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Sept. 27, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:55:24

1469 Sunday Call In Show Sep 27 2009

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux for Freedom Aid Radio.
	I hope you're doing very well. This is, if I remember rightly, something like the 27th of September 2009.
	I have reached the ripe old age of 43 and I'm no longer the Douglas Adams answer to the question of the problem of what is the universe and the meaning of life.
	So I made it through that whole year without answering that question, so the quest does continue.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	This is Blog Talk Live.
	We are taking calls On the questions and the topics and the issues and the problems and the challenges and the excitements of philosophy, the love of wisdom and truth, from the old Greek, philos, meaning a good kind of pastry.
	So, James, would you like to mention the call-in number for our fine listeners who may be tuning in from a variety of sources?
	Yes, the number to call in, everybody, is 347-633- 9636.
	That number again is 347-633-9636.
	And of course, if you go and get a free blogtalkradio.com account, you can use the click to talk feature which is at the top of the screen in the chatroom to call in.
	And just for those who are listening in the Free Domain Radio chatroom, fdrurl.com forward slash chat.
	How is the sound? Everything sound?
	Okay. Downright British sexy.
	How's it going? Things are going just fine.
	So, James, just give me a holler if we have a caller.
	I'll do a short introduction and then we will listen to our fine callers who will have some amazing and wonderful and exciting questions.
	I will do. Thank you.
	So, I did a...
	First of all, let me do a plug.
	And not a hair plug, except for those who've suggested it.
	That's not my particular plan.
	The plug is for a podcast called School Sucks.
	And it's well worth having a listen to.
	I've been listening to, there are, I think, six episodes out at the moment.
	And I think it's schoolsucks.podomatic.com or something like that.
	But just do a search for the podcast School Sucks.
	Highly recommend it. I had a very interesting interview with the fellow who runs it today, Brett.
	Who spent 10 years in the public sector educational system before his brain did both a rotation levitation off his neck and a scanner's explosion at the same time.
	And he has recently made the thousand mile inch and a half trek from minarchism to voluntarism or stateless society or market anarchism, whatever you want to call it.
	But what we like to call true and valid moral propositions such as the non-aggression principle universalized Well worth it and thank you so much.
	To the Free Domain Radio listeners who have pointed out this podcast, I wanted to chat with the guy.
	He said he was a fan of mine.
	So basically we just sucked face for about 45 minutes.
	Perhaps the least erotic thing you will ever see.
	So it's a really good interview.
	I hope that you will listen to it.
	And I will post it this week.
	And I did a podcast.
	I'll just sort of summarize it very, very briefly here.
	Do you know, one of the problems, one of the many problems that I have...
	With statism. Is the problem that arises when we basically have to not tell the truth to our children about the nature of our society.
	That to me is a fundamental problem in any social system.
	If you simply can't tell the truth to your children about your society.
	We can think of an old South plantation.
	And some...
	Billy Joe, Bob, white-haired, Kentucky-fried chicken, Colonel Sanders-looking fellow, trying to explain to his children what all the black people are doing out in the fields picking all the cotton while he picks his noses and abuses the cook.
	And what would he say to his child in that situation?
	Well, he would kind of have to say that, you know, God has given us custodianship.
	Of these blacks and they like working in the fields.
	Look at them dance. Look at them sing.
	It's voluntary. It's good.
	It's fine. It's noble.
	We've been charged by Jesus to raise these people from their primeval ignorance to Christian enlightenment and blah blah blah blah blah.
	What he wouldn't really be able to say to his children very easily is we whip them if they disobey.
	They're not here by choice.
	The entire foundation of your income is the violence of slavery.
	If they try to run away, representatives of the government chase them down and bring them back where they are beaten and branded and so on.
	He simply would not be able to tell the truth to their children about the nature of their society.
	How could they? How could they?
	And it's even more of a challenge in many ways now, because of our more enlightened society, it's even more of a challenge now to tell the truth about our society To our children.
	That's a really tough challenge.
	I mean, you know, you're in kindergarten and you get a couple of your friends and you take some rich kid's lunch money by force or threat, and the teacher gives you these very simplistic, branded on the forehead, kindergarten ethics.
	Don't steal. Don't cheat. Don't lie.
	Don't hit. Don't threaten.
	Be nice. Share.
	But that's, of course, not the truth about how society works.
	We regularly gang up on each other using the mechanism of majority rule brute force, majority rule democracy, to bribe each other to steal resources from whatever minority.
	It's displeasing us at the moment.
	And how are we going to tell children this?
	That it's bad for them to do it in the kindergarten, but it's good for us to do it in the Congress, the Houses of Parliament, through the National Debt, through the Federal Reserve, through whatever fiat...
	Currency madmen are currently running the economy into the ground.
	If we were to tell the truth to children who push, who hit, who take, who steal, who use violence to achieve their ends, if we were to tell the truth to them, it would look very different from what we actually say.
	What we would have to say to them is, you know, as a society, we're really screwed up about violence.
	We love it, and we fear and hate it.
	Whenever we want to get anything done in this world, we pass a law and a law is a gun to somebody's head.
	So anytime we want to solve any problem, poverty, drugs, illiteracy, education, global warming, getting better pay for certain groups, attacking other groups, unpopular groups, CEOs, corporations and so on.
	Anytime we want to get anything done in society, the first thing that we ever reach for is the gun and almost always the only thing we ever reach for is the gun.
	Women feel that they're underpaid?
	BAM! They get the legislators to force laws.
	Poor people think that they're underpaid?
	BAM! We get the legislators to pass laws to raise their salaries.
	And this list goes on and on.
	So we love using violence to get what we want, sayeth the teachers.
	And in fact, if the teachers were to be even remotely honest to the children, and you could see how impossible it is for them to be honest to the children.
	If they were to be remotely honest with the children, They would say, well, I gotta tell you, you taking your lunch money from a kid using violence, it's a tough thing for me to criticize because as a public school teacher, I get months off in the summer, I get a huge pension, I get job security, I can't be fired, I can be as incompetent as I want and nobody ever suffers.
	I get all of this through violence!
	If you don't show up to school, truancy laws.
	People will attack your parents if your parents don't choose to pay for the schools.
	Then they get thrown in jail, and I support the use of violence.
	My entire paycheck, my whole authority, this building, the crayons you use, the Bristol boards on the wall, the glass in the windows, everything is paid for.
	The point of a gun. So, when you push some kid over and take his lunch money, I've got to tell you, I don't know what to say.
	We love violence.
	The abstract institution of violence that benefits us materially in the short run.
	Oh, mwah! We kiss the bloody hem of that hierarchical garment.
	We love that violence.
	But the violence in the private sector, direct criminality, organized crime, push and grab children, shoplifting.
	Oh, that is bad!
	Violence for the masters we worship, we love, we adore, we respect, we are patriotic, we fly the flags to praise the guns of the masters.
	We love it. But If you try and do the same thing as the masters, kabam!
	The ton of bricks of moral attack from your fellow slaves will come down upon you, like the swords of Damocles.
	So we have a real problem trying to explain our society to children.
	We say to them, violence is wrong.
	And then, anytime we have a problem we want to solve in society, first place we go is to the government to pass laws, to threaten people with violence, to throw them in jail for disobedience or disagreement.
	How can we explain our society to children?
	This is the problem that I have with statism fundamentally and this is why children grow up so confused and bewildered and get so aggressive and weirded out when basic truths are presented to them by adults.
	Anything you can't explain to a child in terms of ethics is not good.
	It's not good. Because ethics is either one of two things.
	Ethics is either Something as simple as don't kill, don't steal, don't rape, don't murder, don't assault, and so on.
	It is either simple stuff, and studies among babies show that from 18 to 24 to 30 months or so, they get the basic differences between ethics and social preference, between don't steal, don't hit, and you should hang your coat on this particular hook.
	They understand the difference between these things.
	If ethics...
	If ethics is that simple that a two- and three-year-old child can understand it, that's good.
	Because then it means we're all bound by it.
	If ethics is really complicated, like people have PhDs in philosophy and still can't tell you objective right from wrong, then nobody is bound by ethics whatsoever.
	Nobody is bound by ethics if it's that complicated.
	If postmodernism and relativism and all this crazy crap that goes on in universities around Confusing and obfuscating and fogging up the basic questions of ethics.
	If it's true that everything is relative, then nobody is bound by ethics.
	If it's true that ethics is so complicated, nobody is responsible for being good.
	That's like saying that virtue requires that you get a PhD in mathematics.
	Well, if that's what it requires, then almost nobody is bound by ethical standards.
	It's not universal, it's not required.
	But we impose ethical standards upon children, which means that we believe that ethics are simple, clear, universal, and absolute.
	And that's how we explain it to our children.
	But then when our children have questions and say, well, you told me that violence was wrong, but you want to solve every problem with the guns of the government.
	Well, you see, then things become very complicated and we throw all this fog and all this kind of crap.
	And that is...
	That's ridiculous. That's embarrassing.
	That's hypocritical. That is retarded.
	That is something which future generations will not look kindly upon us.
	If we dominate children with the easy absolutes of objective.
	Morality. When we control and command them with simple moral absolutes, but then when they turn those moral absolutes upon us, and we get all complicated and relativistic impoma, that's really embarrassing.
	That's really hypocritical.
	The degree to which we have these moral contradictions within society is the degree to which our society becomes progressively more and more corrupt because we simply can't justify what we do and we have to make up this complex web of lies obfuscations,
	complications to simply explain why it is that we do what we do rather than doing the simple thing and saying well if we can't explain what we're doing To children, then let's stop imposing it upon children, right? If property rights and violence and coercion and management and control are all so complicated that it takes a PhD in philosophy to get close to the answer, let's stop imposing it on children, right?
	We can't say that children are dumb because they don't understand all the mathematics behind the theory of relativity, right?
	We can't say that would be ridiculous.
	And so we can't say that children are bad if they don't obey simple moral instructions, which we can't even obey.
	Or apply consistently, such as don't use violence to get what you want.
	Don't initiate the use of force against other people, which means don't have a government.
	So we either stop imposing these complicated, pomo, relativistic, crappy, obfuscated, fogged out morals on children, because they obviously can't understand, and even we can't understand.
	So let's stop imposing them on children, or if we're going to impose them on children, let's at least have the honor, decency, commitment, integrity, and guts to impose them On ourselves and on our social institutions.
	So... That's it for my intro.
	Hey, look at that! Relatively short, I might say.
	So, if you want to...
	Sorry, James, most rude and silly of me.
	I forgot to bring my piece of paper with the number written on it.
	Did I? Yes, I did.
	So, if you could just give that out again.
	Alright, do we have anybody else or shall I continue?
	Continue, because the 703 caller, I guess, is just a listener.
	All right. So, I guess one or two minor points of business.
	I have set up an interview with Lloyd DeMoss, a writer who has some very challenging and exciting works on psychohistory, is the name of the discipline.
	I hadn't heard about it until about a year ago when a listener pointed it out to me.
	Psychohistory.com, it's an absolutely fascinating, fascinating, fascinating discipline.
	He believes... And there's a number of people who are involved in this movement.
	Alice Miller was one, and there's some other people whose names I'm sure you would recognize.
	And I've been in contact with them for about a year off and on.
	And I've also read eight chapters of his new book, The Origins of War and Child Abuse, which is available at freedomainradio.com forward slash psychohistory.
