2905 Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence - Saturday Call In Show - February 7th, 2015
Is it possible to simplify the argument for universal ethics? Do most parents really love and care about their children like they say? If so, how can 80%-90% of them reconcile hitting them? Does Objectivism - as formulated by Rand and Branden - tend to over-inflate the human ego in an unhealthy way? Is the Objectivist view of self-esteem unhealthy and absolutistic? Why are 18th and 19th century writers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer considered philosophers since their claims aren’t falsifiable?
This is Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio saying welcome to your Saturday night philosophy extravaganza where I believe the most curious and incisive listeners in the known universe come together to talk philosophy with someone who remains relatively undistracted throughout most of the course of the 19-hour shows.
We don't have anything major to announce.
Is that right?
No, nothing to announce.
If anyone wants to call in about Buddhism, we just released our Truth About Dalai Lama presentation, which you should check out if you haven't already.
But if anyone wants to call in about Buddhism, it's a topic we haven't had on the show in quite a while, so I would be interested in such chats.
That's way back in the day.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that was like 07, 08 or something.
I remember did a show on Buddhism back in the day.
But yeah, listen, I mean, I like Buddhists as a whole, so feel free to come in and chat.
Correct me where I'm wrong.
And tell me where I'm right.
Not necessarily in that order.
But yeah, you're welcome to call in for that or any other topics on your mind.
All right.
Well, first up today is Ross.
Ross wrote in and said, through universally preferable behavior and the non-aggression principle, we are able to objectively define ownership.
Does then the concept of property rights become redundant or unnecessary?
Hmm.
I'm not sure I follow this.
So we define ownership, but that may make property rights unnecessary.
Hey, Steph.
Thanks for having me on.
Thanks for calling in.
My thought was that I love what you did with or how you presented universally preferable behavior and then the non-aggression principle in terms of how it simplified the concept.
We don't need human rights anymore.
I mean, they don't exist, anything like that.
It's just...
Oh, I can't wait for this one to be taken out of context.
No more human rights!
Only rights for the elite and the Koch-funded masters of capitalism.
I think, to put it more precisely, I've always really striven to work on a system of ethics.
That requires neither the permission or enforcement of the government nor the permission or the enforcement of gods.
Because to me those are basically assuming a begging position and hoping that infinite power will grant you a few eddies of liberty before it smashes you into eternity.
And so I don't like human rights as a concept.
I think it is sloppy, I think it's inarticulate, and I think it's incredibly...
Subject to creating a void of provision.
Like, oh, someone's got to provide these human rights.
Someone's got to provide these moral commandments.
Someone's got to tell us what not to do and what not to do.
And that because you have to create some omnipotent or all-powerful or significantly powerful state or God to make all of these rights happen, both of these entities, states, and gods rely on Punishments, fundamentally.
And there's a lot more description of hell than there is of heaven.
Because, you know, every time you try and describe heaven, you are saying to someone, oh, this is how it's going to be, and it's going to be great!
And, of course, a lot of people are like, really?
We're just kind of wandering around on clouds with wings saying, oh, God is so great, I think I'd shoot myself after 20 minutes.
So you can't describe heaven that much, but you sure as hell can describe hell, because we all know what makes infinite owies in our nervous systems.
So human rights, oh, there's this thing that I need, there's this thing that I deserve, and people aren't giving it to me, so I've got to create this all-powerful entity that's going to punish people who don't give it to me, and maybe even throw a few rewards in for people who do, But it creates a power vacuum, the concept of human rights.
And it's sort of like saying that scientific truth, but it requires a centralized committee of scientists, of scientist, philosopher, god kings, to make it happen.
Well, if you believe that about science, then you're creating a huge power vacuum at the center of science for this all-powerful star-chamble planetary that is going to make things happen in the world of science.
And I really, really dislike all thought systems that create a power vacuum because said power will not take long to manifest itself to serve you and, in fact, rule you.
But sorry, I just wanted to mention that clarification about human rights just for those who are dipping into the show for the first time.
Yeah, no, I like it.
Very well said.
My thought was that maybe we should start with just a definition of property rights.
So that we're on the same page as far as those go.
Alright.
Do you have one?
I would prefer you.
To define it, you're a little bit more articulate with that, a little bit more well-practiced.
Well, since I'm not a fan of rights, I use the term property rights simply for relative shorthand.
But human beings do not possess rights.
We have an appendix, at least until it gives us trouble.
We have hair, at least until we hit our 20s.
Wait, that's not true for everyone.
But we have no rights that are part of us.
They are a concept of fantasy.
And unenforceable, fundamentally.
All rules that require centralized enforcement are just opinions with guns.
And that, I think, is a huge challenge.
As far as property rights go, I think that the best way to describe it succinctly, God help me if I can, is to say something like this, which is we own ourselves and therefore we own the effects of our actions.
And that is Kind of axiomatic.
And I say axiomatic, which just sounds like an irreducible primary that no one can argue against.
But in this case, it kind of does mean that.
Because as I've said on the show many times before, you can't argue against self-ownership without exercising self-ownership.
And you can't argue against someone without saying that person is responsible for his own body, his own mind, his own mouth, his own typing fingers, and therefore is also responsible for the effects of his or her Actions.
And so, given that we own ourselves and it's impossible to argue against self-ownership without exercising self-ownership, and given that it's also impossible to argue against someone without ascribing that person ownership of his or her arguments, We must own ourselves, and we must own the effects of our actions.
Now, that to me is fairly succinct.
It's logic, and I run all this stuff past my daughter.
She is my skeptical gallery, because I am expecting her to have moral responsibility at her age now, but I'm not going to give her moral responsibility if she doesn't understand what The ethical principles and why they are valid, right?
So yeah, we did this, you know, I think it was about a year, year and a half ago.
We're like, all right, move my arm if you can, right?
And of course she jumps up and tries to move my arm physically, right?
And I said, no, no, no, move your arm, move my arm with your brain.
And she looks at me like, I can't move my arm.
Move your arm with your brain.
Hey, look, she moves her arm, move my arm with your brain.
See, you can't do it, right?
So you control your own body.
You don't control my body.
You can grab it and move it around and so on, but that doesn't mean that you control it.
It just means that you're You're forcing it.
Saying that if you grab someone's arm and move it, you're controlling them is like saying if you roll a rock down a hill, it suddenly has come to life and is walking.
So we can, I think, very easily understand self-ownership and owning the effects of your actions, right?
And kids, you know, when my daughter was three, I said, you know, she's drawing with a friend.
And I say, well, whose is whose picture?
Is this your picture or is this your picture?
Oh, that's my picture.
That's her picture.
That's my picture.
That's his picture.
Three, they get that the picture is created by the self-ownership of the child.
It's his picture.
That's his toy.
That's his mom.
And, you know, I try not to have woefully high standards for philosophy, but I figure that I figure basically, if a three-year-old can understand it, surely we should be able to get adults to understand it.
Now, three-year-olds have less static in their brains about all of this kind of stuff.
But yeah, I would very clearly say that, yeah, we own ourselves.
We own the effects of our actions, which a three-year-old can understand very clearly.
Very clearly.
And that's why a three-year-old can be told not to Grab.
