Jacob Howland
Appearances
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, very possibly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
You've said a lot. So let me reply to a couple of things here. It seems to me that you're on a very fruitful path in talking about this. While you were speaking, I was thinking how this shows up in a lot of fields. So even, for example, in great literature. And the example that came to my mind is Jorge Luis Borges. Have you read any of Jorge Luis Borges' short stories? Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So it seems to me that this man's writing is itself guided by a fundamental question. And maybe this is true of... other great authors. In fact, I would be willing to give you some other examples. Borges' question is this, what are the effects of infinity on human beings? Because we have stories like Funes the Memorious, the guy falls, hits his head, and not only cannot forget anything, and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Not just from that point. I mean, he actually remembers everything, but his experience is as vivid. His memories are as vivid as the moment of experience itself. And so he's completely overwhelmed and he just lies in the bed. He can't even, he lies in the dark. And then we have, for example, The Immortal. And it's about a guy who is in North Africa in fighting. This is his earliest memory anyway.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And fighting in North Africa in a Roman legion and accidentally drinks the water of life, the water of immortality. And then after centuries and centuries, he seeks death. And he reasons that there must be an antidote, right? If there's a place where you can drink water, it makes you immortal. There's got to be some other spring or something that you can drink and allow you to die.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But the problem is that his life just blends together. He can't separate anything out because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, well, let me put it a different way. What he is suggesting is that we are creatures of finitude. We are creatures of finitude in terms of our lifespan. We are creatures of finitude in terms of our intelligence, our memory. We are creatures of finitude in terms of our capacity to understand. So, for example, there's another wonderful story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
It's about a Mayan priest during the time of the conquistadors. And they destroy the civilization. They throw him in an underground prison. And there are some bars. And on the other side is a jaguar. And he begins to recall that there's an ancient myth that, The gods have inscribed in the world somehow a phrase that gives you complete omnipotence, if you could utter the phrase.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Anyway, and one day he's watching the jaguar and he realizes that its spots spell out somehow this phrase, which he then utters. And then he's looking for a way to destroy the conquistadors and restore Mayan civilization. But now he sees everything, this great wheel, the entire universe. He understands everything. And he has no longer any interest in doing anything.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Because that knowledge simply... It's complete. It's complete. And it's totally irrelevant what's happening here on Earth or anything like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
My favorite is the Library of Babel, which is about this, the universe is a library, and the library has hexagonal cells, and every cell has X number of shelves, and every shelf has X number of books of exactly the same length, written in 23 characters, or 24, whatever it is, a certain number of letters, comma, period, space.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And it's inhabited by librarians, and they're looking through these books, and they're trying to find... some meaning, but there's- It's an infinite library. It's an infinite library. And by the way, the mathematicians have done the calculations on this. Yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So anyway, and like the most coherent phrase in any book that any librarian, that this librarian who's narrating it knows, and he's gone all as far as he can, is something like, oh, time thy pyramids, right? So everyone starts looking for books because they realize like, There's, you know, I want to find something that will explain the meaning of my life or my purpose or something.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And then the fundamental proposition of the library is formulated, which is that any book that is possible is actual in the library. In other words, any, and you know, they can use like a million characters or something. So any combination of characters exists. That means that there is a book in this library that describes exactly this event. We're sitting here having this podcast.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
This is a possible book. It must exist in this library. But there are also weird mathematical problems, because if you think about it, it can't be the case that any possible book is actual, because you can have catalogs of catalogs of catalogs, so that mathematically it explodes. But anyway, so my point is, what happens in a universe where finite beings, finite rational intellects, try to...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
find some meaning and encounter or are afflicted by infinity in some way. So just to go back here, that's Borges' idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But the point I really wanted to emphasize in what you were saying is this question becomes a fertile soil for these literary growths. In other words, this is the question that animates his being as a writer. And it's highly, highly productive. So we all know that questions are highly productive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
I got interested in the Talmud. It's a lot like the Platonic dialogues. And you have this fictional colloquy. That's the only way to describe it. Rabbis who maybe lived centuries apart are brought into debate and discussion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes. Well, look, so as you know, in the Hebrew scriptures, God creates human beings. He's almost immediately disappointed with Adam and Eve. Now they're on their own, you know, they get their wish, right? I mean, the serpent says to them, oh no, God knows you will become as gods.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
