Giddy up. Alright.
Leadership lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode
number one forty two.
Christen b Horn,
Count of Monte Cristo part two in
three, two, one.
Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is
Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast episode
number one forty two.
In this episode, we are revisiting a massive
book that we started visiting about a year
ago. This is a book, a
novel, a story featuring intrigue, adventure, romance,
pathos, and more. It literally covers the
entire emotional pantheon of a human
being. And it is all set against the background
of the French Revolution and the aftermath of the actions
of the buzz saw that cut across Europe known as
Napoleon Bonaparte. This book is so long
that, of course, it will take us several episodes, for us to cover it, and,
actually, myself and I cohost today were talking about this. It might take us
10 episodes to cover it, in which case we will have an entire course
available to you for consumption. And
so this episode acts as the second part
to the first episode where we introduce this book and talk briefly about its
overarching themes in episode number one twelve. I would
encourage you to go back and listen to that. Today, we
will be summarizing and analyzing the themes for leaders embedded
in the second part
of the 1,243 page phone book of
a novel. I'm going to hold it up for you.
The count of Monte Cristo, Alexandra
or Alexander depending upon which pronunciation you like,
Dumas. Leaders, check your
six for that ambitious fellow from Elba
might be lurking around in the background.
And today, we will be rejoined. We will be
reconstituting our conversation or or, you know,
rejoining our conversation, with our
soon to be regular, cohost here, at least for this
book anyway, and our resident experts on the Count of
Monte Cristo. Back from episode number one twelve, Christen
b Horn. Hello, Christen. How are you doing today? Hello. I am
well. It's a good day. It is a good day.
Well, any day that you can be reading about the Count of Monte Cristo, any
day that you can be reading it with yeah. With with people. Any
any day like that is a good day. It is. So,
gonna pick up here, and,
we're going to start off here with, chapter
10, at least in my version of the Count of Monte Cristo, was chapter 10,
your your mileage, open source and otherwise, may vary.
But the title of the chapter that we're going to be picking up
with is going to be the the little cabinet in the Tuileries.
K? And I wanna pick up here, read a little bit
from the count of Monte Cristo to set the tone for what we're going
to be talking about today. Let us
leave Villefort, going hell for leather down the road to Paris, having paid for extra
horses at every stage, and precede him through the two or three rooms into the
little cabinet at the Tuileries with its arched window famous for having been the
favorite study of Napoleon and King Louis the
eighteenth and today for being that of King Louis
Philippe. You're seated in front of a walnut table that he had brought back from
Hartwell to which, by one of those foibles usually among great men, he
was especially partial. King Louis the eighteenth was listening
without particular attention to a man of between 50 and 52
years, gray haired with aristocratic features and meticulously tuned
turned out, while at the same time making marginal notes in a volume of
Horace, the Gryphius edition, much admired but often inaccurate,
which used to contribute more than a little to his majesty's learning
observations on philology. You were saying,
the king asked, that I feel deeply disquieted, sire.
Really? Have you by any chance dreamt of seven fat and seven lean cows?
No, sire, for that would presage only seven years of fertility and seven of famine.
And with a king as farsighted as your majesty, we need have no
fear of famine. So what other scourge might
afflict us, my dear Blacas? I have a reason to believe, sire, that there is
a storm brewing from the direction of the South. And I, my dear
duke, replied Louis the eighteenth, think that you are very ill informed because I know
for a fact, on the contrary, the weather down there is excellent.
Despite being a man of some wit, Louis the eighteenth liked to indulge a
facile sense of humor. Sire,
Monsieur de Blanc continued, if only to reassure his faithful servant, might your
majesty not send some trusty men to Languedoc, to Provence,
and to the Dauphin to give him a report on the feeling of these three
provinces? The king replied, carrying
on with the annotation of his horse. The courtier laughed to give the
impression that he understood the phrase from the poem of Anusia. Your majesty may
well be perfectly correct to trust in the loyalty of the French, but I think
I might I may not altogether be wrong to anticipate some
desperate adventure. By whom? By
Bonaparte or at least those of his faction. My dear Blacas,
said the king. You are interrupting my work with your horrid tales.
And you, sire, are keeping me from my sleep with fears for your
safety. One moment, my good friend. Wait one moment. I have
been here a most perspicacious note on the line,
Let me finish it, and you can tell me afterwards. There was a
brief silence while Louis the eighteenth in handwriting that he made as tiny as
possible wrote a new note in the margin of his Horace. Then when the note
was written, he looked up with the satisfied air of a man who thinks he
has made a discovery when he has commented on someone else's idea and said,
carry on, my dear duke. Carry on. I am listening.
Sire, said Blacas, who had briefly hoped to use Bellefort to his own advantage,
I have to tell you that this news that troubles me is not some vague
whisper. There are no mere unfounded rumors. A right thinking man who has
my entire confidence as was required by me to keep a watch on the South,
Duke hesitated as he said this, has just arrived post haste to tell me that
there is a great danger threatening the king. And so, sire, I came at once.
Louis the eighteenth continued, making another note.
Is your majesty working with me to say no more on this topic? No, my
dear Duke, but stretch off your hand. Which one? Whichever one you
prefer. Over there, on the left. Here, sire?
I tell you to the left, you look on the right. I mean, my left.
There you have it. You should you should find a report from the minister of
police with yesterday's date, but here is himself. You
did say didn't you? Louis the eighteenth remarks turning to the
usher who had indeed just announced the minister of police.
Yes, sire. The
usher repeated. That's it, Baron, Louis the eighteenth continued
with a faint smile. Come in, Baron, and tell the duke your most recent news
about. This is nothing from us, however serious the situation may
be. Let's see. Is that the island of Elba a volcano? And
shall we not see war burst from it, bristling and blazing?
Bella. Led elegantly back against the chair,
resting both hands upon it and said, was your majesty good enough to consult my
report of yesterday's date? Yes. Of course. But tell the duke what was in this
report because he is unable to find it. Let him know everything that the youth
sufferers doing on his island. Bonjour, the baron
said to the dew. All his majesty's servants should applaud the latest news that we
have received from Elba. Bonaparte, Monsieur Dandre returned to
Louis the eighteenth who was busy writing a note and did not even look up.
Bonaparte, the baron continued his board to death. He spends whole
days watching his miners at work in Porto Longon.
He scratches himself as a distraction, said the king. He scratches
himself? The duke said. What does your majesty mean?
Yes. Indeed, my dear duke. You forgot that this great man, this
hero, this demigod is driven to distraction by a skin
ailment, There is more,
said the minister of police. We are almost certain that the usurper will be shortly
mad. Mad? Utterly,
his head is softening. Sometimes he weeps bitterly at others. He laughs
hysterically. On some occasions, he spends hours sitting on the shore playing at ducks
and drinks. And when a pebble makes five or six leaps, he seems as satisfied
as though he had won another battle of Marengo or Austerlitz.
You must agree that these are signs of folly.
War of wisdom, was your laverre. War of wisdom, said Louis the eighteenth with a
laugh. The great captains of antiquity used to replenish their
spirits by playing at ducks and bricks.
See Plutarch's life of Scipio,
Africanus.
You gotta love reading this kind of stuff two
hundred years later. It is almost exactly two hundred years later since the
events that, Alexandre Dumas describes
with such clarity and alacrity in the court
of Louis the eighteenth in the Count of Monte Cristo. And so
today, I'd like to talk about Louis the eighteenth. I'd like to talk
about Napoleon Bonaparte, that scourge who
they trapped on the Isle above Elba after he rampaged
around Europe and gave everybody fits. I'd also like
to talk a little bit about what we can learn from
bureaucratic obsequience and obeisance
that we see there in the court of Louis the eighteenth
and, of course, the hundred days of Napoleon
where he rescared everybody or at least
the elites of Europe half to death.
So let's turn and start with the literary life of Louis the
eighteenth. Louis the eighteenth was born Louis Stanislav
Xavier. He was born on 11/17/1755, and he
died 09/16/1824.
He lived almost a complete life. He was
known as the desired in French, Les Desiree, and he was king of France from
1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the
hundred days, which is, related in the, in the count
of Monte Cristo, in 1815.
Before his reign, he spent twenty three years in exile from France, starting in
1791 during the French Revolution and the first French empire.
Until his ascension to the throne of France, he held the title of count of
Provence as the brother of King Louis the
sixteenth, the last king of the Anshan regime.
Following the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic era, Louis the eighteenth lived
in exile in Prussia, Great Britain, and Russia.
Now there's a lot more about Louis the eighteenth. He was a fascinating
character. As I was telling, Christian before we got started
here, he, got married,
apparently was unable to consummate his marriage. He
suffered from obesity and gout because while he was knowledgeable, he
was also gluttonous, and he failed
to generate an heir, which
most kings did not realize back in the day.
Basic biology says it's a man's fault if you can't produce an
heir.
But let me not sully history
with biological facts.
So let's get started on this, Kristen. You love this book. That's why I've I've
had you all to talk about it. And you love it that we're sly. I
hope you love it that we're slogging through it because we got a lot slogged
through on this. It's like when it's always the problem
when they make books into movies. Right? You're like, you skipped all the best parts.
Like, it's not always true, but it's like when when we have the time to
just go through it all, you're like, yes.
Yes. So let's, well, then let's let's talk a
little bit about Louis the eighteenth and his character in the Count of
Monte Cristo. So there's there's Louis the eighteenth, the character, and there's Louis the
eighteenth, the actual, like, human being who lived. And Dumas, of
course, takes the literary license as do most writers and creatives.
And, I think that that is something that is missing in our current era.
We don't have anybody who has the guts, I would assert, to take literary
license with real people because, partially, it's because the social media thing and the
Internet thing, we all know too much about everybody. And so to take literary
license would be like, please. I'm being creative.
But maybe I'm wrong. People have done it, actually, and they they got a lot
of criticism. It's a movie called,
oh my gosh. The name literally just flew out of my head. It's about P.
T. Barnum. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
My kid loves the songs from that movie. Yeah. Greatest Showman. Greatest
Showman. I love the music. Music's great. Hugh Jackman is great.