	I'd highly recommend listening to that audiobook.
	It's a challenge for sure.
	Because the content is grim at times, for sure, but I think it's really, really important.
	The basic idea at the Psychohistorian Society is that the history of the world can best be understood as the history of childhood.
	That our most abstract social institutions can be better understood, not exclusively, but better understood by looking at early childhood experiences because Of course, my thesis has been for a long time, though I'm not a professional historian and certainly no psychologist, but my thesis has been for some time that if you want to have a better world, you need to raise children more peacefully.
	There has been a terrifying study that has come out recently from a fellow sociologist who's been studying corporal punishment since 1969, which is quite some time.
	What is that, 40 years? And he's 83 and And he has done a fairly extensive longitudinal study of almost 2,000 children and has found that children who experience corporal punishment...
	And he does not mean by this abuse.
	Corporal punishment is...
	I don't distinguish it in this way, but the general statement is that corporal punishment is designed to inflict pain upon a child...
	But not for the sake of inflicting pain, but for the sake of altering behavior, right?
	So you spank a child not to cause pain, although it has to cause pain to be a deterrent, but you spank a child in order to manage or control his or her behavior.
	And it's not done to the point of injury or permanent injury, and not done for the sake of causing pain, not in a sadistic way, but in a sort of management of behavior way.
	I don't think there's a distinction, but I can make that case another time.
	And in this study... Which I may do a true news on this week.
	It has been found that children who...
	He asked a bunch of mothers the question, you know, have you spanked or hit your children?
	Or spanked, I think he used. Have you used corporal punishment on your children over the last two weeks?
	And those mothers who said yes, or those parents who said yes, he measured their children's intelligence over, I think, a four to five year period.
	And he found that up to two years of age, there was a five point drop In IQ points among those children who were spanked.
	Five points in IQ. That is a lot.
	Five points is a lot.
	Five points can be a very significant difference.
	It is, in particular thresholds, five point IQ difference is the difference between going to college or being able to go to college and not going to college.
	And it is just terrifying.
	That does drop when the kids get older to about 2.8%, which is still, sorry, 2.8%.
	Points of IQ, which is still significant.
	But spanking is strongly correlated with significant drops in IQ points for the children.
	And I think that is very, very interesting and terrifying.
	And it's also been strongly correlated to the children who are spanked are less likely to go to college even if you normalize the data for the parents' education and so on.
	So, I may do a true news on that this week.
	It is a terrifying set of statistics, the degree to which spanking, not corporate punishment, sorry, not physical abuse, at least that's not what I was being asked about.
	Corporate punishment does harm, and it seems permanently, it does harm the children, the brains of children, and their cognitive capacities, which makes sense on a number of levels.
	His thesis is that when there is a Spanking, right?
	We say it's spanking, you know, and if you're a parent who does this, I mean, I would really strongly recommend that you don't do it.
	I hugely, hugely, hugely recommend that you do not spank.
	There are so many better ways to deal with children when it comes to the power disparity that you have and the need to guide them and keep them safe.
	Spanking is just a terrible, terrible, terrible way to control the behavior of children.
	There are so many better ways to do it.
	But his thesis is that when we spank, I mean...
	We say, well, it's just spanking because the child is very small and we're very large.
	But, you know, my daughter will be, I guess, she'll weigh about 20 pounds, 22 pounds or whatever.
	I'm about 197 or 198 pounds.
	So I'm, you know, five, sorry, I'm 10 times her size.
	You can't hit someone Ten times smaller than you and not have it be terrifying for the child.
	You just, you can't. Even if it's not physical, like doesn't need to leave a bruise or anything.
	Imagine somebody who's ten times your size.
	Some monster jab-of-the-hut 2,000 pound person coming along and hitting you.
	You don't know what the hell's going on.
	You don't know whether they're going to stop.
	You don't know. It's terrifying.
	And so he associates this with an inability to concentrate or a lowered ability to concentrate as a result of spanking.
	The thesis could also be reversed and he's dealt with this a little bit.
	The thesis could be that it's not that spanking produces children with lower IQs, but rather that children who have lower IQs tend to get spanked more because they're tougher to manage or control in that way.
	I would argue that doesn't make much sense, because if spanking were inversely proportional to intelligence, the lower the intelligence, the more kids get spanked, then it should be to the same degree, right?
	So if a kid has 2%, let's say, lower IQ, Then you should be hit 2% more, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
	It tends to be much more binary. And there have been other studies of parents who have children who have cognitive deficits that are pretty significant, and has found that a lack of intelligence on the part of a child is not correlated to an increase in spanking or other forms of physical coercion.
	So I would highly recommend it.
	It's on the TIME website. I'll post a link to it on the Freedom Aid Radio message board, but it's something that is so, so important.
	You know, if you're a parent, don't Don't hit your children.
	Don't hit your children.
	It's so weird that that needs to be said.
	We don't need to say that really much to husbands.
	Like, we don't have to have serious conversations with husbands to say, don't hit your wives.
	And there is, of course, the tragedy that there are, of course, particular groups, right?
	This is an overall number, but there are particular groups that hit their children more, that spank their children more, that use violence...
	And spanking is violence.
	Let's not kid ourselves. They use violence to control their behaviors.
	African-Americans is one group.
	Fundamentalist Christians is another.
	Other kinds of minorities are much more along these lines of physical aggression against their children.
	It's very strongly been shown that if you spank a child at one to two years old, the child will be more aggressive at age two and upwards, more physically aggressive.
	Spanking children doesn't teach them a goddamn thing.
	Except that certain consequences breed attack from the parental unit.
	That's all it teaches them. It doesn't teach them any understanding.
	It doesn't teach them any empathy.
	In fact, it teaches them quite the opposite of empathy.
	And so, you know, people say, well, but maybe it's not that way, or maybe there's a correlation is this, that, and the other.
	But it's ridiculous. Let's say that this thesis is only 10% true.
	Let's say that only 1 out of 10 kids end up with this lowered IQ. As a result of spanking.
	Well, up here in Canada, I don't know if this happened in the United States, there's a chemical called BPA, I'm not even going to try and pronounce what it stands for, that was found to have potentially negative possible side effects if it was in the bottle of baby, bottle fed children or babies.
	And it was immediately banned and everyone stopped using it and there was this great panic and this and that and the other, right?
	And that was like 0.0001% possibility of damage to children.
	What are the odds of your kid getting, I don't know, typhus?
	But you still get them inoculated.
	What are the odds of them getting smallpox?
	You still get them inoculated.
	Even when we have a tiny, tiny possibility of something which would be damaging or dangerous to our children, we act as parents strongly and decisively to minimize that risk.
	And here is something which is not a small risk, not a tiny risk.
	It seems to be very statistically correlated.
	If... You use physical punishments on your children.
	You harm them. You harm their brains.
	And it seems permanently.
	Because it goes all the way through to their college admissions.
	Those who are physically coerced against their children have a lower likelihood of going to or getting into college.
	It goes all the way through their life.
	And if you know a little bit, and again, this is, you know, amateur guy speaking.
	So take it with all the grain of salt in the world.
	And you can find more of this in DeMoss' writings.
	If fear centers in the amygdala and other places get over-activated during periods of stress and attack and the fight-or-flight mechanism, and if that happens consistently as a child, you end up with a heightened fight-or-flight mechanism which interferes with your ability to concentrate and to follow through on thoughts, plans, and executions. So it does permanently alter the brain of children, it seems, to use physical coercion as a method of controlling them, and it doesn't teach them anything other than to fear their caregivers.
	And it doesn't teach them anything about what is wrong about what they're doing.
	It only teaches them that they should fear the consequences of doing it, which is not what we want as parents.
	We do not want to frighten our children in compliance.
	We do not want to bully them into compliance.
	What we want to do is keep our children safe, keep them protected, keep them nurtured, keep them secure, and explain to them.
	Children develop empathy. At two years old, they begin developing empathy.
	During the terrible twos, it's the same time as they're actually developing empathy.
	So from the age of two onwards, we can begin to teach our children using the natural development of their minds and sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others.
	We can teach them, teach them, actually help them to internalize and incorporate empathetic and moral, compassionate standards of behavior.
	We do not need to terrorize them and perform the absolutely ridiculous statement of saying, don't hit to a child while hitting him.
	That is something which is not going to bode well for you, I would say, in the long run.
	As a parent who wants the moral respect of his or her children.
	So my strong urge, you know, please, please, please.
	And I do get emails like this from time to time from parents who have yelled at or even raised their hands at their children.
	Get the help that you need.
	Read books. Talk to a therapist.
	Go to anger management. Just do whatever you need to do to not aggress against your children.
	Not aggress. It's the best thing you can do for them.
	It's the best thing you can do for your own happiness and your own self-respect and the long-term health and happiness and love.
	Within your family, it's very tough to love people who aggress against you when you're small and helpless.
	So get the help that you need.
	Get the therapy that you need.
	Get the anger management that you need.
	Look into alternative orders.
	Is it nospank.net? Someone can just check that on the message board.
	There's lots and lots of options and opportunities for you to find ways to work with your children so that they can be safe, happy, and secure without using coercion as your parenting.
	It just should not be on the table.
	It should not be on the table.
	At all. As an option for you as a parent striking at spanking or hitting your children.
	Or, you know, I would say even raising your voice.
	Sorry, yeah. NoSpank.net.
	There's lots and lots of research there.
	It's tough for some people for sure if they've been raised in this tradition.
	But it is something that is so, so essential in the building of a better world to not teach children to be afraid of violence or aggression against them.
	But rather to teach and harness their naturally empathetic and compassionate tendencies.
	So I hope that you will take this to heart.
	I apologize for being a lecturing rank amateur in this area, but I'm just telling you it is so, so important for the health of your children, for the betterment of your family happiness, and for the peace and security of the world in the future to find ways other than physical discipline to get your children to do the right thing.
	So I hope that makes some kind of sense.
	Did we have anyone else? I've completely alienated all the callers by talking about this topic.
	Did we have anyone who's on the phone? Sebastian Ortiz has called back in, so I did message and talk to him in the other chat room, and he said that he does have some headphones that he was looking for, so I take it, Sebastian, you have headphones now, is that correct?
	That's correct. Let me know if I sound right or if I'll call him.
	Can you turn up your microphone a little bit?
	Sure. Yeah, I can pretty much hear you.
	just try and keep your questions short if you can because it's a little hard to to hear you but to go ahead please sure um well the reason I'm calling you is basically I'm not a real patient but a person who is 12 years old oh I'm so sorry I really can't hear.
	I'm so sorry. You're skipping out a lot.
	We're going to have to try this maybe just one-on-one on Skype, or perhaps if you have a phone number, we can try you that way.
	But I'm sorry.
	I can't follow what you're saying, so I really can't give you any particularly good feedback.
	I do apologize for that.
	Can I call you on Skype this evening?
	No, I'm sorry. When I do the shows during the day, I sort of like to keep my evening for parenting and being the dad, but we can speak during this week, perhaps, if you like.
	Thank you so much, Steph, and keep working with it.
	Okay, yeah, sorry about that. I know that's frustrating if you've been waiting and trying to work it out, but it sounded a little bit like that, and I try not to piece together like some sort of crazy jigsaw puzzle what it is that people are trying to ask me, so...
