All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 27, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
42:54
1158 Family, Love, Integrity

Confronting friends and family with the 'against me' argument -- as opposed to leaving acquaintances alone.

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Good afternoon, everybody.
I hope you're doing well. It is Stef-O-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong.
It is Saturday, 12.38pm.
This hour would be the 27th of September.
Ooh! 42 years and three days.
So, a fellow on the board brought up an excellent criticism that I would like to talk about and hopefully can unravel a seeming Contradiction, or at least a contradiction that he experiences, and I can certainly understand why.
So, the contradiction is this, a contradiction in my approach to relationships.
So I've had podcasts in the past where I talk about, you know, if you have someone that you like to play squash with and you don't talk about, you know, philosophy and anarchism and true self, psychology, dreamland, all philosophy and anarchism and true self, psychology, dreamland, all that sort of stuff with that, I mean, I don't have any...
I mean, not that my opinion about it means anything, but my opinion is that I don't have any particular problems with it.
I mean, I'd like to join. I'm going to join a squash league at my gym.
And at said squash league, I certainly don't intend to talk about philosophy with people.
It just doesn't really...
It doesn't strike me as appealing when I spent some time last summer putting together fences with my neighbors, and they asked me what I did.
I said I ran a philosophy show over the internet.
And there was a bit of stunned silence, and then they just said, hey, pass me the nail gun.
Unfortunately not, because they knew I was an anarchist and wanted to take me down, but didn't have any particular interest in it, and why should they, right?
It's not their... Their thing, it's not their bag.
Philosophy, particularly at the level that we deal with it, is a completely elite occupation.
This is not to say that, you know, I know everyone is a philosopher, and that's very true.
Everybody understands philosophy to a very deep degree, and therefore they know exactly what not to pursue, right?
And this also sort of fits in with the conversation I had with our good friend Rich, About his work situation.
About how, you know, people know exactly what you're going to say long before you say it.
So pretending to have a debate when they've clearly indicated a lack of interest or a lack of desire to focus on philosophy is kind of silly, right?
I mean, it's like continuing to call a woman who won't take your calls, right?
Don't stalk people. It's not rational.
But in a more recent podcast, I think it was 11.30, I was talking about how using the against me argument with friends and family and so on smacks of integrity or is an expression of integrity.
So, you know, how does this resolve itself?
Well, I'll sort of go into what I mean, and then you can tell me if it makes any sense, or if I'm just weaseling in some way that I'm not aware of.
I certainly have never advocated to my knowledge or memory, and I'm pretty careful about what I say.
I know that I say a lot, but...
I am actually pretty careful about what I say, because obviously it's there permanently and I don't want to do anything nutty, right, to sort of contradict things that I've said before.
And of course that may happen, and certainly where it has happened I've tried to be You know, people think that I'm not overly self-critical, some people, but I publish stuff where I've made mistakes in the relationship.
I haven't had a whole podcast about how I was pro-Iraq war.
I mean, that's pretty self-critical.
I mean, I've certainly talked at great length, and there's quite a lot about it in my novel, The God of Atheists, about my former corruptibility within the business world, or corruptions within the business world, more than mistakes that I've made.
I think I've been pretty self-critical and I've not tried to present myself as any kind of, you know, moral hero for the ages.
And I certainly do say quite consistently that I'm not speaking from any pedestal, but, you know, as someone who also struggles with these issues.
So, you know, overall, I think that I've tried to be pretty honest in my assessment of myself and certainly I've not tried to lord it over anyone in terms of ethics, right?
I mean, I've made many mistakes.
I'm sure I will continue to make many mistakes.
But, as I've always sort of maintained, the methodology is all.
The methodology is everything.
So, what is it that I mean?
Well, there is a number of practical things that we have to do in the world to make our way through the world.
We have to buy food, we have to use roads, we have to use buses, and so on.
And we run into many, many, many people throughout the course.
You know, most of us throughout the course even of a single day.
We probably meet many dozens of people.
And to me, it would be irrational and impossible to attempt to convert said people to a more rational viewpoint.
And So I've never said that that's a productive way to spend your time.
The purpose of philosophy is happiness, and there are no unchosen positive obligations, and therefore you don't have to spend your life in the pursuit of philosophy.
