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Nov. 19, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

40:55

2036 Corruption, Love, Intimacy...

Spotting crazy before you get involved.

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	So I've been thinking a little bit about some of the reactions I got to the Atlas Shrugged review that I put out yesterday.
	It's fascinating to me, and I see nothing but a continual confirmation of my central thesis.
	I'm sure it's not mine alone, but it's certainly one I've put forward.
	My central thesis, that it is slave-on-slave violence that drives statism.
	It is our willingness to attack each other that is the source of the state's Power.
	And I think it's really important to remember, when you bring philosophy to people, what they are concerned about is not themselves, but their relationships.
	When you bring philosophy to people, you are causing them to be concerned not about themselves, but about their relationships.
	And the way that I would sort of analogize it is something like this.
	That everyone believes that they're standing in a house built on rock, made of granite, and topped with oak beams and all of these wonderful kind of firm building materials.
	And philosophy knocks on the door hard.
	Now, of course, if you live in a house that's strong, having the door knocked on hard is no big problem.
	But the reality is that it is a house of cards.
	People's relationships are a house of cards.
	This is what is so horrifying about the world.
	And I analogize this again some time back when I was suggesting to people, if you have issues with your parents, to sit down and talk about those issues with your parents and be honest and be real.
	And everybody... You know, kind of freaked out about that.
	And there's a falsehood in the freak-out-ness of the reaction to that.
	Because somebody says, I have a stone bridge across this river.
	It's strong, it's firm, it's got foundations, it's well done.
	And I say, okay, great, well then, take two steps on it.
	And everyone's like, oh my god, I can't, that's just terrible.
	I can't take two steps on it.
	Well, that is a knowledge that people don't want to have.
	So, we're all told, of course, that the family is...
	blood is sick of the mortar, that family is everything, that you're there for your family, loyalty, and all this kind of stuff.
	In which case, great!
	Then, a relationship that is so strong, a relationship that is so founded upon loyalty and love and togetherness and support and so on, should be more than able to handle Differences of opinion.
	You know, if I love someone, then that person's difference of opinion with me is not an insult to my love.
	But the reality is that relationships are astoundingly fragile.
	Relationships that are not based on philosophy, relationships that are not based upon shared values, are unbelievably fragile.
	So a guy was posting on the message board today about how he'd go out with his friends drinking and then to hookah.
	Bars. H-O-O-K-A, not K-E-R. And he would maybe have a couple of beers over the course of the evening, and he sort of got home at 4 a.m., and he realized that he'd been feeling sort of anxious and stressed all night because his friends kept pushing him to drink more.
	Well, I mean, I hate to say it, but that's how fragile those friendships are.
	Try not having any beers. And A, seeing how much you enjoy those interactions, and B, seeing how much your friends accept your difference of opinion.
	Try talking about non-violence, anarchism, voluntarism, and see how far you get.
	Try talking about child abuse.
	Try talking about objectivism.
	Try talking about philosophy as a whole.
	How do you know what you know?
	How do you know what you're doing is good and right?
	But you see, human beings without philosophy, without values, you can't have integrity if you don't have consistency, and you can't have consistency if you don't have philosophy.
	And so, everybody's a house of cards.
	Everybody is just a trembling house of cards.
	And a house of cards fears the wind.
	And a house of cards that thinks it's a castle of rocks unconsciously fears the wind.
	And cannot fight against the wind.
	Cannot survive the wind.
	And so, must just keep the wind at bay using a variety of manipulative tricks.
	Right? Everybody who is denied philosophy must pursue manipulation.
	Must pursue manipulation.
	Because they must avoid the horror of the culture that denies them philosophy.
	Because once you see the culture and understand the culture that denies you philosophy, then your next question has to be, well, why?
	Why does it deny you philosophy?
	What is its goal in denying you philosophy?
	Why is it that your friends and family are so hostile and fearful and contemptuous of philosophy?
	Well, that leads you down a rabbit hole that squirts you birth-wise outside the matrix, and then you get to see the hellish machine that crushes and grinds human minds and souls into a gritty, useful, statist paste.
	And when you talk about objectivism, What you're doing is you're saying to people, take a step on the bridges to others that you say are so firm.
