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Jan. 13, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
50:52
55 Unnatural Spiritualism

Zen and the art of self-erasure

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Time Text
Good afternoon.
I hope you're doing well.
It's Stephen Molyneux.
It is 103 p.m.
Friday, January the 13th, the day of bad luck for the Buddha because I have received some emails and questions and comments from a number of Buddhists who say that, well, my religion is not violent and my religion is, you know, philosophical and my religion is peaceful and so on.
And so I got some information from a number of people on Buddhism So I thought that it might be worth having a look at this, and so I'll talk about the stuff that I agree with, and then let's have a look at some stuff that is nonsense.
Right?
Which actually, of course, is most of it, because it's not scientific.
So things that I agree with.
This is in Buddhist tenets.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Well, of course not.
Do not believe in traditions because they've been handed down for many generations.
Of course not.
Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many.
In fact, I would say quite the opposite.
If it's spoken and rumored by many, it's bound to be false.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason, and it is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
I would agree with the first part of that, after observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason.
Of course, yes.
Conducive to the good and benefit of one and all?
I really don't think that that's reasonable, because human beings are very different, and what is good for one is not necessarily good for all.
I enjoy doing these podcasts.
Other people would find this a living hell.
my wife enjoys doing Sudoku, I would find that a living hell.
And so you can't find something in terms of the good and benefit of one and all.
And also the question of morality is "thou shalt nots" are very powerful "thou shalts" are dictatorial in nature.
So let's have a look at some of the basic tenets of this form of Buddhism at least.
I'm not going to claim that I know all forms, but I'm sure that there is a A general agreement among certain Buddhist texts for this kind of stuff.
So the first thing is that Buddhists believe that we are already, quote, one with everything.
And the reason that they believe that is because, you know, the bodies and brains are composed of the Earth molecules.
Specific atoms, part of us and not part of us, are continually changing, and they accept evolution, and they say that we are within the world as a natural entity.
And so, you know, that seems entirely accurate and entirely likely.
You know, they talk about how, you know, the reasons why we have characteristics that we have, like preoccupation with sex and enjoyments of fats and sugars and all of that kind of stuff.
And so, you know, that all seems very logical and very scientific.
And then, of course, they take the normal wrong turn that people take when they view life from a scientific matter.
And they simply jump off the realm of science out of a species of sort of physics envy or fixed science envy.
And what happens is that one of the things that has to be taken into account simply as a basic fact of reality when you are analyzing humanity is that humanity contains what seems like a contradictory characteristic.
We are entirely part of reality and yet we have free will.
And of course, the Buddhists go through this scientific analysis of human life, and then claim that because we are entirely material, that we don't have free will.
And that is very silly, you know, simply because it's so obvious that we do have free will, and anybody who tries to convince you otherwise It's appealing to your free will.
And, you know, I think as Ayn Rand and a number of psychologists have talked about, the real choice, the real free will that we have in life is the choice to think or not to think.
The choice to focus or not to focus.
The choice to accept empirical evidence and reason through it, or to reject it and go on prejudice and history and habit.
And so, one of the basic facts of humanity is that we are entirely composed of matter, And yet we have a characteristic which is unique to human beings, which is that we possess free will and a rational capacity to analyze the world rationally.
And so basically what happens is when the problem of free will arises philosophically, people take one of two routes or two approaches.
The first is they either say our bodies are composed of base matter but there's this higher reality You know, this is the heaven or the platonic world of forms or the new immemorial realm of Kant.
There's some sort of higher reality, the universal spirit or the absolute spirit of Hegel.
So they say there's a higher reality which is not subject to the constraints of material reality and that is where our souls and our identities and our free will reside.
And so they sort of escape the problem of the uniqueness of free will and the philosophical or psychological or neurological problem of self-directed, self-generating consciousness by simply saying that it is a sort of fragment of a higher world that is not subject to material reality and that's how they rescue free will from sort of blind atomic matter.
And the second approach, which as I understand is the one that is taken by the Buddhists, is they say that we are entirely composed of material elements and therefore we do not have free will.
And so they say that we are then subject to all of the same constraints and laws that govern material reality.
And so of course in the first instance it is, you know, in the first instance where they say there's a higher realm, Then, of course, there's no evidence of this higher realm anywhere, so they have to say that material reality is an illusion and the higher realm is more important.
Or, at best, material reality is some sort of base, you know, low-grade, low-rent form of reality that's really not very consequential.
So a focus on material reality is an error.
And so the higher reality is the ideal.
And in the Buddhist world, of course, because they focus on the material reality of things, they then have to say that a free will and the ego or the self or consciousness as you experience it.
A free will is an illusion, right?
So in one, to say free will in the abstract realm, they make the material world an illusion.
And the second, to destroy or to undermine, no actually to destroy free will in the material realm, they make the abstract realm and consciousness and identity and the self to be an illusion.
And this is neither approach of scientific, of course.
I mean, the fact of the matter is that human beings do possess free will.