Right. Zendaya, what's the other kid's name? Zed
kid. Zac Efron. They all did amazing. It's a great I I love that
movie. But historically, completely like, I don't know about completely
inaccurate, but aside from the fact that PT Parnham started the the
circus, that's about it. That's
what they got right or historically accurate. Right. So
there's a lot of license being taken, and the movie got a lot of
criticism for it. But at the same time, it
made the characters It's a movie. It's a movie. It was enjoyable. It made the
characters relatable. So, yes, I have lots of I have lots of opinions about
this. Well, okay. So you're you're an
artist. You're, you know, you're creative. You're
in you're in the space of trying to put something in the world,
whether that's, you know, something that you generated off
the top of your head or, you know, businesses you're doing, something like that.
Right? It's really, really hard, and I think
it's always been hard to take someone who is known.
Like, Louis the eighteenth was known, and everybody had an opinion about Louis the
eighteenth. I think if the people of France had had Twitter back then,
they had been tweeting about him. They'd have been a real
problem for him, not for them. They would have been fine.
How can and this is the this is the this is the question of the
day. How can artists, can us as artists make current events
as compelling in writing as Du Maur made his current
events compelling for his audience? How do we how do we capture that? Because I
don't I think we fail to capture that. Well, something that I was
thinking about. I have I almost have two answers. I have one that feels like
it's not it doesn't relate to the book, and then I have one that is
is more related to the book. So I guess we'll start with that one is
I feel like what Dumas did with Louis
the eighteenth is I was also looking up dates.
Mhmm. Because this, like, Bonaparte and Louis the
eighteenth, that all happened, like,
before Dumas' time. Yeah. And he would be growing
up with these stories, hearing them from his
parents, hearing their their filters, hearing all the adults. Right? And
so he would be kind of absorbing this as almost,
not legends, but, you know, just stories of the ours our
storied past. Right. And so then
he's putting it together, and he as as an artist, I think you
always wanna make it relatable. And so I think
what he did here is, like, there is a person. There's a
person that he knew that he just decided to
call Louis the eighteenth because he was like, I bet Louis the eighteenth was like
this. And then every French person was like, oh
my gosh. I know that guy. And that's how
you make it compelling. You you pick it specific enough,
and you're not afraid to, you know,
maybe throw some shade. Because,
honestly, what's movie he's gonna do? He's dead. Yeah. It's like the
Leonardo DiCaprio meme from, once upon a time in
Hollywood. Right? That that one scene where he's, like, drinking the beer, and he's got
the cigarette, and he comes up off the couch. He's, like, pointing at the thing,
the meme that you see flowing down. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who's that
guy?
So Okay. So that's and and I guess that
kinda does tie into my like, the second answer is you you you
gotta humanize people. And Mhmm. On both on
both of the end ends of the spectrum. I feel like when artists talk about
humanizing people, they usually mean, make
them sympathetic. Mhmm. That is often
what it means. Mhmm. But it
also means showing them when they're kind of ridiculous,
when they make like, they're just yeah. Like this guy, he's not even listening.
He's just like, I'm gonna make these notes in my book and be
all learned and have this air about me. And we're like, we know that
guy. We you know someone who's like that. And when you
read this story, you're like, that's
and I think that's part of how you make it compelling. And it
actually goes it reminds me of marketing a lot, actually, because, you know,
they they tell you, you know, to pick your target market and
narrow it down and narrow it down and write to your target market. Like, you're
only writing to one person. Everybody's too scared to do
that because they think that it it won't it
will, like, limit my audience. It will limit my sales. And, like, that's
not true. Like, artists, authors have been doing
this for eons.
And that's write to your target market, though, don't you have to
know or have a sense or have sympathy for the
market you're writing to. Or not sim yes. Yeah. To understand
them. Yeah. And understand them. Yeah. Or or empathy maybe. I think empathy is probably
a better term these days. But okay. Empathy for your target market. Right? You
have to have empathy for the people who are reading the
book or consuming the not consuming,
watching the movie or listening to the music. Right? You have to have empathy for
those people. Right? For that to Yeah. Yeah. And if you're talking down to
them, they usually know. Right. They
can they can tell. Okay. Yeah. So,
the I like what you said about humanizing
people. Why I have
ideas on why. But from your where you're sitting in
the spot where you're at, because you're you're in California, you're in the mail
storm of things. Oh, yes.
Why do creatives in the last twenty five
years have trouble humanizing the people people they're writing about
or creating about? Oof. Yeah. I'm gonna go ahead
and ask you the hard question of Brian. Oh. Because we're gonna we haven't gotten
to Napoleon Bonaparte yet, and that's I mean, there you go. Like, I'm gonna talk
a little about the Napoleon movie that just came out, which is trash. Twenty
five years. Oh, right. Yeah. I haven't I
haven't even bought it. I watched it on I watched it on a plane. I
was like, because I'm a Ridley Scott guy. I watched it on a plane, and
I didn't even make it through, like, the half hour of it before I was
like, this is right. Now there is a new Count of Monte Cristo movie,
and it's in French. So I'm actually quite interested. Like, oh,
if the French made it, like, maybe it'll be good.
Maybe it'll be good. And I've seen good things about it. But okay.
So why have artists have trouble have been
having trouble writing humanizing people?
Yeah. Because, like, you could humanize okay.
So I don't know. It depends on who you're reading. Right? Maybe the,
like, the, like, your people writing for Hollywood.
No. I don't well, I don't know if anybody's happy for with
Hollywood right now, actually. No one is. The people who
are who are looking for good writing and good movies and good cinema are
mad because nothing is good right now. And then the people that they're
trying to please right now are mad because it's not good and it's not doing
well. So it's just like So so we are
recording this. We are recording this. The the weekend when Snow
White Snow White live action movie is good. Oh.
And that's the sound right there. That's the sound right there.
I'm not even I haven't watched like, I have completely abandoned most of
my most of my, what
is it, my my interests if it's coming from Hollywood or
just, like, I'm out. What
just Star Wars, Marvel, any and it's just like, I'm out. Like, I'm
I'm out. I'm out. I tried gatekeeping. Even People didn't let me
I'm out. Even even, like, the new Daredevil show, just to nerd out
just for a little Yeah. Yeah. No. Go ahead. I've I've heard I've heard like,
the new Daredevil show is, like, okay. I might actually try
that one. I'm still nervous. I'd still don't think it's gonna be
good, but that's the first thing I've seen in a while that I'm
like, okay. Maybe. All I know
is Amazon is gonna ruin James Bond.
That's all I know. They're gonna Star Wars up James Bond. Probably.
And I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm I'm not gonna have
anything to do with it. You know what Amazon did well, and this is because
they left it up to the creatives, and this is an amazing creative team. There's
a creative team out there called Critical Role, and it's a bunch of nerdy voice
actors that play d and d. And they created this story throughout their
d and d campaign, and now they're porting it to an animated show.
Amazon produced that because they raised all the money themselves,
and it does amazingly. And it's well
written as well. It's obviously well voice acted. It just
that's that's the probably the best show that Amazon, in my
opinion, has put out in a while. So back to this
question, if I'm not to why yeah. But, but my
first thought is that people get preachy, and then
they lose sight of, like, actually humanizing people.
Right? They they they're they want so badly to
bring awareness or sympathy or
compassion or whatever understanding, whatever it is around this issue that
they think needs so badly to be out there. And
I'm generalizing hardcore here. But then they
just they lose sight
of of letting letting it be
real. Almost like they feel like they have to editorialize
in order for people to believe that this is something
they need to be paying attention to. Does that make sense?
And then you start to then I think audiences start to catch on to that.
We're like, this character is too
sympathetic. Mhmm. They're like, really? This this that's
they're just completely a victim every time at every turn? We're like,
nobody maybe not nobody. That's
a blanket statement. Right? But it's just, like, so very
few situations. Is it like
There are very few situations Show them make a mistake. Right. Right.
Well, there's very few situations where and and do we
even see this, by the way, in the count of Monte Cristo? Like,
yes. Louis the eighteenth is, to your point, a caricature or
conglomeration of a bunch of people together who everybody recognizes.
Right. But he also is Dumas had enough
empathy to to put
the human touches in him. So the human touch is he's
marking a porous, and he's quoting from the life of Africa, you
know, Scipio Africanus. Right? Like, he's and,
of course, these are literary references that people nowadays won't know, unless
they're well read. But he's making in jokes
through even those literary references that humanize
this person who,
and and I I I have not Is a figurehead. Yeah. Who's a figurehead. Right.
He's a figurehead. Right. Right. And I haven't even I haven't touched on politics yet.
Like, this is even a political statement. That's what I was thinking. Like, I looked
up it would be like me trying to write. Well, actually, the reason I this
popped into my head is because Nixon in China is an opera Oh. That I
thought did really well. Like, it didn't villainize Nixon. It just kinda let
him be. Mhmm. Also, the, you know, the you you
mentioned, it's like, why don't why aren't we allowed to do this, anymore? It's like,
well, lawsuits. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot
of litigation and and copywriting copywriting. I don't know if that's the right word,
but licensing and and all the laws and and stuff about
writing about doing art on people that
are still alive. But, anyway, so there's the opera of Nixon in China, and we're
like, that's kinda similar, like, in in terms of my timeline because that like, when
Nixon went to China, it was, like, nineteen seventy something.
And then somebody was kinda the last twenty years wrote
an opera about it. Heggie. Right. I guess Heggie.
Wait. No. That was a different opera. I don't think it was Heggie. Anyway Doesn't
matter. It doesn't matter. But it was just it was really
interesting because Right. I had actually never watched anything about
Nixon before. And my mom was sitting
right there with me, and I guess the guy that was singing for
Nixon did his homework because she was like, oh my
gosh. Like, he'd like, his mannerisms, the way he walked,
the way he would move, look at someone. He just really was
apparently, really studied and just was giving off
big Nixon vibes. So all that to say is but it didn't
villainize him. It just placed them in the scene, be
like, this is what happened. This is what
happened. Yeah. Well, I wonder if I wonder if partially also
because we are
we're unable to see and I'm not the first person to point this out.
