WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:41.840 Mahler. And 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:44.320 I'm still Woe. 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:47.920 On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing the subject of 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:51.760 leadership. Before we get into the meat of today's episode, just a 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:53.360 brief bit of housekeeping. 00:00:53.360 --> 00:00:55.840 First and the challenge coins we will let you know as soon 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:56.880 as there's anything. 00:00:56.880 --> 00:01:01.040 Those are currently being manufactured, probably be at least couple of weeks. 00:01:01.040 --> 00:01:03.840 And then once Corey gets 'em, he's got the massive task of 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:06.400 getting all those pre-orders packaged and shipped. 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:07.600 We'll keep you posted. 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:10.640 Second piece of information for folks, we know we have a ton 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:12.720 of listeners on Spotify. 00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:15.600 If you're a Spotify listener, you should know one, unless you've been 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:19.280 listening from the beginning, you've already missed at least one episode that 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:20.720 Spotify censored. 00:01:20.720 --> 00:01:24.160 The episode called The Big Lie was part four in the series 00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:26.320 we did about the Jews. 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:28.640 That was deleted after about a month. 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:32.880 And last week we had a number of reports from people saying 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:35.600 that the new episode didn't show up for them and it showed 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:38.240 up, but like they couldn't there was something screwy about it. 00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:41.040 And I don't know whether that was some form of shadow banning 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:44.640 or whether it was the beginning of them turning the screws are 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:45.920 just you know a bug. 00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:47.680 It's software, it's buggy. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:51.600 But for everyone who's listening, want to reiterate something we've said before. 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:56.480 There is an RSS feed that is on the website on stonehifeenquire.com. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:58.160 It's on virtually every page. 00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:01.680 You can copy that into a regular podcast player and you will 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:02.800 never miss an episode. 00:02:02.800 --> 00:02:05.120 So you don't need to go to the website to listen. 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:07.200 You can use the RSS feed that's on there. 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:11.040 It's rss.podfor.com and some decorations. 00:02:11.040 --> 00:02:14.160 That That will always have the latest episode. 00:02:14.160 --> 00:02:15.440 That's uncensorable. 00:02:15.440 --> 00:02:17.760 From the very beginning, we knew that people would be messing with 00:02:17.760 --> 00:02:21.360 us and we may eventually get deplatformed, and we will eventually we'll 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:22.640 get banned from all the services. 00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:26.480 So I'm only mentioning it now because we know that when that 00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:31.120 inevitably happens, we'll lose some people just through inertia and laziness. 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:33.680 I we'd prefer not to have to happen for your sake as 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:34.800 much as ours. 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:37.040 I noticed that the stats were down a little bit last week 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:39.680 and it was almost certainly because of that, because it didn't make 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.720 it was a weird blip in the stats that I think was 00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:46.560 probably tied to that temporary outage on Spotify. 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:49.840 So if you're a Spotify listener, you can keep listening on Spotify, 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:53.440 just set up a real podcast player and be ready to use 00:02:53.440 --> 00:02:54.640 it if we ever vanish. 00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:56.800 You can always find us on the website, but you don't have 00:02:56.800 --> 00:02:57.760 to listen on the website. 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:00.800 So if you're looking for another podcast player, if you're on iOS, 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:01.520 there's only one choice. 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:02.800 That's Overcast. 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:04.960 You can find it at Overcast.fm. 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:09.360 If you're an Android user, okay. 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:13.040 You can use AntennaPod and Podbean are two of the most popular 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:14.800 people s really seem to like. 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:17.520 Whatever service you're on, please leave a five star review. 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:19.280 It helps people discover the show. 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:21.280 So that's it for housekeeping. 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:23.520 Just we don't want you to lose track of us if you 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:26.960 actually care about staying on top of things As we talk about 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:30.880 leadership today, it's kind of a natural evolution from what we talked 00:03:30.880 --> 00:03:34.880 about last week where we were discussing the context of when things 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:37.440 are, you know, church business and things are just the business of 00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:40.960 Christian men and of all men, because even if man's not a 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:42.960 Christian, he has the same duties as a Christian man. 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:46.560 It's just that the man who is also a Christian has the 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:52.160 framing from God, from scripture, to understand what his duties are, what 00:03:52.160 --> 00:03:53.680 his obligations are. 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:56.800 And one of the points we made was that we should not 00:03:56.800 --> 00:03:59.840 be looking to people like clerics as leaders. 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:00.960 That's not their job. 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:02.000 And it's not an insult. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.240 It's just they're not supposed to be leaders. 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:07.440 Leaders occur in other contexts. 00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:11.040 And for all of us, there's some sort of leader somewhere in 00:04:11.040 --> 00:04:12.400 the hierarchy. 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.600 And so today there are a few different things we're going to 00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:18.240 cover, but principally we want to get across Get across the point 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:21.040 that egalitarianism is fake and gay. 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:22.400 It's completely stupid. 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:23.600 It's unnatural. 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:24.800 It's unchristian. 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:26.640 It's just freakish and dumb. 00:04:26.640 --> 00:04:29.440 And I think instinctively everyone knows that. 00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:34.960 And yet we've all been conditioned through our entire lifetimes of egalitarian 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:38.000 brainwashing to think, well, no, yeah, everybody's the same and we're all 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.640 interchangeable. We need to hear everybody's voices. 00:04:40.640 --> 00:04:45.280 We are ironically today making a populist argument for that being complete 00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:49.440 nonsense. So we are appealing to you as a completely unknown audience 00:04:49.440 --> 00:04:52.480 to us with men of all different abilities. 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:55.760 We're trying to convince all of you that not all of you 00:04:55.760 --> 00:04:57.520 should be making decisions. 00:04:57.520 --> 00:05:01.520 And it's inherently ironic to make that case to just a group 00:05:01.520 --> 00:05:03.840 of people, but it's what has to happen. 00:05:03.840 --> 00:05:07.680 As we are in the end stages of what seems to be 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:08.720 Christendom 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:16.480 Going poof, you know, civilization itself not having a trajectory into the 00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:18.640 future without things changing. 00:05:18.640 --> 00:05:21.600 One of the things that it's important for everyone to think about 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:23.840 is how do we fix this? 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.840 How do we build something that isn't going to have these problems? 00:05:27.840 --> 00:05:30.880 And so the only way for us to undo the damage that 00:05:30.880 --> 00:05:34.400 we're all currently living in is to figure out how far back 00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:37.760 we wind the clock, not in the sense of you know historical 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:43.120 pinpointing, but just what were the principles that former generations that didn't 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:45.360 have these problems, what were they doing? 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.920 What did they get right that we are now getting wrong because 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:49.680 of egalitarian priors? 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:53.280 And how can we make sure that we can begin to write 00:05:53.280 --> 00:05:54.400 the ship? 00:05:54.400 --> 00:05:57.440 And principle among those we won't just get out of the way 00:05:57.440 --> 00:05:58.640 up front because 00:05:59.520 --> 00:06:02.640 everything else that we say in this episode is going to exclude 00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:07.600 them entirely is girls can have no place in leadership, period. 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:11.840 When we did the episode earlier on on the ontological and scriptural 00:06:11.840 --> 00:06:16.160 nature of what a woman is, a woman is not a head 00:06:16.320 --> 00:06:18.480 inherently. And there's a scriptural basis for that. 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:20.240 There's a created basis for that. 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:24.160 And it's completely obvious in all of human history that that's true. 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:27.120 And so, you know, the point that we made then, when we 00:06:27.280 --> 00:06:29.760 arrate now, that's not insulting. 00:06:29.760 --> 00:06:32.640 There are plenty of girls who listen, plenty of them are very 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:37.360 intelligent. I'm certain that some of our female listeners are significantly smarter 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:39.120 than some of our male listeners. 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:40.160 That's good. 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:41.360 That's fine. 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:45.920 That doesn't mean that someone who has greater aptitude, if she's a 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:48.560 woman, she shouldn't be in certain positions. 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:52.160 And what has happened to us in the last couple centuries is 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:56.240 we've completely not lost the notion of there's a place for men 00:06:56.240 --> 00:07:01.440 to do things where girls simply aren't present because it fundamentally changes 00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:03.120 the nature of the discussion. 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:07.280 It changes the nature of all conversation, all interaction, whether you have 00:07:07.280 --> 00:07:11.600 a strict, rigid hierarchy, or you have some sort of more open 00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:16.560 consensus-based system, if it's a bunch of men, the hierarchy will naturally 00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:19.360 emerge even when you're seeking consensus. 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:22.400 That will absolutely never be the case when girls are involved. 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:25.360 Never. A single girl being present in the room and in the 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:29.200 conversation fundamentally changes things because that's how we're built. 00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:32.000 And so when we talk about all the rest of the stuff 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.520 in this episode, it's exclusively going to be about men. 00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:38.960 Frequently, we make a point of addressing the men in the audience, 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:43.520 frankly, because it's not our place to be telling someone else's wife 00:07:43.520 --> 00:07:45.600 or mother what to think or what to do. 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:48.560 If we're serious about headship, we can't be running around telling your 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:50.240 wives and girlfriends what they should think. 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:51.600 That's screwed up. 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:53.040 That's the problem we're trying to solve. 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:55.920 And so we acknowledge that by principally addressing men. 00:07:55.920 --> 00:07:57.840 We know girls are listening. 00:07:57.840 --> 00:08:01.360 We want the men to be solving the problems that men can 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:05.600 solve. And these are the table stakes for everything else in this 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:08.400 episode, and they're the table stakes for the future of civilization. 00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:12.160 Because if we can't fix that one thing, nothing else is gonna 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:14.160 matter. It's just not. 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:15.680 All the problems that we have. 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:18.400 We're not pinning this on girls to be explicit, not saying, oh, 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:19.920 girls have screwed everything up. 00:08:20.080 --> 00:08:23.040 100% of the people that voted in the United States for women's 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:25.760 suffrage were men, because girls couldn't vote. 00:08:25.760 --> 00:08:28.720 It was men who screwed things up. 00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:33.760 Along the way, we let someone else take over our duties. 00:08:33.760 --> 00:08:36.000 And that's what leadership is about. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.160 It's about recognizing that there's duty, there's hierarchy, and somebody has to 00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:41.360 be responsible. 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:46.160 As soon as you diffuse responsibility, it's lost completely. 00:08:46.160 --> 00:08:49.040 And so we can't let that happen. 00:08:49.040 --> 00:08:51.920 The reason we're putting this at the very beginning is that in 00:08:51.920 --> 00:08:57.040 our communities, in our churches, in some of our homes, certainly in 00:08:57.040 --> 00:09:01.040 our businesses, everywhere you see the men and women are treated completely 00:09:01.040 --> 00:09:05.120 equally, have an equal voice and everyone has to feel good about 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:07.120 everything before you can proceed. 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:10.480 That is the death of civilization. 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:11.840 Full stop. 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.160 And if we don't fix that one particular problem, which has to 00:09:16.160 --> 00:09:18.560 begin by actually acknowledging like it is bad. 00:09:18.560 --> 00:09:20.000 It's harmful. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:23.760 And the people who scream that it's not harmful also have all 00:09:23.760 --> 00:09:28.320 the other bad opinions as we're evaluating statements and things that you 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:30.080 know that we make today and we talk about how you can 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.680 evaluate our statements and other men's statements. 00:09:33.680 --> 00:09:36.960 You don't always have all the information, but sometimes you can just 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:39.920 tell. I'm not sure if this guy's right about this one thing, 00:09:39.920 --> 00:09:42.320 but I know he has a lot of terrible opinions about a 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:43.440 lot of other things. 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:46.480 Sometimes that's all you have to gauge whether he's right about one 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.840 thing. The people who scream the most that this is a bad 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:53.040 thing, that we no one should ever say girls should be excluded, 00:09:53.040 --> 00:09:55.440 they have terrible opinions about everything else too. 00:09:55.920 --> 00:10:00.240 it's not like we're in complete agreement with that type of person. 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:02.400 I won't call them men because they're not. 00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:04.320 We're diametrically opposed. 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:05.680 It's really one or the other. 00:10:05.680 --> 00:10:08.480 And that's why putting it up front is crucial because that's how 00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:09.440 it breaks down. 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:14.240 If you don't exclude women from these conversations, we're addressing women as 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:14.720 well here. 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:17.440 If you're a woman, you're listening and you're a wife, mother, a 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:23.440 daughter, you need to be supportive emotionally and socially with the men 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:25.840 in your life to not make it hard for them to do 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:27.280 the things that they have to do. 00:10:27.280 --> 00:10:34.800 That's the the soft accountability that the female involves in any interaction. 00:10:34.800 --> 00:10:38.880 Men have to have the hard responsibility, have to get these things 00:10:38.880 --> 00:10:42.000 right every time or things start to break. 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:45.600 We also want to be clear at the outset that the point 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:49.920 of this episode is not is not to talk about the great 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:53.920 man as it were, so you can think of the great men 00:10:54.160 --> 00:10:56.720 theory of history. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:00.880 That man is not the focus because that isn't really the focus 00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:02.960 of what needs to be done. 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:06.960 That man may come along or he may not, God will provide 00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:09.120 him or he will not. 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:15.040 The day to day necessity of leadership is on a smaller scale. 00:11:15.040 --> 00:11:20.000 Because most of our interactions on a day-to-day basis will be on 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:21.120 a smaller scale. 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:25.120 They will be as well mentioned in church or at work, and 00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:27.600 yes, also in your family. 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:33.440 Because of course, first and foremost, every husband and father is to 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:35.680 be a leader in his household. 00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:37.440 He is the house father. 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:38.480 That is his role. 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:42.160 That is a leadership role, that is a role of headship. 00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:45.600 And so that is sort of the beginning of all of this. 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:48.480 It all flows from that. 00:11:48.480 --> 00:11:51.760 That is one of the sources of authority. 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:55.680 I'm not going to read through the chapter, but I do recommend 00:11:55.680 --> 00:11:58.080 that you go and read Exodus eighteen. 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:00.400 You can pause the podcast and do it, or you can read 00:12:00.400 --> 00:12:02.640 it after listening to the episode. 00:12:02.640 --> 00:12:05.040 That's entirely up to you, of course. 00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:11.200 But in Exodus eighteen, Moses' father in law Jethro observes what Moses 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:15.840 is doing with the people of Israel, and he is acting at 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:19.440 this point as essentially the soul judge and the soul leader. 