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Jan. 30, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:58:30

2601 I Would Die For You - Wednesday Call In Show January 29th, 2014

I would die for you, but I wwill not even listen to you, unconscious manipulation, the value of emotional connection, the universality of the non-aggression principle, escaping the horror of sexual abuse through assigning moral responsibility, defining empathy, and what to do as a parent when child does not want to do something that needs to be done.

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	Good evening, everybody.
	It is the 29th of January 2014.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	Mike tells me I'm not allowed to do introductions anymore.
	So let's go with the first caller.
	Right up for us today is Sering.
	Go ahead, Sering.
	Hello, Seth.
	Good evening.
	How are you doing?
	Not too bad.
	So I had two different questions to ask.
	So...
	I'd like to ask your advice, actually, on a problem I'm facing with my mom.
	She, like most parents, is I would say extremely ignorant to the outcome of the use of aggression throughout childhood.
	I know to some degree she means well by actions.
	She's debated with me the use of aggression as being positive in some situations.
	I have no doubts I have no doubt she loves myself and my siblings to a degree.
	She's definitely shown that she loves myself and my siblings.
	I'll just give you a quick sort of background on the situation and by all means, stop me wherever you want.
	Oh, I've had the urge to stop you three times already, but if you want me to wait, I'm happy to do that.
	Stop me whenever you'd like, but I may cover.
	I have a few dot points I just wanted to go through, and then maybe I'll cover some stuff you already wanted to ask.
	Okay, so I have three siblings under seven who live with my mother and stepfather, all of which are being brought up in what we define as an abusive household with verbal abuse, threats, and in some cases physical abuse like drinking and stuff.
	I've also been brought up with that same abuse, as has my mother and my stepdad to a far larger degree.
	If you have any point of reference, I can obviously explain what kind of abuse.
	I moved out when I was 17.
	I'm now 20 years old and I'm still dealing with aggression and anxiety issues, which have thankfully gotten much better through a lot of different kinds of struggle.
	Through that abuse, I really feel as though my life was kind of deprived of its true potential and I don't know, I may never fully sort of recover from that.
	As I have an emotional connection and an involuntary love towards my siblings, I really want to give them all the support I possibly can.
	I've attempted a small amount of I would say cushioned debate with my mother, which can often end in her reacting emotionally or defensively about techniques or choices, which he most certainly has an ego attached to.
	I tried to inform her in various ways of other techniques of parenting through showing her such stuff as YouTube videos or something.
	However, it's always the, I don't have time, I forgot excuse.
	She doesn't value the information, so therefore she doesn't make time for it.
	I'm left in this predicament where I'm wanting to support my siblings so very much.
	However, I see no simple way of accomplishing that.
	So yeah, I'm just sort of looking for any sort of advice and feel free to ask any questions you'd like.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	I'm sorry about the situation.
	I mean, you shouldn't have to worry about this kind of stuff at your stage in life.
	I mean, you should never have to worry about it any time.
	But I'm very sorry that you have to worry about this stuff at your stage in life.
	I mean, you shouldn't have to be parenting your parents.
	That is a pitiful and difficult situation.
	It's like a tail wagging the dog.
	I mean, it's like trying to manage your boss, you know?
	I mean, it's not how it should be.
	Your mom should be in charge, and she should be there to give you advice, to give you resources to help you launch yourself in life.
	You shouldn't be having to circle back and try and save your siblings.
	So I just really wanted to point that out.
	I mean, I appreciate, of course...
	What you are thinking of doing or what you're trying to do and hopefully what you can achieve.
	But I'm very sorry.
	I'm very sorry that this is on your plate at all, right?
	Thank you.
	Now, when you said that you have no doubt that your mother loves you, I would like to know how you have no doubt and what you mean by love.
	I'm not saying she doesn't.
	I just want to understand what you mean, right?
	Because the word love is about as subjective as freedom.
	And I want to know what you mean by love.
	So, well, I've seen throughout my life that she's, on different occasions, shown me what I would define as love, which is...
	Well, I guess...
	I've heard your definition of love, which is an involuntary reaction to virtue.
	And I would say that she's shown me...
	How do I explain this?
	She's tried to do everything she could for me.
	In a way that she thought was right, if you can sort of understand.
	I can't think of any sort of immediate examples.
	Like she said several times in her life, except this isn't exactly what she's done, but she said, you know, I would die for you if I had to, you know.
	Okay, so she would die for you, right?
	That's quite a strong statement, to say the least, right?
	Right.
	Okay, so if she would die for you, then everything that doesn't involve her death, she will do for you, right?
	Okay.
	Does that make sense?
	Like, logically, death is the worst thing.
	And so anything which doesn't kill her, she will do for you.
	Yeah.
	I think the statement about death was to prevent my death.
	So, when you said that you had shown her some better parenting stuff, what was her response?
	Sorry, could you say it again?
	You showed her some better parenting resources, and what was her response?
	I showed her a video you actually have on procrastination, about sort of the slave relationship between the child and the parent.
	And I sat with her and watched that with her, but she kind of halfway sort of started looking at her phone and stuff, and she kind of made all these sort of excuses about How she didn't like your voice.
	Something like this.
	Something that's very ridiculous and beside the point.
	Okay, so we have...
	Hang on.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Hang on.
	So we've reached a limit of what she will do for you that's kind of a little further back from dying, right?
	Yep.
	Right, so you said, watch a 20-minute video that's important to me, and she fiddled with her phone, and then she didn't like my voice, and then she just stopped listening or whatever, right?
	So unless watching 10 minutes of me is actually worse than dying for her, and I'm not sure that's going to be our new marketing tag, after 10 minutes you will prefer death.
	To finishing this video.
	It's sort of like the ring, I guess.
	You know, anyone who makes it to 11 has already stabbed themselves in an eyeball with an old fork.
	Actually, no.
	I guess it would be the eardrum, right?
	Because she didn't like my voice.
	So she would have deafened herself by having a jackal attack her ears.
	Dingo!
	Got my ear canal!
	Anyway.
	So...
	So she's already a little further back from dying for you.
	She's not willing to watch a video that's important to you, right?
	Hmm, that's correct.
	I'm not sure maybe it's the problem with me expressing how important it is to me that she watches it.
	Nope.
	No, so now you're blaming yourself, right?
	Okay.
	It's the parent's job to know how important something is for you.
	She has to know that as a parent, right?
	Yeah.
	All failures of communication between parent and child are the parent's responsibility.
	I'm going to say that again.
	All failures of communication on the part of parents and children are the fault of the parents.
	Listen, if I'm teaching you Mandarin, And you studiously learn what I tell you.
	Who is responsible for any resulting problems you have in knowing how to speak Mandarin?
	My parents, whoever was teaching me Mandarin.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	Yeah.
	Parents teach children the form and content of communication, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And so, all failures of communication...
	Between parents and children are the fault of the parents.
	So, I'm afraid I can't logically have you say that the fault is yours in not explaining to your mother how important things are to you, right?
	Sure.
	I mean, even if it was only somewhat important, if she agrees to sit down and watch something, she should goddamn well finish watching it.
	Even if it's not super, super important to you, did she agree to sit down and watch the video?
	Yes, she did initially.
	Okay, then she fucking owes you to the end of the video.
	Right?
	I believe, I can't remember exactly, but I believe something happened or like halfway through where she kind of had to do something quickly and then, you know, forgot about it or something like that.
	Seriously?
	Yeah.
	Seriously?
	But I understand exactly what it is.
	Okay, let's say that some hoodlum threw a brick through your window.
	Let's say she wasn't fiddling with her phone, as you told me.
	Let's say that the hoodlum threw a brick through her window.
	Then you deal with the hoodlum throwing the brick through the window, and then you say, now let's get back to that video, I'm so sorry for the interruption, son.
	Let's go, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay, I see what you're saying.
	And yes, I understand.
	So it's the parent's responsibility for the communication.
	Yes, 100%.
	It is not my daughter's job to figure out what the word for tree is.
	And it's not my daughter's job to figure out how to communicate with me.
	It's not my daughter's job to figure out how to read in isolation.
	It is my job to teach her those things.
	And it is my job to teach her what commitment means, what promises mean, what love means, what respect means.
	What being interested in her interests means, right?
	Now, maybe she's watching my video and it's really annoying her.
	She wouldn't be the first and she won't be the last, right?
	Maybe it just really bugs the shit out of her to watch one of my videos.
	And you know what a good parent does at such time?
	No idea.
	Inline me.
	I'm afraid that you don't have an idea.
	A good parent says, this video is really bothering me.
	Can we just pause it for a second?
	I'm having trouble concentrating on the video.
	There's something about what this guy is saying or how he's saying it or, I don't know, maybe it's his eye makeup or his nose bone or something like that.
	But something is really bothering me and I'm concerned that I can't concentrate.
	On something that's important to you, right?
	To share with me.
	But something's bothering me and I don't know what it is.
	Do you mind if we pause and just talk about that before we resume?
	Because I'm concerned I'm not able to give it my full attention.
	Right.
	I don't imagine that happened, right?
	No, definitely not.
	Okay.
	So when she says that she would die for you, she's full of shit, right?
	I guess, yeah.
	Well, tell me how this is not the case.
	Well, I can't.
	That's honestly it.
	Listen, if I said everything I have in this world that is of material value is yours.
	Everything I have is yours if you want it any time, day or night.
	That's quite a commitment, right?
	Uh-huh.
	And then if you say, listen, I need to borrow a buck for a coffee, and I say, no.
	Yeah.
	Am I lying when I tell you that everything I have is yours?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	Absolutely.
	Okay, I understand.
	So, this is what I'm going to force you on.
	And look, if you said to me all the things that I would consider love, and I think that most people would consider love, I would be perfectly happy, right?
	But your mother exposed you and your siblings to child abuse, right?
	Correct.
	And that's not in the definition of love for your children, is it?
	No.
	I guess it depends on your definition, but yeah.
	No, actually, that does not depend on your definition.
	Look, my definition of love, you know, I think it's valid, but not everyone would agree with it.
	But I don't think that exposing your children to child abuse fits in anyone's definition of love.
	I mean, can you think of a circumstance in which it is a very loving action to consistently and voluntarily and repeatedly expose your children to child abuse?
	Tough love?
	I'm not sure.
	I can't know.
	No, because tough love by definition is not abuse, right?
	And you said that the abuse, did it involve alcohol at times?
	No, no, no.
	It wasn't a big factor.
	Okay, and what was the abuse then?
	The abuse to myself or...?
	The abuse that you say your stepfather perpetrated.
	Sorry, I didn't catch the last bit.
	The abuse that your stepfather perpetrated.
	That he experienced or that he...
	That he did.
	Sorry.
	It was just sort of generally yelling and threatening stuff like if you don't eat your dinner or sorry like if you don't go to bed now you won't get a yogurt tomorrow in your school lunch or just things like not not massive things things I would definitely consider abuse but the general definition of abuse wouldn't apply to most people as far as Are we having this call because your stepfather
	said, if you don't go to bed now, no yogurt tomorrow for you at lunch?
	Right, no.
	Because if we are, then I've got people with real issues who need to have a conversation.
	No, definitely, definitely.
	No, there's constant yelling...
	My parents used to, well, my stepdad and my mother used to have extreme screaming matches in front of myself, the child, and my siblings, throwing things at each other.
	They never at one point in aggression hit any of us, but they definitely did themselves, and they would constantly yell at us.
	There'd be periods of months where We'd get yelled at every single day, screamed at for the most mundane things.
	And that was, sorry to interrupt, that was from your mother and your stepfather?
	Correct, yeah.
	They sort of had no idea of like...
	They said we can't do this in front of the kids, but they never wouldn't, so it just kind of was redundant.
	Oh, sorry, your mom had a standard saying we should not fight in front of the children?
	Right.
	But when it got to an emotional level, they weren't able to control themselves.
	How do you know that they weren't able to control themselves?
	Well, evidently, because they...
	No, evidently they didn't control themselves.
	Whether they couldn't control themselves is a different matter, right?
	Right, okay.
	In other words, if the priest was over, or if a policeman was over, or if friends were over, were they still screaming at each other in the same way?
	No, of course.
	Okay, so they...
	No, but they could control themselves at times, right?
	Well, my mom couldn't.
	She actually has a mental disorder, so she had like a split personality disorder diagnosed in one period.
	I would argue that she couldn't control herself to a degree.
	I think that there have been points where I've seen them control themselves because they're in a certain situation, but it was like a very, very intense anger.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, just to be clear, right?
	So, if someone has cancer, they don't stop having cancer when someone else is over, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Right?
	So, if somebody is...
	If you say they have an uncontrollable emotional reaction, then it doesn't matter who's over.
	They're going to have it, and they're going to act it out, right?
	I mean, having the emotion and acting it out are two very different things, right?
	I... I would argue that there's a degree of like emotional reaction and I think that some stages it was uncontrollably because I I know once there was um because my my parents were yelling so loudly over something um I stepped out of my mother I should say there was actually police call at one stage and they didn't stop yelling the police had to actually calm them down for about 10 minutes so and there was nothing actually never any point did I actually uh sort
	of Damage each other's bodies or anything like that.
	They would yell and occasionally throw stuff at the ground or maybe near each other or at each other sometimes.
	So it was never sort of anything that was like, there was never actually any physical domestic abuse or anything like that.
	But they used to scream a lot and that sort of disturbed the neighbours.
	So yeah, the police were called and they didn't stop for a long period of time.
	They kind of completely ignored the police were there and it was just very intense.
	Sorry, that's after they had been fighting for a long time already, right?
	Correct.
	So the question is, I mean, yeah, once you've hit the total point of fight or flight escalation, and you've got like nine quarts of adrenaline running through your body and all that, then, but in terms of like...
	The decision is at the beginning, not at the end.
	Like, if I throw myself off a cliff, I'm going to fall to the bottom.
	The question is, do I throw myself off the cliff?
	It's at the beginning that the decision is, right?
	Sure, sure.
	So, did she know that you didn't like them fighting in front of you?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	And so, when she says that she would die for you, That doesn't include not fighting in front of you, right?
	Definitely, I agree.
	Okay, now, if I have a limitation, then I'm going to say to my daughter, you know, I'll do such and such for you, but I have this limitation, right?
	Right, like if I'm in a wheelchair, I'll say, well, I can do X and X for you, but I can't get stuff from the top shelf.
	Because I'm in a wheelchair, right?
	Right.
	And so, if your mom has, does she know she has this affliction or whatever you'd want to call it?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	The mental health stuff, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	She knows she has it, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So, she can't say, I will do anything for you because she has an affliction, right?
