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Feb. 8, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
39:04
639 Loving A Philosopher (advice for girlfriends/wives)
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So, ladies, hope you're doing well.
This is for...
The philosophy brides, brides-to-be, girlfriends-slash-friends-slash-sisters who may, just may, have a guy in their life who's kind of into this whole philosophy thing.
And, you know, just between us girls, I thought it might be fun to have a chat about the good and the bad that's going to be in your life based on this whole philosophy thing.
And, again, just between us girls to talk a little bit about the stuff that might be of more interest to you than epistemology, which...
If you're like me as a lady, you don't particularly find that interesting unless it's really good at scraping the rough skin off your elbows.
So... You've got some guy, and he's really interested in metaphysics and epistemology, and he seems to have this overweening hatred towards God, which could be daddy issues.
We don't know for sure. But I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the stuff that I think is going to be helpful to you, and some of the stuff to watch out for.
When your guy gets into philosophy because it's not the easiest thing in the world, especially up front.
He can seem kind of cranky and he can seem kind of discombobulated and kind of negative about things in a lot of ways.
But I think there's some really good stuff that comes out of it, but I sort of wanted to talk about that sort of openly and some of the stuff that I think will be really helpful to you as the girlfriend or wife or partner or significant other of a Philosopher.
This can be really helpful.
So the first thing that I'm going to do is to give you some advantages in debating, let's just say, or having differences of opinion with your hunkysaurus himbo philosopher guy.
And one of the things that I think is going to be really great for you as a woman who dates a philosopher is that you really get to de-escalate fights, I think, pretty quickly.
I mean, if you've got a good philosopher on your hand and not somebody who's just talking the talk without necessarily walking the walk...
You've got some pretty good tools on your hands to be able to, I think, de-escalate conflict.
Because, you know, who really likes all that yelling and the silent treatment and the cupboard slamming and all this kind of stuff?
That's no good. That really does make you age quickly.
So, if you've got a guy who's into philosophy The key thing, the most amazing thing I think that can occur out of this for you and your relationship, not talking about saving the world, not talking about strapping yourself to a tank to prevent the forward progress of the military industrial complex, not talking about falling asleep on his chest to the pleasant strains of fiat currency theory.
We're just talking about the sort of practical rubber meets the road aspects of your relationship.
The first is that you've got some rules.
Philosophers are kind of addicted to rules, you know, like scientists are addicted to those white coats, government grants, and the scientific method.
So you're going to have some rules, and that's a beautiful thing in a relationship, because it means that you don't have to be a nag, he doesn't have to be a bully, one of you doesn't have to give way.
You can actually have some rules about how it is that you're going to resolve Disputes, right?
Because a philosopher is kind of all about having some rules that make sense, that hopefully are derived from something sensible kind of in reality, and having those rules in relationships is absolutely fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic.
Like whenever you go to buy something, you kind of have a rule that you're going to pay some money for it, and that if you do pay for the money for it, they're going to give you whatever it is that you're buying.
That's kind of like having a rule of interaction.
And you have these with your job, right?
You show up for work, and the rule is, if I show up for work, you pay me the money.
And if you pay me the money, I show up, at least show up for work.
So these kinds of rules that we have around sort of the most productive areas of our life, Are pretty important.
And where they're not followed, things can get pretty ugly, right?
Pretty unpleasant pretty quickly.
I mean, if you went into a store and you gave them your money and then they just turned around and got the security guards to throw you out, probably wouldn't be that satisfying of an interaction, I'm guessing.
Similarly, if you showed up to work and they kept not paying you, that would be pretty bad.
Or if you were an employer and your employees kept showing up, you kept paying them, but they didn't so much do the work.
That would also be pretty bad.
So having sort of rules or standards by which you interact with people is a pretty good thing, I think.
And you've got, you're lucky enough, although he may take a little taming, you're lucky enough to have somebody who really believes in those rules on your hands.
And that's like a really great thing.
