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March 12, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
43:22
1295 The Rise of Corruption Part 3 - Avoiding Self-Knowledge
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Good evening, everybody.
It's Steph. It is 22.37.
And we are on our way to New Hampshire.
And we are going to join the Free Street Project because I believe oxymorons should be embraced.
So, this is because I'm going to go to the Liberty Forum to do a speech on Sunday, which I've been working on in the car and measuring...
The success by the applause of Christina and the noxious fumes of my daughter, of which there were very few, which I would consider to be a great praise.
So, wow.
Talk about a flashback. This is podcasting in the car.
Shocking, but without the webcam, because it's oh so darkish.
And got across the border, no problem.
We didn't get to Zabella's birth certificate in time, but we brought some other paperwork, which seemed fine.
And I was a truly revolting, groveling sycophant.
At the border, border guard was like, oh, are you displaced Irish because you were born in Ireland but you have a French name?
I was like, oh, yes, you really don't know your ethnicities, which I'm sure would make sense having the job that you do, lick spittle, lick spittle.
And then a quick tongue polish of his jackboots and away we were.
And I just wanted to make sure that I got across the border because I was so keen to have Isabella's thunderous farts interrupt my first speech at a libertarian conference, or at least a decent-sized one.
So, I hope that you're doing just wonderfully, and thank you once more so, so much to donators and subscribers.
I hugely appreciate the kindness and generosity that has allowed me to do what I'm doing, and I'm very glad, obviously, the trust that you're placing in me to be hopefully a somewhat consistent voice of reason in an increasingly irrational world, and I appreciate so much the way that it gives me the chance to spread What we're doing here so much wider.
And I hope that you're pleased with what I'm doing.
As always, if you feel I could be doing something different or better, I am all donkey ears.
So the True New Stuff seems to be doing quite well.
I'm getting four to five thousand video hits a day, or we're getting four to five thousand video hits a day.
I haven't compiled stats for podcasts in a while.
But they will probably be quite low because my podcast production has been, well, quite low.
So, enough of this.
This is Corruption Part 3.
And the central thesis here, which I'm going to do my best to provide strong supporting evidence for, this is not one of these syllogistic podcasts, but I think that I can provide some strong evidence for this, is that fundamentally the only knowledge that we avoid is self-knowledge and I think if you understand this when you're going into debates or conversations about philosophy or economics or politics or ethics or whatever if you understand that the only knowledge that we avoid is self-knowledge then I think it will help you become much more efficient in your conversations with people and then I'll follow this up with your words mean nothing which will hopefully completely deflate everybody's hope no I'm kidding most people's somewhat but If something's overinflated,
like a currency bubble, we want it to go away.
So, just to create a distinction that I wanted to mention up front, it's not that the only knowledge that we do not possess is self-knowledge.
I don't know what the capital of Jakarta is, but I do not avoid that knowledge.
I do not resent that knowledge.
Dismiss or have some sort of big negative story and hostility towards that knowledge, right?
Somebody at a dinner party says to me, what's the capital of Jakarta?
Do you know what the capital of Jakarta is?
Or says, the capital of Jakarta is Hammurabi Songbangbang or whatever it is.
Then I'm like, okay, well, that's interesting.
I don't have any hostility towards that knowledge.
I'm not saying that it's the best topic of conversation at a dinner party, but it's not something that offends me, right?
Um... So, it's not that the knowledge we don't have is self-knowledge, but the knowledge that we avoid, the knowledge that we resent, the knowledge that troubles or bothers us, is self-knowledge.
And I will hopefully be able to make a case for that somewhat consistently.
So, facts are facts are facts are facts, right?
And... The state is violence is not fundamentally different a fact than mass has gravity or the capital of Jakarta is insert capital of Jakarta here.
They're just facts.
Two plus two is four.
Unicorns don't exist.
The capital of Canada is Ottawa and the state is violence.
And yet only one of these statements is really upsetting to people.
Why? Why is it that only certain facts cause people such stress such storm and such stress and upset?
Well, there's nothing qualitatively Or even quantitatively different in these facts, since facts as they are, right?
So why is it that people are so upset by them?
