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Aug. 12, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:08
1434 Our Achievements Part 2

What would your life be without philosophy?

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Hi everybody, it's Steph. Hope you're doing well.
It is the 12th of August 2009.
And I'm heading off to pick up some child-proofing gear.
And I thought we'd have a little chat.
This is a continuation of Pause, Reflect, and Celebrate!
Ba-da-ba-da-ba!
Come on! Ba-da-ba-da!
Ba-ba-ba-ba!
Which is to have a look at Have a look over the storm and stress of the moment, which often happens with a new paradigm in philosophy.
And look towards the happiness that we are achieving slowly and sometimes painfully in the present.
But more particularly, more importantly, the happiness that we are going to bring to the world in the future.
And I think that's really important.
I know that people say, well, why should I care about the future and so on?
And I've heard that criticism quite a lot, and I can really understand it.
But of course, it's not exactly UBB, right?
I mean, we can assume that at least some of the people who made the great leaps forward in the past that we so joyfully consume today did so partly out of a vision to improve the future, since there wasn't a whole lot of improving of the present that these people sometimes achieved.
Galileo faced an awful amount of prosecution, calumny, and threats of torture, and did not exactly bring the world to science in his day, as did Kepler or Copernicus or Tycho Brahe or any of these people.
And they were motivated fundamentally by a love of the truth.
And When we have a love of the truth, we don't have a love for some truth.
Obviously, we have a hope for the more important truths, but we don't have a love for some truth and the other truth we don't love.
We love truth as the platonic ideal.
And when we love truth as a platonic ideal, I mean the truth in and of itself, not that it exists in Plato's World of Forms, when we love the truth, then I think we have to accept the truth That a love of the truth improves the future.
And I'm not saying that's our primary motivation, but it is an inevitable effect.
That a love of truth harms the majority in the present and helps a minority in the present.
While in the future it helps the majority of people and harms a very small minority.
This is The reality of social progress.
Let me say that again. A new essential truth, and by essential I mean fundamental to cosmology or society or ethics or the family.
A new truth harms the majority of people in the present and helps a minority.
And by harms I simply mean discomforts and alarms and It frightens and angers and so on.
It discomforts the majority of people in the present, and it helps or comforts or strengthens a minority of people, whereas once that truth becomes generally accepted, then it helps the majority of people, and it harms only a minority.
So to take evolution, when evolution first came out as a theory, it shocked, appalled, angered, And alarmed the majority of people in society.
And it helped a minority of people who were willing and able to put aside their prejudices and their superstitions.
And now, if you look at sort of the civilized Western world, and we'll include America in this, then it helps the majority of people.
I think it's fantastic and fascinating and wonderful and great that the theory of evolution has been so substantially validated.
Because it has explanatory power.
And explanatory power is how you stand on the land rather than the sea.
You don't have to do that constant water-treading in a stormy sea of faith, gulping and swallowing sea water and avoiding the shocks of doubt.
But you can stand on solid ground, build houses and move on.
You don't have to will into existence and stability Your entire cosmology.
And I appreciate it, of course, as a great answer to the question, where did we come from?
Now, so we've driven all but the lunatic religious away from the question, where did we come from, with regards to the species, and in time, science will do that with regards to the universe.
Slowly, bit by bit.
You don't change the minds of people who are just crazy addicted to faith, but for those who are capable of reason, they will drift towards the more rational.
If you look at the largely skeptical, largely secular, largely atheist, educated Western world, the theory of evolution comforts and enlightens and is a source of happiness and certainty for the majority, and the minority Who are the creationists and the intelligent designers and all of that sort of nonsense.
Anyway, the thought just struck me that intelligent design always has to do with species, never to do with the morals of the world.
You think that God would be a little bit more interested in the morals of the world than the shape of a newt's foot.
But anyway, so the theory of evolution frightened and alarmed and angered the majority of people, if not the vast majority of people, when it first came out and comforted the minority.
And now, over time, it comforts and enlightens the majority, and it alarms and angers only a minority.
That is the inevitable progress of truth.
And I would submit that the truth that has some fundamental characteristics is going to be the most alarming and the most upsetting to people.
And that is a truth...
That has three characteristics.
The first characteristic is that it is blindingly obvious, right?
So the more that the truth is blindingly obvious, but has been repressed, the more, when it is spoken, we understand why it's been repressed, because it causes a lot of hostility.
So that's kind of inevitable, right?
