Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

Dec. 26, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:07:15

1811 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, 26 December 2010

Encouraging commitment, sharing your passion for philosophy, helping others with procrastination, and standing up for the truth of history!

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
	It is Sunday, December the 26th, boxing day.
	I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
	I hope that philosophy didn't enshroud you too much in the bitter walls of isolation from the general delusions of the world and that you enjoyed yourself enormously.
	So this is the Sunday show, which you can join at fdrurl.com forward slash chat every Sunday 2 to 4 p.m.
	or so Eastern Standard Time.
	Questions, comments, issues, criticisms, whatever is on your titanic globe-spanning brain, I am absolutely happy to take on as best I can.
	Just a note or two before we begin.
	This is something, I guess, a little bit more for the new year.
	So, a question, oh, that I get so, so often is, what can I do?
	What can I do to help the world become more rational, more philosophical, more loving, more peaceful, more voluntary, and so on?
	And over the last, well, I guess, I don't even want to think how long it's been going on.
	You know, it's close to three decades of studying philosophy now.
	Oh, I must tell you, that does not make me feel like the springiest of spring chickens.
	But over the last half decade or so of being a little bit more of a public figure in the libertarian-slash-voluntarist-slash-agorist-slash-anarchist world, I've heard a lot of this.
	And I've had lots of conversations with people about what And the general sense that I get is everyone's looking for some big, giant thing.
	You know, whether it's the Ron Paul candidacy or everyone not flying and everyone not paying taxes, some massive, you know, universe-spanning movement or whatever.
	I can tell you that that is not what is going to happen.
	And I actually think that's kind of a self-delusion.
	I think it's a way of making what needs to be done so big that you actually can't Do it, right?
	So, if you need to become a congressman or the president in order to change things, well, as John Cougar said, the odds of that happening are infinitesimally small.
	So, in a way, the bigger the thing that you think needs to be done to free the world, the less motivated you are to do things, because what's needed is so big, and you're just an individual, and so on.
	I sort of take a different approach to it, and I hope that that makes some kind of sense.
	The approach that I take to the question what is to be done is much more simple.
	I mean, I think that we have this Taj Mahal called the future that we want to bring.
	A future of peace and happiness between parent and child, between citizen and citizen.
	Not between politician and subject because there will never be, while there is a government, there will never be peace in the world.
	Not between priest and parishioner because while there is the terrifying of children through superstition, there will never be peace in the world.
	But between citizen and citizen, we want peace and volunteerism.
	Between parent and child, we want peace and love and non-aggression in child raising.
	Now, that's kind of like a cathedral in the future that we want to build, that we want to bring into existence.
	That cathedral or that Taj Mahal is a huge imposing structure and if you think it just needs to be built in space and dropped down through some nefarious method, you're going to feel like it can't be done.
	But the reality is if you want to build the Taj Mahal of the future, if you want to build the Cathedral of Peace that we want the future to live in, it really is dull, dumb, boring, stupid, repetitive work.
	It is a matter simply of putting one brick On top of the other.
	And what do I mean by that? Well, you know, recently that was the 2010 Podcast Awards and I think we lost out to a History of Rome podcast or something like that.
	If you voted, thank you so much.
	I really do appreciate it.
	I sent out reminders to tens of thousands of people to vote every day.
	If you didn't vote, then I think it's important to ask yourself why.
	You say, well, it's not that important.
	It is important. It is important to gain credibility in this kind of way.
	It is helpful and it is important.
	Whether you voted for Free Talk Live, or for School Sucks, or Free Domain Radio, or whatever resource you think is the best for bringing truth, reason, and peace to the world.
	There's a little something, a little brick that you can put, you know, 30 seconds out of your day, a little brick that you can put on another brick which helps build the future.
	Do you spend any time going out, you know, doing a search on the web for people whose blogs or websites might lead you to believe that they might be interested in philosophy or, you know, again, I'm going to use Free Domain Radio as the resource because I think it's the best, obviously, whatever resource you think is appropriate.
	Do you post, do you sort of send them a little email saying, hey, you might want to check out this philosophy website?
	Do you go to forums and post a little bit?
	You know, I've released a free book recently.
	Did you go to a couple of forums and post the book?
	I know it's dumb.
	I know that it's not exciting.
	I know that there's no fanfares.
	There's no fireworks. There's no parades.
	No one's going to name a school after you in the year 2200.
	But these are the little things.
	That is actually required to change the world.
	It is not exciting.
	It is not glamorous.
	I mean, most of what I do is neither exciting nor glamorous.
	So I'm down there in the trenches with you.
	I'm not hovering over in some Hindenburg.
	Ooh, maybe that's not the best metaphor.
	Well, you know what I mean. I'm not sort of floating above you in some ivory tower.
	I'm down there doing the dull and ugly stuff and boring stuff that is necessary.
	Because I think it's really easy...
	To believe that some external big thing is going to change, it really comes down to the work of individuals.
	I would say, in general, I think that the libertarian community has a seemingly significant resistance to sacrificing the pleasures of the moment for the sake of a larger cause.
	I think this is true of objectivists.
	I know that it's true of anarchists.
	Not all, but I find the majority.
	Libertarians, atheists, we don't Really like the idea of surrendering the pleasures of the moment for a higher cause.
	Unfortunately, people who are not very rational, to say the least, don't have any problem sacrificing the pleasure of the moment for the sake of a larger cause, right?
	I mean, Jews give thousands of dollars a year to be in synagogues and go and have like, you know, six million holidays and go to the synagogue to get lectured at and so on.
	Mormons, I think you have to have two years of missionary work, a Christian's As a whole, donate to churches and send their kids to Sunday schools and go to churches themselves and invest dozens of hours a month.
	Muslims go to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.
	They pray five times a day.
	They give 10% in general, as do the Mormons to the poor.
	There are huge sacrifices being made for the sake of the perceived greater good or larger cause.
	Huge sacrifices and investments of time and energy.
	Being made by irrational groups.
	Now, we have the weight and momentum of truth and reason and evidence and science on our side, but to think that that's enough is diluted.
	There are things that we need to do as a community.
	There are sacrifices of the pleasures of the moment that we need to make.
	I mean, do you think that the Jehovah's Witnesses enjoy going up and down the streets and having 99% of doors slammed in their faces?
	Do you think that the people... Sitting on the street corners in the cold with the Salvation Army buckets, really having the best time in the world?
	Of course not. Most people walk by and don't give them a penny.
	But these organizations, which are highly successful, they know what needs to be done and the amount of sacrifice and energy and effort that is expended by people who are in these organizations is huge and is prodigious, is enormous.
	Just think of the number of volunteers That work on political campaigns, you know, answering phones, making up pamphlets, delivering stuff, going door to door.
	I mean, these people, for the most part, are not paid.
	They are volunteers who are sacrificing the pleasure and comfort of the moment for the sake of a greater cause.
	It took me a while to get used to the idea as well.
	I think it's an important idea to dwell on.
	Myself, I sort of ask, what does philosophy want of me?
	Or to be more precisely, every day I sort of ask myself, what does the future want me to do?
	What does the future want me to work on?
	What do the unborn who have no voice need for me to do to help pave the way to that cathedral of peace in the future that we want mankind to live in?
	And there is a lot of sacrifice of immediate pleasures in what I do for the sake of The greater good for the sake of a higher cause, for the sake of a greater ending, and I accept that.
	Now, I think that individualism can go so far to the point where you don't feel like you're connected to a higher cause, to a larger goal, and therefore there really is almost no point in sacrificing your pleasures at the moment for the sake of exhorting people to be philosophical, to be wise, to pursue self-knowledge, to refrain from attack and abuse and ugly forms of human interaction.
	That can be a lonely and difficult thing to do.
	It can be extremely uncomfortable emotionally.
	I completely understand that.
	But that's why we need, I think, the higher cause and the higher goal.
	You know, it's a funny but true thing in life and in the world that crazy people don't seem to mind appearing crazy to sane people.
	On the other hand, sane people have a great deal of difficulty Appearing crazy in the eyes of crazy people, and I think that's a real shame.
	The momentum of history enjoyed by Judaism, Islam, Christianity, statism, and other forms of irrationality, if you look at the amount of work that is being put forward, the amount of indoctrination, the amount of effort, the amount of money that's poured into these causes, that is simply required to To sustain them as best as they can be sustained, right?
	Because unfortunately, well, fortunately for rationality, unfortunately for religion, religion is diminishing throughout the world.
	So to even maintain in a decaying way an irrational superstition, huge amounts of effort need to be put forward.
	To change something as fundamental as our perception of the role of violence in social organization or anti-statism or anti-religiosity will be To change that requires even more effort than to maintain an existing ideology like religiosity or statism, which has all of the weight of thousands of years and all of the cultural prejudice behind it.
	So I think that we need to out-sprint the sprinter, so to speak.
	I think we need to put some significant effort into this cause, into spreading truth and reason.
	So my suggestion is, you know, spend an hour a week.
	Just start with an hour a week.
	That's much less. Then Christians and Jews and Muslims and political volunteers and so on spend on pursuing their agendas.
	Just spend an hour a week. Post stuff on forums.
	Suggest videos or books or websites or podcasts or other resources that you find valuable.
	I suggest mine, but of course it's your decision about what is the most valuable.
	Really try to work and have the courage of your convictions to be annoying to people, to be persistent, to nag them.
	Even if that's necessary.
	We all do that with people who we think should quit smoking or drinking and so on and ask questions and you don't necessarily have to be grating and obnoxious.
	But I think it's okay to be persistent in the spread of truth and peace and reason.
	So I just wanted to sort of make that suggestion.
	It's more of an invitation for how things can work for you in the coming year.
	I think that you will find it very satisfying to do that kind of work, however dull it may be in the moment.
	It's very satisfying when it accumulates for you.
	I think that social change is very slow, not so much because of the resistance of crazy people, but I think it's due to a lot of the inertia of the people who actually have the truth, who actually have reason, who actually have knowledge of right and wrong and good and evil and reason and irrationality.
	If we are, I think, even half as active or even 25% as active as the crazy people, then we will gain significant traction and will steer the world away from the course that it's currently heading towards, which is tumbling down into the road to fascism and other ugly areas of social disorganization and chaos and catastrophe.
	I think that we need to do that.
	I think that When you get older, if bad things come to pass, which is what is going to happen if we don't act, and I think act pretty decisively and pretty energetically, I don't think you'll look back and say, well, I'm really glad I saw that extra movie a week.
	I'm really glad I played that extra hour of World of Warcraft a week.
	That was really worth it relative to where we ended up as a society.
	I think what you'll do if things come to a bad pass, which they're going to do if we don't act as a community, You're going to look back and you're going to kick yourself for not doing more.
	Because I think the responsibility for the failure of reason lies with the rational.
	It does not lie with the irrational.
	It lies with the rational.
	It's really up to us and nobody else.
	It's up to you, not me.
	It's up to me for me, not you.
	It's up to you to you, not me, to change the world, to save the world.
	There is no shortcut. It is putting the cathedral of the future together brick by brick.
	And there's times when it's hot. There's times when it's unpleasant.
	There's times when the sweat trickles down.
	Your forehead, and there's times when you feel faint, and there's times when you're thirsty, and there's times when it's gritty, and there's times when you cough your lungs out, but we still need to keep doing it.
	Not because we wish to put ourselves on the cross of reason and sacrifice all the happiness in our life, but rather because we want to preserve that happiness through strong and energetic application of our ideals and values.
	So I hope that that is encouraging.
	I certainly don't mean to be scolding.