Well, I'll just touch on this briefly because we've talked about this before, but there are certain facts which sort of are Complete in and of themselves, right?
The capital of Canada is Ottawa.
Just so I don't have to keep up making names for Jakarta.
I'm sorry, Jakarta is a capital?
Of Indonesia? I do believe.
Okay. So, good.
You know what this means? This means I don't get six million emails saying, dude, it is a capital.
Ugh, if your philosophy is as bad as your geography, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I did it in Indonesia.
I didn't do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, good.
Thanks.
We'll see you next time.
We've had some corrections from the peanut gallery.
Let's keep going with Ottawa and Canada.
Certain facts are complete in and of themselves.
The opposite angle theorem and geometry.
The 2 plus 2 is 4.
The capital of Canada is Ottawa.
These are facts that are complete in and of themselves and do not lead anywhere, right?
They're self-contained. They're not a domino.
They're not a sort of domino fact.
A domino fact for me is like the first in a series of dominoes that all comes down or it's the fact that if you pull it at the bottom of the house cards the whole thing comes crashing down and The state is violence is a domino fact.
It is not a self-contained static who cares, in a sense, fact.
It is a domino fact.
Because it leads people to places, right?
It leads people. So, if the state is violence, then patriotism is corrupt.
Violence is a valid and admirable solution to social problems.
Democracy is control, even if we accept the majority rule, which is not the case in reality, but if we accept it, democracy is a mob rule of institutionalized weaponry, right?
Which is not exactly civics 101, right?
So, when you say the state is violence, it's a domino observation.
It's a domino fact, which leads people to a whole bunch of uncomfortable places, right?
And the same thing when you say there is no God, right?
Which, again, is just another fact, which you can prove relatively quickly.
The same thing with status violence.
It's another fact, and it's a domino fact, right?
It leads people someplace that is extremely uncomfortable for them, right?
And... The fascinating thing, and what sort of really sent me down the road of psychology in this area to begin with, the fascinating thing is that everybody already knows this.
And I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt.
Everybody already knows.
When you say statism is violence, the state is violence, taxation is force, everybody already knows it.
And the reason that we know that everybody already knows is the speed with which they get upset.
I mean, if somebody knew nothing about the theory of relativity and had no opinions about science versus whatever, religion or whatever, but had no knowledge of the theory of relativity...
And you began to step them through and you said, the speed of light is constant, right?
But they're not going to get offended.
They may disagree with you and say, the speed of light is constant.
Well, that doesn't make any sense. And you say, well, you know, two rocket ships moving away from each other at twice the speed of light will measure themselves moving away from each other only at the speed of light.
You say, well, that can't be. They won't be angry.
They'd be confused, maybe a little baffled, maybe skeptical, but they won't be angry.
You say to someone, gases expand when heated.
They may be skeptical, they may not believe you, but they won't be angry.
Now, if you step them through the reasoning, if you don't even state the conclusion, but you step them through the reasoning, So you don't start with the conclusions of the theory of relativity, but you simply start stepping them through the reasoning.
Because they don't know the theory of relativity, they're not going to know what's at the end of that reasoning chain.
They're not going to know what's at the end of that chain of reasoning.
I recently listened to an Agatha Christie novel.
I've never listened to one before.
I'm a little retarded when it comes to murder mysteries.
You know, like even when they explain it at the end, I'm like, okay.
I don't really get it because I don't pay enough attention to those kinds of things as I'm just listening to interesting stories or whatever, right?
Then they explain it. Aha!
It says Poirot, you know? It's like, okay.
I guess that makes sense.
I'll take your word for it. Okay.
But... So when you're at the beginning of a causal chain of reasoning and you don't know what the end conclusion is, then...
You're not going to be offended because you don't know where you're going.
Right? I mean, let's say you're my girlfriend and you're a vegetarian.
And I playfully blindfold you and put you in my car and say, I'm going to drive you to someplace special.
And you don't know where I'm taking you.
I mean, you'd probably be kind of excited and say, this is the first time you've blindfolded me in public.
So, you'll be in the car and you'll be kind of curious about where we're going, right?