The best interpretation here I think is Maimonides who cites another rabbi and he says, well, the word for gods is Elohim, but it can also mean rulers. So they actually get what they wish for because there's no need for rule in the sense that we understand it, that is limitation law and so forth to order chaos in the garden. because you're sort of, you're in the presence of God.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Now, once you're kicked out, now you've got a problem. And the problem of chaos that's internal to the human soul immediately asserts itself because Cain kills Abel. And of course, they screw up so badly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And see, so after all these failures, and yes, you know, the flood and the Tower of Babel and everything. So finally we speed up. In this part of Exodus where the Ten Commandments and then the so-called Book of the Covenant and the rest of the laws are laid out, This seems to me to fit exactly what you're saying. God is limiting these human beings, right? Like, here you are, these freed slaves.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
We gotta give you some sorts of channels in which to move your desires and stop signs and restrictions and so forth. And only within those 613 laws can you have a flourishing life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, so let's go back to the... Yeah, so like the fruitfulness of the question. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I think this is absolutely crucial, and... Let me say that there is a question that I know to be absolutely fundamental. And I know it to be fundamental because it shows up both in the Hebrew Bible and in Plato.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
In Plato, it shows up in the very first sentence of Plato's Phaedrus. And in the Hebrew Bible, it shows up when Hagar runs away from Sarah for the first time. And the angel comes to her in the wilderness. And the question is, where have you been and where are you going? Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
There's a question. Now, for me, this is absolutely fundamental for individuals, for families, for tribes, for nations, for societies. And I view it as an urgent question today.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, I mean, first of all, it seems to me that Each part of that, and let's say, where are you now? Yeah. Okay, this is crucial. No part of it can be answered without the answers to the other two, okay?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Because, look, the future is trackless. Where are we going? Well, our only resource really is where are we now and where have we been? More fully, I would say that, and this is just my hypothesis, but I think there's a lot to it, that there are no really fruitful growths in the future that don't come out of the soil of the past. That is to say, a rich understanding of the past.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
and I've shared this with a lot of colleagues and friends, I actually think that part of the hostility to studying the Western tradition on the part of those who are antagonistic to the West comes from the fact that studying the great books actually makes you not only intellectually conservative, but in some ways politically conservative.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Conservative enough, for example, to say that we need to study the Western tradition. They're all related.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah. Look, I mean, here's another thing that, I mean, you mentioned Mao. Now, as you know, under Mao, the little Shinto shrines and things that people had in their homes were replaced by pictures of Mao. They worshipped Mao.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And at the same time, Mao, Stalin, whoever, these guys had this notion of a new man. We're going to have a new man. Yeah, new. New. But here's the thing. Actually, it's all very, very old. So we were talking about Exodus. And so let me just throw this out. I happen to have just taught a couple of classes on Exodus I filled in for one of our professors.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
The way I look at that book, one main thing that's happening there is that book of the Bible is presenting you with the following alternative. Either... You enslave yourself to Pharaoh or you enslave yourself to God.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Okay, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
No, no, I mean, you're absolutely right. Let's just imagine that Moses had never returned and, you know, they got the calf, whatever. Now, that's not going to be a very long-lasting thing. But what I want to say here is, then the question is, well, what is Pharaoh? What does Pharaoh mean? What's Pharaoh? Pharaoh is a man-god. By the way...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Aside from the Jews who are trying to start a Hebrew republic, and the Greeks, which are these little islands of liberty in a sea of despotism, everyone else is man-gods. I mean, the Persian emperor, the Egyptians, etc.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, right, right. That's a very sophisticated view of... And, you know, I mean, in, for example, Aeschylus' Persians, which is about the defeat of Xerxes' army in the Second Persian War, Xerxes can't be held to account because he's divine. Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But what's interesting about Pharaoh is that, first of all, it is the most... not only the most technically advanced, I would even call it a technological civilization. If you've been to Egypt, as I have, you see the pyramids, right? And nobody even knows how these things were made. There are blocks that are much larger than this fairly large room we're sitting in.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
You know, they made the most amazing jewelry ever produced. And we have a bunch of it just because a bunch of it was shoved in a tiny little room, the burial site of King Tutankhamen. Who knows what the Tomb of Ramses had in it? They had these massive granite obelisks and all this stuff.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
