Fundamental Enemies

 

I watched a short YouTube video excerpt in which Jordan Peterson was talking, and I took notes on it, which I might lightly edit for coherency, and then I will comment on what he said.

 

Jordan: “The fundamental enemies of Christ in the gospels are the Pharisees, and the scribes and the lawyers. So, what does that mean?

 

The Pharisees are religious hypocrites. The scribes are academics who worship their own intellect. And the lawyers and the legal minds are they who use the law as a weapon.”

 

My response: All three categories of educated, privileged, members of the ancient Jewish ruling aristocracy. These enemies of Jesus are totally guilty of being consumed by wickedness and Luciferian pride, but these are not the narcissistic, arrogant individualist that Jordan seems to impute.

 

They are selfless members, very group-oriented, of the elite that ran ancient Judea; they are selfish, but they are not rational egoists.

 

Jordan: “So, they are the enemies of the Redeemer. That’s a subplot in the gospel story. And that actually all means something. The Pharisaic problem is the best possible ideas can be used by the worst actors in the worst possible way. And maybe this is an existential conundrum is that the most evil people use the best possible ideas to the worst possible ends.”

 

My response: His insight here is brilliant and well articulated. I always go back to the common person, an average member of the masses. Things start and end with the private citizen. If things are going well, the masses deserve the credit. If society is a mess, the masses deserve the blame.

 

Were each or the majority of the masses to be raised as a critically and originally thinking, individuating supercitizen, then no evil elitists could hold sway, diverting the best ideas to the worst possible ends, because the masses would disallow that. They would get organized, take over their country, and impose their agenda, namely, to use the best possible ideas to the best possible ends.

 

The Pharisees, ancient scribes and lawyers were part of the system, and, if in a mass movement, they would be the men of words.

 

Their existence is not a conundrum, though their obscure message may not revealed, but it does not matter, for the supercitizenized masses no longer allow elites to hold sway.