Game Theory Of Ethics

I will have the really cranking David Mitchell on.

And this has been the Station of the Nation,

the Fun 91 WFMU East Orange, WXHD, Mount Hope,

heard worldwide on the Internet at www.wfmu.org.

I'm Terry T. See you next week. Thanks for listening.

And it's 6 o'clock.

And this is WFMU East Orange, WXHD, Mount Hope.

And welcome to the Alan Watts Lecture Series tonight.

We have a much-anticipated lecture, The Game Theory of Ethics.

If you want some more information and a schedule here,

send a self-addressed stamped envelope to WFMU,

care of Alan Watts, P.O. Box 2011, Jersey City, New Jersey, 07303,

or email wfmu at wfmu.org.

And now we're going to hear the lecture,

Game Theory of Ethics by Alan Watts.

In the talk of this series, I was putting forward,

so as to have all my cards on the table,

what my metaphysics are.

That is to say, what are the basic assumptions

from which I approach this question.

And I stress two points in particular.

Number one, that as I feel this universe,

I think we are under an illusion

with regard to the nature of ourselves.

This arises from the superstition

that there are really separate things and events.

And I pointed out that that is actually a way of thinking

rather than a state of affairs in the physical universe.

In order to think, one must think.

That is to say, divide this astonishing cosmic Rorschach plot

into bits and give the bits names.

This is a kind of calculus.

And we break the world down into these separate things

and separate events.

They're really thing events, you might call them,

in order to calculate about it,

in order to describe its behavior,

in order to think.

And, but just as something that costs five dollars,

if you buy a loaf of bread or a,

let's say, it wouldn't be five dollars,

let's say fifty cents,

it isn't fifty separate things that you buy,

although you pay fifty cents for it.

And so, in the same way,

when we talk about the multiplicity of things

in this universe,

this is just a way of measuring it.

measuring it with words

as you measure the value of something with money

or the length of something with inches.

But we are so accustomed to,

so I would say hypnotized

by the usefulness of thought

that we come to imagine

that the way the world is thinked

is the way it's thinked,

is the way it really is.

But I rather see it as a continuous process,

a single vast field of activity,

a single pattern,

of which every single one of us

is an expression.

But when you think about, say,

a series of events

as being separate events,

it's the result of a kind of myopia.

If you watch

through

something going on

through a narrow slit,

you see the event

broken down

into bits.

And you see

bit following bit,

whereas if the

crack were enlarged,

you would see

that the separate bits

were all one event.

So in much the same way,

our custom of attending

to our experience

with concentrated attention

cuts it down

into things we call

separate events.

The other basis

of my metaphysics

was that

we tend to ignore

the polarity

of the world.

That is to say,

to use a

simpler word,

the go-withness

of things and events.

That just as

in a series of waves,

to have a complete wave,

you must have both

a crest and a trough.

You can't have

a half wave.

Half waves

are never manifested

in this cosmos.

Just as you must have

the crest and the trough,

so also

there is

a go-withness

of subject and object,

self and other,

and of course

those great

fundamental physical

polarities,

being and non-being,

solid in space,

light and darkness,

life and death.

But when

this is not perceived,

when we are not aware

of the total unity

of the world,

of the fact that

one's actual self

is not something

in the world

separate from it,

but the whole works,

and when you are not aware

that self and other

go together,

inside and outside,

inside in such a way

as to constitute

one total body,

then because of this

feeling of separation,

of not really belonging,

we feel alienated

from our total environment

and from other people,

and so act towards it

in a predominantly

hostile way.

Now, during the question period,

there arose

some discussion

of the purpose

of this universe,

and I think I stood up

a little bit of trouble

by suggesting

that I didn't think

it had a purpose

in the ordinary sense

of the word purpose,

that is to say,

action

directed towards

a future,

striving for a goal.

I felt rather

that the design

of the world

was playful

as distinct

from purposive,

and furthermore,

therefore,

that

being itself,

existence,

is not fundamentally

and finally serious.