So that's something that if you sit down with a philosopher, you can talk about your relationship, for sure.
Don't overwhelm him by talking about You know, all the feelings under the sun, because sometimes the guys become a little bit on the philosophy side because they lose their heart a little bit early in life.
I wrote in a book somewhere once...
19 times out of 20, the life of the mind arises from the grave of the heart.
Learning, in other words, is loss.
Now, that may be a little bit extreme for your Deuteruni, but nonetheless, I think that one of the ways that you can talk about your relationship with your philosopher is to sit down and say, well, what are our goals?
What are our rules? How are we going to resolve conflicts?
In... In our relationship, right?
Because you're like a society of two-fers, right?
You're a two-person society and he may want to talk about how anarcho-capitalism resolves disputes in the marketplace and here's how we can do business in Singapore and then you can sort of reply to him at some point and hopefully gently.
That's great, honey. I think it's wonderful that you figured out exactly how DRO is going to work on the grounds of interstellar distances 200 years in the future and And how conflict can be resolved through a federation of loosely collected intergalactic DROs.
But I was just sort of wondering if we might not mosey that concept down a little closer to home and hearth and talk about how you and I are going to resolve our disputes in this relationship right now, given that the chicktatorship I was hoping to set up hasn't worked out as well as I'd hoped.
So we obviously don't have a government that's going to resolve our relationship disputes.
So how is it that we're going to resolve disputes?
Let's talk about values.
Let's talk about the rules.
Let's talk about the logic.
Let's talk about the rationality of our relationship, the goals, the values.
You may not even get the sentence finished.
Sit down and talk with him about the rules.
Because you don't want to be solving problems in a relationship when they're actually occurring.
Preventative maintenance. Relationships are all about preventative maintenance.
You know this about your car.
You know this about your work.
You know this about your friendships.
And I would suggest that it's very important to know this, not just about your house, but about your heart, your relationship, your affection, your love, and so on.
It's all about preventative maintenance.
And preventative maintenance means you've got to sit down and figure out what you're going to maintain, how you're going to do things.
And the first thing that you want to do is like being in a relationship.
It's a little bit like taking a very long car trip with someone.
Well, you want to sit down and say, well, A, where are we going?
And B, how are we going to do the driving?
And C, who's going to pay for what?
And D, who's good at this and who's good at that?
Maybe you're good at navigating and he's good at driving, but don't tell him that.
So... If you sit down with your philosopher dude and you talk to him about what works in your relationship, you know, what is it that makes you feel special?
What is it that makes you feel great and wonderful and sexy and feminine and all of these good and juicy and wonderful things?
And if he gets squeamish about this, then I'm just going to give you some.
Don't let him hear this. I'm just going to give you a couple of tips here.
So if he feels that that may not work as well or he feels uncomfortable with it, just say, well, as far as I understand it, the free market is designed for mutually beneficial interactions, also known as foreplay.
Anyway, we'll come back to that a little bit later.
Mutually beneficial interactions.
It's got to be a win-win negotiation, right?
And he's going to have to say, yeah.
And so you can say, well, I'm not telling you what you have to give me.
I'm telling you what I want.
And that's very different.
Again, use an economic metaphor which works with these kind of guys.
Trust me, I know.
Being one of them, not seducing one of them.
But you can say, well, I mean, if I'm a store keeper, and you come in and you lift up a candy bar, and I say, that's a buck.
I'm not forcing you to buy it, am I? No, of course not.
I'm just saying, candy bar, you know, dollar only, and it's yours.
That's really all I'm saying.
I'm saying that if you want a great relationship with me, this is the price.
And this is what I want.
I want the dollar for my candy bar.
Insert inappropriate candy bar metaphor here and here and with a little oil right over there as well.
So it's for mutual benefit.
So in a relationship, when you're sitting down with a philosopher to figure out your relationship or to work on where it is you want to go and how it is that you want to get there and what it is you want to do on the way, you sit down and say, well, this is what I want from a relationship.
