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Feb. 23, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
43:54
992 Cultwatch(tm) - Target: Freedomain Radio

aaaaaaa zomg what if it's a cult?!? ;)

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Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
I hope that you're doing very well.
I'm going to put the entire objections to the question or the criticism which is floating around some libertarian circles around whether or not Free Domain Radio, the show that I run, and the conversations that I have with people, is a cult!
Or not.
I've received a number of emails about this, it was recently posted on the board, and there's a libertarian group composed of people who should know better, who are also floating the idea, not particularly that it's a cult, but that somehow I am counselling that everybody should never talk to anyone who doesn't share every single one of their beliefs and so on.
So I'm going to read, and this is sort of a one-time thing, I'll just set the record straight and then we can move on.
So somebody posted this on the board.
They said, I just got through watching this YouTube video about cults.
And I noticed that some of the cult leaders' tactics described in the video are paralleled by Molyneux's more bizarre ideas, most notably separation from non-libertarian friends and family, relying on psychoanalysis, plus occasionally claiming that people will be listening to these podcasts 100 years in the future.
I don't mean to presume sinister motives, but why does he keep insisting on separation from friends and family as the only non-political solution, rather than, say, the agorist strategy?
If I am misinterpreting something he said, please let me know.
And this is...
This is not uncommon in terms of the feedback that I get, if feedback is the right word, in terms of what it is that I'm doing here, so I'm going to set the record straight.
But it's worth, I think, having a look at this question just for your own intellectual defense, not with regards to this issue in particular, but with regards to general aspersions that people cast on each other and so on.
So, people will often say, you know, Steph says, you know, separate from everyone who is not a pure anarcho-capitalist or blah blah blah blah blah.
And you'll notice, though, that they don't actually provide any quotes.
See, that's your first clue, right?
That's your first clue.
When people characterize a thinker's ideas without coming up with the quotes themselves that prove this analysis, there's a good reason for that, right?
I mean, if I said, you know, Patton said that I am a female guppy and I don't actually find a quote that is verified and recorded and it's not like my quotes are hard to find, then clearly I've got some other motive, right?
I mean, if people don't come up with actual quotes where I say separate from all non-libertarian friends and family, then, you know, this is just for your own intellectual defense.
If somebody says, this person believes this or argues for this and never includes any quotes or references, that would be your first clue that they may not be fully on the up and up.
I mean, let's say that I am running a cult and this guy is really concerned with cults and wants to make sure that people don't stay in bizarre cults around separating from people and providing false kinds of psychoanalysis and so on.
Then, surely, he should make his case, right?
I mean, if he really is concerned that...
People who listen to me or who are on the boards or who are in conversation with me, that those people are in a cult, then clearly he should provide evidence.
Because if you're in a cult, if people who listen to me are in some sort of bizarre cult, then surely they're going to be resistant to it being called a cult, because they don't think they're in a cult, right?
If they're in a cult, they would call it something else, right?
So, if you really did care about the people who were in a cult, You would know that lots of evidence is required to counter the crazy cult conspiracy thoughts that people have.
And just calling it a cult without any evidence or with a mischaracterization, not even a mischaracterization, a complete statement of the opposite of what I'm saying, would be in order, right?
And if you're not willing to do that, then obviously you don't really care about whether it's a cult or not.
Something that I'm saying is bothering you, and in order to...
If you find some way to process that, you have to make me sound or look bizarre or give me nefarious motives so that you can discredit what I'm saying without actually having to argue back or, you know, work from first principles and go through the arduous task of finding where I've made such egregious moral and logical errors.
And this is what lazy people do.
When they're bothered by something that someone says, they can...
I mean, I put forward arguments from first principles.
I don't just state stuff, right?
I mean, I work from first principles, particularly in the realm of ethics, but also in terms of philosophy.
I've got a whole video series, an introduction to philosophy, where I work through most of what it is that I put forward from first principles.
So, if somebody feels uneasy about something that I'm saying, and I know that it's explosive to talk about people's Personal relationships.
But if somebody feels uneasy, then they can either go through and find the evidence and realize that I've made a mistake or we've gone off the rails in some way.
And then they can tell me or tell others and provide the proof and the evidence, or they can just label what I'm doing culty, right?
Because they feel uneasy.
So this idea that just saying stuff without quotes, without evidence and so on is valid is not something that we want in any reasonably rigorous intellectual discipline like philosophy or the study of ethics and so on.