	Take a step on the bridges to others that you say are so firm.
	And everybody knows that those bridges are made of cardboard and papier-mâché and bubbles and prayers to a non-existent God.
	And that they are astoundingly and awesomely fragile.
	And that fragility is known, and that fragility must be avoided at all costs.
	Because in the absence of philosophy, people have no identity.
	Because in the absence of philosophy, you only have conformity, and conformity is the cyst that forms around emptiness.
	It is the shell that houses not a being-to-be, but a being that was and died.
	And people have to avoid that emptiness, that knowledge of their own emptiness.
	That what they view as their self is a shell around a crypt.
	It is a coffin with a happy face on it.
	And why they were killed and who killed them.
	And the stink of that internment is something that must be forever avoided.
	And that's why... The culture cannot answer philosophy with anything other than slander.
	With anything other than insults.
	Slander and insults are sure signs of a weak and broken mind.
	Of a fearful mind. Of a cowardly mind.
	It's one thing to be broken.
	It's entirely another thing to break.
	And that's why people are fearful of philosophy.
	And that's why... When philosophy arises, people either bat it away or they take it on as a secret lover, as a mistress that they will pursue but must hide and whose values they can never bring to bear in their relationships.
	Because if they bring philosophy to bear in their relationships, they will realize that the protestations of love that they've heard all their lives are merely the lariats of soft and shady control.
	And people can say that they love you But then they have to say why they love you, right?
	I mean, otherwise it's just manipulation.
	And if people can't say, why do they love you?
	And most times what you'll get back about why people love you is because you're useful to them.
	Because you have utility.
	Because you... You're helpful, you're kind, you're useful, right?
	And I think that's a pretty narcissistic definition of love, those people who are useful to us.
	I don't think that's a very helpful definition of love.
	Or I guess it's helpful to narcissists, but it's not really a rational definition of love, that which is helpful.
	I think helpfulness is involved in love, but it is not the definition of love.
	Sex is involved in love.
	It's not the definition of love. Otherwise, a gangbang would be the summit of virtue, and I would not argue that.
	And this is the most common question that I get, really.
	In fact, it's fundamentally the only question that I get in terms of relationships.
	People will say to me, write me letters, and basically say, Steph, I've been going out with this Woman for 18 months.
	And we have a problem.
	I'm really into philosophy.
	And I try to share philosophy with her, but she's indifferent or hostile or blasé or contemptuous or, you know, complains that it is making me alienated or lonely or bitter or angry or, you know, whatever people come up with that they come up with to explain this kind of stuff.
	I'll explain away the effects of philosophy.
	I see this all the time.
	All the time.
	And basically the question is, okay, well, how can I make this relationship good?
	How, oh, how can I make this relationship good, given where it has started from?
	And... To my mind, and I say this with massive amounts of sympathy, but to my mind, all that they're basically asking is, all I have for ingredients to my sandwich is bread and shit.
	And given that all the ingredients I have for my sandwich are bread and shit, how can I make a great tasting sandwich?
	I will say that you really can't.
	I'm sorry to say, but you really, really can't.
	And I say this as a guy who has spent years in limbo, in relationships, in just this kind of limbo.
	So again, I'm not preaching from any superior standpoint, but for a bitter and hard-won knowledge that you simply cannot turn a shit sandwich into a tasty burrito.
	I guess you can go the other way, but that's the reality, right?
	That is the reality.
	And I can sort of understand why there is this magical thinking that is necessary for people to sustain themselves in these pseudo-relationships.
	But if you can't relate in the realm of values, you can't relate at all.
	I mean, in any meaningful way.
	You can distract yourself, you can go to movies, you can socialize, you can have sex, you can buy houses, you can clean, you can shop, you can do six million other things to distract yourself, but you cannot relate in any fundamental way.
	The true self runs on values.
	The hint as to why the true self runs on values is in the word true, right?
	It comes before self.
	It's the true self, and the true self can only run on that which is in fact true.
	And philosophy is that which allows you to know which is true, what is true and what is false.
	So because of that, Basic fact.
	If you don't have truth in your relationship, if your relationship is hostile to truth, then you cannot have a true self in that relationship.
