All Episodes
Previous Next
June 9, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
51:48
789 Family and Statism Part 4

Why our philosophy is going to win

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Good afternoon, everybody.
Hope you're doing well and stuff. It is too windy for me to podcast outside, so I am reduced to the mall walk, actually, and I'm kind of hungry and want to get my food.
I had a couple of comments which came back from the last few podcasts with regards to...
Family corruption, voting for Ron Paul, and all of the seemingly, and perhaps conceivably, highly tenuous links that I made between these two issues.
Now, clarification is certainly in order, and is probably going to be quite helpful, because there are a number of people, the person I was, the sort of amalgam of people that I was talking about in the last few podcasts were...
Concerned about the question of the causality that I was putting forward, which I completely and totally understand, and I'll try and clarify it a little bit here and see if it makes any more sense to you.
The question that people had was they said, okay, so Steph, if you're saying that people vote for Ron Paul because they want to avoid seeing the corruption of their parents, they wish to believe that corruption is reformable in the form of the state, Because they wish to avoid seeing that their parents are not reformable.
Does that mean that if I want to vote for Ron Paul, that my parents are corrupt?
Does it mean that if I want to vote for Ron Paul, that my parents are corrupt?
Well, of course I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know.
What I would say, and this is why I kept driving at this particular issue, what I would say...
Is that if you fight tooth and nail, like to the death, with regards to this whole Ron Paul question, and if you kind of dodge answers, and if you go on tangents, and if you get personal, and if you... Like, obviously something else is going on, right?
Something more important than Ron Paul is going on.
When somebody gets highly volatile, And personalizes things and becomes evasive or...
And when their temper continues to rise throughout the course of the interaction, which definitely did happen, I mean, this gentleman just became very angry about this, as I sort of perfectly predicted, right, as you may remember in the podcast before I saw the results of it, I did sort of predict this, that the person was going to get angry.
Well, of course, if...
If it's the situation that a debate about Ron Paul, and this person did not shift his position despite half a dozen podcasts, I don't know how many dozens of posts, arguments, a two-hour debate, and the position did not shift at all.
And then, when I started bringing up the question of parental cover-ups, or cover-up for parental corruption, He brought the same argument for him.
This is a person who still has his parents in his life, and his parents are, by his own admission, corrupt, difficult, negative, and hostile people.
And so then what he wanted to say was, and I understand why somebody would go here, right?
I mean, he wanted to say, well, Steph, are you then saying that if, you know, Murray Rothbard had corrupt people in his life, that all of Murray Rothbard's theories are false?
Right? And that's a perfectly fascinating question, one that I think would be a very interesting one to discuss.
But I would say this, that there's a reason why somebody who has corrupt parents in his life wants to talk about whether Murray Rothbard's friends were corrupt 30, 40, or 50 years ago.
That's instructive in and of itself.
That is instructive in and of itself.
Again, sort of take the big picture here that the purpose of this conversation is human freedom.
The purpose of this conversation is human freedom.
And so I asked you, and I had asked this gentleman, I did of course, well, which is the more relevant question to your freedom?
Because we're not talking about freedom in the abstract.
We're talking about freedom in the here and now, freedom for you.
What is the more relevant aspect to your freedom?
Whether Murray Rothbard had good friends 40 years ago?
Or whether Murray Rothbard's parents were nice or not so nice people?
Or whether your parents are in your life right now?
Which one is the more important and relevant question?
And when somebody goes haywire in this sense, Where you advance every argument onto the planet just to shift any of their positions.
Where they have an enormous amount of respect for you, as he's told me privately.
The guy's got an enormous amount of respect for me in every area but this one.
The credibility that I've earned elsewhere means nothing in this perspective.
And of course, I'm not saying that it should.
I could always be wrong in particular areas, but...
You know, after all of the arguments that were put forward, and I spent an enormous amount of time with this gentleman's arguments, a very smart fellow, very interesting stuff.
If it comes down to the question of why are your parents in your life if you admit they're corrupt and whatever, right?
If I put forward the proposition that says, well, if you think that corrupt people can be reformed, if you think that the state can be reformed with Ron Paul, then clearly...
