 What's up to all my Aragorn fanboys and fangirls out there? It's your boy Ian, here today to talk about Viggo Mortensen's favorite books This is a very interesting selection because Viggo Mortensen is a very smart man. He's an intellectual I've been hearing about the books he's read and all the books he's adapted to film and His life as an intellectual and as a nature lover for years ever even even sends Lord of the Rings But this list almost falls short a little bit and we'll talk about that in a second But it has a bunch of classics that I think if you're the right person and approach these books from the right point of view Then you can get a lot out of them. I think that's what that's who Viggo Mortensen is He lives in Montana. He likes to live in natural and contemplative life And you know plays a lot of serious roles at times So let's hop into the books. So the first book and this is on New York Times comm is the origin of species by Charles Darwin and This one is very confusing to me because I view people who like evolution Like love evolution like how I view people who are super religious just kind of off because Scientism is a religion, you know having this huge belief in science or in government. It's a religion It's dogmatic just like religious people in so I'm very so I'm kind of like the origin of species by Charles Darwin I remember when I was an atheist Debating everyone and coming from this point of view of it and it seems a bit immaturable Let's see what he has to say about it. So this is Vigo speaking There's nothing more important than the natural world we live in and we are bound to affect it positively or negatively by the virtue of our relative But relatively brief individual and collective presence Darwin's visionary study of the evolution of living beings on our planet is a crucial guide to our understanding Of why we are here and what we might do to live in a harmony with our environment Absolutely, not if I have a whole course called the spirit for free on this channel called the spiritual ecology course If you want to learn how to live in harmony with the environment this book is pivotal for yes Iron our understanding of nature But it could also be said that this sped up our understanding and of of the human existence and help destroy nature more and get Us into the climate situations We are in now and this is kind of coming as we're going to see by the next book this Aristotelian point of view of Examining and categorizing nature, which I think is kind of problematic Of course we need that to get where we are now with modern medicine and everything that's going on that is needed But Continuing that every Continuing that today for most of us is a problem. There are people out there who aren't scientists Who have nothing their life has nothing to do with science and they live in only in objective reality And they don't know how to work You might not even know what I'm talking about how to live in subjective reality and view life and view problems From a subjective point of view and that is a problem and that really comes at some level from our boy Plato which is next the Republic by Plato the notions we have in the United States and in other countries that function to a better Or lesser degree as nation-states with variations of democratic Representative government as their political systems would not exist without Plato's work So it seems like Vigo is taking this classical the classics approach that of course that the Philosophers King mindset and the history of our nation-states and Thomas Aquinas's Adaption of Aristotle and thus Plato into the Catholic Church Which then kicked off the Renaissance and Sir Francis Bacon and thus Charles Darwin are all important. Yes But really the Republic by Plato. I you could make it through life I with a summary of the ideas of the Republic and I am going to do a Plato Breakdown and course one day on this channel for all of you guys and go over the Republic But do I think that you know and this isn't my choice, right? But Vigo saying I think that he is trying to take this axiomatic approach to life and what we need to understand But I think we can sir sir Surplant a lot that we can take shortcuts with a lot of that information to kind of circle back for all that later on and We need to get as many people in this world educated as possible We are going to end unnecessary suffering and taking expecting telling people to go read Charles Darwin or the Republic Can be problematic because they aren't simple books They aren't simple books like the Dowdae Ching by Lao Su, which is the next book and the Dowdae Ching for me This is a very this is as every bit as important a guide in terms of personal moral ethic Fix as Plato's work is another side of the same coin the timeless lessons that can be had from Plato and Lao Su Reinforce each other in many different ways. I would agree and The Taoist mindset and religion are very important for many people in this Western culture So I agree with this pick that it's an easy read most people can get it It can impact most people immediately in an hour in the hour that it takes to read it and the practices can be put Into place into play almost immediately. I remember when I was 16 and I heard I read the Dowdae Ching I would I started I gave I lost a lot of ambition man with sports For instance, I started I was doing cross-country and track at the time and I live out in the desert We'd run out in the desert. I remember in the off season. I would just kind of start walking I just I was like, why am I running for four years? I've just been running so hard so fast Why don't I just start looking around and for years? I kind of adopted a Taoist mindset and that actually helped me Re-engage later on that set helped me set up a base to re-engage your spirituality and God, you know the non-hierarchical God Not that he got later on so Taoism is