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Dec. 16, 2005 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
32:11
16 Dealing with Non-Libertarians Part 1

We all have to deal with non-libertarians - how can we do that most productively?

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Well, good morning to you, or good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are.
My name is Stefan Molyneux.
This is podcast number nine.
I am on my way to work on a fine, through a fine carpet of snow in Mississauga, which is a suburb of Toronto, and it's 9.09 a.m.
I was not expecting to go to work today because I thought the office was going to be snowed in, but hey, my boss is going in, we'll have a nice lunch, and I'll get done what I need to get done.
So, what I wanted to talk about this morning was the question of how do we deal with, let's say, the unenlightened.
Which is to say, just about everybody.
And to me, it's an interesting and deep question.
In my particular viewpoint, the libertarians who wish to rush to achievement are making a sort of fundamental mistake.
With all due respect to those who, of course, like myself, want to create a world where violence is Almost non-existence in the free market provides opportunities for everyone and all of the good stuff that we're fighting for.
With all due respect to that, I think I can safely say that we don't know when it's going to happen, we don't know how it's going to happen, and it doesn't matter one little bit.
You know, people will often say to us, well, this is all well and good, but when are you actually going to achieve what it is that you want to achieve?
And, you know, that's to say that something like freedom, political liberty, anarchism, libertarianism, the Objectivist Society, the Free State Project, whatever you want to call it, I mean, freedom is not a destination, any more than free will is a destination.
You don't arrive at some place and say, I now have free will, and then sit back in your easy chair.
Free will is an ongoing process, choices are an ongoing process, and political freedom is an ongoing process.
I mean, I certainly don't expect to see the end of the state in my lifetime, I'm 39 years old.
And I don't care, really.
I mean, it would be nice.
But you know what's really a lot more exciting?
If I were able to see the end of the state in my lifetime, it would be because it was almost upon us!
In which case I would have missed out all of the excitement and honor of being, you know, around at the beginning of things.
Of course, I know it's not the beginning of things intellectually, but I would like to think that the contributions that I'm trying to add to the debate in terms of the argument for morality, and forgetting the argument from effect, and trying to develop a consistent defense of libertarian morality, I think that's sort of at the beginning of things, and I apologize in advance if it's because my scholarship is too limited to know how many people have gone before me.
I've studied mostly the history of philosophy through my graduate work, not so much the history of Libertarian philosophy.
So I think it's kind of way cool to be here at the beginning of things and to start to lay down the foundation of where we may end up.
So, yeah, so I have no problem with the stateless society not being achieved in my lifetime.
But I do think it's important to not worry about how it's going to happen, right?
I mean, speaking the effects of truth Seeking the effects of truth is absolutely, to me, kind of pointless.
Because, really, they can't be predicted.
I mean, if you tell Copernicus that one of the things that was going to happen out of his analysis of planetary motion was, you know, a sort of massive intellectual blow against the Catholic Church, the torturing of Galileo, and all of the stuff that went on, which, you know, in a sense, or to some degree, resulted in the separation of church and state, you know, one of the greatest achievements of western political philosophy.
You know, he'd just say, what, are you crazy?
I'm just scribbling in my attic about some balls spinning in space.
What does that have to do with anything?
You know, if you talk to Ricardo or Adam Smith, you know, all they were trying to do was to nail some bureaucracies, to sort of point out the limitations of mercantilism.
If you were to say to them, listen, A hundred years or fifty years after you write, let's say a hundred just to be on the safe side, a hundred years after you write, you would, you know, your works and their acceptance will have completely transformed society.
You will have been responsible for the birth of the Industrial Revolution, which is the sort of unprecedented wealth generator in human history.
So that is the effect of your writing and they would not believe you.
I mean, they absolutely would not believe you.
So, it really is impossible to predict the results of what happens when you argue for freedom.
It could take a thousand years.
It could take a hundred years.
It might even take ten years!
I mean, I consider that highly unlikely, of course.
But you really can't predict how human beings are going to react to ideas.
There's no alchemist.
There's no social alchemist who is subtle enough To know what the effects of particular ideas are going to be.
You know, is the time right for the ideas of freedom?
Are people ready for it?
Are they open to it?
