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Jan. 2, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:57:46

1820 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show, January 2, 2011

A dream about defenses, the beauty of parenting, getting flamed on Facebook, and and creating your own family functions.

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	Hi everybody, it's DeFan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	Happy New Year!
	Hope you're doing absolutely beautifully.
	It is January the 2nd, 2011.
	I really, really, really am beginning to increasingly feel like I'm in a science fiction movie with these numbers counting up.
	But it is great to be here.
	I hope that you have a fantastic year.
	Thank you everybody so much for your support of this show over the past half years.
	Can you believe it?
	It's been a half decade since the Stateless Society and Examination of Alternatives first popped, reared its typographical little head on lewrockwell.com.
	And it's been a fantastic ride.
	I can't thank everybody enough for their support and participation and commitment and enthusiasm and excitement and hostility and criticisms and anger.
	It has been a wonderfully kaleidoscopic event.
	Tunnel tubing into the sky of wisdom, and thank you everybody so much.
	Now, I had a bunch of questions, which I'll synthesize into one short little chat here, which is that in a couple of videos that I did recently, one called Despair, the other one called The Zen of the Zeta-Jones' Ass, I talked about a subjectivist and a relativist being short of love in his environment, not being surrounded by people who love him.
	And people called me on this, and I think that was a completely fair and right thing to do.
	I can't synthesize all of my arguments with my 2,000 podcasts every time I make the argument, but where there is confusion, I would like to clarify.
	So here it is, the brief reason why I made that claim, and then you can let me know whether it makes any sense or whether I'm talking entirely out of my armpit.
	The reason that I say relativists and subjectivists are people who...
	Who say that you can't know anything for certain, who say that you can't trust your senses, they're imperfect, they're problematic, and so on.
	The reason why I say they're not surrounded by people who love them as much as they should is this.
	There is in general, I think, two ways that beliefs can develop, that ideologies can develop.
	And there's a fair amount of scientific truth behind what I'm saying.
	These aren't just my opinions. The first way that beliefs can develop is organically.
	In other words, If you open your hand and you're holding a rock, the rock falls down.
	If you trip on the stairs, you fall down and you will likely get an owie which will need a band-aid.
	I'm quoting my daughter.
	And so, there are ways in which beliefs develop organically through the reinforcement of basic reality.
	There are other beliefs which do not develop at all organically.
	And are inflicted.
	And these are superstitious beliefs.
	You know, things like particular gods or, you know, that countries exist.
	There's such a thing as a government.
	Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Jehovah.
	All of these sorts of things are not organically developed.
	So the question is, is subjectivism and relativism I'll just call it relativism for the moment.
	Is relativism something that organically develops, or is it something that is inflicted?
	Well, I would argue that it is inflicted and not organically developed.
	And it is inflicted not by others, but by the self, fundamentally.
	It is a defensive reactive formation to basically the presence of overbearing and authoritarian irrationality, usually in the form of parents, but sometimes also parents and priests and teachers and so on.
	So the reason that I say this is that a relativist will say that you can't know anything for sure, particularly about ethics.
	Ethics is a cultural or social construct, and you can't know anything for sure about ethics.
	So if this belief had been grown organically within the heart and mind of the person, then this would have occurred as a child.
	In other words, so let's say you're a kid, and you're playing with your siblings, and you You whack one of the siblings with, I don't know, a big wooden block or something.
	Well, for the relativism to be organically developed, the mother would have to say, well, I can't intervene because I can't say for sure whether hitting someone is right or wrong.
	I can't even say for sure whether my eyes have correctly processed what I have seen, my ears, what I have heard.
	I can't even know for sure whether my children exist.
	I can't even know whether I'm wearing an apron.
	I can't even know whether I exist.
	And so there's nothing that I can do to intervene.
	I'm certainly not going to impose my subjective values, in which I prefer children not to hit each other, on my children, because I don't know what is true, I don't know what is good, I don't know what is right, and I don't even know what exists, for sure.
	I guarantee you there's almost, I can't imagine a childhood wherein a child is never corrected because of A strict adherence to relativism.
	This is not what happens in people's childhoods at all.
	Therefore, the morals that are inflicted upon us as children, and I say inflicted not because morals are bad, but because there's not a very rational basis for morals in society, and therefore they're inflicted irrationally, which means authoritatively or authoritarianly, aggressively.
	So, you can't imagine something like that.
	Can you imagine a child who breaks his mother's favorite vase saying, no, mom.
	You can't get upset. You don't even know if the virus ever existed.
	You don't even know if it's broken.
	And you certainly don't know whether breaking something is right or wrong or good or bad because there is nothing for sure in this universe.
	Can you imagine a child saying to a teacher, yes, I didn't hand in my homework assignment, but I heard you say that you didn't require it to be handed in.
	At least that's my memory.
	And since everything's subjective and blah, blah, blah, you can't even point to the assignment that was handed out where it was written down because I read it differently or I interpret it differently.
	That never would have been allowed by any teacher.
	Can you imagine a child in church saying, well, everything's relative, everything's subjective.
	Therefore, I choose not to believe in this God, but rather that God, or I'm going to worship my little toenail as a deity and just make my own way and do my own thing.
	I'm not going to go to church, mom, because I don't know if church even exists.
	I don't know if there's such a building or such a deity, or I don't know if we're at home.
	I don't even know if you're my mom.
	I mean, you understand, this could never work in someone's childhood.
	Therefore, relativism must be something that is inflicted after the fact that By some other mechanism.
	I'd like you to take one little short scenario, which I hope will explain why I'm talking about a lack of love.
	So let's say I'm a relativist and you're my brother, and we'll call you Bob.
	And so I text you saying, Bob, I'm going to meet you at 2 o'clock at this street corner downtown.
	And I show up at 3 o'clock.
	And you say, dude, I've been waiting here for an hour.
	It's hailing frozen frogs.
	What's going on? And I say, no, no, no.
	I said 3 o'clock. And you hold up your text and say, no, no, no.
	Dude, you texted me 2 o'clock.
	2 o'clock. Right here.
	And I say, well, you know, there's no way to know that for sure.
	There's no objective reality.
	Time is subjective. I just choose to read that as 3 o'clock.
	It's not 2 o'clock. Would you, if I said such a thing, would you say, well, that's okay, because everything is relativism.
	Maybe this says 2 o'clock to me, and maybe it says 3 o'clock to you, and so on.
	No, that's not what would happen.
	What you would say to me is, dude, what are you doing?
	It says right here, 2 o'clock you would meet me.
	What are you talking about?
	Like, it says 3 o'clock to you, or time is relative, or nothing is real, or I don't even know if we're here or not, right?
	Somebody who really cared about someone, somebody who really loved someone, Would not let that pass.
	Would not let that continue.
	Because that's not very healthy, mentally, to say the least.
	And it's incredibly frustrating to deal with somebody like that.
	It can be incredibly enraging.
	Relativism is the ultimate nuclear weapon of mass destruction of passive aggression.
	Because assertions are made, and then whenever they're challenged, the person retreats into the fog of relativism.
	So, there's no way that Someone who genuinely acts on his principles about relativism can do anything other than genuinely frustrate and baffle and bewilder and confuse and frighten the people around him.
	Because anytime that person is questioned or challenged or contradicted, they can retreat into rank relativism, subjectivism, and so on.
	And if you care about someone like that, then you follow them into that maze and you try and pull them out.
	Like, you would say to me, I hope that if I... Came at 3 when I said 2 and then pretended that I saw 3 instead of 2 on the text message.
	I would hope that you would say to me, Steph, what's going on with you?
	Why are you pulling all of this nonsense?
	I mean, are you scared that I'm going to beat you up if you're an hour late?
	I mean, I'm going to be upset. Like, what is going on with you that you feel the need to fog and bewitch reality in this kind of way?
	Like, let's sit down, let's have a coffee maybe, a decaf for you.
	And let's talk about what's going on in your mind that you're an hour late and you're trying to pull some philosophical wool over my eyes that nothing is real and nothing is true and time is subjective and I see two and you see three.
	Let's sit down and go over what's going on for you in your heart and in your life and in your mind that this seems like a viable strategy for you.
	Now, of course you're going to say that very few people who are relativists are going to say, time doesn't exist, therefore I can't be late or whatever, right?
	But the reality is, if somebody holds these positions inconsistently, then that is also something that other people who care about them would really need to challenge them on.
	So if somebody says, well, whenever someone is criticized, they say, well, nothing is true, nothing is real, values are subjective, nothing can be ascertained for certain, then...
	That's one perspective I guess you could have.
	But if that person then ever says to somebody else, you're wrong, or corrects somebody else, or whatever, then somebody who cares would point out, look, there's a contradiction here.
	There's a contradiction here between the way you're living and the values that you hold, and I think that that's going to make you unhappy.
	Like in the same way, in the same way, the exact same way, that if someone you love is 300 pounds overweight, and they say, I really want to diet, I really want to diet, and I'm going to follow the all-cheesecake principle, Deep-fried in maple syrup diet, which is why you have 12 of these cakes a day.
	What you would say to that person, if you care about them and want their health to improve and want them to not be 300 pounds overweight, you would say there's a contradiction between how you're living and what you state as your values.
	Somebody says, I'm really going to quit drinking, and I'm going to quit drinking by going to the bar and And having a couple of beers.
	Then you would say, no, no, no, no.
	It's a contradiction here. If you want to quit drinking, which I support, then going to the bar and having beers is the opposite of that.
	So we need to sit down and we need to figure out what's going on for you that you're this confused about the way things really are.
	And that's what I mean.
	The courage to intervene and to help somebody out of contradictions and errors and problems is very, very important in life.
	It's very important in life.
	And so that's basically the argument that I was having.
	In my experience, this is not scientifically proven, but this comes out of a large number of conversations I've had with listeners over the years and people in general over the decades.
	People become relativists because they're raised by a crazed absolutist, right?
	Somebody who's an absolutist but completely irrational, like a fundamentalist Christian or an army dude or a nationalist or somebody who's culturally prejudiced in some fundamental way.
	They're crazy and they're absolutist.
	And there's no possibility of overturning crazy absolutism, and so the only room that the child can find in that kind of environment, the only mental space that can be created, is to say everything's relative.
	You can't oppose the crazy absolutism with rational absolutism, and so you just create a general fog hoping to hide From the raining skylances of irrational dogmas coming down on your head.
	And so it is an emotional defense mechanism that results from the imposition of irrational absolutes like religion, culture, statism, and so on.
	That's my experience.
	It's my strong opinion. I'm happy to be contradicted.
	And if you're out there without this history, love to chat further about it.
	So I just wanted to spend a few minutes explaining that particular approach.
