157 Arthur Kwon Lee: Masculine Romanticism

Please note: This track may include some explicit language. "All the ancestors before us refer to beauty as the sacred. They regard to that as pure beauty. You should get chills when you really feel beauty." Arthur Kwon Lee was named 'Artist of the Year' in 2020. Six months later was blacklisted for not subscribing to woke ideology. Since then he's become the artist of "don't tread of me" masculine virtue. We discuss culture and reality paradigms, anarchism vs statism, rites of passage, sacredness of beauty, and the creative unconscious in art.

Transcript

All right,

Mr.

Lee,

Welcome.

Happy to meet you.

Thanks for having me on,

Everyone.

For sure.

Yeah,

So I found out about you pretty recently.

I've been off of Instagram for a year.

I got back on a couple of weeks ago and I saw that a lot of the people I follow kept mentioning you.

I was looking through their last year of posts briefly.

I thought that was interesting,

People like Daryl Cooper,

Who's my favorite podcaster.

I was wondering why everyone was mentioning a visual artist.

It just seemed out of nowhere.

Then I look into your story,

Saw how you're blacklisted and how you're in a sense,

A cultural,

Like a pivotal point,

At least your story.

I thought it was really interesting.

I've been following your sub stack since.

Yeah,

I'm super happy to speak with you.

So thanks again for coming on.

Absolutely,

Rowan.

I think the commonality you're seeing in all these different people that we,

Like-minded diggers in the spaces,

We all believe in this sort of masculine excellence,

Which today implies sort of being a defector of the dominant narrative.

That is what it is to be a man today.

So whether it's through the arts or history like Daryl or yourself,

That's kind of the nerve that's being hit right now.

Yeah,

For sure.

So I have a lot to ask you about culture,

But just for everyone who doesn't know,

Could you at least take us through the story from being artist of the year to being blacklisted?

Absolutely.

So in the traditional fine arts sphere,

You're really looking at New York City,

London and Hong Kong.

And of course there's galleries everywhere,

But that's really the epicenter.

And I was in that world.

I was invited into that world through this residency program through this woman by the name of Eileen Kaminsky.

She's one of the big collectors,

Top collectors,

Hot collectors in Jersey and New York especially.

And she saw my work and I was one of the youngest artists ever invited to this residency program.

And me being invited to the residency got a lot of spotlight attention on to me.

And because of that,

A lot of galleries wanted to work with me to stand the other.

But something you'll realize today,

And it's going to be very revealing,

Is that the further you move up in the ladder and the fine arts,

I can speak for the fine art dimension,

But I know many other artistic mediums and that in their world having very similar analogous themes,

The more they want you to be compromised or one way or the other because the radical left has taken over the arts.

And what I discovered was as I was in that sphere,

I was getting all the solo exhibitions.

And that's what you want as a painter.

But in the same breath,

I was having to build up more and more social camouflage.

So that's antithetical to being what an artist is,

Which is not really giving a fuck.

And that's where I felt really at odds because I'm here excavating work that is genuinely deep for myself and trying to build up this voice whilst at the same time censoring myself.

And so there's a public and personal dissonance that's occurring.

And eventually what occurred is I was awarded artist of the year in 2020,

Right before COVID hit the pandemic.

And at that time I was concerned with six very hot art galleries.

So I was exhibiting in Art Basel,

I've shown in Berlin,

Hong Kong,

All across the circuit.

And when people discovered I was a Donald Trump supporter,

Even though that's 2016,

Things ventriculated up in conjunction to the fact that when I was being asked certain questions by White Hot Magazine or certain critics,

I would basically push back the wokeism that they were suggesting.

Whether they're suggesting that I depict more LGBTQ figures or whatever it is,

I would always say,

Why?

You know,

The absurdity and what happened,

One plus one,

Obviously it's two.

And people have heard the story in every field in every degree,

But it's crazy when it actually happens to you.

I know,

I know that's an anecdotal add on,

But when it actually happens to you,

You realize that because we have handed over all the channels of creativity to the postmodernist and the radical left,

We're at this point where,

You know,

They can Thanostat you.

If you're a creative person who does believe in the West,

Once it's preserved tradition or believes in God,

Or once it points upwards with their artistry.

And that's what I came to realize.

So now I'm in this transition phase.

It's crazy.

It's within,

Within six months I won artist of the year and was blacklisted,

Like you said.

So it just goes to show the hypocrisy.

And now I'm at a point where I need to learn.

I'm kind of on the baby step stage again,

I'm learning how to be independent as an artist because I got all the veneration because of my skillset.

But now I'm at the point where I need to sever ties with the Leviathan altogether.

Yeah.

It's interesting because like,

As you said,

I think everyone's perception generally is that artists represent like some sort of truth that is like separate from culture.

And actually what you're describing,

I don't know if you saw my background,

I was in a cult briefly.

It was the same thing,

It's like the higher ranking you got,

It's like,

Here are all these benefits,

All this status you get,

But you have to further and further follow ideology.

You have to further and further like pledge allegiance to the dogma in order to keep your status.

And it sounds like you're basically seeing cult dynamics in maybe every artistic medium.

Yeah.

I mean,

You've got to understand that.

Let me distill this,

And this applies for any artistic medium,

By the way,

But in the fine art sphere,

There's really five galleries that run the whole art world.

And that's Marion Goodman Gallery,

Hosmer and Wirth,

David Zwirn and Gagosian and Pace.

So that's an extremely exclusive and powerful position to be in.

And if they are the ones who have basically,

In conjunction with the two auction houses,

South of East and Christie's,

If you're running all of that,

That's so much power and influence.

They're not going to give that up.

They're not going to just give that to anyone unless you're either compromised or part of the same ideological club.

That's not how the game works.

That's the only way you'll be able to be into that club.

Now,

I wasn't in that circle.

I was right below it.

So I was enough to hang out with certain,

The schmoozing and understanding the nepotism associated with it.

But you got to understand,

They're not going to give somebody like Beyonce or all these people,

They have hundreds of millions of followers.

They're not going to give all that branding and those channels of exposure and let you just be a free speech agent.

That's not how it would work.

That's where they are.

So it sounds like,

I mean,

You were maybe close to piercing that level,

But you didn't pass the ideology test,

Basically.

I had sushi with a couple of those guys.

We'll put it that way.

Okay.

Fair enough.

I was curious,

Was your blacklisting of like,

It wasn't explicit,

Right?

It wasn't like Arthur is no longer allowed here.

It was kind of just a friend group you're talking to?

You don't get a letter.

I'll put it that way.

Then send you a formal letter.

Hey,

We don't like how you're a conservative.

We don't like how you believe that conservatives make better art.

Like I've said,

Things like that.

It's more of a fact that the higher up you go,

If you're able to sell your work for X value,

My paintings go for quite a bit and I had that track record,

But the reason why is because the higher up you go,

The more you're going to be able to have that sort of audience and collect your base.

But it becomes more and more exclusive.

That's all it is.

It's very small.

I mean,

I essentially not only severed ties and burned bridges,

I stuck my middle finger when I left because I realized that today what I love about being an artist,

It's basically was this idea of creating aesthetic standards that points towards a hierarchical universality.

I know that sounded like a word salad,

But essentially what you see today is a promotion of relativism.

That's the same spirit behind political correctness,

Social justice.

It's the idea that it's all social deconstructionism.

It removes hierarchy.

It removes order and it removes any semblance of pointing towards a deeper truth.

Ideally,

The artist is a spiritual servant,

Actually.

That's when they produce most powerfully.

My actual diagnosis that I've repeated on a couple of stages is that my hypothesis,

Ruwan,

Is that in the absence of artists trying to produce the culture's morality and preserve the sacred,

In the absence of that,

The state will come in and utilize a creative class for propaganda.

History will show that repeatedly.

I believe that we're in that phase right now,

But we just are not noticing it.

It's kind of like pimping.

They come out and try to take what's natural from you.

Yeah.

Because it's kind of like,

I mean,

All the things you're saying,

They're detaching art from nature,

Essentially,

Whereas you're trying to reconnect with something objective or true,

Right?

Beauty.