I mean, there's absolutely no way to tell.
Because we're selling something new.
I mean, you can sort of roughly predict that the demand for IBM stock is not going to vaporize tomorrow.
But it's very hard to figure out whether a new business venture is going to survive and flourish.
So I would say that to try and say, well, when is it going to happen?
What are the effects going to be?
How are we going to get there?
Lordy, lordy, it is far too premature for anything like that.
What we want to do is to begin to challenge the morals at the root of things in a consistent way.
Forget about the economics.
Forget about the politics.
Forget about all of that other stuff.
Just focus on hacking.
At the root of this evil that's in the world.
I can't remember who said it, but it's a quote that I quite like.
Somebody said, for every thousand people trimming the leaves of evil, there is one person hacking at the root.
And, you know, I would certainly suggest or invite you to be one of those people because, you know, trimming the tree has done nothing for us for 80 years.
And, you know, that's not about to change.
So we need to take a fundamentally different approach if we're going to win the fight for liberty.
So, last but not least, it's an exciting fight.
It is the greatest fight, in my mind, in the history of the world.
It's the greatest fight in the history of ideas.
The idea of establishing a universal morality is something that not even Socrates or Plato or Aristotle were able to achieve.
They put forward some great arguments, but, you know, they weren't able to clinch the case in a way that was provable.
So, you know, this is the greatest fight in the history of the world.
This is the most noble cause in the history of the world, both past and future.
So, you know, to be involved in this to whatever degree is a very exciting thing and, you know, something to tell your grandchildren about no matter what conditions you're living in.
So to return back to the question of how do we deal with people who are unenlightened, who have never heard of these ideas, who've just sort of been sucking at the teat of state propaganda unknowingly their whole lives, and in a sense are the most dangerous of people, right?
The most dangerous of people intellectually are the ones who tend to undermine the life of the mind the most, are those who don't know But don't know that they don't know, because this is where you get blind, pompous, arrogant prejudice, you know, at best.
It gets worse from there.
So, for instance, I mean to make sure you understand the concept, so I'll just limit myself to one wild metaphor and then we'll continue.
I don't know what the capital of Madagascar is.
But I know that I don't know what the capital of Madagascar is.
So if somebody says, what's the capital of Madagascar?
I'll say, I don't know.
And if they tell me it's Jimbo Jambo, I'll say, well, that's great, thank you.
And then probably for the next 20 minutes or so, I will know what the capital of Madagascar is.
And then if somebody asks me that same question tomorrow, I'll be like, yeah, it's Jim something or other.
I can't remember.
But to know that you don't know something is the first prerequisite for learning something.
If I think I know, then I'm not going to learn.
The people who don't know something but don't know that they don't know it are the most dangerous because they are absolutely certain in error.
If I've had some bizarre drug trip where I believe I've gone to Madagascar and visited a capital called Bobsy Bobsy, then I'm certain, and in conversation at a party at least, I'm going to absolutely contradict people who tell me otherwise.
Now, if somebody drags out a map and somebody drags me for a person, then I'm just... It may take a while, but I'm eventually going to have to give up my position.
But when I thoroughly believe that I know something that is false, then I am a very dangerous person to deal with intellectually.
Because I'm sort of throwing myself off a cliff every time I open my mouth, but I'm not going alone.
Because people in society don't have any capacity to analyze anything rationally, they really take as gospel what people present the most passionately and the most convincingly, right?
I mean, it is a show, it is not a tale.
Right, I mean, this goes all the way back to, you know, this sort of famous debate between Kennedy and Nixon where, you know, people believed that Kennedy won the TV debate because, you know, he was young and handsome and he had that sort of squirrel thatch of hair and, you know, wasn't ejecting flop sweat, you know, at high velocity.
Whereas Nixon on the radio was considered to be better.
By the way, if you ever get a chance, I know this is like Tangent City, but hey, it's a drive.
I've sort of got a destination, but I'm wandering around a little.
If you do ever get a chance to download that debate, I think you'll be astounded at just how empty it is.
I mean, you know, it's on par with this sort of Clinton's, we want to build a bridge to the 21st century.
It's like, oh really?
Okay, I'll get a hard hat and a hammer and I'll get right on that bridge.