We're unable to see individuals who are
standing in as avatars from our for our political enemies.
We're unable to see them as human beings who just have a different
view of the world. So I'll do both sides here just so that I can
be accused of being fair, You know?
Because I care about that. If I am writing
a play about the rise and fall of Barack Obama,
I have to be empathetic to people that supported Barack Obama.
Like, I have to see them as human beings. And I act and actually, they
were not even people who supported him. I have to be empathetic to Barack Obama
and write him as much of a as as as much of a
human being making human decisions and suffering from
human foibles as I possibly can. By the way, I
also have to do that if I'm going to write a
play about Donald Trump. Like, I just I have to write
Donald Trump as a real human being, not a caricature
that shows up on some float and some protest in Germany while
someone's burning a Tesla. Like, it can't it can't it can't be those
things. Right? You have to figure out what is what is Trump what do Obama
what does Obama what do they care about? What makes them human?
Because as soon as you learn that, all of a
sudden, everything then by really by care about, I mean, really care
about, not what the news is gonna tell you. The and this goes for both
men. Right? Just like what what do they care about as human
beings? What's important to them? What are their values? And as and even if
you start listening to that verbiage change, all of a
sudden, it it starts to sound like, you know, we're in we're reading a a
leadership book instead of
talking about politics. Like, oh,
maybe we need to revisit how we talk about politics. And I
do not like I don't know why I feel the need to to make
this, disclaimer. I don't like Trump. I don't like
him. Every story I hear, I'm just like, I this
man is our president, but I didn't particularly love Obama either. Like,
you made some decisions, but I'm just like, You know?
So it's like but but that's politics. Right? That doesn't mean
they're not Exactly. Doesn't mean they're,
I don't know, gonna bring about the end of the world or
save the world.
This right there. Put a put a mark on that in here.
No human being. No politician. No policymaker.
No legislator. And I think that's really this idea is really
tough that I'm about to say
in our in our system of governance
because we are a republican
system of government, small r, based off of a constitution.
And that constitution, because we've expanded the agency and
the ability of it to cover a number of different people that it was not
originally meant to cover, or or the original intent
of the founders was not that those individuals would be covered, but the the
the the beauty and the horror of The United States is
that we have pushed the boundaries of that
document and stretched it beyond its original understanding
from good or ill. And I can argue both sides of that.
And in doing so, we've changed the way that people think about their
relationship to politicians. And that is fundamentally
different, I think, than the way that people thought about their relationship to a
politician during the time of the French revolution, during Bonaparte, during Louis
the eighteenth. I mean, we we make
claims in this country, political claims on both political
sides that a president is behaving like a king. We do. That's like a
slur that you throw out to to slam a politician in The United States.
But the fact that we even throw out that slur is indicative
of the fact that we would all we are all trained to
be in a system where we will not be ruled by a
king. Instead, we will all
democratically rule each other, and it's
hard to really empathize with people that you not hard. It
has become increasingly difficult, let me frame it that way, to empathize with people
who are our next door neighbors because we don't see them as we don't see
them as people. So if your if your next door neighbor is voting for somebody
and you don't understand why they're doing that and you don't have any empathy for
them, then, of course, the political avatar is gonna be
bringing about, to Kristen's point, the end of the world or
bringing about utopia now. Like, either one. Either apocalypse or
utopia. It's never any I tell them I want this all touch. It's never in
between. We can't hit the middle.
We can't hit the middle. We they're gonna go utopia or we're gonna have an
apocalypse. I guess, it's either.
And I increasingly am not here for any of that. I
increasingly need us to hit the middle. Just hit the middle.
Well, it's it trying to keep this
vague enough and not get Yeah. Yeah. What, personal or start
condemning people. Keep it vague. I've already let let all the
condemnation come out of my mouth. You keep it vague. Right? No.
I just I think that's that's kinda what it consistently comes back to
and Yeah. Is is letting people be
human. But see them as humans before you see them as whatever they
voted whoever they voted for or whatever their what is it?
Whatever their party designation is. Like, oh my gosh. Even just saying that reminds
me of, like, v for vendetta. Like, like, hey.
Like, both sides are, like, this close to becoming
the thing that they're accusing the other side of becoming. And it's like,
guys, we're all we're all in this together.
Thank you, Zephyr.
I am just a witness. We got one
we got one planet. We need to make it last as long as we can.
We're all humans. Like, that's if you zoom out
enough if you if you zoom out enough say, I think
Go ahead. The connection is a little wonky again.
No. No. No. No. No. No. You're no. You're okay. No. You're alright. This time,
it's not on this time, it's not on my end. My my my Oh. Or
your Is it mine? Tip top. No. You might be
yours. It might be mine. No. I
think that after twenty five years, I think that the American public
has only about twenty five years of, like, solid, like, ability to stand in
a corner like two four year olds and hit each other in the face. We've
only got about twenty five years of that in us. And then we need a
break. And I think I do. I think we are at the end of the
and this is one of the assertions that I'm making on this podcast. I think
we are. We're at the end of the fourth turning. We're at the end of
we're exhausted. We've we've beaten each other into submission. We reached
sort of the high watermark of all this nonsense in 2020.
Between between March of twenty twenty and January of twenty twenty one, we did we
reached the high watermark. If anything was gonna happen that was gonna
happen, it would have would have happened in that period. And it didn't, for a
whole variety of reasons that I don't need to go into today, but it
didn't happen. And now we're all exhausted. We're like drunks that,
like, are now waking up, and they're the hangover is kicking in, and we're like,
oh, dear god. We're, like, looking around going, oh my god. I do? This place
up. What did I do? I gotta clean this place up. That was a hell
of a party. It was a real rager.
Yeah. Yeah. And we can't go down the street to, like, go
to another party. There's no way downstairs to go. They're too embarrassed. Too embarrassed.
Like, this is we're having we're getting ready to have the collective. I think over
the next five years, we're getting ready to have the collective, we're never gonna drink
again moment. Right. And I love that moment after a terrible
hangover. You're like, oh my god. This is terrible. I'm never gonna drink again.
Never. And never is, like, you know, till next Sunday or next Friday or
whenever. But, but in the terms of a nation state, it that
that could maybe be, that could maybe be another twenty five year long gap. So
it will take twenty five years off from beating each other in the face. And
by that point, I'll be dead, and it won't matter. So no one will remember
any of this anyway.
Okay. I like the idea that you said there about writing to your
target market and humanizing people. I love that.
In particular, because we're going to pick up with the chapter. I love the
title of this chapter as we turn back to the book. The Corsican
ogre.
I love the title of that chapter. Oh my gosh.
Because I wanna talk about I wanna talk about a person
who who we failed to humanize. We
in the West failed to humanize, up until about the last
eighty years because there was another boogeyman that then showed up during that
recent unfortunate events in, in Europe.
And, of course, the death of a hundred million people in the twentieth century sort
of dwarfed anything that this guy did. So, so he was
replaced by a bigger bogeyman, a guy named Which made it
okay to humanize Bonaparte. Right. Made it okay to
humanize him. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. It's fine. He's just he's a short dude who,
like, has his hands in his pockets all the time. Right? He's a short dude,
funny dude in a painting. Right?
What possible problems could he have started? That that just kind
of, that just hit me kinda with a a new
thought. We're like, what has to happen next that will
let humanity collectively go? We can humanize Hitler now.
Oh. I don't even I don't even I don't are we still gonna be
here? Is that will we even survive that event?
So I don't I don't think it will be so
I'm in my mid forties. Right? I'm in the youngest
and of the oldest generation that won't allow that to happen. The
youngest and the oldest generation. That won't let
that happen. Yeah. Yeah. That won't allow that to happen. We're all still kicking around
here. We're all still like, no. My grandfather, my grandmother, my Right.
We're we're still those. We still have those people. Mhmm. I have I have
19 year olds. I have a 19 year old. I have I have a 14
year old, soon to be 15, and I have an eight year old. I look
at my eight year old, and I go,
Not him specifically, but, like, anybody that's in that cohort, they
have zero connection emotionally to the twentieth century at
any kind of level. And when I'm
gone, that's the last connection to, as the Gen Z kids say
these days, the nineteen hundreds. Yeah. That's your last connection to the nineteen
hundreds. Okay.
That's fine. That's fine. And I this this is that's fine.
Whatever. Whatever. Get out of my face. Get get away from me.
Never mind that it was the end of the 1900. So there's a whole
century there. I might as well
be a hundred years old.
I just tell people when they lay that on me. I just tell people when
they lay that on me. Like, I ran across somebody the other day. She's like,
oh, I was born in 02/2005. And I went
Oh, every time somebody asks me what my daughter's birthday is, I'm just like,
mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Exactly. And so to answer your question,
I think I think it's going to be one of those things. You're already you've
already sort of seen this with, like, communism and Stalin. Like,
nobody ever references Stalin as, like, a really bad guy even though
Stalin killed a hell of a lot more people than Hitler. Let's just
be factual about that. Just the numbers alone. Right? Right. Or
Mao or Pol Pot. Like, I was talking with somebody the other
day, like, who went to Vietnam and Cambodia, and he's like, oh, yeah. You can
still see evidence of Pol Pot's massacres in Cambodia
still walking around today. And the
fact is if you don't have an emotional connection to that history these days,
you're not going to clear it with
respect, I guess, is maybe the term I'm looking for, or care.
Care is probably better. And then after that that.
Yeah. Yeah. And then after that, like, just the door and the floor just opens
up, and now you're, like, you're you're on your way to that. Is
how humanity repeats itself. Correct. Yeah. You're on your way down to some abyss down
there. Except the except the next time, they'll have AI. So they'll be able to
kill people at a lot a lot better, a lot higher level with more
with greater justification, and it'll be probably be harder to
stop. And, like, again, I look at my eight year old, and I'm like,
you guys you guys can't screw it up,
because that's maybe where it starts.
So on that down, no.
Yep. I bet. I do.
Back to chapter the Corsican ogre.
