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March 12, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

21:37

1294 The Rise of Corruption Part 2

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	Good afternoon everybody, it's Steph.
	No, good morning. It's 11 o'clock on the 22nd of February 2009 and I hope that you're doing very well.
	I wanted to go on with part two of the development of corruption and when I'm sort of thinking about my life and moral decisions that I've made and moral decisions that others have made or immoral decisions, at times What really stands out for me, and I hope that this makes some kind of sense.
	Again, I'm not saying this is all syllogistically reasonable, or reasoned-outable, but I still think it's compelling and useful nonetheless.
	One of the things that has really struck me about the moral decisions that people have made is that when you make a bad moral decision, or you make a decision to be greedy or unethical, or to defraud someone, or to be false in a relationship where You're supposed to be close.
	One of the things that I've noticed about that kind of situation is that it really begins to turn your attention more towards the past than to the future, which I think is really, really tragic and, of course, highly problematic.
	And I sort of get into the whys and the hows in this podcast.
	The real damage that is done by an immoral decision is the damage to your principles, not in the moment.
	The damage to the principles is what causes there to be a sort of broken record closed loop with the past, where we end up focusing on justifying prior decisions rather than reasoning through new decisions.
	So, to sort of make that a little clearer, if you're an older brother, say, and you're cruel to your younger brother, The real harm is not the cruelty, in my opinion, right?
	The real harm is not the cruelty in the moment to your younger sibling.
	The real harm is the principle that you create for yourself that justifies the harm that you have done.
	That's the real damage that occurs.
	So if you're cruel towards your younger sibling, it seems to be, and of course this is the root of the argument for morality and a lot of stuff that we talk about here, but it seems to be pretty constant that human beings simply cannot act without justification.
	You ask someone, why did you do X? Well, it's because Right?
	It's because of X, Y, or Z. And the X, Y, or Z is almost always a principle.
	I'm not talking about, you know, why did you run for the bus?
	But when it comes to sort of fundamental or foundational decisions, people will always justify those decisions according to a principle.
	And if you accrual to a younger sibling, then you have to tell a story to yourself about that.
	You have to tell a story to yourself about that.
	And that story that you tell yourself about that is a story called a principle.
	And because we are UPB machines, whatever principle you come up with is either going to be consistent or it's going to be inconsistent.
	Now, of course, if it's consistent, then it's UPB compliant and it's a moral principle.
	But if it's inconsistent, which is almost always the case, then you end up with a problem, right?
	Because you have opposing principles You have the split within your mind, you have doublethink, you have all of the stress and tension that goes along with having different rules for others, opposing rules for others that you have for yourself and so on.
	We all know this with particular kinds of parents who are, you know, abusive parents who can be ugly, rough and unpleasant, but the children, when they have the power, when the children get older, they're all We did the best we could.
	Apologize. So the principles that they ask for themselves as adults when confronted with the history are the opposite principles that they used for attacking the children when the children were younger, if that was the family that it was.
	And this problem of creating, of justifying, whatever justifications we use for our actions become principles within our mind.
	The problem with that becomes very significant.
	Over time. And what we end up with in that kind of situation is we end up, because we're kind of programmed by principles, we end up recreating the situation.
	We end up recreating the initial situation because that's the principle, right?
	So, in my own family, I was sort of teased and so on.
	And I was younger and, of course, the youngest and weaker because of that.
	And so I was called whiny, right?
	And I fell. I mean, of course, I was whiny at times.
	I mean, children are particularly younger siblings when they're on a more demanding physical outing, like a lengthy walk or something like that.
	And when you tease a younger sibling like that, The younger sibling gets upset or cries or something like that.
	Then you have to have a story about that.
	Why is the younger sibling crying?
	Clearly, you've been a participant in that teasing.
	And I can certainly say, from having Isabella got her shots this Tuesday, which was, oh my god, unbelievably heartbreaking.
	We've never... I mean, we've never seen her cry like that, because we are so, you know, tender, proactive, and careful as parents to ensure her happiness.
	I've never seen her whole face turn red, her lower lip go out, and just have her wail as she gets these shots.
	And, of course, I mean, it's the greater good and she forgets about it and, you know, obviously her getting sick would be much worse.
	So, you know, we have, I think, a reasonable principle behind all of that.
	But if I had done something which had caused my child to cry in that manner, if I had yelled at her or shaken her or hit her or something like that, or just neglected her, right, which for the baby is probably even worse, and my baby was crying in that way, I would need a principle.