	I hope that is encouraging for you.
	Take some time. There's so much that you can do.
	You know, review material that you like on the web.
	Help promote it. Send it out to people.
	Have conversations with people.
	Engage with people. Don't just consume, but produce connections for people.
	Produce insights for people.
	But most importantly, live a life of commitment to your values that will be inspiring to others so that they will ask you, hopefully, how it is that you can do what you can do.
	And I simply put this out as an answer to the people who say, what can I do?
	Promotion, conversation and example.
	That's really all it comes down to.
	That's something that each individual can do.
	You don't have to wait for Ron Paul to win the presidency.
	You don't have to wait for Ayn Rand to come back in a thong and a Jesus wig to save the world.
	You don't have to wait for any of those things.
	These are things that you can do, must do and should do, I believe.
	I think if you have knowledge of reason, you have a responsibility.
	If you are a surgeon in a time of carnage, you have the responsibility to stitch people up.
	And if you have knowledge about how the world can be saved, And how the world must be saved.
	Then you have a responsibility to put the information out there.
	And if you don't, if you have the knowledge but don't save people, I think you will be condemned in history, if not in your own conscience, more than the irrational.
	So I hope that that helps.
	And I guess we'll get on with the Sunday show now.
	Thank you for your indulgence. And have yourselves an absolutely wonderful New Year.
	All right. That is my intro.
	Now we turn the show over to you, my friends.
	Hey, Steph. This is Lauren.
	Oh, hey, Lauren. How's it going? This is good.
	Doing excellent. I really enjoyed the latest Think Twice video, the story of your unenslavement.
	That was great. Oh, thank you.
	Yeah, it seems to be having trouble gaining traction so far, partly because of Christmas, and I think, and partly because it doesn't have a doom and gloom message that makes people lose the will to live, which seems to be what people quite like on the internet.
	But I guess you still have to put out the bright sparks, even if they don't seem to catch fire.
	Yeah, so I had an issue that I wanted to talk about that I really liked that intro you had that the knowledge and then the kind of conversation and then the example.
	I think I got the example part going and I think I got the knowledge part going but the conversation part is having trouble when I am like I mentioned to my friends of new video that I like that yeah The one I just mentioned, the story of your unenslavement, I get no response whatsoever.
	I'd like to have a conversation, but I can't seem to get people to respond.
	And would you like to know what my thoughts are about that, or do you want to talk about that further?
	Yeah, if you have some ideas, I'd like to hear.
	Well, I... When people come across stuff that is unsettling to their perceptions, the most common reaction from most people is to simply pretend that it doesn't exist.
	That's the first strategy of defense, if that makes any sense, is nothing happened, right?
	Right. And the reason I think that people do that is they want to know whether it's important to you or not.
	I'm not saying it's a very good way to do it, but I think that's what sort of happens to them, is they want to know Is it sort of like you sent them a cat playing piano video or is it something that's really important to you?
	I see. And in a sense, they're hoping that it wasn't that important to you.
	Because if it's not that important to you, then good.
	They can just either look at it or not look at it.
	But I think that it would be helpful to basically let them know that it's very important to you.
	I mean, assuming that it is, right?
	Oh, sure. Which is to say, I always sort of go back to the most honest thing that I can say, right?
	Because I have this, and I think most people do, and tell me if you're immune to this, maybe you are, but you certainly could be a better person than me that way.
	But I have this gravity well called manipulation, right?
	So I want someone to watch a video.
	And so I'll send them a video.
	And if they don't respond, then I sort of go back and say, no, no, no, you really should watch this video.
	And if they don't respond, it's like, oh, hey, you know, you should really watch this video.
	It's important. And my goal is to get them to watch the video.
	And I'll sort of, by hook or by crook, that's my default way of interacting with people.
	And it's extremely unproductive and not in accordance with the values that I hold.
	So I have to keep reminding myself that there is no such thing It's valuable manipulation.
	There is no such thing as helpful manipulation.
	The only thing that I should be doing is being completely honest with people.
	That's a much harder thing to do because trying to get someone to do something, you're keeping yourself at an emotional distance, but when you're just vulnerable with the person, Then it's much harder.
	So what I would do is I would call the person up, see them if you can face to face, or call them up and say, this is a very important video for me.
	It contains a very important message.
	I would really like to talk to you about it.
	Can you sort of help me understand why you haven't seen it?
	And so on. And if they say, well, I've been busy and so on, say, well, it is only six minutes.
	So just let me know when you can see it and then I'd like to talk about it further.
	And if there's more resistance, say, well, is there something that bothers you about me asking you to see this video?
	And if so, can you tell me about it?
	I'd like to know because I don't want to do things that are annoying to you.
	But at the same time, if I have something really important to share, I don't want to feel like I'm throwing coins down a bottomless well, so to speak.
	Yeah. Yeah. And so it's just that kind of RTR conversation with someone where what you're doing is you're showing, in a sense, the value of philosophy through the interaction.
	The best way to get someone to consume a resource of philosophy is to approach them in a philosophical manner, which means with a dedication to truth and openness and curiosity.
	And then it's the form, not the function, that convinces them, right?
	Because you're having an open and honest conversation, which is tragically rare in the world, that's going to do more to interest people in philosophy than getting them to watch a six-minute video, if that makes any sense.
	Wow, it is. Yeah, that would be like doing a leapfrog over the video and getting to the real meat.
	Right, because it's like...
	You know, if you want someone to take a silly example, right?
	And I know that you're, you know, a lean, mean, fat-free machine.
	But if you were overweight and you wanted people to read a diet book, then the best thing to do is to show up at their house as a lean, mean, fat-free machine, right?
	Rather than saying you should watch the video or read the diet book.
	And then they'll say, wow, you know, you lost some real weight.
	You look fantastic. How did you do it, right?
	And then that's how... The entree is.
	The entree is the example, not the video, if that makes any sense.
	Yes. So, for example, go to somebody and say, this video is really cool.
	I think it's got some important messages in it.
	Have you seen it yet? Oh, no, I never watched that stuff.
	Oh, yeah, is there something to bother you about it?
	No, wait, sorry. Let's just go back a bit.
	What was the first thing you said about the video?
	There's some really important things in there.
	The first thing you said, this video is really cool.
	And I swear to God, you slipped into like a valley girl.
	And I associate many things with you.
	Valley girl is not one of them.
	And that is a real compliment, right?
	It's like super cool, man.
	You should really check it out.
	You know, like I just don't associate that with you.
	That didn't seem to me. It's not cool, right?
	I mean, there may be things that could be, there may be words that could be used to describe me, some positive, some negative.
	I don't think cool would ever really be one of them.
	It's not that you think the video is cool, right?
	The video is profound, I think it is.
	Profound, okay. Hopefully that's a word that could occasionally be used to describe the work that Think Twice and I did.
	Okay, so this video is profound.
	It's important to you.
	And so you started off with it's cool and I think this and that, but I think it's more than you think it is, right?
	I think it is profound, right?
	I mean, it's a pretty important message about how to save the world, right?
	Right. So I think that to have the vulnerability of being very passionate about something.
	I mean, I think we've all had this experience like if you love a piece of music and you want other people to appreciate it, part of you is like, I'll just send them a CD and hopefully they'll listen to it and like it too.
	But the other thing you can do is say, this is so important to me, I want to sit down and listen to this with you.
	And I want to tell you why it's such a profound piece of music to me or why I think it's so beautiful or why I think it's so important.
	I see, yeah. That's a big difference.
	Yeah, the first one, you're keeping an emotional distance and it really relies upon the other person to figure out how important it is for you.
	But in the second one, you're really saying, this is very important to me.
	This message, I mean, look, you've really taken some bullets for this course as an individual, right?
	I mean... You've seen jail.
	You've seen social rejection.
	You've limited your economic potential.
	I mean, you've taken some serious bullets for this cause.
	So this is not something that in your heart of hearts is merely cool or possibly deep or whatever.
	Like this is your greatest soul's desire is to get people to understand how important nonviolence is.
	I mean, this is a very deep core abiding and fundamental passion of yours, right?
	That's right. It is your life's work, right?
	Yeah. Of the courage to really care about something.
	It's hard.
	Don't you find in the world to care about something?
	I always sort of view people like they're fragile circuits and any genuine passion is just going to short circuit them and cause their heads to do that rotating scanner thing.
	But I think it is an important thing to be passionate.
	And I know, I know how passionate you are as an individual.
	And I think if you're open and honest about that with the people that you care about...
	I think they can't help at least but know how important it is to you.
	And I think that will really help.
	Excellent. So that'll be much more powerful, yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, there is no...
	The truth is irresistible.
	I mean, the truth is irresistible.
	And that doesn't mean that everyone you know is going to end up watching the video.
	I mean, that you can't control.
	But if they don't watch the video...
	Right, the reason that we don't do these things is because there will be people in our life that will lay...
	our heart out, right?
	Like a real cutlet at a buffet full of hungry people.
	We lay our heart out and they totally get how absolutely deeply and powerfully important this truth and this philosophy and these values are to us and just shrug and say, eh, you know, not for me.
	And that's what we're avoiding, right?
	Is the knowledge of that.
	Now, of course, we know that anyway, because everybody knows everything.
	But what we want to avoid is the decisions we'll have to make when we put our heart's greatest passion on the table and people just stick a fork in it and wander off.
	That is what we're really avoiding.
	And that, of course, is another proof of why anarchism will work.
	Because social rejection is so powerful that even anarchists are completely terrified of it.
	So... But I think it's an important thing to do, nonetheless.
	Great. Thanks a lot. You're welcome.
	Let me know how it goes. Enthusiasm is a hard thing in general.
	Enthusiasm is a very hard thing.
	It is a kind of vulnerability that gives people power.
	Human beings are not very well constituted, to say the least.
	They're not very well constituted to handle power well.
	Because we've had so many bad examples of power being handled badly in our life.
	That it's very hard for people to handle power well.
	And when you are vulnerable, you are innately giving somebody power over you.
	The power to hurt you. The power to reject you.
	The power to shrug where you feel your greatest passion.
	And that is a very hard thing.
	It's a very hard thing. But you learn somebody...
	You learn the truth about somebody.
	I believe. You learn the truth about somebody when they have power.
	That is where you learn about their history.
	That's where you learn about what they're committed to and who they really are.
	You know, people say, well, you know, a man or a woman are revealed by the tests.
	They're revealed by when they're down and out.
	I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true at all.
	I think that people are revealed when they have power.
	I think that's when the true self comes out.
	Or, if there's not a true self but only a false self, that's where the false self towers and shreds.
	Because when somebody has power, they are in a state of unrestraint.
	They are in a state of unrestraint.
	And, like you can to some degree find the truth about somebody in wine there is truth, in vino vetitas, as they used to say in ancient Greece.
	Which means that when somebody is disinhibited, you learn the truth about Their personality.
	And power is, in a sense, the ultimate disinhibitant because you don't have to...
	There's very little external restraint upon your power, right?
	So the sort of typical example is some guy wins the lottery and he marches into his boss's office and says, you know...
	You rat squid sucking bastard from hell.
	I've hated you forever and I quit and he does a dance out, right?
	In other words, the money has given him power, the power of independence, which disinhibits everything that he may have felt or everything that he wanted to say is now disinhibited.
	So you see who he really is.
	And what you see in that sort of scenario, I mean, the shallow will see, oh, that guy really hates his boss and really hates his job and now he can finally say it.
	And that's what the shallow will see.
	What the wise will see is that this is a man who has externalized every source of problems in his life to somebody else and has taken no responsibility for himself.
