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March 14, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:09:45
1012 Gossip - A Listener Conference
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Hi everybody, it's Devan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
Hope that you're doing very well. This is a slightly lengthy podcast, but well worth listening to, I think, because it encapsulates a lot of the conflict resolution approaches that I take with regards to other people.
And there's a gentleman named David who I had a bit of a flare-up with or who had a bit of a flare-up with me in the chat room and then it lay fallow for a couple of days and then we had a conversation about it and I just wanted to publish this so that you could get a sense of at least how I see the roots of conflict go very very deep and if we work at just the surface level all we can do is suppress symptoms.
We can't actually get So I hope that this will make some sense.
I'm just going to read a short excerpt from the chat itself, and then you can hear our discussion of it to attempt to resolve the conflict.
The discussion was to do with podcast 998 and this conversation that I had with somebody who posted a critical video of Free Domain Radio on YouTube.
And the central issue in the Free Domain Radio chat window centered around the question of the appropriateness or positivity or negativity of the word gossip.
Because this gentleman named David said about somebody named Greg that Greg was a gossip, and Greg took some exception to that, and then David said that it was not a negative word.
David said that he was not using gossip as a negative word, but rather as a descriptor.
And this is where I came in and saw that David was saying that he said to me, I'm not using gossip as a slur or a negative, just as a descriptor.
And I said, oh, it's a negative.
No question about that.
And then he said to me, oh, well, never mind then.
I take it back. It wasn't gossip.
And that seemed to me a bit manipulative in my experience.
So then I asked him, do you think it is a positive term?
And David replied, he said, I think it is a neutral term.
So I asked the group in general, does anyone else think it has no negative connotations at all?
There is no malicious gossip, I said.
Sorry, there is malicious gossip, but not kind gossip.
And then somebody grabbed a definition and said, gossip, noun, causal or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.
He became the subject of much local gossip.
Chiefly derogatory, a person who likes to talk about other people's private lives.
And then David asked, useful gossip though?
And somebody else said, I can definitely see how it could be a negative.
When you hear about gossip at work, it usually means people spreading rumors or slandering people.
And I said, right, it's a negative term.
And somebody said, I have known it to be used in a neutral fashion, I think.
And I said, I never have.
And then David said, okay, then I'll be sure not to use the term around you unless I mean it to be negative.
And again, that seemed to be a little bit passive-aggressive because we were avoiding the basic facts, right?
And I said, no, as you saw from the definition above, it is a negative term, right?
I didn't want it to be reframed as a word that I irrationally perceived as negative, and then David was going to just adapt his behavior to my irrational standards, because there are objective ways of looking at words, and so on.
And then, as I said, it's a negative term, and then David said, chiefly derogatory.
And that seemed to me kind of evasive, and a little bit, you know, if you'll excuse the term, a little bit weasley, because he said, gossip is a neutral term, and now he said, well, I'm going to rescue the neutrality by saying that the definition says that it's only chiefly derogatory.
In other words, it's only 99% negative.
But of course, by saying neutral, he's saying it's 0% negative.
So if he switches from 0% negative in terms of his definition of a word to, well, it's only 99% negative and I'm going to sit in that 1%, that is a change of definition.
And if it's not acknowledged, then I experience that, and I think with some reason, with a lot of reason, as manipulative.
So at this point, I kind of knew the score, right?
Or at least I felt that I knew the score.
So I said, what's the problem?
If you use a negative term unjustly, just apologize and move on.
What's with all the dodging? And he said, well, it's because that's not how I use the word.
And I had clarified my intent to Greg.
And I said, but the use of words isn't up to you, though, right?
If you make an error in the use of a word and use a derogatory word in error, you can just apologize, right?
It's not a big deal, I think.
And I put a little smiley face in.
And he said, and I apologize for seeming negative or derogatory, and I offered a clarification, and other people seem to think that my use of the word makes sense.
And I said, well, I just saw you saying it was a neutral word, which is not true.
He said, you are correct.
The definition in the dictionary clearly categorizes gossip as chiefly derogatory.
And he said, I apologize for my use of the word in the non-dictionary standard.
And this again made me, I got sort of even more annoying because then it's, you know, again, the way that it seems to position me or other people is that it's like, well, if you guys are just so anal that you don't, you know, you get upset at a non-standard word, I apologize to pacify your crazy anality or something like that.
And then somebody said, you know, all this quibbling over definitions isn't really getting you any closer to the frustration Greg was feeling.
Now I'm starting to feel a little annoyed at this conversation.
And I certainly was experiencing that as well because it just felt like a whole lot of fogging innovation.
And then David said, I thought we were making progress, Greg, until we had to start looking up the definition of gossip because Steph wanted to talk about it.
And that made me even more irritated because it's not that I just suddenly wanted to talk about it.
I saw a non-factual statement, which seemed kind of evasive.
And to me, it's like me saying to you...
You're a jerk! And then you get upset and I say, no, no, no, I don't mean that in a negative way, which kind of adds insult to injury, like I've kind of insulted you, and then I've said that you have misperceived my intention and maybe you're a little paranoid or maybe you're a little high-strung, but that's not what I meant, and then I can apologize just to pacify you.
Things get kind of complicated and messy in that sort of situation.
And then David said, and now Steph wants me to apologize for using the word not in the standard usage when I already apologized and clarified my meaning to you, the person who I was addressing the statement towards.
And I said, well, you just made a false statement and I called you on it.
That's what I said. And I said, but if you're making great progress, I'll leave you to it.
And then I left, right?
Because I was not...
And the reason that I left was that I knew that the roots of this kind of...
Problem in communication.
You know, when things just get kind of really freaky really quickly, these kinds of problems go very, very deep into both history and the personality, as you'll see from the subsequent chat that we had about this interaction.
And I was too angry at this point and felt too manipulated and so on.
And sort of insulted, right?
That I wasn't going to be able to say anything positive or pleasant.
And I also don't like saying, well, I'm really angry and slamming, you know, just leaving, right?
So I said, well, if you guys are making great progress, you should continue.
And I genuinely felt that was true.
Because if people say, like, I mean, if people don't want me to interrupt, they thought they were doing an RTR conversation.
And if people don't want me to interrupt an RTR conversation, I know there's something very strange going on, because I did kind of come up with the idea and write the book.
So, you know, it's sort of like saying to the expert who came up with the idea, don't interrupt us, we're implementing your idea.
And so I just knew that there was some very strange stuff going on, and as I later reviewed the chat window...
I found that David had said earlier that he used to use the word gossip in a negative way, but now he uses it in a neutral way, and that to me is just, I mean, he's a very intelligent fellow, and so there's no way, if he knows that the word is almost always perceived as negative and he uses it, he can't then defend it by saying he didn't mean it in a negative way.
I mean, that just logically doesn't follow.
Now, the conversation that we talk about a little later in the conversation we had about this The metaphor of slavery in the book on real-time relationships.
And he had sent me a couple of emails criticizing my use or the historical accuracy of certain aspects of my use of slavery in the RTR book.
And so we'd had a conversation about it where he'd spend about 35 or 40 minutes Going at me about, and you know, not in a negative way, but I thought it was somewhat unresolved because I felt that some of his criticisms were not valid, and I wasn't sure exactly what the motivation was.
And it seemed like an odd thing for me to, you know, talk about in terms of RTR, because RTR is like a really complex and challenging set of principles for improving interpersonal relationships.
And so it seemed odd to me that the only thing that he would focus on as something to talk about with the author is some details of a historical metaphor.
But, you know, we had the conversation and it was pleasant and positive.
And I published it in the Gold Plus section.
Slavery as Metaphor, I think, is the name of the podcast.
You can check it out if you've donated $100 or more.
And so later on, when we start mentioning about this conversation, I just wanted to put that in context so you understand it, what I was sort of saying was, look, you challenged me on a whole set of factual issues, and we had a very positive discussion about it, and I published it for... You know, hundreds and hundreds of people to hear any time that they want.
But when I challenged you on a factual definition, you got kind of passive-aggressive and evasive and manipulative and fogging and insulting, as sort of my experience was.
And so there was a real difference in the way that fact-challenging was experienced or was enacted by yourself and myself.
And that's just so you understand what we're talking about a little bit later in the conversation.
With that having been said, please take a bit of time to listen to this next podcast.
I think it's very important to help understand why papering over these issues rather than getting to the root of them doesn't really help eliminate conflict in the long run.
And this, of course, is a podcast that I think will be very helpful for you.
In your personal relationships, you know, what does it matter about a little fracas on a free domain radio chat board doesn't matter at all.
What does matter is getting to the root of conflict in relationships.
And this is a process that my wife and I have gone through a number of times when we've had odd and repetitive conflicts.
And so this is a process that I'm sort of offering to you As a way of not just reducing but eliminating these kinds of conflicts in your personal life.
And one conversation doesn't always do it, but this is the approach and the complexity that is at the root of these kinds of conflicts.
And so I hope that you will take to heart the lesson that's sort of in here about getting to the root of these conflicts.
So thank you for your patience and interest.
I look forward to your donations, and I will talk to you soon.
David? Yes.
It's your meeting. Yeah, I was wondering what happened.
