#1022 - Sheehan Quirke - How Did The Modern World Get So Ugly?

28:37And it's so difficult. It's so difficult to be able to do that because if they're an employee, then it means this. And if it's a nonprofit, then you can't be the person that chooses because the opportunity for nepotism is, you know, obviously through the roof. It's basically a way for you to tax free funnel money from your business to other people that you like well obviously i like them if i want to support them because i think they're good but oh you're not allowed to like so you can be the director but then you need to have a symposium or a board of people and they would choose and you can't have in i just want to give someone i just want to enliven one or a few people that i think are making good work to go and do it and it turns out to be really difficult so that's a work in progress but you got it because honestly like patronage is like a very old-fashioned way to make things happen in the modern sort of throughout the 20th century you had establishments you know you had the publishers and the media broadcasting organizations that's where you went to get stuff done now we have the online creator economy as it's called you become an influencer you know like us i guess you know you get sponsorships or you know you have a sub stack the old-fashioned way is a guy who has some spare money finds people who are talented and gives them that money, right?

29:47And then that's how so many of the world's most famous and beloved works of art appeared, pretty much all of them. Like, you know, Michelangelo didn't paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel based on, you know, uh, sub stack subscriptions. He didn't have a sponsor. Pope Julius II said, Michelangelo, you're the best artist, um, in Italy right now. I'm going to pay you 400 ,000 ducats or whatever it was to paint the ceiling of my chapel. And he did it. Same as the Mona Lisa, right? The Mona Lisa, which is, which one is pretty boring and overrated painting. But anyway, it was commissioned by a guy.

30:19Leonardo was back in Florence after being in Milan for a while. And this guy, he just got married and was moving to your house. He said, Leonardo, I want you to paint a portrait of my wife. So here's a load of money. Paint a portrait of my wife. This is how great art throughout history, and many books as well, and poems and stuff, that's how they appeared. Somebody with the funds directs it directly to the person who needs it, and then it gets created. Patronage. It's an old-fashioned system, but I think maybe it has a future in our modern world. Tell me more about your opinion on the Mona Lisa.

30:48Well, look, I think, I mean, there's a few facts about it. First of all, here's a question. Who is the Mona Lisa? What is she called? It's not after Mona Lisa? Well, no, her name is Lisa. But I think there's something interesting about the fact that the most famous painting in the world, in some sense, the woman with the most famous face in history no one knows what she's called her name is lisa gerardini or lisa del giocondo once she got married um and also the crazy thing is she she never actually saw the painting finished leonardo was a famous procrastinator he would just freaking take forever to do anything and uh he actually left italy with the painting he went off to to live in france because the king of france uh asked him to come and work in high demand yeah he hired him and he took the painting so lisa gerardini never saw the finished portrait which is kind of crazy i think and also she died before it was done?

31:39No, no, sorry. He took it. So Leonardo took the portrait with him to France before it was finished. And then he finished it in France and then gave it to the king of France. Francis I, he was called. Anyway. Here's a painting of someone else's wife. Well, you know, yeah, I guess, I guess. But yeah, it's Leonardo. So even then the guy was a celebrity. Even then, like his reputation now, it hasn't changed at all. Like people then worship the guy. But I just think it's a shame that the most famous painting in the world is a relatively boring portrait. Why is it boring? Well, if you look at other paintings and the things that might get people interested in art, like imagine us because I'm passionate about art.

32:17It's my lifeblood. But the way our culture works, like if you want to get someone interested in art and they kind of start looking into it and they see the most famous product of the entire history of art is just like a woman smiling, I don't think it's going to excite them. What do you wish was the replacement? if you were to say hey the world is gifted i can hot swap the mona lisa for something else this would be a good front end of the funnel for people into art sure i think there's a few contenders yes some of which are already quite well known look it depends on the person because i think when someone's for example like like young when they're a teenager i think you need something a bit more brash and exciting if you look at the the paintings of a guy like john Martin.

33:03He was a 19th century English painter from County Durham, actually. And he painted these kind of crazy, biblical, catastrophic landscapes. And there's lightning, and there's thunder, and there's cities blowing up, and there's gigantic waves, and it's epic. It's like sort of watching Lord of the Rings, but in a single painting. That kind of thing is exciting. Also, another painting which is very, very famous, The Garden of Earthly Delights by hieronymus bosch that one is pretty famous um and i think paintings more like that are more likely to get people excited about art um a little bit more interesting yeah yeah they're basically more because i don't hate them at least only if you like it then you like it but i think people should be free to call it boring if they want this is another problem like oh the problem with art like it's in this space where people feel very intimidated you know they feel ignorant yes I certainly do.

33:55Sure. And then suddenly they feel like they're not allowed to say the Mona Lisa is boring. It feels unrefined. Like I don't get the joke that everybody else gets or I don't get the subtext. I'm not sufficiently sophisticated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Whereas my view is the only thing you need to get into art, you only need two things, your eyes and your heart. That's all you need. And you've got to fall in love with it. And that's a lot of my work has been that, just trying to put art out there, not in the context of art but in the context of just something that's not that different to cinema.

34:26A nice drain pipe. Yeah, exactly. Or a nice freaking drain trap. Yeah, man, exactly. Anyway, so how did the Mona Lisa come up? You were explaining, I think you were going through a bunch of, oh, it was Da Vinci, Michelangelo, he's laid on the ceiling. So this thing you're thinking of doing, man, good luck with that. Good luck with that because who knows what am I lead to? What else have you got by way of example? I'm excited for what comes next. I've got some really good stuff to do. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some deep cuts from the world of architecture and art. So the reason I brought these is, again, just to illustrate the points I'm making.

35:04I could say, oh, just Google it, but it's much easier if I show it myself here. Now, a big part of my work online, a big part of the book, but not only the book, and a big part of this documentary, this short film, which is being released tomorrow as we speak. Made it with David Perel. Congratulations. Thank you very much. It's a 15-minute short film. And we're treating it as a standalone piece and as a pilot for a future series we want to make about art and architecture. And learning from art and architecture about life in the 21st century. It's called The Modern World, actually, because I think we can learn a lot about life now and how to improve it by looking at art and architecture and things like that in the past.

35:45And people are crying out for a sort of a high quality art documentary series. Anyway, now what I think is really important, my life's work in a way, is to establish, first of all, that there is a problem with the way the world looks today and the way we design it. And then secondly, this is the crucial part, to establish a consensus around this issue. A problem I ran into pretty early on, which I hadn't anticipated, is that as soon as I started writing about this, you know, this, this like, just like people have very strong views about it um most people are inclined to agree and like the polls show very clearly studies and polls show very clearly that people are dissatisfied with how things look and that they generally prefer traditional to modern architecture but i found that as soon as i started writing about it people have all these connotations based on whether they think they're left wing or right wing there's this idea for example no it's a big issue because people think if you're to criticize modernism right so like modern architecture to criticize that must mean that you're somehow like a traditionalist conservative even a fascist and also if you want to revive traditional architecture you must therefore be a conservative or a fascist um and and then people also think if you defend modern architecture the conservatives think you're like a radical socialist or a communist.

37:06And all of this is complete nonsense. It's just not true. Now, so that's the second part. I want to demolish these misguided political associations around the issue and establish a consensus, which is why I brought some little graphics. So the first thing I'll do is I just want, this should be quite good fun. I just want to show you these and ask you what you think they are. It's sort of a trick question, and I'm hoping you get it wrong. They look like towers, towers of castles in some ways. Yeah, exactly. That's how they look. These are water towers. These are 19th century water towers. Wow. So all they do is, you know, for people who don't know what water tower is, like in a town or city, in order to have water pressure, you need to lift all the water up high to the pipe, right?

