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Dec. 17, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:29:46

942 Abuse, Aggression and Assertion (A listener conversation)

A female listener and I work out a conflict...

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	Oh hi, it's Stefan calling.
	Hello. How's it going?
	I'm good. Excellent, excellent.
	So you have a few minutes to crank through some of your questions or issues about perfectionism?
	Yes. And you have your answers carefully prepared so that there won't be any deviation from perfectionism in this conversation because that's the kind of quality that we need here.
	Oh, yes. Okay, good to know.
	And as you know, I'll have to call you Bob.
	That's just the convention. Okay.
	Bob the girl. So you had, because we were, you and I had a chat in the chat window at Free Domain Radio, and there was a question around perfectionism.
	And this was irritating to you and I'm sure it was somewhat irritating to me too if I remember rightly and then you had a productive conversation with somebody else about sort of that question of perfectionism so do you want to talk a little bit about that first?
	Sure. I'm actually looking at the conversation at the moment because I save everything.
	Excellent. And that's part of perfectionism.
	Yeah. We were talking about why I was still upset over the conversation.
	Why were you upset at first?
	And I was like, well, it felt like they were attacking me.
	When it was really just a tiny suggestion.
	And then you had said that you felt hurt and attacked and that I was dealing with my insecurities.
	Yes, that certainly was my thought.
	Can you just remind me of the general topic that we were talking about with regards to that, just to jar my memory?
	Because I didn't save everything.
	You had said that you were going to post a YouTube video essentially telling people that they shouldn't talk about things that they couldn't understand.
	Yes, okay, I remember now.
	Yes, that's right. So what had happened was somebody had posted something.
	Oh yeah, that's okay.
	So this was somebody had posted something on one of my YouTube videos that was entirely condescending and manipulative and this and that and the other.
	And so I had sort of said that I was sort of considering putting something out there, which was, you know, if you don't have the ability to process this stuff, then you shouldn't be watching it.
	And then your question, if I remember rightly, was something like, well, if they don't have the capacity to process it, then can they logically be held accountable for their responses?
	I'm not sure that's exactly right.
	Um... I think my issue was more that you had said that they couldn't understand it, and I thought that it wasn't so much that they couldn't understand it, it was that they were refusing to bother to understand it.
	Yes, and I think that would be closer to my opinion as well, though I'm sure it was not perfectly expressed by me in the chat window.
	Since I do basically believe that everyone's a genius and everyone's a philosopher, then Exactly.
	The irritation didn't arise until...
	I had suggested saying, like, wouldn't instead, and everyone was like, well, you're just nitpicking, and don't be so nitpicky.
	I was like, well, it was just a suggestion, an improvement.
	I thought it would help. And it turned into a huge debate on whether or not I was nitpicking, which was kind of weird.
	Right, right. And because you felt that it was more accurate to say that these listeners are refusing to understand, not that they can't understand.
	Yes. Now, you had mentioned earlier in a conversation that you were having some questions or wrestles with your own aggression or aggressiveness.
	Yes. Could you, and just, we can come back to this in a sec, and also, if you wouldn't, would you have a copy of that chatty, transcript-y thing that you could send me, just so I could have a glance at it?
	Because I think I remember the part that I wanted to talk about, but I don't have it on me.
	No, that one got deleted, that was like a week ago, I think.
	No, the one that you were just referring to now?
	Oh, the one that I had with the other person?
	Oh, no, I meant the one that we were actually, the one that we were actually chatting in the chat window.
	No, I deleted that one because I was mad.
	Okay, no problem. No, that's fine.
	I might have a copy.
	I can have a look. What is it that was occurring to you about your own aggression or frustration or anger?
	That was the stuff that you were talking about earlier.
	Generally, I just tend to snap at people who aren't I don't know.
	Doing as well as I think they ought to be, I guess.
	Right. You mean that's a...
	Sorry, go ahead. Usually that's after I've given a suggestion and they don't do it, which doesn't seem at all fair now that I think about it.
	Is it a suggestion that they themselves have agreed to?
	No. Oh, so you give them a suggestion which they don't agree with and then what happens is you get upset that they're not following it?
	Yeah. Right.
	I feel that I'm correct and they feel that they're correct.
	There's no way to resolve that.
	Not as it stands, no.
	I think that would be a pretty tricky thing to sort of resolve as it stood.
	When you say you snap at people, what does that look like?
	Not necessarily yelling.
	I don't yell that much.
	But... Quick, sharp words.
	I don't know. I don't think I can do it just on command.
	No, no. I was just wondering what it means.
	So it's not like you calling people stupid or yelling or anything like that.
	It's more of an eye-rolling kind of thing.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	Okay. Okay. Good, good.
	I think I understand. I think I understand.
	And is that not, I'm guessing that that's not particularly satisfying, not a particularly satisfying interaction for you?
	No. And can you think of a circumstance under which that has occurred?
	I'm sorry, what?
	Can you think of a circumstance under which that has occurred?
	Um, hmm.
	Um, my parents, sometimes they'll, like, talk to my brother, um, or, like, a family member, and they'll say something that I was like, well, that wasn't very nice, and it didn't forward the conversation or anything.
	Um, So why didn't you say it, you know, this way?
	Because you'd have gotten across what you wanted to get across.
	And if you'd done it this way, you know, they wouldn't have gotten so mad at you or anything.
	Right, right.
	Okay. And can you think of an example where that, like just something where the rubber would meet the road in that kind of conversation where that would be something that's less abstract?
	I mean, abstract is good, it's hard to sort of figure out a direct interaction that we could look at more closely.
	Editing people's papers. - Thank you.
	I once edited...
	A friend of mine sent me her paper, and I edit her papers a lot.
	And I edited like...
	A ton of stuff. She had a ton of grammar mistakes because she was exhausted when she wrote the paper.
	And I sent it back to her.
	And a week later she sent me back the same paper and asked me to edit it again for the final thing.
	Final paper, whatever.
	And none of the stuff I had previously edited had been changed.
	And I asked her, well, why?
	And she's like, I don't think these were very good edits.
	I wasn't looking for this.
	And I was like, well, you just asked me to edit your paper, and I did.
	Why'd you ask me if you weren't going to use my edits?
	Right. Right.
	Right. Right, okay.
	I think I can certainly understand why that would be frustrating.
	And why is it that you would edit this person's paper?
	Because it was nice?
	I don't know. Well, I mean...
	Now, by edit, do you mean sort of proofread for content or fix sort of grammar and spelling?
	Both. And would you say that when she proofreads your papers that she also picks up on grammar and spelling errors?
	Oh yes, definitely.
	Really, because I find your communication to be enviably precise, right?
	I mean, you have a very good fluidity with and command of language, so I'm just surprised because I don't see in your posts like grammar and spelling errors, so...
	It happens occasionally, I guess.
	I don't know. But would you say that in editing her papers that she makes more grammar and spelling errors than you do?
	Actually... She's much better with grammar than I am, but she's not quite as content-oriented.
	Right, okay, so it was the contents of the paper more so than the form that you were editing.
	Yes. So, were you helping her communication to be more effective, or were you helping her to tease out her ideas more, or was it flow, or just out of curiosity, what was the general stuff that you were working with?
	Generally, I was working with flow.