	Relativism is not Organically developed, like our understanding of physics and other forms of reality, relativism is something that can't be consistently lived with, and therefore the inconsistencies between the theory and the practice should be pointed out in the same way that other inconsistencies that are important between theory and practice, like diet, like exercise, like general health, You know, like saying, well, I want to become a doctor, and the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to go and live in a coal mine.
	It's like, I want to help you achieve your goals, and therefore, I'm going to tell you that being in a coal mine is not going to help you be a doctor.
	In the same way, if people want to achieve the truth, if people want to achieve a rational connection with reality, which is healthy and is the only place we can meet as human beings, we can't meet in fantasy, there is no intimacy in delusion, there is only loneliness, isolation, and manipulation in In delusion, the only place we can ever meet, the only place we can ever connect, As Ian Forster said, only connect is the key to life.
	The only place where we can connect is in reality.
	And the only way that we can consistently connect in reality is through rational and empirical philosophy.
	That's why I say there's a lack of love in people who allow these kinds of tragic errors and confusions and manipulations to continue.
	Anyway, enough of that.
	Let's get on with the show. I hope that you're having a wonderful weekend.
	I hope that you're having a great break.
	Let's turn it over to the listeners.
	Hey, Steph. Hi.
	Hey, so I've been listening to FDR for about a year now, and I recently had a conversation with my...
	I'm getting massive echoes.
	I'm not hearing any of them, so...
	Make sure that you turned off the stream in the chat room if you're listening there.
	Yeah, that's where it was.
	Can you hear me now? There's an X to the left of the thing to make sure it doesn't come back on.
	Okay, yeah. You hear it now?
	Hello? Staff, can you hear me?
	I sure can. Okay.
	Sorry about that. So, as I said before, I've been listening to FDR for about a year, and I recently had a conversation with my father about spanking and the abuse that he inflicted on me.
	And basically...
	We got into the discussion pretty deeply and I mean I started crying.
	I let my emotions out and he realized that I was really hurt from what happened and basically he brought up the fact that he said he said I think we could both benefit from professional help and let's see And so I suggested that we call the show to talk to you because I know that you're someone who knows what he's talking about in regards to abuse and psychology and whatnot.
	Well, sorry, let me just clarify, I mean, just to, you know, to make sure that this is clear to new listeners.
	If your father's looking for professional help, then that's not me, right?
	Like professional help, like accredited psychologist or psychiatrist or social worker or therapist or whatever.
	Like that's not me, right?
	Yeah, yeah. I just want to be really clear on that, right?
	I mean, I'm happy to talk if you feel it would be helpful.
	I'm happy to bring some philosophy to the conversation.
	But my guess is that what your dad is talking about is long-term therapy, like professional therapy.
	Yes. And he was actually...
	When he said it, he mentioned it in a way that was saying basically, I think we both need it greatly.
	And so I was thinking like, well, you know, we could go talk to someone professionally.
	But I suggested maybe we'll talk to you first, you know, because it's a bit lower risk.
	And if you were helpful, then we could just donate or whatever.
	Well, look, I appreciate that and I appreciate the trust that you're putting into what it is that I could have an input into that.
	But I would strongly suggest that you do talk to somebody who's a professional in counseling.
	I think that's really important.
	I mean, the one thing that I always try to delineate here is that this show is about philosophy.
	Now, there are certain aspects of philosophy that are very important to happiness around self-knowledge and so on, and the moral delineation of actions and the consistent application of universal ethics and so on.
	But if you're looking to explore in a sort of professional context your relationship with your father, that's a long-term proposition, right?
	I mean, parent-child relationships are enormously complex and enormously deep.
	And so I would suggest that that's sort of a long-term therapeutic process, not a sort of bungee-in-bungee-out philosophical examination, if that makes any sense.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. I wasn't expecting there to be that.
	I just thought it would help to kind of get some insight first.
	And so, anyways, the main reason why I'm calling is after that happened, that was last night, I had a very, very disturbing dream.
	And it's not a very long dream.
	It's pretty straight to the point. So do you mind if I tell you about that?
	No, that would be all right if you could also just throw it in the Skype window or you can whisper to me in the chat to make sure I can sort of have a reference to it.
	I'm happy to look at the dream. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	You're just cutting out a little bit for me.
	Do you mind if I read it just to make sure that we get the full text?
	Okay, so it was raining.
	I was in a car with my dad and brother, me in the front seat.
	We were on a dirt road, and the turn we needed to take was perpendicular to the trajectory of our car with several horizontal metal bars about six inches in between them directly in our path.
	He didn't slow down.
	Your dad's driving in the stream, right?
	Yeah, so he didn't slow down as the turn grew closer and I yelled, what are you doing?
	He didn't slow down nearly enough to make the...
	Turn. Turn.
	But we didn't run up against the bars either.
	We kept going in a grass field and I'm not sure what happened, but the car didn't stop.
	My dad's engine shut off.
	Is that someone something says?
	No, no, no. I'll explain that after you read it.
	It's sort of... This is when my experience in the dream turned from disbelief to outright horror.
	As we were fast approaching a fence, like the ones behind batting cages, with even less space in between the metal pieces, all we could do was wait, and I was already bracing myself for the crash.
	It never came, and we stopped a few feet in front of the fence.
	I got out and immediately heard my dad minimizing his actions and decisions.
	I didn't want to listen, so I got out and looked at what was beyond the fence, a crevice containing white water.
	Can I assume that's a pretty deep crevice?
	Yeah. Right, right.
	Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
	All right. All right.
	So tell me a little bit more about the conversation that you had with your dad where you brought up.
	If you can tell me the nature of the spanking and a little bit more about the conversation you had with your dad where you brought this up.
	And congratulations on bringing this up.
	I know what a scary thing that is to do and good for you.
	Yeah. Okay.
	So basically...
	We were actually talking about something that had to do with religion before that.
	He's a Christian.
	Anyway, somehow it got brought up that I wasn't happy with the way that he treated me and how he chose to quote-unquote discipline me.
	And, uh, and so I was telling him, like, when you were spanking me, I, like, it was the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me, obviously.
	But also, like, when he would stop, I would, I would scream and I would do this to my mother too when she spanked me.
	I would just scream, I hate you, at the top of my lungs.
	I've never had such a strong emotional response since then.
	I'm so sorry to hear that.
	Spanking is a word that can be used to describe many things.
	Tell me a little bit more about the spanking.
	What was going on?
	Basically, he'd pull down my pants, hold me down with one arm, use a paddle on my bare ass.
	Oh my god. Oh my god.
	Like a ping pong paddle kind of thing?
	Well, it was either a wooden spoon, occasionally a metal spatula.
	Yeah, just things like that.
	A pasta, pasta stirrer.
	My god, that must have hurt like a motherfucker if you don't mind me saying so.
	Yeah, it did. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty unbearable kind of pain.
	I mean, that's a very tender area, right?
	Yeah. And, of course, there's this terror, right?
	Because you want to not be hit, but you feel if you squirm, it might go worse, because you might miss and hit something else, right?
	Yeah, and there actually were times when I tried to move.
	I guess that was probably later on when I was a bit stronger, where I would move, and then he would yell at me to hold still, or, you know, just keep going longer because I moved.
	And how often did this occur?
	Well, I don't really know, because it was so long ago.
	Just roughly. I mean, was it once a year, once a month?
	I would say, like, once a month, maybe once every two months.
	Right. And were there other forms of assaults against you, or was it mostly just the spanking?
	It was just spanking.
	And what about verbal aggression?
	Well, he wasn't a very verbally aggressive person.
	But, I mean...
	Well, I don't want to say that because I don't think...
	Or at least in my experience, spanking doesn't come with just a, you know, no words spoken.
	Just get down and I'll hit you and we're not going to say anything.
	It's always, or it always was for me, it always was, you know, I'm doing this because I love you.
	I'm doing this. I'm doing this.
	Go ahead, it's okay. This hurts me more than it hurts you.
	I'm not doing this out of anger.
	Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.
	Want to tell me what you're feeling?
	I'm feeling the same thing I was when I was talking to him about this.
	Just... I feel weak.
	Go ahead. I feel powerless.
	Right. And helpless and humiliated and all those things that go along with this kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	And rage, right?
	Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, I'm not making that up because you said I hate you, right?
	I mean, when this was going on or afterwards, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	Right. And I would imagine these left marks, right?
	Well, I didn't exactly look, but I'm sure...
	It must have been pretty tender for a while afterwards, right?
	Yeah, like it...
	Yeah, I'm certain there was red marks at least.
	Sure, sure. And do you have any idea of what age you were when these began?
	Let's see... Well, it started with my mom was the first one to spank me.
	I'm fairly sure of that.
	And that could have been as early as age four, I would guess.
	And when you say four, do you mean that you have a memory of these not occurring earlier or you can't remember earlier?
	Well, I do have a couple memories of before.
	I'll just explain it.
	Age four is when I moved from a condo into the house I live in now.
	And so I only have like two or three pictures in my mind from before that time.
	So that's basically...
	Yeah. Right.
	Okay. And when did this...
	I assume that this has stopped.
	And when did it stop?
	Or peter out, I guess.
	It stopped when...
	I mean, I remember there was a time when my mom would, like, she gave me, I think, more spankings of my dad, but they weren't nearly as hard, and she didn't go nearly as long.
	Did she use her hand, or did she use implements?
	She used implements, but I think she probably also used her hand at some point.
	But anyways, sorry, what was the question?
	When did it start? Okay.
	Or when did it stop?
	Okay. The last time I remember my mom wanting to spank me was, like, I did something that she didn't like, I guess.
	I was probably, like, ten.
	Yeah, around that age.
	And she kind of, like, jokingly took out a feather and, like, spanked me after she said she was going to spank me.
	So that's where she realized that she didn't have the power to spank me anymore.
	Why didn't she have the power to spank you anymore?
	Well, I mean physically.
	So you were too big?
	Yeah, I think the time before that she tried to spank me, I... I either ran away or, like, stayed down, and while she kind of charged up for the hit, I just ran away.
	Isn't it amazing?
	Isn't it amazing how parents can find, out of thin air, they can find wonderful alternatives to spanking the moment you get big enough to fight back?
	Oh, God. Isn't that amazing?
	The knowledge about how to parent without spanking rushes into their heads the moment that you become big enough to avoid or fight back.
	It's a miracle!
	But go on. Right, yeah.
	I hadn't even thought about that before, but that feather thing was definitely a memory that stuck with me.
	Sure. Sure.
	Sure. Alright.
	So both your parents were down with these kinds of assaults, right?
	Yes, and I actually have been thinking about this lately.