Don't take other kids' toys.
Well, if they can't understand self-ownership and owning the effects of one's actions, if they can't understand possession and control of material objects, then it's absolutely unfair to say to them, Don't grab.
Don't steal.
Don't take.
Don't push.
Because then you're just giving them orders.
But they can fully understand all of these things at the age of three.
And of course we hope that the average adult can bring themselves through a series of Cohen-like enlightenment steps to the average conceptual understanding of a three-year-old.
So does that help at all?
Yeah, no, I agree with that.
I understand it.
It's a nice way to describe it.
My...
Confusion with the issue then is, because this is more of a, property rights are more of a description of reality, especially the way, you know, I own myself, it's something we can logically prove.
And biologically proof, right?
I mean, your spinal cord nerve endings do not wire into my spinal cord nerve endings.
I'm certainly looking forward to all the emails we get from people who are talking about co-joined Siamese twins, but for you and I, and just for the sake of sanity at the moment, it's not just...
I mean, the best stuff that's true is true logically and empirically.
Logically it's true, and empirically it's true because we don't share a nervous system, right?
Yes.
My...
If the only way to violate property rights, as you've described it, is to initiate force against someone, then does the non-aggression principle cover that?
Sorry to interrupt.
I apologize.
You gave me a long time to talk, and here I am interrupting you, but I'm not quite convinced that Only the initiation of force...
Now, I had this conversation with a guy a couple of weeks ago, so I'm still circling around this issue, but if a guy leaves his wallet on a park bench, and he wanders off, and I take it and keep it, initiation of force, I mean, I guess I'm, as I've talked about before, I'm sort of enslaving him for the time it takes him to reproduce, all of that kind of stuff, but let's just say for the moment that, yeah, initiation of the use of force...
Is the way to violate property?
I just wanted to circle back to the earlier conversation, make sure I incorporated it, but with our good friend, the Hyper Scott.
Okay, so initiation of force to violate property rights.
Go ahead.
So if the only way to violate proper rights is to initiate force, then is the non-aggression principle enough of a moral system of ethics to, I guess, live by that?
Well, let's say that...
Let me tell you the way I approach this question.
It's an interesting question that you're talking about.
But in my mind's eye, I see the world as a desert.
And in that desert are billions of people dying of thirst.
And we have the giant sky-spanning firehose of philosophical H2O to give to them, to provide them with lakes and bottled water and oceans, rivers, whatever they need to irrigate their bodies and their lands.
And then, this question comes up, which is, well, what is the maximum amount of water we should give them?
Right?
In other words, you're saying, well, is the non-aggression principle enough?
And my question to you would be, well, let's say that you and I and everyone who listens to this and everyone who cares about philosophy can get people to accept and practice the non-aggression principle.
Right?
Six billion people plus, all practicing the non-aggression principle.
Then we have no gods, no governments, no taxes, no countries, no wars, no child abuse, no rape, no theft, no murder, no assault, right?
I think that's enough of a job that we have without wondering if there might be a few things we're missing.
We'll never live to see that task completed.
Our children's children will never live to see that task completed.
So I guess I'm curious as to why it's important for you to figure out where the end infinity perfection point is of a philosophy that is still tottering around trying to find its way to stand up in the world.
Okay.
Fair question.
My...
My concern was not for finding the all-encompassing, amazingness, ultimate theory.
It was more to simplify the language, because when I have a conversation with someone about this, I say, you know, I make the case that we've talked about how the concept of rights isn't necessary and, like, human rights don't physically exist, that kind of thing.
And then I say, you know, all we need is non-aggression principle and property rights.
And so I'm wondering if I can first just establish with them the concept of self-ownership, you know, we own ourselves, and then say, then all we need is the non-aggression principle.
As you said, the self-ownership is biologically and logically provable.
It's like saying, you know, I have feet kind of thing.
It's an observable fact in reality.
If I can get them to acknowledge that, if they're willing to accept that, then it's simply limiting the case to saying, all we need is the non-aggression principle.
Okay, well listen, so you want to sort of use Occam's razor to see if we can get it down to just one principle?
Yeah.
Okay, but listen, why don't you just talk about the non-aggression principle and not worry about the other thing then?
That's fine with me.
Yeah, and the reason, do you want to, let's do like a tiny little role play, right?
So I'll be you, Ross, and you be the skeptic, right?
Okay.
So would you start with a speech, or would the skeptic start with an opposition?
I would probably start the discussion.
Okay, so I'd say, so yeah, listen, I've been thinking about this topic of ethics.
If you have a couple of minutes, I wanted to share with you.
My thoughts with you and get your feedback, if that's alright.
Okay.
Okay, so let's say that you have a kid.
You have a son.
And your son is playing with some other kid, some girl.
Let's say they're five or whatever.
And your son pushes the girl over and snatches her toy away.
What would you say?
Say that wasn't good.
You shouldn't have done that.
Right, and what was wrong that he did?
Well, he shouldn't have pushed the girl, and the toy wasn't his, so he shouldn't have taken it.
Right.
Now, what if the girl jumps up and grabs her toy back and runs out into the garden?
Would you get angry at the girl?
Yeah, she shouldn't have been so aggressive towards my son.
To get her toy back?
Okay.
It's her toy.
He pushed her down, he grabbed her toy, she jumps up, she grabs her toy back, doesn't hurt him, and runs out into the backyard.
Okay.
I can see where that would be okay.
Okay, so these are moral rules that we would inflict upon or impose upon five-year-olds, right?
So we'd say to the son, listen, you can't go around hitting people.
How would you like it if people hit you?
And whatever, you know, whatever, however you'd reason it out.
You'd be up that mofo, but that would be the way.
And we wouldn't say to the girl, well, it's really bad for you.
All she did was get her toy back and then remove herself out of a potentially harmful situation.
And I think we're We're relatively fine with all of that.
And so there's principles there.
Now, I think I'd also then say, okay, so this is what's interesting to me, is that we have these very simple ethics for five-year-olds, right?
And we don't say to five-year-olds, listen, get a bunch of your friends together and have a vote.
Right?
And vote for who gets the property or the toys of the kid who has more toys than the average or whatever it is, right?
That's not what we do.
We don't do anything like that.
We just give them very simple, clear moral rules.
And that moral rule is, you know, don't initiate force.
Don't take people's property.
Now, I think it's unfair to say to a five-year-old, you are bound by these strict, universal and objective moral rules, but when you get bigger, things get all kinds of complicated and gray.
Because then it seems to me that what we're doing, really...
Is we are imposing rules on five-year-olds, not because we believe they're universal, consistent, true, and right, but kind of because we're bigger, right?
Like, we boil it down and make it all kinds of simplistic for five-year-olds, and then when we start dealing with adults, ooh, it's Fifty Shades of Grey, you know, all that kind of stuff, right?
And...
I think that if we say to kids, don't do these bad moral things, these morally bad things, that those are moral principles.
And I think the more we universalize those, the better.
You know, it's like saying to kids, kids, I don't know, in the antebellum South, 17th, 18th century, whatever, saying, kids, no turning other children into slaves, just because they're a different color from you, or whatever, right?