	In other words, the only reason that he had a problem at work was because his boss was a jerk or whatever, not because of any choices that he made or why he chose to continue working there or all that sort of stuff, right?
	Or why he didn't save enough money to give himself more economic freedom beforehand And so you know that the money isn't going to make him happy, that he's just going to find some other external sorceress problems and that there's going to be no exit from that.
	But power is a great revealer, right?
	I mean, it's like those lasers.
	You ever seen those lasers in the room that guard the vase in the museum?
	And until you spray the mist, you don't see the lasers.
	Well, power is spraying the mist and you get to see the lasers of people's, the outlines or the shadows of their I think if you really do want to see someone's soul,
	clear, complete and total, throw yourself on their mercy.
	Be vulnerable and see how they react.
	Great. All right.
	Thank you very much. And again, let me know how it goes.
	And look at that.
	We have time for somebody else. Look at that.
	Didn't have an hour and 49 minute first call.
	Yay for us. Good for it.
	Good job. Izzy's so funny.
	It's really fascinating just while we wait for the next person to come.
	It's really fascinating to see her inner talk, right?
	Because she talks to herself when she's doing stuff.
	And the other day...
	I was trying to untangle some headphones that she wanted to play with and I was having some trouble.
	And I was just humming along and, you know, what do I care if it takes five minutes or ten minutes and still sitting there enjoying spending time with my daughter.
	Anyway, so I finally got it out and she jumped up and clapped.
	She said, good job, dada.
	And she does that too.
	When she does something like she was on the plane, she was trying to figure out her seatbelt and how to put it in and unclick it and take it out and so on.
	And she finally figured it out.
	She's like, good job, Ibia!
	I think that's just great.
	You can see that. And of course, we're very enthusiastic about all that kind of stuff too.
	So that great inner talk is just wonderful.
	And it's just a reminder of how much we internalize when we're kids from the environment that we're living in.
	She did 11 words this morning in a sentence.
	That's just fantastic. Too great.
	Too great. Yeah, but now she also praises us too, you know, which is like when we do a good job, she says, good job, you know, and that's really, that's just wonderful.
	I mean, it's a beautiful thing to see.
	You can also type your questions into the chat window, and if you don't have Skype, just give James P. a ping, and he can call your phone.
	Steph? Yes?
	Do you have the dates for the barbecue next year?
	We don't. Oh, sorry, we're getting an echo here.
	No, I'm sorry, we don't.
	I need to plug headphones in.
	Yeah, basically, several of us from, well, I'm not from Phoenix, I'm from the Los Angeles area, but I went to the, I saw you at the Freedom Summit in Phoenix, and several people from the Phoenix area cooked up the idea of driving out to Mississauga in the summer to go to the barbecue.
	Well, then what I'll do is I will commit to getting you a date before the end of the week.
	And I will put it... I will email you.
	And again, this is for those who don't know, this is the magical Galadriel of video wizardry that allows me to be seen with good sound and from multiple dimensions, from multiple camera angles in my recent videos.
	And again, thank you so, so much for that.
	It's just been fantastic.
	So yes, I will get you...
	I will put that reminder in now and I will get you a date...
	By the end of the week.
	It's a bit of negotiation to see who can come and who can't, but what works for you?
	What are the dates that work best for you?
	Well, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't on top of Porkfest, but I also would like, it would be nice if it was close to Porkfest, which is I think the last, it's either the third or the last weekend in June.
	I've got to look that up myself, but I think it's the third weekend in June.
	Okay, I'll check that out, but close to Porkfest might work, right?
	Yeah, because what I would really like to have is to be able to do them both, is to go to either yours first and then to New Hampshire or to go to New Hampshire and then yours on the way back.
	Right, right. One trip.
	That would be special if that could be achieved.
	Right. Okay. Absolutely.
	And by the way, I just got a hold of the other video from Phoenix, so last night I was starting to do the post-production on your speech at the Freedom Summit.
	How does it look?
	It's not bad.
	Actually, their camera work wasn't, you know, well, at the beginning, it's funny, I was looking at it.
	Actually, they had a pretty nice shot on you, and after about 15 or 20 minutes, they gave up.
	They gave up following me around.
	And they just went to a wide shot.
	But yeah, they've got some good usable footage.
	So I'll at least get a two-camera shoot out of it for you.
	But the sound sounds great.
	Good. Sorry, the Porcupine Freedom Festival is June 24th to June 27th.
	And there's an interesting idea.
	Tell me what you guys think.
	Sorry, before we move on with that.
	There's an interesting idea that to have...
	It was an epic debate that went on in July 5th, 2009, between Michael Battenerich and myself.
	They're thinking of having the debate resurrected, but we're going to switch sides, which I thought would actually be quite interesting.
	So I would be arguing for miniaturism, and he would be arguing for stateless society.
	And I think that would be quite an interesting and challenging debate, and I think it could actually be quite funny.
	That would be awesome.
	I think that's a good idea.
	Well, thanks, Deb. Okay, I just wanted to clear that up and keep up the good work.
	And I've just been having just amazing life changes as a result of just living my life according to real principles.
	And I want to thank you again for all of your wonderful inspiration.
	And every time you come up with something, it gives me another perspective on how Beautiful life really is.
	Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
	And thank you so much for that.
	And I know what a monstrous amount of work it is to put all this, especially the multi-camera shots together and sync them with the audio and choosing which shots.
	It's just a huge job.
	And I can't tell you how much I appreciate the work that you've put into it.
	And I'm looking forward. I was really pleased.
	I think the speeches have been getting pretty good.
	And I was very pleased with the Phoenix one.
	So I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it.
	No problem. Someone here has asked, what is the best way of bringing about an anarchist society?
	Do you wait for this great big government collective to collapse or vote in a libertarian government and reduce the size of the state first?
	On a few UK libertarian forums, it has been agreed to a market anarchist solution is virtually impossible at the moment as so many people are so dependent on the state.
	And even if the state collapses, then the chance for the communist anarchist movement will jump in as the market anarchists are virtually non-existent in the UK. Porkfest is...
	Sorry, Porkfest, that was the 2010.
	Porkfest 2011 is Thursday, June 23rd, 9 a.m.
	to Sunday, June 26th at 5 p.m.
	I assume it's still at Rogers Campground, Nashua, New Hampshire.
	And that is, those are the days, just to correct.
	So the best way of bringing about an anarchist society.
	Well, that's a, I don't agree with any of those solutions.
	I don't agree that out of collapse is going to come Freedom as an inevitability.
	I don't agree that political politics is going to be the solution.
	I'm enormously influenced, and one of the most influential historians that I ever read was a fellow named Paul Johnston.
	And he wrote a book called Modern Times that I must have read three or four times.
	It is a very powerful description of the history of the 20th century.
	Highly recommend, highly recommend the book.
	I think he's a Christian, but, you know, so what?
	I mean, as far as a historian goes, I think he's very good.
	And one of the things that I took away from that book was he's a very strong individualist, unlike, say, Marxists or Hegelians and so on, who look at these big abstract movements like class and the movement of the world spirit and so on, which sounds like an enormous dump somewhere in the ether.
	He says over and over again you see in history that it is the decisions made by individuals that chart the course of history.
	It is not great historical movements that people get swept up on and rise to prominence thereby.
	So if you sort of think of a boiling river that is fast flowing because of heavy floods, it's flowing down the mountainside and it's got bits of wood in it.
	Well, some of those bits of woods will be tossed to the top and other ones will sink to the bottom.
	And the grand movement view of human history is that there are these forces, whether they're economic or religious or nationalistic or whatever, right?
	There are these forces that are causing human history to act and bits of wood get tossed to the top in a rushing stream in the same way that individuals rise to prominence as a result of these grand historical movements.
	And This is not the view that I hold.
	This is not the view that this fellow holds.
	My view is that it entirely comes down to the decisions, the individual decisions made by individuals.
	The degree to which individuals are willing to act upon their values is the degree to which those values will spread.
	There is no other way to spread values other than the degree to which Individuals will act upon those values, not listen to those values, not hold those values, not research those values, not talk about those values.
	The only way that values spread in society is through action, through personal commitment to those values and through non-compromise of those values.
	And the only sphere that we can ever act in as individuals is in the sphere of our relationships.
	That is the only sphere That we can act in as individuals.
	And so it is in the decisions and actions made by individuals in their personal relationships that cause or fail to cause the spread of ideas.
	There is no magic source.
	There is no historical movement that is going to suddenly vault us to the forefront of the social discourse.
	It is only the degree to which we act on our values in the spheres that we have an influence over.
	If we choose to not act on our values by saying that they only apply to a sphere that we have no power over, like the grand movement of history, like the government, like religion as a whole, then what we're basically saying is my values are that which cannot be acted on.
	And the moment you say that, people shrug this huge sigh of relief and say, oh, thank heavens, for a moment there, I thought, I thought, I thought you were actually talking about values that I had to put into practice.
	Oh my God, can you imagine?
	Woo! That was damn close.
	Wow! Missed by that much!
	A little bullet crease along the forehead, right?
	So that's all.
	People like listening to ideas, but they hate seeing values in action.
	It's very threatening to them. So as far as changing things goes...
	Forget about these big historical movements.
	Forget about big political achievements.
	Forget about the collapse of empires at the end of fiat currency and the destruction of the economic order and the collapse of the banking system.
	Forget about all of that stuff.
	If you focus on that stuff, all you're saying is that my values require permission from history or the world to be implemented, which means that you're fundamentally powerless to put your values into practice.
	And it is an insult to philosophy and integrity to hold values, but only apply them to spheres that you cannot achieve them in.
	Forget about the merry-go-round of the larger historical movements, which all don't exist.
	They're merely the accumulations of individuals acting on their values.
	Politicians, they act on their values.
	They act on their values.
	What is it Obama said recently?
	About the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
	He said, so, some guy, he's big, he's mean, he's strong, and he kills people.
	I don't care if he's gay or not.
	I'll take him. Right?
	Well, this is a guy who openly talks about murder, which is really what the state is all about.
	He's committed to his values.
	Right? Priests...
	Are committed to their values.
	They will counsel the shunning of people.
	They will damn and frighten children with horrible superstitious fairy tales.
	They will guilt people into sending them thousands of dollars a year.
	Your average TV evangelist, right?
	Pat Robertson. What crazy shit did he come up with recently?
	I mean, this is the guy who...
	Who said that New Orleans was a punishment for lesbians living somewhere in the Latin Quarter, I think it was.
	I mean...
	It's crazy!
	Newt Gingrich, getting married for the fourth time, is an opponent of gay marriage because he believes that in the sanctity of traditional marriage...
	Of traditional marriage!
	He's getting married for the fourth time because he's so invested in the sanctity of traditional marriage.
	I mean...
	The insane people are incredibly committed to their values.
	I mean, so I sort of want to point out that in terms of bringing about a free society, you act your values in the sphere that you have influence over.
	And you do not. You steadfastly refuse to apply your values to spheres that you have no influence over.
	You steadfastly refuse.
	In the same way that if you're in a battle, you don't just shoot your arrows out into deep space.
	Where they can have no effect on anyone.
	Right? I mean, you act with passionate conviction and integrity after a thorough review of the arguments and evidence.
	You act with passionate conviction and integrity within your own life.
	Somebody says to you, well, how are we going to bring about a state of society?
	Well, I define society as where I live.
	Not as some country or some planet or some continent or some culture or some race or some class.
	I live in an anarchic society.
	All my relationships that I can choose are voluntary.