	Again, she was really tired when she wrote it, so the flow was kind of choppy.
	Right, okay. And then when she did not accept your...
	Has it happened before where you've edited her paper and she hasn't accepted your edits?
	Sometimes never quite to that extent.
	And was this generally a blanket rejection of the edits?
	A few of the edits made it in, but most of them didn't.
	Right, okay. And obviously you spend a fair amount of time.
	Flow is a very difficult thing to fix, right?
	Because you can't, especially when it's not your paper, because you can't, you know, put new thoughts in, but you have to make the existing thoughts and structure flow.
	It's a very difficult thing to do from an editing standpoint, right?
	Mm-hmm. Okay, okay.
	I think I understand. So, and I just wanted to get a sort of clarity on that particular process as something which triggered an emotional response for you.
	So when she said, well, I just didn't like the edits...
	Was there any sort of reasoning behind what she rejected?
	Like, was there some sort of, because of X, Y, and Z, or this flow didn't work, or whatever?
	Or was it just a general kind of, I didn't like your edits, because I like ice cream and you like chocolate?
	Some of it was, well, I'm trying to, you know, make sure my teacher, she's going to a state school.
	Not fun. And her teacher for English was incredibly liberal.
	So, she was trying to market to the teacher, and some of that was the reason she had rejected some of my edits.
	But a bunch of it was just, you know, I didn't feel that fit, or I thought it was fine in the first place.
	Right, right. Okay, okay.
	Alright, so with regards to the chat that you and I had in the chat window, I think this was sort of my experience of it.
	And this is not to say that my experience of it is right or correct or anything like that or has any sort of truth value outside of, you know, this is my experience.
	But what I experienced was I was mad at the YouTubers.
	And I was going to post something that was genuinely how I felt.
	And for me...
	If I say somebody doesn't have the capacity to process it, that doesn't mean that they'll never have the capacity to process it.
	It means that I have a huge respect, so to speak, for psychological defenses in the same way that I have a huge respect for the strength of a great white shark, you know, insofar as when psychological defenses are very high in people, and I'm not referring to you in this situation, but rather the YouTube watchers, When psychological defenses are activated, they are almost completely impenetrable.
	I mean, it's almost completely impossible to reach someone who's in high dungeon with regards to psychological defenses.
	So for me, it doesn't necessarily mean unable to process.
	From the standpoint of intellectual capacity but unable to process rationally because of psychological defenses.
	So I'm fairly aware that the people who are Ron Paul supporters and so on are putting massive amounts of emotional investment into this This candidate.
	Because if it's not Ron Paul, it's nobody, right?
	There's nobody else waiting in the wings who's more credible than Ron Paul or who's got a better shot than Ron Paul or who's a doctor or who's been in the military, who's been a multi-term congressman and so on.
	So for me, it was that people just are not able to process it because they're too emotionally invested in this fantasy that political action can bring personal freedom.
	So, but what I experienced in our interaction, again, this doesn't mean that this is right, this is sort of just what I experienced, was that I was mad and posted something that I was mad about.
	And I hadn't posted it on YouTube or anything yet, but I was just sort of sharing it in the chat window.
	And I felt that...
	There was a kind of...
	I don't know how to put this exactly.
	Like, I couldn't get mad unless I got it right.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes. So, in other words, I couldn't just be honestly self-expressed and say, you know, I'm mad and I'm going to post this and so on.
	But instead, I had to sort of say to myself, in the world of you and I's interaction, again, this is not anything true.
	This is just my experience. I sort of had to say to myself, okay, Steph, hit the brakes.
	Yank back on the reins.
	Don't just say I'm mad, but instead be precise and be right about...
	What you're mad about and be sure that you're saying everything perfectly and so on.
	And that felt, for me, a little bit kind of claustrophobic or inhibiting.
	You know, like I couldn't just spontaneously say to these people, I'm mad.
	But I had to sort of get all my ducks in a row and I had to make sure that I didn't put something out that I could be criticized for and so on.
	And I felt, again, not true, don't know, but my feeling was that...
	If I were going to go and post this, that if you were to do something like that, that it would make you quite anxious because you would feel, or you might feel, that you would be further criticized for being not only mad, but mad and imprecise, if that makes sense?
	Yes. And so, if what I was going to do would be something that would make you feel anxious...
	Then, according to this, you know, real-time relationship mania that I'm sort of working on this book about, right?
	So, I mean, I apologize in advance for draping this particular visor over the whole interaction, but for me, I'm sort of really working with the principle that it's not usually productive or it's not ever really productive to try to control our own anxiety and By changing other people's behavior, right? So if you felt, Steph, you're running off a cliff and you should stop, then that's great, right?
	I appreciate that.
	But if it's like, Steph, that would make me anxious to do, therefore you shouldn't do it.
	Does that make sense?
	That's kind of like a different thing.
	Mm-hmm. And so that's sort of why I wanted to – and that's sort of where we got to.
	And then what happened was we both escalated the interaction, right?
	Because from my standpoint, again, this is just my experience.
	From my standpoint, what you said was, but it's good to be precise.
	I think you wrote – I did actually find a copy of it somewhere on my computer.
	But as you wrote, you said moral propositions that aren't consistent are unacceptable to me.
	With regards to sort of what I was putting out there.
	And so then, not only did it become not good to sort of just say, I'm mad and you guys can't process it and whatever, in ways that could maybe be misinterpreted or whatever, but then it became like I was not putting forward consistent moral propositions and it became kind of a big topic.
	Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
	Over one tiny little word.
	Oh, yeah. Well, exactly, right?
	Exactly. And so that's when, I mean, you and I both recognized that things had gotten a little bit off course, right?
	And that's why I said, when I said, like, it's not concern for me that is motivating you, but rather it's controlling your own anxiety about what I'm doing that leads you to want to put the brakes on what I'm doing, if that makes sense. Yeah.
	And that doesn't mean that you're like a mean person trying to hobble me or something.
	But what it means is that you're, I'm guessing, let me know what the case is in reality, but I'm guessing that spontaneous self-expression in your family, not so much encouraged, right?
	I'm not sure. Well, what happens when you get upset with someone?
	I go stalking off to my room and sit there for a while.
	Well, but you do that because there have been results from talking to somebody directly about being upset with him or her.
	There have been results that you're avoiding, right?
	Yes, shouting matches.
	Right, so you say, I'm upset with you about X, Y, and Z, and what comes back?
	Shouting matches. Right.
	So, obviously, the shouting match is not very productive, right?
	And obviously, since you still have to live where you're living, there's no point, you know, crapping in your own nest, so to speak, right?
	So, you kind of have to withdraw from those interactions because you're not allowed to be upset with someone.
	Does that make sense? Yes.
	And so, when you say, I'm upset with you, mom, dad, or whoever...
	What is it that you're criticized for when you say that?
	Usually I get, I am your parent and deserve respect.
	So you're not allowed to be mad at someone because that is, what, dishonorable or like your ungrateful child or you're just never allowed to criticize your parents or is that sort of the general attitude?
	Yes. And do your parents say that they should be respected because they are virtuous or because they are parents?
	I think they believe they should be respected because they're virtuous.
	I would disagree and say that they're saying it just because they're parents.