Of course,

you see,

if you think,

if you really believe

that you are

this lonely little

separate being

confronted by a world

that doesn't give

a damn about you

and is mostly hostile,

then it is pretty serious.

You're in a trap, man.

But one might ask

in conventional

Christian terms,

if there is a God,

is God serious?

And one would say,

I hope not,

because let's look

at this word,

serious.

If some attractive

young woman says to me,

I love you,

ought I to come back

to her and say,

are you serious

or are you just

playing with me?

I don't think

I should ask that

because I hope

she isn't serious

and that she will

play with me.

I don't really go

for serious girls.

So I should ask

instead,

are you sincere

or are you just

toying with me?

And you see,

that gives

an entirely different

meaning.

because

seriousness

is a kind

of gravity

and a gravity

is a kind

of weight

and that

which is heavy

is a drag.

It sinks.

And G.K. Chesterton

once very rightly

said,

not only that

there was

more affinity

between cosmic

and comic

than the mere

similarity

of the words,

but also

that angels

fly

because they

take themselves

lightly.

And if this

were true

of the angels,

how much more

would it be true

of the Lord

of the angels?

In other words,

you could say

in mythological

language that

the most serious

being in the world

would be the devil

inflamed with

hatred and malice

against the cosmos

whereas the most

non-serious being

would be God

because

he would be

supreme

lightness,

spirit,

levity

and indeed

Dante intimates

this when he

describes the

song of the

angels as

the laughter

of the universe.

You know what

those angels do

singing

Alleluia,

Alleluia.

What do you

think that is?

That's nonsense.

When I was

for a while

a minister

I used to

tell the students

I was a

university chaplain

and I used to

tell the students

that we were

going to have

a celebration

of the Holy

Communion on

Sunday at

11 o'clock

and I mean

celebration,

I said.

Don't come here

out of a sense

of duty.

If you do,

you're a skeleton

at the feast

and you'd better

stay in bed

or go for a

swim or something

because here

in celebrating

the divine mysteries

we are going to

join the angels

in making

celestial whoopie.

But you see

our tradition

has in its

background

the idea

that God

is really

rather grim

and I

you must

so many of you

have picked

this up as

children.

Children are

very sensitive

to what I

call

the aesthetics

of religion

and the

aesthetics of

religion is

very much

overlooked by

religious people.

In the

WASP culture

we have

a positive

genius

for spiritual

ugliness.

I think

of why

do we

bind our

Bibles

in black?

Why do

clergymen

go around

in black?

Why

do we

have

that

ghastly

kind

of

sickly

yellow

stained

glass

in

church

buildings

especially

protestant

ones?

There's

something

about it

and then

too

in the

pulpit

there's

a certain

kind

of funny

solemnity

that goes

with

preaching

and

children

immediately

detect

that

there's

something

phony

about

it.

Why

does

that

man

put

on

a

voice

which

isn't

like

the

ordinary

voice

people

talk

with.

I

know

of

course

it

was

the

result

of

the

fact

long

ago

that

there

were

no

public

address

systems

and

one

had

to

boom

to be

heard

in

a

large

building.

But

there

it

is

there

is

this

feeling

this

flavor

I

would

almost

call

it

and

it

is

this

kind

of

strange

solemnity

as

if

God

were always

taking the

attitude

of

this

is

going

to

hurt

me

more

than

it's

going

to

hurt

you

and

so

because

of

the

influence

of

these

images

upon

our

thinking

and

you

know

images

have

an

extraordinarily

powerful

influence

on

us

they

are

much

more

powerful

than

logical

ideas

you

can

firmly

believe

with

Paul Tillich

that

God

is

simply

the

ground

of

being

or

with

St.

Thomas

Aquinas

that

he

is

necessary

being

or

with

F.

C.

