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April 8, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
25:16
2660 I Cannot Live If Life Is Unfair!
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Hi, everybody.
Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
I hope you're doing well.
So, I got a question from a listener.
I do take questions.
Mailbag at freedomainradio.com.
I got a question from a listener that was so heartfelt, so passionate, and such a plea for elemental human freedom that it gets its own show.
Thank you very much, Michael.
And really, if there's only one thing you're going to listen to from me this month, make it this thing.
Here's the question.
Stefan, I just want to ask a question right now.
If you don't have time to answer it, it's fine.
It's about life being unfair.
And why it is so hard for me to accept that idea.
I have been an atheist for years, but I still cling to the idea that life is fair.
It has caused me great pain in my adulthood.
I grew up with the slave religion that was supposed to save me and reward me after death.
Disney, happily ever after, nice guy gets the girl in the end, and action hero prevails, and bad guy gets it in the end, Hollywood.
I've been through a lot of anger recently, and I realize that I'm driven by revenge.
I don't want to really hurt anyone.
I just want to throw it in their face when I'm a success.
I want to get back at the little league coach that made me sit on the bench nine innings.
I want the teachers from high school that said I wouldn't amount to anything envious of me.
I want those girls that dumped me or ignored me to throw themselves at me.
I didn't realize that this raging inferno in me could be stopped so I could pursue real happiness.
Still after everything, I have that core belief that life is fair.
It is destroying my life.
It's so deep in my heart, I've realized that I hate life.
I want to be the best I can be, but the pain can be overwhelming sometimes.
What steps should I take to free myself from this belief that is pulling me down to the depths of hell?
Question of the year.
What can I say?
That's honest, visceral.
You feel that in your spine.
Heartfelt, passionate, powerful.
So...
I will do my best to help out and tell you how to free yourself from these kinds of thoughts, from this kind of hunger for vengeance.
You cannot hurt Another human being unless you are already dead inside.
There's a great line from an old Hall& Out song.
It's so easy to hurt others when you can't feel pain.
Now, it's okay to hurt bad people.
In fact, really, the point of philosophy, the point of virtue, is to harm the interests of bad people.
The point of being a cancer curer is to harm the interests of cancer cells, and so on.
The purpose of antibiotics is to harm the interests of harmful bacteria.
So, if you are a good person, then one of the ways you measure your goodness, in a very foundational way that you measure your goodness, is the degree to which you're hated by evil people.
If cancer were sentient, it would hate the cure because it wants to grow.
So, first of all, the desire to do harm to evildoers is not a vice.
It is natural.
We're driven by our love of health.
But the way that we achieve health is to fight disease, to fight illness.
Again, if you're a cancer researcher, you are driven by, hopefully, a desire to cure people of cancer, and the way that you measure your success is the degree to which you harm cancer cells.
We're human beings.
We are not all equal.
There's this Terrible lie that comes out of religion, which is the idea of the soul.
The idea of the soul is that, you know, deep within us, in this hinky basement of our beings, is a perfect, glowing, virtuous essence of selfhood.
And this perfect, glowing, virtuous essence of selfhood cannot be destroyed and can always be accessed by By the right combination of words and deeds and inspiration and connection and evil men can confess on their deathbed about strangling hobos, find virtue, get to heaven.
This is...
Superstitious nonsense and is completely false, scientifically, epistemologically, metaphysically, philosophically in general.
It's completely false and an incredibly dangerous idea.
I'll give you an example.
Let's say you smoke like a chimney pot for 40 years.
You get lung cancer.
You go to your doctor.
Doctor says, sorry, you've got lung cancer.
You don't have long to live.
Get your affairs in order.
And you say, no, no, no, no, doc!
Maybe you've never heard of this.
I got me some soul lungs.
Soul lungs, baby!
And what you've got to do, Doc, is reach in using some fabulous N-dimensional kaleidoscopic speculum.
You've got to reach in and you've got to break the mystery glass that releases my backup spirit lungs.
My lungs of infinite health that are just somewhere in and around and behind the lungs that I have that are rotting with tumors.
The doctor will say, I don't know where you get your information from, but you don't got no backup lungs, son.
You got your lungs, you fucked them up, and you're going to die unless we get some magic transplant.
So...
There's no magical backup organ that you can use to replace a diseased organ.
There's no magical backup mind that you can use to replace the brain that you have developed, that partly through inheritance, a large degree through exposure to your environment as a child, your parenting, your teachers, your priests, whatever, and certainly as you get older, By the habits that you have developed.
You have a habit of smoking, you screw up your lungs.