	The relationship between my mother and father was sort of like my dad just kind of...
	He has never really been that much into Christianity, which is supposedly where they get their justification for doing this.
	Your dad has never been that much into Christianity.
	Sorry, I just want to make sure I follow that.
	Yeah. Well, basically, he'll say he's a Christian, and if someone asks, he'll say he's a Christian, but he doesn't go to church.
	He doesn't... Do anything like that.
	He doesn't really hang out with other religious people.
	But the reason I'm bringing that up is because my mom would say things like, like I remember her asking him to spank me.
	And I'm sure that at least one of those times she had said to him, it's going to be more effective if you do it.
	Right. Because you're stronger, right?
	Is that what you mean? Like you're stronger.
	Yeah, yeah. And more frightening.
	Right. Yeah, and so basically, I don't want to kind of get into this now because, I mean, I could talk about my whole background for hours, but she stopped living with us.
	And as soon as that happened, like, we stopped going into church.
	We stopped, like...
	Sorry, did your parents divorce or separate?
	You said she stopped living with us.
	They separated, yeah.
	Not divorced. Okay.
	And how long ago did they separate?
	That was when I was in...
	Well, just a number of years ago.
	I'm just sort of curious. Okay.
	I suppose six years, maybe seven years.
	Right. But they're not divorced.
	No. Is that because divorce is wrong in their church?
	Yes, and partly because...
	Well, I mean, she's in a group home in a different state.
	Why is she in a group home?
	Well, she's diagnosed with schizophrenia.
	Right, okay. Sorry to hear about that.
	Oh, yeah. I appreciate that.
	Okay, so I appreciate that, and my heart aches.
	My heart just aches for what you went through.
	That is... Terrifyingly tragic.
	I oppose violence against children at every level, from the intergalactic to the subatomic.
	One of the reasons that I find it so appalling, aside from the moral dimension, which I've made myself really clear on that, It's the degree to which it is an invasion and taking over of your nervous system.
	It is an act of invasion, and I consider it almost like demonic possession, in that you are no longer in control of your own stimuli.
	Yeah. You know what I'm talking about, right?
	Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
	I felt like...
	I just wanted to scream out and just inflict pain on so many people.
	Yeah, because you no longer own yourself, right?
	It's like if I tie you down and I put really loud music and headphones on your ears, I now own your brain because my stimulus is taking over your identity.
	And that is what occurs.
	And I think it's one of the lasting damages that occurs from these kinds of attacks is the degree to which self-ownership gets kind of shredded.
	Yeah. And, yeah, I've definitely, partly through listening to FDR, partly through introspection, I've sort of figured out ways in which that stealing or dominating my identity has led to me being a pushover and just generally unassertive.
	Right. Right.
	Yeah, I mean, it is a kind of slave training for sure.
	And... Because I generally trace ideologies back to childhood experiences, at least until somebody's done significant work on themselves.
	I commend you on maintaining the value of self-ownership.
	The degree to which self-ownership is destroyed through physical and sexual abuse and to a smaller degree through verbal abuse is staggering.
	So when I come across people who have problems with the concept of property rights or self-ownership, all I see is the big brand of physical or sexual abuse on their forehead.
	That the concept of self-ownership is entirely threatening to them because it evokes too much pain from their history.
	That's my experience and opinion.
	And so I commend you on maintaining the value of self-ownership despite these kinds of astounding invasions of that space.
	I think you're absolutely right about the property rights thing because me, both me and my brother used to go down to the local Circle K or Kmart and from Kmart we'd steal Pokemon cards back when we were kids and I would go to Circle K and steal candy all the time.
	Sure. Yeah, I was a shoplifter when I was a kid too.
	Not for long and not a huge amount, but it definitely occurred.
	And it's because, I mean, the concept of respecting property, of respecting the ownership of others was so unbelievably painful to me deep down that I couldn't act on it.
	Yeah, and that sort of makes sense now looking back.
	Oh, and then of course, the other thing that occurs is...
	You know, basically, well, fuck society, right?
	I mean, society is letting all of this happen.
	Society is approving it.
	Society is friends with my parents.
	So why the hell should I obey any of society's rules?
	I mean, society is, you know, a shit heap of collusion with people who are doing me great harm.
	So, yeah, so I think there's that alienation from society as a whole.
	And that's the price that society pays.
	So criminals are the price that society pays for non-intervention.
	In child abuse. Not that I'm calling you a criminal, right?
	I'm just saying that if things had gone further or if you'd have been a different kind of person or if you'd made different decisions.
	Yeah, yeah. I think about that a lot, how close I was into all sorts of bad things.
	Oh, me too. Yeah, I could have taken a seriously dark road, particularly with my verbal skills.
	I could have done some real damage to the world, I'm sure of that.
	Oh, yeah. All right.
	Should we get back to your dream, if that helps?
	Oh, no, no. Sorry. Before we do that, if you can just tell me a little bit more about how the conversation went with your dad.
	Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah.
	I told him – I reminded him that I would scream, I hate you.
	And I tried to – I tried to sort of get him to understand how terrible that was.
	And I think I remember how we got into this part of the conversation.
	It was me discussing his own father's abuse of him.
	Because I knew that his...
	Because once when...
	This was a while back when I brought up the fact that he spanked us.
	He would say, oh, well, if you were in my dad's house, he would do this.
	And it was so much worse.
	And... So I was talking to him about the fact that he'd actually experienced the abuse, he knew how horrible it was, and yet he turned around and did the same thing to his children, usually under pressure from my mother.
	Like, there was never a time that I remember when he spanked me and when my mom wasn't around.
	That's interesting. Yeah, and look, I mean, it's important not to paint with too broad a brush, so to speak, but I think that the degree to which women who are traditionally not raised to be actively aggressive themselves, the degree to which women provoke or stimulate, so to speak, men into acting out their own Rage, it should not be underestimated.
	That's sort of what... I'm with you on that one.
	I think that a lot of...
	This is why I say, well, my dad was this, but my mom was nicer in someone, right?
	Like you've heard probably those shows where I talk about the parent who gets away from the moral evaluation of the situation.
	Parenting is a system.
	And there is 50-50 responsibility in parenting.
	No parent gets off the hook morally morally.
	And, yeah, women can...
	And I just say these as sort of traditional gender roles.
	It could be either way, but I've sort of seen a fair number of situations where the woman is, you know, wait till your father gets home, and then when the dad gets home, it's like, you should have seen what so-and-so did.
	I'm so angry. I'm so upset.
	You need to do something about it.
	And, right, just provoking the man to the man said, okay, well, not that the man is not responsible, but if that makes any sense.
	That's exactly something that's happened to me before.
	Right. Right. Right.
	Yeah, so I think that's an important thing to process and remember.
	Okay, so your dad said what my dad did to me was much worse than what I did to you.
	Is that right? Yes.
	So basically he admitted that it was bad.
	Because if I say something...
	If I say, well, I stole less money from you than my friend stole from me, I'm still saying I stole stuff from you, right?
	Less bad does not equal good, right?
	Yes, but he was...
	And this reminds me of the listener conversation that you had the other day where the guy was sort of saying his parents were stupid.
	He cleverly...
	Doesn't actually come out and say, yes, I abused you.
	He'll never go out and say it.
	In fact, he'll never even use the word I and what took place in the same sentence.
	And I think that's just a masterful emotional avoidance there.
	Right. It's, you know, I always sort of feel like if only all of this intellectual energy called defensiveness and avoidance and blaming could be harnessed for the power of good, we could truly light up the planet, you know?
	But unfortunately, it's all too rare.
	All right. So, and he talked about his own experiences, right?
	Yes. Not so much yesterday, but we've had a conversation before where I didn't sort of emotionally break through and experience the emotions that I did back then.
	So it wasn't as powerful of a conversation, but he did describe that his dad would hit them on places other than the butt, other things.
	And what was his opinion?
	What was your sense of his opinion about his own spanking?
	Well, I mean, he admitted he hated it.
	Well, of course. I mean, you're supposed to hate it, right?
	I mean, it's not like a piece of candy, right?
	That doesn't tell you anything, right?
	I dislike punishment is not much of a confession, right?
	That's what punishment is designed for, right?
	Right, yeah. So he didn't say anything else about?
	Not that I remember, no.
	I don't think there's anything else.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Did he ask you at all about, you know, tell me more about your experience?
	I don't even need to ask that, do I? No.
	He knows when to just wait for me to keep going.
	No. If I hadn't kept going, the conversation would have stopped in a matter of minutes as opposed to a half hour.
	Right.
	And this is something that is a defense that's important to be aware of.
	And I'm not saying this to you because you're aware of it, but just to other people who are going to listen in or are listening in now, which is when you bring up an issue with someone, then they talk about how they feel.
	Yeah.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	His sister was not keeping her kids protected and he started talking about this and she's like, oh, I can't listen to you.
	You're making me feel like a bad mother.
	So it becomes about her feelings, not about the safety of the kids or his experience or anything he might have to input.
	But then it just becomes about, you know, it's sort of like this, like you're having a conversation with someone on a pier and you say something they don't like and they throw themselves in the water and pretend to drown.
	What the hell are you supposed to do then, right?
	Yeah. Just keep having the conversation as if they're not pretending to drown.
	Do you jump in and save them and then that conversation is over?
	I mean, it's a great, though terrible, defense mechanism because your experience...
	I mean, and it's sort of an emotional...
	This is not to say physical, of course.
	It's sort of an emotional recreation of the spanking, which is in the spanking, your father's...
	Feelings of anger or justice or retaliation or aggression or rage or whatever, that's what's driving.
	It's his feelings which dominate that interaction.
	And in the same way, when you talk about your history with these kinds of assaults, his feelings again, his memories, his feelings, his experience, his thoughts, his justifications again dominate the conversation.
	Exactly, yeah. And actually, I think that, now that you mention that, I think that was the main thing that changed this most recent conversation that we had, where it was all about me when I talked with him yesterday.
	What do you mean? Well, I mean, I wasn't talking to him about how he felt, or I didn't ask him detailed questions about...
	About what he experienced with his dad, because I'd already understood that he hated it, and he had never actually made a moral judgment on whether or not his father's actions were right or wrong, probably because he didn't want to make a moral judgment on whether his actions were right or wrong.
	Right. Right.
	Yeah, you know, it is...
	Again, I hope this isn't a tangent, but I just want to place your experience and conversation in perspective, which is...
	So I went for brunch yesterday with Christina and Isabella, and I ordered a latte, and they brought me my latte, and the latte was like lukewarm.
	And I like me a nice hot latte.
	I really do. And so I said to the waiter, and I said, I'm sorry to be a pest, but this is cold.