It doesn't matter in a sense to me whether it's you or somebody else who gives it to me.
I hope it's you, but this is what I want in a relationship.
I want... The dollar, and then you can have the candy bar.
And you want the candy bar!
Insert. Another inappropriate.
Anyway, I think you get the idea. So you want the candy bar.
It's win-win. And then you tell me what you want, right?
And so clearly, if we're a storekeeper and customer, I say, me have candy bar, you say, me have dollar, and we exchange these to mutual benefit.
Now, of course, in a relationship, it's much more like a nine-dimensional mall on steroids during a shopping spree for those hard-to-get wedding gowns in New York on Boxing Day.
Okay, no more insulting shopping metaphors.
I absolutely apologize. Oh, what a sexist pig am I. I'm not actually a woman.
I just have a cold. So, sitting down and figuring out what your relationship is going to look like, the most important thing is to talk about what makes you the happiest and not with the idea that he is somehow obligated to provide it.
If you say, I want $500 for this candy bar, if you're running a store, you certainly are welcome to express your preferences, but it doesn't seem too likely that you're going to get that amount of money unless you're actually selling it to Paul Brennan in Iraq.
Ask him what that means if you've not heard those podcasts.
So... That to me is another very important aspect.
Sit down and talk about what you want, talk about what he wants, listen to what he wants, and work out how you're going to mutually provide what each other wants.
Does this seem kind of abstract?
Should it just kind of flow?
Should it just kind of happen?
Well, I don't think so.
I don't think so. I mean, a relationship, a love relationship, a secure, wonderful, beautiful human twinning, Is the most amazing and fabulous thing in the world.
And it takes some work.
It takes some definition. I mean, let's look at it in contrast to something like, you know, getting a degree at college or university or whatever.
How would you feel if you sort of sat down in a class to get a degree and or to take a class and the professor wouldn't tell you what he was teaching you and he wouldn't tell you what was on the test and he wouldn't tell you what you'd be graded on and he would barely even tell you only after cajoling him where the classes were in fact occurring.
Well, you probably feel that that was a bit of a stressful and confusing situation to go through, but that's exactly what most people do with their relationships.
If you want to become a doctor, well, you have to figure out what's required, what's involved, how much it's going to cost, can you afford it, do you have the pleasure, do you want to do it, are you excited by it, do you not mind blood and other icky substances all over you?
And then when you decide that you want to do it, you go to the university, They'll give you the whole booklet, probably more than a book, four volumes of everything that you need to go through to become a doctor.
And then you go to your first class and you start taking that class and they'll tell you exactly what you're going to be graded on and what you're going to be tested on and what a pass is and what a fail is and what the consequences is.
All of this kind of stuff. Everything that's important in this goal, in this life goal, is communicated and expressed up front.
You don't just sort of randomly do stuff and then hope to God that you passed when you take a course in university.
You want to figure out what the goal is, what the criteria for success are, and that's mutual, right?
So the university says to you, here's what you've got to do to be a doctor.
You've got to do these, these, these, and these things, and successfully.
And then we give you the degree.
So they're telling you what they expect of you, and they're also telling you that we want you to pay us X, Y, and Z amount of money to become a doctor.
And you're telling them what you want.
Well, if I do all of this, I get the piece of paper that lets me print money, right?
That's the way it goes. So, that approach is what we do when we want to achieve something in terms of education.
Now, career and education and all those good things are obviously important in life, but are secondary to love, in my humble opinion.
I mean, you can work in a sandwich shop and be in love and be happier than working as a doctor and being loveless.
So, if we're going to say that career is very important in our life, And in order to get what we want, we have to think about what it is that we prefer, the costs and benefits.
We have to have everything rigorously defined and objective and we have to know what steps we're going to take and what the criteria for success is and all this kind of stuff.
And that's what we do when it comes to our careers and it's what we do in other areas of our life.
It's what we do when we want to get to a theater.
But it's not what most people do, strangely enough.
When they want to have a loving, sustainable, wonderful and beautiful relationship.