	And since we can only meet in reality and not in fantasy or irrationality, that is the basic reality of relationships.
	Without philosophy, there is no identity.
	Without identity, there can be no intimacy.
	There can be no intimacy without identity.
	And that is something that really needs to be understood.
	It is a fundamental truth that slurps up more human souls into unnecessary and infinite, slowly strangling quitsand than any other.
	The future of a relationship, the future of a relationship, of any relationship, is defined and rendered almost absolute in the moment that philosophy enters that relationship.
	In the moment that philosophy enters into that relationship, that is the moment where the future of that relationship is determined.
	I could be wrong.
	Not for the first time, not for the last.
	I can't, off the top of my head, having had so many conversations, as my daughter would say, lots of so many conversations about this very topic, with some very open, honest Smart people.
	I can't think of a relationship where there's been a slow steamship turnaround of these kinds of issues, where somebody who starts off hostile to philosophy ends up a fan and an enthusiast of philosophy.
	That does not seem to occur.
	What seems to happen, in fact, not what seems to happen, what has been reported countless times as happening, is that People's initial reaction to philosophy hardens and calcifies and gets more...
	Sorry, let me not repeat myself.
	Too, too much. But it hardens and calcifies.
	And that is unbelievably brutal for people.
	It's just unbelievably brutal.
	And it just tends to harden and calcify and continue along that path and get worse and worse.
	And what happens, of course, is that the philosopher in the relationship starts to avoid talking about philosophy.
	So I feel sort of like a professor of mathematics, and these highly intelligent graduate students come up to me and say, all right, how can I make this equation better?
	How can I make this paper better?
	How can I make this argument better?
	And so I sort of look at the 20-page stack of documentation they've got for their mathematical argument, and at the beginning it says, let us assume that 2 and 2 make 5.
	And they sort of then go on from there, and they say, well, how can this be improved?
	How can I improve this? And unfortunately, all, all, all that I can say is that it can't be.
	It can't be you start with 2 and 2 make 5.
	Everything that you add after that is just an attempt to cover up that basic unreality, that basic illogic or anti-logic at the beginning.
	Right? You cannot make a successful equation no matter how many symbols you pile on top of 2 and 2 make 5.
	You cannot make a successful equation out of it.
	It's right at the beginning.
	It's right at the beginning that it matters.
	Now, Of course you understand that it is entirely to the advantage of corrupt people that this not be understood, right?
	Remember, there's a huge amount of work that corrupt people put into keeping these basics at bay.
	Because let's say that everyone had this evil alarm.
	Again, evil corruption, you understand, I'm just talking about negative stuff.
	I'm not saying that everyone who's like this is evil, but I hope you will forgive me for some of the hyperbole, as usual.
	But not the tangents. Never forgive me for the tangents.
	Nail them up, I say. Nail some sense into them.
	But it is entirely to the advantage of corruption to pretend that it's more complicated than it is.
	You know, so for instance, if everyone had the amazing magical ability to see clearly and directly whether somebody was going to be good in a relationship or bad, who would that benefit?
	Well, obviously it would benefit the people who were good in relationships, and it would harm the people who were going to be destructive or abusive or negative in relationships.
	And it doesn't take a lot of brains to figure out that given how much is obscured in this basic area, what the ratio is of people who are good in relationships versus people who are bad in relationships.
	Remember, the majority of people are really bad in relationships.
	The majority of people get to choose their spouses.
	Everyone really gets to choose their spouse, pretty much.
	And 50% or more of these end in divorce.
	And it's not like all the remaining ones are all kinds of happy.
	So, that's an important thing to remember, that most people are going to be really bad for you in a relationship, and they want to be in a relationship without improving, right?
	Because if they have to improve, then all their relationships get called into question and attack and hostility and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So, remember that there is a massive amount of energy that is put into It's obscuring the basic reality of perception in relationships.
	So, I mean, imagine.
	Imagine what would happen. Imagine what would happen if philosophy were accepted and everyone said, hey, you know, here are my values, and all the corrupt people said, values are bullshit, values are prejudice.
	Oh, I can't believe you would break up with me because I'm not an anarchist.