It was not a textbook example of what I would consider a good interaction all around.
I don't mean that in a judgmental way.
Other than just an observation.
Would you agree with that?
Oh yeah, no question.
It wasn't positive for sure. Okay.
And I was wondering why that was.
what happened to derail that so ugly, so horrifically.
And I guess my question is, what was your experience of that?
I sensed frustration and irritation.
Is that accurate?
Oh sure, yeah, no question.
I guess my guess would be that it's because you I thought that I was dodging, that I was being dishonest or not honest.
Yeah, I mean, certainly my experience, and this was just my experience, so I think that there's some evidence for it, whether we accept that or not.
But certainly my experience was that I did not feel that you were scaling the highest possible heights of integrity and honesty, and I felt that there was...
There's not any way to move forward from my part in the discussion.
And so I didn't continue in the discussion because there was no...
I didn't feel that I was in an environment where I could rely on your integrity and honesty, which I know you have.
But in this particular environment, I didn't feel that it was there, which is just my feeling.
And so I felt frustrated and angry enough that there was not much point me staying in.
I felt angry and frustrated enough that there wasn't any point me staying in the interaction, if that makes sense.
Mm-hmm.
And that's just my experience, right?
I certainly don't have the final word on anything, but that was certainly my experience.
Right. And was that surrounding my refusal to admit about the word gossip, my use of the word gossip, Well, there were a few things that troubled me.
First of all, gossip is a negative word.
I mean, there's some words that have some sort of gray area meaning, but gossip is not one of them.
And I just sort of glanced over the chat log a little earlier, and you had said that you had known that it was a negative term, right, when you were a Christian.
Right. So when I said, I didn't know what the debate was about.
I mean, I think that you were talking about Aaron.
So I didn't know what the debate was about, but my experience was sort of come in and you're saying that it's not a negative term.
And that just struck me as an odd statement from, you know, a highly intelligent and educated person.
It struck me as a very odd statement to make, to say that gossip is not a pejorative or negative term.
So I said, well, it is.
I mean, you know, that's just, for me, that's not one of these gray areas in the definition.
So you said it's a neutral term, right?
And I said, no, it's not a neutral term, it's a negative term.
And then the definition was put forward where it said it's chiefly derogatory, and you said, ah, chiefly, right?
Not totally, right?
But that's a shift in definition, right?
If you say that something is neutral, And then you say, well, it's only chiefly derogatory, not totally – that's a shift in definition.
And that seemed to me kind of defensive.
Again, that was just my experience of it.
And so I didn't.
And then there was something about that – That, you know, that's not the way that I use the word and so on.
But of course, you don't get to make up any more than I do.
You don't get to make up definitions of words.
So, I found that to be sort of frustrating and unpleasant.
And then, and so I thought that, I mean, my experience was, or my story or perception was that you were just kind of being defensive, right?
And you were just kind of fogging, you know, or making stuff because you felt bad or frightened or angry or upset or something like that, that I was just saying, no, this is a factual statement that needs to be cleared up, right?
Because, anyway, we don't have to get into the because.
And then what happened, at least for me, was you then said that you already had apologized and it seemed to me that you hadn't.
And that, of course, raised my alarm bells because I was just saying, look, if you used a pejorative term and didn't mean to, you just apologized.
I mean, and we move on, right?
But when you start, to me, when you start sort of fogging and digging in and changing definitions and so on, my alarm bells go off, right?
Because that's, for me, I experience that as manipulative and destructive, and using the word destructive in a very loose way, right?
In a very, actually, let me not use the word destructive, because that's too exaggerated a term.
But to me, that occurs for me as a manipulative kind of behavior.
And so we couldn't move forward, right?
Because if there's a statement of fact that I feel is being evaded or dodged, then it's not – you can't move forward, right?
At least I can't in a sort of conversation.
And then I can't remember exactly what the phraseology was, but it was something like, you know, well, I guess Steph just wants me to apologize for using a nonstandard use of the word, right?
Sorry? Oh, yeah, and I'm sorry, finish the sentence, then I'll...
No, no, go ahead. There's no need for me to have a monologue.
Okay, yeah, I caught that at the time.
As being something that was inappropriate.
I definitely felt myself getting irritated and frustrated.
And it came out as very snarky and sarcastic behavior.
And I apologized for that in the chat room.
And I'd like to apologize again.
Because that was definitely not an honest way to deal with it.
And that's what stuck out for me.
In the conversation, more than the argument about what the word gossip, if gossip is chiefly derogatory, or if it can be used not in a derogatory manner, or if it's always a derogatory term rather than sometimes a derogatory term, or sometimes a descriptor, or if it had been the right word to use or not.
What stuck out for me was my reaction to it, was that the discussion was just Growing frustration and unacknowledged frustration, which, again, at the end, towards the end, I caught it.
And then you were talking to other people as if I wasn't there, which is also, to me, a kind of provocative thing to do.
Well, that's because Greg asked me a question.
Greg asked, oh, David, tell me more about this frustration.
I said, well, Greg, it's because I thought that you and I were having a conversation.
That was, you know, making some progress before stuff came in.
It was a direct response to something that Greg had asked me.
Right. No, that's quite right.
And so there was, for me, there was an experience of, oh, and there was like something about, I don't think it was you, or somebody was saying that, you know, we're just nitpicking about this, that, and the other, and I can't remember if that was you or somebody else.
And then, sorry?
Yeah, that was somebody else.
Yeah, and then so I generally got the sense that my perspective that this is a negative term was like, well, Steph's interfering with our great use of RTR. And so for me it was like, okay, well, I'm only the guy who came up with it, so don't let me interfere with your application of it, right?
Yeah. So, for me, I was just like, okay, well, this is not a welcome intrusion.
I'm not enjoying the interaction.
I don't have respect, which, and this just doesn't mean it's not respectful, it just means my experience was, I'm not respecting the integrity of the participants, I'm not enjoying the interaction, and people aren't welcoming my participation, so I'm not going to continue, right? I mean, there's no other logical thing to do at that point.
Right. The way that I experienced those last few exchanges was that I thought that I had done a positive thing by not debating the meaning of gossip and then moving on Not moving on,
but moving towards addressing the underlying feelings that were going on, or at least my feelings.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but...
And again, I wasn't here for this, and I just glanced over it, so I can't quote anything verbatim, but my understanding was that Greg was upset by your use of the word gossip, and when he said that he was upset, you said that you didn't mean it in a negative way, right?
Well, what I was specifically talking about there was...
Was the last few lines before you left, not earlier.
Like with you, I had stopped arguing about the meaning of the word gossip.
No, no, no. This is before I came along.
This is before I came along. Right, yeah.
I think we're talking about two different time periods.
Yes, so before I came along, you had used the word gossip, and Greg had said that he felt upset or unhappy or whatever.
I can't remember what he used about that word, right?
Right. And you said, well, I didn't mean it in a negative way, right?
I used to use that word in a negative way you said before, but I use it now as a descriptor, not as a pejorative.
Right.
Well, that's – I mean, I would say in my humble opinion that that – and this before I came along, that's where the conversation started to go off the rails.
Because you explained away his feelings as incorrect, right?
I don't...
I don't think that that's...
That certainly wasn't my intention, and I think that I probed around a bit about that more.
I think I said specifically that that's not what I meant, but that doesn't mean that that cures the The irritation.
Well, my understanding was, I mean...
That might have been in reference to something else that he had said.
So it might not have been in reference to the gossip thing.
Right. He said, I think it was just irritation at a sort of negatively charged word.
No one ever says your gossiping is a compliment.
And you said, right, I used to use it as a negatively charged word, but now I use it as a descriptor rather than an insult.
Right? Right. Well, if someone...
When I was a Christian, I would use it as such.
Right. So that's explaining away, right?
That's explaining away what he's...
He's not exploring what he's feeling, right?
Well, if someone shows up late to an appointment and comes up and The person there says, you know, I was feeling kind of frustrated and a little annoyed that you were late.
And he says, oh, my car broke down.
I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to make you upset.
It's like, oh, okay. But is that explaining away the frustration, or is that providing...
No, but David, this is the complexity, though, that we're dealing with, right?
And this is the reason why this went off the rails.
There's a lot of complex stuff, in my opinion.
But you know that the word gossip is generally perceived as a pejorative, right?
Because you used to use it in that way.
Right. Right?
Right. So if you choose to use that word about somebody, it is a pejorative 99.999% of the time, right?
No, you don't go up to somebody and say, you're a gossip, and they say, oh, thank you, right?
Right.
So, you know that it's a negative word, right?
Let's put it this way.
You know that it's perceived as a negative word because you yourself have used it.
I'm not trying to catch you or drag out some hideous thing.
I'm just saying that given that you have used it for most of the past as a pejorative term, using it against somebody, you at least have the understanding that it is very likely to be perceived in a pejorative way, right?
Yeah, that's certainly a possibility that I would No, it's more than a possibility.
Sorry to be a nitpicky guy, but that's what I do, right?
I nitpick. It's more than a possibility, right?
Because you used to use it as a pejorative term.
Right. Well, I also used to use it as a...
You said you used to use it as a negatively charged word.