	So she's manipulating you.
	Hmm.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And...
	So, she has...
	Now, did she seek therapy?
	Did she go through therapy to attempt to deal with these issues?
	Yeah, so she has on and off for about the last decade.
	What does on and off mean?
	I mean, I know in general, but...
	So, for periods...
	Maybe not for the last decade, but for...
	Well, at least as I know it, my high school years pretty much constantly, which is the last sort of six or seven years.
	She's been seeing one pretty much, I think, every fortnight or every two weeks.
	I think fortnight may be a word we have here.
	Yeah, so every two weeks she sees a psychologist.
	And does she do work?
	Do you know if she does work?
	I mean, the majority of therapy occurs outside the psychologist's office in the journaling and the note-taking and the self-analysis that you do outside of that.
	Do you know if she pursued any of that?
	No, I don't believe she does.
	The experience when she was a psychologist is extremely emotional.
	Sometimes she has to do it over the phone because she has maybe a deep anxiety about actually going and seeing a psychologist, so it's a very difficult thing for her because I believe it uncovers a lot of things from the past that she doesn't want to think about because she's just spent her entire life blocking them out and trying to escape them.
	Well, technically, she has spent the majority of her life inflicting them on helpless, independent children.
	Right, yeah.
	That's kind of different than avoiding them, right?
	Yeah, you could say that.
	I guess she's ignorant to the fact that that is the problem's resolving.
	Well, once you go to therapy...
	You have a responsibility.
	Knowledge is responsibility.
	I cut people a lot of slack if they lack knowledge.
	As long as you've not tried to avoid knowledge, knowledge is a reasonable excuse.
	I don't believe ignorance of the law is no excuse.
	So, you know, one of the things that, again, I'm not this woman's therapist or any kind of therapist, but my understanding would be that a therapist, if dealing with an unstable parent, would give your mother standards of behavior that she would have to aim for, right?
	Like not screaming, not throwing things, not causing massive amounts of emotional damage and chaos to the children, right?
	Yeah.
	So your mom had that as a standard, right?
	The other thing that a therapist would probably do, I would imagine, is she would say that your mom should apologize to her children for the harm that she's caused them, even if it's inadvertent, even if it's whatever, this mental health stuff or whatever, right?
	She does sometimes when they have...
	She does apologize occasionally, I think, with certain...
	For instance, she'll have a yelling match or an argument with my stepdad and she'll apologize to my siblings or me or whatever afterward.
	How does she apologize?
	So she'll say, I'm very sorry that you had to see that.
	Well, first of all, you didn't have to see it.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	Bullshit already, right?
	You didn't have to see.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, exactly.
	I agree.
	I mean, if you're with someone and you simply...
	Sorry to interrupt, but if you're with someone and you absolutely cannot stop screaming at them, then you should not be with that person.
	So if she's with your stepdad and they just keep screaming, then you should not be with that person, right?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I agree 100%.
	This is something I understood when I was maybe 14 years old.
	Yeah.
	I've told my mom, like, she has to, but then she says, you know, it's for children, you know, it's good that they have both parents together.
	And I kind of argued, like, well, maybe it's good in a way, but it might also be more detrimental that you stay together and have this I'm sorry, what's good in a way?
	Well, it might be good in a way that you have both parents together, generally, for the child's development.
	But if it means like this aggressive and household with constant arguments and stuff like that, maybe it is just better not to be together.
	So that's sort of what I argued.
	I'm just curious, have you experienced any emotions during the course of our conversation?
	Any emotions?
	Possibly maybe a little bit of anxiousness.
	Generally, if you have to pause, that means no.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I don't really think so.
	Nothing major, no.
	All right.
	How are you expecting me to provide you anything of value if you're emotionally completely closed off?
	I mean, you're talking about some seriously tragic stuff, right?
	Mental health issues.
	Absolutely.
	However, I've had use of manipulation, lies, deceit, undermining, therapy.
	I mean, this is a seriously tragic family situation.
	And I sort of feel like I'm the only one who has any emotional reaction to it at all.
	But this is your life.
	And there's your life.
	I guess I've thought about this for...
	Hours and hours and hours and hours and I've sort of experienced everything and I'm sort of just sort of looking my I'm sort of almost putting my siblings above me in a way in this situation specifically to try and find a solution or some sort of solution or whether there isn't a solution I'm trying to find that out and I guess I've had I've had my time of emotional Reactions
	to the situation over the years and I mean it definitely still affects me but currently I think I'm okay to speak about it as I've spoken about it with lots of other people I have.
	Yeah, you haven't.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you and to be annoying as usual but twice you've laughed about this.
	Now, if you have gone through the genuine emotions of everything that happened to you, and I'm not blaming you, I'm just pointing out what I think.
	If you have gone through the genuine emotions of all this horror and terror and fear and rage and violence that you experienced, you may not cry every time you talk about it, you may not get angry every time you talk about it, but you sure as shit aren't going to laugh about it.
	I kind of thought about that and that seems a bit sort of almost unnatural, but it might have just been like an empathetic laugh to people who are almost listening and how ridiculous it might sound or something like that.
	Do not try and sell that to me as empathy.
	That is not empathy.
	You say it's unnatural, it's very natural.
	It's very natural, but it's very immature, and by that I don't mean that you're immature.
	What I mean by that is it's when you are prior to actually experiencing the feelings in a genuine way because you're not yet in a safe environment or a secure environment, but it is not empathy towards The listeners, that you would laugh about something as horrifying as this.
	This is your childhood holocaust.
	And if I was talking about the holocaust and laughing that that's out of empathy for my listeners, you would not believe me, right?
	I will also say that for the first sort of 13 years of my life, my stepdad wasn't around.
	So it was only when I was at 13.
	So it's more been my...
	Siblings that have been affected more deeply, but I definitely agree.
	There was a lot of horrible and horrific things that happened throughout my childhood.
	It doesn't sound like you want to particularly explore the emotional side, which is completely fine with me.
	This is your call.
	Is there a specific question that I could give you a thought or two on before we move on to the next caller?
	Well, I just sort of I mean, we've already established some things, but I'm just really wondering if you have any sort of advice, maybe based on personal experience, that could help me maybe educate my siblings, whether that would be better or whether it would be sort of directly going for my parents or...
	No, you see, because you're not experiencing the emotions and because you haven't processed how much you were manipulated, your first impulse is to unfeelingly manipulate other people, right?
	Because you're saying, well, how can I get my parents to do this?
	And how can I get my siblings to do this?
	And how can I fix the situation by making people do that?
	In my opinion, it's not how you can't solve these problems.
	It's the exact opposite of how you can solve these problems.
	I mean, you're telling me how you can fix your family.
	You couldn't even get your mom to watch a 20-minute video that was crucial to you.
	And you're asking me how you can fix the situation?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Do you understand what I'm saying?
	You're like a guy who can't lift five pounds saying, well, how do I lift this truck?
	And by lift, I don't mean that you're weak.
	What I mean is that you can't get your mom to do something as simple as pay attention for 20 minutes to something that's important to you, right?
	Yeah.
	So you have no influence in this family at the moment.
	And I hugely applaud you for trying to get your mom to watch that video.
	That is essential information.
	Right?
	Yep.
	Okay, well...
	So I will tell you what I think.
	I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I think.
	What you need to do is you need to get in touch with the emotions that were traumatized deep within you during this childhood of upset, let's say.
	You need to go deep and really connect with yourself.
	Okay.
	Now, if you can get in touch with your feelings, and Nathaniel Brandon has good books on this, John Bradshaw has good books on this, Alice Miller has great books on this.
	If you can get in touch with your genuine feelings, Childhood experiences emotionally, not from an abstract, how can I move the chess pieces in my family around kind of way, but in a deep and genuine way.
	If you can get in touch with your feelings, that is the most revolutionary thing that I believe can occur in your entire family.
	Because that is the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
	You know, if I say to someone, I would die for you, I am setting up a really horrible situation.
	Unless that is my genuine experience.
	Because if I say to someone, I will die for you, and then I won't lend them five dollars, I have revealed myself as a liar and a hypocrite and somebody who is a pathological manipulator because that is an incredible thing to say to someone.
	I agree.
	I would die for you when they then won't sit through a 20-minute video.
	And what I mean by all of that is that this is the level of manipulation that is occurring for you.
	Now, when you want to fix a problem, you have to kind of do the opposite.
	Right?
	If you're Sinking to the bottom, you need to swim to the surface.
	Right?
	If you're being dragged out to sea, you need to swim back to shore.
	You kind of have to do the opposite.
	Now, the great temptation, how people rope us into repeating the same mistakes we're trying to fight, is they provoke us into doing the same thing that caused the problem.
	Oh!
	Has a lot of government spending caused problems?
	Let's have more government spending!
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Oh, is the welfare state destroying the poorer classes?
	Let's have more welfare state!
	Right?
	More government debt will solve the problems bought by prior government debt.
	We need to spend more on a public school education to improve it, right?
	So people rope you into escalation rather than resolution.
	A resolution is when you do the opposite of what caused the problem in the first place.
	Now, your family, let's say unconsciously, to be as kind as possible, your family is trying to drag you in to solving the problems That your family has caused using the same approaches that caused the problems in the first place.
	How can I get people to do this?
	And analytically, coldly, and unemotionally, how can I manipulate people into doing what I want, which I think is the right thing?
	Not through connection with the self.
	Not through taking a firm and passionate and deep moral stand in the family.
	But you're calling me up trying to get me To advise you on how to do everything that caused the problems in the first place.
	How, Steph, can I manipulate my family and get them to do what I want without being emotionally connected to myself and without being emotionally connected to them?
	You cannot change people without being emotionally connected to them and you cannot be emotionally connected to them if you are not emotionally connected to yourself.
	Right.
	The road to mastery outside goes through mastery inside.
	So you need to...
	I'm giving you no advice.
	Because it's not an action.
	Everybody wants to know what they can do.
	But you can't do anything until you are something.
	I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm telling you who to be.
	So that change will happen of its own accord.
	Stop thinking about trying to change your family.
	I know that's tough because that's what you want to do.
	Start thinking about how to connect with yourself.
	Now, when you connect with yourself, that is the only possibility you have of connecting with other people.
	Through that connection with other people, if that's possible, change will happen of its own accord.
	I've said this before, but it's been a while, so I'll say it again.
	There's an old fable about the sun and the moon.
	Sorry, the sun and the wind.
	The sun and the wind are looking down at a guy walking along a road in the middle of nowhere.
	And the wind says to the sun, I bet you I can get that guy to take his coat off.
	The sun says, yeah, let's have a break.
	Get that guy to take his coat off.
	And the wind's like, it's on, baby!
	Goes howling down.
	Tries to get his little gusty fingers into everything and tries to pry that coat off the man's back.
	Whistling all the way in, down his back, up his sleeves, trying to pull that coat off him.
	and what does the man do?
	Grips it tighter.
	Holds it tighter.
	Sorry, well...
	His white knuckles.
	White knuckles the coat closer to him.
	And finally the wind is exhausted.
	And the wind says, Oh, goddammit, I cannot get the coat off that guy's back.
	I guess it's impossible.
	He's way too attached to that cloak.
	Sun says, Wind, let me show you how it's done.
	And the sun takes a deep breath.
	And swells and swells.
	And the day gets hotter and hotter and the man starts sweating.
	And then what does the man do?
	Takes off his jacket.
	Takes off his jacket.
	And the sun has not touched him.
	And the sun has done nothing but make itself warmer.
	Which floods the whole landscape with sunlight and heat.
	And the sun does not need to touch the man, and the sun does not need to provoke the man, and the sun doesn't need to tug at or manipulate the man or convince him or bribe him.
	The sun simply needs to get lighter and more powerful.
	It needs to bring more light, more power, and more heat.
	That is an internal process to the sun.
	And the man takes his coat off of his own accord.
	Yeah.
	If I want to change someone else's behavior, I change my own behavior and their behavior will change.
	Right?
	So, have you ever gone up to someone to shake their hand and they just keep their hands in their pockets and you got your hand out there looking like an idiot?
	Well, they've changed their behavior.
	They're not doing what's expected.
	And then you have to alter your behavior, right?
	You can't just stand there and pretend you're miming, shaking his hand or grab his sleeve or something, right?
	He has changed his behavior and now you have to change your behavior.
	So he's getting you to change, and he's doing nothing.
	He's not even putting his hand out, right?
	So, focus on yourself.
	Focus on deepening and enriching your own history, your own experience, your own thoughts, your own feelings.
	Don't laugh at your childhood holocaust.
	Because if you do, the only tool that you will have to pretend that you're changing other people is manipulation.
	And the only people who can be manipulated are manipulators.
	Which means if you want to feel like you have any efficacy in this world, if you want to pretend that you're doing things in this world, you have to surround yourself with manipulators who are susceptible to manipulation.
	So, that would be my advice.
	Well, I appreciate your advice, Steph.
	Thank you for taking the time to speak to me.
	You are very welcome.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	And my very, very deep sympathies again.
	It's just heartbreaking.
	I'm so sorry.
	Thank you.
	All right, Eric, you're up next.
	Go ahead.
	Hi.
	How are you today?
	I'm fine.
	How are you doing?
	My question is about the initiation of the youth report.
	Yes.
	I've heard you talk about this a couple of times, but I kind of find it somewhat problematic when it comes to when people are doing, like, really, truly evil.
	So during the Second World War, the classic example is, of course, of the Nazis.
	And, you know, people would bomb the railway carts and they'd kill SS officers and do things like this.
	I think that is not immoral.
	In fact, to not do that in some of my thoughts might seem immoral to not take action on that level.
	So I was wondering what you think about that.
	Well, it's terrible.
	It's a terrible situation.
	So one of the problems with democracy and a sort of roughly free market economy Is that in a democracy and with a restage of a free market economy, you get something called total war.
	A total war is when everyone participates in the war.
	I mean, with the exception of children or whatever, right?
	And so in the Second World War, you had women who would be putting bombs together, right?
	Now, are they part of the war effort?
	Yeah.
	Are they people who can be legitimately targeted against Yeah, they're not civilians.
	They have been enlisted into the war effort, and they are producing weaponry which is going to kill people.
	Now, can you target these people without targeting children?
	Well, no, usually because everybody knows that most people have a tough time targeting children, so what they do is they put The armaments factories or whatever in civilian areas, in cities or whatever, right?
	There's not sort of a big area where it's here's all the weapons being produced.
	Bomb this and you only get people who are making bombs and you don't if you don't.
	So the important thing if you're thinking about the initiation of force, don't start later.
