WEBVTT - Part Two: The Diggers, the Levelers, the Ranters, and John Darnielle 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.800 Hello. This is my podcast. It's called Cool People Who 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.280 Did Cool Stuff. I'm Martint gil Joy. I'm the host 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:10.440 of podcast. My guest today is John Darnielle. He writes 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:12.440 songs and books and if you haven't read the book 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.120 All from Right, then you're missing out. John. How are 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.160 you doing today? In decent? I'm keeping busy, but I'm good. 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.680 And we have Sophie on the call. Who is our producer? 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.040 How are you, Sophie? I'm doing well. Margaret, how are you? 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.560 I'm okay? I think Garrett, I'm not sure if I said. 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.120 If you want to know more about Sophie's job as 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.600 a producer, you should watch the nine seven mel Brooks 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:38.760 documentary called The Producers. It's all about Yeah, it's it's 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:44.120 it's like they stole my life and put it into 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:49.040 a documentary called The Producers. Yeah yeah, which is true 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:54.800 in music production as well. I believe all producers are 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:00.120 just mel Brooks. Okay. We also have Ian as our 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.960 editor and our theme music is by a woman, and 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.960 you should check out more music by women. So today 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.640 is part two of our two part series on those 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.520 wacky religious radicals of the English Civil War, the Levelers, 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.560 the Diggers and the ranters. And in part one we 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.360 talked about the levelers, who don't really seem all that 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:20.920 radical by today's standards, but who put their bodies on 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.000 the line for a republic instead of the dictatorship that 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.800 they got. But today I want to talk about people 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.479 who took things a step further, the diggers who wanted 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.440 to abolish private property, and the ranters who didn't believe 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:39.040 there was such thing as sin, very theologically based. Have 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.880 you ever heard much about the Diggers? Uh? Yeah, I 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.440 mean you're across their name a lot, but I mean 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.720 I never have pursued it that much, in part because 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.280 this is a there's an English movement, right yeah, yeah, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:51.960 So I mean I've heard about it, but I haven't. 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.080 I'm not an English history uh you know, in the 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.640 history expert in any way. So so yeah, so I 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.440 know roughly like what space they occupied politically, but but 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.240 it's about it. Yeah, that makes sense. I I kind 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.920 of had this like distaste for English history and was 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.080 like much more into Irish history and things like that, 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.400 and then, um, honestly, hearing about some of the complexities 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.600 the English Civil War was the first time I was like, oh, right, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.239 there's actually really interesting stuff going on with all of that. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.320 It is it's uh, it can be quite arcane, and 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.400 there's so a few points of reasons. And history is 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.560 like history always refers to itself, right, So at the 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:32.880 time you're by the time your ten in the US, 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.880 whatever country you grow up, and you have some basics 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.359 we can talk about whether or not you know, it's 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.640 basically good. They always bear some interrogation, but you know, 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.799 at the very least the governing myths, right, and so 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.079 whereas uh, most of English history there's no reason really 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.760 for us to learn that less we're curious, right, So yeah, totally. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.280 And then there's the sort of like it's the land 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.840 of myths, like you know, I kind of I like 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:58.720 English history and that I liked when I was a kid. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:00.880 I liked things of swords in them. You know, yeah, 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.520 it's not actually yeah, um which actually you know actually 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:07.920 is to deal with the whole world actually has a 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.440 lot of really interesting sword time and stuff. Well yeah, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.200 but the thing is with a lot of English history, 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.639 if it's pre if it's prior to the modern era, 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.600 it's prior to you know, good documentation. It why it 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.600 turns out to be French history, you know. So yeah, well, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:23.280 there's a major theme in my new book is that, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.400 you know, we think of English castles, but the castle 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.760 is unquestionably a Norman import. You can't you can't find 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.840 a castle prior to the French building castles. But the 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.200 English tradition of the English castle is very much you know, 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.600 that's this English thing and it's probably I think it 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.480 might actually be Saxon eventually. But um, but there was 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.880 a lot of argument about this in the forties, fifties 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.240 and sixties about you know, no, no, the English had 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:50.920 their own castles. Who don't and there's no was a 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.400 Norman import. So what that does to English prehistory, to 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:57.640 the stuff that you know, to the myths is as well. 