Northrup

that

he

is

the

undifferentiated

aesthetic

continuum

but

those

images

that

influenced

you

in

childhood

remain

as

it

were

in

the

very

roots

of

your

thinking

at

the

bottom

of

your

heart

and

pull

those

heart

strings

very

strongly

even

though

you

may

have

outgrown

them

intellectually

so

I

am

for

a

serious

revision

of

the

image

of

God

I

serious

and

so

of

course

the

attitude

of

the

minister

is

so

often

to

the

young

now

boys

quit

horsing

around

you

and

I

have

got

to

get

together

for

a

very

serious

talk

well

now

as

I

indicated

we

use

the

word

game

play

in

different

ways

we

can

use

it

to

mean

what

is

only

trivial

play

as

distinguished

from

work

and

in

our

culture

we

make

a

very

firm

differentiation

between

play

and

lectures

and

you

read

and

all

that

kind

of

thing

and

that's

not

really

work

it

would

be

if

you

didn't

like

it

but

the

assumption

is

you

see

when

I

want

to

get

away

with

something

and

say

well

I

have

some

work

to

do

that

means

well

of course

you're

excused

you

can

go

because

it

is

important

that

you

work

but

if

I

said

well

I

have

some

very

you

see

that

you

work

and

although

that's

the

serious

part

of

life

the

objective

of it

is to

get

enough

money

so as

to be

able

to

play

and

nobody

really

does

because

most

people

I

know

they

make

lots

of

money

but

when

they

get

home

they

don't

really

play

they're

either

too

tired

or

they

watch

television

and

that's

not

really

playing

that's

kind

of

non

participative

dope

addiction

and

but the

other

thing

is

that

the

reason

why

we

don't

play

is

that

we

believe

playing

we

can

do

it

just

so

long

as

it's

good

for

us

in

other

words

play

is

called

recreation

that

is

kind

of

thing

in

that

it

relaxes

us

and

makes

us

stronger

so

that

we

can

be

more

productive

but

you

see

if

you

play

in

order

to

do

better

work

you're

not

really

playing

because

play

is

the

kind

of

activity

which

does

not

have

God

because

he

says

quoting

the

book

of

proverbs

where

the

wisdom

of

God

is

personalized

and

speaks

and

says

that

her

function

is

always

to

play

in

the

presence

of

the

most

high

unfortunately

the

King

James

which

is

a

very

dignified

translation

of

activity

because

whereas

work

is

done

for

something

to

serve

some

purpose

he

who

is

all

perfection

has

no

purpose

there

is

nothing

he

needs

he

doesn't

need

to

do

any

work

and

therefore

the

activity

of

God

is

supremely

playful

so

in

this

way

one

might

say

that

the

most

important

thing

in

human

life

for

one

sanity

is

to

be

able

to

be

playful

or

to

be

able

to

do

things

which

are

sublimely

useless

where

you

see

there

is

no

room

in

our

lives

for

the

useless

and

for

the

purposeless

in

the

sense

of

the

word

we

are

in

serious

danger

of

going

completely

crazy

that

was

the

day

that

was

time

out

the

day

when

you

weren't

supposed

to

do

anything

serious

it

was

holiday

holy

day

but

instead

Sunday

has been

perverted

and

instead

of being

really

time

out

it

becomes

time

instead

for

recreation

so

that

you

go

back

stronger

Monday

morning

and

for

laying

it

on

thick

in

the

way

of

rationality

and

lectures

on

the

good

life

so

you

see

there's

a little

paradox

here

it

is

absolutely

necessary

for

our

sanity

that

we

should

play

and

that

we

should

be

useless

and

be

preoccupied

with

useless

things

from

it's

good

for

us

so

in

the

mood

of

play

one

has

to

get

one's

mind

completely

away

from

the

future

and

the

purposes

of

the

future

and

get

into

what

I

would

call

a

musical

mood

because

music

is

supremely

playful

in

that

it

doesn't

strive

for

goals

it

fulfills

itself

at

every

moment

of

its

unfolding

even

though

it

has

a

design

it

has

patterns

it

has

movements

as

with

a

symphony

it

has

progressions

as

with

the

working

out

of

the

pattern

of

a

fugue

but

always

the

point

of

music

is

to

be

with

it

as

it

unfolds

because

if

you

aren't

you

miss

the

melody

you

don't

hear

it

at

all

and

so

then

I

would