Beauty.

Yeah.

I mean,

When I say the word beauty,

What do you think?

What's the first connotation that comes to your head?

Well,

Something attractive,

But real.

I mean,

I think of like nature and I think of women who are also part of nature.

Okay.

So that's fine.

But it's showing how much decadence has been normalized even in your system.

And you're better than most obviously just by reading your content.

But when most men,

When I say the word beauty,

Most people,

They get the word beauty confused with hotness.

You know what I mean?

And in other words,

If I say beauty,

You probably thought of ranking a woman in a one to 10 rating scale or something of that sort.

But when you look at all the ancients,

When you look at every culture and you look at all the ancestors before us,

They always referred to beauty as the sacred.

And that's something we've lost touch with.

They regarded that as pure beauty.

So you should get chills when you really feel beauty.

You shouldn't blush.

This is a short term pleasure modality,

But beauty is a long-term delayed gratification understanding of social cohesion associated with those aesthetics.

And that's really what's important.

That's the ideal form of art.

That's interesting because I haven't thought about it with art,

But I have noticed,

For instance,

With comedy.

When I was a kid,

It seemed like every comedian was liberal.

Especially during the George W era,

Every funny person was left-leaning.

And then over the last 10,

15 years,

It seems to have swung the other way.

And there's probably a lot of explanations,

But one seems to be that what makes us laugh,

It doesn't really matter what the social construct is.

There's a certain thing that's very primal that makes us laugh.

And if society swings too far in either direction,

The comedians point us back.

And it sounds like you're saying something similar with art.

The thing that gives you chills can't be socially constructed.

It's something God-giving is like within us.

Yeah,

It's intrinsic.

Well,

Let me say,

Ruan,

When I'm talking about art,

I may be a painter,

But we can talk about any medium specificity.

Like comedy,

I believe is one of our most important art forms today for that reason.

I think they are our first in line creative warriors because de facto,

What a comedian is an agent of free speech automatically.

That's what you are just by being in the art,

You believe in free speech.

So next you want to hope that they believe in also the right to be arms in the family,

Because there's those three fundamental pillars beyond all the useless debate.

I don't waste my time talking to anyone who doesn't believe in these three,

But comedians at least acknowledge the first pillar just by being a comedian.

So even if they're liberal comedians,

I would say if they are comedians that believe in cancel culture,

They're never funny anyways.

Trevor Noah,

Amy Schumer,

These people aren't actually funny.

And then the jury is a public square,

Right?

Yeah.

But could you say the three pillars again?

Freedom of speech,

The right to bear arms in the family.

If people don't believe in these three,

Then I don't waste my time conversing with them because they're basically telling me that they want to deconstruct.

They just want to break down everything in a world of negation because that's just fundamental for me.

I don't even waste my time talking to people if they don't acknowledge those three pillars anymore.

Yeah.

Actually one thing that's,

I don't know if this is always true about the conservative side of speech,

But I have noticed it more because as I've become more conservative,

As I've gotten older,

I have tried to check myself.

Maybe in another 10 years,

I'll go back to being a liberal.

How should I know?

But the one thing that's different that I do notice is that at least in modern times,

Conservatives don't try to silence their opposition.

I don't agree with everything Ben Shapiro says.

In fact,

I disagree with a lot of it,

But he doesn't try to silence his opposition.

He might make fun of them.

He might drop the mic on them a few times,

But he doesn't try to quiet,

Silence them.

Whereas his opponents try to silence him.

And it's like,

Well,

Those are two very different things as opposed to just like making fun of or debating the other side.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well,

Let me first say,

I mean,

I'm not even a conservative.

A lot of people often think I am because I use that word a lot because there's a lot of conservative values that I uphold.

I'm actually an anarchist,

But I do vote right because at the moment that's the only game in town.

So I'm an anarchist that votes right.

Let me first say that.

But I will say though that I am also a man of God and that's important to me.

And as a person who believes in a higher order,

There's only one side that is blatant and shameless about their sin.

And the Democrat party is a party of sin today.

I'm not saying forever.

I'm not saying always because the classical liberal 60 years ago was like basically a conservative today in many regards,

As they say,

Because the social climate has changed.

Those are terminologies we're playing with.

But today,

When I look at the property damage and the assaults and the vandalism and the cognitive dissonance,

I just see the left.

And of course,

Liberals and leftists are,

I understand we can separate them,

But we have to at least acknowledge that the primary villains who are being utilized as tools for the dark one,

They're on the left.

They've spoken up for themselves at this point.

So that's even beating a dead horse to say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

Just the contradictions.

And I guess,

I mean,

Maybe this is like inevitable for any philosophy that really tries to detach from objectivity.

Like eventually you end up contradicting yourself if you're getting lost with like identity words and changing definitions,

Like even someone with like really good intentions is going to get tripped up because that ideology doesn't match reality.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So you can speak a little bit on anarchism because a lot of people have different definitions of it.

Could you share what being an anarchist means to you?

See,

It's interesting because I have these two parallel roads that brought me towards anarchism and in the first part is I believe to be an actual Christian,

You have to be an anarchist.

So I don't believe you can be a Christian and be a Democrat.

I don't care if this person says they believe in God and where they were in Jesus chain because they're normalizing sin ultimately.

And they're voting that in.

I believe that Jesus was an anarchist.

That's one component of it,

But without getting into the,

I mean,

Because the state is the one that crucified him,

But without getting into all the Bible thumping,

It's all,

It's for me,

It's just a matter of the fact that I think all the solutions,

I think so many things will be solved with collateral damage,

But by cutting off welfare and welfare state is essentially the single motherhood state.

And the reason why there are no fathers today is because we're incentivizing women to marry the government and most,

And a large percentage of our taxes go to feeding the hypergamous nature in the feminine psyche.

And my predilection towards anarchism is more about putting things back to order by natural order without the government bringing their hand into the picture.

I think that's a sort of long-winded non picturesque way of explaining it,

If that makes a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause I mean,

I've had other,

I believe people are way more circumstantial.

I believe people are way more circumstantial than I don't think we're these fully rational cognitive people that I know exactly what I want to do.

And this is how I want to live my life.

And I'm going to conduct my world this way.

I think we go with so many impulses.

We have so many things that,

That are out of our control and so much of that is circumstantial and those circumstances are often based on the type of institutions that we surround ourselves with.

And I think that is what that's the power of the stealing our money.

You know,

Taxation is forced essentially.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause actually with my history research and actually my last episode on my history podcast was basically on this and how in order to create big nation states or city states,

Initially,

They had to take power away from fathers kind of necessarily because you know,

If the father was completely leading his family,

Then the state doesn't have any authority.

So they had to kind of like yeah,

Make men a little bit more impotent in order to get everybody to follow the same ideology or a group identity.

And yeah.

So the obvious the last time humans were pure,

It was pre-civilization essentially when it was families running themselves essentially.

Absolutely.

You know,

Fathers are the bedrock of any civilization,

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

I think that look I understand that there's like a pure side where people,

You know,

I,

I mean,

I have a sentiment that will say,

I understand,

You know,

Pure anarchism,

You know we need some certain programs.

One is that and the other.

I think my anarchism is also backed by a certain idealism,

You know?

But I understand that.

I don't know if we can ever get to that point fully.

I actually can be convinced and to not believe that totally,

But we're just so far away from even having a remote conversation of that texture.

So I'd rather just sit here and just be a walking trigger.

Yeah.

It seems,

And I spoke about this with Jack Donovan when he was on the podcast,

Cause he has the idea of the perimeter,

Which I really love.

I've kind of been reframing,

Like,

You know,

Being a new father,

I think of everything in terms of perimeters.

But it's like the only way we could really go back to like the immediate perimeter of the family is basically if there's some sort of apocalypse,

Right?

Cause there's no way like States are just going to give up control.

There's no way people would want to be in charge of their own family and have to deal with their own security without some sort of external protection.

Right.

Well,

For anybody,

Even,

Even me,

But,

Uh,

Another,

Another way is,

Is,

Is for,

Um,

Men of truth and good men to develop a mean streak.