	I do not have relationships in my life dictated by the inertia of history.
	All of my relationships I do not have unchosen obligations in relationships.
	To family, even to friendships of many decades, they are all chosen in the moment.
	And those relationships that I cannot choose, forced relationships through taxation, statism, or whatever, those relationships I don't apply philosophy to because when there's a gun in the room, there is no book in the room.
	When there's a gun to your temple, there's no thought in your head.
	I do not attempt to use words to stop bullets.
	I do not apply philosophy to the involuntary relationships in my life.
	But I live in an anarchic society.
	I live in a voluntary society.
	And that is the only way, the only way to free the world.
	I don't do it to free the world, because the world doesn't get to be freed in my lifetime.
	But it is the only way to do it anyway.
	Alright, somebody has written, a lot of people have the moral compass pointed in the right direction, but even have trouble applying the values to their own lives.
	A lot of people I know through FDR suffer from intense procrastination in their own lives, or are struggling financially, or they do not even have functional lives, live by themselves and are extremely lonely and depressed, These are friends, and I'd like to try and figure out how to encourage them to move forward to get their lives together.
	Because then I would think that the action to promote will follow.
	I wonder what your thoughts are on this.
	You don't have access to conversation, do you?
	Can you talk? Let me just see.
	I don't want to make sort of guesstimates based on something that we could actually talk about.
	And while we're waiting for that connection, I will do another question.
	Do another question. Like another line of down, down, down, down, go gain.
	Ah, there we go. Sorry, I couldn't find you in the chat.
	That's the ID. Question.
	Steph, how does one behave towards people that you have to deal with?
	Say, because you work with them and suppose they're a statist or a hardcore Bible thumper.
	I don't think there's any great answers for that.
	I don't think that you should starve to death for the sake of your values.
	I don't think that you should be unemployable because of your values.
	I certainly did not keep my values hidden when I was employed, but I was also a minarchist back then, or I guess a Randian, black-as-white, pretzel-logic, brain-twisting stem nonsense such as voluntary taxation. brain-twisting stem nonsense such as voluntary taxation.
	So I stayed for military and law courts and prisons and nothing else, so it wasn't as unsettling as where I ended up intellectually.
	And as I became an anarchist, I found it harder and harder to stomach that kind of stuff, which was just my particular experience and perspective.
	You are not at all responsible for freeing other people from their illusions.
	Now, I want to make sure that I make that connection back to what I said at the beginning of this show.
	That's important, right?
	Because they said, if you're a surgeon, then you are responsible for stitching people up in a time of carnage.
	That is entirely true.
	But if you are a surgeon and you go down to stitch someone up and they bite you, and then they kick at you, and then they pull out a gun and say, if you touch me, I'm going to shoot you, then as a surgeon, you move on to somebody else.
	Right? And so you are responsible for stitching people up, but only the people who know that they're injured and want your help, right?
	So I think that's sort of important.
	And so, yeah, look, I mean, if you're in a situation with someone who's hardcore religious, you don't have to say a thing.
	You don't have to, you know, you didn't make their delusions.
	You are not responsible for, you know, if, like, to take an example, if I'm in The Bombay Company or something.
	With the wood so sensual, you want to make slow sweet love to the mahogany.
	But if I'm in the Bombay Company and some other parent breaks something, I don't have to pay for it.
	I don't. I mean, I think the other parent should pay for it, but I don't have to pay for it.
	And so if you're with somebody who's hardcore religious, all that means is that their parents broke their brain.
	And you are not responsible for repairing what other people have broken.
	You're not. I think that we should put out a huge, much, much larger effort as a community in terms of outreach, just to give people exposure to truth and reason and the Socratic way.
	But you're not responsible for that at all.
	Trust your instincts. If the person appears open to any kind of curiosity and reason, you know, ask him a question or two.
	You know, well, what's the history of your faith?
	What's the history of your belief? Tell me about your life as a Christian and how did you come about it and did you ever go through periods of doubt and so on.
	And, you know, you can ask them about that if you want.
	If you don't want to, if they're, you know, clearly nutty and crazy and dangerous, then, you know, you are not responsible for fixing them.
	This is not, you know, the vet...
	The vet doesn't have to risk getting chewed by the rabid dog, even though the vet might do something to help that dog.
	So I think that's important.
	You're not responsible for fixing those people.
	If they're interested or available or open, then great.
	But if they're not, get on with your life.
	Because otherwise, if you fight with crazy people, To the uninitiated, you look kind of crazy too.
	It took me a little while to figure this one out, right?
	So it's a hard-won experience, right?
	If you fight with the crazy people, then the average person will think that you're crazy as well.
	And so you're actually doing a lot to inhibit the spread of philosophy rather than to help to spread it.
	Do we have this other person in?
	Thank you.
	Yes, I'm here. Alright, so tell me a little bit about your philosophy listening friends and what your concerns are.
	Um well the thing is that a lot of them um you know like you were just saying um you know if people are absolutely crazy then there's no point going there but I know a lot of people who have so much potential and yet um a lot of them kind of um somehow end up in this um you know like kind of pit of loneliness and depression I have to confess I'm kind of there myself but I'm just slowly kind of getting out of it um I've only been introduced to FDR recently so It was quite a bucket of ice cold water on my face,
	so it threw me off for a while.
	But there are lots of people who've been into the conversation for years and they're having a really hard time trying to sort of get their lives together, possibly get a job, get money, or try and live out their values.
	And when I talk to them, I know that the values are very, very much there, but it's really hard to kind of...
	And they do implement certain techniques like RTR and stuff, which they can do, but beyond that, you know, there has to be a certain kind of functionality in their lives.
	I would say, like, say even having a job, having some financial stability and so on, which is pretty hard to kind of figure out how to help or how to encourage them.
	Why is it important for you to encourage them?
	Well, of course, there's some amount of emotional investment.
	Of course, there's the fact that I see some potential that they have these values but are having a lot of difficulty getting out of depression and loneliness and moving forward with their lives.
	But they have the values in the right place, if that makes sense, or at least the book says so.
	So I'm finding it hard to also distinguish sometimes between talk and walk.
	So it's really, you know, they're not like crazy religious people.
	They know that a certain way is the right way to go, but they're just not going that way, if that makes sense.
	All right. Let me ask you, perhaps more bluntly, is it because you're concerned, and I know it's not black and white, but just in general, right?
	Is it because you're concerned that there's something wrong with philosophy if these people are philosophical and failing?
	Is it, in a sense, your anxiety that is at stake?
	Well, perhaps a small part of it, this is something I've definitely thought about, too, that, you know, like, if they don't do it, then what about me?
	But I'm not really too worried about that, to be honest with you.
	Like, I have thought about this long and hard that if I'm, like, just projecting my own anxiety onto other people...
	But people do come to me and they talk to me about their struggle and their situation.
	And I really do want to try and help, but I don't really know how to be on, like, questioning and talking and kind of making them see truth.
	And I don't think that there's anything wrong with philosophy, to be honest.
	I don't think there's any looking back for me now.
	So I don't know if that answers your question.
	Sort of, though I think it's a very important question.
	Let me give you two seconds of my thoughts, and then you can tell me if this makes any sense.
	Philosophy can be as much of a defense mechanism as religion.
	There's no question of that in my mind whatsoever.
	So, philosophy, which pitilessly parts the curtain to the corruptions in the world, And reveals the bloody roots of power in the world and the hypocrisy of people and the degree to which virtue is manipulated for the causes of the powerful,
	etc., etc., etc. I will tell you this for sure, that people are hugely drawn to impossible problems.
	Certain people are drawn to impossible problems.
	In other words, well, we're so fucked that there's little point acting.
	And I mean, the doom and gloom videos that I put out have like hundreds of times sometimes more views than the optimistic ones that I put out.
	And even the optimistic ones, they bring out an extraordinary amount of cynicism from people.
	Like, yeah, dream on, brother.
	It's nice to have these fantasies, but it's never going to happen, right?
	Whereas you put out a doom and gloom video, you never hear that.
	You never hear, well, this is just doom and gloom.
	It's never going to happen. People are like, yeah, we are screwed, right?
	The man's too big.
	The man's too strong.
	The power structures are too entrenched.
	The hour is too late.
	The violence is too endemic.
	People are too avoidant.
	And there is this creepy and delicious doom and gloom that settles down upon people's bone marrow and frees them from the responsibility of acting their values in their life.
	Which is why people focus on these grand historical things that I was talking about earlier, these big political issues.
	So, the way that I... Try and figure this out.
	Whether somebody is interested in philosophy because they just have a passionate commitment to the truth at any cost.
	So to say we're so doomed that there's no point acting is an argument from effect.
	I'm not going to act because the entrenched powers that be are too big and strong and powerful.
	And therefore I won't act.
	Well that's an argument from effect.
	Which is to say that my actions are dependent upon the possibility of achieving fundamentally the impossible, which is through your own actions to free the world, which no individual can achieve or any group of individuals can achieve.
	So the way that I try and figure it out is to ask myself, why is this person interested in philosophy?
	In other words, what are the secondary gains of this person's interest in philosophy?
	So if you were to look at the friends that you have and ask yourself, what does philosophy do for this person?
	Is it a jetpack or is it a shield?
	Is it a motivation or is it an excuse?
	Where do you think you would come down just on your first impressions?
	Yeah, definitely. What you said makes sense about using it as a defense mechanism, using it as a shield rather than something that motivates you to make your life better and take certain steps to move forward in your life rather than get stuck in one place,
	if that makes sense. And yeah, these people have been sort of, I would say, to a certain extent using it as a shield, like, oh, you know, I have procrastination problems and I can't do this job or I can't, you know, and so on and so forth, because, you know, people are so horrible and people are really bad, so I can't do it.
	And it's like, well, then, There's a whole bunch of stuff out there.
	There are many options out there and then it's like the kind of hopelessness and helplessness kicks in and then it's like I have problems with procrastination and all these things they sort of seem like excuses at times because I'm just like you know if you're feeling so horrible, if you're feeling really bad then There are ways to bypass that or overcome that or get through that.
	There are definitely options out there, but I'm just finding it hard to get that through to people.
	I mean, I don't know if I want to get that through to people or if I've found it relatively easier to do that just because it's like I want to be happier.
	I'm miserable right now. I want to be happier.
	So how do I walk towards it?
	And then I get there. So I guess it's just a matter of evaluating and taking little steps, which I know a lot of people are not doing in their lives.
	Alright, so let me go one step further because I think that we did not...
	We hit a bit of a blind alley there, which is fine.
	Let me ask you this question. Do you yourself have any history in your own life, particularly as a child, Trying to motivate someone in your family who was not motivated.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Oh, well, why are you talking about your friends then?
	What are we talking about your friends for then, if they're just a symptom and not the cause?
	Go on! Right.
	Well, I guess my parents had a lot of violence and things going on in the household.
	I'm from India, so it's kind of acceptable there.
	for these things to happen and it not really says anything and I've been kind of working In the opposite direction of where they went, so really like trying to use like nice and gentle approaches to resolve conflicts rather than I go batshit crazy like they used to and so on.
	So I guess I've been when I was younger, I tried really hard to kind of mediate and resolve things between them, but I'm not sure if that's exactly like picked up from there and I'm trying to get other people to do stuff.
	I don't really know because I will end up kind of...
	I don't really know.
	Maybe it's just like persistence or something because I spent like eight or nine years trying to mediate fights between my parents until I finally moved out.
	So I'm going really blank and kind of going off on tangents now.
	Excellent. Excellent. That means we're circling something useful.