	I do apologize. If you're in the chat window at freedomainradio.com, you're welcome to type the question in and I will do my best to take a swing at it.
	And just while we're waiting for the next caller, somebody's mentioned that yelling can be considered traumatic for a young person being yelled at.
	I think... You know, they're very small shoes to get into, but I think it's very, very important to work at trying to figure out where your children are coming from.
	And again, I know that I'm no expert on this.
	This is just my particular opinions, but I hope they'll be of some help.
	It's so hard to necessarily remember, especially when they're very young, But as parents, you know, we hold all the power.
	We have all the control. You know, I mean, my daughter can't feed herself.
	She can't change herself. She can't even get out of her own crib as yet.
	I mean, she can crawl around a little bit on the ground and she can sort of lever herself in this sort of semi-gymnastic kind of way from place to place on the furniture.
	But she has no power.
	She has no control. And so, she's so dependent.
	James, could you meet, please?
	She's so dependent upon her caregivers.
	And... Everything that I do is so enormous to her.
	I mean, she doesn't have, you know, outside friends.
	She doesn't have lots of people over at the house.
	She doesn't have other places where she can go to the mall or anything.
	So everything that I do is so enormous to her.
	And because of that power that we have, just innately by being parents, recognizing that power...
	You need the very, very lightest touch.
	The very, very lightest touch.
	I like to think like a giant making a tiny paper airplane, right?
	I mean, you just need the very, very lightest touch.
	A slight bit of disapproval is huge for a child.
	I mean, I'm not saying you use disapproval to control the child, but whatever, right?
	But your moods, your thoughts, how you respond to the child, how you react to the child, your interactions with the child, everything that you do as a parent is so huge.
	It's like you're always speaking through a megaphone from the very top of a mountain.
	We show up like Zeus to our children.
	Huge and all-powerful, incomprehensible, can do amazing feats, like disappear and appear and go up and down stairs, all the things that they can't do.
	And so I think that you need to just have a very, very...
	It's a very light touch as a parent.
	That doesn't mean don't be consistent.
	It doesn't mean don't be firm. But it's a very light touch.
	I am so positive with my daughter that when she does something that she shouldn't do, or really not shouldn't, but is not good for her, like cables or whatever, goes towards the plug even though we've got them covered.
	We're trying to keep her away from the plugs.
	And I'm so positive and friendly towards her that the way that I tell her not to do it is to say, Isabella, And even that slight change from Isabella, you know, that sort of friendly happy daddy thing to Isabella, she stops, she turns.
	Right? Because it's different.
	Now, I don't know if she's stopping it.
	I don't think there's any particular discipline thing involved.
	But that's a slighter touch.
	Just a slight change of tone is all that's needed.
	And you want to develop authority as a parent through love and through respect for the child and keeping the child safe.
	And that's how you develop respect, in any field, as anybody in a free world.
	The way that you develop authority is through consistently having integrity.
	That doesn't mean always being right, but if you're wrong, admit when you're wrong, and so on.
	And I hope, as we move forward, and again, I haven't hit the terrible twos yet, but I don't think that would be a huge issue.
	To just continue, as a parent, to try and gain the respect of your child through affection, through consistency, and through being a source of pleasure.
	In his or her life. And you need a very, very light touch to correct.
	It just seems to me that raising your voice, spanking, it just short circuits, I think, a child's attachment to the parent.
	So I just think that's really, really important to just avoid it.
	Earn your authority with love and consistency.
	I mean, my wife has authority with me because she's just right all the time, right?
	So it becomes that much simpler in certain areas.
	And in other areas, I am more correct.
	So Or have better instincts or whatever.
	So we just do that division of labor and we have authority because we have earned it through consistent behavior.
	So I hope that makes some kind of sense.
	Are we light on callers today?
	It would seem so. Is that right?
	Do we have anyone else, James? Oh, you're still muted.
	Perhaps they've logged on to talk to their children.
	That would be nice. Alright, yep, we do have a caller.
	Calling in from Skype.
	Skype caller, you're on the air.
	You're on the air, my brother and or sister.
	And or hermaphroditic in-betweener.
	I can't hear. Do you want to just check the radio?
	Are you there caller?
	I guess not. You took for a little bit and see if they're back there in a...
	Well, I didn't. Sorry, I didn't prepare a two-hour show.
	So if we don't have any callers, we'll stop early.
	We'll switch over to Skype and continue with the regular Free Domain Radio show.
	But if we do have any callers, we'll keep going for another little one.
	Just while we're waiting, somebody, the gentleman who had the audio problem, so I'm just going to read this from the screen, he said, Sorry about that, Steph.
	Here's my question. Basically, I'm in a relationship with a person twice my age.
	He's 80. No, I'm kidding.
	I'm in a relationship with a person twice my age.
	This person is a very passionate activist and currently involved in struggling for a ban against depleted uranium weapons.
	I, on the other hand, despite admiring her courage and her stance, try to convey that it is not discouragement or lack of support to her cause, but that depleted uranium and war and all these things are just effects from taxation.
	She has been working on the issue with an international coalition of NGOs, that's non-governmental organizations, and will be going to the UN in New York City Sorry, in October.
	And the issue has been that I have not known what to answer, what to do about this issue then, from a non-status anarchist effective solution.
	Because my main objection is that bans or regulations on this armament are just like Geneva Conventions.
	They will not be respected if it interferes with the desires of the political interest to be.
	So that would be my question. And sorry, somebody's just asked for the number again, James.
	If you could spew it out, then I'll do my best on that question.
	Okay, the number to call into the show is 347-633-9636.
	The number is 347-633-9636.
	Beautiful. It's a tough question.
	I mean, I myself admire very much the passion and dedication of people who get involved in these kinds of courses.
	And certainly, if we could get rid of depleted uranium as a weapon system, that would be pretty great, right?
	I mean, I'm no expert again, but...
	As far as I understand it, hundreds of thousands of troops from the Gulf War had sort of Gulf War syndrome and part of which has been theoretically traced to the use of depleted uranium against tanks and so on as a weapon because it goes, I think, through sort of armor plating and so on.
	I think that, you know, if I were in that situation, the first thing that I would try to understand is what was...
	And this doesn't mean that she's not right.
	I mean, but the first thing that I would try to understand is what is emotionally driving her towards this thing.
	Like, why depleted uranium and not something else, right?
	And she may have a very good reason for that, or she may not, right?
	I mean... So...
	If you can sort of ask her, you know, tell me why this is important to you, and she'll come up with a whole bunch of stuff, but why does it have such emotional resonance that you're willing to spend this much time and energy and effort?
	I mean, I'm one to talk, right?
	I quit a real job.
	This is a crazy thing for a living, but I sort of know why I'm doing what I'm doing.
	That doesn't mean that it's a great or wise thing to be doing, but at least I have some idea why I'm doing what I'm doing.
	And so I could sort of explain that to people who say, well, why would you...
	You know quit your job as an executive to do this software stuff and I can give a long and involved and probably quite tedious answer but I do have knowledge of what is driving me in this particular direction and I know that it has roots in my own history and that doesn't mean that it's all about my own history but it certainly has roots in my own history I obviously did not believe that I grew up in a series of societies and I lived in England and Africa briefly in Canada and a few other places I do not believe that I saw a great deal of moral courage in the people around me,
	so I'm trying to rectify that.
	We can't complain about things that you're not willing to do yourself, you know?
	So I think that trying to, you know, squeeze your nuts into a helicopter rotation of integrity elevation is...
	I think I just started rapping there.
	I really think that I did, and I just think I became a little whiter as a result.
	Even whiter. But, um, uh, so I, I know that there's, there's roots in my own history as to why, uh, there's roots in my own history of violence as to why I'm very much against the initiation of force and why I view it as such an essential principle.
	Uh, you know, the moral courage to stand up, uh, and, and fight where there seems to be a distinct paucity of, uh, stand up men and women standing up and fighting.
	So I know sort of my own history as to why I'm doing this particular thing and why I consider it so important.
	Um, And I'm aware of, and through my years in therapy, I think I've worked through a good deal of the emotional drivers that came through.
	And so I think that what is left over is clearer and more direct, more objective, more empirical.
	Doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes, doesn't mean I'm not driven by irrational things sometimes, but I have a fairly good degree of self-knowledge as far as that goes.
	So I would really drill into, let me rephrase that, I would really try to get to the root of what is driving your lover or your girlfriend What was happening in her life when she became interested in it?
	Because if you can come up with really good reasons as to why opposing depleted uranium in particular will not be effective, and I agree with you that it won't be effective, but she's not willing to listen to this, then it's driving something else.
	It's driving something else.
	Something else is driving that particular desire of hers.
	Maybe something to do with her history.
	Maybe something to do with her culture.
	Maybe something to do with her family.
	Who knows? Maybe something to do with something she did in the past that she's trying to rectify or atone for.
	So I hope that that's of some use.
	If you can't talk her out of it, look, I mean, I don't know.
	I mean, she's not out shooting kittens with fishhooks, right?
	So it's not like the end of the world for her to do this kind of stuff.
	To be passionate about a cause is not the end of the world.
	I don't think it's useful.
	In fact, I think it's quite counterproductive.
	But to me, that wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker.
	If when you begin to ask about the emotional roots of this kind of activism, which I think is very important for everyone who's an activist, you have to look inwards.
	You have to know yourself first to make sure.
	I mean, this is not my idea.
	This is older Socrates.
	The first commandment is to know thyself.
	And so I would say that if when you begin to ask her about her history and where this is coming from emotionally for her, if you get a lot of resistance and avoidance, that to me would begin to raise more serious questions about the relationship.
	Because then you don't know where else that is going to show up, where genuine honest curiosity and some criticism of the effectiveness of what she's doing, if it begins to show up a lot of problems in your communication, then guaranteed that's not the only place it's going to show up.
	So... That would be my suggestion.
	I hope that helps you.
	Let me know if it doesn't, son.
	Please remember, the call-in number is 347-633-9636.
	We have some callers. All right, baby.
	Cue them up. All righty.
	Okay, so Laywinder's been waiting a little bit.
	He's using the Click2Talk feature, so Laywinder, you're on the air.
	All right, guys. Can you hear me?
	Yeah. Yeah. Can you hear me?
	Yeah. Did you call in before?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Couple times. I wanted to get back to the parenting thing.
	Now, I'm assuming this is your first child, right?
	Uh-huh. Okay.
	I generally agree with what you were saying.
	I have two children, 26 and 17, and I've never ever hit them.
	But, I mean, I've never had to.
	Just raising my voice was enough, you know what I mean?
	You were saying how you just change your voice with your daughter, and that'll generally work at that age, but trust me, she will test you.
	Oh, I have no doubt that she will, absolutely.
	And it will go from maybe a higher inflection or whatever to not yelling, but A firmer voice, you know what I mean?
	Can you give me an example of that?
	Just so I know. And I'm not trying to catch you or anything.
	I'm really just genuinely curious.
	Can you just give me an example of that?
	Like, as if I were your accountant, how would you do it?
	Let's just say, like, you would tell her, okay, you know, don't touch this.
	And she starts walking and you say, what's her name, Isabella?
	Like, oh, Isabella?
	And she'll just look at you and give you a grin and just start going for it anyway.
	And you just say, Isabella, you know?
	You just have to get a little firmer.
