In a world of victim culture and blame it becomes a revolutionary act to let go of bitterness and resentment and take radical responsibility for you life.
In today’s message we explore a very challenging insight from the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that I came across in Douglas Murray’s new book, The War On The West.
If you are ready to find a way to a deeper experience of life and its possibilities then this is the episode for you.
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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody.
Speaker:Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome friends to the daily podcast.
Speaker:New listeners, regular listeners.
Speaker:Welcome back.
Speaker:As always hoping I can bring you a little bit of insight and encouragement
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Speaker:We're going to go into something quite.
Speaker:Well, when you first hear it, it's quite challenging.
Speaker:And, uh, I think all of us like to be told that everything's
Speaker:good and that we're good and that everything's gonna work out just fine.
Speaker:We, uh, we like that.
Speaker:I think there's enough difficulty and challenge in the world without being
Speaker:told that there's more and more problems.
Speaker:So today's message is going to be a challenging one.
Speaker:For me and for all of us, I read this last night.
Speaker:I've actually been reading through Douglas Murray's latest book, the war on the west.
Speaker:I've you familiar with Douglas Murray?
Speaker:He's a British public intellectual.
Speaker:Uh, I've really enjoyed his previous two books.
Speaker:Uh, the strange death of Europe and the madness of crowds.
Speaker:He is.
Speaker:Uh, a really cosmopolitan, highly educated guy, and you'll find
Speaker:them all over the internet.
Speaker:He's been on Joe Rogan, a whole bunch of different places.
Speaker:Just one of those people that thinks deeply.
Speaker:I'd say he's probably been trained in.
Speaker:I guess rational sort of dialect Dickies is a logical structural thinker.
Speaker:Um, so very good at rhetoric and argument and logical debates.
Speaker:I really appreciate a lot of what he's been sort of sharing
Speaker:over the last few years.
Speaker:His latest book, the war on the west is basically referring to this kind of
Speaker:vast self-loathing that has rolled out.
Speaker:I look over a significant period of time and, uh, in the west in terms of.
Speaker:All sorts of complex issues.
Speaker:We are being taught to, I think in some ways, despise
Speaker:our own history and tradition.
Speaker:And I think his book speaks to the heart of that, but, uh, Let's not
Speaker:go down that rabbit hole right now.
Speaker:Some of you I know, will disagree with that thesis.
Speaker:Some of you will be very supportive of it.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, I guess that's the point, isn't it?
Speaker:That one of the things that would be helpful in the world
Speaker:at the moment is the ability to.
Speaker:At least have a disposition to listen to other insights and ideas, even if
Speaker:they're contrary to what we, uh, we know to be true, it's worth just listening
Speaker:to understand another perspective.
Speaker:I think that's something worth doing it doesn't mean
Speaker:we agree with it or validated.
Speaker:It just means.
Speaker:We have the decency to listen to it.
Speaker:And, um, you know, it's something that I've been working on over the years just
Speaker:to actually try and deeply understand.
Speaker:Where other people are coming from, particularly when they disagree
Speaker:with me, I've got a long way to go.
Speaker:Got a long way to go.
Speaker:But you see in the book.
Speaker:Uh, last night, I'm almost finished it, but he sort of, he
Speaker:argues that at the root of a lot.
Speaker:Of what we're seeing culturally is a deep kind of sense of resentment of.
Speaker:Often I talk about the victim mentality that pervades the world,
Speaker:and I think victim mentality.
Speaker:Is highly destructive.
Speaker:It's destructive of cultures.
Speaker:It's destructive of self it's destructive of relationships.
Speaker:Because it's, it does a few things.
Speaker:Once we deeply down the rabbit hole with victim hood, we give
Speaker:our power away immediately.
Speaker:And as I always say, I'm not denying that there have been
Speaker:historical injustices at times.
Speaker:I'm not being flippant about it.
Speaker:I know that those are very real things.
Speaker:But once we really surrender ourselves to a victim mentality,
Speaker:then our power is externalized.
Speaker:And what Douglas Murray would say is that once we find an outward source
Speaker:to blame, we exonerate ourselves from doing the hard work of basically living.
Speaker:If you can point to an external force and say, that is the reason that I am unhappy.
Speaker:That's the reason I don't have what I have.
Speaker:Well, eventually, what do you do next?
Speaker:I mean, what do you do next?
Speaker:And this is what I want to get to.