	Good. If you weren't going blank and tangential, we would be nowhere useful.
	Okay. Okay.
	Okay. So, I mean, there is a great danger.
	In all seriousness, there is a great danger in attempting to take ownership for somebody else's choices, in attempting to take ownership for somebody else's identity, in attempting to move something or someone who is inert.
	In-ert.
	Right? I think that you...
	I think that you sound so pompous, right?
	I think that all of us, but we're just talking about you.
	I think that we need to be very careful about who we choose to help.
	Very careful and very skeptical, right?
	So this is the way I look at it.
	So I think that anybody who really gets philosophy, and particularly who gets that powerful combination of philosophy and psychology, philosophy and self-knowledge, We are Olympic grade coaches, right?
	And an Olympic grade coach has to be pretty damn careful and pretty damn choosy and extremely picky about who she chooses to coach, right? Because if you're that great a coach, you need that great an athlete.
	Right, so have you played sports with a coach in the past?
	Yeah, I have. What sports did you play?
	Softball and hockey. Softball and hockey.
	Okay, and you probably did a combination of the two, which is a very exciting game, called sake.
	Anyway, so...
	Look, your coach, you show up and you swing and you practice, right?
	And then the coach says, well, you need to do X, Y, and Z, right?
	Or try this or whatever, right?
	And I had this, I had swimming coaches and I did running and I did tennis, I had tennis coaches, I did a lot of sports.
	And so the coach relationship is, you show up, you do the work, and I'll give you some tips.
	But if you don't show up and you're not doing the work, I'm not going to go down to your basement and drag you out into the light, and I'm not going to stick my arms down your pant legs and move your legs around like you're supposed to be walking and running around, and I'm not going to reach around and grab your two hands with the bat in it and swing the bat for you and then wonder why your skills aren't getting any better.
	Right? People have to be showing up and doing the work in order to earn the investment.
	Of a philosopher. Of a coach.
	But there's no coach alive who will chase down an athlete who's eating a hundred bonbons a day and smoking half a pack of Rothmans.
	Right? Coaches, if you don't show up, then if you're not doing the work, right, then it's like You can also look at it this way, like you're a driver of a car, right? You're in a race.
	Well, you can turn the wheel a little bit here and there and hit the gas and hit the brakes, but the car has got to be moving for there to be a race, for you to even be in the race, right?
	There's no point getting into an old junker that's sitting there on its blocks and pretending to be in a race when you're not, because it's not in motion, right?
	So you can guide a car that's in motion through the skill if you're driving, and maybe you could win the race, and maybe you can't, but at least you're in the race.
	But the car has to be in motion.
	The car has to be doing stuff.
	The car has to be vrooming down the track, and then you can guide it.
	So people have to be in motion, committed, achieving, doing the work, doing the self-knowledge, in order to receive coaching.
	And if you listen to the Listen to Conversations, this is a fundamental criterion that I have, is that somebody has to be Committed and in motion before I will have a conversation with him or her.
	And so if people aren't in motion, don't coach them.
	If they don't have...
	You can't substitute your energy for theirs.
	And look, I say this from bitter experience.
	I've had relationships that went on decades where I was attempting...
	To substitute my energy for somebody else's inertia.
	It doesn't work.
	It bleeds you dry, and they don't move anyway.
	All that happens is they slow you down to a crawl.
	It's like being in a speedboat and throwing a monstrous anchor over the side, attempting to substitute your energy and commitment for other people's inertia.
	It doesn't speed them up.
	It only slows down and cripples you.
	Does that help at all? Yes, it does.
	I'm just trying to make the connection to how you said at the beginning of the show that you really kind of go out there and show people how important it is.
	And I kind of want to do that.
	Like, I'm really, really tempted. And I have recently been doing that with other people that, you know, I want to Not in a broader state and anarchy perspective, but in personal relationships and just, you know, like, day to day life stuff that I've really been trying to go out and make, you know, kind of a shit.
	Right, and what I'm saying is that, sorry, what are you showing to people?
	And I'm just going to take your statements at face value, right?
	So if these are your friends and they disagree with your assessment or my response, I apologize in advance, but just going as if what you're saying is completely true, which I have no reason to doubt it.
	But what are you showing people when you get enmeshed in trying to lift the Titanic of other people's inertia, which causes you only to sink yourself?
	Does that look like a free and inspiring life?
	It doesn't, actually.
	It really doesn't. I guess that's why the question came up for me today.
	Right. And I also think it's very unhealthy for the other person to attempt to substitute your energy for theirs.
	It only adds to their inertia.
	Right, so I'll give you...
	To put this in the practical realm, I'll just give you something that struck me when you were first talking about your friends.
	You said about your friends, they say...
	I have a problem with procrastination, right?
	Well, that's not true.
	And that doesn't even show the beginnings of a glimmering of self-knowledge, in my opinion.
	Right, so somebody says to me, I have a problem with procrastination.
	What they're doing is they're saying...
	That my personality has developed in isolation.
	Nobody else has had any influence in me.
	I was never a child. I never had parents.
	I never had teachers. I never had priests.
	I never had a culture. I never had political leaders.
	I developed entirely in isolation, and this problem is entirely mine.
	Right?
	Somebody says to me, I have a problem with procrastination, and you've heard me do this in countless listener calls, I say, nope, that's just not accurate.
	No child is born with a problem of procrastination.
	I mean, I tell you, my daughter sure as hell isn't.
	She works all day to master various skills and to learn various things and to develop new words and new concepts.
	She is working from the moment she wakes up until the moment.
	It's like somebody said to me once in theater school, play like a child, which is to say, very seriously.
	Because play for a child is very serious.
	And so somebody says to me, I have a problem with procrastination.
	It's like some Japanese woman in the 19th century writing in her journal, I have mangled my own feet right through this foot-binding practice.
	No, procrastination was inflicted upon you as a child for various reasons that I've talked about many times before, so we don't have to get into here.
	But we grow up in a context.
	We grow up in an environment, and that environment has massive effects on who we are.
	And if somebody thinks that procrastination is a merely personal dysfunction, then they're not even close to seeing the beginnings of the glimmerings of self-knowledge, which is knowledge not just of yourself, but first and most importantly of the environment you were raised in.
	And the fact that you're not calling them on that means that it's a bomb in the brain repetition for you too, in my opinion.
	It means that you're actually committed to them not growing, because this is a Simon the Boxer repetition for you, right?
	To struggle to lift the Titanic is your history, right?
	To struggle to get people out of blind cycles of inertia, or not even cycles, cycles would be movement, right?
	attempting to pull people out of the tar pit of inertia and underachievement, it's your history, which means that you're actually committed to them remaining, and therefore you are actually participating in keeping them paralyzed.
	People are generally, in my experience, people are paralyzed because they're angry.
	And if you ever want to find out how angry a paralyzed person is, simply put the onus back upon them to determine the truth about their history.
	And don't accept excuses.
	And you will see the anger very quickly.
	Procrastination and paralysis is a form of passive aggression.
	It's a form of taking your ball and going home because you don't like the game.
	It's a form of punishment of the parent, in my opinion, because the parent has over-controlled the child.
	Therefore, the child simply goes inert as a form of defense, as a form of rage, and basically says, fine.
	You won't let me make my own decisions?
	Fine. I'm not going to make any decisions.
	I'm not going to make you proud as a parent.
	I'm going to continue to act out my paralysis as punishment to you until the day one of us dies.
	And if you point out that this person is simply allowing the punishment to continue in a situation where they have the choice, they will generally get quite angry.
	Thank you.
	And that's the anger they need, right?
	But it can be a difficult thing to see and to work with.
	Right, right.
	Thank you so much. This has been very, very helpful.
	I'm very pleased and do let me know how it goes.
	Or rather, how it doesn't go.
	And you can ask people, you know, what's your experience of me helping you?
	Oh, and by the way, what is your experience to be helping you in this call today or trying to?
	Yeah, it's been really useful.
	Thank you. Thank you very much.
	Right. But also, you know, ask people about their feedback of, you know, do you feel, you know, if you're helping people, ask them if they actually feel helped, right?
	That's an important thing. And if they haven't felt helped, then that's an important thing to figure out for yourself.
	All right. Well, thank you. Great, great topic.
	Hugely appreciate it. Gosh, you people are smart.
	Even... After Christmas, that's good to know.
	Even after the turkey and wine and chocolate and...
	Wait, I'm just talking about my brunch.
	Anyway. So, yeah.
	Thank you so much for a great question and keep me posted.
	I appreciate you bringing that up.
	The provocation of anger can be an extremely healthy thing in relationships.
	Not like you go around and just randomly provoke people into being angry by manipulating them, but...
	Not accepting the stories that they have is very, very important.
	Do we have somebody?
	We've got another half an hour.
	Hey, Steph. Hello.
	How are you? I'm very well, thank you.
	How are you? I'm well.
	Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you too, my friend.
	Thank you very much. So I went through the DFU process this, actually Christmas Eve, which I know was the best idea, but it kind of just is something that had been building up for months and it just kind of came to a point and it just happened to be, you know, on Christmas Eve. I wanted to put myself forward and kind of go through some peer review and like see if I was inappropriate and just trying to figure out if I did this maybe the right way or the wrong way or if I'm maybe in the wrong with this.
	I mean, I don't know. It's kind of an emotional thing.
	I'm just trying to figure out I'm happy to listen and help if I can, so tell me all about it.
	Sure. Where should I start?
	Well, I can't tell you that, my friend.
	Right, okay. So I had a pretty rough childhood.
	I was beat a lot.
	They would use things like belts and wiffle ball bats and spoons and their hands as well.
	So there was the physical abuse.
	My mom was really...
	Emotionally and mentally abusive.
	She's very manipulative. It really, really sucked.
	I didn't like being there.
	There was the religious indoctrination and all that.
	My mom's actually a psychologist for the school district, which was kind of a weird touch.
	Over the last few months, it's been kind of hard for me to express myself.
	I wanted to ask them questions about Atheism, which I'm a strong atheist.
	It's always kind of funny.
	I came into the conversation as a...
	Sorry, I'm losing myself.
	I came into the conversation as a predeterministic Christian, and here I am now, a strong atheist.
	What you've done has really had a huge effect on me.
	I had a great interest in these things with atheism, and I'd want to talk to my folks about it.
	It was really discouraged and I was belittled for these kind of things.
	When I expressed frustration with that, it kind of turned on to this thing where the family is more important than you and you're so arrogant.
	And so it really frustrated me.
	But some of the things that they said kind of made sense to me in a weird way.
	Go on. One of the...
	I'm just trying to retrace my steps on how the conversation went.
	Would you like some help?
	Would you be able to? Of course, yeah.
	Okay, so first of all, it's not about atheism.
	Sure. Well, you don't believe me yet.
	But you went from talking about being physically beaten with belts and wiffle bats and other things, right?
	So the issues that you have, it's not about atheism versus religion, which is not to say that those things are unimportant or unrelated to what's going on, but it is, I would assume, at least the first place that I would look, And understanding what happened on Christmas Eve is the physical abuse.
	Right, right. And I did bring that up to them.
	Thanks for helping me out. No problem.
	I was using the atheism and I even used like Immanuel Kant and asked what they knew about him and I had a really great interest in figuring out what they knew about him.
	So I used these little things as like a build up into like what made you think it was okay to hit me and you know now that I'm bigger and I'm stronger than you, how come all of a sudden you know you don't use that as motivation anymore?
	You know, like, what happened?
	And what made you think it was okay to do that to a child?