The entire society was dedicated to the elevation and the monumentalization and the memorialization of the pharaoh. So it's the exaltation of the man-god. And so what pharaoh means today is the elevation of man to a god. Now, we do this, by the way, I mean, Freud has this phrase in civilization and its discontents about how modern man is a prosthetic God, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Like we equip ourselves with all these tools and things like this. So that's a huge temptation. But the suggestion of the Bible is if you go in that direction, you're going to have a kind of totalitarian society.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, exactly. But there can be lots of slaves, right? So for example, in Persia, the emperor, whether it was Xerxes or Darius or Cyrus, everyone else was known as the king's slave, including the members of his family. So you have that. Now you can do that, but the alternative then is bowing down to God. And being a slave, or if you want to put it in a softer way, a servant to God.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So if we fast forward again to middle of the 20th century ideological tyrannies, and this includes fascism, obviously, you... This is like, there's nothing new under the sun.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right, but so the notion that, like, that might also be part of this resistance. It is. You want to sustain the illusion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Oh, yes. And in fact, as you were speaking, it occurred to me, I mean, so here are a couple of examples of communism. First of all, we have book five of Plato's Republic. where the women and men are shared in common, etc. It turns out to be a highly stratified society where everyone is miserable, essentially, unless you're sort of the top dog.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But more important is Aristophanes' play Assembly Women, in which the women take over and establish a communist society. Now, this is very interesting for reasons that you may already have gleaned. That is, the evidence shows that women, far more than men, in the United States and in Europe, are left.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Far left, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So I would suggest that anyone listening to our discussion who's interested in this might go back and look at Aristophanes' Assembly Women, where the men are essentially infantilized. The women run everything, the men are infantilized. And it's a communist society. So you have all these earlier things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But one thing I wanted to say here, and I want to mention before I forget it, is that... So why... Sorry, go ahead with that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, indeed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, so let me make another suggestion here. So you mentioned Marx, and what we see in Marx is an overestimation, a serious overestimation of the power of reason. And now reason understood as a productive and political principle. And, I mean, obviously there's a religious background because it's a secularization of the Christian story. Yeah. I think there are several elements here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And by the way, this goes back to Plato's Republic as well. We can talk about that. But the idea is that, okay, we're going to have a heaven on earth. We're going to have a paradisical society where all men are brothers and so on.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But here's the problem. It is going to be realized by human political productive action. And the difficulty there is, so first of all, it's not emerging organically, okay? It's a political constructivism. So the best society will not emerge organically, but it's to be brought into being by man. Now, it's to be brought into being by man in a particular time and in a particular place.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right, by a particular man. And when you put those constraints on it, you drastically limit the possibilities within that society. Because it's got to be producible. It's got to be sustainable. It's got to fit the particular parameters, all these kinds of things. Add on to that the delusion that human beings are not, in fact...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
let's say, radically local beings who form the most meaningful bonds in particular ways.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But we're universal, right? Yeah, right. And finally, you have this kind of divinization of man, because after all, you know, well, we're going to realize heaven on earth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And... Where I want to go with this is that that kind of hubris about reason is, I think, well, first of all, it's a characteristic of the modern era. Because you have Descartes saying we're going to be masters and possessors of nature.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right, right. But that's sort of the end of the whole kind of decay. But if we go back to the early moderns, Um, he even suggests in the discourse on method that maybe medicine will, will make all the infirmities of old age sort of disappear, which means we're not going to die. In which case, by the way, the religious question, uh, is gone.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Like from the, I mean, Descartes writing, he doesn't want his books to be placed on the index, which they were nonetheless, you know, um, and so they're read and they have to be, you know, the Roman Catholic church has to, has to, has to look at them. Um, But the fact is that Roman Catholicism is irrelevant if we're not going to die, right? I mean, in some fundamental sense. But, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right. But now I want to go back to Leo Strauss, who talks about the permanent questions. And what I've come to understand is the following, that the permanence of the questions arises from the necessity that Athens, so to speak, and now let's just take that to mean reason, like unaided reason, okay?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
can't be separated from the biblical alternative, which is the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, Strauss writes about this stuff. He writes about, this is not my ideas. He writes about Athens and Jerusalem. But what I'm claiming is this. In order for reason to function in a healthy way, it must conduct itself in the light of the alternative of religion, which is like you can't understand everything on your own. There are massive mysteries, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And there's this entire alternative way of thinking about things. So if you simply separate reason from that, you're going to get totalitarianism and kind of the lunacy that we see.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
If you separate religion from the alternative that, well, man has reason, and man is able to figure things out, and there are things that we can understand about nature and the world and science that aren't in the religious tradition, then you're going to end up with, say, Islamic extremism or something. You see what I'm saying?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