	If you could have them remake it, I'd really appreciate it.
	And he gave me a bit of a look, like I'm busy or whatever.
	And that's okay. I mean, I've been a waiter too.
	I know what it's like. But he got me a new latte.
	And this is some stranger who I'm going to tip five bucks, right?
	Some stranger. Doesn't even know me.
	But he puts his own feelings of annoyance to one side and focuses on my needs, right?
	Some stranger. And...
	Oh, man. I mean, we always expect, right?
	We're always told family is everything that no one will ever love you like your family, to which I utter with regards to my family, thank the gods for that, right?
	But, you know, generally, not always, but generally, families treat each other much worse than strangers depending on a $5 tip do, right?
	So can you imagine me saying to this waiter, listen, I'm sorry to be past my My latte is lukewarm, and you'd be like, oh yeah, well, look, I haven't even had a latte this morning, and my feet are aching, and I was up half the night, and I feel a little unwell, and I have to work on New Year's Day.
	Well, you're not going to go to that place anymore, I guess.
	Yeah, but you'd be like, your jaw would drop, yet family does the same thing when we bring up complaints, or husbands, or wives, or friends, or teachers, or whoever.
	And we don't even notice it.
	Yeah, back then I didn't notice that at all, back when the abuse was going on.
	Right. And this is what is so tragic, right?
	Which is when I would sort of go through this process of evaluating family and say, well...
	I mean, look, you're just at the beginning of the process, right?
	So I'm talking about me towards the end of a process, which, you know, may or may not be how your process goes.
	But I sort of said, okay, well, if my family treats me worse than a waiter does, then, you know, what am I here for?
	That was sort of my basic question.
	So that's, again, that's just something to mull over, but it sounds like you had a more productive conversation with him.
	And then you said you had this dream, right?
	Yes. Nice. Is your brother older or younger?
	He's younger by two years.
	Right. And was his experience similar to yours?
	Well, you know, I haven't really talked with him very much about this.
	I know that since I was the oldest child in the family and my mom wasn't living with us after when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I know that I received by far the most spankings.
	Right. And I... I also, like, I have a sister too, and she, I think, only got spanked two or three times.
	So I'd assume my brother got spanked somewhere in the middle between me and my sister.
	Right. Okay, so let's do the dream.
	I think now we can do it very quickly.
	Not that I'm in a big rush, but...
	Okay, so you're in a car, your dad is driving.
	Well, that's the family, right?
	So your dad's in control of the conversation, in control of the family.
	You're on a dirt road. The turn we needed to take was perpendicular to the car, right?
	So it's like a T, right?
	You're driving along the top of the T and you need to turn 90 degrees, right?
	Yeah, and I just want to say that I wrote down the turn that we needed to take, but in the dream I actually had no context of what we were doing.
	I just had a very strong feeling that we should turn right.
	Right. Now, this is important.
	Everything in a dream is important, and we could spend a long time on it, but I just want to give you the broad outlines.
	Again, just as my amateur idiot mind sees them.
	It's that, look, if you said, like, so you're on a road, and you're saying...
	We should not go forward.
	We should not go backwards.
	We should essentially go the opposite of this road, right?
	So the opposite of a direction you're going in a road is if you're going north on a road, the opposite is not south.
	Because south, you're still on the road, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense. If you do a U-turn, you're still taking the same road.
	And so what you're saying is we need to go the complete opposite of the direction that we're going in, which is not the other way, right?
	So if your dad's making it all about him, to go the other way would be to make it all about you.
	But you say, no, no, we've got to go the complete opposite thing, which is to get off this road completely and go in the direct opposite direction of this road, which is 90 degrees, right?
	Yeah. All right, so there are horizontal metal bars six inches in between them directly in our path.
	Is that right? Yes, and the reason why...
	I can't quite picture that. I don't know exactly what that looks like.
	Okay, yeah. I wrote this right, directly upon...
	No, no, no problem. No problem. A little jumbled, but...
	It's basically like a gate for a cow pen or a horse pen.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I understand.
	I got it. I got it. Well, these are defenses, right?
	Yeah. Right?
	I mean, the unconscious can be quite playful, right?
	So they're called defenses, and you're looking at defense, right?
	It's defense, right?
	Yeah. Sorry.
	I'm serious. I'm serious, right?
	It's defense, right?
	Yeah. Never underestimate the intelligence and playfulness sometimes, even in the most serious of matters of the unconscious, right?
	Oh my god, yeah.
	That's amazing, yeah.
	He doesn't slow down, right?
	And as the tone grows closer, right?
	Mm-hmm. So, what this means is that as you get closer to the defenses, the fear escalates, right?
	Yes. And this is, of course, what you experience.
	Whenever you get close to somebody's defenses, everybody, you know, shits themselves, frankly, right?
	Yeah, and he has sort of a sophisticated way of shooting himself in these conversations, but yeah, yeah.
	Well, you and him, right?
	I mean, it's very, very stressful getting close to people's defenses.
	Yeah. Okay, so you magically get through the defenses and you keep going in the grass field.
	You're not sure what's happening, but the car didn't stop.
	Now, my dad's engine shut off.
	What is that? Okay, yeah.
	That's where I wanted to kind of add that because I thought it was important.
	Upon waking... Just as I said, I had no context of why we should turn right, but I wrote, we need to turn right.
	Just as I wrote that, when I was originally writing the dream, I wrote, my dad's engine shut off.
	But really, all I knew in the dream was that he wasn't steering, he wasn't hitting the gas, and he wasn't hitting the brakes.
	So I think...
	Well, no, no, no. That was something, when I wrote it down, that wasn't actually totally accurate.
	Okay. I don't even know that that was what happened.
	All I know for sure, he wasn't steering, wasn't hitting the brakes, and wasn't hitting the gas.
	All right. Okay. And that's pretty terrifying, right?
	If you're in that situation. Yeah.
	So again, there's a kind of escalation, right?
	Like a warning, right? Yeah.
	Okay, so you're approaching a fence like the ones behind batting cages, right?
	Uh-huh. Well, batting cages is where you hit something round with an implement, right?
	Yeah. Which is spanking, right?
	Wow. Uh...
	In fact, I mean, given that we talked about the squirming, you might even end up hitting balls, right?
	And your dad said that he got hit not just on the buttocks, which means he might have taken some shot to the nads as well, right?
	Yeah, that's possible, yeah.
	Basically, what I was...
	I'm sure there's some significance of what you just said.
	The reason why I wrote the...
	The differences between the fence distances, I guess, between the bars was that we went through one where obviously there was some way for us to get through it, but then the second one, it was completely impenetrable.
	Got it. Yeah, and there's no reason why it can't be both.
	And there's absolutely, you know, you should always take your own interpretations over anything that I say, because it's your dream, and it's your history, and it's your unconscious.
	I'm just throwing balls over the walls trying to hit a bucket.
	So, you know, obviously take your own.
	But there's no reason why it has to be one or the other.
	If you get to the physical violence, and what your unconscious is saying is from where we stand, in my opinion, from where we stand, the defenses around the unconscious...
	Sorry, the unconscious defenses around the spanking or the hitting or the assault is impenetrable.
	And it's interesting because the bars...
	It's interesting.
	The bars for the cattle fence are big and thick, whereas the wire mesh...
	I know, it's that kind of interlocking wire mesh.
	It looks like a graph paper on its side, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Those are much smaller, but actually impenetrable, right?
	Yeah, like I got the sense that it was impenetrable in the dream, definitely.
	Right, so the bars are smaller.
	In other words, they're minimal relative to the other bars that you first went through.
	The bars are smaller, and what does your dad start doing?
	He starts minimizing. Yeah, as soon as we get out of the car, he starts minimizing.
	Right, right. So, again, the bars are smaller, and your dad is minimizing, which is saying that the defenses may look less aggressive, but they're actually harder to penetrate.
	In other words, the bars aren't nearly as thick, but they're much more impenetrable.
	Does that sort of make any sense? Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying with that, yeah.
	So, what's beyond the fence?
	A crevasse or crevice containing white water?
	Now, does the white water mean like it's rapids?
	Yeah, and not so coincidentally, it was raining yesterday, so...
	And what popped into my head when you first read that and looking at it again, the image is even stronger.
	What I get from whitewater and your dad minimizing his actions is the phrase whitewash.
	Will you kind of flush that out a little bit?
	I'm not sure I understand. Sure, well...
	To whitewash something is to minimize the problem.
	It's a cover-up.
	To whitewash means to...
	Let me just...
	I'm going to find the actual definition here because I don't want to try and make one up.
	Whitewash. I think it's slang.
	I'm not sure if it's slang for sure. Let me try a definition.
	Ah, the internet.
	Okay, so Whitewash.
	Concealment or palliation of flaws or failures.
	To conceal or gloss over wrongdoing, for example.
	Yeah, and that's exactly what happened yesterday in that basically...
	His excuse, his minimization was, well, you know, I didn't understand that you were feeling this extremely during the time of the abuse.
	And I said, okay, well, I mean...
	I'm screaming that I hate you, so yeah.
	There's a clue, right?
	There's a small clue.
	And I sort of expanded on that, and I said, like, so...
	During the time that the abuse could actually be dealt with and stopped, now it's too late.
	Now I can defend myself from him, obviously.
	Probably even take him out if I had to.
	During the time where you, thinking about this, could have had some impact and could have prevented more abuse, you just kind of ignored everything.
	But then later, when I... I mean, when that's no longer a plausible situation, now you're suddenly saying, oh, well, I didn't understand before.
	And it's so clear to me now.
	And like, yeah, it's just disgusting to me.
	So also, water goes down rapids.
	Have you ever done that sort of whitewater rafting or anything like that?
	No. The closest thing I've gotten to that is just going down a slight river.
	And did your dad take you to water parks or anything when you were younger?
	No, but we did wade in creeks and rivers sometimes.
	Right. Well, the one thing that's true about whitewater, of course, I've done whitewater rafting.
	When I was an entrepreneur, we took the company as a sort of thank you for a big project.
	We took everyone to A campground for a weekend and we did whitewater rafting there is that the water is going incredibly rapidly when it's churning white through a crevasse, right?
	So it's got a lot of water pressures going through a narrow crevasse and so you get this thundering and jumping and shimmering whitewater.
	Does that sort of fit with what you saw in the dream?
	Yeah. Yeah, it was powerful.
	Right, so what that means is that, at least in my opinion, right, for me, water always represents the unconscious, or at least that's the first place you would look.
	And it means that your dad's unconscious is doing a heck of a lot of work to do this whitewashing and minimization.
	And that's sort of my, you know, I hope this isn't just to prove my theory, right, that people work incredibly hard and incredibly brilliant in these defenses.