Or they're Irish, which means they're red, right?
But Like, no turning other children into slaves.
When the kids grow up and realize it's a slave-based society, and they're like, hey, I thought you said that we weren't allowed to turn people into slaves.
Well, this is different.
This is a republic.
I mean, it's just bad, right?
And so if we have these moral rules, either we need to say to kids, well, you know, I'm just telling you not to do this because I'm embarrassed and I'm bigger.
Right?
It's making me look bad as a parent or whatever, but it's not a rule or anything.
It's just something I'm going to enforce because I'm bigger.
Which, you know, people would have a tough time really standing behind.
Or we have to say, well, these rules are just rules.
And we've got to stop imposing them on five-year-olds if we're not going to impose them on 50-year-olds.
So that would be sort of how I approach it.
Now, of course, people could have objections.
But, I mean, I really like the kid example because we all went through it as children, right?
I mean, most of us were told, don't hit, don't steal, don't whatever, right?
Share, be nice, share, be nice, share, be nice.
And the question is, and I've got a whole novel about this called The God of Atheists, which you can get at freedomainradio.com if you want, but the basic reality is that we impose rules on children as high-handed Old Testament moral absolutists, right?
And then when those kids grow up and they say, well, wait a minute, you told me all these rules.
I'm looking around at the society that you approve of.
It doesn't seem to follow these rules very much now, does it?
Oh, well no, now that you're old enough to turn my moral absolutes upon me, welcome to relativism!
Welcome to democracy!
Welcome to something I'll call lying, but covered up with the label, sophistication.
It's more sophisticated, it's subtle, it's shaded, it's whatever, right?
And I think you can have conversations with people about ethics.
And just reference the comment.
You can reference childhood, which we've all been through.
And of course, you can also reference, if they disagree with you, about property rights and say, well, am I responsible for my argument and are you responsible for your argument?
If they say, well, yeah, then okay, but then we have property rights.
You're responsible for the effects of your actions, as am I. If you want to call them property rights, that's fine, but then we have them.
If there's you, Russ, me and a guy named Bob, and I make an argument...
That says two and two make five and you turn to Bob and you say, Bob, that's not true.
Bob would be like, what are you saying?
I didn't make that argument.
It's not my argument.
You've got to talk to Steph.
He's the one who's math impaired.
So I think you may be, can we simple it down?
Can we boil it down?
This is the tough part about ethics, Ross.
It's the tough part about teaching people ethics, which I've been working on for so many years now.
This is the incredible...
You know, if you're teaching someone Japanese, they don't usually already know really crappy Japanese.
Right?
And think that it's good.
And they don't already think that their crappy Japanese is really great Japanese.
And they're insulted that you might even think to correct their perfect Japanese With your crap.
Japanese, your crappinese, right?
Yeah.
Everybody thinks they know ethics.
Everybody thinks they know.
And they are shocked, appalled, and insulted when you say, okay, let's go back to basics here, because you think you're playing guitar, but I just see you hitting a couch with a vase.
Right?
You might think you're making music, but you're just kind of making a mess that will cause some bloody feet.
And so this is why I like to sort of break it down to the simplest stuff.
If you go to abstract, don't you find you get lost in space?
Or you find that it's just like which way...
But go back to the two guys in a room.
Coma test.
Kids.
You know, the rules that we give to kids.
You know, there's that famous poster on all I ever...
Needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten.
Well, there is some truth in that, but it is really difficult to teach people something that they're terribly bad at, but think they're great and think that you're bad at.
It's sort of, you know, the way that ethics conversations usually goes is like this.
I'm feeling really healthy.
You need chemotherapy.
What?!
They don't think they're sick.
They don't think their society's sick.
They don't think there are any problems.
Sure.
It's the end of history.
Democratic, mixed, socialist, capitalist economy is perfect.
It can't be better.
And the way they were raised turned out well.
Everyone's fine.
And you come along and say, society is a rotten crematorium of dead, dying, and killing ideas.
And we need to really go down to the root and rebuild this thing from the ground up.
And people are like, well, if I'm healthy, why on earth would you say I need to go through radiation treatments?
That's malpractice.
That's terrible.
What are you talking about?
And that's the challenge.
And this is why it's still very early in any kind of movement towards rational ethics.
People don't even know there's a problem.
It's like trying to sell Rogaine to Justin Bieber.
Kid's got a fine mop of hair.
What do I need this for?
Maybe in the future.
I can definitely relate to the teaching proper ideals to someone who thinks they already know what they're doing.
I own a gym and I'm a personal trainer.
So I get people that come in that take all these fitness classes and they think they're in great shape and they sweat a whole bunch.
And it's like, well, you can't exactly squat properly.
So you've got to kind of break that down first.
And then we'll worry about sweating maybe a little bit later down the road.
Let's get your movement pattern problems fixed.
Yeah, no, listen.
I mean, I am so competently bad at so many things.
That I have no chance to become really great at most things.
And that's just because, you know, I grew up broke, but I had some opportunities to do stuff, right?
So I played a lot of tennis.
Did some competitive tennis.
Nothing major.
But I'm pretty good.
Pretty good.
But if I were ever to take tennis lessons, the guy would just, like, pull his own head off.
No, because I've got, like, 35 years of bad habits.
And some good habits, too, but a lot of bad habits.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, the odds of me at 48 years old undoing all these...
Ah, forget it, right?
It's not going to happen.
Sure.
And, you know, there's lots of different things that I have become reasonably competent at in a very bad way.
If that makes any sense.
But at least I know that.
I'm not sitting there, my tennis form is perfect.
Mm-hmm.
Couldn't improve in any way, shape, or form.
And, I mean, there's some things, you know, I was on a swim team, a water polo team, and all that, and got fairly good at that.
But I know what you mean.
Like, people come in, like, I mean, occasionally, like, I'll do weights on camera.
And, oh, don't do it that way.
That's all wrong.
Don't do it this way.
Don't do it this way.
Don't roll your shoulders.
They'll fall off.
They'll turn into spirits that will attack your eyeballs in your sleep.
And, I mean, that's natural.
I mean, when I see people doing something badly, it makes me kind of twitch a little bit as well.
But that's the challenge.
And, of course, the difference is that I don't have any particular ego investment in my tennis skills, right?
Sure, yeah.
But, yeah, like when I learned how to ski, I just went and skied, you know?
I had some truly spectacular craft.
They called yard sales.
You know, where you basically lose your hat, you lose a glove, a little further down the hill, your scarf comes off, and then you lose a ski and a pole.
And you basically have to wander halfway back up the hill while all the people are applauding from the chairlift for what's called a yard sale, because it looks like you're spreading everything out to sell.
And I am...
I'm like a muscly, like, I'll get down this goddamn hill.
It's not graceful.
It's like if you take one of those green plastic army guys and put them on skis, yeah, okay, they'll get down the hill.
It's not particularly graceful, but that sort of, you know, it's the same thing with yoga and tai chi and other things that I've done and all of that.
Like, I'm just...
I'm competently terrible at these things.
And because of that, I achieve a lot early on and I plateau like crazy, right?
I plateau, right?
Because I know what you mean.
If you really want to get good at something, you start training really early.