At the risk of seeming like I'm splitting hairs, I used to use it as a Pejorative term, but I also used to use it as a descriptor.
Well, all I'm going is with what you said in the chat.
I used to use it as a...
Yeah, I know, and I'm clarifying that.
Now I use it as a descriptor.
And I'm clarifying that.
Right. But if you know that it is a negatively charged word, right...
And then you use it against somebody or in reference to somebody.
And I'm just trying to tell you, like, the important thing is to not get into this kind of mess, right?
I'm not saying this is all your fault or anything, but I'm just talking about this particular thing, right?
Because I think that my personal opinion is that you're far too intelligent to not get this, right?
I know that you're a very, very intelligent fellow, right?
You're far too intelligent to not get this, right?
Which means that there's a block, right?
In my opinion. That block doesn't mean that you're wrong about everything or this whole thing was your fault or anything like that.
But for sure, if you used to use a word, and you're very well educated and well read, if you used to use a word as a pejorative, Everybody experiences it as a pejorative, but then you redefine it for yourself as a descriptor or something like that.
Like, that doesn't work, right?
Like, I can't say, you're a jerk, and then say, but I'm not using that.
It's a neutral word for me.
Right, so it's like I wanted to insult him, but then I didn't want to admit that I wanted to insult him.
Because if I'm too smart to not realize it, then I must have known it when I said it.
Well, if it was the case, and look, I don't believe that you had any malicious intent here at all.
That's my opinion, right? I do believe that you used a word that was negative, and when someone got hurt, You didn't want to deal with that, and so you redefined the word into something else.
Are you saying that I redefined the word after?
Like, I had known full well that he was going to take offense to...
No, no. Sorry, I don't think that you consciously used the word to hurt him, or I don't believe that you consciously did any of this.
I think that you used the word And then what happened was someone said, hey, wait a minute, that's not a very nice thing to say to me.
And I think my opinion is that you kind of panicked a little, right?
No, no, no, I don't mean it in a negative way, right?
Do you think that I consciously, before I got called out or whatever on it, that I consciously was thinking that the word was a descriptor?
No, I don't think you were thinking consciously about it at all, because you're far too intelligent and far too well-educated to consciously think, I'm going to use the word gossip as a neutral word, and it's going to be fine.
Because that would be the action of somebody who was mentally retarded, right?
And you're not in any way, shape, or form, right?
I mean, you're a very, very smart fellow, and that's the respect that I've always given to you.
And so smart people don't use pejorative terms if they think about it, right?
So my guess, my sort of ridiculous pull-out-of-my-ass hypothesis, my ridiculous guess is that you grew up in an environment my ridiculous guess is that you grew up in an environment where language was really confusing and really Thank you.
Thank you.
Which would mean that I currently lack the ability to consider my language.
No, I think it's not that you lack the ability to consider your language.
I think, and you can tell me if this is at all on the right track or not, but I think that you grew up in an environment where this kind of stuff was not unknown, right?
This kind of like, what the hell happened?
How did everybody suddenly get so mad, right?
Oh, yeah, between my sisters and I, yeah.
Well, and it wouldn't occur between your sisters and yourself if it didn't occur with your parents.
Yeah, well, it's hard for me to confirm that with anecdotes.
No anecdotes call to mind.
And most of the ones that I remember are my parents reacting in that sort of way to my sisters and I.
In what sort of way?
Hello?
Hello?
Sorry, you just kind of hizzed out a bit there, but go ahead.
Oh, okay. Just sort of...
My sisters and I would bicker all the time.
All the time. And every so often, my...
My parents would try and snap down on that.
I don't know if that's the sort of thing you're thinking of?
Not particularly, no.
Well, tell me how is it that your parents handled aggression or assertiveness or that kind of stuff?
In what context?
In the context of standing up to them?
Let me ask it in a bit more of a simple way.
Were you scared of your dad?
Yeah.
I remember being scared of my dad sometimes.
I mean, he wasn't a physically abusive dad, but I think that you...
I mentioned this in I know you did a podcast on it where my dad would get mad at my sisters and I and would like ruffles newspaper and stomp out of the room in response, which was a terrifying experience.
Why was that terrifying? Well, it's like Nothing ever came of it other than just dad being in a grumpy mood.
But for kids, dad in a grumpy mood can be bad enough.
Well, why? What would happen when he was in a grumpy mood?
What's to be scared of, right?
right?
And I know, I mean, we don't just, you know, get scared for no reason, right?
Right.
I can't think of a physical reason that I would be scared.
It doesn't have to be physical. Sorry, it doesn't have to be physical.
In fact, I would be really shocked if it was physical.
What played out after he would get irritated or upset, would slam his paper down and would storm out of the room or stalk out of the room or something?
What would happen then? What would happen after that?
My sisters and I would be just sort of looking at each other with a sense of fear and sort of like, uh-oh.
But what would your dad do after that?
So let's say that this happened at 4 o'clock after school.
What would the dinner table be like if your dad had stalked out earlier?
Would it have any effect or would he be perfectly back to normal within 20 minutes or 10 minutes or half an hour or an hour or whatever?
He would appear back to normal.
He would actually appear almost exactly back to normal.
Okay, so he would be angry at something that you guys had done.
Right. He would leave the room, and then he would go...
He would be back to normal in 20 minutes.
Yeah. Does that seem strange to you at all?
Yeah. I'm not saying it's full or anything.
I'm just saying, does that seem strange to you at all?
Yeah, it seems very strange.
It seems that... I mean, if you look at what happened between you and I, it's been bothering both of us for days, right?
Right, yeah. So how on earth can you go back to normal in 20 minutes?
Well, it means that the feelings aren't authentic.
The feelings aren't authentic?
Which feelings? My father's feelings.
But which feelings?
We're talking about the angry feelings or the back-to-normal feelings?
Um... Well, one or the other.
Well, it seems like he was genuinely upset.
That doesn't mean that he was upset for a good reason, but it does seem that he was genuinely upset, right?
Right. Now, if he gets upset, leaves the environment, and never talks about it, and appears to be back to normal, what happens to those feelings?
They, um... Well, the answer is that they've got to go somewhere, but I have no idea where they would go.
Okay. Let me ask you this then, and I appreciate you going along with this.
I think it'll be helpful, but let me ask you this.
What would have happened if when you were 12 or 13 or 14, when your dad...
slammed down his paper and stormed out of the room or left the room in a huff.
If you'd have walked after him and said, Dad, it really bothers me when you do that, what would have happened?
Dad?
Because the way that you talk about it, which of course is entirely right, is that your dad didn't express himself.
He just left the room, right?
I was going to say that was his way of expressing, but that's a better word for that might be inflicting him.
Yeah, it's manipulative or inflicting or whatever.
But you and your sisters also were not self-expressed in that situation either, right?
Right. Because you weren't going after your dad and saying, Dad, what just happened here?
It's not nice for us when you slam the paper.
But what was happening?
Can we find a better way of doing this?
What's going on for you or whatever?
And kids can do that.
I've seen that happen.
If they feel that they can say, wait, that really bothered me, right?
I mean, kids can do that if they don't get a candy bar they want, right?
They can certainly do it if their dad's not doing something they like, right?
Right. I remember doing that with my mother.
Like, my father would get upset and storm out.
And either later in the day or later in the week, I would...
Say to my mother, you know, Dad, I don't like it when Dad does that.
And, um, I don't remember that happening when I was younger, like, talking to my mom about it.
I don't remember that happening when I was younger, but I remember having it, I remember it happening when I was, like, high school age, that my, um, that I would say to them, My mom, you know, I really don't like this whole repress, the emotion thing that dad does.
And she'd say, oh, I know.
I try to talk to him about it.
I know it's not the best way to deal with it, but that's just sort of the way your father is.
So that's the extent of trying to...
Trying to confront that.
Something is dancing on the edge of my memory here.
I don't know how accurate it is, but it's dancing on the edge of my memory that I did say that to my father once.
That I really didn't like how he was treating us.
But I can't... I can't place the full memory.
And you don't know what may have happened afterwards, right?
Right. And I'm not even 100% sure that I actually did start that conversation that might be a false memory.
Now, how did you...
There must be situations as you gained more in knowledge and education.
There must be situations where your dad said things that weren't true.
Right. Because you didn't like my slavery, parts of my slavery metaphor, right?
And so you came up to me and you said, you need to, you know, look at this, this, and this, and this, right?
Right. So this must have also occurred with your dad, because you're educated in things that he doesn't know about, right?
Right.
So how does your dad take correction?
I'm having trouble drawing a memory.
Let me try for another few seconds.
The only memories that are popping up are examples where he might play it off as if he was joking.
Okay.
Right, so he would say something that would be false and you'd correct him and say, oh, I was only joking, right?
Right, but I'm not sure if those examples were actual attempts at humor or just sort of...
Well, you know, right?
You know. Well, the thing is that these are all Yeah, well, yeah.
Now, do you realize just how, I don't know if you do or don't, right, how astoundingly strange this all is?
What aspects?
Every aspect that you could think of, to me.
And this is not to say that your dad is some monster or anything like that, but it is extraordinarily strange that you have almost no memory of interacting with your dad in any meaningful way that I can tell.
Yeah, he...