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.000 You know, this is a big thing in Devil House 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.960 in my new book, that King Arthur, King Arthur has 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.240 a castle and the knights of the Round Table lived there, right, 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.800 but King Arthur. Yeah, but no, The thing is there 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.400 probably was a King Arthur, but he was English, right, 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.320 and he reigned in England before there were castles in England, right, 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.480 and before there were kings who ruled England, right, So 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.200 so all all this stuff is maybe not No, he 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.719 would have he would have predated Alfred. So, um, I'm like, 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:30.480 I'm not a king's guy, do you know me speaking? 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:31.720 But I did a lot of work on this, and like, 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.200 so so what what what A lot of these kings 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.919 turned out to be rather is local things, right th 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.440 h E g N and if you know the term. 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:42.440 But they're trying to be things, you know, and their 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:47.160 castle was probably like slightly less modest dwelling than everybody else's. 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.960 You know. It's like this stuff is very interesting to me. 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.200 So yeah, well that's a good pitch. That's actually, Um, 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.239 I've read two of your books. I don't actually remember 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.080 how many novels you have out, um, but I have 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.240 not read Devil House yet. So this is telling me 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.719 that there's castles or lack of castles kind of Well, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.080 I'm kind of giving you a little bit of a 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.800 spoiler for one of the big reveals there, but it 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:14.159 won't it won't take anything off the plot. Okay, cool, Okay, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.000 So the Levelers, they they get called the Levelers by 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.000 people who don't like them very much, right, They get 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.320 compared to the original Levelers fifty years earlier, who had 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.719 been following that guy with a little magic bit of 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.400 green cheese who told them to tear down all the 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.080 fences and kind of got them all killed, Captain pouch. So. 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.360 But then the levelers that we talked about last time, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.520 they they didn't want to redistribute the lander of the wealth. 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.039 They just wanted political quality, uh, not to overturn the 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.120 economic order. So they didn't really see themselves as leveling, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:49.360 which is fair because they weren't leveling today's here, as 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.279 though they sure as hell wanted to do a leveling. 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.200 They they said, and a paraphrase here, those people aren't 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:00.040 the levelers, were the true levelers. And but it's a 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.600 possible to name your own political movement back then, apparently 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.440 because the levelers who wanted to be called the agitators, 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.160 and the Quakers who wanted to be called the Society 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.800 of Friends, the the the people who wanted to be 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.640 called the true Levelers get called the diggers, and the 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:18.320 name stuck m hm. And they they first announced themselves 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:20.200 to the world is after they had started doing some 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.039 of what they'll do, which I've got to with a 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.360 pamphlet called the True Levelers Standard Advanced in this case 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.200 standard meaning flags. So we've moved forward the flag of 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.919 leveling and and you know, so they were like, we 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.320 are the true Levelers. That's our book are Manifesto. It's 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.200 as true Levelers on it, and people are like, but 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.240 it was Britain. So they were like, well, we're gonna 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.000 call you the diggers because I mean, look at that, 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.240 you're digging a hole, So you're the diggers. I think. Also, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.640 self branding is is usually a fairly failed effort. People 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.080 really try to do it, but but you wind up 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.480 getting getting cold. What what you know, if it's a 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.520 vast movement, the other people in the movement would up 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.680 naming it, yeah, totally, or in this case, a lot 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.400 of the the people who are outside the movement who 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.720 are either looking down on you or or not, you know, 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.680 like the name that the media runs with is going 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.960 to be what lasts in history. And a lot of 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:17.320 these cases. But they did dig uh. Specifically, they wanted 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.440 to get onto the commons, the land or land that 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.680 they should believe that they believe should be the commons, 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.040 and grow food communally. And I don't know everything about 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.560 what they wanted to plant. I I did look up 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.600 and check that potatoes had been introduced from the New 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.240 World to the old world by this point, so potatoes 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:39.360 were a possibility, um. But but mostly they planted peas 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.560 and parsnips and carrots and barley and corn, which are 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.920 all perfectly good, fine plants. It's fine. And they got 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.320 their justification for what they were doing from the Bible, 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.240 uh specifically the the verse that they quoted a lot 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.760 was Act for thirty two. And the multitude of them 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.000 that believed were of one heart and of one soul. 