	And the principle could be, of course, well, gee, I have an angry or a cruel streak, which is causing a lot of problems in my parenting, and my child is suffering, and the child is not asked to be born, and I'm the one who has care, custodianship. And control over Isabella, so I have to deal with and work through whatever it is that is causing me to behave in this cruel and cold manner.
	That would be sort of one.
	The principle being empathy and sympathy and the ultimate cruelty of bringing a child into the world and then causing that child pain, right?
	This is why criminals are different from parents, right?
	So, that would sort of be one principle, the need for empathy.
	Now, the second principle, which unfortunately is taken by some, the second principle is that I need to find some way to justify my behavior if I do something that makes my child cry or my wife cry or someone.
	I need to find some way to justify my behavior.
	And what happens in those situations is we will then say, well...
	It's going to toughen her up.
	Or she's just whiny.
	Or she's crying because she's tired.
	I am not the causal agent in her tears.
	Or she's trying to manipulate me with these tears.
	I'm not going to fall for it.
	I'm not going to let her control me.
	I'm not going to let her run my life.
	We all know these terrible justifications which are all principles.
	So, let's pick one, you know, seemingly at random, and let's see where it takes us.
	Let's say that the feeling of strong emotion, the expression of strong emotion, in this case, the crying of a child, that that is manipulation, right?
	That she is trying to Guilt me into doing something and that is why I have to not give in to this guilt and that is why I have to stand firm and let her cry it out and harden my heart against her cries because if I soften my heart she gains the upper hand and her emotions then dominate my reason and I am controlled and I am manipulated and I am bullied and I am this and I am...
	We all understand that That basic problem.
	So, of course, right, that becomes a principle, right?
	And what does it mean when that becomes a principle?
	Well, what relationship do I then have to my own emotions?
	Because I have already put out the principle through rejecting my child's genuine expression of genuine feeling, let's say, I've already rejected that principle, that those feelings are genuine, that it's an honest, open, intimate, and vulnerable expression of feeling.
	And therefore, What is now my relationship to emotions as a whole?
	Well, if I've got the principle that the expression of feelings is manipulative in an attempt to control, then that is my relationship to feelings.
	And of course, most fundamentally, that is my relationship to my own feelings, to my own emotions.
	And then, what happens when I feel sad?
	Now, of course, fundamentally this comes first, but we sort of just try to track it backwards, if that makes sense.
	What then is my relationship to my own feelings in this situation?
	So, if I feel then a strong emotion of upset or frustration or anger or something like that, well, what happens?
	Well, I have to view, just based on the principle, I have to view the feelings that I'm having as manipulative in some way, as not real, as not true, as manipulative in some way.
	And I'm going to experience those internally and I'm going to view my emotions as attempting to control, to dominate, to bully me.
	That's sort of one possibility.
	The road less traveled, we'll call it.
	The other possibility is is that I view other people's emotions as fake and manipulative and so on but I view my own emotions as true and honest and valid and valuable which of course is not at all UPB and causes me to separate myself from the rest of humanity like everyone else is manipulative but I'm just passionate and so on and then I have to create all of these complicated rules about why I'm an exception and I end up having to I end up having to inflict these rules on others,
	right? Because other people will get this hypocrisy deep down and will not look at my feelings as genuine or true or honest or valid.
	And therefore I then have to come up with some way to get them to believe that, well, your emotions are fake but my emotions are real.
	And how am I going to do that?
	Well, I'm going to have to bully them, right?
	Because the only way we can overcome perceptions of hypocrisy is through aggression, right?
	So if I'm being hypocritical and other people call me on it, then I can only get them to stop calling me on it, either by severing the relationship or becoming aggressive.
	You know, how dare you, or whatever, right?
	Withdrawal, that sort of punishment and all that kind of stuff that goes on.
	In which case...
	As we can see, it's the circularity of it, right?
	It's the self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of it, which is that I say, well, emotions are designed to dominate.
	If my child is upset because Christ, because I did something to harm him or her, and the child cries, then that child is being manipulative, and the emotions aren't real, and they're just designed to dominate me, and so on.
	But then, in order to sustain that thesis, if I take my own feelings as genuine, I then have to bully and dominate others, right?
	In other words, that which I have falsely accused my child of becomes an action which I then unjustly perform myself because my upset is then the cause of me bullying other people and dominating them in order to get them to accept this hypocrisy of my feelings being genuine and their feelings being false and manipulative.