I mean, you're intellectually curious and you can't ever remember correcting him once?
Thank you.
You're learned and educated and love pursuing knowledge and you can't ever remember correcting your dad once?
What the hell do you all talk about?
The Red Sox.
So your dad must just hate being corrected.
I remember talking about about my atheism with him and And he seemed to just sort of shrug his shoulders and say,
oh, okay. Even though he had brought me to church and had been active in the church and making sure that I went on a weekly basis and all that stuff.
And how did it make you feel when he said, oh, okay.
It made me feel pretty crappy, because it was like this is something that he had been adamant about for 16 years.
And then when I said, you know, I don't think there's a God, he said, oh, well, okay.
And I didn't feel...
I didn't pursue that.
Why not? I'm not saying you should have.
I'm just curious because that would be the logical thing to do.
It would be like, what the fuck?
You dragged me to church for 16 years and 18 years and it turns out I can just change my mind whenever?
What the hell? Right.
Yeah, that would be the...
Your convictions, man.
So why didn't you pursue it?
It must have been that I knew how he would react and I wouldn't like it.
How would he?
I think that he would react with Apathy, and then if I pushed him on it, it would turn into defensiveness.
And what would that look like?
Um... He might say something like, oh, well, it's...
We did, um...
We did what we thought was...
was true and we and it's okay with us if you if you are an atheist Well, but sorry, you've read Untruth, right?
Right. So you would know enough to say, well, wait a second, Dad.
When I was five or six or seven years old, you didn't present religion to me like we think this is true, right?
Right. This seems to be true.
You presented it to me like it was true.
And now that I'm asking you questions or I have doubts, you're totally abandoning ship.
But that's not how you...
Or you're becoming all foggy and relative now.
That's not how you presented it to me when I was a kid.
Right. I hadn't...
I don't think On Truth was out yet.
But certainly the principles were there before the book was released.
And I would have...
That's what I was thinking.
At the time, it was like, you know, you didn't flick this on me for 18 years or 16 years, and it was a not very positive force in my life, all in retrospect.
Right, so why haven't you talked to your parents about this?
I'm sorry? Why haven't you never talked to your parents about this?
Well, now it's because I don't speak with them.
But before it would have been because...
Well, one possibility might be that it's because I didn't want to have to look that beast in the eye.
I have to look that abuse of morality and truth in the eye.
And not just that, but not just that abuse, but his...
His apathy towards the abuse.
Well, and it sure as hell wasn't apathy when you were a kid, right?
Right. Well, I mean, it would have been apathy towards me pointing out that it was damaging to me and that it had been false.
Okay, now what is it, what would we call somebody, or would there be a term that we would use for somebody, who bullies children with absolutes, and when those children then grow up and turn out to be, unfortunately, a little bit smarter than he'd hoped, he then gets all relativistic?
We call him dad.
We do, and what else?
We call him a bully.
And a coward. And a coward, yeah.
I mean, that's I think an important aspect of this, which seems to me a little bit under-processed for you.
Because it's horrible to look at our parents and just see them for who they are when it really is an unpleasant sight, right?
But, you know, he kind of lorded it over you when you were a kid, and he was the big Old Testament thunder god of truth, right?
And then you grew up and you started asking a question or two, and suddenly he's like, hey, you know, anything goes, right?
Right. And this might be a diversion, but it's something that I think might be relevant as far as correcting and having facts and things like that.
When I was younger...
I guess elementary school age, I would make these statements to my parents that would seem plausible to me, but weren't true.
And so they became known as Bubba Facts.
Like, oh, here's Here's Bubba here to give us another statement of dubious truth value.
And that was you, right?
Yeah, I was Bubba.
Right, so dubious truth value was something that was pretty painful for you, right?
Yeah, expressing things of dubious truth value.
Right, right. There was no curiosity, right?
There was no teaching you how to think or how to look things up or praising you for your creativity or anything like that.
You were just kind of marked, right?
Right, yeah. If I would ask a question, they would say, oh, go look it up.
We had a set of encyclopedias, and so if I had a question, my mother would say, well, go look it up.
And nine times out of ten, I'd go back to my room and not look it up.
Yeah, because what you want is a shared activity, right?
You want your mom to say, let's go look it up.
Yeah, that would have been nice.
That would have been wonderful. Yeah.
So why was your mom unable to talk to your dad about these sorts of things?
Was she afraid? Like, I don't understand the fear yet.
I'm not saying it's not real.
I just can't get the fear of your dad yet.
I forget what's scary.
He... When we would...
When he would...
You hear this weird thing about his feet?
Whenever he would stub a toe, or whenever someone would step on his foot, or drop something on his foot, or if he'd drop something on his foot, he'd get really agitated, and sometimes he would punch.
I remember one time, specifically, he was standing next to this cinder column that's in our kitchen, He either stubbed his toe or someone dropped something on his toe and he gets really, really mad when that happens.
And he punched this cinder column.
But that's the extent of why there would be fear in that sense.
And he didn't He wouldn't withhold resources or anything like that when he was angry.
He wouldn't withhold allowance or wouldn't...
Sorry, he wouldn't withhold resources when he was angry?
Well, the physical resources.
Well, fuck the physical resources.
Who gives a shit about that?
Excuse me. But that doesn't matter, right?
I'm trying to narrow down the...
But you realize, sorry, do you know why that statement just seemed so astounding to me?
No, go ahead.
Well, it seems to me that your dad withheld himself the whole goddamn time.
Right. Stayed at a distance, stayed in deep orbit, a cold critical eye, right?
definitely yeah so withholding resources he's withholding every resource yeah yeah and so the the fear was Sorry, sorry.
Wait, wait, wait. Do you see how you may be perceived as skimming over this a little bit?
Well, I wanted to get back to the...
I'm going to tie that...
Don't move on.
That's important. Because you're an intellectual, right?
Right. Right.
And what that means is that when you grasp something intellectually, and I know I'm an intellectual too, at least I pretend.
When you grasp something intellectually, you think you've got it, right?
Right. So you're like, oh yeah, my dad withheld himself.
Check, I understand that.
Okay, to move on, right?
And that's the source of the fear.
Go on. And that's what I was trying to say, to draw that back to the fear, make the connection that the withdrawal of himself was what I was afraid of.
Okay, forget what I said.
Completely irrelevant. Although I think the intellectual thing is true, it doesn't matter in this case.
So when he would withdraw himself, what would that mean to you emotionally?
It was isolating.
Very isolating and hurtful.
It made me feel very alone.
Right.
Do you think that your father was aware how his withholding of himself affected you?
I think that...
Did he know, sorry, to put it in another way, did he know that you were scared of him?
.
Thank you.
If he...
I think that he must have known at some level.
I mean, just a glance at my face as he was stomping through the living room with a Would have tipped him off pretty heavily.
Or the fact that you don't like to talk to him about anything personal, though, that's important to you.
Right. Right.
This is a guy you salute from across the quad at best, right?
Right. So, and he consistently did things that made you feel anxious and uneasy and unsafe, right?
Or not secure.
Right, yeah. I was going to say, do you mean that I feel not secure?
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Right, because when you are a parent, if you withdraw yourself from the child, that is just about the most aggressive thing that you can do.
Right. So, if your dad knew how his actions made you feel, Negative feelings, bad feelings, unpleasant, painful, fearful feelings.
And he consistently did that to you.
What else do we know about him?
I'm not sure.
Well, what would we say would be a character trait of somebody who consistently and voluntarily inflicts pain and suffering on another human being?
An abuser. And a sadist.
Right. Right.
Because he enjoyed, he must have enjoyed it, because we don't do things for no reason, right?
We're not determined, but we don't do things completely randomly, right?
Particularly when those things are consistent over a long period of time.
So we may be getting a little closer to What is so scary about your dad is that you have, it seems like, almost no bond with him.
And the reason that you have no bond with him is because he breaks that bond whenever he wants to, right?
If he's displeased, fuck you, right?
I used to think that we had a bond by doing stuff together.
He was very involved in Boy Scouts, but that's not That's not a bond.
That's not a real bond. No, my brother and I founded a company together, worked side by side for years.
Absolutely, it's not a bond.
Right. The bond was not something I could depend on.
It was not something I could trust.
Right, right.
Which is not a bond, right?
Right.
Go on.
Well, I started, this might be where the intellectualism really kicks in, but I started looking, searching just now, back trying to understand how that could have, what was prompting my father to do that, going through what I... Was prompting your father to withhold himself?
Yeah, to act...
To be a salist.
And I was looking through and thinking back through his childhood.
Well, you'll never know. I mean, maybe you'll be the first, right?
But if you're like everybody else, that is a fruitless quest.
You will never...
Like, of course, as an intellectual, you want to understand the root causes and so on, right?
Right. But that's not going to work for you.
All I'm going to run into is his mythology.
The only information I have access to would be his mythology about what his childhood was like.
Well, sure, but much more importantly than that, I think, David, is that What you do by running to try and understand your father is avoid your own experience, right?
I don't think that's necessarily true, but maybe you could tell me more.
Sorry, is somebody making a crinkling noise?
That's me, sorry. Okay.