And I know it sounds like a hate preaching thing,

But it is very important if we're going to survive or,

Or maintain our,

Our values at this stage of the game,

That we embrace rational intolerance.

This is something that I really believe because the problem today is that we accept everything we accept.

Men and women can get married.

I mean,

If men and women can be interchangeable as genders,

They can,

The same sex can marry each other.

You know,

Children are being exposed to drag queen and the LGBTQ agenda is normalizing pedophilia.

The elite is literally trafficking children and it gets swept right under the rug by the mainstream media.

I mean,

We're just fine and dandy with everything.

So long as you know,

We get home and we can watch your internet pornography and,

And either a,

Our McDonald's or whatever the fuck it is,

You know?

So I just know that we need to have a little bit more intolerance and I don't mean intolerance of races because everyone's going to jump to that.

I don't mean anything,

A demagogic,

I mean,

Intolerance of degeneracy.

We need to have pride in that disgust of it.

And I know that sounds harsh and maybe disgust is too rough of a word,

But I also do believe that it's time that we start to,

Uh,

Toughen our letter a little bit because what I see as a problem is men keep apologizing for their natural innate ability to have aggression and capitalizing and utilize it into a pursuit.

I keep seeing men forgive,

Apologize for that.

And what that does is it makes them live under the psychology of the matriarch,

Which I believe we live under right now.

Yeah,

Actually I wanted to ask you this in like in regards to art,

But I think this ties in on how I,

Many people are culturalists.

I think,

All right,

So I speak to a lot of young men who are dealing with issues and a lot of them are confused because there's so many different ideologies,

Like the ones that you just mentioned pushed by modern culture that make a man apologetic for his natural instincts.

And then there's competing ones.

And I see a lot of young guys,

It's just,

There's so many moral frameworks to follow.

They just,

They get overwhelmed.

They don't know how to be or what to do or what the truth is.

And it makes me think of like,

Again,

In a perfect pre-civilization world,

Each person's tribe had a very defined culture.

We are the whatever people,

This is our mythology,

This is our art,

Everything else is different from us.

And obviously there are some negatives with that,

Right?

Like maybe you deny a useful truth from an outside culture,

But there wasn't like this kind of existential questioning of what is right or what should I do with myself?

What should I do with myself as a man because your father,

Your grandfather's basically told you that.

And,

You know,

Obviously extremes can be negative,

But I am seeing like we're so far in the acceptance realm of every single kind of moral framework that so many people like are basically,

They don't know what to do with themselves.

They don't even know which way is up.

Yeah,

I think the modern man needs to experience the archetype of the flood,

This idea that there are forces and elements beyond you that will be daunting and that you cannot comfortably retreat in autopilot against.

And I think that we're so,

We believe that we can just intellectually package everything and have this pitchy job.

And without understanding that at the end of the day,

The elements and the inner elements are actually rather out of your control.

You can control as much as you can with this.

And of course you should have discipline to have your wits about it,

But there are way too many pussies.

That's just the bottom line of it,

You know?

And I think where was I going with this?

The flood?

Yes.

There needs to be something that's beyond our comfort that shows us that there are patterns that have been passed down pedagogically.

And that is the point of the flood.

The flood is that eventually you're going to one day find yourself lost in the woods or lost in the ocean,

Whatever it is.

Lost in nature,

Lost not in your own civilized sensibility.

You'll find yourself there eventually.

And when you do,

If you are lost in the forest and then you see a trail that is built with 10,

000 footsteps,

Suddenly your anxiety goes down.

It's probably your best way out.

This idea that there's tradition passed down and there's a preservation associated with it and it is our job birthright as men,

Which is why you started your subset,

Which is why you have this podcast,

Which is why I'm talking to you right now.

It is our birthright,

Your responsibility as men.

You don't get a award for this.

You don't get a trophy.

It's a mandate.

It's a birthright that you have and a responsibility as a man to care and maintain social cohesion by passing down these traditions and often creating a modern version of it so that the young people can channel the ritual defines aggression into,

Which is important strategically too.

But I think that's what it is.

All these different things that are being offered to you,

All the answers are actually in the ancients.

Strangely enough,

If you want to go forward,

You have to look back.

Yeah.

I mean,

Like the flood,

It makes me think of like the ancient rites of passage that kind of humbled a young man.

So he could focus his hubris or his strength on something.

And then on the flip side,

You have like the modern statism slash consumerism that basically is trying to control everything,

Like every kind of discomfort is trying to be controlled.

I mean,

I don't know if this is anyway,

We're talking about controversial stuff anyway,

But I just had a baby.

That's what we should be talking about.

Yeah,

We should.

Right.

I've noticed like,

It's a touchy subject when people,

Especially women,

I guess,

Speak about natural versus unnatural birth.

I'm not against unnatural birth.

My wife and I opted for natural for various reasons that maybe are obvious now.

But like just the idea that there's some people who are trying to control every single element of childbirth,

Which is the most natural thing.

Right.

And it's supposed to hurt.

I mean,

I know I'm saying this as a man,

But like,

That is natural,

Right?

There's certain parts like my daughter right now is teething.

It's supposed to hurt.

There's no way to get through having teeth without some pain in your face.

And that's just how it's supposed to be.

Whereas I even noticed this in myself of like growing up in a consumerist culture,

There's kind of this embedded value that there's some way I can make everything comfortable.

Like,

I mean,

Even as a father,

I'm like,

Oh,

There must be some way I could prevent her teeth from hurting.

But like,

No,

No,

Millions of people have existed where their teeth hurt when they get teeth.

Like that's just how it goes.

Like you're not supposed to avoid that pain.

And I think that's something that's increasingly being lost by our cultural assumptions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

That this is a matter of men not having a rite of passage because if you study all these,

You know,

Iron John books by Robert Moore,

There's all these books about a rite of passage that was sort of a classic theme in the development of a culture.

And one thing that's often shared is that comfort is actually often what,

I mean,

There's certain types of comfort.

I,

They also classified it,

But there's,

There's a comfort that is,

Is the comfort is responsible for a lot of the fear that we have,

You know,

Because the opposite of comfort is actually courage.

So it doesn't mean the fear dissipates,

But often comfort is what,

You know,

Loads us into this false sense of security and weakness that allows the Mongols to take us over.

So of course,

You know,

If you're,

You know,

If your significant other is cooking you a delicious meal,

Don't be like,

I don't want that.

No,

I mean,

We're not saying to be unreasonable,

But it's important that you do not allow comfort to waive your discipline.

That's really what it is because life should be enjoyed.

And look,

I have a side of me that indulges and loves my cigars and,

And loves my whiskey.

And when I'm painting,

I often feel like I am in a different tunnel vision in my own world often it is,

And it has moments of immense pleasure,

But it's important that we always understand that we don't,

We don't allow that.

We don't get comfortable in the high of it.

You know what I mean?

And I think nature teaches you that.

And the fact that,

Listen,

You have my man,

I mean,

You have,

You have a,

You have a child now,

So that's going to be a,

I don't know,

A forced awakening.

Yeah.

I mean,

You know,

Cause I've had various theories about how a man should be and whatnot,

But having a kid like really puts the theory into practice,

Like this is why,

You know,

Men need to be strong.

It's not just for fun and talking about it online.

It's like,

Yeah,

When you have dependence.

I want to ask you about,

I want to ask you about religion because I saw,

Obviously you said you're Christian.

I think you've done a series of paintings with Christian themes,

But I also saw you had a series of on Jungian themes.

I don't know if they're related.

I've traveled.

Okay.

Well,

I guess I'm curious.

I mean,

I don't know if I have a specific question,

But how these different cultures you put into art.

And I guess one idea that came to mind when I read about this,

Your Jungian series is like,

I read this article a while ago by Jungian analyst who said that everybody basically thinks of the mind based on Freud's ideas,

Just because he was the first person to come up with it,

Even if we disagree with him.

And then Freud himself,

Even though he was an atheist,

He was influenced by being born Jewish,

Living in a Christian culture.

His view of reality was monotheist.

So his view of the mind kind of mirrored the holy Trinity,

Like id,

Ego,

Superego.

