Wretched Radio begins in three, two, one. In issues of racism, there are going to be some who will say, why don't you stick to preaching gospel? The social, political, and economic concerns have increasingly encroached upon the minds of those who should know better. The real transformative work in a nation is the transformative work of the gospel. It's time for Wretched Radio with Todd Friel. that they have a woman to find, a garden to walk in, a family to nurture, an ark to build, a land to conquer, a ladder to heaven to build, and the utter terrible catastrophe of life to face stalwartly in truth, devoted to love and without fear. Ooh, don't you just love it when an unbeliever lectures the church and he's right! This is Wretched Radio. That, of course, is the voice of Jordan Peterson, one of the big movers and thinkers now at the Daily Wire. He's a psychologist from Toronto, and he caught fire when he refused to use forced pronouns, and he has continued to bring his combination of Jungian psychology and pseudo-Christianity to the masses, and young men in particular are responding. because he is a no-nonsense kind of guy. What is the lesson for the church? Why is Jordan Peterson so popular? One of the reasons is he speaks directly, forthrightly. He doesn't coddle it. He doesn't apologize. He does not water down. He brings big ideas. He uses multi-syllabic words. He does not think that people are dum-dums. But that's precisely how the Evangelical Church has been treating our youth for far too long. Jordan Peterson deciding it's time for a message to the Christian Church to get with the program. His concern is that young men are untethered. Young men don't know how to live. Young men have no sense of direction. In this country, we call it a mental health crisis. It's more like, I don't know how to function and what my point and purpose is, crisis. And Jordan Peterson, calling out to the Christian churches, thankfully he actually apologized up front by saying, who am I? Because theologically, while we'd love to see Dr. Jordan Peterson saved, he ain't yet. Nevertheless, he apologized for delivering this salvo to the Christian churches. And while I have a tendency to want to go, hey, who do you think you are? I'm afraid he's spot on. Now, not all of his applications are correct. If you'll notice, even in that introduction, things weren't all completely correct regarding Christianity and young men. The Christian Church is there to remind people, young men included, and perhaps even first and foremost, No, not first and foremost. Everybody gets the same care. Everybody gets the same attention. Young, old. This is a mistake I think we made a long time ago that we identify a particular demographic in the church and say, that's where our efforts need to go. The reality is everybody's hurting. Everybody's needing, needy. Everybody's growing. Everybody's struggling. Everybody has life events that they're coping with. So it's not just young men who need attention. We need to spread it around. That they have a woman to find, a garden to walk in, a family to nurture, an ark to build, a land to conquer, a ladder to heaven to build, and the utter terrible catastrophe of life to face stalwartly in truth, devoted to love, and without fear. without getting too nitpicky, but it is one of my spiritual gifts. Now, we don't build a ladder to heaven. Jesus is our ladder to heaven. It's just a reminder that Jordan's understanding of Christianity, even in this video, he confesses, he delivers a psychologized version of Christianity. This is an example. Now, I grant you this might be considered picky-oon, but When we listen to people outside of Christian orthodoxy, you're never gonna get everything right from them. There's always gonna be a little, oh, that's not good. So, this is a small example, perhaps, but when Jordan said, young men need to build a ladder to heaven, you don't know the biblical story and that it was a type, it was a shadow of Jesus Christ. That is why we listen to people like this when they've got something to say, but we never turn off our Christian filter. Now here comes the lecture to you, Christian Church. Invite the young men back. Say, literally, to those young men, you are welcome here. If no one else wants what you have to offer, We do. We want to call you to the highest purpose of your life. We want your time and energy and effort and your will and your goodwill. We want to work with you to make things better, to produce life more abundant for you and for your wife and children and for your community. Just to be a little bit nitpicky again, to glorify God and enjoy him forevermore. And your country. and the world. That's not our goal. Our goal is not to make a more productive planet. Our job is to bring glory to Jesus Christ, to point to Him, to lift people's eyes off of self and lowly and base things and unto the Savior. That little nitpick aside, He's right! Why aren't we addressing young people, whether it's gender? I'm not as concerned about male or female. It is true the secularists have