And you'll find the same thing.
You know, this is America's century.
This is, you know, we are the march of the next generation.
I mean, it sounds like, you know, a combination of a Marine recruiting ad and a Pepsi commercial.
So have a listen just in case you think that political debate has changed over the past 30 or 40 years.
So people who have never been exposed to these kinds of ideas fall into one of two categories.
The first category is people who have no clue what's wrong with the world and know that they don't know, right?
So, yeah, things are kind of crappy.
I don't like the way the government runs.
I would be certainly happy to listen to an alternative because, man oh man, you know, this sure doesn't work, right?
I mean, I'm not happy with what I read in the paper.
I don't like the debt that's going on to my kids.
I don't like the way the environment is managed.
I don't know about gay marriage.
I don't know about this, that or the other.
And then those people, you know, they know that there's a problem, which is great.
And they don't know the solution, which is also great.
Now, of course, these people do have to be handled very delicately because, you know, you're at great risk of just blowing their minds.
And, you know, as I've argued elsewhere, it's very important to be aware, to be fully cognizant of the amount of Difficulty that you will be putting them in socially should they even start to drift towards the truth, right?
I mean, not to imitate Jack because it's in a closed space and I don't want my ears to be ringing, but you know, there's a reason why that quote from A Few Good Men, you can't handle the truth, is so famous because it strikes a chord with people and it's very true.
Um, so that's the first category of people.
Um, and you know, they're not exactly few and far between, but they're not exactly, you know, all too common either.
The second category of people is far more common, and they themselves are divided into two categories.
So the second category of people is those who, um, Who don't know that they don't know.
And there are two categories of them.
The first is those who shrug and believe that it's the best of a bad lot.
That our system in Canada may suck, but at least it's better than America's.
Or our system in America may suck, but at least it's better than North Korea's.
Or whatever, right?
So these are the people who are like, yes, democracy is messy.
Yes, you know, as Churchill said, it's the worst system in the world except for all the others.
And you know, Churchill, the famous political philosopher, as everybody knows.
So these are the people who take a sort of pragmatic stand.
And simply regard those who question the system or look for some sort of moral consistency as foolish idealists and people who just can't handle, for whatever psychological reasons, the natural mess of democracy and probably have fascistic tendencies and would do anything to get the buses running on time, including to strip the citizens of their rights.
You know, so when you say, you know, the system is a mess and it should be cleaned up and, you know, there's a much more rational way to approach conflict and democracy is brute rule of the majority and so on, you know, they'll sort of sigh and roll their eyes and say, well, you know, that's all well and good, but, you know, it is the best system in the world and, you know, nobody's come up with a better system and, yes, it has its problems, as all human relationships do, but you can't look for purity in this world.
Yada, yada, yada.
We've all heard this stuff, at least I have, until our eyeballs roll in our sleep seeing it scroll across the screen.
These kinds of people are not moral purists, but they are dangerous because what they are is sort of Syphilitic, cynical infectors, right?
They're just sort of spraying this sort of world-weary, sighing, shrugging, you know, the best we can do, Humphrey Bogart kind of, you know, monochromatic cynicism.
And that's a hard thing to resist, right?
I mean, these people can't be converted because you can't change a cynic at all.
However, they're still easier to deal with than the third category, which is sort of the second subcategory of those who don't know that they don't know.
And these are the moralists.
These are, you know, often found on the left wing.
The other group is often found on the right wing.
But on the left wing, you have those, you know, who buy into everything that is put out about the system that's in place.
Who just, you know, they swallow it and they don't even know they're swallowing it.
They live in the sea and they, like, they swim in the sea and they have no idea there's such a thing as water.
You know, to them it's just, that's what it is, right?
There's no other possibility.
And they're locked in primarily because of moral considerations.
So, these are the people who say, well, you know, without the current system, and they won't even say, you know, whatever its flaws, you know, without the current system, you know, the poor die in the streets, the sick rot in the gutters, the old, you know, are shoveled onto snowbanks and, you know, left to, you know, immobilize.
And, you know, these are the people who have a morally pure or moral purist approach to the existing system.