	But that generally works.
	I appreciate that. That's interesting.
	And what were your children's...
	Is it sons you have? I have a son and a daughter.
	My son's 26 and my daughter's 17.
	Right. Nice to have a bit of a window there.
	I just got an email from a woman I used to date in my 20s.
	And we've sort of stayed in touch off and on over the years.
	And she's having her second child.
	Her first child is... It's 14 months old, and she's just about to have her second child.
	That blows my mind.
	That just blows my mind right out of my eardrums.
	So nice that you have a bit of a window there.
	And what was the reaction of your children to this approach that you took?
	I mean, what was their emotional reaction to it when you would take that approach?
	I would generally say good.
	I mean, you know, it probably surprised them at first, and maybe it might have scared them.
	And maybe that... Probably was the reason why.
	But as they got older, you know, that's really all I ever had to do to them was basically raise my voice or, you know, not yell, yell.
	Yeah, it's like an emphatic warning tone in a sense, right?
	Yes. Well, listen, first and foremost, I mean, I know this sounds all kinds of annoying coming from a guy who's nine months and you're 26 years as a parent, so I apologize just for the very audacity of saying this, but, you know, kudos to you for not hitting your children.
	Like, I mean, kudos to you.
	You know, to me, when you say, well, I raised my voice a little bit in a warning tone, that to me is not, you know, again, I'm no expert, that doesn't raise any particular alarm bells for me, not that you should care about my alarm bells, but...
	You know, congratulations just enormously on not using.
	It's very rare.
	It's very, very rare.
	There was a study done in the 1960s and also in the 1980s of British mothers where over 80% of them admitted to hitting their children before their children were even one year old.
	And it just blows my mind.
	How could you possibly hit a child?
	What could a child who's not even a year old possibly do that?
	There's no physical coercion against them.
	So it's really rare what you've done.
	And I think it's incredibly noble and heroic and counterintuitive for so many people.
	Maybe not for you, but I think that you have an enormous amount to be proud of.
	All you did was raise your voice.
	And I'm not even going to say anything about that, because as you say, I'm nine months into it, so what do I know?
	But certainly around the spanking, to not have done that, I think is...
	Kudos to you.
	I think that's magnificent. Well, I appreciate that, but I mean, when you're brought up in that culture where spanking was prevalent when I was a child, it was fairly easy for me not to get into that, you know, because I remembered how I felt at that age.
	I mean, I think maybe all too often as we get older, we kind of forget that, but some of us don't, and the ones that don't are usually the ones that end up Not doing that sort of thing to their children.
	Yeah, I think you've hit on a fantastic point, and I'm not going to try and explain your point to you, but just mention sort of what I think about it, if that makes any sense, which is that if we remember what it was like to be a child, then it's very hard to use that kind of aggression against their own children.
	I think if we kind of forget it in a way or if we have goals that the children are sort of impacted sideways on.
	Like you want to do X, but then you're a kid, right?
	Like earlier today, I was doing an interview because my daughter had just gone down to sleep.
	And she normally sleeps for like an hour, hour and a half during the day.
	And she slept for a grand total of like 12 minutes, right?
	Then she woke up.
	And so I was so frustrated because I had to say to the person I was interviewing, oh, man, I'm so sorry.
	We have to reschedule.
	And we'd already scheduled twice.
	But this is just, you know, I mean, what does an interview matter relative to my daughter, right?
	I mean, fundamentally. So I think it's just keeping your perspective and your priorities straight, not viewing children as an interference to something else, because you can't have kids and then say, now I'm going to be a dancer!
	Let the beat take me.
	Now I'm going to finally fulfill my career as a, you know, pineapple-headed rap artist or something.
	I mean, that's just not the way it works as far as I can see, so...
	So I think you're right.
	If we remember and empathize what it was like to be small, helpless, dependent, and incredibly and insatiably curious, I think it's really hard to feel that aggression is appropriate in that situation.
	Right. We do have some more callers, so should we move on?
	Yes, thank you. I really do appreciate that.
	And again, annoying amateur kudos and congratulations on the approach that you took with your children.
	I think it's just fantastic and good for you.
	We have a caller from a 714 area code.
	You are on the air. Hello.
	Hello. Hello.
	Am I on? You are on, baby.
	Fantastic. Hi, I am Steven, two times two on the board, relatively new member, first-time caller.
	And I have a question about my father.
	I defood a few days or about a week ago, I guess, and I didn't do a very good job because now I'm talking to him again.
	Well, that may not be a bad thing, right?
	Well, I guess it may not be.
	I guess that's my question.
	Because I'm very skeptical, because I understand the odds of them being, like, good are pretty low down there.
	And let me just, sorry, let me just, because we have some people who are new, this phrase defood is fairly standard.
	FOO stands for family of origin.
	It's the family that you came from.
	And it's something that, as part of the conversation about voluntarism and virtue, and choosing your relationships, that I sort of remind people that adult relationships are always voluntary, right?
	Like, if you had really abusive parents, I really think you should sit down, try and work it out with them.
	If you can't, if they continue to be abusive and negative, you are, of course, legally free to take a break from them.
	And I always recommend that this occurs, you know, under the umbrella care of a professional therapist and so on.
	But that we should never just be in relationships because of historical momentum.
	But we should choose to be there and we should be open and honest and vulnerable with the people in our lives in an attempt to gain connection and closeness in our relationships.
	If that turns out to be impossible and you simply encounter wave after wave of negativity and hostility and abuse, you know, you can stay or you can leave, right?
	And some people have a big problem with me about this.
	And it's the same thing. When feminists said that you don't have to stay with an abusive husband, everybody said they were anti-marriage, right?
	And this is just silly nonsense that people come up with who feel defensive and upset.
	And so when I say adult relationships are voluntary and you can choose whether you do or don't want to spend time with your family, everybody says, oh, he's anti-family, which of course is complete nonsense.
	And everybody knows. That it's nonsense because nobody's accused me of hypocrisy for becoming, right?
	They say, oh, he's anti-parent, right?
	And they know that I'm anti-tax, right?
	So if I got a job with the IRS, everybody would say, oh my God, this guy is anti-tax and now he got a job with the IRS. How hypocritical that'd be.
	Six million blogs telling everybody what a hypocrite I was.
	Not one person has said, well, he became a parent and he thinks all parents are evil and therefore he's evil and blah, blah, blah.
	It's all nonsense. I mean, I'm simply saying that, uh, Voluntarism is essential to having a successful relationship.
	And you don't have to, you're not sort of forced or obligated to spend time with anybody once you're an adult.
	And you should really try and get close, try and improve your relationships.
	But you are completely free to see or to not see people.
	And again, some people think, oh, that makes me anti-family, but that's not true at all.
	I'm actually very pro-family anti-abuse, which I hope is understandable.
	So I just wanted to give that sort of brief bit of background for those who aren't aware of the Challenging and exciting history of this with regards to this conversation.
	Sure, sure. You don't want to scare the new guy.
	Alright, so let me just...
	Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions?
	Oh, go right ahead.
	That's what I'm expecting. Okay. Are you talking to a therapist at the moment?
	I am, but I've only had one meeting, and I'm going back on Thursday.
	Okay, good, good. Well, I mean, you know, and I hope that that works out for you.
	If it doesn't, please find another one.
	Don't. Don't take a break from a family of origin without talking to a professional therapist.
	I know I've said it a million times before, but I just think that's absolutely essential.
	What were the circumstances that led up to you taking this break?
	Well, it's been a lot of...
	Well, just ever since I started questioning things in general, it's just been...
	Higher brick wall behind higher brick wall you know and it's on my dad's side I seem to be making progress and I don't know if you want me to get into this yet but on my mom's side it's just completely every time I try to talk about my feelings or her feelings it just tends to be a kind of a talking to a wall situation she tends to end the conversation with kind of a huh and like huffs and And then sometimes,
	and actually often it ends in like this really kind of bloodbathish yelling set.
	Oh, I'm so sorry. That only seems to happen around my mom.
	I'm sorry. I just, I mean, I'm so sorry.
	I mean, I'm so, so sorry.
	That is really, really a terrible thing to when, you know, when you're trying to be, and you're bringing sort of honesty and openness, and you're kind of opening your heart to someone for it to sort of go that route where it's either sort of a brick wall, or as you say, some ungodly curdling yell fest.
	I just, you know, I really am...
	I'm really sorry that that is the road that it's going.
	At least it didn't beat me. I'm sorry?
	At least it didn't beat me.
	Yeah, I mean, you know...
	Actually, do you classify spanking as beating?
	I'm just curious. Well...
	I do, but there are lots of people who would have a different argument.
	I don't think you could be ten times somebody's size, hit them, and have it not be classified as some kind of assault.
	Some people say it's different, but that's not my perspective.
	But again, I'm not an expert in this area, that's just my particular perspective.
	It's definitely not a good way to solve a situation.
	No. You couldn't do that to an adult.
	No, you couldn't do that to an adult.
	And you also couldn't do that to, you know, people say, well, you can spank children because children don't have the cognitive capacity of adults.
	Okay, then we should all be allowed to spank retarded people.
	And we should also spank people who have Alzheimer's or any kind of early onset dementia.
	We should allow old people with cognitive deficiencies to be hit or spanked to change their behavior.
	But of course, we would never accept that, right?
	That would be considered completely wrong.
	And so why would it be any different with children?
	Exactly. Exactly.
	Right. Okay, so I guess there was some physical...
	I mean, obviously not anything too major.
	It was spanking on the upper leg right behind the bum.
	Yeah, I mean, it wasn't what would technically...
	Sorry, it wasn't what would legally be classified as physical abuse, right?
	No. Okay, and that's fair.
	That's fair. Yeah.
	And... But with my dad, I seem to be making a lot of progress, at least that's what it seems to me, and I'm extremely skeptical because I've just heard so many of the stories on FDR, and it seems like this could just all be a trap, you know, Captain Agbar, you know? It's a trap, but at the same time, I really want to...
	Introduce my dad to these things, because I don't think he's...
	He's one dyslexic, but he's very intelligent, so he never had the experience to educate himself.
	Sorry, and let me just say, I just want to make sure that, again, I just throw my two cents in for what it's worth.
	Certainly, I mean, don't conflate other people's experiences with your own, right?
	Every family is specific, and your own history is specific.
	I'd say that for the first thing.
	And the second thing is that, you know, I, you know, again, this is all just my amateur opinion, but I strongly, strongly advocate just continuing to be honest until you get certainty one way or the other.
	Right.
	So if you feel that there's hope with your dad or you're having, you know, moving forward with your dad, having productive conversations with your dad, I would just keep doing that.
	Now, you'll either achieve some sort of breakthrough in connection with your father.
	Wouldn't that be wonderful and great?
	It still leaves the challenge of your mother, but at least you get that connection with one parent, which who knows where that's going to lead.
	Certainly, he would have more influence over your mother probably than you would, so that may lead somewhere positive that way.
	But, you know, wherever there is doubt or ambiguity or you're not sure, you're not certain about the status of a relationship, you know, I just say keep talking, keep talking, keep opening up, keep being honest, keep being vulnerable, keep talking about your feelings, not jumping to conclusions and just be open about your experiences and your thoughts in the moment.
	Nobody can ever tell you what is right or wrong to do with your family.
	I mean, unless they're running at you with machetes, which obviously is not the case, right?
