 So how do you distinguish between just optional choices, optional values, like for example, the choice of a color, your preference for a color or whatnot, versus something that's philosophically and morally significant or could be significant, like art maybe. Also, if you may comment on the requirement of knowledge, some knowledge to even make that kind of judgment because I would think that your preference for music or art previously, I would have thought everything is just subjective, right? But now today I believe differently. So how would you determine that? Big questions. I think the difference between optional values and non-optional values is whether they are required for your survival as a human being, whether they're required for you as a functioning cognitive human being. So if you wear a red shirt or blue shirt, I mean, you'd probably be a little bit happier if it was a color you liked, but it's not life or death. Nothing will really change in your life. Honesty is a life or death issue, right? Or a career is a life or death issue or having a career. Art is a life or death issue. Liking art or not liking. The life or death issues in the context of a cognitive being, if you care about your own cognition. So I think it really is how important are they for the very survival, your very survival as a successful human being. If they're not crucial for that, then they're optional. So how would you say that about art that it is a life and death issue? Now, that's a big issue, right? And I'd recommend you read the romantic manifesto because that's what the book is about, right? But basically, because we're a conscious being and because these ideas are so abstract and so complex, without a concretization of those ideas, without those ideas that are concretized for us in a work of art, we cannot fully experience our life. We cannot fully experience what these abstractions mean to us. So you can live biologically without art, but spiritually you cannot, you cannot fully integrate the meaning of your life, of the things that you're doing, even of your achievements without this mirror, in a sense, that reflects these values back to you, that it concretizes these values back to you. So it's what I know and calls a psychological need. And even an epistemological need, I mean, Leonard Peekoff has this amazing lecture, I think I have it right here on my desktop. It's an amazing, amazing lecture and it's called, I think it's called the survival benefit of great but immoral art. Value, I think. What's that? It's survival value. Yes, survival value, that's right, thank you, Jerry. Yeah, survival value of great but immoral art. So art that projects immoral ideas. The survival. There it is. I opened it, so it's not a thing. Yeah, survival value of great, but false art, another way of saying it, is art that projects bad values. So even art that project bad values has survival value for you. But that you'd have to listen to Leonard's lecture because it's hard. But it's, Rand has, I think it's Rand, or it's Leonard, but part of your response, part of what you need to do as a human being is to shape your own soul, shape your own character, shape who you are in the deepest sense of that. And art is what helps you do that. And art helps you do that in different ways. So for example, well, you know. Mr. Sunshine. What's that? Yeah, I mean, Mr. Sunshine, you know how, so Mr. Sunshine gives you a projection of heroism, gives you a projection of what it looks like to value and to fight for your values. Because that's what the movie's about. The movie's about conflicts of values. All these different value sets and the consequence of different choices around those values. And it gives you an instant emotional, but also intellectual understanding of, yes, values, that's what life is about. That's what it's projecting back. Love, that's what life is about. I, you know, love, that's important. It reminds you of that and reinforces that in you. Without you even having to think about it, it's reinforcing that idea in you. And that's survival because you need to love. You need to value. These things are indeed survival values, right? They are important. And this is telling you, yes, do it, do it, do it. You gotta pursue these values, right? And it's concretizing that at the most fundamental level. Love is possible. Love is important. That's one of the themes of Mr. Sanjay. Don't give up on love no matter what. So that how you distinguish a bad art from good art in the sense that you can put like really abstract value or bring it at a perceptual level if it's a good art, but it's a bad art. It's just not integrated. It's just mesh. Yeah, when a bad art, you know, yes. The values are kind of there. Either the values are too explicit, right? Hamming you on the head with the values rather than presenting them aesthetically. But that's one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is of course, how well is the art done? And that's a technical question, right? So what's the full of metagraphy like in Mr. Sunshine? What's the acting like in Mr. Sunshine? How is the music integrated with the acting integrated with the, now I think all those scores, it's excellent, right? Think about the music track. Think about the slow motion scenes. Think about the meaning of a touch on a fabric, right? You remember when the gangster touches the hem of her dress, right? And everything slows down, everything freezes. And you get this romantic music coming in. And what that touch means to him, right? And then the revulsion on her face, you know, it's just, it's so, that's what great art is. And that's why I think Mr. Sunshine's great art because it's so integrated like that. It has all those things. And then you can have all that. And then the message could be evil like in Dostoevsky or in Tolstoy, right? But the integration in itself is in a sense, this is that one of the points Leonard makes and forgive me if I'm getting it wrong, but I think the point is, is the integration in and of itself is communicating something to you. It's communicating to you that integration is possible, that integration is important, right? Or when Tolstoy describes a room and it has beautiful descriptions of rooms, a real naturalist and he's focusing on certain things, right? And there's a certain sense in which, what is that telling you? What's that communicating? It's communicating, look, open your eyes. Don't just walk into a room and, you know, phase days. Look, the world is rich. There's richness all around you. You know, and often they'll do it with nature, you know, going to a forest, smell the flowers or whatever. But go into a room and you look at the odd, look at the frames, look at the way the light, the shadows fall on the wall, right? When I read great literature like that, I find that my perception changes for a few days. I wish it stayed changed forever, because I start looking at things in ways I didn't look before because, oh, you know, wow, okay. Look, this is like that scene or whatever. So it changes you in an interesting non, you're not guiding it. It happens if you take the odd seriously. It happens subconsciously. If you're in the odd, if you really embody yourself in it, and if you're on the premise of, I'm really immersed in it. So I find that when I go to a museum and I look carefully at pieces of art, I then start looking more carefully in my surroundings. Right, he talks about that. Conditions you're subconscious, to a particular attitude towards the world and odd does that, nothing else really can do that. All right. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of the stare, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist, broods. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I think at least 100 of you actually like the show. Maybe they're like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it, but at least the people who are liking it, I wanna see a thumbs up, there you go. Start liking it, I wanna see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this. And you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego, it's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So, you know, and if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. But if you like it, don't just sit there, help get the show promoted. Of course, you should also share. And you can support the show at urunbrookshow.com slash support on Patreon or Subscribestar or locals and show your support for the work, for the value, hopefully you're receiving from this. And of course, don't forget, if you're not a subscriber, even if you just come here to troll, or even if you're here like Matthew to defend Marx, then you should subscribe because that way you'll know when to show up. You'll know what shows are on, when they're on. You'll get notified, right? So, yes, like, share, subscribe, support. Like, share, subscribe, support. There you go. Easy. Do one or all of those, please.