	Start at the very beginning.
	So I'm going to ask you some questions here and this hopefully will...
	Make it sort of clear what might be a useful approach.
	So, the Germans were subject to taxation, right?
	Yes.
	And this was a violation of the initiation of force, right?
	Yes.
	The Germans were required, as almost everyone in the world is required, to use the Deutsche Mark, the fiat currency of the Third Reich, right?
	Yeah.
	So that is a violation of the non-aggression principle, right?
	Forcing people to use your ass-wipe paper currency, right?
	Yeah.
	The German men, in particular, this happened to the German women and to some degree to the youth.
	The youth were conscripted towards the end of the war and you had 10 and 11 and 12 year olds fighting the Russian troops and the American troops through the streets of Berlin.
	Yeah.
	So, you go ahead.
	That's true.
	Yeah, so they were subject to conscription, right?
	Yeah.
	And so that's a violation of the non-aggression principle, right?
	Yeah.
	And the children were forced into government schools that the parents were forced to pay for through property taxes or whatever they used.
	And that's a violation of freedom of association.
	It is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	Now, you could go on and on, right?
	But the reality is that the entire Nazi war machine was only possible because of past, present, and future violations of the non-aggression principle.
	So, for instance, let's say that tomorrow the US government is peacefully Replaced by no government.
	Everyone wakes up tomorrow, they're an anarcho-capitalist, and they say, you know what?
	Steph was right, and Murray Rothbard was right, and whoever, all these thinkers were right.
	Friedman and Kinsella and all these people were right.
	We need a state and a society.
	Now, what happens to the national debt then?
	Who pays it?
	Um...
	I mean, I guess no one, because they're deciding not to partake in that.
	Well, it may not be no one, because whoever wants to pay it should pay it.
	But you cannot compel people to pay it, right?
	Right.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So, and the reason why I'm talking about this, it's so important to understand that The Chinese lend money to the U.S. government because they know that the U.S. government in the future is going to continue to violate the non-aggression principle and collect taxes from its citizens, right?
	If the U.S. government said tomorrow taxation will be ending completely and you Chinese bankers and you Japanese governments and whatever, you will be paid back by the voluntary donations of the citizenry, what would happen?
	They would probably either take some sort of action to, like, kind of equal out there the money they've lost or probably, like, invade or something.
	I mean, that would be my guess, because we're not...
	Yeah, I mean, obviously they would try, but would they continue buying U.S. Treasury bonds at the same rate?
	No, no.
	Right.
	So, if in the First World War, if the First World War had ended with the complete disbanding Of the German government, the Austrian government, and all that, and that there was no government in Germany whatsoever, could they have imposed the Treaty of Versailles on an anarchic, voluntarist, stateless German population?
	No.
	No.
	The Treaty of Versailles was only imposable Because of the future certainty of violations of the initiation of force achievable only through government.
	So when governments borrow money to wage war, which they love to do, because otherwise the true costs of war are born right away and you find a lot of pacifists sprouting up everywhere, right?
	When governments borrow to fund war, People only lend to them, to these governments, to wage the war.
	People or institutions only lend to these governments because they fully anticipate that the governments are going to continue to violate property rights and the non-aggression principle for eternity.
	So you can buy bonds in Canada for 75 years.
	Now those people who buy those bonds, buy them On the certain knowledge or the certain belief that there will be governments 75 years from now who will be violating people's freedom and property rights in order to pay back the bonds, right?
	Yeah.
	And that's why I say it is the past violations of the non-aggression principle.
	It is the present violations of the non-aggression principle.
	And particularly for total war, It is the future violations of the non-aggression principle that produce modern democratic warfare.
	And so when you're saying, should we bomb this rail car with these people or not, you're bringing the non-aggression principle kind of late to the party.
	It's already been violated in so many ways, past, present, and future, that it's like, well, I... I don't need sunscreen because there's a sunspot.
	You know, there's still a whole lot of sun, even if there's a sunspot, right?
	So bringing these kinds of questions about violations of the non-aggression principle in the middle of massive worldwide multi-generational violations of the non-aggression principle, I think is missing the bigger picture.
	Does that make any sense?
	That makes a lot of sense.
	If I were a Jewish person in that situation, I really don't...
	I understand the argument from first principles and how we should take society.
	But when you have to make decisions in a situation like that, I don't see how I would stick to my values of not initiating force.
	I wouldn't.
	I simply wouldn't if I knew that my brothers and sisters were all being carted off to Treblinka or Auschwitz.
	I mean, I don't know.
	Well, but how does this matter to you?
	How does it matter to me?
	I'm not saying it shouldn't, right?
	But help me understand why this is important to you.
	I guess it's important because I'm trying to figure out, like...
	If the non-aggression principle is always, uh, applicable because I'm trying to think of situations where, really extreme situations where, um, maybe that principle isn't the best one to follow.
	Why?
	Why?
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Hang on, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	Why are you worrying about situations that you almost certainly will never experience?
	I mean, governments tend to repeat their actions of taking mass violence against citizenry.
	And are you going to join a resistance movement?
	Are you anticipating that?
	I mean, why is this an important issue for you in your life?
	Compared to all of the other important issues that could be going on?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I guess I'm just trying to figure out philosophically whether that principle always makes sense because philosophical ideas have to be kind of universal.
	When I say no, I don't mean no like for sure, I just mean I disagree.
	I disagree.
	Were you spanked as a child?
	Once or twice, yes.
	All right.
	Were you circumcised?
	It's all right.
	It's anonymous.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So you were spanked and circumcised, and you're thinking about violations of the non-aggression principle in the Second World War?
	I see what you're pointing at.
	Do you know anyone who spanks their children?
	Do you know any of your friends who are planning on having children who are pro-spanking?
	Um, none of my friends really talk about, you know, if they had children, whether they would thank them or not, no.
	Would that be an important thing to talk about with them?
	If you're concerned about violations of the non-aggression principle?
	Sure, yeah.
	Much more important than what we're talking about, right?
	In terms of things you can tangibly do that will make a difference in violations of the non-aggression principle, right?
	Like maybe 20 guys alive in the world ever had the choice that you have, but like 98% of children are hit around the world, right?
	Yeah.
	And so I think that perfectionism in philosophy is procrastination in practice.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Because you feel, well, once I've answered every conceivable question...
	Then what?
	What's going to happen?
	Let's say that I gave you a perfect answer to this question, and let's say you had another 50 questions, each one increasingly outlandish and improbable.
	Maybe it's a little kid wandering towards the edge of a bridge that's yours, that's suicidal, although you were a good parent.
	And there are pterodactyls, for reasons that remain unclear.
	So let's say that you can invent these outlandish, once-in-a-generation situations.
	Let's say you get perfect answers to all of those and you are perfectly satisfied about the non-aggression principle and its applicability to any situation.
	Then what?
	I mean, I was really only going to bring up...
	No, but let's say I answered this perfectly, and we agree, then what?
	Yeah.
	Then I would have a better picture of how it's internally consistent or not.
	And then what?
	I guess.
	I don't know.
	Be closer to the truth.
	And then what?
	Be able to act out the truth.
	Act out the truth?
	What does that mean?
	Like mime it?
	Basically, be able to have a certain value that more or less makes sense most of the time.
	And then what?
	Let's say you have these values that make sense all the time.
	Maybe you've got perfect answers to every theoretical question that involve space aliens and flagpoles and lifeboats and bombing SS guards and being a brave libertarian who somehow infiltrates the German prison camp system and liberates some Jews.
	Let's just say you come up with every fantastical question and you get fantastic, ironclad, perfect answers.
	Then what?
	Thank you.
	I don't know.
	Right.
	Right.
	Do you see you have a way of not acting?
	And look, I mean this with sympathy.
	I really do.
	I'm not trying to come down on you.
	I'm simply pointing something out that took me...
	You sound like a young guy.
	I bet you I was much older than you when I figured this out.
	So I don't mean this in any negative or critical or condescending way at all.
	But let's say this is a possibility that you postpone action until an unachievable certainty is achieved.
	Do you understand that you could not invent a better way of paralyzing good people than infecting them with the idea of perfectionism?
	Like how many times, if you've ever talked about a libertarian society, people say, well, what about the roads?
	And what about national defense?
	And what about education for the poor?
	And what about sick people?
	And what about...
	And they want us to answer all of these questions.
	Now, I have never in my whole life, and I've been doing this for over 30 years, I have never once in my whole life answered someone for those specific questions and they've said, you know what?
	what?
	I'm now an anarchist.
	Perfectionism is invented by evil people to paralyze good people.
	Thank you.
	Because you know who doesn't get stopped by questions of ethics?
	Evil people.
	Evil people are out there slaughtering people by the millions while we're wondering what we do If we were swallowed by a giant space whale and the only way we could get out was stepping over a baby.
	We're just sitting here looking at our own navels and playing with our own bullshit while evil people are out there getting really nasty shit done.
	Yeah.
	So I would say that if you are concerned about the non-aggression principle, and I hugely applaud you for that.
	Fantastic.
	Then talk to your parents about having been spanked.
	Because if they're still pro-spankers and you have kids in the future, and they say, yes, we're going to spank your kids, then there's a great way to not violate the non-aggression principle, which is to not leave your parents alone with your kids, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And if your friends are like, yeah, I was spanked, that's how we're going to do it.
	And you can convince them to not spank and to not get their children circumcised...
	Well then, you have done quite a lot.
	Now, people can come up with the most outlandish situations, and don't get me wrong, they're fun to think around.
	They are the junk food of philosophy.
	They are the sitcoms of the Shakespeare of philosophy.
	They are fun to masturbate over.
	But the reality is, I'm out there busting my ass trying to get people to stop hitting their kids, trying to get people to stop abusing each other, trying to get people to remember that they don't have to be in relationships with abusive people, trying to protect the next generation as best I can.
	And then people say, well, what about this lifeboat scenario?
	I'm like, hey, you know what?
	Last year, 10,000 fewer dicks got cut in half because of my show.
	What have you done?
	Right?
	Last month, 20,000 parents stopped hitting their children because of this show.
	What have you done for the non-aggression principle lately?
	Not what have you talked about or what have you theorized or what have you drank too much coffee in the exploration of or what have you typed your fingers raw in the syllogistical examination of.
	What have you tangibly done for the non-aggression principle lately?
	Has your presence in the world and your championing of the non-aggression principle changed anyone's behavior from violent to peaceful?
	From spanking to negotiating?
	From not cutting half the dick skin off to leaving it on?
	And I say this again, not in a negative way, not in a hostile way, but virtue is meant to be lived, and virtue is meant to spread, and it does not spread through impossible theoretical examples that will never occur to anyone.
	Okay.
	That was pretty much it.
	I also, I get into a lot of Discussions with people, like I watched...
	My mind was changed by your gun control video.
	I thought you did a really good job on that video explaining why gun control is not really...
	The people who say they're for gun control aren't really for gun control.
	They're just for guns centered in different places.
	Yeah, they're for gun monopolies, not for gun control.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That idea and similar ideas that have to do with just letting people have personal freedom are so hard to...
	The simple idea of that is just so hard to get through a lot of people's heads because they just see the government in a different sense than I do or you do.
	In a lot of these conversations they'll say, Well, the government, and I'll say, well, you mean people in uniforms who have guns?
	Like, they just don't understand that just because you have a uniform on and you're representing a nation, whatever that means.
	Oh, no, no.
	Sorry.
	You're not giving people enough credit.
	They understand it perfectly.
	You say, how do you feel when the government calls and it's someone from the IRS? How do you feel?
	Patriotic.
	Happy, overjoyed, eager to contribute, right?
	People shit their pants when the government calls, right?
	Yeah.
	And everybody perfectly well understands that the government is coercion.
	There's no doubt about that.
	They know exactly what's going to happen if they don't pay their bill to the government.
	Down to the last clang of the jail cell, they know exactly what's going to happen.
	Yeah, they just don't get that.
	It's not a lack of understanding.
	No, they get how it's immoral too.
	They get how it's immoral too, because if you suggest, hey, I need my kids to get educated, so let's get some guns and go to the neighbors and get some money.
	They'd say, you crazy?
	That's wrong.
	Of course it's wrong.
	Right?
	The reason that people don't Want to admit these basic truths is because they're afraid of other people's reactions when they do.
	Yeah.
	If I accept that the government is force, what's my next Thanksgiving dinner like?
	Really, really uncomfortable, right?
	Yeah.
	If I don't accept Jesus into my heart anymore, if I get that he's not even a very consistent fictional character, what is my Christian wife going to think?
	What are my parents going to think?
	What are my friends going to think?
	Do they care about me or do they care about our shared fantasy?
	Well, tragically, most people care about the shared fantasy.
	Yeah.
	So it's not a lack of information, usually.
	I mean, for some people it is, for sure, and it's not true for everyone.
	But for most people, it's not a lack of information.
	They make a rational calculation, an amoral rational calculation, and they say, well, if I accept what you're saying, my life becomes really uncomfortable and difficult, and where's the benefit?
	Can you tell them where the benefit is?
	Not supporting the support.
	And not supporting a society based upon domination and control.
	I mean, it's not tangible in their hands.
	No, you know, what you're saying to people is you're saying, I've got a great idea.
	I am going to install a little screen in your head that shows you every rape that's happening in the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
	You can't turn it off and you can't look away and the sound is deafening.
	Yeah.
	How many people would say yes to that?
	No one.
	Right, because they'd say, I get that it's happening in an abstract way, but I can only survive by not focusing on it.
	Because I sure as hell can't stop it, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	I mean, this doesn't turn me into a superhero that can, you know, make rapist dicks fall off before they get anywhere, right?
	Though that would be a very cool cape.
	Brissman!
	I don't know.
	Anyway, so what you're offering to people is, let me reveal the paradise you think you live in to be hell, which you cannot change.
	It's not, from an empirical cost-benefit emotional standpoint, it's not a really good deal, is it?
	No.
	I mean, you just have to be an idiot who lives for consistency.
	You have to be a deeply moral human being for it to be worth it.
	Even if we take the story of Rosa Parks at face value, millions of blacks sat in the back of the bus and got to work, right?
	and she said no I'm not sitting in the back of the bus well her life became pretty uncomfortable right?
	Now, lots of people benefited and raised awareness and so on, right?
	But down in Birmingham, Alabama...
	When they were shooting water cannons and siccing crazy dogs on people, on blacks, for demanding equality, it's pretty fucking uncomfortable for those people, right?
	So I think just understanding that it's not like when I teach my daughter that two and two make four, it doesn't really cost her anything.
	I mean a little bit of time or whatever.