And, I mean, we experience it every single day, that we make every single choice.
And our free will is not infinite, but is constrained by material reality.
Human beings contain imagination.
We contain the capacity to reason.
We contain the capacity to subjugate the evidence of our senses to the higher, sort of the truth, the abstract truths that are generated through observation and mathematical reasoning and syllogistic reasoning and physical theories and so on.
And that's just a fact of reality.
I mean, the first thing you do with science, of course, is you accept the facts of reality.
And, you know, the fact is that there is this fundamental, what looks like an anomaly, in the world.
And that anomaly is free will.
And, you know, I'm perfectly content to say I have no idea why human consciousness is the only form of self-generating energy in the universe.
I have no clue whatsoever.
Which is fine.
You're sort of honest enough to admit that, that here is a material phenomenon for which we do not have a causal explanation as yet.
Which is very common, right, in a lot of science.
They don't have a universal field theory.
There's lots of things that just aren't known and aren't understood.
They don't even know why gravity works or how.
It just does.
So, you know, the fact of the matter is you just have to accept basic things like there is free will, and if you don't believe that there's free will, well, that's fine.
Then you don't have to bother talking to anyone because you're never going to be able to change their mind because everything is foreordained.
I mean, there's no point even getting out of bed in the morning.
And there's no point making any choices.
It's simply impossible, right?
Because if you choose not to get out of bed, you're still choosing that.
And if there is no free will, of course, then there is no such thing as morality.
This is sort of another problem that they face.
The religious people who take the higher realm approach, and this is also true of communists and racists and so on, who have abstract classes like abstract categories like class and race and nation and so on.
They save morality by reserving an aspect of the human mind called the soul or free will.
They rescue that from material sort of pre-programmed inevitability by assigning it to a different realm from material reality So they at least save morality, right?
Because you at least have a choice.
Whereas in the Buddhist world, and of course this is to some degree true in the Muslim world, there is this sort of Inshallah, there is this God-wills, and we have no choice, and what will be, won't be, and the day of our death is ordained, and all this sort of stuff.
And so they get rid of the abstract realm, but of course they completely destroy morality, because there is really no possibility of acting differently than you're acting.
You know, we are all one, we are all part of the same material universe, and nobody's responsible for anything.
So, of course, they work very hard to change your mind to help you to understand that you can't change your mind, which is, you know, because you don't have any free will.
So, I mean, this is all very silly.
And it's completely contrary to the facts of reality, both measurable and personal, right?
We experience free will, no problem, every day.
We all make that choice, or number of choices, almost an infinite number of choices.
And secondly, of course, we know that when human beings have access to new information, they tend to change their behaviors, right?
So, you know, smoking declines because people find out that smoking is dangerous.
Certain foods fall out of favor when certain diets become popular, right?
So carbs are out and You know, then carbs are in, and, you know, sugar is out, and then some sugar is in, and eggs are bad, and eggs are good, and bacon is bad, and bacon is good, and... So we know that when people receive information, they tend to change their courses of action to varying degrees of success, of course.
But, you know, as I've mentioned in a previous podcast, what I call the million-dollar proposition is a very important consideration for free will, and helps to test the limits of free will.
Which is that if you offer someone a million dollars to do something, and they can do it, then it's subject to free will.
So if I offer you a million dollars to jump to the moon, you can't do it.
If I offer you a million dollars not to eat a cookie for twenty minutes or for two days, then you can do it.
So of course that's subject to free will.
And, of course, the basis of free will is to focus on the incentives and to balance all of the gains and losses incurred.
Right?
I mean, you could choose to have a purely vegan diet, which might add a couple of years to your life.
And somebody once, I think, wittily said, you know, veganism, you don't live forever, it just feels like you do, because you're not enjoying any of your meals.
And, you know, for those vegans who are going to email me and tell me how wonderful vegan cooking is, I fully accept that.
You know, there's other things that I prefer, and it seems to be a pretty common thing that other people prefer it, and maybe we can sort of get used to other kinds of cooking, but it seems like a long and risky transition, because meals are such a wonderful thing to enjoy.
So, you know, we look at human history, and we know that, for instance, when people are subject to violence, they don't tend to be productive.
When they're allowed to be free, they tend to be productive.
When human beings are not subject to compulsion, they grow up relatively peaceful.
When they are subject to a lot of compulsion, they tend to grow up relatively violent.
So human beings have the ability to...
to process information and change their habits accordingly.
And, of course, free will is constrained by many factors, such as whether you have the information or not, whether you understand the consequences, your level of intelligence, all of these things.
Your level of emotional intelligence as well.
All of these things are perfectly limiting to free will, which is, of course, not to say that free will does not exist.
I mean, human longevity is limited, but that doesn't mean human beings are not alive.
I think that the Buddhist approach to understanding the genetic basis of human experience, and the fact that their belief that the ego does not exist, that is just absolutely not true, and completely ignores the basic fact of reality.