You have a habit of vice, you screw up your brain.
Now there is no magical backup brain.
There's no soul in there that you can get to.
It's a fantasy.
And it's a fantasy invented by predators.
To make us Nazi predators, right?
So, if you were a lion, and a smart lion, and you had the ability to use language and imagery, metaphor, superstition, and so on, you would go to your prey, and you would convince that prey that you were one of them, that you would walk among them, that you would look like them, you would, I'm just a different kind of gazelle, man, I... Got a little tuft here and there.
Got a couple of claws.
Oh, I like to carve up my grass.
I like a nice couscous grass salad.
That's my thing.
So I've got these claws to do that.
They're not for ripping flesh.
Good heavens, no.
I'm just a different kind of gazelle, just like you.
And then in the middle of the night, while everyone was sleeping or the gazelle was sleeping, you would jump.
On the baby gazelle.
And you would eat it.
And you would hide the body, and you would wash your face in the stream, and you would return.
And they'd say, Sheed, what happened to my baby gazelle?
Baby gazelle would be crying and screaming.
They'd all be, oh, I'll help look, right?
I don't know.
I'm just another gazelle, right?
That way, you'd never have to chase anyone, right?
Because you'd be one of them.
Well, this is what evil people do in the world.
They tell you that they're just like you.
And they do that by saying, we both have a soul.
And I may have made some mistakes, I may do some bad things, but I have a soul just like you and I'm capable of redemption.
This way, you don't flee evil people.
You hang around them trying to save them, trying to rescue them, trying to get them!
Right?
But gazelle can't get lions.
Right?
The lamb cannot get the wolf.
The wolf is bigger and stronger and meaner and is a natural predator.
And the great camouflage of sociopaths in human society is, of course, they do look just like us, but they tell us that they're just like us, deep down, right?
And so we lose our capacity to identify predators.
The development of a conscience of empathy, the capacity to feelingly understand what other people experience, doesn't mean already always agree with them, that's sympathy, but empathy is to know.
And the gazelle, when a lion, forget the metaphor, let's just talk about real gazelles and real lions, when a lion jumps out at a gazelle, the gazelle empathizes with the lion and says, damn, that shaggy-haired, sharp-clothed beast really wants to rip me limb from limb and feast on my gizzards.
So it runs away.
The development of empathy is a baby and toddlerhood phenomenon that requires the development of 10, 11, 12, 13 complex systems within the brain that all depend upon each other.
It requires the presence of something called mirror neurons, which allows you to feel what other people feel.
If you see a guy getting kicked in the nuts, If you go, you know, you kind of feel what he feels, right?
And that helps you not kick a guy in the nuts because it will hurt you psychologically.
If you take great delight in watching people get hit in the nuts, which a lot of people do, then you don't have probably these mirror neurons and you have a problem with conscience and empathy and so on.
And really, you're a predator upon the human species.
You are a tax farm owner.
You are a livestock manager.
You view us as sheep.
To be managed, and tragically, we often oblige you with agreeing with that terrifying perspective.
So...
When people don't develop empathy, then they will prey upon you.
You cannot get them to develop empathy.
Right?
Skin regrows.
Hair, you cut it, regrows.
But...
Empathy, if it's not present...
It's not present.
It cannot grow later because the brain finds other ways of adapting to the environment if it doesn't develop empathy.
And you don't develop empathy because of a lack of mirroring, a lack of attachment, bonding with parents, abuse, violence, neglect, aggression.
All this kind of stuff prevents the development of empathy.
If you're not exposed to language, guess what?
You don't learn language.
If you don't learn language by six or seven, you will never learn language very well.
Like those kids raised by wolves, they get them in when they're seven or eight.
They've never been exposed to human language.
They never learn human language at all, in any fundamental way.
So there's developmental windows for things.
If you miss those windows, it doesn't regrow later.
You can't fix it later.
If you don't get enough Protein and calories, nutrition, when you're growing up, you might grow up to be like six inches shorter.
Your growth is stunted.
Now, it doesn't matter how much food you eat later on in life.
You will never grow taller.
That's done.
It doesn't mean the brain can't change.
But the problem is, with people who lack a conscience, it's a conscience that makes your brain want to change.
Ooh, I did something wrong.
Ooh, I feel bad.
Ooh, I better correct that to help others and to not harm myself because of my consciousness making me feel bad.
Sociopaths lack the engine, the experience, the feelings that motivate you to change and grow.
So they don't grow.
Nobody's been able to cure it.
Nobody's been able to fix it.
And you understand, I'm not saying all sociopaths are evil.