very important I feel like it is much more important than the Republic understanding the axiomatic origins of evolution or nation states because We inherently understand that in our DNA as Westerners but the Taoism eludes us because surprisingly most people have no concept of Eastern thought in the West still that if you talk to most people They think oh meditation and they do like these weird hand signs and like they act they act Yeah, if you I you know, I'm a yogi I've been dealing with this for 14 years now that people act it what they're like Oh, you're so enlightened. Ha ha ha. No, this is a mindset. This is a belief This is the giving up of ambition. How would it feel to give up ambition really crazy stuff? So I would agree the Tao day chain a great selection by Viggo Mortensen I would recommend that everyone go check that out I mean go check out play do too, but I would I would I would recommend starting with some other texts by Plato before the Republic And if you are going to do the public following online like a university course for free Online or getting a guide so you know what's going on And that actually brings us to the next point that you maybe could get a precursor to Plato In the history of Western philosophy by Patron Russell with all of its invetable sins of omission and generalizations This great compilation of Western philosophical ideas and currents from pre-socratic times until the middle of the 20th century Is an invaluable and accessible guide to our shared social history? And I would absolutely agree that this should probably be on a lot of top 10 list that the history of Western Philosophy by Patron Russell is probably a pinnacle Philosophy book other than the story of philosophy by Will Durant for introduction introductory of philosophy like there's the root root lages history if there's like a lot of other history of philosophies But bias is good Patron Russell is biased He doesn't like Nietzsche as a lot of people didn't like him back then because he really a lot of people described a lot of negative views In the world to him they didn't separate that like Nietzsche the scholarship wasn't there on Nietzsche yet But a lot of other people's a lot of other people Patron Russell has problems and I like that as a thinker you want to know what a great thinker like Patron Russell knows and what he thinks and What his biases are and that's why it is a great book He gives really a great overview much better than willed will Durant in the story philosophy does but will Durant does a much better job With language and concise ideas and telling the story better So I would recommend everyone in here read the story of philosophy by will Durant first and then maybe the history of Western philosophy But the history of Western philosophy hits everybody it has it touches on all the pre-socratic Greeks and even a lot of almost all the Greeks it's really a deep dive into the Greek thinkers and into the Augustine Aquinas bacon really gets into everyone gives everyone a brief overview Which I view as a very good thing and Patron Russell with all of his biases does a good job And I would recommend everyone getting into Western philosophy It is the root and core of thinking in the West that if you can't really play ball with these things that you can't really understand deeper elements of intellectual thought that much like learning Meditation and yoga and those things are the pinnacles of the east Western philosophy Western philosophy is really the gemstone of the West and all the progress in that has been made there You know the famous line by Jock Derrida that these has no philosophy because we're just on a totally different level at some level I agree with that the West has been going hard. The West has had people like Contents, but Noza spending so much time in the on the Grind putting out, you know, just working through problems and Hegel and all the people that he gets into in this text So I would really recommend this book. This is another great selection by Vika Mortens. So next we have of course Shakespeare Maybe not of course, you know, I really love these top 10 lists and you never really see Shakespeare That's why I would pick this because it's very canonical, right? And I think that having celebrities that are into the canon is important And you know Vika really doesn't talk about this very often in public But with all the multiculturalism and stuff, which is great and the spreading of marginalized voices But if we don't understand the canon and ideas, we're just a bunch of idiots getting our emotions played by book marketers If we don't understand or we're a bunch of like neo-contians or neo-spinozians or Nietzscheans Or Machiavellians running around with our ideas thinking that we're original, but we're just spewing out the same ideas I know so many basic Himbos and bimbos out there that are just, you know, spewing some watered-down version of a philosopher And if they just did a the smallest amount of reading just if they paid attention in school a little bit They could actually access deeper ideas and go that much deeper, which really does a lot for self-reflection So obviously Shakespeare is the canonical figure of the West maybe other than the Bible And there are many poets that I might have included in this list of books But to my mind Shakespeare is the greatest of all in terms of the breadth of his knowledge His lyricism, humor, and the universal applicability of his work And this is what I say about Shakespeare, man And this is what I say about Wordsworth and all those people that are like really pre-1800 That they were shoved down our throat in school And if you were like me, man, I couldn't handle it In high school, in college, in all the various degrees of college I had trouble really dialing it in and because it was for the group It wasn't for me, it was for an assignment, it was for this check