Well, would you say that there has been some, I don't know to whatever degree it may be surprising or radical, but some illumination of things in this conversation, right?
I think so.
I don't actually know.
No, it feels just like it's...
It seems as though it's almost like I've covered this before.
So you came into the conversation with a fairly good understanding that your father was a sadist?
And that he with himself from you consciously, well, we don't know, it doesn't matter the degree to which consciously, but consistently for many years, and that he was a coward, because he inflicted his rank opinions upon you when you were helpless, and then when you gained some power.
he shrugged and cast them off.
which meant that he only ever had those convictions to bully you, not because he believed in a goddamn thing, right?
I mean, if all of that's stuff that you already knew, that's fine.
I just want them to understand.
Because it seemed new to me, but it's me, right?
I don't mean completely new, like you thought your dad was a saint and now he's revealed it's not, but in terms of...
Certainly more clarity and more moral clarity and more moral understanding in that, yeah.
Right, and then when you have some way of framing...
Your experience with your father, the first thing that you want to do is try and understand his motivations, right?
Right. Right.
That's... I don't think...
I mean, in fact, I'm quite sure that that's not going to give you what you want in terms of happiness and peace of mind.
Because it's not your dad's experience that you need to understand, right?
Yeah, it's mine.
Yeah, because your childhood seems like a massive fog to me.
I'm trying to think about a time when I ever disagreed or corrected my father.
Right. That's a huge fog, right?
Right. I mean, I had a crazy-ass abusive mom.
I can remember just on the top of my head probably 50 to 100 times.
And I bet you when I started talking about them, which I won't, but if I did, more of would come up, right?
But for you, there's a big fog, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Well, that's the fog that...
I mean, to me, that's where you need to go, right?
Your father's motivation won't clear up the fog of your history, right?
Because you feel, okay, well, if I understand my father's motivations, then I'll understand something about my history.
But I don't think you will. Because it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter why your father did what he did.
Because when you were a child, it didn't matter.
And that explanation of why he did what he did wouldn't have done a goddamn thing for you as a kid, right?
Yeah, you're right.
And it's that inner kid thing or our early experience and so on that we need to sympathize with.
Because the danger of growing up with largely dissociated parents or let's just say a distant and cold father is that you will try and think through situations and also that you will Be disconnected from yourself, right? That I'll act unconsciously?
Well, that you will not...
Because when we started talking about your childhood experiences, even tangentially, you went off into analyzed land, right?
Right. And that's what I mean by being disconnected from yourself, right?
Yeah. Because obviously it felt like shit to be raised by this dad, right?
And it felt like shit particularly because I bet you there were times when he was fun, right?
Yeah. Like he had a good show going on, right?
Everybody thinks he's a great dad, right?
Boy Scouts and church, right?
Mm-hmm. Right.
Right. Now, the last thing that I'll talk about, at least from my side, is how did your dad correct you, right?
So, if you made a mistake, I really don't have any memories that are coming to mind of that happening.
Well, in my opinion, then this is why the chat room went nuts, right?
Well, the bubble fact thing that I talked about.
Yeah, you mentioned that earlier for sure, but if you can't remember how a cold and somewhat cruel dad corrected you, right, then...
Then all of that pain is entirely unprocessed, which means it's going to erupt in ways that you don't understand, right?
Well, the thing with the coldness is that most of the time it took on a warm, friendly veneer, except for when my sisters and I were We're bickering.
And even in the last conversation I had with my parents where I was talking about what it was like, some of the things we're talking about now,
the abandonment or the emotional coldness, even though my father didn't Didn't appear angry.
Still sort of kept that smiling visit, smiling face.
And when he went to correct or to disagree with me about what What my experience was growing up, he shook his head and said, no, that's not how it happened.
He sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, well, that's not how it happened.
You're remembering incorrectly.
Right, so he was certain that you were wrong, and he just flat out said, you're wrong, right?
Right. Right.
And that might have happened earlier in my life as well.
Oh, I'm sure it did.
And so what happened in the chat room?
What did I say that triggered all of this?
Well, you came in and...
And the first thing you said was, well, it wasn't the very first thing, but the first thing you said about the subject was, it's not liable if it's true, it's not gossip if it's accurate,
in my opinion, and just sort of, oh, okay, this is where I started getting really snarky and And I said, Steph, I'm not using gossip as a slur or a negative, just as a descriptor.
And you said, oh, it's a negative.
No question about that.
And then I said, oh, well, never mind.
That's when you got mad, right?
Yeah, yeah. Because you immediately, you just withdrew, right?
You were just like, okay, fine, fine, right?
Right, yeah. I take it back.
It wasn't gossip. And that's really annoying, right?
Yeah. Because if you have firm convictions and then someone challenges you on it and then you just immediately throw your hands up and say, fine, I'm going to change my mind completely, everybody knows that's bullshit, right?
Right. That you're just pissed off, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Right, so clearly, at least clearly to me, right, it's just my opinion, clearly when I came in and made an absolute statement, this is not open to question, it is a negative or pejorative term, that pissed you off, right? Right.
And earlier we were saying that when you were trying to explain all of the complexities of your history to your dad, he was like, nope, you're just wrong.
No question, right? Right.
So, because there's no possibility that I could have pissed you off with that statement to the degree that it got, right?
Right. I've got to be completely free to disagree with you about the definition of the word and be certain, right?
I could be wrong. Maybe somebody would come up with a definition that said, gossip means you're draped in flowers, right?
Maybe I would have been completely wrong.
God knows it's happened before, and without a doubt it can happen again, right?
But I'm perfectly free to come in and disagree with you about a word, right?
Right. And be certain about it, right?
I mean, you came and disagreed with me about slavery, and you were certain about it, right?
Right. I didn't dump all over you.
I invited you in.
Tell me more, right? Right.
So, I'm free to come in and disagree with you, right?
Yeah, you have to be.
Well, I don't have to be.
I am, right? Just as you're free to disagree with me, right?
Right. Now, you understand that intellectually, right?
Right. But what happened for you was a whole complex series of historical defenses came into play, right?
Unprocessed anger at your parents, unprocessed anger at your childhood and at your inability to communicate thing one of your childhood with your dad who just flat out told you you were wrong, right?
So when someone comes in and abruptly and certainly corrects you, what happens?
Well, it reminds me of all those.
Reminds me of my dad.
Well, I'm going to go one step further, though, David, and say it doesn't remind you of all of those things.
It becomes those things.
Right? If it reminded you of those things, you would say, holy shit, this really reminds me of my dad, but this is Steph, not my dad, so whatever, right?
Right. And I had that experience.
Sorry, go on. I had that experience on a more conscious level at the end of the chat.
I think I started waking up from that sort of thing towards the end where I caught myself being very sarcastic and snarky and said, you know, let's slow down and examine that a little bit.
At least that was what I was consciously thinking when I said...
I apologized for being...
for the sarcasm and later on in the conversation and said...
I think that was after I got gone?
No, no, that was while you were still here.
Let me see here. I don't recall that, so I could have missed it.
Well, I said...
I said...
Sean said something about...
Sean said, isn't gossip another word for small talk?
I've seen it used like that.
And then I said, only derogatorily, though, Sean.
And then I immediately said, I'm sorry, I'm feeling frustrated.
Sorry for the sarcasm, that is.
Right. But the sarcasm was...
Was directed at Sean, but it was certainly aimed at you.
Well, I'm not sure what that means.
That's too complex for me to follow in a chat room, but you see here when...
Sorry, but you said that the word was only used in a derogatory manner in this section, right?
I'm sorry? Here it says, the word is only used, only derogatorily though, Sean, you said, right?
Right. So do you see how my head is spinning at this point?
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say.
That's what I'm trying to say was that that was sarcastic.
And it was meant as a...
Oh, like you were rolling your eyes, like, oh yeah, but only derogatorily, right?
Yeah. Yeah, sarcastically.
And so that's what I mean when I say that the sarcasm was directed at Sean, but intended for you.
Yeah. Does that make sense?
Well, it doesn't work, though, right?
Because then you say to Steph, Steph, I'm really sorry for this, I don't know what's going on, or whatever, whatever, right?
But to me, you certainly didn't apologize to me, right?
Look, I'm just saying, like, because you say, and look, I'm not demanding an apology now, it doesn't matter, for me the time has passed, but you say that you woke up to it, right?
But what I would understand by the phrase waking up from it is, oh my god, right?
I've just been kind of snarky, right, to a guy that I kind of like and respect, or whatever, right, and who's been pretty kind to me, and so on and so on, right?
And who accepted my criticisms with grace and, you know, published them openly so that people could hear them and so on, right?
Because that's the way. When you corrected me, it was open, it was published, you know, whatever, right?
Right. And so some guy came and corrected me, and it turns out that he was pretty right.
I was pretty right about the word, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Because I said it was negative.
You said it was neutral.
It turns out to be chiefly negative, right?
Right. So I was more right than you.
And I'm not trying to win any points here.
I'm just looking at the facts, right?
I mean, I'm not right about everything all the time, but in this situation, I was much more right than you were, right?
Just about this word. I don't mean about the whole thing, but just about this word.
Right. Yeah, and it's definitely...
The case that it is usually intended as a derogatory term.