Because why would you want to settle for anything less than that?
A relationship can be a pure treasure trove of near endless joys and trials and challenges, but joys fundamentally.
And why would you want anything less?
Well, sister, you have on your hands the most wonderful being in the universe, which is a man who believes in the exchange of mutual value, who believes in defining rules and sticking to them and negotiating based on reason and not just bullying or yelling or crying or, well, maybe the crying. Well, that's me, sorry, more than anyone else.
So you really have a unique and wonderful specimen on your hands It's going to be a learning curve for you, but it's also going to be a learning curve for him.
Because he's probably more used to applying these rules to fairly abstract, let's say semi-utopian areas.
Like if Gondor in Lord of the Rings was a free market anarchy society, what would its DRO contracts look like in Orkish?
So there's going to be a learning curve for you, there's going to be a learning curve for him.
But just like anything in life, anything that you want to do, you've got to figure out what the criteria for success are, how you're going to go about doing it.
If you are asked to design a car in your job, you say, well, what's the budget?
What are the parameters? Is it supposed to be a two-seater or a four-seater?
Should the top come down?
What's the market? What are the design parameters?
What kind of... What safety concerns do I need to build into place?
What kind of tensile strength?
You're going to ask all of these questions.
Because if you just go off and build some car, then you're going to have no real way of knowing.
And I guess it's possible that you're going to come up with exactly the right car, but you wouldn't want to bet any money on that situation.
So it's the same thing with relationships.
Now, you are fortunate enough to have a guy who's interested in your...
Life and your heart and your body and your soul and so on, who himself is interested in defining rules up front and sticking by them in terms of integrity.
And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
So then you say, well, how is it that we're going to resolve disputes?
How is it that we're going to resolve conflicts or problems?
There's a number of different ways of going about this.
Obviously, there's some pretty key ones.
If you have an anarcho-capitalist hunk of man-meat on your hands, then...
You're going to have some advantages to other sort of types of philosophy, or wrong types of philosophy, in that he's going to be very much against violence, coercion, bullying, intimidation, and all those kinds of things to begin with.
And not because he couldn't take people.
Oh, he could. Oh, he could.
Don't sort of intimate that.
He certainly could take me, whoever he is, one hand tied behind his back, assuming he's over the age of seven or so.
So the first thing that you're going to be talking about is, well, how do you define...
Aggression versus being assertive in a relationship, right?
Telling somebody what you want, that's assertive.
Demanding that they provide you what you want, or you're going to do X, Y, and Z that's going to frighten or hurt or anger them, that's bullying.
So, how is it that we're going to resolve disputes?
Well, the first thing that we're going to do is have a whole series of thou shalt nots.
In our relationship. And that's a good thing.
That's a very good thing. It doesn't mean you're always going to perfectly hit the mark, but it means that you have something to appeal to if you miss, right?
So clearly raising voices is not acceptable.
Clearly it is not assertive to scream at someone, right?
It is not assertive to scream at someone.
It is just aggressive and bullying and shrill and horrible.
So In the same way that when you go into a store to buy something, it's got to be win-win.
You give them the money, they don't give you the goods, you've just been ripped off.
You go in and shoplift, they've been ripped off.
It's got to be win-win. Well, the same thing is the case in conversations.
It's got to be win-win. So resolving disputes is not bad for a relationship.
It's very good for a relationship because, well, for two reasons.
One, all relationships have conflicts and they need to be resolved.
And second, the resolution of conflicts in a civilized and adult manner Breeds trust and amazing respect for the other person.
I respect my wife so much for how she handles conflict that I actually, I provoke her now.
No, I don't. I don't.
But you think you get the idea.
We don't dread conflict in the way that we did earlier on when I would often curl into a fetal position, suck my thumb and hum Japanese lullabies to myself fairly regularly and sometimes for at least a day and a half at a time.
Passive aggression. That's out, too.
We'll get to that in a sec. So, you don't get to raise your voice at each other.
