

of heart. And believe me, I haven't overcome it. Uh but I try to be always

overcome it. Uh but I try to be always aware of it.

>> What about the change from the Old Testament multiple wives? So why do you think that that that occurs? Well, uh,

look, there are there are a number of different ways in which polygamy is closer to the Catholic ideal

than, uh, contracepted monogamy is, right? Polygamy is

right? Polygamy is as a cultural formation is based on the high value of

procreativity.

Now it it also depends on a uh subordination of women and of their moral agency within the marital relationship.

And that's where the hardness of heart was.

>> I see. So, so these two suggestions, no no divorce and monogamy, you read them as similar as pointing to the hardness of heart of the Old Testament.

>> Yes.

>> Right.

>> Yes. And this gets more theological and scriptural than directly philosophical.

But that now the the whole question of the way in which Christ completes the old law rather than destroying it or

replacing it. Uh

replacing it. Uh this is really worth thinking about on some of these questions.

>> I see. Uh and

you know we're we're shown that the disciples were astonished by it. They

were very challenged by it and we're still challenged by it.

>> Right. I see. Um let me ask the last set of practical questions I think for for our audience.

>> Um which is you've made love uh or you you've done your best to try to rescue love in this in this conversation and through your work. Um,

what do you have to say practically to young people who it sounds like you've you've mentored quite a few about what to look for in love? And this is made especially difficult because of what you

said about love as a potentiality that that has not been actualized. So, we're

not choosing the final person that we're going to we're going to go with. We're

choosing we're evaluating people's potential. What do you think are the

potential. What do you think are the most important things to look for?

I think to marry well, you have to come to have confidence that this person thinks marriage is for life.

>> That's the primary thing.

>> That's the primary thing because so much follows from that. Jonathan,

so much follows from that. If if you think that your spouse is someone

with whom uh your entire sexual being, body and soul would be dependent.

Then you will treat that person in a way that makes them always want to make love with you.

That is not instrumental. That is

powerfully formative.

You know, the traditional vows to love, honor, and obey. Uh we kind of don't like the obey one. Instead of getting it away from the women, I think we should

have put it in for the men, too, because we're mutually obedient. But love, uh, while it's complicated, is kind of the

is easy. Honor is the one that I think

is easy. Honor is the one that I think really focuses the mind.

What does it mean to live with another person in the intimacy of everyday life and always to honor them?

Because all the regular irritations of everyday life, all of the moments when you hear words

almost come out of your mouth that might be kind of half true, but that are not the thing to say to somebody you're honoring.

I mean, learning to bite your tongue is an absolute virtue for a spouse. And

gradually gradually gradually you'll never get done. Gradually, gradually

though, you'll start to bite the tongue of your mind, too. And you'll stop to think those things as well as not saying them.

>> I see.

>> But start with not saying them.

>> And and be willing to be there for 50 or so years.

>> Yeah. uh that

uh how how will do you know even about yourself that that's a true aspiration for you >> right

>> and that's the thing it it can't be a true aspiration it's just an individual thing >> it only becomes true as a couple when

you marry there's a new thing in the world that that couple's a new thing in the world and

you have to be devoted to that thing, >> right?

>> And uh so if I had one practical piece of advice, I it's to linger over the question of honoring each other.

>> Continue to honor each other through thick and thin, through agreement and disagreement.

always preserve each other's honor, >> right? And if you successfully do that,

>> right? And if you successfully do that, the best case scenario, I think I imagine you would say love itself is sustainable, but the the the character of it changes surely, right? From the

the initial infatuation to a deeper >> the deeper >> Sure.

>> Yeah. Yeah. the but that that continues to empower that special energy that

uh you get from somebody finding you sexually attractive. That is a special

sexually attractive. That is a special energy and uh there's no reason that married couples should let that fall into a bandance,

>> right?

>> Yeah. But surely at a certain age you you just don't expect that to be there, right? Or

right? Or >> I I don't know that it Yeah. You know,

people will have all sorts of physical developments over time that might make them uh seek sex less or have sex less

often. But there's also an old tradition

often. But there's also an old tradition about the notion of conjugal duty.

uh that we make fun of that now, but there's a deep fact about that that one

of your duties as a spouse is to continue in so far as you're able to be a sexual partner of your spouse, >> right?

>> That's a real thing. That's a part of what being married is. So, uh the uh

it's true. Well, I I suppose for every

it's true. Well, I I suppose for every couple, if they both live long enough, they may reach an age when their bodies simply don't allow them to be sexual

partners.

Uh but even then the uh the memory of the particular form of honor

>> that someone has done to you >> by being your sexual partner >> that's still a deep part of your love.

>> And so you've mentored uh a lot of quite intellectually uh gifted and inclined people throughout this process I imagine. Do you think finding someone

imagine. Do you think finding someone who can resonate with you on that level is is important?

>> How important is that? You know, it's it's not important as such. I mean, your your spouse

your spouse might read your books, but you know, don't ask.

There's one thing about people with whom you have your best intellectual conversations, >> right?

>> It's a different thing about having a habitual thoughtfulness of conversation.

I think that's important for spouses, >> like a deep uh ability to talk about values.

>> Yes.

>> Right. And the truth is that people who frankly they wouldn't be interesting to me to talk to as intellectuals might still be deeply thoughtful people and

are interesting to talk to about thoughtful things in human life.

>> Right? the uh I think most people uh who are more like us uh this the spouse material they're likely to meet is also

highly intellectual and enjoys intellectuality as such but I don't think that that's actually a very deep

part in most marriages even of two people who themselves are very talented intellectuals >> I think I thoughtfulness. That's that's

another thing.

Uh but that kind of thoughtfulness is closer to practical thoughtfulness than theoretical thoughtfulness.

>> It's almost more like the honor. The

honor in there deep in sensitivity.

>> Yeah.

>> All right. Thank you, professor, for a fascinating interview.

>> Hey, it was a pleasure talking with you, Jonathan. Thank you.

Jonathan. Thank you.

>> Thanks for watching my interview. If you

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