Gone too soon, Harold Bloom Would've Loved Fairy Smut...

Welcome to the BookTok slop-pocalypse. The Department store shelves are rammed full of mindless romance from ceiling tile to linoleum floor. Surely this isn't reading.

In today's episode we meet the man who called out the slop phenomonon over twenty-five yeas ago.

How did accesability become a god? What are we losing when we shun the high-brow as a matter of morality? Much in every way, and books are only the begining.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Happy recommendation.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Happy easy way.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Okay, but then what are you saying? I mean, I have a million and millions and millions of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I'm afraid so.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Welcome back, everybody, to the Common Christendom Podcast. I hope you're doing well. I'm doing well. It's Friday night. It's cold. It's a good time to be recording. And here we are. I hope you um have listened through the uh last series of uh podcasts I put out. Um I was very happy with how it turned out and got a lot of good feedback. So I hope you enjoyed that, and I'm back here with another with a new uh standalone episode here. I am hoping to be working on a new series, which I'm working on it now, and it's taken a little bit more research than I thought, so I can't really push through um to to complete this series without putting out a few little little standalone pieces to keep everyone um to keep everyone on the on the uh on the rails, keep everyone hooked. Um so here we are with a standalone episode. Um Harold Bloom is probably the most famous literary critic of modern times. And you probably still haven't heard of him because literary critic is not the most uh is no, you know, the it's no they're no sports stars, so if you don't know any literary critics, I understand, and I didn't really until I've heard of this guy anyway. Harold Bloom is probably the most famous literary critic um uh of modern times. He was a uh professor at Yale University. He uh he was whatever their version of Super Duper tenured professor is, he was the super duper tenured professor at Yale University. Very passionate, um, very passionate reader, very passionate writer, and very passionate teacher. He um lectured indeed basically till the day he died. He was he was um in his little chair lecturing about literature till the day he died, which I have a great admiration for. Um and he only died uh recently, really, in the grand scheme of things in 2019. But boy, but boy, he was gone too soon because Harold Bloom he departed the earth just in time to miss out on Fairy Smut. What it's not fair, is it? It's not fair. So what do I mean what do I mean by this? I put in the title probably something provocative, but Harold Bloom, from the clip you heard in the intro, he didn't really like Harry Potter. He saw it as well, we use this term all the way all the time now. He was ahead of his time. He uses the term slop. Seems a little bit it seems a little bit harsh, don't you think? Harry Potter, a lot of people read it, even a lot of smart people are reading it. And I want to use this interview um to explore a few points. And the first point I or the first caveat I should give out is yes, probably he was a little bit harsh. I know a lot of smart people, I know a lot of intelligent people who really love the Harry Potter books, and I think maybe he was a little bit harsh, I think maybe he jumped the gun a little bit. That interview was from the year 2000, so not all of the Harry Potter books have come out, and I think Um as someone who has only seen the films, um, I think even so, the overarching, the whole story, the way it's put together, I think it's very clever, I think it's very convincing, and probably Harry Potter will stand the test of time, at least for a little bit. So let's put that out of the way. But uh, I didn't I wasn't able to play the entire interview. But essentially the interview goes on and says, Look, um, you know, the but the kids are reading. And then if the kids and he says that even in the part of the interview I played, the kids are reading. Can't we be happy about that? Um and he later even goes on to say, Well, even if you don't like Harry Potter, they start reading Harry Potter. Isn't that good that it acts as a gateway to more serious literature? And Harold, um, he says, Well, they don't. It's just a misconception. They don't move on. They don't move on to more serious, uh, more more difficult, um, not in the sense of difficult to read, but more how shall we say, more um work that that calls for more of your of your um mind, that calls for more of your soul, um, really forces you to analyse yourself, analyze big themes in our in our world. And I think to Harold, this is what good literature is. It's literature that is thought provoking, that forces you to understand the world better, then to understand yourself better. They don't move on from Harry Potter to deeper works. Now um I think on that point On that point I think he's correct. I think he's correct. Because many of the the intelligent, well-read people who I know who like Harry Potter, they didn't start out reading Harry Potter. They liked reading. They liked reading already. They read it because it was something to read and they enjoyed it. It wasn't that it was a gateway drug necessarily, and I think that you can see evidence of this all over the place in in terms of the you know the fandom of Harry Potter. There are a lot of Harry Potter fans. There are a lot of and this is my biggest problem with it, is there's a lot of very cringe, very cringe Harry Potter fans, and they've got bumper