	In other words, attempting to dominate me, therefore my feelings become false and manipulative and an attempt to dominate others.
	As you can see, that is the real damage that occurs with these kinds of decisions.
	The real damage that occurs is what happens in the future based on the justifications that we put forward in the present.
	Corruption is about protecting the past by photocopying it into the future.
	And the other thing that occurs is that if I make those kinds of decisions, I then, of course, replicate that behavior, right?
	So, if I do something that makes Isabella cry and then Isabella is upset and I say, well, it's because, you know, she's manipulating me and this and that.
	Well, what's going to happen is, of course, I harden my heart against her because it's a principle.
	It's not like, well, this one time I was not a great parent because I did something that made her cry and then I got angry.
	That's dealing with it as an instance.
	But if I then deal with it as a principle, then that becomes a much greater problem because that really, of course, raises the possibility that it is going to recur in the future because it's a principle that emotions are manipulative and therefore I can't respect or respond to them and so on.
	And so I'm going to recreate that behavior over and over again.
	I'm going to recreate that behavior.
	And what happens then is that every time I recreate that behavior further, what happens is I then end up in the situation where I have more and more of a guilty and hypocritical conscience.
	And that's, of course, a big problem for anyone.
	And because I have reproduced that behavior over and over and over again, the overturning of that principle becomes that much harder to justify.
	The more times I have done an immoral action, The greater my suffering is going to be if I overturn the principle I've used to justify that immoral action as a moral action.
	So the more times I've hurt my child and let her cry, the more pain I'm going to feel if I overturn that principle and recognize that I've been sort of cold and cruel and x and y and z.
	And that's one of the central problems with this one of the central problems of this justification is that it hardens into a principle it creates fragmentation it creates contradiction within the mind which creates unease and disquiet accusations of hypocrisy leads to manipulation and all this and that but the most fundamental problem that occurs is that because I have justified bad actions I end up recreating or reproducing those bad actions which further reinforces my justifications because if I change those justifications what happens is a greater series of wounds or bad actions is exposed and that's why it tends to be such a closed loop And that is why it's so dangerous to act badly.
	And again, there's no perfection in this or any other world, but the reality is that it's the moment after we act badly that is the issue.
	That is where we really need to figure this stuff out, right?
	It's the moment before we act badly.
	Sorry, it's the moment right after we act badly that is the real issue when it comes to our justifications.
	Because it's in the moment that we, right after we act badly, when we look into the mirror of our own actions, when we look into the crying face of our child or the weeping face of our wife or the angry faces of a friend we've hurt or betrayed or broken confidence with or whatever, it's when we look at that person and we feel The empathy or the bad feelings that we have based on our actions.
	It's what happens in the moment right after that that we really have to be careful, right?
	Because that's where the principles are forged.
	That's where the principles are forged.
	And once those principles are forged, our future behavior becomes that much more likely.
	Which is why I say corruption is a kind of habit that we just are continual self-justification machines And the actions we justify, we recreate, and the more we recreate them, the more we need to justify them, and the greater the pain and humiliation and embarrassment Of being exposed is,
	right? And, I mean, to take an example that I'm sure we can all understand conceptually, if my wife has an affair on me and I hound her and exoriate her for years and years and constantly bring it up and use it to control bully and humiliate her, then if I have an affair, clearly I'm in a situation where I can't be honest, right?
	Because then, I mean, the vengeance is going to be truly Valkyric and a terrible thing to behold.
	So, that's so, so important to understand, right?
	As I said in The God of Atheists in the novel, ethics are the tiny habits at the beginning of things, not the massive decisions that occur at some fulcrum in our life, but it's the tiny decisions we make at the beginning.
	And the last thing that I'll sort of mention is that Actually, no.
	I'm going to keep these short. I will save this for part three.
	But I hope that that makes some sense about why it is that people end up in these situations and also why it is that it seems so impossible to get people to reverse these initial decisions.
	They've dug themselves such a hole that it becomes, it seems, functionally or practically impossible.
	And of course, they've set up their whole lives with people who are willing to be dominated by these falsehoods and these contradictions and they themselves will face ever-increasing pain if they have to go back and take a different path because of the principles that they have developed from the little justifications they've used in the moment and that's why it seems to be so irreversible when people go down this path and I hope that that makes some sense.

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