Speaker:He's actually quoting in the book, Friedrich nature.
Speaker:One of the most influential figures of 19th century philosophy had a vast
Speaker:impact in continental philosophy, particularly, um, as the national
Speaker:socialist Nazi movement emerged.
Speaker:A lot of Hitler's thinking was based.
Speaker:Deeply on, I guess, on niches concept of the Uber mention.
Speaker:And the Superman principles.
Speaker:Uh, we don't need to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker:Nature was brilliant, but just extremely dangerous.
Speaker:You know, he used to say on stage that guns don't kill people.
Speaker:Ideas do.
Speaker:And this is quoting nature because nature is trying to get to.
Speaker:I guess part of what nature would say is that we need to take a
Speaker:radical, radical, radical, radical responsibility for our lives.
Speaker:That we need to accept the difficulty and pain and hardship of life and not
Speaker:flinch from it, but actually accept that.
Speaker:If we're going to fully, I guess, develop who we are.
Speaker:Um, then we need to accept the difficulties of life.
Speaker:Take powerful responsibility for our lives and press on now.
Speaker:I know I've got such a diverse listenership.
Speaker:I'm not endorsing niches philosophy per se.
Speaker:Um, like a lot of things, you know, in life there's, there's some value, there's
Speaker:some gold buried deep in some pretty challenging and a rather toxic ideas.
Speaker:But let me just give you this.
Speaker:He quotes him here and he sort of says, somebody must be to blame.
Speaker:But you, this is nature, but you yourself are this somebody.
Speaker:You yourself alone are to blame for it.
Speaker:You yourself alone.
Speaker:Are to blame for yourself.
Speaker:I remember how I started saying this is going to be a tough episode.
Speaker:You yourself are to blame for yourself.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I know a whole bunch of you just lost your mind.
Speaker:You're like, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Speaker:Hang on.
Speaker:What about people that are victims of abuse or trauma or violence,
Speaker:you telling me that they are responsible for what happened to them?
Speaker:Of course, they're not the cause.
Speaker:That's absolutely not what I'm saying.
Speaker:What needs is getting at is eventually as we look at the tapestry of our life.
Speaker:No matter what's happened to us.
Speaker:Eventually.
Speaker:We have to take responsibility.
Speaker:Let me give you an example.
Speaker:I don't know if this is accurate and I'd love you to sort of email me or jump
Speaker:across on the YouTube channel, leave some comments and tell me I'm crazy.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:When I had my accident in 2019.
Speaker:I, uh, you know, it was a majorly physical it majorly.
Speaker:Is that a word, I guess it is.
Speaker:It was a, it was a massively, physically traumatic injury.
Speaker:So I destroyed both arms shattered, multiple bones and, you know, in my,
Speaker:in both wrists and they've got a whole bunch of metal in both sides and.
Speaker:A whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:The process of recovery was utterly brutal.
Speaker:It was months and months.
Speaker:And just the pain and the rehab and the.
Speaker:And just all the stuff that went with, and if anybody's been through
Speaker:major injuries and surgeries, you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker:It's a long road back, but you see the trauma had happened, right.
Speaker:I didn't choose the trauma.
Speaker:I didn't choose the accident.
Speaker:The accident sort of chose me.
Speaker:But my response to my recovery.
Speaker:Was my own now.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I had access to good people, but we sought out good people and I had to do
Speaker:the hard work of physical rehabilitation.
Speaker:So I, what I'm trying to do here is say yes, there was trauma.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:There was something I didn't choose, but I was responsible for the response
Speaker:I made to the incident itself.
Speaker:Eventually see, I could have sat around and said, well,
Speaker:I'm not going to do anything.
Speaker:You know, it's just too hard.
Speaker:I'm just going to keep taking these tablets and sit here and do nothing.
Speaker:And you see.
Speaker:I think that's what nature is kind of alluding to here that.
Speaker:Eventually.
Speaker:Eventually in the path of life, we have to be responsible for our lives.
Speaker:That doesn't mean we don't process the pain.
Speaker:We don't, uh, you know, seek justice where necessary, but sooner or later, We
Speaker:have to become responsible for ourselves.
Speaker:I now know somebody listening to enjoy I'm responsible.
Speaker:I'm an adult.
Speaker:I'm talking about a deeper level here.
Speaker:I'm talking about our responsibility for all outcomes.
Speaker:You look at the work of someone like Jocko, Willink.
Speaker:You may have heard of.