	What kind of ideologue are you?
	That's just horrible. What kind of cult are you in?
	Right? Right? Well, I personally don't think that it's entirely unreasonable to say to people that you can't really have a great relationship with people who enthusiastically cheer the use of violence against you for disagreeing with them.
	I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to talk about, to say, to do.
	But people don't want to talk about it, right?
	So imagine what the world would look like if these early alarm systems went off like a klaxon, like a rotating spiral of whipping police siren lights went off in people's heads.
	Well, that would be game over for the corrupt in terms of snaring better people into their sticky web of dissolving relationship bullshit.
	And that would be it.
	So how interested are people who want to benefit from relationships without actually having to be virtuous?
	How keen are they? For these kinds of relationships, for these kinds of relationship warning signs to go off.
	Remember, 99% of what goes on in society is camouflage.
	Ah, remember? Culture is camouflage, right?
	But, remember, 99% of what goes on in society is camouflage.
	99% of what you talk about with people is camouflage.
	And that's really, really important to understand.
	Camouflage, camouflage, camouflage.
	Hostility towards Ayn Rand.
	Camouflage. Hostility towards philosophy.
	Camouflage. Hostility towards anyone who rationally defines his or her values and then has the audacity to act upon them.
	Camouflage. Smoke screens.
	Obscurations. In fact, fundamentally, it is eye-gouging.
	And eye-gouging in the double sense of the word eye.
	E-Y-E and... I, the letter, the self, the identity.
	And this is a big concern.
	It's a big concern. Again, this is the appalling stuff that you see when you begin to understand the world that you live in.
	That the world is run by bad people.
	And why is the world run by bad people?
	Because bad people have a greater incentive to run culture than good people do.
	I mean, in the short run, if not necessarily in the long run.
	But so, in bad culture...
	But I repeat myself.
	But in bad culture... There's this belief or this argument, which goes something like this.
	So, they say, well, relationships are really hard.
	You say, relationships are hard, and you have to work at it.
	And if you don't work at it, it's because you are not committed, and you are not giving, and you have a fear of commitment.
	And so, you need to really work on the relationship.
	It's cowardly to not want to work on the relationship.
	And people break up because they don't have the strength or the maturity to just work on their relationship.
	Their relationship is work.
	I mean, that's nonsense.
	I mean, I believed it for many years, but it's nonsense.
	My relationship with my wife is not work.
	There are times when we disagree and there are times we have to work things out.
	But that's like 2% of our relationship.
	Not even. It's a tiny proportion.
	Why? Because we share values and we share values.
	And the sharing of those values was immediately apparent the moment philosophy ended our relationship.
	On our first date.
	And that's when I really began to understand all of this stuff.
	Now, of course, that's not something that corrupt people want you to understand, that their corruption is obvious from the very moment that philosophy enters the relationship, that their reaction to truth, to reason, to objective standards is very obvious from the first moment that the truth enters into the relationship.
	And they don't want you to know that, right?
	Because they want the benefit of the relationships without the trouble of being virtuous.
	I don't want to be corrupt and lonely.
	So they befog everyone and throw out all of this nonsense so that people get confused and they say, well, if you're having trouble getting along with me, it's because you're refusing to compromise, you're refusing to work with me, you're refusing to To deal with your issues.
	You know, as I was told when I would recoil from corruption in relationships, you're just running away.
	They'd sort of say, sit down and talk.
	And what they really meant was sit down, obey, and don't bring any values to bear on this relationship.
	And, you know, the moment you try to bring any reasonable standards into a relationship, like we are not allowed to yell at each other, we're not allowed to name-call, and people will immediately respond with, well, don't do those things that provoke me to do that then.
	Right? It's a refusal to...
	I mean, this is the level at which I'm talking...
	I'm not talking about, you know, abstract agreements on how DROs are going to handle contract disputes in 100 years.
	I'm not talking about any of that shit.
	What I'm talking about is the basic rules.
	Respect for my perspective.
	Right? That you...
	You know, if I bring something that's important to me into this relationship, i.e.
	philosophy... That you don't get to just snort and dismiss and avoid and evade, right?
	That you have to treat my beliefs with respect.