	But I think it sort of seems to fit, that the water is going incredibly rapidly, and there's a lot of energy in that water, and that, to me, would be that these minimizations of his actions and decisions is a hell of a lot of work.
	And if you see that, it's going to be a challenge, right?
	Yeah. I mean, you do see it, right?
	And also, the one thing that I'm remembering now is that it actually wasn't the crevice that scared me.
	It was the water itself.
	Right, right.
	Well, because, of course, when the water's going that rapidly, what happens is the crevice gets deeper and deeper, right?
	Because it keeps churning away against the rocks and making it deeper and deeper.
	Yeah, it's true.
	Anyway, that's a... I mean, you could do more, and I'm sure you can do more, and again, just toss out anything that I say that doesn't sort of fit with your emotional apparatus, but that's the take that I would have on the dream just at sort of first pass.
	I think it fits very well, and I think the important thing to ask is, what is your unconscious telling you about what's going to happen in the future?
	I think your unconscious is not saying that there's a lot of optimism to be expected, but I think it's still...
	Because you're still in the scene with your dad, I think it's important to stay in the conversation with your dad.
	You know, I mean, if your unconscious was saying, you know, your dad is a demon, run, run, run, which obviously it's not, then my advice would be different.
	But given that you're still in the car, and you're still looking in the crevasse, and you're still sort of trying to fathom this, and your brother's in there, so it's a family.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we actually – like before we hit the fence – or no, sorry, we didn't hit the fence.
	Before we stopped, we were getting out of the car and that's when he started to minimize.
	Sure.
	And yeah, that's right. And that's because you said that he was not driving, he was not steering, he was not hitting the brakes, right?
	Yes. So his authority is diminishing, right?
	Because he's not driving the car, right?
	So once you get out of the car, then you're more on equal terms and so on, right?
	So when he's driving, he's in control and you're a passenger and all you can do is sort of shriek in terror as he drives at the defense or whatever.
	And so, yeah, so once that sort of doesn't work as much anymore and you take a more adult role in the conversation, then he's not driving anymore, right?
	You're both on the ground out of the car where you're more equal, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, and that's when, like, I started to hear, like, I don't even remember the words he was saying.
	All I got was just this powerful feeling that, oh, he's just making excuses.
	Like, I don't need to listen to this.
	I've heard all this thousands of times.
	Right, and of course the question which always pops into my head, because of my extreme fetish for universalization, is, okay, so if making excuses for your behavior is morally acceptable for you as an adult...
	Why was it not morally acceptable for me as a child?
	Like, if I did something, quote, wrong, was I allowed to minimize and make excuses and blame someone else, right?
	Like, well, my dad...
	Then, if the answer was no, and of course it wasn't no, then the question then becomes, well, why do you have much higher moral standards for a four-year-old than you do for a 40- or 50-year-old?
	Yeah. Yeah. Why does your dad get to make excuses for things that he's done that are objectively wrong when you didn't get to make excuses and be forgiven for things that were merely subjectively disapproved of?
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	It's an important question.
	I mean, yeah, because I never got spanked for major things.
	The only things I remember getting spanked for was either...
	Like disobeying some trivial order, like not staying with a shopping cart when we're shopping, you know?
	Just little things like that, little petty things.
	Right, right, right.
	So, again, I just want to really pound this in, and I know you get it, but I'm sure that there are defenses so your inner dad doesn't want you to get it, right?
	Which is, so if you're allowed to make excuses for these kinds of assaults, and I'm supposed to forgive you, then...
	Why was that rule not available to me when I was four years old?
	If that's okay behavior, if that's good, if forgiveness is good and making excuses is valid, then why didn't you forgive me and why was I never allowed to make excuses?
	Yeah, exactly. So, anyway, that's my thoughts.
	Now, listen, I know we've spent a lot of time on this and I'm sorry to cut it short because, I mean, what you're doing...
	It's very important. No one can tell you what to do with your family, and that's something I always say, but I can tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes.
	Okay. I would ask my father to chip in for or pay for some therapy for myself before I entered into group therapy or into sort of therapy with my father.
	Okay. Okay. I just say, look, there's stuff I need to get square and I need to get straight.
	See, look, couples therapy, and I hate to put it that way because I'm actually not a couple, right?
	And this is just my opinion, right?
	But couples therapy are for two people who are voluntarily in a relationship and who chose to be with each other as adults.
	That's what couples therapy is for.
	So they're both responsible for that marriage, right?
	Two 25-year-olds get married and And they go into couples therapy because one person can't say, well, I'm not here by choice.
	One person can't say, well, I didn't choose this person because they both made choices, so they're both responsible for the relationship, right?
	But it's not how it is with parent-child.
	It's not how it is with parent-child.
	You did not choose your father.
	You did not choose to be there.
	You did not choose his personality.
	You are virtually not at all responsible for...
	The quality of the relationship.
	And therefore, for you both to go into counseling, to me, there's sort of an implicit thing there, like, well, we both have things to work on.
	No! Yeah, yeah.
	No, you didn't spank him!
	You didn't hit him with a goddamn wooden spoon on his ass for nothing!
	It's not equal.
	It's not co-responsible.
	It's not 50-50.
	Wow, yeah, that's a powerful insight.
	And that is a defense that he's putting in.
	Sorry, that's a defense in my estimation, right?
	That he's putting in to saying, well, I guess we both have issues.
	No, no, no, no, no. The tail doesn't wag the dog, right?
	Parents are almost completely responsible for the quality of the relationship that develops with children.
	I say this as a parent.
	I know. I mean, my daughter can't, you know, all she can do is protest, right?
	So I would, again, this is not any kind of professional advice.
	I'm just telling you what I would do, is that I would utterly, utterly, utterly reject the idea that it's somehow 50-50 or, you know, we both need to work on things in this relationship.
	And I've heard this before.
	Parents do this amazing thing where they say, well, I guess we both have issues.
	Let's work on it as equals. It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
	I never changed your diaper.
	You know, I wasn't born into your household with no opportunity for leaving for 18 years.
	I mean, come on. It's a crazy thing.
	And I'm not saying your father is saying this.
	I'm just saying this is sort of my impression or whatever, right?
	But yeah, I would strongly resist the idea that you sort of both need to sit down as if you're both responsible for the relationship in equal portion.
	Yeah, and when he originally brought up the idea that we both go in, it reminded me of a time when it was probably about a year before my mom stopped living with us, and she and I were having these really just terrible interactions because she was being so highly irrational.
	It was to the point where I would see her in her room whispering.
	I'd ask her what she's doing.
	Oh, she's praying. And her sort of mental decline, I obviously didn't understand what the childhood had to do with that.
	I obviously didn't understand any context for mental illness.
	And I guess I sort of held her to the same standard that I would anyone else because that was just a foreign idea to me, like the fact that she was doing that.
	And so we would have all these arguments, and eventually she took us both in to see a therapist.
	And I don't remember much about it, but I remember – There being just a whole bunch of crap that I never...
	A whole bunch of crap coming from the therapist about how, oh, this is all I remember.
	The family is a unit, and when your mom's trying to get you to blah, blah, blah, it's all for the best.
	He was basically telling me to conform to her wishes when she was making these just blatantly...
	Just foolish and irrational ideas.
	Right. And look, this is not just like therapists as a whole, but there's, you know, who's paying the bills?
	You know, he who pays the piper calls the tune, right?
	And it's sort of like going to, you know, Coca-Cola hires an advertising company and it's like expecting those ads to come out critical of the sugar content of Coke.
	You know, for therapists to side with the children when the parents are paying.
	It takes a lot of integrity as a parent, as a therapist.
	Yeah. I didn't think about that too much yesterday, but now I'm starting to remember what that was like, yeah.
	Yeah, and look, I had the same nonsense when my mom called the cops on me.
	came in and I'm sobbing and she's been beating me up and stuff.
	It's a generation gap that you have between you and your mom.
	You need to listen to her.
	Whatever.
	It's like, okay, I'll listen to you now, but I'm going to expose your moral nature in 30 years.
	How's that for a deal?
	That's the best I can do.
	That's the best I can do with the power that I have right now.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So listen, let me get on some other callers, but I really do appreciate your time.
	I absolutely admire your courage in what you're doing, and do keep me posted if you can.
	Oh yeah, certainly. Thank you so much, Steph.
	You're welcome, man. All the best.
	Okay, bye.
	All right.
	We have room.
	While we're waiting...
	don't forget to check out a beautiful new video that my good friend Luke has put together.
	You can get to it at fdurl.com forward slash Amazon.
	Or you can go on YouTube and you can do a search for boobs.
	And if I remember rightly, when you do that, pretty much all you get is philosophical content.
	That's my strong memory of it.
	Or at least some curvy platonic forms.
	something like that.
	So you might want to make sure you check out that video.
	And if you can share it at all, that would be fantastic.
	Fantastic.
	And if you want to check out the
	animator, You can go to youtube.com forward slash Let me try that again.
	Let me pretend I have lips and a tongue.
	YouTube.com forward slash user forward slash Luke Bessey, B-E-S-S-E-Y.
	He's got some great videos there too.
	Thank you.
	Am I going to unschool my daughter?
	I am not sure. That's going to be one of these, cross those bridges when we come to it kind of thing.
	So, I'm not sure.
	I'm definitely mulling it over there.
	I tell you, you know...
	I mean, parenting is a lot of fun.
	And, um, ah, but the other day, ah, it's too beautiful for words.
	I was, um, uh, Isabella was, she was a little tired, which is unusual.
	She had just had a sort of light, light nap or a short nap.
	Sorry, just one sec. And, uh, I was just lying in the, in the red, red room.
	And, uh, we sort of, she likes to sort of being covered up with pillows and coming out and so on.
	We were playing with that. And then she basically just sort of, I was lying on the floor cause she told me, data, lie on carpet.
	And, uh, She just kind of slid down off the couch and just nestled into the crook of my arm.
	And it was really dark in the room just overhead.
	We could see these little sort of lined half moons of the lights of cars going by in the cold winter air.
	And it was very quiet.
	Couldn't even really hear any planes.
	It was very quiet.
	And she sort of lay nestled in the crook of my arms, which is very unusual for a two-year-old.
	I mean, it's pretty...
	It's a pretty active scenario for her.
	And it was at least an hour that we just sort of lay there, very calm, very quiet.
	We're just a light sweeping over the ceiling and coming through the blinds.
	And we were just, we sang a little song or two.
	I told her a couple of stories and asked her a couple of questions and she chatted.
	And sometimes she wouldn't even say yes or no.
	She would just sort of nod and I can feel her little head nestled in my arms and all of that.