So the more blindingly obvious the truth is, the more upset it's going to cause when finally propagated, right?
When finally spoken. So, something like the theory of relativity was not a truth that was obvious, but repressed, right?
I mean, it was not at all obvious, and therefore was not repressed.
And the majority of people, obviously myself included, have no clue about the mathematics behind it, but, I mean, I accept, obviously, the conclusions as scientifically valid.
So, when a truth is obvious, and has not been spoken, then it's going to be highly, highly Controversial, let's say.
Of course, right? So, you know, I mean, some of the stuff we talk about here, that the non-aggression principle is a principle, is a principle, and therefore extends to the state and to the family and to religion.
And that lying to children about reality is an act of aggression against their cognitive abilities, which is that methodology of survival.
So... Just as verbal and, in particular, physical.
And, of course, sexual child abuse harms a child's mind and physiology and so on.
So the fact that the non-aggression principle, which everybody accepts that violence is a bad way to solve problems, the fact that we say, gosh, it is a principle, which everybody would say it is a principle.
They wouldn't say it's just an opinion, or at least nobody reasonable would say, well, you know, being against violence is just an opinion.
The fact that we take this principle and we have rationally extended it to state, to gods, and to families is shocking to people.
And the reason people get so angry is that there's no real defense against that other than anger.
The more angry someone gets in general, and the less they address the content of an argument, the more they already believe it and already accept it, right?
So that, of course, causes...
When a truth comes out that is obvious, then people have very little defense against it.
And therefore, they tend to get very angry.
And the second aspect of truth that causes volatility is if the truth is moral.
If the truth is moral.
I mean, fundamentally, nobody gave a rat's ass about evolution.
Other than its relationship to divinity, right?
So, I think we can generally accept that the theory of relativity doesn't specifically contradict anything in the Bible, but of course the theory of evolution does.
Again, maybe it does, but that's not really how it's perceived.
I mean, the theory of relativity.
So, because it directly contradicts the biblical story of Creationism, then it's volatile.
Because it has a relationship to what people perceive as the basis for ethics, right?
People have this bizarre superstition that if there's no God, there's no ethics.
As if with God there is ethics, i.e.
the Middle East. Of course there's no ethics with God, it's just fanatical relativism.
That's all religion is, is fanatical relativism.
Absolute relativism, which is the worst combination, right?
So if a truth touches on morality, then people are going to get that much more volatile.
Because the truth that people feel powerless in the face of is the ones they get the most angry about.
And since ethics is so powerful in human thinking and such an incredible tool either for domination or liberation, when it Truth touches on ethics.
People recognize that that's the fundamental lever of society, and they get very volatile because no human being can look in the mirror and say, I'm evil, right?
So if you work with principles of ethics that reveal immorality to immoral people, their own immorality, then they get angry, of course, because they have this fantasy that it has something to do with the definition and not reality.
Like if somebody didn't say...
That smoking is bad for you, then smoking wouldn't be bad for you, right?
They blame the surgeon general, not their own smoking habits.
So, in the same way that an immature gambling addict will blame the casino and not his own failure to get treatment for his addiction.
So, when it's moral, that is the second...
Fundamental volatility that occurs in the realm of the propagation of a new idea.
And that is really, really alarming.
Too many people.
And the third is if it is directly actionable.
If it will cause people to take decisions in their personal lives that have effects Significant effects.
Not in the realm of debate, but in the realm of action.
Then that's the trifecta, right?
That's when people really, really go crazy nuts, right?
And so, you know, what we talk about here, honesty as a process in the moment of talking about what you actually think and feel and providing feedback without jumping to conclusions to those around you Honesty, like if you had a bad childhood, talking to your caregivers and saying, I had a bad childhood and here's what I experienced and here's what I feel now in the moment telling you about it.
Well, that really messes people up.
And it's sad that it does, and I'd much rather it didn't.
But it really messes people up because, again, there's no defense against someone being honest.
Right? I mean, other than verbal abuse, which is not really defense, just an attack, right?
But this is why when people speak honestly about their histories...
If their caregivers were abusive, and they talk honestly about their histories and talk about their preferences.
You know, it didn't happen, you're a liar, all this sort of stuff.
That's the only defense, because as soon as people accept it, then they have to change, acknowledge, and so on.
So, when we were talking about a stateless society...
Things were relatively abstract, entertaining, challenging, you know, like 3D chess or something.
I mean, it's an enjoyable mental Sudoku, and I think that's great.
