Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

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.