37:57So that's what these are. unbelievably these somehow are just bits of like the most boring infrastructure you can imagine water management infrastructure and yet they look like they're just they're so much fun right imagine northumbrian water created one of those exactly exactly and what's most interesting perhaps is that these have all been decommissioned now right because obviously you know we've got more advanced technologies and yet they still stand because people love them they've been converted variously into houses some of them are like gallery spaces or viewing platforms and again just like the drain pipes it's crazy to think that in the past people believed that even something as simple and ostensibly boring and functional as a water tower could make a town or city more interesting but this isn't about past versus present which is what people assume all i'm interested in is improving the present by learning from the past.

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40:13This is another screenshot of a tweet I did. So this is like, I can't read, what does it say? Why are cities all around the world starting to look the same? You've got the USA, Japan, Russia, Colombia, Germany, Ethiopia, Brazil, Taiwan, Poland, Australia, Spain, China. These are high-rise skyscrapers. Yeah, they just want, like, it all looks the same, right? So I did this. It's a glass, steel vehicle. lines and he's got like 174 000 likes you know so like people really care about this issue like people feel very very strong like the easiest way to get traction online is just to post two images one of like a nice old thing one of a crappy new thing and everyone loves it because everyone feels it to be true yeah and it creates it's like a global issue as well so you know with those water towers with those drain pipes the reason i wanted to show them to you is just to to kind of give an example of two things.

41:09First of all, the fact that things have changed, that we don't design things how we used to. And secondly, to show that it's possible to make boring things, to make infrastructure interesting, meaningful, and charming. So that is the problem. Now, at this point, people start getting very angry. And if I can sort of address the two sides, one after the other, this is what I would say. So I think it's very important to defend modern architecture, right? It's not popular with the public, even though a certain sort of group of architects and planners love it. The general public do not like modern architecture.

41:52Look at any study, any poll, look where people go, look at where tourists take photos, right? When tourists come to London, where do they want to go and take photos? In front of the pretty old buildings. Where do people want to go on holiday? They go to Paris, they go to Rome, they go to Venice, they go to Kyoto. They want to see beautiful buildings, right? What the public want is very clear. That being said, I think it's very important to defend modern architecture. There's this idea, I think, maybe among conservatives and what you might call more right-wing or traditionalist people, which are all such unhelpful terms.

42:23Anyway, that modern architecture, these big sort of boring concrete tower blocks, skyscrapers, that they replaced these Baroque palaces and these charming cottages. But the truth is that this is the kind of thing they replaced. This photo was taken in the Netherlands in the 1930s. Okay, this is a mud hut. Yeah. It's a family of three, two adults and an infant. I'm not doing this for the visually impaired. I'm doing it because some people are just listening. Black and white photo of what looks like farmland, middle of a field essentially. I think there's a wheel. Is that a wheel? Yeah. On the top of the house.

43:02Yeah. So it's very low. It's basically the height of, maybe even slightly lower than the height of people. It's an A-frame sort of, there seems to be a bigger bit at the back. I mean, it's halfway between a mound of dirt and a tent made out of wood. Yeah. With a chimney. Would you want to live there? No. Probably not. Now, most people throughout history were living in conditions not totally dissimilar to this. Like throughout most of history until the last century, people were living in conditions of absolute squalor and material misery. And all these modern buildings, which are very easy to criticize aesthetically, they look pretty nice when you compare them to that sort of thing.

43:45modern architecture using concrete and steel and glass and plastic building quickly and cheaply and efficiently basically gave the world a roof over its head it lifted humanity out of material squalor and into a world where they could have you know they weren't living in in places like that where you're warm and you're dry and there's no danger of imminent collapse so it's really important i think that more conservative or traditionalist people recognize the modern architecture has actually been a blessing for humankind insofar as quality of life is concerned. I also think a lot of modernist buildings are very beautiful, but that's kind of a separate point.

44:24I think they can be lovely. And I think, like, I like the shard, you know, and I like the gherkin. These buildings are so much fun and I wouldn't want to see a world where we didn't build those. Definitely not boring though. Exactly. They're not boring. Exactly. And they're charming. And they're charming. Yeah. Meaningful. but here's the the mean what i love about these buildings is like london has this fantastic um practice of giving buildings nicknames right so the gherkin the shard the freaking walkie talkie the cheese grater that i think is meaning emerging basically when we give them those names um you know the gherkin feels like a part of london you can't imagine london without the gherkin now even though 20 years ago a lot of people didn't like it so that's my sort of piece aimed at the traditionalists who are i think too overly critical of um modern architecture but now the problem is that maybe the slightly bigger problem is that as soon as you start talking about this issue a lot of more progressive people generally conservative progressive maybe socialist left-leaning liberal people think that to call for traditionalism is some kind of like retrogressive conservative fascistic worldview which i think is clearly not the case like asking for the world to be more beautiful especially the streets where ordinary people live and work like the rich can afford whatever paintings they want they can afford lovely houses the people suffering most right now are ordinary people all over the world whose streets and homes and offices are literally making them depressed but studies have shown i mean you don't even need studies to prove it but you know i suppose it's helpful like we are more stressed more anxious less productive less happy when we're in boring environments like why do prisons look the way they look like why does solid string confinement have nothing in it and harsh lighting but there's this crazy situation where we literally design buildings these days in the same way that we design prisons i mean it's kind of sad to think about but you know there's this game that some people play which is is it a prisoner is at a school and if you look at prisons and schools built in the uk over the last 50 or 60 years and i show you a photo of each you can't tell which is which they look pretty similar anyway and more to the point about why i think liberal people should embrace and progressive people should embrace this this some traditional architecture bunch of reasons one it's more sustainable i look at those water towers right you build something that's beautiful that people like you don't have to demolish it it lasts decades or hundreds of years which is way more sustainable than building things like we do now, which can be demolished in 20, 30 years because they're crappy and no one likes them.

46:57It's also more environmentally friendly. Traditional architecture is way more interested in using local materials. It's also more suited to the local climate. Like why do all old houses or buildings in Northern Europe have very steep roofs, steep gables? Because it snows, right? And you don't want snow to build up on the roof. Now we have flat roofs. So we spend like a crap ton, you know, having to, you know, we have to clear it or we have to heat it, so it melts, da-da-da-da-da. It's a mess. Anyway, so it's more environmentally sustainable. And also, the final thing, I realise I'm going on a bit, but this is so important.

47:31Like, when you have beautiful stuff, like those beautiful hinges, you would talk about the beautiful latches in the doors. William Morris, the great, great William Morris, 19th century poet and designer and campaigner, also a massive communist and Marxist as well. The reason he loved beautiful medieval old-fashioned design is because he felt it made people's lives more interesting when they have to use stuff, but it also made people's lives better when they had to make stuff. Like right now, we're forcing people all around the world, on other sides of the world, to be fair, and other countries, paying them like crappy wages to make crappy, boring stuff.

48:09As soon as your job involves making something interesting and beautiful, and you've got some creative say in it. Like imagine if, you know, the bricklayers in this country, you know, we just make them, we ask him to make plain brick walls. So in the Middle Ages, bricklayers, what they did, they would make patterns in the walls. You know, you can do wonderful things with bricks. They sound boring, but bricks can be so charming, so much fun. And now, you know, we don't do that. But in a world where we embrace beautiful design, everyone benefits, the people who have to make stuff and the people who have to use stuff.

48:40Anyway, that is, I think, most of what is needed to be said, that I want to establish a consensus that the world can be so much more interesting that we will all benefit from it and that it's not a political issue. Anyway, I didn't get through all my slides. I want to see more of your examples. Go do the presentation. So here's one. So here are some, do you know what they are? Water fountains. Yeah. So there's a variety, sort of a green. The classic green's okay. It's a little sterile and minimalist, but it's not bad. and then there's one that's sort of a real aqua blue and it looks a little bit like a cartoon.

49:21Yeah, so these are some water fountains that have been installed around London in the past sort of 10 to 20 years and around the UK actually. And they're fine, they do their job. But on the whole, I wouldn't say that they necessarily make the place where they are prettier or more interesting. for now here are some victorian water fountains which uh they look like mini chapels they do yeah they do they do um they're beautiful and they're really four-sided yeah i mean that that almost looks like a fountain that you would go to yes where ducks would swim and yeah exactly and uh there's a few points on this, but I'll keep it relatively brief.

