In a wide-ranging conversation on the latest episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special,” the Daily Wire host and Orthodox Christian thinker Jonathan Pageau warned that the Left’s “hijacking of traditional symbolism” risks creating an “upside down world” where abnormality is imposed on society.
Pageau pointed to recent examples like the Olympics opening ceremony using Christian imagery to promote progressive causes, calling it “cannibalistic” and destructive. He emphasized the importance of recapturing traditional stories and symbolism to counter this trend.
“So the most obvious example would be the Olympics opening ceremony, where they’re using the symbolism of Jesus and the 12 disciples to promote homosexuality and transgenderism. I mean, it’s literally taking the message of Christianity and turning it into a hedonistic, sexually sterile promotion tool,” Shapiro said.
“This is the thing that we have to understand, Ben, is that the kind of psycho progressive, like the really fringe, the hard Left, is they understand symbolism very well. … They know what they’re doing,” Pageau replied. “And so the coherence of the symbolism of that scene was absolutely right to their purpose, which is the complete destruction of all identity and of all purpose.”
WATCH ‘THE BEN SHAPIRO SHOW SUNDAY SPECIAL’ WITH JONATHAN PAGEAU
He added that “it’s really important for us to recapture those stories and to recapture the symbolism because we’re faced with things that we’ve lost our weapons against.” Pageau argued that it’s more important to respond to the Left making a mockery of the Last Supper by telling “the true story” instead of simply giving political statements.
“That’s why I don’t talk about politics that much. I talk about stories and about and I try to tell stories because that’s the best way to answer,” he said. “Because the real story, the true story is the one that is embodied in fairy tales or the Bible or even the ancient myths, these stories that have been with us for millennia, and that that kind of uphold our civilization.”
Pageau and Shapiro also discussed how attempts to deconstruct traditional symbolism, particularly around gender, can lead to cultural confusion.
“The desire to deconstruct the male-female opposite that is set up in the beginning of Genesis is going at the very core of reality where it’s like if we can take that, then we can define everything and decide what everything is, and humanity is indefinitely programable,” Pageau said. “But that’s impossible.”
Earlier in the interview, Pageau said that fairytales use similar patterns and language as biblical stories but are more accessible, especially to children.
“They connect to the same ideas. But they have a little more buffer and they’re more accessible for the common people,” Pageau said.
Pageau analyzed the fairytale “Jack and the Beanstalk” as an example, describing it as a coming-of-age story with deep symbolism about masculinity, civilization, and patterns of being. The Christian thinker also discussed his book “Jack and the Fallen Giants,” which is a retelling of the popular fairytale, saying, “There’s a connection between the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and the story of the Giants in and in Genesis. And also later in the Old Testament.”
“So we’re trying to help people see those connections and see how the fairytales aren’t just a bunch of ridiculous things that are accumulated together. … But they actually have patterns that describe the cosmos in a deep way,” he added.