For myself, I think that, and this is just for myself, I certainly don't claim this as any kind of universal rule, but this is just the way that I try to organize myself I do believe that for myself, you know they say with great power comes great responsibility, and of course that's never true, right?
That's a complete fantasy.
In fact, power is the abrogation of responsibility, right?
I mean, people in government never suffer for their actions.
So it's the complete abrogation of responsibility.
What is it that John McCain said?
Something like, you know, the guy who caused this massive destruction to the economy, the chairman of the Fed or whatever the bald Frankenstein-y looking guy's name is, that they should be fired, right?
I mean, that is the extent of the potential.
I guess they get pensions. But that is the extent that they may get fired.
Of course, they rarely do. But that, of course, is the extent of, quote, Responsibility in the government, right?
If you shoot a soldier who's on leave, you go to jail.
If you start an evil and unjust invasion where thousands of soldiers get killed, then you get snipped out in the press and retire with a full presidential pension, right?
And, of course, some people in the press praise you, right?
So there's no, I mean, with great power comes complete evasion of responsibility.
That's an axiom.
This fantasy that those in power feel the weightiness of their responsibilities with any kind of depth is just silliness, right?
It's just a mad fantasy that helps us live with power that we damn well shouldn't try to live with, right?
Helps us, oh, well, you know, these These weighty men in suits are listening to the experts and doing X, Y, and Z, and so on.
I mean, it's all nonsense.
Just bullshitting their way through life and preying on whoever they can and spinning whatever nonsense.
Stormy government is just another religion.
Government is fundamentally just another religion.
So, there is no responsibility with power.
But, I believe, again, this is just for myself, I believe that With great ability comes responsibility, right?
It's the ability in response ability.
I think that when you have great abilities, and I think that I do in terms of disseminating and communicating logical ideas, hopefully, I think that when you have great abilities, I think that that comes with some responsibility for me, right? I mean, what is it that I can do with the gifts that I have to further the cause of truth, virtue, and happiness in the world?
I think that's, I mean, If you can, I don't know, heal lepers with a touch, spending your life as a NASCAR driver might be considered less than perfectly humane, if that makes any sense.
So, if you have that ability, and again, obviously, I'm not saying that I have anything like that, but if you have an ability, I think that there is some case to be made for responsibility.
If God gives you these gifts, it's not because he doesn't want you to use them.
That's what I'm saying. So, So, when it comes to just dealing in the world, yeah, I mean, you're not obligated to talk to rationality, truth, and so on with anyone, right?
And to me, I mean, this could just be my British upbringing, but to me, this is the kind of politeness in this, in that you don't go around inflicting your perceptions or beliefs or opinions or even the truth, right?
On people who have expressed no interest in it.
I mean, it's just a politeness thing, right?
Like, I mean, if I was...
If I sold Jeeps and my neighbor said, what do you do for a living?
And I said, I sell Jeeps.
Let me show you some brochures and hook you up with a Jeep at a great price.
I mean, that would be...
I don't know.
Kind of dickish in a way, right?
I mean, I'm not trying to equate...
The truth to a Jeep, but I think that to me would be...
That's just kind of crass, right?
It's just kind of coarse.
It's... It's low rent, right?
It's trashy, right?
Because now, if I say, oh, I sell Jeeps for a living, and someone says, oh, man, I've been dying to buy a Jeep.
Do you have any brochures?
Can you tell me a little bit about it?
I just think that would be excellent, right?
Well, then, of course, I will be happy to talk more about it.
But I don't go around saying, you know, oh, my goodness, do you go to church?
Do you realize that's irrational?
Do you realize that I... I just say, I sell Jeeps.
And if somebody wants to buy or is interested in a Jeep, then I'd be happy to talk more, right?
And that's just an acceptance of the fact that you can't make people interested.
And you can't control people. You can't control people.
You can't make people interested in the truth.
You can't make them interested in philosophy.
And the people who wish to explore philosophy, you know, it's a rare, brilliant, and wonderful crew, you know, such as, well, you, right there, sitting there, standing there, So, it's just a recognition of reality, right? I can't make somebody want to buy a Jeep who's not in the market for, say, a Jeep.
I can't do it, right?
You cannot create demand out of thin air in the marketplace, right?
I mean, if somebody wants to buy a car, then you can make a pitch for a Jeep, right?