In other words, a healthy human existence is to dwell in the space of the permanent questions, which must be informed by these alternatives. And Strauss is very good on this. He says, there's no philosophical proof that the Bible is wrong, right? You're always making assumptions that are simply going to sort of prejudice the conclusions that you're going to. So we have to live in this space.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And Strauss's claim, which I really think is great, is that the tension between Athens and Jerusalem is the coiled spring of the greatness of the West, that we have to understand that. But now what I've come to understand, this is a kind of moderation, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Because if you say, no, reason's it, anything that's not rational, you've got some kind of positivism or whatever, you're going to go straight to that man-God thing, right? You're going to go straight to that totalitarian. The train's going to stop at the death camp, basically.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But if you also say, no, there's no reason, which is one more thing I just want to say about my book on Plato and the Talmud. I've already suggested that Socratic philosophizing begins with this revelation of Delphi, which Socrates takes seriously. Who is Socrates? What is wisdom? But he's convinced that there must be an answer because the God can't speak falsely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
The rabbis, there's a great book called Rational Rabbis by a guy named Menachem Fisch. And believe it or not, he talks about the rabbis of the Talmud. The first 40 pages is about Karl Popper's theory of falsification in science, which is a great, humble theory, right? It's that we can't prove laws like the law of gravity. We can only falsify them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
We can conduct experiments that if they turn out a certain way, will falsify the formulation of the law of gravity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right. So then this guy argues that the rabbis are rational, and they are in a sense, they're playing the Socratic game of rationality within the horizon of revelation. So they start with the Torah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
How far back do you want me to start?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Great, sure. So, well, I'll start with my parents. My father was a biology professor at Cornell University. My mother was a writer. First... nine, ten years of my life. I live with my mother. I have an older brother. My parents were divorced before I have any recollection of them being together. So I was just maybe a year old.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, look, what you just said is very rich and I think very attractive and interesting. So let me start with a question, I guess. Doesn't this all mean then that – We have to find the proper aim. And if we find the proper aim, then our questions are going to be helpful and productive to us as human beings. So let's go back to the very first commandment.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, right. Well, that's a great story too, because if you read it carefully, they say, let's bake bricks. So they bake the bricks. And that's fascinating because they break it out of adamah, which is the soil that man is made out of, adam, et cetera. And then they say, let's make a tower. Now, this may be over-interpreting, but first we'll develop the bricks.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And then we'll figure out what to do with them. Like the technological thing comes before. It actually reminds me of like the CIA discovers LSD. I mean, they don't discover it, but they're like, we got LSD. So now their question is, what can we do with it? There's a book about this. And so they say, well, is it a truth serum? So they give LSD to this CIA guy. No, it's not, you know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, maybe it's an anti-truth serum. We give it to our agents if they're caught and stuff like that. No, it's not. But this kind of reasoning, right? Like, this is potent stuff. This is super potent stuff. What can we do with it, right? But anyway, you're absolutely right about the misaligned aim.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
During that period, my mother was a struggling writer and lived in poverty. We lived in Chicago, and I had the unfortunate experience of being in Chicago public schools in 1968, 69, and a lot of tension. Things became very difficult because my mother was quite poor and couldn't sort of make ends meet.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, that's true. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah. I mean, and so what you said about the Sermon on the Mount is anticipated by God in the very first commandment. I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods beside me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Now, what's interesting is that, you know, it doesn't mean that we don't have subsidiary aims. But what it means is that's the highest. That's the highest. Yeah. For Socrates, what is the highest? Well, he calls these things ideas, you know, justice, for example. And the Socratic, what Socrates is trying to do is a sort of shuttling movement.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
First of all, to come to the best possible understanding he can of, for example, the idea of justice, which plays a huge role in his life. But you know the cave image. There aren't any signs that say you are now leaving the cave and entering into the full light of truth, right? So there's always a question. Have I truly understood this thing?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Then the other thing he has to do is to try to live up to the ideas. Or, if you want to put it the other way, to take the idea into his life as a matter of his existence.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Exactly, exactly. So he's trying to do these things. But for him, the highest is... Frankly, I mean, you can call it the beautiful as per the symposium. You can call it the good as per the Republic. But, of course, the good is analogized to the sun.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And the sun, in a way, has no form or no... Like, if the soul, if the mind is compared to the eye, then the mind is destroyed by looking directly at the sun or at the good, right? So, that's the connection between... Plato and the Talmud, because... It's that upward aim. It's this upward aim.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, he moves back and, like, yes, he gives different perspectives on that, right? So we have the beautiful in the symposium, we have the good, right? Obviously, the truth is absolutely fundamental. But one thing I want to say is, you know, you mentioned earlier attention.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And I am convinced, I've heard several people say this or read it, that attention, proper attention is an act of worship.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
