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Sept. 15, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
37:17
415 Emails Of The Week

One post about reason, one more about emotion...

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Hi, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It is 1042 AM on Friday, September the 15th, 2006.
And I hope that you're having a great day.
I thought that, given that I'm not starting work till next week, I'd get a few podcasts out of the way.
And so I'd like to talk about reason and emotion.
And what I'd like to do is to actually give listeners or posters on the Freedom Aid Radio boards the chance to make the case.
So we're going to start with an excellent post from a graduate student or student who's graduated from a philosophy program.
An excellent post which is responding to the video and audio show on Ethics Part 2 where I was talking about universally preferred behavior.
So let's get this fine gentleman's post and he is responding to my argument or propositions by saying the following.
First of all, good logical theories start with axioms, or beginning points, which are statements that can be accepted.
In this case, the first axiom is preference exists and then behavior also exists combined into preferred behavior that exists.
I'm willing to accept this as a reasonable assumption.
My keyword here is assumption.
The first principles, the axioms or beginning points can never be proven.
They just need to be able to not be disproven and have some reason to think there is reason to believe them.
And this makes perfect sense to me.
He also goes on to say, I have trouble with your, quote, he says, quote, proof of preferred behavior.
I certainly accept that it exists, just as I accept that apples fall, gravity pulls the apple, and that this happens because the space around the Earth is warped by the mass of the Earth.
I do not accept the apple falls to the center of the universe, that the Earth doesn't also move towards the apple, that space is consistent.
Therefore, it is fairly safe to say that I may not accept preferred behavior if it is shown that the concept can be further broken down, which, of course, I would also accept.
I cannot argue against the existence of preferred behavior, as you pointed out, but I cannot argue against other similar alternative ideas either.
It is simply a matter of agreeing that preferred behavior is an appropriate starting point for theories of morality.
The same holds for indifference.
I could postulate that I argue out of indifference.
Indifference means I do not care, and maybe I do not.
The fact that I would still argue if I don't care feels wrong, but you cannot prove it any more than you can prove I like blue.
You cannot say, I wouldn't argue if I didn't care, I might argue because I have something like Tourette's Syndrome, where I have no control over an argument coming out of me.
Because I exist or a rock exists wouldn't mean I prefer or the rock prefers to exist.
They simply do exist.
We do exist despite our feelings.
Now, he goes on more, and you can find this.
The post number is 23782, if you want to go to freedomainradio.com forward slash B-O-A-R-D. And...
So, his basic argument, which is a perfectly valid opposition to what I'm saying, is that just because human beings' ethical systems have to come up with preferred behavior and show them, it doesn't mean that only preferred behavior is the route to ethical systems.
You could have an ethical system based on indifference or randomness or subjectivism and so on, and that's perfectly valid.
Now, he says, though, first of all, good logical theories start with axioms or beginning points, which are statements that can be accepted.
Now, of course, as a sort of person who is attempting to turn philosophy into something that at least has the rigor of a biological science, I'm not going to gainsay anything to do with that, of course.
But the one thing that's important to understand is that the moment that you say to somebody, your arguments should be logical, I'm not sure that I can accept your axioms, and if your argument is to be proven true, I must accept your axioms, I must accept that they can't be broken down any further, and I must also accept that there's no other possible explanation for what it is that you're saying.
All of which I obviously totally and completely accept.
But the problem is, for using this as an argument against universally preferred behavior, is that you're saying, if you want me to accept your argument, you have to fulfill the following criteria.
Axioms have to be universal and consistent and irreducible and the only possible alternatives and so on.
But right there, of course, you are immediately using universally preferred behavior as a criteria through which you will accept the principle of universally preferred behavior.
You are assuming that the argument is true in order to question the argument.
This is something that you can't logically do.
It's like I say, the wall behind me is red, and you say, okay, I accept that it's red, but is it red?
I mean, this is sort of a non-sequitur.
It's illogical. So if you're going to say to me, Steph, your argument needs to fulfill the following criteria.
Your argument for the existence of preferred behavior needs to fulfill the following criteria.