You go through the patience and the frustration and all that kind of stuff.
But I'm just like, I want to go down the hills.
And I go down the hills.
And I don't fall, but it's not pretty.
Nobody's like, wow, I could watch that in slow motion.
Ah!
But I have no ego investment in being good at these things.
I just like going down the hill.
Although I've been skiing in a while, to say the least.
But it is hugely different when it comes to ethics.
Because ethics and...
Right and wrong, good and evil.
I mean, people base some seriously deep personality mojo on that stuff.
And if they find out that they've been building their castle on sand rather than on rock, it's a little bit more...
If someone comes up to me and says, you are not a graceful skier, I will say, you are correct.
Ha!
I am not a graceful skier.
I absolutely and completely and totally agree with you.
I enjoy.
I'm happy with what I'm doing.
I doubt I'll ever get any better, but it's fine.
But if someone comes up and says, you are really bad at ethics, people, I mean, they founded entire relationships, entire careers, marriages, parenting, on the assumption of ethical knowledge.
Yeah.
So, I don't think it's like, well, if we simply Occam's razor or property rights out of the equation, it's going to be easy!
Or easier!
It's not!
In fact, I'd say that the simpler it is, in a way, the tougher it is.
Oh, absolutely.
Which is why you have things like Immanuel Kant's critique of pure reason, which doesn't mention five-year-olds at all.
Right?
Because, my God, if you have to read 18th century German volumes of it to be a good person...
Well, it's never going to happen.
And you certainly kind of pose that on five-year-olds, right?
That's why, like, the simpler it is, the tougher it is, because the more irresistible it is, and the more, like, intellectualism is one of the most powerful defenses in the human psyche, in my humble opinion.
And when you make ethics simple, it is discombobulating to people.
So, you may be...
Barking up the wrong tree, thinking that if you simplify the argument, it would be easier.
It might actually get harder.
No, I wanted to make sure that I understood it for myself more so than...
I mean, each discussion that I have with a person is going to be different.
I just want to make sure that I have the best understanding for myself that I can.
And then when I have conversations with people, I have a stronger base from which I am...
Applying principles.
You know, if I have a really firm understanding of these, then I can come up with different or unique examples that apply to them to help them understand it better.
Right.
Right.
And listen, I mean, we are really good at a species at nitpicking.
It's great.
I mean, it's not a complaint.
I play this game with my daughter called It's Completely Impossible.
Right.
And I say something like, it's completely impossible for the same ball at the same time to be both white and black.
And she's like, it's not impossible!
I'm like, no way.
It's totally impossible.
She says, what if the ball was painted white and then you paint black over top of it?
Is it not white and black at the same time?
I'm like, it is possible!
It is possible!
And, you know, it's not possible for a rock...
To be falling down but look like it's falling up at the same time.
It's not possible.
It is possible, Dad!
No, it's not possible.
Okay, if you're at the top of a building and you're in an elevator and you're holding a rock and the elevator cable breaks and you're falling, it looks like the rock is floating up even though it's falling down.
Right?
I mean, we do this for a ridiculously long amount of time.
It's huge fun.
And she's like, instantaneous.
Bang, bang, bang.
Right?
And, I mean, it gets complicated.
Is it possible for a rock to be both in air and underwater at the same time if it's in a bubble for a moment?
Whatever, right?
Yeah.
And so if I say something's impossible, she immediately looks for the exception to that rule.
And I think it's good critical thinking and all that kind of stuff, and we have a lot of fun trying to work and draw these things out.
And that's, you know, that's a lot of how our brain works, is we're always looking for the exception, which is how we know a tree is a tree and not a fire truck is an exception.
So, yeah, that's, you know, so when you say, whenever you put up rules, people go, ah, I found an exception, ah, you know?
And that's the self-defense of the slave, right?
Because all philosophy, I shouldn't say all philosophy, philosophy in general comes from slaves.
Sure.
Because masters just impose their will.
They don't need a lot of structure and framework, right?
It wasn't like Genghis Khan is a rampaging warlord to be.
He wants to take over the world.
He wants to rape copious amounts of women with the occasional livestock thrown in.
And he's like, damn, I really want to rape and pillage the whole damn planet, but I can't find a way around this non-aggression principle.
Damn it!
I'm stuck.
I'm stymied.
I got no chance.
Argh!
Like a volcano with a lid on it.
Oh, wait a minute.
What if?
And then he goes through this big intellectual exercise and he finds some way around the non-aggression principle.
He's like, ah, thank God I can finally go and rampage and pillage and rape the livestock.
How great.
Boy, if I hadn't found an exception to this rule, I'd never have been a titanic warlord that infected most of southern Asia with my DNA. Right?
I mean, that's just not how it works.
He's like, yeah, rape and pillage.
That's how I want to spend my day.
I want to hear the lamentations of my enemies and take their women into my chambers.
He doesn't care about that because he gets to impose his will.
So what the hell does he care about?
Philosophy.
This is a brute, murderous, whatever, right?
But all the people are like, I need a defense!
I need a defense.
I can't impose my will, so I'm going to nitpick.
Anyway, I mean, and I don't, you know, philosophy is essential to the future of the species, so the fact that it comes from slaves doesn't...
It comes from the subjugated.
Like, religion comes from, in general, the subjugated.
Because sociopaths don't care about consequences.
They don't care about hell.
They only feel...
Negative or pain towards themselves.
They often feel indifference or even pleasure towards the suffering of others.
So they don't believe any of this stuff.
But anyway, sorry for that slight tangent.
Keep exploring it.
If you can find a way to ditch principles and maintain the framework, I think Occam's razor would approve that the simplest explanation is always the best.
But I wouldn't shy away.
I wouldn't wait until everything is perfected.
Until you have these conversations, if that's what you want to do.
Yeah, no, totally.
I mean, I just opened my gym a month ago, and I called it Principles Gym.
To train on principles and start thinking about principles applied, you know, exercise is something that you can do, you know, you're doing it three or more times a week if you're active, and you can apply principles to that.
And I want people to start thinking In that context, and then maybe, hopefully, they'll start applying it to other parts of their life.
Right.
Right.
All right.
Do you mind if we move on to the next caller?
Best of luck with you, Jim.
Thank you.
I hope it works out.
If there's anything we can do to help publicize, just let us know.
But, yeah, very, very interesting call.
Thank you so much for bringing up these topics.
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Take care, Russ.
Alright, thank you, Ross.
Up next is Bob.
Bob wrote in and said, Do most parents really love and care about their children like they say they do?
If yes, how can 80-90% of them reconcile hitting their children?
If they don't love their children, why would they all lie about something that is so common that it is practically the norm?
Ah, good question, good question.
Do you have any thoughts, Bob, on this?
Because I'm telling you, I mean, get comfy for a rant or two, but...
It's a great question.
Yeah, I'm down for a rant.
What got me thinking about this is my own daughter.
She's less than a year old, but I remember looking at her One time, she looks back at me and she smiles and she's completely unafraid.
It's like the thought that I might willfully cause her harm has never even crossed her mind.
So this idea kind of flashes through my mind.
Do my parents experience this?
And if so, at what point do they go and are able to raise their hand And strike that down.