stickers. I hate bumper stickers. Um and so there are a lot of people who who are a Harry Potter fan as part of their personality. They're not readers, they're Harry Potter fans. And probably they've seen the films a lot more times than they've read the novels, if at all. Anyway, but this interview reminded me of an experience in my own life. Um I was driving I was driving in the evening home from the indoor cricket centre. It must have been an early game because Samantha and the kids were in the car. Um they must have come to see the game. And anyway, Samantha was talking about uh her friend who is a reader, quote unquote, and telling me about all the things she reads. Now, she wa the it was very peculiar. The only thing she read was romances, novels, romance novels. Um, and I thought to myself, I'm sick of this. I've heard of so many of these people who only exclusively rather read uh romance novels. And I said to Samantha, This is not reading. She's not a reader. Do not don't call her that. Don't call her an reader or a book enjoyer. She's not. She reads these cheap um these cheap, non-thought-provoking junk food romances. That's all she reads. She's not a reader. And I gotta tell you, Samantha was quite indignant. She said, Well, how can you say that? She's reading. She's reading the words on the page. You know, why are you just why are you being such a snob? Some people don't like to read what you are. Not everyone not everyone wants to read War and Peace, you know, it's so dry and long, and that not everybody wants to read the books that you want to read. And I said, Well, I get that, and I mean I'm not saying it's bad to read romances. What I'm saying is you might well why you're not really a reader. You know, you're not you're not Because and then we went on to say, you know, how many people, how many women have I seen on the train reading a book? Many. How many women have I sat next to on the train reading a book? Also many. And I gotta tell you it's a guilty pleasure, but whenever I'm sitting next to someone on the train and they're reading, I really try and not moving my head, keeping my head very still, but moving my little eyeballs over to see what they're reading. And if I um if I had a dollar, if I could choose to have a dollar for every woman I saw reading something that wasn't a romance, I would probably have zero dollars. Because they're not, none of them are reading anything except a romance. And then I learnt of the unfortunate the unfortunate thing of very smart. It's a it's a d it's a yucky word, isn't it? But that's what it is. And I've discovered that some of the biggest some of the biggest selling novels these days are fantasy novels that are very, very romantic, quote unquote. They're romances, but they're very, very graphic. And that started being a trend, um, I suppose when I was getting out of high school, rather when Samantha was getting out of high school because I had no idea. But apparently a lot of these fantasy novels that started out kind of innocent, they're getting pretty spicy. And let me tell you, the people on social media are eating it up and they're loving it. Have you ever heard of a thing called book talk? Don't go look it up. I'm begging you, please, do not look up a book talk on Instagram or TikTok, it's not good. But essentially she's just telling me all these things. Yeah, it's like it it's just like that sometimes, like that um, you know, you you the the opposite sex is so mysterious and they let you peek behind the curtain. And what's behind the curtain? It's mountains and mountains and mountains of these smutty books. And it's mountains and mountains and mountains of pages of people reviewing them, of people talking about them, and I'm thinking, this is an epidemic. This is an epidemic. And it started as more of a private hidden thing, you know, you'd always see at the bookshop there'd be those, you know, naughty little novels. They always had some sort of naughty little title like, you know, pregnant with the Pregnant with the Millionaire Boss's baby or something crazy like that. And they weren't sort of like, you know, all over the place. But as time goes on in the last few years, these are huge and they're public, and everyone's reading them. And everyone's reading them. And in fact, if you have are if you have a wife, you should be seeing what what's she reading? And because this stuff is quite prolific. And it was in this vein that I said, you know what? Romance readers, smart readers, stop calling yourself breeders, don't call yourself book talk as if you got a monopoly on books. This would be like someone who is a you know who can't wait to get home every night to watch pornography, you know, they go straight to their favorite porn site, and them saying, Well, I'm actually I'm actually into cinema. And what do I watch? I watch I watch porn. That's not in you're not into cinema. You're just a weirdo. And it's the same with these people and their romance books and their smiley books, like you're not a reader. This isn't good. And as it's the same thing that um that Harold Bloom said he people aren't moving on from Harry Potter to more serious stuff, and I think he's been proven right. He's been proven right. People aren't moving on from uh Sarah J. Mars, a court of this and that. They're not. They're not moving on to more serious stuff. So my goodness, if Harold Bloom was alive today, he would have loved Fairy Smart. He would have he would have loved ripping into it. If he was ripping into Harry Potter, can you imagine what he would have said about, you know, a court of cheese and crackers or whatever these or whatever these fairy books are being called? And we could we could honestly, you know, we could honestly go even deeper into the whole romance phenomenon