	It doesn't really cost her anything, right?
	It doesn't alienate her from those around, right?
	But when you teach people that taxation is theft, well, that pops them out the matrix, right?
	And it will not change in their lifetime.
	Almost certainly, right?
	So why teach me about an evil I cannot change?
	What possible benefit could that have for me?
	It's basically like saying, hey, let's have our Thanksgiving dinner in the morgue.
	What possible benefit could that have for us?
	Well, you get to see the truth about dead people.
	I know there are dead people.
	Putting my face in it, what does it gain me?
	Doesn't bring them back to life?
	Doesn't change how they died?
	Just makes my meal a whole lot less fun, right?
	But I mean, those individuals actually are being attacked.
	Like, the people who I would be talking with are having their money taken from them or are having different things.
	I mean, they actually are directly affected by it.
	Yes, but they cannot change it.
	Yeah.
	They cannot change it.
	And you can say, well, if everyone believed...
	Yeah, yeah, well, you know.
	If everyone wanted to buy a candy bar from the same store at the same time, The building would never be large enough.
	I mean, the law of averages is how we make all these kinds of decisions, right?
	So you're basically saying to people, instead of believing that you're patriotic and helping the poor, you will understand that you're a victim and attacks livestock, and you cannot change it.
	And it will set you at odds with at least 90% of the people around you who will think that you're crazy.
	You might as well tell them that Justin Bieber is a lizard man, which is someone's theory on the thread.
	Can I tell you how wonderful it is that I live in a world where two days of a Justin Bieber video gets more hits than three years of the bomb in the brain?
	Yeah, I mean, people in so many ways deserve what they're going to get.
	But anyway...
	So I'm not trying to tell you don't talk to people about things, but don't be under the illusion, I would argue, maybe I'm wrong, but don't be under the illusion that it is simply a lack of information.
	The truth, the philosophical truth about the non-aggression principle and the violence-addicted society we live in, the truth of that is so traumatic for people.
	That it is like a red pill where you don't get to choose it, but four guys hold you down and one guy sticks it up your ass without Vaseline and with a toilet plunger.
	It's just that I know that my mind was changed by people kind of logically discussing, like yourself and like others, logically discussing how it doesn't matter who's committing the violence.
	It doesn't make any better government.
	And I just don't know to what extent I should go and try to do that with other people who don't seem very receptive to that.
	Well, the last thing I'll say, and I can't tell you that, and listen, I'm not trying to discourage you on your activism at all.
	I mean, I hope that would be ridiculous for me.
	I mean, I'm a huge activist in this field, so I'm not trying to discourage you from your activism at all.
	Yeah.
	But you have to remember...
	That you are arguing against Nazism when most people are Nazis.
	And I don't mean that even metaphorically.
	90% of people who are parents hit their children.
	The number for hitting children under 3 years old is 94%.
	Which is basically everyone you meet.
	So basically everyone you meet has repeatedly hit toddlers and babies.
	I assume you haven't done that yet, right?
	No.
	I never have either.
	Mike, how's your toddler-bashing fetish?
	Nope, never spanked anyone.
	Right.
	Unless they'd be naughty.
	Enough about our business meetings.
	Right.
	Absolutely.
	And we had a spanking good time, what?
	So most people have repeatedly hit babies and toddlers, at least in America, right?
	And in England, the numbers are slightly less than in other countries.
	And those people who have not done that seem to be pretty comfortable with a national debt.
	So maybe they haven't hit Babies and toddlers.
	But they've sold off an entire generation to debt serfdom to bankers.
	Right?
	And so, most parents have sent their children to government schools and never really inquired as to alternatives and Most people cheer the troops, and lots of people know people in the military, and half the American population is getting substantial sums of money from the government.
	You see, everyone is complicit in violations of the non-aggression principle, which is why you're drawn to really abstract examples, because that doesn't touch anyone's conscience.
	Conscience, you know, they say Social Security is the third rail of American politics.
	You touch it, you die.
	Conscience is the third rail of moral discussion.
	If you touch ethical questions that people have personally violated, if you hold forth ethical standards that people have personally violated, oh my god, oh my god, right?
	Yeah.
	Oh my god.
	If the state is evil, most people are evil.
	If spanking is evil, most people are evil.
	If the national debt is evil, most people who don't rail against the national debt and demand that their politicians eliminate it, no matter what the personal cost to themselves, then they're evil, right?
	And so when you start talking about moral standards that people actually have violated personally, viscerally against helpless, dependent, innocent, beautiful, helpless babies and toddlers, Oh, man.
	Do you see why people get very upset and why you talk about these issues rather than spanking and circumcision?
	Thank you.
	Just to name two of the wide variety.
	Yeah.
	Go ahead.
	Well, I was just going to say, I mean, most of my political discussions aren't about, you know, what people should have done during the Second World War, but most of them are about things that are happening at the moment, but...
	No, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, sorry.
	But most things that you talk about are not things that people are personally responsible for, right?
	It depends on the conversation, I would say.
	Well, let's say that you're against the drug war.
	How many people have shot other people because of drugs?
	That you know.
	Where I'm at?
	None that I know of.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	How many people have spanked or approve of spanking children?
	Or have circumcised or approve of circumcising little boys?
	Well, you don't know, because you're not talking about people with those topics, right?
	Yeah, I mean, of young people, I don't know how many that is, but I mean, yeah.
	Well, I'll tell you this, my friend.
	So when anti-spanking activists started, 96% of parents were hitting toddlers.
	Now, 40 years later, it's down to 93%.
	So I'm not waiting for the next generation to cut it down to 10 or 0.
	This gradualism, in theory, is perpetuity in practice, right?
	So anyway, I'm just trying to tell you that the closer you get to where people have truly violated the non-aggression principle, the more resistance you will get from people about that.
	But that's the only place that's really important to go as an activist, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, thanks for the conversation.
	It was very interesting.
	You're very welcome.
	I don't imagine you're going to change tomorrow, but it's just something to keep in your mind.
	Thanks very much.
	And now, do we have a lady?
	How did a lady manage to get through my virulent anti-femininity dictum?
	I'm just kidding.
	How's it going?
	It's going pretty well.
	I just wanted to take a second to thank Michael because I've been really anxious and nervous about calling in and he's been reassuring me a lot because it's pretty busy.
	Well, he's wrong.
	It's just going to get worse from here.
	I guarantee it.
	Michael is like, he's the bait and switch.
	Anyway, forget it.
	So, what's on your mind, Victoria?
	I have a question because I have some issues that have been recurring in my life and it all goes back to the root of a problem or so I've heard.
	And so I wanted to know when you get to the root of a problem, what do you do?
	Where can I go from here?
	What's the problem?
	I mean, I've been raped and I have a lot of sexual abuse that's been done when I was a child And I grew up being mistreated by my mom and being undersaid and a lot of these things happened to me.
	And so now I have all these issues, like post-matics.
	I bet you do.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Yeah, it's just very difficult because I've been self-hunting since I was nine and I've I've been working myself really hard lately because I'm a mom and I don't want them to go through this and I don't want them thinking that it's okay at all.
	And so it's been two weeks now that I haven't self harmed and so I'm really proud about that.
	Right.
	Do you want to talk some more or do you want me to ask some questions or talk about what I'm thinking?
	I'm happy.
	Whatever works for you.
	You can go ahead.
	I think it'd be easier to pursue the conversation if you ask any questions.
	Okay.
	Well, I guess the first thing is I'm incredibly sorry for what you experienced as a child.
	I mean, there's...
	You know, on the hierarchy of human evil, sexual abuse is like a shade lower than murder, in my opinion.
	You know, the evil that you suffered.
	As a child, it was absolutely appalling.
	Assuming it was a man or a man, I'm enraged at men who violate children.
	I'm enraged at mothers who fail to protect.
	Their children or who even bring these monsters into their children's lives.
	I'm so incredibly sorry about what happened to you over the course of your childhood.
	So I just really wanted to mention that up front and to give you that.
	Thank you.
	Now, how...
	How safe is your environment now?
	I mean, do you have people in your life who know about your prior abuse but remain distant or unsympathetic towards it?
	I have a pretty good group of support, especially my husband.
	He's been through a lot because he's been witnessing changes in me and he's been really helpful when it comes to You know, nightmares and flashbacks and just dealing with all of it.
	Right.
	And what about your mother?
	I have been talking to her lately now.
	Not much.
	I mean, I've moved.
	I used to live in Canada and not in the States.
	I kind of distance myself from my family now.
	I think it was for the best.
	Definitely for the best.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Alright, so your environment is fairly secure, fairly safe?
	Very safe.
	Yeah.
	Well, that's good.
	I think that's definitely a plus.
	From my perspective and opinion, you know, if you want people to get over a war, the first thing you need to do is get them off the battlefield, right?
	You can't deal with PTSD when people are still in the war, right?
	I mean, it's actually kind of dangerous, I would assume, right?
	So, I think from that standpoint, you're probably doing something, I think you're doing something really good.
	Thank you.
	And what form did the self-harm take, if you don't mind?
	You don't have to go into any details you're not comfortable with, but what form did the self-harm take?
	Well, like, I had this box where I would just find things that I could harm myself with when I was a kid, like pump tacks or...
	The metal part of scotch tape, I don't really know how to explain it, but the part that you can cut the pieces of scotch tape with.
	Yeah, the little serrated teeth that you cut the tape with, right?
	Yeah, and needles.
	And I would just scratch my arms and my legs.
	Was that to attempt to numb yourself, to release endorphins, to feel something?
	I mean, what was the driver, do you think, behind that?
	The way I always thought is when I felt emotional pain, I would go self-harm, so I would feel physical pain because I always thought dealing with physical pain was easier than dealing with emotional pain.
	Right.
	Right.
	And the emotional pain that you were afraid of, was that, like the PTSD you mentioned, was that a recurrence of the emotions associated with the sexual abuse or was it anger or was it anxiety or fear or, you know, all of the above kind of stuff?
	It was a lot of fear because it kind of happened every other day until my dad got custody of me.
	Because my mom, she remarried when I was two.
	And she remarried to an Arabic man.
	And he had a lot of friends.
	And when my mom was out, they would sexually harass me.
	And my mom, she keeps telling me that she didn't know.
	And every time that I brought it up, she would cry and be like, Oh, if I would have known, I would have never let that happen.
	But she had to know because so many times that she caught him, you know, and I would be locked in her bedroom or something.
	And if I didn't do what he asked me to do, then I would be whipped with his belt.
	And I tried to reach out because my cousin has sexually abused me as well, and she caught him.
	And I tried to reach out and tell her that her husband was also doing the same thing, but nothing has been done about that.
	Right.
	I'll tell you my thoughts about this, and this is not philosophical, it's not provable in any significant way, but my thoughts about this is that Moms who say they don't know, I can't believe it.
	I fundamentally, in my gut, in my core, I don't believe it for a goddamn second.
	Because for your mom to not have known at all, not even have any suspicions, then there must have been no change in your personality Prior to the abuse and after the abuse.
	Does that make sense?
	Right.
	And there was definitely changes.
	I mean, I stopped eating and...
	Of course there were.
	Yeah, of course there were.
	I mean, but even if you had maintained the same diet or whatever, but basically, you know, they say child sexual abuse is child rape.
	Right.
	I mean, even if it's not penetration, it's just rape, as far as I'm concerned.
	And so, to say...
	It's like a man living with...
	This is what it's like for me.
	It's like a man living with a woman.
	He's married to her, and they've been married for 10 years.
	One day, she's walking home from work.
	She gets jumped by five guys in an alley and raped.
	And then she comes home And doesn't tell him for a couple of days.
	And then he says, I had zero idea anything was wrong.
	Well, for a woman to be raped by five guys and for the husband to have no idea that anything is wrong is simply not believable at all.
	He didn't see it.
	He didn't know that it happened.
	but if he claims that he had no idea that his wife was raped and couldn't tell the difference between the day before she was raped and the night she comes home after having been raped, then he is a goddamn liar.
	It's like the parents who say, I had no idea my child was being bullied at school.
	Bullshit!
	Bullshit and a half.
	Sorry, I'm not mad at you.
	This ignorance, I didn't know, I didn't know, it's such bullshit.
	You're guilty as a parent either way.
	Because if you notice something but didn't ask, then you're guilty.
	But if it's true...
	That you didn't even notice the difference between your child before she was raped and after she was raped?
	Then you are such a shitty parent, it's even worse than noticing something and not asking, because you don't even then know the difference between a pre-rape and a post-rape offspring, for God's sakes.
	How disconnected and insane would you have to be to not even notice that?
	And how cruel do you have to be as a parent To not validate your child's experience, but instead to only focus on how you might get in trouble.
	So how selfish do you have to be as a mom when your daughter says I was raped for basically your first thought to be, well, I can't get in trouble for this, so I'm going to have to say I didn't know anything about it?
	I mean, that is a further abuse issue.
	Much more subtle, but very powerful.
	Does that make any sense?
	It does.
	She says that now, but even when I tried to reach out, even when I told her it was happening, everything was dismissed.
	And I just feel like it's the guilt taking over and making her think like she didn't know, or she's just trying to justify it by saying she didn't.
	Well, she's just sacrificing you again, right?
	I mean, do you know, as a man, why 96 or 97% of teachers of young children are women?
	It's because if you're a man and you say, I want to work with little kids, what does everyone immediately think?
	He's a pedophile.
	What if he's a pedophile?
	Why does a grown man want to spend time around children?
	What a creep, right?
	And yet, we've gone way too far.
	Pedophiles are like a teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny percentage.
	Of the population, and a good portion of them are women, too.
	I don't hear much about that because female evil must forever be excused and whitewashed.
	But if women actually goddamn well committed to protecting their children, then the incidence of pedophilia would almost vanish.
	And again, it's not to say I'm not whitewashing the guys.
	Pedophiles are monsters, evil to the core.
	But it's the mom's job, particularly if there's a stepdad around.
	Everybody knows that the incidence of incest with stepfathers is far higher than biological fathers because the bond isn't there.
	The bond from infancy just isn't there.
	And if moms protected their children from these monsters and took their children seriously when the reports were there or noticed Changes in mood or changes in, as you say, you stopped eating, eating habits, occurrences of self-harm, if they just fucking protected their goddamn children the way that they're supposed to, then these kinds of incidents would almost completely vanish.
	In other words, I don't think that your stepdad could have done, his friends, God help them, could have done what they did without your mom's tacit permission.
	You don't think that they would have done that with their permission?
	Yeah, no, probably not.
	If she would have been around, then...
	No, no, not if they'd been around.