Now, if I take you to a slaughterhouse, you're going to be kind of upset, right?
The vegetarian's going to be, why would you take me to a slaughterhouse?
It's whatever, right? But if you didn't know where we were going, you wouldn't be upset.
Now, If I blindfolded you, my vegetarian girlfriend, put you in my car and said, I'm now driving you to a slaughterhouse, you would be upset right away.
Probably like, well, why on earth would you want to drive me to a slaughterhouse and blah, blah, blah.
But if you don't know where we're going, you can't be upset, right?
And so when you say statism is force, or you even just start people down that logical path to the conclusion that statism is force, they can't be upset.
net.
I mean, logically, unless they know where it leads and the implications, unless they know, let's say it's a 50-domino collapse, that they know where that last one collapses, which is on their friends, family, associates, life, blah, blah, blah, as we know, those of us who've been doing this for a while, If they didn't know that whole chain of causality that causes the dominoes to go down one by one, then they wouldn't be upset the moment you brought up.
Taxation is false. Right?
Because they'd be blindfolded. They don't know where you're driving them, so they're not going to be upset.
Now, then when you do the 50 dominoes, when the last domino goes down, then they can get upset, right?
Take up the blindfold. You're at the slaughterhouse.
It's like, dude, what are you taking me to a slaughterhouse for?
You know, you blindfold the racist and you take him...
Oh, I'm going to take you someplace exciting, right?
I don't know. He thinks you're going to go to the KKK Museum or something, right?
And then you take off the blindfold and he's in the middle of a black Baptist church or something and he's going to get really angry, right?
So, if you don't know where someone's taking you, you're not going to be upset when they take that first step.
You're going to be curious. I wonder what's going on, right?
Tell me more, right? But if you know...
Where someone is taking you.
If you know what the destination is, and all of the attendant emotional upset and difficulties that it's going to involve, then when that person flicks that first domino of the 5,000 domino tilt-over, first of all, you're aware that it's a domino effect, that it leads somewhere.
And you are also aware of exactly where it leads because you're getting upset.
So when you say taxation is force, statism is violence, government is coercion, people must, must already know that because the rapidity with which they become offended.
This is back to the Blink thing which we've talked about before, the Malcolm Gladwell thing.
Just very briefly, people have been able to accurately reproduce the quality rankings of a professor from people who've taken a full year course with him just by listening to his muffled voice for about a second or two. people have been able to accurately reproduce the quality rankings We process things incredibly quickly.
So why would someone get upset when a libertarian starts the argument or starts to point out the violence involved in statism or whatever, unless they knew exactly where it was going to lead?
Why would you get upset at being driven around unless you knew that the destination was going to be something you didn't like?
So everybody understands the causal chain, right?
The domino effect of understanding or recognizing that statism is forced.
So this is just one of many, many examples.
Family relations as adults are voluntary.
This leads people to another. Some people to another very difficult place.
There is no God. Concepts do not exist.
Whatever it is that is offensive to people, is upsetting to people.
They know where it all leads.
They have to know where it all leads, otherwise they wouldn't get offended, right?
Last metaphor, I promise.
I just really want you to get this, and I'm sorry if I'm repeating it too often, but hey, that's what I do.
That's what I do. That's what I do.
So, if someone refuses to walk across a pleasant field with you, And it later turns out that that field is a minefield, then they clearly cannot claim knowledge.
They cannot claim that they didn't know it was a minefield.
They simply refuse to do it, make up all kinds of excuses and so on.
And then it turns out that it's a minefield, then they simply can't logically make the claim that they didn't know there was anything amiss.
Like, I mean to the point where they scream with terror if you start dragging them onto that field, right?
They can't claim that they didn't know anything was wrong.
And they also can't claim that they were particularly nice in not telling you about the mines, which they can see, right?
Which they know about. In a similar way, someone can't make it across a minefield Without setting a densely populated minefield.
Not set off any mines and say, oh, I didn't even know it was a minefield.
Of course, right? Which is the metaphorical equivalent of making it to, I guess, beyond the age of 14 without understanding that statism is violence and there is no God, right?
You have to avoid that knowledge pretty consistently.
