Show 71 - Mania for Subjugation

**Dan Carlin** (0:00)
December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:10)
It's history.

**Dan Carlin** (0:11)
One small step for man, The Events. Not quite to the noise, man.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
That's the word you'll call on, from this time and place.

**Dan Carlin** (0:34)
I take pride in the words, Ish bin Ayn Bialina.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:44)
The Drama. Marine Six, the Manhattan Courage.

**Dan Carlin** (0:47)
Marine Six. Tower Two has an major explosion and what appears to be a complete collapse surrounding the entire area.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:54)
I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their presidency cropped.

**Dan Carlin** (0:59)
The Deep Question.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:01)
If we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:14)
It's hardcore history.
Like many of you, I am a fan of ancient mythology. The stories of creation or how human beings came to be, or tales that involve gods and heroes and monsters, and sometimes just regular people who go through interesting sorts of events or travels or whatnot. And oftentimes, these mythological stories are meant to impart lessons. We're supposed to learn something from them. What to do, what not to do. You're tempted to almost say at the end of all of them, and the moral of the story is, right, what are we supposed to learn from this? Hunter S. Thompson used to call it in his columns, the wisdom. And some of my favorite mythological stories are cautionary tales.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:14)
Examples of what can happen if we're not careful.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:18)
And one of my favorite versions of that kind of story, that kind of mythological teaching tool is the famous story of Daedalus and Icarus. If you know your ancient Greek philosophy, you will recall that Daedalus is a master craftsman, an inventor. He can seemingly make anything. He's the one who built the famous labyrinth that held the Minotaur. And it was the king of Minoa, the Cretan area on the island of Crete that had Daedalus build this for him. But at a certain point, he turns against Daedalus and imprisons Daedalus and Icarus. But, of course, when you imprison one of the great inventors of all time, he's going to try to invent a way to get out. And in this case, he does. He creates wings for he and his son. Wings made of multiple different materials, including things like feathers and beeswax. And he and his son are going to be able to fly out of this prison. But Daedalus warns his son before doing so.
He tells him not to get complacent and allow himself to fly too close to the water, because if you're too low, the moisture, he says, from the sea will ruin the wings, and you'll lose your power of flight and you'll crash. Conversely, he warns him about getting filled with hubris and forgetting how dangerous this is, and allowing himself to fly too high, because if he does that, the sun will melt the beeswax that hold these wings together, and you'll plummet and fall. And of course, being an ancient Greek mythological tale, how would it work if everything just went fine? And of course, it doesn't. Icarus forgets his father's warnings, gets taken sort of over by the enthusiasm that happens when a human being gets a chance to fly like a bird, allows himself to fly too high, and the sun melts the bees' wax, the wings fall apart, and Icarus plunges into the sea and dies.
The moral of the story, the takeaway from all this, is supposed to be a warning about ambition and allowing oneself to get too ambitious, right? To forget that there is a middle ground that everyone should shoot for. In philosophy, this is sometimes called the golden mean. And it involves things that are considered to be virtues when you have them in the right amount, but if you have them in the wrong amount, can turn into vices. And one of the examples that's often used in the ancient Greek philosophies is courage. The right amount of courage is of virtue. If you have too little of it, it's cowardice, and that's a vice. But if you have too much of it, it's recklessness, and that's a vice too.
The question of ambition is an equally interesting one. It's a very Goldilocks type concept, this golden mean, right? This porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold, this porridge is just right. Well, if you're dealing with ambition and not porridge, where is the just right point? It's not easy to pin down, is it?
The dictionary defines ambition as an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power. It's described as a character trait that involves people who are driven to succeed at lofty goals, right? It involves drive, ambition, tenacity, the pursuit of excellence, the desire to be the best.