and say so many things about it because it's just so wrong and so terrible and such a deception because it really flies under the radar. Again, if a young Christian man in a church is watching pornography and and the pastor finds out, it's not like he's gonna say, Well, you do you, he's gonna say, you need to stop doing that right now. Yet if a young lady is reading these books, these um these graphic um books, and they don't even have to be graphic, they're designed to excite you, you know, you know in this way, you know, it's much less likely that he's gonna say off the face of it, oh you shouldn't be doing that, it's more of a well, it's just women like reading romances, and it's very deceptive. It's a very deceptive and a very um it's a very concerning cultural thing right now. But that's a topic for another episode. But um another aspect is that when people hear Harold Bloom, you know, say Harry Potter's no good, it's slop, then he says it's not Charles Dickens, it's not Jane Austen, you know, it's not Shakespeare. They kinda you kind of get the vibe like, are you just some sort of uh you're some sort of elitist. Like you seem to be unable to, you know, enjoy the common things. You need your fancy Shakespeare and Jane Austen and all of these things. It comes across as a little bit um uh elitist. And I'm wondering where does that where does that tendency come from? Where does that tendency come from in life? And it got me thinking that these days I think the I think the class warfare, you know, the egalitarianism is so embedded into our into our uh collective thought that we really do have a habit of shunning difficult things, of shunning inaccessible things, because um for whatever reason, because they're not nice, because they're not inclusive, because they're not accessible. Um and it got me thinking also, like, what are the here's the example, here's an example like what what games have really captured my uh my mind in my lifetime? And I'm I'm notoriously um I'm notoriously good at jumping around and enjoying different things. I get very hyper-focused. So I seem to be able to pick up hobbies, you know, semi-regularly, and really uh get obsessed with them and focus on them and then, you know, achieve one thing or another and then decide I'm gonna move on to the next hobby. So I've enjoyed a lot of I've enjoyed a lot of games in my day, but what are the games that have really captured me? What are the games that have had me thinking about them at work, at home? What are the games that have had me watching endless YouTube videos about how to learn and how to get better? What what games have captured me? And I and I'm writing them down and I'm realizing they have a similar thing. What are the what are these games? There is golf. Oh my goodness, if you saw how many swing tips videos I was watching on Instagram when I was playing golf 2024-2025, my goodness. You know, um just now I've picked started to play chess, and you just need to ask my wife again how many chess videos go straight on as soon as I you know pop the Bluetooth speaker on to watch YouTube. It's always a chess video, it's just a little bit um a little bit unhealthy actually. Poker, poker is such a great game. Poker is a great game, it's got so many levels, there's so much to learn. Boy, I had a I had a blast. I had an absolute blast learning how to get good at poker, and I'm probably not that good anymore, and I probably wasn't that that good, but I gotta tell you, it's a wonderful game. There's strategy, there's psychology, there's it's a it's just a phenomenal game, and certainly I was watching poker videos all the time, all the time when I was playing a lot of poker, when I was 19 or 20 or so or so, cricket as well, um, you know, that's um not as much as the other ones, but it's certainly a game that consumes you in that way. And obviously my first love, my first dear love, Counter-Strike, that I picked up when I was what 15 or so. Oh my goodness, now when I'm when I'm trying to take when I'm trying to grind at counter, when I'm trying to rank up, boy, am I watching every single YouTube, I'm watching every map, I'm watching a YouTube video about which spots to play and how to play it better and what settings and I'm tinkering and practicing and boy, and those are the games that have really, really captured my mind. And what do they have in common? What do they have in common? I realize they have something in common that they are difficult. They're difficult, but they've got a a steep learning curve. What does that mean? They're difficult to learn. They're not easy just to jump into. They're they require something of you. They require time and effort and attention. Think of all of these sport all of these games. Counter-strike, cricket, poker, chess, golf. Think about golf. How many hours do you need to put into golf to not be absolute garbage? So many. Take your friend out who's never played golf before to play golf, and they look atrocious. They can't even get club on ball. They're practically like it's like they've got some sort of disability the first time you ever play golf. Chess, if you've never played chess and you play against someone who's played a bit of chess, you will get absolutely destroyed and embarrassed. It won't even be it'll be so undignified if you've never played chess. My wife's trying to learn chess as well as me. She's not as into it as me because well, who knows? But she challenged her friend to a game, and her friend had played a little bit of chess, but not too much. And Samantha, she got absolutely annihilated. It wasn't close. It was not close, it was not dignified. She got absolutely pummeled, and that's it, and that and chess is a game like that, so's poker, you know. Poker, you barely know what's going on. It's just