So that's sort of the first thing that I would say.
Now, this... This question or this idea or this perspective that I'm ascribed to, which says, separation from non-libertarian friends and family.
That what I do is I counsel, this is what people say, Steph counsels and says, you have to believe this free domain radio philosophy.
And anybody who disagrees with you about the free domain radio philosophy, you must separate from them.
You must cut them out of your life.
You must get rid of them.
You must flush them down the tubes of your history.
You must throw them under the bus and you must move on.
And then donate, right? I mean, at a very, very surface level, if that's what I'm saying, then I can sort of understand how you'd feel uneasy.
I think that before throwing aspersions of cultish behavior around, which is a pretty heinous accusation, it would be It's somewhat worthwhile to actually come up with some evidence for this.
So, let me just be very clear about what it is that I do and what it is that I'm saying.
So, if you're going to attack me, if you're going to cast dispersions upon me, at least get your facts straight.
Like, at least aim properly.
That's all I'm asking. If you're gonna shoot me, aim properly.
Get a nice little laser here, right?
Don't just shoot randomly and think that you've done some damage.
So, in a very, very brief nutshell, I believe in the non-aggression principle.
I believe that it is evil to initiate the use of force against other human beings.
I'm not alone in that. I believe that most of the world believes that, absent things like the state and some aspects of parenting and education.
But as an adult, there are very few people who would say, yes, it is morally good to go up to somebody and punch them in the face or whatever, right?
So, I take that very seriously.
To me, that is not a game.
That is not an abstraction.
And maybe you have to have gone through some real violence in your life.
I did when I was a kid.
In order to really sort of understand how evil and ugly violence really is.
Or maybe you have to have been to jail, which I never have.
Or maybe you have to have been drafted or been in a war, which I never have.
But you have to... Maybe, maybe, just maybe, you have to have had some real exposure to violence in order to understand that the non-aggression principle is not an abstraction.
It's not a... Game.
It's not a toy. It's not a tool.
It's not a clever way to win debates.
I mean, it's foundational to a moral and decent world.
So, this is my position, just so people understand it, and, you know, if you're going to call me a cult leader or whatever, at least understand that this is where I'm coming from, and then you can call me that, hopefully, with some facts behind your accusations.
I don't think that they would be accurate, but at least you would know what it is that I'm saying.
So, my position is this.
I tell people With their family to be honest and to be open and to talk to their family.
I mean, a lot of people, maybe you're one of them, maybe you're not, a lot of people in this world have this kind of shallow two trains passing in the night kind of relationship with their family where there's so many topics that are off-limits and they can't talk about the past and they can't talk about how they feel and they can't talk about what they think because they get ridiculed, they get mocked, they get ignored, they get put down, people roll their eyes.
It's just not a welcoming environment to have A frank, open, and honest discussion.
And I know that that kind of relationship is possible.
That's the relationships that I treasure and nurture in my own life.
So I know that those relationships are possible.
And so all I say to people, and maybe you find this radical.
I don't think it is. Maybe you find it radical.
All I say to people is, well, be honest with the people in your life.
Tell them what you think and feel.
I don't tell people to tell me what they think and feel.
I say, Go to the people who are in your life who you claim to have a relationship with or who claim to have a relationship with you, who claim to love you or who you claim to love, and actually, shockingly, be honest with those people in your life.
Tell them what you think. Tell them what you feel.
Tell them your experience of life.
Tell them what you believe. Tell them what you treasure.
Tell them what you value. Listen to them.
Exchange ideas in a free, open, respectful and dignified environment.
I mean, if that's being a cult, bring it on, right?
I mean, if telling people to be honest, open, and vulnerable to the people in their life, if that is...
If that is evil and radical, then put the label on.
I'll wear it with pride.
So that's sort of the first thing that I say, which is to be honest and open and vulnerable with the people in your life.
If you had an unhappy childhood, or even if you had problems in your childhood, or even if you had no problems in your childhood, it's to sit down with your parents and tell them honestly how you think and feel.
I think is a valid approach to having a relationship.
Because I think we can all say that honesty is a virtue, and also that we should be open about what we think and feel to those around us, to those we love, to those we have intimate relationships with.
I mean, I don't think there's anyone on the planet who would say that the definition of an intimate, close, and loving relationship is to talk about trivia, hide everything you believe in, and lie constantly about your experience.