And as some of them say, of course, that you... I'm just going to sort of read a sentence from a Buddhist text, So it goes, if there is no you that is independent and has free will, that means that every thought, perception, and action of the organism called you is as much an action of the natural universe as thunderstorms or butterflies.
And, you know, of course, in every respect you are one with nature.
Even the illusion that you are a free agent is an aspect of nature.
So, you know, they're really trying to get you to believe that there is no you.
So, for instance, they'll give you examples like they'll say, well, a rainbow doesn't exist in the sky.
It exists in your mind.
Which is completely not true.
I mean, it's absolutely not true.
A rainbow does not exist in your mind.
The word rainbow, of course, does.
And the word rainbow doesn't exist anywhere in reality.
other than as a particular configuration of electrical energy in your mind, which would be different for somebody speaking a different language.
But what you are perceiving when you're looking at rainbow is an actual set of wavelengths that come from the sunlight hitting water droplets suspended in the air.
So a rainbow does exist and, you know, this old tree falling in the forest Forest, you know, if I had a dime for every time somebody brought that up like it was the syllogistic triumph of philosophy.
I mean, it really depends what you define by sound, right?
I mean, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Well, it depends what you mean by sound.
If you mean by sound that which is perceived by an auditory channel and converted into electrical impulses in the brain, then no.
But if you define sound as a wavelength that occurs in air, then of course it does, right?
I mean, if you're not around to hear it, but you set up an analyzer to analyze the auditory waves.
coming over the forest, then of course that will pick up the sound of the tree falling in the forest, which you can then convert later to play for yourself if you want, much like these podcasts.
So I just find that stuff, that sort of two-bit philosophy, it's just ridiculous.
And the idea that one's personal ego or identity is an illusion is just one of these things that happen in philosophy.
That, you know, it's just amateurish and childish and faintly ridiculous.
And it's just one of these things that they come up with.
You know, the truth is the complete opposite of what you hear and what you feel and so on.
So here are some of the sort of pluses and minuses of their approach to free will.
So, if you believe you are separate from nature and have free will, you can be proud of your accomplishments and you can feel superior to others who have not accomplished as much.
If you believe that you exist somehow independently you can believe that there is a part of you that is not dependent on the physical body and that could therefore survive the death of the body and be reborn either in heaven or in another reincarnation.
If you believe in a separate God you get to believe that there is a more powerful being who can help you out of jams and who has a plan for your life so that no matter what happens it is for the best.
You also get to believe that there might be a life after death and a better life at that.
If, however, you give up belief in a separate self and a separate God, you give up hope that there is a master plan for your life, a hope that prayer will bring a magical rescue, a hope and hope for life after death.
Sometimes believing in things that are not true is pretty attractive.
After all, wasn't it kind of a disappointment when you found out there was no Santa Claus?
Now that you are an adult, are there any advantages to not believing in Santa Claus?
Might there be advantages to seeing beyond the illusion of the freely willing self?
So, you know, here they are trapped in that same duality, which is philosophers who are amateur scientists have a big problem with free will, right?
So they're saying that if you believe in free will, you have to believe that there's a part of you that is not subject to material forces.
And, you know, that's, of course, ridiculous.
I mean, this is simply all we know is that we don't know how consciousness escapes the inevitability of material forces, but it certainly does.
But they say, well, if you believe that you have an individualistic identity, then you must absolutely believe in God and yourself and something that's going to survive after death and so on.
And if you don't, then you give up all of that stuff, but of course you lose your free will.
So it's a lose-lose situation, right?
Either you have to escape into the fantasies of some sort of higher reality, or you have to give up everything that you find special, unique, and joyful about your separate identity.
And, you know, I guess I would like to look what's behind door number three, which seems to be a little bit more scientific in its approach.
And here's another bit of nonsense.
Again, I'm not saying this is true of all Buddhists.
It's just a Buddhist text that somebody sent me wanting my opinion on it.
But is there a God?
It depends on our definition of God.
It is certainly unlikely that there is a God which exists as a medieval king who sits on a throne, or even as some almighty brain that exists in some special spiritual dimension of the universe.
However, if by God we mean the source of all phenomenon, the natural universe clearly fits the definition.
By that definition, God certainly does exist, and may be even more awesome than some of the traditional versions.
And, I mean, this is just, you know, people-pleasing crap, and this stuff really irritates me.
It's, you know, if you're going to make a stand for Buddhism, then stop talking about higher realities, and stop talking about just redefining anything the way that you want it.
God, as an entity, as a concept, is a very specific definition.
It's not just like, you know, God is gravity.
It's not like God is light waves.
I mean, there are already words for those things.
God is for consciousness which exists independent of matter and is all-powerful and all-knowing.
Or far more powerful and far more knowing than human beings.
And God is something which neither lives nor dies, was neither created nor can be destroyed.
And which can't be recorded by any physical matter, but which possesses consciousness.