50:09And the main one to me is that when you see something like this, when this much care and thought has been put into designing water fountains, which are one of the most important kinds of public architecture you can have, right? Like water is a sacred thing. It is the source of life. When you treat the public and treat water in this way, I think everyone is much happier. and now the other the other slides i can probably kind of speed through them there's no speeding through anything we can indulge as much as you want we can we can but there's just so much exciting stuff to talk about here so this one is um kind of fun so you remember i showed you the screenshot of how all modern architecture looks the same all these skyscrapers well it turns out in the past things weren't actually necessarily so different like here's one of wow island mexico greece india russia cuba usa philippines argentina and these are all quite sort of baroque style pillars with the classics a frame greece greek what is that yeah and they all look the same basically all over the world and it's the same here difference being i think people don't mind when they think it's pretty no they don't mind exactly But I think it's important to recognize that we shouldn't romanticize the past.

51:35Even though I'm prone to doing that, I think I've got better in recent years of being much more realistic about what things were like. But it's interesting, first of all, that people don't mind a modular architecture when it's pretty, but also that things in the past were also, you know, it's not like there was necessarily more variety. And these ones are kind of more to the point. Again, it's just like freaking loads of buildings that look the same. Wow, look at that. sort of gothic style cathedrals uh UK Norway Slovakia Germany Czechia oh Czechia I guess that's the Czech Republic Czechia uh Italy that one in Italy is insane yeah it's in Milan uh Hungary Portugal and Belgium all again they're all very very similar right because they're all part of the same and that was kind of and then sorry there is one more of these which is a now Byzantine style architecture okay so this is with domes yeah uh a little bit lighter color, a lot of white, some yellows in there as well.

52:31And again, they all look very similar. So I kind of like making that point just because, again, perhaps some people who are more traditionally aligned tend to forget that there were phases in the past when buildings look the same all around the world. But then the equal point that you made straight away is that people don't mind architecture. with their mind when it's homogenous, if it's pretty. Then the final thing, it came out a bit blurry, unfortunately. But anyway, what do you think this building is? What do you think that is? I think it's a church. Sure. That's what anyone would think. Okay.

53:08You're going to tell me it's showers or something? So this is a still from a documentary, actually. It's been my dream for years to visit this place and to film there. Where is it? So this is called Crossnest Pumping Station. This is a sewage facility. When London's new sewers were built in the 19th century, they needed a pumping station a few miles, like about 20 miles east, closer to the mouth of the Thames. And the Victorians thought this was how you should design a sewage facility. And it's just absolutely gorgeous. And this, in a way, sums up the change. And I think we've lost the belief, the conviction, that even sewers can be beautiful, can be charming, interesting, meaningful.

54:05People work in sewers. And what's the excuse other than convenience and cost? Yeah. Well, so this is where it gets really interesting. the cost point is frequently raised that we can't afford to build like that or design like that anymore but this kind of isn't true now there are two things to say about it first of all one point it is a bit more expensive but like anything is too expensive if you don't want it and then the question is is the extra investment worth making well if it's going to cost one percent more, which is usually what it's like to decorate. Decoration is so much cheaper than every other part of a building, right?

54:47You've just got to stick some pretty stuff on the front of it. Now, that's all cast iron. It's mass manufactured. This isn't made by some artists slaving away for years. You literally melt the iron, stick it in a mold, pull it out, paint it a bit, looks beautiful. Is an extra percent worth an increase in human happiness and joy? worth increasing you know the the lifespan of the building will be expanded by you know decades um i dare say that that's a wise uh investment and also in purely speaking purely commercially think of what it does for tourism like cities especially like in europe um you know in europe people don't make stuff anymore don't manufacture stuff where does all the money come from comes from tourism.

55:34You put up beautiful buildings and people from around the world will come flocking spending all the hard-earned money just to spend one night in this one freaking pretty street in your city. It's one of the best investments you can make is in decoration. That's the one people usually raise as cost. It's kind of the biggest one and it really is that simple. I think there's also other things we could get into that probably aren't worth addressing right now. But the point I want to make is that it is a choice. We act like it isn't a choice. And the problem with that, however, is that we live in a consumerist society.

56:12And again, this is why I think traditionalists and liberals, conservatives and progressives should be united. The problem, the biggest problem with modern design

56:24isn't people who want to return to the past. It's not socialism, it's not communism. The biggest problem is consumerism. We live in a society where we have a culture of obsolescence. Nothing is built to last. Because you can make more money, obviously, if you don't build things to last. But the cheapest, most convenient, quickest route is the one that we always take with everything we do. Everyone stands to benefit from that kind of meaningful, beautiful design. Apart from if you're a property developer or a planner, whatever it is, and you want to spend as little money as possible and get back as much as possible in a short time span, you make it boring.

57:04You make it ugly. You don't care about how it looks. That's the consumerism, I think, is the biggest problem. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentus. If your sleep's not dialed, taking ages to nod off, you're waking up at random times and feeling groggy in the morning, Momentus' sleep packs, how did I miss both of those, are here to help. They're not your typical knock-you-out supplement overloaded with melatonin, just the most evidence-based ingredients at perfect doses to help you fall asleep more quickly, stay asleep throughout the night, and wake up feeling more rested and revitalized in the morning, which is why I take these things every single night and why I trust Momentus with my life, or at least with my sleep, because they make the highest quality supplements on the planet.

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58:18Where do you think on the planet has got a good balance of beauty, of charm, meaning, interestingness. I imagine some unsophisticated idiot like me is immediately going to say Rome because it's so obvious and in my face. I went to Vienna for the first time. Oh, hell yeah. What do you make of it? Again, that kind of very... um

58:51I've just read my first philosophybook.com, um, unnecessarily Baroque architecture thing for me is very, it's easy to enjoy. I find it, I find the detail, uh, very pleasant. Um, the fact that every street that you turn down is really wonderful. I thought that was lovely. I really, really enjoyed Venice. I thought Venice was fantastic and, um, small quaint streets and higgledy-piggledy buildings leaning, almost leaning up against each other and they're being supported by bits of wood and the wood supported by iron and the iron brackets are on the side of the house and nothing no two streets look the same and all of the pavements are cracked and that was that felt quaint to me which was charming i think that would be very very charming um where else has got it right that i like uh i'm a fan of harrogate nice i think harrogate in the uk edinburgh yeah edinburgh phenomenal just yeah just when your spirits lift when you go to Edinburgh.

59:52You're excited. Every corner. But these are, maybe not for Americans, but these are maybe more obvious examples. No, but they're good examples, man. You made such a good point. When you said about Vienna, it's easy to enjoy. I'm deep into this stuff and I don't like Baroque architecture. I'm much more of a gothicist. I'm much further gothic. And I could sit here and talk for 12 hours about why that is but it kind of doesn't matter what i think just like it i like it because i like it like it makes you smile you think and you get out your phone you start taking photos you know and and that is what matters here so edinburgh rome vienna other cities in the world as well all over the world where else give it give us some uh maybe less obvious beautiful locations that people could that you wouldn't think of yeah so um i love uh sofia in bulgaria Okay.