It would be far easier to reform your parents under your efforts.
And if then the question comes back, the most essential question is not then, how am I going to get these bad people out of my life, or thank heavens there is now a methodology for moving forward that involves me getting my parents into therapy, and blah blah blah blah blah.
If instead what comes back is that the most burning question is, Whether Murray Rothbard had good friends 40 years ago, you just know that this is rank avoidance, right?
And again, not the end of the world, right?
Not the end of the world. All it means is that the person's not ready for the step.
Just not ready for the step, right?
They want to be a parachuter.
They say they want to be a parachuter.
First time they're brought up in the plane, they...
Not ready to jump. Second time, fifth time, tenth time, twentieth time, they're not ready to jump, and that's fine.
And that's fine. But, you know, the first virtue is honesty, and just say, hey, not ready to jump.
Not ready to jump.
Too frightened to jump. But that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that.
God, we've all been there.
But you say, you know, the honesty is what's going on, right?
What you do is you say... Hey, you know what?
I get that you're talking about my parents, and I totally understand that my parents are much more relevant to my freedom than whether Murray Rothbard had good friends 40 years ago.
But I feel this wild urge to just attack your argument, right?
And that's honesty, right?
That's honesty. That's not acting out.
That's just being honest. And then we talk about that, right?
But if you actually do end up sort of attacking and blah, blah, blah, and things would get pretty heated, as it's quite predictable when somebody's being pushed towards a step that they're not ready to take, then they're going to get angry.
They're going to feel attacked, right? They're going to feel attacked.
They're going to feel hostile. They're going to lash out.
I mean, that's just natural, right?
And it just means that the person's not ready to make the step, and that's fine.
They can make the step in five years.
You know, I think it's better to make the step sooner than later.
The only thing worse than spending 30 years in the proximity of corrupt parents is spending 30 years in one day in the proximity of corrupt parents.
But everybody can make their own choices, of course, with regards to that.
It's just that my concern is that when people make choices that are based on hostility and anger, are they sealing up their own tomb in a sense?
It's neither here nor there. So, the relevant question, I think, is not, if you support Ron Paul, does that mean that your parents are bad?
Of course, I don't know. I have a theory, but I can't claim that empirically to be true.
But I'll say two things about it.
The first thing is that the important question is, if somebody is angrily and vociferously and endlessly dodging and getting emotional and diverting and When their defenses are in full play and they refuse to admit that it's about anything other than the Ron Paul question, when that's the situation that's going on, I guarantee you it's not about Ron Paul.
I guarantee you.
You know, when somebody ends up calling you a bully and hypocritical and someone because you keep advising arguments against their position, It's really not about me.
It's not about Ron Paul. It's about this guy and his parents.
He doesn't want to confront his parents.
There may be reasonable, practical reasons for that.
He'll be paying for stuff. I don't know.
He doesn't want to confront his parents.
But I can totally guarantee you that it's not about Ron Paul.
It's like the question of determinism, right?
People get very angry and heated about the question of determinism, right?
Why? Because, in my view, determinism is a defense mechanism which allows you to forgive bad people in your life and does not have to act in a moral manner with regards to that.
Same thing with 9-11, other kinds of conspiracy theories.
People get very angry about it because, of course, as I've mentioned before, and this is just one of possible theories, but it's certainly not about 9-11.
But the reason that they get...
They get angry is they've ego-invested in the idea.
They've ego-invested in the conclusion, which means that if the conclusion is false, they are attacked.
They are less.
They feel aggressed against.
If the idea is proven false, they feel aggressed against.
They feel immoral. They feel whatever.
So because they've ego-invested in the idea, not the methodology.
I've totally ego-invested In the methodology of the scientific method of logic, of empiricism, and so on.
And I try to avoid ego investing in something like anarcho-capitalism.
That's just the result of the theory.
So, when you ego identify with a conclusion rather than with a methodology, Then it's going to be quite destabilizing for you if something threatens that conclusion.
Because you have associated your identity with your virtue.