And Hillman was arguing that one of Jung's contributions is that he went even further back in time and he applied a polytheistic view to the mind.

We have archetypes and different forces as opposed to like one unified mind or one Trinity.

And I guess I'm curious what you think about that as having kind of extracted the essence of input into a visual form.

I'm curious what you've come across or what that sounds like to you.

Very interesting question.

Well,

Let me say that I believe Jung is the successful predecessor,

Obviously,

As many people do,

Not just because he evolved his ideas,

But Jung understood that in the same way,

Freud mentioned the unconscious,

But he just looks at it as a sexual unconscious.

But Jung was able to understand that that sexual primal unconscious it's undergirded by a larger collective unconscious.

And there's so many tools now for us to navigate that realm,

But I've had my face with psychedelics,

But which I don't recommend anymore,

But my exploration into all these different religious aesthetics and themes in many ways,

Looking back,

I was unintentionally,

Unconsciously,

Maybe in a maybe a Freudian way,

I was sort of doing this weird pagan sort of exercise of looking for different universalities to point towards the logos.

I think that's what I was doing.

And I think that was me just try to touch that,

Touch that space.

And the reason why I'm being a lot more blatant in my Christian approach right now,

Even though I think that Christianity in the West has to get their balls back.

And I think that most churches today are transgender Christianity.

But that said,

The original inception of what Christianity,

Their main market,

You know,

In the last 2000 years,

I think it's the original Western archetype in many ways.

It's foundational.

So it's just always my belief.

It's almost me recognizing that it's no coincidence.

And I'm going to speak as an artist here,

That all the greatest masterpieces throughout history are undergirded by religious subject matter.

That's not a coincidence.

And don't look at a professor's theoretical bias from what they write.

Don't read these theoretical textbooks.

Look at history picture books.

Liz Gardner,

Howard,

What is it?

Howard Gardner.

Yeah,

Howard Gardner's,

I think the classic art history textbook were just pictures and a timeline and dates.

And this is not a matter of education.

Your gut can tell.

You look at the Pieta,

You know,

And you look at the levitated mass in Lachma.

And that's a modern work of art that's regarded as our greatest sculptural feat.

It's like literally a postmodern giant rock that they just found in a volcano.

And you look at the Pieta and it's chiseled marble that looks just like drapery with all the symbolically chosen distinct decisions that imply a lot about the human condition.

Obviously one is at a higher level,

Right?

So that's just your gut.

If you look at art with an honest and vulnerable analytical approach,

You know,

Be vulnerable in front of the art because you're gazing at it.

You know,

It's not going to look at you back,

Although it is,

But it's not,

You know,

It's a mirror.

But if you look at all this,

If you look at the greatest art,

It's always religious in nature.

And it's not because they're trying to be Bible thumpers.

It's not because they're fundamentalists.

It's because they're trying to bring back reverence.

And that's supposed to be sort of the role of artists often is to maintain the unconscious scaffolding with beauty,

Like I said earlier.

So I think I just went on a long tangent there without answering your question,

My friend.

That's great.

Actually,

I'm curious now about your,

I mean,

I don't know.

But that's why I looked into Buddhism,

Christianity,

All this stuff.

I mean,

I personally,

I am a Christian,

But I wouldn't say many churches,

Especially in the East Coast,

In the blue states would befriend me.

They wouldn't,

They'd probably say I'm a blasphemous Christian,

Even though I believe I'm more of a Christian than many of these people,

Because I see,

And I want to write a sub stack about this,

Actually.

I'm driving around looking for another,

A base church I can communion with.

And I see all these rainbow flags and black power fists that are higher than the cross.

And I did not believe that is a mistake.

I think that was as an actual declaration that the religion of the left has conquered the religion of Christ here in the blue states.

So I do believe that Christianity,

If it is to survive,

Again,

Has to be willing to understand that we need to bring the spirit of St.

Michael and carry the sword with the cross.

And we need to be able to point to those and say,

No,

As Christians,

We do not support vaccine mandates.

We do not believe in abortion.

We do not believe in homosexuality.

We do not believe in the state.

Like these are very Christian things.

And if you look at the church fathers,

They're very blatant about their position.

And I think that today the church is all about inclusivity to the point where they're negating their own market of what Christianity actually is.

And we've actually forgotten what it actually is.

Isn't that why though there's been so many schisms in Christianity,

I mean,

From Catholicism and I mean,

Throughout history,

The history of Christianity,

There's been all of these splits.

Like,

Could you argue that now in the pandemic era,

It's just another split?

There's the Christians who think like you,

And then there's the leftist Christians,

And these are just going to be different denominations in a hundred years?

I mean,

The based ones,

And again,

Some of them are up for arguing depending on where,

Because it's a little bit of a mixed bag,

But the base ones are basically the Orthodox guys,

The Catholics,

The Lutherans,

And some Presbyterians.

But a lot of the other denominations,

They become a tribe of cowards.

They don't actually,

They go to church to sing their hymns,

But they're essentially just social clubs for people to get together and say we're spiritual.

And often when people tell me they're spiritual and often it's like,

That could mean so many things.

Does that mean you have to be specific when it comes to your language?

If you actually care about structural articulating your notion of what religion is,

You know,

Which is religion is simply a way of seeing a way of seeing the world,

A vision of the world and how you interpret the truth.

They have to be more specific than that.

And the problem today with most people who regard themselves as spiritual,

What they're actually saying is they have this as their highest sentimentality,

Their highest truth is this undifferentiated,

Miasmic blending of all things in the soup of love.

We're all one.

And there's truth that we are all one,

But what is a pragmatic utilization of the information for us to actually have action with it?

Like what is the,

What does that do for the family?

What does,

What is the benefit of that information?

It's almost like me saying like everything is up.

That's a useless statement.

It is deep experientially,

But what is the,

As men,

We have to start thinking about what,

What is the practical side of this information and what I,

What I originally liked about the church,

Because I became a Christian through my own.

I didn't talk to some evangelist.

You know what I mean?

I was raised Christian.

I was raised Christian.

My father's a pastor,

But,

But there,

There,

There,

He's more of,

Um,

When I,

When I,

When I became an atheist,

I became an atheist and he told me he'll pray for me.

But when I became a Christian,

I became a Christian.

This has been my own journey.

You see what I'm saying?

So I think it's important to,

Um,

I just see so many problems.

It's very frustrating seeing the state of the modern church and it's no coincidence that just seeing even the rainbow,

The rainbow,

Um,

Robes that are being worn in churches today by the head,

By the senior pastor,

You know,

It's,

It's,

They've lost any sense of their boundaries.

That's written in the scripture,

By the way.

Yeah,

It does seem,

I mean,

I'm not particularly religious,

Actually I'm not religious,

But it does seem that perhaps what's happening in the churches is the same thing that's happened with tech companies where whether or not,

I mean,

It seems like maybe the leaders didn't really have a strong ideological foundation.

So when the,

When the population,

When the user base seemed to be shifting a certain way,

They just morphed themselves kind of like a wishing,

Washing politician.

Would you say that?

Yeah,

I think,

I think too many ministers today are like politicians.

I think,

Um,

Like I'm not an Orthodox Christian,

But one thing I really like about the Orthodox ministers is you have to be a bad-ass.

You have to be willing to go within and almost in your own mind,

Go through like a heavy,

Like almost like the experience of like a bad side of the road trip without the drugs,

Like being able to look at yourself as Lucifer himself and a rapist and a pedophile and all these sins and embody him and understand how to see through it.

Like they don't do the work.

They don't do the spiritual work to understand if somebody like that comes to your congregation,

How are you going to cast that out?

Right?

They don't,

They don't do that actual work.

And I think it's because they haven't actually,

Um,

I,

I,

I can hang out more with atheists than modern church Christians,

You know,

And I'm speaking as a Christian,

But if you're going to talk about actual Christians who understand that our goal in life is to be in one way a martyr.

In other words,

Your goal in life as a Christian is to,

If you don't make any enemies of the Christian,

If death does not find you unscarred,

Then you sort of did not live a full life as a Christian.

And that was the actual notion of it.

So there's like this warrior,

Uh,

Streak in Christianity that I don't see today.