like you're set, you know, when you first play it, it's like you're lighting money on fire. At least there's a little bit of luck in poker, so you know, you can always get a little bit of luck to make a winning, but you just have no idea what's going on. Cricket the same way, you know, you can cricket and counter-strike are the same thing. You can tell who's not played much cricket just not even watching them play, just by the way they hold the bat. Ask them to pick the bat up and take guard. You can tell who's not played a lot of cricket. In Counter-Strike, which is a game where you shoot each other, if you didn't know. You can t you don't even have to watch someone shoot people. You you just watch them walk around. You can tell exactly who has played a lot of counter and who hasn't played a lot of counter. These games require so much investment just to get off of the tier of absolute garbage. Now, these aren't the only games that I've enjoyed. These are the games that have really captured me in a in in a way. But there are games that I have enjoyed that haven't done that. Um I'm trying to think of examples. In for well, because in here we've got some physical sports, some board games and some video games. A video game example would be Battlefield. And I've talked about Battlefield on the on the show before. I've had a I've spent a lot of time playing Battlefield, and I've had a lot of fun playing Battlefield. But if you don't know anything about it, it's um it's more of a casual game. When you die, when you get shot, you respawn pretty much immediately. The maps are huge, the teams are huge, it's you know, 32 people versus 32 people. So you know, if you die, there's not much really that much consequence. If you lose, it's not really your fault because there were 32 people on the team, so how could it be your fault really as an individual if you lost the game? Um so Battlefield I've had a lot of fun, but it hasn't captured me, it hasn't captured my mind. You know, board games like Monopoly. Monopoly, I've had a lot of good times playing Monopoly. Me and my friends used to kind of um semi regularly meet up and play Monopoly. But, you know, there's a lot of chance, there's not a lot of strategy, there's a bit of strategy, but you know, it's been fun. I've had fun times, you know. I remember I remember my friend, you know, that feeling when you're when you're your counter is is um you know just in front of the big row of big properties with hotels and houses and you just know that you just yeah there's so many so many hotels in front of you you won't be able to avoid them you know you're my friend he was blowing on the dice he was rolling walking around the room he was like come on come on he's like making all these antics before he rolls the dice inevitably lands on a big hotel and he's he's out of the game but Monopoly's been fun but it's never really captured me you know and sports you know like thinking like pickleball pickleball I don't know I've I talk a lot of smack about pickleball and that's and pickleball deserves it but you know no one's pickleball's fun and you can but you know it's not it's not really gonna you know no one's really a pickleball expert and if they are then you know I'm not saying that they're a loser but you know I mean if the if the shoe fits or whatever but what are these what do these games have in common like Battlefield Monopoly pickleball like they don't really require anything from you they don't really require anything from you you know battlefield if you die it's okay it's okay you can respawn you know uh pickleball you know like oh if you're not that athletic it's okay the field's not that big you'll be able to do it you know and they don't what I'm trying to say is that these games they don't disrespect you in a way in the way that counter golf chess in the way that these games really disrespect you these games that have captured me are games that are willing to make you want to quit they're willing to they're difficult they're willing to make you quit if you say this is a stupid game I don't want to play it anymore they're willing to do that they're willing to make you invest a lot of time just to get off of the off of the bottom of the pack just to not be absolute trash and you know this I don't think it's a coincidence that it's the games that require something of you that are the ones that capture your heart it's the games that don't require anything of you they might be fun for a little bit but you know when I you know when I think about my teenage years what are the games I'm gonna remember most fondly of playing it's gonna be counter it's gonna be the game that I was obsessed with from the start it's not gonna be like Battlefield you know it's not gonna be I don't know some other silly little games that I've been playing and so but this seems a bit more games like this they seem a bit more offensive you know in our current age why is pickleball popular pickleball's popular because it's this idea of like anyone can pick anyone can pick it up and play you know anyone can have a go go down to the pickleball court your grandmark and have a go you can have a go it does it's not like tennis you know tennis is like the anti-pickleball tennis like you can't even like if you've never played tennis before it's probably you're gonna lose your first game because you can't serve the ball in in the service area it's hard to even just serve the ball and so like but pickleball first time playing pickleball no worries mate no worries you'll be absolutely fine and so it's these sports with a lot of them they require a lot of you and also really to be any good at them to really enjoy them you've got to kind of start them young you've get it is most people who are real who are good at and