I mean, is that radical, really?
Is that what people consider radical now?
To say, be honest with the people in your life?
So, no. Now, what does happen, of course, is that people will come to me and they will say, but I have a great relationship with my family.
And I say, well, that's wonderful.
I mean, I'm all about family.
I love family.
I have a family and I'm overjoyed.
So, people come to me and say, well, I'm close to my dad, right?
And I say, well, okay, well, tell me a little bit about your, you know, past relationship with your dad.
And I'll say, maybe this bad stuff or that bad stuff happened and so on.
I said, well, have you told your dad how you feel about that?
Or he says, well, you know, my dad doesn't respect this about me or doesn't like that about me.
And I said, well, have you told him that you don't like that?
I mean, not without demands, but just, you know, when you do this, I don't like it.
It doesn't feel good. It's just, have you spoken honestly about your experience of your father with your father?
Is that radical? I don't think so.
I think it would be radical to say, no, no, you should continue to hide what you think and feel and wallpaper over problems in the relationship.
No, you confront these things manfully or womanfully.
You sit down and you talk with somebody in an honest and open way about your experience with them in the past and into the present.
But people come and they say, well, I have a good relationship, and then I say, well, then you should I mean, the things that you're saying to me, you should say to your parents, right?
If you come to me and say, well, you know, my dad yells at me whenever I bring up whatever on some topic that I'm interested or excited about, Then I say, well, why are you telling me?
I mean, in a lot of ways...
You see, cultists will take real relationships and separate them from each other.
People who have real relationships separate them and then create a false relationship with the cult leader.
That's not what I mean. It's the complete opposite of what I'm doing.
When people come to me and talk about negative things in their relationships, I say, go and talk...
To the person you have the problem with.
I'm attempting to make sure that they don't end up with a false relationship with me, and I'm turning them back to the person they want to or are supposed to or believe that they do have the relationship.
Go tell that person.
That's what I do, and if that's culty, well, again, I'll wear the badge with pride.
So it's sort of like there's a bridge, where people say, oh, I got a bridge, and it's made of stone, and it's lasted for decades, and it's solid, and it's, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Like, I have a close relationship, my dad and I love each other, blah, blah, blah.
And then I say, oh, okay, well, so why don't you take a step on this bridge?
People say, this bridge is made of stone, it's solid, right?
And then I say, well, take a step on the bridge, right?
So people say, I'm close to my dad.
I say, well, you should be honest with him, then, about what you think and feel.
Put a step on the bridge.
If you think it's made of stone and it's so solid, then...
Right? And then what happens is people step on the bridge and it turns out to be papier-mâché and it collapses and it's all an illusion and, you know, their relationship goes to, quote, goes to hell or is revealed as a kind of hell.
And then what they do is they get mad at me and say, Steph, you broke my bridge!
No, I didn't. I mean, forgive me for being an empiricist, but if people make claims, I think it's worthwhile backing it up with a test.
Testability, right? Testability is kind of important, right?
So if people say, I'm close to my family, then I say, well, you should be honest and open with them about what you think and feel.
And then when they do that, if their family relations blow up, That's not my fault, right?
I mean, if you think the bridge is made of stone and it's made of papier-mâché, which you know deep down because you haven't taken the walk across it.
People are evasive or repress their feelings and thoughts with those around them because they know that it's a papier-mâché bridge.
It's not real. They make these claims that it's so real.
So then people take a step on this bridge and the whole thing collapses and then they get mad at me.
And what have I done?
I mean, I've done nothing except, okay, well, if it's made of stone, you should walk across it.
If you love somebody, you should be able to be honest and open and vulnerable with them.
That's not radical. I know it's scary for a lot of people, but scary doesn't equal radical.
The disasters that sometimes follow when people are honest, open, and vulnerable with those in their lives, also unpleasant, also feel weird, also very unsettling, also unpleasant.
But again, that's not my fault.
I mean, people can say, no, I don't want to be honest, open, and vulnerable with those around me.
That's fine. I don't think that's the right idea.
But then they face the fact that they have to ask why, and then they face the fact that they may not be close to the people in their lives.
So I'm not trying to separate people from those around them at all.
In fact, quite the opposite.
I'm saying that you should be honest, open, and vulnerable with the people around you, And see what happens.
Do they enjoy it?
Do they reciprocate?
