The Bhagavad Gita and The Sopranos

...and what they teach about the Culture War.

A comment I made on reddit once, which people greatly enjoyed, so I am including it here.

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Did you know the Bhagavad Gita is related to The Sopranos, and they both teach you important things about the Culture War? Here's how:

The Gita is a tale of Arjuna, a warrior prince, and Krishna, his charioteer. They're standing in front of a battlefield, where they're about to fight a significant chunk of Arjuna's family. Now. Imagine you're Arjuna. In spite of being a master killer, John Wick BCE if you will, you have such a resplendent soul that the thought of kinslaying fills you with such despair that you drop your bow and arrows. Krishna immediately apprehends that a little pep talk is in order. Now imagine that instead of the Song of God, what comes out of Krishna's mouth is the following:

Virtue is telling boys they can become girls, if they so desire.

Can you guess what Arjuna thought of that? Here's what:

God! Krishna has lost both his mind and soul! I need a new charioteer, and anyone will do!

Now. Can you guess who is Arjuna and who is Krishna in 21st century America? Easy. Arjuna is the Red Tribe, Krishna is the Blue Tribe, and the Gita is an instruction manual on how the Scholar caste is supposed to communicate with the Warrior caste. What was that? You thought America did not have a caste system? But that's what the tribes are, with Blue being the Brahmins, and Red the Kshatriyas. And the Gita tells us that Blue is supposed to indoctrinate Red with its values, for Blue is the charioteer, even above the kings, because Blue defines what the Overton Window even is to begin with.

But Blue has forgotten that it must successfully indoctrinate Red, preferring instead to bicker endlessly, while occasionally not even letting Red talk. Meanwhile, America's enemies watch on, and they're starting to wonder if maybe they will get to retake Alaska and Taiwan.

And what does this have to do with The Sopranos? Well, The Sopranos is a TV adaptation of the Gita, with Tony being Arjuna (a fallen one), and Dr. Melfi being Krishna. And it teaches us that Arjunas have sharply honed warrior instincts that allow them to know things far in advance, literal precognition developed due to the ruthless selection pressure of multiple battlefields. How? Because Tony faints because his instincts already know his mother and uncle will conspire to kill him, and he knows this in Episode 1. And the Red Tribe in America is freaking the fuck out, and has been for awhile. And you have to wonder what it is that their warrior instincts are detecting that has them in such a tizzy.

My hunch is that they know a big crisis is coming. They don't know what the crisis is, just that it's coming. But we're Blue Tribe, and we're supposed to know. And what I think is coming, is that the unknown unknowns of global warming and general environmental degradation will do a number on America. And Red denies this, only because they're stuck in the denial stage of grief. Blue is supposed to help them move past it, like Krishna did Arjuna. But Blue has adopted insane hypernormalized values that a warrior could never accept.

Hence, the Culture War. And why it is important to discuss it.

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End comment. Not that this thing will be about the Culture War, but neither shall it be avoided.