That's very interesting. I see where you're going with that. That's for sure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, nothing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
There is no escape. Yeah. I just ran a class for some applicants to my university. And we were discussing David Foster Wallace's This is Water, Kenyan graduation speech. I don't know if you know this. But anyway, it's great. And at some point there, he says, you know... that everybody worships something, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And that in fact, and he makes this case, he says, you know, whether it's Jesus Christ, whether it's Yahweh, whether it's some extreme, you know, the good, something like this. If you aren't If you don't bow down to those highest things, then your life is going to be miserable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
I was born in 1959, end of 1959, yeah. So let's see. My mother comes from a Jewish background. Her whole family was from Chicago. Blue collar. My grandfather graduated from the 10th grade and worked with his hands making nuts and bolts in a big factory. And my father, who's not Jewish, actually we're descended from a John Howland who came over on the Mayflower.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Golden calf.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So if you have the proper goal, And let's just, I mean, let's not try to define that, but let's say it's transcendent.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right. That's a great way to put it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, yes, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, that's good. C'est la vie. So then your attention can be rightly focused. And the questions are the right ones. That's the important thing. And we go back to your earlier statement about quest. The questions are the right ones. And that becomes very exciting because... Okay, why?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
It is indeed not.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, I can speak to that from the perspective of a scholar or a reader, a thinker. If you have a book in front of you and you're trying to make sense of it, we all know this. A question, a good question, can reveal depths of meaning and understanding in everyday life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
to come to understand what the question really is can reorient you and can again reveal, I'll just use the same phrase, depths of meaning in your own existence that you simply weren't attending to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right, right. Way out beyond the wilderness, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And this, well, and so this relates to Socrates saying, you know, wonder is the beginning of philosophy. There's a, there's a... So let's go back. I agree. Happiness not only is not the proper aim. In Vasily Grossman's wonderful book, Life and Fate, there's a little chapter where this guy has written a little letter in the Gulag.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And he says something like, happiness with a capital H has been the cause of the greatest evil in the world. And I think this is right. And you read it elsewhere. You read it in the Deshna Mambulstam's book, Hope Against Hope. In the name of happiness, the greatest evil was committed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And his side of the family were all scientists. His father was an engineer. at Purdue University, who designed the sewer system of Lafayette, Indiana. His older brother was a genius who graduated from Purdue at the age of 17 and was an engineer, optical engineer, just had 20 patents. And actually, both of those guys are still alive. But in any case, so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So... I imagine you would agree with this, but I propose that what is far more important is meaning. And meaning is... The deepest and richest things are the most meaningful and the highest things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
That's like the well that will never run dry. Inexhaustible. And so in human life...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
That's the reason. Yeah, and the quest for meaning can take many forms. So, for example, we're having our students read Marco Polo. Very interesting. So Marco Polo, his uncle and his father actually journeyed to see Kublai Khan before Marco Polo ever did. Incredibly arduous and dangerous journey from Italy to Mongolia.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And they go all the way out there and they get to the Khan, who's not going anywhere, by the way. But the Khan turns out to be a brilliant guy and he also wants to learn about the world. So this is the spirit of adventure you were talking about. They go there. By the way, the con says to them, oh, this Catholicism you talk about is very interesting.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Go back, talk to the Pope, get some bishops, bring them back to see me. And if I like what they say, we'll all convert to Catholicism. It's very interesting. So we have these two people who are explorers, right? And they're finding meaning. And in the story of Marco Polo, you know, He's just utterly fascinated by this completely different world. It's so fulfilling for him to see these things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Okay, so we have that kind of example. That's one version. Now, intellectually, you know, think of the great books. Think of the Bible. Think of Shakespeare. Depths beyond depths. You ask the right question, you find these things. But then also, just in everyday life. I mean, one of the good things about getting older is realizing...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
The futility of so much that is esteemed and so many things that I myself chased. And then to begin to realize that, you know, the love of one's spouse, of one's children, the opportunity to help them, the, you know... Let's say, sure, people want esteem. But to be esteemed by people that, in your estimation, are truly worthy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