If I'm going to accept it, then you are saying that there are standards of belief that are universal that I am bound by.
Right? That I am bound by.
In order for a belief to be true, I have to have it fulfill a certain criteria that you propose that is not just subjective.
You're probably not going to say to me, Steph, if you do the whole argument in a Scottish accent, then I'm going to accept that it's true because I have a huge respect for Hume or something like that, or the Scottish Enlightenment.
You're probably not going to be saying that because that would be a pretty subjective criterion by which you would accept the truth value of an argument.
So... The moment that you say to me, Steph, your argument has to fulfill certain criteria in order for me to accept that it's true, your argument for the existence of preferred behavior, you're automatically assuming the existence of preferred behavior and using it as a bindable criteria upon me.
Because if you say to me, Steph, your theories have to be consistent, your axioms have to be irreducible, and you have to have some evidence for what it is that you're saying, then...
That's immediately putting a criteria upon me that you consider bindable.
So if I come back to you and say, no, that's not true.
When I say something, it's just...
I don't have to come up with any arguments.
I certainly don't have to come up with any proof.
That would be humiliating for me and it would be slumming it in intellectual circles because I'm an aristocrat of pure truth and everything I say has truth value just because I say it.
Well, you'd probably look at me like, well, okay, that's great.
I guess you're in a cult of one and I'm not going to accept what it is that you have to say.
So, if I come back with you with the response to your request that I be logical and consistent in my theories with, I don't have to be logical or consistent, it's true because I say it, then you're obviously going to reject what it is that I'm saying, and you're going to reject what it is that I'm saying based on The deviation that my response has from a universally preferred behavior of logical rationality, consistency, and hopefully some form of empirical support, if not proof.
So that's going to be quite a challenge.
If this gentleman comes up with alternative theories, so for instance, he could say that I'm indifferent to, I'm arguing, I'm responding to your argument with a criticism, but I'm indifferent as to the outcome.
And of course, I think that's not really very true.
You can't respond to an argument and say to somebody that you're wrong without expressing a preference and acting You are responding to an argument and acting out a preference, which is that, Steph, you should disbelieve or you should work on further proof of this argument or whatever, which is all perfectly valid.
But you can't claim that you're indifferent.
And this gentleman recognizes that.
And so he says, well, what if I have Tourette's syndrome and so on?
Well, mental illness doesn't destroy the concept of universally preferred behavior any more than something like mutation on an individual birth level destroys the whole science of biology.
So I wouldn't say that Tourette's syndrome, where somebody's just sort of speaking out randomly, that we would put that in the criteria of universally preferred behavior because First of all, that human beings have five toes, but occasionally they have six.
This doesn't destroy the concept of human being.
So, if he then puts forward something like the ethics of morality, he says, has not adequately shown me that indifference or any other axiom will not work also to build an ethical system, or that this system will work better to build the system.
Show to me that there is a universal consensus, he says, that the aesthetics of simplicity and the power of explanation and decision-making are not more adequately prominent with this theory than any other plausible theory, if not as probable systems built on bricks made out of other first principles such as indifference, right? So he's saying, why is this theory more valid than all other theories?
And I would say that you can't really base a theory of universally preferred behavior on indifference, because the moment that you propose a theory to somebody else or to other people, you are immediately saying that by proposing a theory, I think this is true and I think you should believe it, right? I'm not just running around saying...
I wish I had plant contact lenses, which is not really a scientific theory, but just a statement of personal preference.
So the moment I put an argument out there, an ethical theory, ethical theories are supposed to be binding to some degree on other human beings in the same way that rationality is binding on other human beings.
So if I put forward, if I say my ethical theory is based on the total indifference to outcome, Then putting forward a logical theory and requesting that other people, or considering it bindable on other people, that they should accept and believe this theory would be completely contradictory.
Right? I am completely indifferent to what I eat.
And then you're given a big menu and you say, I only want the fish.
Then you can't have a theory which says every single human being is completely indifferent as to what he or she eats, but you've got to order the fish.
I mean, that would be sort of contradictory.