	Right. And if I remember rightly, and I think that I do, but correct me if I'm wrong, your father, not exactly the most calm guy to have a sort of excitable debate with.
	No. To put it mildly, right?
	He's the chair thrower, is that right?
	Yes. Right.
	So clearly, the principle is not, don't get mad at people, right?
	Because your parents do it, right?
	Yeah. So the principle is, you're not allowed to get mad at me, but I'm allowed to get mad at you.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Yet, it's not talked about that way.
	Like, they don't say, hey, you're not allowed to get mad at me because I'm the parent.
	It's got nothing to do with virtue, right?
	It's always reframed in terms of morality, right?
	Like, you owe me respect because I'm the parent, and by failing to pay it, you are not just practically but morally deficient.
	Is that right? Yes.
	Right, right.
	Okay, okay. And the argument then is that...
	Sorry, let me start that again.
	It must be that you do get into debates, even if they become yelling matches, with your parents that last beyond that initial interaction of, I'm mad, and then they say, well, you're bad for being mad because you owe us respect because we're your parents.
	What do you say in response to that in general?
	I don't think I say anything.
	I think I just kind of walk away.
	Well, but then they're not shouting matches, right?
	I think initially, like as a child, I kind of yelled back, you know, you don't deserve my respect, you know, you're being mean.
	And then I'd expound on how mean they were, I think.
	And what was the...
	So, okay, so this could be...
	I mean, I think this is very helpful and I hope that it's useful to you as we go forward.
	So then the debate becomes, is mom or dad mean, right?
	Yeah. So you say, dad, you're mean because of X, Y, and Z, and what does your dad say?
	My dad was worse.
	Was worse, sorry? What do you mean?
	He'll recount how awful his childhood was and how mean his father was and how I have it easy.
	Right. Okay.
	So, what he's saying is that the terms or the criticisms that you have of me are not accurate because you don't know what mean really is.
	Yeah. Right.
	So, you're not the victim because I was an even greater victim.
	Mm-hmm. Now, I'm trying not to lead the conversation, but just let me know if this makes any sense.
	Did you ever feel that if you were able to get a criticism of your parents framed in the right way, that you might be able to get through to them your complaint?
	As a kid, yes.
	Right, okay. And can you think of an example of that?
	I'm sorry, what? Can you think of an example of that?
	Um... At one point, I don't remember what the argument was about, actually.
	I think I probably said something to my mother in a rude tone, which is usually what I got in trouble over.
	And my father said, you know, you can't talk to your mom like that.
	And I was like, well, you're talking to me like that.
	Right. Which I thought was an excellent argument.
	Perfectly rational. And he proceeded to tell me, you know, you're the child, and children need to be respectful of their parents.
	And I think I reiterated that argument several times in the following six months, and it never worked.
	Sure. And after that, I gave up.
	Right, right. Now, there is a huge flaw in your dad's argument, right?
	Yes. Which you may be aware of consciously or unconsciously.
	And it's not the obvious one, like that I'm yelling when I'm telling you not to yell or whatever.
	Why, if his wife deserves respect, does his daughter not?
	Well, that's covered by the...
	See, even if we accept the premise that the child should always speak respectfully to his parents...
	His argument falls, even if we accept that premise.
	Okay. Why?
	Do you think that there is a statute of limitations on this?
	In other words, when you get to be 20, are you then allowed to have an adult-to-adult equal relationship and bring up complaints and be respected?
	Or will you always be the child relative to your parents' authority and perfect virtue?
	Interesting question.
	My father seems to set a great deal of store by the law.
	So now that I am legally an adult, he will treat me as a legal adult, which is very peculiar and difficult to deal with.
	So you are able now to bring up complaints about your childhood and have them listened to respectfully, and the card is not pulled out that you were the child and should not speak to your parents in this way?
	I haven't tried that one yet.
	And there's probably a good reason why you haven't tried that one, right?
	Outside of time constraints, I would be very terrified.
	Right, of course, of course.
	And the reason that I said that your father's argument completely fails any test of logicality is this, that your father says to you, you should not speak disrespectfully to your parents, right? I would assume that this would also include you should not speak disrespectfully about your parents, right?
	Yeah. And when you would say to your dad, you're being mean, what did your dad reply inevitably?
	That his father was meaner.
	Right. Do you see the logical conundrum that he's putting himself in there?
	Ah, he's speaking of his own father.
	Exactly. And he is speaking ill of his own father from the perspective of when he was a child, right?
	So it is completely self-contradictory to say children should not speak ill of their parents.
	And my justification for that is that I am now speaking ill of my father and mother.
	My brain hurts now.
	But you see what I'm saying?
	It is wildly self-contradictory, right?
	Yes. And if you were to talk to him about this now, what do you think would happen?
	And if you were to say, look, I don't understand this, because you said I was not supposed to speak ill of my parents and that parents are always virtuous, but at the same time, or in the next breath, you told me how terrible your own father was and that he was not virtuous.
	I suspect I would get a long explanation of just how awful his father was.
	Right, and then you would say, I understand that, and I'm not disputing that your father was awful, but you gave me a moral rule called, don't speak ill of your parents.
	And then you justified that moral rule by speaking ill of your parents.
	So I don't understand which it's supposed to be.
	Was there a generational break in the moral rule?
	I don't understand. And then what would he say?
	I think he would call me a wiseacre and ignore me.
	And then you would say, okay, so, wait, you're allowed to speak ill of your parents, and you're not allowed to speak ill of your parents, and if you question speaking ill of your parents, then you're bad?
	So it's good for you to speak ill of your parents, but it's bad for me to ask why these rules are different for us two.
	Yeah. And you would feel...
	I don't think I'd get any response.
	Well, you would get a response.
	Right. I think he'd be angry on the inside, but I don't think he'd yell at me anymore.
	Well, I guarantee you that he would if you kept asking the question.
	Oh, yeah. In a calm way, right?
	You didn't yell at him or whatever. But if you just did that Socratic thing, right?
	And you got the little whiteboard out and you say, okay, so we have three generations here.
	We have your parents, you have you, and we have me as a kid, right?
	So when we look, we point this arrow upwards.
	I'm not allowed to speak ill of my parents, but you are allowed to speak ill of your parents.
	In fact, I am not allowed to speak ill of my parents because your parents were so bad, which you tell me, thus speaking even more ill of them.
	Than I am of you. Right?
	So if you pull this out, and I'm not saying you should, right?
	I'm just saying that if you did, that would be the real precision that would reveal quite a lot about your family, right?
	And as a kid, when you were a kid...
	It seemed to me likely, and let me know if this makes any sense or not, it would seem to me likely that you felt that if you could just get your parents to understand the suffering that you were experiencing, then they would get it, and then they would cease doing those actions which caused you to suffer.
	Yeah, makes sense.
	Well, I mean, do you remember?
	It's always hard for us to remember because it's, you know, it's a long time ago and so on.
	But, well, not for you, but for me.
	But is it something that you felt like, because I remember as a kid, sort of in a sense, like whether physically or mentally, I don't know, but sort of reaching out saying, like, if you understood how much this hurt me as a child, you wouldn't do it.
	And so my goal in terms of trying to trigger or create empathy for In those around me, who had power over me, was to say, but what you're doing is painful to me, and it's not because, like, I'm a bad or difficult or ungrateful or selfish or whatever pejorative they wanted to throw at me.