Or do they attack you and put you down or ignore you or feel uncomfortable or get distant or get weird or refuse to return your phone calls or express their displeasure in a thousand and one aggressive and passive-aggressive ways?
See, that's important information for you to have, right?
Because you can stay in this weird interstellar orbit with people forever.
Oh, we're close, but we don't talk about anything.
Oh, we're close, but I don't tell them what I really treasure.
I'm not open and vulnerable with them.
Well, that's wasting your life.
Living in an illusion of we're close when you can't be honest with someone...
You know, forgive a philosopher for wanting to apply reason and evidence to eliminate illusions.
I mean, ditch me, but then ditch all the other philosophers in history who've worked from reason and evidence.
It's not the case that I'm trying to separate people.
I'm actually trying to bring them closer together.
If those relationships then cave because they were based on lies, illusions, manipulations, and abuse, well, geez, somebody sent me some flowers.
Isn't that a good thing? I mean, if a feminist says to a woman who's being abused, you should tell your husband that you don't want to be abused, and you want to change the marriage, and blah blah blah, and then the guy yells and screams at her, and then she separates from her husband, does the feminist then get accused of being cultish?
Running a cult? No.
Maybe by some, but anyway.
Then there's this relying on psychoanalysis stuff.
Well, yes, call me crazy.
I have an enormous respect for psychoanalysis.
My wife runs a clinic.
She practices psychology.
She's registered. She's taken God knows how much education.
She's a brilliant, brilliant analyst.
I myself have gone through years of therapy, which were unbelievably helpful and powerful for me.
I'm also an artist.
I write prose.
I write Non-fiction.
I write fiction, poetry.
So the inspiration of the unconscious and the complexity of the unconscious, I have a massive amount of respect for.
It works completely in parallel with my rational and empirical side.
So, this just, I mean, I've taken that red pill.
I know how powerful it is.
I see my wife's work.
I know how powerful that is.
I've had all these conversations with people throughout the course, the two-year course of Free Domain Radio.
I know how powerful that is.
So, again, there's evidence.
So, there's reasons behind it.
There's lots of theories about the unconscious and where it shows up and what it's for and so on.
I've had incredible evidence in my own life.
It's what my wife does for a living, and she helps an unbelievable number of people in incredible numbers of ways.
So, I know.
I just know, based on the evidence that I've seen and lots of reason and some science, because it's a very cloudy area of consciousness.
But I have evidence, and I see it happen continually, so I try not to deny that for which there is evidence, both personally and interpersonally.
So yes, I certainly do use psychology and psychoanalysis in my conversations with people to help them over blocks or to help them to see stuff which they have trouble seeing, usually because they're trained not to see it.
And of course, when I began to bring this approach to libertarianism, right, to the question of libertarianism, I was really kind of provoked, just if you're interested, I was really kind of provoked to bring psychology into the realm of politics and philosophy fundamentally because I could not for the life of me explain why people had such enormous resistance to the idea that taxation is violence.
Why would, after decades and decades of pounding at people with all the reason and evidence in the world, and seeing the collapse of the Soviet Union, and seeing the collapse of the socialist model in terms of economics, and seeing the growth of the state in all the free countries, or the, quote, free countries, why is it that people would have such an enormous resistance to this basic and obvious idea?
Why is it that some people would get it in, boom, a few seconds?
Like, I read this when I was 15, it was like, yeah, okay, well, how could it be otherwise, right?
So how is it that people could have such an enormous amount of resistance to such a basic and fundamental truth?
And self-evident does not require you to learn Russian to figure this idea out, right?
Or learn how to juggle blindfolded.
I mean, this is something you can get very quickly.
But people spend their entire lives rejecting and attacking this idea.
That's, again, that's just a piece of information.
That you have to process.
If you want to get this idea across, you have to understand what people's resistance is.
And maybe this comes from my business training and my marketing training.
If people aren't buying your product and your product is objectively good, you have to figure out why they're not buying your product.
You can't just keep launching it and watching it flop.
You can, but what a waste of time that would be.
Maybe it was my business training and so on, but I sort of had to say, well, we've got this product to sell called political freedom or personal freedom, individual freedom, whatever it is, the Austrian economic approach or whatever.
The non-aggression principle.
Now, everyone agrees with the non-aggression principle, but everybody short-circuits when you start talking about the government.