But if you just,

If you look at some of our Orthodox and Lutheran brothers,

I mean,

They're,

They're pretty cool.

It kind of sounds like the line in Fight Club.

I don't,

I don't want to make it through life without a few scars.

I never,

Never,

Never thought that would apply to Christianity.

So that's interesting.

Um,

Actually I want to go back to,

You've been,

You've been seeing a homo Christianity,

I'm telling you.

They're the ones on TV.

Right.

I want to go back to the,

Your artistic process.

Cause you're speaking about Jung and the collective unconscious and it might be hard to articulate.

Uh,

But I was wondering if you could maybe walk us through like,

How do you create a painting or like,

What is your relationship with this reverence that makes you like from conception to ink,

Uh,

You know,

Paint on the canvas and what are you experiencing?

Maybe you could shine some light on it.

So first thing is,

Um,

I get a great amount of inspiration from museums.

I don't go to galleries.

These are the living people who are trying to,

Uh,

You know,

Uh,

Often there's an idea ideology associated with it.

And often when it's a very strong ideology,

Then it contaminates the actual authentic creative source.

Uh,

That's what ideologies tend to do to a lot of,

Um,

Artists.

So I don't go to galleries.

I go to museums and museums is our way.

You see this repository of mastery and wisdom.

And that's where I'm really humbled and checked.

I always go to museum as a student and I go as,

As,

As a person who knows that I will never be able to reach the height of some of these masterpieces here.

And that gives me a lot of formalistic inspiration.

So in the process of creation,

Whether it's playing guitar,

Whether it's painting,

Whether it's comedy,

Whether it's acting,

Or it doesn't matter,

There's always two elements when it comes to creating there's formalism,

Which is the actual aesthetics,

Which is the,

The experience to the senses,

The tonality,

The volume,

The composition,

And there's contextualism.

Contextualism is the information and the context,

The message,

If you will,

Even if art doesn't have a message,

You're still at a different type of context,

Right?

There's always formalism and contextualism when it comes to the creative process.

So my formalism is just me being humbled by masters before me that,

That I'm just always in awe of,

You know,

Like there's this,

There's so much beautiful art out there.

And I go to museums regularly,

Ruan,

That's a big part of my life.

I'll,

I'll,

I'll fly out to a different country to spend a week just going inside of a huge museum.

And then,

And then the second half is the contextualism for me.

It is,

It used to be more philosophers,

But now it's just people who are pro freedom thinkers in one way or the other.

And I'm sort of trying to fuse them.

And I don't want to sound so Joe Rogany,

But I don't know if that's an adjective.

It is though.

But,

But there's so many thinkers that all over the map that influenced me.

So while I'm looking at these aesthetic standards of the masters,

Whatever is in my life that inspires me or makes me learn something new about the universe or others or a philosophy that interests me.

And to take,

To paraphrase an excerpt from Leonardo's personal diary,

He wrote that the secret to creativity is to stay curious.

That is how you will be consistently creative because you will get inspiration in that milieu of curiosity.

And you can be curious while being very masculine.

It doesn't mean you're like some little baby that's dwindling and a quaking mess and can't have their own wits about them,

But you have to be understand that in order to be perspicacious,

You have to be curious if you want to be able to receive information in a way that is childlike,

Not childish,

Right?

Like able to take it in,

In a sort of pure way that the ones that really hit you are going to strike something like,

I want to do something with that.

And that's sort of,

That fusion is where I create from often.

And the actual technical side though,

Is I then do a shitload of sketching.

Sketchbooks drawing,

Charcoal drawings,

Pen and ink.

I have binders and thick sketchbooks that go up that are taller than me that are just me just drawing,

Drawing,

Drawing,

Drawing,

Drawing.

And then often when I'm hung up on a certain theme,

I'll just be doodling and drawing to the nth degree until I feel like this is enough of a composition and enough of a blueprint for me to feel like I need to paint now,

Otherwise the fire is going to dwindle because they all have a timeline too.

It's not like I have to make haste,

But they all have a different,

They all have a different degree that they're being cooked at depending on the density of it.

And that's when I have to,

You know,

Lightning strikes you,

I have to create.

So then I'll go into it and the actual color theory,

The actual mark making that's in conjunction to the figures that you see in my compositions,

That is spontaneous.

That happens on the spot and that's the experimental phase,

But the actual sketch of the figures and how they're posing,

The selection of the figures and the placement that is all drawn beforehand and actually paint everything in black and white first.

They're all monochromatic.

And then I go on with the color and that's where I often play.

So it's just using the cliche,

The yin and yang,

But it is a duality of me,

Me doing so much regimented technical drawing and using what my teachers have taught me,

My OGs have taught me technically speaking.

And then once that's mapped out,

I just jump in and play with color and no,

I'm going to throw paint here.

And that's kind of what I've been,

That's a long winded version,

But I need a shorter answer for that.

So I appreciate that.

I was curious about the longer process.

Another general thing I want to ask you about art.

So my next history episode covers the Greeks and how their culture,

Specifically winning over the Persians kind of set the tone of many things in Western culture by think specifically masculinity.

And one thing that I've been theorizing at least is that,

I mean,

There's a relationship between,

Or there's something interesting about how the Greeks are the only ancient culture with like big muscular statues that- Unapologetic masculinity.

Yeah.

At the very least shows that they celebrated muscles,

Which is,

I think just really interesting because there's so many warrior cultures where they just don't,

They're not muscular.

And I have different theories as to why that is.

I was curious about,

Well,

One,

What you think of that,

But also contemporary arts and contemporary masculinity.

And if you find yourself ever,

I know you speak about it and then you're a painter,

Is there anything that you think about when it comes to this or- Yeah.

I mean,

There's a lot I think about this.

I mean,

I'll first say that when you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

You go into the Greek hall.

I mean,

All of these figures,

They look like specimens.

Like there's a Hercules statue and people will think it's life-sized when they see a photo of it online.

No,

It's bigger than life-sized.

Like the dude's forearm is as big as my whole body here.

So it's like when you go see it in person,

You see this colossal figure that's sculpted perfectly and it's deep contrasted cheekbones and the jawline and the eyebrow.

And it looks so powerful and striking,

Almost animated.

And look,

The reason why even me describing it oscillates a little bit is because it is a dramatic composition and that's the point.

And the Greeks were well aware of that.

They wanted to stand out.

And like I said,

They had unapologetic masculinity and it's very.

.

.

You can learn a lot from them in that regard.

What was your second question?

About like translating that to modern times,

Like contemporary art,

Contemporary masculinity.

I don't know enough about art to like have any opinion or to have any sense,

But I was wondering if there's anything.

.

.

Well,

I'll tell you every time I have a collector visit the studio,

Every time a woman wants art,

This is just so far.

Of course it's not always,

But every time a woman has wanted art from me,

The spirit was more for something decorative.

I want something like an interior designer sort of feel.

I want it to fit the room,

Which is great because it better fit the room.

This is an important thing if you're going to try to make it fit the energy of the room.

You know,

This you're putting a landmark in your home,

I understand.

But whenever I have a man,

Most of my questions are men actually,

But whenever men want art,

They want something symbolic.

They want something that makes a statement.

And that goes to show you right there,

The different psychological temperament.

You know,

I mean,

It's not a coincidence.

If you look at my art,

It's very bold.

It's very striking.

It's very interfaced.

Now the evolution of my style is often changing,

But that quality is kind of.

.

.

Seems to be something that hasn't moved so much.

And it's not a coincidence that most of my collectors are a lot of military veterans,

MMA guys,

A lot of fighters,

You know,

It's a lot of cultural heroes,

You know,

Patriots,

Like these are all,

Lack of a better word,

Alpha males are the ones who often like my art.

And it's because men understand that the innate feeling I was telling you about,

A man can grow up with no father at home.

And so they still care about culture to the point that they commit crime.

You see what I'm saying?

It's like,

There's that feeling.

So that also applies to the art.

They want art that says something about the world and women often,

Not always,

But most of the time,

I don't want to put a number on it because I don't have the data,

But most of the time women want art that makes them feel something vague and it's decorative.