I mean, this is not... You can't just say, well, that's the sum of the material universe, because the material universe is material!
and does not possess consciousness.
So it just irritates me when people say, well, it depends on our definition.
No, it really doesn't depend on your definition.
It really is not up to you to just define, oh, you know what?
My car is God.
Wait, no, my skis are God.
You know, it depends on your definition.
No, it really doesn't.
God is a very specific concept that you can't just redefine into whatever you want and say, maybe it does exist and maybe it doesn't.
And I just find that stuff very annoying.
And you come across that a lot when you deal with sort of amateur philosophy.
this lack of definition or defining things however you want.
And so let's have a look at what they talk about when it comes to morality.
From still another perspective, the perspective of spirituality or truth, there is what could be called a, quote, a higher purpose that may arise with a certain level of understanding and insight.
That purpose involves practicing joyful loving kindness.
It means to live so as to bring the most good feelings and the least bad feelings to all forms of life which are capable of feeling and to do so in a state of peaceful happiness.
Jesus of Nazareth Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have told people not only to quote love your neighbor as yourself but to quote love your enemy.
In the last decade research into psychological factors which affect physical health have found that love and forgiveness exert strong beneficial effects on both the immune system and the cardiovascular system.
Jesus was advocating an attitude and behavior that would make not only the world a better place for all of us, but make us healthier and happier in the process.
When we understand clearly that there are no freely willing agents to blame for the things we find offensive, it makes it easier for us to forgive and easier to act with loving kindness regardless of the behavior of others.
When Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, perhaps he really did mean to love your neighbor as if your neighbor is yourself.
When he said, referring to society's rejects, inasmuch as you do unto the least of those you do unto me, perhaps he really did mean that he and they and you are literally the same thing, i.e.
the natural universe.
When he said the kingdom of heaven is within you, perhaps he really meant it.
When he said that you must die to enter the kingdom of heaven, perhaps the you he was referring to is the illusory And of course, this is at the basis of most of these materialistic cults, right?
That because you and I weigh 210 pounds each, and we both have, you know, one head, two arms, two legs, is there really that much difference between us?
You know, we're both just human animals in the material world.
We are one, because we all share the same atoms, and we all share the same limbs, and we all share the same organs, and we are, you know, not so far apart from each other, and everybody's kind of the same, and pretty much you can get along with anybody, and nobody's better than anybody else, because we're all just, you know... I mean, good Lord!
I mean, just what enormous nonsense and what moral sickness this is.
And, of course, epistemological sickness as well.
Once you get rid of free will, nobody's responsible for anything.
Everything is based on predetermined factors in genetics and environment and so on, and therefore you can't judge anybody, and therefore everybody should be loved equally.
I mean, this is just... it is a form of mental illness to say that there is no difference between human beings.
I went out with a couple of dozen women before I married my wife.
Why did I marry my wife?
Because she is a glorious and wonderful human being.
I didn't just marry her because, you know, she was her particular weight or her particular size.
So the idea that everybody is equal and that there is no such thing as better or worse, you know, like I invite you all who believe that to go and spend a weekend chatting about my mother's theories about why she is so sick and how the doctors poisoned her and You know, then if you raise any questions or disagree with her, you know, to have her scream and throw things at you, please, I absolutely invite you to test out your theory that everyone is equal.
Spend some time around some really evil people and just, you know, sort of figure out if you feel that that's the case or not.
And if you feel that my mother is absolutely not beneficial, sorry, she's not responsible for any of her own actions, that she's simply a product of circumstances, then I invite you to spend a day with my mother, and then spend a day with my wife, and then to see if you don't notice any kind of difference between the two people.
And if you feel that it's all based on circumstances and genetics, then I invite you to spend a day with myself, and then spend a day with my brother, because we have perfectly opposing worldviews, And I believe that my brother is morally corrupt.
I know that he is morally corrupt, and exploitive, and, you know, perfectly willing to take people's money and time based on lying to them.
And so, you know, we're as far apart as moral human beings can be, and yet, you know, same environment, same, you know, very similar genetics.
My wife and I, completely different gene pool, almost identical values, and so, you know, just, there's no way that this can explain that.
It's because my wife and I were both exposed to great ideas, which we then chose to explore and to understand.
And it wasn't easy to do that.
My brother, of course, I gave him a copy of The Fountainhead when I was sixteen or seventeen, and he began reading it and threw it aside.
He did not choose to continue to try and understand these ideas.
So, I mean, did he ever have a choice?
Well, yes, of course he had a choice, because if I'd paid him a million dollars to read The Fountainhead, he would have done it.
So, of course, the next question that the Buddhists are going to ask and answer is, how should we live?
So there's this one perspective which says, there is no absolute moral code.
There is no updated version of the Ten Commandments, though some of them are still good ideas anyway.
The best guidance is to the best of our ability consider the most likely consequences of the various courses of actions available to us and choose those which we believe will cause the least suffering and promote the most overall happiness for ourselves and others.