I'm not saying professional but I'm saying who are decent who are good most people who are good at golf chess not poker but that's another subject you know cricket counter strike all these people started young and sometimes that's not something you can influence and I think that's offensive to our culture too we live in a culture where everyone should be able to have a fair go at least in theory and so we like the idea of a sport where it doesn't matter if you started when you're two or when you're you know w that's not a good that's not gonna rhyme good. It doesn't matter if you started with your seven or seventy you can have a go and you can have a chance we don't like the idea of the fact that if you started playing chess after puberty the chances of you becoming a grandmaster are probably zero. Whoa that's a bit stark but that's the reality if you start if you started chess at 20 gr chance of being a grandmaster is pretty much zero. I don't know if there are any grandmasters who learn after they turn 20. And and in that sense that it's not something you have couldn't that much control over. You know I know I know a buddy of mine who's pretty decent at golf really he's not really passionate about it and he doesn't play a lot anymore but when you're playing golf with the buddies he's really good and it's because his parents had him play golf when he was a child. And that's not something he had control over but it's a really cool skill that he now has and golf is not as much of a corporate used it used to be that golf was a kind of a corporate networking skill that you put on your resume not so much anymore but that's a really cool skill skill he has um and another another thing that's a bit like that is um playing a musical instrument. I remember um I remember being in my small group um and I um I had the privilege wonderful privilege of learning musical instruments as a child um that's just something I'll always be very thankful to my parents for I in fact I wanted to go to university for music but it wasn't to be unfortunately um my my yeah my discipline didn't match up with my talent unfortunately and or maybe I was less talented than I thought but still a tremendous privilege and my wife said in the small group about music oh I wish I'd kept playing an instrument after school or after primary school or whatever because I think it's such a wonderful skill I think it's such a phenomenal skill to have and I really wish I just kept on playing music it would have been because she played the flute or something in primary school she played the flute or something and and somewhat and it's kind of the thing where you know the polite thing to say is oh you know there's still time you could still do it if you put your mind to it but my cousin who also learned music as a child he said you know what Samantha it's too late actually yeah you're an adult now yeah it's too late you should just give up and I thought wow that sounds kind of stark because that's offensive to us in our current day isn't it but realistically learning a musical instrument as an adult if you haven't had if you haven't learnt any any if you haven't learnt a musical instrument before learning a musical instrument as an adult is very very difficult. It's very very difficult it's going to take you a very long time to get any good. So it's another one of those things where you know yeah sorry if you start if you start when you're 20 if you jump on the violin when you're 20 good luck good luck because I I started learning the violin um when I was eight and that's sort of what you gotta do that's sort of what you gotta do. If you any you know much later than that and it's very difficult. And I we and and we'd learnt music from a very young age too I think I never qu kept it up but I think even from maybe four years old we started doing music lessons. I'd learned a bit of piano which I lost unfortunately but then learned the violin but it's offensive it's offensive that oh my goodness you can't you like just give up and it was the thinking about the games that have inspired me the Harold's interview the idea that people don't move on you know that people don't read good things it it started getting me thinking about these things from more of a class perspective thinking about class why is why are some people upper class and some people lower class why is it um and I think the answer to my question came to me quite clearly because my eldest is um is two and a half and because wait lists for schools are so long these days that he's only two and a half but you've got to if you want him to go to um a Kindi program you've pretty much we've pretty much got to put him on wait lists uh right now quick smart and so I've been thinking about this um quite a lot recently because it's time for me to start thinking about what I'm going to do for my son's education and I uh I realized that I want him to have a good education I want him to have a good education and I I want him to be surrounded by good people I don't want him it'd be and here's another story which I haven't put on my script here but it's probably a good one to to think about is we did do we did do a few tours at some kindergartens. We went to one was nice Lutheran kindergarten I'm not a Lutheran but that's okay and it was nice and first and foremost obviously is if I'm sending my son to a kindie program first thing on my mind is his safety. I want him to be safe there. And obviously you know all of the things in the news about these shady educators who are doing these terrible things that's part of it. But it's also the kids um kid kid on kid violence is is definitely something to think about and unfortunately with you know the way that everyone's you know having access to screens so early these days like child