This is just a fact that I had to work with, and given that I didn't want to waste my life yelling the same platitudes down a well with nobody at the bottom, then I had to sort of try and figure out why is our product flopping every single time it gets launched?
Why have we made almost no progress?
Over the past few centuries in getting the idea across that the state is forced and so on.
If you go back to Proudhon, all of the early anarchists, even further back to the people who wanted to really limit the power of the state, even the 18th century minarchists and the Enlightenment philosophers, it's consistently failed.
And the definition of insanity, of course, is to keep doing the same thing over and over and to expect a different result.
So given that people were hugely and are hugely resistant to the idea that taxation is force, why would that be the case?
Doesn't threaten anyone, doesn't change anyone's particular life at the moment to accept the principle that the state is forced, that taxation is forced.
So why, oh why, were people so resistant to it?
And if I couldn't figure that out, I was not going to quit my business career and do philosophy as a full-time career, because it would be pointless.
I'd just be another person yelling platitudes down an empty well.
I mean, not changing anything, wasting my life, wasting my gifts.
I didn't want to do that.
What I wanted to do was find out why people are so resistant to the idea that the state is force.
And my wonderful, wonderful, beautiful, magical wife Well, it all starts with the family, right?
And we spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out how this acceptance that the state is forced would have an impact on people's personal relationships.
It is my theory that the reason that people are addicted to the state is because an acceptance of the non-aggression principle Would threaten their personal relationships.
That's what I've found to be the case.
That's what my wife has found to be the case.
That's what hundreds and hundreds of people that I've talked to, if not thousands, maybe hundreds, that I've talked to directly over the course of Free Domain Radio have found to be the case.
So we have a great theory in place.
We have strong, strong supporting evidence.
And no counter-evidences yet.
Doesn't mean that it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But that's the working model that I've got.
That it's our personal relationships that get in the way of accepting Basic moral principles, right?
And so, yes, I use psycho...
Because you have to figure out why people are blocked in something that is so obviously true and so obviously moral and valuable.
And which people accept in the abstract, anyway.
Like, if I go up and down the street with a machine gun saying, I'm starting up a school, you pay me whether you have kids, whether you send your kids here or not, obviously everybody would recognize that's evil.
But then when you put this government thing, this government biosphere or umbrella...
Then people short-circuit and say, well, now this is totally moral, and any other solution would be totally evil.
And understanding why that short-circuit occurs, I think, is essential.
And if libertarians don't understand that, then they'll just keep bleating around the NAP, and government is bad, and getting nowhere, getting precisely nowhere, actually moving backwards.
So yes, when it comes to looking at psychological blocks to accepting basic truths, psychoanalysis is essential, and so I use it.
But, as I mentioned before, you can use psychoanalysis in a sort of bad way to get people to doubt their own instincts.
But that's not the case.
I don't do that at all.
I do quite the opposite. I use psychoanalysis to help people to trust Their own instincts.
So if somebody has a relationship with someone and they feel that they're angry about something, then I say, well, I would trust that that anger is valid.
It doesn't mean you act anything out.
It doesn't mean you yell at anyone or anything, but you trust your instincts.
Trust your feelings. Not my words, but your feelings.
So I'm attempting to really give people a trust in their own emotional instincts.
And that is absolutely essential for me in terms of bringing more truth and honesty into the world, which will result, I believe, as I've argued in a series of podcasts, will result in political freedom.
And that's why I say, because I now know of hundreds of people who have taken this approach and other people have emailed me, who've taken this approach of honesty and have either fixed up their relationships and allowed honesty, openness and freedom, because that's freedom.
If you've got to fake yourself with all these different people, if you've got to say, well, can I say this?
Or can I say that? Or if I say that, they'll get mad.
Or if I say this, they'll think I'm weird.
If you've got to do a lot of self-management, And you've got to tiptoe around the minefields in your relationships?
That's not freedom. I mean, dear God, we can't get rid of the government in our lifetime, but we can at least get rid of the social minefields that we have to keep dancing around.
That is not freedom.
And I will go to my grave saying that that is not freedom.
Self-censorship, self-management, self, ooh, can I say this, can I say that, oh, I can say this to this person, not to this person, and tension around social engagements, can I be honest, can I be open, can I be...
That's not freedom. That's just a different kind of prison.
And in many ways, it's a worse kind of prison.
Because it's in your head, right?