And like I said,

That's the pattern and patterns tell you story.

That's interesting because something I've been thinking about recently is so I was raised Catholic and Buddhist and I basically haven't been religious in anything since I was a kid.

But I have been thinking about like from a pragmatic side of things,

I can see how if you are the head of a household or if you're the leader of a family or a tribe or something,

If you're in an alpha male role,

Like actually people depend on you.

It's kind of useful to have like a belief in like a greater father,

Like the monotheistic view actually kind of serves like an alpha male more than other religions.

And I think they're all great.

I really like polytheistic religions and their message,

But specifically I think of this as me as a dad and like my father is old now,

So I don't really count on him for anything.

I'm kind of like in a sense,

Head of a family.

And that kind of gives me like,

I was like,

Oh shit,

There's nothing above me anymore.

Like if I don't believe in something,

I'm kind of just floating in space with these dependents where I'm seeing like,

And I just thought of this now because what you're saying,

Like,

Oh yeah,

If I were to decorate my home,

I would want it or put art in my home is a better way to put it.

I would want it to inspire me to feel that I had that greater,

Like I've been calling it a super perimeter on my podcast,

Like something bigger than me,

Like some other alpha masculine something that like contains me so I can contain my family.

Yeah.

It's a distillation that,

And,

And,

And an investment of an actual masterpiece in one's home,

The investment is insurmountable,

Man.

That energy permeates into the whole home because as you know,

Seeing art in person is a totally different experience than seeing it online or getting a print and a Prince Prince are there because in your home,

But having an original,

Especially when they're thick like mine,

Like my paintings are thick,

They're structural and the light,

When light hits it,

All the shadow pops out and you're like,

Fuck the living thing and the breathing.

Like when you have that in your home,

It forces you to acknowledge a certain spirit and you want to make sure that it's something that is morally in line with who you are.

And that's,

That actually explains why I became a man of God in a way,

Because,

You know,

For me,

It was a,

I was an atheist when I went to art school because I was surrounded because I was like the in thing to do also to call yourself an intellectual atheist,

Like the Dawkins,

I'm Harris sort of types and,

You know,

Sort of like lick-lipping sort of like I'm an intellectual,

That sort of thing.

And it's,

And it's funny because a couple of things were happening inside of me as I was blending again,

We'll call it.

And then the first thing that happened was that I realized this is just not satisfying.

It's not a satisfying way to spend a life that you only live once.

I mean,

Just to be like straight up,

You know,

That was a big part of it.

And then the second thing I couldn't sort of ameliorate is that you will not ever learn about morality from materialism and moral and material truth.

They're not synonymous.

And I couldn't help but understand,

Okay,

So archetypes,

The patterns,

The passed down wisdom,

However you identify them,

But there is a universality there that we are trying,

That man is always recognizing and pointing towards.

And which is why,

You know,

Joseph Campbell,

He said it in a much more general way to fully encompass all cultures.

He said,

Every culture has this notion of mother nature and father culture,

And you must carry the weight of your father.

And there's always been this notion,

You know?

And so when I start,

I mean,

I'm painting this up,

I'm exploring this stuff.

And as I was an atheist,

As this is all going on inside of my heart,

I always noticed that like a,

Like a pornographic fetish,

I'm like secretly looking at religious art,

You know what I mean,

Amongst my peers,

We're always,

You know,

We're always talking about how those stupid people who believe in God and they believe that in preserving the United States and anything that is of order,

You know,

And I'm like going back,

This is when I was lost,

We'll call it,

And I would go back home and I would just look at these illuminated manuscripts and be like,

Oh my God.

Like,

You know,

It's like,

And that's when it started to connect with me.

It's real.

And it's real as a,

It's first real as a pragmatic reality.

In other words,

It's so useful and it's so important for a culture that without it,

The culture will fall apart,

That it's real in that way.

It's almost like there's a ferryboat here and then there's an island here with exhausted resources and the boat that gets us to the other island is Judeo-Christian values,

Masculine romanticism and Greek reason.

And what happens is we've gotten here and now under the privilege without recognizing that it was undergirded to get here from these fundamental tenants,

We're going to hack it down and destroy those boats to show our triumph of a new place without recognizing that that island is eventually going to have exhausted resources.

And it's the folly of man,

You know,

Just like in the enlightenment,

Now we can be God.

You know,

We don't need to understand our primal nature and understand that,

You know,

That there's,

We can just be beyond it and believe it,

You know,

And that's something that I didn't really worry about,

But that's the inner battle in me that sort of made me realize these things,

Man.

And I know I keep answering too many separate questions,

But.

No,

No,

This is great.

Now I have like three questions off of that.

And these might be my last things I bring up because,

Well,

For one,

It sounds like you're saying when someone has a masterpiece in their home,

Or at least the way I'm picking it up now is it's like not just that you have something beyond you protecting you,

But it's also there's a stronger force that kind of forces you to be humble and like,

You know,

The idea of modern culture that we are God,

You know,

It's a lack of humility,

Obviously,

That eventually leads to like a sense,

Even if you don't believe in anything,

Even if you want to stay in rational,

Rational land,

You know,

It leads to a sense of dysphoria because we're not supposed to be floating in space without any reverence.

And I think,

I know you had an article recently on mass shooters.

I might be mixing it up with another mass shooter article,

But someone I've read recently was talking about how the epidemic of mass shooters,

Obviously is a crisis in masculinity,

But part of it comes from a lack of any kind of spiritual value from any kind of religion where it's,

You know,

If your life sucks,

Well,

Why don't you shoot up a school?

There's no reason not to all of it's kind of meaningless anyway.

But I mean,

Let me say something very important.

What happens is there's two things you just made me realize in my brain.

You're making me think of an old St.

Thomas Aquinas essay.

And he talks about how there's different ontological categories.

There's eight different ontological categories to understanding what,

How we interpret God in the human game.

And the first level,

It's all with just pictures,

First of all,

Very simple pictures like that,

Not even decorated.

And that is really for,

You know,

People who are not the most educated or not the highest like you.

And for them,

They should just believe it's just the man in the sky,

You know,

But if you talk to actual church fathers or read the essays of them,

None of them believe it's some old man in the sky.

That's not what God is.

God is the source of order.

And it's a source of truth and order and understanding that the fundamental bedrock of that,

Like it's more about God is more of the origin than anything.

And the Christian fathers understood this.

And that's what a lot of these essays actually denote.

I actually like reading the church fathers more than even the Bible,

But it's this idea that the source of order itself,

That is God.

You know,

They're using a straw man when they say,

Oh,

So you think God is an old man in the sky who is judging you as the actual,

As like a human ego or something.

And he actually created the world by separating light and dark and created the ocean in the next day.

And while you are breaking the structure down of you're acting like,

Like we're totally ignorant of what myth is.

And you're just dismissing the metaphoric importance of reading.

In general,

You should read the Bible like Harry Potter,

And it's going to hit you and understand you should just be reading it like a book.

And my concern is that that's the first thing,

But what happens as you experience what religion was in its inception,

Not how the fundamentalists and the collectivists ruin it.

You know,

The ones who say that God hates fags and all these things.

And who are,

You know,

I spoke of intolerance earlier,

But that's again,

Rational intolerance.

The ones who are intolerant for the sake of using religion to project their own,

Their own inner vehemence about themselves,

Right?

Like they're ruining religion,

I understand.

But as you experience what religion is meant to be psychologically,

You immediately realize that when you don't believe in a higher order,

However you define it,

Forget about the word God.

If you don't understand at higher order or a hierarchical understanding of the universe,

That there is a greater order,

If you don't believe that,

Morality unconsciously becomes not a matter of what is the right thing to do,

But what you can get away with.

So most people actually are atheists,

Even that go to church,

Because the reason why they're not committing all these sins is because they're afraid of the consequence.

Rather than understanding the reason why it's wrong to do so is because it will destroy your soul.

And destroying your soul doesn't mean like,

Oh,

I'm going to go to hell and be in some kind of fire.

No,

It literally means you will lose your sense of order because you can't trust yourself.