on child sexual violence is also is also not something that is unheard of and it's not and it's definitely something you need to think about and prepare and prepare and guard against. So what we said in the we went on the tour of this kindy and we said well um what's your policy for you know children causing trouble like what do you do with them do you exclude them like how do you deal with that and the lady said oh no no well it would be very we would try everything basically you know we would it's very rare that we'd exclude a child we would do everything we can we would try everything we could we'd do everything we can to uh refit rehabilitate that child and make sure that they are able to continue uh learning in um in our program and this really was a bit strange to me like why are you saying it like that but then I realized that oh my goodness um this lady thinks that I'm worried that my son's gonna get kicked out of the candy program you've got it all wrong lady I'm not worried well you know I'm not worried about my kid getting kicked out of the candy program he's a good guy I'm worried about the other little little twerps I'm worried about the other little snot nosed kids I'm worried that they're gonna be violent they're gonna be rude they're gonna hurt my son and I want to know that you have a policy of we don't accept little little we don't accept little devils at our centre. If they're violent if they're inappropriate we kick him out that's what I wanted to hear I wanted to hear oh no we've got a very strict policy we don't let we don't let little devils in here but the lady I suppose had never probably had never had anyone asking that question from that perspective. You probably she was used to people with little troubled children coming and saying oh you know you're not gonna kick my kid out are you and so I was thinking this is so strange this is so strange because I would never I don't know I would never have thought to to ask it from that perspective. I want my I want my son to be surrounded by good people. I want him to have a good education you know and I want what's best for him I want what's best for him and I want a good education for him and in terms of the inheritance I want to give him I was really and if you haven't watched my episode about is the trade wife financially viable in 2025 you should go and listen to it one of my one of my my favorite episodes um because I'm on I'm a I've got two kids we're a single income household I don't have a lot of money just because if you're living in a world of double income single income is automatically not a lot of money and I realized that oh my goodness this is quite sad actually you know the the music lessons and the musical instruments that I enjoyed in my childhood this is really sad like I'm just not going to be able to afford to give that to my children but then I realized hold on this is actually good the inheritance of a musical education that my parents gave to me I can actually pass that on to my children. I still I still I I can be the one to educate them. And I was quite happy when I remembered that you know because when I was growing up what was I in when you know during the 2000s and the 2010s it's just a different time economically you know these days it's very difficult. There's no way there's no no no way I would be able to afford weekly music lessons but my parents could bless them and I have a chance to pass that on. And I want to pass that on to my children because I want them I'm thinking ahead as the adult in the room here um you know I've got these two little kids who can't think for themselves they're literally tots they're literally toddlers you might even be able to hear one of them crying in the room next door he's meant to be asleep it's 9 pm but he's um he's woken up poor guy they can't think for themselves they don't know what's going to be a good skill to learn they don't know what's going to be a good game to have in to have picked up in their youth it's up to me it's up to me as the parent so I want what's best for them I want them to have this good skill so I'm gonna choose as someone who has by the grace of God been given this music education I'm gonna be the one that says okay I will pass it on to you I will give this inheritance to you I will give you this unique well not unique isn't the right word I'm gonna give you this valuable skill that you won't be able to learn in adulthood. You won't be able to learn this skill unless I give it to you and it's not just music it's like it's all these other games I've been playing a lot of chess recently but and maybe it's a phase but I think I think it's a good game for children to learn because it teaches you know resilience forward thinking in fact chess has been a phenomenal game for me to learn because chess requires everything that I don't have it requires um forward thinking attention to detail patience and so it's been a wonderful game for me to learn but it's I think it's a good game for children to learn too so I'm gonna I'm probably I'm not I'm not 100% locked in on this but I probably will teach my kids chess and in any case if they learn chess and they go to a chess club that's just a good environment you know what I mean if you go if you if you put your kid into a chess club they're gonna be surrounded with other intelligent kids and I'm gonna be able to talk to other intelligent adults and you know I need that in my life I'm not very intelligent myself I need that some of that to rub off on me. And you know I'm not and you know probably my kids I like cricket and all these other things but the thing is that these skills not just games not just music but so many other things these skills are something that they are unable to teach themselves they are unable to