1:00:49That's got a wonderful mix. It's got a mix of architecture, which is why I like it. Because for a long time, it was under the Ottoman Empire. And the same is true all around Bulgaria. You've got a lot of Ottoman era, kind of Turkish influenced buildings. But then you've also got, after it was independent, you've got all these 19th century Neo-Byzantine or big domed cathedrals. And then you've got Art Nouveau, all spiraling and flowery and pastel colors. And then the communists came and started building their massive brutalist monuments. And I adore brutalism. and so you go to any city in the Balkans really and they've got this just amazing mix over 500 years you've got several different chapters of world and cultural and architectural history crammed in on the same street and I love variety I think variety is key again I'll say it once more I wouldn't want to see a world where we just get rid of modernism in design like some modern buildings are just wonderful we mentioned the gherkin earlier and I think the world benefits from variety look it's a law of nature one of the big points I make is like okay but why why do human beings like variety why do we need variety why is decoration charming to us like why is a door handle with a little spiral on it nicer than a door handle it's just a bar because it reflects nature you go outside and look at a tree John Constable the painter has this great line that no two leaves in the history of the universe have ever been identical and it's true look at a tree every single leaf is different every single tree is different nature is constantly changing and it's varied and it's detailed um and those principles of natural beauty i think which is the uh which is the environment that we were not raised in that we evolved in and that we've been in since the dawn of the human species is the one we feel most at home in and go ahead go no i i'm just i i totally get it that the uh The straight lines don't necessarily appear in nature, so trying to replicate some more complexity and some more uniqueness in design is a good idea.

1:02:51You mentioned brutalism there. I can see how brutalism might not be boring. I would absolutely say it is not charming, though. True, true. Make the pro case for brutalist architecture. Yeah, oh God. You might need to do a tiny briefer on what brutalist architecture is as well. Sure. So, brutalism is a word that conjures a lot of images in people's heads. Like, it emerged after the Second World War in the late 50s, well, early 50s, and then kind of really took off in the 60s in the West, and then it took off in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc a little bit later, in the 70s and 80s. Now, when people say brutalism, they usually mean any building that is concrete and square.

1:03:35That's not what brutalism is. That's basically just, that's the most basic form of modernism, I suppose. brutalism uh properly told is about these big bold shapes it's so you know um you know the national theater or the south bank center just on the other side of waterloo bridge okay that's like a great example of brutalism i should probably should have added to my presentation but what you've got is these great big cubes and pyramids and weird angles and big open spaces and it's all concrete it's all unpainted raw concrete which is very honest it's truthful that's the idea. Anyway, the reason I love brutalism is because it's bold and it's exciting and it presents a vision for the world.

1:04:15It's like brutalism, you look at all this old fancy, pretty, detailed, delicate stuff. Brutalism is the opposite of that. It is massive. It is pure geometry on a huge scale. The pyramids of ancient Giza or Stonehenge are kind of brutalist. Imagine those things, but made of concrete, suddenly they're brutalism. And that's what brutalism has, it's like ancient monumentality to it. And I think that's way more, I agree it's not charming, but not everything needs to be charming. Some things should be imposing or impressive. I think brutalism is impressive, but what you said was so true. You said you don't think of it as boring, right?

1:04:54Because it's not boring. It's maybe ugly, but maybe ugliness is a good thing sometimes. But what did I say? The one thing we cannot bear is boredom. Ugly is fine. Boring is not fine. And brutalism, I grant that some people find it ugly and i wouldn't want a world of brutalism but i think it's something inspired and to me very optimistic it emerged after the second world war you know the whole world has been devastated by the greatest cataclysm in civil in the history of civilization and from the ashes emerges this new style of architecture it is it is if you if you pick a brutalist building and look at the photo of it from when it was first built in the 50s or 60s it looks so futuristic and i can imagine people like imagine you're surrounded by all these like you know delicate victorian buildings are all the the plaster is peeling the iron is rusty and then you see this like concrete spaceship it's like this is going to be a better fairer more prosperous world only in comparison with a much more delicate yeah um refined yes glass steel chrome building yeah does this begin to actually look kind of raw and primal and threatening yeah threatening is a good word it can be pretty threatening and the problem now which yeah is that the world has been filled with so much boring design plain squares and cubes that brutalism has lost its charm because it worked by virtue of its contrast with that older environment now we have these brutalist buildings surrounded by just freaking glass boxes doesn't look that interesting right you mentioned earlier on uh you're a hopeful romantic i think i put myself in the same category actually um how do you come to think about romance in the modern world we've spoken about beauty something that i think people wistful for struggling to find perhaps interestingness and where is it this sort of increasing sterilization as they feel of the environments that they have to spend time in whether inside or outside how do you come to conceive of romance in the modern world so you mentioned um yeah sterilization a really really good word i think romance romance is the least convenient thing you say the word romance twice and things start falling out of the wall that's the way it works how it should be yeah so it should be we live as i said i think we're okay yeah someone agrees we live in a world of convenience and of hyper commercialized optimization and in this world um in amongst it romance screams out as the opposite like i said it to a friend of mine I think I said it to David, actually.

1:07:47I said, we were talking, we talked about dating and how he's getting on. And I said, look, man, it's not love if it's convenient. Like love is anything apart from convenient. Like when you're in love and when you're taken by these passions, right? You stop doing things you should be doing. You think, well, I've got to work today, but I just want to be with this person. You stay up all night. No, you arrive at work, you're tired, you're sleepless. that is not um convenient and it's not beneficial to a world where your focus would be on on on on kind of optimizing according to those material conditions and yet it's worth it you know and i think that's how i think of romance and why we're struggling to find it because it runs contrary to all the instincts that are being um taught to us by the world like i don't think you can schedule romance you know and i think online dating culture it it is transformed the way maybe we think about love into something that that that fits into a broader scheme of a scheduled and organized life and i think it narrows the scope of possibility for passion to sweep you away you know and and and that is why i that yeah that's how i think of romance does that answer the question or not to a degree it does i think the inconvenience makes an awful lot of sense uh you know to go from your slightly more artistic whimsical approach to my remote area of expertise of evolutionary psychology and mating dynamics humans have two attachment systems we have the passionate and the companionate and the passionate is uh highly irrational it's the honeymoon phase it's obsession a lot of anxiety uh it's very painful anyways it's very beautiful it's the rush it's the spark uh you're unable to focus on anything it wouldn't make for a particularly good society it certainly wouldn't really even make for a particularly good family life there's a lot of articles online you can go and find this couple kept their honeymoon phase going for 20 years and here's how you can do it yeah there's a bit of me that thinks well that sounds nice in some ways because there's the rush and there's the novelty and there's the uncertainty and oh isn't it exciting i would not want to be the child of parents who at 10 years i'm 10 years old or five years old and they're still in the honeymoon phase i don't think that your executive functioning that's why you stay up late right you should go to bed you should go to bed it's a good idea to go to bed something i imagine you tell yourself all the time knowing your sleeping pattern um And so, and then you move into companionate love.

1:10:42Companionate love is friendship. It's categorized much less by sort of this obsession, but a deeper kind of connection. It's closer to friendship, but with the romantic interest in that too. And I think we, I don't know how much of a place there is in the modern world for romance. Certainly not given some of the challenges of roles that men and women have to try and contend with now, that women can be their own provider, and that men don't need to be the provider at all, especially if the woman is. Neither need to be procreator, which would have been very novel ancestrally. If you have two people that are together in a relationship and there's no child that's come out of it, it's pretty likely that we're probably going to part ways.

1:11:33I don't know whether the fertility issues me or whether it's you, but if we both split up, then there's a 50 % chance that this might work with somebody else. Maybe it is you, or maybe it's me and it'll be another whiff. But I wonder, given these sort of changing modalities, in order for you to be romanced, in order for you to apply, and this is a Joe Foley idea, I fucking become obsessed with this idea. It's so good. Spoken about it twice today already. Joe makes this great point that the modern world is defined in many ways, categorized by ironic speech. Yes. Yes, man. Hell yeah. Before we continue, if you haven't been feeling as sharp or energized as you'd like, getting your blood work done is the best place to start, which is why I partnered with Function because they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers.

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1:12:58to get the exact same blood panel that I use, just go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. Earnestness, beautiful word. The courage to take your emotions seriously, right? Sincerity, you're planting a position in the ground that you truly believe in, okay? This is me, here I am, this is what I want, this is what I believe in, as opposed to this is what I don't agree with or I don't believe in or I don't want. Anybody can define themselves. There are far more things in the world that we don't want than we do want.