	It's not because I'm that child, right?
	It's because what you're doing would be hurtful to any reasonably sensitive human being, let alone And so my goal was like, if I could only find the skeleton key that would open the lock of my parents' hearts and have them understand that what they were doing was painful to me,
	if they could just put down their defenses, put aside their desire to control me, put aside their desire for authority, if they could just simply reach across the table And sort of grasp my hand or connect with me and understand that what they were doing caused me pain, then they would get it.
	There'd be this big click. There'd be this big relief of tension.
	And we could sort of fall into each other's arms or there would be a kind of thawing of the ice between us, if that makes any sense.
	Mm-hmm. And I spent a lot of time when I was a child, and even into my 20s, trying to find that key, trying to pick that lock to break through that ice.
	Because I genuinely felt that my parents did not empathize with me in a very fundamental way.
	Was that your experience at all, or was it something different?
	I think they failed to, my parents, realize, um...
	Um, sorry, wait, you're not talking about my parents?
	No. My god, you are selfish.
	They're right. Sorry, go on.
	Just kidding. Um...
	I think they failed to realize how...
	They failed to recognize the amount of pain they were inflicting on me.
	Um... Because they were so absorbed in the pain that they were still feeling from their own parents.
	I don't know why they had kids.
	Yeah, it's a mystery.
	I mean, I must tell you, I'm glad to be alive, but I couldn't explain it to you for the world.
	I really couldn't, right?
	Okay, so, and I hope that you don't mind if we sort of go into this a little bit, because you had a very sort of compelling explanation there that I think is interesting and worthy of taking a bit of a look at in more detail, if that's okay.
	Okay, so your explanation for your parents' lack of empathy was that they were too busy...
	Dealing with the pain that they had experienced?
	What was their relationship to their own pain from their childhoods?
	My mother tends to be very weepy.
	Almost a crybaby.
	And her sister actually still talks about this with my aunt, the sister, as sort of the I'm sorry to interrupt you for just a second because I just want to understand before we move on past your mom.
	My mom's kind of leaky as well, so I don't really call it crying, I just call it leaking.
	And it's not because I'm not a caring human being.
	When your mother would cry, what was your emotional experience of that emotion or that action on the part of your mother?
	It would depend on why she's crying.
	Occasionally, if my father made her cry, I'd feel really bad and I'd want her to feel better.
	But if he was crying because of something I did, I always was like, well, I don't understand.
	Why are you crying?
	Right. Right.
	Because it didn't make you feel like when somebody is genuinely crying or genuinely sad, it moves us, right?
	But when somebody is leaky because that's manipulative or they want to get something and this is just a tactic that they use...
	We're not so moved. Well, we are moved.
	We're just moved not to sympathy but to something else, right?
	Annoying. Yeah, it's very annoying, right?
	It's very annoying because it's very controlling.
	It's very passive-aggressive. Okay, I just wanted to sort of understand that so I got that.
	So this was your mother's sort of approach to negotiation was to be wet.
	Yeah. Okay, I understand.
	Sorry, please go on. Apparently her own mother...
	Didn't really appreciate her crying, ever.
	Like, always was very short-tempered with it.
	I actually have a memory of my grandmother who died several years ago.
	Like, a convenient time period, too.
	She never got to see me as a teenager.
	But we were riding, me and my brother were riding in the car in the backseat.
	And I don't remember why my brother was crying, but he was.
	And my grandmother turned around and yelled at him and told him to stop faking.
	Right. I'm not sure if this was because she was used to my mother being sort of fake crying or if she was always like this.
	Well, of course, your mother didn't start off fake crying, right?
	I should hope not. That would be weird.
	No, I mean, that would not be possible, right?
	I mean, that's like saying some Chinese woman who had her foot bound just started off with her toes curled into her heel, right?
	I mean, that's something that is the result of a certain kind of tortuous interaction for many, many years, right?
	So, I mean, obviously your grandmother would do things to hurt your mother.
	Your mother would cry and then because your grandmother felt guilty, she would then attack the tears as fake, right?
	Which locked in a certain amount of fixed behavior on the part of your mom and so on.
	But sorry, please continue.
	Not a whole lot is actually known about my father's childhood.
	Really? Sounds like he talks about it a lot.
	I mean...
	Other than my father was horrible, which is really weird because we do actually like...
	I'm sorry, sorry, you just said...
	Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	You just said my father was horrible.
	Did you mean my grandfather? Yes, I'm quoting my father as my father was horrible.
	Got it, okay. We do actually see his father.
	Like we actually go down to New Mexico all the way across the US and meet with this person despite the fact that he's apparently an awful person.
	Right, right, right, right.
	Well, I mean, of course, if you didn't, then your childhood would have been different on a whole bunch of levels, right?
	Probably. And you don't know much about your grandfather on your dad's side.
	I mean, you've obviously met him a bunch of times, but what's your sense of him?
	He's ex-military.
	Right. Very...
	He's very smart. He was an engineer.
	Really strict, and he had very high expectations, I think.
	He also had three wives, which I think is awkward.
	So he had high expectations for other people, but not so much for himself, right?
	Probably not, no. Well, I think that you can say with three wives, not so much, right?
	Mm-hmm. Okay, okay.
	Alright, and your father has, did he inherit the perfectionistic streak that your grandfather had?
	To some extent, yes.
	A little less military-oriented.
	My father is, I think, the only adult family member who was never involved in the military, except for my mother's father.
	Right, right, okay.
	And what is your parents' relationship to mistakes or to imprecision or to some of the sloppy immediateness of emotional self-expression?
	My father would always yell and say, you know, you're not fixing anything, stop crying and let's get to work.
	Um... So for him, was it that emotions were useless or that emotions were manipulative?
	I'm not sure.
	Bet you are. Yeah.
	Oh. Okay.
	No, I just assume that you are because we know everything that there is to know down to the last atom about our families.
	Sometimes we just don't have real access to it if we haven't thought about it in a while or if we've been trained not to think about it.
	Because if he says your emotions won't help, then they're just like doing the wrong thing, right?
	Like you're trying to sand a block of wood with a piece of paper and you say, well, that's just not going to do it, right?
	But it's not that it's manipulative.
	It's just not going to work, right?
	Mm-hmm. So was he that emotions are a sort of useless and time-wasting distraction from the real task, or did he get angry at them because he considered them to be manipulative?
	I think it was because he honestly thought that they were not helping anything and had no point.
	And his own emotions, as you say, he would get angry, right?
	Yes. Was it only that, say, being unhappy or crying, was that the only emotion that was useless?
	In other words, could you say to your dad, but dad, if emotions are useless, then anger is an emotion, and therefore anger must also be useless and unproductive?
	I don't know what he would have said to that.
	Probably something along the lines of, well, I'm just expressing myself.
	Well, but then, of course, you know what the natural response to that is, right?
	Well, I'm expressing myself, too.
	Exactly, right? So, and this is part of the hypocrisy, right?
	I don't know if you've read the book on truth, but, you know, I'd be happy to send you a copy at the end of this.
	You just PM me your address or whatever, or I can send you the audiobook if you just wanted to come through email, but...
	But clearly what's happening is your parents are consistently setting up rules that even in the very setting up of them, they're being violated, right?