But if somebody's not even in the market for a car, you know, I'm retired, I don't leave the house, well, then you can't actually make them interested in buying a car.
So, I just, you know, it's just a recognition of reality.
And if somebody expresses interest, of course, I'm more than happy to talk to them about it.
But they understand from who I am, and they understand from who you are, before you even open your mouth, They understand who you are, what you think, what you believe, and so on.
That's all said and done.
They understand to almost every sort of functional level of detail, they will understand your perspective and your approach, right?
If you're open and happy and positive and curious and intelligent and so on, then they will get it.
They will get it. And if they don't want to pursue it, it's not because they don't know, right?
It's because they do know.
They do know, they do understand what you're going to talk about, right?
Nobody, I think, on listening to, like nobody who's listened to my podcast, you know, the first, I don't know, 20 or so, I've not once had a single person come to me and say, my God, you know, I loved this podcast.
Anarchist stuff that you were talking about, this libertarian or stateless, you know, bad government stuff.
But, oh my God, I was completely shocked when in your 13th podcast, Proof, Disproof and Deities, you began to talk about the arguments against the existence of God.
I've not once had that.
And it's really remarkable when you think about it.
Tens and tens of thousands of people trundled through the early podcasts.
Not one person has ever said, Oh my God!
I can't believe you started talking about arguments against God.
I mean, given that there's a huge number of anarchists out there, or libertarians, who are either religious, or agnostic, or You know, atheists who think well of religion, it's pretty remarkable, but nobody's ever said that, right? Because they understand, right?
They understand, from the very first podcast.
They understand, for instance, because of little details that I put into the early podcasts, right?
Like, one of the examples in the Stateless Society, one of the gentlemen's name is Ahmed, right?
That tells people a lot.
About my approach to thinking.
It's all-inclusive.
I'm not bound to cultural stereotypes, which means that I'm not going to be pro any particular religion, right?
These are just clues, right?
Ways that people understand what's coming up, right?
What's next? What's coming down the pipe?
So everybody knows from the very beginning, and nobody's shocked.
Nobody's that. I mean, you may be excited or whatever, a new idea.
I certainly am. But I'm not shocked what comes out of my brain in terms of creativity.
I mean, I'm excited, I'm thrilled, I'm disoriented, but I'm never shocked, like, oh my god, you suddenly had a vision of the reality of the goddess Shiva, right?
I mean, that sort of stuff doesn't happen.
So, they already know.
Everybody knows, right?
Before you open your mouth. And they will, if they, like, this unconscious bargain has already passed across, right?
So, when I'm positive and knowledgeable and well-educated and happy and so on, and then I say, I'm a philosopher, right?
Everybody deep down gets, right?
Their false self is smart.
They get what I'm all about, how I got there, and they also understand what it would cost them to go there, right?
That all happens in a flash.
That all happens, you know, that Gladwell blink thing that I keep talking about.
That all happens, right?
Debating is confirmation.
It is not exploration, right?
Debating is just confirmation.
So, I don't think that there's any point Like, that unconscious communication has already occurred, and there's nothing very...
I mean, I've never experienced anything that you could do or say to alter the conclusions that someone has already come to about what it is that you have to offer before you even open your mouth.
It's not possible. It's not possible.
Or if it is, it's functionally impossible, right?
Because the... Let's say it happens once every thousand times, but think of all the people you haven't helped while pursuing that one person who may change their mind and who's going to be entirely susceptible to changing it back right after you talk.
It's just, you know, it's not practical.
It's not possible. We sort of accept reality in that area.
I mean, I've never seen a debate.
I mean, I can't think of one.
Maybe I have seen one. Maybe there is one, but I've never seen a debate where somebody fundamentally changes.
Changes mind. I don't mean...
It's just a reality we have to work with because, as I sort of said in the last podcast, right?
Opinions are ugly lovers.
So, I mean, I meant not physically ugly, but emotionally.
So, to me, that's just a basic level of practicality and understanding that there's nothing new that you're going to bring to a debate that somebody hasn't already gotten from your posture, from who you are, from how you behave.
Express yourself from how you stand, how you breathe, all of that stuff, all communicates itself mightily clearly.
And as Malcolm Gladwell mentions in the Blink book, the correlation between being a sort of emotionally unpleasant, difficult, obstreperous doctor...