The fit really began to hit the shan when we began to talk about Well, the against me argument to some degree, you know, the family roots of violence, right?
I mean, it's just terrible, really, that people, millions of people around the world in 03 or 02 or 03 were marching and going against the war, the imminent invasion of Iraq.
And yet, when you bring up the child abuse that leads to this kind of Aggression, both in terms of George Bush, who was a victim of significant child abuse and had sociopathic tendencies, reportedly even as a child, blowing up frogs and so on.
The fact that the war, in terms of the people who fight it and the people who run it and so on, that they would almost all be victims of significant child abuse that would have killed their empathy neurons and And that they would be a different kind of species, right? A predator rather than a co-operator.
People will shy away from the topic of child abuse almost continually, but they will rail against its consequences, which is really tragic.
Right? It's like railing against lung cancer and then dismissing that smoking is bad for you, right?
Because you're a smoker. I mean, in the future, people will look back at this as jaw-droppingly nuts.
And people think that it's not unless it's pointed out, as if they don't have a conscience.
But of course they do, and it's their conscience that aligns with us and their false self that rebels against what we're saying.
So all of that stuff, I think, is really, really important to understand that what we're doing hits the trifecta, and there's probably more, but these are the ones that just popped into my mind, hits the trifecta of truths that really, really alarm people.
So it's okay to talk about libertarianism, but the moment you personalize it into, so you support the use of violence against me, then people get very, very, very upset. Because it's no longer about the money supply and the gold standard and the Fed and the Constitution and all of the Amstrak, him and Abinamana, who cares, let's talk about the fiend folio and the monster manual and pretend that we're fighting real enemies.
It becomes down to, so it's you and me, and there's a gun in the room, and you want that gun pointed at me, and that's wrong.
Well, that's really...
What happens?
Why do people avoid that so much?
Why is that so volatile? Well, because it hits the trifecta, right?
It's completely obvious.
It's been repressed for obvious reasons, and it's about morality, and it's actionable!
In other words, you can stop saying that I should have a gun pointed at me.
That's one thing you can do, and if you don't, we have a problem in our relationship.
Now, here's the thing that I think is so essential to understand about what it is that we're doing here in terms of ethics and philosophy.
Which is this. Most human beings are in a state of pre-philosophy, in a state of pre-virtue, in the same way that chimpanzees are in the state of pre-religion, we assume.
So human beings are in a state of pre-principles.
However, like all life forms...
Human beings in a state of pre-principle, in a state of pre-integrity, in a state of pre-philosophy.
We assume that to a large degree in the Egyptian world and even the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, in a state of pre-free market, pre-voluntarism, or in a state of pre-science for the most part.
So, We assume that people are in this state.
I think that's where we should start in our general, in a state of pre-principles.
Now, that does not mean that they don't respect, recognize, and value principles.
They're just in a state of pre-principles when it comes to actually applying them quite principles.
Sorry, it's a terrible way of putting it.
Let me see if I can be even mildly clearer.
So, all creatures attempt to maximize resources while minimizing expenditures.
This is why, what is it, 80%?
If somebody wrote to me, I haven't verified it, but something like 80% of all creatures are parasitical, right?
Because it's so great and useful to be that way.
So, So all creatures want to maximize intake and minimize output.
That's one of the fundamental laws of biology and of success as an evolutionary species.
But here's the central paradox that FDR is, that we're all attempting to address here, which is this.
All creatures want to maximize input and minimize output To maximize the acquisition of resources, to minimize the expenditure, to gather those resources.
And this is called a state of pre-ethics.
But, but, but, but, for human beings, there is no greater way To maximize resource acquisition while minimizing energy expenditure, there's no greater way to do it than to use, quote, ethics.
Do you understand? I'm going to say this again because this is really, really, really important.
Human beings in general live in a state of pre-ethics, but because they're biological organisms, they want to use whatever tricks they can to maximize the resources they acquire and to minimize the energy it takes to acquire them.
So they're in a state of pre-ethics, but ethics is the greatest way that human beings have of being parasitical.
If that doesn't blow your mind, rewind.
If that doesn't blow your mind, rewind, my brothers and sisters.
Most organisms are parasitical, and the greatest way of being parasitical is to inflict Propagandistic, quote, ethics on your victims.
To make them attack each other, to give them patriotism, to have them salute a flag, to have them sing a song, to have them worship the state or the God, which doesn't exist, as does the state not exist, therefore you are in fact worshiping sleazy politicians and scum-wad priests.
