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March 31, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
10:22
1627 I Accept'

A great way to frame your position while also communicating your methodology.

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Oh, hi everybody. It's Steph. Hope you're doing well.
12.50 p.m.
On March 31st, 2010.
Hope you're doing well. Pinchy punchy.
End of the monthly. If you have some money, please donate.
Oh, look at that. It's almost like a haiku.
I would like to talk about the differences in these statements in terms of how you present your values and the three ways In general.
You say that there are four ways.
The fourth one just hit me.
The four ways that people talk about their beliefs are sort of along these lines.
They say, I am, it is, I believe, and one we will get to at the end.
Now the first one is if you say, I am an atheist.
If you say, what are you? I am an atheist.
The second way that people will talk about beliefs is they will say, it is true that there is no God, or it is that there is no God.
Atheism is true.
And the third way that people will talk about their beliefs is to say, I believe there is no God.
I believe in anarchism.
So you say, I am an anarchist.
Anarchism is true, or is consistent, or whatever.
And the third way is to talk about, I believe in anarchism.
I believe in, you know, whatever, right?
And I don't think any of those are particularly helpful or valid.
And the reason that I don't think they're very helpful or valid is, let's just take anarchism.
Someone says, are you an anarchist?
And you say, I guess you would say something like, yes, I am an anarchist.
And that is not a very, I think, helpful statement of belief.
It doesn't convey any information.
I always try to convey additional information to the sort of bold response of the moment.
What is the additional information that you could convey when you talk about being an anarchist?
So if you say, I am an anarchist, it is a statement of identity almost.
It is an attempt to co-join a belief with a personality or an accident or a circumstance.
You say, I am an American.
Well, obviously it's just coincidental where you happen to be born geographically.
Say, I am a Christian.
Then you are identifying a belief with a personality.
And that is a very post-modern, or in a sense pre-modern, thing to do, is to say, I am an anarchist, because it is associating belief with identity.
And what that does is it lets people off the hook in terms of their own responsibility for determining the truth about these things.
And I think that's interesting.
If you don't want to examine your beliefs, or if you feel anxious about examining your beliefs, you would love to associate somebody else's beliefs with their personality or their identity.
And I think that is not a very helpful or useful thing to do in the long run, or even in the short run.
I would not say I am an anarchist.
It is not a statement of a belief or a philosophical position.
It is a statement of identity.
And thus, it lets people off the hook.
Now, if you also say That anarchism, and this is a bit more, the world is round.
Anarchism is valid.
Then what you're doing is you're saying that, or you give the implication that beliefs push outwards.
You have a belief in anarchism and then you find out that it is valid.
And this may sound like semantics, but the way that people hear information is really, really important when it comes to conveying it.
So if you say, I am an anarchist, or anarchism is valid, then you're making a positive statement of belief out into the world.
The belief comes first, and then you look out into the world for the validation.
If you say, I believe in anarchism, or I believe that anarchism is valid, or I believe in atheism, then you're using the word belief, and the word belief is not, I think, a very good word for philosophers to use.
I believe is, you know, think of all of those cheesy movies with the stirring music.
Believe! You know, they always say that kind of stuff.
Belief is, says, somebody holds a position.
Somebody claims.
I mean, who knows what people really believe, right?
See the, what was it, the Republican Council has just blown a whole bunch of money on strip clubs and lesbo-simulated orgy fests.
So who knows what people really believe, but We do know what they at least say they believe.
So when you say, I believe in anarchism, what you're saying is, I have a position called a belief in anarchism.
That doesn't convey any information to anybody else.
All it does is it says, I hold this belief.
But I was trying to think of a way, or ways, that we could convey our values, but at the same time, Not, like, to convey additional information about how we got to those values.
And I thought, gee, you know, if we could, that would be, that would be great.
That would be really great. And I sort of molded over, molded over, and I think I've come up with something that is really useful, and hopefully it will make some sense, and hopefully you will see the value in it.
So how's this?
How's this? I accept I accept anarchism.
I think that is a very, very different place to be.
I accept atheism.
I think that conveys so much more than this other stuff.
I think that conveys a whole bunch more than I am, I believe, or even it is.
But when you say, I accept reason, I accept empiricism, I accept anarchism, I accept UPB, what you're saying is that the contents of the mind, or belief, or values that we hold, that these things,
these objects in the mind, are accepted or brought into the mind, in a sense passively, Through reality, through the objective evaluation of reality.
So to, you know, perhaps, as always, labor the point, to an extremity, what if we said about something like the shape of the world?
If you say, I believe...
That the world is round. That is a statement of one kind of information or one kind of perspective.
I believe that the world is round.
If you compare that to a statement like I... You can't say I am that the world is round, of course.
But if you say I accept that the world is round, that is different.
If you say the world is round, That is not a statement of empiricism.
It is an assertion.
If you say, I accept that the world is round, then you are automatically saying, like you're giving some of the methodology in the statement of belief.
And I think that's really, really important.
I accept that there is no God.
I accept that because there is no God.
I accept it passively, in a way, based upon what is in reality.
I accept that the world is round.
I accept it. Because it is.
And I think if you can take that approach.
I've been trying to take it for a spin.
Try to take it for a spin yourself.
And see what comes out of it.
I accept atheism.
I accept it. Because it is.
There is no God. It is valid.
I accept the scientific method.
I don't believe in the scientific method.
I am not...
I am not science.
I mean, when you say I am an anarchist or I am an atheist, it would seem quite discontinuous from the statement, I am a scientist.
A scientist is a job.
An anarchist and an atheist...
They're not jobs. And because they're not jobs, you can't really be those things.
I am a philosopher.
I guess it is my job. But you can't be those things.
So I would really suggest trying to dissociate belief with mere assertion, the world is round, is as Uninformative or unhelpful a statement as God exists.
It doesn't really mean anything to say God exists.
And it doesn't really mean anything in a way to say the world is round, because it's just a statement of assertion, not of proof.
But if you say, I accept that the world is round, then what you're actually doing You're stating the methodology of belief along with the content of belief.
And I think that's very, very important when it comes to talking about two beliefs.
Anyway, I just want to keep this short, but let me know what you think of this.
I think it's an interesting way. Give it a try.
I accept the non-aggression principle.
I accept that the government is morally wrong.
I accept the state of the society.
I accept it. It's not really up to me.
I just have to accept what the rational facts are.
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