I can't say that there's such a thing as universally preferred behavior, and that the basis for that ethical system is complete indifference.
Because I'm preferring that the basis for universally preferred behavior not be preferred behavior, but indifference, which is completely contradictory.
I can't prefer indifference.
The two states are mental opposites.
So, Fantastic Post, of course, is a very smart fellow, and he has a further rebuttal.
Now, he withdrew the criteria, good logical theory starts with an axiom, and so that's fine.
He says, now that I have indeed used rational, rational theories, he said, begin with axioms.
He's not contending for preferred behavior.
He's only stating that discourse ceases to be coherent when a theory is not rational, which of course is true.
If you cease to use English with somebody who doesn't speak anything but English, then of course your theory is going to be somewhat incoherent, highly incoherent as well.
You can have a theory, but we really can't talk about it, right, if I'm not rational, he says.
Let's make it clear, he also says, that I'm not attacking universally preferred behavior.
I am attacking the rigor by which your foundation is laid to say preferred.
You could choose random indifference, simple variation or deviation, dilemma, hypocrisy, and of course coercion, to name a few things that you could denote as preferred behavior on my part.
It doesn't matter what I think I am doing, which I think is actually doing what I prefer.
Now, this is certainly quite true, I have to take care to really be careful not to blur.
When I say that universally preferred behavior is not to kill, I'm not saying that some people don't prefer to kill.
If you wish to create a truth statement or examine a truth statement in the realm of science, that logic and rigor and the scientific method and empirical observation and all that it entails, if that is required, it doesn't mean that everybody who claims to make a truth statement about reality if that is required, it doesn't mean that everybody who claims to make a truth statement about It simply says if you want other people to believe what you're saying and if you want to have consistency with reality, then you need to use the scientific method.
It doesn't mean people believe in yetis and UFOs and a lot of this monster and gods and ghosts and goblins.
And I'm sure there's a bizarre cult out in Montana that worships the Keebler elves.
But it doesn't mean because people choose to reject universally preferred behavior that universally preferred behavior does not exist and is not valid.
So if he says that I may choose to reject universally preferred behavior, you have to prove to me how that's wrong.
Well, the problem is not, this is sort of a functional way of looking at it, but it's important too.
The danger to humanity is not individuals who enact crimes, but intellectuals who propose systems of morality that are subjective and result in coercion violence, things like communism and socialism and fascism and so on, statism. And so it doesn't really matter that individuals reject the concept of universally preferred behavior.
The question is, is it true or is it valid or not?
Now, one of the things that I replied to this And no matter what he says in the realm of logic, he is accepting the premise of universally preferred behavior.
So if he takes out the idea that good theories start with an axiom and he substitutes the word rational for good, then all he's saying is that rational theories start with an axiom.
And it's still universally preferred behavior that if you want your theory to be rational, you have to start with axioms that can't be broken down further and for which no other substitute explanations are valid and so on.
It's still universally preferred behavior.
If you then say...
I prefer that theories that I debate with are rational.
I prefer that people have consistent and rational theories.
Then that's still universally preferred behavior.
If you say, I will choose to reject theories which have inconsistent axioms or irrational logical premises or suppositions or conclusions, then you are also saying that you prefer that Theories have all of those and you prefer the right or you will take the right to reject theories which don't meet those criteria.
Again, universally preferred behavior.
There's simply no way to logically bring an argument to bear against universally preferred behavior without accepting at least the universally preferred behavior or requirement of rationality.
So I don't think that that's particularly...
A valid response, though, of course, I could be wrong.
It is very intelligently put, and I certainly appreciate the feedback.
Now, the theories of ethics, right?
The theories of ethics, much like theories of science, much like reality itself, and certainly like theories of ethics, are supposed to be binding on others, just as requirements for rationality and coherence are.
But ethical theories can't be binding on others if they're not universal, or if they're inconsistent or self-contradictory and so on.
And so, if you say that indifference is the root of your ethical theory, and I should really believe that indifference is the root of the valid ethical theory, then of course you've broken indifference by proposing a theory that you wish for me to accept.