pick them up you know they're unable to when they get older have you know let's say they get a job they get a car now they're 20 and they want to learn how to play music they want to learn how to play chess whatever they can't they can't that's only something that I can give them. And if you have children that's only something you can give them it's it's one of these it's one of these things that and you you should want to give them and this is not me trying to convince you to do music or do whatever my point being is why do I want to teach them these things? Because I want what is best for my children just the same as anybody else and why did I say I'm thinking about this from a class perspective because if you take anything away from this episode this is almost the thesis we we kick against the goads of class. We say that everything should be equal and everything should be you know egalitarian or whatever but the truth is that class persists. Even in democracies even in equal and fair societies class persists and why is that is it because upper class people are snobbish or because they are out of touch is it because poor people are crass is because it's for none of these reasons. It's for none of these reasons. It's because class persists because people want what's best for their children. People want what's best for their children and an example of that is there's been a lot of talk in the news it's been it's hard times to get a place to live housing crisis they call it there's been a lot of talk about the bank of mum and dad and talking about well it's not good that some people can't afford a house and others can but they the only reason they can is because they have the bank of mum and dad i.e their mum and dad has enough money to help them buy a house we're seeing we're seeing the resurgence of class in real time we're seeing the resurgence of class in real time why do why do why do people use the bank of mum and dad? Why do mum and dads help their children to purchase a home? Because they love their children because they want what want what's best for their children and I think we need to make I think we need to make peace with the idea that people want what's best for their children and people ought to be able to do what's best for their children because what what else are we going to do? Are we going to force people to send their children to some sort of state program where we manufacture everyone the same? I've even heard some sort of horrific articles about um how we can improve um public schools for children who can't afford to go to private schools. And one suggestion even is we should abolish private schools because half of the thing is that successful people who go to good schools and it's not so much just the networking aspect of it or the even the education it's just being surrounded by other good children is an immense an immense advantage. Going to a public school in a rough area and being surrounded with little devils even if you're a promising kid even if you're a bright kid that's going to put you down that is going to stop you from ascending you know and we can't it seems we can't deal with that and there's even this terrible idea we need to abolish private schools and force all the children to integrate all together because if this article said if the poor kid was able to rub shoulders with the rich kids rather than with the little devils in his local uh public school he would have a better shot at making a good life but and I mean it sounds kinda good on the surface I guess but at the end of the day isn't that horrific? Shouldn't people be able to raise their children in the best way possible because they love them? And for me that means that with the start of uh my son's formal education growing cross closer and closer and with private schools being so expensive for for me especially on one income um the cost the cost really is far far too much to bear seven to ten thousand dollars for a year every year for one child that is not for both and I hardly think it's fair if I you know send one kid to a good school and the other one gets to go to the local local public school for me it sounds like well you know I'm probably going to choose to educate the children myself or my wife doing it uh herself and using some sort of home school some sort of distance education because if I can't afford them if I I think it's that valuable that if I can't afford to send them to an environment where they have good influence good children surrounding them I will have to create that myself I'll have to create that myself by educating them ourselves in our home and for their social interaction I think this whole idea of like homeschool people have no social skills I think that's just BS. And for their social interaction they're gonna just um they're gonna hang out with um kids from our church who are for the well I say for the most part but I can't really think of any poor ones which is already a self-selecting community of people who will be good hopefully for my kids uh to be friends with by and large. So it's kind of a DIY and I think the only way to get rid of this and like that there there are a lot of kids probably born to poor to poor families born into poor circumstances and they could have got a headbutt you know they got sent to the crappy public school they there there was a little there was a little crap little child in their class who was just a troublemaker and he disrupted the learning and because what happens is you find you get a little troublemaker kid and he gets in trouble all the time and you know the principal says you know you need to leave and then the parents say no please please give him another chance like he could be a really good kid if he had a good education but this is the thing is