	Yeah. And there also is, if I understand this rightly, kind of a knee-jerk hostility to spontaneous emotions.
	Right? Like whatever you feel...
	Can't just be expressed and explored and we'd be curious about it and so on.
	But it has to either be useful or non-manipulative or productive in some manner.
	You can't just sort of say what you feel.
	There's got to be some sort of purpose to it.
	It's got to be right. It's got to be precise.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes. Right.
	So, do you now at all express your feelings with your family?
	Um... Not in a...
	Well...
	Hmm...
	Generally speaking, if I'm actually communicating, I'm communicating in a very level of voice, um...
	Very soundly, without any sort of, you know, I'm upset in any way, expression.
	Right, right. So it's been vulcanized to some degree, to use a metaphor that your generation may not even be familiar with.
	But it's been sort of roboticized a little, right?
	Yes. Now is this true of feelings of anger or is this also true of feelings of sort of spontaneous giddiness and joy?
	Like what happens if you come dancing downstairs with a tune in your head and a song in your heart?
	I get indulgent smiles.
	Which mean what?
	I think that means they're pleased with me because I'm not being annoying.
	But indulgent smiles are sort of like, you know, when a little kid is learning how to throw a ball and he says, I threw the ball really far when it basically went like two feet.
	Isn't that sort of, I mean, that's the sense that I get.
	I don't want to put words into your mouth or emotions into your heart, but that's sort of what I get from the question of indulgent smiles.
	It's a little less babying than that, but close.
	It's kind of along the lines of taking a five-year-old to Disney World.
	You're pleased that they're happy, but I don't think they really care.
	And there also is an implication, in a sense, if I understand this rightly, there's an implication that...
	Spontaneous joy or giddiness or whatever is something that a mature person should have outgrown, but it's okay, you know, maybe once in a blue moon just for nostalgia's sake.
	You know, the same way that, you know, a 30-year-old guy might, I don't know, shake hands with Goofy at Disney World or something, but it's not something that you would have as a regular part of your life, right?
	My mother actually has occasionally said, like...
	You're being weird.
	Like, she'll just tell me that out of the blue, I'm being weird.
	When you are happy?
	Yes. Right.
	And what does weird mean in that context?
	I think it means I don't understand why you're acting the way you are.
	Please stop. Well, let me just try and Clarify that a little.
	And I hate to be annoying and say, ooh, let me clarify yourself to yourself.
	Maybe it makes no sense.
	But what I mean is that if I don't understand something, then what is the natural reaction to not understanding something?
	You try to figure it out.
	You ask, right? So if I'm in China and someone says something to me in Mandarin and I have an interpreter and I don't speak Mandarin, what do I do?
	You ask the interpreter what they say.
	Exactly, right? So, it's not that your mother doesn't understand the emotion of happiness.
	Because if she genuinely, or doesn't understand why you're happy, because if she genuinely didn't understand why you were happy, what would she do?
	Ask. What's making you so happy?
	Tell me. You know, share the goodies.
	Share the sugar. Give me some love.
	Whatever, right? She would ask, right?
	So, it's not that she doesn't understand why you're happy.
	She just doesn't care?
	No. If she didn't care, she wouldn't say anything.
	Like if you came, I don't know, like I'm sitting in a cafeteria, you come in listening to some music on your iPod or whatever, or a podcast perhaps, and I genuinely didn't care what you were listening to, what would happen?
	You wouldn't say anything.
	I'd say nothing. Right?
	So it's not that she doesn't understand, and it's not that she doesn't care.
	Again, this is just annoying precision guy and, you know, it's actually really nice to correct a perfectionist, so I'm really enjoying this.
	I hope that you are too. Just kidding.
	But, so, yeah, it's not that she doesn't understand and it's not that she doesn't care about your happiness.
	She's neither incomprehending, uncomprehending, nor indifferent.
	She doesn't want me to be happy.
	Well, she doesn't like your happiness, right?
	I mean, is that a misinterpretation?
	Does it feel wrong?
	I don't know, because it doesn't always happen, just occasionally, and I'm not sure what the difference is.
	Like, what causes the change?
	I mean, I understand that, and again, I'm not trying to diagnose from a distance here, but I will tell you that it is true in every dysfunctional relationship that behavior changes on a semi-random basis.
	And I'll give you an extreme example that is not meant to characterize your family in particular, but a husband who beats his wife for at least 70% of the time is very nice.
	And sometimes the exact same behavior will elicit completely opposite results on the part of the wife, right?
	So she comes in with a box of chocolates for her husband and, you know, eight times out of ten, four times out of five, let's round down, he is very happy about it and then on that fifth time he gets really angry and Don't you know that I've got dental problems or I'm trying to lose weight or how inconsiderate could you be?
	These aren't the chocolates that I like.
	Whatever, right? And do you know why the behavior is different?
	No. Well, if a husband beats his wife every moment that she's awake, what happens?
	She'll die or leave him.
	Right. So that's not sustainable, right?
	That's not sustainable.
	A dysfunctional relationship is one which is sustainable, right?
	Because if you go on a date with someone and that person shows up in a chicken suit barking like a dog, right?
	Been there, done that. Hey, who hasn't?
	But if that occurs, then you don't really have a second date, right?
	Unless that's your thing, right?
	And so that's not a dysfunctional relationship because it doesn't last.
	The dysfunctional relationships are the ones that last month after month, year after year, right?
	Those are the really dysfunctional ones.
	So what happens if every time the wife comes home with a box of chocolates, if every single time she does that, the husband becomes abusive, what does she do?
	Doesn't bring home chocolate. And then he's not going to be abusive, right?
	Very. Well, that's...
	I mean, if it were the case that every time she bought chocolates he got mad, she just wouldn't do that, right?
	Yes. And then she would be in a predictable and stable situation, right?
	Mm-hmm. So do you see how that doesn't really serve the needs of the abuser?
	Yes. How so?
	Well, because the abuser wishes to continue the abuse...
	Which they can't do if they do it predictably because then the person learns how to avoid the abuse and they can't do it.
	Right. In other words, the abuser is somebody who wants to live without rules, right?
	Or rather with rules that he portrays as consistent that he basically just makes up and contradicts on the spot but enforces through some sort of aggression.
	Mm-hmm. Right?
	So, if every single time you came into the room happy, your mother snapped at you, you would be...
	I just wouldn't come in happy. You wouldn't come in happy, but also, you would be less confused, right?
	Yes. So, one of the reasons that people who have dysfunctional interactions with us, let's just say, for want of a better phrase, the reason that they change their behavior is to confuse us, right?
	And the other reason why people treat us well in dysfunctional relationships is so that we then are more prone to blaming ourselves for the dysfunction.
	So if the husband is really, really nice to the wife for a month, and then he gets really mad and screams at her, then she's going to say, well, I must have done something, because he was really nice for that month, so clearly he has the capacity to be nice.
	I must have just done something to make him not nice.
	Whereas if he's eternally not nice, then she doesn't imagine that she can affect him for the better, and therefore she does not take on the responsibility for his negative behavior.
	Okay. So, inconsistency is key to dysfunction.
	Because it's disorienting, because you then sit there and try and solve the Rubik's Cube of how to get consistently better behavior.