1:13:35And it doesn't define who we are to say what we don't want. But it also means that you don't risk the fear of rejection. You can't be rejected for not liking something. You can in some ways, but it doesn't feel existential. You can be rejected for saying, I like this thing. Or that feels like a comment on yourself. We were saying earlier on, your ability to speak versus your ability to play the piano, that feels like a real, that's close to the core of who you are as a person. Oh, I really showed you a bit of myself. I showed you a bit of myself. I opened up, cracked my heart open, and there it is.

1:14:09Here's a thing that I like. Sometimes that's a person. And sometimes it's how you feel about a person. And for that to be rejected, it's painful. So I think a culture of ironic speech, of sardonic, distanced, second and third order aloofness is a prophylactic against being hurt, but results in romance, which by definition is sincere and earnest. the courage to take your emotions seriously uh it doesn't leave much room for that yeah every word i was very eloquently beautifully put and yeah i think in response to all of that two things first of all yeah i agree with what you're saying when the word romance i think can mean a couple of things and i certainly don't believe that pure romance is enough for a sustainable relationship and and a long-lasting oh you're so utilitarian You need compatibility as well.

1:15:12That being said, I think the romantic life is when you can, like there's two sides. The romance is like the sweeping passion, you stay up all night, you leave your job, you run down the street with no shoes on, whatever the hell it is, I don't know. But I think romance can also be a way of life and a way of understanding the world. And what that way is, is exactly what you said. This ability to express those sincere, earnest feelings. And the possibility of doing that is less available to us than ever. We all have, every human has this deep well of passion and love and light inside them. And I think the modern world in many ways is wonderful.

1:15:48And even modern dating culture does a lot of things right. But that particular part of us, we can't get it out there. And I wanted to read you a few lines from, it's the obvious place to go to, but from Romeo and Juliet. It sounds like the obvious play to choose. And I don't want to get into what the play necessarily means and how it's even misunderstood. but it is in many parts a wonderful evocation of how to express oneself so far as love is concerned so here's here's here's a little scene um romeo juliet is speaking from the balcony scene romeo says oh will thou leave me so unsatisfied juliet what satisfaction canst thou have tonight romeo the exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine juliet i gave thee mine before thou didst request it, and yet I would it were to give again.

1:16:40Romeo, wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love? And then Juliet says, but to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.

1:17:06Now, that's a kind of expression which we doesn't really dovetail with this age of irony. And I think it would be... If she'd said all of that and then put lol at the end, it would have hit slightly less well. Indeed. indeed i think we would be wrong to assume that all expressions of love are equal and the language is obviously very old-fashioned i'm not saying we should all start talking like that again but those lines as powerful and sincere and they're also not generic right it's not it's not just all roses are red violets are blue kind of thing that is like a really profound thought she's providing it in explaining her like at this point in the play she's like way ahead of romeo in terms of emotional maturity like he's freaking playing catch up there he does catch up by the end of the play but at this point he's just a guy who's he thinks she's very good looking and he'd like to kiss her let's say um i think he's still in that stage but julia julia that stage of the play is already well beyond that into the realms of actual enduring you know life affirming spirit expanding love which is what i think when i say romance i think that's why it's so important because it allows us to access that side of it.

1:18:22Like romance and love are good for your freaking soul. You know, they make the world brighter and being able to talk, not in those words precisely, but to express oneself. The sentiment, the sentiment that I've loved you since before you knew it. And I love you so much that I'd withdraw it just so I could have the pleasure of giving it to you again. And it's boundless and reciprocal and circular. and regardless of how you say it, it's sort of cosmic and it's bigger than you and it's real. And for that, for you to say something like that to somebody, for you to give them that much of yourself, which is actually giving you more than them, right?

1:19:12You're giving more than yourself, which is what love feels like. love feels you know greater for instance uh one of the wildest things that i've done uh when flying into london i had a big day scheduled i had all of this stuff planned and and uh i decided i was going to torpedo these plans um land in london by the time i've landed in london at Heathrow. I've got an Uber book to go to Gatwick. I go an hour Uber to Gatwick, completely annihilate all of the plans I had for the day, trip to the dentist, hairdresser, dinners that had been organized, meetings, all the rest of the stuff. Go to Gatwick, fly to Edinburgh to meet a girl, to meet the girl.

1:20:02And then I spend 20 hours in Edinburgh to then fly back to Gatwick to then go and do this and destroyed the start of the week. Awful, horrible idea. Romance. Edinburgh is a great city as well, to be walking around hand in hand, down as an early wave. Very much so, yeah. Yeah, that's a beautiful story. And it's actually, I was so into that story, I've completely lost trust. Romeo and Juliet, earnestness. Yeah. I was going to say something absolutely life-changing, but I can't recall it. But I think there is, this touch is on a broader point, and the poetry stuff might seem like it's kind of a trick or a gimmick, but it really isn't.

1:20:46And I'm not saying that at 6 a.m. in the morning you wake up, and I wake up and I make my girlfriend breakfast every morning before work. She starts work at 7, I'll wake up at 6, make breakfast. If you can believe it, I do sometimes get up before 7. You've been texting me at 8 a.m. awake as opposed to going to bed. Yeah, for the first time in a long time, I am now. You were nocturnal for a while. I was fully nocturnal. Your diet was largely red wine and cigarettes. Not red wine, actually. I can't work drunk. I don't think you can work drunk. That's Alex, isn't it? That's Alex's thing. I do not.

1:21:17But it was one meal a day, far too many cigarettes. I think I asked you one day what your plan for the evening was, and you said, I'm just going to smoke and walk around. Yeah, yeah. Romance. Romance. but it's it's it's actually a bloody good way to live not the smoking it's bad for you it's good fun but it's bad for you and you shouldn't do it but walking around part doing nothing in particular is so much good for you um but i will probably get back to that although on this point i'm not saying we should be giving these kind of speeches to our loved ones you know six in the morning just woken up faces a bit shiny and soft or whatever it is um but there is a place for it and I think to speak practically like how like why this age of irony why do we struggle so much with romance you know this particular side of of love modern love I think and this is a broader issue it comes down to education and when I say that I don't mean what you're learning in school I mean the kinds of media and content you're consuming like what you watch and what you read and listen to shapes you even more than what you eat shapes your body right yeah like like you know this kind of thing you talk about all the time yeah just as a really lovely hold the point keep it don't worry i'm not i'm not gonna lose myself in your good in your just this is a lovely little uh someone put this in the comments forever ago um which was uh your body is made up of everything that you put into your mouth and your mind is made up of everything you put into your eyes and ears prioritize appropriately and uh i think lovely and you want to you want a mental diet that is spirulina for the soul not fast food for the amygdala yeah i'm not sure what three of those words meant but i think i probably agree had spirulina at some point i'm sure they put it in cigarettes i think that the new menthol cigarettes that you've been smoking has probably got spirulina.

1:23:26I don't have menthols. I don't smoke anymore anyway. So that's because your girlfriend's listening. That's what you've said. Yeah. Anyway, the point I was going to make was, yes, that's also a beautiful way to put it. Prioritize appropriately. I love that. And in the same way that I think our souls and our minds and our hearts are better when the things we consume with our eyes are charming and interesting versus boring. It occurred to me a little while ago, it sounds obvious, but I think, you know, I sort of, if I have a talent for anything, it's realizing that obvious things are true. And one thing I realized, I was speaking at an event about the Manosphere.

1:24:09I was telling you about it, this weird event about the Manosphere. Where nobody was on the side of the Manosphere. Yeah, I said, put your hands up if you're in the Manosphere, no one. Put your hands up if you know anyone who's in the Manosphere, no one. So it was just a bit of an... We're not even two degrees of separation from a manosphere. Exactly. But it was a good event, well-meaning. It was just a really weird thing about it. But anyway, at that event, and one thing I realized, as suddenly as I was talking, like one thing that we've done really well in the past decade, you know, you've been a big part of this as well, is like I think a lot of parts of our lives are better now because we're focusing so much more on the kind of habits we have and the things we eat or the way we, even the way we schedule and journal stuff.