I'm gonna read a few pages in here, just to sort of
get the flavor of the fear
of Napoleon. Louis the eighteenth, on seeing this
ravaged face, thrust away the table before which he was sitting. So,
Villefort has arrived. He came on the horses two horses.
He's gonna deliver a message to, to the king.
The the the baron is is
hanging out, and it's a it's a whole
thing. So, yeah, so Louis the
Louis the eighteenth, I'm seeing this ravaged face thrust away the table before which he
was sitting. What is wrong with you, Baron? He cried. You seem thunderstruck.
Do your troubled appearance and hesitant manner have anything to do with what
Monsieur de Blancos was saying and what Monsieur de Villegas has just confirmed to
me? Meanwhile, Monsieur de Blancos had made
Blancos had made an urgent movement towards the baron, but the courtier's terror got the
better of the statesman pride. In such circumstances, it was preferable for him to
be humiliated by the prefect of police than to humiliate him
in view of what was at stake. The sire, the baron stammered. Come come,
said Louis the eighteenth. At this, the minister of police gave way to an
onrush of despair and threw himself at the king's feet. Louis the eighteenth stepped
back, raising his eyebrows. Won't you say something? He asked. Oh, sire.
What a terrible fortune. What will become of me? I shall never recover from it.
Bonjour, Louis the eighteenth said. I order you to speak.
Sire, the usurper left Elba on February
and landed on March. Where? The king asked urgently.
In France, sire, in a little port on the Gulf Of Leon near
Antibodies. You circulated in France near Antibodies
on the Gulf Of Juan, near Hundley from Paris on March 1, and it is
only today, March, that you inform me of it? Bon bonjour. What you are telling
me is impossible. Either you have been misinformed or you are mad.
Alas, siren, it's only too true. Louis the
eighteenth made a gesture of inexpressible anger and alarm, leaping to his feet as
though a sudden blow had struck him simultaneously in the heart and across the face.
In France, he cried, the usurper in France, but was no one watching the
man? Who knows? Perhaps you were in league with him. Sigh,
no. Duke de Blacas cried out. A man like Mongeau Dandre could
never be accused of treason. We were all blind, sire, and the minister of police
was as blind as the rest of us, nothing more.
But, Vilfor said, then he stopped dead in his tracks. I beg your
forgiveness, sire, he said with a bow. My ardor carried me away. I beg your
majesty to forgive me. Speak, Speak without fear. You
alone warned us of the disease. Help us to find the cure.
Sire, Vilfred said, the usurper is hated in the South. It appears to me that
if he risks his chances there, we can easily rouse Provence and Languedoc against
him. No doubt we can, said the minister, but he is advancing through Gap
and Cicerone. Advancing, advancing, said Louis the eighteenth. Is he marching
on Paris then? Minister of police said nothing, but his silence
was as eloquent as a confession. What about the Dauphine?
The king asked Villefort. Do you think we could raise resistance there as in Provence?
Sire, I regret to inform your majesty of an impalatable truth. Feeling of
the is not nearly as favorable to us as it is in Provence at La
Gaudor, the mountain dwellers of Bonapartes, sire. So his
intelligence is good, Louis the eighteenth muttered. How many men does he have with him?
I do not know, sire, said the minister of police. How do you mean you
don't know? Did you forget to find out that detail? It is a trivial matter,
of course, he added with disdainful smile. I was unable to learn it,
sire. The dispatch contained only the news of the landing and the route taken by
the usurper. And how did you come by this dispatch?
The minister hung his head and blushed brightly. By the telegraph sire,
he stammered. Louis the eighteenth stepped forward across his arms
as Napoleon would have done. By the way, pause. I love that little touch
there that he puts in there. I love that. That's that's a good literary touch
there. Back to the book. You mean, he said, going pale
with rage that seven armies overthrew that man. A divine miracle
replaced me on the throne of my fathers after twenty five years of exile. And
during those twenty five years, I studied, sounded out, and analyzed the men
and the affairs of this country of France that was promised to me only to
attain the object of all my desires and for a force that I held in
the palm of my hand to explode and destroy me?
It is fate, sire, the minister muttered, realizing there's such a weight.
The light in the scales of destiny was enough to crush a man. So it
is true what our enemies say about us? Nothing learned, nothing
forgotten? If I had been betrayed as
he was, then that might after all be some consolation, but to be surrounded
by people whom I have raised to high office who should consider my safety more
precious than their own because their interests depend on me, people who were nothing
before me and will be nothing after, and to perish miserably through inefficiency
and ineptitude. Oh, yes, You are right indeed. That
is fate. The minister was crushed beneath
the weight of this terrifying indictment. Wiped a
brow damp with sweat and Vilfor, smiled to himself
because he felt his own importance swelling To fall,
Louis eighteenth continued, having immediately realized the depth of the
gulf above which the monarchy was tottering. To fall and to learn of one's falls
with the telegraph. Oh, I should rather mount the scaffold like my brother, Louis
the sixteenth, than to descend the steps of the two reason this way driven out
by ridicule. Bonjour. You do not know what ridicule means in France, yet if
anyone ought to know, sire, the minister humbled sire, for pity's
sake, the king turned to the young man who was standing motionless at the back
of the room following the progress of this conversation on which hung the fate of
the kingdom. Come here, Come.
Tell this gentleman that it was possible, to have foreknowledge of everything
despite his ignorance of it. Sire,
it is materially impossible to guess at plans which that man had
hidden from everybody. Materially impossible?
Those are grand words, Monsieur. Unfortunately, grand words are like
grand gentlemen. I have taken the measure of both. Material
impossible. For a minister who has officials, his offices, his
agents, his informants, and CHF1,500,000 of secret
funds to know what is happening 60 leagues off the coast of France? Come
come. Here is this gentleman who had none of the resources at his
disposal. This gentleman, a simple magistrate who knew more than you did with all your
police force and who would have saved my crown if, like
you, he had the right to operate
the telegraph.
Ding. I freaking love that whole
entire exchange. It is it
is excellent,
And it lays out in real palpable ways for
us the level
of apprehension and fear
and, I mean, just, yeah, outright
fear that the elites had in France
of what this man Napoleon
might do upon his
return. When
I read this, I immediately thought of the
scene because I am a I'm a cinematic guy in my head.
I thought of the scene in The Wire when Omar and his
trench coat and if it's a great show, you've never watched it, it doesn't matter.
Go go check it out on HBO twenty years ago when
Omar is walking down the drug alleys in Baltimore,
and all of the drug dealers see him coming. We're dealing on the
corners, and they all scream out from windows, doorways,
and they scatter like rats while they're screaming. They scream, Omar's coming.
Omar's coming. And he's just walking down the street in his trench coat with his
shotgun singing, whistling farmer in the
Dell, which is, like, great.
And it's almost exactly that. Napoleon's
coming. Everybody better get up and get moving. Get up off the
step. Get up off the stoop. You better go hide.
That bug is coming. To Chris'
point earlier before we read that section, it has been over two
hundred years, since Napoleon was
astride the earth as a great man. And we
do underestimate how much of a boogeyman he was for the
the the aristocracy and the elites of Europe and how much the
common people loved him. Napoleon
ushered in because of his actions and his behavior and the way that he
held himself in France and the way that he was taught not taught, but the
way he was thought about, he held himself up and was
turned into, the first avatar, this
idea, at least in the modern West, of the
great man of history theory.
Thomas Carlyle laid out this theory, and I'm going to read this quote directly. It
came from my research around this. Universal history, the
history of what man has accomplished in this world is at the bottom of the
history of the great men who have worked here. They were leaders
of men, these great ones, the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense,
creators of whatsoever the general mass of men could drive to do or
attain. All things that we see standing accomplished in the
world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and
embodiment of thoughts that dwell in the great men sent into
the world. The soul of the world, whole world's history,
it may justly be considered were the history of
these.
It is only very recently that we have abandoned in the West the
theory of the great man of history. I think that
was one of the things that died in the horror,
the bombed out horror of World War two. Because if you
have great men, they can destroy. And, of course, if they can
destroy with great weapons, they could destroy much more effectively.
But all things that are old become new again. And I do
think whether we like it or not, whether we think we're
sophisticated or not, and whether our our
class and intellectual betters think they're ready
or not, I do believe the great man of history,
theory is astride the West
yet again, much to
the elites dismay.
So the question I have is, are we
in America ready for the great men and women
of the Earth, as Carlisle might say, to move
history yet again?
Are you ever ready? Are you ever ready for something like that? Like,
just it just I feel like like I think you I think
you get ready ecumenically and emotionally. It's like
I mean, was anybody ready for Trump?
No. No one was ready for that. No one's ready. And, actually, I will tell
you I'll tell you. Love him, hate him. Whatever he's doing. Love him, hate him.
Ready for that? Like, was anybody
Win that? When when I wasn't ready for him to actually win. I
was in Germany, and they were like,
When when when the bullet missed taking his
brains out Oh my gosh. Pennsylvania,
I my wife I was working in the yard, and my wife was like, oh,
you gotta come see this. And she showed me the video, and I literally
I've never had this experience happen in well, no. Not never. There's only one other
time I had this experience happen in my life. That was September 11.
And I actually, like, felt the earth move. I was like, oh, oh, this is
a thing. Now we're into something else now. Like,
people are calling it a vibe shift. I I don't wanna be as as
I don't wanna be as flip with it as that. It it's more than
that. It's you don't have a guy like that
damn near get his head blown off and something not happen afterward. You
just don't have it. There's just there's just rules to the game. This isn't this
isn't Vietnam. There are rules. Like, there's rules to this
game. Like, and and,
apparently, I guess, we're on the
other side of Mark Andreessen, the investor.
He was interviewed on Joe Rogan afterward about a month or two after this
happened, and he said, we're in another timeline now. The timeline forked.
Like, there's a timeline where, like, Donald Trump got shot, and the people living there,
they're not having a good time. And we're in a
timeline where that didn't happen. And he's like, thank god the timeline he didn't say
god, but it's a good thing the timeline forked. Because if it hadn't,
we'd be we'd be in something else. So are we ready?
