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Jan. 21, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

08:49

1563 Identity, Choice, Despair - Freedomain Radio

A core paradox of modern philosophy.

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	Hey everybody, it's Steph. Hope you're doing well.
	11.15 on, what is it, the 21st of January 2010.
	Oh, time for GymCast!
	I'm so sorry that I simply, madly, do not have the time to do podcasts in a controlled studio environment.
	I spend very little time in the car these days, which is my preferred place for podcasting, what with the volume normalization that occurs.
	Or rather, it doesn't need to occur with me and passion and no baby in the vicinity.
	And the other time that I have, the spare time or free time that I have, is spent researching for interviews or fixing up the endless audio.
	And visual problems that occur with cutting-edge technology manned by one relatively non-expert fellow.
	So thank you for your patience, and the gym is the only other time that I can...
	I thought about, like, I could take the podcast to the mall if I go there with Isabella, but I just think it's too much of a split focus.
	I just don't feel that I can safely and effectively parent while podcasting.
	Perhaps when she gets a little bit older, but then I'll probably want to be chatting with her.
	So, I'm afraid we are stuck with the clinky-clanky sounds of my Girl Guide weights at the gym.
	The little pink ones, with tassels and occasionally helium balloons attached, because I'm over 40.
	So, I was thinking the other day the degree to which identity is based on or reliant upon, or in a sense identical with, choice.
	And choice, of course, is dependent upon effect, where we cannot affect the outcome.
	It's really silly to say we have a choice.
	I can't choose to win the lottery because I can't affect the outcome of the lottery, assuming that I'm not...
	Somebody who works for one of the Canadian lotteries who are regularly beset by insider scamming scandals, where lottery tickets, winning lottery tickets are assigned, or so on.
	I can't choose that.
	I can choose how healthy I am to some degree, or I can certainly choose how healthily I live, but I cannot choose how long I'm going to live.
	I can have some effect, but I cannot choose it directly.
	I cannot choose to wear a wig.
	I cannot choose to regrow my hair.
	Except, of course, in all of the places.
	When you get over 40, that hair didn't grow before, but now it does.
	Like the insides of your nostrils, your ears, and I think my elbow.
	One of them, anyway. So, choice and identity.
	Where you don't have a choice, you don't really have an identity.
	And where you can't have any effect, you can't really be said to choose anything.
	And this is the fascinating paradox of philosophy as it stands, philosophy as it is at the moment.
	It's a real paradox, and it's a very challenging paradox.
	I'm sure you've experienced this, and let me know more about it if you have.
	Authenticity is the full expression of personal identity, without lies, without falsehoods, without perceived or brutalized or inherited or inflicted mythologies, lies, cultures, stratagems, religions, patriotisms, and so on.
	It is an honest relationship with oneself and with reality.
	That is authenticity to me.
	And really, I'm going to use that interchangeably with identity.
	And this is the paradox. Identity requires choice.
	Choice requires effect. We pursue identity by making choices.
	Or rather, we inhabit identity or we discover identity, expand identity by making choices in life.
	And we are really only drawn to make choices in those areas of life where we can have some tangible effect.
	That is really the essence of self-knowledge and of philosophy, in my opinion and experience.
	Aha! But, whereas the paradox you say, when is Steph actually going to get to it?
	Never! You can't make me y'all!
	Never take me alive, copper! The paradox is that, at the moment, knowledge about the world...
	It's knowledge, deep knowledge of inefficacy.
	We like to make choices where we can have...
	We can only really make choices where we can have an effect.
	But to what degree does our choice of philosophy have an effect on those around us?
	Or rather a positive effect, since we really would only choose positive effects.
	We don't choose negative effects by definition.
	We would choose to avoid negative effects.
	So choice has to be around positive effects.
	So we're all about choice and identity and all those kinds of good things, but the problem then remains, or the problem is then revealed.
	And I think it's a problem that people have known about for a long time, which is why philosophy has been so strenuously avoided by so many people throughout history.
	Identity is choice. Choice is effect.
	But when you choose philosophy, you rid yourself of the illusion of having a positive effect on those around you.