	No.
	No, listen, sorry.
	Sorry to interrupt you.
	Not if they'd been around.
	Not if she'd been around.
	If you said you went to your mom and you said, Mom, I was raped or I was sexually abused, right?
	Right.
	Now, you're...
	Stepdad and his friends must have been pretty damn sure that her next call wasn't going to be 911, right?
	Right.
	I mean, what a huge risk.
	Because they get arrested, they go to jail, and what happens to child rapists in prison?
	They get beat up.
	Well, they get beat up and they get raped because so many criminals in prison are victims of childhood sexual abuse that you get a pedophile in prison and they have a seriously bad time, right?
	Paul Bernardo, this Canadian monster pedophile with Carla Homolka, was beaten to death in prison shortly after, a year or two, three I think, after going to jail.
	There's a special hate that criminals have for pedophiles since so many of them end up in prison, significantly influenced by childhood experiences of sexual abuse.
	So in abusing you sexually, your stepdad and his friends were taking such an enormous risk that their lives were going to be ruined, that they were going to be thrown in jail and raped and beaten perhaps to death.
	They were risking years of torture and possibly even murder.
	And they were resting that whole gamble on your mom not doing anything to protect you.
	Do you get the scope of the risk that they were taking?
	Yeah, I get it.
	It's like going into a bank And saying, well, we don't need to wear masks because I'm sure all the security cameras are broken.
	And I'm sure that none of the tellers will push any alarms.
	And I'm sure the police will get flat tires.
	And so we can just wander in and then we can wander out and we can sit around for half the day if we want to.
	But that would be an insane risk, right?
	Great.
	And so your father, sorry, your stepfather and his...
	Co-rapists were taking a terrible risk because if your mom had called 911, their lives would have been over.
	Like possibly even not figuratively.
	I mean, I've talked to women and men on this show who've experienced sexual abuse.
	And, oh yeah, then the perpetrator goes to jail for 10 years and is on a permanent sexual offender registry, right?
	Right.
	And so this is what I'm sort of trying to point out, that it's not possible without your mom not doing anything.
	So you were saying that they knew that my mom would not...
	Yes.
	They had to be not just pretty certain, but completely certain that your mom was going to do nothing.
	Now, not only were they certain that she wasn't going to call the police, but they were certain that she wasn't going to take you away from them.
	And they were certain that no one in your life was going to listen to you and call the police.
	Your mom, teachers, friends, friends, parents, siblings, cousins, guy at the supermarket, they knew they had to be damn certain that not one single human being in your life would hear those three words, I was raped, and do something about it.
	Do you understand what an astounding, terrible, terrifying risk that is and how certain you have to be as a child rapist?
	I mean, how long did this go on for?
	It started when I was around four and stopped when I was seven.
	Alright, so three years, right?
	Three years of repetitive child sexual abuse.
	And they had to be damn sure, not only that nobody would believe you when you were young, but that your mom would not believe you even five years later.
	Or ten years later.
	I don't know what the statute of limitations is for child rape, but it's probably not three days.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	After my mom was just kind of dismissed, when I tried to reach out to her when I was a kid, I didn't tell anyone that I was raped until I was 16.
	Right, but they had to know that that wasn't going to happen to you.
	Sorry, they had to know that you weren't going to tell anyone.
	I don't know how they know because I'm not anyone like that, so I don't know.
	But I do know that they had to be very, very certain that they were going to get away with it.
	And as far as I understand it, they did, right?
	Okay.
	I mean, they never did go to jail, right?
	No.
	Right.
	There's a process called grooming, which is a little bit different, I think, because you were four and you were trapped in the household.
	But these predators, these sick bastards, these evil bastards, are very good at knowing when children will remain unprotected.
	Not just during the time of the abuse, but for 10 or 20 years afterwards.
	I don't know how they know that.
	But they do.
	Because very few of them get caught.
	The average child molester has hundreds of victims before he ends up going to jail.
	How does he choose all of those victims?
	How does he know, or she know, That the children will not talk.
	Or if they do talk, that their parents won't do anything.
	How do they know that?
	I don't know.
	But they generally do.
	And so your mom was giving off signals that allowed your stepdad and his friends to molest you.
	Right.
	Right?
	They knew That your mom would not call the police even though you told her.
	How did they know that?
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	But see, if someone is an arsonist and they light a fire in a shed with Two children trapped inside and I stand there and do nothing and watch those children burn and do not open the door even though the children are begging and screaming to get out and I do not call the police and I do not call the fire station
	and I do not bang on the neighbors and I do not break down the door and I do not break the window and I don't do everything in my power to either help those children get out but I stand by the window and watch them bubble and burn.
	And if the arsonist only lit that fire because he knew I would watch, I am pretty causal in the death of those children, right?
	Right.
	If a man will only rob a bank because I'm willing to drive the getaway car, I am causal in that bank being robbed, right?
	Right.
	And if a man will only rape a child because he knows the mother will do nothing, the mother is causal in the rape of the child.
	And that's the clarity that I'm trying to encourage here.
	I see.
	I mean, I've known that.
	I've been watching some of your videos that you talk about how everything you become to this day...
	Yes, but sorry to interrupt.
	And I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I'll be quiet after this, but I listen very carefully to the beginning.
	I don't give my speeches until I've listened.
	I listen very carefully at the beginning, and you said that your mom didn't know.
	She said she didn't know.
	Right.
	And you didn't say, but I know she's lying.
	Oh, no, I know.
	I mentioned that.
	I have a feeling that it's her guilt that's making her say that.
	No.
	That she feels guilty.
	No, no, no.
	Come on.
	Come on, Victoria.
	If the woman was capable of guilt, then she would have done something at the time, right?
	Right.
	I mean, I'm not sure.
	I don't know your mom.
	I mean, I'm just saying, is it not possible that she's a sadist and that she took pleasure in what happened to you?
	Women can be sadists just like men can be sadists.
	And sadists, their pleasure center lights up like a hit of heroin when they see cruelty, intentional cruelty, particularly against the helpless.
	It's possible, I don't know, but it's possible that That she's just a sadist and she invited the man into your life and gave him the signals that let him prey upon you and ignored your cries because she liked it.
	And maybe now the sadism is denying your experience which gives her further delicious pleasure in your pain.
	I don't know.
	I'm just saying it's possible.
	And if she was guilty, the first thing she would do is validate your experience.
	If I'm guilty about stealing some money, the first thing I do is give the goddamn money back, right?
	Attempt to make restitution for what I've done.
	That's what guilt is.
	Not further deny that I stole the money.
	That's just a desire to evade consequences.
	Guilt is...
	I'm going to pay for your therapy.
	Guilt is I'm going to see if I can bring charges against these assholes.
	Guilt is I'm going to go into therapy myself and figure out why I was such a fucking bad mom that I didn't even protect my child from a rapist I invited into the house when my child told me she was being raped.
	That's guilt.
	Somebody comes to me and says, you stole my money, and I say, no, I didn't.
	that's not guilt guilt is I go to that person and say I stole your money I feel terrible how can I make it up to you Here's what I suggest.
	And I guess your first theory about her being a citizen would be correct.
	Well, I'm just telling you, I don't see any evidence of guilt.
	People who plead the fifth are...
	Not accepting and owning up to their guilt.
	They're attempting to avoid the consequences of their evil, right?
	Your stepdad was evil, his friends were evil, but your mom invited them in and let them keep doing what they're doing and kept you at home and didn't protect you.
	She joins in the evil.
	And compounds it now by saying that she didn't know when you told her.
	Right.
	To me, moral clarity is closure.
	Moral clarity is closure.
	When we have an accurate and consistent and truthful moral understanding of a traumatic situation, that for me was when my trauma began to truly ease.
	When I didn't accept prevarications and lies and people pleading the fifth and people claiming to not remember and people offering to help me with the problems that I mysteriously have about the things that they can't remember and when people having sympathy for me for all of my difficulties For all the beatings and violence and abuse that I experienced that they just can't remember.
	When I got that them saying they didn't remember and that it probably didn't happen that way or there was a lot of stress in the household or things were difficult or it was a tough time for everyone.
	When I got that that was a continuation of the abuse That's when true self-protection occurred.
	I assume you do not talk to your stepfather.
	Right.
	I assume you don't talk to your stepfather.
	I'm not sure why you're talking to your mother.
	Right.
	Because you put them in separate moral categories, right?
	Yeah.
	Her job was to protect you.
	Her job was to protect you.
	You told her, I'm being raped.
	She did not protect you, but she returned you to the scene of the rape, which gave the rapist permission to keep raping you.
	It's one thing to fall into a lion's den.
	It's another thing when you're trying to get out and people push you back in.
	I agree.
	Because you put your mother in a separate moral category than your rapist, but she invited him in to your life.
	He raped you.
	She did not believe you.
	The rape continued.
	She's causal in the rape.
	I don't see a separate moral category at all.
	And that's why I asked you at the beginning of the conversation, how safe is your environment?
	If you do not understand, at least from my argument and my perspective, if you do not understand that your mother was causal in the rapes of you as a child, I don't think you are in a safe environment.
	I do.
	I think all of your analogies have really cleared that up.
	I think that the only reason why...
	And for your son.
	Right.
	No, and for your son, right?
	Because if you can't see the evil that's in your arm, is there anyone else that's going to be in your son's life that you can't see either?
	Right?
	Small predators hide behind the big predators that we think are friends.
	Right?
	The small and growing evils of the future hide behind the large and invisible evils of the past.
	Right?
	But I'm sorry, I did interrupt you for which I apologize.
	Please go on.
	It's okay.
	I mean, I like hearing what you have to say.
	That's why I called.
	But I think the reason I still talk to her is because I'm trying to, you know, the whole thing, forgive and move on.
	There's no way I could forget that.
	There's no way anyone would be able to forgive.
	I don't know.
	But why do you want to forgive?
	Why is that necessary?
	To have peace.
	With myself?
	I know and accept that it happened.
	I don't know.
	You can know and accept that it happened.
	Of course.
	But you don't need to forgive for that.
	I would caution you against...
	I'm sorry, I was going to listen.
	Tiny speech.
	But I would caution you, Victoria, against willing forgiveness.
	It's like trying to will love.
	Love is something that is earned.
	Or it's like trying to will credit.
	Right?
	Love is something that is earned and forgiveness is something that is earned.
	If someone does me something wrong, if somebody does me something wrong, I am curious about what they're going to do about it.
	I don't imagine that the onus is upon me to forgive them.
	The onus is upon them to earn my forgiveness if they want.
	Right?
	Right.
	I mean, if my neighbor goes into debt, I don't view it as my duty to pay his debt off.
	Now, if he's been a great friend and he's been really supportive and he's helped me out a lot, I might choose to help him out because he's earned it.
	But he has to earn it.
	And some guy who keeps setting fire to my lawn and shitting in my flower pots, I'm certainly not paying his debts, right?
	So, forgiveness is a state that is elicited in someone else.
	Like, let me ask you a question.
	If I show you a picture of a baby cut in two, and I tell you, you have to look at that picture and think that that is beautiful, what would you think?
	That you're crazy?
	Yeah, I can't look at that god-awful picture and think that it's beautiful.
	I think it's about the most revolting thing I've ever seen.
	Exactly.
	Because your emotional response to the art is elicited by the art.
	You can't will liking or not liking something like that.
	Whereas if the most beautiful thing is to you, if I show you a picture of that and I say, you must find that ugly, you're going to say, well, I can't.
	I think it's beautiful.
	It's really, really important to be passive in your emotions.
	Your emotions are not pets to be trained and ordered around.
	They're not soldiers.
	Being passive with your emotions is one of the most essential acts of self-protection imaginable.
	Not, well, this person did this, so I should feel that.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I was just asking if it's possible for you To explain what you mean by passive when it comes to my emotions.
	Okay, so let's say that forgiveness is an emotion.
	It's not perfect analogy, but let's say forgiveness is an emotion.
	You want to make yourself forgive someone.
	You think it's a goal that you can achieve.
	Like once I forgive my mother, I will have peace and I will have closure and I will have acceptance, right?
	All this sort of stuff, right?
	I'm arguing that you cannot will forgiveness.
	It's like trying to will sexual desire for someone you find repulsive.
	Or to will love for somebody you find despicable.
	And being passive in your emotions.
	In other words, when someone is around me, I don't think to myself, well, I'd better like them, or I shouldn't like this person.
	What I do is I say, how do I feel about this person?
	If someone has done me wrong, I don't sit there and say, well, I better fix this.
	Well, I better go and solve this problem.
	Well, I better forgive this person.
	What I say to myself is, how do I feel about this?
	Be passive in your emotions.
	Be receptive to your emotions.
	Do not order your soul around.
	It is not a chihuahua.
	And you wouldn't even order a chihuahua around.
	So, now, if someone has done me wrong, and I say, well, that was unpleasant, and then they call me up, And they say, you know what, Steph?
	I just did something that was really wrong.
	I've been thinking about it all night.
	Here's what I did.
	Here's how it was wrong.
	Here's how it came about.
	Here's what I'm going to do to fix it.
	I'm so, so sorry.
	Then I say to myself, do you know what I say to myself?
	How do I feel about that?
	Do you see?
	Passive in your emotions.
	Do not order them around.
	Do not make them line up like little toy soldiers.
	How do I feel about that?
	Maybe I feel, oh, okay, I feel good about that.
	That person did something actually quite nice.
	I actually feel quite good about that.
	And if I don't feel quite good about it, I will say, I'm sorry, I don't feel good about it.
	And this passivity in my emotions is really upsetting to a lot of people.
	Why?
	Because it means I can't be manipulated.
	Yeah, it's like, sorry, I don't...
	You know, it's funny because when I was, I don't even know, maybe seven or eight years old, I used to watch this show...
	I don't know.
	You're probably too young for it, but you probably know about it.
	Happy Days.
	With the young director of Apollo 13.
	But, you know, it was Ritchie and Fonz and the Fonz and all that kind of stuff.
	And there's a scene which struck me as really important, even when I was like seven or eight years old.
	Or maybe I was a little older.
	I can't remember if it was in Canada or not.
	I was a little older.
	Ritchie Cunningham wants to kiss this girl.
	And he goes in to try and kiss this girl in the car.
	And the girl says, oh, I can't kiss you.
	And he says, why not?
	And she says, well, there's this song.
	I don't even know what the song is called.
	Let's say The Wanderer.
	You know, whenever I feel I really want to kiss someone, I hear this song called The Wanderer in my head.
	And he said, oh, I could turn on the radio.
	And she says, no, no, no, that's not how it works, right?