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:23.040 So So the people stand around him from morning till evening, and 00:12:23.040 --> 00:12:25.200 he is the one making all of the decisions. 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:27.680 And his father-in-law says, This isn't right. 00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:29.360 This is a terrible way to do things. 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:30.960 Why are you doing this? 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:34.080 And so instead he advises, and Moses agrees, because it is the 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:35.840 correct thing to do. 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:41.440 He appoints men to be the chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:46.080 of tens Now you may think that tens sounds kind of small, 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:48.720 but this is probably referring to the heads of households or at 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:53.200 least just to men, and so tens would actually be quite a 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:54.800 few more than ten. 00:12:54.800 --> 00:12:57.920 You're probably approaching that number of a hundred and fifty people you 00:12:57.920 --> 00:13:01.440 can actually know and with whom you can have a proper relationship. 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:04.720 And so that is what he does. 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:07.200 Because that's the sort of hierarchy that you see. 00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:13.120 There are leaders at different levels In every organization, in every endeavor 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:15.600 in life. 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:19.840 And again, first and foremost, it is the father of the household, 00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:21.520 the husband and father. 00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:23.760 He is the leader in his house, and then you will have 00:13:24.800 --> 00:13:30.880 going from that foundational level upward, various other leaders until you get 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:35.680 to whatever man is the role of Moses in this particular organization, 00:13:35.680 --> 00:13:39.440 whether it happens to be the state or a church, or a 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:41.440 corporation, whatever it happens to be. 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:43.760 There'll be that man sitting at the top, but then there are 00:13:43.760 --> 00:13:46.160 levels below him. 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:50.400 Those levels below him Below him are absolutely essential to assure that 00:13:50.400 --> 00:13:53.600 things continue to run. 00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:56.880 And that's what we've lost in our society. 00:13:56.880 --> 00:13:59.920 We've lost any sort of hierarchy whatsoever. 00:13:59.920 --> 00:14:04.400 There's been this great leveling due to egalitarianism and other false priors 00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:08.640 that we inherited from the Enlightenment. 00:14:08.640 --> 00:14:12.880 And so we have this idea that everyone is equal and that 00:14:12.880 --> 00:14:15.680 there are no leaders, and yet at the same time we still 00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:20.400 have leaders because of course democracy props people up and pretends they're 00:14:20.400 --> 00:14:25.840 leaders. But we don't really have true leaders anymore because the men 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:29.920 who would be leaders who should be leaders have either stepped back 00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:33.360 or been hounded into silence in some cases, now they probably shouldn't 00:14:33.280 --> 00:14:36.720 allow themselves to be hounded into silence, but it is one of 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:40.160 the realities of our current system. 00:14:40.160 --> 00:14:44.560 And so that leads into another aspect of this. 00:14:44.560 --> 00:14:47.680 If you are not a man who is going to be a 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:51.200 leader, who is going to serve in that role of leadership, one 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:54.640 of your duties is to support the man who does. 00:14:54.960 --> 00:15:00.640 For instance, as a concrete example related to the church, if a 00:15:00.640 --> 00:15:04.720 pastor comes into a congregation that has a number of problems, and 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:07.600 he tries to address those, he's a faithful pastor, he's a good 00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:09.920 pastor, he tries to fix the problems. 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:12.800 If he is on his own and the men of the congregation 00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:16.160 do not support him, he will not get anywhere. 00:15:16.160 --> 00:15:18.720 It will be a miserable experience for him. 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:21.760 He will probably not achieve the goals, and he'll probably leave or 00:15:21.760 --> 00:15:23.600 be driven out. 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:27.040 You need to have, as a leader, you need to have other 00:15:27.040 --> 00:15:28.560 men supporting you. 00:15:28.560 --> 00:15:31.600 Because otherwise, are you even really a leader at that point if 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:33.120 you have no one following you? 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:34.880 If you have no one supporting you? 00:15:34.880 --> 00:15:37.760 Now if that pastor comes in and even just two or three 00:15:37.760 --> 00:15:42.000 men in the congregation stand up and staunchly support him, something can 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:43.440 actually be achieved. 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:47.600 That's part of how we start to turn around our congregations and 00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:52.000 our other parts of our society that have gone astray. 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:55.760 If you have a man who has the qualities necessary for a 00:15:55.760 --> 00:15:59.600 leader in that field, it is It is important that other men 00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:03.680 support him so that he can actually get done what needs to 00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:05.040 be done. 00:16:05.040 --> 00:16:08.320 One of the fundamental problems that we have, and this is particularly 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:12.160 an issue on the political right in the US, is we have 00:16:12.160 --> 00:16:16.320 a lack of leadership at almost every level. 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:20.080 And when a man stands up who actually has the capacity to 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:26.080 be a leader, we have all sorts of other men who attack 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:31.280 him, or fight about trivial things, instead of falling in line, and 00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:35.200 so nothing gets done, because that man has no support. 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:39.360 And this happens almost every time we see someone stand up and 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:42.640 try to actually fix something. 00:16:42.640 --> 00:16:46.800 This is not how we get things done that need to be 00:16:46.800 --> 00:16:49.760 done. This is not how we move forward. 00:16:49.840 --> 00:16:53.200 If you are a leader, if you have the qualities necessary to 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:56.400 be a leader, you have a duty to pursue that. 00:16:56.400 --> 00:16:59.840 If you do not have those qualities, then you have a duty 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:02.640 to support the man who does. 00:17:02.640 --> 00:17:05.360 Because that is how men are supposed to interact with each other, 00:17:05.360 --> 00:17:09.600 and as Woe said, much of this is going to shake out 00:17:09.600 --> 00:17:13.600 naturally, just in the way that men interact, and every man in 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:15.200 the audience knows this. 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:19.840 If you're out with other men, there's going to naturally be someone 00:17:19.840 --> 00:17:22.800 who takes on the role, even if it's not explicit or it's 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:25.600 not, you know, a full leadership role, there'll be a man who 00:17:25.600 --> 00:17:26.960 takes on the role of leader. 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:29.040 And it doesn't even matter what sort of group it is. 00:17:29.040 --> 00:17:33.040 It could be Six men out drinking beers, there's someone in that 00:17:33.040 --> 00:17:36.080 group who is the leader of that group. 00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:39.840 That is just how men interact, that is how God designed the 00:17:39.840 --> 00:17:42.240 system, because there are hierarchies. 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:45.840 Someone will naturally be the leader in any given group. 00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:51.360 And when it's men only in a particular setting, those things will 00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:54.400 form organically. 00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:58.320 As Will mentioned, if women are present, that doesn't happen, because it 00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:00.480 fundamentally changes the dynamics. 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:03.280 And so when we're talking about these things, to reiterate and to 00:18:03.280 --> 00:18:08.000 echo what Woe said, we are talking about men, and men only 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:09.360 spaces, as it were. 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:13.600 Because this is not a place for women. 00:18:13.600 --> 00:18:16.960 For instance, women should not be involved in politics. 00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:20.000 Most men shouldn't either, but women should certainly not be involved in 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:25.040 politics. That is a space for men, because it is a duty 00:18:25.040 --> 00:18:26.560 of men. 00:18:26.560 --> 00:18:30.560 Because everything involved in politics is within the realm of the things 00:18:30.560 --> 00:18:32.720 assigned to men by God. 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:35.760 Not least of all war, because of course war is going to 00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:40.320 be a political decision, a political discussion, and men are the ones 00:18:40.320 --> 00:18:42.800 who will have to go and fight that war. 00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:46.400 And so that should be a discussion in which women are not 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:50.720 present. That is a discussion for men and only men, and there 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:52.560 are many other places with that. 00:18:52.560 --> 00:18:56.480 For instance, in the church, any role of leadership in the church 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:01.200 must be occupied by a man, any decision made in the church, 00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:04.560 and I'm not talking about minor decisions. 00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:08.400 If you're talking about planning a potluck, by all means women are 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:10.000 permitted to be involved in that. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.240 I'm talking about decisions with regard to the church proper So the 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:18.640 organization of the church, electing officials for the church, appointing men to 00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:21.920 do things in the church, etc., all of those things must be 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:25.440 done by men without women present. 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:29.680 The nature of group dynamics is really one of the most important 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:31.280 parts of this conversation. 00:19:31.280 --> 00:19:35.120 As Corey was saying, there's always what the term of art is 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:36.800 the alpha male of the group. 00:19:36.800 --> 00:19:38.800 You may have heard the term amog. 00:19:38.800 --> 00:19:41.840 And a lot of times it's, you know, when people say alpha, 00:19:41.840 --> 00:19:46.000 we're you're thinking something over the top, something comical. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.320 It's really just what Corey described. 00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:51.680 There's always someone who is the dominant man. 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:55.360 And again, it may not be over dominance, but you know, it's 00:19:55.360 --> 00:19:57.200 usually the guy who's one of the tallest. 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:00.560 All other things being equal, the man who is taller, who is 00:20:00.560 --> 00:20:05.440 handsomer, who has more charisma and a greater presence is going to 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:06.880 be the one who's dominant. 00:20:06.880 --> 00:20:08.400 That's how it works. 00:20:08.400 --> 00:20:12.160 And the difference between men and women fundamentally is if men are 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:13.360 okay with that. 00:20:13.360 --> 00:20:15.520 I said all along, I'm five nine. 00:20:15.520 --> 00:20:18.160 I don't get put in charge of groups because I'm not going 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:19.360 to be the tallest guy. 00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:24.880 And one of the things that weak men, fragile men will seethe 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:29.280 about is that when there's someone who's stronger, better looking, whatever, someone 00:20:29.280 --> 00:20:33.600 who is in some way superior to them, they will burn inside 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:37.760 with envy and disgust because they want the status that the other 00:20:37.760 --> 00:20:39.760 guy has just naturally. 00:20:39.760 --> 00:20:41.520 That's not Christian. 00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:43.200 It's not even human. 00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:46.000 If If you're the short guy in the group and the tall 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:49.440 guy in the group is in charge, and you want to compete, 00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:51.440 compete on some other grounds. 00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:54.000 Be stronger, be funnier, whatever. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.120 Like it's not always the biggest, the most handsome guy who's in 00:20:57.120 --> 00:21:00.480 charge. That's just naturally what usually happens. 00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:05.840 And I think one of the things that because we've lost to 00:21:05.840 --> 00:21:11.520 egalitarianism, the sense that these abilities are developed culturally over time is 00:21:11.520 --> 00:21:15.600 that that sort of process that happens from the playground from the 00:21:15.600 --> 00:21:18.960 time we're all little kids, little boys just running around chasing each 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:23.680 other, chasing girls on the playground, as these dynamics form naturally in 00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:28.000 every group of boys and men, what will naturally occur is that 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:33.120 boys who become men who tend to be the leaders just naturally, 00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:37.360 because they're falling into those positions, maybe without earning it, like it's 00:21:37.360 --> 00:21:40.160 just, you know, the one kid's two inches taller than everybody else. 00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:44.160 They look up to him, literally and figuratively. 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:47.520 Rather than seething at the fact that someone has something that you 00:21:47.520 --> 00:21:53.920 don't the appropriate correct strategic response for anyone in that position is 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.840 to realize that the guy who's always getting put in charge has 00:21:57.840 --> 00:22:00.000 more experience being in charge. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.160 So the young man who is the Amog and his little group 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:09.920 of friends, who becomes an adult, who really has that presence, he's 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:13.920 doing well, he's successful by all the secular means that we would 00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:17.920 consider. What happens with that sort of man that some would see 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:20.160 then and think, oh, I don't like I don't like him because 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:22.720 he's he's got this stuff that I don't have and he doesn't 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:23.920 deserve any of it. 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.640 That guy, because of the fact that he's always been in charge, 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:29.280 he's always the one that people are looking up to, he naturally 00:22:29.280 --> 00:22:33.440 develops leadership abilities just by the fact that people look to him. 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:36.880 And I think this is something that's completely missing from how we 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:41.360 think about leadership and responsibilities and roles and anything else is that 00:22:41.840 --> 00:22:45.520 sometimes it doesn't even matter if you pick the guy at random, 00:22:45.520 --> 00:22:47.040 which is effectively what that is. 00:22:47.040 --> 00:22:49.440 If one guy's short and the other guy's tall and the tall 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:54.400 guy is always in charge, that's functionally random, like superficially it's not, 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:56.000 but statistically it kind of is. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:57.680 It could have been one or the other. 00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:00.320 The bottom line is that the guy who's always going to be 00:23:00.320 --> 00:23:04.160 looked to as the leader is going to develop the skills that 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:06.800 someone who isn't looked to as a leader just won't. 00:23:06.800 --> 00:23:09.680 And so as a result, when you get into adulthood, when you 00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:12.480 know you're that guy at 15 and you're still that guy at 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:16.640 25 or 35, suddenly you have decades of experience of being the 00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:18.320 man that other men look to. 00:23:18.320 --> 00:23:22.000 And that naturally develops leadership experience. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:23.200 It counts. 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:27.520 Even when it starts as something completely disorganized and superficial as a 00:23:27.520 --> 00:23:31.920 young man, simply always being the man that other men look to 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:35.120 is going to force you, if you're a good man, to try 00:23:35.120 --> 00:23:36.160 to figure it out. 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:39.520 Like if other men are looking to you to have the answer 00:23:39.600 --> 00:23:42.960 or whatever, you know, it could be big or small, if other 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:46.480 men see you as the leader and you're a good, responsible man, 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:49.440 you're going to try to live up to those expectations. 00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:55.680 And so what egalitarianism is doing to us today is the spiteful, 00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:58.160 bitter, envious view of those men. 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:01.520 You know, when I worked at Apple, my second level manager for 00:24:01.520 --> 00:24:04.560 a time, was he's now a senior VP and he was shortly 00:24:04.560 --> 00:24:09.920 thereafter. Very tall, very handsome, brilliant, and charismatic. 00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:12.080 He was naturally going to be in charge from the time. 00:24:12.080 --> 00:24:13.440 I'm sure he was a teenager. 00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:15.600 I don't know his backstory, but I'm sure that that was his 00:24:15.600 --> 00:24:19.120 trajectory. And that's a good thing, because he lived up to it. 00:24:19.120 --> 00:24:21.920 He lived up to the expectations and he delivered according to his 00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:25.040 abilities. That is something to be celebrated. 00:24:25.040 --> 00:24:27.600 Not to look at him and say, I don't like that he's 00:24:27.600 --> 00:24:28.800 better looking than me. 00:24:28.800 --> 00:24:29.680 Like whatever. 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:33.200 If it's envious, if you're acting like a crab in a bucket, 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:34.720 you're being a girl. 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:38.560 Because that is the natural social structure of girl groups. 00:24:38.560 --> 00:24:39.920 They're crabs in a bucket. 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:42.960 If someone gets a little bit higher, they pull them back down. 00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:46.560 The only way the girls can get along well is when there's 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:50.720 equality. They need, you know, no one can be too pretty, no 00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:53.840 one can be too skinny or whatever measure. 00:24:53.840 --> 00:24:57.680 Anything that is going to set one of them far outside the 00:24:57.680 --> 00:25:00.560 scope or the abilities of the other girls in a group is 00:25:00.560 --> 00:25:02.400 going to create infighting. 00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:06.320 And it's not going to be competitions in the sense of, well, 00:25:06.320 --> 00:25:08.800 you know, maybe if one girl is fit and the other girls 00:25:08.800 --> 00:25:11.440 are a little out of shape, they don't think I want to 00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:12.560 get in better shape. 00:25:12.560 --> 00:25:15.120 They're going to say nasty things about her to try to tear 00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:15.680 her down. 