You have to work to not know that, right?
It's not easy.
It's so obvious, right?
So when you say taxation is forced, or you even begin that argument, or you even bring this up, soldiers or murderers, you know, that kind of, whatever it is that you're, whatever basic soldiers or murderers, you know, that kind of, whatever it is that you're, whatever basic unpleasant or unpalatable fact you are
whatever basic philosophical truth is so upsetting to everyone, when you say that, Everybody knows where it leads because they get tense and angry and upset right away.
So what are they avoiding?
well, they're avoiding self-knowledge, knowledge that they already possess about themselves, about their society, about others, about the truth, about virtue, about integrity, about courage, all of these things.
They are avoiding their own knowledge of the domino, of the set of dominoes that you're setting into motion or trying to set into motion, of the set of dominoes that you're setting into motion or trying to set into
So when you say taxation equals force and people get upset or tense or dismissive or whatever weird emotional responses they get, it is because they already know that taxation is force.
And, most importantly, since we're not particularly driven by abstract concepts, but more personal relationships, and in particular our relationship with ourself and our regard for our own virtue, in quotes so often, they are avoiding their own already existing knowledge of what that all means, right? I will give you one more example, and then we'll move on.
And again, I apologize if this is...
It took a while for me to get this, so I hope it's...
Maybe you're getting it a lot faster, but I appreciate your patience, and I'll move on in a sec.
If you go up to somebody who was raised in a secular or scientific household and hasn't had really much exposure to religion...
And that man, Bob, that man Bob who's raised in this, he's an adult, and he's, like everyone, has wondered where life comes from.
Where we come from.
Why we have an appendix and a vestigial monkey tail.
All these other sorts of random grab bag inefficiencies that characterize an adapted and Evolved organism rather than a divinely designed and created one.
Well, when you come up to him as an adult, and he's never heard of Darwin's theory, let's say, and you explain to him Darwin's theory, the theory of evolution, he's going to say, wow, tell me more.
That's very interesting. I have some questions.
I have some skepticism. I need to understand this.
I need to understand that. You know, lay out for me the sequence, lay out for me the principles involved, lay out for me the evidence, and so on, right?
He's going to be curious because, and once he understands that the theory of evolution has been proven and peer-reviewed in about 200,000 journal articles and books and so on, and the evidence is so overwhelming that it is essentially a fact, then he's going to say, wow, thank you.
That's great. It answers a lot.
I'm clear and so on.
In other words, he can focus on the facts because he's not afraid of the conclusions.
If it turns out to be valid, what does it cost him?
It's not like his family is going to disown him or his friends are all going to hate him or he's going to face a crisis of faith or conscience or feelings of anger at having been lied to and betrayed by his elders and teachers and priests.
He doesn't face a personal crisis by accepting rational and empirical evidence.
In fact, it's a positive to him, which is why he would be curious and want to know more about it and ask questions and generally have a great old time exploring the theory of evolution, which I think has accurately been termed the best single idea anyone has ever had in history.
Certainly in the realm of the sciences, I would agree, but not that my opinion means anything.
We can contrast this.
We don't have to spend as much time, but we can contrast this with the guy who's raised as a fundamentalist Christian, who's told that God created all the animals and beasts and so on.
When he hears about the theory of evolution, he also knows where this leads.
Instantly he understands. He gets the whole domino effect, right?
If the theory of evolution is true, then the Bible is not.
If the theory of evolution is true, then a God breathing life into a plasticine snake is not necessary.
In fact, it's a non-answer, it's an anti-answer, because it's the illusion of an answer, which is the worst thing you can get.
His elders lie to him that when he brings this theory of evolution, this fact of evolution, to Those around him, they're going to attack him.
They're going to criticize him.
They're going to condemn him. They're going to question his faith.
They're going to say he's damned.
They're going to write his wife might leave him.
His children might regard him with horror.
I mean, whatever, right? His parents will.
And he faces a massive amount of...
A massive personal, interpersonal crisis.
And, of course, he also begins to...
It brings up a choice...
For himself that he, you know, doesn't want in the short run.
I mean, if he passes the test, he's going to be happier in the long run.