	So she's kind of passive in her emotions.
	She's like, do I hear the music called The Wanderer?
	Do I hear that song called No?
	Then I don't want to kiss this guy.
	And he's like, well, I'll turn the radio on and then you'll hear the song and I can kiss you.
	And she's like, no, that's not how it works, right?
	She's passively listening to whether she can hear that song, which says she wants to kiss the guy.
	And I remember as a kid thinking, that's really important.
	I don't know why.
	I got so many, I got hundreds of things bookmarked from when I was a kid.
	Sometimes it took me 30 years to figure out why I remembered them.
	But that one was really important to me.
	It's a good thing I did, right?
	So when people say, I'm sorry, I have no idea whether I forgive them or not.
	I'm willing to listen to them.
	I'm willing to listen to myself.
	If they elicit the emotion of forgiveness in me, then I forgive them.
	I notice the forgiveness occurring for me.
	I don't try and will a tan, right?
	I don't try and will my hair growing or whatever, right?
	And if somebody wants to be my friend, then they can Chat with me, they can come visit, they can call me on the phone, and I will see how I feel about them.
	And if I find that I really like them, and I find that I really want to spend more time with them, then that's the way it's going to be.
	And if I find that I don't particularly like them, and I don't particularly...
	then I don't.
	But I don't...
	I want you to treat...
	I want you to treat your emotions with the same respect that you would treat your son's emotions.
	Which is, they're not things to be ordered about, right?
	If your son looked at a sunset and said, that's beautiful, would you tell him that he's wrong?
	No.
	Of course you wouldn't.
	Even if you didn't think that...
	Even if the sunset was because of pollution...
	You wouldn't say, well, you know, you're wrong.
	That's just pollution and we're in Beijing, right?
	You would respect his emotions and you would not try to order his emotions around, right?
	If he said some kid pushes him over in the mud three times and he says, I don't want to play with that kid anymore, what would you say to him?
	Then don't play with him because he's obviously using you.
	Right.
	So don't.
	You wouldn't say to him, you need to forgive him and you need to love him.
	Right?
	Otherwise you'll never have closure.
	You'll never find peace.
	That's just a curse.
	It's a form of bullying your son to say, you must love that mean kid, he must be your best friend, or you will be unhappy forever.
	That's exactly the same as, you must love Jesus or you're going to hell.
	Right?
	Right.
	You must love Stalin and you're going to a gulag, right?
	So I'm inviting you and encouraging you, Victoria, to be as respectful of your own emotions as you would be of other people's emotions.
	Otherwise, you're simply obeying orders again.
	And the orders of bad people.
	Bad people want you to forgive them and they demand that you forgive them in the same way that they want you to respect them and they demand that you respect them and they want you to love them and they demand that you love them.
	That's what bad people do.
	Don't obey the orders of bad people.
	Bad people want you to forgive them so they don't have to be better.
	And then it becomes your job to forgive them and if you don't forgive them, you're holding on to a grudge and you'll be cursed forever with a lack of peace of mind or whatever, right?
	Which doesn't ever seem to trouble bad people too much, this issue.
	It's just they know that good people want a good relationship with their conscience.
	Good people, virtuous people, earn.
	They earn what they want.
	If I want my wife's love, if I want Mike's friendships, I earn it.
	If I want listeners, I earn it.
	If I want donations, I ask for them and I try to earn it with the best possible shows that I know how to do and the most important, most meaningful conversations that I know how to have.
	But I don't go to the government and say, you've got to pass a law that says, give me $10,000 a month for my show.
	I have to earn it.
	And everyone in your life must earn your good regard.
	Thank you.
	And that's what you will be modeling for your son.
	If you want to break this cycle, and it sounds like you're doing a fantastic job.
	I'm just talking about a little further.
	If you want to break the cycle, you have to model for your son The respect for your own emotions that you want him to have for his own emotions.
	Not ordering yourself around, not telling you what you should do, regardless of your feelings, but saying, do I feel forgiveness for this person?
	Have they earned it?
	What do I feel about my mother?
	What do I feel about my father?
	What do I feel about my stepfather?
	No shoulds!
	The should is the enemy of the good.
	I feel like I'm a black preacher now.
	The should be the enemy of the good.
	If it rhymes, it's time.
	I don't know why they're all throaty.
	That's probably prejudicial on my part.
	But that's what you want to model for your son.
	My daughter asks me, am I ever going to meet your mom?
	I say no.
	I said, your mom has never met my mom.
	Does she live far away?
	Not really.
	They just want to keep her away from the bad people.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't have any right to expose my daughter to my mother.
	I have no right to do that any more than I have a right to push her down a hill with no helmet on a bicycle.
	Or with a helmet on a bicycle, for that matter.
	Or push her anywhere.
	I don't have the right to expose her.
	To things that are toxic.
	And I don't have the right to expose her to a traumatized me.
	It's just, it's not, I just don't have the right to do that.
	I can't do that.
	That would be irresponsible for me as a parent to take my daughter to meet my mother.
	Right.
	Sorry, I can't, you know, and I can't feed her moldy sandwiches either.
	Because it's bad for her.
	And I can't go skydiving without a safety line because I'm a father.
	I can't expose myself to dangerous situations like spending time with my mother either.
	And why would I want?
	Yeah, it definitely affects me negatively and it affects my daughter negatively.
	And she has no way to judge my mother because she doesn't know any mean people.
	You know, the meanest thing she knows is Comrade Black from De Blob 2, which means nothing to anyone, but it's a video game.
	I mean, she doesn't know any of that stuff, so how could she possibly judge any of that?
	And even if I felt I had the right, and even if I felt, you know, I would be like, do I want to go and see my mother?
	That's all it comes down to.
	Do I want to go and see my mother?
	Do I want to pick up the phone?
	Do I want to drive over there?
	I really, really, really don't.
	I don't blame myself for that.
	Yeah.
	But I'm telling you the same thing.
	with good reason.
	That's why we moved.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	But I'm talking about clarity.
	I'm talking about clarity within...
	You asked me for closure and clarity, right?
	Right.
	Where do I go once I discover the root of the problem?
	Right.
	Well, that's what we're talking about.
	So I can't give you closure and clarity at all, right?
	But I'm just telling you what I think are some useful perspectives in this.
	I just have to ask myself...
	Do I want to go and see my mother?
	Do I want to talk to my mother?
	Now, if the answer is no, sorry, the answer is no.
	You know, I knew the woman for 35, 36 years, I don't know.
	You know, I'm not going by first impressions here, right?
	Or as I wrote in a poem, I wrote in a poem when I was in therapy, I fell out of the hole of my mother and then I fell into the hole that was my mother.
	So I'm not going on like, hey, give her a chance.
	You know, I think 35 years is...
	I'm not jumping the gun.
	This is not premature, right?
	Right.
	It's not like a blind date where you just walk in and walk out because the guy is wearing his baseball cap backwards.
	Actually, that would be a good reason, unless you're 12.
	Anyway.
	But it's not first impressions.
	It's not, you know, 35 years.
	36 is going to change anything?
	No.
	There's no indication that there's any change.
	There's no indication that any change was possible.
	There's no indication that any change was imminent.
	So I don't want to.
	People can say, well, you should, but she's your mother.
	It's like, but I don't.
	Well, you should.
	You can say whatever you like.
	It's like, I'm 5'11".
	Well, you should be 7 foot.
	But I'm 5'11".
	You know, I don't know what to say.
	This is my height.
	This is how I feel.
	You can tell me I should feel something different, but that's an idiot thing for someone to say with regards to me and also with regards to you, right?
	People who say that I should feel different about my mother when I've had 35 years of experience with my mother and they've had zero years of experience with my mother are insane.
	Such people are literally insane.
	It's like somebody who doesn't speak Mandarin correcting me on my Mandarin when I've been speaking it for 35 years and they've never heard it even once.
	This is obviously just projection and immaturity.
	You know, you know deep down that it was your mom's job to protect you.
	You know, without me telling you, that she invited this satanic asshole into your life.
	Who raped you?
	And his friends raped you.
	You know that you went to your mother and you told her, Mama, I'm being raped by Dad.
	And you know that she did nothing and it went on for years.
	I'm not telling you anything you don't know, right?
	I'm just...
	Like the archaeologist brushing some dust off the bones, right?
	And I think that moral clarity is closure.
	The rapes occurred because your mother allowed them.
	She was not a victim.
	She was more than an enabler.
	Your stepfather and your mother were a team in your fundamental violation, and the salvation lies in the moral clarity of that situation, in my opinion.
	Thank you.
	I thank you.
	I mean, most of the things you said I already knew.
	I just feel like I forgive people too easily because that's what Yeah, look, everybody says you should forgive evil people because there are evil people who don't want to earn forgiveness.
	Right?
	Most of morality is invented by bad people to screw up good people.
	Most of it.
	Right.
	So when there's a general moral standard in society, I automatically believe it's false.
	I mean, it doesn't mean I don't think about it or try and work with it or prove it or whatever.
	But this idea that forgiveness is something that you will even when people don't earn it is, I don't know, It just strikes me as something entirely false and something that serves bad people at the expense of good people.
	I'm like, hey, I'm open to forgiving anyone about anything.
	All people have to do is earn it.
	And anybody who doesn't want to earn your forgiveness, for me, fuck them.
	If people do you such harm as what you've talked about, and they don't work night and day 24-7 to earn your forgiveness, well, I'm afraid that falls into the life's too short, time is too precious category.
	And I'm glad that I can see that now.
	Because then just all of this would have been repeated with more than just my mom.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't think the violations would have been repeated.
	Obviously, I'm sure you're going to protect your son from anything like that.
	And the way that you're raising him, he's not going to fall prey to anything like that.
	But I'm looking to end the abuse, not diminish it.
	And you want to model...
	You want to model taking your emotions very seriously and not ordering them around.
	I think you really want to model that for your son.
	I think that's a good way to start.
	I think so.
	Because I'm always told that I'm over emotional and so then you try to just diminish it, right?
	You try to not feel as much.
	Well, you could do that.
	Now, I hope you don't have too sensitive a set of ears.
	I don't think you...
	You do.
	I mean, I call them the adjective assholes.
	Which is, you're too this.
	You're too that.
	It's like, what does that even mean?
	Steph, you're too arrogant!
	Compared to what?
	Isn't it an arrogant thing to say that I'm arrogant without giving me any standards or any examples?
	You're a jerk!
	Isn't it a jerk to call people jerks without any standards or examples or whatever?
	You're too sensitive.
	Usually that's just people who feel guilty because you got a bruise when they punched you in the face.
	Your skin is too sensitive.
	It's making me feel bad.
	Well, you know, maybe if you didn't punch me in the face, it wouldn't feel bad.
	But the you're too ex-people?
	Nah.
	Forget it.
	I would accept criticisms from people on three conditions.
	Number one.
	Number one, they approach me with affection.
	I don't take criticisms from people who dislike me because they have no objectivity.
	It's like expecting an objective movie review from a guy who openly says, I hate everything about this director for no reason.
	Well, I'm sure we're going to get an objective review now, right?
	So they have to approach me with positivity and That's number one.
	Number two, my behavior has to be deficient according to an objective standard.
	Certainly possible.
	And I'm open to hear the case.
	Number three, they have to have mastered that which they're criticizing me for.
	So think when your son gets...
	No, they can't criticize me unless they're better at it.
	Of course not.
	Right?
	Because how will they even know?
	Like...
	So, you know, if your son gets older, he takes gymnastics.
	You're going to have to choose him a gymnastics teacher.
	Number one, you're going to want someone who's going to be enthusiastic about teaching your son, not someone who yells at him that he's an idiot every time he gets something wrong.
	So the teacher is going to have to approach your son with positivity and affection, like your son, right?
	That's number one.
	And number two, the teacher to correct your son is We'll have to compare what he's doing to some objective standard.
	Otherwise, it's just, well, I don't like what you're doing.
	Do something different.
	Well, like what?
	Compared to what?
	About what?
	In what way, right?
	It's impossible to learn without comparison to an objective standard, right?
	Right.
	Like, you lost this chess match, so you need to improve your chess, right?
	Because the goal of chess is to win, and you lost, and therefore there's an objective standard, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	The ball in tennis went out of the court, so you shot it wrong, so here's how we fix it.
	There's an objective standard that you're comparing it to.
	You know, you're too sensitive is not coming from a place of affection, and it's not compared to any objective standard.
	What does that even mean?
	I don't know.
	And number three, somebody has to be an expert in that which they want to train me in.
	I don't take tennis advice from a guy who's never picked up a racket, right?
	Right.
	Who would?
	You know, imagine someone...
	I'm the best singing teacher in the world, right?
	And you say, well, sing me something.
	Do-Re-Mi!
	Do-Re-Mi!
	Right?
	It's like, you know, that's okay.
	I think I get the ghost of Maria Callas to help me with my chords, right?
	Right.
	I mean, this is the old thing.
	Nobody takes diet advice from a fat person, right?
	Right.
	And so when people say, well, you need to forgive and you need to...
	Well, are they coming from a place of affection and caring for you?
	Are they comparing this to an objective standard?
	No.
	If forgiveness is such a virtue, like, this is how you know it's bullshit what these people are saying.
	It's just manipulative shit.
	It's that they say, well, you've got to forgive your parents who abused you, right, if your parents abused you.
	Right?
	And they only talk to you.
	They don't talk to your parents.
	Why?
	Because your parents are abused.
	It's probably scary, whereas you're a victim and can be exploited for their own emotional, petty, bullshit advantage.
	So they say, you know, forgiveness is really important.
	But abuse occurs primarily because of a lack of forgiveness.
	Or at least that's...
	Right?
	You know, I told you five times to clean up your room.
	Whack!
	Right?
	Well, why don't you just forgive the kid?
	for not cleaning up his room if forgiveness is such a virtue.
	Abusers are the least forgiving people of all because they hit and abuse and then blame the child for transgressions, right?
	In other words, there'd be no such thing as abuse if people were really good at forgiving.
	And so when you go to an abuser who's the least forgiving person of all who's actually initiated the abuse and you see the abuser and you see his victim in the same room And the abuse has only occurred because the abuser won't forgive.
	And then you go to the victim and say, you know, forgiveness is a really good virtue.
	You've got to forgive.
	It's just cowardly and manipulative bullshit.
	Hey, if forgiveness is such a virtue, go talk to the abusive parents who didn't forgive and who abused, right?
	No, no.
	It's a lot easier to pick on the victims, right?
	Because we're not dangerous.
	Well, until we get UPB, anyway.
	So yeah, have very serious standards for accepting criticism.