	And oh, it was absolutely just, just beautiful.
	And those kinds of memories in parenting are things that you go into your deathbed with a smile with those things in your head.
	And I just hope that parents can Have those kinds of memories more often.
	I hope I can have even those kinds of truly beautiful memories more often.
	I'm sorry about that. Please continue with your question.
	Hey, can you hear me? I sure can.
	How are you doing, Steph? My name is Harrison.
	Hi, Harrison. All right.
	I got a few quick questions.
	I posted on a girl's Facebook wall the story of your enslavement and the story of your un-enslavement.
	And she posted this back.
	I'm gonna post this in the chat room so you can read it?
	Sure. Okay.
	This is what she said.
	I'm curious on how you will debunk this.
	I gave her back a message in and of itself.
	Do you want me to... Let me just read this.
	Is that what you mean? Go ahead.
	Okay, so she wrote, that was interesting, but at the same time, I have to say that that was also just absolute propaganda.
	Not just a little bit, but absolute propaganda.
	Stefan Molyneux's videos are essentially just badly made montages trying to preach a backwards and poorly thought out viewpoint.
	He's unrealistic and he has no evidence to back up his claims, just pictures of animals being tortured, spliced alongside pictures of human beings being tortured, to try and make some sort of vague metaphor.
	He seems like a hypocrite, saying that the state is brainwashing you, while at the same time making his own attempt at brainwashing and enforcing his worldview.
	If both are attempts to brainwash, then I suppose you just have to pick your poison.
	I only trust facts, not angry Canadian bloggers.
	Right. And what is it that you would like me to respond to?
	Well, I'm just curious of what you think.
	I responded to her thing about, okay, explain.
	Well, sorry, this is before. Why are you in a conversation with this person to begin with?
	I'm not saying you shouldn't be. I'm just sort of curious what the relationship is and why you post it and why you care about her response.
	Just curious. I was in New York City with a friend for New Year's Eve.
	It's one of his girlfriends from college that he's friendly with.
	And we got into a discussion about government, etc., etc., I brought up anarcho-capitalism-type ideas, and it went from there.
	She enjoyed my conversation. I guess I got through to it to some degree.
	She wanted to know more about it, but when I sent her your videos, this is what she came back with.
	I did respond to her saying, what exactly is backwards and poorly thought out, and how is he unrealistic, and what evidence do you have to disprove Stefan?
	The only thing I wasn't sure about is what would I say in the attempt to brainwash because the only thing I could view is that the state is coercively putting us in school where you're not doing anything but posting freely on the internet.
	And what did you get back?
	I have not gotten anything back yet.
	And when did you send it?
	Just an hour ago.
	Well, I mean, I don't even know what to say.
	There's no content, right?
	I mean, it's just a bunch of...
	Angry adjectives, right?
	I don't know if you heard my recent video, but my default position is that whenever anybody criticizes me, particularly without any content, then they're going to be doing exactly what they're calling me doing, right?
	If they say, oh, Steph, you're strawmanning, my first assumption, unless they provide evidence saying, well, in this video or podcast at this time, you said this and whatever, right?
	If they don't provide any specific evidence, but they just use the pathetic and ridiculous and embarrassingly retarded I'm not saying everybody who does this is embarrassing retarded, but the actual argument by adjective, you know, like if I pile enough adjectives on this video, can I discredit it? And it's intellectually vacuous.
	It's embarrassing. It is somebody who just says, look, I'm emotionally startled and frightened.
	It upsets me. I can't think, so I'm going to lash back.
	Right? Because she says he has no evidence to back up his claims.
	Right. But, as you rightly said, what evidence does she have to back up her judgments of what I'm doing?
	Yeah, I mean, I guess some of these people also, they are not, it's, you know, as Murray Rothbard says, economics and all these things are dismal sciences, and if you don't know about it and you have a loud, crazy opinion, it's not exactly the best thing.
	But, you know, she'll say, I'm against force, as in the war and police, but financial force, I believe, is okay.
	So she's confused. Whatever.
	I just have... Well, and look, I mean, so look, the state is brainwashing you.
	First of all, my video does not say that the state is brainwashing you.
	Like, in the story of your enslavement, to my memory, I don't recall saying that the state is brainwashing you.
	But here's the moral equivalent that she's attempting to set up, right?
	I mean, just pointing this out, I mean, you could spend an hour talking about the ridiculousness of this post and the tragedy that...
	This is the equivalent that she is putting together.
	So, on the one hand, the government taxes parents so much that usually both of them have to work, which means that the children have to go into government-run or controlled daycare.
	Right. So basically, the parents are forced, largely, not completely, but largely forced to hand over the children to the care of the state from the age of, you know, sometimes 12 weeks to six months to a year onwards.
	And then the parents are forced to pay For the schools and forced to send their children to the schools, or if they're rich, they can double pay by sending them to a private school.
	But for the most part, children are forced to be in schools, and their parents are thrown in jail if they don't pay, and their parents are thrown in jail if their children don't attend, and their parents are thrown in jail, blah, blah, blah, right?
	And this goes on for 16, 17 years, or 18 years, I guess, if you get the kids young enough, right?
	So there's an enforced, enclosed, entrapped, violently inflicted system that goes on for Including homework, right?
	Six to eight hours a day for 18 years, right?
	On the other hand, there's a 12-minute video somewhere on the internet that no one was forced to pay for and that no one is ever forced to look at.
	But you see, these are the two equivalences that she's putting.
	She's putting this one... Right, it's absurd.
	Well, it is. I mean, it's completely deranged.
	Yeah. All right.
	Let me get to two other things.
	Just out of curiosity, I did send you a message via YouTube.
	No, no, no. I'm not done with this yet.
	Okay. All right. I'm not done with this yet.
	And what I mean by that is I'm not done with you yet.
	Okay. Right?
	Because my question is, you met this woman, right?
	Right. And you know that I believe that we know everything we need to know about someone in the first few seconds, right?
	Mm-hmm. And that there's a hell of a lot of scientific evidence behind that, right?
	Right. So tell me, did this come as a surprise to you?
	And if so, why?
	Not at all.
	I mean I love getting into debates just as much as the next guy.
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	This is not a debate.
	No, I'm referring to talking to her about it and trying to enlighten her about non-aggression principles, etc., etc., etc.
	This is why we speak and we go out and we meet someone new and you try to enlighten them, so to speak, on A different way of doing what we've been doing for all this time.
	And I never expect anyone to come openly arms, oh wow, you just brought me the answer to whatever be it.
	So this was not a surprise.
	So it's not a surprise that this kind of nasty, empty, and pretty vicious stuff was posted?
	No, not at all.
	Okay, so tell me a little bit about why you're engaging at this level.
	This level hasn't. I just, you know, okay.
	Nice girl. We spoke.
	We sat down. It was a mutual conversation.
	Nice girl. Wait, wait, wait. Again, I'm really sorry to be interrupting you, and I hope I'm not being too much about us.
	And you can tell me to get lost if you want.
	But nice girl, really?
	I mean, you know, what you've read to me, this is not coming from a nice girl, right?
	Okay, in the abstract, maybe she's not a nice girl in the sense that she views you as attacking her Okay, wait, wait, wait. Sorry, how do you know that she doesn't want to harm anyone?
	Does she support public education?
	All right, do you think that she was attempting to harm me in this post?
	I don't know. I think it's kind of broad as in if she wanted to harm you.
	I think maybe she was getting at – she's just venting whatever I threw at her as she's trying to bounce it off.
	I don't really know where it's coming from.
	But you get that she's morally equating me to the all-violent state, right?
	Absolutely. Absolutely. And she will either recognize that absurdity or not recognize it, and that's up to her.
	And I posted the videos because I think your stuff is absolutely up there with the great works of what it is.
	I love UP being all of it, but I did what I did to see what she could do, and I wanted to see what you had to say about the brainwashing from...
	I guarantee you that you did not.
	Look, I'm going to be completely annoying and a complete know-it-all and tell me again to get lost if I'm being over the top or getting in your face.
	But you posted this to me, I believe, because this is an ugly interaction that you had.
	This is unpleasant, right?
	And I think...
	That if you've talked to this woman for some time beforehand, then you had more than enough information to know what kind of person she was.
	And my concern is that you're not aware of the signs that lead towards somebody who can be this kind of, you know, I hesitate to say verbally abusive, but it's not that far off, right?
	Well, I'm sure you've been in the same boat of where you sit down with someone that you've never met before and you have a discussion and it'll never work because they're whatever they are in their own viewpoint.
	They're communist. I met this girl for three hours, one night in New York City.
	We became friends on Facebook.
	I thought maybe I could send her some information.
	And this is what came back.
	So it's not the end of the world.
	I'll go back to my girlfriend who understands it and I'll enjoy life.
	Okay, so what you're saying is you don't want to explode this anymore, right?
	No, I mean, I wanted to see what you had to say about it, and basically what you said, I took your type of structure and said, well, he's no evidence in the back of his claims.
	I said, well, where are your evidence?
	I used your structure to replay it to her, and we'll see what happens.
	Otherwise, I'm going to let it slide.
	Okay, yeah, look, if you don't want to talk about it anymore, that's no problem, and I appreciate you bringing it up.
	Yeah, I just have one more question quickly on something that I sent to you on YouTube.
	I was curious. I know that I'm on the same page as you as well with religion, but you did...
	I just... Like, okay, last night I found out Murray Rothbard apparently was in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco.
	And he was married to a Catholic.
	So, even from that perspective, I have to add...
	And he was an academic.
	So he's got state protection from the union, right?
	Absolutely. So, I assume I haven't...
	Murray Rothbard is one of your big influences?
	No, he's not actually, no.
	I mean, I didn't get into Murray Rothbard until after I started Free Domain Radio, so I was already an anarchist, I already had the DRO theory, which is, you know, maybe there was some repetition.
	I don't consider him to be a big influence on me, and...
	I also find his writing style to be...
	I mean, I tried to get through his Great Depression book and found like I was being repeatedly clubbed with fuzzy, sleep-inducing sheep.
	So I think that...
	But that having been said, this is all prior to the internet, so there were much fewer avenues for people to get these kinds of thoughts out beforehand.
	And I think that he spent a lot of time working on some seriously academic stuff.
	Like he had this history of economics that he was working on for, I don't know, 10 or 20 years that was never finished, and I think that he could have spent a little bit more energy working out some of the sort of more personal implementations of philosophy.
	So no, I think he was obviously a brilliant guy and way ahead of his time as far as that kind of thinking goes.
	But I think that he could have lived it a little more and wrote about it a little less, if that makes any sense.