Rationality, we expect to be binding on other people in the same way that physical reality is binding on other people, right?
If I know that if you jump off a cliff you're going to fall, and I say to you if you jump off a cliff you're going to fall, whether you believe it or not, you're going to fall.
Reality is binding upon you, whether you accept it or not.
You can stand at the sky and scream that it's not raining in the middle of a downpour, but it's going to keep raining, and your preferences don't affect reality.
Certainly reality is binding on us despite our irrational preferences.
And in the same way, ethical theories and rationality are considered to be binding.
And you knew that was going to be a podcast about bondage at some point, right?
But ethical theories and rationality, the scientific method, are considered to be binding upon others.
Not arbitrarily, not subjectively, but because reality is binding upon others.
So ethical theories that are derived from the universal consistency of matter and energy, predictability, stability of atoms, and so on, ethical theories or logical theories, all derived from the basic axioms of the stability of matter, must be bindable upon others.
They have to be bindable upon others.
Because the only way they cannot be bindable upon others is because other people argue against them, And that really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, right?
Because we certainly have to accept that preferred behavior exists and is valid.
If you argue against it, you're using universally preferred behavior.
So then the real question becomes, how do we define and communicate universally preferred behavior that is bindable?
Well, it has to be consistent.
It has to be independent of subjective consciousness in order for it to be bindable in the way that reality is.
So, of course, if I base an ethical system Well, of course, colorblind and blind people are going to have trouble with that, and they may have no access to blue things, and they may own crops that they can't make blue without killing them.
So there's lots of ways in which that simply could not be enacted.
As we've talked about, the thou shalt kill is completely irrational, thou shalt rape, rape is good is completely irrational.
And so we end up with a universal ethics that's, you know, kind of close to what common sense would say, which is, you know, I talked in the last two podcasts about common sense.
Which is, you know, don't kill, don't steal, don't rape, don't defraud, and so on.
And so that's how we can come up with these sorts of binding ethics on other people.
And if they argue against it, no problem, right?
If they say, well, that's wrong, that's fine.
Then they've got a different standard of universally preferred behavior, which they're saying that they accept through saying that you're wrong.
And then they have to come up with a universal, consistent, logical substitute for, you know, for what's going on, right?
I You know, you're wrong with your theories about the Big Bang.
I mean, I can say it, but so what, right?
If I don't come up with a viable alternative, or prove the illogic in what he's saying, or find empirical evidence that contradicts his theories, then me walking up to him and saying he's wrong doesn't really mean anything.
So, you can't base a non-universal system of ethics on something that is contradictory, subjective, like indifference, which can't be proved, of course.
You can't base it on something like hypocrisy, because then it's not a universal phenomenon, right?
Like, if I say, I have the right to collect taxes, but you don't have the right to collect taxes, then that is not binding, of course, because, obviously, Like, I have this right, and you have the exact non-right, the opposite right.
You have a negative obligation to them.
I have the right to collect taxes, you have an obligation to pay taxes, but of course you and I are just human beings, and there's no reason why I would have a particular right that you wouldn't have, right?
I mean, that wouldn't make any sense.
And so, if it's going to be bindable upon other people, it must be universal, common to the species, and so on.
Again, with the minor exceptions of people with mental illnesses and retardation and so on.
So, from that standpoint, I think that we still do have to accept that universally preferred behavior exists.
Anybody who opens their mouth to argue against that is accepting that rationality is a requirement in universally preferred in the proposition of an argument, in which case they can't argue against universally preferred behavior because they're imposing it.
They can't argue against binding obligations on other people.
Because they're imposing that in the form of rationality or counter-argument on somebody else.
I mean, if somebody comes to me and says, I just don't like your argument, which of course a dispiriting number of people do, then I am in no way required to withdraw my argument because the fact that they don't like it doesn't really mean anything.
I'm a philosophy, and I don't mean anything to do with this gentleman who's got some great posts on this topic.
And I'm also not saying that I've completely solved all of these issues.
This is just sort of my particular response.
It is a conversation.