Right. So, to me, waking up is saying, oh my god, I just got really snarky and hostile towards a guy who took my corrections with grace, who was actually right, so what should I do?
Okay, so I guess I didn't wake up.
Well, but what should you do?
Well, if I had woken up, I should have said, Steph, I'm very sorry that I was...
I should have been more direct and explicit.
Sorry, sorry. More direct and explicit?
I should have been... Because for me, you weren't at all express and direct.
In fact, what happened was, you didn't communicate me with it all for days.
Right. Right.
And, I mean, just my interpretation of that was that it...
Yeah, I guess I... Come on, I know that you thought I was being a jerk, right?
There's no way that you could have sustained a couple of days of treating me not too well, right?
You weren't being abusive. It's nothing like that, right?
But it was not your greatest moment, right?
I mean, and we all have them, right?
We all have them, obviously, right?
But there's no way that you could have sustained a couple of days of not apologizing to me without turning me into a bad guy, right?
It's not possible. So what was your story about me that sustained...
And this is just so you can understand, right?
Because you say you woke up, and I would question that, right?
And not because I want to get you or put you down or grind you down, but just because what I mean by waking up is quite different from what you mean.
And if I can sort of give you that distance or give you that gap, then you won't think you've woken up if you haven't, right?
Which would be terrible, because then you think like, ooh, you know, I'm awake, but I'm not, right?
Okay.
So when you were talking to people about this you said, "Staff..." what?
Now, I'll accept that you don't remember things that happened 10 or 15 years ago, I know for sure that you remember exactly what you said.
And I'm not trying to grind you down or anything like that.
Like, I just genuinely...
We all have to look at our dark side.
And I've, you know, I have to look at mine pretty much every day.
This is...
Okay. The story was that I was waking up.
And that I... This is the story.
Okay? Yeah, yeah. Okay.
It sounded like you were poised to jump on the...
On the point there. That I was...
That I was waking up and becoming conscious of the...
Of what I was...
Of my sarcasm and snarkiness.
And that I was starting to talk about that.
And then... And then you left.
Right. And why did I do that?
In this story? In this narrative, right?
In the story it would be because you...
I guess that it would be because you are...
that you're a hypocrite.
Yeah, okay, and what else?
That you are interested in...
that you say you're interested in exploring feelings, but when we start...
when I stop talking about Right, so I'll talk a lot about RTR, but then when an actual conflict occurs, I just storm out, right?
Right, and it immediately reminded me of my father.
Well, yeah, I mean, I think that when I came in and said, no, it's a negative term, no question, right?
That this was dead land already, right?
In my opinion. Right.
And I became very conscious of that.
I became very conscious that there was a dead element of it.
Once you left, and I felt that feeling like I was 10 again.
But then you got more mad at me, right?
Now Steph's making me feel as bad as when my dad was around, right?
I'm sorry? But then you got more mad at me, because then it was like, now I feel as bad as when my dad was around.
Steph totally reminds me of my dad, right?
Yeah. I didn't go back far enough with it in the conversation.
With that realization and go back to the beginning with that realization.
Right, right, right.
Okay, so what happened was then you were just about to, I don't know, transform the conversation with an apology or this and that, but I stormed out not giving you a chance in violation of all of my own principles, right?
Right. So Steph becomes a hypocrite.
Steph becomes somebody who talks a big talk but doesn't walk the walk and that kind of stuff, right?
Right. In the narrative or whatever, right?
In the narrative, yeah. Right.
And so you don't need to apologize, right?
Right. I think that the...
The story was that I had tried to apologize, and then that had gotten me nowhere.
Right, right. So it's like, I tried to apologize, the guy just slammed the door in my face, and so forget it.
I've already tried. I'm not going to sit there and beat my head against the wall.
I'm not going to do this little dance for him until he's satisfied, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Right. Right.
And was this something, I mean, obviously, you must have talked about this with other people, right?
Right. So this story went around to other people, right?
Steph's a hypocrite, this and that, right?
I think that it was more...
Sorry, that's a yes-no thing.
Again, sorry to be an annoying guy, right?
That's sort of a yes-no question, right?
Obviously, you must have, because if it's mythology, we can't keep it to ourselves, right?
Like, there's not one Christian.
They all have to get together, right?
Mythologies require that they spread to other people, right?
Yeah, I definitely put that idea forward to get people's opinion I definitely put that idea forward to get people's opinion of it.
It wasn't Wait, you mean like, no, you can't have.
And again, look, I know my own dark side, so I know what I would do in your situation, and it's not like I've never done it before, right?
But I wouldn't put it forward as a theory, right?
I would put it forward as a, this is what happened.
That sounds right.
With Well, you tell me, is that what you did, right?
And again, I'm not trying to pin you to the wall, right?
I'm just trying to sort of give you a sense of what happens, because I'll provide you an alternative, right?
An alternative way of doing things, but you kind of went out, and as we all do when we feel wronged and so on, you went out and you tried to enroll people into your story, right?
And the way that we know whether we're doing that or not, if we put it out as a genuine theory, then what happens is people give us feedback and we incorporate that, right?
Right. Yeah, you either incorporate it or you analyze it.
I mean, you don't automatically incorporate everything, but you put it through a vetting process or something like that.
Right, and I know that you weren't doing that because you didn't apologize.
I'm sorry, I don't quite apologize.
Well, I know that you weren't going out to the other people in the chat or whatever and saying, this is what occurred, what do you think, right?
Right. Or going to people who would be sort of knowledgeable and say, this is what happened and gave an accurate description or whatever, right?
Because I think that people would have given you the feedback that may not have been in accordance with your story, which would have helped to wake you up, right?
Oh, uh...
One...
The idea might be that I had...
that I... I think that on a conscious level, I didn't go trying to recruit people to the Step is an Evil guy club.
But... I certainly did express that story, and I solicited feedback on it.
And did you get feedback that changed your mind about it?
No.
Right.
So that means that you weren't out soliciting feedback, right?
Yeah, even though I thought I was.
No, agreed. Look, even though, look, you genuinely thought and felt that you're in the right.
I fully understand that.
You weren't like, boo-ah-ha, I'm going to, you know, I'm in the wrong and I'm going to spread all this nonsense.
I understand all of that.
I'm not saying that you sort of set out to do anything malicious or nasty or anything like that, but we're just trying to look at the facts, right?
Right. Right.
Right. So that's not, just between you and I, and I guess the garden fences, that's not what I would call waking up.
And for myself, and again, we all have these temptations, and Lord knows I've been known to be snarky, right?
But waking up is...
You know, I did something unjust.
I'm not a bad person for doing something unjust, right?
Because the reason that you don't want to take on that you did something unjust is because for you, it feels like the bottom is going to fall out and you're going to fall forever, right?
Right? It's hard for you to look in the mirror and say, man, I can be a bit of a jerk, right?
And still feel like a good person, right?
Right, yeah. It's an either or, right?
Either I'm right or I'm fucked, right?
I'm either a good person who does nothing wrong or I'm a bad person who does nothing right.
So waking up is not the right phrase to use there.
I'm sorry?
Sorry, go on. Yeah, I know.
I know you're using my phrase and I did not use a good phrase there is what I was trying to say right there.
And so I still...
I still can't...
I still have the feeling that I was doing...
That it was...
If it wasn't waking up, and it wasn't waking up, that I was making a step Oh yeah, look, credit for that.
You didn't go limey on me, right?
So full credit for that.
Yeah, God no. No, seriously, seriously, full credit for that.
Honestly, I mean, I'm not saying you did everything wrong or anything like that, right?
Right, but I think that what might have happened, or there's good evidence to show that what happened was I took that small step that I took in Trying to talk about what was going on emotionally rather than talking about the gossip.
I took that step and blew it out of proportion.
Right, and I would say...
And I used that as the basis for the rest of that mythology that I had tried to do good and Step had rebuked me and was not...
Was not treating me justly.
Right, right. And I'm going to say something completely surprising here, but hopefully it's surprising, right?
The reason that I think what was missing in this step was empathy for yourself.
That I jumped from...
Well, what step?
The reason that you didn't apologize is you didn't have empathy for yourself.
And you would, I mean, it would be hugely unlikely for you to have, given your childhood, easy, well, it's impossible that you would have easy and natural empathy it's impossible that you would have easy and natural empathy with yourself.
Because nobody had empathy with you when you were a kid, right?
Like, you even say, just to jump back in time a second, and I understand why, but I would oppose it to my dying death, to my dying day.
You say... My father got mad because my sisters and I were bickering.
And that's not true. Your sisters and you were bickering because your parents were shitty.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's an effect.
It's not a cause, right? Yeah.
But you still put yourself as the proximate cause of that.
But that was the effect of bad parenting.
Right. Kids bicker when they're alienated, when they're scared, when they're lonely, when they're bitter, when they feel discarded, when they feel worthless.
That's what bickering... And couples do that, too.
They bicker because they feel worthless.
With couples, it's a difference because they're an adult and they've made a choice.
But with kids, I mean, you bickered because of the bad parenting, right?
The manifestations of bad parenting did not occur because you were bickering.
But the way that...
It would make no sense for you to have easy empathy with yourself because nobody had any empathy with you and it was not modeled for you, right?