	I hear you. So I was equating that to this.
	So Roy Rothbard, rent-controlled apartment against all government interference.
	I just am curious of the – whatever, the mirror effect, the mirror of that was that you said the other day, Merry Christmas, all this other stuff.
	I'm just curious. Do you have a Christmas tree in your house?
	Do you celebrate anything like that with your daughter?
	And if so, is that a contradiction in and of itself?
	I was just curious. Sorry, you're equating if I have a Christmas tree with Murray Rothbard taking state-controlled rent?
	In the sense of you're 100% opposed to religion.
	Yeah, but look, I'm 100% opposed to religion.
	I'm not 100% opposed to trees with lights on them.
	I think they're quite pretty. And it just...
	Okay, so... No, look, I'm happy to hear the criticism.
	I just want to make sure I understand, right?
	Look, first of all, Christmas trees have nothing to do with Christianity.
	They're a celebration of the winter solstice, which is, damn, winter has gone on for a long time.
	We're right at the bottom of the trough, so we have to light up the shack a little bit because we're all sick of winter and we've got a couple of months to go.
	So it is a fundamentally secular tradition to do with lightening up the home during the darkest times of winter.
	So it doesn't have anything to do with Christianity, right?
	Right, I understand on that, but you don't think that In the, you know, reality that you're going, it's like you're going buying Christmas during Christmas time for the Christians, wherever it is.
	You're going to the mall and buying daughters, gifts, et cetera, et cetera.
	I just thought maybe the way that I found about Rothbard, who's a huge influence, that he's in a rent control department, that's hugely hypocritical in my viewpoint.
	It just is like, as you said- But that also relies on the initiation of force, right?
	Right. How does the Christmas tree, me buying a Christmas tree, rely on the initiation of force?
	Well, you know, it doesn't necessarily rely on initiative sports, but aren't you, if you're doing that, aren't you putting your daughter in that sense of the realm of that you're acknowledging that, or aren't you putting yourself...
	Acknowledging that? What do you mean?
	Sorry, acknowledging that? Of course I'm acknowledging it.
	Christmas exists and has been largely taken over by Christian organizations and is considered to be a Christian holiday.
	I acknowledge that. That's part of reality.
	I mean, I'm not going to say, you know, if she sees a church on the corner, I'm not going to say, there's no church there.
	There's just a smoking crater of You know, fantasy.
	No. Right, right. Then I think that it's not anything to do with a sanctioning of religion in any way,
	shape, or form. Okay, I understand.
	I just find you very intriguing, and I love your work.
	Same with Rothbard. I just saw that as maybe some kind of thing that I just didn't know I need to ask you.
	But keep it up, man.
	You do the world a great service, and I appreciate it through and throughout.
	Well, thank you so much, and I appreciate you sending the video around.
	I really do. And I certainly do appreciate you posting that kind of feedback, Mac.
	I used to get a lot more of that.
	I don't really so much anymore, but I think it is always...
	Sorry? What feedback you're saying?
	Oh, the feedback from this woman that you talked to.
	I thought it was interesting, and it's always good, I think, because...
	Whenever you try to do anything in this world, right?
	I mean, you hold that one finger, 10,000 people are going to scream at you that it ought to be a thumb and that you're completely wrong for doing the finger.
	And that just makes you put up another finger, at least for me.
	As I said, I've glazed over your videos and I kind of fell away from you for a while, but I've come back and this is obviously the first time I'm speaking to you.
	So great talking to you. Nice talking with you too.
	And have yourself a wonderful new year.
	I hope you had a great Christmas and a very happy new year.
	You got it, man. Thank you very much.
	Enjoy the night. All the best.
	Now, everybody. Oh, little star of Bethlehem.
	Anyway. All right. Thank you so much.
	I think we have time for another...
	Hi, Steph. Hello.
	Yeah, okay. I have a question about...
	Wait, wait, wait. Stand back from the microphone a little bit.
	You're kind of there. I'm sorry.
	So I have a question about a Christmas party I went to a few days ago and my brother was there during the year I decided not to see him anymore but I saw him there and the first thing he said the only thing he said to me was look if you're not gonna talk to me anymore or to us anymore his wife included then you don't have to talk with my child anymore either And then the whole evening he was pulling away his child.
	So I'm the godfather of his child and the child constantly came to me.
	Not constantly, but regularly.
	And he constantly, together with his wife, they pulled her away.
	And then also at one moment he was just staring at me and I looked at him back and he was just pulling stupid faces at me.
	So I ignored that.
	Sorry, your brother the adult was pulling stupid faces at you?
	Yes. Right, okay.
	Like we did when we were young, like looking at the other like he's stupid and just making the other one angry just by staring stupid at him.
	So he was doing that. But after the Christmas party, the next day I really had the bad feeling like, look, I don't want to do that again next year.
	It was painful for me to have the child being pulled away constantly.
	All the other people see that.
	It was just not pleasant for me.
	So I decided I'm not going to do that again next year.
	But then the other brother says to me, Look, then he wins because that was his objective.
	And then you won't see that family anymore and he wins.
	So I wouldn't do that. I would go back.
	But what would you do?
	What do you think about that?
	What would you do next year?
	Gosh, that's a tough question.
	I don't, of course, know the whole history.
	Why did you stop talking to your brother?
	Well, together with his wife, whenever I am with them, they insult me.
	They say things like, I'm a freak, or they just say what I have to do with my life.
	It's constantly a fight, actually.
	So I don't want that anymore.
	It's not pleasant to be with them.
	And are there other family members or other people there that you like to see that you can't see in other contexts?
	Yes. Cousins.
	I can see them in other contexts, but okay, then I have to do that myself.
	Normally, I only see them once there every year.
	Right. Yeah, I mean, if I were in your situation, I would create an alternate social engagement where I could see the people that I wanted to see and not see the people who I didn't want to see.
	I mean, take that initiative and do it that way.
	Yes, okay. I agree with that.
	But, like, what do you think that he wins that way?
	He wins that way.
	I'm sorry, he what? He wins, eh?
	I'm not coming. Oh, what do you mean?
	No, no, no. Look, I mean, that's...
	First of all, I mean, if you get what you want, then it's not like you lose, right?
	So let me sort of give you an example, right?
	So, if there's some restaurant that you go to and you see the waiter spit in your sandwich and you say, well, I'm going to try and tell the boss, but if the boss doesn't do anything and says, no, that's the waiter you're always going to get, then you say, well, I'm not going back to that restaurant.
	Does that mean you have lost and the restaurant owner has won?
	No, it just means you're not going back there because you're being badly treated and you can't change it.
	And you obviously, I mean, I assume you've tried and you can't change your brother's behavior.
	And this is astoundingly horrible and immature that he would be keeping his children away and making faces at you.
	I mean, that's just bizarre on so many different levels and ugly and unpleasant.
	And so it's not like if you assert your voluntary choice in relationships and locations, it's not like your brother wins.
	What does he win? I mean, so...
	Other people get two parties instead of one.
	That's not a bad thing, and you get to see the people that you like, and you don't have to see the people that you don't like.
	And I'm sorry that your godchildren are involved.
	I mean, that's just terrible, but often quite inevitable.
	But I wouldn't get involved in that kind of who wins and who loses.
	That is a very provocative way to look at it.
	My brother tried the same thing, right?
	So I said, I don't want to see my mom because she does X, Y, and Z. It's like, oh, well, then she's controlling your behavior and she wins.
	It's like, okay, so she wins.
	I mean, so that's fine.
	She can win, but I still am not going to spend time with people that I don't like.
	Right? So, I mean, if they want to call that her winning and me losing, then that's fine.
	You know, if the restaurant manager thinks that he's won because I don't go back to his restaurant because his beloved waiter spat in my sandwich, it's like, okay, then he can call that a victory, but I'm still not going to eat sandwiches with spit in them.
	I'm going to call that a victory.
	Mm-hmm. Yes, well, I agree with you, so thank you for that answer.
	Another problem I have is, like, I'm in a fight with my family now about property I own together with them, but they don't want to divide it.
	I want my part of it and sell it, but they don't want to cooperate with that.
	So I've taken a strong stance and I'm about to start with the court case against them so that the court divides the building and I can sell my part.
	But I'm still thinking, like I could play it the other way, like I have always learned to, like being nice to them.
	And then you will get some bones thrown to you, but you will get at least something.
	But now I've changed that strategy and I say, look, I'm not being nice anymore.
	I ask what is mine.
	And then now they are counteracting stronger, like I don't get anything anymore.
	So, but, like, sometimes in life I think it's maybe smarter, like, if I'm being nice now, I could maybe get an agreement with them, and I would have a lot more money left than if I start a card case for years, and, yeah, that could ruin a lot of the financial gains in that property.
	So... I don't know.
	Like, what would you do if you owned something with your brother and would you play the nice guy or just, yeah, go to court?
	I wouldn't do either.
	And I can tell you this from experience.
	And look, I don't know the details of your situation and no one can tell you what to do.
	But I can tell you what I did is I just walked away.
	Yeah, there was money involved.
	Yeah, there was property to a certain degree involved.
	I just walked away.
	Yeah, but there's a lot of money that you're leaving behind.
	Sure, sure.
	Sure, but so what? I can make more money.
	Because what I did was I said, okay, I mean, just sort of in my own mind, I said, okay, well, this doesn't really matter the amount, but it was quite a bit, right?
	It's this amount of money, and if I go for it, it's going to take probably this many hours, right?
	So I divided the hours into the money, and I said, okay, so this is a certain amount of money per hour that I'm going to have to spend dealing with this shit, right?
	And would I... You know, do I want to, right?
	Now, if it's a million dollars an hour, then yeah, it's probably worth it, right?
	If it's $10 an hour, probably not, given that there's no certainty in the outcome of any court case that you could end up not only not getting what you want, you might even end up with legal fees being assessed against you, and you might be in the hole rather than getting something,
	that this could drag on for years, and that not only is it the time you actually spend on the court case, but it's all the time you spend frustrated and And thinking about it and pissed off and waiting for something to come back and flinching every time you get a registered letter or whatever, right?
	Look, I don't know the amount involved, and it doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter to me, obviously.
	It matters to you. But I would at least explore the opportunity or the option of just walking away.
	Of just walking away from it.
	What is your time and peace of mind and happiness worth?
	And are you trying to bring justice and vengeance against an irrational and manipulative family system, if that's what you're facing?
	For me, it wasn't worth it.
	And I don't regret that decision for a moment.
	But that's completely up to you.
	I just would question whether it's worth it.
	Okay, great. Thanks for that answer, Steph.
	Can I throw in another question?
	There are a lot of people waiting.