But he doesn't want that in the short run.
And that test is, why did I believe what these people were telling me?
Why did I believe what my priests and parents and teachers were telling me about God and talking snakes and ribbed women and all this kind of nonsense, Jewish zombies and original sin and All that crap.
Why did I believe it, right?
Well, because I was bullied.
Well, why would I have to be bullied?
Well, because it's not true. Well, why was I told it all?
Well, because other people are frightened and angry and because it's a massive con game that's been going on since the dawn of fear, right?
Which is as old as the species.
Older, in fact. So, he's then going to have a choice, right?
Do I go for... A rational and empirical truth, which is the only truth, or do I go into the land of frightened conformity and recognize that I am just myself a jellied shell of a braver soul and must forever lay low with the hideous and repulsive con men and continue to prey upon children?
Do I stand up for the truth or do I lie down with the serpents?
People don't want to have that choice, right?
I mean, it's a horrible choice.
And it's with sympathy to people who've been raised this way.
It's a horrible choice to face.
But he's going to get that.
He's going to get that. We process things with staggering rapidity.
Particularly ideas which have negative consequences to our social life, right?
To our family and so on.
And I don't have any particular opinions about this, but it is just basically a fact, right?
Which certainly supports this, right?
That personal relations, particularly family relations, are more...
Compelling to people than abstract ideas.
There are certainly people who have taken breaks from or at least so far permanent separations from family, abusive family of origin.
But I can't think, and again I'm not saying this should or shouldn't happen, it's just an observation.
I don't have any opinion about the right course of action in this area.
Particularly, at least nothing I'd want to talk about now, but I can't think of a single marriage that has broken up over philosophy.
And I certainly can't think of a single marriage with children that has broken up over philosophy.
Where the wife is religious and the husband gets philosophy and so on.
I can't think of a single marriage with kids that has broken up on issues of philosophy.
Right, which is people who sense those dominoes and where they're going to go, they simply either completely compartmentalize their mind so that philosophy is one thing and everything else is another, never to meet.
Or they simply disengage themselves from philosophy in order to hang on to their personal relationships, their marriage and their children and so on.
And again, I'm not saying that people should ditch their responsibilities as, you know, full-time dad in order to, you know, because of philosophical differences with the mother.
I'm not saying, I'm just saying that it is a fact that people do find their contemporary, in particular, personal relations more compelling, let's say, than abstract ideas of truth, virtue, integrity, and so on.
And again, no judgment on it, it's just a fact, right, that I've observed in this conversation.
So, the causal chain, right?
So, the guy who's raised religious who hears about the theory of evolution, the causal chain, the dominoes, that he knows, he already has a complete understanding of what happens if he accepts or is even curious about the theory of evolution.
If he says, tell me more, this is interesting.
He knows exactly what is going to happen, right?
His mind is going to wake up.
He's going to live with fear.
He is going to attempt, he's going to have to attempt to bring some of this truth or keep it as a guilty secret or bring some of this truth to those around him who are going to react with hostility and ugliness because they, right, his dominoes, if they accept it, they lead to their own dominoes and, you know, within a year or two, the whole rotten, stinking structure could come down.
But, of course, it's heavily guarded by psychological defenses which are, as we'll talk about in the next podcast, virtually indestructible, right, so...
So, when you speak an idea to someone, a fact, taxation is violence, there is no God, family relations are voluntary, whatever, right?
And people get angry or upset.
The knowledge that they're avoiding is not what you're saying, but what they already understand.
They are reacting not to you, but to themselves.
They are hostile not to you, but to themselves, to their own knowledge, to their own certain knowledge of what will happen if they accept or even explore these ideas.
It's important to understand that, in my opinion.
I don't take it personally. They're reacting to themselves.
I mean, if you've just been tossing and turning all night over a very difficult decision and someone then states something completely obvious about that decision that you've already thought of six million times, you're going to say, yeah, yeah, I got it, right?
Because you already know, right?
That it's, you know, easy.
I'm sorry, you already know the obvious stuff, right?
You're looking for something maybe more subtle or more refined, more sophisticated.
Look at it. So, when you say taxation equals force, people get upset.