And there's something even deeper than that.
my particular take on it is that if you've had as i mentioned before if you've had bad parents who were more socially accepted bad parents but they were socially accepted then you're going to feel the need to peel the layer of corruption and have people see just how bad the socially accepted people are and you're going to go too far right
so if you have i don't know i just sort of if you have a father who's a priest and is loved by the community but is secretly corrupt and abusive like in his own household you're going to feel this enormous desire overwhelming desire to reveal the truth but But of course, when you were a kid, any time you would complain about your dad, who was socially accepted, you would end up with people sort of rolling their eyes and saying, oh, don't be silly, you've got nothing to complain about, your dad's great, blah, blah, blah.
So you feel this frustration that you really want to be able to rip the lid off this kind of corruption, but everybody just rolls their eyes, right?
So, what happens then is that you grow up with this desire to reveal corruption within authority, but you also grow up with this belief that you're never going to be able to do it, right?
So you're driven to recreate this eye-rolling stuff, right?
Because you still feel that you need to prove something to other people in order to believe it yourself, like, fundamentally.
And so you're driven to reveal the evils of the government, but you choose something that can't be proven and that makes people roll their eyes, right?
That's just the way that these things cycle.
So the basic reality is that there is intensely personal motivations that are driving people into these realms of thought where things escalate, things become impervious, things become immovable, and it's a cover story.
It's a mythology, right?
It's a story that allows people to avoid the essential issues, and they become impervious to perspective, right?
People become impervious to perspective.
They become impervious to argument, and I'm perfectly aware, of course, that this is exactly what these people are saying about me as well, and that's fine.
I mean, that's just my perspective, right?
I think it would be a pretty hard thing to argue that whether Murray Rothbard had good friends 40 years ago, whether that's more relevant to somebody's personal freedom than whether they keep their corrupt parents in their life.
I think that's pretty objective.
And when somebody just won't see that perspective, then they're clinging kind of desperately to an avoidance mechanism, to a defense mechanism.
And there's nothing that really can be done about that, right?
People can always choose to reject perspective.
Because what it takes is sort of a third eye.
It takes an observing ego that's maybe too weak at that time.
But when you say to somebody, "You're getting really angry and frustrated and upset about my theories, and you are now wanting to spend time focusing on whether Rothbard had good friends 40 years ago," rather than whether you should have your parents in your rather than whether you should have your parents in your life or not.
Now, if part of them looks at their own behavior and says, "Wow, you know what?
I may not agree with everything you say.
In fact, I may not agree with anything you say, Steph, but it is certainly the case that I have definitely lost perspective here.
Like, there's no way that I can make the claim that Murray Rothbard's friends are more relevant to me than my own parents, in terms of my personal freedom.
So, clearly, something's awry, right?
This doesn't mean anybody accepts any of my theories as to why it's happening, but, of course, somebody has to, first of all, say that there is a problem, right?
And, of course, if your focus is on Murray Rothbard's friends rather than your own family, why, then, clearly, there's a problem, right?
Clearly there's a perspective that's going on as a short circuit in terms of perspective.
Now, if somebody says, you know, that's totally right.
I mean, I may not agree with any of your theories as to why it's happening, but I can't help but agree that something is happening, right?
That something has gone awry in this way.
And if you can get that far, then at least you can admit that there's a lack of perspective, that there's a problem going on, and so on.
That doesn't mean that my theories are right or anything, but it does mean that it's not about Ron Paul or Murray Rothbard's friends or anything like that.
That the emotional volatility is about something else.
But if that's not the case, then, look, if somebody won't admit that, then there's nowhere to go, right?
There's nowhere to go. If somebody thinks that my Rothbard's friends are more irrelevant to their personal freedom than their own parents, there's nowhere to go with that conversation.
I mean, if somebody says 2 plus 2 is not 4, there are axioms that you just have to accept.
Who has more influence over you?
Who is more relevant to your personal freedom?
Your flesh and blood parents who've had exposure for 30 years, or my Rothbard's friends from 30 years ago.
Like, if somebody doesn't accept that, That there's a failure of perspective here, that there's a failure of hierarchy.
If somebody rejects that, then somebody's rejecting that 2 plus 2 is 4.
You just can't prove that.
That's an axiom. You just can't prove that.