So, of course, we're back to rank pragmatism, which is that we should simply attempt to maximize happiness and minimize suffering, which is impossible.
I mean, you cannot choose the right thing to do based on the effects that you perceive it's going to have.
I mean, it's not rational.
It's not objective.
It's not certain.
It's certainly not scientific.
Because the actions, you can't predict what's going to happen based on your actions to other people.
I mean, when I'm at a dinner party and And the subject of the stator of morality of war comes up, and I speak the truth.
I cause fairly intense suffering to other people, because they believe things that are false, and I am telling them something that is true, that is putting upon them a moral onus which they don't want.
Right?
Nobody wants to confront other people.
Even I don't enjoy it that much.
Nobody wants to confront other people.
That's why people resist learning about the truth so much, because it's difficult for them, because they sort of self-aggrandizedly and pompously pat themselves on the back every day, saying, I'm such a good person, I'm such a good person.
And that's why the argument for morality is so powerful.
Because everybody thinks they're such good people, and then if you point out to them that they're not, or that what they say is false, then rather than saying, oh wow, now I understand how much better it is to be a good person, I understand so much more deeply what it is to be moral, so what a wonderful correction.
I couldn't be happier about how my life is going to improve and how I'm actually going to live up to the standards that I hold for myself, or that I pretend that I've held for myself.
No, people don't do that.
What they want is to call themselves moral for conforming.
They want to call themselves good people just for going along with all the crap that everybody mouths every day.
And that sort of hypocrisy is what you're exposing when you tell the truth about something that people find uncomfortable.
What you're interfering with is their self-image of themselves as good people.
Right?
What you're basically saying to them is you are a fraudulent in how you live morality because you are pretending that you are good when you are merely conforming or merely following your own desires and calling them the good.
But the good is not up to you, nor is it up to me, no more so than Scientific laws are up to you, or up to me.
They're simply recognitions of reality.
So this idea that, you know, there's some moral law where, you know, you consider the most likely consequences of the various causes of actions and choose those we believe will cause the least suffering and most overall happiness for ourselves and others doesn't mean anything.
It can be anything that you want.
You could make up anything that you want.
I mean, it's such a ridiculous approach to morality.
Can you imagine that in terms of science?
Well, how should we determine the truth or value of a scientific proposition?
Oh, you know what we should do?
Why don't we sort of figure out the likely consequences of implementing that scientific principle and try and figure out the value or benefit it's going to bring to people and ourselves in general over a long period of time all over the world?
I mean, it's just nonsense.
It's a complete paralysis of one's ability to reason and one's ability to get anything done.
And in no way could it ever conceivably be thought to ameliorate the conflicts between human beings, especially at the realm of morality, which is where all essential human conflicts take place.
So, you know, this sort of vague truthiness and effect of truthiness of a particular proposition, I mean, this is not philosophy, this is just a form of mental illness.
So I can't say that I have much respect for it at all, right?
Of course, they can't blame anyone for anything because, of course, nobody has any responsibility for everything.
And here's another way that they get out of having any kind of responsibility.
While we can base our actions on our best prediction of consequences, we needn't blame ourselves or others if things don't turn out the way we want or expect.
We can remember all the times the very top experts have come together to determine social or economic policies.
For example, the deregulation of energy in California.
They do the best they can, but often their decisions have quite disastrous results and blah blah blah.
Sometimes trial and error is the only way to determine a course of action.
And to blame oneself or anyone else for this is irrationally and unnecessarily painful.
I mean, this kind of, like, strew-around-the-tea-leaves-and-light-the-incense-candles-and-don't-blame-anybody, you know, it is a form of moral sickness.
It really is.
To put this forward as any kind of proposition for truth, and, of course, to think that the top experts of the deregulation of the energy market in California, simply through trial and error, happen to make mistakes, is laughable.
It's a laughable blindness to the sort of reality of political economics, right?
I mean, the whole deregulation in of energy in California was entirely predicated on handing out juicy fat state contracts and monopolies and irrational regulations for the profit of corporations.
It had nothing to do with anybody trying to do the right thing.
But of course if you're a Buddhist you can't suspect anyone's motive, right?
Because everybody's just doing what they do and they're programmed by genetics and environment and And history, and circumstance, and experience.
So you can't blame anybody.
So everybody's trying to do their best, but it just doesn't work out.
I mean, that's just nonsense, right?
The Buddhists also say, in addition, we can live without fear of death.
Like all other species, we are genetically constructed so as to avoid death.
But we are probably the only animal that fears death.
I mean, of course, that's just That's just nonsense as well.
I mean, if you try and strangle a dog, he's going to kick and claw, and I bet you if you record the adrenaline going through his body, it's going to be pretty high.
So every living organism fears death and avoids death because, of course, that's how we're constructed, but also because life is kind of fun, right?
I mean, it's better to be alive than to be dead.
When the Buddha was asked what would happen to him after he dies, he asked for a twig of dry wood.
Holding it before the fire, he said, Here is the Buddha before the body was born.