Is clear to people who listen to a second or two of muffled, indistinguishable speech from these doctors, right?
The correlation between people who are rated poorly just on that and who get sued by their patients is very clear and very strong.
So we get all of that stuff.
I mean, we just get it very quickly.
And understanding that basic process is key to enjoying being a philosopher, right?
The negotiation...
By the time you open your mouth, the negotiation has already occurred.
The debate has already occurred.
We all empirically know that, based on our experience with people.
So, to me, there's no point chasing after people and trying to get them to understand that.
I mean, they've already made the decision.
They've already assessed, correctly understood, analyzed, and made the decision about whether to pursue a philosophical conversation with you or not.
So that's sort of at the one level.
Now, at another level, if I join a squash league and I play squash with someone, well, I mean, his philosophical viewpoint doesn't have a lot to do with With how enjoyable he's going to be to play squash with.
Now, if he's psychologically immature and places an enormous amount of false self-ego stake in winning or losing, then it's going to be one of those grim, ugly, and intense battles to the death that we experience from time to time.
And that, to me, is not a huge amount of fun.
So that doesn't have much appeal to me.
But if he's, you know, a reasonable guy who likes to play squash, then yeah, I can play squash with him, right?
In the same way that when I used to occasionally dip down to the old karaoke bar, I would not inquire as to the politics of the karaoke host, right? Because my purpose was to go and hurt people's ears.
So that doesn't require any particular alignment in terms of philosophy.
So I don't have any particular issue with that.
And to me, a key or I guess you could say a central differentiator in that realm is that I don't pretend that there are anything other than acquaintances where our interaction is fundamentally around playing squash.
It's not about the exchange of values.
It's not about love. It's not about the pursuit of truth.
There's no emotional vulnerability involved in it.
I don't have to put my heart in their hands.
There's no core emotional trust issues that are going to occur.
I'm just playing squash.
Right? If that makes sense.
So, given that, the reality of the interaction is that it is not emotional.
It is not vulnerable.
It is not trust-based.
It is not open.
There's no heart opening or whatever, right?
So, it's just playing some squash, doing some exercise, right?
It's like, the guy doesn't have to be an anarchist to spot me at the gym, right?
Before you help me with these weights, what is your opinion about the Fed?
Well, it doesn't actually have any effect, right?
Now, obviously, I don't want a guy who's a sadist to spot me at the gym, because you're probably going to push down rather than help me lift up, right?
I mean, some practicality's involved, but, you know, that's not going to happen, right?
It's not going to happen in a squash game.
So, this is just the reality of the situation.
So, to me, um...
Having somebody who may or may not have an irrelevant opinion about the truth relative to the function of the interaction just, you know, doesn't make any sense, right?
To me. Now, there is, and to me, having acquaintances that you just do, you know, fun stuff with that's not related to trust or truth or intimacy or vulnerability or love or Anything like that, it's fine, right?
Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.
Again, these are not matters of ethics, right?
These are not matters of ethics.
These aren't even particularly APAs or aesthetically preferable actions.
This is just...
There's no violence involved.
There's no fraud involved.
There's no... And of course, when it comes to consistent theories, I don't think that you want to have a theory that involves never dealing with anyone who is not an anarchist, because that is impossible to enforce, right?
Say, well, I'm only going to buy from a grocer who's an anarchist.
Well, where does he get his food from, right?
Can you be said to be dealing with only anarchists if you have an anarchist middleman and a statist, I don't know, cattle farmer?
I mean, that's all nonsense, right?
You can't You can't conceivably live with integrity and impossible ideals are not ideals, but merely excuses for self-flagellation, right?
We don't want to get all Catholic, right?
Not much point getting rid of religion and then having the original sin of participation in the state of society replace the talking snake phenomenon.
So, Since you can't enforce it, since it's impractical, and since it's functionally irrelevant to the content of the interaction of buying food or playing squash or whatever, well, you know, doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter. And also, since the interaction has occurred before you open your mouth anyway, it just doesn't matter.
Now, so that's sort of the one perspective.
I want to clarify that from earlier podcasts, which I had sort of mentioned or touched on this topic.
Now, when I talked in 11.30, About the question of integrity, the about me argument.
That raising these issues with friends and family is living with greater integrity, or is integrity.