You know, if you start talking about things like, I mean, even at a practical level, and I don't recommend you do this, but if you feel, you know, just like baiting them, you know, start talking about things like fraud in the welfare system, and they'll say, oh, it's a tiny, tiny, tiny minority, and it's, you know, non-existent.
Most of the people who use this, you know, the healthcare system or the medical system, sorry, or the welfare system are decent, hard-working, you know, this is, these people live in a world of Soviet propaganda posters, you know, where You know, all the poor are merely underprivileged and have done nothing to bring about their own situation.
And, you know, all of the rich just had opportunities, and contacts, and money, and they didn't earn it.
And, you know, we have to distribute the wealth equally because everything at the moment is so unfair.
And, you know, they've got this whole vaguely younger sibling approach to better and worse, which is that they simply cannot They don't comprehend the notion of free will, and they have absorbed so much propaganda that they feel that everybody who is poor is miserable and underutilized.
Which is pure nonsense.
Okay, one more minor aside, then we'll keep going.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being poor whatsoever.
Poor is a perfectly valid choice.
There are enormous benefits to being poor.
Two days ago, I had to spend four hours driving to a meeting, four hours driving back.
My wife dropped me off at the airport.
I flew in the evening to Washington.
I spent the day at a conference.
I flew back and got home at 10.30.
If you're poor, you don't have to do that.
I enjoyed the meeting.
I enjoyed the conference.
But basically, it's like a 12 to 1 ratio of travel to meetings.
Poor people don't have to do that.
You just got to show up to Tim Hortons.
You don't have to work overtime.
You don't have to go on Sundays.
If you find a way not to work at all, man, it's pretty sweet.
I mean, if somebody gave me the option of a fixed income for free, I sure as heck would be doing a lot more podcasts and a lot less managing of the software business.
I mean, I enjoy my job, but it's not my primary calling.
It's a sort of do-for.
I do it so I can do other things.
So these people have no comprehension of the complexity of human choice and the variety of human personalities and abilities, and they just assume that everyone who's poor is underprivileged, miserable, and could do so much better if only they had some more resources.
All of which is complete nonsense.
So, how do you deal with these people?
This is sort of my framework.
Do with it what you will, but I found it to be helpful.
Well, for the people who know that they don't know, well and good.
You begin by explaining to them that there are certain underpinning assumptions to the existing system which are at least morally questionable.
I don't go for the slam-dunk on the state on the first conversation.
All you do is point out some contradictions and point out some moral questions.
Because these people at least have the integrity to know that they don't know, so they're way ahead of the other group of idiots who are just, you know, strutting around saying that they know when they really don't at all.
You know, they've been raised on the Coke commercial and they say Coke is it, right?
And think that they've made some philosophical breakthrough.
So I'm very gentle with these people.
I simply point out that, you know, one of the things that I start with is to say that, you know, one of the central problems, which, you know, there's still people alive who remember it being otherwise, or at least were around when it was otherwise.
One of the central problems is the problem of the income tax, right?
I mean, once you have the income tax, especially when it's deducted from source, the government can kind of do whatever it wants, and there's no limitation on the growth of government power.
So one of the first things that, you know, needs to be examined is, you know, and I know it's a tall order, but you know, The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and of course you need to know which direction you're going.
The first thing that we need to question is the validity of the income tax because once you have the income tax at source, governments can do anything they want and they no longer have any accountability to the voters because there's no possibility of resisting taxes or resisting policies that you don't like.
So, you know, if they're pacifists or have had any indication about their dislike for the Iraqi war, I would say, well, you know, how well would this Iraqi war actually do?
How well would it be funded if people actually had to mail a check for $5,000 a year into Washington?
You know, if they really supported the troops, then, you know, they would give up their kids' box lunches and they would give up their hockey games and the renovation of their basement and they would send money to these death squads in Iraq and And so on.
And, you know, most people recognize that when people have to put their money where their mouth is, their mouth tends to shut up quite a bit.
So, you know, they probably wouldn't.
So there's ways of just sort of saying, there's ways, you know, there's an approach to limiting government power which is pretty useful.
Which is, you know, to prevent the government from being able to take money at will and do whatever it wants with no accountability, right?