done some decent surveying, and one of the discoveries that is very consistent is that a younger generation, they want purpose. They want to be doing something. They want work. They want something transcendent. They want their life to mean something. Boing! And there's the Christian church the whole time, with all of those tools, willing to help. And yet, what have we done? We've decided that young people need hip, cool, relevant. They need whipped cream, peanut butter, and if you can afford the fireworks, terrific. If not, some sparklers, some gross-out games. Let's just dumb it down. It's not what they need or want. Dr. Jordan Peterson is getting this right. And we have our problems in the Christian church. We are more abundant, sometimes far too often corrupt, and sometimes deeply so. We are outdated. He keeps using the collective plural pronoun we. As are all institutions with their roots in the dead but still often wise past. So join us. We'll help fix you up, and you can help fix us up. That's a good word, too. Oh, that hurts a little bit. Don't know what your attitude is toward the snowflakes, but I would like to suggest to you they have much to teach us. They have much that they could share with us. Furthermore, they've got more energy than older folks tend to have. And I'm not using the plural we with those older folks. I'm just saying that they do bring a lot and they can help us. And they can even stretch us and challenge us so that we grow and become more clear about our current positions. Jordan Peterson is right. We need to be shouting out to young men, hey, hey, you're looking for purpose. You're looking for goals. You're looking for work. You're looking for transcendence. You need to look for Jesus. Come on in!" And we invite them in. They're looking, and where are they finding guidance? Well, from this man. And together, we'll aim up. And here is a message to those young men, skeptical about such things. What else do you have? You can abandon the churches in your cynicism and disbelief. You can say to yourself, narcissistically and solipsistically, the church does not express what I believe properly. Okay, that might be true, but our truth is found in the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ. We are calling people to Him. We do want to give people jobs. We do want them to feel like their life has transcended meaning, because it does, because they're image bearers. But we want to make sure that we are pointing people to Jesus. And that's why, again, Jordan, he's got some good stuff, but he has a tendency to be a little off. Skeptical about such things. What else do you have? Well, that is not the way Christianity works. It's not, well, look, you've tried perhaps some other schemes. Try this scheme. No, the Christian proclamation is, this is what is actually real. Christianity is what is absolutely true, and it is the only means of transcendence. It's not like Christianity or Jesus is a used car. What else do you have to try? No. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified. That's how we win people to the Lord, not getting them to try—this almost has a little whiff of, you've got a God-shaped hole in your heart. You've tried sex, you've tried drugs, you've tried rock and roll. Jordan is saying, you have tried transcendence, you have tried purpose, you have tried meaning, and it's failed. Hey, try Christianity! No. That's not the way we present Christ. We present Him crucified, the Savior of sinners. And that is the starting place, the middle place, and the ending place. And if we want to see the next generation saved, we need to call them to Him. This is Wretched Radio. You're familiar with this sound, you're sitting in church, your pastor is preaching, you have your John MacArthur Study Bible open, the pastor is reading the scripture, and all of a sudden you hear everybody in church turning the page because they all have the same MacArthur Study Bible. Why? Because it is so helpful to be able to read study notes underneath the verses to really grasp what God's Word is trying to teach. How would you Like to share the joy of putting a John MacArthur Study Bible into the hands of a believer in the Philippines, they typically make about $12 to $15 per, not hour, per day. It's a luxury item, and it would be such a blessing, $25 a Bible, four Bibles, a hundred dollars, or perhaps you could send a Bible to a brother or sister in the Philippines every single month. Would you please consider doing that to bring joy to our brothers and sisters? Retched.org slash Bible. Thank you for joining us for Wretched Radio today. When is the last time you took a gander around the Wretched Store? If it's been a while, I'd like to urge you to do so today. The Wretched Store is home to tons of great resources, books, booklets, videos, mp3s, and curriculum. And I'll go out on a limb and say that everybody will be able to find something they'll love and learn from in the Wretched Store. So take some time and peruse all we have available. Wretched.org slash store. 