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:20.720 Men have the opposite instinct, good men, men who are actually masculine. 00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:25.440 If they see a guy who's smarter, taller, better looking, whatever, they 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:26.480 aspire to it. 00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:29.520 Like I want to try to be as good and competitive as 00:25:29.520 --> 00:25:30.240 that guy is. 00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:34.480 And it's not to displace the man who's the amog. 00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:37.040 It's not necessarily to say, well, I want to be number one. 00:25:37.040 --> 00:25:40.640 It's understanding that a guy who's five'9 is never going to be 00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:42.880 better than number two or number three, most of the time. 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:44.000 And that's fine. 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:45.440 It's completely fine. 00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:47.280 Whatever it is, I don't care about height. 00:25:47.280 --> 00:25:50.400 Like I usually because I'm average in height and I'm not average 00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:51.360 in other areas. 00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:54.400 It's vital to understand that we're good at some things and we're 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:56.480 completely immaterial in others. 00:25:56.480 --> 00:25:58.240 We all have those. 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:01.520 Most of the guys who are listening are probably almost completely average 00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:03.200 intelligence. That's a good thing. 00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:05.280 This is not a big brain podcast. 00:26:05.280 --> 00:26:08.560 We try not to be, like we use big words sometimes, but 00:26:08.560 --> 00:26:11.760 we we try not to make this stuff complicated because it isn't. 00:26:11.760 --> 00:26:15.360 Every man naturally understands some of these things. 00:26:15.360 --> 00:26:17.840 You know, it's kind of a boomer joke, but I'm gonna say 00:26:17.840 --> 00:26:19.360 it because it's also true. 00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:22.480 If you don't have a strong handshake and the ability to look 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:25.280 a man in the eye, you're a crappy man. 00:26:25.280 --> 00:26:26.720 You need to work on that. 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:29.760 Improving that one thing will improve your life. 00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:33.120 Because I don't trust a man who can't look me in the 00:26:33.120 --> 00:26:36.720 eye and has a weak, limp, moist handshake. 00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:38.000 It's revolting. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:39.520 It's physically repulsive. 00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:40.560 It's a small thing. 00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:41.840 Like is that fair? 00:26:41.840 --> 00:26:42.640 I don't care. 00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:43.520 It's real. 00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:45.200 And so it's become a boomer joke. 00:26:45.280 --> 00:26:47.200 Like when I got a job, I just had a firm handshake 00:26:47.280 --> 00:26:49.120 and looked him in the eye and he hired me. 00:26:49.120 --> 00:26:50.160 There are no jobs anymore. 00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:51.840 Robots and Air are gonna take all the jobs. 00:26:51.840 --> 00:26:54.720 So if you're a young guy, like it's not job advice, but 00:26:54.720 --> 00:26:57.840 you can still get that one thing right, and it will make 00:26:57.840 --> 00:26:58.480 you a better man. 00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:02.960 Part of being a man, especially a young man, is figuring out 00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:05.440 how to be a better version of yourself. 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:08.640 And that involves you doing you better. 00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:11.040 It doesn't involve tearing another man down. 00:27:11.040 --> 00:27:14.560 It doesn't involve going after someone who's doing something different. 00:27:14.560 --> 00:27:16.400 That's not how we work. 00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:18.320 That's not how men operate. 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:22.320 The first thing we mentioned was that excluding girls is necessary because 00:27:22.320 --> 00:27:25.840 as soon as there's a girl present in these conversations, suddenly it 00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:30.400 switches to the consensus building and to the leveling where we can't 00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:32.240 have anybody who's standing up. 00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:36.400 And now, you know, there's a natural aversion to having the tall, 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:38.240 handsome guy in charge. 00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:39.200 Like we can't do that. 00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:42.080 We have to have a minority who's in a wheelchair. 00:27:42.080 --> 00:27:43.920 That's gonna be better somehow. 00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:46.560 That's perverse, it's utterly perverse. 00:27:46.560 --> 00:27:50.960 That person who is meek, like they may be a great person, 00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:54.960 but are they gonna be the strong leader with no experience? 00:27:54.960 --> 00:27:58.400 No. The guy who's been doing it his whole life is gonna 00:27:58.400 --> 00:27:59.600 be good at it. 00:27:59.600 --> 00:28:02.800 And that's part of what like the purpose of this episode is 00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:05.440 talking about leadership and the qualities and the things that we need 00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:08.720 to look for is that you don't give it to the guy 00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:10.160 who's not going to be good at it. 00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:12.160 You give it to the guy who's going to do the best 00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:16.240 possible job that he can, and then you hold him accountable. 00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:18.960 Insofar as like, you know, we're not even talking about democracy here. 00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:22.080 It's just there's naturally going to be somebody in charge, even if 00:28:22.080 --> 00:28:26.000 it's a you know dictatorship, there's you still got a guy, but 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.680 other people have to listen to him. 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:32.240 So they're always social dynamics regardless of voting or anything else. 00:28:32.240 --> 00:28:37.040 But the basic masculine tenet here is that you pick the man 00:28:37.040 --> 00:28:40.240 who's gonna do the best and then you support him, as Corey 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:42.240 said. He can't do it by himself. 00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:45.680 Whether it's at the lowest level, you know, in the military, you 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:48.480 have the fire teams of just a a few guys, you have 00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:52.480 squads where a staff sergeant is running them, maybe ten guys, and 00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:55.680 then you have a company with a captain, maybe two hundred guys. 00:28:55.680 --> 00:28:57.680 And you go up to the brigade level, we have a colonel 00:28:57.680 --> 00:28:59.280 with five thousand guys. 00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:02.960 Those hierarchies are because they're different levels of ability. 00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:07.280 The corporal who's running a fire team has a different scope of 00:29:07.280 --> 00:29:09.600 duties than the brigade colonel. 00:29:09.600 --> 00:29:11.040 That's the way it's supposed to be. 00:29:11.040 --> 00:29:14.880 The colonel is capable of stuff that the corporal can't even imagine. 00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:16.480 They have different jobs. 00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:20.400 And the reason for that hierarchy and those numbers is that they're 00:29:20.320 --> 00:29:22.080 There are not many colonels in the world. 00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:24.000 And there are a lot of guys who are either, you know, 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:26.000 privates, buck privates, or corporals. 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:27.280 That's the best they can be. 00:29:27.280 --> 00:29:28.560 And the world needs them. 00:29:28.560 --> 00:29:29.840 In the military, you need it. 00:29:30.080 --> 00:29:31.600 You need it everywhere. 00:29:31.600 --> 00:29:36.480 So when we're talking about leadership, it's not about saying, well, these 00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:39.120 guys are worthless and only a few guys are special. 00:29:39.120 --> 00:29:43.040 No, the point is that whenever a man is given responsibility, he's 00:29:43.040 --> 00:29:47.520 accountable for the welfare of everyone beneath him in, you know, we 00:29:47.520 --> 00:29:49.840 think beneath, we think, oh, that's that's mean. 00:29:49.840 --> 00:29:51.520 That's you're you're being derisive. 00:29:51.520 --> 00:29:54.080 No. There's someone above and there's someone below. 00:29:54.080 --> 00:29:56.480 And the man above is accountable for those below him. 00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:57.520 He has to protect them. 00:29:57.520 --> 00:29:59.840 He has to look out for them, make sure that they're doing 00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:00.640 their jobs well. 00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:03.040 And then he's accountable to the man above him. 00:30:03.040 --> 00:30:06.320 And when you have you know hierarchy like a monarchy, the only 00:30:06.320 --> 00:30:08.640 man above the monarch is God. 00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:13.680 Jesus Christ Almighty is the one man to whom a king answers. 00:30:13.680 --> 00:30:14.480 And that's okay. 00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:17.840 That system works too, because there's accountability. 00:30:17.840 --> 00:30:19.520 There's always accountability. 00:30:19.520 --> 00:30:21.840 With egalitarianism, we've completely lost that. 00:30:21.840 --> 00:30:25.200 We have no notion of inequality and ranking. 00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:28.000 It's just we all have to agree or nothing can get done. 00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:28.880 That's absurd. 00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:30.800 That's not how anything works. 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:35.280 In the American context, this is particularly a problem because we have 00:30:35.280 --> 00:30:38.720 done away with basically all of the social hierarchy. 00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:42.640 with the exception of some people have propped up celebrities and certain 00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:49.360 sports figures as some sort of terrible knockoff version of an aristocracy. 00:30:49.360 --> 00:30:56.400 But we no longer have different ranks in society, which bleeds into 00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:59.360 a lot of other areas, particularly with regard to behavior. 00:30:59.360 --> 00:31:00.880 There's been a leveling of behavior. 00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:05.840 We behave the same whether we are in the halls of Congress 00:31:06.080 --> 00:31:10.800 or our local government or down at the bowling alley, Americans kind 00:31:10.800 --> 00:31:12.960 of behave the same everywhere. 00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:14.560 And that's a problem. 00:31:14.560 --> 00:31:16.880 Because not everywhere is the same. 00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:19.520 And one of the areas this turns into a real problem, of 00:31:19.520 --> 00:31:22.800 course is that it bleeds over into church, and we don't have 00:31:22.800 --> 00:31:28.160 that sense of reverence anymore, because we don't have an audience with 00:31:28.160 --> 00:31:32.640 an earthly king as even a possibility, as even a thought of 00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:36.000 something that could occur in the American context. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:39.040 And so we don't recognize that when we go to church we're 00:31:39.040 --> 00:31:43.760 having an audience with the king, and that leads to some certain 00:31:43.760 --> 00:31:47.120 requirements with regard to decorum and behavior. 00:31:47.360 --> 00:31:51.120 Sort of a tangential issue, but it is related to this lack 00:31:51.120 --> 00:31:55.840 of hierarchy to these egalitarian priors that have corrupted everything top to 00:31:55.840 --> 00:32:00.880 bottom, by of course eliminating even the concept of there being a 00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:02.320 top and a bottom. 00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:05.920 And as Woe said, it's not insulting to say that certain men 00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:10.160 are of a higher rank than others, that's true in absolutely everything 00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:12.240 in life, and we all know it. 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:15.280 There are some places in which we can say that and no 00:32:15.280 --> 00:32:18.640 one will be insulted, and then when it comes to areas like 00:32:18.640 --> 00:32:22.800 intelligence or certain abilities, everyone gets up in arms when you mention 00:32:22.800 --> 00:32:27.600 that some men are more intelligent, some men make better leaders, some 00:32:27.600 --> 00:32:31.600 men are more charismatic, and so many various other things. 00:32:31.600 --> 00:32:33.760 But then at the other end, if you say, Well that man 00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:39.280 runs faster, oh well that's fine, that's That ability is just as 00:32:39.280 --> 00:32:44.160 innate as the leadership ability in many cases, in most cases, because 00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:47.600 many of these things, of course, flow from one's genetics. 00:32:47.600 --> 00:32:50.160 They are biologically determined to a certain degree. 00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:54.000 We won't get back into that subject too deeply in this particular 00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:58.880 episode. But to say that someone runs fast, that he is a 00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:05.120 very fast runner, isn't fundamentally different from saying someone is highly intelligent. 00:33:05.120 --> 00:33:11.360 Both are attributes, both are genetically determined, both require some training to 00:33:11.360 --> 00:33:15.200 use properly, of course, but God is given that ability, and he 00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:18.560 has given it out unequally among men. 00:33:19.040 --> 00:33:22.880 I am not a distance runner, most certainly I hate running. 00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.440 I like cycling, I know that'll make some of the audience members 00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:29.840 a little annoyed at me, but oh well it's great cardio. 00:33:29.840 --> 00:33:33.040 But at the other end of the spectrum I'm able to understand 00:33:33.040 --> 00:33:38.400 complex subjects with relative ease because God has given me that ability. 00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:42.560 To different men God has given different gifts, and that's a good 00:33:42.560 --> 00:33:46.080 thing, because you need that in society, you need that in order 00:33:46.080 --> 00:33:51.920 for civilization to be able to function, even in not in particularly 00:33:51.920 --> 00:33:56.400 small groups, but in groups of say twenty, fifty, one hundred men, 00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:59.920 you need different levels of ability for the group to function if 00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:02.240 it is going to achieve anything. 00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:05.120 As well mentioned, the military is a great example. 00:34:05.120 --> 00:34:09.680 If you had only men who had the aptitude to be generals, 00:34:09.680 --> 00:34:12.880 you're probably not going to be winning very many wars. 00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:15.280 If on the other hand you have men who are fit only 00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:18.800 to be privates, you are probably still not going to win very 00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:20.080 many wars. 00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:22.400 You need the hierarchy. 00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:25.600 The hierarchy is absolutely essential. 00:34:25.600 --> 00:34:29.200 And this is the case regardless of the endeavor. 00:34:29.200 --> 00:34:33.600 You need hierarchy with regard to academia, you need hierarchy with regard 00:34:33.600 --> 00:34:38.080 to the military, you need hierarchy with regard to politics, to the 00:34:38.080 --> 00:34:40.160 civic sphere. 00:34:40.160 --> 00:34:44.400 That is how God has fundamentally designed reality. 00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:47.680 There is hierarchy everywhere. 00:34:47.680 --> 00:34:51.600 And it's not just among men, it's in everything in creation as 00:34:51.600 --> 00:34:56.800 well. We obviously see it in basically all animals. 00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:00.240 This is just a fundamental part of creation. 00:35:00.240 --> 00:35:03.840 It is how God has designed things, it is the order of 00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:06.160 creation, and it is a good thing. 00:35:06.160 --> 00:35:09.760 And as Christians we should recognize it and not rebel against it, 00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:12.800 because fundamentally, what was Satan's rebellion? 00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:14.960 It was a rebellion against hierarchy. 00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:18.160 Yes, of course, pride is his key sin, but it was a 00:35:18.160 --> 00:35:23.520 rebellion against hierarchy, because he was placed in a certain place within 00:35:23.520 --> 00:35:27.840 the hierarchy, and he was never going to move up or down. 00:35:27.840 --> 00:35:31.120 Because of course things are much more fixed with regard to that 00:35:31.120 --> 00:35:35.760 realm, the angelic realm, insofar as we're aware. 00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:39.440 And so he wanted to rebel against that because he did not 00:35:39.440 --> 00:35:41.600 want to be part of the hierarchy. 00:35:41.600 --> 00:35:44.240 He wanted to be an individual. 00:35:44.240 --> 00:35:47.760 He wanted to be supreme in himself. 00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:50.880 And that is what our society tells us today that we should 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:53.280 aspire to be. 00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:56.640 That causes complete and utter chaos. 00:35:56.640 --> 00:36:02.160 That is why we see disorder everywhere we look, instead of order. 00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:05.520 And I will continue to emphasize order not just because I'm German, 00:36:05.520 --> 00:36:09.760 but because it is a fundamental necessity for life. 00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:13.120 If you do not have order in the things you pursue, you 00:36:13.120 --> 00:36:14.160 will not achieve anything. 00:36:14.160 --> 00:36:17.600 If you have disorder in your family, your family won't function. 00:36:17.600 --> 00:36:20.560 If you have disorder in your marriage, that's a bad thing. 00:36:20.560 --> 00:36:24.320 Disorder is not good anywhere in life. 00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:29.440 Order is of fundamental, it is of paramount importance. 00:36:29.440 --> 00:36:33.600 And with regard to what we've said about leaders and the fact 00:36:33.600 --> 00:36:38.480 that leaders have duties, we've also mentioned there are privileges that come 00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:43.200 along with leadership, of course, because the men who are in leadership 00:36:43.200 --> 00:36:47.360 positions are often going to be afforded certain things other men are 00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:51.600 not. Moses certainly had greater authority than the men who were commanding, 00:36:51.600 --> 00:36:53.600 say, tens or fifties. 00:36:53.600 --> 00:36:55.600 That is the nature of the beast. 00:36:56.640 --> 00:36:59.280 But those are two sides of the coin. 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:02.480 A leader is going to have certain privileges, and that is one 00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:04.560 of the benefits of being a leader, but he's going to have 00:37:04.560 --> 00:37:07.440 certain duties. 00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:11.680 And generally speaking, oftentimes the duties are going to be heavier than 00:37:11.680 --> 00:37:14.560 the privileges as it were. 00:37:14.560 --> 00:37:18.480 Today we have very many men who do not want to take 00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:21.520 up the duties, they just want the privileges, which is one of 00:37:21.520 --> 00:37:25.760 the fundamental problems with democracy, because you have men who don't actually 00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:31.760 exercise the office appropriately, they don't uphold the duty, but they receive 00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:35.360 the privileges for various reasons that we won't get into in this 00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:40.000 episode because it's not the point of the episode. 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:43.760 But as men we're not supposed to be envious of leaders just 00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:46.000 because they have those privileges. 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:50.480 It is important to recognize the other side of that coin, to 00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:55.760 recognize that certain duties come along with the office that they hold. 00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:00.000 Whether it's an official office, a formal office, or it's just an 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.560 informal thing in a group, there are responsibilities that come along with 00:38:04.560 --> 00:38:06.960 the position. 00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:12.080 And as men, we really should have an easier time recognizing and 00:38:12.080 --> 00:38:15.520 accepting the reality of hierarchy. 