It kind of horrifies me.
Oh, yeah.
No, I get it.
It does.
And it should.
They all turn around and virtual albums say, you know, I love my child.
And ideas seem so in opposition to what I wonder.
Are they lying?
Are they themselves?
Is there some sort of cognitive dissonance going on?
Or am I missing something?
No, I don't think you're missing something in your formulation, but there may be a sort of factor that is playing into the majority of parents' consciousness that may be unclear.
Now, if your child is...
Struck down with leukemia, right?
Get leukemia.
And Malcolm Gladwell has a terrifying part of his latest book about this.
So they used to try and cure leukemia, put these kids through chemo or whatever, and the leukemia would vanish, they'd go be playing soccer, and then the leukemia would simply come back.
And I'm really paraphrasing this.
It's a while since I read the book, but there was a researcher who basically said, well, we're just going to keep combining treatments.
Chemo, radiation, whatever, right?
To the point where the kids are almost dead, right?
And he had huge amounts of problems with this.
I think he was referred to disciplinary committees, I mean, but he was really just gung-ho on this for, you know, I think from pretty clear scientific reasons.
Anyway, so his approach worked in that leukemia rates are far better now than before.
Recurrence is lower.
And so he's basically plying these kids with the poisons.
But he's doing it to save their lives, right?
So I'm not talking about the sadist parents or pedophile parents or any of these kinds of characters.
I'm just talking sort of the majority, right?
Let's just say run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-bell curve parents.
So, people are willing to put their children through unpleasant experiences in order to help them, right?
So, you get your kids vaccinated.
Oh, you know, it hurts, but, you know, it beats the disease.
And you...
Make your kids learn how to read, even if they'd rather play video games, whatever it is.
I mean, this is run-of-the-mill stuff, right?
I'm talking majority.
This is not all with my perspective, but you make your kids do your homework.
You make them make their beds.
You make them eat their vegetables.
You make them back off from the sugar...
Faceplant that childhood seems to have descended into and you do all of these things that are difficult and annoying to your children and cause them discomfort and unhappiness and make them burst into tears and this and that and the other, right?
And you do it because you love them, because you want them to do well, right?
Children don't want to brush their teeth.
Is it responsible for a parent to say, well, just don't brush your teeth, right?
Well, I guess if they're not eating, if they're eating only vegetables, you know, and whatever, right?
Nothing that's got sugar or fructose in it, then maybe that's alright.
I don't know.
I'm not a dentist.
But in general, I think if the kids are eating some sugar, then that's the deal.
You've got to brush your teeth, right?
And so you do these things for your kids to brush their teeth and make them eat their veggies because you love them even though your kids don't like it, right?
So Loving your child and causing your child discomfort, again, mainstream view, I mean, it's not incompatible.
In fact, parents who don't want to cause their children any discomfort are irresponsible parents, right, according to this view.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
Okay.
So, that's sort of the, that we accept.
And this is true for all of us.
I mean, this is not particular to kids.
I mean, nobody, I think very few people wake up and like, yay, dentistry.
You know, I can't wait.
I hope they scrape the shit out of that stuff.
You know, whatever, right?
I hope my gum depth has gone bigger.
So, taxes, got to do my taxes.
I mean, we just do these things.
We do things that we have to do.
And if we don't want to, we'd rather be doing something else, but we do these things a lot of times we have to do.
So anyway.
So that's sort of the major ingredient, the major sort of ingredient in this is that causing unhappiness, causing suffering, is not incompatible with love.
Quitting smoking is uncomfortable, dieting is uncomfortable, exercise at the beginning in particular is uncomfortable, but we recognize we do these things, right?
So then the question is, how does it go to the extreme?
Where, as you say, 80 to 90% of parents are willing to hit their children.
It's probably higher than that worldwide, although it's lower in certain European countries and it's higher in other countries, but, you know, I think that's a fairly conservative estimate all around.
Well, you have to convince parents that children are born ill.
They're born diseased.
They're born corrupted.
They're born with original sin.
They're born with defiance, non-compliance, non-conformity.
Willful, selfish, mean, vicious, impulsive.
And so children are wild horses that must be broken.
For their own good.
Right?
And if you can get parents to believe that children are born bad, in one form or another,
it can be secular, it can be religious, if you can get parents To believe that children are born bad and must be made to be good, must be forced into the straitjacket of virtue, must be brought to the light, kicking and screaming if need be.
Then they will do this because they want to be good parents.
In the same way that if your child has a laceration that's deep and You need stitches, well, you know, kid doesn't want to go to the emergency room, but you also don't want them with a lifelong scar and a possible infection, and why don't you take them to your emergency room, and they don't want to get the needles with the freezing stuff, and they don't want to get the stitches, and they're crying and screaming, but you have to, you know, get their medical needs taken care of, right?
And children and society don't mix.
Childhood is to society round pegs, square hole.
And volcano, right?
So children and society don't mix.
Modern society in many ways even more so than some prior societies.
So babies are born.
Do they want their moms and dads around?
They do.
Do a lot of moms and dads go back to work?
They do.
Do children like that?
Do babies like that?
They do not.
They don't want to be in daycare.
They don't want to be woken up when they're sleeping.
They don't want strangers and strange smells and they want familiarity.
They want the scent that nourished them from an egg and sperm through a fetus to a baby.
They want the giant Magical sky orb the boob of infinite nutrition, cuddling, warmth and skin contact.
They want eye contact.
Same eyeballs, mind you.
Don't give me any weird ass, freaky, cyclops, different looking people.
They want familiar surroundings.
They want gentleness, calm, peace, good humor, tickling, belly blows, songs.
They want security, predictability, consistency, emotional availability.
That's what the babies want because that's what we're evolved as a species to provide to them.
No commute in the Paleolithic age.
They don't want to be in daycare.
It's cold.
It's bright.
Don't know these people.
It's turnover.
Don't know these other kids lying in a crib, sitting around, not doing nothing.
No one-on-one time.
Not even predictable other babies or kids around.
They don't want school.
They don't want to sit in rows.
I mean, God, it was bad enough when there used to be recess.
Now, even recess is largely toasted.
They don't want to do homework.
They don't want to study boring shit all the time.
All the time.
What years was Mary Queen of Scots Mary Queen of Scots?
Yeah, that's important for us to know.
That's going to change my life.
What year did Shakespeare write Hamlet?
What was the British North America Act?
What were the primary factors?
That brought about the War of 1812.
Chewbacca heart-rending cry of infinite yoppy boredomness rings out across.
I was so bored in school!
I counted the holes in the ceiling tiles.
I counted the ceiling tiles.
I counted more holes in the ceiling tiles just to see if they were the same as the first ceiling tiles.
And then I multiplied to figure out how many ceiling holes there were in the ceiling tiles in the room.
Ooh, over in the corner there, there's some half pieces.
I'm going to have to sit there tomorrow to figure this out.
Mr.
Molyneux, what was I just saying?
Oh, no.
Was it something about ceiling tiles?
I sure hope so.
They don't want this stuff.
They don't want any of this stuff.
And at the time of their greatest physical abilities and their greatest knee-crawling, leg-twitchy, muscle-jumping desire to climb and explore, we sit them in rows.