I mean, you know, companies have expense accounts and reviews of those expense accounts for a reason, because you give people blank checks they tend to spend without consideration for the consequences.
So, you know, it's important to start gently with these people and simply to start from the argument, from practicality.
If they're open to that, right, I mean if they're open to any kind of new ideas, then what I talk about is to say, You know, that I have a tough time understanding what's moral about the current system because, you know, it's all based on violence and I don't think the violence solves social problems and so on.
And I just talk about it like it's my opinion.
I don't sort of thunder from the pulpit that it's true because, you know, as soon as you tell, you know, people will do just about anything you ask them to and almost nothing you tell them to.
And if you invite people into the sort of happy land of truth, they'll come in and start poking around.
But if you drag them in by their ear, all they want to do is get away.
So I find that, you know, approaching it with sort of humor and curiosity in the sort of classical Socratic way is the right approach.
So that's sort of the first thing, which is simply determine whether or not there are people who think they know something when they in fact don't.
And then you start to talk about things which have sort of a tangible effect that's connected to things that they already have experienced.
So everybody knows that government spending is sort of way insanely out of control and that there's no accountability to the citizens and corruption is rather enormous and all of this stuff.
And so tying it in to give them an answer, right, to say, well, this is because of the income tax, specifically deductions at source, and this could be expanded to any tax where the citizen has no choice about paying.
I mean, if you put a tax on soap, then citizens that really dislike the government can fund alternatives for soap, find, you know, buy alternatives to soap or set up their own little sort of soap collectives or, you know, order soaps from overseas, you know, lots of different things.
There's ways to limit taxes on goods, particular goods, you know, but when taxes become universal, and especially deducted at source, there's no control over the government, blah blah blah.
So, I think that's a good way to get people to understand, oh, here's why the problem exists.
And, you know, this is a reasonable explanation, so it's something for them to think on, right?
I mean, you don't make somebody a physicist overnight, and you don't make somebody a libertarian overnight, but the first thing you want to do is to give them a framework wherein they can begin examining the information that they'll get after you talk to them, right?
So the next time they pick up the paper and they read about corruption, they'd go, oh yeah, that guy was talking about the income tax, this could be a good example.
So that's one way of looking at it, or an approach.
Now with the other people, actually no, before we get to them, I'll sort of talk about one other thing in general.
To use a metaphor that unusually enough for these podcasts isn't too wild, if you are a doctor, And you don't use penicillin to treat infections in the 1700s?
You are not a bad doctor.
Why?
Because there's no such thing as penicillin yet.
So, you know, it's hard to hold someone to a standard that doesn't exist in their time.
So, that's sort of one thing that's pretty important to remember, and I'll sort of tie it into the libertarian thing in a second.
To take another example, If you are a doctor in the 1950s who, for whatever reason, you're in Botswana or you've got a hut in the Andes and you just treat people coming through on mountain climbing expeditions and you've had almost no contact with the outside world, if you have never heard of penicillin, You know, despite the fact that you read journals or whatever, the one that mentioned penicillin just didn't get delivered.
I mean, I know I'm making stuff up, but you know, for whatever reason penicillin exists in the world, but you have never heard of it, then you are also not a bad doctor for failing to prescribe it.
Because you simply don't know that it exists.
Now, if you've just never picked up a medical journal in 20 years, then of course you're responsible for not knowing stuff that you should know, right?
I mean, you're a doctor.
You shouldn't be using leeches, you know, in the 20th century because you haven't picked up the latest medical journals.
So, if you don't know something legitimately, then you're also not responsible for the consequences of your choices, the choices you make based on your lack of knowledge.
And for a last example, if you are a doctor who has heard about penicillin and knows that it's in trials but has not read anything or the trials have not advanced to the point where its safety can be determined, then you also may not be faulted for failing to prescribe penicillin.
I mean, if you come across somebody who's got some ridiculous gangrene, and it's penicillin, the risk of penicillin or death, and you don't even offer penicillin, then you may be liable for that decision in a negative way.
But if somebody just has a smelly pinky cut, then you may not feel the risk.
And you may explain it to them, but with strong recommendations, don't take this thing, or you may not even tell it to them.