00:38:15.520 --> 00:38:19.840 It is something that is fundamental to men to recognize that and 00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:22.640 establish it within a group, and we all do it as well 00:38:22.800 --> 00:38:26.080 mentioned, as children, just naturally, this happens on the playground. 00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:32.240 And as we age, as we grow up, the current system tries 00:38:32.240 --> 00:38:35.520 to beat that out of us, tries to propagandize us to the 00:38:35.520 --> 00:38:38.240 point where we no longer believe what we know to be true 00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:43.440 what we inherently recognize as a fundamental aspect of reality. 00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:48.160 There are hierarchies in everything under the sun. 00:38:48.160 --> 00:38:51.680 And that is a good thing because it is God's design. 00:38:51.680 --> 00:38:55.120 And so we shouldn't rebel against that, we shouldn't try to subvert 00:38:55.120 --> 00:38:58.240 that, we shouldn't be envious of the man who is higher on 00:38:58.240 --> 00:38:59.600 the totem pole. 00:38:59.600 --> 00:39:02.320 We also shouldn't denigrate the man who is lower on the totem 00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:05.680 pole. It is not the role of the leader to abuse those 00:39:05.680 --> 00:39:07.360 below him. 00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:11.360 In fact, one of the marks of a good leader will be 00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:15.760 that he will, one, surround himself with good men, but two, he 00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:19.840 also will elevate those men And this is another thing that men 00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:24.640 recognize. If you have a group with a good leader, that group 00:39:24.640 --> 00:39:27.200 will be a better group of which to be a member than 00:39:27.200 --> 00:39:29.120 one that does not have a leader. 00:39:29.120 --> 00:39:31.840 It doesn't matter if you're the lowest man on the totem pole, 00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:35.600 you'd probably rather be in the group that's well ordered and has 00:39:35.600 --> 00:39:36.560 a good leader. 00:39:36.560 --> 00:39:39.760 Because that leader will elevate everyone in the group. 00:39:39.760 --> 00:39:43.440 You will fundamentally be better off being part of the group with 00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:46.800 functional leadership than if you were just part of a group that 00:39:46.800 --> 00:39:49.120 had no leader and everyone's equal. 00:39:49.120 --> 00:39:52.000 Because of course, everyone is not equal. 00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:55.040 And so all you can do is drag everyone down to the 00:39:55.040 --> 00:39:59.120 level of the man who is lowest, or you can just ignore 00:39:59.120 --> 00:40:03.360 all those differences, and nothing will actually function. 00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:07.760 Because you don't have the hierarchy, you don't have the order, and 00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:12.880 you fundamentally don't have what is of absolute necessity, the man at 00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:15.840 the top of whatever group it happens to be, who can make 00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:21.280 decisions. That is one of the most important aspects of the role 00:40:21.280 --> 00:40:26.640 of leadership One of the key requirements of the leader, and yes, 00:40:26.640 --> 00:40:29.680 it's a privilege to some degree as well, but the leader makes 00:40:29.680 --> 00:40:35.360 decisions. And one of the most salient sort of decisions is the 00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:40.000 tiebreaker. If you have a group that is split in some way, 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.160 you have various competing, warring factions disagree with each other, it is 00:40:44.160 --> 00:40:47.520 the role of the leader to make a decision, and then it 00:40:47.520 --> 00:40:51.920 is the duty of the other men to follow it. 00:40:51.920 --> 00:40:55.440 To tie it back into what I said about the political right 00:40:55.440 --> 00:41:00.960 in the US, this is where things fundamentally fall apart for the 00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:06.320 political right currently, as things stand today, in the American context. 00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:12.560 We have the warring factions, but we don't have any leaders, and 00:41:12.560 --> 00:41:17.600 men who stand up and attempt to lead are often attacked, of 00:41:17.600 --> 00:41:19.840 course, as I mentioned earlier. 00:41:19.840 --> 00:41:22.800 But they're ignored, and the warring factions continue. 00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:26.080 If you just have warring factions, you will never get anywhere. 00:41:26.080 --> 00:41:29.440 You will not get anything done, and often the fights are over 00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:31.120 stupid things. 00:41:31.120 --> 00:41:35.200 We were discussing before we began recording today the fact that churches 00:41:35.200 --> 00:41:38.400 sometimes will have fights over the color of the parents, or the 00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:43.760 placement of statuary, or any of a number of a hundred other 00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:45.040 stupid things. 00:41:45.040 --> 00:41:49.200 And these will be knocked down drag-out fights. 00:41:49.200 --> 00:41:52.000 And part of the reason for that, of course, is because they're 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:55.920 avoiding more important issues and so they're avoiding having actually 00:41:56.800 --> 00:42:01.600 weighty discussions over things that matter by discussing things that are trivial. 00:42:01.600 --> 00:42:05.440 But it's the absence of leadership that allows that to devolve into 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:09.440 chaos, because a leader would simply say we are going to do 00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:11.200 it this way. 00:42:11.200 --> 00:42:15.680 And then men recognize the necessity of falling in line and following 00:42:15.680 --> 00:42:20.800 orders. Because you can't have order if not if no man follows 00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:25.840 orders. Because a leader who has no one who follows him can't 00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:27.760 lead. If you have 00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:33.520 a man in a theatre of war who is leading those under 00:42:33.520 --> 00:42:37.600 him, and he issues an order and no one listens. 00:42:37.600 --> 00:42:39.680 There are a lot of problems, of course, that have led up 00:42:39.680 --> 00:42:42.320 to this, and there are consequences that would flow from it, but 00:42:42.320 --> 00:42:44.320 he's not a leader. 00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:47.120 It doesn't matter if he has the position, doesn't matter if he 00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:49.680 has the rank, whatever it happens to be. 00:42:49.680 --> 00:42:53.200 He's not a leader because no one is following him. 00:42:53.200 --> 00:42:54.960 This can be a problem on both sides. 00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:57.520 It can be because the leader has failed in his duties, or 00:42:57.520 --> 00:43:00.800 it could be because those under him have failed in theirs. 00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:04.800 And with regard to the political right in the US, it is 00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:09.680 by and large a function the disorder is a function of that 00:43:09.680 --> 00:43:11.280 second sort of error. 00:43:11.280 --> 00:43:14.960 It is the failure of men to follow leadership. 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:19.120 Because in the American context, we still have these egalitarian priors. 00:43:19.120 --> 00:43:22.720 We still have this belief that every man should have an equal 00:43:22.720 --> 00:43:27.040 say, that everyone should be able to dissent from whatever it happens 00:43:27.040 --> 00:43:28.080 to be. 00:43:28.080 --> 00:43:31.920 And that leads to chaos and nothing gets done. 00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:35.120 One of the big factors in 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:41.120 the hierarchy of responsibility is something that because of our egalitarianism, we've 00:43:41.120 --> 00:43:44.320 we've pretty much lost the sense of in a lot of context. 00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:49.040 You do find it in places that actually have the rigid hierarchy, 00:43:49.040 --> 00:43:52.880 but it's sort of seen as incidental to the organization and not 00:43:52.880 --> 00:43:56.160 as being vital to the universe. 00:43:56.160 --> 00:44:00.240 So as an example, when I was at Apple, I was promoted 00:44:00.240 --> 00:44:01.440 to manager fairly early on. 00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:04.640 I was one of the youngest managers at the company. 00:44:04.640 --> 00:44:08.240 And one of the very valuable things that I was taught in 00:44:08.240 --> 00:44:13.120 manager training, where most people were almost twice my age, was that 00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:19.600 because Apple promoted individual contributors is what they were called to management 00:44:19.600 --> 00:44:22.480 positions. There wasn't professional management. 00:44:22.480 --> 00:44:27.200 If you were good as an individual contributor, you were then elevated 00:44:27.200 --> 00:44:30.240 to being a manager of a group or of a team, which 00:44:30.240 --> 00:44:32.880 meant that you were now managing the people that were doing the 00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:34.160 job that you had been doing. 00:44:34.160 --> 00:44:36.800 And one of the vital things that they taught us in that 00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:41.840 management course was that as an individual contributor who's become a manager, 00:44:42.240 --> 00:44:45.200 you have gone from being the very best person at doing the 00:44:45.200 --> 00:44:47.680 thing that you were doing, the reason that you were in the 00:44:47.680 --> 00:44:52.080 promotion, into being the very worst manager that doesn't know anything. 00:44:52.080 --> 00:44:53.600 You've never done this before. 00:44:53.760 --> 00:44:56.000 So the very thing you were good at, you're not allowed to 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:56.960 do anymore. 00:44:56.960 --> 00:45:00.480 And your primary task now is to do something that you're gonna 00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:02.960 be bad at for a while because you don't have experience. 00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:06.240 And part of the reason that they explicitly warned us about this 00:45:06.240 --> 00:45:10.240 was that The natural tendency of someone who's still in this team 00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:14.480 like I was, now managing men who had been my peers, the 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:17.840 natural tendency in that situation is during crunch time when push comes 00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:21.040 to shove, for the man who is good as an individual contributor 00:45:21.120 --> 00:45:24.560 to fall back to doing getting back in the trenches and doing 00:45:24.560 --> 00:45:27.040 exactly what the other guys were doing because he was really good 00:45:27.040 --> 00:45:27.840 at it. 00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:30.480 And they warned us that you can't do that. 00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:32.080 You have to keep being a manager. 00:45:32.080 --> 00:45:34.480 You have to do the new thing because you have a duty 00:45:34.480 --> 00:45:37.360 to do the thing that your other guys can't do. 00:45:37.360 --> 00:45:39.920 And that's a fundamental difference in hierarchy. 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:43.440 The guys who are lower don't have the job of doing the 00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:45.600 tasks that you have above them. 00:45:45.600 --> 00:45:47.600 There are a bunch of guys who can do what you could 00:45:47.600 --> 00:45:49.680 do, even if you could do it better than them. 00:45:49.680 --> 00:45:51.440 It's still their job to do it. 00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:54.160 You as the manager now have a task to do something that 00:45:54.160 --> 00:45:55.600 no one else is going to get done. 00:45:55.600 --> 00:45:57.440 You're the only one that can do it. 00:45:57.440 --> 00:46:00.080 And so it was a really good lesson for me, knowing nothing 00:46:00.080 --> 00:46:03.840 yet, to just be reminded not to get lazy and try to 00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:06.320 hide back in the job that I was good at. 00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:08.480 I had to do the hard thing that I didn't know how 00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:09.280 to do. 00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:13.440 And that's something that's invisible when you're just an individual contributor. 00:46:13.440 --> 00:46:15.200 You don't think about those things. 00:46:15.200 --> 00:46:15.920 It's not your job. 00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:17.040 It's not your problem. 00:46:17.040 --> 00:46:21.520 And egalitarianism basically collapses that so that no one thinks about that. 00:46:21.520 --> 00:46:25.600 No one thinks about the responsibility of of those who are higher 00:46:25.600 --> 00:46:27.120 in the hierarchy. 00:46:27.120 --> 00:46:27.680 It's there. 00:46:27.680 --> 00:46:28.320 It's real. 00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:31.280 As Corey said, they're privileges sometimes that are attendant to it. 00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:34.080 You know, as a manager, I made more than the guys who 00:46:34.080 --> 00:46:37.040 reported to me, although at the time I was, I was making 00:46:37.040 --> 00:46:40.320 so little that when I was started hiring guys, my boss gave 00:46:40.320 --> 00:46:42.640 me a race so I could make as much as the new 00:46:42.640 --> 00:46:43.760 guys I was hiring. 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:45.360 So it goes. 00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:49.200 What's important is that for us to understand that when someone is 00:46:49.200 --> 00:46:52.880 in a higher place higher place, whether they deserve it or not, 00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:55.680 whatever, however they got there, that's their job. 00:46:55.680 --> 00:46:57.440 And we should expect them to do it. 00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:00.880 And we should follow them when they're doing it well. 00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:03.520 And we should even, you know, to a degree follow them when 00:47:03.520 --> 00:47:04.320 they're doing it poorly. 00:47:04.320 --> 00:47:06.160 Try to support them. 00:47:06.160 --> 00:47:09.840 Because whether it's on the playground or it's in a workplace or 00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:13.760 it's in a church, the guy who's in charge of whatever at 00:47:13.760 --> 00:47:16.880 whatever level of hierarchy, if he's the one who's supposed to be 00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:21.440 making the decisions, help him make the right decisions and then support 00:47:21.440 --> 00:47:25.600 him. And that's something that egalitarianism doesn't tolerate. 00:47:25.600 --> 00:47:28.000 It's gotta be completely consensus-based. 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.080 Everyone has to have their feelings accommodated before you can move on. 00:47:32.080 --> 00:47:35.040 And sometimes that's just not possible. 00:47:35.040 --> 00:47:37.680 Imagine, for example, that you are on a cruise. 00:47:37.920 --> 00:47:41.280 If you're a young guy, that seems absurd, it's another boomer trope, 00:47:41.280 --> 00:47:45.040 sorry. But it's a good example because you're on a cruise, you're 00:47:45.040 --> 00:47:48.880 relaxing, it's your vacation, you have no responsibilities, you're just eating and 00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:52.000 drinking and relaxing for a week or two. 00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:54.960 So you're in your cabin, and suddenly the alarm goes off. 00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:59.200 You're this terrible claxon, and you've been told during you know onboarding 00:47:59.200 --> 00:48:01.600 that if you hear this, you need to get to your evacuation 00:48:01.600 --> 00:48:03.040 station or whatever. 00:48:03.040 --> 00:48:04.720 But you're on vacation. 00:48:04.720 --> 00:48:08.560 You're enjoying yourself, you were relaxed, and now these loud noises are 00:48:08.560 --> 00:48:11.920 outside the room and people are running and hollering, and you're just 00:48:11.920 --> 00:48:14.080 annoyed because you wanted to relax. 00:48:14.080 --> 00:48:16.640 And then someone comes and bangs on the door, and it's a 00:48:16.640 --> 00:48:18.640 porter. He says, We got to get out of here, get to 00:48:18.640 --> 00:48:19.760 your boats, get to the lifeboat. 00:48:19.840 --> 00:48:20.720 We're abandoning the ship. 00:48:20.720 --> 00:48:23.200 We got to evacuate. 00:48:23.200 --> 00:48:28.240 The egalitarian response in that situation is to argue with the man 00:48:28.240 --> 00:48:31.280 and say, You need to make me feel better about this. 00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:34.560 You need to explain to me why I should listen to you 00:48:34.720 --> 00:48:36.640 when I was doing one thing and you want me to do 00:48:36.640 --> 00:48:37.440 something else. 00:48:37.440 --> 00:48:39.360 I'm I've I don't feel good anymore. 00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:42.720 I was on vacation and now I'm worried you've ruined my mood. 00:48:42.720 --> 00:48:45.120 I need you to make me feel comfortable before I'm gonna come 00:48:45.120 --> 00:48:45.840 with you. 00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:47.520 That's completely absurd, right? 00:48:47.520 --> 00:48:48.960 Like you don't know what's wrong. 00:48:48.960 --> 00:48:50.000 Maybe the ship's on fire. 00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:51.040 Maybe it's sinking. 00:48:51.040 --> 00:48:53.600 Someone has made the decision for you to get off the boat. 00:48:53.600 --> 00:48:56.160 And if your response is to argue with the guy who is 00:48:56.160 --> 00:48:58.480 trying to, you know, grab you and say, Hey, come on, get 00:48:58.480 --> 00:49:00.640 off the boat, you don't argue with that man. 00:49:00.640 --> 00:49:02.000 You follow orders. 00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:04.480 You do what you're told. 00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:07.280 Egalitarianism is the enemy of that. 00:49:07.280 --> 00:49:11.520 It says no, I need to have my feelings accommodated before I 00:49:11.520 --> 00:49:13.040 will agree with you. 00:49:13.040 --> 00:49:14.000 That's absurd. 00:49:14.160 --> 00:49:17.440 That's why I use that ridiculous example because it would be the 00:49:17.440 --> 00:49:18.880 stupidest possible response. 00:49:18.880 --> 00:49:20.160 And the porter's not gonna care. 00:49:20.160 --> 00:49:22.400 Like he's going, he's trying to get everyone off the ship. 00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:24.400 He's not gonna stand there and argue with you. 00:49:24.400 --> 00:49:27.040 He's got another five hundred doors he needs to knock on to 00:49:27.040 --> 00:49:29.040 make sure that everyone gets off. 00:49:29.040 --> 00:49:32.960 And if you individually just want to whine about your feelings and 00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:36.080 about how your vacation is ruined, you can go down with the 00:49:36.080 --> 00:49:37.120 ship. That's your problem. 00:49:37.120 --> 00:49:38.160 It's not his problem. 00:49:38.160 --> 00:49:42.480 He's doing what he should have done in his position of authority. 00:49:42.480 --> 00:49:45.600 If you don't follow along, that's on you. 00:49:45.600 --> 00:49:46.560 There is 00:49:48.160 --> 00:49:52.640 a scope of responsibility that I another very valuable thing that I 00:49:52.640 --> 00:49:56.240 was taught at Apple, I think I saw the paper somewhere. 00:49:56.240 --> 00:49:59.120 I can't post it because I'm sure they'd sue me, but basically 00:49:59.200 --> 00:50:03.200 it showed for the individual ranks of individual contributors, they're ranked from 00:50:03.200 --> 00:50:06.560 one to six, one being the most junior, six the very most 00:50:06.560 --> 00:50:09.920 senior. And basically what it was, it was a really great way 00:50:09.920 --> 00:50:11.040 of breaking this down. 00:50:11.040 --> 00:50:14.080 It showed for the for the ICT one, for the individual contributor, 00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:16.400 it's what they were called at the time, probably changed now. 00:50:16.400 --> 00:50:17.600 I hope so. 00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:22.480 For the individual contributor one, you had an extremely limited scope. 00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:24.960 You had maximum supervision. 00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:27.680 Your boss was always basically looking over your shoulder to make sure 00:50:27.680 --> 00:50:29.040 that you were doing whatever. 00:50:29.040 --> 00:50:31.920 And you had a very limited scope of duties. 00:50:31.920 --> 00:50:35.600 And the really interesting thing about the way this this was broken 00:50:35.600 --> 00:50:38.960 down was that it both for each level for one through six, 00:50:38.960 --> 00:50:42.800 it both showed the responsibilities and it showed the negative case. 00:50:42.800 --> 00:50:46.320 It showed the failure case for what happens if the individual contributor 00:50:46.320 --> 00:50:48.160 one does his job wrong. 00:50:48.160 --> 00:50:50.480 And this is what made it stick in my mind to this 00:50:50.480 --> 00:50:54.000 day is that for the ICT one, you know, basically the private 00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:58.560 in the organization and army parlance, if that guy does his job 00:50:58.560 --> 00:51:04.160 wrong, there's very minimum damage to the product, whatever it is. 00:51:04.160 --> 00:51:06.640 Whatever you're working on, yes, this was an engineering. 00:51:06.640 --> 00:51:11.760 Basically, if an ICT-1 screwed up his engineering duties, someone else could 00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:13.600 come along very easily and clean it up. 00:51:13.600 --> 00:51:15.920 There's as I was describing when I was promoted to manager, I 00:51:15.920 --> 00:51:18.160 was obviously a very junior manager. 00:51:18.160 --> 00:51:21.680 I was interchangeable functionally with the guys directly beneath me because I 00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:25.440 just just been doing the same job At that level, a number 00:51:25.440 --> 00:51:27.760 of people could do the same job, you know, with training or 00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:31.840 whatever, but the specific scope of those duties was very limited. 