Now, another post that was put in last night that I think is wonderful by a really excellent and very, very smart poster who hates being complimented, so sorry about that.
He has been working out some family issues in his family of origin, FOO, we call it.
There was emotional and physical violence, and there were huge problems.
And so he's going through a process of detaching himself from his family, and so he's posting about this.
So he says, under a post entitled Emotional Antennae, which you can find at...
We have this new, we use a community server, an excellent product for the board.
His post number is 23972, if you want to find this.
And he calls this emotional antenna.
So he says, it's startling to me just how tuned in to what you're thinking the people near you can be.
For about the last week or so, I've been on the verge of abandoning the plans I'd originally laid out in my manifesto post here several weeks ago.
For those who have not been following this on the board, his manifesto was, I think, to invade Poland and to master time, space, and dimension.
So obviously he's... And then he wants to...
Sorry, become a being of pure light.
So obviously he's just, he's in the baby steps of this.
Actually, it was more around changing jobs and getting corrupt people out of his life.
You can look it up.
Living by myself, he said, I'm sorry, he, I've been on the verge of abandoning these plans.
I was beginning to think that all I was doing was manufacturing drama for myself where none really existed.
Living by myself, I know that it's very easy to slip into paranoid ruminations about what other people think about me.
So bearing that in mind, I was beginning to retreat from the things I was thinking at the time I wrote the manifesto and from the level of confidence I had reached at that point.
Two minor but remarkable events in the last three days, coinciding with this ebb in my mood, have left me both more intellectually Brother, I think we've all been there.
First, a phone call from my mother.
She was sobbing and almost incoherent.
She said she noticed that I wasn't calling as often and that I hadn't been over to the house in the last three months.
But I think the fact that I hadn't bothered to visit my father in the hospital during hip surgery, he was only in for two days, this Friday and Saturday, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
She actually asked if I was avoiding them as punishment for something they'd done wrong.
Clearly, it's an indicator that they already know, deep down, what's going on.
But why would she risk asking if she knows the right answer will ultimately condemn her?
Is this an attempt at leading?
I'm not sure what it's meant by leading there.
Leading the witness, perhaps?
Second was a spontaneous conversation my younger brother struck up with me tonight about the nature of familial relationships and how to properly define a distinction between an imposed obligation, And a mutual reciprocation.
Ultimately, it comes down to the question of defooing, which foo, F-O-O, family of origin, defooing is separating yourself from a family that you can't get satisfactory relationships with due to corruption, indifference, sarcasm, religious monomania, criticism, abuse, emotional or physical, whatever is going on that's irrational and dissatisfying in your relationship with your family if you can't resolve it, and I certainly make suggestions that you take every effort to talk about your family with what's important to you and so on.
If you can't make that, then the only moral thing to do is to stop seeing what we talked about before.
I know it's a startling idea, but you can't really come to any other conclusion if you value rationality, integrity, and of course self-esteem.
And once you accept and understand that there is no moral...
Addition to the concept of family.
The concept of family does not add anything other than a purely biological distinction to relationships.
And it does not indicate any extra moral boost to a person's character to say that mother or father or whatever, which we talked about two podcasts ago.
So, I just wanted to mention this is what he meant by defooing.
Ultimately, it comes down to the question of defooing, he says, which is notable because my brother has not been listening to your podcast, Shazam.
Despite my suggestions to the contrary, also, he and I haven't really had time to talk to each other in the last three weeks or so.
My apartment is like a dorm room.
You never know who's going to be home and when.
Yet, it seems he's been coming around to many of the same kinds of ideas that I have, perhaps independently of me.
So his line of questioning tonight led me right back to the same conclusions that the podcasts have led me to all over again.
The logical consequence of a love derived from individual value, as opposed to imposed obligation, is that he and I cannot truly love our parents.
And being involved in their lives is essentially a tacit approval of the wrongs they committed against us.
And when we were incapable of defending ourselves, of course, when you're children.
What I'm curious about, however, is the fact that having reached these conclusions, my emotional state does not seem to coincide with my intellectual state.
Of course, that never happens.