look

upon

this

world

as

a

musical

phenomenon

as

a

game

which

is

a

kind

of

sublime

nonsense

just

as

when

Bach

writes

a line

of

melody

it

doesn't

mean

anything

it

doesn't

tell you

anything

it

is

pure

playing

with

sound

and

for

this

reason

among

others

sublime

so

then

it

would

appear

that

our

whole

cosmos

is

a

colossal

effusion

of

splendid

nonsense

and

you

can

see

every

form

of

life

insects

rabbits

giraffes

elephants

people

bees

flowers

everything

as

different

kinds

of

music

in

the

same

way

as

you

get

waltzes

mazurkas

charlestons

swing

every

kind

of

musical

form

or

dance

form

so

in

the

way

those

dances

differ

so

in

the

same

way

all

species

of

life

differ

they

are

not

to

get

somewhere

because

the

only

place

you

can

get

if

you

if

you're

going

to

go

somewhere

in

time

is

a

kind

of

a

reproductive

vicious

circle

we

live

to

have

children

who

all

get

put

in

boxes

and

come

out

just

the

but

the

whole

thing

is

to

keep

it

going

by

manufacturing

new

tubes

by

reproduction

and

they'll

do

the

same

thing

and

so

on

and

so

on

but

so

long

you see

as

they're

all

thinking

that

the

point

of

doing

this

is

that

sometime

somehow

something's

going to

turn up

they'll

always miss

the

point

they

will

always

be

there

rather

than

here

it's

very

funny

to

come

to

California

you

know

when

you've

lived

elsewhere

and

it's

been

an

ideal

and

suddenly

you

wake

up

and

you

realize

you're

there

you know

you're on

vacation

you've

got there

and

everybody

else

envies

you

and

so

we

have

to

learn

how

to

be

there

or

rather

to

be

here

of

course

it

is

always

possible

to

construe

the

thing

in

another

way

and

to

say

yes

it

may

be

a

game

but

it's

a

ghastly

game

it's

a

grim

game

it's

like

a

child

who's

caught

a

fly

alive

and

is

picking

the

wings

off

it

the

universe

is

that

sort

of

scheme

it's

a

trap

it's

a

thing

that

gives

you

hope

is

always

dangling

possibilities

in front

of you

to

keep

you

going

but

then

it

grinds

you

up

and

then

it

revives

you

a

little

like

a

master

torturer

keeping

a

that

people

occasionally

have

where

they

see

the

whole

universe

as

this

sort

of

trap

and

everything

looks

crummy

people

look as if

they're

made of

plastic

and

aren't

really

people

but only

make-believe

people

they're

mechanisms

which

are

going

yakety

yak

and

pretending

that

they

are

really

there

and

alive

and

everything

looks

as if

it

were

made

of

patent

leather

or

enameled

tin

and

just

nasty

dead

scene

that's

the

inverted

mystical

experience

and

one

might

ask

well

you

could

take

that

view

too

and

here

you

come

to

what

Albert

Camus

said

the

fundamentally

important

philosophical

question

is whether

or not

commit

suicide

now

this

is

the

real

question

is

the

game

worth

the

candle

if

you

think

no

then

you

better

commit

suicide

that's

the

logical

thing

to

do

if

on

the

other

hand

you're

not

sure

then

you

better

make up

your

mind

because

if

you're

going

to

go

on

with

the

game

of

life

and

not

you'll

make

a

mess

of

it

that's

quite

certain

it's

like

doing

something

evil

like

telling

a

lie

if

you're

going

to

tell

a

lie

at

all

you

have

to

make

it

stick

and

so

make

it

good

don't

wobble

when

you

lie

because

someone

will

find

you

out

and

it

golf

swing

follow

through

and

so

in

the

same

way

with

going

on

living

at

all

if

you're

going

to

gamble

and

so

either

suicide

or

gamble

seem

to me

to be

the

great

alternatives

of

this

life

and

what

will

the

gamble

be

the

gamble

or

the

gaming

has

to

rest

on

the

assumption

that

this

game

is

superb

no

other

assumption

will

work

if

I

may

put

it

in

another

way

the

game

is

to

be

trusted

the

universe

you

yourself

it

is

fundamentally

to be

trusted

and

this

is

the

act

of

faith

which

underlies

all

gambling

because

if

you

don't

make

that

assumption

as

absolutely

basic

the

game

will

not

work

now

this

is

where

one

must

consider

game

theory

in

relation

to

ethics

what

are

the

characteristics

of

a

workable

game

a