Then lighting the twig in the fire, he stated, Here is the Buddha after birth.
Then blowing out the flame on the twig, he said, Here is the Buddha after death.
Did the Buddha go anywhere?
His point was that, like the flame on the twig, the body was one transient manifestation of that which already exists.
I mean, of course, my body is going to be pretty much the same after I'm dead than when I'm alive, with the fairly important difference that all the electrical and biochemical energy which makes up my thoughts and consciousness and personality will have ceased to be active.
In other words, I will be dead, and that's pretty bad.
So, what is the truth behind human existence?
First of all, no independent causation means there are no independent free agents in this universe.
There is literally no one, no self-sufficient cause to blame for anything.
The buck stops nowhere.
When this is clearly seen, anger and resentment no longer make sense or can be justified.
They will still arise as physiological responses, but the person who truly understands that there is no reality-based foundation for them will not be inclined to engage in the kinds of ruminations and rationalizations which perpetuate and energize these harmful emotions.
Because there's no one to blame, there is no one to be angry at.
Anger makes no sense, and retribution makes even less sense, and blah blah blah.
I mentioned in one of my previous podcasts my sort of analysis of the evil of my own mother, which was that, you know, the question was, of course, did she know right from wrong when she was abusive and violent?
And the answer is, well, did she do it in public?
Right?
I mean, if you are going to say that people are moral agents, or if, sorry, if you're going to say that they're not moral agents, then you have to prove that they don't know the difference between right and wrong, and they have no choice.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that as a proposition.
It's logical.
It's testable.
It's scientific.
So you say, as the Buddhists do, let's say that you say that people have no moral choices.
They either do not understand morality or they cannot choose.
Well, that's fine.
Then, no problem.
The best way to test for that, and this is of course what any sort of rational justice system does, is to say, well, if you have no control over your actions, then you can do them in public.
You will do them in public.
And so, for instance, if my mother did not understand that beating me was considered wrong, then she would have done it in public.
She would have done it in front of a priest, in front of a policeman.
She would have done it no matter what.
She wouldn't have, you know, if I had gone to tell people, she wouldn't have denied it.
And, you know, when I confronted her about it in my early twenties, she would have said, well, yeah, of course I beat you.
Absolutely.
I'll be happy to sign this affidavit.
There's nothing wrong with it.
It's like saying I drank milk.
No problem.
But that, of course, was not what she did.
And that's how we know that she knew the difference between right and wrong and could restrain her behavior if she so chose to.
She didn't.
She never beat us in public.
She never beat us when people were over.
She never beat us when there was a policeman around.
In fact, she was sickeningly sycophantic in those situations.
And, you know, butter couldn't melt in her mouth.
And...
So that's an important thing to recognize that when you're looking at a proposition called nobody has any moral responsibility then all you have to do is to figure out whether they have any control of their actions which you know in which case all you have to do is figure out whether there are circumstances under which they do not perform said evil actions or said actions and that's all pretty simple right but of course
People who love befogging their own mental processes and rejecting their own natures tend to love that kind of stuff in a way that I find somewhat irritating.
And what is it?
What is it with this Western Christian hostility towards anger?
I can't figure it out!
Why is anger considered to be such a horrible and irrational and destructive emotion?
Anger is a perfectly healthy and perfectly moral And perfectly wonderful feeling.
I mean, you can't have preferential behavior, as all human beings have and exhibit, without including anger in the mix.
Anger is here for a reason.
Anger is here to help us establish boundaries, to help us determine right from wrong, to help us fight the bad people in the world who would do us harm.
And I can't figure out, for the life of me, why people have such problems with anger.
Why anger is considered to be such a negative emotion.
Bullying, yes, of course, a bullying.
But bullying is about sadism and control.
It's not anger.
In fact, all the bad people in the world ever seem to want to do is tell us that anger is irrational and we shouldn't get angry.
Nietzsche had a great approach to this, I thought.
He used the French word, I think it was, ressentiment, resentment or hostility sublimated into pacifism, right?
And what he meant by that was that he said, look, if you look at the history of Christianity, it is a slave morality.
Nietzsche is a deliciously amoral thinker, but very penetrating in his analysis of certain psychological or sociological phenomenon.
He's particularly good, I think, with theology.
So Nietzsche says, look, Christianity arose as a religion among slaves.
And if you contrast that with the Roman gods that were worshipped, there's a Jupiter and so on, the Roman gods were, you know, hearty and active and experienced all the full range of human passions.
And this is, of course, a master morality, where control and the exertion of strength and the manifestation of the will to power is manifest in the religion.
So the gods are fighting, they're trying to achieve, they're trying to win, they're conniving, they're political, they're sexual, they're angry, they're in love, they hate, they All of the human passions find full expression in a master morality or in the morality of masters.
But in a slave morality what happens is obedience and subjugation and the hostility towards any of the passions is always manifest.
So if you're a slave You can't fight evil.