Let me put a qualifier in, because I don't think you have to do that either.
I don't think you have to, right?
No one has chosen positive obligations, right?
You don't have to. You don't have to bring any of this stuff up with your family or your friends or anything like that.
You can continue to avoid the topics, right?
It's a little tougher when election fever is raging through the mad sewage brain factories of the land, but you can pull it off, right?
You can bite your lip, so to speak.
All of that is entirely possible.
So, I don't think you have to bring this stuff up, but...
I think because it's, to me, an endlessly good idea to continue to focus on reality, I think that it's important to understand that this is not a neutral action, right? Not bringing up, like you say, your friendship.
Friendship must have something to do with mutual values, mutual respect, and the affection that comes, right?
If I say love, is our involuntary response to virtue, right?
Which I believe it is, if we ourselves are virtuous, or want to be, then friendship obviously has to have something to do with virtue.
It has to, because you can't have friendship without affection, and you can't have affection without virtue.
And that virtue may not necessarily be about the achievement of virtue, but the desire for and the willingness to aim at virtue, right?
So, friendship...
Is based on affection or love, which is based on virtue or the desire and achievement thereof, or the goal thereof.
We know it's perfectly virtuous, but we can certainly love the striving, right?
And the honest pursuit of.
So, from that standpoint, you simply can't have a friendship where somebody has opposite conceptions of virtue.
You can't. So that's sort of the one aspect.
The other aspect is that in that podcast I was really specifically talking about people who are really heavily focused on things like politics and all that kind of nonsense as the way of achieving freedom.
People who say that freedom, political freedom and social freedoms and so on is all about Reading up about how bad a President Lincoln really was and talking about the Fed and getting obsessed with fiat money and, you know, all that kind of funky stuff.
And to me, that is not a valid approach to freedom because it's all about stuff you can't control, stuff that alienates people, stuff that makes them feel more anxious and depressed.
Right? Like talking about those FEMA camps.
Oh, dear God. Well, you can't control it, right?
So, if you focus on stuff which you can't control, you're spreading fear, which, of course, is going to make people easier to rule.
And so, by frightening the hell out of people about FEMA camps, as someone in the board was doing yesterday, as someone in the chat room was doing the other day, you're actually doing more to bring about the FEMA camps than you probably realize, right?
Making people feel afraid and hopeless.
So, I think talking about how evil the Fed is is...
Not empowering to people, but rather disempowering to them, and I think it brings about a feeling of hopelessness, of despair, of alienation, and of indifference, right?
You can't control it. Why bother?
Why try? You know, all that kind of stuff, right?
So, from that standpoint, I'm really focusing on those people, right?
It's fine, and there's nothing wrong with reading about the Federation, obviously, again, my nonsense opinions, but...
There's nothing wrong with reading about it.
It's useful and it's interesting, but as far as living with integrity goes, well, this was sort of my point.
I'll just reiterate it here to differentiate it from acquaintanceship.
My point here was sort of like this.
If you are highly invested in the non-aggression principle, which is really the foundation of being a libertarian, Or a philosopher who's interested in ethics?
If you really invested in the non-aggression principle, then surely the relationships that you can control, that you do have influence over, that you do have an effect upon, which is your personal relationships, is where you should be spending your time, rather than relationships that you can't control, like the Fed, right?
So it's sort of like, to put it in a silly way, if you're in a leper colony and you have the power to treat leprosy, reading endless books on leprosy and its treatments and going to websites and posting on boards about leprosy and its treatments rather than going to the people around you and treating their actual leprosy would seem to be nothing more than a rank and cowardly avoidance mechanism.
Right? Again, Nothing wrong with studying treatments for leprosy, but once you have a reasonable cure, then spending time actually helping the people around you who have leprosy would seem to be acting with integrity to the concept of being a healer, right? Because, I mean, obviously libertarians believe they have the power to heal society's ills with the truth, right?
And so if you have this amazing power, and I think that there's a lot in libertarianism that can be very helpful in this area, if you have this amazing power, then surely you should bring it to bear on the people around you, right?
If, you know, reason equals virtue equals happiness, and the non-aggression principle is foundational to happiness, because it's a rational argument and it's a peaceful and positive argument, then you should want to bring happiness to To those around you, which means getting them to renounce their support for violence, right?