They're not rejecting you.
They're not rejecting the idea that taxation equals force.
They're rejecting the whole domino chain that they already know down to their very bones.
The whole domino chain of what even being curious about that idea will mean.
That they will be ejected from their social circle.
That they will be considered kooky or weird or obsessive.
That all kinds of horrible names will be used against them.
That people will just roll their eyes.
That there will be this alienation.
There will be this contempt. There will be this You know, it will be considered a massive flaw in one's character akin to joining some sort of cult and so on, right?
They already know.
They already know all of this.
And I will also tell you something else that I think will be very helpful to you.
How do they know this?
Well, most times people know this because they've done it to others.
Most times, people know this because they've done it to others.
And this doesn't just mean people who are wrong, but people who are largely right.
Objectivists and so on do this attack dog thing too.
So, if you have been someone who has attacked and Rejected or scorned or humiliated or whatever.
Brought someone down or excluded them or because of a divergence of belief or a curiosity about something that is upsetting to you or counter to your ideology.
So if you're an objectivist and someone has said, well, I've been really curious about Marxism and I think that there's some really good and interesting stuff in there, or, you know, I've listened to Noam Chomsky about foreign policy and I think he's bang on and so on.
If you have then rolled your eyes, scorned, rejected, attacked someone who is pursuing his or her own genuine curiosity, well, then...
You know the domino because you are the domino, right?
You know the whole domino line because you've done it.
You know where that last line drops in terms of attack and exclusion because you yourself have done it, right?
So... Then, you know, that which we inflict, we must endure, right?
That which we inflict, we must endure.
So if we attack people for difference of opinion, then we will be afraid to have a different opinion, right?
This is... The difference being that when we attack other people, they can go out of range, right?
They can walk out of range. They can ditch us.
They can take their space, their break, or whatever.
But we can't get out of range of ourselves, right?
We try to put other people in cages.
They can walk out, right? But we get stuck, right?
That's the tragedy of trying to control others or trying to bully others or humiliate others, right?
I mean, we see this on YouTube all the time.
Why is it that people on YouTube get so angry when they talk about particular ideas?
Well, because they understand where it all leads.
They understand where it all goes.
Concepts don't exist. Why would people get so angry about that?
Because if concepts don't exist, God can't exist.
Collectivism, nationalism, patriotism, the USA, the government, the family, none of these things have any real existence.
They're just concepts. Which means they have to let go of manipulating concepts and actually work with things as they are.
To have concepts imperfectly derived from instances is very different from the primacy of concepts.
And they get all of that.
They get all of that. Because if you believe that concepts exist, then you can be a minarchist.
If you understand that concepts don't, you can't be.
Because there's no such thing as a state.
And they understand that.
They understand what it means to no longer be a minarchist.
To be an anarchist and an atheist, they understand what that will do to their social circle, which is probably all about minarchism, Christian libertarianism, right?
So they understand, right? When I say concepts don't exist, they get the whole domino all the way down, front to end, top to bottom, back to front, right?
Because they've done it, right? Because they then attack anyone who says concepts don't exist, right?
Because they have attacked someone who threatens their beliefs, they cannot...
Then take on board any beliefs which will threaten those around them because they know what will happen because they have done it and do it and will do it again, right?
So the people who get the most angry at sensible questions are those who have attacked sensible questions in the past, right?
So when they attack me, they simply reveal that they've been abusive to others.
It doesn't have anything to do with me, right?
We... We live in the world we inflict, right?
We live in the world we inflict.
Or if we are hostile, angry, aggressive, destructive, abusive, then that's the world we live in and that's what we initially, eternally, unconsciously, inevitably expect from others.
And in order to...
because everyone's going to shoot you, you shoot first, right?
In which case everybody ends up shooting back and, ah, I'm right, right?
So, that's the tragedy of the Simon the Boxer stuff, right?
So, when you say taxation equals force, everybody understands.
And they react violently to that knowledge, or they react aggressively or defensively to that knowledge, which is their own self-knowledge of what they've done to others who've come up with surprising or offensive facts.
And... So they are avoiding their own knowledge of the domino chain and of their own actions in the past under similar situations when the roles have been reversed.