I mean, you have no weapons, you have no freedom, you have no power, no political power, no social power, no economic power.
You probably can't even choose your life mate, if you even can have one.
You could be sold, castrated, killed, pretty much at will.
And so, every human being has this insane need to want to think of themselves as a good person, regardless of their circumstances.
Again, why I focus so much on the argument for morality.
So, if you're a slave, and you have no choice but to be subjugated, then why not turn that into a virtue?
Right?
Why not say, you know what?
I can't fight back against those who dominate me, so you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to turn that into the greatest, smuggest, most self-righteous little virtue in the world.
And that is my approach to morality.
And the Romans, who are, you know, sort of bullying statist jerks, are going to say, you know what's really great?
What I'm going to turn into a virtue is having power over other human beings and being dominant and having a military and I'm going to put all these martial virtues together and make everything just so wonderful to be the way that I am, right?
So people look in the mirror and they find virtue everywhere they look, right?
I mean, no matter what they're doing, they find virtue.
We just recently got an email from Christina's sister.
Who is one of these types of people, right?
So she met this guy, and it was the best thing ever, and they just got along so perfectly, and wasn't it all so wonderful?
And, you know, we had some suspicions about the fellow who seemed to be, you know, fairly poor quality.
And so, you know, we raised a couple of these questions, and she was like, no, no, no, it's the best thing ever.
He's wonderful.
We're so much in love.
We're so suited to each other.
It was, you know, dating him is the right thing to do.
It's wonderful, and so on.
And then, of course, the inevitable happened, and the disillusionment set in, and then they ended up breaking up.
Somebody got an email, and she said, you know, I ended up breaking up with this guy, and although it was messy and difficult, it was, ultimately, it was the right thing to do.
And, I mean, there's countless examples of this in people's lives.
You sort of think around, they say, and you can't have it both ways, right?
I mean, if she was a rational person, that's what I'd say to her.
I'd say, you know, look, if Breaking up with him was the right thing to do, then dating him was the wrong thing to do.
If dating him was the right thing to do and he was a wonderful guy, then breaking up with him would be kind of the wrong thing to do.
But of course, she'd just give you that 10,000-yard stare and say that anger was a bad thing and you should really try to be more Zen.
But you see this kind of stuff all the time, right?
Human beings simply cannot look at themselves without self-justification.
They cannot look at their actions without telling themselves that that's the right thing that they're doing.
And so if you have a shy or passive or beaten-down personality, then you are going to be drawn towards this kind of nonsense because it makes your natural state of mind the highest moral good, right?
Whereas if you are, you know, sort of an aggressive and hyper-dominant personality, then you're going to take some other philosophy to be the dominant approach.
But of course everyone then thinks that they're coming up with some objective value, but all they're doing is turning their own habits into moral absolutes, right?
So that's why, you know, for instance, a slave morality like Buddhism, like Christianity, is It's very much against anger, right?
I mean, anger is bad.
Whereas, you know, a more master morality or philosophy like the Muslim beliefs, I mean, they're a little bit more comfortable with anger, right?
So, since there is no one responsible for causing either their own suffering or that of others, suffering exists without anyone to blame for it.
Blaming the victim is a common human trait which is supported by the illusion of separateness, but which interferes with compassion and contributes to more suffering.
And, you know, this again is complete corollary of there's no free will, which means that everybody, everybody is a victim of circumstances, everybody is a victim of environment and so on.
And, you know, this, of course, this idea of needing blanket forgiveness also comes, everybody's a victim of circumstances, also comes from a slave morality, right?
Because you just do what you're ordered to do, right?
If you're ordered to go into the military, well, then that's what you do.
If you're ordered to sort of hand over your own children for slavery, then that's what you do.
So, of course, a slave legitimately is a victim and shouldn't be blamed for what they're forced to do.
But to turn that into a universal moral prescription is to make the mistake that I've mentioned once or twice before, to mistake the world for yourself.
You're forced to do this.
It doesn't mean that it is good for everybody, including those who are not forced.
Psychotherapists see many people who suffer from terrible depression because they believe they are inadequate or weak, or because they blame themselves for various sorts of failures and misfortunes.
Of course, there's nothing in their control.
To say, if only I had lived differently, if only I had made a different decision, that people should never beat themselves up because nobody had any choice about the decisions that they made, and so on.
Patently false.
Absolutely patently and completely false.
And absolutely provable, right?
Regret is an absolutely essential human emotion.
I am very fortunate to have lived a life wherein I have few regrets, which is not to say that I have no regrets, but I have made a few.
I mean, I've made errors, of course, and some pretty significant ones, but I certainly did believe that I was operating with the best information at the time.
And where I have made errors in judgment, I have, which I could be, you know, in hindsight, I was sort of swallowed up by greed when I was an entrepreneur and participated in some business schemes, which I sort of convinced myself were good at the time.
I had enough information to know that it wasn't.
And I've paid balance for those.
I mean, I have done the right thing.