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That is our dear brother Max from the Tomorrow Clubs in Ukraine, continuing to preach the gospel, opening up kids clubs where they can, and because of the war, providing resources, providing food and shelter and prayer, and of course, the gospel to people who are in need. If you have never considered supporting Tomorrow Clubs, this might be the right time. You are needed in Ukraine. Tomorrow Clubs will do the work. They will take care of the distribution. They just need the resources. Would you please consider providing them? TomorrowClubs.org slash wretched. Know your church fathers. Basil of Caesarea was Bishop of Caesarea in the 4th century. He was a defender of orthodoxy and wrote several important works proving the divinity of the Holy Spirit and refuting the Arian heresy. Most importantly, he introduced the Trinitarian formula describing God as one being and three persons. This is Wretched Radio with Todd Freel. The youth want to work. We're giving them games. This is Wretched Radio. Dr. Jordan Peterson, a salvo to the Christian church, encouraging us to step it up when it comes to young people. male and female, we have turned evangelical Christianity into a whoop-dee-doo fest in hopes that the kids will just tolerate us so that parents are happy that they're out of the house on Wednesday night. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We are so off the mark in general in Christian preaching, in Christian outreach, in Christian discipleship, Make it a mere Christianity. Dumb it down. Simplify it. Don't make it hard. People aren't willing to work. Wrong! They are looking for more. They are looking for profound. They are looking for transcendent. And what do we offer them? Ziplines? rap music on Sunday morning just to amuse the masses, anything to just try to get their attention, and we are just missing what they're actually seeking. They are looking for something higher. I didn't say they're looking for Jesus, but they are scratching their heads going, this is it. I like to think that all of the people that I see in restaurants that are on their cell phones, we were out the other night, I'm telling you, There were three women sitting at the table, three generations. You could tell it was grandma, mom, and child. All of them immersed in their cell phones. Oh, you're going to miss those years. You are going to regret that you did not invest every second into those little ones. I like to think that even those people are staring at their electronics even while they need their next quick fix. They're going, is this it? Is my life just meant to be viewing other people's activities? Is my life really confined to this little thing that I have to carry around with me or I'm going to have a panic attack? Isn't there more? And what does the evangelical church, in general, not totally, in general, what do we offer? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Morning church, how's everybody? Come on, now I can't hear you. Let me, let me hear this side. Let me hear that side. Oh, I don't know. Balcony, what can you do? Because these places are packed with people who have a sense that maybe that building that hopefully still has a cross on it has something to offer me. And what have we done? We've dumbed down Christianity, frankly, almost to the point where it's unrecognizable. And the group, the demographic that perhaps is struggling the most are youth. They're getting their legs. You remember that sense, don't you? It's like, okay, I'm out of the house. Oh boy, what am I doing here? That's why you talk to so many young people and they use adulting as the phrase to say, I'm trying to grow up here, I'm adulting, we bought a house, you know, we're adulting. Right. They're trying to figure out how this operates and how this works, and they're coming to the rather surprising conclusion, whoa, it looks a lot the way my parents did it, and yet, The Christian church is not offering them bigger and saying, you come into this building with us. We're going to put you to work because there are important things to be done here. There are more important priorities. You're right. Seeking stuff as your life's aim, it is a fool's errand. You are right about that. But instead of doing the little house business, Less work, more living. No, that's not the right balance either. Come into the church, we're going to put you to work, and suddenly your work, whatever it happens to be, is going to take on transcendent meaning because you're going to be doing it for somebody besides your boss and a paycheck. Have we been proclaiming that's what Christianity is? Have we been discipling young people to understand it? I fear not. Dr. Jordan Peterson agrees, shouting out to the churches, get involved. And while I don't think Jordan Peterson is a believer, I do think that he has a lot of truth that we should consider well. What else do you have? You can abandon the churches in your cynicism and disbelief. You can say to yourself, narcissistically and solipsistically, the