Violence is our leprosy.
We're all in a leper colony.
We say we have the ability to heal leprosy, so let's go and heal the people around us and not spend all our time going to websites and reading books about abstract leprosy things that we can't affect, can't control, have no power over whatsoever.
It's like an amazing cardiac surgeon digging up Churchill's body and attempting to resuscitate him.
I mean, it's nonsense.
All he's doing is not helping the people around him by pursuing the impossible, which is deranged.
It doesn't give a lot of credibility to his rationality.
So, if our addiction to violence, which stems in many ways from the invisibility of violence within society, which is partly due to unconscious complicity and Propaganda and partly due to propaganda and so on.
Then getting people to renounce their support of violence would be foundational to helping them live happier, better, more virtuous, more productive lives, right?
So getting them to give up their addiction to violence is kind of key.
And so I would sort of argue, not sort of argue, but argue that if you have this amazing cure called the non-aggression principle and this understanding of Right?
And let me sort of adjust the metaphor slightly.
Sorry. Don't change your metaphors in midstream.
Well, here we're going to, right? And I've used this one before, but I'll mention it in this context, right?
So if you've figured out, you first got to figure out that drinking the poisoned well or drinking the well with cholera in it is what is causing people to sicken and die from cholera, then clearly writing big abstract treatises, publishing them on your website, Trying to charge the people who own this well and are profiting from poisoning the people, it's not going to do any good.
What you want to do is go to the people around you and say, stop drinking from this well because it is making you and keeping you sick.
That would be the first order of business, right?
If your family and friends were drinking from a poisoned well that was making them sick, wouldn't your first order of business be To tell them to stop drinking from that well.
So if people are stuck in the hellish underworld of supporting violence unconsciously, which makes them unhappy and is bad for them and so on, then surely getting them to stop doing that, stop drinking from that poisoned well, would be the first order of business, if we love them.
So I think it is acting with greater integrity to being A philosopher, a healer, a wise man and woman to help those around you to give up their addictions.
In the same way someone's addicted to heroin, right?
Then talking about how evil heroin production is in Afghanistan, which is going to do absolutely nothing to help the people around you who are addicted to heroin give up their heroin, right?
Well, that's a big waste of time, right?
It's not going to achieve much of anything other than convincing people that you don't really have a desire to help those around you.
So, when I talk about bringing the against me argument to the people in your life, when that's with integrity, I'm not talking about integrity to the truth or philosophy, and of course it's not clear, right?
So I apologize for not making that clear.
What I mean is that Helping people, however resistant they may be, as all addicts are, helping people to give up their addictions to the support of violence is a good and positive action,
right? And it really is, in my opinion, integrity To the concept of friendship and of love and of being loved.
It's integrity to love.
If someone is doing something that is making them unhappy and you claim to care about them, then you should help them, in my opinion.
I mean, you don't have to, but I think that we can all understand that it would be a better thing to do, right?
A man does not have to jump in to drown, to save a drowning child.
We would not throw him in jail for not doing so, but we would all recognize that it would be a better thing to do, and we would certainly look askance at somebody who did not, right?
So if it is wrong to support the use of violence, and if it makes people unhappy, and it harms their relationships, and it harms their life, then to me, again, this could just be mind-bending naivete, but to me, It's a virtuous thing to help people out of these destructive opinions and to open their hearts more to love and trust and security and happiness.
So it is integrity to the concept of saying, I care about someone, to help him or her to stop believing false and destructive things.
Have them stop drinking for the world.
Stop taking the heroin. And...
So, I do believe that there is integrity involved in this formulation, and the integrity is to the basic reality or the basic fact that if you do not help people overcome their errors, their errors which cause unhappiness, then you can't claim that you love them.
I mean, you can't.
If I saw my wife sliding into alcoholism and I did nothing, could I really claim to love her?
Well, no.
No, no, no, I could not.
I would obviously be loving my own comfort and avoiding the topic rather than loving her.
I would be backing away from a necessary conversation because I felt uncomfortable about this.
So that to me is very, very foundational to the equation that reason equals virtue equals happiness supporting aggression, supporting violence against you is not a loving action towards you, right? Clearly we understand that if a husband Hired someone to beat up his wife if his wife disagreed with him, we would understand that this would not be a loving action.