	Doesn't mean you have to agree with them. Treat me with respect if you're in a relationship with me.
	Is that way off base, way off beam?
	Something that would be impossible to consider?
	Well, I damn well hope not, but it seems to be the case, pretty much.
	And this is what I try to, again, bitter one experience, this is what I try to arm people with.
	This is what I try to arm people with.
	The truth of your relationship is evident like a flare going up in the Arctic winter night.
	It is evident the moment that you bring reason, standards, truth, philosophy to your relationship.
	How it's going to go from there is immediately apparent.
	And It cannot be improved if that moment is rejected.
	And no, that's an extreme statement.
	It's an extreme statement.
	I get it. It's an extreme statement to say that your relationship is determined by how somebody reacts to philosophy, standards, truth, reason, any of those things.
	That your relationship is determined from there.
	And people will recall from that and say, well, I can think of one example where things turned around.
	Yeah, okay, maybe you can think of one example where, to your knowledge, right?
	Remember, people don't always tell the truth about their relationships.
	People will certainly lie about their relationships in order to make themselves appear better and so on.
	I get that. It's not a condemnation, it's just a fact.
	But let's say that to your knowledge you have found someone.
	So, you know of or have experienced somebody who reacted with hostility and opposition to philosophy or reason and then slowly turned around and now is a big fan of philosophy and reason and evidence and so on.
	Well, I mean, this could be urban myth.
	If you know of someone like this or this has been your experience, please, call in.
	Let's talk about it. Let me Let me examine you, as your gynecologist and philosopher often says.
	And let's talk about it.
	I don't know of one, but this is sort of an urban myth as far as I can tell, but there may be something behind it.
	But it's so extraordinarily rare that you simply cannot act upon it.
	You simply cannot act upon it.
	It is certainly true that some people have jumped from ten-story buildings and survived through one in a thousand or one in a million miraculous chances.
	But this does not mean that it is safe to jump from ten-story buildings.
	In fact, if someone were pushing you towards a ten-story building, saying at the same time, don't worry, I know someone who survived it ten years ago, you would not say, oh, well, that's fine, then let's, you know, push me over, please.
	You would not say that. You would not find that of any comfort at all.
	And so we have to make our decision based upon statistics.
	We have to make our decisions based upon some level of statistics, some level of reasonable probability.
	Many more people do not die from smoking than end up in happy, productive, philosophically virtuous relationships with people who, in a hostile manner, oppose philosophy to begin with.
	Right? But that doesn't mean that we should do that.
	It doesn't mean that we should smoke.
	I mean, everybody recognizes that smoking is bad.
	And everyone recognizes that when people say, well, I know, you know, I know George Burns is a comedian who lived to over 100 smoked a cigar every day.
	Everyone gets that that's just a defense, right?
	It's just a defense. And so, don't make your decisions based upon an urban myth potential exception to what seems like a pretty damn universal rule.
	Don't do it. Don't do it.
	You do not have an infinity of time with which to correct easily avoidable mistakes.
	Because look at the cost benefit, right?
	Look at the cost benefit.
	You get involved in a relationship with someone hostile to philosophy, then that which is the greatest treasure to you, or one of the greatest treasures, or should be, that which is really the essence of you, Is going to be opposed and undermined throughout the course of that relationship.
	Inexorably. Perpetually.
	Permanently. Well, maybe she'll turn around next year.
	Maybe she'll turn around the year after.
	No. No.
	You know, that's like expecting a con man who ripped you off for $10,000 two years ago to develop a conscience, come back and repay you.
	Is it possible? Well, I guess it's possible.
	Would you count that as money in the bank?
	Well... You'd be a fool to.
	You would be a fool to if you've already succumbed to the rule for the relationship called, there will be no philosophy here, philosophy will be condemned here.
	If you've already acquiesced to that and got involved with the person, what incentive do they have to change?
	I mean, if they were willing to impose that rule very early on in a relationship, what makes you think that they would change their mind later on when you've already acquiesced to that rule?
	It doesn't make any sense. Could it happen?
	and, oh, yeah, they could get hit by lightning and wake up as Wittgenstein, but that doesn't mean that you should bank upon that as a probability.