that if what what you tolerate from bad kids in schools you you might be the one tolerating it you think but really it's a zero sum game and you tolerating their poor behavior is a is affecting negatively the learning of the other children in the class and so there's probably a lot of people in not so good schools who would have been able to be smart kids academically talented but they didn't get the chance because they were in this poor environment and what I'm telling you is that there's there's basically one option to remedying that and that is to not let people do what's best for their kids or else every kid that's even a little bit naughty kick him out and send him to the mines or something. That would be another way but we're not willing to do that either. So class persists and it will continue to persist um then that's because people want what's best for their children and that's why class persists and that may sound like an elitist um an elitist statement but that's a silly argument because if any anyone who knows me knows that I'm not elite I'm not an elite I'm you know I'm university uneducated um I um yeah you know I don't have a lot of money I'm universally un university non-educated I'm not an elite and you think if you so if you think it's elitist but at the end of the day the only way you can stop it is to say don't raise your children how you want. Don't teach your kids music don't teach your kids cricket or chess or whatever these cool skills are. Don't teach them how to read don't teach them how to read good literature you know it's all these untagibles it's all these untangibles that people give their kids that really perpetuate class you know if I'm I want to give my kids good books to read. I want to be well read so that when you know when my son's 10 he says Dad I want to read something that I've already got a mental note in my head of oh this is a good book for you to read that's a good book for you to read and in that case if I'm well read I'm gonna be able to give my kids good books to read when they want you know the 10 year old saying what book should I read oh you can read this this is good and then I'm hoping that after 20 years of doing that for them they'll be they'll turn 20 they'll be an adult and they're really well read and they're really well um and they're really knowledgeable and I and why is that because I did that for them. That's something they can't choose for themselves. That's another good example so you you know I've even read like I've even read I think it was an American thing that said like stay at home stay at home parents you shouldn't read to your kids because it's unfair because a lot of kids are in daycare and the educators don't have time to read them books and it's an unfair advantage I'm thinking you bet it's an unfair advantage you bet it's an unfair advantage reading to your kids what a wonderful thing what a wonderful thing and if it's an unfair advantage so be it you know and that's part of the reason that I prefer to have my kids at home rather than in daycare because their mother can you know she's got a lot of responsibilities because you know I'm a notoriously uh poor uh I have notoriously poor executive function so my my wife is a is a real godsend in that regard so she's got a lot of responsibilities but she's got so much time comparatively to read with the kids to talk to the kids tell them stories you know be with them you know educate them not even formally but informally you know and this is a beautiful thing that you can give that I'm that I specifically actively have chosen to give to them because I think it's a good idea um and en masse if you want a flat society with no class you need to stop people from doing that you need to stop parents from from reading books to their kids you need to stop parents from suggesting good books to their kids you need to stop parents from teaching them good skills that they can't learn in adulthood. You need to stop all of these things and what I want to know is is it worth it? Is it worth it? You know we rail against class and class warfare and all this and that and the other but really what's the cost of stopping it is love and do you really want a l a world with no love for our children for your children for my children. So thank you so much for listening to the episode today. Do you like Harry Potter? Let me know in the comments do you like Fairy Smart? Do not let me know in the comments because if you do I'm telling God I'm telling your I'm telling your elders okay so tell me at your own peril but what do you think? What what games have inspired you you know what um what games have captured you what's something that you're thankful for from your childhood that your parents gave you you know because it's easy to criticize our parents isn't it it's so easy so easy to spot the bad things isn't it and it's not to say that the bad things aren't real it's not to say the bad things aren't real but you know if I told you think of um three things that you didn't like that your parents did in your childhood I'm sure you'd find it easily what about some what's something you're thankful for that your parents gave to you? You know I can think of my music education I'm so thankful for that. And what what what what things are you thankful for? What values they instill in you that you're thankful for let's think about that this week because I feel like there's a there's also a culture of of suspicion of our parents and being annoyed at our parents so what's something you can be thankful for they gave you and what's something that they gave you that you are excited to pass on to your kids? These are some good things to think about. Let me know in the comments and again thank you for listening to this episode and good night