00:51:31.840 --> 00:51:34.960 And if any one of us failed, it wasn't gonna bring down 00:51:34.960 --> 00:51:36.320 the whole ship. 00:51:36.560 --> 00:51:40.320 At the other end of the spectrum, the very most senior engineers, 00:51:40.320 --> 00:51:44.480 the guys who are architects of actual systems, if they screw up 00:51:44.480 --> 00:51:49.040 their jobs the way this breakdown showed, if the guy who's basically 00:51:49.040 --> 00:51:53.600 an architect for entire portions of the engineering product fails at his 00:51:53.600 --> 00:51:57.040 job, if he makes a mistake, it's possible to sync the product. 00:51:57.040 --> 00:51:59.680 Yeah, you're talking about you know in the case of software and 00:51:59.680 --> 00:52:06.480 hardware, entire products shipping late, shipping not at all, having that feature 00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:09.920 yanked out entirely and causing chaos, which did sometimes happen. 00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:11.600 Like these mistakes were made. 00:52:11.600 --> 00:52:14.240 You know, you wouldn't hear about this mistakes at the very lowest 00:52:14.240 --> 00:52:17.440 level because the scope of responsibility was so narrow. 00:52:17.440 --> 00:52:21.840 At the highest level, when the mistakes occurred because the architects got 00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:24.160 something wrong, it was mass chaos. 00:52:24.160 --> 00:52:26.000 It did a huge amount of damage. 00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:28.000 And a lot of the fire drills that we had at the 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:32.080 end of product cycles were about failures or misrepresentations at those higher 00:52:32.080 --> 00:52:34.720 levels, or the managers of those guys. 00:52:34.720 --> 00:52:38.800 So although the ICT one is not making any money, and the 00:52:38.960 --> 00:52:42.320 level six is making a lot of money. 00:52:42.320 --> 00:52:44.640 That's because of the damage that they can do if they get 00:52:44.640 --> 00:52:45.360 it wrong. 00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:48.640 And so you have a lot of low-ranking guys who are much 00:52:48.640 --> 00:52:49.760 more fungible. 00:52:49.760 --> 00:52:53.200 You have very few guys who can actually do the highest level 00:52:53.200 --> 00:52:56.240 work. The vast majority of guys never got to level five or 00:52:56.240 --> 00:52:59.280 six. Like four was typically about as high as most people would 00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:00.000 ever get. 00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:02.640 Because I was just reflected abilities. 00:53:02.640 --> 00:53:06.560 There are only so many guys who can do actual architect level 00:53:06.560 --> 00:53:08.400 design of things. 00:53:08.400 --> 00:53:09.440 That's just how it works. 00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:13.680 As Corey was saying earlier, like abilities are distributed unequally. 00:53:13.680 --> 00:53:18.000 And so the scope of damage is reflected in compensation. 00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:22.320 It's reflected in you know, to some extent the esteem that's given, 00:53:22.320 --> 00:53:26.160 but it's also reflective of the damage that's done if they fail. 00:53:26.160 --> 00:53:28.800 And I think that's an important part is we're looking in our 00:53:28.800 --> 00:53:32.720 lives, whatever context it is, for evaluating who's going to be a 00:53:32.720 --> 00:53:33.520 good leader. 00:53:34.480 --> 00:53:37.680 If the guy gets something wrong, how much damage is it gonna 00:53:37.680 --> 00:53:40.560 do? You mentioned earlier the the army hierarchy. 00:53:40.560 --> 00:53:43.600 If you have a corporal who's running a fire team and he 00:53:43.600 --> 00:53:46.320 gets something wrong, he makes a mistake in a war, he can 00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:47.680 get the guy next to him killed. 00:53:47.680 --> 00:53:51.600 That's very bad, but it's not a strategic failure for the military. 00:53:51.600 --> 00:53:54.240 If on the other hand you have a a colonel who's running 00:53:54.240 --> 00:53:57.680 an entire brigade and he's got three to five thousand men under 00:53:57.680 --> 00:53:58.320 him him. 00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:02.080 If a colonel makes a tactical mistake on the battlefield, he can 00:54:02.080 --> 00:54:03.840 have his entire brigade wiped out. 00:54:03.840 --> 00:54:07.360 And that could be a strategic failure for the army, because suddenly 00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:11.840 one man who is tasked with a significant area of operations fails 00:54:11.840 --> 00:54:17.040 to deliver on whatever his task was in that place, his failure 00:54:17.040 --> 00:54:19.120 may well turn the tide of a war. 00:54:19.120 --> 00:54:22.800 Whereas the guy in the trench with a fire team beneath the 00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:26.480 squad, if he screws something up, he's gonna get men killed, you 00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:30.400 know, letters home, very sad for them, but it's never gonna make 00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:31.200 the news. 00:54:31.200 --> 00:54:34.800 If somebody a much higher level screws up, it can do catastrophic 00:54:34.800 --> 00:54:40.720 damage. And so that's why it's so important to destroy egalitarianism, to 00:54:40.720 --> 00:54:47.200 reinstitute hierarchy everywhere, because these things are true, whether we institute the 00:54:47.200 --> 00:54:50.320 hierarchy or not, it's always true that some men are gonna do 00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:52.800 more damage than others when they get things wrong. 00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:55.680 And they can do far more good when they get things right. 00:54:55.680 --> 00:54:59.760 And so whatever level we are beneath those men, if you're involved 00:54:59.760 --> 00:55:03.440 in selecting them, if you're just simply involved in supporting them and 00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:08.000 following the leader, figure out which guys can do the most good 00:55:08.160 --> 00:55:11.200 and are gonna have the you know the aptitude not to make 00:55:11.200 --> 00:55:14.240 catastrophic failures and put those guys in charge. 00:55:14.240 --> 00:55:17.200 And again, like there's like I said at the beginning, it's inherently 00:55:17.200 --> 00:55:22.800 ironic that we're making this populist appeal to ending populism, but that's 00:55:22.800 --> 00:55:24.400 just how these things play out. 00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:28.720 At some point, particularly when things get screwed up societally, we have 00:55:28.720 --> 00:55:31.520 to figure out how can we get back to the place where 00:55:31.520 --> 00:55:32.880 these things used to actually work. 00:55:33.120 --> 00:55:35.120 You used to find hierarchy everywhere. 00:55:35.120 --> 00:55:37.840 You know, one of the worst things I think that America did 00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:42.880 when we broke away from Britain was completely eliminating the class system. 00:55:43.120 --> 00:55:45.120 Whether it's official or not, I don't care. 00:55:45.120 --> 00:55:48.080 I've like my family who came here, yeah, they were kings a 00:55:48.080 --> 00:55:48.880 long time ago. 00:55:48.880 --> 00:55:51.360 By the time they were coming here, uh only a couple had 00:55:51.360 --> 00:55:53.200 title. Most some were nothing. 00:55:53.200 --> 00:55:53.840 That's fine. 00:55:53.840 --> 00:55:54.240 Don't care. 00:55:54.400 --> 00:55:59.200 it's not about status in terms of ruling men. 00:55:59.200 --> 00:56:01.120 It's about doing the best you can. 00:56:01.120 --> 00:56:03.840 And if you have the aptitude to do better than someone else, 00:56:03.840 --> 00:56:06.640 then you have a duty to God and to your fellow man, 00:56:06.640 --> 00:56:09.280 to your neighbor, to your family, to your community, to do that 00:56:09.440 --> 00:56:12.800 well. Not men are given that aptitude, but those who have it 00:56:13.040 --> 00:56:14.320 should be rewarded. 00:56:14.320 --> 00:56:16.000 We need to start rewarding them again. 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:18.800 They should be recognized and they should be supported. 00:56:18.800 --> 00:56:22.480 And the guys who are striving for those positions for the sake 00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:27.280 of power and glory and not with a cognizance of the responsibility 00:56:27.280 --> 00:56:29.440 involved, don't trust those guys. 00:56:29.440 --> 00:56:32.240 Somebody who's really eager to be in charge, you should not trust 00:56:32.240 --> 00:56:34.400 him. That's another part of this conversation. 00:56:34.400 --> 00:56:37.680 They're warning signs where guys are like, Oh, yeah, put me in 00:56:37.680 --> 00:56:41.680 charge. They're either immature or they're up to no good, because a 00:56:41.680 --> 00:56:45.360 good man generally doesn't want to be in charge to some degree. 00:56:45.360 --> 00:56:47.200 Now, if someone has been groomed and is just sort of a 00:56:47.200 --> 00:56:49.680 natural leader, uh that's fine. 00:56:49.680 --> 00:56:50.400 That's one thing. 00:56:50.400 --> 00:56:52.240 The problem is we don't have much of that. 00:56:52.240 --> 00:56:56.160 It should be that the men who are naturally leaders are naturally 00:56:56.160 --> 00:57:00.400 slotted into these positions and everyone just knows his positions. 00:57:00.400 --> 00:57:02.640 When we get back to that point, we won't be having these 00:57:02.640 --> 00:57:05.360 conversations anymore because it won't be for us. 00:57:05.360 --> 00:57:07.680 You know, I'll be back at the bottom of the hierarchy like 00:57:07.680 --> 00:57:09.520 my most of my ancestors in this country. 00:57:09.520 --> 00:57:10.960 Fine, whatever. 00:57:11.280 --> 00:57:14.720 What we can't do is pretend that that hierarchy is not important. 00:57:14.720 --> 00:57:16.640 Somebody's got to be in charge. 00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:21.680 You need to have people who are responsible and apt to deal 00:57:21.680 --> 00:57:24.640 with things at levels that maybe you aren't. 00:57:24.800 --> 00:57:24.960 There 00:57:25.040 --> 00:57:30.400 are two closely related issues that we have discussed so far, and 00:57:30.400 --> 00:57:34.240 I want to draw sort of a bright line between them. 00:57:34.240 --> 00:57:38.720 There's leadership and there's expertise. 00:57:38.720 --> 00:57:42.800 By way of example when it comes to expertise, there's a little 00:57:42.800 --> 00:57:46.640 bit of leadership involved too, but there's the Venn diagram for these 00:57:46.640 --> 00:57:48.720 is not two disconnected circles. 00:57:48.720 --> 00:57:51.920 There's some overlap here. 00:57:51.920 --> 00:57:57.760 But by way of example, in the legal field, there's what's called 00:57:57.760 --> 00:57:58.720 a deposition. 00:57:58.720 --> 00:58:04.800 Basically, it's just a formalized asking and answering of questions leading up 00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:09.760 to a lawsuit or hopefully a settlement in most cases, and generally 00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:12.080 the case today a settlement in most cases. 00:58:12.080 --> 00:58:15.280 But a deposition, you'll have a deponent, there is someone who will 00:58:15.280 --> 00:58:17.920 be asked questions and have to answer those questions. 00:58:17.920 --> 00:58:21.200 He'll have an attorney present, there'll be an attorney for the other 00:58:21.200 --> 00:58:24.160 side, or for how many other sides there are. 00:58:24.160 --> 00:58:29.200 The attorney is serving in the role of an expert. 00:58:29.200 --> 00:58:33.440 And if you are the man being deposed, you should listen to 00:58:33.440 --> 00:58:34.640 your attorney. 00:58:34.640 --> 00:58:38.000 The reason you listen to your attorney is because he is the 00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:41.840 one who understands the field, the legal field. 00:58:41.840 --> 00:58:46.000 Now the questions being asked, you may very well understand them far 00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:47.680 better than your attorney. 00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:52.320 That doesn't matter, because the expertise that is relevant is the legal 00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:56.560 expertise. This is a very important point. 00:58:57.200 --> 00:59:01.920 Because oftentimes the leader will not be the man who knows the 00:59:01.920 --> 00:59:07.040 most about all of the fields involved in the particular question, whatever 00:59:07.040 --> 00:59:11.600 the issue is, whatever he's deciding The men serving under him will 00:59:11.600 --> 00:59:14.400 be the subject matter experts. 00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:18.240 So for instance, the CEO of a company is probably not the 00:59:18.240 --> 00:59:19.920 best engineer in the company. 00:59:19.920 --> 00:59:23.040 He's not CEO, at least in a system that functions properly will 00:59:23.120 --> 00:59:27.520 leave aside the issues with our present system, but theoretically, the man 00:59:27.520 --> 00:59:31.920 running the company, he's not running it because he's the best engineer. 00:59:31.920 --> 00:59:34.800 He's running it because he's the best CEO. 00:59:35.520 --> 00:59:36.960 These are different tasks. 00:59:36.960 --> 00:59:39.440 These are different ability sets. 00:59:39.440 --> 00:59:42.640 And so your attorney will be able to tell you 00:59:43.600 --> 00:59:47.760 when to answer, when not to answer, when to shut up, hopefully 00:59:48.160 --> 00:59:50.960 you have some sort of signal, so he can indicate to you 00:59:50.960 --> 00:59:53.840 to stop speaking, which is one of the fundamental problems with people 00:59:53.840 --> 00:59:56.640 being deposed, they talk too much. 00:59:56.640 --> 00:59:59.280 But your attorney is the expert, and so you listen to him 00:59:59.280 --> 01:00:01.200 because of that expertise. 01:00:01.440 --> 01:00:05.920 Now there has to be a certain caveat here, unfortunately, because of 01:00:05.920 --> 01:00:07.520 present realities. 01:00:07.520 --> 01:00:10.800 Because of course we have the sort of cult of expertise on 01:00:10.800 --> 01:00:14.720 the political left, you know, listen to the experts. 01:00:14.720 --> 01:00:15.040 The 01:00:15.040 --> 01:00:19.120 problem is that those experts aren't. 01:00:19.120 --> 01:00:22.800 You have men who are actual experts in a field because they 01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:26.240 know the field, and then you have those who claim expertise because 01:00:26.240 --> 01:00:31.360 they are, under our current system at least, credentialed or something similar. 01:00:31.360 --> 01:00:35.600 Listening to a man who has actual expertise is wise, that's a 01:00:35.600 --> 01:00:36.880 matter of wisdom. 01:00:36.880 --> 01:00:42.160 Listening to a man who claims expertise and has none is also 01:00:42.160 --> 01:00:45.360 a matter of wisdom, but in that case it's rejecting what he 01:00:45.360 --> 01:00:46.880 has to say. 01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:50.000 Of course, this is right back to an issue of wisdom. 01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:52.960 You are going to have to assess these things to some degree 01:00:52.960 --> 01:00:54.800 for yourself. 01:00:55.040 --> 01:00:58.880 There's a bit of a weighing problem here. 01:00:58.880 --> 01:01:05.520 Is on the one hand, listening to leaders and following orders, quite 01:01:05.520 --> 01:01:09.840 frankly, knowing your place in the hierarchy is of fundamental importance, but 01:01:09.840 --> 01:01:16.000 at the same time some things are left up to individual wisdom. 01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:21.120 Under a better system, organized more properly, we would not have this 01:01:21.120 --> 01:01:25.440 core of so-called experts who know absolutely nothing except for how to 01:01:25.440 --> 01:01:26.720 get grants. 01:01:26.720 --> 01:01:31.040 And so this sort of wisdom call would not be as necessary, 01:01:31.040 --> 01:01:32.640 it would not be as difficult at the very least. 01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:36.800 But as we have mentioned so many times before in so many 01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:40.560 other episodes, there are so many things in our system that are 01:01:40.560 --> 01:01:43.520 broken that we have to fix them all at once. 01:01:43.520 --> 01:01:48.160 And so it makes for very difficult decisions in some cases. 01:01:48.160 --> 01:01:51.760 So listen to the expert, because the expert knows what he's talking 01:01:51.760 --> 01:01:54.800 about, and you're going to have a better outcome, quite frankly, if 01:01:54.800 --> 01:01:57.120 you listen to the expert than try to assess it yourself. 01:01:57.120 --> 01:01:59.200 But at the same time, you have to make the assessment of 01:01:59.200 --> 01:02:00.720 who is an expert. 01:02:00.720 --> 01:02:01.840 That's a challenge. 01:02:01.840 --> 01:02:03.520 That's a difficult thing. 01:02:03.520 --> 01:02:06.720 That's a hard question to pose. 01:02:06.720 --> 01:02:10.000 But just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's something we can avoid. 01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:14.960 Doesn't mean it's something we do not have to do. 01:02:14.960 --> 01:02:22.240 Leadership, in contradistinction, as it were, to expertise, as I mentioned, 01:02:22.240 --> 01:02:23.760 is a different skill set. 01:02:23.760 --> 01:02:26.560 It's still you're an expert because, of course, a leader is well, 01:02:26.560 --> 01:02:28.880 he's just an expert at being a leader. 01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:33.600 But it's a very specific sort of expertise. 01:02:33.600 --> 01:02:36.720 Because as mentioned, the leader may not be the best in that 01:02:36.720 --> 01:02:38.080 particular field. 01:02:38.080 --> 01:02:42.800 For instance, the king is probably not going to be 01:02:43.840 --> 01:02:49.680 the best educated with regard to, say, economics, or with regard to 01:02:49.680 --> 01:02:55.040 warfare, or with regard to any of a thousand other subjects, because 01:02:55.280 --> 01:02:59.360 he will have men under him who are experts in those fields. 01:02:59.360 --> 01:03:03.840 His role is to take the advice of those men and to 01:03:03.840 --> 01:03:06.320 make the ultimate decision. 01:03:06.320 --> 01:03:10.160 Part of that is because he has, hopefully at least, and under 01:03:10.160 --> 01:03:14.240 a proper system, of course, but he has the training to make 01:03:14.240 --> 01:03:19.200 those sorts of decisions Decisions, but there is also an aspect of 01:03:19.200 --> 01:03:23.360 it where someone just someone fundamentally has to make the decision. 01:03:23.360 --> 01:03:27.200 You have to have a man who eventually says yes or no. 01:03:27.760 --> 01:03:30.880 And part of the reason for that is because then that man 01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:33.600 is responsible for the outcome. 01:03:33.600 --> 01:03:34.800 You know, it's the 01:03:36.560 --> 01:03:38.880 maxim, the buck stops here. 01:03:38.880 --> 01:03:39.920 That's true. 01:03:39.920 --> 01:03:41.360 It has to stop somewhere. 01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:45.600 And this is one of the problems with democracy because who's responsible? 01:03:46.160 --> 01:03:48.400 There's no one who is responsible. 01:03:48.400 --> 01:03:52.560 You can say, Oh, it's the president, he's responsible. 01:03:52.560 --> 01:03:55.440 But what happens to a president when he fails? 01:03:55.440 --> 01:03:57.040 Well he doesn't get reelected. 01:03:57.040 --> 01:03:58.640 That's about it. 01:03:58.640 --> 01:04:03.680 As fundamentally different from a king or someone who actually has real 01:04:03.920 --> 01:04:10.640 authority. If that man errs, the consequences are often quite dire. 01:04:10.640 --> 01:04:13.680 Not just for him, but for his country as well. 01:04:13.680 --> 01:04:17.920 But there is someone who is fundamentally responsible. 01:04:17.920 --> 01:04:21.440 When you have proper hierarchy, when you have proper order, when you 01:04:21.440 --> 01:04:25.360 have leaders who are actually in the positions in which they should 01:04:25.360 --> 01:04:29.920 be making decisions, you have someone you can say that man is 01:04:29.920 --> 01:04:32.800 responsible for this good outcome or that man is responsible for this 01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:36.160 bad outcome. 01:04:36.160 --> 01:04:39.520 That is one of the things that is lacking in our society. 01:04:39.520 --> 01:04:43.440 We don't have any real responsibility. 01:04:43.440 --> 01:04:48.240 Everyone just wants to be part of the mass as it were, 01:04:48.240 --> 01:04:51.600 the undifferentiated mass, because then no one is responsible. 01:04:51.600 --> 01:04:54.720 But of course the problem is everyone is responsible at the same 01:04:54.720 --> 01:04:58.320 time. But you can't pin it on one man. 01:04:58.320 --> 01:05:02.720 And so you wind up Wind up with disorder and dysfunction because 01:05:02.720 --> 01:05:05.680 there's no one to make the decision, and then when things go 01:05:05.680 --> 01:05:09.120 wrong, there's nowhere to point. 01:05:09.120 --> 01:05:12.880 It's not just to place blame, it's because if you have a 01:05:12.880 --> 01:05:15.680 point in the system where you can say here is where the 01:05:15.680 --> 01:05:20.640 error took place, then you can potentially address it. 01:05:20.640 --> 01:05:26.640 To continue with the political aspect, if something goes wrong in democracy, 01:05:26.640 --> 01:05:28.720 where's the problem? 01:05:28.720 --> 01:05:30.240 Is it everyone? 01:05:30.240 --> 01:05:31.280 Is it the system? 01:05:31.280 --> 01:05:33.360 Is it this particular leader? 01:05:33.360 --> 01:05:38.320 There's no way you can actually assign blame correctly in a democratic 01:05:38.320 --> 01:05:42.240 system, in a way that will lead to better outcomes in the 01:05:42.240 --> 01:05:46.320 future. Because it is a fundamentally disordered system. 01:05:46.320 --> 01:05:50.000 It is a fundamental rejection of hierarchy and order. 01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:53.680 That is what lies at the core of democracy. 01:05:53.680 --> 01:05:58.800 Because it is that assumption, that false assumption of egalitarianism. 01:05:58.800 --> 01:06:03.680 Because if everyone has, say, an equal vote, what you're asserting is 01:06:03.680 --> 01:06:04.640 that every individual 01:06:05.760 --> 01:06:11.360 is equally expert on every topic that will be addressed by vote. 01:06:11.360 --> 01:06:13.600 And that's fundamentally absurd. 01:06:13.600 --> 01:06:16.480 One of the best examples of that would be 01:06:17.920 --> 01:06:23.520 surgery. Would you put a surgical decision to a vote? 01:06:23.520 --> 01:06:26.960 Would you let a jury make the decision whether or not you 01:06:26.960 --> 01:06:28.640 have heart surgery? 01:06:28.640 --> 01:06:33.200 No one would ever say yes, because it would be absolutely insane 01:06:33.520 --> 01:06:37.200 to have an average person do that, because a surgeon is a 01:06:37.200 --> 01:06:40.320 very highly skilled, highly trained expert. 01:06:40.320 --> 01:06:43.040 He should be the one making that call. 01:06:43.520 --> 01:06:47.120 You don't want your plumber deciding if you have open heart surgery, 01:06:47.120 --> 01:06:48.000 and you know what? 01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:51.520 You don't want your surgeon figuring out your plumbing either. 