	So, I would just say, you know, keep talking.
	And I've said this from the very beginning, that the way that you get to the truth of your relationship, both positive or negative, is to just continue to talk and to be open and to communicate what you're thinking and feeling.
	Now, if you're constantly rebuffed and consistently, and I know that's not the case, but if you were from everyone in your family just constantly rebuffed and put down and insulted or yelled at or anything, then at some point you're like, Fun though it was running into this brick wall over and over again, I think I'm not going to do it for a while.
	And that's where you may take a break.
	But if you feel that there's an opening or there's hope or there's possibility, then I would say keep talking.
	Family relationships are very powerful.
	And if there's any possibility that you feel that there's an opening to talk or to communicate or to make that connection that is so important in life, I would say just keep going until...
	You either get that breakthrough or you just can't anymore, right?
	And so that would be my suggestion.
	Fantastic. Then I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
	I read RTR and I've been applying those.
	I've been applying just being open and honest about my feelings and not really backing down from that.
	I guess I'll just find out.
	Yeah, yeah. And it gives every opportunity for the other person to kind of step up and be honest.
	And you know what? It takes, obviously, it takes a long time to get other people to do different stuff, right?
	Especially when you're the kid and they're the parent, right?
	So, you know, if there's an opening, if you feel that you can have that connection or there's a possibility...
	Just keep talking. And keep talking to your therapist and just, you know, journal and do sentence completion.
	Read Alice Miller or Nathaniel Brandon, whatever it is that's going to work for you.
	And I just wanted to say, again, you know, massive kudos and congratulations for implementing, you know, I call it real-time relationships in all these complicated terms simply because it's more clear than just saying the basic thing, which is honesty.
	You know, this is what I... People are surprised that I talk about But the reason is because honesty is a virtue, right?
	The truth is valuable and honesty is a virtue.
	And you can't have a relationship, in my opinion, if you're not honest and truthful about who you are, what you think and your experiences and your opinions and so on.
	You can't have a relationship if you just inflict that on other people.
	I'm not saying, of course, that you are.
	But to have an honest exchange of genuine thoughts and feelings is, to me, the essence of a relationship.
	And as a philosopher, I'm not particularly interested in economics or self-knowledge or any of these particular atheism or anarchism.
	What I am interested in fundamentally is integrity and in particular honesty.
	And the places where honesty has the greatest traction is in our personal relationships.
	That's where it can really open up.
	So I really just wanted to applaud you for taking the stance to open your heart to be honest with those around you and to talk about your thoughts and feelings and experiences.
	In a non-attacking, non-defensive way, I think...
	I mean, I just think that's so magnificent.
	I know how hard that is.
	I mean, I remember doing it. Oh, yeah, I do, too.
	I love it. Yeah. So, good for you.
	I mean, just congratulations. It's a tough, tough road, but, you know, I'm telling you, it certainly paid off for me, and I really do believe it.
	Oh, it's paying off so far.
	So far, it's paying off immensely.
	I'm so, so pleased.
	I'm so pleased. And hopefully, you'll keep us posted about how things go.
	Absolutely. You will be the first to hear.
	Well, thank you so much, and best of luck, and...
	You know, if your dad ever listens to this, best of luck to you, too.
	I certainly do wish you guys the best and the best connection that can occur.
	Thank you, and I just wanted to say that you're doing an absolutely great job, and you gave me the tools I needed to really probably stay away from nihilism, so thank you for that.
	Well, I always like to drag people back from the black hole of nihilism, so I'm very glad.
	I get all that, it looks like printer dust on my hands.
	Thank you immensely. Well, thank you.
	We have another caller, Mr. J. Thank you.
	Yes, we do have another caller.
	This is a caller from Skype.
	Caller, you're on the air? Oh, it's Renee.
	Look into the eyeball. Sorry, go on.
	Hey. Hi. Hey, this is Renee McMasters, and I'm calling from Missouri.
	And I've been listening to you talk, and I just wanted to say thank you.
	You know, it's so nice to hear this happening on a grassroots level.
	Because abuse is something that is just, it's a spider web through our community and there are so many forms of it and so many levels of it that I'm really happy to hear somebody addressing this as just members of our communities at a grassroots level.
	So thank you for that.
	Oh, I'm sorry, and I just wanted to mention a group which I think affects you, and tell me if my geography is completely ass-backwards, but the other group that I forgot to mention where spanking or what I would consider to be hitting children is prevalent is not just African Americans, not just fundamentalist Christians, but also the South.
	It seems to be quite common there, relative to other places.
	And is that what you're talking about, that you've seen or know about some of that?
	Well, you know, childhood abuse is something that I've studied for a very long, long time.
	And it's not, you know, it's something that is, it's not culture-specific or economic-specific, but there are certain Certain things, factors that contribute to it.
	And what I think you see happening in the South is not just Southern culture.
	What it is, is poverty.
	In that, you know, we have areas of poverty in all of our major cities as well as the South and in rural areas.
	So I think what you're seeing is a reflection of poverty.
	Right. And I think, I mean, I think you're absolutely right.
	And why?
	Because you agree with me now. But I think that you're absolutely right.
	And what I mean by that is that if these IQ studies and other aspects in terms of self-esteem, confidence, social skills, entrepreneurial abilities, the abilities to take rationally calculated risks, those things tend to be that which helps you out of poverty, right?
	Out of a poor situation.
	And if If abuse against children lowers their capacity to have economic value, and I think we can be pretty sure that it does, as well as the IQ points, which do translate into economic value as well, then you do see the cycle where poverty leads to abuse, leads to poverty, leads to abuse, and that is very tough to change, for sure.
	You seem very interested in reading books, and I just want to throw a writer your way.
	Her name is Ruby Kay Payne, P-A-Y-N-E, Ruby Kay Payne.
	She writes and she lectures on poverty, and one of my favorite books by her is called Bridges Out of Poverty.
	So if you ever get a chance to read any Ruby Kay Payne, it's recommended reading if you're dealing with poverty.
	No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
	I mean, there's supposed to be, and I'm going back on memory, and I don't think this is her who wrote that.
	Let me just make a note of this. There are three things that you've got to do to get out of poverty.
	One is finish high school.
	The second is Don't get married until you're a little older.
	And the third thing is don't have a child in your teens.
	And I guess the fourth thing is get a job of some kind.
	But there's some things that you can do that if you follow these sort of basic rules, you will get out of the lower class.
	Even if you only make it to the lower middle class, it's still a big step forward.
	But there are a lot of obstacles in people's way to even achieving what you and I may consider those basic things, you know, that don't get pregnant in your teens.
	You know, finish high school and lots of things that are in people's way which I think is a real shame and a real challenge and whatever we can do to help people move forward in that realm I think is fantastic.
	Do you work in the field or is it something that you've studied out of personal interest?
	I've worked in the field and I've studied out of personal interest.
	I have a whole childhood history of abuse.
	Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you know what?
	I went from Victim to survivor to thriver.
	That is the goal.
	The goal of getting out of poverty is each generation doing better than the next.
	The goal of surviving abuse is not to just survive the abuse, but to thrive in spite of it.
	The only way that you can really do that, besides knowing yourself, is to educate yourself and know, you know, one, it's not your fault and two, you know,
	read the studies and read the history and the literature that is out there because, you know, it has, when a child, what you're talking about, what we're talking about here is actually recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
	What is post-traumatic stress disorder?
	It's a reaction from constant exposure to stress.
	It reroutes the wiring in your brain or it's just like taking a pencil and etching these neural paths in your brain so you're conditioned to have hyperarousal and to constantly be on alert Well, what happens to your body?
	There's a physical reaction that's happening inside your body.
	And as we get older, as survivors, we learn to identify what those are.
	You know, the constant need for arousal or chronic shopping or our addictive behaviors, it manifests itself in a lot of ways.
	No, I mean, I think you're right.
	Yeah, no, I think you're right.
	Not just personality and emotion.
	Right, right. No, it does, for sure.
	It's a physical thing.
	I've sort of thought, again, just my opinion, I've sort of thought that if you have emerged from a history of significant trauma as a child, then you are never going to end up average, right?
	Because you just have so much work to do on yourself that you're just not going to end up average.
	It's sort of like If I came from a history where people had significant problems with heart disease, there was just all that running through the gene pool, I'm either going to be really sick, Because I'm going to ignore all of that and just live like it doesn't happen, or I'm going to be really healthy because I'm going to say, crap, you know, I got heart disease all over my gene pool, so I better eat vegan, I better exercise, I better go for my, you know, twice annual checkup, I better have, you know, cardiograms or whatever it is, right?
	I'm going to end up really healthy, or I'm going to end up really sick, but I'm not going to end up with average health, because average health is for the people who don't have that in their history.
	And so it's sort of been my general nonsense opinion that people who come from those kinds of traumatic histories, they either end up with lives that are truly heroic or they end up with lives that are truly tragic, but they tend not to go down the middle.
	And I'm certainly relieved and very happy and admiring to hear of the work that you've done in yourself so that you slide down the sunny side of that slope to the heroic side.
	And I think that's magnificent and good for you.
	Thank you. Thank you very much.
	And you know what? I couldn't agree more.
	It's been my experience, not just reading and studying child abuse, but also working with victims and survivors of child abuse.
	We are actually very intelligent because when we were going through all of this as children, we actually had to be creative and think of ways To stay out of trouble, to not get hit, or not get hurt, or not be abused.
	So, we're very, very good at reading people, almost to the point that it's kind of, you know, psychic or scary.
	And we're also very intelligent.
	Well, I mean, stimulation breeds receptors and connections within the brain, and this is true of positive stimulation, but also of negative stimulation.
	Our brains We're repeatedly hit with the cattle prod of violent or aggressive stimulus, and that has given us some pretty energetic centers of the brain.
	Unfortunately, some of those centers, as you say, are more around the constant fight or flight, and then when there's a cessation of that, the need to put yourself in some dangerous situation or to recreate the fight or flight, and that definitely can be a problem.
	To live with less stimuli when you've come from that kind of childhood is really, really important to yoga, meditation, whatever it is that helps calm the brain down to the point where you can You know, in a sense, flatline without feeling empty.
	I think that's important.
	But no, I think there is a great deal of stimulation that goes on within the mind when you have that level of negative stimulation.
	And I also think, I don't know if there's so much about you, and this is more of my, again, just particular theories that I have.
	I'm not going to say that they're true.
	But I also think that people who've gone through that kind of history have a very interesting series of insights about society as a whole.
	I don't know about you, but certainly, I mean, I went through a childhood that was, you know, full of violence and aggression and stress.
	And it was, to me, remarkable the degree to which I could sort of sail through society among groups of people, relatives and schoolmates and teachers, who very clearly knew about what was occurring within the household, but not one person ever did anything about it.
	And that's a kind of chilling fact to be aware of if you've gone through this kind of history, that you have a view of society and the ethical claims that people make about society.
	You know, we're a compassionate society.
	We care about the poor.
	We care about the victims of violence.
	We care about this, that, and the other.
	And what I try to remind people is that If you know of anything like this that's going on, do something about it.
	An anonymous call to child services, to the cops, whatever it is, do something about it.
	Because if we don't help children, the real difficulty or danger that can occur among children is that they grow up with an incredible degree of cynicism about the moral claims made by their society.