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.720 Neither said of any of them that ought of the 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.640 things which he possessed was his own, but that but 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.960 that they had all things in common. And so this 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.760 was there. You know, all of us who believe we 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.920 will share everything, that is what the Bible asks us 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.920 to do. And they also got their justification from the 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:17.760 fact that food prices were at an all time high 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.080 because of the war, and everyone was hungry, and the 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.840 country was absolutely ravaged by these deep political divisions, which 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.120 is of course totally unfamiliar to listeners today. I mean, 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.880 the thing is, trying to reconcile the Bible with gigantic 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.439 nations is a fool's Errand you know, the Bible is 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.800 a book for for people who are living in a 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.800 much more in smaller communities. Right, So it's like the 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.120 Bible's a book of community, not nations. In my view, 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.320 Oh that makes sense. I like that idea, um. But 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.680 but that hasn't stopped everybody from trying to insist that. 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.520 Like when the word nation whatever it's Hebrew or a 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.600 Sebtulian equivalent, is when it appears like it's supposed to be, 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.520 especially Americans have a constitutionalist reading of everything. It's like, well, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.320 a nation and they said nation, and now nations are big, 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.640 so it has to apply to us. But none of 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.240 the authors of the Bible would have had any notion 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.360 of a nation having a sort of size and scope 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.199 and power that that even the smallest nations have now 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.880 really um, yeah, so yeah, it's trying trying to trying 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.240 to harmonize stuff in the Bible that seems fairly clear 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:23.000 isn't often isn't often compatible with modern facts on the ground. 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.240 Now that makes sense. And then there's the kind of this, um, 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:31.679 you know, the difference between nation and state, right, Um, Nation, 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.520 state and country are all kind of actually different things 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.320 that overlap in a lot of ways. But yeah, and 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.000 there's another thing always worth remembering is like in these 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:45.480 readings of the Bible that are happening in the US. Uh, 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.000 they tend to disregard that the disciples thought Jesus was 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.640 coming back next week. You know. They didn't think, oh, 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.319 he's gonna go away for a very very long time 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.199 in some future generation we can't conceive of we'll see 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.120 him again. They expected to see him again in their lifetimes, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.439 you know. So, so when they're talking about sharing and stuff, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.040 they're talking about sharing going forward until the thing that 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.760 we expect to happen happens. Right, that's my understanding. Yeah, 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.120 now it's interesting. This is absolutely why I wanted you 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.440 to be the guest for this particular episode. But so, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.840 but this isn't so by the time you get the hundreds, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:23.000 you're doing this sort of building a functional public ideology, 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:28.000 right that's rooted in what was a much more communal faith. Right. Um, 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.920 So there's it's no accident that these these people are 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.880 are ye utilizing Christian concepts and everything, but those concepts 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.120 are very hard to use at scale. Yeah, totally, as 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.840 we have noted. Yep. And so one of my friends 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.760 I was talking to about the Diggers, I was like, Okay, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:48.880 what why are they so important to you. You know. 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.120 I was looking, I was reading about them, and one 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:52.760 of my friends was like, I'm so excited about the Diggers. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.240 I'm excited you're doing an episode about the Diggers. And 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.040 what she said that she particularly liked about them is 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.480 that there's sort of an essential gentleness for them. There's 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.160 they come out of years and years of war and strife, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.439 and they're these like frustrated, hungry peasants. A lot of 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.240 them had been soldiers in the war and they were like, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.800 you know what, fuck it, I'm going to go plant 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.560 vegetables and never touch a sword again. And that was 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.320 like a lot of the basic idea of and it's 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.240 the sort of essential gentleness. And a lot of discussion 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:25.160 about political radicals tends to leave out the the gentle radicals. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.200 So I think that's why it's one of the things 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.360 I get excited about about the Takers. Yeah. No, I 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.319 mean that's extremely true in radical spaces, and people tend 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.720 to there's a couple of ways, a couple of spaces 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.480 along the growth they get that way. But there's many 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:43.040 many people who froom gentleness is not an affirmative value, right, Yeah, 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.000 And they make and they tend to make extremely uh, 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.199 you know, they want to argue about that as a 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.280 general rule. They want to they want to say, you know, 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.520 you're failing to stand up for the people who can't 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.679 afford to be gentle, right, and so is it compelling argument? 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.240 Quite often, you know, But but I'm not sure that 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.800 it's true. I mean, but you know, right now, you know, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.080 there's a lot of talk about there's been a lot 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.319 of talk about especially like, you know, shouldn't a marginalized 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.040 community arm itself, you know, if if the entire power 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.480 of the state is weaponized against it, super valid point. 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.839 But but I think I think those wind up sort 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:20.679 of polarizing. Then you said, well, if we're doing that, 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.360 then the values of gentleness aren't part of our deal. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.920 And it's like you want to be folding in gentleness 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:27.640 because that's where you want to wind up at the end, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.080 and you sort of can't you know, table gentleness and 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.959 then come back to it later. Yeah. Well, and actually, 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:35.520 I mean that's kind of interesting to me because as 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.360 someone who you know, um, I think people have listened 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.520 to the show before now that I'm like, I'm armed. 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.920 I'm a transwoman who lives in the South, and I 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.840 chose to to be armed. But but the idea that 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.280 like being armed in gentleness should be counter to each other, 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.080 it just seems absolutely ludicrous to me. You know. Um, 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.480 and there's I think your possessions have you know, they come, 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.840 they come to define you. You know. It's like I'm 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.000 with I'm glad you're armed, even though I'm an anti 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:04.960 gun guy. It's like, I don't I would prefer the 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.640 nobody be armed. And so you know, I I support 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.520 really intense legislation about firearms, but but in the absence 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.400 of that legislation, I think it makes also good sense 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:15.240 for somebody who might find themselves to be a target 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.560 to be armed. You know, I don't like, it doesn't 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.040 do any good to say, well, because I'm against people 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:24.079 owning firearms, I won't have one. That's not really good position, 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.880 because it's like, you know, it's like I'm also against uh, 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.480 you know, I'm against people inequably making money. But right now, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.480 if I can make more money than somebody, I'm not 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.040 gonna say, oh, no, you have to pay me less, 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:40.120 because because it's like that's that's foolish, it's you know, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.960 uh yeah, but but yeah, it's it's a but but 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.240 I do think you know, it's like the whole weapons 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.440 are in and of themselves not gentle you know that 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.640 that It's like what you want to avoid is is 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:53.640 thinking about them in certain sorts of ways. You know. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.360 It's like, yeah, you want to But then C. S. 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.080 Lewis has a riff about this, how you know, if 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:00.920 you're going to war you should do it with both 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.120 hands instead of you don't go to war. Good, well, 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.839 I hate to have to kill this guy. It's no, 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.400 you should kill your enemy when you're at war, you know, right, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.000 But I mean, I mean, it's actually kind of interesting 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.680 to me because that's one of the things that I 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:15.240 I didn't prepare anything about this at all, but it's 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.240 one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately, 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.360 is about this, like how do we hold onto Maybe 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.000 there's a tension and holding onto a gentleness as like 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.040 while going armed right or while trying to become more 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.680 capable of expressing self defense or a community defense. But 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:34.720 you know, I have to think about the C. S. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:36.880 Lewis part of it, because part of me is like, well, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.120 I actually some of the people that I respect the 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.720 most are people who do the hard work of holding 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.680 onto you know, however there they'll view it their their 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:51.120 humanity or their holiness or their you know, their soul 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:55.080 or however they want to phrase it. Things. You know, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.480 there's there's stuff of the bood Gita about this where 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:02.280 our juna uh on the battlefield, et cetera, and uh 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:04.680 and the whole bad that kicks off because he says 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.080 to his friend Christia, he doesn't really want to fight, 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.200 and don't the scriptures forbid us from doing this? And Christia, 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.680 who is God and also is his friends, says, oh no, no, 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.520 if your role as soldier, you should be a soldier, right, 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:17.920 It's like that's that's your that's it's kind of like 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.200 it's it's to me, it's actually labor relay. You should 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.520 do your job and do it wholeheartedly. The only way 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:24.800 to do any kind of work for the Buda is 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.320 to give it all to God. So when you are cooking, 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.520 you're cooking for God. You're cooking the best you can, 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.480 you know. And when you're fighting, you're you're at war 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.000 for God, you know, whether it's a holy battle or not. 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.680 And that's as it's much bigger than the scope for 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.000 discussion here. But but those are, but they're they're both 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.960 in both traditions. There's a notion that that whichever role 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.720 you're inhabiting, you should inhabit wholeheartedly, rather than rather than 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.480 trying to sort of cut, you know, trying to hedge bets. 