	But every time you change, I mean, you've never had any luck getting consistent behavior out of your parents, right?
	Nope. But I bet you've spent quite a bit of mental energy trying to figure out how to do it, right?
	Yeah. But it's not possible.
	Probably not. Well, I'm not asking for a final commitment, but you're a smart person who spent quite a few years trying to do it, right?
	Mm-hmm. So is there something you haven't tried or some approach you haven't taken?
	Not to my knowledge.
	Right. So is it...
	Can we say that it's effectively impossible with all the knowledge that we have so far?
	Yes. I mean, it's true that...
	If someone goes for an x-ray or someone gets a biomedical disorder that the personality could change.
	But these are not things that we plan for, right?
	Mm-hmm. All right.
	Okay. So then there's a possibility if we sort of go back to the original thing that we were talking about in the chat window, right?
	So I was mad and I was just going to say I'm mad.
	And it certainly is true.
	That one of the words that I used when castigating the people who'd been unpleasant or difficult or insulting or whatever, right?
	It certainly is true that one of those words could have been chosen better.
	Perhaps, right? Or whatever, right?
	And so...
	The principle that you were working with is...
	Precision in communication and, as you put it, moral consistency is very important, right?
	Yes. Now, here's why I got mad at you, right?
	And again, this doesn't mean that you did anything wrong.
	This is just sort of what I was feeling at the time and you can sort of take it for what it's worth.
	And the reason that I'm telling you this is not because you're a bad person or I want you to feel bad.
	It's just because I think this will be very useful for you, right?
	And for you to be able to express your own feelings to others, right?
	So, if quality and precision and moral virtue is essential in terms of communication, right?
	Why is it that you were talking to me and not to those people who were being abusive towards me?
	Essentially because I don't know them?
	No.
	Well, but then it's not a principle that you're using anymore, right?
	Yeah. And you certainly...
	It is as easy to respond to YouTube comments as it is to post on the FDR chat, right?
	Yeah. So...
	The reason that I got frustrated...
	With our interaction, was that I felt that you were using a moral argument, not just, Steph, it might be nicer if you did this, right?
	It's just that you said more objectively, not only from the standpoint of precision, but also from the standpoint of virtue, it's better to do this, right?
	Okay. Now, surely, if we have a standard called 100%, I wasn't at minus 100%, right?
	Do you mean negative 100%?
	Yeah, yeah, negative 100%.
	Okay, no.
	Right? I wasn't at 50%, because there was just one word that you thought should be tuned, right?
	So we can reasonably say that I was at 95%, right?
	Or something, 90%, whatever, right?
	But it's high, right?
	Would that be fair? Yeah.
	Now, if we take the standard of moral and precise and virtuous communication as 100%, and we say that Steph was at 95%, where on that scale would you place the people who were being abusive towards me?
	On, like, a communicative level, or...?
	Well, with reference to virtuous and precise communication.
	Hmm... 60?
	So you feel that the comments that I was complaining about were virtuous, but not as virtuous as my response?
	Because there's a positive and negative.
	Sorry, I know that this is a school scale, so it's confusing.
	But let's just say zero is morally neutral.
	100% is perfectly moral communication.
	Minus 100% is perfectly abusive communication.
	Where would the YouTube people who were abusing me fit on that sort of minus 100 to plus 100 scale?
	Um... Probably slightly above zero.
	So it was virtuous for them to say what they were saying about me?
	Well, if they didn't say anything...
	I suppose they wouldn't be communicating, so the whole thing would be moot.
	Right. I don't know.
	Um... The issue I had with the reference to, um, I'm not okay with, you know, not exact morals.
	I don't remember quite what I said.
	Probably phrased it better then.
	Um... Actually, you said moral propositions that aren't consistent are unacceptable to me.
	Yes. Um...
	That was because, the reason I had said that, was because what I was understanding from what you and others were saying was that these people could not,
	were incapable, and would never be capable in any way, shape, or form, of understanding the videos and so should just not watch them and it didn't make sense because it's like surely they have the ability to understand they're just not like they don't want to and I can see that it would be very difficult for them to understand but they couldn't just Not understand.
	Like, not at all.
	I agree with that.
	I agree that I'm perfectly happy to put me at 90 or 95% in terms of putting forward valid and precise moral communication.
	I'm perfectly happy to be short of that by 5 or 10%.
	So I think that we're both on agreement that I was not being abusive or jumping down people's throats for no reason or whatever, but was instead responding to abuse that was being piled on me.
	By all and sundry in this particular area.
	So, I'm still...
	I'm not trying to trap you or corner you, right?
	But I just sort of wanted to understand.
	And this is not to prove anything.
	This is just so you can understand where I was coming from, which may be still completely wrong.
	But if I'm at 95% of what you call good communication, right?
	Which is... Morally consistent propositions.
	If I'm at 90 or 95% positive, are people who are abusing me still positive or are they negative?
	Alright, so if we're saying that they are morally consistent and that they're communicating well, and that's what we're judging on this scale.
	Yeah, precision and moral consistency were the two things that you put forward in that chat.
	As principles that we should strive to achieve, right?
	that everybody should strive to achieve.
	I'm going to say that their moral propositions were maybe negative 70%.
	Okay, I think that's reasonable.
	I mean, that may be high because maybe they didn't shoot my kneecaps or anything, or low, I guess.
	But I would say that's probably, let's just say minus 70, right?
	Sorry, go ahead. But the level of their communication...
	I would say it's probably in the lower half of the positives.
	You mean the best that they would be capable of?
	Sorry, you mean the best that they would be capable of maybe a plus 50?
	Yeah, maybe. So it's a subjective scale, right?
	Yeah. Okay, okay, so let's say...
	Well, I'm just deciding, you know, you're communicating well and you're not, which is pretty much based on whether or not I'm understanding what you're saying.
	Right, right. Okay, well, they certainly weren't being unclear in what they were saying about me on these particular threads.
	So here we have a situation where I am facing a shortfall in perfect communication, even if we say that 100% perfect communication is possible, which it may not be, but let's just say, right?
	So I'm falling 5% to 10% short of my potential.
	Is that fair to say? Mm-hmm.
	These other people are between...
	What? 120%?
	130%?
	140%? Wait, sorry.
	Minus 70 to plus 50 is 120.
	So they're 120% below in terms of their potential, and I am 5% to 10% below in terms of my potential.
	And what you're saying is that I should go communicate to them that they are not...
	Either morally communicating consistently, nor are they communicating consistently anyways, morally or not.
	Well, if it's an objective standard, and look, I'm not saying that you've got to go around policing the YouTube, whatever I mean, but what I'm saying is that if it's an objective standard that we should all try to get to 100% positive, or at least to 100% positive of what we are capable of,
	Then if you see a conflict wherein one person could be acting slightly better in terms of self-defense relative to an attack, then to criticize the person who's being attacked doesn't seem just, if that makes sense. And I'm not calling you unjust, like I'm just saying from my perspective.
	I recognize your opinion.
	What's the next step?
	Well, the next step is, look, I think you're a great person.
	I really enjoy your presence on the board.
	I think it's great. I think you're perfectly delightful.
	But the challenge, right, the challenge for you is that you have been taught that The best person in the room is the one you criticize the most in your family, right? Okay.
	Does that seem reasonable?