	Be open to accepting criticism, of course, but very careful standards.
	Yeah, does the criticism help me to feel abusive?
	Mike gives me feedback after almost every show.
	More forehead.
	No, and he says, you know, here's what I think could be improved, or here's what I think was missing, or whatever, and sometimes he said, I think you should re-record it.
	At which point, Mike, don't I always say happily?
	Normally you start with...
	Can't you forgive the podcast?
	It's not that great.
	The podcast needs you to forgive it.
	It won't earn it, but it needs it.
	I hate doing takes again, even though I know that it's almost always better the second time around.
	But...
	I mean, the criticism stuff is really, really important to have very, very tight standards on who you let criticize you.
	It's got to come from a place of love and expertise and standards.
	You know, people should criticize you because they want you to be better at something that's important that they're already really good at and that they know that there's a gap and they need to encourage you and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Right.
	But just the you're so, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	They're just revealing their own manipulative dysfunction, right?
	Right.
	Thank you.
	You are very welcome.
	I'll let you continue with your show.
	Thank you.
	This was not a break at the show, but I appreciate the thought and thank you again so much for calling in.
	And congratulations on momhood.
	I think you're going to be fantastic.
	Thank you and have a good night.
	Take care.
	Alright, Daniel.
	You're next.
	Go ahead, Daniel.
	Hello, Stefan.
	Can you hear me?
	Hi, Daniel.
	I can.
	Hi, Stefan.
	How you doing?
	Oh my gosh.
	It's so thrilled to be talking with you.
	What's on your mind?
	I mean, I had so many things that I wanted to talk to you about and I kept changing because I'm super indecisive.
	But I guess I was going to talk with you about empathy.
	Mainly what I wanted to ask you is I know that you talked about that our empathy is learned through the Father, right?
	But I was kind of curious of like where else might somebody learn empathy?
	Because I noticed that some people haven't, it seems like some people just flat out don't have any empathy or they don't feel it, you know?
	That's a great question.
	I mean, I guess the definition of what empathy is, is I think it's correctly identifying somebody else's non-obvious state of mind.
	That would sort of be my rough, it's not dictionary, but that's sort of my rough working definition.
	And empathy doesn't mean sympathy.
	Sympathy and empathy are two different things.
	Sympathy is when you react positively to someone else's non-obvious state of mind.
	And empathy is when you just correctly identify it, but But don't like it, right?
	That doesn't mean you have to like it, right?
	So if some guy's threatening you in some subtle way and you perceive the threat, that's having empathy.
	In other words, you are correctly empathizing with his desire to do you harm.
	You correctly understand that he is sadistic or cruel or whatever it is, right?
	So I think correctly identifying someone else is not obvious.
	Yeah, no, it's important because you can have...
	There's a...
	A movie, someone in the chat room will probably remember it, with David Duchovny, before he did sit-ups and got addicted to showing his ass in Californication.
	David Duchovny and Brad Pitt, and it's about a guy who is writing about a serial killer who ends up traveling around with a serial killer.
	And in it, there's a guy picking a fight.
	And the Brad Pitt character who is...
	He says, you know, it's going to happen.
	It's going to happen.
	It's going to happen.
	Basically, there's going to be a fight.
	And the guy doesn't...
	The David Coveney character doesn't really get it.
	So, in that sense, it's called California.
	Oh, with a K, right?
	Right.
	California vacation-ish.
	Anyway.
	And...
	So, the Brad Pitt character is empathizing with the guy who wants a fight.
	He gets that...
	He wants him to have a fight, right?
	Yeah, he kind of discerns the scene, the attitude, and figures out that, yes, there's going to be a fight.
	Yeah, like a guy who walks up to a woman, asks her out in a bar, she empathizes that he finds her attractive.
	She may not find him attractive.
	She might say no, but...
	So what you're saying is that empathy could also be used to maybe manipulate a lot of you, too, then, couldn't it?
	Yeah, I mean, certainly a lot of sociopaths Okay, so empathy isn't necessarily a virtue then.
	No, I think it's just the correct identification of somebody's non-obvious emotional state.
	The obvious ones are somebody's crying, they're sad.
	That doesn't take a lot of empathy, right?
	You could probably train a robot to notice that, you know?
	Salt liquid ejecting from eyeballs is sad, right?
	Yeah.
	So, it has to be somewhat non-obvious, and empathy is when you kind of get that.
	Like, you know, flinching when a guy gets kicked in the nuts probably involves mirror neurons, but it doesn't really mean that you've got sophisticated empathy.
	What does it mean when, like, if somebody was to be extremely empathetic and very sensitive, could that be a bad thing?
	If somebody's constantly aware of what everybody's feeling around them and that sort of thing, could that be bad?
	Well, it's bad if they're sensitive towards evil people's desires and then serve them, right?
	So, I mean, I would say that most of the people who call into this show are very sensitive, and I say it's going to cost you being around bad people because you're sensitive to evil as well as to good, right?
	Yeah.
	Like, having a desire to please is good.
	I want to please my listeners.
	I want to please my friends.
	I want to please my wife.
	I want to please my daughter.
	Having a desire to please and having empathy is a good thing, unless you're surrounded by really bad people.
	Right?
	That's true.
	You know, I'll drink whatever anyone hands me.
	I'll drink whatever anyone hands me, which means I can only have people around me who can hand me good stuff to drink.
	Somebody hands me a hemlock, I'll drink that too.
	So I have to keep bad people away from me so that I don't drink the hemlock.
	Because otherwise I've got to sniff and send everything out for lab testing and shit.
	I just want to drink what people hand me.
	That's all I want to do.
	Just drink what people hand me.
	I say to my friend here, pass me a beer.
	I'm going to sit there and say, did he pee in it?
	So just have good people around you and then your sensitivity and empathy and desire to please and susceptibility to other people's opinions and so on.
	If my wife disapproves of something, you know, obviously we're talking about theoretical here.
	If my wife were ever to disapprove of something, it would be very tough for me, right?
	But if bad people disapprove of what I'm doing, that's good, right?
	Yeah.
	That's very true.
	That's probably why I surround myself with good people.
	I'm not a person who has a lot of friends or...
	I think, you know, I just have like a really core tight group of friends.
	And so maybe that's why I never really thought of why, but I am a very empathetic person.
	So it does make sense that I have, you know, just a couple of really good, good friends.
	And yeah.
	Does that, I mean, I feel that it's kind of a brief call, but I mean, I think it was useful.
	Does that, I mean, it's not any sort of conclusive answer, but that'd certainly be where I would start the question.
	Yeah.
	I think part of what you said cut out.
	Sorry, could you repeat that?
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, did you have any other question about, you know, in terms of how it's developed?
	Well, it's developed like anything else, through exposure, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	You know, we as parents think that we can have different standards for ourselves than for others, for our children, and it's not true.
	In fact, it's really confusing when they tell the children to do one thing and live another way, right?
	Right.
	Like, so, this woman, incredibly brave woman who I was talking with, right, Victoria?
	She was saying, well, I really should forgive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And then when I said, would you order your son's emotions around, she said, good Lord, no.
	And that's tough for kids, right?
	Well, no, because she will be ordering her own emotions around while refusing to order her son's emotions around, in which case he's getting mixed signals, right?
	Yeah.
	Children universalize everything.
	You should order your children...
	You should order your emotions around or you shouldn't order your emotions around.
	Right?
	If mom says I shouldn't order my emotions around and doesn't order my emotions around but orders her own emotions around, what could that mean?
	Right?
	It's the same thing with empathy.
	Right?
	So...
	I'm pretty sensitive of course to my daughter's moods and I know when she's feeling a little down or I know when she's you know feeling particularly manic or whatever because she's breathing and But I can tell, like, across the room when she's feeling sad about something.
	And I usually know the topics that she's interested in or what she wants to learn.
	All that kind of...
	I know which stories she likes the best and all that, right?
	So I know her non-obvious mental states.
	And I'm, you know, 99 times out of 100, I'm pretty bang on.
	Yeah.
	In your opinion, why do you think...
	Sorry, Stefan.
	In your opinion, why do you think the father is very important in teaching that and maybe not the mother?
	Yeah.
	Or helping their child develop empathy.
	You know, moms, they're so close, you know?
	I mean, they were the same person originally, right?
	I mean, my wife carried my daughter's egg in her for a long time, and then grew her in her belly, fed her from her boobs, and, you know, like, they're so wrapped up together.
	Yeah.
	And so, I mean, my wife has a tremendous amount of empathy, but she sometimes, it's a little hard to see a movie when your face is two inches from the screen, right?
	Yeah.
	You're close, but sometimes too close to get a larger picture.
	And I think one of the things that dads do is, you know, so my daughter was going through a phase of saying no a lot, right?
	And my wife was getting frustrated, and I said, no, no.
	If Isabella says no, that's freedom for us to say no.
	Right?
	So if she's saying no to a lot of stuff that we want to do, then...
	And I said this to my daughter.
	I said very clearly.
	I said, you said no this morning.
	You said no before lunch.
	You said no at lunch.
	You said no after lunch.
	You said no.
	You've said, like, no to seven things that I'd like to do.
	And I said, that's totally fine.
	You're free to say no.
	Right?
	You don't have to say yes to please me.
	But this means that I can say no to things that I don't want to do.
	And my daughter was like, no!
	No, you can't.
	I want that freedom.
	You shouldn't have that freedom.
	Right?
	UPP violation.
	UPP violation.
	Ooga.
	Ooga.
	Off to philosophy jail for you.
	Right, but so my wife's getting frustrated.
	Like, how do I... And it's like, no, no, no.
	Take the freedom she's offering you.
	If she gets to say no, you get to say no.
	If you don't want to play some made-up kiddie game for the 20th time in a row, just say no.
	It's what I do.
	The freedoms that Isabella takes for herself is the freedoms that we can take for ourselves as well.
	Right?
	Whereas, and my wife helps me with my parenting blind spots as well, but I think that's pretty common that rather than trying to get you changed, change your children, just accept what they're doing as a universal.
	I think inevitably they'll learn from it too.
	Yeah, and I think that dads are a little bit more comfortable with consequences.
	You know, like learning by consequences.
	And, you know, moms are, you know, my baby got hurt.
	And look, I understand that, too.
	I feel the same way.
	But I think there's a little bit more clarity that way.
	So I think that because moms and babies bond so intensely, I think that the bit of a more distant eye of the dad, I think, helps create more boundaries and more individuation, if that makes sense.
	And empathy requires the existence of another person as an independent empathy.
	You know, I don't really, I don't say I empathize with my kidney, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	No.
	But I've heard people say that they empathize with their livers.
	Because they drink a lot.
	I might have lost you there.
	Okay.
	Yeah, but I mean, that's a joke, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, I think for moms, it's just a little bit tougher to separate.
	And I think dads are more important for that stuff.
	Okay, I appreciate that, because I've been watching your show, and you've mentioned it a couple times, and empathy really sticks out to me.
	It's something that I really appreciate.
	I think it's a positive trait that has been very helpful in my own life, so I was just kind of looking for clarity in what you meant when you said that it comes from the dad.
	I didn't really understand that, I thought, but it definitely makes sense the way you put it.
	I don't, look, I don't either.
	This is my theory.
	I mean, I haven't read all the research about why, and I don't know if anyone knows.
	You know, if the research is out there and people know, you know, please, Sophie, let me know.
	But that's sort of my theory based upon my experience.
	You know, I'm willing to have very different emotions from my daughter, whereas I think moms are a little bit more like, We have to, you know, feel the same.
	And that's just tougher to get, those kind of blurred lines, I think, distinct.
	So, anyway, I hope that helps.
	And, you know, again, that's not a very rigorous answer, but that's certainly my experience.
	No, Stefan, that's exactly, that's a perfect answer.
	Thank you.
	Do I have more time, or do you want to go to the next caller?
	We got another caller?
	Two more.
	Oh, my God.
	We're going three hours.
	We've got two more.
	Oh, dude, you are welcome to call back.
	It's a great question, but I'm afraid we have to Bump you like roadkill and not look back.
	Oh!
	No, Stephen, that's fine.
	Thank you, and also thank you, Mike.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome, Daniel.
	Sean, you're up next.
	Go ahead, Sean.
	Audio sounds great.
	I hope so.
	Echo-y.
	Oh, no.
	Can you hear me okay?
	Can you hear me okay?
	Yeah.
	That last call actually touched on a subject that I wanted to talk to you about.
	First off, thank you very much for the work that you do, and Michael, what you do.
	If it wasn't for you, my wife and I would have gone down the same path as our parents, and we were very lucky to find Free Remain Radio nine days after our daughter was born, and you really changed.
	Well, we changed.
	Through your work, we changed our life, and we're just completely grateful for what you did.
	The first thing that really came out...
	Well, hang on.
	Sorry, sorry.
	I just wanted to mention, I really appreciate that, but more importantly, if you could bomb a train with SS people on it...
	No, I'm just kidding.
	If you didn't hear the earlier part of the show, that means nothing.
	Let's get to the really important stuff.
	No, that's great.
	I really appreciate it.
	Yes, soon after she was born, I found the facts about spanking, and then that's when it led with my wife and I to have that discussion, because we never had that talk before, and then that's when really everything changed.
	So now we're completely peaceful parents as much as possible, very philosophical.
	I've heard every show that you've come up with in the last two and a half years.
	And so I really do appreciate your work.
	But our daughter now is almost two and a half, and she's in the no phase a little bit.
	And we negotiate with her as often as we can.
	But a couple of days ago, we were giving our daughter a bath, and she didn't want to do it.
	And she was saying, no, no, no, no.
	Then I remembered, and we had a conversation at the point, and my wife and I had a conversation right then and there about how, in our previous podcast, you talked about sometimes you have to do these things even if they don't want it, like changing a diaper because it's better than having a soil diaper because they'll thank you later.
	But we try to give our daughter as many options as possible.
	But we were already in the middle of the bath and she didn't want to do it.
	She's definitely getting her hair wet.
	But we don't want to force her to do any of this.
	And we were just hoping you can give us some advice on a situation like that.
	I don't want to call it a temper tantrum.
	I don't like that word, that phrase.
	She's emphatic.
	Yes.
	Yeah, she's emphatic and she's passionate.
	It means a lot to her.
	Yeah.
	Now, if I were to ask your daughter why she needs to have a bath, what would she say?
	Well, right now, her language skills aren't really there to be able to tell us yet.
	She would just say no.
	Okay, but in her mind, if she did have the language skills, why do you think she would say that she had a bath?
	No, why does she think she needs to have a bath?