So a cult leader will intervene in relationships that are relatively good and substitute psychoanalysis to tell people that their instincts and their thoughts or feelings are wrong, right?
And so somebody will say, well, I love someone, and they'll say, well, no, you don't.
It's just dependency, right?
Whereas I don't say that. I say, well, if you love them, then you should be able to be honest with them and open and vulnerable.
Is that true? Yes, it's true.
Then you should go and do it. I'm not asking people to obey me, but just what they believe.
I'm asking people to have integrity to what they accept and believe.
That love and a relationship must have something to do with honesty, openness, and vulnerability.
Otherwise, it's just two television sets in the same room turned on talking around each other, right?
It's not a relationship at all.
So a cult leader will take real relationships and substitute a false relationship by undermining people's sense of efficacy in terms of their thoughts and emotions.
But what I do is quite the opposite, is that I say, don't have a relationship with me, go and have a real relationship with people around you.
If that falls apart, It's sad, but it's something that you should know.
If you're building your house on sand and someone comes along and says, that's going to fall over if you keep building, but you should keep building if you don't believe me, then at least you'll go build your house on something better next time.
So... So, people will be listening to these podcasts 100 years in the future.
Yeah, I totally believe that.
I am going to stand here before you and tell you that I totally believe that what I am doing, what we're doing as a philosophical community, is very new.
This unity of art, philosophy, economics, psychology, and a personal relationship, the application of Philosophical principles to all of these environments, I think is new.
I don't know of it before, and I sure got a whole master's degree in intellectual history, so I don't know of it before.
And why would I want to do something less important, less valuable, less powerful?
I mean, yeah, of course I want to do work that is going to be studied in 100 years.
I can't guarantee that it will be.
Maybe it won't be. Maybe I have no interest.
Maybe I'll be revealed as a complete lunatic.
I don't think so, but maybe I will.
But sure, that's my goal.
I honestly believe that will be the case.
No question, no doubt.
I keep everything obsessively because I believe that it will be of value to future people.
I think I have evidence for that insofar as There are tens of thousands of listeners who are making enormous changes in terms of bringing freedom to their personal lives, which is the only avenue or venue that we can create it at the moment.
So, yeah, I know that I have helped people free themselves from bad relationships or improve relationships where they're not being honest and open and vulnerable, giving them an enormous sense of relief and freedom in their lives, that they have got corrupt and negative and destructive people out of their lives, that they've welcomed better, honest, more moral, and open and vulnerable people into their lives.
They've improved their relationships.
People have improved their jobs.
They've improved their marriages.
They've improved their relationship with their children through this honesty and openness, the stuff that I talk about in the Real Time Relationships book that I just put out.
So yeah, I know for sure empirically that, and it's worked for me, right?
So because I don't prescribe any pills that I haven't already taken 50 of, at least.
So yeah, I know that we're doing something radical and new that's having a real impact on people and really helping them liberate themselves through this application of philosophy and psychology, particularly together. - Yeah.
Yeah, I think, and if it is new, and if it is the way forward, and if it is the way that we can actually end up with a stateless and godless society, fantastic.
And of course then, if that's a big intellectual movement that has a huge impact on the future, yes, of course it's going to be studied, and I hope it will be.
And it's been my experience, and this is just me.
I think it's true, but I'm not going to say that it's universal.
It's been my experience that if you aim high, you get higher.
If I said, well, you know, I want to produce something that's kind of amusing for people in their drive, then that's the show that I would produce.
If I say, well, I want to produce what I would consider the most stellar, radical, and exciting intellectual work in the world, Well, I don't know that I will, but I'm sure going to do better than if I say, well, I want to be a genial time waster for people working out of the gym.
So the fact that I aim high, yeah, there's nothing wrong with being ambitious.
There's nothing wrong with aiming high.
The fact that I aim high, I can't imagine.
is something that people would say is a bad thing, right?
To have big ambitions to try and do the very best that you possibly can to generate and sustain and energize a philosophical movement, reason from first principles devoted to truth.
I just don't...
I mean, what's wrong with that, right?
What's wrong with an excess of striving to be honest and virtuous?
I just don't see it. That's not what the Aristotelian mean is about, right?
So the last thing that I'll say is this question about keeping the non-libertarians in your life.
And people always distort this the same way.
And that's not accidental, to be honest with you, when people always distort stuff the same way.
