Hello and welcome back to Hardcore Literature. Today we will be reading Emerson's 1841 essay

self-reliance together. We'll be reading it together, unpicking it together, pulling apart the

wisdom it has for us. And today, more than perhaps any other day, is this essay most relevant.

I necessarily read the turmoil of our age in light of Jam Battista Vico's writings in the new science.

Jam Batista Vico was an 18th century philosopher and outlined

four ages of man that recur cyclically throughout all of history. This template, by the way,

is part of the key to unlocking James Joyce's Finnegan's wake. The first stage is the Theocratic Age. We then

move into the aristocratic age, then the Democratic age. And finally, before coming full circle,

before the whole system breaks, we enter the chaotic stage. Can you guess which stage we're currently in? If you said that

we're currently in the chaotic age, you would be correct. We have been in the age of chaos since the

turn of last century and it's only picking up more and more steam. The 20th century, of course,

was a century filled with atrocities and genocides

and crimes against humanity. Do we need to list them or are they already firmly imprinted in our

mind? Many of the books that we have read together on this show have detailed some of the worst sides of humanity.

We've read Man's Search for Meaning, and of course, when we detail the worst sides of humanity,

we also try to peer into the good side, as Solgenitin says, and of course we looked at

the Gulag Archipelago together too.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, but runs right through the heart

of every human being.

If you're interested in this concept, we'll do an entire podcast on it, but suffice to say

that we are picking up more and more steam in a downward spiral to the bottom of the chaotic age where we

will return to Theocracy, those who are really in tune with the movements across the world,

...