I mean, we at least can agree on that, right?
If I hire someone to beat up my wife because she doesn't agree with me on how the problem of poverty or drug use should be solved, I hire someone to beat her up or kidnap her, lock her up for years, we can understand that if I say, well, I love my wife, but if she disagrees with me, I support her Getting beaten up and kidnapped, right?
Locked up, where she'll be beaten up perpetually for years.
We can understand that I cannot say that I love my wife and I support this kind of torture against her, right?
For the mere, not in self-defense, but the mere act of disagreeing with me, right?
Can we at least agree on that?
If I say to you, across a coffee table, and we're debating property rights or something, and I say, well, look, If you disagree with me, I will phone my friend Luigi, the kneecapper, who will drag you and curb you, right? Who will drag you and break your kneecaps.
We can all... And I love you.
We can all understand that those are not compatible statements, right?
You can't love someone and support the use of violence against him or her.
It's not possible.
And so... It is integrity to saying, I love you and you love me.
I care for you and you care for me.
I want your happiness and you want my happiness.
And reason equals virtue equals happiness.
It is integrity to the concept of friendship and of love.
To not support the use of force against people.
And that's why the against me argument is so important.
Terrifying. I totally understand.
terrifying but important.
That we want to help people out of error.
And we don't want to pretend that people love us if they're willing to support the use of force against us for mere disagreements on how social problems should be solved.
It's integrity to love.
That's really all I'm talking about.
And you don't have to do it.
You don't. But then you're saying that love is not part of the equation.
Because when we love people, we should help them Free themselves from things which make them unhappy, even if it's uncomfortable, right?
It's called an intervention, right?
And you don't have to do it, right?
But it's not really love then, and at least don't criticize those who are doing it, right?
Don't criticize those who are actually getting people off drugs, when all you want to do is criticize drug production in Afghanistan, which you can do nothing about, and which is merely the illusion of action.
All that is is self-management, right?
All that is is managing your own anxiety because that's the real problem, not the fact that people are actually addicted to drugs, right?
But the fact that you feel anxious about it.
So all you're doing is aping action in order to manage your own anxiety.
So anyway, I think that's sort of relatively clear.
The last point that this poster made, which was an interesting point, was he said in one of my podcasts, It was 11.28, I think.
These are 11.28, 27, 11.30, which is sort of how to fight FDR. If you find yourself listening to FDR month after month, year after year, and you just think I'm so completely wrong, then you should go and start your own show, go start your own podcast.
This guy said that I was inoculating, like I was driving people away from my followers because I was afraid of them.
Being infected by superior ideas, so I was trying to drive people away by suggesting they go and set up their own podcast, which my listeners wouldn't listen to, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, I mean, it's just a, I guess it's a comforting mythology, but it doesn't have anything to do with the truth, first of all, my content.
And I actually said that they could, were free to advertise their podcasts on my website, so, and on my board, right, that I would support them, and of course, if they have better ideas, fantastic, right?
So that's not anything to do with the facts.
The other thing too is that if I was this nefarious mind virus attempting to inoculate my listeners from better ideas, it would seem rather odd for me to talk about that in podcast 1130, right?
After, I don't know...
900 hours of conversations with a wide variety of people to suddenly rush in and attempt to inoculate listeners against new ideas or other ideas or foreign ideas.
I think that would be somewhat logically problematic, right?
I mean, talk about locking the barn door after the horse has left, trying to keep foreign ideas away from my listeners or contradictory ideas away from my listeners.
When I'm in podcast 1128 would just seem to be a little counterintuitive, but, you know, it's important to sort of go back to the facts rather than just make up stuff.
Anyway, I hope that this has been helpful.
Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it.
I look forward to your donations.
Remember to prop up September 2008 just a little, little bit.
It's been a tad dry.
I think people going back to school and stuff has dug in.
And remember, if you're not living in the US, if you could maybe kick in a little extra in terms of your donations, that would be great because the financial crisis is taking a little bit of a toll.
On US donations, so if you're not in the USA, USA, I would really appreciate it if you could kick in a little bit extra to make up the void, because they've certainly been kicking in a lot over the past couple of years.
So if you could swing that pendulum back the other way, I'd hugely appreciate it.
Thank you so much for listening.
▲
Export Selection