church does not express what I believe properly. I think he's absolutely onto something historic with that comment, incidentally. Our current culture is obsessed with self, the autonomous self. We have become so inwardly focused, we are perpetual navel gazers, we find our truth inside of ourselves, and therefore any of these old systems, any of these old people, any of these old nations, any of these old fill-in-the-blank, it doesn't matter, I have no connection to these things, because it's about me and what I believe to be true. I think that's what he was alluding to. Who cares what you believe? Why is this about you? Do you even want it to be about you? There's a reason this guy has caught fire. That's the bullseye of our culture. We'll probably tackle this tomorrow. Started reading Carl Truman's book. It is titled Strange New World, where he's giving a philosophical history of Western thought. and fascinating stuff all, but where we have arrived, at least currently, before the train keeps rolling down the track, is self, me. The pronoun debate is over. Everybody's pronouns are me, myself, and I. That's what he's talking about, and that resonates with young people because they're like, you're right, because it has been about me, and it doesn't feel good. What if it was about others? What if it was about your duty to the past and to the broader community that surrounds you in the present? What if it was incumbent upon you and vital to your health and willingness even to live to rescue your dead father from the belly of the beast where he has always resided and to restore him to life? I don't know what that meant, frankly. But do you hear his call? Bring it out of yourself. Raise it up. Going back to the past is not a horror movie. Going back to the past is wisdom. Sure, you glean it with any contemporary wisdom we may have gained, but that doesn't mean you abandon it. Jordan Peterson is saying, be a part of something bigger. Don't be an island. Don't be the autonomous self. Look back. Get involved. Join a church. Once again to the churches, Protestant, you're the worst at the moment. Catholic, Orthodox, Invite young men, put up a billboard, say, young men are welcome here. Amen. Print some flyers and put them in a box by the billboard. Signal the existence of those flyers with an arrow, with the words, more information about attending here. Tell those who have never been in a church exactly what to do, how to dress, when to show up, who to contact. gotta tell you he's right by the way i don't think it should be more information about attending it should be more information about joining because remember they they do want to be a part of something and jordan peterson seeming to pick up on little things that people find rather peevish these days tell them how to dress Tell them how to act. I'm telling you they're looking for it. This is why that that I think it was in the navy the admiral who delivered the commencement address probably to some east coast university. Hey make your bed. Make your bed in the morning. Wrote a book about it and young people are gobbling it up. Why? Because somebody's actually telling them how to do adulting. And most importantly what they can do. Ask more, not less, of those you are inviting. Ask more of them than anyone ever has. Remind them who they are in the deepest sense and help them become that. Your churches, for God's sake, quit fighting for social justice. Quit saving the bloody planet. Attend to some souls. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your holy duty. Do it. Now. I think he's pretty emphatic about this. Do it and do it now. What do we do with this screed from Jordan Peterson? We can brush it off because he's not a believer. He's a psychologist. We could say, no, our programs, they seem to be working. Here's the reality. The data is in. Overall, they're not. I'm not talking about every church. I'm talking more about the traditional, we've got to turn our youth group into a cool zone. It's all got to look all urban. Got to make sure we're playing the hippest Christian music we can, you know, kind of pushing the envelope a little bit. It's not what they want. They don't want it. And by the way, neither do adults. They don't want to come and hear piffles. They don't want to need any more life lessons that have no meaning, that have no transcendence, and that have no grounding. Jordan Peterson, I think he's spot on with his analysis. Is theology, it's not always consistent or right? Wish it were. But let's listen to this man, and maybe church, make some adjustments. Are you calling young people up? Are you calling the adults up to more, to give more, to serve more, to love more? Because that's what we are built for. This is Wretched Radio. . Books of the Bible . 1 and 2 Chronicles traces God's unfolding plan from Adam through the Babylonian captivity. When you wonder what God is doing in the world, Chronicles shows us this pattern. He is calling a people to himself, placing them under the rule of his king, and preparing them for worship. This is Wretched Radio with Todd Freel. Just in case you haven't been paying attention, prostitution is now good and ballet is racist. Congratulations. you're caught up. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. This is Wretched Radio. What Malcolm Muggeridge identified as imbecility, we are seeing in full display today, as Western civilization has been on a slippery slope, not for decades, but for centuries. Therefore, you and I must go back in time to Europe to identify from whence our current thinking came. Right now in Great Britain, two stories, an artistic school called the Northern School of Contemporary Dance saying, we're not going to have ballet auditions because they're white, racist, and they use vocabulary that makes people feel bad. British schools, there are organizations trying to teach kids that prostitution is a rewarding job. You and I can pull out our hair, or we can go back in time, courtesy of Carl Truman, his book Strange New World. It's probably not new ground for you if you've had to endure a philosophy class, which of course is a nightmare because you're trying to understand, well, to use Malcolm Muggeridge's word, imbecility. Carl Truman has done a bang-up job of helping us to study philosophy in Europe, specifically in France, courtesy of somebody named Jean-Jacques Rousseau. But before we study Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was in the early to mid-18th century, you have to go back in time. Remember, worldly philosophies, they do not happen just immediately. They don't just pop out of the blue, which leads me to a really lame sermon illustration. Life was like a box of chocolates. Let's say you're driving along the road with your family and you're driving along. If you were a four and a half foot teddy bear named Fuzzy, I hope you are not a four and a half foot teddy bear and were offended by that. A really lame illustration. Worldly ideologies are like a taxi ride. That's right. It's like a... Wait, we better make it more hip and relevant. Worldly philosophies are like an Uber ride. When you see somebody getting out of an Uber, that's not where they were. They don't just pop out of the car. I'm here. Well, where'd you come from? Nowhere. I'm just right here. They started the journey back in time and back in a different location. And then they traveled, progressively making ground until they arrived at the destination. And while we're not quite at the destination of depravity, It's not the final stop yet. We are certainly getting a whole lot closer to the station, aren't we? The question is, how did we get here? You've got to go back on these train tracks. Yes, I've mixed my analogy, but you got to go back. So before there was a Jean-Jacques Rousseau, you have to say it that way, by the way, because going Jack John Rousseau doesn't sound all that intellectual. You've got to go back. What were the ideas that predated this, that were pushing the boundaries of societal norms, but then allowed, then they were accepted in the society as being normative? And then somebody took that and grew and built and moved it further down the field. Now, that's three analogies we've got going on. And today we see in full bloom the thinking of, well, somebody predated Rene Descartes, but let's just start with him, shall we? He believed in the 16th century, 17th century, was born 1596. Got to question everything. Who am I? Why am I here? Is this reality? I think, therefore, I am, aren't I? And it becomes profoundly complex, that statement, I think, therefore, I am. But bottom line with Descartes is he just questioned every... Are you sure that's the way it is? Does that sound like a familiar question, by the way, that we heard in the garden? He then paved the way for Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Got a French name, but he was a Genevan philosopher, 1712-1778. His thought, this is from Karl Truman, his thought was an inspiration for both the French Revolution and the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Think Rousseau, think Romanticism. That's the era where it sounds, well, it's lovey-dovey and Cupid shooting an arrow. Well, it was kind of that, but more than that, it was a worldview that said, enough with the empiricism, the science, the logic and reason. What about our feelings? What about our emotions? And he had, it's bonkers, but nevertheless, it's good to understand it, a philosophy that got him there. By the way, to understand Rousseau, you need to know that he sent all five of his kids to an orphanage, which probably meant an early death right after they were born. Why? Because of individualism. Huh. It's heavy to have children. Therefore, I can get rid of them because it's me. This is the beginning. In clearer view, worldly philosophies are always anti-God. They always are. But this now starts our trek toward the autonomous self. He locates identity in the inner psychological life of the individual. feelings are central, according to Rousseau. He sees society, or culture, as exerting a corrupting influence on