As a child, I had strong influences on my mother's side, let's say literary and cultural influences. One of my earliest memories was being in Iowa City when I was a kid. My mother was reading me a story by Tolstoy called How Much Land Does a Man Need?, And my older brother got me up early in the morning, and I don't know, I was probably four or five.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Now, you know what's so interesting about this? To pick up a couple of themes that we mentioned earlier, you talked about humility. Somebody like Abraham, and this is the trick, and we see it in Socrates, we see it in Abraham, we see it in all the greats, is confidence. How do these two things go together? That is to say... What do I mean by Socrates' confidence? I don't have knowledge.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
I have some, to the best of my ability, justified beliefs that I take to heart. For example, the soul is more important than the body. Justice is more important than everything else. But at the same time, humility.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Your ignorance is boundless.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And the beautiful thing about humility, it's connected with wonder, because the unhumble don't wonder.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right? Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Oh, yeah. And look out. Now we're getting down to a deeper thing because... Um, wonder, you know, when you wonder, you enter into what Socrates calls operia and the Greek word literally means no way out. It's like you're, you're stuck. Um, maybe that's not the right way to put it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Let's say this, you know, that the more you think and the more you ponder possibilities and the more, you know, you don't know, you feel like you're on this sea. I mean, it can, it can, it can really be overwhelming. Okay. Mm-hmm. There's got to be a prior assumption that makes wonder worthwhile, that allows you to feel that you're going to remain afloat on this sea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
What happens in a universe where finite beings try to find some meaning and encounter something or are afflicted by infinity in some way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So those are the two. You've anticipated me exactly. Let's go with that good thing, especially, that the world is good, that reality is good. And what do we, now we can even say, well, what do we mean by good? Well, there is some kind of sustaining structure, let's say. And the reason I put it that way, like in other words. Intelligibility? Yeah. But more than that. Yeah, probably more than that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
He was a couple of years older, and he finished reading the story to me. So we always had, she always took us to, you know, see ballet and museums and things like this. Anyway, fast forward, we moved in with my father. I graduated from Ithaca High School at the age of 16 because my dad...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But let's take intelligibility just for a second here. One of my favorite books, which I'm now listening to, I read it 30 years ago, is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. And what's so great about this book is, I mean, it has many wonderful features. It's a great work of history. It's a great work of sort of explaining physics to educated amateurs.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But what it focuses on is theoretical physics in the first half of the 20th century. which was almost an academic paradise. You had all these great physicists, and they're working together, and they're discovering things. So they have the atomic theory. At the beginning of the 20th century, an atom, this uncuttable thing from the Greek, can't be cut. And they don't know anything about it, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And so now they're discovering the nucleus and electrons and protons and neutrons and all this kind of thing. And they're just going around, you know, I mean, the reason I say it's an academic paradise is you go to Cambridge and they say, oh, go to see Rutherford at, you know, this other place. And you go there. Niels Bohr has the, and so they're all collaborating.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But they're convinced that there's a there there, right? And they're convinced that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And that their quest is worthwhile. And then, of course, all of a sudden it's driven into overdrive because now we're in the war. And now there's possible application, right? But, you know, so there's this kind of faith. There is a faith.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, I mean, look, in the case of the harnessing of nuclear energy, you have, let us say, a proof of concept, right? That is to say... This is, to me, probably the most dramatic and persuasive indication that science has the capacity to know something fundamental about reality. So, yeah, you know, I mean, their faith paid off in this instance. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But I think this is really, really important because if you don't start with the notion that there is a reality and the reality is good, that it has some kind of intelligibility, et cetera. Oh, but actually now I'm interrupting myself. Let me just say this. Niels Bohr, here's the humility. Niels Bohr was like the man, incredible physicist.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
said, well, I'm going to go on a sabbatic leave, and I don't want to take you with me, and so you can graduate early, which I did. Went to Swarthmore College, took a philosophy course. I initially thought I was going to be a physics major.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