01:06:51.520 --> 01:06:56.720 Different men have different abilities, have different skills, have different skill sets, 01:06:56.720 --> 01:06:57.360 they have been trained 01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:02.560 to have, they've been educated in different ways, and they serve in 01:07:02.560 --> 01:07:03.680 different roles. 01:07:03.680 --> 01:07:07.120 And that is a good thing, because that is how society continues 01:07:07.120 --> 01:07:09.280 to run smoothly. 01:07:09.280 --> 01:07:11.200 We don't have that. 01:07:11.200 --> 01:07:15.280 We have certainly done away with it in the public sphere, in 01:07:15.280 --> 01:07:16.880 the political sphere. 01:07:16.880 --> 01:07:20.480 Like Wo said, and as I mentioned earlier, we no longer have 01:07:20.480 --> 01:07:24.560 classes, we don't have an aristocracy, we don't have a monarch, we 01:07:24.560 --> 01:07:28.880 don't have any of these levels in society. 01:07:28.880 --> 01:07:34.160 And so we've had this great leveling where everyone is equal, except 01:07:34.160 --> 01:07:35.760 everyone is not equal. 01:07:35.760 --> 01:07:40.960 And so it is rejecting the reality of what God has created, 01:07:40.960 --> 01:07:46.240 how God has designed things, and we so that and we reap 01:07:46.240 --> 01:07:47.040 chaos. 01:07:47.920 --> 01:07:50.960 And that is one of the reasons, one of the core reasons 01:07:50.960 --> 01:07:56.960 we have so many problems today, because we have rejected reality itself, 01:07:56.960 --> 01:07:58.720 because we don't like it. 01:07:58.720 --> 01:08:03.360 We've been propagandized, we've been trained to believe that it's evil, that 01:08:03.360 --> 01:08:05.920 you have to believe that all men are equal, that you can't 01:08:05.920 --> 01:08:08.960 possibly say this man is more intelligent than that man, or this 01:08:08.960 --> 01:08:11.680 man is more capable in this way than that man, or this 01:08:11.680 --> 01:08:15.120 man has a higher station or a higher rank, whatever it happens 01:08:15.120 --> 01:08:17.520 to be. 01:08:17.520 --> 01:08:20.720 And if you start to reject those things, you eventually reject all 01:08:20.720 --> 01:08:23.200 hierarchy, which of course is the goal. 01:08:23.200 --> 01:08:25.120 Satan knows exactly what he's doing. 01:08:25.120 --> 01:08:31.760 The trajectory of rejecting hierarchy and order, wherever it starts, the goal 01:08:31.760 --> 01:08:33.520 is to reject all of it. 01:08:33.520 --> 01:08:36.320 And if you reject all of it, of course, well then you're 01:08:36.320 --> 01:08:37.520 rejecting God. 01:08:37.520 --> 01:08:39.040 Because he is the ultimate 01:08:40.080 --> 01:08:43.840 hierarchy. He sits atop the entire pyramid. 01:08:43.840 --> 01:08:45.120 That's Satan's goal. 01:08:45.120 --> 01:08:46.240 He wants you to reject everything. 01:08:46.240 --> 01:08:49.520 He wants you to reject the fact that parents are over their 01:08:49.520 --> 01:08:52.000 children. He wants you to reject the fact that the husband is 01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:53.360 the head of his wife. 01:08:53.360 --> 01:08:55.920 He wants you to reject that there might be those of a 01:08:55.920 --> 01:08:59.600 higher station in society, that some men are more capable in this 01:08:59.600 --> 01:09:00.640 way or that way. 01:09:00.640 --> 01:09:04.480 He wants you to reject everything, because then it is easier to 01:09:04.480 --> 01:09:06.320 lead you astray. 01:09:07.040 --> 01:09:11.680 Another key aspect of evaluating who will make a good leader is 01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:14.160 what are their incentives. 01:09:14.320 --> 01:09:17.760 One of the most important books that's been written the last 30 01:09:18.320 --> 01:09:21.440 odd years, I'm not sure when it was actually published, was by 01:09:21.440 --> 01:09:22.720 Hans Hermann Hoppe. 01:09:22.720 --> 01:09:25.680 It's called Democracy, The God That Failed. 01:09:25.680 --> 01:09:29.520 And one of the crucial points that he makes is that even 01:09:29.600 --> 01:09:32.960 if for the sake of argument we were to have assumed historically 01:09:32.960 --> 01:09:38.800 that democracy in the modern sense was a worthwhile experiment, we absolutely 01:09:38.800 --> 01:09:41.440 must conclude today that it has failed. 01:09:41.440 --> 01:09:45.360 Whatever promises they had in mind centuries ago, when they said, Hey, 01:09:45.360 --> 01:09:49.120 this is a good idea, we've conclusively proven they failed. 01:09:49.120 --> 01:09:53.600 And part of his thesis is one of the reasons that democracy 01:09:53.600 --> 01:09:58.080 is inherently going to fail, certainly as opposed to something like monarchy, 01:09:58.080 --> 01:10:00.640 is the incentive structure. 01:10:00.640 --> 01:10:04.720 When you have election cycles of two years and four years, it 01:10:04.720 --> 01:10:09.920 collapses the window of the time horizon for the civilization to look 01:10:09.920 --> 01:10:12.160 to its Look to its own needs. 01:10:12.160 --> 01:10:16.320 Because the congressman, the day that he's elected, he's got to start 01:10:16.320 --> 01:10:19.840 raising money to get re-elected in two years. 01:10:19.840 --> 01:10:22.080 And that is a perverse incentive. 01:10:22.080 --> 01:10:26.240 He's always going to necessarily be beholden to those who can get 01:10:26.240 --> 01:10:28.400 him back into office again. 01:10:28.400 --> 01:10:33.040 So those with money and influence and connections will always necessarily have 01:10:33.040 --> 01:10:36.240 a greater voice in his ear than you will as a guy 01:10:36.240 --> 01:10:39.280 who vote for him or vote against him. 01:10:39.280 --> 01:10:44.640 In contrast, monarchy, at least when you're looking at particularly hereditary monarchy, 01:10:44.640 --> 01:10:46.320 but it doesn't have to be hereditary. 01:10:46.320 --> 01:10:50.880 In the case of hereditary monarchy, in the worst case, you might 01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:53.600 get a child who's born who's just a buffoon. 01:10:53.600 --> 01:10:56.080 They're next in line and they're just kind of a dim wit. 01:10:56.080 --> 01:10:59.840 Happens sometimes, but as it happened with presidents, yeah. 01:10:59.840 --> 01:11:03.280 So we're no worse off there, even though we didn't pick him. 01:11:03.760 --> 01:11:09.040 But when you have a hereditary monarchy, one of the crucial upsides 01:11:09.360 --> 01:11:10.320 is that 01:11:11.200 --> 01:11:14.000 the king, when he knows that he's going to be giving the 01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:18.480 throne to his heir, his own flesh and blood when he dies, 01:11:18.480 --> 01:11:22.800 you know, thirty, forty, fifty years, his time horizon, his window of 01:11:22.800 --> 01:11:26.560 looking at what can I do is not in terms of two 01:11:26.560 --> 01:11:28.000 and four year election cycles. 01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:31.920 He's looking generationally, which is precisely what we should be doing. 01:11:31.920 --> 01:11:35.680 And it's the one thing that has been completely lost from Western 01:11:35.680 --> 01:11:42.400 civilization with the collapse of monarchy in favor of democracy, by whatever 01:11:42.400 --> 01:11:46.720 degree. Because suddenly you're not thinking generationally, you're not thinking in terms 01:11:46.720 --> 01:11:47.840 of centuries. 01:11:47.840 --> 01:11:51.360 You're thinking in terms of what can this guy make get to 01:11:51.360 --> 01:11:54.000 maximize his own personal benefit now 01:11:55.520 --> 01:12:00.080 The king, he wants to leave a better country than he inherited 01:12:00.080 --> 01:12:03.040 from his father for his son and for his grandson. 01:12:03.040 --> 01:12:05.840 He's thinking 50, 100 years down the road. 01:12:05.840 --> 01:12:07.680 It's fundamentally different. 01:12:07.680 --> 01:12:12.400 One of the most telling things that's happening in today's world is 01:12:12.400 --> 01:12:16.480 that many of the leaders of the countries in the West are 01:12:16.480 --> 01:12:19.520 childless. A lot of them are unmarried and they're childless. 01:12:19.520 --> 01:12:20.240 Like me. 01:12:20.240 --> 01:12:21.280 I have no kids. 01:12:21.280 --> 01:12:22.000 You know what? 01:12:22.000 --> 01:12:25.920 I would never support a system that let me make decisions for 01:12:25.920 --> 01:12:27.040 everyone else. 01:12:27.040 --> 01:12:29.120 That's inherently perverted. 01:12:29.120 --> 01:12:32.400 Because even if one guy, even if I would do it right, 01:12:32.400 --> 01:12:33.760 that's not the basis for a system. 01:12:33.760 --> 01:12:35.120 That's an axalt. 01:12:35.120 --> 01:12:37.440 The fact that you know a guy who might get it right 01:12:37.440 --> 01:12:41.840 is no excuse to tolerate a system where childless men are put 01:12:41.840 --> 01:12:43.200 in charge of something. 01:12:43.200 --> 01:12:45.120 Because there's a perverse incentive. 01:12:45.120 --> 01:12:48.480 If a man has no progeny, if it's when he's dead and 01:12:48.480 --> 01:12:54.080 gone, there's nothing left, inherently there's no expectation that he's gonna have 01:12:54.080 --> 01:12:56.400 an incentive to look to the next generation. 01:12:56.400 --> 01:12:59.600 Even if individual does the right thing, and where's he gonna get 01:12:59.600 --> 01:13:00.160 it from? 01:13:00.160 --> 01:13:01.840 Really only obedience to God. 01:13:01.840 --> 01:13:04.640 I don't think there's another way that a childless man is going 01:13:04.640 --> 01:13:08.240 to do something that's not perverted with his life unless he feels 01:13:08.240 --> 01:13:11.840 that he has a duty that is outside of creation. 01:13:11.840 --> 01:13:15.280 But that's not a basis for a government because the life that 01:13:15.280 --> 01:13:17.360 I've led is a wicked one, it's an evil one. 01:13:17.360 --> 01:13:19.520 I did a bunch of stupid stuff, that's how I ended up 01:13:19.520 --> 01:13:21.360 childless. Don't do that. 01:13:21.360 --> 01:13:22.560 Don't be like me. 01:13:22.560 --> 01:13:25.920 And don't tolerate men who are like me in charge. 01:13:25.920 --> 01:13:29.280 I don't want a system where childless guys are calling the shots. 01:13:29.280 --> 01:13:31.760 I want the guys with five, eight, ten, twelve kids. 01:13:31.760 --> 01:13:33.200 They should be in charge. 01:13:33.200 --> 01:13:36.800 And frankly, I think that in a lot of places, I would 01:13:36.800 --> 01:13:42.000 retire men out of leadership positions after their kids have left home. 01:13:42.000 --> 01:13:47.120 I think that once you have second, third, and fourth generation it's 01:13:47.120 --> 01:13:49.440 great for a man to be in his eighties and have grandkids 01:13:49.440 --> 01:13:51.040 and great grandkids. 01:13:51.280 --> 01:13:55.360 But at some point you're beginning to lose touch with the immediacy 01:13:55.360 --> 01:13:58.320 of having a small child in your house and seeing what's on 01:13:58.320 --> 01:14:01.040 the news and seeing what's happening in the world and realizing if 01:14:01.040 --> 01:14:04.720 I don't do something right now, this little kid who is today 01:14:04.720 --> 01:14:07.840 helpless is gonna inherit a world that I don't think they're gonna 01:14:07.840 --> 01:14:09.680 be able to deal with. 01:14:09.680 --> 01:14:13.440 Once someone gets too old, they become too disconnected from the cycle 01:14:13.440 --> 01:14:14.160 of life. 01:14:14.160 --> 01:14:17.200 So personally, like if I were designing a system, not only would 01:14:17.200 --> 01:14:20.000 there be no childless men, but there would be no men in 01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:22.880 charge of anything who didn't have kids under their own roof. 01:14:22.880 --> 01:14:28.000 There's something fundamentally anchoring about that that is lost once all the 01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:28.800 kids are gone. 01:14:28.800 --> 01:14:32.320 Maybe some of this is a backlash against boomers who just, you 01:14:32.320 --> 01:14:33.760 know, wanted to get the kids out of the house. 01:14:33.760 --> 01:14:36.560 Now it's Gen Xers doing the same thing. 01:14:36.560 --> 01:14:38.800 You get the kids out of the house and then you live 01:14:38.800 --> 01:14:42.240 a completely profligate life and you make sure at the last check 01:14:42.240 --> 01:14:45.360 bounces. That's really kind of the democratic attitude. 01:14:45.360 --> 01:14:48.560 It's the egalitarian attitude, because if we're all the same and there's 01:14:48.480 --> 01:14:52.000 no inheritance and many of the other subjects that we've done entire 01:14:52.000 --> 01:14:54.720 episodes on, what's gonna happen? 01:14:55.120 --> 01:14:56.000 Kids are gone. 01:14:56.240 --> 01:14:56.880 they left home. 01:14:56.880 --> 01:14:57.520 They're on their own. 01:14:57.520 --> 01:14:59.360 Not my problem anymore. 01:14:59.360 --> 01:15:01.120 That's fundamentally perverted. 01:15:01.120 --> 01:15:02.400 It's completely perverted. 01:15:02.400 --> 01:15:05.200 It's just as perverted as not having any kids at all. 01:15:05.200 --> 01:15:07.280 If you have kids and you're like, well, they're on their own, 01:15:07.280 --> 01:15:08.960 whatever. I'm I'm done with that stuff. 01:15:08.960 --> 01:15:11.600 I'm gonna go off on my own thing again. 01:15:11.600 --> 01:15:13.040 That's messed up too. 01:15:13.040 --> 01:15:15.680 And so I think that there personally I think that there's a 01:15:15.680 --> 01:15:18.800 a window of time, you know, if you keep having kids as 01:15:18.800 --> 01:15:20.960 well in your fifties or whatever, you know, especially if you happen 01:15:20.960 --> 01:15:22.720 to have a younger wife, great. 01:15:22.720 --> 01:15:24.880 As long as God is blessing you with kids and the kids 01:15:24.880 --> 01:15:28.480 are under your roof, you have an incentive right in front of 01:15:28.480 --> 01:15:31.600 you. Like every parent has an incentive and every good man, even 01:15:31.600 --> 01:15:35.440 without kids, has some sort of moral incentive to want to see 01:15:35.440 --> 01:15:37.520 the right things happen generationally. 01:15:37.520 --> 01:15:41.840 But when it's no longer right in front of you, it's clear 01:15:41.840 --> 01:15:43.280 that something is lost. 01:15:43.280 --> 01:15:46.800 And we see this worldwide where we have all these childless leaders 01:15:46.800 --> 01:15:51.600 doing wicked things, burning down their own countries here and abroad. 01:15:51.600 --> 01:15:53.040 Why should they care? 01:15:53.040 --> 01:15:56.800 They're getting rich, they're getting bribes, they have power, they fly around 01:15:56.800 --> 01:16:00.800 the world, they have rich friends, they do all manner of unspeakable 01:16:00.800 --> 01:16:02.080 evil in private. 01:16:02.080 --> 01:16:03.280 They're in the club. 01:16:03.280 --> 01:16:04.000 And that's it. 01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:09.200 It's the ephemeral membership in a moment, not caring what happens later, 01:16:09.200 --> 01:16:10.960 that is not leadership. 01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:14.960 It's the worst form of perverted wickedness imaginable. 01:16:14.960 --> 01:16:18.560 And it's the type of system that's been created by not thinking 01:16:18.560 --> 01:16:23.360 generationally, not thinking about leadership in terms of accountability and the scope 01:16:23.360 --> 01:16:25.040 of damage that can be done. 01:16:25.040 --> 01:16:27.120 There's a lot of stuff to consider. 01:16:27.120 --> 01:16:29.920 And it's gonna draw a lot of lines. 01:16:29.920 --> 01:16:33.200 And one of the things that you know we often say on 01:16:33.200 --> 01:16:36.880 done choir is don't believe us, don't listen to us. 01:16:36.880 --> 01:16:39.760 Go read, go do the research yourself, you're gonna come to the 01:16:39.760 --> 01:16:40.800 same conclusions. 01:16:40.800 --> 01:16:43.840 I don't wanna train anyone to just listen to what we say 01:16:43.920 --> 01:16:45.760 and oh, we, you know, we seem clever. 01:16:45.760 --> 01:16:47.120 So you're just going to believe us. 01:16:47.120 --> 01:16:49.200 That's a terrible basis for anything. 01:16:49.200 --> 01:16:53.120 Don't put your trust in men just because you like them. 01:16:53.120 --> 01:16:57.120 That's no basis for anything, especially leadership. 01:16:57.120 --> 01:16:59.280 Yes, you need to trust whoever your leader is. 01:16:59.520 --> 01:17:02.480 not that we're saying we're leaders, but like in I I don't 01:17:02.400 --> 01:17:06.320 want anyone to ever have the reinforcement, certainly from us that well 01:17:06.400 --> 01:17:08.960 that guy's really smart he could be in charge that's the point 01:17:08.960 --> 01:17:10.720 of what Corey was saying earlier. 01:17:10.720 --> 01:17:13.520 You don't necessarily want the smartest guys in charge. 01:17:13.520 --> 01:17:15.280 You want the most faithful guys. 01:17:15.280 --> 01:17:17.520 You want the most honest guys. 01:17:17.520 --> 01:17:20.960 You know, early on when I was a hiring manager, at the 01:17:20.960 --> 01:17:23.760 time it was still possible to ask the question in a in 01:17:23.760 --> 01:17:28.000 an interview setting, you know, tell me one of your greatest weaknesses. 01:17:28.000 --> 01:17:30.400 I could occasionally get a good answer to that within a couple 01:17:30.480 --> 01:17:33.440 years of the internet, everyone, you know, basically the answer to what 01:17:33.520 --> 01:17:37.040 your weaknesses became, oh man, you know, I just care too much 01:17:37.040 --> 01:17:38.080 and I work too hard. 01:17:38.080 --> 01:17:38.960 Like yeah, whatever. 01:17:38.960 --> 01:17:40.720 It ceased to have any value. 01:17:40.720 --> 01:17:43.280 A good answer to that, an answer that actually convinced me is 01:17:43.440 --> 01:17:44.960 I asked, what's your biggest weakness? 01:17:44.960 --> 01:17:47.280 If somebody said, I'm an alcoholic. 01:17:47.280 --> 01:17:49.200 I've been sober for seven years. 01:17:49.200 --> 01:17:52.480 That's the guy I would want to hire because I wouldn't hear 01:17:52.480 --> 01:17:55.680 that sort of defect, an actual problem with a man and think, 01:17:55.680 --> 01:17:58.880 oh man, that's I I judge him harshly, what a terrible thing. 01:17:58.880 --> 01:18:02.800 I would hear here's a man who's doing something incredibly difficult that 01:18:02.800 --> 01:18:08.960 requires concentration and devotion and self determination far beyond what most men 01:18:08.960 --> 01:18:11.200 have. It's easy to have an addiction. 01:18:11.200 --> 01:18:14.160 It's hard to set it aside and to refuse to give in 01:18:14.160 --> 01:18:16.560 to your own baser instincts. 01:18:16.560 --> 01:18:20.240 The sort of leaders that we need are the men who recognize, 01:18:20.240 --> 01:18:23.680 yeah, here's what I'm not good at, I'm gonna do my best 01:18:23.680 --> 01:18:26.720 anyway. Don't trust a man who can't tell you what's wrong with 01:18:26.720 --> 01:18:29.040 him. That's a big red flag. 01:18:29.840 --> 01:18:34.640 Whenever discussions of monarchy come up, I like to point out, and 01:18:34.640 --> 01:18:39.040 so I will do so here, that Lutherans are technically confessionally bound 01:18:39.600 --> 01:18:45.120 to hold that monarchy are above the law, that monarchs are above 01:18:45.120 --> 01:18:46.880 the law. 01:18:46.880 --> 01:18:52.320 That comes from the apology, and it literally just says that regal 01:18:52.320 --> 01:18:56.480 power is above law. 01:18:56.480 --> 01:19:00.800 The reason for that, of course, is that there are different kinds 01:19:00.800 --> 01:19:02.000 of law. 01:19:02.000 --> 01:19:05.840 This is not saying, of course, that the monarch is above the 01:19:05.840 --> 01:19:09.680 moral law, that is addressed elsewhere in the confessions and at length, 01:19:09.680 --> 01:19:13.840 of course, in both scripture and theological writings. 01:19:14.240 --> 01:19:17.760 The moral law flows from God's nature, and so the moral law 01:19:17.760 --> 01:19:23.200 is binding on all men at all times, in all places, equally 01:19:23.200 --> 01:19:25.760 so. It does not change. 01:19:25.760 --> 01:19:30.880 And so Genesis nine six, the death penalty is a requirement, all 01:19:30.880 --> 01:19:33.600 times, all places. 01:19:33.600 --> 01:19:36.960 The civil law is a different thing entirely. 01:19:36.960 --> 01:19:42.400 The civil law has to flow from some authority. 01:19:42.400 --> 01:19:47.360 And wo mentioned Hans Hermann Hoppe, I would mention here perhaps Carl 01:19:47.360 --> 01:19:53.760 Schmidt. Ultimately someone has to hold sovereignty. 01:19:53.760 --> 01:19:57.040 Someone has to be able to make a decision. 01:19:57.520 --> 01:20:01.760 And often that is the case when there may not be a 01:20:01.760 --> 01:20:06.240 law. Perhaps there's no law addressing this particular issue, or the laws 01:20:06.480 --> 01:20:10.480 conflict, or the law is at odds with what needs to be 01:20:10.480 --> 01:20:16.640 done. The sovereign is the man who gets to decide regardless of 01:20:16.640 --> 01:20:17.920 what the law says. 01:20:17.920 --> 01:20:20.800 In this case I mean of course the civil law, the positive 01:20:20.800 --> 01:20:25.520 law, the enacted law written by men. 01:20:25.520 --> 01:20:27.920 But that flows from somewhere. 01:20:27.920 --> 01:20:32.000 There has to be an authority upon which that law is founded. 01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:37.600 It's not founded upon God's authority, because the law that flows from 01:20:37.600 --> 01:20:40.080 God's authority is the moral law. 01:20:40.080 --> 01:20:44.320 Now of course there's also for Old Testament Israel civil and ceremonial 01:20:44.320 --> 01:20:48.000 law, but that's not relevant to us today, except in so far 01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:51.040 as the civil law can be a guide. 01:20:51.040 --> 01:20:53.200 It's not binding on us. 01:20:53.200 --> 01:20:55.520 But the law has to flow from an authority. 01:20:55.520 --> 01:21:00.560 And so, for instance, when the king of France said, Le Tasse 01:21:00.720 --> 01:21:06.000 Moi, I am the state, or the state, it is I, more 01:21:06.000 --> 01:21:12.800 correctly translated, he was right, because fundamentally he was the source from 01:21:12.800 --> 01:21:14.640 which the law flowed. 01:21:14.640 --> 01:21:20.160 He was the foundation of the civil law in that system. 01:21:20.160 --> 01:21:27.360 That is the reality of any political system, the authority ultimately rests 01:21:27.360 --> 01:21:30.320 with someone somewhere. 01:21:30.320 --> 01:21:32.240 Now in our system we deny that. 01:21:32.240 --> 01:21:36.720 It's of one of the fundamental problems of democracy, because democracy claims 01:21:37.360 --> 01:21:39.200 there's some nebulous 01:21:40.160 --> 01:21:41.440 rights or 01:21:42.320 --> 01:21:45.920 whatever it happens to be, different systems make different claims. 01:21:45.920 --> 01:21:51.760 Our system claims they're fundamental rights, inalienable rights, rights that we have 01:21:51.760 --> 01:21:56.560 by nature, and then our system is somehow founded on that. 01:21:56.560 --> 01:21:58.080 Well, how does that work? 01:21:58.080 --> 01:22:01.200 The answer, of course, is that it doesn't. 01:22:01.200 --> 01:22:05.520 But there's no ultimate source there for any of our laws. 01:22:05.520 --> 01:22:09.760 And so quite frankly, it all rests on naked force, the threat 01:22:09.760 --> 01:22:13.760 of violence, which of course is not entirely wrong because all authority 01:22:13.760 --> 01:22:17.040 ultimately rests on violence. 01:22:17.040 --> 01:22:19.840 Even God appeals to that. 01:22:19.840 --> 01:22:23.120 One of the reasons that God is God is because he can 01:22:23.120 --> 01:22:25.920 snap his fingers and snuff you out. 01:22:25.920 --> 01:22:28.880 His authority rests in part on that. 01:22:28.880 --> 01:22:32.080 Of course, it's more complicated than that, but it's not the point 01:22:32.080 --> 01:22:34.240 of this episode. 01:22:34.240 --> 01:22:39.280 But for our system, there's no real sovereign. 01:22:39.280 --> 01:22:41.200 Because the claim is that the people are sovereign. 