the self. In other words, you were born a certain way, and culture has been trying to mold you like Play-Doh. And because of that, you're miserable and unhappy, aren't you? Break the shackles of cultural restraint and be you! That's Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And while he didn't use these contemporary phrases, nevertheless, it's his ideologies that have led to postmodernism and now the autonomous self. To the extent that society prevents us from acting consistently with our feelings, to that extent, it prevents us from being who we really are. In other words, society makes us inauthentic. Hey, there's a word we hear a lot. Just being authentic, man. I'm just going to be real. I'm just going to shoot straight with you. I'm authentic. I'm the real deal. That's a fascinating word to follow. What Rousseau proposed as something novel and exciting is now the norm. To know who a person is, in fact, to know yourself, one needs only to have access to their inner thoughts, for it's there the real person is found. And that is why Sigmund Freud also continued the corruption of Western culture, because it's your inner man, your id, your ego. We've got to figure out who the real you is because you are being oppressed mostly by Christianity because wouldn't it be nice to live out your sexual fantasies any way that you wanted to without feeling bad about it? It has its roots in Rousseau, offers the world what is in a sense the first modern autobiography. So he wrote all about himself. This is my experience. This is the real me. It was really, we can consider Rousseau the first one to write an autobiography, which tells you something about a fellow, doesn't it? Hey, Jimmy. Yes. I'm going to write a book and I want the subject to be amazing. I'm going to pick myself. I thought you were going to pick me. See, and you'd write an autobiography about you, Rousseau, demonstrating. The inward move, this is Truman, the inward move helps to explain some of the characteristics of modern society. Example, the notion of authenticity. The genuine person is the one who acts outwardly in a manner consistent with how they think or feel inside. Let you be you. Modern society has exalted this notion of authenticity to the point where at times it cuts directly against the value of previous generations, with an emphasis on restraint and self-control. Rousseau's focus on the inner psychological life, which I'm sure Sigmund Freud appreciated, the psychological life of the individual, is what takes us to the heart of who we actually are. It represents a key development in Western culture, the significance of which still has a profound effect on how we think of our identities today. And he uses an example that's fascinating. These days, it is not uncommon to hear one of state leaders, local leaders, national leaders use foul language. You know, that's what shocked America and awakened us to what was going on in the White House when Richard Nixon was president. Expletive deleted. What? The president was swearing in the Oval Office? Now, if you don't hear a president swear, he's not authentic. He's hiding himself. We don't know who the real president is. So when somebody just lays it all out there, Daddy-O, now we know who the real person is. That is the modern concept of authenticity and has its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And we would do well to study him, understand him, because he is the one that put us on the precipice of a slippery slope and shoved us over the edge, and we have been careening toward depravity ever since. All you need to do is open up your social media feed and one nonce, no, one imbecilical, is that a word? It is now. One imbecilical ideology, worldview, piece of legislation after another. Why? Jean-Jacques Brisseur. This is Wretched Radio. You love your MacArthur Study Bible, and you love Christians, and there are thousands of them in the Philippines who would love to have a MacArthur Study Bible, and we could provide them through the Masters Academy International. $25 for a MacArthur study Bible put into the hands of a believer in the Philippines who simply can't afford one. Maybe you could send four, maybe you could send one every month. To learn more, retcha.org slash Bible. heading toward a dystopian society? Who decides what truth is? Those are all really good questions and topics that we tackle daily on Wretched Radio and TV. And we're only able to do that with the help of our gospel partners. And if you aren't currently, would you pray about becoming a monthly Wretched Gospel partner? Help us continue to reach millions all over the world with the gospel. Just visit wretched.org slash donate or text the word wretched to the number 44321. The war for life is not over. The war for life has just begun. Dan Steiner from preborn.org slash wretched. The essence of who we are as Christians, we war not against flesh and blood. The implication is that we are in fact at war, and we are. The War for Life rages on, state by state, city by city, block by block, woman by