I mean, your dad didn't have empathy for anyone, right?
Yeah. And your mom was no better.
Go look it up. Right?
And so, I can only tell you what works for me and maybe it'll work for you as well, right?
So, when I do something unjust...
Then what I say to myself is, hey, I just did something that was jerky, right?
I did something that was mean.
I just did something that was underhanded.
I just did something that was manipulative.
I just did something that was wrong.
This must come from a place, because I'm a good person who wants to do good, and if I do something that's wrong, it must be because I was taught something really bad or got a really bad lesson when I was a kid.
Because I'm not a malicious person, I'm not a malevolent person, so if I do something that's mean, it's got to be scar tissue, right?
Right. And that doesn't mean that I don't have responsibility for it, it doesn't mean that I don't make a commitment to not do it again, but if I do something mean, it's got to be scar tissue, right?
Right. And the way that I avoid doing mean things is not to get mad at myself and not just blame others and make up stories, although God knows that's tempting, right?
But to say, this must come from a place that's really hurt in me that I didn't know about, right?
Right. I can be a good person who did a bad thing because I had a bad lesson, right?
Right. There's a movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and there's this guy who joins the family, joins this Greek family, and there's this brother in the movie, this Greek brother, who teaches him Greek phrases, right?
And he says, this is how you say thank you for the cake, right?
So then his potential mother-in-law hands him a cake, and he says to her in Greek, nice tits.
Because he was taught the wrong phrase, right?
Right. But that's not the same as him wanting to insult his mother-in-law, right?
Right. So, if you are able to look at yourself and say, it's not either-or.
It's not, if I admit fault, I am suddenly a bad person, doomed forever, and I'm going to be attacked from here to eternity, right?
But I just did something that was kind of jerky and mean.
So I must have got a bad lesson here because I really genuinely want to be a good person.
And I want to do what it takes to do the right thing.
So if I did the wrong thing, it's got to be scar tissue and I got to go and figure out what that scar is, right?
Because the fundamental lack of empathy that you had was not towards me but towards yourself, right?
Yeah. Because once you're sorry that whatever made you do this happened to you, once you're sorry that it happened to you, you can be sorry that it had this effect on other people.
Right? Right.
Like, when I apologize to people, what I'm really saying is, I'm really sorry that this happened to me, and I'm sorry that I then did it to you.
But the first thing you have to say is, I'm really sorry this happened to me to begin with.
Because you didn't choose these parents.
You didn't look down from heaven and say, not those warm, caring couple, not that nice, loving couple.
I'm going to take the cold, sadistic bastards, right?
You didn't want to learn those lessons.
You didn't want to have a dad who stalked out of the room, who didn't talk to you, who you can't remember a goddamn thing about.
That's not what you wanted, right?
So you didn't want to be in a situation where you're in a chat room and get inexplicably angry for reasons that don't make any sense and then get fussed up and make up stories.
That's not what you want, right?
Right. And that's not what you wanted, but that's the effect of what you got.
And that's the horrible and positive thing about life, is that we've got to play with the hands we've got, but we can play them intelligently, right?
And since you are such an intelligent person, that's...
That's the route that I would say forward, that you can do a mean thing, or you can be sarcastic or mean-spirited or whatever.
You can be aggressive and still be a good person, right?
You just got to have empathy with whatever causes you to go to that dark place, right?
Yeah.
And that's what I mean by waking up.
Right.
Right.
I have devils within me.
I didn't make them.
I didn't want them.
I didn't buy them.
I didn't choose them, but they're here.
And we've got to learn to work together.
And.
And what are you thinking or feeling at the moment?
I'm trying to collect myself.
Well, something happened, I think, to you emotionally over the last minute or two, and you can tell me what that is.
There's no need to collect yourself.
We can all be a big fat mess here if we want, right?
The last couple of minutes with this idea of empathizing with myself.
I felt it just about the instant that you first said it several minutes ago.
I'm sorry, was that clear?
My hand was covering my mouth.
I think I got it, but just say it again, or if you don't mind, just make sure I... Sure, sure.
That I... I felt it immediately, almost, it actually was immediately as you were starting to, as you said that it was a fundamental lack of empathy for myself in the past couple of minutes.
It's been sort of Weeping and muting my microphone if you're so often to blow my nose.
Right.
And what is the feeling that's behind that?
Uh, pain, uh, pain that I, uh, pain that I, uh, that, uh, and, uh,
uh, and this meant me that I don't quite, uh, get it, get it yet, uh, but, uh, I feel, uh, some, uh,
some shame for not, uh, for, uh, For how I treated you and the very basic distrust that I had for you and for some of the people that I spoke with afterwards.
Well, I appreciate that.
And that's why I said I don't think that, I think that that might mean I don't quite fully understand it yet, or that it's avoiding focusing on the real source or that it's avoiding focusing on the real source of the pain.
Yeah.
And that sounds an awful lot like the...
It's like a...
Almost as if I'm feeling it, but my...
I'm feeling the pain, but still talking about the...
about the things that I did to...
instead of feel that pain.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I appreciate what you're saying, but it's the empathy with yourself that you need to get to, and I think, and you don't have to do this live, you don't have to do this with me, I mean, they don't want to push anybody into a corner, right?
If you want to talk about it, great.
If you want to sit and think about it, that's great too, but it's that sadness and that pain that is totally counterintuitive place that you have to go so that this stuff, so that you can not have this stuff happen, right?
Right, yeah, and I don't Yeah,
yeah. I guess I'm not Connecting it.
I mean, because I had the immediate and overwhelming emotional upheaval and experience when you proposed the idea that I should try to...
that really the The way out is to empathize with myself, and the way forward is to empathize with myself.
I had the emotional experience when you said that, and now that I'm putting it into words, it's almost as if when I'm trying to put it into words, I'm reverting it back to what it was before I felt the emotion.
Right, right. Well, I mean, the way that you're going to feel this is probably through, you know, slow breathing and physical relaxation, perhaps massage, or I mean, there's lots of, because for you, the words become a barrier sometimes, right?
Yeah. So, and that's fine, right?
I mean, we've had a long call, so I don't want to sort of exhaust you completely, but so that's sort of the stuff that I wanted to get across in terms of, like, it's not, obviously, it's not about a word definition, and it's not about this, and it's not about that.
The roots of this stuff go very deep, right?
If we don't know where these things are in ourselves and we don't work to have some sympathy for how we ended up with these issues or problems, then we do tend to recreate stuff, right?
Because you felt isolated over the last couple of days, right?
Yeah. Right.
And that's because...
You were lacking empathy for yourself.
You were appealing to mythology and so on, which again, I'm not in any big high tree casting down aspersions, because we all have this temptation, and God knows we all do it, right?
So this is nothing like that.
But what happened was, because you got overtaken by the past, you ended up recreating the past, right?
So you recreated the kind of isolation that occurred for you, right?
And a fear of a loss of community in the way that you felt a fear of the loss of your parents, right?
Or rejection by a community in the way that you felt a fear of the rejection by your parents, right?
Right. This is the Simon the Boxer thing, right, that's in the RTR book.
Right. And so this is about, you just got to go back and remember and have some empathy with just the Horrible stuff that you went through.
And, you know, we all have this temptation to compare it to other things.
Like, well, I was never beaten in this.
But that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the original experience, which we integrate, absorb, and it gives us much deeper wisdom.
Once we have the empathy with ourselves, we end up not having to apologize that much because we don't end up in these situations.
But without the empathy for ourself, this stuff erupts, right?
And it just catches us by surprise.
And suddenly we're like, where the hell am I? What the hell happened, right?
Right. So, I mean, that's all that I had to say.
was there anything else that you wanted to add?
I'm not fishing for anything else.
I'm just curious.
You don't have to say anything, right?
I'm just wondering. Right, yeah.
I... And there's nothing you should say, again, just in case you think, is Steph waiting for an apology?
It's nothing like that. I mean, I just wanted to add.
I actually was thinking back.
I want to apologize, but I got the sense that you didn't think that it'd be appropriate at this point.
Well, it's not what I think, right?
I mean, you should do what you feel is right, right?
But you certainly shouldn't do it because I think it's right or wrong, right?
Unfortunately, I missed that whole cult bandwagon back at the beginning, much though I'd like to reiterate it sometimes now or reinstate it.
It seems to be beyond my control.
So, yeah, I mean, whatever you feel is right or if you feel like you want to think about it or whatever, I mean, that's, you know, because you've had a whole lot of being ordered around in your life and having to conform to other people's needs and expectations, right?
Right. I truly do feel sorry and I apologize for how I acted,
for how I treated you. It's not the It wasn't with the trust that you've shown empirically and experientially.
I acted against all the All the experiences that I had with you through talking on the boards and talking on the chats and being helpful and a trustworthy person to That I should have...
I'm sorry, I'm really having...
Look, don't worry about it.
Don't worry about it. You can take your time.
To me, the apology doesn't matter.
I mean, I appreciate the sentiment.
I really do, right? But...
Sorry, there is one last thing that I'll say very briefly.
But this is why I didn't stay in the chat room.
Because I knew how deep this went.