1:24:45The past 10, 15-year boom in self-optimization has been like a blessing for human well-being, I think primarily in a material sense. And maybe what we're lacking is the equivalent boom in what I would call an artistic or cultural or emotional or spiritual. I was trying to work out what the word was. Yeah. I need to find a word that I will then use forevermore. But it's something along those lines. Yeah, yeah. And I realized, I was like, what is, look at all these people. imagine everyone's there they're eating well and they've got all the habit like they're living great lives in a lot of ways but what is the best piece of art they've ever been exposed to what is the best show they've watched what is the best film they've watched what is the best book they've read what is the best poem they've read and like these days notwithstanding the freaking infinite spew of instagram reels many of which are very funny of course but anyway not not withstanding that spew which is obviously negative effects for how we think and feel and like i We don't need to come to that.

1:25:44Because we always focus on the bad stuff. Like people are spending too much time on Instagram and Reels, YouTube Reels, da-da-da, brain rot. But we never look at the other side, which is, okay, what is the best stuff we're putting into our brains and minds? And in the past 10, 15 years, I was looking at these people all about my age. And I'm thinking maybe the greatest piece of art they've ever witnessed and seen is Game of Thrones or White Lotus. Okay, yeah. And I've not watched them. I know they're very popular and they're obviously well made and they're clearly extremely good, otherwise it wouldn't be that popular.

1:26:18But I suspect, across the scope of human history, that they're not... I think there are other forms of art by which I mean poetry, films, books, paintings, music, which access and exhibit an even higher, profounder, deeper, broader, and ultimately more meaningful side of humanity. and the great value of art is that it lets you into those secrets it lets you see the world in a new way like what is the point of looking at a painting or reading a poem or reading a book okay maybe you want to be entertained but more than being entertained it changes you it either reveals things about the world that you didn't know or reveals things about yourself that you didn't know and like the difference between a whole life spent watching nothing but um sitcoms and one where you watch as it comes half the time, but the other half of the time, you deal with slightly more challenging, more complicated, more difficult, but profounder forms of art, I think that second case, that person is going to be happier.

1:27:23It's going to be more at peace. And this is why I think poetry is so important. The bit I read from Romeo and Juliet, I think the world stands to benefit from, when I say education, this is what I mean, like a more enriching cultural, a more culturally enriched culture, environment where people do the hard work of like reading difficult books reading these great poems looking at these great paintings listening to this great music it's not just for fun and it's not just to show off like this whole thing about being cultured can so quickly become like oh well you know i'm i'm i'm the cultural tutor like oh you know you're in a beethoven's third symphony well you're a you know the troglodyte look at how refined yeah that is not what it's about and some people think it is that they couldn't be more wrong like those people are idiots what it's about is what it does to you.

1:28:09In the same way that eating a freaking Big Mac or a spirulina ball, which one is better for you? Same thing. And I think we need more poetry for that reason. And there is another poem I wanted to read. Bring it on. I'm ready. This is Sheehan Quirk's Poetry Hour. So this, I... That is a dog-eared copy of... It's called Verse and Prose in Peace and War by William Noel Hodgson. Now, William Noel Hodgson, he was a soldier in the First World War. He actually went to school in County Durham. Anyway, and he wrote poetry while he was in the trenches, and he sent it back to England. And there's one particular poem, which was published on the 29th of June, 1916, which I wanted to read.

1:28:57I think you'll like it. Let me just take her. Repair yourself. This is William Noel Hodgson. writing on the 29th of June, 1916. It's called Before Action. So this is him in the trenches before... He wrote this, you know, just probably went off to fight. By all the glories of the day and the cool evening's benison, by that last sunset touch that lay upon the hills when day was done, by beauty lavishly outpoured and blessings carelessly received, by all the days that I have lived, make me a soldier, Lord. By all of all man's hopes and fears, and all the wonders poets sing, the laughter of unclouded years, and every sad and lovely thing, by the romantic ages stored with high endeavour that was his, by all his mad catastrophes, make me a man, O Lord.

1:29:54And I, that on my familiar hill, saw with uncomprehending eyes a hundred of thy sunsets spill their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, e 'er the sun swings his noonday sword must say goodbye to all of this by all delights that i shall miss help me to die oh lord

1:30:17two days later william noel hodgson died in the battle of the somme so it's a very powerful thing to read regardless of the fact that he obviously wrote this poem and had those thoughts in his mind before he went off to die in war it is nonetheless I think you know you struggle to find a more impactful poem one that expresses a more shocking worldview in a way I mean you imagine a soldier in the first world war in the trenches in those miserable conditions far worse than anything we could possibly imagine far from home in this in this war unlike anything seen before with mustard gas and tanks and in the mud and the gangrene and the rats and it's just awful.

1:31:05But he has the wherewithal, the composure, the sort of spiritual depth to look within himself at his darkest of moments and write a poem which, you know, make me a man, oh Lord, make me a soldier, Lord, help me to die, oh Lord. It's just, you know, almost beyond words. Now, why do I read it? well because i think someone is better off i think people these days in the modern world will gain immensely their health their their emotional um not much of their emotional texture their spiritual well-being it can only benefit from being exposed for want of a better word to that sort of thing versus, you know, I'm not punching down when I say versus Game of Thrones or White Lotus, but my point is there's more than that.

1:32:02And I think in art, we can find it. And that's just one example of one poem written by one guy. And I wonder if these days, if people found the time and effort to dedicate 5 % less time to those other forms of media and more to this kind of thing i would do is all so much good so i think the problem that i've always had and i told you this before we started the problem i've always had with poetry is i i find it somewhat inaccessible i i don't know whether i'm supposed to how i'm supposed to like it what i'm supposed to take from it the holes that the um unspoken words that are the vacuum that allow you to suck yourself in are, um, you're, you're spoon fed game of Thrones, you know, two or three times something is repeated to remind you of exactly who this person is.

1:32:55And, you know, the bad guy is disfigured and the hero has broad shoulders and, you know, um, there is a, there's a difficulty setting on, on poetry. And I mentioned to you that I'd read some Tim Burton, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, which is really great and fun. But it's fun not because of its depth, it's fun because of its wit. And wit has a kind of depth to it, but it's immediately apparent what's going on. Another one about poor little mummy boy. And it's a pharaoh's curse that causes this woman to give birth to a a bundle of gauze and uh then a dog comes over one day and sort of pulls him apart and then there's some uh mexican kids at a birthday party and they mistake him for a pinata and they'd beat him to death um it's very timber yeah it doesn't have the spiritual or emotional or explanatory depth of a guy that is waiting at the battle of the song um but yeah i think i get it i get that there is more to be gleaned and it gives you the the opportunity to reflect on yourself and what this means in life and oh isn't that interesting word play or to think about you know what a boy bobbing in the middle of the ocean going nowhere but being on a journey or something like that right like it allows you to suck yourself into the story the difference between reading a book and watching a movie of the same even of the same book right um but the inaccessibility that at least i find i'm not maybe i'm a little bit ashamed i feel like i should be more sophisticated should be more refined capable uh the insecure overachiever inside of me wants to win being able to understand poetry uh but the advantage that you have of something like Game of Thrones or White Lotus or whatever, is that the barrier to entry is essentially the flaw.

1:35:02Very few people will struggle to understand what it's about. There are certain movies, Severance, for example, might be a good example of something that's a little bit more, or if you've ever seen, fuck, not Looper, there's this time travel movie. Oh, yeah, it's called. Where they have the box. Yeah, I've not seen it, but I know exactly what it is. It's like a famous indie, 2004. Suck. Primer. Primer. A little bit more difficult to follow. Yeah. Tenet from Christopher Nolan. I love it. Tenet's so underrated. Tenet's so underrated. But why did people not like it? Unnecessarily complex. Memento.

