1983 Good is Evil
The true history of ethics.
Aug. 23, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
05:00
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| This is the true history of what is commonly called morality. | |
| If you were the only thief in the world, imagine how easy your job would be. | |
| There would be no locks, no security systems, no passwords, no police. | |
| You could just take stuff and people would probably just assume they lost it. | |
| On the other hand, if everyone in the world was a thief, everyone would half-starve, no one would create more than they consumed in the moment, because it would just be stolen. | |
| So, if you want to be a great thief, the greatest, perhaps, your best strategy would be to convince everyone else to stop stealing. | |
| Not because you think theft is wrong, you are after all a thief, but because you don't want the competition Thus the most brilliant thieves invent property rights to make theft easier and more profitable. | |
| If everyone is a counterfeiter, money is worthless. | |
| If you want to be a great counterfeiter, the greatest perhaps, your first step is to convince everyone else that counterfeiting is immoral, wrong, evil, and must be punished. | |
| Then you must convince everyone that your own counterfeiting is moral, good, virtuous, and must be rewarded. | |
| This is what George Orwell called Doublethink. | |
| In order for us to accept such madness, the wheels of our minds must first be broken by indoctrination, by government, schools, Ethics. | |
| Virtue. | |
| Morality. These were not invented and inflicted from any desire to spread goodness, but rather to disarm and enslave others, to disarm and enslave you. | |
| The sequence is always the same. | |
| Invent a universal standard of good behavior and then create an invisible exception for yourself and your friends by calling it something else. | |
| Thou shalt not steal! | |
| Okay, alright, theft is wrong. | |
| Thus, those in power have to call their theft taxation. | |
| Thou shalt not kill. | |
| Okay, alright, murder is wrong. | |
| Thus, those in power have to call their murders wars. | |
| No kidnapping! | |
| Okay, alright, kidnapping is wrong. | |
| Thus, those in power have to call their kidnappings incarceration. | |
| Violence is wrong. | |
| Okay, alright, using violence to get what you want is wrong. | |
| Thus, those in power have to call their violence spanking or laws. | |
| Do you see the pattern? | |
| Create a universal moral rule and then create an exception for yourself and your friends. | |
| It's very easy to test this theory, walk up to an average citizen and ask him if using violence to solve problems is good. | |
| He will say no. | |
| Point out that the state initiates force all the time in the pretense of solving problems, he will immediately start to defend the state. | |
| It is inevitable. | |
| People defend moral rules and then defend the most blatant violations of those same moral rules. | |
| This is how we are controlled. | |
| This is how we are propagandized. | |
| This is how money dies. | |
| This is how freedom dies. | |
| This is how we die. | |
| If someone gives you a moral rule, the first thing to do is to examine not the rule, but the exception. | |
| Who is not bound by that rule? | |
| Who gets to do the exact opposite? | |
| It will always be those in power. | |
| That is why moral rules exist. | |
| Any thinker who actually tries to apply universal moral rules universally is considered insane, bizarre, ridiculous, because the purpose of universal morality is the exception, the violation Governments disarm citizens by denying them weapons, while retaining monstrous weapons in the hands of the state. | |
| It is the same with morality. | |
| Open your mind. | |
| Open your eyes. |
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