However, if you're a doctor in 2005 and you do not prescribe penicillin for an infection, you know, I mean, let's take out all of the equations about, you know, resistance to bacteria and this kind of stuff.
But if you don't even think about prescribing it or don't even, you know, take the approach that penicillin is a useful thing or antibiotics are a useful thing with an infection, then you're a pretty bad doctor, right?
And you're going to get sued.
So the question around people's moral culpability does reside around knowledge.
Now, there's a slight caveat here around morality, in that you don't have to be a philosopher of property rights to understand that stealing is wrong.
You simply have to say, gee, how do I feel when somebody steals from me?
Or to say, I've grabbed something, now I want to keep it.
And everybody gets that that's a contradiction.
And we get that very early in life.
As I've mentioned, when you ever try to take candy from a toddler, you will get a fairly instructive lesson in humanity's attachment and innate regard for property rights.
So if somebody has never heard of ethical theories around the universality of morality and has never heard the proof of libertarian morality, respect that.
Just because they haven't heard of it doesn't mean that they're not open to it, and it also doesn't mean that they're evil for never having come up with it.
I mean, I didn't come up with it until a couple of weeks ago, and I don't believe that I was evil beforehand.
So, I would say, you know, go gently and, you know, sort of lead them along.
You know, read the Socratic dialogues if you want to get a sense of how to start these conversations.
I don't necessarily approve of the way Socrates ends them, but definitely, you know, how they're started is interesting, which is just curiosity, persistence, and, oh, you know what justice is.
Oh, you know what morality is.
Oh, you know what goodness is.
Well, tell me, because sometimes it's confusing to me, and I certainly believe that to be the case for myself.
Um, so, you know, these people have never heard of these ideas, and so when you are introducing these ideas to them...
Then you have to assume the best.
I think you have to assume that they are going to listen, and they're going to be interested, and they're going to be curious, and you may have some pretty powerful converts on your hands.
Good for you.
It is like wrestling a big fish in with a very thin line.
It takes great skill and practice.
You lose more than you get, but if it was no challenge, it would be no fun, right?
So, I would say that prior to understanding libertarian ideas, people are not responsible for, you know, greeting them with skepticism or whatever, right?
But the great thing about the argument for morality is it doesn't require exhaustive knowledge of statistics or facts or economic history or, you know, what is the GDP of Malaysia or anything, you know, because it's simple, logical questions that you can ask people that, you know, revolve around decisions that they make every day.
So, you know, it's a topic that nobody can sort of claim superior knowledge or like I have a PhD in right and wrong, so it is a particularly fruitful area and if you just sort of persistently ask questions...
You know, so, and always reduce things to principles, you know, like they say the welfare state is good.
It's like, okay, so what you're saying is that certain people are allowed to steal from some people and give to other people, and that's morally good.
Well, what is it that makes, you know, what's the difference with these people and everyone else?
Why can these people do it and not these people and so on?
And, you know, without sort of saying, you know, you fascist bastard, you're, you know, you're approving of violence and you want us all to go to death camps and Although it can be fun, it doesn't tend to be enormously productive and doesn't necessarily raise the stature of libertarian philosophy in the minds of the general population.
But, you know, treat people well.
I had a friend of mine who was my roommate in university when I went to McGill, was a biologist.
And he said that one of the sort of models that he was working with, he was doing this work on memes, which is sort of how ideas get transmitted like viruses.
One of the things that he was working on was the proposition that, you know, in the sort of prisoner's dilemma, like where you have to make choices based on incomplete information, The best way to approach it, and I sort of believe this is true, is, you know, treat everyone the best that you can the first time that you meet them, and after that you treat them exactly as they treat you.
Right?
So you start off with everything being friendly, and if you get called a fascist and so on, then you have every right, and in fact you should, lose your temper, you know, and not give an inch, right?
Because these people are, you know, breaking the bounds of civilized debate, and I certainly don't believe in turning the other cheek.
I don't think that you serve liberty by Cowering in a corner and apologizing for being right or, you know, trying to act superior and smug and zen and saying, well, I guess this bothers you more than it bothers me or anything.
I mean, you've got to be passionate, real and honest in your defense of freedom.
So I'm gonna... I'm at work.
I'll pick this up later on this afternoon.
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