We sit them in rows for hour after hour.
Ooh, are you concentrating on something?
That's bad!
Let me interrupt it.
Now it's time to go to music class.
Now it's math class.
Ooh, science!
Just when you were getting into the math thing.
No, jump around!
It's like trying to read a great book and having someone keep grabbing the book out of your hand giving you another book.
Can I just finish this?
No!
New book!
And kids don't want to be raised by peers because peers can't raise children.
Peers are children.
Peers are scary.
For anybody with any empathy and sensitivity.
And if they're not scary, it's because you're the peer that everyone else is scared of!
They don't want that stuff.
Children and society do not fit and do not mix.
And the original sin of the modern secular world is not fitting into the straitjacket Of 19th century Prussian-based make workers and soldiers bullshit non-education.
And government schools, God, kids so much want to learn about things that are important.
Things that matter.
Conversation with my daughter at dinner tonight about Brian Williams.
Which helicopter am I in?
It doesn't matter really.
I'm good looking.
I make $10 million a year.
It's not enough.
I also need to have saved puppies from burning buildings and gotten dysentery in Katrina when there was apparently no flooding in my area.
Right?
It's fascinating.
Why was he lying?
If he was lying.
At least there's some reports that seem to be.
Well, yeah, he's admitted, I think, to, as he says, conflating.
He was in, anyway, helicopter stories.
He conflated them in a mistaken attempt to say thank you to a service person by pretending he was in danger when he was.
Anyway.
So, loves learning about that stuff.
But of course, government schools can't teach you anything about values because the moment you start talking about values and truth and philosophy, ethics, well, you get parents getting upset.
What are you saying to my parents?
My kid, taxation, theft!
I work for the IRS! You calling me a thug?
I don't get you written up!
Now, now, better to get back to the British North American Act and...
When was the War of Valley Forge?
And...
Children don't fit.
The nature of children does not fit in modern society.
And what do you do?
If you're a letter carrier, a mail delivery person, and the package is too wide to fit into the slot, you squish it over, you fold it, you change its shape so it goddamn well fits, right?
Children, don't fit in society!
Here, a nice forge and a big hammer!
Now, get to work.
Make them fit.
Make them fit into their little chairs.
Make them fit into their cubicles.
Make them fit into their 1040 tax forms.
Make them fit into their goddamn soldier's uniform if that's what we need them to do.
Make them fit into the old age home.
And finally, even if you have to jump up and down, make them fit Into a little coffin that goes into a little hole.
Make them fit.
Make them fit.
Don't believe in God?
Well, make them fit.
Don't believe in the glories of war?
Make them fit!
Don't believe in the virtues of their government?
Make them fit!
Don't believe in the value of their school?
Make them fit!
Don't cripple them with the status of outsider, of questioner, of skeptic, of thinker.
Whatever you do, keep them in the tribe.
In the tribe is security.
In the tribe is safety.
You never know which saber-toothed tigers are going to be prowling just outside.
The flickering firelight in the grasslands.
You never know what wide and widened eyes of infinite feral reflection are going to be glaring through the trees.
You never know how many wolves are going to come barreling down from the snowy mountainsides.
You never know how many snakes there are in the grass or how many piranhas there are in the river.
You're never going to know when they don't get any food in the hunt and their other Friends do.
Well, you want those friends to share.
Otherwise, they're going to go pretty hungry, maybe too hungry even to hunt again.
So you get them all, and you hammer them, and you squish them, and you bend them, and you fold, staple, and mutilate them until they fit into the church, until they fit into the school, until they fit into the tax livestock pens known as countries, the human zoos.
Where you're only considered or laughably called free if you can exchange one cage for another.
So, when parents have children, deep down, they sense, very deep down, my friend, they sense this wide and wild and feral incompatibility Between the rationality and curiosity of children and the brittle bamboo spikes
of an entrapping and poisoned culture.
And they see the innocence in their children's eyes and the basic animal openness of children.
And it's terrifying.
And in parents, it reawakens their own folding and stapling and mutilation to fit through the letterbox.
And then they have a choice.
They have a choice and they can say, I am not going to do unto my child what was done unto me.
I will not harm my child Because I was harmed.
I will not fold and break my child to fit into the tiny boxes of tiny lives.
Because my children's feet were bound, I will not bind my children's feet.
Sorry, because my feet were bound, I will not bind my children's feet.
Because a third of my penis was cut off, I will not cut off a third of my son's penis.
I will not.
And that's called breaking the cycle of violence.
But it requires self-empathy.
It requires that you know how much and how deeply you were hurt by being broken.
Because none can enter and sustain themselves in modern society or most societies throughout history should they be inconveniently still equipped with a spine.
With clarity of thought.
With concentration of purpose.
With not a woeful deficiency of integrity.
With the two fists of compassion that break through the ice walls of dead-minded prisons that are erected around us.
There's a frozen tomb.
When you know that you suffered For the sake of conformity, you then have the capacity to not inflict that suffering on others.
If you know what hurt you, then you will refrain often from hurting others.
If you remember how things hurt, you will not re-inflict that hurt on others.
And some parents Make the heroic, the courageous, the noble, the brave, the extraordinary, and the absolutely necessary choice to say, oh no, I remember.
I remember how gruesome that experience was of being folded in over myself like some rusted iron origami from hell.
I remember what it was like to be brutalized and terrified and beaten and scared and starved and confined.
Or just rejected and ignored.
I remember that.
I remember what it was like to be hungry.
And so I shall let none go hungry where I have power to feed.
I remember what it was to be broken.
And so I will break none in my vicinity.
I remember what it was like to be bored, which is the terminal stage of the mutilation of innocence.
I remember what it was like to be bored, so I will be engaged with whoever wishes to speak.
I remember what it was like to be struck.
So I will raise my hands only to cup people's faces and breathe whatever wisdom I can summon in their direction.
I remember.
But in the absence of their memory, reinfliction, I believe, becomes a virtual certainty.
A lack of self-knowledge turns us into robots of historical reproduction, photocopying our early traumas and papering over the faces of those we raise.
A lack of self-knowledge makes history the physics of the future.
It makes determinism the inevitability of the next step.
It turns us into rocks bouncing down a hill.
Well, we should be dodging those rocks and pulling other people out of the way.
No, we are the rocks in that lack of self-knowledge.
Memory is morality.
If we remember pain, we will not inflict it.
But if we refuse to remember our pain, or if we praise our pain as the necessary forge that hardens steel into something more perfect, well, then we do not escape the pit of hurt.
To the mountaintops of healing.
We just reproduce, reproduce, reproduce.
So I think for a lot of parents, they feel that their children were born extremely unwell for religious reasons or for reasons of non-conformity.
And instead of questioning the incompatibility between their children and society, And saying, these things don't fit.
One of them is natural and one of them is not.
The child who is born is entirely natural and well equipped with history to make it into the future.
Children are not born superstitious.
Children are not born frightened.
They're not born nervous.
They're not born With an inability to concentrate, I don't believe, in general.
And that's the choice.
Children and society don't fit.
Which will we change?