And the funniest thing is I get some of the biggest criticisms from libertarians, and some of them not unknown libertarians, who wildly distort what it is that I'm saying and then attack me for that.
And these same libertarians, of course, will consistently complain that when they talk about libertarianism, That people who are listening wildly distort their views and attack a straw man, right?
So I was like, I'm a libertarian.
I think there should be no taxation.
Oh, so you want the poor to starve in the streets, right?
So when I say all of the stuff I say about relationships that be honest, open, and vulnerable with the people in your life, and then people say, well, Steph says you should cut everyone off who doesn't believe everything that you say, right?
Well, I mean, the people who say that are exactly the same people who complain that libertarianism is distorted, and it's just an intellectual thing, or I guess more of an emotional thing that's sort of obvious from the outside, but maybe when you're inside, you don't see it.
But it's just kind of funny, right?
I hate being misunderstood.
Let me go willfully misunderstand this guy, because he threatens me, right?
Or something threatens me about it.
But let me sort of be clear and be on the record about this for what it's worth.
If you believe that force, that violence, if you believe that the government is evil, then people who say the government is moral are in moral opposition to you.
Sorry, that's not me.
That's just basic logic and reality.
If you want to go north and somebody else wants to go south, you're in opposition as to the directions you want to go.
I can't change that.
That's beyond anybody's power to change, right?
So if you say the initiation of the use of force is evil, and somebody else says the initiation of force is virtuous, then you are at opposite moral Ends of the spectrum.
Opposite ends of the moral spectrum.
Initiation of the use of force is good.
Initiation of the use of force is evil.
I can't change that. It's a law of non-contradiction.
I mean, I can't change that.
That's logic.
If we take it out of the abstract, right, and I'm all about taking violence out of the abstract, because frankly it's not abstract.
Violence is blowing children up in Iraq.
Violence is putting two million Americans into the rape rooms of prisons.
Violence is terrorizing your population with the threat of these murderous and brutal jails and so on.
It's the soft gulags of the welfare state.
It is the propagandizing and destruction of the minds of children through public schools.
Violence is not abstract.
Violence is very real, and violence has incredible impact.
On the lives that we lead and it diminishes us and it whittles us down and it slowly cracks our spine in a soundless echo.
It is just horrendous.
It is a core satanic evil in the world and is the greatest force against human joy and progress and intimacy in the world.
So, when people advocate that which I define as the greatest evil in the world, sorry, we have a problem!
Because I take it very seriously.
The state is not an abstraction for me.
It's not something out there which I can debate like doing a Rubik's Cube or 3D chess in my brain.
It is a real gun and a bullet.
It's a gun in somebody's face and it's a bullet in their leg if they try to run.
So I take it very seriously.
So when I have a personal relationship, I don't necessarily pursue the topic, because some of these relationships I've had, one or two of them, before I became an anarchist and so on.
So, I mean, there's people I go to concerts to, and there's a guy I buy fruit from, and I mean, I don't argue politics with them.
But if it comes up, then if they say, Steph, I am for the state, I think the state is good, virtuous, benevolent, whatever, then I'll step them through the argument, which takes all of 30 seconds.
And I give them time.
Because, you know, maybe some people take time.
I generally find that it's an either-or transition.
Like, you get it or you never... You either get it right away or you're never going to get it.
But, you know, some people may take time.
So I give them time. I understand the arguments and so on.
Now, they've opened the kettle of fish if they brought this sort of stuff up.
And so then I'll say, well, so do you support the use of violence against me?
Right? And that's the part that...
It's the little layer...
Well, it's not a little layer. It's the biggest layer, I think, that I put onto the discussion.
So, if somebody advocates the use of force against me, right, so having a debate with someone, say, if I lived in America, about the Iraq War, I say, I'm for the war, I'm against the war, and if I say, well, I'm against the war, and do you support that I don't get shot if I'm against the war?
And they say, yes. I say, well, then you have to support that I don't pay taxes that are used to support the war, right?
And if they say, no, you have to pay the taxes that support the war, and I say, do you support me getting shot If I don't pay the taxes to support the war.
Sorry, it's a fact.
It is an ugliness.
It is an evil at the core of our society.
And we can talk about it with people as if it's real, or we can bullshit and windbag about it like it's some weird abstraction, some kooky internet philosophy called libertarianism.