woman. Please consider supporting preborn.org slash wretched. Thanks to our partners, we were able to create channels of food supplies from neighboring countries of Moldova and Romania. That is our dear brother, Max, from the Tomorrow Clubs in Ukraine, providing resources, providing food and shelter and prayer, and, of course, the Gospel to people who are in need. If you have never considered supporting Tomorrow Clubs, this might be the right time. TomorrowClubs.org slash wretched. Transformed, our latest production is available now in the Wretched store or by visiting transformed.org. You'll witness real biblical counseling sessions with real people dealing with real issues. What you won't see is a secular therapy session or even a Christian counseling session which still uses secular psychology. No, you are going to witness the power of the Bible at work right before your eyes. Hosted by Dr. Greg Gifford and Dr. Dale Johnson, visit transformed.org. Normally numbers aren't my favorite subject, but these numbers make me happy. MediShare is affordable biblical health sharing. The average family saves $500 per month. Over $3 billion worth of medical bills have been shared among MediShare members. MediShare has been around for a quarter of a century. Please spend a very worthwhile two minutes at 844-34-BIBLE. Books of the Bible. Nehemiah is the continuing story of exiles returning from Babylonian captivity. In this book, the people rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and renew the covenant under the leadership of Nehemiah. Despite opposition, the wall is rebuilt in 52 days and is perceived as a work wrought by God. God will bless that work which brings him honour. This is Wretched Radio with Todd Freel. Forgive me in advance for this. The BBC recently decided to bolster the flagging credibility of third-wave feminism by showcasing this masterpiece, Feminist Music. Like the carpenters, it's only just begun. Feminist music. Do you feel it? Bolstering the flag of third wave feminism. Hey, wait a second. If there's a third wave, there must have been a second and a first wave. How long does this go on? How did we get here? These are adults. Or monkeys in a cage at a zoo, I'm not sure which. Oh, stop it. This is Wretched Radio, courtesy of Carl Truman, a history of Western philosophy that has precipitated what we are seeing today. Third-wave feminism? It would have been unthinkable 100 years ago. So this has been done in stages, done in steps. What was merely whispered behind closed doors is now full-throated, and that doesn't happen all by itself. There's a history, and we would do well to go further back in time, in Europe, before postmodernism, before the French philosophy of the Derrida's and, not Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he was the romantic guy, Michael Foucault, We got to go back. Let's go back to Rousseau. He expresses in more theoretical terms in his famous first and second discourses that it is society that corrupts the individual, that individual corruption is not, as they say, the Christian theologian argued, the result of an innate tendency to lawbreaking inherited from our primeval ancestor, Adam. In other words, Rousseau taught you're born basically good. You are a good, and we see that thinking, by the way, dominate society today. We are basically good. That is why we incarcerate somebody. Do you know what it was like growing up as a child? Do you know what they've endured? They've been corrupted. Therefore, they're not to blame. That's why you see people getting off the hook. It started back in time with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who changed Western civilization's thinking about anthropology. that we're basically good, not bad. Society is the problem, not the individual. We see the seed of numerous modern tendencies in this. For example, This is why the way in which criminal justice often tilts toward taking environmental factors into consideration when adjudicating the personal responsibility of an individual for a particular crime. The idea that an abusive childhood might mitigate such responsibilities is commonplace in our culture. You even see that with the insanity defense, not that anything is considered insane anymore, but if the individual has a mental issue, an emotional struggle, that, of course, the psychotherapists, who are thoroughly discredited with their thinking about what causes bad thinking, nevertheless, they make the case, the person has a mental emotional struggle, therefore, go lightly or let him off. for whatever it's worth and you didn't ask, but I'm going to share with you if somebody does have diminished mental capacities. Oh, I understand that. I've got them. But do I know that it's wrong to murder, rape, pillage, plunder? Yeah, I do. So who cares what my IQ is? If you know it's wrong, then you willingly committed a crime. Not these days, thanks in part to Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the 18th century who said, it's really culture's problem because we're the one who