viable

game

as

biologists

would

call

it

a

game

that

is

worth

the

candle

first

of

all

the

game

must

involve

an

optimal

combination

of

skill

and

chance

or

we

might

say

order

and

randomness

where

a

game

is

pure

chance

it

loses

interest

let's

just

think

of

tossing

coins

the

chances

are

50-50

always

that

it

will

be

either

heads

or

tails

or

he

is

going

to

go

to

the

end

of

the

future

is

going

to

And this becomes very boring. One wants to cheat a little, to liven it up, and so introduce

a bit of skill. But where a game depends on pure skill, and especially a very complex

kind of skill, it becomes too tiresome. So you could put at opposite ends of a spectrum

of games, say tossing coins or tic-tac-toe, or something very simple, which is mostly

chance, because tic-tac-toe, when you know how to play it, reduces itself to that you

either win or draw if you get the first move. At the other end of the scale, a highly complex

game, like, well, I've suggested three-dimensional chess, but just imagine three-dimensional

go, where you would play on eight boards to give yourself a cube to play in, or whatever

number of boards go would be more than that, wouldn't it? But you would be in such a complex

thing that you'd just lose track of it. Eventually, the game would just become totally confused,

for most people. So we get optimal games in the middle, like bridge, or poker, or checkers,

where there is this interplay of skill and chance. So we look for this optimal point, where there

is a risk, there must be a risk, there must be chance, it mustn't all be predetermined, because

any game where the result is known is not worth playing. That's to say, when in chess the players

suddenly realize that white is going to mate in five moves, they abandon the game, and say

let's begin again. And so in life, that's why a lot of people don't like going to fortune tellers.

They don't want to know the future. If I know exactly what's going to happen to me, in a

very real sense, I've had it. So let's finish it up and begin again, turn in the check.

You see, the whole fun of the situation of a game is that you don't know the outcome, and

that's why it's worth playing. So then, this is one characteristic of a viable game, a certain

combination of skill and chance. Now there's another, which is of a much more ethical type,

and that is, I will call it trusting the game. Because if you don't do this, in other words,

if you won't gamble, you won't play. And here is the point of the necessity of the gamble.

That corresponds a little bit to the necessity of having chance, as well as skill, in any game

that really works. But the necessity of gambling is very much overlooked, I think, in our contemporary

culture. Because this is a culture where we are trying, as much as possible, to take the

risk out of things. And when the risk is taken out of human relationships, they become impossible.

We have, I think, in the United States, a very naive faith in law, and in law enforcement.

We're always saying, there ought to be a law against it. As if law could solve things. And

we don't realize the extent to which law makes life increasingly more difficult. Because law

is simply a process of trying to define what may be done and what may not be done. But

the moment you start talking, the definitions become increasingly complicated. And lawyers

love this. They live on it. So it's always an interminable discussion of what did they

mean when they said that? What was the intent of this law? And as laws multiply with the avowed

object of protecting us from each other, they do not so much succeed in protecting us as they

do in making it impossible for us to act. And so the ultimate police state is, of course,

the safe state. The security state. Where everybody is checked. And do you see what this is? Mechanically

speaking, it's a system of very elaborate self-consciousness. See, when you get self-conscious and you watch everything

you do, because you're anxious about making a mistake, you'll find in that you're all tied

up. And you can't act. So in exactly the same way, a community of people, which is always

watching itself through its agents, so that, you know, in a Nazi state there are not only

the ordinary policemen on the beat, but there's a block captain for every area, and there's

some kind of a sneak or a traitor who's going to inform the authorities everywhere, you see, hidden.