	So, I mean, these are things that I would just take as basic absolutes.
	People are always going to try and create an exception to a rule, right?
	And corrupt people are, I mean, massively dedicated to creating exceptions to rules.
	And maybe there are exceptions to rules.
	Maybe the guy who's ripped off 50 people in the past is going to not rip you off as the 51st person, but who is going to make that decision?
	Right? I mean, if you go on...
	I mean, just think about it.
	If you go on eBay, and someone who wants to sell you an iPad for 300 bucks, that this person is saying to you, like, they have incredibly negative reviews and responses, and they...
	Have shipped out 50 things before and have cashed everyone's check or taken everyone's PayPal money and have not shipped a single thing to anybody and everybody's complaining about it and their account is about to be suspended because they've had 50 enraged responses of ripping people off.
	Are you going to order from that person?
	Are you? But the odds are even worse that somebody hostile to philosophy is going to turn into a productive, happy, loving partner who's going to be all kinds of positive about philosophy in the long run.
	We just need to think about the odds.
	Could you be, as the 51st person, someone who says, like, they say, oh my goodness, I've been so bad at ripping all these people off.
	I feel so terrible about it.
	So, you know, what we're going to do is we're going to, I'm going to ship someone 10 iPads for 300 bucks.
	Well, is it possible?
	Is it within the realm of possibility?
	I guess so. Would you ever act upon that assumption?
	Of course not. Of course not.
	Could it be a one-in-a-million chance that something happens like that?
	Yes. Would you ever act upon that possibility?
	No. No, you wouldn't.
	And if you acted on that possibility and ended up getting ripped off, everyone would roll their eyes and say, well, my God, man, of course you're getting ripped off.
	Of course that's going to happen.
	I mean, what else were you expecting?
	The guy gave you clear evidence, ripped off 50 people in the past.
	And somebody who's got an innate hostility to philosophy doesn't just generate that in the moment.
	That comes out of a long, long process of hostility towards reason and values and truth and evidence and so on.
	So, I mean, just think about what relating, what a relationship is.
	What is a relationship? Well, We can start mathematically.
	We can start physically, right?
	So, a relationship, say, between the Earth and the Sun.
	I know it sounds fruity as all hell, but bear with me.
	I think it'll make some sense to you.
	A relationship between the Earth and the Sun.
	Well, that's two objects with real properties with an intermediary principle between them called gravity.
	And so, if neither of these objects have mass, if either of these objects don't have mass, then in effect they really have no relationship to each other because there's nothing to relate.
	There's no gravity, there's no object or anything like that.
	Think of your two hands clapping together.
	Well, they're two real hands meeting in reality, touching in reality.
	I mean, if you clap hands and miss, you don't make a sound.
	I guess maybe a faint whooshing, but nothing of any substance.
	And so, a relationship is two things that are real, like interacting either directly or through an objective principle, either through impact or through gravity or some other principle.
	Two things that are real, interacting or affecting each other in reality.
	That is what a relationship is, and I would argue it's no different in human relationships.
	In order for there to be a relationship that is real, then there must be two real people interacting in objective ways, interacting in an objective manner.
	We understand that a con man cozying up to his victim is not a real relationship.
	It's not a real relationship.
	Because the truth is not being spoken.
	Honesty is not right. If the person's saying, I'm only pretending to like you so I can rip you off, then he wouldn't be a very good con man.
	I guess he'd be a politician.
	A politician's a great con man.
	But that's the reality.
	Somebody who is attempting to date a woman only because he has a fetish for some particular part of her anatomy, he likes bubble butts or something, Is, you know, can't be honest about that.
	Can't say, well, I have no interest in you as a person, but I'd really like to get my grabby hands on your bubble butt.
	There's another thing for the FDR. Compilation of strange things I've said.
	So there's dishonesty in that.
	There's a denial of motive.
	There is dishonesty.
	So to real people, well, how do you become real?
	Well, you become honest. You become honest.
	How do you become honest with yourself?
	Well, all you do is you continually reject the manipulative scripts placed in your head by others to exploit you.
	So, you know, if you're abused by your parents and they say it was loving correction when it was in fact abuse, then to be real, to be honest, to be true, you have to reject false scripts and accept reality.