	Because it's kind of hard to listen to your society praise itself for how wonderful it all is.
	When out of the hundreds and hundreds of people who knew about what was happening in my family, not one person did anything about it, even those who were supposedly trained and paid to do so, like the teachers are trained to understand these things and to do something about it.
	And so that's why I say, you know, intervene if you can, intervene if you can, even if you think you can, try, try, try, because it really can make the difference between a kid going one way or the other.
	If we break the social contract with the protection of children, in a sense, they're never going to feel obligated to respect our right to property and independence.
	And in a way, it's hard to blame them for that.
	So I think that we end up with some very interesting insights, some scary but important insights about society if we've gone through that and people have not intervened during that time.
	That's exactly right.
	And if you try to intervene or have some sort of intervention and it just doesn't work out, well, you know what?
	The best thing that you can do is still communicate in whatever way that you can to that child that that child is a valid person and is worthy of love and let that child know That there is one person, at least one person in the world, that loves that child unconditionally.
	Yeah, and children can be amazingly resilient and resourceful and can make do with You know, they're like those lungfish who can lie in mud for years without any air and just pop out fine.
	Just a little bit is all they need.
	And I know that for myself and some of the other people who listen to this show, I mean, I've certainly, you know, confronted as firmly, but without, you know, crazy hostility, but as firmly as possible, confronted people who are mistreating their children that I've been able to see.
	And, you know, it makes a difference.
	It's really, really important. Even if you never end up being able to change anything, at least a child has seen one person stand up And say that what's occurring is wrong.
	And then they have at least one counterexample to everybody else's indifference or fear or avoidance of the situation.
	And you'd never know where that's going to land for a kid and how that may sustain them in the long run.
	That's right. So I wanted to ask you, so how would you go from survivor to thriver?
	Well, it's the Socratic ideal of self-knowledge, right?
	I think that you have to, you know, the two things that I have found to be, sorry, I sound like I'm yelling at you.
	Sorry, it's just passion.
	But the two things that I found to be most helpful is moral clarity, moral clarity.
	I'm, you know, as a guy who thinks in the realm of philosophy as much as possible, I focus on the non-aggression principle.
	You don't initiate violence against others.
	And children, of course, you can never claim to be acting in self-defense against your children when they're young.
	It's completely impossible.
	So the initiation of violence against children is immoral, and that includes the withholding of food or other things that children are dependent upon for their survival.
	And so the moral clarity around the wrongness, the immorality of child abuse, I think was really helpful to me in particular.
	And sympathy, you know, sympathy for yourself, sympathy for other people, basic human compassion to say, oh my God, what a terrible thing to have had to live through, to have had to deal with.
	I think that that combination of moral clarity and genuine sympathy and empathy for those who've suffered such evils and such wrongs, I think really helps to denormalize what happens to children in this context.
	And that really is the essence of it.
	People who justify their own prior abuse, I think...
	I'm much more likely to repeat it and much less likely to have empathy for other people who they come across who may have experienced the same thing.
	But when you recognize that it was wrong and it was also wrong for society not to intervene or to avoid confrontation and there's genuine sympathy for people, I think those were the two major ingredients and of course I went through therapy for years and have had some very good friends and my wife is wonderful this way as well.
	To get that kind of moral clarity that it was completely wrong what occurred and the sympathy for how difficult it was I think really relaxes a great deal of tension and feeling of alienation in people to have it so clearly described as wrong and as reprehensible and to feel the compassion for that helps to denormalize what happened so that it was a traumatic and difficult thing that some, well unfortunately too many people have to go through.
	And I think those have been the two major ingredients.
	I'm sure there are more, but those I think are the two most important ones to help people.
	Well, for me, after I realized, I think that that is a stage of healing, is really embracing the belief and knowing without a doubt that it wasn't your fault and you had nothing to do with it.
	You didn't ask to be brought into the world.
	You didn't ask for your parents.
	And you didn't ask for the way that they treated you, and it is morally reprehensible.
	Having said that, at some point, I'm an existentialist.
	I subscribe to the existential theory completely.
	I embrace freedom and responsibility.
	As an adult, that is the best thing that we can do, is to know that I'm in charge now.
	I'm driving the boat.
	I like the waters and I spend a lot of time on the water.
	And if you notice when you're driving a boat as you're going forward, well, if you turn around and look behind you, there's this V and this big wake behind you.
	And then you turn back around and realize you're in charge of that now.
	And one of the great existential Philosophers, Ortega, he was a Spanish guy and did a lot with the Spanish Revolution, said, man, every moment has a new opportunity to reinvent himself.
	So you're the sum total of everything that's happened to you, but now you're in charge.
	So what kind of life do you want?
	You know, that's the beauty of it.
	You get to decide what kind of life you want.
	You know, with that it comes a huge responsibility, and it's kind of scary at times, but it is so liberating.
	No, I quite agree, and I remember in college reading Sartre, existence precedes essence, right?
	That the essence of who you are is not determined by your biology or by your circumstances or by things outside of your control, but the essence of who you are, in a sense, the secular soul of your being, It's something that you can create dynamically in the moment, and you don't have to be the next series of dominoes of genetics or generations or history.
	But you can define for yourself how it is you're going to live, the values that you're going to commit to, the presence that you're going to have in the world, for better or for worse.
	That is really up to your choice.
	And to have empathy for the things that we suffered as children, if those things we did suffer, is important.
	But fundamentally, self-knowledge is not about the past.
	It is about the future. It is about changing the course of inevitabilities and choosing who it is that we're going to be and how it is we're going to interact with people.
	And I think that some of the problems that can occur with people who fall into the well of self-knowledge as they continue to go into history...
	And don't recognize that we go, we tunnel through history however dark it may be in order to erupt and emerge like a geyser into the sunlight of tomorrow and the day after and to have a different life than that which came before but that requires that we do take ownership and free ourselves from these inevitable domino falls of history to find for ourselves who we are and what we are and the values rational and empirical we hope that we are going to live by and the light that we can bring to the world that can be entirely different from the darkness we came from.
	That's exactly right.
	What makes us so special is we are doing this with a card stacked against us.
	It wasn't easy.
	It's just like we were talking about coming out of poverty.
	There is a language of people who live in poverty, people who Who live in the middle class or people who are wealthy or the elite.
	We have a completely different language.
	So learning to speak a new language, even though it's the English language or whatever language we speak, it's still a different language.
	And there are still certain ways of interacting with people or modes of behavior that That we do, that are really casual when we live in poverty, we tend to, you know, everything is casual when we get more into the upper middle class and the upper class of economics.
	Well, there are different ways of interacting with people, and I think that, well, I don't think, I know that when we're trying to work our way out of poverty, doing Learning these new skills, learning this new language, learning these new behaviors in the workforce is of the utmost importance.
	It's not just education.
	For me, my college degree and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee.
	I'm serious. A college degree doesn't necessarily make you smart.
	I guess another goal is to encourage employers and people who have the power to help those out of poverty, help them and know that, you know, there is a new language to learn.
	There are new ways of interacting with people that we can learn.
	No, that's right. And the last thing, sorry, the last thing I'll say, and I do want to make sure we get to the other callers, and I really, really do appreciate you.
	You're welcome to call anytime.
	I hugely, hugely appreciate what you're bringing.
	This is fantastic stuff.
	But I would also say, you know, in the black community and sometimes in the Asian community, the black community criticizes people who are sort of acting white, you know, call them Oreos, right?
	It's like they're black on the outside, but white on the inside.
	You know, if you want to Get ahead if you want to get a good education, if you want to be a dentist or a doctor or an accountant.
	It's like, oh, you're acting white, man.
	You're betraying your heritage and blah, blah, blah.
	And I think one of the things that I recall, because I went from extreme poverty to fairly good wealth as an entrepreneur, one of the things that I really recall having a problem with is I sort of rose and tried not to get the bends from sort of going up the social ladder.
	I had a cynicism and a skepticism towards economic power or authority.
	I was a boss and ran a technical department in a software company that I co-founded.
	And to have authority, I had a real problem with it because part of me really thought, well, those who have authority or had authority in the world that I grew up with created structures and laws and those aspects of society...
	Like teachers and social workers and so on who are supposed to protect children.
	And they never did protect children than any of the children myself or any of the ones that I knew of.
	So I had this skepticism around success that I was going to join a system that had been designed by the rich and powerful which did nothing to protect me as a child.
	So I thought I was in a sense getting in with a bad crowd by becoming successful and relatively wealthy and so on.
	And I really had to fight that and say no I'm not going to let the failures of those who had power before me Keep me from legitimate and justly earned involuntary power myself.
	You have to redefine Virtue, society, power, and everything.
	And you can be incredibly original and powerful in doing that.
	But I think if you've been really betrayed by a system and unprotected by a system that claims to want to do nothing but protect you, it's really hard to want to sort of rise up in that structure in our society and not feel like somehow you're falling in sort of with a bad crowd.
	And that was something that I had a challenge with and it's something I've tried to help other people with through this show as well.
	Well, Ruby Kay Payne wrote about that.
	It's guilt. We have a lot of guilt leaving one idea and one behavior behind for a new set of, you know, for a new lifestyle.
	Yeah, I mean, I agree with you to some degree, but for me it was a little bit more anger than guilt, which, you know, may just be, you know, to be cliché, it may be a male-female thing, but it definitely was.
	I had to overcome a fair amount of Skepticism and nihilism to some degree within myself about the powers that be as I began to sort of become one in my inner prior life.
	Anyway, listen, I do want to get into some other callers.
	Thank you again so much for calling in.
	You're absolutely welcome. We do this every Sunday.
	Welcome anytime. I really do appreciate your perspectives.
	And congratulations again, if you don't mind, from one survivor to another.
	Massive kudos and congratulations again for the work that you've done on yourself to emerge from a crater as a set of fireworks.
	That is a beautiful thing to see.
	Thank you. All right.
	Mr. J, who's up next?
	We have a caller from the area code of 571.
	You're on the air. Hello.
	Hello. You are live, baby, live.
	Hello. I have a question relevant to what you were just talking about.
	And you mentioned overcoming your cynicism as you were...
	I'm just wondering what words of encouragement would you give someone or people who kind of, you know, lose their steam along the way and start to self-sabotage a little?
	Like, say you grow up as a young teen skeptic and...
	Sorry, skeptic in my sense?
	...you read a lot. Just skeptic about being able to make it in the world.
	Or dealing with people.
	Sorry, being able to make a living, you mean?
	Yeah. Okay. Like, say you read a lot and you realize that, you know, your parents are abusive and the school system is abusive, but you're still in it and you're still not self-sufficient.
	What advice would you have for them?
	And this is you.
	Me and a friend. Okay.
	So, let me just make sure I understand where you're coming from.
	I hate to sort of answer something that's not really a question.
	So, you have a certain skepticism about your ability to make your way economically at the moment.
	I would assume that you're a young man, is that right?
	Yes. So, you have some skepticism about making your way forward economically or professionally within the world, is that right?
	Yes. And can you tell me a little bit more about the specifics of...
	Your skepticism or your disbelief in this possibility.
	Why do you feel that this is not possible?
	It's more of like a roadblock, like a philosophical shell you've retreated into.
	And in order to get out of your shell, you have to deal with people.
	Sorry, and what is the nature of the philosophical shell?