I mean, some of them are great surgeons, right?
But I'm just sort of pointing out, I'm talking about the evil people.
And this guy's got a lot of anger about the evil people.
I get it.
I understand that.
I understand that.
But you have to think of evil people.
What they are is people who are missing an arm.
Disarmed, you could say.
They are missing an arm.
In fact, let's say they're missing both arms.
They are just a tube with a head.
You put a Ken doll head on top of a rolled up carpet and call it a person.
They have no arms.
And this guy's saying, I want to win an arm wrestle with these people.
I want to make cruel people feel bad.
It doesn't work that way.
It's a trap!
It's a trap!
It won't work that way.
And Michael, I understand.
I understand the desire.
I really do, but it won't work that way.
You cannot beat people who have no conscience.
You can't make them feel bad because they really lack the capacity to feel bad.
Sociopathy has been described as about the most pleasant mental problem that there is.
Because, I mean, how many of us would love to have that from time to time?
A lack of conscience, a lack of sensitivity to others, a lack of feeling swamped and overwhelmed by the needs and preferences of others.
It's about the most pleasant.
They don't go to therapy.
Evil people certainly don't go to therapy.
Sociopaths don't go to therapy, unless they're ordered to or court-ordered something or other.
In which case, they just glibly talk their way through it, go back out and continue to do their thing.
So, all the people who hurt you Who put you down, who scorned you, who told you that up to nothing.
Monstrous, let's just say.
But you want to win an arm wrestling contest against people who have no arms.
Do you understand?
They will draw you in.
Oh, get me.
Fix me.
Heal me.
Get me back.
Come on into the ring.
And then they'll win.
Because you have a conscience.
You have empathy.
You have sensitivity.
And they don't.
So you won't win.
It's like trying to outlast with pasty white.
No sun protection.
No sunscreen.
And then you go out and try and win.
And no sunburn contest with a lizard.
You'll lose.
Lizards don't get sunburns.
You'll just lose.
It's like trying to win a height competition with a guy who's taller than you.
You will lose.
Funny game.
The only way to win is not to play.
So I understand this desire to go back and get the people who've done you harm.
But you're being invited into an arena where you will lose.
The very desire to go back and harm people who've harmed you in your life is their desire, not yours.
Two types of people in the world.
One is the type of person who attempts to gain mastery by gaining control over nature.
And to gain control over nature is a fundamentally humble proceeding.
Science is humble.
Superstition, religion, arrogance.
Statism, arrogance.
Science, philosophy is humble.
Because the first position is, I don't know, therefore I need to find out.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
You have to have the capacity to subjugate yourself in order to control the natural world.
Because you have to learn the laws, you have to submit your thinking to what is actually occurring in the world, adapt yourself to reality at all times, which is humble and requires a strong ego which can survive error.
That's number one.
The second type of people, by far the most common throughout history and still very common today, are the people who want to control other human beings.
Wanting to control other human beings is not humble.
It is fundamentally arrogant because you view them as a crop, as livestock to serve your needs.
And you use propaganda and lies and charisma and good looks and youth and talent and all this sort of stuff to dazzle, bewilder and overwhelm them.
I think of all the people in the world that you figure are just larger, more majestic, more powerful than you.
And this is the degree to which you are enslaved.
There's no one more magnificent than you because you are in a category of one.
When you are unique, you cannot compare.
Is an apple better than an orange?
Well, we're all apples and oranges.
We're all unique.
We all have the capacity to bring unique things to the planet to benefit, hopefully, or harm so often the human race.
If you seek to control human beings, you're automatically a hypocrite because you're saying, I'm a human being, but I can control these human beings.
It's one thing for a farmer to control cows.
He doesn't say, I am a cow.
So automatically, you have to create two standards if you're going to control human beings.
If you're going to control nature, you only have to create one standard, the scientific method, reason, evidence, reproducibility, all that kind of good stuff.
But if you're going to control human beings, then you need to create two standards.
Always.
And whenever you see the propagation of two standards or more standards in society, particularly if they're opposing, that is the scent and P-marked territory of the evil sociopath.
So when the police are allowed to lie to you, And that's never going to be punished, and they're trained on how to do it.
And then if you lie to the police, then you go to jail.
Well, that is two standards.
If you are not allowed to take property by force, but the government through taxation is allowed to take property by force, then you have two standards.
If you can't talk to God, but some other guy can talk to God and tell you what God said, then you, of course, obey that guy and your mutual imaginary friend, but there's a double standard.
That is opposed.
You can't talk to God.
You can't solely determine scripture and the rules of the religion.