The more vividly I imagine the moment of actually speaking those words, I don't want to be around you anymore, or however it might be phrased, the more sick to my stomach I get.
If I'm so convinced that this is the right thing to do, from a logical standpoint, why should it make me so upset?
If it is true that a sound intellectual frame of mind is essential to a healthy emotional state, then why does this line of reasoning make me feel so sick?
Could this emotional signal not also be a profound indicator that my reasoning has gone awry somehow?
Steph, you've admitted yourself that feelings can inform our judgment every bit as much as our reasoning does.
So why would one proceed with a course of action that filled one with a profound sense of sorrow, where one was expecting, at the very least, Life-affirming, he signs off, confused.
And of course, that is the rub, right, of intellectual integrity, of understanding moral philosophy, that it is going to lead you to decisions that are going to make you acutely uncomfortable.
Some way of figuring out whether our feelings of fear are the feelings of fear that are rational and appropriate, like don't jump off a cliff, versus feelings of fear that are irrational and based on a prior trauma, right?
So scar tissue. And there is no totally objective way of determining these things, of course.
If they were, that would be good.
But, of course, when people...
Realized that the earth was round and moved around the sun, there was a certain amount of disorientation in that for them and a certain amount of confusion for those who felt that these things were important and weren't just sort of out hoeing the back 40.
And so confusion is not necessarily...
Confusion of fear is not a bad state to be in if you are outgrowing a trauma, right?
In the same way that the physical pain is generally a sign that you're doing something wrong.
But if you've broken your leg badly, like some sort of twist break, And you then enter into a kind of physical rehab to make that leg better.
You're going to go through some rather excruciating pain as you develop the muscle and stretch the tendons again after it's been in a cast or bent or whatever.
And, of course, if you've been bedridden for a certain amount of time, then when you go out for a walk, you're going to get dizzy and so on.
You have to kind of push past that.
And if you're dieting, then you want to eat, but you shouldn't.
And if you are exercising, sometimes you feel like you don't want to go, but you should.
So feelings aren't always necessarily...
A total indicator of what it is that you should do and what that generally is referred to is if you are attempting to overcome a prior hurt to your body or your soul or your mind then when you approach the actions that are going to remedy that whether it's stretching or physiotherapy or exercise or in this case considering ceasing to have relations with your family of origin Then you should, really, this is where philosophy becomes important.
Again, if everything we felt was valid and we should do, then we wouldn't need philosophy, just as if everything we wanted to eat we should eat, we wouldn't need nutrition.
So this is a very perfectly understandable and a complicated matter, but this is where you turn to philosophy.
So as far as the emotional sensitivity of those around us, it's certainly my contention, and it's certainly not only my contention, that relationships of all kinds And everybody is continually watching and listening what everybody else does.
This is particularly true in corrupt families.
So, the fact that you are thinking along these lines has had definite results on your behavior.
You haven't called your parents as often.
You haven't been over for three months.
Everybody in your family is completely and totally aware of that.
They may not be processing it consciously, but they're totally aware of the fact that you're thinking differently, that you may be talking differently, that your actions have changed.
And when you change, other people change.
I mean, everybody wants to control everybody else.
I mean, not everybody.
Most people want to control the behavior of other people.
And they don't realize that the best way to affect other people is to change your own behavior, you know.
And the best way to change your own behavior is to study philosophy and become rational.
So, the study of philosophy will inevitably cause your thoughts and behavior to change and the thoughts and behavior of other people around you to change as well.
So, I think it's important to really understand the complexity of what it is that you're doing and how much it affects your family system.
So, that is perfectly to be understood.
Secondly, it's...
Oh, man. It's foolingly predictable that this gentleman's narcissistic mother is going to react to his growing distance by thinking that he is punishing her.
She's not curious about his behavior.
There's not love. There's not concern.
Just hysterical manipulation.
Narcissistic people can only see things in terms of what benefits or harms or threatens their own incredibly fragile and insecure egos.
And so the fact that your mother calls you up in hysterical tears because you're not as close as you used to be, and can only think of it in terms of you punishing her, and can't think about it in terms of you and your own emotional state, it's so predictable, it's ridiculous, and it also should confirm your intention to get away from these people.