If somebody says, somebody I've never met from 40 years ago is more relevant to my personal freedom than the parents who raised me, I mean, you just can't say anything.
And of course, that's what that level of irrationality is designed to do.
It's just designed to shut down a conversation.
And that's fine.
People can talk. Most people won't succeed in this conversation.
The vast majority of people will not succeed in this conversation.
There are lots of, by the way, siders.
Lots of people who fall off the wagon.
Lots of people who don't make it.
This is a highly elite conversation.
This is a highly elite conversation.
This requires extraordinary and rigorous self-examination.
This is the cancer that you have to take out of your own flesh, it seems, at times, with a spoon.
And it's not easy.
Not pleasant, not pretty.
So that's fine, right?
But, I mean, I can see what's going on, even if other people can't.
So, enough about that.
Let's have a look at another topic that we can talk about that's related to this, which is the question, if I want to vote for Ron Paul, does that mean my parents are corrupt?
Well, I don't know. This is the theory, and I can certainly think of a number of instances in which it fits, but it all really depends on your definition of corruption.
So I'm going to describe a set of parents, and I describe the same set of parents in The God of Atheists.
I'm going to describe a set of parents to you that you can let me know whether they sort of fit the bill with regards to your parents, and we can talk about whether this is corrupt or not.
So there are large numbers of parents out there who are very nice.
Very nice people, right? They give you the shirt off their back, love having you over, ask you how about your day, ask you about your career, you know, ask you what's going on in your life.
Pleasant, positive people.
And they are intellectually curious and interested and so on, right?
And they will absolutely ask you about your day and your life and so on.
And yet, if you are, I'm just going to say, anarcho-capitalist, it could be libertarian, but let's just say with anarcho-capitalist, if you are an anarcho-capitalist, They're going to view this belief of yours, this belief system of yours, with quaint amusement, with, you know, interest like it's, oh, that's interesting, you know, it's like you're really good at chess, right?
They may enjoy arguing or discussing chess with you.
Or if you're really into Balzac, the writer, you know, they may enjoy discussing all of that with you.
It's like a hobby of yours, right?
It's like an interesting intellectual challenge that they will maybe debate with you even, right?
And they may even agree with you to a certain degree.
They may even agree with you to a large degree.
But the real question is, does the rubber hit the road in terms of their belief system?
Right? The real question with your parents, if they're nice people, maybe even intellectually curious, who enjoy debating these issues with you and so on, do they take these beliefs, do they take this philosophy seriously or not?
Kinda yay, kinda nay, right?
Do they, yes or no? If they, too, take this philosophy seriously, then the debates that you're having with them We're going to be very essential, very important, very core, very fundamental about the decisions that they're going to make in their life.
Right? So if you're arguing with your dad about anarcho-capitalism or philosophy or ethics or psychology or whatever, does your dad change his behavior based on the results of these debates?
Right? Right? Will your dad change his behavior as a result of these debates?
Or is it merely a sterile and empty academic unattached debate for him, right?
Is it all rhetorical?
Is it all academic? And that's corrupt, right?
If you debate ethics and philosophy, As a merely intellectual exercise, then that's pretty corrupt.
Because you're saying that philosophy has no relevance.
Philosophy is merely playing chess with your mind.
It has no fundamental relevance on how it is that you're going to live your life.
That undermines and weakens people.
If they're around people who say, oh yes, philosophy is very important, let us discuss philosophy, you and I. And then they don't make the difficult and grueling choices that come out of that, then that's pretty corrupt.
It's like discussing nutrition but never changing your diet.
Well, if nutrition has nothing to do with changing your diet, then it's not nutrition.
It's a rejection of nutrition.
A philosophy has nothing to do with changing your life, and we all know how difficult this is, even for ourselves, right?
If we deal with philosophy as if it is a merely sterile and empty and dissociated academic exercise, that's pretty corrupt.
it.
So the question isn't, are your parents nice?
Do you have a decent relationship with them?
Can you go and have dinner and have some laughs and this and that?
That's an acquaintanceship.
That's like the people I would have lunch with at work and we'd chat about this and that and the other, but not politics and not philosophy and not anything sort of fundamental, which is fine.
That was appropriate, but I wouldn't say I had a good relationship with these people.