	I appreciate it. I think I understand where you're coming from, but I really want to make sure I'm precise, if you can tell me a little bit about that.
	That show being just...
	It's a little hard to explain.
	Do you mind if I take a couple of stabs?
	You can tell me if I'm right? Okay, because there are a number of different ways that philosophical shells, in my opinion, can arise.
	One can be, I'm too good for the idiots of this world.
	Again, I'm going to put this sort of bluntly and maybe this is part of it or maybe this is more than part of it.
	Is it that you have developed a certain amount of philosophical knowledge and wisdom and understanding and in a sense it's kind of tough to go out among the primitives or the savages or those without self-knowledge who are kind of dangerous and random.
	Do you feel that it's partly because of that that you see deeply into the world or into truth or into yourself and therefore it's hard to go out and translate that into the shallow speak of the everyday?
	Yes, exactly. Okay, good.
	I'm not trying to sound like an elitist.
	No, no. Look, it's okay to be an elitist.
	It really is okay to be an elitist.
	You don't want to base your self-esteem on it in terms of being superior to others because then, in a sense, you don't want to help them raise because it's going to threaten your self-esteem.
	But there's nothing wrong with being an elitist.
	I want my dentist to be a complete elitist when it comes to the care of my teeth because that's what I'm paying her for, right?
	I want her to be way better at cleaning my teeth than I am because otherwise there'd be no point going, right?
	So I want elitists all over the place.
	I want the people who run my free domain radio server to be complete elitists when it comes to their knowledge relative to mine.
	Nothing is wrong with elitism.
	You just don't want to base your self-esteem on being better than others because then you have an incentive to not help them raise to your level.
	So is that the majority of what is going on in your philosophical bubble or is there more?
	Or should we just focus on that particular aspect?
	I'd say it's more or less that.
	Right. Okay. Okay.
	It's a little bit frustrating to go out into the world and to interact with co-workers or to interact with other students and having a hard time balancing between speaking your mind.
	Sorry to interrupt, but I think I understand.
	Is it fair to say that as a philosopher or somebody who's interested in philosophy that you are kind of for universal arguments, universal propositions and that sort of empiricism and reason and so on?
	And not to deploy the Kantian categorical imperative, but it is tough, I think, to sustain the argument that we should not do for others that which others have done which have benefited us, if we can, right?
	So it's like, if every time I'm thirsty someone gives me a glass of water, And then I see someone who's thirsty, I have all this extra water, and I don't give them a glass of water, that would be...
	You know, if I've taken the glasses of water, so to speak, I think I should give the glasses of water if I can, right?
	Is that fair to say? Mm-hmm.
	Now, who got you into philosophy to begin with?
	I mean, because none of us have invented it, right?
	A fellow forum member.
	You mean at Freedom Aid Radio?
	Yes. Now, if he, or let's say I... If he or I or Ayn Rand or Han Tape or Stephen Kinsella or any of the other people, Murray Rothbard, whoever it is that you like,
	Milton Friedman, whoever it is that you like, from a philosophical or Aristotle or whoever, if these people had stayed in their philosophical bubble and had not written or communicated or podcasted or whatever, then you would not...
	Be a recipient of the work that other people have done, right?
	Because nobody would have come out of their shell to engage in a tricky and dangerous world at times in the realm of philosophy, right?
	Do you see where I'm going with this?
	It's very subtle. I see where you're going, but let's say you're not quite the rugged individualist yet, and you're not the entrepreneur, you're the employee, and You're not the teacher, but you're the student.
	And bringing out your philosophy and discussing your views with other people will create some sort of obstacles.
	Sorry, you mean in the work environment?
	Yeah. But it's not your job to talk philosophy in a work environment.
	That's not what you're paid for, right?
	Unless you're a philosophy teacher, right?
	Right. I mean, and I just did a podcast.
	If somebody got a bunch of people in the chat room, if you could just give me the number.
	It's the recent one that came out about RTR at work, real-time relationships or philosophical honesty at work.
	I think it's important to recognize when you are in an economic relationship, and you can have fun at work and have friends at work, but fundamentally, of course, it's an economic relationship.
	You're paid to be a means to an end, right?
	So if you're a waiter, you're a means to an end to get food to the table and give people an enjoyable experience of the restaurant and so on.
	No, it wasn't a Surprise Sunday show.
	It's a podcast. Just make a note of this.
	I can't believe these numbers are so high.
	It's podcast 1454.
	Have a listen to that.
	I'll just go of it very briefly here.
	You are a means to an end in an economic relationship.
	Therefore, your primary goal is to serve the utility of the person who's employing you and so on.
	It doesn't mean you can never talk philosophy, but that's not the reason why you're there.
	Now, in a personal relationship you have, like a boyfriend, girlfriend, marriage, or whatever, or just friendship, you're not a means to someone at its end.
	Because if you're a means to their end, then, you know, like I'm friends with you because you've got a yacht, and so you're a means for me to get on a yacht and, you know, dance topless with bikini models or whatever.
	I think we can clearly understand that's not a very honorable friendship, if you're the means to an end for someone.
	What we want in friendships, in our close personal relationships, is to be, not to be a means to an end, but an end in ourself, right?
	Is someone my friend because they like me as an individual and want to hear what I think or speak or whatever, right?
	Not because they, you know, I'll be friends with Steph because he's got a couple of listeners so it'll help me, you know, pimp my podcast or something.
	That would be using me as a means to an end.
	Economic relationships, we're always a means to an end.
	And personal relationships is different and I think separating those two is important because you don't want to either use your friends as a means to an end or Pretend to be an end in yourself in an economic relationship.
	Both those two things, I would say, would be inappropriate.
	So, I don't think that we want to feel, if we have the truth, the whole point is that the truth is supposed to set us free.
	But if we feel that we must speak the truth in every situation, we're actually not free.
	We're not making choices that are appropriate to the situation.
	Like, if I get pulled over by a cop, I'm all, yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir.
	I'm not going to sit here and talk about, you know, the fact that his Blue costume does not change the moral nature and that he's still initiating force and blah blah blah, right?
	Because that's not the nature of the relationship.
	He's not coming to me for philosophical wisdom or friendship.
	He's coming to me for money, right?
	So it's the same thing.
	Like if you're going to get mugged by someone, you don't start talking about property rights.
	Just give them your goddamn wallet because that can be replaced whereas your kidney, spleen or life can't be.
	I think you don't want to feel like you have to speak the truth in every situation that you're in.
	You have to speak the truth. That's no longer having choice.
	That's kind of being programmed by freedom to not be free.
	I think you should feel free to go to a job.
	I talk about my entrepreneurial days, but I got my first job when I was...
	And then I got my first job outside of the home when I was 11 and putting together the New York Times on a Sunday in a bookstore and then I worked in a hardware store and then I worked in a supermarket and then I worked as a waiter and then like it was years before I even started working in an office and I had lots of philosophical opinions even back then which I didn't talk about.
	Why? Because I was being paid to bring food to people's table and not to enlighten them about philosophy.
	That was going to take another 20 years to come to fruition.
	So I think that's important that you can have an economic relationship with people.
	Don't feel like you have to talk about philosophy.
	It's not what you're paid for and we should respect, I think, the realities of an economic relationship and not pretend that it's a sort of friendship and that people should gain the benefit of our wisdom even if they're paying us to bring food to their customers.
	Does that make any sense?
	Oh dear, he's retreated into his shell again.
	Bummer. Anyway, did we lose you?
	Sorry about that. No problem. Yeah.
	The phone lies sometimes.
	Okay. Would you apply the same advice to, say, a school situation where you're in a history class and the easiest way to get your A would just, you know, lie about your beliefs in order to get that A? Well, is the professor your friend or is the professor a means to an aunt?
	Right, so the professor is a means to an end.
	I don't think that writing...
	I mean, I didn't do this myself.
	I'm not going to say that that makes me right or noble or heroic.
	I just couldn't do it. Like, I couldn't write a paper praising the welfare state or the use of violence or whatever.
	There's usually an angle you can take that is instructive to you without necessarily pissing off the professor.
	I know that's a tough balance.
	I'm not going to pretend that that's easy to do.
	But you can find ways to explore knowledge without necessarily pissing off everyone.
	So you can find a way to have value even within a status situation educationally.
	So for instance, I took a course, an entire year graduate school course, on the history of Christianity.
	Now, I'm an atheist through and through, but studying Christianity and its history was incredibly helpful to me.
	And I did not have, I mean, my professor was not an atheist by any stretch.
	And I wrote papers, but I did not write papers saying there's no God.
	Because the course wasn't atheism versus religion.
	The course was the history of Christianity.
	And as long as I could find facts to back up my criticisms of Christianity without talking about atheism, I found it of extreme value to take a course like that.
	I took a course on medieval economics, not because I approve of medieval economics, which was entirely religion-based and hostile to basic things like loaning out for money at interest and any form of capitalism, but it was fantastically helpful for me to realize how far we've come from those primitive superstitious days.
	So I think there's lots of things you can do in an educational situation that's going to be of incredible value to you down the road, but you don't have to agree with your professor, because your professor...
	Your professor is not a philosopher.
	Your professor is trying to instruct you in particular materials.
	It is also a very good idea, and I strongly urge this to people.
	I don't think enough people do this, even within this community.
	Get into the other person's shoes.
	Argue the other side of the coin.
	I mean, we spent two months on Martin Luther until I could argue Martin Luther's positions from here to here.
	And I actually played Martin Luther in class in a play by John Osborne, I think it was.
	And I could argue Luther's position up, down, backwards, and sideways.
	It's really important.
	You can inhabit somebody else's perspective without losing your own soul.
	And I think it's really important that you do so so you can anticipate erroneous arguments.
	So I think there's lots you can do to get great value even out of statist education.
	That is going to serve you well down the road.
	And I think it's really good to expose yourself to arguments that are highly critical of your own.
	Lord knows lots of people on the internet help me with that every day.
	So I think it's really important to be able to do that.
	And so I hope that you will not expect a purity in the world.
	Because if there was this purity in the world...
	There'd be no need to study philosophy, right?
	The fact that the world is not very rational is why philosophy is so important.
	Like, if we always ate everything that was best for us, there'd be no need for the science of nutrition or a nutritionist, right?
	But because people eat crap, we need nutritionists.
	And because people think badly, we need philosophers.
	So the very fact that the discipline exists only exists as a shadow of the statue of ignorance that is the world.
	So I think expecting it to be otherwise is not rational in a way.
	Okay, thanks. You're very welcome.
	And I'm sorry, I know that was some glib stuff.
	And I know it's a big issue.
	If you don't have any luck with what I'm saying, feel free to call back in again or we can talk privately.
	Because, you know, people who are interested in philosophy, I want to flush them out into the world to speak reason to people with confidence and happiness and curiosity.
	And I know it seems like an overwhelming task and it's easy for me to say in my 40s, blah, blah, blah.
	But, you know, I kind of want to be, you know, there are those dogs that get the quail out of the bushes.
	Okay, that's not a good metaphor because they end up being shot.
	But I really want to get people who are interested in philosophy out into the world, if at all possible.
	So keep me posted. And if there's anything else that I can do, please let me know.
	Alright, thanks. And I was a little nervous before, so I forgot to introduce myself today from the forum.
	Oh, very, very pleased to meet you.
	Very pleased to meet you.