	Not why doesn't she like having a bath, but why does she need to have a bath?
	If she could speak while she's saying...
	So she's not stinky?
	No, I know.
	If she could speak.
	That's probably what she would say, so she's not stinky.
	So she's not stinky.
	What's wrong with being stinky?
	It's not healthy.
	That's all I'm going to think of right now.
	It's just not healthy.
	Does she notice that she's stinky, or do you notice?
	We notice.
	I don't know if she cares.
	But she doesn't.
	She really cares right now.
	Right, okay.
	Okay, so she basically doesn't know why she has to have a bath, right?
	Yeah.
	So she's submitting to what she perceives as your whim, right?
	I think so.
	I mean, I think she enjoys it, because we play in the bath a little with the toys and things like that, and then there's the playtime, and then we have the bath time.
	So she loves the playtime.
	No, I get it.
	Yeah, but it's not playtime if she doesn't want to do it, right?
	Like, if there's some toy that she doesn't want to play with, and then you say, well, you have to play with this toy, then it's not playtime anymore, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So, when children are very young, what you experience is what they're experiencing but can't say.
	Mm-hmm.
	Right?
	So, you are experiencing having to submit to her whim, right?
	Yeah.
	But because she doesn't understand why she needs a bath, she experiences the bath as submitting to your whim, right?
	And so she is reflecting that back to you saying, well, you have to submit to my whim because I have to submit to your whim.
	So she can't express, well, Daddy, I don't really understand why I have to have a bath.
	I feel you're just telling me I have to have a bath and you're just doing it because I'm just doing it because you're telling me to.
	So she perceives that as submitting to your whim.
	And she's universalizing that saying, well, if I have to submit to Daddy's whim, then Daddy has to submit to my whim.
	So I'm just going to say no.
	Yeah.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And we do that just like what you said in the last call about saying no.
	If you say no to this, then we get to say no to that.
	We let her have almost, I would say, free range of what she gets to eat, whatever she wants to eat.
	Sometimes there's that clash and we just don't know exactly how to deal with that clash when there is one.
	Yeah, I mean, so there are times when you can say probably, can we have a deal if you'll bathe in the morning?
	The moment you can extract a promise out of the child, as long as you've been keeping your promises, you have a huge amount of leverage, right?
	So sometimes if it's not too bad, you can say, well, so you don't want it tonight.
	It's, you know, can we bathe in the morning?
	And she'll usually say yes.
	And then in the morning you can say, well, you said blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And if you've been keeping your...
	Because you keep your word to her, when you can extract a promise from her, it has huge power.
	It's irresistible fundamentally.
	I think my daughter only once tried to break a promise with me.
	Once?
	That sounds kind of sinister, you know?
	But...
	Never again.
	So because I always kept my words.
	Yeah, no, and then I say, well, wait a second.
	So are you saying that we can just make promises and then break them?
	Is that okay for me too?
	No!
	Right?
	Because she wants me to keep my promises.
	It's like, okay, well, because if you can break a promise, then I can break a promise.
	Like I can say, I'm going to give you a piece of chocolate later, and then I can just eat it myself.
	And that was really upsetting to her.
	And I wasn't trying to upset her.
	I mean, I was just pointing out that if she can break a promise, then I can break a promise.
	Which sounds kind of tit for tat, but it's just universalization, and that teaches her empathy.
	In other words, if she's upset when I break a promise, then I'm upset when she breaks a promise.
	That sort of teaches her empathy.
	So the bath time challenge is to help her to understand why she needs a bath.
	Now the reason why she needs a bath is because little bugs are growing on her skin, right?
	And those little tiny bugs are making...
	Right, so you need to draw it out, you need to get a piece of paper and a pencil, or you can show her pictures of these, maybe not pictures, those blown up pictures of those bugs are pretty terrifying, so maybe someone will think she has Godzilla on her skin or something, but you need to really, you know, and it'll take like ten times maybe, you have to explain that and say...
	Soap washes away the bugs and if they stay there they make babies where it's dark and where you get sweaty like in your peepee and in your armpits and in your butt and behind your ears and they make lots of babies and those babies they can bite you a little tiny bit you don't even feel it they bite you a little bit and they can make a rash and that rash can be really uncomfortable and then we have to go to the doctor and then you might get medicine and that medicine might sting Right?
	So we have to bathe because, and you have to give her the whole ecosystem, and this has to be not before a bath.
	Right?
	The time to deal with conflicts is not in the conflict, right?
	So you talk to her about why she needs to have a bath.
	You can say, you know, say, we'll try and make it fun.
	You know, put on your bathing suit and go in the bath with her, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Teach her how to blow bubbles and spout water at each other, all the gross stuff that moms don't like, but which kids really do.
	But the time to deal with the bathtub thing, and you have to get her to agree that it's bad for bugs to be making babies on her skin.
	If she understands and accepts that it's bad for bugs to make babies on her skin, then 95% of the battle is won.
	Because once you have a standard that she understands and knows why it's necessary and why it has to be done, then when you say, we have to have a boss, and she's like, I don't want to, you say, well, remember those bugs, right?
	It's been two days or whatever since you had a bath and the bugs are making babies.
	Remember that, right?
	And then she's, oh yeah, I remember the bugs.
	Got to get rid of the bugs and all that kind of stuff, right?
	And then, you know, well, we'll do a real quick bath and, you know, maybe we'll wash your hair tomorrow if that really bugs you or whatever.
	But once I found that once my daughter really understands why something has to be done, then she doesn't really have a problem doing it.
	But if she doesn't really understand...
	Why something has to be done, then it feels like I'm just imposing my will on her, and she doesn't even know why.
	And then she gets resistant, because she universalizes the imposition of will and then tries to do it back to me.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, we do that with every aspect that we can.
	We try to make a deal.
	I've heard you said before, so we try to make deals, and it always works.
	We negotiate.
	But in this one instance, I wasn't sure.
	We weren't sure how to discuss that because it's a little bit more complicated talking about being a bacteria and things like that.
	So we've talked about that before with washing hands and everything.
	But then there becomes that moment where she's like, just, you know, everything else is fine except for when it gets my hair, you know?
	And we don't want to...
	Yeah, I understand that.
	So, yeah.
	So, I mean, getting her to understand that the bugs love the scalp.
	You know, they love to, because, you know, the hair is like food for them, right?
	And so getting her to understand that and trying to understand why she doesn't like the sensation, you know, maybe there's things that you can do.
	So there are these little bulbs you can get.
	They're little plastic.
	They look like, I don't know what to call them, like little plastic tadpoles, but they're big, like sort of half the size of your hand.
	And you can use them to suck water up and then squirt the water out.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Some people, I think, use them maybe for nasal sprays.
	And so you can, you know, get something that's more fun.
	Or if you have a little, if you have a bathtub that has a sprayer, maybe she'd like the sprayer or something that's going to be more fun.
	Or, you know, you can say, well, I'll wet your hair, you wet my hair.
	You know, even if you're just leaning over the tub.
	My daughter quite likes to wash my hair when she was young.
	So, you know, really try to understand.
	But my rule for myself is if I've not prepared my daughter for the situation, I always give way.
	Like, so, you know, like flossing took a little while to get her to understand, right?
	And so if I didn't remind her why flossing was important during the day, I did not make her floss at night because that was my fault that she wasn't ready to floss.
	So that would remind me the next day to draw out, you know, here's your teeth, here's where the little bugs go to make babies, and they can, you know, blah, blah, blah, right?
	A basting bulb.
	Yeah, it could be a basting bulb.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So, yeah, so the preparation is key.
	Without the preparation, you must always, at least for me, unless it's a true emergency, without the preparation, you always have to surrender, because it's your fault that she's not ready for it, not hers, right?
	Right.
	And, yeah, people are asking, are they using the right shampoo?
	It's not something that makes her itchy.
	Maybe she's got a cradle cap or something that you can't see.
	Oh, okay.
	She doesn't have anything like that.
	Yeah, I think for the most part, it's just getting, you know, whatever it is, whatever that foreign thing is, whether it's soap or shampoo, just getting it in the eyes.
	I think maybe she's had a bad experience, you know, before when she was younger.
	And so it's become the routine.
	But you can get the notes here and stuff, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, you can get the no-tears stuff, and the no-tears stuff, you know, you can squirt it in your own eyeball if you want to show her how it works kind of thing.
	But that can be helpful as well.
	I'm trying to think what else it might be.
	Do you brush your hair after it gets wet?
	Is it tangled?
	Is it unpleasant for her?
	No, no, it's been pretty good because we used the conditioner too, so it's been pretty good.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, the no-tangle stuff, that's pretty important.
	So yeah, I think if she really understands the why, and if you can ask her why she doesn't like it, and now kids mostly when they say they don't like something, it's hard for them to verbalize why they don't like it, so you can just keep asking questions until you get to the right answer.
	But I think, you know, for me at least it's always the preparation.
	You know, for me 99% of parenting is in the preparation, whereas a lot of people, I don't think it's you, but a lot of people are like, well, the parenting is in the conflict.
	No, no, no, the parenting is in avoiding the conflict.
	Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
	Okay, great.
	Yeah, we'll definitely try this thing.
	And if I have, I know you've been for a long call, if I have just one more quick question, talking about negotiation, and you mentioned earlier about the chocolate and things like that.
	Something that my wife and I have talked about before is, when does negotiation become bribery?
	Because we don't I have a weird feeling about saying, like, well, if you finish this, then I'll get you a muffin, because we don't do ice cream and things like that yet.
	But when does that become bribery, in your opinion?
	Oh, I don't care, myself.
	I have no problem with bribery.
	No, seriously, I mean, what's adulthood except bribery?
	I mean, why do you go to work?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Right?
	I mean, you go to work so you can get a paycheck.
	I mean, how many people go to work because they just wake out of bed?
	Ah, lovely, you know?
	And so, you know, I mean, why do you pay your taxes?
	They bribe you with, like, not jail, right?
	You know, that's a pretty good bribe for me, right?
	So, I mean, bribery, there's nothing wrong with bribery.
	I mean, a lot of adulthood is bribery.
	And, you know, I go to the dentist so I can bribe my future self with not having to have my wisdom teeth out or something, right?
	But bribery is, you know, I don't think it's a failure of parenting.
	I mean, you know, we gave a skittle to my daughter to teach her how to use the toilet.
	She didn't like the toilet.
	I mean, what kids do is like this big giant snake sucking device that you think is going to pull your intestines out.
	Or is that just me?
	My daughter loves it.
	My daughter loves it.
	Yeah.
	Okay, good.
	So, but I think my daughter got a backsplash from some one of these over-aggressive public toilets and just didn't want to go.
	So yeah, you go to the washroom, you get a Skittle.
	Yeah.
	And now, you know, that lasted for a couple of weeks and then we didn't need it anymore and no problem, right?
	I'm using it now when I'm teaching her how to read.
	She finds it frustrating, of course, right?
	Some of it's fun, but it's frustrating.
	So it's like, yeah, half an hour of reading, you get, you know, you get a Skittle.
	Because that gives her a reward for Because she doesn't know what the reward of reading is any more than she knows what the reward of going to the toilet is.
	She'd rather go in her diaper, right?
	I wish I could still do that.
	Right?
	So for my daughter to learn how to go on the toilet, like, what the hell does she care about going on the toilet?
	It's perfectly comfortable to pee in her diaper and have someone change her.
	It's what she's used to.
	What's the benefit?
	There's no benefit.
	Now, what's the benefit of my daughter learning how to read right now?
	I mean, the real benefit is, yeah, it's still a month or two away.
	So I give her something that makes it a benefit for her until she can appreciate the true benefit, and then I don't need the Skittles anymore.
	Okay.
	Yeah, because what my concern was the characteristic, you know, the negative and positive reinforcement, and, you know, instead of it being, I guess the incentive is down the road, and I just wasn't sure how to get there, you know?
	No, the bribery, I mean, yeah, the bribery you don't want is, I'll buy you a bike, so love me.
	You know, or I'm sorry that daddy's been working really hard for two weeks, you know, here's a ball.
	You know, the bribery for love or affection or forgiveness, I mean, that stuff's bad, of course, right?
	I mean, you don't even need to say that, but...
	You know, giving her a little incentive to get her over the hump of something she can't grasp as yet, that's, you know...
	Okay, great.
	I wouldn't worry about it.
	I mean, obviously, if it keeps going on and on, it may be an issue, but I personally have...
	I remember my doctor said, yeah, yeah, give her a Skittle if she'll go to the bathroom.
	It's fine, you know?
	And now, you know, she doesn't...
	She doesn't, you know, it was like a month or whatever it was, and then she doesn't need it anymore.
	So, you know, I think that's fine.
	Because what's your option, right?
	When they're young, you can't explain to them why they need to go to the washroom.
	It's better for you.
	Is it better for them?
	Not really.
	Diaper's pretty comfortable, right?
	Especially if they're changed quickly.
	And so you can't explain the benefit to them.
	So what's your choice?
	Do you impose your will or do you give them an incentive?
	Well, I'm all about the carrot, not the stick, right?
	So I don't have the option to impose my will.
	I don't have the option to make her sit on the toilet, right?
	And so how do I get her to do something when I can't explain the benefit?
	Give her a reward.
	Again, I don't have any particular problem with that.
	I know that there's this, oh, don't bribe your kids kind of thing.
	But I think if you allow yourself to bribe your kid, then you don't need to be as aggressive at all.
	So I think it's, you know, much better.
	Okay, great.
	I really appreciate it.
	You are very welcome.
	And I really, really, you know, hugely appreciate you telling me how the show has helped you with that.
	I mean, that's just...
	That's just delish.
	And congratulations to you and your wife.
	Fantastic.
	Thank you very much.
	Thank you.
	Bye-bye.
	You're very welcome.
	Bye-bye.
	Well, as usual, FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	Or I'm going to have to do an entire show as Duke Nukem.
	That...
	It's hell on the vocal cords.
	So thanks, Mike, of course, as always.
	Thank you for the callers.
	Thank you for the people listening live on the stream.
	Thank you for the people in the chat room.
	Thank you, India.
	Thank you, Tara.
	Thank you.
	Thank you!
	Anyway, so have a great week, everyone.
	Feel free to call in to the Peter Schiff show tomorrow.
	That's schiffradio.com.
	If you'd like to have a chat tomorrow, too, just in case you didn't get enough tonight.
	And...
	See you, Toronto, Bitcoin Conference on the 4th of February.
	That's Tuesday?
	Yeah, February the 4th at the World Affairs Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
	Information is on freedommanradio.com.
	Hope to see you there.

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