on the box, this grade And I remember when I was in at my parents' house in Wyoming for the summer And I had a lot of time on my hands I was reading the prelude to lyrical ballads by William Wordsworth And I was just kind of combing through it and just reading it and contemplating it slowly And I got it Like after I had read that and had to do a song I probably had six university classes where I had to read parts of that and write about it And for the first time ever I sat there and it meant something to me And if I would have done that from day one, the same thing would have happened And I feel the same way about Shakespeare That a lot of us have had to ram down our throat And I didn't get it and a lot of people don't get it Until you come at it for your own growth From your own understanding For you, not for everybody else Not because Viggo Mortensen said that it's canonical Or I said it or Harold Bloom said it Because you want to do it And when you touch Shakespeare Shakespeare, well, it's kind of sad We'll touch you back, right? Shakespeare, well, you know, you take one step Shakespeare will take 10 steps towards you That's a non-section That's how I feel about Shakespeare And about all those old authors That take the time out, take it slow You got a lot of time, they're all dead You have, you know, probably a couple of decades To explore all those people Explore the people we're just about to talk about now So next on the list we have Look at that nice photo There he is Ten favorite books The Divine Comedy by Dante And right alongside Shakespeare Dante's work explores and highlights Enduring universal truths related to the human condition As well as any writer I know of And you know, if we're talking about poets with an impact Dante for sure does because he has He explores the human impact Listen to this Once again, I read Dante multiple times And I didn't get Dante until I spent some time in Philadelphia I was kind of spending some leisure time in Philadelphia And I read The Divine Comedy on my own And it made a pretty big impact on me, right? Like, I made a pretty big impact on me And I read some other Dante I read all of Dante's work And then also The Inferno And then I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art And outside of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Which is such a trippy place All of that, I'm not going to go into Philadelphia being trippy But there is a Rodin Museum And Rodin of course did The Gates of Hell Which is depicting Dante's Inferno And in that moment after I didn't even know that place existed I saw why I was reading Dante It was just, I was reading Dante And Walt Whitman just for fun I don't know, just to be like a kind of a suit A suit because I wanted to be cool or whatever And be Walt Whitman, Dante, Parking And I read, I saw Rodin's Gates of Hell sculpture And I got it Once again it clicked I got the emotion and the depth And the whole Christian narrative And the evolution of what Dante was doing with it And the human condition And the past 1700 years of history Got in a sense unlocked in my brain That's what we're looking for here everybody But you know, me telling you You gotta take your time with this stuff Don't go read this stuff because I'm saying it Read it when it's time for you to explore these classics And I think that's what happened with this next book Which is El Guacho Martin Fiero by Jose Hernandez Oh sorry, oh yeah I debated between Cervantes, Don Quixote And Martin Fiero Because they are both great classic epic stories In the Spanish language But I ended up choosing Jose Hernandez As great poetic work Because of my early connection with it As a child growing up in Argentina And I got this book right This classic poetic epic poem And I started reading it a couple days ago I stopped, I couldn't get through it Because I was reading it for this I was reading this classic For this video I'm shooting right now And I didn't get through it I feel like the English translation I was reading Also was a bit clunky So if you understand Spanish I would recommend this I didn't really, I don't, I think maybe you'll speak Spanish I have read Don Quixote I can recommend that I think there's a lot of knowledge in that If you read Douglas Glover Has a good analysis of Don Quixote But I couldn't get through this book So I'm sorry, you know That's what I'm here to do To burn through this book But I don't got time for that I have, I may come back to this I see its potential I see what it is I now understand that it's really a Spanish classic It's been on the list Actually for a while now And now is not the time for me With this text Next is a Faust Oost Faust By Goethe And the great work of literature And an extraordinary cautionary tale The story has much to teach us About psychology, politics And more than ever it can now Allow us to look at ourselves And our rulers with open eyes And really that's what Goethe does Is that we have to examine ourselves And understand our position in this world And selflessness everybody Education becoming an educator Becoming someone when you realize that you are I am you and you are me And we are all connected You really escape the Faustian trap You really escape the power trap That happens in this text And that really I think is what Vigo was talking about About psychology and politics and history Our leaders Anyone who gets into politics Already has this something I learned from Dune Already they have problems Anyone that gets into politics Is already corrupt Is already anyone They are a certain art type That we don't need in our society To make to step into an educated Nonviolent world So that really that's the Goethe Wager the Goethe deal And wager with the devil That is talked about in this tragedy We cannot step toward that We have to step toward our own Liberation only in terms of helping others And that's what the east kind of