	We'll get you out of the attic, don't worry.
	And you'll be happier for it, I think.
	Philosophers should be out engaging with the world.
	That's my particular thought.
	Although it can be scary and it can be dangerous and you can get burned, Lord knows.
	But it still is essential to do because that's really what I think philosophy is all about.
	All right. Well, thank you.
	Do we have time for...
	We do have time if we have somebody else on the line.
	We do have another caller from Skype.
	They've been holding on here.
	Let's see if we can bring them on. Skype caller, go ahead.
	You're on the air. Hello. Hello.
	Hi, you're on the air. Hi, I'm actually not calling from Skype.
	I'm calling from a regular phone.
	Dear God, I'm so glad we got that cleared up.
	Next! Sorry, go on. It's showing up on Skype.
	That's kind of weird. Aside from that, I also didn't want to be the last caller because then I have all these things that you've been talking about culminate and weigh on my mind as I have my own questions to ask you.
	And I hope that, out of anything I say, that it just comes out clear.
	I want to make sure I'm getting you right in what you are, as you say, lecturing on, but I know you're not lecturing.
	You're, as you said, trying to engage people.
	I guess my first question would be, you opened up talking about the article that basically It was a statistical analysis of spanking and low level of IQ in children, and those who were spanked, their IQs were actually lower.
	Yes. And then you had some callers call in, and I believe even yourself had said that you had undergone some sort of abuse as a child or at some point in your life, And I just think it's kind of funny because yourself and even the caller, I think Renee was the one that also spoke of it, show almost the exact opposite.
	You talked about the resiliency of undergoing some sort of abuse and you have the impulse to either fight or fly.
	And what I want to know is, do you think that It is skewed one way or another that you're going to fight or fly.
	Do you think more people are encouraged to fly in response to their abuse?
	Or do you think that they are encouraged to fight?
	I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I understand the question.
	Can you tell me what you mean by...
	We were talking about the fight or flight mechanism, which is a mechanism that gets activated when a human being is being chased by a bear or even a situation of, I guess...
	So can you tell me what you mean when you say are people encouraged to fly or to fight?
	I'm just not sure what you mean.
	If you can give me some concrete examples of that, that would be helpful.
	I am going on the examples, or at least the concrete examples, on your own commentary based on what you yourself think.
	And I'm trying to basically offer the other person's shoes, so to speak.
	You had mentioned that, you know, if you're striking a child, the impulse for them is to be fearful.
	And what I'm asking is what you think about the other impulse to become aggressive, to fight back.
	Oh, sure, yeah. Not be the one that reverts to their shell, but the one that is out there busting up the shells of other people.
	Do you know what I'm saying? Right, so let me again, I think I'm clearer now, and I'm sorry it's taking me a little while to get it, but so you're saying that there are some...
	Well, that's my fault, that's not your fault.
	Right, well, we hear that. So you're saying that some of the children who would be, let's just say spanked, right, but some of the children who would be spanked would become kind of fearful and nervous, and that would have something to do with the fight-or-flight mechanism, which leads to a lowered ability to concentrate, which has something to do with the IQ test and the points.
	Whereas some children tend to be aggressive, and particularly towards other children, right?
	Are you saying that what is the difference between sort of kind of going inwards and becoming more nervous, or going outwards and becoming more aggressive towards other kids?
	Well, I'm not saying towards other kids, but towards the instrument of that force against them, be it authority, parents, teachers, whoever is the one putting forth that mechanism of control over them.
	So basically what I'm saying is where you have those who by their abuse go into a shell or you said their attention span was decreased or they couldn't focus.
	What I'm saying is should one believe the statistical analysis and the so-called science of an article like this because of something that to me is common sense?
	Yeah, if you get hit as a young child, you're going to have trauma.
	You're going to respond in one way or the other.
	But what I'm saying is, is the opposite of fear that resiliency, that need to survive.
	Isn't that a good thing? Right.
	I really feel like we're skipping around to a lot of different topics.
	Is there something specific that you wanted to say?
	Well, yeah, because basically I was in the chat room and I was asking questions of them that I didn't want to interrupt your own conversation that you were having with other people.
	And I was called a troll.
	And they're telling me not to use names and not to use labels and stuff like that.
	And I'm in a chat room and they're calling me a troll.
	And it's like the same thing that you said when you started up the show.
	You know, you can't go and hit a child and tell them not to hit anybody.
	It's hypocritical. So I guess my question to you is...
	In regards to that article that was written that says that spanking lowers IQs or slows the progress of an IQ, in the totality of their life, when they grow up and they respond to that abuse at a young age when they're older,
	whether it be, like you said, there was no middle ground, that they either fail or they Push it to the limit, so to speak.
	What I'm saying, isn't that pushing it to the limit a good thing right now?
	Were you yourself struck as a child?
	Well, see, and this is the thing is, you can use specific examples, and I can bring up my own.
	I was struck once when I smoked a cigarette at six years old.
	And I never smoked again.
	So, that was a good thing.
	Now, There was another time I was struck, and it was because I was playing with matches.
	Now, these are things that necessarily, you know, the, what do you call it, the result of me not smoking and not playing with matches again at a young age could have happened without being spanked.
	But what I'm saying is, the act of being spanked didn't traumatize me.
	Because it wasn't incessant and repetitive.
	It wasn't so-called abuse.
	Do you know what I'm saying? Right.
	I agree with you when you're talking about your own children.
	I have a three-year-old and I choose not to ever hit him.
	Well, and can I say, sorry, can I just say that that is, to me, extremely admirable.
	I mean, again, I know it's telling other parents that they're admirable, I know it's all kinds of annoying, and I just, you know, I'm aware of that.
	I'm just on the internet saying, you know, good for you.
	But seriously, good for you.
	You don't need to be hit to learn a lesson.
	In fact, if you are hit, the only lesson that you learn is that violence is valid, that your parents can do to you what they want.
	That you are not capable of being reasoned with.
	That you simply must fear punishment, not learn to love virtue.
	So congratulations and commendations to you on making the decision to not use corporal punishment on your children.
	In my opinion that is magnificent and fantastic.
	I do think that if you are hit as a child that it's not necessary.
	It's not necessary. I do think that, you know, people say, well, what if your kid was wandering into traffic?
	Well, of course I would grab my kid and not let my kid wander into traffic.
	But that's not specific to the child.
	If a guy had an iPod on and was wandering in front of a bus, I'd grab him too.
	It's not specific to children.
	That's anybody. You know, somebody with dementia wandering into traffic, we would tackle them as well if we could, if we had the opportunity.
	But I think you're going to face a challenge, right?
	And I think the challenge you're going to face is that if you're not going to do it towards your own child, which I think is fantastic and wonderful and you should be entirely and magnificently commended for, Then there is doubtless and for sure a part of you that wishes it hadn't been done to you.
	Because if it's wrong for you to do it to your child, and we accept that there is a universality, not perfect, but to a large degree, universality in these kinds of ethics, I think we have to accept that there's a part of you that wishes you had been treated with less roughness and more curiosity and respect when you did things.
	You do not have to hit a child for playing with matches.
	You have to keep matches out of the hands of children.
	Actually, can I comment on one?
	Yeah, because it's your life. These are just my thoughts, right?
	I don't have any particularly solid answers.
	These are just my thoughts. Absolutely.
	We were talking about the means to an end and philosophy, the end is knowledge.
	Though I said that about my own child and not striking him and finding it unnecessary, that isn't a result of me feeling that it was unnecessary in my childhood.
	That is just my own decision in terms of You know, he's a child.
	You know, do I feel that corporal punishment for somebody that murdered somebody is wrong?
	No, I think that they should be.
	Well, no, no, but we're talking about children, right?
	Don't bring other stuff into it, it gets confusing.
	No, no, no, but what I'm saying is my issue is with this research that's been done because they actually take the word corporal punishment and then bring it into talking about a child and I think it kind of I guess it obfuscates the meaning of corporal punishment or the way that it is mostly viewed.
	There are parents out there thinking to themselves, I'm sure of it, I don't want my kid to go to jail so I gotta spank him.
	I don't want him to grow up and have problems.
	No. Well, sorry, sorry.
	Look, I completely understand that.
	And, you know, it is certainly not my goal to demonize parents who have no information, right?
	Like, I've never said that any parent who ever makes a mistake or hits a kid or yells at a kid is irredeemably bad or whatever.
	I mean, but the important thing is to get the information into people's hands, right?
	To give them the facts.
	Absolutely. What I want to ask you, have you read the actual study or did you just read about the study?
	I've read three articles about the study.
	I couldn't find a link to the actual study.
	In regards to the IQs that they tested, I have a question and wonder, what will the emotional IQ of those children that were abused in terms of Well, sorry, I think that's a fantastic question.
	And I did not see that reference directly in the article, but what I did see was a number of studies cited that seemed to show fairly conclusively that the children who receive corporal punishment, not abuse, but corporal punishment, End up with greater degrees of aggression when they're older.
	Now, I think that we can safely say that aggression, which is obviously quite different from being assertive, aggression or the initiation of force against others, usually peers, is not a mark of good EQ or emotional intelligence.
	So it would be fascinating to see those kinds of studies.
	I don't know if they've been done yet, but if you do find any, I would really appreciate it if you could drop me a link.
	I would love to read more about that.
	Okay. And you pretty much...
	You've covered so much ground, that's why my own questions, once I got to them, were manifold.
	My own question got fragmented into so many other questions in talking about this, just because there are statistics that go out there and put the information in the person's hand.
	But at the same time, in approaching something, I want to make sure that I have all the area and angle covered.
	You're absolutely right. And it is important to remember that these studies are never perfect, right?
	I mean, it relies on self-reporting.
	There's also some concern that some of the parents who say that they are using corporal punishment are actually abusing their kids, and that may account for some of the IQ difference.
	So, it's all around self-reporting.
	Obviously, it would be unethical to take one set of kids and spank them, and another set of kids and not spank them in controlled environments or whatever, and see what the results would be.
	There's nothing perfectly conclusive, but it still is enough of alarming stuff, I think, that it's important to examine more.
	And as a parent, as I'm sure you would agree, you always err on the side of caution, right?
	And so if there is something that seems to be bad for your children, or there's a statistical correlation for it being bad for your children, you don't say, well, I'm sure the study's not perfect, so I'll just do it anyway.
	I mean, if it's avoidable, you just don't do it, right?
	And certainly, spanking is an avoidable thing, so...
	And again, I just wanted to say, you know, I know you don't sound like a guy who takes praise very easily, and I know that that can happen, but I just wanted to say the degree to which you're committed to not using corporal punishment on your children, I think, is the degree to which you are to be amazingly commended.
	And again, it sounds like you're not very comfortable with praise, but, you know, I'm going to give it to you anyway, whether you like it or not.
	I just think that you should be very proud of that.
	The reason for that, I guess, is modesty, because, okay, there's...
	I'd rather see my parents praised for the fact that I was lucky enough to have a child, that I'm raising him in the way that they raised me, other than those two instances.
	All right, and I'm so sorry, but we're absolutely out of time.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	Thank you, everybody, so much for listening and chatting with us here at freedomainradio.com.
	I look forward to your donations. Please drop by freedomainradio.com and listen to the podcast, watch the videos, and maybe even click on the donate button.
	And have yourselves an absolutely wonderful week.

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