And I knew that there's no conceivable way that we were going to get this coming on for two-hour conversation with all of the complexity and the emotionality of that in a chatroom.
I also knew that I was mad enough in that interaction and felt angry enough that I couldn't type something nice, right?
Right. And that there's no way that this, how deep this went, could have been resolved in that chat room.
Right. I also knew that it was not going to be possible, or I believed that it was not going to be possible, for you to turn it around on your own, not because you're weak and not because you're bad, but because the stuff goes so very deep, right?
Mm-hmm. So, I mean, that's why.
I mean, I know that it appeared like, well, Steph's just mad and he stormed off and so on, right?
And I was mad, no question, right?
But I knew that this was deep enough that it could not be dealt with in a chat window.
Right. And...
And I couldn't fake an empathy for you that I didn't feel at that time.
Because God knows that wouldn't have helped you at all, right?
Like if I come across like cloying and all Buddhist-y and shit like that and namaste and tell me about your feelings because I was mad, right?
And my anger, in my view, was healthy, right?
Not because you're some massive prick or anything like that, but my anger was healthy because...
There was something unpleasant that was going on.
There was something that was negative towards me insofar as it was not me who provoked it, but it was me it was being taken out on.
So my anger was, in my view, I always take this general position as I've talked about in podcasts, my anger was really healthy because there was a boundary violation and a trust violation from my standpoint, but that didn't make you an evil guy.
So when people talked about this, when we talked about this afterwards, and people said, that was abusive, I said, it was not abusive.
He's not an evil guy.
He was not being abusive.
I thought that he was being dishonest.
Right? And not because you're a dishonest person.
I mean, God, if you were a dishonest person, I wouldn't bother talking to you at all.
But in that moment, there was not honesty.
But also, I felt that was not the capability for honesty because the roots of this stuff went so deep and you weren't having empathy for yourself, right?
Right. Just so you understand, I mean, it doesn't matter, but just so you understand my perspective in that moment.
Right. And...
What were you feeling in the day or two that had passed after that?
Well, I was not feeling particularly hopeful.
I certainly was aware that because you hadn't apologized that you were going to be out sewing stories.
I also knew that you were tortured by this, but that you weren't able to find your way to empathy with yourself.
And therefore, in order to apologize to other people, we have to forgive ourselves first, right?
Otherwise, the apology comes across in a way that doesn't work, right?
If I forgive myself for being bad, then I can really apologize to someone and focus on them, right?
But if I don't forgive myself for doing something wrong, I can't apologize in any meaningful way, and I try to avoid that, because otherwise, to me, I end up being manipulative.
But... But, yeah, and I was like, well, shit, I mean, I'm not going to talk about this with David in the chat room, right?
So when you came into the chat room, I never sort of like, ooh, I really want to stay.
It was always like at times when I had to go, but I didn't want to get into a discussion of it in the chat room.
Mm-hmm. I also didn't want to make overtures, right?
Because, to me, you had to go through a process of sort of trying to understand what was going on for you first.
And also, because I felt, rightly or wrongly, I felt like the wrong party, I don't make overtures when that's the case.
I want to see what the other person's going to do.
And I certainly had never thought seriously about any kind of ban or anything like that because you weren't abusive, right?
And people can disagree with me.
They can get mad at me. They can't be abusive to me or anyone, but they can certainly disagree with me and get mad at me, and you certainly weren't abusive in any way.
So yeah, I was just like, well, this is a bummer, right?
I like this guy, and I don't want to feel awkward in the chat room, which I like to drop into when I'm between doing work for FDR. But I thought, you know, well, Well, you know, maybe if he doesn't apologize or whatever, then I'll just ask him to take a break from the chat room so I don't have to sort of go in and look around.
Because, you know, whatever, right?
But there was nothing other than that that was going on for me.
What did you feel when you saw that I had asked to speak with you?
Like the email I sent earlier today?
Oh, I felt a bit of trepidation, but then I just sort of thought, okay, well, let's see what he's got to say, right?
I mean, I certainly didn't feel that I had anything particular to hide.
I was, you know, relatively happy to talk about my experiences, and I didn't want it to become an obsessive combing over of the chat log, right?
Because people love to discuss details when it's principals that are really at work here, right?
So... Yeah, so I thought, okay, well, let's have a chat and see how it goes, right?
I mean, I certainly wasn't, you know, I knew you weren't going to be some crazy-ass lunatic screeching guy or anything, so I was just like, well, you know, I hope this goes well, and let's see what happens.
Okay. I think I still have...
I think we've done a lot for tonight, and I definitely appreciate taking the time to go through this with me.
And I think I still have a lot to work on, even though the idea of empathy for myself Really struck a chord, I think, that it needs to sort of strike a symphony before.
That's my trick, right, as I spend 90 minutes not getting to the point?
And then when I do get to the point, you're totally surprised because you think I'm never going to, right?
But sorry, go on. Oh, yeah, that's not quite what I meant, but...
I know, I'm just kidding, go on.
Okay, okay. Yeah, I... You know, I wish that there was something you could say to me that would flip on that empathy switch, but I think that that's something that I'm going to have to take more time with.
Right. And, okay, one more tiny thing is that you do have an empathy switch in you.
You do. Do you know when you need to be empathetic with yourself?
Excuse me? When you most need to be empathetic with yourself.
When is that?
What's the signal for you?
When I...
I think it's when I start intellectualizing.
No, that's too hard.
And plus, that's 90% of your waking life, right?
So it's going to be hard to differentiate.
Right. The empathy switch that you have, David, when you need to most empathize with yourself is when you get that flash of anger.
Yeah. That's your signal, right?
Yeah, yeah. That's your like, okay, here I'm coming to a place where I was never treated well and I get really punchy, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right.
And that doesn't mean, and that's why I use the phrase a rush of anger.
It doesn't mean every time you get angry, right?
Because maybe you get angry completely justified, right?
But when you get that rush of anger and a desire to hurt, right?
Because you've got to, as we all do, right?
You've got a cruel streak, right?
Mm-hmm. A bit of a cold side, right?
Right. I mean, this is how you were raised, right?
It leaves an impression on all of us, right, how we were raised.
But when you get that kind of Rush of anger that seems to come out of nowhere.
And in a way, like for stimuli, which is not particularly obvious, right?
It's not like some guy coming at you with a baseball bat or something.
That's when you need to empathize with you.
That's your empathy switch, right?
So there is an empathy switch.
You just got to, you know, it's a bit wired backwards at the moment, right?
But you definitely have a very clear signal about when you need to empathize with yourself.
Right. The most.
Right. Yeah, I think that that gives me a lot to work with.
And that's good, right? Because you don't want to say, well, I don't even get that signal.
I just wake up with a head in my bed or something, right?
Right. I just wake up with a dead hooker, right?
I mean, that's not what you...
I'm not saying you're anything like that, right?
Yeah. But I mean, you have a precise and conscious stimuli in this area, which can really help guide you, right?
Yeah, yeah. And just thinking back, I see examples of that.
Flashing to my memory.
So yeah, that sounds like a...
Yeah, and listen, write all that stuff down.
Write down what happens.
You know, this annoying shit that you've got to do is like personal house cleaning, right?
It's like physiology or physiotherapy after you get an injury.
You've got to write down, well, I felt angry.
What happened right before?
What is similar to what has happened before?
What did I want to do?
You've just got to get the habit of this, and that way when it comes, it doesn't catch you totally by surprise and swallow you whole, right?
Right. Okay, well listen, I think we can stop here.
I do appreciate it as a long conversation, and I know it was kind of grueling for you, so I certainly do appreciate that.
And I hope that I'm glad that it was of some help to you, of course.
And I'm certainly glad that we got a resolution here.
I mean, that's always a plus, right?
Yeah. So that's good.
I certainly feel better, and I'm hoping that you do as well.
I do, yeah. Great.
Great. Okay, well, keep me posted.
Great. Will you be sending this to me?
I certainly will be.
And do you want me to not send it to the other people who are in the call here, or is that alright with you?
That would be alright with me, yeah.
Okay. Alright, thanks, Matt.
I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye.
Hi, it's Stefan. I just wanted to mention that there was one other thing that I noticed on editing this or re-listening to this podcast is that David's reaction when I confronted him with what I perceived as an elemental fact that this word gossip is negative was to abandon his own position in a kind of passive-aggressive way and now that we've heard about how his father reacted when David confronted him about religion That his father simply abandoned his position in a passive-aggressive way.
I think we can see the patterns, how deeply rooted these patterns are.
And again, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in this conversation.
I think it was really helpful and I hope that you will let me know what you think.
And I look forward to your donations.
Remember, your money is spent to advertise and spread this conversation around the world.
I think... It is a huge amount that you can do.
Every dollar that you give over and above what Greg and I need to eat and live, every dollar that you give is spent to get this word spread around the world, which I think is a positive viral infection of rationality.
So this is a huge thing that you can do to help the world become more free, is to help us spread the word.
And if you don't have the money... Going out and spreading the links yourself is a hugely fantastic thing to do.
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We hugely appreciate it.
This really is how the world, I believe, is going to be saved, one person at a time with the greatest philosophy conversation that's going on at the moment, I think.
So thank you again so much.
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