So this community is watching itself all the time, because it's a community that doesn't

trust itself. And a community which constantly watches itself is like a person who's always

watching himself and holding a club over his head to go clunk the minute he might be in danger

of doing something wrong. And so this person is like this. If I say, now, my right hand

is my main active hand, and, ah, but I don't know whether I can trust it. I don't know what

it's going to do. So I've got to keep control on it with my left hand. See? So always the

left hand is controlling the right hand. Whatever, if I want to pick something up, the left hand

will have to push the right hand down, and squeeze the fingers together, and then lift

it up so it will come up. See? I've lost a hand by doing that. And so in exactly the same

way, when any community of people is founded on mutual mistrust, it sort of loses half of

itself. It becomes clutched up. It becomes paralyzed and unable to move. So the basis of any community,

gain, and thus the basis of any gain, is the act of faith that I will gamble. I will bet

my life on this scene. And you see, that also is fundamentally not only the attitude of faith,

but it's the attitude of love. Love is self-giving. When you love someone, say you fall in love

with a member of your opposite sex or whatever, and you got mixed up with someone now. You've

really committed yourself to heaven only knows what. Because love is a letting go of direct

control. And you might say, going back again to the Christian images of God, that God creates

the world by constantly disappearing, giving himself away. The Hindu would agree with this

too. That insofar as everyone here is God in disguise, but doesn't know it, this is because

you, as God, are constantly giving yourself away to you, and feeling lost. You know, how

did I get mixed up in this world? Well, unbeknownst to myself, I made a gamble on being this person.

And so this giving of oneself away is what's called the divine love. So then, in playing the game,

if you don't make the assumption that I can let go of myself in the act of faith and in the act of love,

you may just as well commit suicide right now. Because you can't play it on any other

basis than that. Any attempt to do so will merely make the whole thing clutch up and become insupportable,

and will in any case be suicide. See, when we get the ultimate weapon, with which we know we can be

safe because nobody else has it, just because we wanted to get that ultimate safety and get that ultimate

weapon to defeat our enemies, it will be suicide. Because life really is not the avoidance of death.

Death is the avoidance of death. The constant terror of death, the constant putting it off, the instant

vigilance that one will not die. That is death. What we call life is fundamentally willingness to die.

Constant jumping of being into not being. So long as you do that, it goes on. So long as you shake the dice,

and you don't know how they're going to come out and flip, the game goes on, you see. So long as you take a chance.

Now then, sensible people say, of course, that's a very imprudent attitude, because you can't be sure.

First of all, you can't trust other people. There are some nice people, but most of them are rascals.

It's not wise. And furthermore, you can't trust yourself. Underneath the thin veneer of civilization,

you have an unconscious. And as Freud has told us, this unconscious is libidinous. And it's a blind urge of pure animal lust and rage and fear.

And so watch out for yourself. You're a dreadful animal, only just barely disciplined and fit to be human.

Now it's true, of course, that a lot of people can't be trusted. And that so far as oneself is concerned,

every one of us has in us what the Hebrews call the Yetzahara. They say that God made it and put it there.

The Yetzahara is the perverse spirit. I call it the element of irreducible rascality.

We all have that. But in the wisdom of that great moral philosopher, Confucius,

he included this element of rascality in his definition of human heartedness. That he put as the crown of all the virtues.

It isn't, the word in Chinese is often translated humaneness. But it means a good deal more than that.

It means being like a human being. That is to say, a complete man, a woman, which includes the angel as well as the animal,

reason and the passions, and all those aspects of us. Indeed, the great triumph of humanity is to be able to be both angel and devil,

both reasonable and passionate, both mystic and sensualist. For he felt, you see, that this peculiar combination was the whole beauty of human beings.