Speaker:A us Navy seal commander wrote a couple of really important books on
Speaker:leadership and strategy and, you know, has developed a huge following online.
Speaker:Um, and his, he wrote a book called radical responsibility.
Speaker:You know that.
Speaker:What they.
Speaker:Well, they sort of developed in special forces.
Speaker:Was this idea that, that you had to be.
Speaker:Radically responsible for every area of your life that you
Speaker:couldn't blame someone else.
Speaker:You couldn't pass it off for somebody else's problem.
Speaker:If something broke down and went wrong.
Speaker:Why did it go wrong?
Speaker:Who was responsible?
Speaker:How do we make sure it doesn't happen again?
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I think this runs contrary to the victim mentality that we're going through as
Speaker:a culture, it's much easier to point to multiple reasons why we can't do X.
Speaker:We can't have X it's the economy.
Speaker:It's the government.
Speaker:It's my wife.
Speaker:It's my husband.
Speaker:It's my kids.
Speaker:I do it.
Speaker:I struggle with it all the time.
Speaker:I got to.
Speaker:That's why.
Speaker:You know, if this podcast had an audience of one, I would still
Speaker:be listening to myself going.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Jonathan, listen to yourself.
Speaker:This is good.
Speaker:This is good.
Speaker:You've got to put this into practice.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I think my friends that the way forward.
Speaker:It's to look at the areas of our life, where there is brokenness and pain.
Speaker:And look at how we can step into responsibility for ourselves
Speaker:in each of those areas.
Speaker:Now, there will be a spiritual component.
Speaker:There will be prayer.
Speaker:Depending on your tradition, there could be all sorts of different
Speaker:aspects on a spiritual level.
Speaker:You know, we're not orphans, we're not cosmic orphans.
Speaker:God wants to guide us and grow us through these systems.
Speaker:There might be people, you know, it's seven 20 in the studio here today.
Speaker:I was up at four.
Speaker:I had a four 15 call with, uh, I got a spiritual director in the U S and
Speaker:where I'm on the call here at 4:15 AM, because I've always tried to
Speaker:seek out really good people to have.
Speaker:Input to help me grow to help me take responsibility and step up and stand up.
Speaker:So trust me, friends, if.
Speaker:Uh, if you're hearing any blame or condemnation in this message
Speaker:today, it's a, it's definitely.
Speaker:It's accidental because I'm speaking to myself here about
Speaker:this responsibility piece.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I think that the rejuvenation of culture, of education, of family, life of personal
Speaker:life of civic, life of the public square.
Speaker:A lot of it's going to have to do with people going, you know what?
Speaker:I ain't going to blame this or that or this system or that person any more.
Speaker:I am going to take responsibility.
Speaker:I'm going to be responsible for my life and my outcomes as best I can in
Speaker:partnership with God in partnership with the universe, whoever we frame that.
Speaker:And I'm going to keep going.
Speaker:So friends, can I just ask you like, Is there an area of your life at the
Speaker:moment where you are handing over power?
Speaker:I've said this in many podcasts over the years.
Speaker:Then let's hear it.
Speaker:One more time from nature who says somebody must be to blame.
Speaker:But you yourself are this somebody, yourself alone are to blame for it.
Speaker:You yourself alone.
Speaker:Uh, to blame for your self.
Speaker:And when Marie unpacks this, when Douglas Maryann packs that idea, he says that
Speaker:once you moved from resentment, once you moved from jealousy, once you moved
Speaker:from blame, he says, what it does is it tends to unlock a huge amount of energy.
Speaker:Because all that energy that's been focused on other people and
Speaker:on other people causing problems.
Speaker:Is suddenly released and unleashed into the world.
Speaker:I really liked that idea.
Speaker:I think it's a very powerful one that as we move from blame to
Speaker:responsibility, this energy is unleashed.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's it for me today.
Speaker:Uh, let me know what you think.
Speaker:Like if you think it's crazy, I hit the link here, come across to the
Speaker:YouTube version and put a comment.
Speaker:Cause I'm going to a YouTube version of this in a moment.
Speaker:Or just email me direct jonathan@jonathandoyledotcodotcojonathanatjonathandoyle.co.
Speaker:That's J O N a T H a n@jonathandoyle.com.
Speaker:God, bless your friends.
Speaker:Please make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:Go and check out all the other links.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:This has been the daily podcast.
Speaker:Andy, you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.