I'd say I passed some times and had some laughs with them.
Well, it's not deep, it's not intimate, it's not brothers in arms for virtue, so to speak.
Now, if your parents are engaged and involved in this exploration if your parents are engaged and involved in this exploration of philosophy that we're all sort of focused on and interested in, if your parents are heavily involved and deeply engaged in that conversation
and they take it very seriously, and they change their behavior, and they listen to maybe these podcasts or other discussions that you might have about philosophy.
If all of that is going on, well, then you have very good, obviously, very lucky, very good relationships with your parents, and that's something that's wonderful, and that's something to be treasured, I think, and that's great.
Please, do get them to come on the board.
Do get them to come on the Sunday shows.
Do get your parents to call into the Sunday shows.
I mean, that's a pretty good and interesting criteria to start with, right?
And it's just one of many sort of, quote, acid tests that you may have in this regard or in this realm.
So, if your parents...
Are sort of engaged and interested in this discussion, which I think is wonderful, then would they come and chat on the Sunday show?
If they have reservations or whatever, would they come and talk to a philosopher that you obviously find engaging and interesting?
Would they come on and have a chat about questions or comments or issues that they'd have with regards to that situation, to me?
Now, if that idea excites you and you know that your parents would be very keen to engage in that discussion with me...
Fantastic. You know, bring them on.
I'd love to talk to them.
I mean, I'd love to talk to parents who've been able to turn things around in that way.
But if when you sort of think about getting your parents involved in this debate, you feel squeamish, you feel nervous, you feel scared, you feel unsettled, you feel frustrated, you feel angry, right?
Well, that's an indication that there are problems in the relationship, right?
Again, not because they have to agree with everything you say, but they have to be very interested in things that you believe and want to explore them and find out the truth or the falsehood of these things.
And if they do want to get involved in the truth and falsehood and get involved in discussions that you find very core and very relevant, I think that's fantastic.
I think that's fantastic.
And if they will be happy to call in to the Sunday show, I'd love to talk to parents.
I really genuinely would. And if they will come and call in, I think that would be fantastic.
Now, if they don't or if you wouldn't be able to get them to call in...
Then that's going to be more of a challenge when it comes to defending the wonderful depth and reality of your relationship with your parents.
Now, the last thing that I'd like to talk about in this regard, with your kind, kind indulgence, is the question...
Sorry, Murray Rothbard.
And again, I'm no Murray Rothbard scholar.
I've read a couple of his books, but I'm certainly no expert on him and know virtually nothing about his personal life.
But that having been said, I'd sort of like to put a proposition forward which may go some ways towards establishing Excuse me, I'm trying to get my egg roll sauce open.
Establishing whether or not, or a criteria by which we could figure out whether or not Murray Rothbard's philosophy adds to people's freedom or not.
Now, we certainly know that being interested in philosophical or political freedom is an enormously time-consuming endeavor.
Enormously time-consuming endeavor, right?
Listening to the podcast alone, hundreds and hundreds of hours that needs to be devoted to this situation.
So, without a doubt, it's hugely time-consuming.
You've got to read all these books, you've got to listen to all these podcasts or audiobooks or whatever it is, you've got to read these articles, you've got to have discussions, and with my approach to human freedom, my God, it's even worse, because I also put the burden of introspection on On you.
And an evaluation and action-taking in the realm of personal relationships as a criteria.
No damn commandment, but philosophy is enormously time-consuming.
It takes an enormous amount of resources.
Now, if philosophy, or if a philosopher, only focuses on On the intellectual, state-based, political side of things, then clearly it's a net addition to the amount of labor in your life.
I'm very aware that philosophy is at best a part-time job in terms of the resource commitments that are required.
It's a part-time job. If you become a philosophy professor, maybe not so much of a part-time job.
But it's a part-time job, for sure, to educate yourself about the falsehoods in the world, to learn alternate theories of history.
And, not only it is a part-time job to learn all of these things, but I think some pretty implicit obligations are put forward.
When you learn them. I mean, so for instance, if you don't learn anything about alternative views of history or more rational ways of viewing the state, when you hear someone at a dinner party talking about how wonderful Social Security is, you're just going to nod your head, right?