got They didn't get that right either They did liberation For liberation itself And for like cosmos And for a weird reason They didn't go to the next level The final level Of liberating yourself So that you can liberate others And the problem The trap is though That many dictators Many problems And people in hipster history Have liberated themselves So that they can liberate the people around them Through being a dictator Or through tragic Or through totalitarianism Because everyone hates my people So I just have to Thus have to kill everybody And so there are a lot of traps here So you have to kind of come To that level carefully Because you can get there automatically You can get to the point where Well I'm just going to help everybody And then that can There can be filled Because you have to debate along the way Well who do we kill Who do we don't kill If we want to get this done in six months Without the educational overhaul That I'm talking about right now Some people got to go down And then you're suddenly making deals With the devil there So you have to come at this point of view And I really think that Gerta gets at With caution The next one I really I couldn't find it online I couldn't find a copy anywhere So this one is called Dan Marks Saxo Grammaticus This is the best book for understanding The early history of the society Literature and politics of Northern Europe Without Saxo's research and extensive work In compiling ancient texts and oral stories Our knowledge of early Nordic, Germanic, Celtic And English cultures And nation building would be far poorer Than it is And that's what I feel like That's a very noble cause Even though I couldn't find Really this text That understanding our origins For instance, there was a decline This is talked about by Robert Blyne In his book, News of the Universe From Christianity That we got separated as Englishmen As Northerners, you know In England, in Scandinavia And France, Germany That whole area Northern Europeaners From nature We got separated from nature And in Beowulf And then the holy There are theory and tales We can see this connection in nature Especially in Beowulf It seems like Beowulf is Mimicking the forms of nature actually And a lot of, well, indigenous Or like tribal texts Do that, you know All throughout world history, you know Cause at one point, you know Europe was, you know, a bunch of barbarians And I would Recommend just exploring that topic Exploring that whole early time period of The English language And the Really the number that Christianity did, man Because we, like I said We were barbarians Like the rest of the world Violent and crazy But we got turned into Proceditalizing barbarians who Really hurt Africa and South America And a lot of other, you know And of course Asia later on But we did a lot of hurt and pain To a lot of people Because of this viewpoint That really didn't need to be explored Paganism could have just been reformed We could have just reformed paganism's Nasty spots And you could say that's what Christianity is And it is But we could have done that in With a non-hierarchical manner Which I think is the solution to the future, right In Christianity And all these things They cannot be non-hierarchical Because they are based in hierarchy all the way And a lot of people have a problem with that A lot of people on the right They're like Like Jordan Pierce Everything, every time a hierarchy is destroyed Another hierarchy is created No, we can actually have systems of spirituality At least That don't have That one group goes to hell and one group You know One group is better than the other group We can have a system of spirituality that says The only wrong thing is violent acts The only wrong thing is The assault of the body or property Of another And then everything Or of animals or the earth In a very violent manner Or in any manner really And or we can you know Have these crazy codes and ethics And Christian law And all this BS that we're working with now Anyway, I don't want to Don't get me going Last but not least Is the People's History of the United States By Howard Zinn Very US citizen could have the benefit Of knowing Zinn's collection of historical texts From a wide range of relatively known as Well as unknown people throughout our history Our country's history There'll be a lot better quality in our current political class And the style and substance of our government Governance And I agree that A People's History of the United States is important because Slavery The plight of the Native Americans Even the hardships of immigrants throughout time These are things explored in the text And a lot of people Even though they think they understand You don't understand You don't understand I mean if you don't understand Like if you haven't read about slavery If you don't even thought about slavery Even contemplated it And explored it And studied the civil war And what happened And moving on to the Jim Crow laws And the Dred Scott case And John Brown's liberation of Kansas All these different things And of course the Atlantic slave trade Then you really understand The real history of the United States And same with you know The march of the Oh my god I'm losing it Oh And Scott Mamaday's Native American tribe Indigenous people Whatever tribe he is in I can't remember the Choctaws Maybe not the Choctaws Anyway There's there's so much negative history Of in the Native American realm too Or the indigenous peoples of Native With America realm also And understanding that And exploring that is vital And there's so many sub-branches that too Because there's poetry Like Native American poetry And fiction and criticism All these different things are very important To understand So my cat is now here And it seems like we are in a video Subscribe to the channel everybody For Orpheus For the cause For Vigo For Aragorn and I We'll see everybody later