	Because you can't reason with a child, but you can reason with an adult, right?
	Right, right.
	And one of the things they brought up, and I know it's like it doesn't, it's the argument ad populum.
	She goes, you know, everybody goes through something like that, and they just press through it, and it's this weird thing where I totally...
	Sorry, let me make sure I understand.
	So your mom said that everyone goes through, what, being beaten with belts by parents?
	I guess. I guess. And I don't know why it makes sense to me.
	Like, yeah, I'm sure a lot of people go through abuse like that.
	But it's really hard for me to just...
	I really want to reject that as, like, totally inappropriate.
	But it's... I'm always...
	I'm, like, a little bit afraid that, you know, eight or nine months or ten months are going to go by and I'm going to be like, you know, she was right.
	And then I'm going to kind of... Well, okay.
	Look, this is... I understand why it's hard to talk about this, right?
	But give me an example of what you would be hit for as a child.
	Uh... Like not doing chores or disobeying or like what is it that you would get hit for as a kid?
	There are so many things.
	Just give me an example of one.
	Sure, okay. Whatever comes to mind first.
	Asking questions about like just why.
	Why do I have to do that?
	Okay, so asking questions, right?
	So let's say that you're a kid because your mom has this argument which says, well, lots of people go through it so it's not bad, right?
	Sure. So, you're a kid and you ask questions and your parents get angry and they're going to come hit you with a belt, right?
	But then you say to them, no mom, it's okay.
	Mom, no dad, it's okay.
	because lots of kids ask questions, therefore it's not bad.
	Right.
	If it happens to a majority of people and therefore it's not bad, then the things that you did as a kid happened to the majority of children and in the majority of families.
	And therefore it's not bad, right?
	In other words, if they should not be chastised for doing what is common, then how could you as a child be chastised for doing what was common?
	Right. Oh my God, that's such a good point.
	But this is the fucked up-it-ness of UPB, right?
	This is why it's such a challenging thing for people.
	It's not that you couldn't think of those things.
	It's just that it's unthinkable for us.
	To apply these standards, right?
	So what they're saying is that when, I don't know how old your parents are, but let's say they were in their 20s or 30s when they were hitting you.
	So they're saying, okay, when I was a full adult 10 years out of my adolescence, then I was not responsible because I was doing what the majority was doing or what a lot of people were doing.
	But how then if they as an adult could not be held liable for that, how could instead of a 30-year-old, an 8-year-old be held much more liable?
	In other words, how could you have almost infinitely higher moral standards for an 8-year-old than you do for a 30-year-old?
	Well, the answer is that it's power.
	It's an expression of power. But let's go back to what happened on Christmas Eve.
	Right, okay. And I'd like to also just add, I'm really, really, really sorry.
	That is... An unholy way to assault a child.
	That is a terrible, terrible thing to do to a child, to hit a child at all.
	But to hit a child with implements, belts and paddles and other things is monstrous.
	And I'm so sorry. That is not something that any child should ever, ever, ever have to experience even once.
	And it sounded like it happened a lot for you.
	And I just really want to express my incredible sympathy, my anger and my outrage.
	At this, uh, these events.
	I really appreciate that.
	I really appreciate that.
	And, uh, even today it's funny because my means of occupation, it's not funny, but it's interesting that, you know, my means of occupation today is I'm a, I'm a, I'm a defense trainer.
	I'm a personal defense trainer. I'm a martial art instructor.
	It's what I do for a living. And I, I always kind of think back like that had something to do with it.
	I know. Oh yeah. That's not accidental.
	Of course. Right. Absolutely.
	Yeah. Another thing they brought up, uh, When I said, you know, I'm really frustrated with the relationships I have with everybody in the family.
	I don't appreciate the kind of abuse I went through.
	And anything I value, anything I want to talk about is taboo.
	We're not allowed to talk about religion.
	We're not allowed to talk about philosophy.
	Whenever I bring up philosophy, you know, any mom and dad, more specifically, leave room post haste.
	It's really quickly. It's kind of, it's always, it's always like almost comical in a weird, like kind of sick way.
	But, uh, Even with my sisters, which is kind of frustrating.
	I'm going to have to interrupt you.
	What happened on Christmas Eve?
	I appreciate the backstory, but I want to make sure.
	I always assume that the first thing somebody asks me about is what they really want to talk about, and that's what you asked me about.
	So I want to make sure we get to that.
	I'm sorry, I kind of went off on a thing.
	No, don't apologize, but I just want to make sure we get to it.
	Right. So I was telling them, like, I always have a hard time talking to you guys about what I really like to talk about, and whenever I bring it up, you know, you guys leave the room.
	And so, my dad was like, well, those just are things, like, if the family doesn't like it, then the family doesn't like it.
	You know, we don't have to sit and listen through what we don't want to.
	Is that a universal rule?
	Right. And it's not.
	In other words, was that okay for you as a kid?
	If you didn't want to hear a lecture, did you just get to not listen to what you didn't want to listen to?
	Right. Sorry. If you didn't want to go to church, did you just get to not go to church?
	Right. Absolutely not. That you had to damn well listen, right?
	Right. Very true.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Anyway, go on. Okay.
	Yeah, and as I brought those points up, you know, and Dad said...
	Dad said what he said. Geez, I kind of, I'm showing off.
	I don't know why I'm drawing a blank on what happened next.
	Well, because what that is, is a, it's a ratcheting up statement.
	I said you can call them ratcheting up statements.
	It raises the stakes, right?
	So, when you say, well, I want to talk about this with you, Dad, and I'm frustrated that the family doesn't, and they say, well, hey, the family doesn't want to talk about things, then they don't have to talk about things.
	You don't, You don't have to make people listen to what you want.
	If they don't want to listen to you, they have every right not to, right?
	But that's a ratcheting up.
	That's an escalation. Right?
	Because what he's saying, if I understand it, and tell me if I'm misinterpreting, but what I get from that is he's saying that you are imposing your preferences on other people.
	That it's wrong to impose your preferences on other people against their will.
	Right, right, right. And was religion imposed upon you against your will?
	Yeah, very much so.
	Was being beaten imposed upon you against your will?
	Yeah. Right, so you understand, this is an escalation.
	The moment that somebody brings a moral rule, or even a rule of propriety, or appropriateness, or good behavior, or politeness, or empathy, or Sensitivity to the feelings of others.
	The moment that somebody brings a moral dimension into the conversation, it is a huge escalation in the conflict.
	Right, I see. Because he's just brought up a rule called, it's wrong to impose what you want on others against their will.
	Right? Right, right.
	But he is violating the moral rule in the very expression of it, which is why it is such an escalation.
	Right.
	Because he doesn't want to talk about it, and he's imposing not wanting to talk about it against you, against your will.
	Right. You should, you know, they're perfectly free to not, right?
	You can't impose your wishes on other people, right?
	But he's imposing his wish to not talk about it on you in the very moment he's saying that's wrong.
	Does that make sense? It doesn't make sense, but I understand what you're saying, yeah.
	No, but what I mean is, does the argument, does the contradiction make sense?
	Right, right, right, yeah.
	And so, sorry, let me just finish.
	I know I asked you, and I'm just giving you some feedback, and I apologize for that, but let me just make sure I close the point off here.
	It's an escalation because it is a perfect reveal, and what it reveals is that universal values will be used to win an argument even though they're being violated in the use, which means that morals are used for power.
	And what is also revealed is that your father believes that you are a good person who does not want to irrationally impose his views upon others, and he views that as a virtue.
	He's calling it a virtue, though that is not at all how he raised you.
	So he knows virtue, he knows morality at the same time as he's violating it in the utterance and in the history of your relationship.
	That's why it's such an escalation.
	It's a terrible gamble.
	That parents make when they deploy moral rules that they themselves violated as parents.
	It is a terrible, terrible gamble.
	The only reason that parents take that gamble when confronted by victims of child abuse, the only reason that parents take that gamble is that it so often pays off.
	it so often works that that's why they do it.
	And if it doesn't work on you in the moment, they can be damn well sure that friends and family and culture and priests and everybody that you know will herd you back to the family saying, well, what's past is past.
	You have to be the bigger person.
	You have to forgive.
	They did the best they could, but knowledge that they had it was different times.
	This is all they knew.
	They suffered themselves.
	Somebody has to be the bigger person.
	Then you have to forgive.
	They know that even if you get out in the moment, the people are going to herd you back with Guilt and moral pressure.
	So it's almost, almost, except for philosophy, it's almost a foolproof gamble.
	But I just wanted to pause on that particular interchange, which is highly charged.
	Sorry to interrupt, but please continue.
	No, no, not at all. That's heavy.
	That's why you fogged out on that, because there was so much that was in that statement of your father's, in my opinion.
	Oh my god, I totally get that.
	That really makes a lot of sense when you put me in and you say that.
	And that's why it's unanswerable.
	Because the only way to answer it is to point out the hypocritical moral contradiction that's being deployed.
	And what happens if you do that?
	I'm sorry, I'm getting, I'm drawing a total blank.
	Would you mind repeating? Sure.
	It makes sense that you're drawing a blank.
	So, the reason why when your father said that, you paused in this retelling and you blanked out, right?
	Because it's kind of unanswerable.
	Because if your father says that to you, and then you identify and pick up, which you are doing, you identify and pick up on the contradiction immediately and completely, which is why you fog out, right?
	Right. So if you were to say to your father what I said to you, which is like, well, wait a minute.
	Are you saying it's wrong to impose your views upon somebody else against their will?
	Well, A, why the hell didn't you live by that when you were a father when it could have damn well done me some good?
	And B, aren't you imposing upon me right now your desire not to talk against my will?
	How does that work? Why is it a rule for me and not for you?
	Right. What would he do?
	It would have been met with a combination of Ray's kind of inaudible voice, like they wouldn't be saying anything, but they would just be shouting.
	I know that's what they would do.
	Like screeching kind of thing, right?
	Right, like dad would be like moaning like, oh my, and then mom would be like just kind of probably just attacking me, just saying whatever she could to belittle me, to get me off topic and defensive.
	Right, right, right, right.
	Right, so and then if you were to point out all of the hypocrisies involved in that, right, which is that You know, if I had tried this with my siblings when I was a kid, you would have absolutely condemned me.
	So how is this okay for you now to bully me in this way since I was never allowed to do it as a kid?
	How is it okay for you to do it as a 40 or 50-year-old adult when it was absolutely wrong for me to do it as a 6-year-old kid?
	Explain that to me. Man, I wish I had a mini-step in my head when I was going through that conversation.
	You did! Which is why you fucked out.
	Because it was impossible to have those conversations when you were a child, when you were still dependent upon them, right?
	Right. So the defense is, right, to fog out.
	It's inevitable. It's healthy.
	I applaud and praise you for that fog.
	It is an absolutely healthy and wonderful survival mechanism.
	Wow, thank you. Essential and good and damn fine.
	It's damn fine that you identified it and it's damn great that you fogged out.
	I came into this really nervous and it took 15 minutes of prepping myself up like you can do this.
	I'm really a lot more relaxed now.
	It makes a lot more sense what you're saying and I'm really happy with my choice to not only talk to him but come on the show.
	Right. So what happened next?
	I appreciate that and I'm glad to have helped.
	What happened next? Sure.
	That was where all conversation kind of ended and it turned into My mom making fun of me.
	I wet the bed as a kid.
	And that was one of the things she brought up.
	She was like, oh yeah, well we put up with you wetting the bed.
	I'm like, okay, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
	I mean, why did you abuse me?
	Because I wet the bed? That doesn't make any sense.