Say, yeah, I think it's better that all people have something to eat.
I mean, who could conceivably be against it, right?
Or if you never study any Austrian economics, then when somebody says the free market caused the Great Depression, therefore the free market doesn't work, therefore we need regulation, you'd be like, yeah, well, that makes sense to me.
Right, so not only do you have to spend an enormous amount of time studying these things, but you also have, once you know them, sort of an implicit obligation to correct error, which is, my God, very, very difficult to do.
I mean, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, from a relationship standpoint, I mean, there's this guy...
I'm just not using people's names because I try to avoid it when it's not necessary.
I posted about some woman who's a teacher in his school who's berating the children about McDonald's, saying that, you know, when they eat McDonald's, they're killing the planet.
And they should think about that the next time they went to Big Mac.
Something to do with...
I don't know, land stripping and livestock or some damn thing, deforestation, whatever, whatever, right?
But that's abusive, totally abusive.
Well, what do you do?
That is far from an easy question to answer.
It has been for me. Maybe somebody else has got some great methodology, but what do you do?
You've got considerations of Korea.
You've got considerations of Who wants to debate with crazy people?
But at the same time, you have considerations that these children are being abused.
So that's not easy, right?
People go into a real tailspin.
I do. I mean, go into a real tailspin about...
Christina's at this conference this week with a bunch of statist psychologists.
And they're all talking about their government grants.
How much good they're trying to do with their government grants.
Well, does Christina say, hey, you know, that's blood money, right?
The money you're receiving is taken from people at the point of a gun.
Well, do you? Don't you?
My God, it's horrible. It's horrible.
So, all other things being equal, Any philosophy that is not applied consistently and through action in your life is a net negative, just in terms of times and resources, right?
I would say, though I won't make the case in this podcast, if you're interested, just let me know and I'll make the case another time.
I would say that it doesn't even add to your net happiness.
I mean, if you know the truth and you don't act on the truth, I think that you're actually less happy than if you don't know the truth.
This is where a lot of sort of, quote, radical and reactionary people get stuck.
This is the Alex Jones conspiracy theory world.
If you know the truth, but don't act on the truth in your personal life, then it's a net negative.
I mean, just in general, in so many ways.
Sorry, I can't really say a net negative in so many ways.
It's just a net negative.
Because you're kind of not a hypocrite if you don't know the truth.
Right?
You're not a hypocrite if you don't know the truth.
Once you know the truth, then you now have the additional responsibility of fending off hypocrisy.
And sometimes, in the most hellishly complicated ways.
Do I say? Do I not say?
Do I talk? Do I not talk?
Do I correct? Do I not correct?
Oh my god, it's horrible. Just horrible.
So, if you say to people, this is the truth, coercion is bad, abuse is bad, And of course, if you make the connection, as I think I've certainly tried to do on coming up on countless occasions,
if you make the connection between childhood abuse and subjugation to authority as an adult, then you realize that the greatest evil, in a sense, is the abuse of children.
Because it's the evil from which all other evils spring.
It's the prime mover of evil.
Well, then you recognize that, in a sense, a verbal abuse is the worst, right?
And so then you realize that if you're in relationships with people in your life who are abusive or dismissive or scornful or they roll their eyes or whatever, that's really bad, right?
It's not about the Depression in the 1930s.
It's about family dinner in 2007.
So, this may seem like a ridiculous argument, but it's not to me.
If you inflict the truth on someone, without freeing up their time and energies elsewhere, then that's kind of like enslaving them, in my view. - I'm not sure what then that's kind of like enslaving them, in my view. - I'm I'm not sure what you're saying.
Right, so... Let's just say you're one of the people who have, you know, pleasant parents.
Pleasant parents. Well, if you go for dinner, before you know the truth, if you go for dinner with your pleasant parents and you have a fine old time, you laugh and you talk about the good old days and time at the cottage and blah blah blah, and then I come along and say,
well, you know, the truth is personal and And you should spend the rest of your life trying to convert your parents to the truth and blah blah blah, whatever, right?
Well, and sort of fundamentally, that's a net negative.
That's a net negative.