Return money and so on.
I mean, that's sort of what you do.
And the reason why regret is so important is because if it is experienced and communicated, it can add to the general wisdom of the species.
And you can help your children, then, not make the same mistakes that you made.
And that is also pretty important.
Regret is absolutely essential as a sort of, there's a poster, I love these sort of, they're called demotivational posters.
And they're sort of, you know, you see these ones with, I don't know, like a runner, you know, do your best and, you know, customer service and so on.
And they're sort of posters of sort of inspiring things.
But there's sort of these demotivational posters, which I thought were just very funny, because I'm always skeptical about that stuff in business, right?
The word excellence in business almost always means, you know, give me work for free.
But there was one that I just thought was hilarious, which was a ship sinking, and underneath it was something like, it may be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
And I think that's just wonderful, because it's true.
Like, if you don't accept that you've made bad choices and, you know, communicate those bad choices to others, then you're really not doing a very kind thing for them, right?
Pretending that everything's great and wonderful and, you know, it's really not.
Like, I got a call from my brother the other day where a guy phoned up and, you know, he basically had to leave his current job because he was asked to do something illegal and You know, he said, but you know, but it was a good thing, even though I never got anything out of the job.
And I said, well, what do you mean?
And it turned out he'd worked for three years with no pay because he'd had some ownership in some company, but it was never in writing.
And now he didn't have any recourse.
And, you know, so, I mean, this is obviously pretty crazy.
Pretty bad error, right?
To get involved in the company with somebody.
It's fine.
I mean, do a handshake deal all you want.
I mean, I would do a handshake deal with my boss or with Christina in a New York minute.
But, you know, if you do a handshake deal with someone who's going to end up asking you to do something illegal, then that obviously is a bad failure of judgment.
Of course, my brother was like, well, but I learned a lot and, you know, I still love the guy and he's a great guy.
He just, you know, we have different approaches to things and stuff.
And this is the Zen thing, right?
And what is this going to mean?
Well, it's going to mean that, and he's already confirmed this with me, that the next business partner he's going to try and get involved with is also corrupt.
Because, you know, you can never learn anything if you don't have any regret, if you don't get angry, if you don't have self-recrimination for the things that you've done that were wrong.
And, of course, recognizing what is possible and what is not possible, right?
I mean, that's pretty important, right?
But to recognize reality and to have standards by which you judge people's behavior is certainly a capacity that is available to everyone after the age of 12 or so.
And so for my brother not to sort of kick himself is a mistake.
It is irrational.
It is the wrong approach to something.
It is to simply say, after somebody punches you in the face, well, we just had different opinions, and then you stay in the same neighborhood, or you stay in the same circle, which means you're going to get punched in the face again.
What you have to say is, ow, that really hurt, that was a terrible thing to happen to me, and I need to figure out how I ended up in that situation so that I can avoid that situation again.
So you have to take some responsibility for your choices in life and where they lead you so that you can make different decisions, right?
But if you just think, well, it was a pure accident, it's all inevitable, there's no choice and so on, then you can never... How are you going to fight evil?
How are you going to fight the bad people in the world?
How are you going to battle back the darkness that swamps over humanity at regular intervals?
You know, bad people are fully responsible for their decisions and we know that because they hide them.
And we know politicians are immoral because they talk about values.
when they have no intention of living them.
But they know that values are important, and they know that that's what motivates people, so they know the value of values, so to speak.
So the fact that they then corrupt them means that they're perfectly responsible.
The other thing is that they hide their corrupt behavior, right?
They don't sort of openly put bribes out.
They don't sort of, at one of their speeches, say, Yo, Joe, leader of the union movement, you know, here's your hundred thousand dollars, or here's your preferential legislation, thanks for... They don't do any of that stuff.
They keep it all hidden.
So the fact that bad people keep things hidden means that they're fully responsible for what's going on.
I'm willing to take on any religion, and I hope that the text that was sent to me by a sympathizer to Buddhism is somewhat representative of what Buddhism means.
I've read a book in Buddhism years ago, and so I do have some understanding of what it means.
Since they believe that all choice is an illusion, there's no reason to get angry or upset or You know, about anything.
And that is just a form of sickness, you know.
We are human animals in a social situation.
There is good and evil in the world.
We do have choices about what we fight and what we surrender.
And it's absolutely essential that we make those choices.
Because the choices that we make today are the people that we're going to be in ten years.
And the choices that the most eloquent, verbal, and persuasive among us make may be A choice about what society is going to look like for the next generation.
And that's very important that we're clear about what it is that we're saying and what it is that we are advocating and what it is that we are opposing.
And in order to do that, we need the guidance of reason and we also need the guidance of the passions.
And to attempt to erase the passions is to erase the self, is to erase the identity.
And that is a form of mental illness, because identity and self absolutely exist.
Thanks very much for listening.
I hope this has been helpful.
As always, feel free to let me know if I've made any grievous errors, and I will talk to you soon.
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