	Well, and of course, the bed wetting is almost certainly the result of abuse, not the cause of it, right?
	Absolutely. It's an effect.
	We had to put up with you being bruised all the time.
	It's like, what? Come on.
	I know, right? Oh, absolutely.
	We had to put up with your damn limping.
	The next thing she said really kind of struck me as, what?
	She kind of comes close.
	She's going to say this motherly bit of wisdom.
	She touches my shoulder and she's like, son, I always thought you had a mental illness.
	Maybe you should go to therapy.
	Maybe you should get this taken care of.
	And I'm like, that's more likely.
	It's more likely that I have, you know, a mental illness than it is I actually have a problem with being abused.
	That's more likely. But what really kind of, and it's really weird, in this, I don't know, strange way, I'm like, what if I am, like, not stable?
	What if I kind of do, I know it's not true, but it's this weird seed that's like, it's planted somewhere in the In the back of my head, I'm afraid that it's not the case, but what if it is?
	What if I am crazy in this weird way?
	Right. Well, look, it's not a seed that your mom planted.
	I mean, certainly not her alone.
	There is a general seed that is planted in society, which is to apply the moral rules inflicted by parents to parents is considered insane.
	Right? So, and just to put this in a larger perspective, this has nothing to do with parents, fundamentally, because it's about everything.
	Right? So, for instance, in Christianity, of course, the virtue that is preached by Jesus is to love your enemy, right?
	Right. Did God love Satan?
	No, absolutely not.
	Oh, hell no, right?
	Locked him in a cage of fire for all eternity, right?
	Right. For the simple act of questioning the virtue of God.
	Right. Completely backward principles.
	Right. Right. So you see, this, and God says, thou shalt not kill, but God kills everyone in the world except Moses and about 12 million rabbits, right?
	Right. So you understand that...
	The idea of taking the moral rules inflicted by authority and applying them to authority is literally unthinkable for almost everyone in the world.
	So the government says, thou shalt not steal.
	To apply that to the government would mean there is no government because they should not be stealing money through taxation.
	So to take the moral rules inflicted by those in power And apply them to those in power is literally, has been considered literally insane in that it can't even be spoken of.
	And the reason you know it's true is that true arguments always are hidden by fog.
	Right? An argument that is true and easy and obvious, like the ones that I have been Supplying to you in your conversation or your description of what happened a few days ago, moral arguments that are so easy and obvious that they can't possibly be contradicted.
	They're going to win no matter what.
	They have to remain unspoken.
	They have to remain unspoken.
	And to speak them is to be considered insane.
	Right. Right. So the first line of defense is, we simply can't ask those questions.
	We can't ask those questions.
	Like, there's an old Seinfeld, he's probably too young, but there's an old Seinfeld where they talk about, you know, blacks and whites and race, and they all keep saying, yeah, I don't really think we're supposed to be talking about this stuff, you know, because there's this little white liberal guilt or whatever, right?
	We can't talk about race because, like, we can't talk about...
	Criticisms of the Jewish community because we're anti-Semitic and we can't talk about race otherwise.
	We just can't talk about those things, right?
	But almost all of society is composed of massive fog banks of things that are so easy and so obvious that the only solution society has is to pretend that they don't exist.
	Right? So it's not just your mom who's saying, wait, if you attempt to apply the moral rules we inflicted upon you on us, then that's mentally ill.
	That also... is not a response to the argument, right?
	Right, absolutely. It's just saying, well, you're crazy.
	But that is a way of saying, you're right.
	Right? Avoiding the topic is saying to the other person, you're right.
	Calling the other person crazy is saying, you're right!
	I don't have an answer for you.
	All I have is some shit to shovel at you.
	Oh my god. Because you're right.
	Oh, that's awesome. In a crazy way, that's awesome.
	It's a confession, right? Yeah.
	I mean, I get this, look, I get this all the time.
	I get this all the time.
	People tell me, ah, Steph, you're wrong, you're a dreamer, you're utopian, you don't understand history, you don't understand philosophy, you don't know how to string two coherent sentences together, you don't know this, you don't know that.
	And it's like, shut the fuck up with telling me and show me.
	I don't care what you tell me.
	I only care what you show me.
	You know, I don't care if you tell me you've sent me an iPod in the mail.
	I only care if I open the mail and there's an iPod in there.
	So, you know, if someone says to me, oh, Steph, you're X, Y, and Z. Sorry, there's a lot of background noise there.
	If you could just... This is an essential defense mechanism that we all need in this crazy, cocked-up world that we live in, that we're trying to straighten out a little bit here and there.
	People will always say to you, you're X. You're wrong.
	You're crazy. You're deluded.
	You're utopian. You're a dreamer.
	You don't understand this. You don't understand that.
	And all it is, is just an argument by adjective.
	If I apply enough labels to you, will you stop asking me these horrible and true questions?
	If I call you crazy, will you self-attack or doubt yourself to the point where you'll stop focusing on the actual conversation?
	If I say to you, Steph, you don't understand even the basics of philosophy, will I provoke your insecurity to the point where you'll stop doing what you're doing?
	And it's all so entirely self-contradictory, right?
	So if somebody says to me, Steph, you don't understand the basics of philosophy, and that's why you're wrong, what they're saying, what they're confessing, is that they themselves don't understand the basics of philosophy, because the basics of philosophy is proof, not assertion.
	And so if they're simply asserting that I don't know anything about philosophy, they're proving that they don't know anything about philosophy, because they're asserting rather than proving, right?
	Right. Okay.
	So if somebody says to you, I'm not going to answer your argument because you're crazy, what they're saying is, I have no answer to your argument.
	Like a squid, let's go with squid metaphor as well.
	We haven't done those in a while. Let's join Mr.
	Eight Arms, right? If a squid is big enough to eat something, it just eats it, right?
	Okay. If a squid is too small to fight back something that's attacking it, what does it do?
	It shoots its ink.
	It inks, right?
	It fogs. Because it can't fight back.
	Oh my god! So all it does is it obscures because it knows it's going to lose, so it Squids, right?
	Oh man, you guys made me ink!
	Oh my gosh, that makes perfect sense.
	Which is, it's a confession of failure.
	That the squid is going to lose.
	Because if it was going to win, it would just be eating your ass, right?
	But because it's going to lose, it's a confession of impotence and it's a confession of failure.
	It's an act of submission to call someone crazy.
	It's an act of saying, you win.
	You got me. Yes.
	Man. Well, thank you.
	It's a great metaphor.
	Yeah, every now and then. I like to pull one out of my ass from time to time.
	A metaphor that is not a squid.
	Oh, although that would be...
	Sure. Well, the conversation ended with, my mom said she had other things to do.
	She was going to go visit her great-niece down the street.
	Right, because that's important, right?
	Right, exactly. That's what it came up with.
	Talking to you in a conversation which the relationship hangs on, that's not very important.
	But what is important is that she goes down the street to see someone that she could see any day of the year, right?
	Right. Right.
	That is also a confession of impotence, right?
	Because it's a squid. If the ink doesn't work, they run away.
	Right. Yeah, that's it.
	I mean, you're never going to get a better confession out of anybody.
	Yeah. I feel stronger in what happened now than I have...
	Even when it was going through, you know?
	Even this, I was like...
	I'm on the wall to do it.
	I wasn't feeling as confident as I do now.
	So, that's great.
	And has anything happened since?
	Yeah, yeah. My dad has this history of...
	I've always expressed problems with being physically reprimanded.
	When I started questioning God and authority...
	I'm sorry, did you say physically reprimanded?
	Yeah. Right, right, right.
	The fuck does that mean?
	I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry.
	I don't know what I was thinking. No, no, don't apologize.
	I mean, that's just the moment you started talking about your dad, you slipped into his language, right?
	God damn it! Absolutely!
	Right, so what's the truth of it?
	If you hit a child with a belt, it's physical assault, my friend.
	Right. Right?
	It's physical assault. Physical assault can occur adult to adult.
	It's... Even worse than that, but unfortunately we don't have the words for it yet.
	Anyway, I just wanted to point out that you have to be careful of that.
	When you start talking about someone, their alter ego comes up in your head and starts to work your voice.
	It's just an important thing to remember that you don't start changing the language to suit the other person's defenses in your head.
	Anyway, I just wanted to mention that, but please go on.
	Thank you. Great job picking up on it.
	I really appreciate it.
	Sure. So, your dad gets this thing.
	I've always had a problem with being beaten and unquestionable authority.
	When I expressed it, it always came out and it would always be a mental, sorry, not really a debate, but everybody yelling at everybody.
	And then it would end up with me leaving, I'd take the car, I'd sleep in the car for the night, I wouldn't want to be around the family for the rest of the week.
	You mean when you were a kid, right? Sure, sure, when I was a kid.
	Right, right.
	So Dad always was really great at kind of cleaning up the mess and being like, son, we really love you.
	We need you to come home. I haven't been able to chat with you.
	I haven't been able to talk with you.
	And always was really great and making me feel like, okay, all right, that was a bad experience, but Dad's always there to build me up.
	And what I've noticed from this is it's Dad just cleaning up the mess.
	But he's not, like, stopping the mess maker.
	He's not stopping the mess from happening again.
	He's just cleaning up the mess.
	And even after I put forward, like, you know, I really want a break from the family, I'm going to go after therapy.
	I really highly suggest everybody does or this isn't going to be, this isn't going to work for anybody.
	right uh and the next morning christmas morning dad calls me and it was from a caller unavailable line and i'm expecting some calls from um from a company that i put my resume in for so he's like hey son you coming by for christmas
	It's Christmas Day. And I was kind of, you know, dumbstruck, like, Do you remember what happened yesterday?
	Do you remember what I said?
	I said, you know, I'm not coming by.
	I'm going to go after therapy.
	I'm leaving New York. I'm doing these things.
	I don't want to have conversations with you guys until I've gotten that done.
	She started to yell at me.
	And then I hung up the phone.
	I haven't heard from anybody since.
	Oh, I've heard from my little sister.
	She said she loved me and Merry Christmas and she hopes I'm well.
	Right, right.
	Well, I mean, good for you for, you know, I'm not going to join you in your crazy world like nothing happened, right?
	Good for you. I mean, but this is what it provokes, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, and then I think that might have been one of the other things, them planting the seed of questioning what I want to do with myself, what I want to do with my life.
	If I want to go into therapy, they're like, yeah, yeah, that's fine.
	Yeah. And then they throw these little things like, you're crazy, you know, and hey, come by this Christmas, like, to kind of suck that into the groove.
	Right, right. So the person who brings up the abuse is crazy.
	And the person who doesn't want to pretend that the conversation about the abuse didn't happen is crazy.
	But everybody who does the exact opposite, who blows up when something comes up that is true and valid about the past, And somebody who pretends that an incredibly powerful conversation didn't happen, that's sane, right?
	They're sane, and they get to call you crazy, right?
	Oh, my God. Right.
	Yeah, I mean, you know what it's like?
	It's like, again, just a Seinfeld reference popped into my head.
	I have no idea why. I haven't watched them in years.
	But there's a Seinfeld where George gets fired.
	But he decides that he just doesn't want to leave the job, so he just shows up again.
	And with no reference to the prior conversation, he just shows up and stops working, even though he just got fired the day before.
	And that's comedy, because it's so crazy, right?
	Right, right. And so to pretend, you know, it's like my wife says to me, that's it, I'm leaving you.
	Right? And she packs and she moves out, and then I call her the next day and say, I'm hungry, where's my lunch?