No. I don't I don't I I think I think we
no. I don't think we're ready, but I think it's easier for people who, like,
have a deep belief in faith or deep spirituality to kind of accept that
this is, like, something that's going to happen eventually. But I think for people who
are just floating around with no anchor, no. They're not ready. Oh, yeah. They're they're
surprised. They're surprised.
Well and I you know, as
someone who, you know, was raised, like, with a pretty strong
faith and have always been pretty pretty deeply spiritual,
just kind of choosing that over and over. But, in
in various paths, it's it is.
Having that anchor is very interesting. I think those are the people. The people who
don't have the anchor are the ones that are more prone, typically.
I can think of some exceptions already, but typically are
the ones who are like, the world's gonna end, or this guy is gonna be
our savior, and be like, neither. Neither of those things are
true. Like, it just but but, you
know, great men and women
yeah. It's interesting. I almost feel like
we're not allowed. And kinda to your point, what you said,
earlier about, the favor of the idea that impersonal
mysterious forces that are not,
like, in our control necessarily,
which, yeah, that is a very interesting perspective. I was almost yeah. So
it feels like almost like we're not allowed to even say
that great men and women can change anything,
which is an interesting thing to hear come out of my mouth considering
that I feel like those very same people would be like, no. Of course, we
have free will and can change
things. They're the same people that are like, nothing will
ever change. Everything is awful and always will be. I'm just like,
well, hold on. Oh, yeah. Decide.
Decide. You cannot have both. This I don't think these things
Well, I think I think people have bought the lie that human
beings are so you're seeing a lot of this in I already mentioned artificial intelligence
once, and I'm gonna mention it again. You're seeing this in the conversations around AI.
So we are doing exactly what I thought we would do. We
are we are anthropomorphizing what is in
essence a hopped up computer program on steroids. And, yes, I am
minimizing it on purpose for what I'm about to say
because because we have bought into
the lie as a culture ever since Alan Turing
proposed the Turing test. We've bought into the why
as a western culture in general and an American culture
in deeply particular. I don't think the Europeans buy into it as much as we
do, and the Japanese are all the way the hell over on the other end.
So we're weirdly in the middle on this. But I think
in America, in the West, we
have bought into the lie that human beings are just machines,
just computational. There's no difference between me and a
computer. And the problem is or not the
problem. The in order for me to be great, I
have to believe that I'm more than just a mechanical a biomechanical
series of impulses that are just reacting to things. I have
a friend who's kind of on the other side where he we we were talking
about this. It was a maddening conversation for me because
everything it's like, oh, he like, I was like, humans are
different from animals. Like, we just are. Oh, yeah. Like, yes, we are animals, but
we are, like, almost like animals plus. Mhmm. Yeah. Exactly.
But because you cannot prove or measure consciousness or the
soul, like, there's no empirical you can't do that empirically. He
was like, we're just we're just all we're just animals. And I'm like
Maybe you're an animal. What? And we're like, I tried to,
like, find I'm I'm when when I'm
debating with this guy, we're like, he's, like, uber logical,
and I am like, I'm an artist. Yeah.
So emotions and, like, instinct. And I was
like, but this doesn't make sense, and I can't give you the logic that you'll
accept Right. That that will help you. And so that that
like, to this it's almost like they're they're even though they believe
different reasons why they both end up at the same thing of why we
can't do anything about the way we are. I'll give you I'll give you
a a a tip for getting for getting through those kinds of arguments. I'm gonna
help you out. No. Really. I am this is gonna be very helpful.
Have him explain art logically. He can't.
Give me give me the evolutionary biological reason for
a painting. I think he's we'd sorta touched on
that, and it was it had something to do with, like,
finding a mate and procreation. Except except except
people who are single and never find mates and never procreate don't make
paint. I mean, they make just make painting. The the the yeah. Let me just
I don't remember. By the way by the way, he'll try to divide it into
the macro and the micro. We'll try to get you caught in details. Well, then
he sent me a video of, like, a a a a, what is it?
A, an elephant painting. And I was
like, he's like animals do art. Animals invent
things. Like, what is it? Monkeys, fashion, tools.
It was like No. Okay. But, dude, like, monkeys aren't going to
space. And he was like, why would they need to go to space? I was
like, why did we need to go to space? We didn't need to go to
space. Right. Like, why do we need to do anything? And don't tell me it's
mating. Don't tell me don't tell me we built a
giant rocket to go to the moon just to get laid. That's not
no. Sorry. Sorry. It's just
No. It was just it was a very, like, maddening. And maddening is the
word. Maddening. I'm just like, I I don't know how to I don't I
we just have to stop. I think we just have to stop. I don't know
I don't know how to continue this conversation without exploding.
Well, and the and the and the the the misunderstanding,
I think. Because I've had those kinds of conversations with folks as well.
The kinds of the kinds of anchoring of
assumptions, and this is the other thing. It lies deep underneath this.
So underneath the assumption of the great man of history theory
from Carlyle, who again based this off of what he
saw Napoleon doing in Europe, okay, and
others, the the the
the understanding of that comes from a space
where and we can't throw this out with the bathwater,
where it comes from understanding of how
Christianity has worked through the loaf of
humanity like yeast for the last two thousand
years in the West. And the people who talk
about a lack of free will want to throw
the Christianity away, but they still want to have all of
the results from Christianity. Yes. And so
the other challenge question that I often have for folks who don't believe in free
will is, okay. I'm going to come to your house and
eat you. Seriously, I'm gonna show up tomorrow, and I'm
gonna eat you. And I don't want you you can't claim murder. You
can't give me any you just can't. Because the
idea of murder comes out of a Christian ethic that
comes from a space that says you can choose to eat your neighbor
or choose not to eat your neighbor, and here's why. But you don't believe we
have free will. So the next time I have an impulse to be hungry, I'm
just gonna show up to you, and you better, like, have your arm ready. Now
that pulls up a cold. That, oh, that that pulls up people's people cold.
Because here's the thing, they're then going to argue from a position of
natural law or from a position of something like that.
Again, all those things come out of Christianity. All those assumptions come out of Christianity.
And so the thing with with with the people who are
anti not anti, but don't believe in free will or who are more maybe atheistic
in their in their pursuit is and this is a challenge question I have for
all of them. And if any of them are listening here, it's a challenge question
I have for all of you. Explain to me how
the right and wrong morality works without appealing to Christianity.
And by the way, you can't appeal to Buddhism or Islam either. No religion. Appeal
to no religion and tell me how this works. And you can't base it off
of a philosophy either because a philosophy is narrow in its anchor. And,
eventually, when you go all the way down, Nietzsche Nietzsche proved this, you wind
up in the bottom of an abyss. So, you know, those are the kinds of
dynamics that we have to consider when we're answering this question.
Short answer to your question is no. Because we don't
believe it can happen. Right? The
collectively, like, culturally. Right?
Yep. No. It's gonna it's probably it's there's there's a dude on the
scene who's already here, and it's felt like a slap in the face every time,
and people are mad. And
so maybe the next one hopefully will feel less like a slap in the
face, but I don't think it will because, really, it's the slap in the
face that has that it's what it takes to get people to wake
up. And as much as I would love to do it in the
softer, more artistic way, that's clearly not working
because nobody will buy my shit anyway. So, yeah, no one will buy your stuff.
Well, that's okay. No one buys my stuff either.
It's fine. Fine. It's fine. This is not for
Hollywood. So I'm not weird listening to anyone who's left writing for Hollywood.
Those writers aren't weird listening to either. Okay. I mean, they're getting paid well,
hopefully. Right. Yeah. Well Well
They better be getting paid well. So okay. So in thinking
about this, though, like,
the idea that we can we can be people who
make a make a dent in the universe. This is what drives entrepreneurship.
Right? This is what drives, like, weird, crazy
entrepreneurial people. Right? And so I do think it is still
deeply embedded in the American spirit.
I I I think I I think back of I think of, like, Patrick Henry,
right, who was invited to the I always tell the story. He was invited to
the constitutional convention by Thomas Jefferson and didn't wanna
go because he smelled a rat at the constitutional convention. He was like, no. He
he liked the articles of Confederation because he just wanted to go to, like at
the time, he just wanted to go to, like, Kentucky, which was the West, and
just be left alone. Like, there's that strong streak
in America. And and, you know, the problem for us in the twentieth century is
we ran out of West to go to, and so we just turned, like, internally
and started just eating each other.
If you don't like your neighbor, speaking of what we're talking about in the last
section, you have no empathy for them. It used to be just you could pack
up your Conestoga wagon and just drive that way,
and you just go get new neighbors. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you get,
like you you cordon off, like, 50 acres in New Little Nebraska, and
the only people you gotta deal with are the native people who've been there for
a while and are really upset that you're there. But beyond that, like, I mean,
like, it's fine. Like, you just you just go. You you just go. Like, you
just you're you're out. Right? Yep. And I think that
deep streak still lives in Americans. It's that streak
of think about it. All the people who came to this country were
people that wanted to be left alone from, like, other places.
That's so we're the descendants of people who just want you to just I'm
not gonna say a word, but just leave it alone,
which then allows people because the the next thing
from there is if I'm left alone, then I could be a great man.
I I could be a great man or woman. All I need is a plot
of land, and now I'm a king. I'm a king of my own plot of
land, and ain't nobody gonna come to pull this back to the wire. Ain't
nobody gonna come along and move me off my block. Yeah. You go around ahead.
You try. Go try try to move me off my block. Watch watch what
happens. Someone go get
clapped. And I don't care
if that, like, if that's in I think our American
attitude is it doesn't matter if that plot of land is in Nebraska.
I'm picking up Nebraska a lot lately. Let's say Iowa. It's in
Iowa. Or if that plot of land is the backstoop in
Baltimore. This is my spot.
You are not moving me off of this. I can be great in
this spot. I don't have to be great for the whole global world. I'm
not Napoleon. I don't have to be that guy,
but I can take ideas from Napoleon, which is part of the conceit of this
podcast. I could take ideas from Napoleon,
and I can use them use those ideas,
to what to make myself great and use my use those ideas to
make my back suit better or to make my plot of land in Iowa
better. But I don't have to, like, rule the world. I just have to rule
my own plot of land. I think that's deeply embedded in the American psyche.