1:35:43Also unnecessarily complex. Okay. Yeah, sure. Somewhat. Just, again, the barrier to entry to get into this is a little bit higher. So, yeah, you're right. For the right people. Yeah. Okay. Okay. something deeper is better but the breadth yeah is not there so i'm excited now i'm excited yeah get in well okay so three things to say to all that like really well maybe i end up being four first of all like tim burton his poem that's a great place to start are you gotta like that's fantastic like begin there and see where it takes you second thing is yes it can again poetry like art is dogged by the problem of connotations that is this refined sophisticated like teacups and wigs like oh well i you know i i can name everything which takes place like that's crap that's stupid and irrelevant and just pointless the only reason this has any value is not because it makes you more sophisticated or refined in that sense it's because in this stuff is contained the wisdom and the profoundest thoughts that humankind and a long civilizational history has come up with like that's why these books survive and obviously it does generate this kind of cultural gap and people use it as a shibboleth you know which i my work is fighting against that so i want to throw that all out the window and present this stuff and want people to look at it on its own terms now it is more difficult right uh some of it isn't necessarily difficult a lot of poetry is crap and pointless and you shouldn't read it um but a lot of things in life are difficult and the barrier there is a barrier to entry look like i don't go to the gym.

1:37:16And maybe I should. In fact, I almost certainly believe I should, but I've not done that. And it's quite scary. Just walk in like this. Might I walk in the gym and start... I assume... You and Alex could wear your suit jacket. Yes. I assume I should get changed. But I don't even know how to... I would love to turn you into a bro. I would absolutely love the opportunity to bro up Sheehan quote. But look, well, let's do a swap. You can start reading poetry and you can put on a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll get you to do chest and back with me. Sure. But this is what I did. We're joking. This is what I want.

1:37:51I want a synthesis. I don't want to take us back to the Middle Ages. What I want is for the modern world, modern people as they are, to have this extra life infused in the system. But yeah, the gym, I don't know how to set up gym equipment. like to me that barrier is the same barrier as when i sit down and read poetry it doesn't immediately make sense to me well well sure but like the only way to do anything there are two ways to get in stuff you either just freaking do it and learn on your own or you have someone to help you and i would like to think something i can do in my book there's a whole chapter of the book which is a is trying to convince people to write a poem you know begins with the line i think you should write a poem and here's why um i'd like to think my work can be to try and help people engage with this stuff without all those stupid connotations for what it is and for what it's worth and show that it has real value.

1:38:43Like we need this stuff more than ever in the 21st century. And then also just get into it. Like you've got to be fearless. You've got to be brave. Like people, it can be a bit elitist, a bit frightening. Like you read Shakespeare and then you think, oh, well, like this is what I think it's about. But like all these critics are saying it's not about that. Maybe what I think it's about is wrong. Yeah, well, here's the truth. What you think it's about is absolutely correct. like this is my view the same with art like look at that painting you tell me what you think of it what it means to you and then maybe your view will change maybe I'll try and change your mind but that view is completely legitimate it's no less legitimate than the view of of whoever do you know Andrew Doyle do you know who he is?

1:39:21name rings Titania McGrath on Twitter ah yeah yeah yeah he is the creator he was the writer behind no I think I'm now for a long time he's been on GB News he was on the show a couple of weeks ago he's living in Arizona now and um And he, I didn't realize his master's or maybe his, maybe his PhD, maybe he's got a, I might have a doctorate in this, was in Shakespeare. Wow. And he was telling me these stories about him. I didn't know much about Shakespeare law. And he was giving me all of this really interesting stuff. I didn't know that he said that Shakespeare basically made no commentary on his own plays.

1:40:03there isn't much by way of this is what this means so as you said well this is what i think this means but this is what the experts say it means he goes well i mean that's fine but nobody knows what shakespeare thought it meant maybe there are some small i think there was i think there were a lot of acknowledgments uh that he had in some of the the scripts but there was no there wasn't much in the margins uh he wasn't writing about his own experience he was a commoner because plays at the time were the uh entertainment of common folk um so i'm like and he's just i'm fucking chewing this stuff it was really cool exactly right when you present it in that way so like oh wow this is like nothing's like it's like whatever game of thrones i say is the same thing as he lived as macbeth you know it's just the same thing and yeah tearing away that veil is is is is so important um god i was about to say something how did you that last spiel you gave about andrew door where did that begin you had said it doesn't matter what you think this thing is about it doesn't matter what the experts that was it yeah david lynch who's just just so funny um you know he has this great he's famously doesn't like talking about his films yes because people like so david what does this thing mean he's like well look i made the thing watch it you see what you think it doesn't matter what i think it's made it exists now in the world and all that matters is what you make of it isn't that interesting sorry for interrupting again isn't it interesting that the the creator of the thing is allowed to tell you what the thing means that would be like the parents of a child being able to define what the meaning of their life is as opposed to the child itself.

1:41:51You go, I've created this thing and it's now in the interaction of that thing in the world that it, maybe that's a shite analogy, I don't know. But it's interesting that people look, I think this is one of the reasons that we do that is because we abhor uncertainty so much that we would rather collapse all of the different potential reasons for something's existence down into one even if the one feels constricting instead of enabling yeah i i can't work out is it be is it a love story is it a tragedy is it a comedy who is it a comment is it is it a comment on class is it because is judy what does he mean by i just want to know because sitting in the uncertainty is uncomfortable and we would rather So snap that down.

1:42:47Yeah, hell yeah. I could agree more. And I think the artist's perspective is just a part of the picture. But yeah, it's like if I said, Chris, I got you this lovely gift today. I got this nice table that you can put in your front room. And you say, well, she and that's a mug. It's not a table. I say, well, I think it's a table. Like, well, yeah, similar thing, basically. Like whatever you think it is, that's what matters. You think it's a cup, use it as a cup. You think it's a freaking hat, use it as a hat. I don't care. That's the beauty of art, that it just it lifts you up and engages you and there is one final thing i want to say about poetry about why i think it's also so important in the modern world along with everything else i said about the wisdom that it teaches us and and and what it allows us access in ourselves it's also run like a lot of the problems that we find these days with the internet and social media addiction poetry one reason it's so difficult is because it's the exact opposite like rather than seeing 30 or 40 reels in a minute you have to kind of sit on your own in silence for maybe a couple of minutes while you read it and then think about what it think about it was something you're alone and like all this world disappears and all our instincts to reach for something to scroll to flick to look for an explanation to ask about it's like you're just left alone with this with this poem and that sort of little bit of contemplative reflective experience again is like just a little little bit of texture that can help to to lift the ailing human spirit of the modern world, I think.

1:44:15It's good training, basically. Well, yeah, it's the same way as going to the gym and lifting a weight while there's no weight on it. Wow, okay. Right? The progressive overload is injecting some of your effort into what it is that you do, putting some of yourself into this thing, asking yourself, well, what does this mean? It's an opportunity to reflect. I wrote my first poetry this year, and I really enjoyed it. It was a real challenge to allow myself to be more whimsical. This is certainly something else that doing the show, the live show that I'm doing, has allowed me to do. Because when you're on stage, people kind of forgive a bit more whimsy.

1:44:50You know, if you're in a normal, I guess if you're telling stories as well, I learned this from friends that are great storytellers, Mr. Borland, who has this huge YouTube channel. And even when he's just telling a normal story, Keegan Allen, another friend of mine they're just about a drive somewhere and there's so much unnecessary detail in there about you know where the sun was at how hot it was or what he was wearing or the coffee that he'd had earlier that day and you realize that all of the unnecessary detail fleshes the story out in the ways that you care about most that's the point of in the end that is almost the point of the story it's like in life all the most all the most valuable things about life are that are the least necessary in a way.