This is essentially my concern with most people's interpretation of religion is that you actually shouldn't care,

You shouldn't just give power to these preachers because a lot of them are lost today.

It's a very inward and personal thing.

Somebody that was,

I mean,

I'm saying this on a podcast,

A public platform right now,

But amongst a person who is in the culture fight,

But honestly,

When I'm just walking around in public or in my day to day life,

Somebody asks me about religion or God,

I'm happy to share,

But I also understand this is a very private thing I'm sharing.

But I guess I'm interjecting my personal temperament there too.

So I was just about to ask you,

I have a few more questions now.

You asked me about the mass shooting too,

By the way.

I talk in tangents,

Brother.

No,

It's great.

Actually,

I ask questions in tangents.

Something you just said,

Maybe think of like,

So I've been nerding out on general semantics recently,

Like how people make meaning of things.

Yeah.

And it does seem that a lot of the problems with the culture wars,

I mean,

There's a lot of like insidious things we can blame,

But actually I think the root problem is most people either through lack of a training or I hate to say lack of intelligence,

Don't,

Can't separate metaphors from reality.

I mean,

I mean,

Identity politics is like a prime example where they're mixing up a label with reality.

They're literally mixing up the map and the territory.

And that's like the root of all the problems.

Forget about,

I don't think anybody's even evil in that conversation or wrong is other than maybe trying to silence your opponents,

But like,

It's just like,

Actually they don't get it.

And it's kind of like in a brave new world,

Like a very small percentage of people are that tier of people that really understands it and everyone else kind of just goes along with whatever the higher tier tells them.

And it's kind of like what you're describing with the atheist Christian,

Who's really just trying to follow incentives set to him by some other people,

Not because he actually decided or she actually decided on her own.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Critical thinking is the point regardless of where you stand.

That's true.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

I think it boils down to the fact that it's because the people are so used to degeneracy.

Cause I think,

I mean,

I,

You know,

She,

Bezmenov talks about this very clearly,

But the moment people are demoralized,

The facts or the truth is blurry.

So morality is actually what information it's a table that where,

Before you put the plate down your,

The condition of the table is a one's morality to when people are demoralized,

It doesn't matter,

Which is why I told you,

If somebody does not recognize those three fundamental constitutional pillars of this country as an American,

I don't talk to them because it is literally a waste of time because they cannot handle it.

They cannot place the information properly to actually respond.

Not the way I want to hear response,

But,

But it's literally a waste of time.

They just want to attack or win or create more drama.

It's just a waste of time.

You know what I mean?

And I think,

Okay.

What do you think about someone who let's say like the issue of 2A who is open to the idea,

But is also holding onto the other possibility that maybe gun control is a good thing in certain like say urban environments.

Like what,

What do you,

What about someone who's like really trying to hold the map at large?

I'll have a conversation with a person who wants to fight,

You know,

Who wants,

Who supports gun control,

But as long as they're not a,

There's not,

They're not a ban all guns kind of person.

Cause I meet a lot of people like that here in Virginia.

And I thought,

I thought Virginia was fairly pro second amendment.

It's it's like 65% Democrat.

Oh really?

Okay.

Democrat run.

Yeah.

It's a lot better than New York city,

Of course.

Cause you know,

When I was in New York,

I mean,

You can't,

I couldn't even process things to own a firearm there,

But it's,

Yeah.

I mean,

Again,

For me,

It's I hate to sound like a hard liner,

But if you don't even look,

We're on,

We're,

We're on us soil.

Right.

And I can,

Of course,

There's the argument that things are going to are getting just so blended to the point where these distinctions are going to matter less and less.

Okay,

Fine.

I argue that's actually a matter of where you're economically though.

You can say that the more wealth we have,

But for average people these distinctions matter.

And for me if you're going to be in this country,

You know,

You have to preserve the basics,

You know,

Otherwise why the fuck did you come here?

It's like,

You know,

California to go to Texas,

F O blue.

It's no different for me.

You know,

I,

I think it's basic,

You know,

Were you born in America?

Yeah,

I was born here.

Your first generation?

Yeah.

Okay.

Myself as well.

I guess,

I mean,

All right,

This is a whole other thing.

And I want to ask you about this and then lead into the decline of the West.

I guess how have your perspectives been molded?

I messaged you this and like it is,

I find it refreshing to hear another first-generation American speaking about these kinds of values.

And I think obviously more and more people you'll see more,

I mean,

More,

More people who descended from other places grew up in America.

But I'm curious what that,

What that's been like especially,

I don't know what your upbringing was like.

I grew up pretty in a pretty libertarian sort of household,

But strict semi-typical Korean family,

You know,

You got to do good at school and all those,

Although I hated school.

I hated school so much.

I just liked the,

So I was already a weirdo in this family.

But yeah,

I definitely had,

When I entered college and then when I moved to New York,

I noticed that there was this expectation that because I am of Asian descent,

I'm supposed to be a left-leaning person.

I have dealt with that assumption quite a bit,

But I got to be honest,

Ruwan,

For me,

Like I've been called a chink,

I've been called Jackie Chan,

I've been called everything,

But I really don't care about my ethnicity so much,

Which has been,

I guess,

The reason why,

I don't know,

I think I'm free from a lot of that because none of that ever bothered me,

You know what I mean?

Because like I have way more important things that have always been prioritized in my own senses that,

You know,

I don't know,

Like it's a little bit odd for me to answer that question because I know the experiences people talk about and all this stuff,

But I've never cared about any of that,

You know,

But I will say that it could be because I was blessed to have a very patriarchal,

Super-based,

Pastor,

Veteran,

Rooftop Korean father who,

You know,

That generation of Korean men,

They made it pretty clear,

We're going to go to America and become Republicans.

And again,

I'm not a Republican,

But they said that,

Like they're bold,

Like we're not going to go,

We're going to be legal citizens and we're going to start our own families and businesses.

And it could be that sort of upbringing,

Which made me always believe that this is just how Asian genes have always been.

But I do see the downfall of these Asians on the streets in New York city chanting,

Stop Asian hate and all this crap like BLM.

I do see that too,

You know?

Yeah.

Because it's interesting,

Like immigrant parents,

I mean,

When you're an immigrant,

You have to be in,

You have to be in touch with nature just because you're not getting,

Nothing's going to be easy for you.

So it's actually been interesting,

I think seeing first-generation Americans more proud of,

Or like having more respect for American values than like 10th generation Americans.

And I,

Even for myself,

Like I've been living in Asia mostly the last four years.

It keeps making me more and more,

You know,

America's not perfect,

But I have more and more respect for the utility of American values and Western values,

Which leads me to my last thing I want to ask you about,

Which is the decline of the West.

What do you think about this?

Do you think it's inevitable?

What do you think the future holds?

I think we have to be willing.

I talked about the means trick earlier.

The bottom line is if we don't start offending,

You know,

If we don't start rocking the boat and if we don't start getting some targets on our back,

And if we embrace a certain degree of collateral damage and being uncomfortable,

We are doomed.

There's no two ways about it.

Because at this point,

Our strategy is hoping that those who are destroying the West are going to recognize our courtesy and by osmosis,

Adopt some of those tenets.

And you go,

Oh,

Wow,

Look at Ruwan and Arthur.

They're not attacking us.

They're being civil.

And wow,

I guess I should be like that too.

I owe them the same sentiment.

Nope.

They're going to realize goody goody gumdrops.

Let me stampede on these people and destroy the future of their children.

And I've made it a goal of mine the past three years to not bombastically,

But offend those who are who want to take down the West as much as I can.

And look,

I've had New York City Antifa shoot fireworks in my studio when I was based in Brooklyn at the time.

I had BLM come to one of my art shows.

I've been harassed by many people.

But would I change anything?

I think I should have done more of that.

I sort of regret the fear that I had being kind of a coward a couple times.

I'll tell you that.

But I do know that if I cowed away further,

I would feel more shame now,

Three years later.

Because how the fuck can you look at yourself as a man out of self-respect and honesty and look at the state of affairs today and not have some people that don't like you?

And you don't have to be a toxic person.

I'm not trying to make enemies,

But I'm going to point out where they are.