Well, it's a lot easier to hammer your children into a shape Or a formlessness, really, that society prefers, than it is to say to society, oh no, oh no, it's time for you to fucking change, people.
Innocence and the natural mind of natural children do not fit in your society.
I will not kill my child because we are ruled by the dead.
I will not break my child because my tribe has been broken by those who came before them.
I will not hurt because others are hurt.
I will not hurt because I am hurt.
I will not harm my child so she is compatible with people who were harmed as children and don't even know it and won't even remember.
and praise their harm.
And it's very hard to do that early on in any movement.
Thank you.
The guy who first thought that maybe slavery was wrong, I wonder if he even told his children about his thoughts.
I wonder if he told anyone.
It's hard to know.
We'll never know for sure, of course, right?
But it still has to be done, and the earlier it's done, and the earlier that people do it in any movement, the more heroic they are.
It's just the way of the world.
So, I think that they do, or can say, that they love their children.
They have just been woefully lied to, or misinformed, that their children are ill, and that aggression and neglect are the cures.
That violence is the chemo of the child born sick.
And because society is so fundamentally weak that it must react with hysteria and aggression when questioned, the fundamental reality is that children are born as too strong an electrical current for the frayed, half-broken copper wires of ancient history to sustain the passage of.
They short-circuit the shit out of society if allowed to remain with all of their natural strength.
When I say we break children, we do.
Their natural strength overwhelms society.
It is like dropping a brass shield.
Cricket.
To let unharmed children into the bosom of society.
Because then people who are broken look with the angry envy of the man whose own foolishness put him in a wheelchair as he stares at a strongly muscled man sprinting past.
To walk with strong life in the valley Of the dead takes a strong will and a strong stomach because the stench is bad.
So I think that it can be compatible given a certain number of premises to say I harm my children and I love my children.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
It kind of requires...
Reframing it in a way that you put it in the same category as making sure your kid brushes their teeth and gets vaccinated.
But you're right.
That does require us to view children as broken by default.
I hear that so often and it's always bothered me and I think I understand a little better why.
So often I hear, like, oh, kids, they just can't pay attention.
They need to be taught to.
Or kids, you know, they have terrible social skills.
Like, my daughter, she's seven months old.
She is better at eye contact than any adult I've ever seen.
Right.
It's amazing.
And she can pay attention.
She can stay on the same task and work incredibly hard at it way longer than I can myself.
Right.
She has more attention, better social skills than I can imagine.
And to say that, you know, I need to teach her how to do it.
I just need to not get in the way.
Right.
And the idea, of course, that we'll teach children about peace by using violence against them or neglect, which is the same.
It's so, I mean, it takes a serious amount of brain-bending propaganda to keep a straight mind and think of that.
I'll teach my child about how to be a peaceful and good person by hitting them, putting them in a minority corner, and sending them to bed without dinner.
What?
How are you teaching your child about peace by using aggression?
I mean, it makes no sense.
Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt.
What you said...
The requirement for self-compassion, I agree with you there.
I think that's essential to reversing the cycle because even just talking about this, I think, requires a lot of self-compassion for myself because I just remember my own upbringing and I am confident beyond a shadow of a doubt, especially now that I'm a practicing psychologist, that if I had grown up in modern-day U.S., And was in their school systems, I would have definitely been diagnosed with ADHD and put on drugs.
Right.
Because I was an incredibly stubborn, incredibly skeptical, incredibly defiant and energetic...
Ah, no, no.
Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you.
Oh, do I ever feel brave correcting a psychologist about self-knowledge terms?
But listen, I mean, yes, of course, right?
But you're using stubborn and defiant, right?
But that's the illness term, right?
I don't think it necessarily has to be.
I don't view those as inherently pathological or pathologizing terms.
I didn't mean them in a critical way.
I just wanted to check, because you may have a different approach to them.
Yeah, kind of the same way that I say skepticism, right?
It's questioning, but it doesn't mean you're being a dick.
It just means you actually want to think things through, right?
I was just thinking of the ODD diagnosis, right?
Oppositional defiant disorder.
Oh, yeah, yeah, you're right.
And it's just oppositional and defiant.
It's like, what, you mean they disagree with you and stick to it?
Isn't, is that necessarily so terrible?
Anyway, I mean, not that I'm any kind of professional, but that's sort of where my brain went.
Yeah, no, you're right.
It does make a difference how, what do you mean behind those terms?
And I think, I mean, I don't know how it is for you, and I'll keep this one brief, you don't have to get too comfortable.
But I think for me, it really was when I became, I mean, when I thought about becoming a father.
And a friend of mine's kids were asking me today whether I wanted to be a dad when I was little.
And I didn't really think about it, because It's not something I think you can decide in solitude, because it's co-parenting, right?
Yeah.
I said, well, I never really thought of it like I'm going to make that decision.
I thought, you know, if I meet the right person, I'm sure it'll be great, right?
But for me, it was as simple as this.
What would I have liked more of when I was a kid, and what would I have liked less of When I was a kid, I so much wanted to please my mom and my dad, even my authority figures.
Yeah.
I wanted to, you know, and I thought, why are you hitting me?
It's so unnecessary.
Why are you screaming at me?
What kind of asylum have I been vagina dropped into?
Why is this stuff...
You know, it's sort of like, I sort of felt like I was a guy with 50 bucks and a generous heart, walking up to a guy on the street who's homeless and wants to give him the 50 bucks, reaches into his pocket, and the guy jumps up, pulls out a knife and says, give me 50 bucks or I'm stabbing you, man.
I was like, dude, I was just about to give you, like, put the knife, what do you need the knife for?
I'm going to give you the money anyway.
There's no need for the crime.
The transfer would have been achieved in a much more peaceful way.
And I just remember that hysterical, and just the hysterical overreaction of, you know, screaming, and I was caned and beaten, and it's like, why?
I'm like, I'm not some sort of Devil here.
Maybe I disagree.
Maybe I've got some questions.
Maybe I've got some skepticism.
But it's just, well, what did I want?
I wanted conversations with adults.
I really did.
Because especially if you're not the dumbest potato in the sack, speaking with your peers can feel a little bit like hand signals with cocoa from time to time.
And...
Yeah, I can remember.
I mean, you know, you could have some fun with them.
I remember sitting in a classroom once when I was about nine or so.
And, you know, basically, we were all sitting in a corner, I think we were playing cards or something, and there was just this unholy stench.
You know, somebody farted.
And some kid was like, whoa, silent but violent.
Just because nobody heard it, right?
And I just thought that was pretty hysterically funny.
So that kind of stuff could be fun.
But, man, you try talking about any ideas or anything of any import or depth or whatever, or God forbid, ask them about their home life or anything, and people are like, ah, right?
But yes, I wanted conversations.
I wanted to be treated reasonably.
I mean, there's no need for this hysterical escalation at all times with adults.
Why?
What's the point?
Just reason with me like a decent human being.
It'll be fine.
So it's just remembering what was missing and remembering what you wanted and just, you know, that basic empathy with yourself.
You know, your kids are not a foreign species than you were.
I mean, I think a lot of kids just want kind of the same stuff.
Deal with me reasonably and give me the chance to negotiate and don't impose your will on me.
Just because you're bigger.