	Let me just ask Buddy J. James, do we have anyone on deck?
	I don't know offhand. Let's see if anyone on the call wants to speak up.
	Hang on just a sec.
	We'll come back. We just want to make sure if we get anybody else.
	I had a quick question.
	Is this a new caller? Yeah, I'm sorry.
	I just want to make sure we get everyone and you got your two licks in, but I hope that it works out and I'm sorry that you are facing this good stuff.
	For your answers, it's really helpful.
	Thanks a lot. Not exactly answers, just perspectives, but okay.
	So, sorry, we had somebody else?
	Yeah. Am I coming through all right?
	Yeah, actually, sounds good.
	It doesn't sound like you're shouting into a yogurt cup, so good.
	Okay, so I've seen a number of FDR listeners had been conversing with each other, you know, seeing Facebook statuses and a little bit of myself doing this.
	And, you know, it seems that some of us are trying to get self-knowledge out of some of these talks.
	Yeah, I was wondering if you had any guidelines or suggestions as to how we could approach these to greater achieve that goal of self-knowledge.
	Tell me more. I just want to make sure I get the framework of more detail of what you're talking about.
	Well, sometimes people will have a particular feeling that they're trying to work out or a certain issue like, oh, I've got problems with procrastination or dealing with my siblings or something and they talk to other FDR listeners and hope to gain more knowledge about themselves or...
	What have you.
	And I was wondering if you had any ideas as to how we might be able to approach this to make better use of that time together, either as the person hoping for help or as the person trying to help out.
	Right. Right.
	Well, that's a big topic, and I can just give you a few thoughts that pop into my mind.
	When you're talking about sort of detailed and complex topics of self-knowledge or emotional topics, I find that listening is an unconscious process.
	In other words, you should drink yourself into oblivion before starting it.
	It's an unconscious process.
	And what I mean by that is when I'm listening to someone, I'm really listening to what it is that they're saying, and I'm listening to the sound of In my heart that their words make when they fall in, right?
	So it's sort of like if you want to measure a well, you maybe drop some coins in and you'll listen to them bouncing off the side of the well and then there'll be a sploosh at the bottom.
	So I'm listening to the sound or the effect that their words are having on me when they're talking.
	So when I was just talking to the fellow at the beginning of the call who was telling me about his father and his father...
	Or his mom, I think, stopped hitting him when he was old enough to resist or avoid or fight back.
	Then those words, I felt anger arise in me.
	And I think then I sort of expressed what I was thinking about in terms of that anger.
	I think that very often...
	We look at communication in relationships like it's a talking stick.
	You know, like this old cheesy thing where families, only one person gets to hold the stick and talk.
	So it's like, if I feel, then my feelings eclipse you.
	And if you feel, then your feelings eclipse me.
	So if you're feeling something really strong, like you're crying or you're really angry or something, then I have to focus on what you feel and I have to shut down my own feelings so that I can really focus on you.
	Right? Sort of like a...
	surgeon and you're in a car, a big car pile up with 20 cars and you get hurt in your back, but it's not too bad.
	Then you kind of have to ignore that back pain while you're focusing on saving people who've received terrible wounds to the head or something.
	Right?
	So it's like if somebody gets really emotional, it's like, okay, I have to shut down my feelings and I have to focus on their feelings.
	And I think that is a mistake.
	I think that is where a lot of conversations stall.
	And I think that's where a lot of loneliness increases.
	What we want to be when we're emotional...
	It's not in the presence of somebody who's entirely focused on us, but we want to be connected with someone who is connected with himself or herself.
	So when somebody is trying to deal with something that is emotional or is feeling very strong feelings, I think the true connection comes...
	When you feel and honestly express your reactions to those feelings, you know, without making it about you and this and that and the other.
	And unfortunately, I think, and if you remember how this man described his father's defenses, that his father made it all about him and my feelings and my childhood, my father did this and that.
	That's an example that we often get, right?
	So then we feel something, right?
	So this young man was trying to, I think he's a young man, was trying to talk about his upset over the spanking assaults.
	And his father, according to his reports, eclipsed it and began talking about his own childhood and his own history.
	And I think that we experience that so often in our upbringing that we often believe that if we start talking about our experiences when somebody else is being upset or somebody else is feeling something very strong, that we are somehow eclipsing or denying their emotional experience.
	And I think it's really important that we listen to the person and we listen to our response to the person.
	We can meet intellectually through argument, through debate, through information, through that kind of data sharing.
	But I think that where real intimacy, growth, love, affection, friendship, Passion.
	Where all of that stuff is when we can both feel at the same time.
	And it's not win-lose.
	And it's not like two kids on a seesaw.
	One person feels more. The other person must immediately dial it down to make room.
	But where we both can be passionate and we can both be present.
	We can both have feelings.
	We can both be connected to ourselves.
	And through that connection to ourselves, we connect.
	You have to know how to work your arms in order to give someone a hug.
	If somebody comes up to hug you, there's no point just standing there like you're a surfboard, because that's perceived as a rejection.
	So when somebody gets emotional, sometimes, or all too often, our response is to freeze.
	Oh, okay, I have to put myself aside and cater to this person like they're wounded and I'm healthy.
	But I think that's a mistake that is easily understandable based on the history that a lot of us have, and I think most of us have.
	And I would really focus on, to help people with their emotions the most, focus on How you are perceiving and honestly communicate your experience of the other person and invite them to do the same.
	I think that is the greatest advantage.
	You can't think through these things in an intellectual way.
	The soul is understood by the soul, not by the frontal lobes or the left ventricle of the heart.
	And by the soul, I simply mean the entire combination of being, that is physical sensation, intellectual thoughts.
	Unconscious imagery, feeling, the entire being of a human being, which is everything that you're experiencing.
	It is in that acceptance of our entire experience, which is wrapped up with and includes the other person who's talking, that we get real intimacy, that we can join together in reality.
	And so if you attempt to help somebody without relying on your unconscious feeling, Then you're attempting to deal with unconscious stuff without using your own unconscious.
	And that means you will be vastly outclassed and outmatched because the unconscious, according to a good deal of research, is several thousand times, six, seven thousand times faster at processing wide-spectrum information.
	And so if emotions are coming up in the conscious mind, so if emotions are coming up in the other person, that's an unconscious, massive processing.
	And if you are not Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah, and I thank you for your suggestions there.
	And if you have any other, like if you've got a lot more that you could say on that, I'd certainly love to hear a podcast on that subject.
	And from the looks of it, there's probably a lot of people that would benefit from that.
	And what would be a good topic name for that?
	I'll add this to the list right now because I'm a slave to you.
	So what should I add as a title?
	really don't know at the moment.
	We'll call it deep contact.
	Sure. It sounds like either bad science fiction or bad porn, but that's all I can come up with in the moment because that's my creative process, so to speak.
	That's all right. Well, thanks very much.
	I appreciate it. It's a very good...
	Yeah, sorry, we don't have room for another two questions.
	If somebody wants to type one, we still have a minute or two.
	too.
	If you wanted to type into the chat room, I would be happy to take one more shorty short question.
	Somebody says, I would love a podcast on dissociation or emotional numbing, chronic emotional numbing, if you know anything about it.
	I'm not a big expert on emotional numbing, so I would not be very good, I think, at talking about that.
	But I'll mull it over. Any upcoming speaking events?
	Yes, I am on Alex Jones TV tomorrow, believe it or not.
	So, we're back, baby.
	And I'm doing a college presentation on UPB. In January, but I don't know if it's open to outsiders.
	Although, of course, I will record it as best as I can.
	What did Santa bring for Izzy?
	We... Not Santa. She's not a big fan of Santa.
	She finds it a little creepy, I think.
	But, no, we brought...
	She got a great easel, which she just loved.
	And we spent the day sort of setting it up and teaching her how to use the chalk, which she then promptly transferred to, I don't know, every material substance known to mankind in the house.
	So, all right.
	So anything else?
	All right.
	Well, thank you everybody so much.
	And, um, It's one of my favorite times of the week, being able to have conversations with you brilliant, wonderful, magnificent, delicious and courageous people.
	I was talking about this with a listener this week, This is a pretty important movement that we're doing here.
	And I really do invite people, as and when they feel comfortable, to take on leadership roles in the realm of philosophy.
	I think time is pressing.
	I think it's important to act sooner rather than later.
	I think it's important to act decisively rather than rashly.
	But I think that...
	The opportunity to get in at the ground floor of a powerful, necessary, and virtuous movement is not common.
	I don't think that it's going to happen again in my lifetime for me.
	I don't think it's going to happen again in your lifetime for you.
	I think it is a powerful opportunity to take on A leadership role to, in a sense, get in at the ground floor of a movement that the world needs the most, I think. And I would invite you to consider this as an opportunity.
	Consider this as a possibility that 2011 could be the year that you really step up for philosophy and really take on a leadership role to really help the world.
	If not now, When?
	And if not you, who?
	I think it's an extremely rare and I think an extremely powerful opportunity.
	I think it's something that you will not have cause to regret.
	I think it's something that if you have the capacity to do but don't do it, you will have cause to regret.
	And I just would really like to invite people to look at that as a possibility.
	To be heroic in the realm of philosophy in the world this year.
	I mean, the show's been running for half a decade now, and there certainly are stirrings of leadership eruptions in the community, which I think is fantastic.
	I just wanted to strongly urge people to take that on, to take it up, and to move it forward.
	This is a conversation that the world needs in order to survive, in order to flourish, in order to avoid a pretty grim catastrophe, a potential dark age.
	We don't want to be the fragments of MP3 files and...
	Forum conversations that are rediscovered 500 years from now as the world crawls out of the wreckage of a highly technological fascism, if it even ever does.
	We don't want to be the rediscovery of the ancient philosophers that occurred in the Middle Ages through the paths of the Muslim philosophers.
	We don't want to be the rediscovered fragments of an old philosophy that was unable to turn the tide of the growing evils of the world.
	I think we want to stand up like a shining statue.
	Like many golden gods, against the rising tide of irrationality and justified violence, child abuse.
	And it may be that we don't turn back the tide.
	It may be that we go underwater.
	But I think it should not be because we could have done more but didn't.
	And I would also strongly suggest that don't do this because you have a responsibility to the world.
	Don't do this because you have a responsibility to the future.
	That is not a way to motivate anyone, at least avoid yourself.
	I would say do it because of the immense pleasure and pride that comes out of making a genuine difference in the world.
	I would say do it Because the flexing of the mightiest muscles of the mind is a grand and powerful and disorienting and glorious and decisive sport.
	And it's a sport in which there are no losers except the bad guys.
	And that is a great game to be in.
	So thank you everybody again so much.

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