01:22:41.200 --> 01:22:45.200 Well, people can't be sovereign because Sovereign because the people in aggregate 01:22:45.200 --> 01:22:47.840 can't make a decision. 01:22:47.840 --> 01:22:52.000 And so you have to have some authority, some individual, some man 01:22:52.000 --> 01:22:55.840 somewhere who actually exercises the authority. 01:22:55.840 --> 01:22:59.520 And so in a democratic system it winds up being corrupt, at 01:22:59.520 --> 01:23:07.200 various different levels, oftentimes exercised through well, quite frankly, through bribes, 01:23:07.200 --> 01:23:13.440 but through consultants and through lobbyists, and the various legion of others 01:23:13.440 --> 01:23:17.920 in our capital city, and those, of course, who are funding them 01:23:18.160 --> 01:23:22.720 ultimately hold the reins, ultimately hold the power But you can see 01:23:22.720 --> 01:23:24.000 the issue. 01:23:24.000 --> 01:23:28.560 Democracy denies that those men exist and says, no, no, no, no. 01:23:28.560 --> 01:23:30.080 It's the people who are sovereign. 01:23:30.080 --> 01:23:31.600 The people make the decision. 01:23:31.600 --> 01:23:35.040 They are the source of authority upon which the system rests and 01:23:35.040 --> 01:23:35.840 in which our laws 01:23:37.120 --> 01:23:39.120 are founded. 01:23:39.120 --> 01:23:41.280 And that's just false. 01:23:41.280 --> 01:23:45.600 Because it's actually men behind the scenes who don't have to withstand 01:23:45.600 --> 01:23:50.960 any scrutiny, who don't have any public face, oftentimes, who hold the 01:23:50.960 --> 01:23:52.720 real power. 01:23:52.720 --> 01:23:54.880 That's fundamentally wicked. 01:23:54.880 --> 01:23:57.920 A king, a sovereign, should always be visible. 01:23:57.920 --> 01:24:00.640 The people should always be able to point and say, that is 01:24:00.640 --> 01:24:03.360 the man who made the decision. 01:24:03.360 --> 01:24:07.600 Part of it is because there should be responsibility for the decisions 01:24:07.600 --> 01:24:08.800 that are made. 01:24:08.800 --> 01:24:11.680 Democracy adds a mask. 01:24:11.680 --> 01:24:15.920 It adds a layer between the decisions that are made, and those 01:24:15.920 --> 01:24:16.720 making them. 01:24:16.720 --> 01:24:18.960 And it often does it in such a way, at least if 01:24:18.960 --> 01:24:22.960 the democracy is well designed, in this case diabolically so, but if 01:24:22.960 --> 01:24:27.360 the democracy is well designed, it shields the men making the decision 01:24:27.360 --> 01:24:28.720 from any responsibility. 01:24:28.720 --> 01:24:32.560 They suffer no consequences regardless of whether the outcome is good or 01:24:32.560 --> 01:24:36.000 bad. And again, that is fundamentally wicked. 01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:41.440 Men should suffer the consequences of the decisions they make. 01:24:41.440 --> 01:24:44.480 Whether those consequences are good or bad. 01:24:44.480 --> 01:24:46.400 And so if you are a good leader and you make good 01:24:46.400 --> 01:24:48.240 decisions you should benefit from that. 01:24:48.240 --> 01:24:50.640 If you are a bad leader and you make bad decisions, you 01:24:50.640 --> 01:24:52.720 should suffer for that. 01:24:52.720 --> 01:24:58.560 Democracy hides men making the decisions so that does not happen. 01:24:58.560 --> 01:25:02.480 And so as Christians, we should not want that kind of system. 01:25:02.480 --> 01:25:05.760 Another thing about the confessions that I will point out is that 01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:11.520 they assume there will be princes, there will be men serving in 01:25:11.520 --> 01:25:13.040 positions of authority. 01:25:13.040 --> 01:25:18.560 There will be a godly king hopefully godly, but certainly a king. 01:25:19.040 --> 01:25:24.640 That is one of the foundational assumptions of the confessions, and not 01:25:24.640 --> 01:25:26.000 just the Lutheran confessions. 01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:30.000 This is true for other traditions as well. 01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:32.240 Because that is the way that things are designed. 01:25:32.240 --> 01:25:37.600 That is a proper reflection of the way that God is allocated 01:25:37.680 --> 01:25:42.320 attributes and abilities and responsibilities as well. 01:25:42.320 --> 01:25:48.240 When you have this leveling from egalitarianism that eventuates in things like 01:25:48.240 --> 01:25:55.680 democracy, you are rejecting the way that God has designed things. 01:25:55.760 --> 01:25:59.840 And one of the ways that that plays out is having no 01:25:59.840 --> 01:26:01.600 foundation for your laws. 01:26:01.600 --> 01:26:06.480 Your laws are ultimately, in the sort of system we have, arbitrary. 01:26:06.480 --> 01:26:09.680 And so you have, for instance, courts making law now. 01:26:09.680 --> 01:26:10.720 Well why can't they? 01:26:10.720 --> 01:26:12.160 Why shouldn't they? 01:26:12.160 --> 01:26:15.840 There's no actual foundation for our system of laws. 01:26:15.840 --> 01:26:18.800 It's all arbitrary, it's resting on a piece of paper. 01:26:18.800 --> 01:26:20.240 What does that mean? 01:26:20.240 --> 01:26:22.000 Ultimately nothing. 01:26:22.000 --> 01:26:23.920 Because there has to be a sovereign. 01:26:23.920 --> 01:26:26.800 Someone has to be able to say yes or no. 01:26:26.800 --> 01:26:31.840 And our system denies the reality of that while actually investing the 01:26:31.840 --> 01:26:35.520 real power itself in the worst sort of men. 01:26:36.640 --> 01:26:40.160 So on the subject of bad leaders, we're going to end on 01:26:40.400 --> 01:26:43.440 the topic of controlled opposition. 01:26:43.760 --> 01:26:47.840 As we've been talking about monarchy and kind of hierarchy that is 01:26:47.840 --> 01:26:51.920 sort of inherent, those are goals, those are end states that are 01:26:51.920 --> 01:26:58.160 desirable, but we're not going to get there by bootstrapping directly from 01:26:58.160 --> 01:27:01.120 here. Even if it were possible to, you know, get back to 01:27:01.120 --> 01:27:03.760 the point that we had those systems, it's gonna take a couple 01:27:03.920 --> 01:27:04.240 generations. 01:27:05.360 --> 01:27:10.000 And so our immediate challenge as men today in this world in 01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:14.800 these circumstances is to avoid as many mistakes as possible as we 01:27:14.800 --> 01:27:18.800 try to rectify these problems one by one. 01:27:18.800 --> 01:27:23.200 One of the problems that we have now is that there will 01:27:23.200 --> 01:27:27.760 be men who are in some sort of leadership position By whatever 01:27:27.760 --> 01:27:31.440 means, you know, whether it's in politics or it's in the church, 01:27:31.440 --> 01:27:31.760 who 01:27:32.800 --> 01:27:36.000 perhaps at some point in the past they did good work. 01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:40.480 They earned not only their position, but the respect of those who 01:27:40.480 --> 01:27:43.680 see them as leaders. 01:27:43.680 --> 01:27:47.280 The problem that we have today, where we do have some say, 01:27:47.280 --> 01:27:52.400 and men do have in some cases perverse incentives, is that 01:27:53.920 --> 01:27:57.920 We cannot let anyone rest on his laurels. 01:27:57.920 --> 01:28:00.480 What I mean by that is that the fact that a guy 01:28:00.480 --> 01:28:03.760 did really good work a few years ago or a few decades 01:28:03.760 --> 01:28:07.280 ago, and he was a leader then, and you said, Yeah, this 01:28:07.280 --> 01:28:08.000 is my leader. 01:28:08.160 --> 01:28:10.240 I'm following him. 01:28:10.240 --> 01:28:14.480 For you, that is not a permanent moral category, and it cannot 01:28:14.480 --> 01:28:19.040 be. You need to continuously evaluate the fitness of the men who 01:28:19.040 --> 01:28:22.000 are in these positions, as long as we have a system where 01:28:22.000 --> 01:28:24.080 it's up to us to evaluate that fitness. 01:28:24.080 --> 01:28:26.960 Again, a lot of this is ironic because ultimately we're trying to 01:28:26.960 --> 01:28:29.920 get to the point where rank and file guys like us aren't 01:28:29.920 --> 01:28:31.040 making those calls. 01:28:31.040 --> 01:28:34.560 But until we get there, it's important to police the men who 01:28:34.560 --> 01:28:38.400 are in positions where they're having influence, where they have leadership. 01:28:38.400 --> 01:28:41.840 Because if they go off the rails and they're still leaders and 01:28:41.840 --> 01:28:45.200 no one questions them, it creates more disaster. 01:28:45.200 --> 01:28:46.400 It does more harm. 01:28:46.720 --> 01:28:49.680 And even if they got something right a while ago, if they 01:28:49.680 --> 01:28:53.360 get something wrong today and people keep following them, it will do 01:28:53.360 --> 01:28:55.440 tremendous harm. 01:28:55.440 --> 01:28:59.360 And in some cases, it's just guys who guys who lost their 01:28:59.360 --> 01:29:03.360 marbles. In some cases it's guys who are controlled opposition, where they're 01:29:03.360 --> 01:29:08.240 basically erected to be permitted to go so far on one side 01:29:08.240 --> 01:29:11.200 of the spectrum, but they will always draw a bright line and 01:29:11.200 --> 01:29:13.200 say, but you can't cross this line. 01:29:13.200 --> 01:29:15.680 They're there as tone police. 01:29:15.680 --> 01:29:19.440 They're there as guardians to make sure that the actual God that's 01:29:19.440 --> 01:29:24.080 being served by the worldly agenda of the day is never threatened. 01:29:24.640 --> 01:29:27.120 So they'll let you have your little playground where you can do 01:29:27.120 --> 01:29:30.800 stuff in our context we'll call right wing, even Christian in some 01:29:30.800 --> 01:29:34.000 cases, but they'll never let you go beyond that. 01:29:34.000 --> 01:29:36.560 And so the particular example that I wanted to give here at 01:29:36.560 --> 01:29:39.520 the end is Unfortunately, Doug Wilson. 01:29:39.520 --> 01:29:43.120 Whatever good he's done in the past, where he's established himself as 01:29:43.120 --> 01:29:45.840 a leader, a lot of people look up to him and respect 01:29:45.840 --> 01:29:49.120 him. I will accept for the sake of argument the year and 01:29:49.120 --> 01:29:50.160 then the past. 01:29:50.160 --> 01:29:52.880 The question is, what is he doing today? 01:29:52.880 --> 01:29:56.400 What he's doing today is being an arch Zionist. 01:29:56.400 --> 01:30:02.160 He is actively subverting the movement of Christian nationalism, the idea of 01:30:02.160 --> 01:30:07.520 Christian nationalism by being erected by guys like Tucker and Charlie Kirk, 01:30:07.520 --> 01:30:10.400 and there's gonna be a whole bunch more, who say, look, Doug 01:30:10.400 --> 01:30:12.560 Wilson's the face of Christian nationalism. 01:30:12.560 --> 01:30:14.960 And what is one of the things that Doug will say? 01:30:14.960 --> 01:30:16.960 Whether or not he says it on their shows, where is he 01:30:16.960 --> 01:30:17.920 saying it everywhere else? 01:30:17.920 --> 01:30:20.000 What's he writing books about? 01:30:20.000 --> 01:30:24.400 He's saying that anyone who criticizes Jews envies them. 01:30:24.400 --> 01:30:28.000 The only reason you would ever criticize a Jew is envy. 01:30:28.000 --> 01:30:31.760 The implicit claim there is that Jews are better than us, in 01:30:31.760 --> 01:30:36.160 that we would have to resent them in order to say anything 01:30:36.160 --> 01:30:41.600 negative. Now, this is not only theologically bankrupt, it's not only facially 01:30:41.600 --> 01:30:47.200 retarded, but it's also utterly mercenary because Doug Wilson failed to prevent 01:30:47.200 --> 01:30:51.840 his son from marrying a Jewess who has relatives in Israel. 01:30:51.840 --> 01:30:54.400 And his son runs around saying, I'm a Jew now because my 01:30:54.400 --> 01:30:57.040 wife's a Jew, and that's how it works, and our kids are 01:30:57.040 --> 01:31:01.920 Jews. So when Doug Wilson is lecturing Christians in the name of 01:31:01.920 --> 01:31:05.600 God about how you can't criticize Jews because that's envy and you're 01:31:05.600 --> 01:31:10.000 a bad, terrible person, he's doing it because he wants to make 01:31:10.000 --> 01:31:11.840 sure that his grandchildren are right. 01:31:11.840 --> 01:31:15.840 And I respect someone doing what it takes to preserve the lives 01:31:15.840 --> 01:31:17.040 of their grandchildren. 01:31:17.040 --> 01:31:17.920 That's a good thing. 01:31:17.920 --> 01:31:20.560 That's kind of the principle of us doing this episode. 01:31:20.560 --> 01:31:21.840 But he's a liar. 01:31:21.840 --> 01:31:24.800 The thing The things that he's saying are not true, and he's 01:31:24.800 --> 01:31:28.800 lying about his motives, and he's doing harm in the very moment 01:31:29.040 --> 01:31:32.560 where if he were being a faithful leader in the leadership role 01:31:32.560 --> 01:31:35.760 that he has in his context, he could do some actual good. 01:31:35.760 --> 01:31:39.280 But the reason that Tucker and Charlie Kirk and these others are 01:31:39.280 --> 01:31:42.880 gonna pinpoint him is here's the face of Christian nationalism. 01:31:42.880 --> 01:31:45.360 And he's he's an arch Zionist boomer. 01:31:45.360 --> 01:31:48.400 And he is drawing that bright line to say, sure, you can 01:31:48.400 --> 01:31:52.320 have the Christian stuff, but don't you dare say what a nation 01:31:52.320 --> 01:31:55.040 is. Nation to him is just a country. 01:31:55.040 --> 01:31:56.160 It's not a blood. 01:31:56.320 --> 01:31:59.600 There's no blood and soil notion unless it's Israel, the state of 01:31:59.600 --> 01:32:00.720 Israel, yeah, they got that. 01:32:00.800 --> 01:32:01.360 But we don't. 01:32:01.360 --> 01:32:03.360 We're just we're these generic Americans. 01:32:03.360 --> 01:32:06.240 And if we could get some more Israeli blood in our families, 01:32:06.240 --> 01:32:07.360 we'd be better off. 01:32:07.360 --> 01:32:08.560 That's rubbish. 01:32:08.560 --> 01:32:10.880 And so I only highlight that as an example. 01:32:10.880 --> 01:32:11.840 Well, two reasons. 01:32:11.840 --> 01:32:15.760 One, it's malevolent, it's evil and it's actively destructive. 01:32:15.760 --> 01:32:19.520 But it's also a prime example in the context of leadership of 01:32:19.520 --> 01:32:22.960 how a man who was in a position where he could have 01:32:22.960 --> 01:32:27.920 done good if he begins doing harm, you gotta do something. 01:32:27.920 --> 01:32:30.960 And as things stand today, what we do is you just walk 01:32:30.960 --> 01:32:34.960 away. If you consider Doug Wilson a leader in the past, you 01:32:34.960 --> 01:32:37.360 need to stop considering him a leader. 01:32:37.360 --> 01:32:39.600 You can still be grateful for whatever he did for you and 01:32:39.600 --> 01:32:41.840 your family and your faith in the past. 01:32:41.840 --> 01:32:46.240 You can't listen to him anymore because he is not only subverted, 01:32:46.240 --> 01:32:49.760 but he is subverting everything that he touches now. 01:32:49.760 --> 01:32:56.560 This is his final testament to the world is Zionist pro-Jew propaganda 01:32:56.560 --> 01:32:59.520 inside the church in the name of Christian nationalism. 01:32:59.520 --> 01:33:03.680 That's going to do unspeakable harm if he's tolerated by the guys 01:33:03.680 --> 01:33:05.680 who've seen him as a leader. 01:33:05.680 --> 01:33:07.920 And so as I said earlier, one of the things that we're 01:33:07.920 --> 01:33:13.920 adamant about as podcasters, God forgive me, is that don't just believe 01:33:13.920 --> 01:33:15.760 us. Don't say, oh, these are leaders. 01:33:15.760 --> 01:33:16.960 These are these are my guys. 01:33:16.960 --> 01:33:19.360 I'm going to listen to whatever they say If you listen to 01:33:19.360 --> 01:33:23.280 anything that we have to teach you, it's don't act like that. 01:33:23.280 --> 01:33:24.720 You need to think for yourself. 01:33:24.720 --> 01:33:26.160 You need to think critically. 01:33:26.160 --> 01:33:28.800 You need to be skeptical of everything that you hear. 01:33:28.800 --> 01:33:30.720 Evaluate every new claim. 01:33:30.720 --> 01:33:33.600 You can be rigorous about it, especially if you have the aptitude 01:33:33.600 --> 01:33:34.080 for it. 01:33:34.080 --> 01:33:35.600 Some men don't have the aptitude. 01:33:35.600 --> 01:33:38.640 And if if this is just entertainment for you, and maybe you 01:33:38.640 --> 01:33:41.840 know some people actually listen to Stonequire just to fall asleep, that's 01:33:41.760 --> 01:33:42.400 great. Whatever. 01:33:42.480 --> 01:33:43.440 Doesn't hurt my feelings. 01:33:43.440 --> 01:33:44.400 It's cool. 01:33:44.400 --> 01:33:47.600 If you're just going to listen to what we say and believe 01:33:47.600 --> 01:33:48.880 it, turn it off. 01:33:48.880 --> 01:33:49.520 Go away. 01:33:49.920 --> 01:33:52.080 delete it from your feed and never listen again. 01:33:52.080 --> 01:33:54.960 I don't want you to be trained to do that with us 01:33:54.960 --> 01:33:56.400 or with anyone else. 01:33:56.400 --> 01:33:58.640 You should always check sources. 01:33:58.640 --> 01:34:01.360 You should always question motives. 01:34:01.360 --> 01:34:05.440 You should always evaluate whether what is being done right now is 01:34:05.440 --> 01:34:08.560 consistent with what's been said in the past, if it's consistent with 01:34:08.560 --> 01:34:09.840 what is right. 01:34:09.840 --> 01:34:13.040 A good leader, a true leader will meet those tests. 01:34:13.040 --> 01:34:16.640 And if he fails, if somebody gets something wrong, he'll take correction. 01:34:16.640 --> 01:34:20.480 Because as Corey was saying, a good leader, whether it's a monarch 01:34:20.480 --> 01:34:24.000 or in any other context, has people beneath him who are smarter 01:34:24.000 --> 01:34:25.760 than him and he'll listen to. 01:34:25.760 --> 01:34:28.880 He has advisors who can straighten him out. 01:34:28.880 --> 01:34:32.320 So being the guy in charge, being a leader at a whatever 01:34:32.320 --> 01:34:34.800 level, doesn't mean you always get everything right. 01:34:34.800 --> 01:34:37.760 It means that when you get something wrong, you can course correct 01:34:37.920 --> 01:34:41.920 so that you don't do unspeakable damage because you were just trotting 01:34:42.000 --> 01:34:44.880 merrily along pursuing your own ends. 01:34:44.880 --> 01:34:48.000 As we are looking at the world and you know In our 01:34:48.000 --> 01:34:52.640 communities, our businesses, our churches, our area of operations, don't look to 01:34:52.640 --> 01:34:55.120 a leader and then just mark him with that and say, okay, 01:34:55.120 --> 01:34:56.240 he's the guy forever. 01:34:56.240 --> 01:34:57.680 I'm never going to pay any attention. 01:34:57.680 --> 01:34:59.440 That's a recipe for failure. 01:34:59.440 --> 01:35:02.960 Help him, support him, be engaged, and keep an eye on him. 01:35:02.960 --> 01:35:04.800 Keep an eye on us, keep an eye on Doug. 01:35:04.800 --> 01:35:07.520 Keep an eye on anyone that you're listening to to make sure 01:35:07.520 --> 01:35:10.640 that they're still delivering on what it was that convinced you in 01:35:10.640 --> 01:35:12.880 the first place that they were worth listening to. 01:35:12.880 --> 01:35:16.800 And if the circumstances change, if the tune changes, be willing to 01:35:16.800 --> 01:35:17.600 walk away. 01:35:17.600 --> 01:35:20.080 Being willing to say, This is not good anymore. 01:35:20.080 --> 01:35:22.400 I don't know what happened, but I'm no longer going to be 01:35:22.400 --> 01:35:23.360 a part of it. 01:35:23.360 --> 01:35:27.120 That's vital for any man, for a Christian, for a human being, 01:35:27.120 --> 01:35:30.320 the only way not to be led astray is to keep an 01:35:30.320 --> 01:35:32.000 eye on your leaders. 01:35:32.000 --> 01:35:35.120 And again, ideally we get to the point where we don't have 01:35:35.120 --> 01:35:38.960 a say in it anymore because we've built a system where that 01:35:38.960 --> 01:35:42.080 takes care of itself and it's above all of our pay grade. 01:35:42.080 --> 01:35:44.240 That's why I like to see, but it's not going to happen 01:35:44.240 --> 01:35:46.480 in our lifetimes, almost certainly. 01:35:46.480 --> 01:35:49.200 What we can do is make sure that we're paying attention, we're 01:35:49.200 --> 01:35:54.960 being diligent, because whatever your aptitude, whatever your context, you can tell 01:35:54.960 --> 01:35:56.800 when something's going off the rails. 01:35:56.800 --> 01:35:58.080 You should be able to. 01:35:58.080 --> 01:36:01.600 It's a basic animal sense that we all have. 01:36:01.600 --> 01:36:04.160 And what we need to do is listen to it more. 01:36:04.160 --> 01:36:07.120 When we look at the history of democracy, we say we see 01:36:07.120 --> 01:36:08.080 that it blew up. 01:36:08.080 --> 01:36:10.800 Yeah, it made these promises and it failed. 01:36:10.800 --> 01:36:14.400 And so now we're just picking and choosing leaders seemingly at random. 01:36:14.400 --> 01:36:18.560 Whatever guy is you know flashiest or loudest or you know most 01:36:18.560 --> 01:36:20.640 convincing for a moment. 01:36:20.640 --> 01:36:23.600 Okay, if he convinces you in a moment, pay attention for a 01:36:23.600 --> 01:36:26.480 moment. But when you come back in a year and he's changed 01:36:26.480 --> 01:36:30.080 his tune and he's talking about other stuff, be ready to walk 01:36:30.080 --> 01:36:33.040 away. You need to for the sake of your soul, for the 01:36:33.040 --> 01:36:36.800 sake of your family, for the sake of your responsibilities, because you 01:36:36.800 --> 01:36:38.080 are a leader as well. 01:36:38.080 --> 01:36:40.560 Even if it's only a leader of yourself, if you're if you're 01:36:40.560 --> 01:36:44.240 a young man and you have no one beneath you, you are 01:36:44.240 --> 01:36:48.800 still effectively making these decisions for yourself, even when you're beneath under 01:36:48.800 --> 01:36:50.160 the authority of others. 01:36:50.160 --> 01:36:53.520 You still have to decide every day, I'm gonna follow orders, I'm 01:36:53.440 --> 01:36:56.160 gonna do what's right, I'm gonna read the Bible, gonna work out, 01:36:56.160 --> 01:36:59.280 say your prayers, eat your vitamins, do the whole thing. 01:36:59.280 --> 01:37:02.720 You have to decide to do it because for the most part, 01:37:02.720 --> 01:37:04.240 no one's gonna make you. 01:37:04.240 --> 01:37:08.080 And if that betterment causes you to become a better leader, you're 01:37:08.000 --> 01:37:10.240 gonna be a blessing to others as you do it. 01:37:10.240 --> 01:37:14.160 But the But the accountability has to run in both directions. 01:37:15.360 --> 01:37:20.880 One of the criticisms that is often leveled against monarchy or any 01:37:20.880 --> 01:37:25.200 sort of autocratic and certainly totalitarian, although we're not advocating a totalitarian 01:37:26.160 --> 01:37:30.800 system to draw that particular distinction, but an autocratic system, one of 01:37:30.800 --> 01:37:35.440 the critiques that is leveled against it is that there's no accountability. 01:37:35.440 --> 01:37:38.320 And that's an absolutely insane critique. 01:37:38.320 --> 01:37:41.120 Because there is always accountability. 01:37:41.120 --> 01:37:45.680 There's, of course, the first level, as it were, accountability to God. 01:37:45.680 --> 01:37:50.400 But on top of that, a king has accountability. 01:37:50.400 --> 01:37:54.720 Even if we had a system that was properly organized, that had 01:37:54.720 --> 01:38:01.120 hierarchy restored, there would be nobles of that first rank under the 01:38:01.120 --> 01:38:05.040 king, to whom the king is more or less responsible. 01:38:05.040 --> 01:38:08.960 It's not that he has to answer to them in the day 01:38:08.960 --> 01:38:12.080 to day affairs of the kingdom or anything like that, but because 01:38:12.080 --> 01:38:17.120 of the authority they wield, they do have at least the ear 01:38:17.120 --> 01:38:18.640 of the king. 01:38:18.640 --> 01:38:22.560 They can influence him, and if he is going off the rails 01:38:22.640 --> 01:38:24.800 they can do something about it. 01:38:24.800 --> 01:38:27.600 That is how things are supposed to function. 