1:45:30But no, I remember with your show last year, you came out on stage and I was thinking, okay, here we go, Chris. He's going to freaking nail me to the canvas and sort me out. And then he's sort of telling jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just doing what you want, I suppose. Yeah, I love that. Romance, anything else to say on modern romance? I think most of what I care deeply about has been maybe not quite as clear as I'd have liked, but I think in terms of my main gripes, just give me one, maybe more than one second. Of course. Like five seconds.

1:46:10Yeah, without getting too... I have a bunch more slightly narrower thoughts, but I don't think we need to get into them. Well, one is just about the willingness to die. It's a part of romance, the willingness to die. Yeah, I think Harold Bloom has this great line where he says the erotic is where sex and death overlap, which is kind of an interesting thought. And the reason I bring up that slightly weird quote is because the willingness to die is an interesting phenomenon. And I think love in its highest and purest form, romance love, that's what they are. It's got to be a complete, you've got to cast off your stake in worldly matters in order to give yourself to someone completely, right?

1:47:02You've got to give everything up. That's a kind of death. Yeah, some people talk about religious duration. But the weird thing is, I think, I wonder in the modern world, like, here's a question for you, man. Is there anything, what would you be willing to die for? Oh, that's interesting. Like, would you die for me? Would you die for your country? would you die for your parents yeah it wrapped up in that is love right is wrapped up in that is romance and it also touches on this again broader thing i think a weird interesting thing about the modern world is i wonder what people are willing to die for and it's kind of a morbid thing to ask yourself but i think if you want to know who you are you want to get to grips with with your life you've got to ask what would i be willing to lay down my life for and i'm not saying people in the past had this sorted they didn't but it's certainly the case that at one time or another certain groups of people did and in many ways the people we admire most in our films and that's like why people find medieval knights so interesting or samurai many reasons one of them is the fact that what they do is life or or death and the same with many of the great romans you know what's one things are so impressive and weird and fascinating about them and and so compelling is the fact that they are willing to stake their life on a belief, on a conviction, on a kind of love.

1:48:32Albert Camus famously said that the meaning of life is whatever is stopping you from killing yourself. It's a very, very witty line. Through my personal version, the meaning of life is whatever you're willing to die for. The meaning of your life is whatever you'd be willing to give up that life for. And if there's one question people should maybe ask, I don't know whether this is the time, but often interviews end with, what's your one piece of advice? I usually have a few ones that I give, but the one that's on my mind right now is, one piece of advice, ask yourself, what would you be willing to die for?

1:49:05And a lot of other stuff will fall into place. Which is your favorite of the 49 lessons? Not the best, not the most obscure. The last one. Can you grab your... Sure. Grab your... It's actually not the last one. I said that to be a, to be a, well, maybe it is the last one. So this is my book. You want a photo taken by the lovely Alexander Griffin in the back. Yeah. He's, he wants more credit. I think he's got a lot of credit, but he just wants more. I'm very selfish in that way. I wonder if he's here. Is he here? Is he? Good. Yeah. Tell him he's selfish. Thank you. Maybe it is the last one. You don't.

1:49:45So is it, do you want me to talk about it? Do you want me to read it all? No, just give me a little explainer of it. Hi, Alex, you're selfish. In terms of what's most relevant or useful here, I'm not saying it's just because it's at the end to convince people to read the whole book. But the second to last chapter is called The Last Library on Earth. And in it, I kind of pose the question, this theoretical situation, which is like, imagine in the far future, there's been global catastrophe, Earth is being evacuated, and there's a spaceship, and you're this librarian and you're like, okay, we need to leave Earth.

1:50:21There's only room for 10 books. Like which 10 books would you bring? The only books that survive from all of human history. My personal answer is that they shouldn't bring any books. But anyway, the reason I bring up this point is because the touches on themes I've been mentioning. There's something like 150 million books in the world. 150 million, not total physical books, but 150 million different books you could read. Even if you read 1 ,000 books a year, you wouldn't read more than 0.007%, which is kind of scary. It brings you face-to-face with your mortality as soon as you realize that you literally, you can read anything, but you can't read everything, which means you've got to pick.

1:51:04And a lot of my work is just about trying to encourage people to pick much more judiciously and imaginatively the very few things they'll be able to consume in their life. You know, I don't think people should read my book, to be honest. I think there are thousands of books they should read instead of this one. The problem is there are thousands of other crappy books being published every single year. And if people reading my book can come away with one lesson, it's that I don't need to read anything published in the last 50 years. Like everything I need to know about life has probably already been written and written better and has also...

1:51:41What a way to make someone regret their purchase at the end of the book. Exactly. But like, what is the best filter for quality in all of that? It's time, right? Time. If something is not good, it will not last. Lindy effect. Indeed. So like an Amazon bestseller list, all it tells you is what's popular in any given week. Even book awards, they tell you what's been popular in any given year. But the past 10 ,000 years of human history, that tells you what people across all ages, in all corners of the earth, all backgrounds, all creeds, all religions, all situations, what all of those people, or at least, you know, a lot of them thought was most useful, most interesting, most meaningful.

1:52:18Like we have a list of these books. You can go and read them. Like you can, you can find like, and I'm saying not to only do that. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't read, you know, Dame Jilly Cooper who died today. God rest her soul. You know, Jilly Cooper. She wrote these, you know, she wrote all these books, these sort of racy novels about horse riding and football and stuff. A real legend, Dame Gilly Cooper. You should read about her. Anyway, I'm not saying you shouldn't read her books ever, but the burning message of this book is like, it's all waiting for you. All this stuff, which will just completely transform the way you think about yourself and the world.

1:52:57For me, the whole experience of learning about culture quote unquote um which i really got into about five years ago i just i kind of managed to cast off all these preconceived notions of what i should i shouldn't think and just got into art and architecture and poetry and it was like the world went from being black and white to in full color and i think yeah that did summarize that is what these days uh that's what not all we're lacking and a lot of the stuff we're doing is good but it is one of the things that people are missing is joy. Like the words romance and adventure and death, like these are such nobility, nobleness.

1:53:38You know, in our age of irony, it's very hard to say these words, but that doesn't mean that these things aren't real. And like, if you've got every single book printed in 2025 and asked how many times the words adventure and a romance and nobility came up, it'd be like, you know, no one talks about these things. And my job, if anything, is to inject that back into people's lives. and uh it's uh this is the place to begin but it's not the place to end this is not the place to end this is not where you get everything this is intended as a primer this is where you begin it's like hey i've just discovered this whole new like solar system and i i want to tell you about it please please come and look at this it'll be better i promise than uh some of the things you're doing currently shane quirk ladies and gentlemen dude i i think you're great i really love the work that you're doing where should people go they want to keep up to date with everything that's happening and check out sure well what have you got on x at the cultural tutor i also do have an instagram page now which do you really yeah you on instagram is a fascinating it's going to be like seeing i don't know your dad do an mma fight or something it's been pretty fun uploading stories you know take a picture of something and say oh look at this x instagram i have a newsletter which is called the areopagus you can subscribe on substack uh find me at the cultural tutor on Substack and along with the book there's also this fantastic documentary which I hope people where will that be uploaded to it'll be on YouTube and on X whose channel the cultural tutor YouTube channel yeah David's we're gonna we're gonna release it on a brand new channel which is exciting I'm not sure if this is a venture into being a YouTuber but it's more it's the home of the channel and I'm sure we can join us I'm sure we can what did they say we can link it in the description join us Shane dude thank you so much it's been a long time coming I can't wait for the next one.

1:55:19Mr. Williamson. When I first started doing personal growth, I really wanted to read the best books, the most impactful ones, the most entertaining ones, the ones that were the easiest to read and the most dense and interesting. But there wasn't a list of them. So I scoured and scoured and scoured and then gave up and just started reading on my own. And then I made a list of 100 of the best books that I've ever found. And you can get that for free right now. So if you want to spend more time around great books that aren't going to completely kill your memory and your attention just trying to get through a single page, go to chriswillx.com slash books to get my list completely free of 100 books you should read before you die.

1:56:00That's chriswillx.com slash books.