And I don't think I don't think And the king can't come and take it
from me. Correct. And if or if the king tries to, there's
gonna be a real problem. Not for me, for the king. There's gonna be a
problem for the king. Like, as I used
to tell people before I got into fist fights and, like, when I was in
when I was in in teenager, like, I hope you brought all your boys with
you. I hope you brought everybody. I hope it's not just you. Because if it's
just you, well, you and me are gonna have a happy time. I hope you
brought a bunch of backup.
And that attitude
also rubs up against free will. So the guy you're talking about that you're having
an argument with about free will, I guarantee you, he thinks that,
like, he may have a sign on his front yard that says, hey. It has
no place here. I'm sure he does. He's one of those people. I'm sure he
has that sign on his front yard or that there's no
borders and whatever. Okay. It's actually not.
Believe it or not, this is this is very Oh, this is Yeah. This is
very dear friends. It's very I'm casting aspersions in on someone I
know nothing about. It's okay. It's okay. Normally, I would say the same thing, but
it's like, actually
Nope. Now we're back. Okay.
So so yeah. I know. Yeah. So,
but when I see in general,
broad generalities, folks who speak or think in such ways, I
often wonder how far does that go into your personal
areas. Like, where exactly is the upper limit for you and your
because if there's no free will, then there is no upper limit. There's just, like,
just just go to the sky. There's no upper limit. There's no basement, but there's
also no upper limit. Right? There's no there's no bounded hierarchy.
Right? But you aren't operating as if there's
not a bounded hierarchy. You're operating as if there is a bounded
hierarchy, and that comes from somewhere. And then only
in a bounded hierarchy can you truly have free will. That's a deeply
philosophical idea that we don't have time to get into, but it's true
when we walk it out as Americans, all the
time.
So, okay, Napoleon himself. So I we were talking
before we had reported on this on this show
that I had watched the Ridley Scott
Napoleon movie.
Are we are we just trying to make a softer, cuddlier Napoleon?
I don't I I don't know. I don't I haven't read a
bunch on on Napoleon. I do keep thinking of a
a a historical fantasy series that I just finished reading. It's by Naomi
Novick, and it's called the Temeraire novels.
Okay. It's like what if dragons
were, you know, involved in, the the Napoleonic
wars. K. And I
love it. I love it. I I love fantasy. I love dragons. It it ticks
all the boxes for me. You know, every nation has different dragons.
Very, very, very, very interesting. But
the main character actually encounters Napoleon
multiple times. And it was really interesting. It was
talking about, like, humanizing the boogeyman. Just
really like, he was I don't feel like
she portrayed him as, like, cuddly
and softer. Like, he certainly had his things kind of what we were talking about
earlier, he certainly had his things that he cared about deeply and was,
like, if you wanna say softer, emotionally
invested in. Like, he he was very, like, she portrayed him as
having very, strong passions,
and conviction for what he was doing.
But at the same time, absolutely ruthless in
his pursuit of achieving that
end to to kind of, like, the, you know, the
do do the ends justify the means? Right. She raises that
question. And, I mean, the the
main character is always like, no. No. These
ends do not justify the means. But,
but it still pops up. Right? It's it's clearly it's clearly
a question there in the in in kind of the narratives just floating out
there. She doesn't she doesn't what is it? She doesn't,
not ham fisted. It's not very heavy handed. It's nice and subtle. I love
her writing. It's amazing. Okay. But yeah. So it just reminded me
that Napoleon,
and and humanizing him, but also, like, letting him be
the guy that steamrolled across Europe.
Right. Right. Well and and primarily because and I'm I'm a
little bit of a military history guy. Like, he steamrolled across Europe
because he fought in unconventional ways that no one
had predicted. So
because warfare is so radically different than it was now, than it was
two hundred years ago, it's hard for us to comprehend. But
you had to literally stand within four feet of
somebody to kill them with a musket. Right.
Or you could stand Or stab them. Or stab them. Or you could
mount up a cannon, you know,
200, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred yards away, and they had to
get within range before you could blow them to smithereens.
And the vast majority of people in war
didn't die from bullet wounds or even
from, from, shrapnel
or from cannonade. The vast majority of people in the wars of the
eighteenth century died from botched
mutations, gangrene disease, poor conditions,
cholera, hunger, you know, all the things that drove,
that drove Napoleon out of Russia, that show up in the winter.
Why you don't go across the Ural Mountains or
even try to. Anyway, whatever.
I'm sure someone will try again in another, like, fifty years, and it won't work
then either. But Gosh. Sorry. Eddie
Izzard has this special. It's called Dress to Kill, and it's it
he comments on on history. And just that's his what is
it? Napoleon tries to go to, I've got a good idea. I've got a good
idea. I've got a good idea. It's, oh, it's cold. It's a bit cold. It's
bit cold. And then, you know, Hitler does the same thing however many
years. I've got a different idea. I've got a different idea. Oh, it's the same
idea. It's the same idea. Hitler had my wrist because he was a
kid. Yeah. Yep.
He just he comments kind of on Pol Pot and and Stalin, and
he rattles off the numbers. And he's like, Hitler tried to kill people
next door. Stupid man. You got it. Because they just all
killed their own people. So we were just sort of fine with that.
You don't. You gotta kill strangers. That's that's what we've learned. That's what Stalin
taught us. You gotta kill strangers. And you have to make it just you have
to just sort of make it, sort of just it has to
be a simple matter of just signing a piece of paper. Just sign a piece
of paper, and they'll go have a martini. Like, this is this is how you
have to do it. This is that bureaucrat we're gonna talk about bureaucracy here in
a minute. Yeah. This is the bureaucratization of of
of of behavior. So, anyway, so Napoleon,
he was the guy who, like, figured out that,
oh, wait. If I just show up with troops here before anybody
expects me, all of those other factors
don't matter, right, or they matter less.
And so he and this is part of Louis Louis the
eighteenth's objection as well, even in the caricature of him that
Demas is bringing to the forefront. Every single one
of the people who live through the Napoleonic era were
caught back to the great man idea completely by surprise by his
behavior because it violated,
to paraphrase a phrase that's used about someone else recently, standards
and norms of whatever it is that they thought was
going to happen. And Napoleon just said, well, standards and norms are are
standards and norms only for this moment. Like, It was the
ultimate sort of and and this is what a lot of folks are are like,
but particularly in military history. The people who stand out are the ones who
are, like, the who says people. Who says that it has to work
this way? Who where is the committee meeting? I wasn't invited to that.
Since I wasn't invited to the committee meeting, I'm gonna do whatever the hell I
want, and you people you people may do well. And they'll
call me a military genius later when they're writing history books.
Well, yeah. Like, I'm a I'm a civil war buff, and, like,
everybody loves Robert e Lee, which is fine. And Lee
was a good general from a from a tactician's perspective.
He absolutely was a great tactician.
Execution was a little weak, but he was great as a tactician. Right?
But Grant Grant was a strategist who was willing
to do on the execution part what Robert e Lee wasn't willing
to do. He was just willing to just dump people into Vicksburg
and dump people into, into,
Chancellorsville and these other big battles, in the American
Civil War and realized that
if you have numbers, then all the rest of
it doesn't doesn't matter. Just how many people are you willing to
put into the wood chipper to get what you want. And he sort of just
went with it. But but he also had Sherman, and
Sherman was a great tactician. And Sherman was the guy who didn't wanna put people
in the wood chipper. He would do it if he needed to, but he didn't
want to. That wasn't his first, like, impetus. His first impetus was,
okay. Can we get the logistics here? Because if we can get the logistics right,
if we can move the men and material in the correct direction and put them
in the correct spot, again, just like Napoleon, before Lee
shows up, Then maybe we don't have to dump
as many people in the wood chipper as we think we would have. We can
instead of dumping a hundred thousand in, we could only dump, like, 50.
And it'll be fine. Like, we'll or 20, and we'll actually win. And
so that's the battle that's the thing in military. So you see
that with Bonaparte too. You see, he was he was willing to put people in
the wood chipper, but he didn't I don't think he was happy
about it. He wasn't happy about losing Right. You know, he wasn't
pleased about that, but that was the exigencies based on the technology he
had. If he'd had a howitzer, he'd had he'd lost five guys, and that'd been
it. He'd been fine. He's like, I have
a howitzer. Like, what's the problem? Surrender.
So, by the way, in that book speaking of Howitzer. In that book, because I'm
a Game of Thrones guy too. In that book, did, did Napoleon get his
500 ton dragon, or did they not give him a dragon? Oh,
he got a dragon. Oh, he gets a dragon? Oh, well, Cecil C. There you
go. I'll Cecil C. There you go. Dragon. Well, then there you go. I mean,
that She's she is also that I think do you know, kinda listening to what
you'd say about, his unexpected tactics,
She is kind of she, like,
amplifies that because she just starts to bring she's she's
a Chinese dragon, and so she starts bringing just completely
different thoughts and and and ways of having
dragons fight specifically, but also having
dragons and humans work together in in
in ways that Europeans aren't doing yet. And so they just
start stealing
all of the I mean, I like this better. You might have
sold me on this book. I like this better because usually what we'll do is
we'll give, like, Nazis dragons, and they will, like, have them all living on the
moon as, like, lizard people. Like, usually, that's the fiction that that we
get because World War two is, like, the thing in our head Yeah. Or whatever,
collectively, although that is going out of the water as I said previously Yeah.
Quite a bit. Vaster than I would have thought.
But but I like this idea of going back and giving Napoleon a
dragon. It's like giving him, like, Sun Tzu quotes and stuff. Like, I love
that. Yeah. Yeah. You
know, she's gonna run a little Sun Tzu up the pole and up the ladder
and see see what sticks. Yeah. Yeah. With
this, with this guy. Yeah. Okay. It's really
interesting. The the way she kinda interweaves all of the the various,
world cultures of the time, even though, like,
they were starting to interact more regularly. But for the most part, we're
like, no. You you stay over there. You stay over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You
can come in on this port and only this port,
but please don't bring your shit over here. Well and,
actually, weirdly enough, I think on the back end
of all of this, we're gonna actually have more of that in the future over
the next twenty five years, not less. And, again, these things ebb and
flow. I can't say whether that will be a bad or a good thing. Right.