You don't get to call each other names.
Clearly, that is not compatible with loving behavior, right?
Compatible and integrity and logically consistent, these are all words that you can throw around, oh, my sister, and find that they have the most amazing magical powers.
So, calling each other names is definitely not...
Not good. It's not compatible with loving behavior.
You don't get to call him a jerk.
He doesn't get to call you whatever he's going to call you.
You just don't get to do that.
That's got to be a rule, right?
And again, it may slip out and then you apologize or whatever.
It's not the end of the world. But you have to have standards that you sort of say, okay, now we're deviating from these standards.
Now we're deviating from these standards, right?
Because if you don't know when you're deviating from what it is you're supposed to be doing, you end up just acting randomly, which is not very good, right?
We go back to the idea of building a car or trying to become a doctor.
You don't want to just act randomly in relationships and see what you can get away with and see what kind of mood he's in and see if this is okay or what your girlfriends do or whatever.
That's not a good way to run a relationship.
It's a good way to run a relationship into the ground or off a cliff.
But you've got to have your standards and you've got to articulate the standards.
You don't just never raise your voice and hope that somehow, osmotically, the standard is being communicated to your boyfriend or to your husband.
You are open and explicit Before it becomes your husband and hopefully before it becomes your boyfriend too.
Open and explicit about these things.
I don't agree with raising my voice and yelling at people in a love relationship.
I don't agree with calling names.
I don't agree with withdrawal.
Now, withdrawal is a little bit...
More complicated, because there are times when one or both of you may be very angry, where a cool-off period is worthwhile.
But if you follow the rules to begin with, don't raise your voice, don't call the other person names, it's going to be really hard to escalate to the point where you're going to actually have to withdraw to cool off.
And the suppression of anger, which can look like passive aggression, isn't really the same as habitually using passive aggression to punish the other person.
So if you...
If you want a glass of water and you're sort of expecting your husband or boyfriend to know that you want a glass of water and you start sort of saying in your own mind, you know, man, yesterday I bought him a glass of water without being asked because I try and think about his needs and whether he is thirsty or not.
I've been sitting here for an hour or two.
I've been reading. He knows that I like a glass of water mid-afternoon.
It'd be real nice if he would just offer me a glass of water.
I can't believe that guy is just sitting right there.
He knows I'm thirsty.
All the things I do for him, and he won't even get up to give me a glass of water.
I can't believe how selfish he is.
You know the whole thing, right?
I mean, we've all gone down that path at least once or twice in our lifetime, sometimes more.
And so what happens is eventually you just go and you get up and you start getting yourself a glass of water and maybe you're banging the cupboards a little bit or slamming the glass down a little bit and he's like, what's the matter?
And you're like, nothing, I'm fine.
Well, that's not a good thing to do, right?
That's not a good thing to do.
The reality is that none of us like to be vulnerable.
I mean, until you get more used to it in a relationship.
And the trust is sort of built on both sides.
None of us like to be vulnerable.
And what happens is we don't like saying, Honey, would you mind getting me a glass of water?
Because the other person might roll their eyes.
They themselves might be resentful of having to do it.
Like, oh, I'm really comfortable. I've got the blanket on me.
This is my favorite song on my headphones.
And now I've got to go and get a glass of water.
She's so selfish, blah, blah, blah.
You're afraid of that, right?
So what we inflict on others, we're afraid they're going to do to us.
So if you're passive-aggressive towards others...
It means that you're going to expect that in return.
It's going to really hamper you from being able to ask for things.
So, you have to also be willing to be crazy and perceived as crazy.
To be perceived as crazy.
If you do get irritated that your boyfriend is not bringing you a glass of water when you're thirsty, then...
You have to have the courage, I think.
I mean, I would certainly suggest it.
It's a good thing to do.
You have to have the courage to say, do you know what?
I'm really crazy. I'm absolutely quite mad.
I'm completely and totally barking mad.
And that'll get his attention more productively than, say, slamming a cup down.