	Yeah. Because the best person in the room is almost always the most vulnerable, right?
	Yeah. The best person in the room is always the one who has a strong capacity for self-criticism, right?
	Yeah. Because quality requires criticism, and those who end up with the greatest quality are usually those with the greatest capacity for self-criticism, right?
	And it's all the idiots on the planet who are completely certain that they're right, who are almost always completely wrong and negative to boot, right?
	So, in your family, I would put forward the proposition that you were the best person.
	Maybe. And I'm perfectly happy to hear arguments to the contrary, but you are the person who is avoiding the fights by going to your room, right?
	You're not picking fights with people.
	You're not jumping in there.
	You're not being hostile.
	Whatever, right? I mean, nobody's perfect, right?
	But what I'm talking about is that you have the capacity for this conversation that we're having, which is never particularly fun or comfortable for either party, but it's important, I think.
	That you have the capacity for self-criticism, that you obviously have great language skills and great intelligence skills, which I wouldn't doubt that other members in your family have as well.
	But... You are behaving, in many ways, I would say, even when you were a child, better than other people in your family.
	And if there's somebody better...
	Some of them, yes.
	And who is it that you think behaved better in your family than you did?
	I'm not sure they behaved better than me, but I would say that my brother is not...
	I wouldn't say he's significantly worse than I am.
	Okay. That's almost damning with faint praise, but no, that's fine.
	I'm just going to understand. Okay.
	So he's not significantly worse than you are.
	I'm talking about mostly the people who had power, right?
	I mean, your parents had power over you and treated you in ways that ranged from dysfunctional to destructive, right?
	You had power over your brother, but I'm guessing that you did not destroy his capacity for self-esteem or whatever by, you know, bullying and criticizing and so on, right?
	I hope not.
	I don't think so. I don't think so, right?
	So, your parents abused their power over you, but you did not abuse your power over your brother, right?
	Mm-hmm. Now, your brother didn't have power over anyone, so we don't know, right?
	The poor dog.
	That's right, the poor dog.
	But where power was had by you, it was not abused by you, right?
	Yeah. And the person who is criticized...
	Between you and your parents, the person who is criticized the most is you, right?
	Because your parents do not accept any criticism.
	Mm-hmm. Right?
	So the person who is the best in the interaction or in the situation is the person who is criticized the most, right?
	Yeah. And the reason for that is because criticizing cruel people is pretty dangerous, right?
	Mm-hmm. Because reasonable people will be most likely to not retaliate to criticism, right?
	Yeah. Does that make sense?
	And so what happens is a situation is set up.
	Where to be reasonable, to have integrity, or at least to strive for it, to aim for that, becomes something which draws criticism upon you, which is always claimed to be relative to an objective standard.
	But which is not, in fact.
	But it's simply another form of the exercise of power.
	In other words, I am going to pick on the weakest kid in the class, so to speak, and then call myself just and noble.
	Okay. And the danger of that...
	Is that using objective standards...
	I'm talking more about your parents.
	I don't consider you to be sunk into this mire at anything but the toenail level, right?
	But it's just a habit that we've all sort of grown up with, I think, who have these kinds of manipulative and self-righteous parents.
	That... You will be drawn by habit.
	Again, this is just my theory.
	Whether it works or not is up to you.
	But you will be drawn by habit when you see a conflict occurring to criticize the most reasonable person in the interaction.
	Yeah, I think that would be quite possible.
	And does that, I mean, does it sort of make sense relative to your upbringing why that would be a sort of habit that you would have been mildly infected by?
	Yeah.
	And you will also have a habit of using objective standards that you use to criticize the person in the interaction who is by far the closest to achieving those standards.
	Yeah.
	And that's no fun to be on the receiving end of.
	Mm-hmm.
	you Thank you.
	And in a sense, that behavior...
	is where does that behavior of criticizing the most reasonable person, according to, quote, objective standards, where does that fit on our plus 100 to minus 100 scale?
	Negative 80?
	Again, I wouldn't be that self-critical, but that may be just me.
	But I would say that it's not.
	Look, what you did was not bad, right?
	And obviously, I could have handled it better too, but it's not.
	No, it's not that because you're not being abusive.
	I mean, you're not saying, Steph, you're a...
	What is it? One guy said, Steph, you look like a used dildo salesman or something, right?
	I mean... Oh, dear. Yeah, no, you're not being abusive, right?
	So I would say that, no, it's not down there, right?
	But I think it will be very interesting for you, just as an experiment, right?
	Just to try it out, maybe with me or maybe with anybody at any time.
	When somebody's having a conflict...
	Right? Just with somebody else, right?
	Or with third party or you're having a conflict with somebody.
	Sorry, when you see two people having a conflict, you can take a pause and you can say, who's acting the better of the two people, right?
	Who initiated? Who's responding?
	Who's been abusive? Who's not?
	How do you think it would feel for you to side with the person who was most in the right?
	Right? Most in the right?
	Yeah. Not...
	Like if you'd...
	Sorry, let me make it a little bit more explicit, right?
	So if in this conversation that we'd had about this me getting angry at these abusive YouTubers, if you'd have said, Steph, go for it.
	Post it. Get them.
	Right? How would that have made you feel?
	I'm not saying you should have. I'm just saying that if you had said that.
	I think I might have felt a little guilty afterwards.
	And why is that? I think because I don't know whether...
	It's kind of like watching...
	A ninja go after someone and you're not sure whether that person is able to defend themselves.
	Let's say I'm watching a ninja go after someone who just slapped the ninja in the face.
	Right. Makes sense.
	It makes sense that the ninja would go after them.
	But I'd feel bad encouraging the ninja because I'm not sure about the other person's ability to not get Severely damaged.
	Okay, so if somebody comes into my house and slaps me across the face, am I not allowed to get this person out of my house?
	Oh no, that makes sense.
	Because I'm not talking about now going after and abusing people in return, right?
	So that analogy doesn't quite fit, right?
	I can certainly understand what you're saying, me to go around kicking four-year-olds or something.
	But if sensitivity for the feelings of others, right, or being considerate towards others is an ideal, then still, on that scale, the people who are abusing me are even further down, aren't they? Yes.
	And I don't... Sorry, go on.
	I'm not trying to make...
	a moral requirement that, you know, you'd be like, well, don't hurt them, you know, they might not be able to defend themselves.
	But more of...
	I would be uncomfortable encouraging it.
	A subjective decision instead of this objective, like, that is immoral.
	Sorry, I didn't understand that last...
	I'm waving my hands around. Sorry, I didn't understand that last part where you said this is immoral.
	Um... I'm not saying, like, telling that person, um...
	Like, back off.
	Um... Was wrong or immoral to do.
	Like, that's fine.
	But I would be uncomfortable encouraging it.
	But why? I'm not sure.
	And the reason that I say that is, to me, it comes down to the virtue of honesty.
	So if people are genuinely making me angry, I don't have the right to then be abusive.
	I don't think, right?
	I mean, unless there's some weird extremity, right?
	But I have the right to say to people who are being repetitively insulting, you being repetitively insulting, and it's better for you not to watch these videos because you can't handle them, right?
	Because it's bringing out crappy behavior in you.
	So that's what I was genuinely thinking and feeling.