And he would trust that humaneness or that human heartedness. He would put more reliance on that than he would on virtues,

righteousness, programmed behavior. And this is a very wise attitude. It isn't, you see, only the goodness in human beings that is to be trusted.

They are also to be trusted to be a little bad. They are to be trusted to be selfish. Because you know a person who is not frank about selfishness is a big troublemaker.

You may go into a situation with high ideals and say, I promise this, I promise that, I promise the other thing, I will be true, I will knock myself out to achieve this.

But the reason you said it was to put on a good front at the moment, and also to square yourself with your own conscience.

You think, well, I would, I really ought to be that kind of person, and I'm going to commit myself to being that.

And in that moment you have grossly deceived those who depend on you. Why? Because even if you keep your word, and you are reliable to the extent that you said you would be,

they are going to absorb from you by a kind of emotional osmosis, the fact that you hate doing it.

And that's the condition, you see, many an aging parent gets in when some faithful son or daughter surrenders their own life to look after the invalid.

Very nice and noble.

We're listening to the Alan Watts Lecture Series, and we're hearing the game theory of ethics.

If you're interested, you can send a self-addressed stamped envelope to WFMU care of Alan Watts, P.O. Box 2011, Jersey City, New Jersey 07303.

Or you can email us, wfmu at wfmu.org.

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If you want to see a list of upcoming programs, you can check our website at wfmu.org.

And now, right back to Game Theory of Ethics by Alan Watts.

To be selfish to a certain extent, and you should, for yourself, be selfish to a certain extent, and make it very plain to others what your wishes are.

One of my best friends is a woman who is invariably outspoken, and nobody ever treads on her, nobody ever presumes on her, because she doesn't let them.

She says, it's inconvenient for me to have you for dinner, or to stay, or whatever. I've got something else to do.

But the result of this is, I'm very fond of her, because you know exactly where you are with her.

You don't worry about, am I pushing, am I imposing, or anything like that. You can't impose on her.

And it's very, it's very refreshing. I like that sort of person.

And we have a certain duty, you might say, to be like that to others.

Because there is in our nature a selfish thing, as well as an other-regarding thing, tendency.

And it's the two of them together that constitute our nature.

And it is this nature that's to be trusted.

Therefore, righteous people, who ignore that they have this element of irreducible rascality, or the yetzahara, are great troublemakers.

In fact, they've probably made more trouble in the world than deliberately wicked people.

Because they are the people who wage, for example, ideological wars.

Which are not nice wars, waged in order to capture the property and the personnel of the enemy.

In which case, you know, one always takes care to preserve them.

But they're wars waged as a matter of principle.

Not really between people, but wars between utterly irreconcilable ideas.

And in such a fight, there can be no quarter.

There can be no quarter between good and evil.

Because, as defined, they're mutually exclusive.

But when people fight each other, they are not good, they are not evil, they are people.

And that is why wisdom in settling quarrels is always a matter of compromise.

That's why a good Confucian always settles disputes out of court.

Because somebody eventually says, ah, come off it.

Look, we are both rascals.

And there let be honor among thieves.

And that's the spirit, you know, that's the real spirit of repentance.

Not that you say some idiot notion that you're going to turn over a new leaf and kid yourself into the idea that you'll never do a thing like that again.

You know very well you will.

True repentance is to admit in all humility, you see, that you are not a saint.

And therefore you better not go fooling people that you are because they will rely on you and then be disappointed.

So then this is basic trust in yourself, not as a integrated, mature person, not as a responsible citizen, but as a human being.

With your light side and with your dark side.

With your outgoing affection as well as your ingoing self affection.

Both must be there.

Now, you see then, because of this, as I said, there will always be the risk that, although you gamble, you may not always win.

In fact, you may lose your shirt.

But that's the risk one takes.

Life is taking the risk of death.

And if you don't take it, you don't go anywhere.

You don't even step into your car.

So that, although there will be mistakes, although you may lose your shirt, the alternative to making this gamble is total loss of freedom.