All right, so it's like if you enjoy smoking, and then you find out that smoking will kill you, but you're also not allowed to quit smoking, but you're also not allowed to quit smoking, .
Well, that's a net negative, right?
You no longer can really enjoy smoking because you know it's going to kill you, but you also can't quit smoking.
So it's like, I'd rather not know then, right?
If I'm not going to change my behavior, I'd rather not know.
And that's where a lot of people fall out of this conversation.
They love talking about it in the abstract, but then it's like, oh...
You mean I've got to invite my parents on your show?
I've got to talk my parents into therapy?
No thanks. I'd rather argue about voting for Aunt Paul.
So I'm just talking mathematically, right?
If you add to people's burden...
By inflicting the truth on them, but do not free them up in any significant way?
Well, it's a net negative. I mean, just statistically, right?
It's exactly the same as, you know, you're a waiter in my restaurant.
Actually, no, it's not even that.
It's a salaried employee situation.
I say you now have to do twice the work with no additional increase in pay?
Well, that's a negative, right?
I mean, unless you absolutely love your job, but there's a lot not to love about philosophy.
It's hard. So, in this kind of situation, I would say that, again, not being a Rothbard scholar, it's just a methodology or framework for discussing it.
If Murray Rothbard inflicted the truth upon people, creating emotionally difficult alienation and complexity and problems and so on, without freeing them In any other way, then I would say, of course, that Maria Rothbard did not add to the freedom of the world.
I can't promise you to free you from the state.
Of course not. I can promise you to free you from your parents.
If that relationship is not positive for you.
I mean... I broke with my mom eight or nine years ago.
And just think of all of the...
And my brother five or six years ago.
and my father about the same time as my brother.
Think of all the family dinners I don't have to go to now. - How are you?
Think of all that time that I've saved.
Think about all that emotional frustration that I've saved by not having dinner with people who disagree with my philosophy.
And having to bite my tongue, I'll laugh it off, or get into another pointless fight about things which cannot be resolved because they're not rational.
Ooh, lovely. Right?
That's a positive, right?
That's a good thing. Hell, just think of all the gifts I haven't had to buy for anyone.
I mean, it does come down to this to some degree.
And when you get married or in a significant relationship, that's times two.
Hell, throw an extended family in.
I bet you I'm saving you years out of your life.
Years. Years and years and years of your life.
In tens and tens and tens, if not more, tens of thousands of dollars of time and money.
shopping for gifts, wrapping gifts, going over, driving over, paying for the gas, paying for the parking, putting your parents up when they got sick.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Going to the hospital. Four sets of parents.
Sorry, four parents. Two sets of parents.
You and your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever.
Extended family, nephews, nieces.
Look at how much this conversation can offer you in terms of freedom from this.
If they're bad, if they're corrupt.
If they're merely academic in their discussions with you.
So look at what I'm offering.
If they're not going to be able to do that, they're going to be able to do that.
Look at what I'm offering.
That's pretty easy.
In the course of your life to spend 10% of your time, if not more, let's just be conservative, say 10% of your time.
Dealing with family directly, indirectly dealing with the fallout of dealing with family, problems it's causing in your marriage.
Christina and I would have problems every time she saw her parents.
Of course, right?
You can't live opposition and not have problems.
So, 10% of your time and your money and your resources all go to your family, your extended family, and so on.
Now, yes, maybe you'll inherit some money and so on.
Who knows, right? I'm just sort of talking about the stuff you can count on.
But... That's what I'm offering, right?
And that's what this philosophy is offering.
That's what this approach is offering to you.
Live 10% longer.
That's what quitting smoking does for you.
On average, maybe more.
Live 10% longer, but you'll save even more money than if all you did was quit smoking.
So, what I'm sort of saying is that if somebody inflicts philosophy on you, and doesn't liberate you in any other aspect of your life, it's a net negative. - So, it's a net negative. - So, I'm gonna go to the next one.
Right? So when I say to people, I'll be damned if I don't add, if there's not more freedom in the world when I'm dead than when I was born, I mean it.
But my mind is at ease with that regard.
My mind is at ease in that regard.
Because it's already done, right?
It's already done.