	So for me, it's not a moral requirement, but it's what I genuinely want to communicate to people.
	It's not abusive. It's a boundary-setting device, right?
	Because if you don't respond, people just escalate, right?
	But if you do respond in a way that's appropriate, you can set up boundaries and you can warn people off a little bit who are going to think of posting abusive stuff, right?
	Just because they know that they may get zinged or whatever back, right?
	So, to me it comes down to a question of honesty.
	If I genuinely feel something that I want to express to someone, it's not honest to avoid that, if that makes sense.
	Yes. If I were you, which is weird, but saying I was you, In that situation.
	I think I probably would have done the same thing, but as me, who is not you, actively encouraging you to do so would feel weird.
	Sure, sure. And it feels weird.
	Why? Is it because you feel that it's dangerous to do?
	Dangerous how? Well, the arguments that were being put forward were things like, you know, well, does that mean you're going to, like, doesn't mean that you have to throw down with everyone who posts a negative comment, which is a false dichotomy, because that wasn't what I was talking about or doing.
	Or it was like, is this really going to achieve what you want in the long run?
	And, you know, there was all these arguments from effect and, you know, so on.
	Don't go down to their level and blah, blah, blah.
	Like, all of these things which were...
	Cautionary tales, so to speak, if that makes sense.
	So your concern was like, we were trying to convince you not to do it, but not for the right reasons?
	Well, yeah, I mean, because nobody was asking me, like, they weren't saying, well, you know, Steph, how do you feel?
	And what is your, you know, why would you want to post this?
	And not like, why would you want to post this, right?
	But, you know, just genuine curiosity.
	But what happened, and this was not the first time that it's happened, and it's not like you've been involved every time, but when I become...
	What I would consider to say, what I would consider to put forward is assertive, right?
	Not aggressive, not abusive, but assertive, right?
	Saying, look, back off, people.
	You know, enough punching the Steph guy, right?
	I'm at least going to hold my hands up, right?
	I'm not going to punch you back, but I'm at least going to hold my hands up.
	Then people get very anxious, right?
	And they say, oh, Steph, don't.
	Oh, you know, don't defend yourself. Then they put forward all these moral or practical arguments as to why I shouldn't, right?
	Do it. And I know that that doesn't have anything to do with me.
	I also know that if I don't talk about it openly, that I'm not doing people any favors.
	Like if I don't say, look, if you're anxious about me being assertive, that's something which we should talk about, but the solution to that is for me not to be assertive.
	Okay. If that makes sense.
	On a side note...
	I have noticed that you are being more aggressive lately, and I think that might be part of the reason you're getting so many kind of stuff.
	I don't know about this.
	It's because it's not what they used to.
	It's a change of pace.
	Well, I can certainly understand that, but I used the word assertive, and what word did you use?
	Aggressive. Right.
	So, why was it that, I mean, just out of curiosity, you switched words there, right?
	And you put a more negative word in where I was using a more positive word.
	Because if aggressive is a criteria, surely those who are abusive are the ones that we should be talking about as aggressive, right?
	Not the people who are pushing back just a little bit, right?
	Yeah. Right, but you called me aggressive, not the people who were being abusive.
	Well, obviously they're being aggressive too, but...
	So we're both being abusive.
	What? You said they're being aggressive too, right?
	Like we're on the same continuum, right?
	I'm not sure. I think that may have been some sort of I feel negatively about this action somehow.
	I have an issue with it, and because I have an issue with it, I'm going to say it's negative.
	Right, and I think that was very wisely put, right?
	So if you feel that a certain action is negative, we are almost invariably drawn to describe those actions which cause us to feel something bad, like anxiety or stress or whatever, as negative, right?
	Because to be against somebody who's being aggressive is one thing, but to be against someone who's being assertive is quite another, right?
	Right, right.
	Right. And so, yeah, so, I mean, this was just my general contention, right, around this question of being mildly more assertive in my communications in general.
	It also, of course, has been because the Ron Paul videos are a particular hotbed of conflict and abuse.
	Because, you know, you're basically...
	Really, really tweaking people who are kind of unstable and of course pushing them more towards dealing with things in their personal relationships, which the whole point of Ron Paul is to avoid doing that.
	So there's a certain volatility and sort of primitive tribalism around this Ron Paul question.
	So it's not just that I have become mysteriously more assertive or aggressive, as you might want to put it, but it's just that the provocations are higher, right?
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, so I mean, and there's a reason why I haven't been particularly – also, just despite the provocations, I have avoided, at least hitherto in the conversations, being overly assertive, let's say, if we don't want to mix the two words.
	Being overly assertive because I need to gain a certain kind of credibility with people so that they can at least have the possibility of seeing what I'm doing as assertive rather than as aggressive, right?
	So if the first thing that anybody ever saw me do was something which they felt was aggressive, then it would be tough, right?
	But I sort of feel like after a year and a half of relatively Buddha-like self-control that I have established some credibility perhaps in the realm of like I can...
	It's not just a reaction when I post something that is more assertive.
	It's not just me punching back or anything, but it's more considerate than that because clearly I have the capacity to not do it as I have not risen to some pretty heinous provocations over the past 18 months or so.
	But it's tough for people. When I sort of step up and am more assertive or aggressive in protecting sort of the space around the ideas that I'm putting forward, it causes stress for people, right?
	Because we kind of all want to have the option to do that, but unfortunately, in our families, this was never allowed, right?
	Our assertiveness was always turned into aggression through extreme provocation.
	Thus, we disarmed ourselves for fear of shooting wildly, so to speak.
	And I do want to move the conversation as a whole in this arena forward to assertiveness.
	That's sort of the phase three of the conversation that I'm working on now.
	And so that's one of the reasons, and it isn't just between you and I. It's another reason why I'm sort of taking that step forward because it's great that we can use a lot of these philosophical ideas.
	To free ourselves, but I think it's also important at some point, you know, when people are relatively comfortable with it, to move into the world in a more assertive way.
	Because, you know, if we're right, then we're right, and we shouldn't be too shy about it.
	Okay. Yes, that makes sense.
	Now, I know that we've gotten some places and some other places not so much, but is there anything else that you wanted to add at this point?
	Talking with you is very difficult because I don't talk that much and you talk a lot.
	Right. It's very obvious that it's like, you want me to talk.
	And I'm like, I don't have anything to say.
	That's fine. I don't want to, you know, okay, now what?
	Oh, let me tell you about what happened last summer for me.
	Whatever, right? So, I mean, if you don't have anything particular more to say, then we can certainly not continue to have me talk because, you know, it should really be a conversation, right?
	But I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything that you hadn't talked about that you wanted to.
	I don't think so.
	Okay, well, I appreciate the chat.
	How do you feel relative to our earlier conflict?
	Not exactly resolved, but better.
	That's good. That's, you know, that's progress.
	I'm happy with that.
	Okay. And obviously, if there's anything else that comes up for either of us, I mean, we shouldn't be, whether we have to send an email, we don't have to have an hour-long chat or whatever if we don't feel like it.
	But I think it's usually good to be able to talk this kind of stuff out.
	And there usually is useful stuff for both parties.
	So I certainly do appreciate the time that you took to have the chat.
	You're welcome. All right.
	Best of luck with your essay. All right, thank you.
	Okay, take care. Bye.

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