This is what I mean when I say that the corrupt understand the power of virtue and ethics much more than the virtuous.
They understand the power of ethics.
They understand the power of principles.
And they use those principles to exploit.
Because they understand that As the old Jesuit priests used to say, give me a child until he is seven and he is mine for life.
People cannot resist the gravity well of defined and accepted and inflicted, for the most part, ethics.
They cannot resist the gravity well of principles.
Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.
People always want to do good, which is why the definition of virtue and the power of that definition is so well understood by the corrupt and the exploitive and the parasites above us.
So good is used for evil.
Principles are used for exploitation.
Virtue is used to feed corruption at the expense of the virtuous.
And the greatest fear of the corrupt and the exploitive is that philosophy will extend the principles they preach to their victims to include the masters themselves.
And Integrity and philosophy so enrage the corrupt because we are taking the weapon that is rightfully ours out of their rotting hands.
They are using virtue to exploit and corrupt the innocent and dependent, largely, children.
And their greatest fear is that the principles That they so espouse and so use to exploit the helpless will be extended and expanded to include them.
That is the great and terrible secret of society.
That nonviolence is extended to include parents, priests, and the state.
So, a priest will tell you, don't lie, boy.
Tell the truth. It is honorable and it is virtuous to tell the truth, to be honest.
Right? And then they will tell you that God exists.
And then when you get older and you say, well, what is the proof that how do you know that God exists?
Well, I don't. Right?
So, they will tell you to tell the truth because that makes owning you easier if you confess.
Right? But when you then confront them with the lies that they told, suddenly everything gets all foggy.
Because the principle, virtue, is only for the slaves.
Right? And Nietzsche had it wrong.
He thought that the slaves invented virtue to ameliorate the agony of their humiliation.
But it's not true.
They were already slaves.
And why were they slaves?
Because they accepted it.
The ethics of conquest.
There's an old story told in Rome that some senator put forward a bill that said, look, we need to be able to identify these slaves because a lot of these slaves are dressing like us and looking like us, and I keep referring to them as if they're not slaves or interacting with them as if they're not slaves, but it turns out that they are, so we need to do something about that.
So let's force the slaves to wear Red togas, some blue togas, some costume that we can identify them.
Everybody laughed at him and said, are you crazy?
Are you crazy, man? You can't have slaves all wearing purple togas or red togas or orange togas.
You can't put the slaves in something that identifies them because then the slaves will see how numerous they are!
And they won't be slaves anymore.
Right? So this is all part of the livestock management techniques, and ethics is the greatest fence to keep the livestock in that exists.
Ethics is the greatest barrier to freedom that the livestock must face down.
And so when a philosopher comes along and extends the ethics that are used to enslave to those who do the enslaving, he breaks The entire purpose of ethics, which is to crash and exploit the entire purpose of ethics for the rulers.
Right? They say, this is absolute, and then, oh, this is absolute, and this is universal, and then when you apply it to them, they get all squidgy, and, oh, well, it's pragmatic, it's...
Utilitarian. It's like this. They break the ethics.
It becomes arguments from effect. When you crush those arguments from effect, then the gun comes out, right?
The threat comes out. So this is why people get so angry.
And this isn't all, of course, occurring at the state level.
It's not occurring in the realm of priesthoods as well, right?
It's painful to confront your demons.
It's painful and it's humbling and it can be humiliating and it's expensive in terms of time and money to go to therapy and so on.
So confronting your demons is a significant expenditure of resources.
And for some people, if not for many people, if you can convince your children that the family is just automatically and innately virtuous, but she's your mother, right?
That there's No evil that can be done in the family too great to break the bonds of blood.
Then you gain the resources of family allegiance without expending the resources of personal growth.
Right? You understand?
This is a pre-moral, pre-philosophical, which means that philosophy is only used as a tool or a club to maximize resource consumption while minimizing expenditures.
We all know, those of us who are confronting our demons or who have confronted our demons, that it is a very expensive process on every conceivable level, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, financial, moral, ego.
It's a hugely expensive process to confront your demons.
And people who are in just an exploitive phase, right, in a pure biological phase, look at that and say, well, why would I want to go through the personal agony, financial expense, time consumption, humiliation, overturning or uprooting or examination of my relationships?
Why would I want to go through all of that if I can gain the lifelong allegiance of my children anyway?
The cost-benefit analysis is ridiculous.