has caused the mental illness. This notion is not entirely misplaced, of course. We need to recognize there can be times where somebody does have some sort of a back history to it, and we want to consider that. But we don't want to override morality because of that. But Jean-Jacques Rousseau did. That was the whole point. Philosophy, if you want a definition for it, in my opinion, it is whatever system currently breaks cultural shackles. That's what every worldly ideology is about. We also see here the underlying idea behind so much of modern child-centered education. Isn't that an interesting thought? That may be the way that we're teaching our kids today that causes us to go, wait, what are we doing? We're teaching math how? New math what? Like math is new and can be twisted around. It's a malleable affair where we can do it any way that we want to. What is that? Where did that come from? Well, what about teaching kids the ABCs in the old days? Why do we now teach them how to be their authentic self? Because we don't want culture imposing their values on them, whether it is math, whether it is art, whether it is economics, and most certainly religious. Places of performance, of learning to follow and then to give expression to that inner voice of nature. That's what education systems are. Not places where the inner nature is to be tamed and formed into something else. The end result is much akin to that which the contemporary political scientist Yuval Levin has identified as a reversal in the nature of institutions, from places of formation to places of performance. fascinating, it has its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, what Carl Truman calls expressive individualism. I am most truly myself when I'm able to express outwardly what the voice of nature says inwardly. Doing that, to use modern parlance, is what makes me authentic. This is from Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I've translated this for you just in case you don't speak French. This, of course, this is his quote. Yet everywhere he is in chains. Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains. Is that true? Do we really see children who are sinless when they come out of the womb? Furthermore, do they not rely on other human beings? They're not autonomous as children. Frankly, none of us are autonomous. But Rousseau wanted to introduce the idea of authentic self, authenticity, letting the you be you because nature has conformed you into something that you aren't, and what you really are is better than what society is trying to transform you into. And so he wrote, man is born free. That is just absolute nonsense. Man is born totally reliant on adults. This is what Karl Truman said, of all creatures on the face of the earth, human beings are born remarkably dependent on others, and that for a remarkably long period of time. We're dependent upon our parents from birth for years. No newborn child left alone to its own desires will survive more than a few days. One, therefore, might respond to Rousseau by saying man is born utterly dependent on others, but everywhere tries to persuade himself that such an obvious fact is not actually true. Meditating upon the natural wonders of the world served to reshape people, to reconnect them with nature and their own true humanity and that of others. And so in order to be emotionally healthy, contemporary lingo, you got to get in touch with nature, specifically your own nature. Does that not fly in the face of what the Bible teaches about our nature? That we are born totally depraved? That we are utterly corrupt? No. If we are, Rousseau would tell you, it's because of culture. And so his philosophy has really encouraged, what you see is what you get, man. Hey, look, that's just the way I am. This is how I roll. It's permission to behave rottenly because that's who you really are. In short, the romantics, of whom Rousseau was chief, grant an authority to feelings, to that inner psychological space that all human beings possess, Those feelings are first and foremost genuine, pristine, and true guides to who human beings actually are. It is only society, with its petty rivalries, competitive nature, and its artificial sophistication, that twists, perverts, and distorts those feelings. Boy, can't you just hear the human being rationalize their sin with that ideology? That is a key move in the path to the modern self, made more compelling by the fact that it is expressed in an artistic form rather than a philosophical argument. That is how we got here. We don't really use philosophy, courtesy of Rousseau, the other romantics, including poets like Percy Shelley, Byron Keats, they wanted us to be guided by our feelings. And unlike contemporary thinking, these feelings, they don't want less of them, they want more of them. Horace Alpert's wrong! Feelings are everything! They're imperative! This is what feelings are. They're wonderful. Get out of my life, the romantic says. No, they are my life. And that is what I am ruled by. Until tomorrow, go serve your king.