	Right. Right. I mean, isn't that why she left me?
	Because I'm insane.
	Right.
	Yes.
	So I really, I feel a whole lot stronger in that, in my decision to do it, you know.
	I was really worried that a couple months would roll by and I'd be like, hey guys, I'm sorry about what happened on Christmas.
	Let's get together or something.
	Well, I can tell you, I've been going on 12 years, and that's yet to happen to me.
	In fact, no one can tell you what to do with your family.
	Obviously, this is a personal decision.
	I think there are real objective values that can guide you, and they're not my values, they're not your values, they're just things which are true, things which are logical.
	So I think... But I'll tell you my personal opinion, which is that I think that it's a very healthy thing that you're doing.
	That's my personal opinion, right?
	Nobody could tell you, but that's my personal opinion.
	It's a very strong one. That this is not a conversation that you can productively have with these people at this time.
	Maybe they'll change.
	I wouldn't hold my breath.
	I really wouldn't. But you never know.
	Well, actually, you kind of know. But, you know, maybe.
	Maybe. Who knows, right? Yeah.
	Some revelation will occur to them or something will drive them into therapy and they'll get some help and so on.
	But given the way that you've described the conversation, it does not seem to me that there's anything productive that can come out of this at the moment.
	And particularly if vulnerability leads you to get really hurt, and I get, I really get how you got hurt by this interaction, how painful it was, how frightening it was.
	It was to see the degree to which people will defend their prior misdeeds to the point where they will call you crazy.
	Understand, for a parent or a child insane is about as ugly a thing as one human being can conceivably do to another.
	For the people who know you the most, for the people who know you the best, for the people you've lived with the longest, for the people who've seen you develop from a little speck to a full-grown man...
	To imply or call you crazy is about as damaging a thing that can pass between the lips of one human being to the ears of another.
	So I get how incredibly terrifying and frightening and upsetting and dangerous and damaging that statement was.
	I just want to tell you, I really, really, really get that.
	That is a ferocious exercise of abusive power.
	And it's not true.
	Thank you very much.
	It feels great to have somebody say that.
	Because I'm saying it to myself, but in this really meek and kind of like, it's not true, Nick.
	But it's really great to hear somebody say it.
	No, listen, it's...
	Look, to pull the annoying parent card, right?
	I mean, I know how incredibly dependent Isabella is upon my opinion of her.
	When she does something, she looks to me.
	She has no idea whether it's good or bad or, quote, right or wrong or whatever, right?
	Okay. She does something and she looks to me for my opinion, and my opinion becomes her judgment.
	Right? That's really important.
	I mean, she has judgments where she disagrees with me, right?
	And I think that's great.
	And she's right more often than not in those disagreements about, you know, can she do this thing like jump from this chair or whatever?
	And she tells me to not help her and she turns out so she's right.
	But in terms of like values and appropriateness and quote right and wrong and so on, I use the quotes there because she's so young that I can't really apply those terms to her.
	But my opinion's Are foundational to her view of herself and her view of the world and her view of what is true and right and good.
	And this is why I say that for a parent to call a child crazy is staggering.
	It is a line that is crossed that cannot be retracted.
	It is a statement that is made that cannot be withdrawn.
	Now, and that's why I said what's happened since.
	So maybe in the next 24 hours after this happened Christmas Eve, your parents are like, oh my God, what did we do?
	Oh man, did we ever let our temper get the better of us?
	That was really not good.
	I mean, he must really be hurting.
	We really said some horrible things.
	We called him crazy.
	I mean, that's really bad, right?
	And then, right, so you have, and I mean, this is just my opinion, right?
	24 hours. If you do something really horrible to someone, you have about 24 hours to begin to make it right.
	Because if anything goes on longer than that, there's nothing real in the response.
	Then it's just defenses, right?
	That's why the 24 hours after you've rung someone, and you need to keep this close to your chest for the rest of your life, everyone who's listening to this, you have 24 hours.
	Let me give you another sitcom reference.
	That's how important it is.
	In a very old episode of Scrubs, the main guy kisses the blonde, Once.
	And he has 24 hours to kiss her again, otherwise he gets stuck in the friend zone.
	And in the show, there's a clock counting down 24 hours, and he just doesn't make it.
	To me, when I wrong someone, that clock goes off in my head.
	And the sooner the better.
	24 hours is really on the outside.
	But there's a clock ticking down when someone has wronged you.
	And if they don't make it, It's like this Indiana Jones door coming down.
	If they don't make it under that door, it fucking closes.
	And that's why I always ask people what happened since, what's happened in the intervening time.
	Because look, we can all say stuff that's hurtful.
	We can all say stuff either unconsciously or even consciously that is hurtful and unpleasant.
	And that's acceptable in any relationship, I think.
	You can say stuff that's hurtful, you don't have to be perfect, but you have to take responsibility and you have to apologize.
	Even if the other person provoked, you're still responsible for what you do.
	Nobody has hot wire levers into your brain making you do things.
	And so that 24 hours...
	This is not science, you understand?
	This is just hard-wired experience and I've never had an apology occur.
	Beyond 24 hours.
	Never. Never heard of one that means anything.
	And that also is a confession of being wrong.
	So I wanted to just point that out as well.
	Thank you.
	So yeah, I think...
	I think if this is where your parents are, and if this is the level at which they can not have this conversation, and if this is the kind of damage that they can do in their defensiveness, then I think that you are dodging several bullets at the moment.
	And I mean, hey, if it changes in the future, I mean, that would be great.
	I wouldn't hold my breath.
	but my opinion right now is that this is this is by far the healthiest thing that you can be doing now if you don't mind I just wanted to spend a I'm sorry, I know we're going a little bit over it.
	With your patient indulgence, I just wanted to put out a few words to some people who've talked to me about loneliness over the Christmas season.
	And this is important.
	I think this is important.
	Look, if it's any consolation, we don't really see anyone anyway.
	I mean, we don't.
	So, I mean, I have my wife and I have my daughter...
	I just want to point out that There's no philosophy party that's going on that you're not invited to.
	There's no beer commercial of rationality and evidence that you're being excluded from by some big-ass bouncer with a walkie-talkie in his ear.
	You're on the list. There's just no club as yet, but we're working on it.
	The second thing that I would say is that I've spent birthdays alone, like really alone, like didn't see anyone.
	I've spent Christmases alone where I didn't see anyone.
	And I... So I understand that.
	It's been a few.
	More than a few. So I understand that isolation.
	I really do. I'll tell you what I would say to myself.
	And maybe that would help you during this challenging season.
	I would say, look, I... If I want proximity to people, I can have it in a moment.
	I can call up my family.
	I can call up friends I haven't seen in a while.
	I can, you know, pretend that nothing happened.
	They'll pretend that nothing happened.
	And I can slip right back into that Straightjacket of history.
	That choice is available to you.
	And that makes it less of a rejection and more of a choice.
	Right? So that choice is available to you.
	To go and have those relationships such as they are that you're not having at the moment.
	That's a choice that you can have.
	The second thing, of course, is that Christmas is complete bullshit.
	Right? I mean, Christmas doesn't exist.
	There's no such thing. It's another day.
	It's another day. And it has less relevance than Your birthday, right?
	At least your birthday, you're in the same relationship to the sun that you were when you were born on the planet.
	But Christmas doesn't exist.
	So when I was alone around Christmas, I'd think to myself, and I, you know, pretty successfully too, I'd say, well, okay, so I get two weeks off of the winter.
	Great, or a week off or whatever, however long you get off.
	And what's that? I mean, it's cold outside.
	I can go out if I want for a nice brisk walk, listen to some music.
	But what I really want to do is I want to sit under a toasty warm blanket and With a cup of hot chocolate and I want to read a great book.
	I want to listen to some great music.
	Maybe watch a fun movie or a movie that I used to love that I haven't seen for a while.
	And that was great.
	I mean, who's going to say that a week or two off from work...
	Is a bad thing, right?
	So your boss came in and said, hey, take two weeks off with pay, starting tomorrow.
	You wouldn't say, well, no, but I'm depressed and lonely, right?
	But that's all it is. There's no Christmas and there's, you know, in my experience and opinion, there's no big, wonderful, joyous connectedness that is occurring somewhere over the rainbow that you are excluded from.
	And you can have those relationships if you want.
	That choice is always available to you.
	But there is a reason why Christmas is so pumped up, right?
	Like why this last caller's dad called up and said, you gotta come over, it's Christmas!
	It's Christmas! Well, why does the value of friends and family need to be pumped up so much?
	Well, propaganda grows in a hole of desire.
	Propaganda grows where there is no light.
	Propaganda grows where people don't want stuff, which is why you don't need propaganda to make you interested in sex.
	You don't need constant reminders that sex is good and fun and important because that just happens for us anyway.
	You need propaganda to make you want things that you don't want.
	And so the degree to which there's sentimentality around family and around Christmas is to me precisely the degree to which people don't want these things.
	Otherwise you wouldn't need all of this stuff.
	So I just wanted to point that out.
	The life of philosophy is the discarding of things which don't exist, which are false, which are manufactured, which are propagandistic, which are illusions.
	And it's a difficult and grim process, right?
	So there's just two illusions that I would suggest.
	The first is that you examine.
	I think that they're illusions, but you can, of course, tell me one.
	The first illusion is that there is a lot of human connectedness and intimacy and warmth out there that you're just not a part of.
	That you're left out in the cold while everybody's swarming over to toast marshmallows and have big, great, warm, intimate bear hugs and great conversations with everybody else while sitting around a campfire of warm and gracious human hospitality.
	Not true. Watch home for the holidays.
	Anyway, that's the first.
	And the second is that Christmas exists at all.
	Right? I guess there's a winter solstice, but you probably don't celebrate the fall solstice or the summer solstice, I guess.
	So there's just some cold weather, I guess, for those of us in cold climates.
	There's some time off work, and it's a great time for journaling.
	It's a great time for reading.
	I remember one. At Christmas, I went to go and read Voltaire at a restaurant near where I lived.
	And that was my Christmas dinner.
	Alone, I was listening to some classical music on my...
	My God, was it a Walkman?
	Am I that old? Oh my God, it might be.
	And I read some great books.
	And that was my Christmas.
	And I must tell you, looking back at my life, that was one of the very best Christmases I ever had before I got married.
	So, I would suggest that's a way to look at it.
	Which is not to say that the feelings of loneliness and isolation are unimportant or not worth examining, but look at them skeptically and see to what degree are they coming from genuinely missing people that you know, and from what degree are they coming from just a pumped up and propagandized feeling of connectedness that you are supposedly excluded from.
	That's my... That's my suggestion, and that's my Christmas gift to you, if that makes any sense.
	As somebody said in the chat room, fuck phony holiday cheer.
	Well, I think there's stuff to be said for that.
	And I think that's perhaps a four-letter way, a four-word way, and four-letter way, of succinctly putting what I'm putting in a very long-winded, though perhaps not unusually long-winded way.
	So, having been pointed out, having had my long-windedness pointing out, Let me stop here and just let me know.
	If you listen to conversations, I'm still always happy to have.
	Let me know if you would like to have some.
	I have some that I've been waiting for the release from the listeners, some great ecosystem conversations that I've had recently, which I will put out this week.
	Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support and your encouragement and your donations and your help in this show.
	Thanks, of course, to James, as always, for his wonderful technical help.
	Thank you so much to Phil.
	For his wonderful work that he's doing on the website, which the current site was only supposed to be kind of a doofer, and he's really stepping up to help.
	Thank you so much for all of that, and have yourself a great, great week.

▲