So, if somebody says to me, yes, Steph, I support you getting shot If you don't agree with me about the Iraq War, because that's what it comes down to, if I'm not released from my obligation of taxes to support that which I consider evil, then they're telling me, Steph, I want you to be shot if you disagree with me about the Iraq War.
Now, There are some things that you can wallpaper over in a relationship.
Different tastes in music, in food, in certain kinds of people.
You can wallpaper over a bunch of stuff.
You can even wallpaper over voluntary minarchism versus anarchism versus blah blah blah blah blah.
You cannot wallpaper over I want you shot if you disagree with me.
You can't. You just can't.
You can pretend it's not there.
But you're just then up against the wall with an invisible elephant in the room saying, elephant?
What elephant? Please, if we are to be philosophers, if we are to be moral men and women, if we are to have a shred, Of self-respect, of self-esteem,
if we are to take our ideas, our virtues, that which is the most beautiful to us, if we are to take that with even a shred of seriousness, what are we supposed to say to people who say they want a shot for disagreeing with them?
Because that's what it comes down to.
Anybody who believes in the Old Testament, even certain things that is in the New Testament, where God commands you to kill the unbelievers.
You either give up the Bible or you give up me, because I don't hang with people who want me shot.
I don't hang with people who want me shot.
I would not violate the beauty and truth of philosophy and virtue For the sake of appeasing those who openly advocate the use of violence against me, I put it in personal terms.
Because it is personal. Violence is always against somebody individually.
It's not an abstraction.
Float out there like that weird cloud dude in Lost.
I mean, it is a gun in somebody's face.
Your face. I say, hey, I disagree with the welfare state.
I think it's just hideous.
It's a hideous evil. People say, well, I'm for the welfare state.
It's like, well, that's fine.
We can agree to disagree.
I say, do you think that I have the right to shoot you if you're for the welfare state?
Can I pull out a gun and shoot you?
And people say, well, no, of course not!
So then I say, well, will you advocate me getting shot for being against the welfare state?
Can I be against the welfare state without getting shot in your world, like in your philosophy?
And if people say, well, yeah, then I say, okay, well, then we both agree that a stateless society and taxation is evil.
I shouldn't be forced to pay for that which I consider evil.
But if they say, yes, you should be shot if you don't agree with the welfare state.
Like so, you want me to get shot if I disagree with you.
These are the facts that we work with.
This is the reality of what people debate about.
I'm no Freud, I'm no Jung, I'm no...
Maybe I have no psychological innovation whatsoever.
Perfectly happy with that. I don't care about that at all.
But I will tell you that there is no possibility of having a shred of self-respect if you continue to hang with people who support you getting shot, thrown in jail, sanctioned in some way by the state.
That is cowardly and pathetic!
That is craven. That is codependent.
That is self-hatred.
You can't respect yourself if you continue to hang and wallpaper over the fact that people advocate the use of force against you.
You can't be happy.
I'm not yelling because I think you're bad if you do that.
It's just that you'll never be happy.
You'll hate yourself.
You'll never have real love.
Real joy. Real pride!
And this is the funniest thing in my mind, in my view.
Now, there's this institution called the state, right?
And there's lots of people who say, yeah, if you don't agree with me, you should get shot, right?
So, look at these two people, right?
The guy in the dark, the guy in the light.
Ooh, let me be the guy in the light.
Sorry for the people on the audio.
This is a video metaphor. There's a guy in the light, me, saying the use of violence is bad.
And there's a guy here in the dark saying you should be shot, guy in the light, if you don't agree with me.
I say you can be totally for the welfare state, just don't shoot me if I'm against it.
It's a DRO situation.
You can be totally for the war in Iraq, just don't shoot me for disagreeing with it.
Guy in the dark says, you should be shot for disagreeing with me.
I support you being dragged away, kidnapped, locked away in the right room of modern prisons for years and years if you disagree with me.
So we are guy in the light, live and let live, guy in the dark.
You should die or be kidnapped and imprisoned and raped for years if you disagree with me.
And people look at that situation, at me and at these other guys, and who is it that they say is culty?
Just mull that over for a little bit.
It's very, very important.
It's very, very instructive.
They look at me, who's saying, hey, you know, do what you want, just don't use force, right?
And then you've got all these other people who say, sorry, Steph, if you don't agree with me, I think you should be shot.
And who is portrayed as the culty one?
Thank you so much for watching.
I look forward to your donations. Pick up some books.
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