And I'm at the point where I don't even like I'm kind of become a walking trigger,

But you know,

The important thing is I understand those on our side saying we did not defeat an evil by adopting and practicing and becoming it.

That is logically consistent.

But there's a difference between fighting fire with fire and the person who started the initial fire and understanding that us having a mean streak is not like them having a mean streak.

We are not going to burn down buildings and cities and cause what was it,

2 billion taxpayer dollars like the George Floyd riots.

We're not going to do that.

We're just going to stand up for what we believe is right in our heart and not be afraid of saying what we know is right.

That's all it is.

That's really all.

There's enough men speaking up and willing to risk offending people.

That's pretty much all it is.

And that's when I say having a mean streak,

That's not even a mean streak,

But it is at the moment because men are so demoralized and feminized.

We live in this matriarchy where it's all about equity or the disguise of equity,

But it's actually power and control.

And I'm just at the point where I wish more men would be willing to offend,

Not for the sake of offending,

But those people who are useful idiots who are destroying the West,

They need to be called out.

It's a matter of justice.

Yeah.

I really love the ship analogy you mentioned earlier of like,

Really all this is saying like,

Let's not destroy the ships that got us here because we're starving.

That's all we're saying.

That's all we're saying.

But the problem is that what we're doing is we're seeing them with the torches going to the ship and then we're doing this.

That's literally all that's happening.

It's crazy.

We're just waving our hands at a distance and just hoping they won't do it.

No.

We're going to grab those fucking torches and throw them in the water and tell them,

Do not do this for your own good.

I think that the West is doomed until we can stop female promiscuity,

Bring back fatherhood and recognize that we have to also be in the cultural front.

I think by doing that,

We will be so damn effective.

It's also just a strategic thing where we can have a long-term control because man,

Right now the reason why the left is so effective is,

I mean,

This is a little bit of a sideline,

But they have absolute control of all the cultural pillars.

So while we are here being stoic and quiet and gentlemanly and saying,

Look at all this red pill data I gathered.

This is what I have to say.

What do you think about this?

They're not going to even open this little bind that you presented.

They have already decided that is for your own echo chamber.

I'm going to be too busy having control of big tech academia,

The art gallery,

Hollywood entertainment.

So I'm going to just control all the dreamscapes of all your kids and all the artists who have millions and millions and millions and all of these views and all the influence in the world towards certain values that will propagate leftism while you're telling me about facts don't care about my feelings.

That's basically what's been happening.

We've got to get into culture.

We have to decrease degeneracy.

And the only way we can do that right now,

Unfortunately,

Because nobody listened to a lot of good men before us,

Is we've got to offend now.

But the more other people offend,

The better off we'll be.

I'm not saying to jeopardize your career.

Everyone can do it in one way or another.

I understand it's a totally different thing for a person in my position where I work for myself and I can say whatever I want.

I understand that's different from a person who has children.

And then the HR lady is always forcing vaccines on them.

And whilst trying to language police them and then they look at their kids and they're going to do what they have to do.

I understand that.

That actually makes sense.

That's actually why most men don't speak up.

The circumstantial thing,

Like I said,

That's actually their logical reason why people aren't aware of that.

As men,

We don't need everyone to like us.

We know what's right in our heart and it's honor if you're a man.

But that's actually why.

So I understand that.

But you can do something.

You can vote with two dollars.

You can support those who are speaking up.

You can become a paid subscriber to rule one subset or mine.

You can actually support people who do care about preserving our culture and tradition.

If you aren't in a position to do so,

You better be doing something to support another person who is taking the risk,

By the way.

You know what I mean?

Because we all have two legs and two hands and one mind.

That's the difference.

We just took the step and we're getting shit for it because the first people at the door get in front of the force.

That's why people who are talking about these ideas,

They deserve funding because they're the ones that allow the normalization of others to talk about these things openly.

That's all they've got to do,

Brother.

Awesome.

So what's next for you?

You just moved to Virginia.

What does your future look like?

So I just landed in Virginia here.

A couple of things in the works.

I will say again,

This cancellation rule one,

It wasn't that long ago.

It happened in mid 2020.

It's been two years and the first year was me spending another year in New York being harassed by the radical left.

And then the second year has basically just been me coming here.

Actually it was first 2022 was predominantly spent traveling to different states thinking of where I want to move.

And then the only reason why I decided to Virginia was because I have so many friends and family here.

So we're pretty much just got situated here,

But what I need to do now is focus on what I was doing midway last year,

Which is building my independent base,

But doing things like this,

Going on platforms with people who have analogous values and similar audiences,

Let them know that I am the artist of the Madison or the Liberty move,

The new Liberty movement.

And I am the only one who,

Well,

I'm not the only one,

But I am the one who is literally a defector from the left and it can expose them as well.

So that makes me dangerous for them.

So I'm just now focusing on my biblical series,

Which I want to go on tour with.

But it's taking me forever because I've only finished Genesis and I'm working on the fall right now and it's taking me forever.

But then I also have a couple other projects and collaborations that I need to address in conjunction to some of my collectors.

And I also do a lot of commission work and make specialized pieces for people.

So a person can contact me and say,

These are deeply symbolic sentiments to me,

And I would love for you to put them all into one canvas and bring them to life as a reminder and emblem so I can look at this every day.

So I have some of those that I have to address as well.

Those are my favorite things to do,

But that as well.

So I just have a lot to cover,

Including the fact that,

You know,

You've been reading my subs like my friend,

I appreciate that,

But I am also new to that.

You know,

I'm learning to be excavating my practice as a writer because of the art collective I started called the Genesis Council.

We have a writer's circle and the writer,

They're just saying,

Arthur,

You know,

I know you're writing so you can articulate your artistic process further for yourself.

I'm writing my sketchbook,

You know,

While drawing just as a student in the circle.

But they're saying,

Why don't you start writing?

And that's why I started to write this because I've done a lot of podcasts.

I do a lot of public speaking,

But I do a lot of writing to prepare for these.

And I thought,

You know what,

I should just share my thoughts because,

You know,

Me losing all my social media platforms,

You know,

They banned me on all those recently.

I don't know if you know that.

But I tried finding you on Instagram because people are tagging you,

But it's gone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was so heavily shadow banned to the point where they just kicked me out because all the social justice warriors were reporting me.

So that's a big reason why I'm with the Substack.

So you know,

Substack is adamantly free speech.

They just want people to be themselves and articulate what they believe is worth,

What they want to share with the world.

It's a very genuine platform and it's long form,

But at least the values are there.

So that's why I put my eggs in Substack.

I'm still contesting that Instagram.

So hopefully by the time this comes out,

I don't know what it was,

But hopefully you guys can find me there.

But that's basically what's on board right now,

My friend.

I'm just,

I have a couple,

I have a bunch of projects to address,

But I got to build my base up again,

You know?

So those of you who are listening,

Let me say to do the little pitch that's important is subscribe to my Substack.

Being a paid subscriber goes a long way.

Once again,

I need to go with collective patronage at this point because I've severed ties.

I can't go back to them,

Right?

And also if you're interested in any art or commission at that,

You can contact me at ArthurColey.

Com and hopefully my Instagram is backed up by them because that was my best social media platform in regards to my following.

But again,

In the meantime,

Substack seems to be my current sword available.

And if you're an artist and you want to join a based collective,

You know,

Writers,

Comedians,

Actors,

Filmmakers,

All this,

Where they collaborate,

But they also support each other.

You can look up the Genesis Council.

And again,

We're,

The whole goal is to bring back aesthetic standards and fight for the truth and the arts and understand that the arts is a branch of wisdom,

But we need to congregate there.

So those are my three things,

Man.

Substack.

Awesome.

Website and Genesis Council.

Awesome.

We'll provide the links to that.

Yeah.

Well,

Thanks so much,

Arthur.

It's been a really stimulating discussion and yeah,

I'm glad to be connected to you.

Ruwan,

It's a pleasure,

Brother.

I was going to ask what you're doing in Thailand and Asia and all that,

But I'll ask that for next time.

Sure.

Thanks guys.

I'm coming from Poland,

Straight to your headphones.