But I do think we I think we've probably over indexed enough globalization
at this point. Mhmm. I think most people are tired of
well, I think most people are tired of
the direct we export and some of the direct we import.
Yeah. So yeah. Alright.
Let's round the corner here back to the book, back to
Count of Monte Cristo. So, there is a meeting here that
we're going to talk about. I'm gonna read
specific pieces of this chapter, not the whole not the not the whole, like,
chunk that I have set up here to think about.
This is after Villefort leaves the,
leaves the king's presence and goes to his
hotel. The chapter is chapter 12, father and
son. M Nortier, for this was the man
who had just entered, kept an eye on the servant until the door had closed.
Then doubtless fearing that he might be listening in the antechamber, he went and opened
it again behind him. There was no vain this was no vain precaution, and the
speed of Germaine's retreat proved he was no stranger to the sin that caused the
downfall of our first parents. And
then took the trouble to go himself and shut the door of the
antechamber, returned and shut out of the bedroom, slid the bolt, and went over to
take a bill for his hand. The young man, meanwhile, had been following these maneuvers
with a surprise from which he had not yet recovered.
How now do you know, dear Gerard, Ortea said, looking at his
son with an ambiguous smile, that you do not appear altogether
overjoyed at seeing me? On the contrary, father, I am
delighted that your visit is so unexpected that I am somewhat dazed by it.
My dear friend, or to your continued taking a seat. I might say the same
myself. How is this? You tell me that you are getting engaged in Marseille
on the February 28, and on March, you are in Paris.
If I am here, father, said Gerard, going across to you in North here, do
not do not complain about it. I came for
your sake, and this journey may perhaps save your life.
Indeed, said casually leaning back at the chair where he
was sitting. Indeed, tell me about it, I am
most curious. Have you heard about a certain Bonapartist club that
meets in the Rue Saint Jacques? At Number 53, yes. I am its vice
president. Father, I am amazed by your composure.
How did you expect, dear boy, when one has been proscribed by the
Montagnards, left Paris in a hay cart, and been hunted across the world ends of
Bordeaux by Robespierre's bloodhounds? One is inured to most
things. So continue. What has happened to this club in the Rue Saint
Jacques? What has happened is that general Quesnel has called to it, and that
general Quesnel having left home at nine in the evening was pulled out of the
same two days later. And who told you this fine story? The king himself. Well,
now in exchange for your story, I have some news to tell you. Father, I
think I already know what you are about to say. Ah, so you already know
about the landing of his majesty, the emperor. I beg you not to say such
things, father, firstly for your own sake then for mine. I did know this piece
of news. I knew it even before you did because over the past three days,
I have been pounding the road between Marseille and Paris, raging at my inability to
project, the thought that was burning through my skull and sent it 200
beaks ahead of me. Three days ago, are you
mad? The emperor had not landed three days ago.
For no matter, I knew of his plans. How did you know? From a letter
addressed to you from the Isle Of Elba to me. To you. I
intercepted you in the messenger's wallet. If that letter had fallen into another's hands, father,
you might have already been shot. Vilfor's father burst
out laughing. It seems that the restoration
has taken lessons from the empire and how to expedite matters.
My dear boy, you are being carried away. So where is this letter? I know
you better than to imagine you would leave it laying around.
I burned it to make sure that not a scrap remained. That letter was your
death warrant. The death knell to your future career?
Replied coldly. This is not gonna talk
about the letter. They're going to talk about the king. Let's skip
forward a little bit. And,
well, Monsieur Noussier makes this point. The king, I
thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as
murder in politics. You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that
in politics, there are no people, only ideas, no feelings, only
interests. In politics, you don't kill a man. You remove an obstacle. That's
all. You want to know what happened? I'll tell you. We thought we could count
on general Quesnel. He had been recommended to us from the Isle Of Elba. 1
of us went round to his house and invited him to attend a meeting at
the Rue Saint Jacques where he would be among friends. He came and was told
the whole plan, departure from the Isle Of Elba, the intended landing place. Then when
he had listened to everything and heard everything and there was no more for him
to learn, he announced that he was a royalist. At this, we all looked at
one another. We obliged him to take an oath, and he did so.
But truly, with such little good grace, it was tempting God to swear in that
way. In spite of all, however, we let him go freely, quite freely.
He did not return home. What do you expect, my dear?
You left us and must have taken the wrong road. That's all of murder.
Really? You surprised me. You were
deputy crown prosecution making an accusation founded on such
poor evidence. Have I ever told you when you've done your job as a royalist
and had the head cut off one of our people? My son, you have committed
murder. No. I have said very well, Monsieur. You have fought
and won, but tomorrow, we shall have
our revenge. And
then a little later, slipping forth,
Monsieur Noirtier proceeds to change
his clothes, change his appearance,
because the police the royalist police are pursuing him,
and he says this. However incompetent the royalist police may be, they
do know one dreadful thing, which is the description of the
man who visited General Quesnel on the day of his disappearance. Ah, the fine
police know that, do they? And what's the description? Dark in
coloring, black hair, side whiskers and eyes, a blue frock coat buttoned up the chin,
the rosette of an officer of the legion of honor in his buttonhole, a broad
brimmed hat, and a rattan cane. Uh-huh. They know
that, Norcia. In that case, why do they not have their hands on this man?
Because they lost him yesterday or the day before on the corner of the Rue
Coquelin. Didn't I tell you your police were idiots?
Yes. But at any moment, they may find him. Yes. Yes.
Well, said looking casually around him, yes, if the man is not worn.
But, yet smiling, he has been
worn, and he will change his appearance and his clothing. At these words,
he got up, took off his coat and cravat, went over to the table on
which everything was lying ready for his son's toilet, took a razor, lathered his face
with a perfectly steady hand, shaved off the compromising side whiskers, which had provided
such a precious clue for the police. Villefort watched him with terror, not
unmixed with admiration. Once he had finished shaving,
Nortier rearranged his hair. Instead of his black carat, he took one of a different
color, which which was lying on top of an open trunk. Instead of his blue
button coat, he slipped on one of vousforks, which was brown and flared. In front
of the mirror, he tried the young man's hat with its turned up brim, seemed
to find that it suited him, and leaving his rattan cane where he had rested
it against the fireplace, he took a little bamboo switch that the
deputy prosecutor would use to give himself that offhand manner, which was one of his
main attributes, and twirled it in his wiry hand.
How's that? He said, turning back to his astonished son after completing this sort of
trick. Do you think your police will recognize me now? A no
father, Samford Villefort. I hope not at least.
And then, of course,
walked right out of Villefort's
hotel room, not detected at all by the
royalist police on the corner.
As a father, I love that little section right there. I love what's happening,
the dynamics there between father and son.
As a father to two sons, one older
significantly older, in his twenties,
approaching his thirties, and then one is the little boy I
mentioned earlier. It's,
it's very interesting to read about that dynamic because I can see my oldest
son.
Behaving in a scandalized fashion if I were to be caught up in something
that I would know I would be able to get out of. And
then seeing seeing my youngest son who is still in the position
of believing that I am a hero. We had this
conversation actually last night at bedtime, as of this recording.
He was saying that, if, if he ever got in trouble, he would there's only
one person he would want to have his back, and that's dad.
Aw. Well, this will last for a little while. Wait till about
twelve. Right. That'll all go away. Yeah.
Or no. It won't go away. It will shift and change. It will shift and
change. They still want dad to have his back just like Vilfor
did, Except it'll change. Right?
And I'll still be able to surprise my son.
Like Noirtier does. The entire book.
That just continues.
So there's couple of different things happening in here, and we didn't
get to this in the last episode about bureaucracy and
self serving behavior. But from every
level with the royalist, right, I
even even in the example in the king's court, in Louis the eighteenth's
court, right, they are stuck
in the bureaucrats. They're stuck in being self serving and
venal. They're looking for a man with side whiskers. So, of course, if
there's no man with side whiskers, they're not gonna bother the dude.
They are not allowing people to use the telegraph because
god forbid, someone used the telegraph, and they miss important
information. This is the challenge of
bureaucratic self interest that arises in every generation, either at the individual
level or the state level. How can leaders avoid
the pull of becoming thoughtless bureaucrats, Kristen? How can
they what can they take
from all of what we've read today, honestly, and
not wind up either wind up more like Villefort and less
like or maybe wind up more like. Right?
Like, how how do they make those how can they rise above the
systems that they are in that are the ones that provide them their
daily bread? Because it's really hard to do, I would imagine.
Right? And I think
it's hard to do, I think, because,
oh, gosh. Trying to figure out how to, articulate
this kinda succinctly, but maybe
not. My first my like, the probably the easiest way,
and I think most maybe most guys are not going to like
this answer. Have a heart.
Have a heart. Would I need that? Why would I need that? I look at
the size of my heart. Right? They're people too. They, like
everybody is a person. And then also
remember that if you don't like it's
almost like there's this underlying fear. Not almost. It's like a base
instinct. Right? The scarcity. I have to be
grabbing what I need because if I don't,
I won't get it. Right? And that, I
think, is part of what leads to all of the
self serving. Like, if if I'm not gonna look out for me, no
one will. And I think there is, like, a
middle road that
yes. You know? Because because there there's extreme there's the other
extreme as well. Just like give it all away and let people walk over you.
And and and, you know, what is
it? Like, recommend your your coworker for the
promotion instead of you because, of course, they deserve it too and blah blah
blah. Like, that's not what I'm talking about either. Like,
whatever you earn, take what you earn. Mhmm. Right. But don't be a
dick. Right.
It just kinda goes back to, like, you know, these are gonna be
Christian themes. We're gonna treat people how you wanna be treated. Like, take care of
your people. They'll take care of you. That's how you earn loyalty.