He never spoke of the laws of nature, never spoke of them because he was humble. And people use the word laws of nature, but the fact is there's no proof that these are laws. I mean, first of all, our horizon is tiny. Are the same laws 10 billion light years away? You know, whatever. Okay. But second, he spoke about regularities of phenomena, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So here we have someone who's genuinely understanding laws. you know, nuclear physics, which, I mean, we're talking about, you know, 10 to the minus 23rd or something, just like stuff that you, I mean, you can't see these things. You can see the effects of them and so forth. And so he's making advances, but he has this humility.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Exactly, exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And now we're getting down to some really fundamental questions. And so I'm going to take a little shift here. Douglas Murray's book, The War on the West, he's got this wonderful passage where he says, you can stand in front of a painting and you can look at it and you can say, hmm, this peculiar blue pigment, was that sourced from some country that was in poverty?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yeah, and I was very – I'm not a mathematician, but – I did very well in mathematics. But I found that the physics was frankly too challenging. And I took an English course and some other things. And I finally took the philosophy course with a very brilliant man named David Lockerman. And he's one of these people that anyone who knew the guy said, this is the most brilliant person they'd ever met.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Was the apprentice who stretched the canvas paid money? Are the fibers, did they get, so you can, in other words, you can, you can, to use a, this isn't quite the right word, like deconstruct. In other words. Close enough. Yeah, you can, and what I realized in reading that passage is there's no end to it. I mean, I can look and say, no, you know, you're wearing this suit, Dr. Peterson.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
You know, where, it doesn't, anything can be taken apart this way. Or.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
You'll find a problem. Yeah. Or, Douglas Murray says, you can rejoice in the picture that Raphael has painted of the Virgin ascending to heaven. And what I realized in thinking about that is, here's the really fundamental premise. Like, what distinguishes these two approaches? And I think it is the view that the world is good or not.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
In other words, if you start from that and say, there's goodness here. then you're going to look for the goodness. And there's beauty and there's truth. You're going to look for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And you may find it. And if you don't, then everything follows from that. And I've been thinking about this a lot.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, yes, indeed. And if you're not looking for it, you're not going to find it. But to me, then this becomes, maybe it's a psychological question. Because if that's the fundamental question, right? You've got these folks over here who want to burn down and destroy and wreck and repudiate. And these folks over here who want to build and want to solve and want to progress and want to repair.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And if the difference between them is that fundamental premise, the world is good, the world is bad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right. That's very interesting. I did not know that. Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
I was very fortunate too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
No, that was at Swarthmore College when I was undergraduate, yeah. And so I studied philosophy, history, and English. Those were my sort of three big influences. I got to read a lot of great literature, Russian lit, Latin American literature, American literature, studied history, in particular African history, I think, which was quite interesting.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, and look, I mean, now we're in the age of AI. And this is an incredibly powerful technological force. And imagine, you don't have to imagine, unfortunately, what would it mean for experts and technicians with comprehensive capabilities to use AI and implement it and make it stronger? had no philosophical anthropology, had no understanding of the human mind.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
They invent devices that cause serious depression and mental illness in teenage girls.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Exactly, exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Exactly. Yeah. And you know my image for this. I started thinking about the Inferno as a kind of political text.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And the fact is that, you know, you get to the Ninth Circle and Dante's beautiful... creation, invention is that it's ice. Everyone's frozen in the ice. Isn't this like today where, or at least, I mean, now the ice is melting and maybe we've gone through that center of the earth and come out the other side, but
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
You have Lucifer, who towers up like a thousand feet because he's come from the other side of the world and jammed into the middle. And he's compared to like this mechanical, like a windmill, and he's chewing on Brutus and Gaius and Cassius, these traitors. And all these people are frozen in the ice, and they're completely isolated. No one can speak, not even Lucifer. His mouth is full.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
No speech, no connection with each other, an eternity of atomization. This is the effect of the social media. And by the way, Lucifer has three faces, right? And he's way up high. He can look down, he can spy, he can survey the kingdom. It's just this incredible political image.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
That's exactly right. So he's an image of this state that's just chewing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Now I feel like, and I'm talking about Frankly, after Trump's election, there's a lot of chaos, but it's as if, well, before the election, I just had a sense of dread because I saw the way things were going. And now... I have a hope that we've sort of gone through and realized everything was upside down.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Because remember when they go through, now they're going up and above them is purgatory and above that is heaven. Now they're rightly oriented. But so the misorientation... Of, well, Lucifer, whose head is pointed the wrong way, but pointed to the world above, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But I fell in love with Plato, went to graduate school at Penn State University. And David Lacherman came to Penn State then. And that was great because he was on my dissertation committee. My main professor there, I suppose, besides Lacherman, was a man named Stanley Rosen, who was a student of Leo Strauss. And I studied Greek and wrote a dissertation on Plato's political philosophy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So, I mean, in Hades, you know, or hell, I should say rather, it's the sort of sewer in which all the polluted streams of the earth flow and, you know, you've got to be being punished. But that reorientation is absolutely essential. We have to break the ice. We have to learn how to speak. We have to connect with each other.