It's already been achieved.
In a moment of serendipity, this is my fortune cookie.
The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
Let's hope. So, you know, just do the math.
If you just get freedom as an abstract, as a complication, as an emotional challenge, not even an emotional challenge that can be happily solved...
The time, the energy, the money, all the books on philosophy you've got to buy, conferences you go to, oh my god, it's an endless, endless amount of resource allocation involved in becoming a philosopher.
And maybe it's fine with you, you just pay and pay, you just pay and pay.
Not fine with me. I want philosophy to be a net positive in your life.
Net positive of happiness.
And, you know, time, resources, money is good too.
If you love your parents and you're all a tribal group of deep philosophers, wonderful.
Wonderful. See, then you don't need to buy all these books, right?
That's important. If you were raised as a philosopher by philosophers, you don't need to buy all these books.
You don't have all these conflicts. You don't have all these problems.
But the only reason you have to buy all these books and you have all these problems, why it's such an emotional challenge and why it's dizzying and confusing and expensive and massively time-consuming, is because you weren't raised by philosophers.
You were raised by people who were anti-philosophy.
So if you're raised by philosophers, then you don't need to buy all these books and spend all this time and money and blah blah blah, right?
But if you were raised by anti-philosophers, then you do get rid of these people.
That's the investment, right? The investment is philosophy.
The payoff, obviously, is personal happiness, but it's also time, energy, money, emotional peace of mind that comes from defoeing.
And I guarantee you that no freedom philosopher that I've ever heard of has taken this approach, has put this algebra together.
Hell, no psychologists really do this that I know of.
But I respect the market.
I respect economic transactions.
I respect the transactional analysis.
It's not the final answer, but it certainly is important.
And that's why I say... That yeah, I'm bringing more freedom to the world than Murray Rothbard.
Yeah, I'm bringing more happiness to the world.
I'm just freeing up people's resources.
You invest in knowledge, the payoff is freedom from illusion, freedom from bad relationships, freedom from exploitation.
That's the idea of knowledge.
That's the whole purpose of knowledge, right?
The whole purpose of medicine is freedom from sickness.
The whole purpose of philosophy is freedom from corruption.
Freedom from sickness breeds health and vitality and physical well-being.
Freedom from corruption breeds joy.
The treatment can be painful.
The results are excellent. And the cost-benefit has got to be net positive, right?
We don't say, I'm going to deal with your hangnail by cutting off your leg.
That's a net negative, right?
I'll take the hangnail. If that's the only treatment, I'll live with the hangnail.
I'm going to deal with your headache by beheading you.
So the transactional analysis should be net positive.
Here's all the philosophy of freedom in the world, and it's just going to make your life more difficult.
And it's going to make your relationships more painful, right?
As soon as you know about corruption...
Then you're even more acutely aware of the pain of dealing with corrupt people.
Parents, family, whatever. So, this is one of the reasons philosophy does not flourish.
Because most people make it more difficult for people to be into philosophy.
Philosophy is a net negative, unless you get the freedom.
From corrupt relationships that philosophy in action in your personal life brings.
That's why philosophy has got no payoff.
Why it doesn't flourish.
It's a pain in the ass.
Basically, if you become philosophical without making decisive steps towards freedom in your personal relationships, then it's just like...
Being in chronic pain and not taking morphine.
Well, why would you? Chronic pain can't change.
In fact, now you're more acutely aware of it.
You're more unhappy than you were before.
So, what I'm aiming to do is to give a very personal time, energy, resources, and happiness payoff for becoming a philosopher.
I think that that's sort of required.
I think that's the main reason why philosophy has not flourished.
To live like Socrates, you need to pour and drink Hemlock at the end and have a bitchy wife.
There's a reason why that metaphor of his wife, Xanthippe, I think his wife being a bitch, sort of sticks, right?
If you stay married to a bitch, your philosophy is nonsense.
Your definition of virtue is nonsense.
So... I hope that at least helps understand why I think that this approach is so different, why I think it's so new, why I think it's so exciting, and why I think that we finally got the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. I think we finally got a net positive calculation in terms of philosophy, where it's real freedom, not just a word.
▲
Export Selection