01:38:27.600 --> 01:38:32.320 It's not supposed to be every man against every other man, or 01:38:32.320 --> 01:38:35.920 every one is equal and has an equal duty with regard to 01:38:35.920 --> 01:38:38.480 every other person in the hierarchy. 01:38:38.480 --> 01:38:40.560 There are levels. 01:38:40.560 --> 01:38:44.720 The man at the top, of course, answers only to God, the 01:38:44.720 --> 01:38:46.720 king is above the law. 01:38:46.720 --> 01:38:51.280 But the men below him wield sufficient authority to be able to 01:38:51.280 --> 01:38:52.880 check what he does. 01:38:52.880 --> 01:38:55.600 And those below them can check what they do, and so on 01:38:55.680 --> 01:38:57.360 and so forth. 01:38:57.360 --> 01:39:00.800 The same is true for a man running his own household. 01:39:00.800 --> 01:39:03.600 The house father is not a despot. 01:39:03.600 --> 01:39:07.520 He does not wield absolute authority to do whatever he pleases 01:39:08.640 --> 01:39:11.600 with everyone in his household. 01:39:11.600 --> 01:39:15.440 That's not to say that those under him have such a position 01:39:15.440 --> 01:39:17.680 that they get to question his authority. 01:39:17.680 --> 01:39:22.480 There's a difference between questioning the authority and recognizing the abuse of 01:39:22.480 --> 01:39:24.880 it when it happens. 01:39:24.880 --> 01:39:27.840 Again, these are going to be matters of wisdom, and they are 01:39:27.840 --> 01:39:32.000 going to be, in some cases, very difficult for some men to 01:39:32.000 --> 01:39:35.040 assess Assess. 01:39:35.040 --> 01:39:38.640 But many things in this life are not easy, and we do 01:39:38.640 --> 01:39:42.400 not get to ignore them simply because they are hard. 01:39:42.400 --> 01:39:46.000 With the way that things stand today, as Woe mentioned, 01:39:46.880 --> 01:39:51.040 We have to run this sort of analysis on a great many 01:39:51.040 --> 01:39:54.560 things that we could ignore if we had a system that was 01:39:54.560 --> 01:39:56.800 actually properly constructed. 01:39:58.160 --> 01:40:00.400 The baker is not supposed to have to assess 01:40:01.440 --> 01:40:06.160 the performance of the king, and yet the system that we have 01:40:06.160 --> 01:40:08.800 requires that. 01:40:08.800 --> 01:40:12.560 In part because we have many faithless men in positions of power 01:40:12.560 --> 01:40:16.560 at all sorts of levels, but also because our system doesn't even 01:40:16.560 --> 01:40:21.200 recognize the existence of those levels, despite kind of having them to 01:40:21.200 --> 01:40:24.640 a certain degree. 01:40:24.640 --> 01:40:29.360 Once we get back to the point where we have proper hierarchy 01:40:29.360 --> 01:40:33.920 re-established, where we have this order in society as it is supposed 01:40:33.920 --> 01:40:36.240 to be, then many of these issues will fade away. 01:40:36.240 --> 01:40:39.840 But as well mentioned, that will be something for our grandchildren or 01:40:39.840 --> 01:40:43.360 great grandchildren or great great grandchildren. 01:40:43.360 --> 01:40:47.600 Systems that take generations to build can be torn down in one 01:40:47.600 --> 01:40:48.880 or two. 01:40:48.880 --> 01:40:52.400 That is simply one of the realities of this life. 01:40:52.480 --> 01:40:56.960 It takes a lot longer to build than it does to destroy. 01:40:56.960 --> 01:41:04.160 The systems that upheld Christendom for centuries took about a century to 01:41:04.160 --> 01:41:06.160 destroy. Almost completely. 01:41:06.160 --> 01:41:09.520 They're almost entirely gone today. 01:41:09.520 --> 01:41:13.680 That took fifteen hundred years to build. 01:41:13.680 --> 01:41:19.040 Not obviously the full fifteen hundred years to get to a certain 01:41:19.040 --> 01:41:24.160 level, you can build back to a certain degree in two, three, 01:41:24.160 --> 01:41:29.120 four generations, but to achieve what our ancestors had and what they 01:41:29.120 --> 01:41:35.280 enjoyed at the height of Christendom takes many generations of faithful men, 01:41:35.280 --> 01:41:39.040 building little by little. 01:41:39.040 --> 01:41:41.920 Part of it is because if you grow up in that sort 01:41:41.920 --> 01:41:47.040 of system, you are inculcated with the right beliefs with regard to 01:41:47.040 --> 01:41:51.040 the system itself and you pass those on just sort of naturally, 01:41:51.040 --> 01:41:55.600 the same way that we pass on language to our children. 01:41:55.600 --> 01:41:58.880 Children learn language because they're exposed to it. 01:41:58.880 --> 01:42:03.840 Yes, there's actual proper formal instruction later on, but the majority of 01:42:03.840 --> 01:42:07.360 your language learning is just by being around those who use the 01:42:07.360 --> 01:42:11.440 language. Because God has made children to be language sponges, of course, 01:42:11.440 --> 01:42:14.560 that's part of what plays into that. 01:42:14.560 --> 01:42:16.560 But that immersion is how you get it. 01:42:16.560 --> 01:42:21.600 And if you're immersed in a culture of right hierarchy, of right 01:42:21.600 --> 01:42:27.360 order, of these properly organized relationships, you help to perpetuate that culture 01:42:27.360 --> 01:42:30.480 simply by existing in it. 01:42:30.480 --> 01:42:35.760 And this plays into sort of inverted, but plays into what Woe 01:42:35.760 --> 01:42:41.600 was saying about the necessity of assessing leaders and others under our 01:42:41.600 --> 01:42:46.080 current system. 01:42:46.080 --> 01:42:50.720 Unlike being in a good system that is properly organized, where these 01:42:50.720 --> 01:42:55.360 things help to perpetuate themselves, which is good, that is a proper 01:42:55.360 --> 01:43:01.760 design, that is how God has made things, in our system, things 01:43:01.760 --> 01:43:08.400 continue to get worse because men are not assessing what is happening. 01:43:08.400 --> 01:43:11.520 Because we have had too many men who have just let things 01:43:11.520 --> 01:43:13.760 continue because they don't want to be involved. 01:43:13.760 --> 01:43:16.640 That's not my problem, I'll be dead by then, I don't want 01:43:16.640 --> 01:43:20.880 to deal with it, whatever it happens to be. 01:43:20.880 --> 01:43:25.600 Each and every man listening to this podcast has to some degree, 01:43:25.600 --> 01:43:28.800 certainly if you have been listening from the beginning or you've gone 01:43:28.800 --> 01:43:31.280 back and listened to the catalogue. 01:43:31.280 --> 01:43:35.280 But any man listening to this podcast has already to some degree 01:43:35.520 --> 01:43:40.640 made the decision to make that assessment of the course of our 01:43:40.640 --> 01:43:44.320 culture and decide it is going in the wrong direction. 01:43:44.320 --> 01:43:47.280 And so you've you have already exercised 01:43:48.160 --> 01:43:54.400 that wisdom, that authority to a certain degree, to make that call. 01:43:54.400 --> 01:43:59.840 To say, our leaders are faithless, our church leaders are faithless in 01:43:59.840 --> 01:44:03.840 many cases, things have gone off the rails, and it is getting 01:44:03.840 --> 01:44:06.560 worse by the day. 01:44:06.560 --> 01:44:11.120 And so we want to change the direction, because otherwise we won't 01:44:11.120 --> 01:44:16.000 have anything to pass on to future generations that is worth having. 01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:19.440 And so each and every one of you has already made that 01:44:19.440 --> 01:44:20.880 sort of assessment. 01:44:20.880 --> 01:44:24.880 You've come to the conclusion there are problems they need to be 01:44:24.880 --> 01:44:29.840 addressed. What Woe was saying, what I am saying, what we are 01:44:29.840 --> 01:44:34.240 saying in this episode, is that you need to make that assessment 01:44:34.560 --> 01:44:38.400 with regard to basically anyone who stands up and acts as a 01:44:38.400 --> 01:44:40.000 leader or says I'm a leader. 01:44:40.000 --> 01:44:42.640 Perhaps be a little cautious about the man who says I'm a 01:44:42.640 --> 01:44:43.360 leader or 01:44:44.480 --> 01:44:49.280 Although an important nuance on that, it's not always bad if a 01:44:49.280 --> 01:44:53.520 man seems like he is seeking the position of leadership. 01:44:53.520 --> 01:44:55.520 The issue is the intent. 01:44:55.520 --> 01:44:58.320 And as Woe was saying, there are certain things that indicate the 01:44:58.320 --> 01:45:02.880 underlying intent, but sometimes that's a little difficult to assess, because you 01:45:02.880 --> 01:45:06.320 can have a man who stands up and says I will fulfill 01:45:06.320 --> 01:45:09.920 that role, and maybe he doesn't actually want it, but he has 01:45:09.920 --> 01:45:13.280 made the decision that it is his duty to pursue it. 01:45:13.280 --> 01:45:16.000 That is fundamentally different from the man who stands up and says, 01:45:16.000 --> 01:45:18.640 I'll be the leader, and he's thinking of all the benefits he 01:45:18.640 --> 01:45:21.840 will get from that position, all of the bribes and other things 01:45:22.000 --> 01:45:23.840 that he should not want. 01:45:23.840 --> 01:45:26.080 The second man is the problem. 01:45:26.080 --> 01:45:30.560 And making a judgment call between the two is part of our 01:45:30.560 --> 01:45:35.280 task today, because we have a great many grifters who are standing 01:45:35.280 --> 01:45:39.120 up and saying, Oh, I'll be a leader, and their only goal 01:45:39.120 --> 01:45:40.720 is money. 01:45:40.720 --> 01:45:42.320 That's it, that's all they're after. 01:45:42.320 --> 01:45:46.800 And then you have others who are paid opposition, who are controlled 01:45:46.800 --> 01:45:52.880 opposition. They exist to subvert. 01:45:52.880 --> 01:45:57.440 There are a number of ways that you can assess which one 01:45:57.440 --> 01:45:59.920 a particular man is. 01:45:59.920 --> 01:46:04.160 With regard to matters in the church, it's actually fairly easy, to 01:46:04.160 --> 01:46:07.920 some degree, because you can eliminate a great many of the false 01:46:08.160 --> 01:46:11.520 so called leaders with the issue of Zionism, with the issue of 01:46:11.520 --> 01:46:15.520 Israel and the Jews Israel so called. 01:46:15.520 --> 01:46:18.240 Because the false leaders almost to a man 01:46:19.200 --> 01:46:22.160 take the wrong position on those issues. 01:46:22.160 --> 01:46:25.680 And certainly as those listening to this podcast, but just as Christian 01:46:25.680 --> 01:46:27.520 men who read scripture, it's very easy 01:46:28.400 --> 01:46:32.240 to come to the correct conclusion on those things. 01:46:32.240 --> 01:46:36.560 No man who reads scripture without coming to it with false priors 01:46:36.800 --> 01:46:41.120 is going to think the Jews are chosen and that we have 01:46:41.120 --> 01:46:44.720 to support the so called State of Israel. 01:46:44.720 --> 01:46:47.600 No man comes to that conclusion from reading Scripture. 01:46:47.600 --> 01:46:50.800 He comes to that conclusion outside of Scripture and usually because he's 01:46:50.800 --> 01:46:52.480 drawing a check. 01:46:52.480 --> 01:46:56.320 And so some of those things are easy to assess. 01:46:56.320 --> 01:47:01.760 Perhaps with regard to political leaders there's a little more challenge. 01:47:01.760 --> 01:47:07.520 Because sometimes it is difficult to tell the agent provocateur as it 01:47:07.520 --> 01:47:11.120 may be, or the subverter, from a man who is earnest. 01:47:11.120 --> 01:47:14.960 But one thing we absolutely cannot do, and this is a problem 01:47:14.960 --> 01:47:21.200 that I see constantly on social media and elsewhere, we cannot immediately 01:47:21.200 --> 01:47:24.880 assume that every man who stands up and every group that attempts 01:47:24.880 --> 01:47:29.600 to start organizing is a funded operation in some way, that they're 01:47:29.600 --> 01:47:32.320 all subverters. 01:47:32.320 --> 01:47:35.520 To some degree, you have to give men a chance. 01:47:35.520 --> 01:47:40.000 You don't have to give them an infinite number of chances, you 01:47:40.000 --> 01:47:43.280 don't have to give them so much rope that they hang you 01:47:43.280 --> 01:47:48.160 with the rope, but you do have to have some sort of 01:47:48.160 --> 01:47:49.200 space there. 01:47:49.200 --> 01:47:53.760 You have to have time for these men or these groups to 01:47:53.760 --> 01:47:56.080 prove or disprove themselves. 01:47:56.080 --> 01:47:59.280 Because if every time a man stands up and says, We need 01:47:59.520 --> 01:48:04.480 to do this, I will lead, follow me, or if he stands 01:48:04.480 --> 01:48:07.360 up and just fulfills the role of a leader, if every time 01:48:07.360 --> 01:48:10.720 a man does that, he gets attacked as being a fed or 01:48:10.640 --> 01:48:14.000 or a paid operative, or whatever it happens to be, we will 01:48:14.000 --> 01:48:15.920 not get anywhere. 01:48:15.920 --> 01:48:19.200 We will continue to be stuck, we will continue to be mired 01:48:19.360 --> 01:48:24.880 in these internecine fights, usually over trivial nonsense. 01:48:24.960 --> 01:48:27.680 And that is exactly what the enemy wants. 01:48:27.680 --> 01:48:30.320 And in that case, you can choose to have the E uppercase 01:48:30.320 --> 01:48:32.960 or lowercase as it so happens to be. 01:48:32.960 --> 01:48:34.880 But that is what the enemy wants. 01:48:34.880 --> 01:48:38.880 Because if we continue to fight over nonsense and we attack and 01:48:39.280 --> 01:48:44.080 backbite and backstab every single man who would attempt to lead or 01:48:44.080 --> 01:48:49.520 would attempt to achieve anything, then we are a completely inert force, 01:48:49.520 --> 01:48:52.400 a completely emasculated force. 01:48:52.400 --> 01:48:55.280 That is not what we need to be as men. 01:48:55.280 --> 01:49:00.400 As men, we need to start organizing our own groups, our own 01:49:00.400 --> 01:49:05.760 lives, our own churches, organizations, whatever they happen to be, with right 01:49:05.760 --> 01:49:08.720 hierarchy. Part of that Part of that starts with just having that 01:49:08.720 --> 01:49:12.000 hierarchy in your own friend groups. 01:49:12.000 --> 01:49:16.720 Because of course, things flow from the family first, of course, but 01:49:16.720 --> 01:49:21.120 for men you have the small group of friends, and then you 01:49:21.120 --> 01:49:23.280 have your large group of friends. 01:49:23.280 --> 01:49:27.520 And then you have organizations that flow from that, and eventually things 01:49:27.520 --> 01:49:30.080 branch out and upward to the nation. 01:49:30.080 --> 01:49:32.480 That is right hierarchy. 01:49:32.480 --> 01:49:34.880 And you have leaders at every level. 01:49:35.040 --> 01:49:38.560 And if you start to establish that sort of leadership at the 01:49:38.560 --> 01:49:42.720 smallest level, then it's easier to have that leadership at a higher 01:49:42.720 --> 01:49:47.040 level, because it's just extrapolating upward. 01:49:47.360 --> 01:49:50.320 Which is one of the things, as we've said in this episode, 01:49:50.320 --> 01:49:53.280 that we just do not have in the United States anymore. 01:49:53.280 --> 01:49:56.880 In the American context, it is fundamentally missing. 01:49:56.880 --> 01:50:02.320 We don't have anywhere that we can couch this sort of hierarchy, 01:50:02.320 --> 01:50:04.080 the different levels in society. 01:50:04.080 --> 01:50:07.680 This may be easier for some of our European listeners, where you 01:50:07.680 --> 01:50:09.360 still have monarchy. 01:50:09.360 --> 01:50:14.480 It's easier to envision a hierarchy when there is actually a hierarchy, 01:50:14.480 --> 01:50:17.360 even if it may be subverted in some cases and it has 01:50:17.360 --> 01:50:18.800 its problems. 01:50:18.800 --> 01:50:22.400 The simple fact that it exists is helpful. 01:50:22.400 --> 01:50:26.320 In the American context, we have to rebuild that. 01:50:26.320 --> 01:50:30.080 Because we got rid of it centuries ago, effectively. 01:50:30.080 --> 01:50:31.120 It's gone. 01:50:31.120 --> 01:50:34.160 The vestiges really aren't even there anymore. 01:50:34.160 --> 01:50:38.080 The closest thing you have in some areas is old money. 01:50:38.080 --> 01:50:43.600 But it doesn't come with the proper understanding in most cases of 01:50:43.600 --> 01:50:46.320 the role of that in society. 01:50:46.320 --> 01:50:49.440 Because there is a role for society, like we mentioned in the 01:50:49.440 --> 01:50:53.840 episode on tithing, if God has given you great material blessings, there 01:50:53.840 --> 01:50:58.080 are duties that flow from that with regard to the church, with 01:50:58.080 --> 01:51:00.640 regard to neighbor, the right hand kingdom, but there are also duties 01:51:00.640 --> 01:51:02.880 in the left hand kingdom. 01:51:02.880 --> 01:51:08.640 If you are someone who has great wealth, particularly today, you should 01:51:08.640 --> 01:51:11.680 be helping to organize and fund these things so that they can 01:51:11.680 --> 01:51:14.160 make actual progress. 01:51:14.160 --> 01:51:17.840 Because part of the reality of this is that without funding things 01:51:17.840 --> 01:51:19.360 don't tend to go anywhere. 01:51:19.360 --> 01:51:24.560 But there are men whom God has blessed with material prosperity. 01:51:24.560 --> 01:51:28.960 It is their duty to use that properly, to use that appropriately, 01:51:28.960 --> 01:51:33.040 in both kingdoms, not just via tithing, but with regard to the 01:51:33.040 --> 01:51:36.080 left hand kingdom as well. 01:51:36.080 --> 01:51:40.800 So in discussing the issue of leadership. 01:51:40.800 --> 01:51:46.720 We need to recognize a handful of fundamental issues. 01:51:46.720 --> 01:51:49.440 First and foremost, we just have to recognize that there is such 01:51:49.440 --> 01:51:50.960 a thing as a leader. 01:51:50.960 --> 01:51:55.680 There are men God has gifted certain abilities that make them fit 01:51:55.680 --> 01:51:59.120 for the task, and on top of it, as Woe was emphasizing 01:51:59.120 --> 01:52:03.360 earlier on in the episode, just the position that they have from 01:52:03.360 --> 01:52:08.800 childhood onward has trained them for being leaders. 01:52:08.800 --> 01:52:13.600 And so just recognizing the existence of the thing, of the office, 01:52:13.600 --> 01:52:16.880 is the starting point for this. 01:52:16.880 --> 01:52:20.480 On top of that, we need to support leaders. 01:52:20.480 --> 01:52:25.280 We have to recognize that part of the duty of every man, 01:52:25.280 --> 01:52:29.040 except of course for the one at the top, the one at 01:52:29.040 --> 01:52:32.160 the very top of the pyramid, because the king isn't supporting any 01:52:32.160 --> 01:52:37.040 leader. But everyone else in the hierarchy supports the leader who is 01:52:37.040 --> 01:52:40.640 above him, and above him all the way to the top. 01:52:40.640 --> 01:52:44.800 That is the duty of every man in the system Things do 01:52:44.800 --> 01:52:45.840 not function correctly. 01:52:45.840 --> 01:52:50.240 Things do not function well if leaders do not have support. 01:52:50.240 --> 01:52:52.800 And so we need to recognize there are leaders and we need 01:52:52.800 --> 01:52:57.680 to recognize our duty to support leaders. 01:52:57.680 --> 01:53:00.720 And then finally, I would say part of what we have to 01:53:00.720 --> 01:53:01.840 recognize 01:53:03.360 --> 01:53:06.400 is the scope and the scale and the nature of the task 01:53:06.400 --> 01:53:13.520 ahead. We are rebuilding a system, in the American context 01:53:13.600 --> 01:53:14.240 at least. 01:53:14.240 --> 01:53:18.080 We are rebuilding a system from basically nothing. 01:53:18.080 --> 01:53:19.920 Because everything was torn down. 01:53:19.920 --> 01:53:22.560 Not a stone was left standing on another. 01:53:22.640 --> 01:53:26.320 We are rebuilding the system from the ground up. 01:53:26.320 --> 01:53:28.880 That is going to take time, it is going to take a 01:53:28.880 --> 01:53:30.880 great deal of effort. 01:53:30.880 --> 01:53:34.960 We need to have the patience and the persistence to get that 01:53:34.960 --> 01:53:36.880 done. We need to recognize that 01:53:37.760 --> 01:53:41.840 some of these things will be generational in scope, and that is 01:53:41.840 --> 01:53:43.680 actually a good thing. 01:53:43.680 --> 01:53:49.760 Because as Wo mentioned earlier, building on a generational scale, planning on 01:53:49.760 --> 01:53:54.160 a generational scale, is important. 01:53:54.160 --> 01:53:59.600 You cannot have a civilization with men who do not do that. 01:53:59.600 --> 01:54:02.160 And so, of course, we may think of the proverb that I 01:54:02.160 --> 01:54:06.720 have quoted before, but I'll quote again: civilizations grow great when old 01:54:06.720 --> 01:54:10.480 men plant trees in the shade of which they will never rest. 01:54:12.560 --> 01:54:16.880 That is our position today, even though not all of us are 01:54:16.880 --> 01:54:19.360 old men yet. 01:54:19.360 --> 01:54:22.560 We are the ones planting the trees. 01:54:22.560 --> 01:54:25.280 We are not the ones who will necessarily get to rest in 01:54:25.280 --> 01:54:26.880 the shade. 01:54:27.040 --> 01:54:29.440 And that's fine. 01:54:29.440 --> 01:54:33.360 Just as there are tasks we have to do where we may 01:54:33.360 --> 01:54:36.960 not always succeed, the duty is not to succeed. 01:54:36.960 --> 01:54:38.960 The duty is not to complete the task. 01:54:38.960 --> 01:54:42.320 The duty is to do what has been set before you, what 01:54:42.320 --> 01:54:44.400 has been given you by God. 01:54:44.400 --> 01:54:49.520 God has given you attributes, abilities, resources, whatever they happen to be. 01:54:49.520 --> 01:54:53.200 He has set these things before you that you need to do, 01:54:53.200 --> 01:54:56.160 and he has given you the ability to do them. 01:54:56.160 --> 01:54:59.040 If you are a leader, if you are a man who has 01:54:59.040 --> 01:55:03.440 the ability to lead, you need to step up and do so. 01:55:03.440 --> 01:55:05.760 We need leaders. 01:55:05.760 --> 01:55:08.960 If you are not that man, if you are not the man 01:55:08.960 --> 01:55:12.400 that has been given the abilities, the talents necessary to be the 01:55:12.400 --> 01:55:16.160 leader, then you need to help find the man who has that. 01:55:16.160 --> 01:55:18.480 And if he doesn't want to lead, you need to force him 01:55:18.480 --> 01:55:22.400 to do it, because oftentimes that is necessary for certain leaders. 01:55:22.400 --> 01:55:23.680 They may not want the task. 01:55:23.680 --> 01:55:26.560 Well too bad you have the skills, you need to do it. 01:55:26.560 --> 01:55:29.840 But in addition, you need to support that man. 01:55:29.840 --> 01:55:32.480 Whether he stands up on his own or you force him to 01:55:32.480 --> 01:55:34.160 the front, you need to support him. 01:55:35.040 --> 01:55:36.880 Because he needs that support. 01:55:36.880 --> 01:55:40.160 A leader cannot do it on his own. 01:55:40.160 --> 01:55:43.440 Just as a father of a household cannot do everything on his 01:55:43.440 --> 01:55:47.120 own You have a wife for a reason. 01:55:47.120 --> 01:55:52.480 There are things she does that you cannot do, or that are 01:55:52.480 --> 01:55:54.960 better off being done by her. 01:55:54.960 --> 01:55:58.000 The same is true with regard to leaders and those under them 01:55:58.000 --> 01:55:59.440 in the hierarchy. 01:55:59.440 --> 01:56:03.600 Every man has his duties, wherever he happens to fall in the 01:56:03.600 --> 01:56:07.680 hierarchy, whether you're at the top or the bottom, and we are 01:56:07.680 --> 01:56:12.320 all better off when each man in that hierarchy does his duty, 01:56:12.320 --> 01:56:13.280 whether it is to lead or 01:56:14.160 --> 01:56:20.320 to follow, regardless of the duty, when each man does his duty, 01:56:20.320 --> 01:56:36.320 every man is better off.