But don't worry, the guy in the funny hat being held aloft on the gold throne by 12 other guys in funny hats.
He can do it.
Then you have human, extra special, opposite human.
You have gazelle and you have lion.
So, when you get these double standards.
When you want to go back and you want to get these people and you want to put them through the ringer and you want to strangle them, I understand that.
I understand that.
That is the temptation to go back and fight at their level.
What's that old saying?
You can go wrestle with a pig in mud, but you both get filthy and the pig likes it.
That's what it's like to go back.
To be drawn back into the world of the predator is what the predator wants, right?
Wouldn't it be great if your meal just came to you?
You don't have to chase the goddamn thing all across the African savanna.
The meal just comes to you.
Yay!
Good lioning, dude!
And so, if the lion eats the child of the gazelle, mommy, and daddy, the lion wants the gazelle, mommy, and daddy to come back and plot revenge.
Because then the lion can eat them too.
It's beautiful.
Vengeance against predators is meals on wheels.
It's beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Yep.
Hello?
Hi.
Pizza Gazelle?
Yeah, I'd like to order one pizza.
Meat pizza.
Yeah, just put meat on the bottom.
And then, like a mommy and daddy gazelle bent on vengeance.
If you could tell them where I am, yeah, I'm right here.
Right here by the rock.
It's where I like to eat.
Same place as always.
Yeah, send them over.
Get a little marinade on the back would be fantastic.
It's never any harm.
And, oh, sorry.
We've got company.
Can you give me three gazelles?
Yeah, some cousin, some uncle who wants blood vengeance against me.
Fantastic.
Send them over.
If they can drive, fantastic.
But please, please make sure it's a convertible.
I'm not very good at opening doors.
You know, I just got claws and all.
All right?
Okay, thanks.
Yeah, yeah, I'll pay with provocations of vengeance.
Got it.
Okay, thank you.
Meal.
Done.
Done.
Don't get drawn back into their world.
That is the world of the dead.
That is the Hades-ruled underworld of vengeance.
And I'll tell you one last thing.
Because without self-knowledge, none of this is going to mean anything.
You might nod, and you might say, oh, that guy is eloquent and occasionally confusing, but it won't solve anything.
Without self-knowledge, it's all nonsense.
So, I will tell you.
When people say the world is, what they mean is, my parents were.
Right?
The world is beautiful.
What they're saying is, my parents were beautiful.
The world is mean.
My parents were mean.
Right?
The world is unfair.
Your parents were unfair.
Your primary caregivers were unfair.
The world is a violent place.
My home, when I was a baby and a toddler, was a violent place.
Right?
So, don't insult the world because you had shitty parents.
Don't let your parents off the hook for bad behavior that they did by pretending somehow it's the physics of the universe.
People are cruel.
They'll just use violence and aggression to get what they want.
Therefore, my parents were obviously just people and aren't morally responsible for their actions.
I don't condemn my mom for not being 19 feet tall because no one's 19 feet tall.
So, the way that when you invent a universal that condemns the world, it is in order to save your parents.
This is a fundamental aspect of self-knowledge, and I have been doing this show for seven or eight years.
I've had hundreds and hundreds of call-in shows, thousands of hours of conversations with people, and people who've listened to this show for years call up and say, well, I think the world is X. And I say, well, tell me about your childhood.
Always turns out that it's their parents who are X. But in order to save their relationship with their parents, they pretend that everyone is like that, and therefore that's the category called humanity.
The parents have not been an exception who are morally responsible for their behaviors.
Salvation of parent relationship, damnation of the world, humanity, and your future.
There are people that you want vengeance against, and I will tell you, you will never be able to get it.
You will never ever be able to arm wrestle the man with no arms.
You will never be able to out sunbathe the lizard.
It's like, I remember in grade 8 or 9 we had these sex ed classes and they talked about crabs, you know, crabs you can get in your pubic hair.
I'm gesturing here like I never had crabs.
I remember them saying, oh, just go underwater or go and bathe until they drown.
It's like, hey, those crabs can stay underwater a lot longer than you can, right?
Even if you're breathing.
So this is the reality.
They're adapted to predation and cruelty and you are not.
And you will smash themselves.
You will smash whatever's left of your tender heart against the iron bitter cliff walls of their fundamental indifference to other human beings.
You will shred yourself.
You are cheese.
They are the greater.
Do not be a topping for their feast.
Let the dead bury the dead.
Go forward into the light.
Leave the evils of the cruel behind and recognize that the desire for vengeance is the desire to bite the vampire back.
He's got no blood in his veins.
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