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.560 You know. Yeah, no, that's interesting and it gets into 0:15:57.200 --> 0:15:58.440 you know, one of the things that we're gonna talk 0:15:58.440 --> 0:15:59.840 about a little bit later in the script is that 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.240 the people are also pacifist, right, and that is a 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.840 big part of their their movement. Um, And yeah, I 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.480 don't know, it's still love to think about it. I'm 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.080 gonna think about some more of that. Okay. So there's 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.240 this there's this guy who gets called the leader of 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.520 the Diggers. He's not the leader of the diggers. He's 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.160 not the founder of the Diggers. There's no particular evidence 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.000 that he was the leader besides the fact that he 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:27.480 was the writer. And his name is Gerard Winstanley, and 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.400 and he's kind of he's the guy who showed up 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.240 and saw what was going on and wrote about it 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.440 and spread the word. So in some ways he's a leader, 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.240 but he's not the leader of this particular movement. And 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.000 he was born in sixteen o nine, he was middle class. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:45.280 He moved to London became a tailor. In sixty three, 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:48.920 he goes bankrupt and he didn't like capitalism. Well capitalism 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:50.760 doesn't really exist yet, but you know, he doesn't like 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.600 this particular system that's developing. And he blames the quote 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.800 cheating sons and the thieving art of buying and selling. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.640 So he really hates buying and selling, probably because he 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.960 wasn't all that good at it. But and the Civil 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.520 War doesn't help his business either. So he's bankrupt and 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.960 he foxed off to the village of Cobham to get 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.879 a job as a cowherd. And I prefer to imagine 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:17.399 a cow herd as a cowboy, so I'm going to 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:22.640 refer as a cowboy. And it's he's like a shepherd, 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.160 I think, so yeah, yeah, no, yeah, he's not actually 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.320 moving cows across the planes or anything like that. He's 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.520 keeping track of them. Okay, fine, the cow shepherd. And 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.399 it's during his time as a cow shepherd that he 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.040 starts turning his thoughts to religion and theology and he's 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.120 looking for answers to what has wrecked his life and 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.280 how he might make it and the lives of other 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.880 people better, and he also winds up a leveler. And 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.399 I like how the levelers basically was this big mass 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.960 of the people who thought things should be better somewhat, 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.920 and then all of these different factions within the levelers 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.480 came out and and did other things and went in 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.879 different actions with that leveling or with being a leveler. 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.960 So when Stanley and the Diggers the true levelers, they 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.120 branch off from the same philosophical starting point as the levelers. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.880 And when Stanley, during his time you know, pondering all 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:16.920 this theology or whatever, he believes in a few things. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.400 First and foremost, he believes in reason. He saw reason 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.880 within each person as the godliness within each individual. Man 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.240 and woman um. And he did explicitly in his earlier 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.320 writings say man and woman um, not just using man 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.240 as a catch all for all people, though he used 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:37.159 that occasionally. Also later he gets in his post digging works, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.360 which I don't like as much, he gets um real 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.240 explicit about how man is the head of the household. Um, 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.120 the leveling stops at the door, But why doesn't say it? 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:48.879 Doesn't phrase it the leveling stops at the door, But 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.399 that's a you know, But he talks about how the 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.040 word God can't sum up the divine and how he 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.000 and so many others were led astray by that word 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.600 think of God as an external thing. So he pretty 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:02.720 much called God reason. And he said that it was 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.880 chill if everyone came up their own word for God. Yes, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.160 this is a very nineteenth century English position. Okay, well 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:13.040 he's he's two centuries ahead of time, three centuries. This 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.800 is when the sixteenth century, this is the seventeenth century, 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.439 the sixteen hundreds. Wow. So this, yeah, this sort of 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.360 thinking in the nineteenth century becomes pretty I mean, obviously 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.280 American transnittalism goes into that you know, and you and 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.359 you wind up, you know, after the you wind up 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:30.840 with the twentieth century with you know, the A Creado 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.800 people saying you have something you call a higher power. Right, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:38.200 it's it's all that's on a continuum, I think, mm hmm. Yeah. 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.320 I've I've actually been interested. I've watched some of my 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.800 friends go into a A and have to learn how 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.480 to work that into how they consider I don't like 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.800 a lot of my like. Right. The thing is in 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.679 a you don't have to believe in God. You just 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.720 have to believe that there's the power greater than yourself, right, 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.480 which seems self evident. But when you are an active addict, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.480 you may or may not actually believe that you're running 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.320 on ego all the time when you sit down and 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.680 actually look at how you're behaving. So it seems that 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.719 I don't think there are powers greater than myself, you know. 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.399 So so yeah, so like you know, it can be. 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.040 I had one guy explained too points we say we 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.080 can be a chair because I can't change the nature 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.480 of this chair. What you're wanting to, what you're wanting 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.720 to learn is a serenity, for ability to accept the 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.080