Now, the last thing that I'll say here is that this process of defooing, as we call it, or not seeing your family, always involves mind-bending terror.
Always, always, always involves mind-bending terror.
And this sort of results generally from three things.
First of all, there is an intense propaganda about the family.
Your family is everything.
And of course, if you don't see your family, you're going to regret it when they die and live a life of loss and regrets and so on and so on and so on.
So there's an enormous amount of propaganda that basically bullies and frightens people into staying in touch with their family.
And it's all complete nonsense, of course.
Now... There's also, let's assume around 20 years, of Stockholm Syndrome if you have corrupt or abusive or violent parents.
And verbally abusive counts, and it's sometimes even worse than physically abusive.
You kind of have a Stockholm syndrome where you bond with your attackers.
I mean, this is inevitable. Fundamentally, and this is a third reason, children have to bond with their parents, have to pretend, even if their parents are not lovable or hostile or difficult or dangerous, they have to pretend that those parents are good.
It's absolutely inevitable. It is a biological absolute.
That a child has to conform to and bond with the parents, no matter what.
Because children can't survive on their own, right?
So they need to retain the goodwill of the parents.
This is a basic power, a power corrupting situation that very few parents negotiate or navigate successfully.
They often end up using this power of the child's dependence to swell their own capacity for abuse and destruction.
So the fact that children have to bond with their parents, the fact that there's this enormous propaganda about the virtue of family, does give us a fairly false but powerful attachment to the family, just as people have false but powerful attachments to state and country and race and religion and so on.
So I would say that the terror that you feel, although distinctly uncomfortable, should actually be a huge relief.
Because if you could get yourself out of corrupt power situations very easily, If it was easy to get out of prison, it wouldn't make any sense why people were in prison to begin with.
If you could just open the door and walk out without any repercussions, then it would make no sense as to why so many people retain their illusions.
If you could just walk away from God without looking back and with perfect equanimity, then religion wouldn't make any sense.
The world would suddenly become, and human beings would suddenly become enormously irrational.
So the fact that you feel terror in this Although uncomfortable, should be a cause of great relief because it means that the fact that the world is not free, the fact that people are enslaved by states and religions and families and so on, the fact that the world is not free only becomes comprehensible in an empathetic kind of way, in a sympathetic kind of way, when you go through this process of terror.
Most people who are libertarians or objectivists don't go through this process, and so what they do is they avoid the problem of the family and instead focus on the state and the church and so on, which gives them an enormous amount of contempt and scorn for what, you know, people who are into this kind of stuff often call the sheeple, the people who are like sheep.
And the reason that they end up with this perspective is because they won't confront their own terrors about breaking free of corrupt relationships.
Instead, what they do is they project their own moral and philosophical cowardice onto other people in general and remain bewildered throughout their whole lives as to why people don't accept their arguments and why the world remains unfree.
So the fear that you feel is at the very root of human slavery.
And being free means facing terror.
I mean, to achieve real freedom in your life means facing terror.
I've gone into podcasts on this, notably the one about the apple, which hopefully will make sense once you listen to it.
But becoming free means facing terror.
And the terror of breaking with conformity, of breaking with illusions, of breaking with social acceptance, of confronting not only the propaganda, but all the people who sold you the propaganda as if it were true and the intense lack of caring and lack of empathy that that represents.
So this kind of fear is perfectly natural, perfectly healthy, should be worked through, is absolutely uncomfortable, but should give you great comfort as to why the world is not free and that it remains comprehensible.
And the power that is on the other side of this fear is prodigious and well worth pursuing.
So thanks so much, of course, to everyone who posts.
You guys come up with some fantastic stuff.
The quality of this show is largely, largely dependent upon the quality of feedback I get, which is enormous.
So thank you so much for posting and for allowing me to share your thoughts and my thoughts with the world as we sort of try and struggle towards this distant but ever-growing light of personal liberty, which is what is required for political liberty Thank you so much for listening as always.
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