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And we've got to reorient ourselves and figure out what is above us and what is below. Figure out what is north and what is south. And that's the most important task at this point.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And it's already there with Babel. And it's already there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And Pharaoh.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Thank you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Got a job at the University of Tulsa, which was great, for about three decades. I was the first chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. They put these two departments together. And I had written a book on Plato's Republic, and then I had published my dissertation, and then decided I really wanted to get to know my religion colleagues.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So I started studying Kierkegaard and wrote a book on Kierkegaard and Socrates. Then I also, when we got to Tulsa, see, I had Jewish experiences as a child. For example, I remember Passover at my grandfather's house, where he'd grab my hand and take me to a shoal when he was saying Yartzeit for a relative, which is on the anniversary of their death, you say prayers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But other than that, I didn't really have any Jewish identity. Got to Tulsa, first thing that happens, and this truly is the buckle of the Bible belt. The lady comes from across the street and says, won't you join our church?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So my wife, who's not Jewish, said, well, and she was unemployed at the time, and she started going to some classes and went to listen to a couple of rabbis and said, I think you'll like this rabbi. Joined the synagogue. I've never been particularly observant, but started attending. And I got interested in the Talmud. And so I started studying Talmud. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
We were lucky to have several very high ranking Jewish theologians come through Tulsa. And I told them, wow, you know, that Talmud is really interesting. It's a lot like the platonic dialogues. And I don't know how much you know about Talmud, but the thing is, so it's this massive corpus. There are two Talmuds. The main one is the Babylonian Talmud, two and a half million words.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
There is a question that I know to be absolutely fundamental because it shows up both in the Hebrew Bible and in Plato.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
The Jerusalem Talmud is about a million words, but the Babylonian one's the main one. And you have this fictional colloquy. That's the only way to describe it. Rabbis who maybe lived centuries apart are brought into debate and discussion. Talmud privileges questions. Privileges, questions. Questions. Most of the time, there are no answers. Or at least, yeah, I think that's probably fair.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
So you have debates and you have discussions. And much like the platonic dialogues, the Talmud will start with a practical question. For example, you have two plots of land. One is your vegetable plot. The other is your neighbor's vegetable plot. His tomato plant leans over into your plot. Who gets the tomato?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Then, just like Plato starts, you know, in a dialogue called the Lockeys, Socrates runs into a couple of guys. They're saying, should we have our kids study with this guy with a newfangled weapon? And in three pages, they're talking about what is courage. In the Talmud, it can be three pages, and they're talking about why did God create the universe? So they privilege questions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
They have multiple intellectual perspectives. The rabbis are never on the same—like, they're constantly debating. And sometimes, as in the academy, the American academy, you know, it gets a little heated and contentious. So you have these debates, and then—
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And the question is...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, that is true now. Right, right. I was really referring to the old joke about, you know, why is there so much conflict, you know, and why is it so heated? Because the stakes are so small.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
But in any case, and very often at the end of a sort of section of debate, they've got a little acronym, which basically means the answer will be revealed in the days of Elijah. Now, the reason I mention that is,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Right. So the idea is that there is an answer, okay? We may not be able to understand it or we haven't achieved it yet. And I say that because in the Socratic perspective, I think there's also an answer. That becomes very clear in the Apology where Socrates has his friend, his friend Chirophon goes to the Delphic Oracle, says, is there anyone wiser than Socrates? And the oracle says, no.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
And what's great here is that Socrates, by the way, he makes no argument for this. He says, it is not permissible for the God to utter a falsehood. That's his faith, right? So I have to take this statement seriously. But I'm not aware that I'm wise.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
I like that. That's a lot.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, very much so. And of course, I mean, that's a whole interesting subject because also even in Plato, this question of how do we explain dreams? Is it a communication from the divine or something?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Yes, indeed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Socrates says that it's impermissible for a god to utter a falsehood. So he now dedicates his entire life to answering two questions, what is wisdom and who is Socrates? So this entire philosophical quest comes out of this moment, the shortest revelation in history, which is no, right? No, there's no one wiser than Socrates.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Well, he knows what he doesn't know, but he... I thought he made a statement to that end. Absolutely.