Why would you even... Again, if you're just into resources, maximization of resources, minimization of expenditures, it would make absolutely no sense if you can gain the attention and attention Allegiance and resources of your children through your life, through your old age, into your dotage and death.
If you can gain all of those resources without having to expend the resources of being a better person, all the huge resource consumption that that entails, if you can do that, why would you bother?
From a pure resource calculation, from a cost-benefit analysis, it makes no sense at all.
And, I mean, we're trying to change that equation a little bit, right?
Trying to change that equation a little bit to raise the cost-benefit analysis so that if you harm your children significantly and repetitively, that you take the risk of them not being around for your old age.
That's going to change the equation.
So the people who are simply doing resource calculations, as almost everybody does, they're just doing resource calculations that changes the equation.
Voluntarism changes the equation.
Philosophy changes the equation of resource calculations.
And that's the best we can do.
We know people who harm children aren't exactly driven by ethics to begin with.
They're driven by resource calculations.
And so the only way to minimize that, to change that calculation to have them become better people, is changing the equation of expenditures and rewards.
By saying, well, you can't rely on propaganda and everybody in society talking about allegiance to abusive, even abusive parents is a great virtue.
We can no longer rely on that and therefore the cost-benefit changes.
Understand? It's like privatizing the post office.
We can no longer rely on tax revenues and bailouts to keep us going.
So we have to change our business practices.
Human beings are extraordinarily inert.
Like all organisms in a pre-philosophical state, when they get something that works really well, they're absolutely loathe to change it.
Whether it's how things work at the post office or how things work in an abusive family.
Of course they don't want to change.
It's painful. It's difficult.
We all know that, right? Those who are participating in this conversation to the degree of personal growth and therapy and all that.
I mean, we know how horrible and hard it is to change.
So why would you? The post office is never going to reform itself from the inside out.
Only voluntarism will change the practices of the post office, and only voluntarism will change the equations of corrupt people.
So, of course, they don't want to change, and of course, it's agonizing, and they've relied upon the assumption of future resources being provided to them without them having to go through the current expenditure of change, self-confrontation of growth, confronting their own histories, their own childhood abuse and child abuse, I guess. their own childhood abuse and child abuse, I guess.
So, it's It's a huge and fundamental switch in society.
And I'll just sort of finish up with this, you know, so we understand the difficulty and hostility that people have.
And I'll just sort of end up with this.
I mean, feminism has a bad rap, and in some ways I think fairly, right, the statist feminism and so on, right?
But the fundamental women are...
Worthy of the greatest respect as men and children.
Worthy of the greatest respect and the same rights as everyone else.
That is something that feminists early on fought very hard for.
For women to have property rights.
For women to have the right of contract.
For women to have the right of divorce.
To recognize rape as a crime.
To recognize beating your wife as a crime.
To recognize rape in marriage.
As a crime, which in many countries was not until the mid-20th century that that became a possibility.
To recognize all of this for women, to drag society's conception of women out of virtually prehistoric times, was a fantastic and beautiful and wonderful extension of the principles of humanity, right? As it went with slaves, then it went with women, now it goes with children.
It's just, you know, it's just the sequence, just what happens, right?
Principles get extended. That's the way it works.
And because the suffragettes, I know they were going for women voting and had messed up consequences and so on, but we're just talking about the stuff, you know, the basics, right?
Property rights, right of contract, right of secession from marriage and so on, right?
I mean, right of to be free from violence and all those kinds of things.
The women who fought very hard for that We're the ones responsible, in a very fundamental way, for the quality of my marriage.
For the love that I am able to have for my wife, because she has the independence to be moral.
She has the independence to have integrity.
She has the independence to own her choices.
and that's garner's inevitable and intense respect for me for the choices that she makes.
So, the quality of my marriage is directly proportional to the work that the early feminists did in terms of legal equality the quality of my marriage is directly proportional to the work that the early Thank you.
Thank you.
I see that.
I'm grateful to them for what they did and they suffered many harsher consequences than we will ever suffer.
And if we recognize, and that's just one example of all the goods that we have in the present based on the incredible work that people did in the past, and we're grateful for that, then we understand what it is that we're doing in a very important way in terms of its effects on the futures, and we rise above the petty and reactive present to the glorious, open and free future, and stand with pride at doing our part to bring that world alive.
Thank you so much. I look forward to your donations.
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If you could hit freedomandradio.com forward slash donate dot html.
I'd really, really, really appreciate that.
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