You care about them. So okay.
Remember I said before, I I I like Game of Thrones, or at least I
like some of the things that come out of Game of Thrones. Because, like, to
me, that's like like, I watched a little bit of that show, my wife and
I did. And, every time I would watch it, I was like, oh my god.
This is like organizational behavior one zero one. Like, it's it's like like, if I
was to get to you if I was gonna write a show, this is what
I would write.
The the character in their little thinker, right, is a great line in
there, at least the TV show. Great line in there. It says chaos is a
ladder. Ladder. Mhmm. They named one of
these little pieces that, and it's just it's an incredible piece.
Oh. Oh, okay. What does that mean? Because people don't understand what that
means. What does it mean chaos is a ladder?
I mean, you can use it. You can use chaos.
If you have if you have the, what is it, the presence
of mind while everybody else is losing their shit
and, like, what is it? I mean,
kind kinda what I was talking about, like, going like,
letting their baser instincts drive them. But if you
can if you can be like, I will be fine and use
this wonderfully big brain that we have and just stay
present, then you can % use chaos. And it comes up
in in Calle Monte Cristo,
In the chaos, like, ensuing after Napoleon,
like, kind of comes back but then falls again,
like, the Right. Hundred days. The people in power see a big
turnover, and it's just crazy. It's just crazy right there.
And some of the people that just keep their
wits about them Mhmm. And
have few moral qualms with playing both sides,
climbed that ladder during that chaos. Right. And, like, when we
hopefully, you know, the next episode, we'll see when we get to discuss this. You
know, we'll see how just how far, v four
was able to climb in in that insane
chaos. Well, not only v four, but well, not only v four, but
also Dante's. Right? So during this time where this Not just climbs
it in a very different way, though. He does. He does. But you know what?
He climbs it nonetheless. Like, he has to climb that internal
chaos to even That's true. It is a different yeah. Yeah.
He has to climb that ladder because if he doesn't, he's not getting out of
that dungeon. Like, he not getting out of that hole. He's gonna die in that
hole, which, by the way, was the whole point is to put you in a
hole where you're gonna die. Yeah. And the the the
point of and the the the timelessness of the Count of Monte Cristo is
that whether it's internal or external,
you you have no if you want to be a great man or woman, you
have to climb that ladder. There's no option to, like, not play.
And I think, a lot of us get distracted on
shoulds. It shouldn't be this way. This shouldn't be happening.
This isn't right. Blah blah blah. I'm like, okay. Maybe
that's true. Maybe may just even if we could all agree on one
moral code, which we can't, but But even if
we could, maybe we could just all agree. This shouldn't be happening. Okay.
But it is. So stop wasting your energy on that
this should not be happening. What are you gonna do about it?
There's a difference between I've I've noticed this over the last
quarter, you know, last quarter of this year,
of 2025. There is a difference between people
who explain who are seeking the why, which is the
should people. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Because at the bottom of
it is this shouldn't be happening. I'm looking for, you know, the way to
get out of this versus the what people. The what people are
the people who are climbing the ladder. What's the next step I have to take?
What's the next step I have to take after that? What's the next step I
have to take after that? And if you're mired in the whys
and in the shoulds, you're never gonna climb the ladder with the
whats. Right. But if you
are listening to this and you find yourself, well, I'm screwed because I am a
y person, just hear me out. I am also a y person.
That's that's where my brain goes. Okay? But and
and I think it becomes a strength when you can combine
them. Right? So you can't get mired in the whys
and the shoulds because, again, that's just a phenomenal waste of
energy. You have to, like, keep keep your brain on,
like, the concrete. It's like the what's the facts. Like, how do
we make it through? Kind of like the businesses that made it through COVID and
the ones that didn't. Right. Right? I
was teaching voice at the time
and which was, like, nobody was singing. Nobody was singing. Nobody was performing.
I was literally, my job was illegal. Right.
Yeah. So, like but and,
you know, to to Yeah. Yeah. Concede a point. I'm no longer
singing professionally. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But I
did buy a music business. So, you know, you just
pivot. Right? You pivot, and you figure out where am I supposed to be? What
am I supposed to be doing? A music
business that did survive COVID somehow. A
music teaching business, which is just like it was so
anyway, all that to say is you don't don't
do not despair. If you find yourself being
a why person and very preoccupied with the shoulds, it's
okay. You can you can not only, like, let that
rattle around, and then you can let it go and then move on to the
what's, but you can also bring it and so that they team up together. And
then, you know, with your powers combined, you can do many, many good
things. Well and and for all the what people out there,
ruthless forward action will get you places for
sure. That's what Napoleon bet on. He bet on ruthless forward action.
And you will be able to bulldoze over the why people, for
sure. For sure. For a while.
For a while. Right. For a while. My
only word of caution would be the very same
people that you bulldoze going up the ladder,
are the ones that you're going to meet on the way down if you
slip. And you will slip. You
will make a mistake. It will happen. And
the people that you stepped on going up the ladder will kick you a little
further down, if they can, if you give them the
opportunity to or if they are provided the opportunity to.
And, again, this has nothing to do with right or wrong. This is not about
a moral should or an ethical ought. No.
That's just the crabs in a bucket. This is the crabs in the bucket. This
is just a state of nature. Right? This is who people are.
Okay. So last turn. Let's turn the corner here.
Let's close out for today.
I don't believe anymore well, I I never did anyway,
but I really don't believe anymore. I'm not I'm not willing to philosophically
entertain the idea of, like, personal
impersonal, unknowable forces that just push on people
and don't allow us to, act with
agency, autonomy, or
even accountability. I think that that
that the retreat to that is the sign of a passive aggressive
individual, and and person who's looking for a little
bit of lazy thoughtlessness, the ability to hide and just
merely exist. And in our time,
it's it's shocking to me the number of thoughtless bureaucrats we have
who seem to be taken surprise first need
to be taken by surprise by the return of history.
Not just great men or if we don't wanna call them great, just men
and women in general. They seem to be taken by surprise by the
people showing up, but they even seem to be taken even worse by surprise
by the actions of these people, the whats that they are stepping
into. And they don't really seem to know how
to respond. Regular
people who live regular jobs and work regular lives, who
understand that if I don't get up and do something, nothing happens,
which by the way, I used to say it when I was a very young
entrepreneur. If I don't get up every day and do something,
nothing happens.
That's it. Like, that's the metric of success. Regular people
who understand this get it.
But our leaders our leaders haven't gotten that lesson for a
while or maybe thought they were too sophisticated to need to review
it. But I think I think the lesson is, I think the
lesson's returning, just in time for the next great
turning in the West, which I
think we're right on the cusp of. I wouldn't necessarily call it a
golden age because I have no idea what it will look like,
but it is going to be something totally
different than what we just went
through. So that's my
close. That's my final thoughts. We start this part of the count
of Monte Cristo. When we return in our next episode on
the count of Monte Cristo, we'll talk about Edmond Dante climbing
out of that dungeon. A crazy religious
man claims to have some money. And what happens when the
two of them get together?
It's gonna be lit.
Lit. As the kids tell me they say these
days. Kristen, final thoughts as
we as we close out today.
I'm very I'm excited. I get like, as much as
we've had two two what is it? Four hours four
hours now of this conversation Yeah. Before this next part is, like, my
favorite. So I'm just like, yes. Let.
Gonna be off the chain, as I said, back in my day.
Back in the nineteen hundreds. I mean, yeah. I've definitely got,
like, part of like, intellectually, I'm like, yeah. This stuff is all really cool,
but where's Dante? Like, where's
That's definitely part of the romantic. Be like, but the main character
Well, we set him for a bit. I mean, he had to what I was
saying but but but Dumont is building a world here. Right? He's in a
world building in a world building mode. So even though he's
building a world that everybody knows or everybody has a at
least his time, Everyone would have had their historical memory. He still has
to take the time to do the work of the writer, the work of the
creative to build this world. And I appreciate it. Honestly I
remember, hearing one of my friends took it upon himself
to read Moby Dick. And he was telling
me that, you know, since at the time when Dickens was
writing it, nobody knew anything about Melville. The ocean
sorry. I'm so sorry. Melville. That's okay.
I said Dickens. I was like, is that Dickens? Anyway It's Melville.
When when Melville was writing, nobody knew anything
about, like, the ocean or marine biology or anything. Like,
we didn't have just this inundation of knowledge.
And so that all had to go with the book
to, like, set it up because otherwise That's where
you get, like Nobody keep, like like, chapters upon chapters about descriptions
of whales, and you're like, you in a modern reader, you read that, and you're
like, oh, dear god. Like, why Why is there an encyclopedia here?
Right. Right. So, I mean, it's and there's a little bit of
that in in Cona Montecristo as well just because of the way you
had to set it up for the readers of the time. Right. Yep.
Well, you also see that in a war and peace, with,
with Tolstoy. And and and, actually, it's not really as
deep in war and peace as it was in, Anna Karenina,
which I think is actually a better novel than War and Peace, but that's
either here nor there. I don't know if I consider War and Peace a
novel. It is. It's a world. That's what it
is. And then you also see that a
little bit with, with Dostoevsky in, in
the brothers, Caramazov, which we're going to we're gonna cover
this this year on the, we're gonna go into that. We're gonna go into that,
I'm gonna fall down that abyss. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It was with Dostoevsky
down there. That's a good word for it. Yeah. I'm I'm taking somebody else with
you. I'm not taking you with me on that one. Yeah. Thanks. I'll
probably be in my own abyss. It's called postpartum.
Somebody somebody else has volunteered to go down that rabbit hole with me. You
know? You don't need to you don't need to sign up for that.
Good. Well Yeah. Alright. Well, yes. Like
I said, when we when we come back, we'll we'll turn the corner, and we
will talk about, we'll talk about Edmund Dantes and,
yeah, what it's like to be in a in a dungeon, you know,
in, in France
in the early, in the early nineteenth century.
Alright. I'd like to thank Kristen Horn for coming on our podcast
today. Always a pleasure. Yes. And with that,
well, we're
out.