But you say, you know, I'm really quite mad.
Not mad, but mad.
Insane. And he's going to say, well, what are you talking about?
And you're going to say, you know, I'm sitting here, and you're, you know, you're just sitting there quietly and peacefully, and I'm going totally orangutan-y on you in my own mind.
He's going to say, well, what do you mean?
What did I do? Was I scratching myself?
Is your mom on the video phone?
And you just say, no, I mean, I'm sitting here and I want a glass of water.
And for some reason, I can't say to you, I want a glass of water.
I feel, and this is unfair and crazy and irrational, I feel very strongly, though wrongly, that you should psychically read my mind and figure out that I want a glass of water.
And I'm terrified to ask you for a glass of water.
I've been sitting here for 10 minutes, ranking up the most crazy mental scenarios, which end up with you, I think, strangling the cat.
About what's going to happen if I actually ask you for a glass of water.
And that's called being honest, right?
That's called being honest and being vulnerable.
And saying, you know, here's a crazy kitty corner of my brain.
I'm not saying it's a good thing.
I'm not saying it's a healthy thing.
But I'm saying it's there.
And it sure would be helpful to talk about it.
it so that we can understand what's going on and where it's coming from.
And that's really great stuff, right?
Once you let your own crazy kitty corners out in front of other people in a way that's not attacking, that's not threatening, that's, you know, just say, you know, I just have this thing which is troubling me.
It's got nothing to do with you.
You're not provoking it, but this is what's going on for me.
Then you can actually find out the source of that, the value of that, and it also liberates your partner from having to pretend that he or she, actually he in this case, it liberates your partner from having to pretend that he's crazy.
Sorry, that he's not crazy in particular situations.
Like once you lift the lid on your own crazy bag of corner and nutsiness, then you're taking away the standard of perfection, which is always a wonderful thing to do.
It's impossible to achieve and stressful to even aim at.
But by showing the irrationality that you're capable of, and we're all capable of it, trust me, it also gives him the out to reveal to you when he's feeling kind of, right?
So he's going to sort of say, you know, I've just been sitting here thinking, boy, it'd be really nice to have sex, and I've been sort of willing it to happen, nothing's happening, and blah, blah, blah.
And he's going to say, and it's completely crazy and irrational because I haven't said anything.
I haven't even been rubbing against the cat scratching post like I normally do as my signal for l'amour.
So how would you know? This is how you communicate your crazy corners so that you can learn to trust each other, so that you can be honest.
And it's a very hard thing to do.
Don't knock it until you've tried it.
It's a very hard thing to do.
Because... People can get defensive and hostile.
Say, well, yeah, and this is like the other 20 times you've done this, and how crazy, I never have anything like that.
But you kind of want to know that about people before, you know, you have children with them or buy a house together, say.
So sitting down and defining rules about your relationship.
And not sort of finger-wagging, bad-person kind of rules, but just guidelines.
Things that you can say, right?
So if your philosopher dude starts raising his voice, you can say, no, we're not going to do that, right?
That's not our plan, right?
Now, if he then continues to want to do it, then you say, well, you're not acting with integrity based on your commitments.
Philosophers, it's like getting a sliver under their eyeball or something.
They just feel desperately bad and want to change that.
I'm giving you power.
Use it for good. So, having consistency and mutuality is very important.
Not just in terms of orgasms, but in other good things in life as well.
So, mutually beneficial and so on.
But mutual rules. You can't have different rules for each other, right?
The rules have to be consistent, right?
And this is how you get philosophers to work within relationships in ways that make philosophy valuable to you, even if you could give a rat's ass about the minimum wage.
So you say, okay, well, do you like it when someone yells at you?
Oh, not so much, right?
So it's not good then if you yell.
So it's not good if I yell at you, right?
No, no, no. So then it's not good if you yell at me.
Or you can say, would you prefer a relationship where we both yell at each other all the time?
Where's the cereal? Where's the cereal?
Or we neither yell at each other at all, or sometimes yell and sometimes don't.