I would say total gravity, total seriousness, no gain.

That's why all kind of extra square, I would say cubic personalities are very, very serious.

You know, policemen and soldiers and people like that are always, very rough.

Because that role is expected of it.

But when you carry seriousness to its full extent, you've got a cosmic jail.

And who is prisoner?

Who is warder?

Same fellow, but he doesn't know it.

He won't gamble.

And so the ultimate, you see, the ultimate prisoner is the guard.

Think of 1984.

Think of the super big brother sitting in his inner, inner sanctum.

All the security systems outside, all little television things to inspect what people are doing.

Checks on checks.

Who's the prisoner?

See, the spider's caught in its own web.

He can't goof off.

He can't even sleep.

Because somebody might creep in.

He can't trust the most trusted guard.

Always might be poison.

And then, of course, this great electronic age when every kind of deviltry and snoopery becomes more and more subtle.

Just think of the possibilities of being the man who controls it all.

Also implies that in behaving with each other, in making the gamble, in playing the game of existence, there must also be rules.

There is both order and randomness.

But you see, the difficulty is that our attitude to the rules of behavior is rather curious.

We tend always to derive our game rules from the past.

We tend to be uninventive and uncreative in thinking about the rules of the human game

and refer back, say, to such an ancient Bronze Age document as the Ten Commandments.

Now, here was a set of game rules for a certain kind of society.

But there's somehow the idea, you see, that this set of rules is sacrosanct.

Or whatever other set of rules.

It might be the laws of Manu or something in India.

But always the idea that there is a right way to live, which is somehow laid down like tramlines.

There was a young man who said, damn, for it certainly seems that I am a creature that moves in determinate grooves.

I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram.

And you see, we have this idea also about the laws of nature.

Although this is not the current, I would say, view of a physicist about the laws of nature,

it is traditional in our culture to think of certain rules that have been laid down in advance,

which the universe obeys.

We talk about obeying natural law.

And so, human law is very often thought of on the same model, or vice versa,

the law of nature on the model of human laws, that there is an authoritative lawgiver,

who is grandpa, and says, this is the way it's going to be around here.

And you had better follow.

Now actually, it doesn't seem that nature obeys laws.

But rather that, when we watch nature behave, and study the regularities in its behavior,

and write those regularities down, and make notes of them,

we find that those regularities can be gambled on.

They're liable to go on again.

And it's only a kind of figure of speech that one talks, therefore, about the world itself obeying laws.

The laws of nature, I mean, it's like saying, because you've devised a clock,

and it goes tick-tick regularly, you're suddenly astounded to find that the earth,

in its rotations, is obeying the clock.

You see, it's actually the clock, which is the law thing, is obeying the world, if anything.

But this is the law.

It's why we alter our clocks for summer time.

Instead of being sensible and getting up an hour earlier,

we have to alter the law, so that we have authority for getting up earlier.

But you see, the rules of human behavior, they're highly necessary,

because we've got to agree about how we're going to communicate with each other and deal with each other,

for exactly the same reason that we have to agree about the rules of language.

Otherwise, we just don't understand each other.

But do you suppose that the rules of language are fixed and unalterable?

We are changing them all the time.

We're constantly inventing new words, new forms of expression, getting rid of old ones.

We are very creative, especially in this country.

People are amazingly creative with language.

Where I come from, in England, they're not so creative,

because they're more traditional, more conservative.

But here, there's a wonderfully creative language.

And so, what happens is that the linguists and the people who make dictionaries,

they observe how the people are in fact talking, and then they chronicle all that,

so that everybody is informed through the dictionaries of what rules are being used.

Now, the same sort of thing must go with morals.

Actually, human beings are always changing morals.

But there's a terrific fight, constantly goes on, between the people who say,

well, let's try it another way.

And the people who say, no, no, no, no, no.

You can't get away with that.

It's against the will of God, or something.

But you see, we have very little...

Although we change the language quite a bit.

Do you get...

Thank you.