Because they have attacked others, they consistently fear attack from others, right?
So that's why I say that the only knowledge we avoid is self-knowledge.
It's knowledge about ourselves, knowledge about our friends, our family, right?
If you can't bring the theory of evolution to your friends and family without being attacked, then they're not your friends and your family are dickheads.
It's not a real relationship.
If you have to conform to other people's bigotries in order to hang around them, there is no relationship.
There is only a culty, frightened, sheepish, bullshit conformity.
It is not a relationship.
To have to conform to other people's bigoted stupid stone-age prejudices or face attack and rejection, that is not a relationship.
That is a pathetic little cult.
That is a pitiful little cowering group of primitive superstitious ass-clown dunderheads.
And everybody knows that.
Right? So when you bring a truth to someone, And they know that those around them will attack them for bringing that truth to them.
They get angry.
But they're avoiding not the knowledge of the fact itself, but the knowledge of what bringing facts to their social circle will entail, will result in, which is attack and exclusion and rejection.
They're avoiding the knowledge that they have that they're in a frightened, bullying, pitiful little Cult that strangles human curiosity, potential, depth, richness, intellectual experience, joy, growth, love, happiness, and anything that is good, decent, and worthy. That they're cowering under the bed like frightened children from the imaginary shadows of petty disapproval.
And that's the knowledge they're avoiding, not the simple facts, but all of that.
And that's why this is in the corruption series, right?
Because to avoid self-knowledge is corrupt.
To avoid what you already know is corrupt.
I mean, sorry, let me put it to you this way.
Let me make that a little bit more clear.
If you say to me, taxation equals force, and I say to you in good old RTR fashion, and I say, you know...
When you just said taxation equals force, I felt a whole chill go through my body.
I don't know why. Because it doesn't have anything to do with the...
I'm not even going to claim that I understand the theory or reasoning behind it.
But when you said taxation equals force, I just felt this whole shiver go through my body.
Like a kind of chill, a kind of fear.
Anxiety. My palms are sweating.
And I don't know why I would have that reaction.
It's just a theory. It's just a statement.
I don't even say it consciously or intellectually understand it.
But when you said that, I just felt this shock go through me.
Well, that is an honest statement.
Or, you know, I felt really angry when you brought that up.
Resentful. I don't know why.
I mean, you're just putting forward a proposition.
But I felt, like, angry.
I felt this anger and irritation and a desire to flee or attack you.
I just, oh, I don't know.
That would be an honest response.
But if somebody starts using the truth, right?
Oh, it's a false statement.
Oh, you're in ad hominems and all this kind of stuff.
If they start using crappy bullshit arguments, that's corrupt, right?
Because then you are using the standard of truth to attack truth.
You are using the fog of truthiness to attack real truth, right?
You can't say...
I'm bigoted, right?
I mean, even a racist doesn't say, well, I'm just a racist, bigot, asshole, right?
He says, no, it's because X, Y, and Z race is inferior and blah, blah, blah, right?
It presents facts, right?
Oh, well, you know, I have a negative view of certain races.
It's derived from basic facts.
I don't choose this. It's just the way that it is, blah, blah, blah.
They always come up with facts.
So when you attack an argument because it makes you anxious, but you cloak that attack in objective truth as if It is objectively offensive to hear this, or if it is objectively ridiculous and embarrassing and stupid to say it, then that's completely corrupt, because you're using the veneer of the truth to actually attack what is true.
Thus you both affirm and deny the value of the truth.
You affirm the appearance of truth while using that appearance to attack the reality of truth.
Is damnable and downright corrupt.
So, just remember this.
The only knowledge that people are avoiding is self-knowledge.
It really will help you take it less personally, and it will also help you to focus your efforts on those who have managed to hang on to their curiosity during the long, difficult...
And full of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune trudge that we all have to the truth from the lies of our origins.
So thank you so much for listening, as always.
I hope that you're doing very well.
I hope you're enjoying a car cast for the first time in many moons.
And I hope that the speech will go well on Sunday, and I'm sure we will put it up somewhere useful.
Thank you all so much.
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