See, philosophers don't like that gray stuff in the middle, the gray area.
So if he says, well, I want a relationship where we yell at each other all the time, well, you might not want a relationship with that person because he's going to get a little hoarse.
We call it a pony, technically, philosophically.
Oh, I'm so sorry about that joke.
Now, if he says, I want a relationship where we don't yell at each other at all, that's great.
I think that's a very civilized approach to take.
And again, it doesn't mean you're never going to yell, but it means that if you do, or one of you does, the other person can say legitimately, we don't do that, and then you have to change your behavior, right?
Now, if he says, I think we should yell at each other sometimes, but not yell at each other other times, here's another little trick for you.
You can then say, oh, that's interesting.
Now, by what objective criteria am I going to know when it's appropriate to yell or be yelled at or not?
And if he's any kind of real philosopher, if he's not just, you know, faking it, like, you know, you did that time on Valentine's.
Anyway, we don't have to get into that right now.
But if he's any kind of real philosopher, then he's going to say, he's going to have to come up with some kind of rule about when you yell and when you don't.
And the rule is going to make no sense, trust me, because he's going to make up these kinds of, when I feel like it, right?
If he's a bad philosopher, he's going to say, whenever the hell I feel like it.
And then you can say, so your feelings determine what is true.
Your subjective whim determines what is true.
Is that right? So truth changes objectively based on kind of what you feel like in the moment.
Like if you feel like there's no gravity, you can actually fly.
Like I just, if you've got this power, tell me, because boy, we could make a fortune.
We could just make a fortune.
I feel that I'm invisible.
Let me take my clothes off. Oh man, I'm driving.
I can't even do that. Anyway, we'll wait for the webcam on the weekend.
So, this is how you work with a philosopher, right?
To figure out the rules about your relationship.
Around money, right? Couples fight about money.
Well, okay, so do we spend everything that comes in?
Do we save everything that comes in?
How are we going to objectively determine the difference between our saving and spending habits in this, right?
Philosophers love that kind of puzzle.
How are you going to objectively work it out?
I mean, literally, seriously, totally.
My sister, you absolutely have to listen to these guys talk about property rights.
I actually have seen a debate wherein somebody says, well, sure, property rights are absolute, but if you're hanging off a flagpole outside somebody's apartment building and the window is open, can you swing into their apartment so you don't drop to their death?
Is that a violation of property rights or not?
Literally, this is what goes on.
If they can get interested in that kind of esoteric debate, And figuring out the DRO of the Federation 500 years in the future, then surely they can figure out something that actually affects their life in the here and now, which is how to resolve disputes or the general goals of a couple together in a relationship.
You also say this about raising kids, right?
With raising kids. Do we spank our children?
Do we hit? I'm not even going to use the politically correct term spank.
I'm just going to hit, right?
Do we hit our children?
All the time. Like, wake up!
Boom! Time for breakfast!
Boom! Do we hit our kids all the time?
Do we hit our kids never?
Or do we hit our kids sometimes?
If he says sometimes, that's okay.
Well, what are the objective criteria by which we know when it's okay to hit our kids or actually required to hit our kids and not to hit our kids?
Because it can't just be okay.
It can be something that's positively...
Positively compelled, required.
Because if it's just okay to hit the kids every third Thursday, then it doesn't mean that you need some more positive kind of real behavior rules and so on, right?
So, all of this kind of stuff, I think, is incredibly helpful and useful.
And so far, I've just talked about the good stuff.
Now, the bad stuff that's going to be more of a challenge for you is, oh, your mother.
Oh, your father.
Oh, your dippy sister.
Oh, heavens, this is going to be a challenge for you.
Because... Basically, at some point, I guarantee you that your philosopher is going to turn on you like a gentle, loving rabbit hamster and say, so you and I are with each other for mutual benefit, but every time we go to see your mom, you end up depressed for two days.
What's that all about? And look, I'm not going to tell you that there's going to be an easy answer to any of this.