	And how do you do that? Why?
	Through philosophy! Through UPP, right?
	This is one of the reasons why UPP is so threatening to certain people, because it exposes false scripts.
	Right, so the typical one is you hit children because they're cognitively deficient, or you spank children because they're cognitively deficient, which means that your parents must then, if your parents did this, they must then agree that as they get older and forgetful, you're allowed to spank them because they're cognitively deficient.
	And they, of course, will have to reject that, and that's how you know that it's a false script.
	That's how you know that it's not real, because that which is real is consistent.
	That which is real and true is consistent.
	And, of course, it is the forever goal of liars, cheats, abusers, and thieves and con men To proclaim that their actions are consistent with morality, but when universal morality is actually applied to their actions, they're found to be inconsistent.
	That is why people hate philosophy so much, because it exposes their falsehoods, their manipulations, their abuses.
	It turns them from moralizers to abusers, if they are those things.
	And so that's how you become real, is you...
	Examine the moral principles that you were instructed by and you reject those which are false, those which are actually not consistent, or those that people claim to be consistent and then reject actual consistency.
	Everyone has a reason for what they do, and philosophy examines whether that reason is valid and true and universal or a mere self-serving manipulation.
	And abusive manipulation of others.
	So you examine particularly the morality that you were infected and most likely infested with.
	And you find out whether it's true or not.
	And you reject false morality.
	And you reject false moralizers as extremely dangerous people.
	False moralizers are the most dangerous people in the world.
	Much more dangerous than mere con men.
	And, I mean, false moralizers justify war.
	They justify the hitting of children.
	They justify abuses of every kind according to morality, which creates a great opening, a great crack and culvert and blast wide in the dam, restraining immorality.
	I mean, that's what immoral justifications do, is they light a fuse on the powder keg of evil.
	And, of course, you know, we give false moralizers the chance to reform.
	Perhaps it was merely ignorance.
	Perhaps they had not thought of the true implications of their morality.
	And we give them, I believe, every reasonable opportunity to correct themselves.
	I mean, I'm talking about long-term relationships like family, not potential dates or first dates or whatever second dates.
	Of course, if you do it right, you don't need to bother with a second date.
	You don't need to bother with it at all. And so, it's two people who are both real.
	In other words, they've rejected...
	False morality, they have rejected manipulation and control of others, the manipulation and control by others.
	And so that they can be in reality, they can be with reality.
	Because if you're conforming to other people's false manipulations of you, you're not in reality.
	You're in the matrix of exploitive expectations and the culty programming of mainstream culture.
	I mean, to take a simple example, right?
	I mean, if If you avoid talking about God with your hyper-religious aunt, then you are in her matrix, right?
	Your decisions, your integrity, your actions are being controlled by somebody else's irrationality.
	And you obviously can't be real with your aunt because you have to self-censor, you have to self-control, you have to nod and smile tightly at that which you violently and vehemently disagree with, or even that which you mildly disagree with, but you can't be honest.
	You can't be yourself. You can't be true.
	And so rejecting that which makes you false is how you become true.
	And I don't just mean rejecting intellectually.
	That's important, but it's not necessary, but not sufficient.
	Because, I mean, integrity requires consistency.
	And you can't have honest people in your life if you also say that there's a value higher than honesty.
	So if you're going to allow false, destructive, manipulative, abusive people in your life and say, well, that's great.
	That's wonderful. That's enough.
	And then say, well, I also want honest, kind, decent, virtuous people in my life.
	Well, you have a contradiction.
	You can't be consistent and you're being controlled.
	And you're being false.
	All that which splits us leads us open to manipulation.
	All that which sets us at war against ourselves rips us open to manipulation.
	Integrity is the only defense against social control.
	So you've got two real people interacting in reality.
	I mean, it's the only thing that a relationship can ever possibly be, which means you have to discard false and manipulative and controlling and destructive and abusive ideologies implanted in you for the sake of social control, if such things exist, and most likely they do.
	And then you have to interact honestly and rationally with the person you claim to be in a relationship with.
	And if truth within is rejected and truth between is rejected, there will be nothing but the slow decay of desexualized manipulation.

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