	I mean, isn't that amazing when you think about it?
	Thinking you can change other people is the fundamental illusion of mankind, and it goes all the way from dysfunctional relationships to the welfare state and beyond, even to imperialism is the idea that we can change people.
	Whatever it takes. Force, fraud, lies, the infliction of various abuses and so on.
	Control, manipulation.
	And so we feel that we can change.
	Before philosophy, before self-knowledge, we feel that we can have an effect on those around us.
	And so in a sense, we have this false identity because we can't really have an effect on those around us.
	We can only echo back their prejudices and manipulate their weaknesses, right?
	That is the sum total of the false self-control.
	But that's not a real identity because we don't actually have control over people.
	We can only manipulate them. And thus we are drawn to the weak-willed, to the unphilosophical, or in particular the anti-philosophical.
	So we have this false sense of the ability to effect change in the world.
	And this is why people who are fundamentally false seem to have this very strong willpower.
	I remember a biographer of LBJ was talking about basically he would start trying to convince someone from behind the desk, and then he would end up basically panting at their face while grabbing their lapels.
	He had that We're good to go.
	But that's all false.
	You can't change people for the better through manipulation.
	You can only change people for the better through appeals to virtue and conscience.
	But when you start appealing to rational virtue and conscience, you are rejected and you become inefficacious.
	You become paralyzed. You become incompetent because of your inability.
	Incompetent is not quite the right word, but you're unable to.
	I can't find the right word. I'll find it sooner or later.
	You can't change people. When you appeal to virtue, almost nobody.
	The moment you try and start to really change people for the better through philosophy, conscience, virtue, and rational exhortations to ethical behavior, you are immediately unplugged from people around you.
	They will unplug you. It's only the illusion of darkness, right?
	Sorry, it's only the illusion of light brings actual darkness.
	But when you actually switch on the light, everybody leaves the room or puts blindfolds on.
	So nobody's lit up either way.
	But an acceptance of that is really foundational.
	And that's the paradox, I think, that a lot of us face.
	I certainly know I face it.
	It's a paradox. And it's a chilling paradox.
	My identity is founded on choice.
	Choice requires the ability to affect change.
	Philosophy is about the ability to affect change in people.
	Science is about the ability to affect change in the physical world.
	But philosophy is about affecting change in people.
	Because through philosophy we convince people of the scientific method, but we don't actually do science under philosophy.
	Philosophy is bigger than science.
	For someone to change requires self-knowledge, self-criticism, and a focus on rational, external, challenging values, which people don't want to do, because they can have the illusion of virtue through conformity and defensiveness and self-righteousness, rather than actual virtue.
	So because they can have the illusion of virtue, which everybody approves of, rather than actual virtue, which everybody attacks...
	They avoid the truly virtuous.
	And so, you want to have an identity, you want to make choices, you want to affect change in the world, but the more authentic you are, the more truthful you are, the more honest you are, the less capacity you have to affect change in the world.
	So, the pursuit of identity is, in a sense, the scrubbing of identity.
	And that, to me, is a real paradox.
	I don't know how to solve it. I don't think it can be solved.
	And again, this doesn't take into account this community where change is affected.
	But this community represents a tiny percentage of people.
	A tiny, tiny, tiny slice of people in the world as a whole.
	Maybe 50,000.
	Maybe 40,000. Maybe 60,000.
	Coming and going. Over 100,000 to 150,000 since it's come.
	100,000 book downloads or more.
	But a tiny slice of humanity.
	And this is across the whole world.
	And so the odds of you knowing somebody in your life who is as turned on by philosophy as you are, infinitesimal.
	We can see that. We have enough evidence now.
	A number of people who've tried to bring philosophy to those around them.
	So the odds of somebody in your life being disinterested in philosophy are tiny, tiny, tiny.
	And so that is a mad paradox.
	And I think this is one of the reasons why philosophy has been so slow to spread throughout history, why everybody admires it from afar and recoils up close.
	Because we want to let go of our false identity, we want to replace it with a true identity.
	But the true identity is helplessness.

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