You get some wonderful things out of having a philosopher as a lover.
You really do. You really do.
You get somebody who's rational, who's open to debate, who's intellectually curious.
Who's willing to set up rules and stick by them?
Who's going to be a great and wonderful teacher for your children?
Who's going to be steadfast and loving and constant in his affections?
Who you can trust? All of these good things you get out of it.
Now there's going to be a challenge. Nothing is perfect in that way in life and in fact it would not be perfection to continue to be blind to relationships that were based on totally opposing principles within your heart.
Totally opposing principles.
Like, you know, you're with your guy because he's a great guy.
He makes you feel special and warm and wonderful and he's funny and smart or whatever it is that you love about him.
But what happens is that all of those things, they're for the kids, they're for other people, they're for outside the relationship, they're for me, but they're not for my family.
Well, you're going to have a tough time with that one.
You get a lot of great things out of dating and living with and raising children with a philosopher, but there's a certain amount of discomfort because the rules apply to you as well, right?
The rules aren't just between you and your Deuteruni.
The rules are for everyone, right?
Because otherwise... You're just making stuff up again, right?
It's like, okay, so we don't raise our voices.
Can other couples raise their voices?
Well, yeah. Okay.
Well, what's the rule by which we are different from other couples?
Are we shorter, taller, bolder, blonder?
I mean, what is it that makes us different from other couples that the rules are different?
Well, you're not going to have a really good answer for that.
So when you begin to really live these wonderful, positive, humane, kind, courageous, and generous standards within your relationship with your guy, you're going to have some challenges because I guarantee you, as is the case with all of us, we have these vestigial relationships from more primitive times in our life, right? Families in particular.
They could be friends as well. We have relationships that are hangovers from before we began to live these values.
And once you really do begin to live these values, oh, I absolutely guarantee you, you're going to find just how powerful they really are, how much they absolutely and wonderfully enrich your life and your relationships.
And where those relationships are not rich, it's because you're not following these simple, sensible, warm, humane values.
And why, then, should you have to do that?
I'm not going to answer that, because that's something you can talk about with your guy.
But it's a very, very important question.
And this is where you're going to have the greatest deal of difficulty with going out with a philosopher.
You're going to have all these wonderful great things, great conflict resolution, wonderful father and great husband and so on.
But one of the things that's going to occur...
Is that your relationships that you may be hanging on to for the sake of history and habit and comfort and fear of criticism and fear of negative thoughts from others, the obligation relationships.
I've got to go see my mom because X, Y, and Z. Well, those are going to come under question because you've set up these rules that are universal and that are wonderfully beneficial for you.
But I think that it's important to understand that it's not just your relationship with this guy that's going to change.
All your other relationships are going to change as well.
So I hope this makes some sense.
Philosophers are great, great, great guys to go out with.
But the challenge that you're going to face is that the same principles that work so beautifully within your relationship with a philosopher are going to really expose where things are lacking in your other relationship.
And that doesn't mean that those other relationships have to be ditched or you have to go into these horrible confrontation modes or anything like that.
But it does mean that those relationships that perhaps you take a little bit for granted and accept lower standards in might be worth the review and might be worth having conversations with those people that you have those relationships with to bring them up to the same standard so that you have consistency in your values, in your life, in your loves, and how you interact with people as a whole.
I hope that this helps.
I hope that this has made an objective and useful case.
But you're going to be very happy with a philosopher, with the exception that there's going to be a couple of rough spots for you when these values that work so beautifully in your relationships with your guy don't show up in other relationships.
And that is going to be...
A real challenge to live according to some sort of like these objective standards, not just sort of petty rules, but really important self-respecting ways to be interacted with so that you feel that you are always being respected and dealt with in a positive and logical and beneficial manner.
So I hope that this has been helpful.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
But I'm sure that all of this stuff you can talk about with your guy, and he may be more happy than you think to discuss your relationship in these terms, which I think are the most important terms.
Thank you so much for listening.
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