And then sure as hell don't tell me then not to be a bully at school.
Anyway.
So I think that, you know, what did I want as a kid?
That was my sort of big...
Big question.
And it's not that hard to, you know, if you've got some self-knowledge, I think it's not that hard to go from there to what works.
Yeah, there's still one thing, if it's okay if I elaborate on my first question a little, that doesn't connect with me, even given your explanation.
And that's when parents...
Specifically attack their kids it seems like precisely because their kids are exhibiting happiness and that to me does seem a lot like in many ways more incompatible like if you're hitting your kid because I don't know they're running out in the middle of the road or whatever other like ridiculous excuses parents give for hitting their kids like okay you're trying to protect them in some way but I have,
and I've experienced this myself in some ways, not with hitting, but just whenever an adult would see me really excited, really happy about something, it's like they felt like it was their responsibility to bring me down a couple of notches.
And I see this a lot.
And that really, if you love someone, your goal is their happiness, presumably, at least.
One of the goals.
And if you are specifically reducing their happiness, then you are doing the exact opposite of love.
Maybe they'll fit in the society better, but if they're less happy, then isn't that definitionally incompatible with loving someone?
Well, yeah.
I mean, more annoyingly, technically, I sort of work on love as our involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous.
But certainly the other person's happiness is important, obviously not at your own expense or whatever, but at least not in the long run.
But Noah, listen, and I just had a conversation with a guy, I think it was last week, about his father and happiness.
You know, happiness is...
You know, happiness is a giant flare that you shoot up in the world.
And it brings both...
Friends and predators to your vicinity.
And it is with some significant risk that we shoot our happiness flare up into the world.
Because people who are also happy or who are inspired by our happiness will find us.
And people who view happiness as an illness to be scrubbed from the face of the world by whatever means necessary can also see you, right?
And I don't know, have you ever, I'm not guessing by anything that you said, I'm just curious, have you ever been depressed?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, when you're depressed, is it, and I'm not trying to tell you your experience, of course, and just correct me wherever I go astray here, but would it be fair to say that when you are depressed, an excess of energy is uncomfortable to be around?
Yes.
Yes.
Tell me more if that's in the right direction.
Well, I don't know if this is exactly what you're asking about, but yeah, in moments where I was more depressed, kind of more down, I would find myself irritated by happy people around me.
Right.
What's that song?
Shiny happy people holding hands.
Yeah, the R.A.M. song.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he's always seemed to be, everybody hurts, right?
He's got a bit of a grim side, that guy, right?
And this idea that happy people, you know, in this sort of Toy Story 2 scenario, happy people are Ken and Barbie.
No, it's Toy Story 3?
Yeah, Toy Story 3.
A Ken and Barbie, you know, just shiny, plastic, happy people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That is...
Or that great line from...
I'm paraphrasing it.
It's a great line from The Princess Bride.
Life is pain!
Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
That this idea that the essence of life is suffering and that happy people are either pretending to be happy to annoy you Or are just dumb and lack depth and have escaped reality somehow, that happiness is a form of dissociation.
And it is, yeah, I mean, I can imagine that it's irritating to have somebody who's happy and positive and enthusiastic When you're feeling depressed, right?
Yeah.
And I think a lot of people are depressed.
I mean, we live in this wildly unsustainable society full of ever-increasing rules and predations and regulations and taxes and debt and diminishing economic opportunities.
And I mean, I think there's a very deep, and particularly, I mean, I think this is particularly true in America.
It's such a wildly unsustainable society.
And I think when people know that they're on an unsustainable path and that it's not going to be like some blurry, distant, over-the-hill future that bills are coming due or the The road hits the wall, but it's, you know, it may seem a million miles away, but it gets a little closer every day.
And it is not a million miles away right now.
So whatever transition society needs to go through to become a more sustainable and particularly child-friendly society.
And people are like, well, why are Americans fat?
Because they're stressed, because they're depressed, because everybody knows it can't last and nobody knows what the hell to do.
At least they claim to, not know.
And so I think it is the natural enthusiasm and excitement of children and their joy, their deep joy at their growing expertise with their minds and with their bodies.
It's sort of like you have a migraine, you're sitting at the kitchen table and your kid comes in singing a song at the top of His lungs and dancing a jig.
And what do you say?
Keep it down.
Shut up.
Stop it.
Your happiness is injecting steroids into my misery.
Your success makes my incapacities stronger.
I feel shorter because you're getting taller.
I feel weaker because you're getting stronger.
You know, misery loves company, right?
And hates the opposite of misery in some ways.
So, you know, I think that there's the sort of children's natural enthusiasm.
You know, when you're depressed, I would imagine that you want people to be really sensitive to your depression.
But they can't be both happy and sensitive to your depression.
And since depression, to me, has aspects of neediness to it, And that the locus of control is outside the brain prison skull, then I think that there's this feeling that people are being incredibly insensitive to your unhappiness by being happy themselves.
It's almost like an affront.
It's almost like you say to a friend, you're starving and you've got no money, and they just eat a big hot dog right in front of you smiling the whole time.
It feels almost like that would be a pretty aggressive action, right?
And so if you're really depressed and your kids are bubbling and bursting with energy, I think it feels like an affront.
I guess from a social psychology standpoint, it would be someone invalidating because other people sharing the same emotion as you validates the kind of accuracy of your own emotion, if that makes sense.
Right, right.
Right, except of course it can turn into an echo chamber, right?
Yeah.
I mean, to be jolted out of misery by the reminder of the joys of life can be pretty important.
Not that it's as simple as, you know, well, just be around happy people and you'll be happy.
I mean, I get that it goes a lot deeper than that.
But the idea that, you know, I certainly don't think that you would say to a client, you know, if you're depressed, the best thing to do is spend lots of time with other depressed people.
But you certainly want to be around people who are sensitive to your needs.
But the thing is, of course, so often we have these adult standards for children, right?
Which is where a lot of frustration gets taken out.
So, you know, if you're depressed and your wife comes in singing a great song and is just dancing around you and doesn't even notice that your head is sort of on the napkin, that would be pretty insensitive, right?
But that's because she's an adult.
But kids don't Have that as much yet.
I mean, they have some, but not as much, and it's not the same if your four-year-old comes in banging a drum and singing at the top of his lungs.
It's just not the same.
But people often, I mean, maybe in their mind they treat it like it is the same.
And the last thing I'll say is I think a lot of people take out on their own kids the frustrations that they couldn't take out on their own parents.
Yeah.
That's true.
And I'm Absolutely.
I absolutely agree.
I guess while I remember, I want to clarify a point from earlier, because I said that, you know, definitionally, if you love someone, you want them to be happy.
That's not how I define love.
I think it just logically follows from...
It's a part of it, for sure, yeah.
I'm familiar with the definition of love you put forward about the response to virtue, which I agree with.
I also, again, I know we've spent a lot of time on this, so I'll just say this and we can move on if that's what you decide.
But I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Dr.
Barbara Fredrickson, the positive psychologist, and she also put forward an interesting definition of love that I think helps me understand it Not just on the ethical and philosophical level that you put forward but also on a like a scientific neurological level and she defined it as moments of like shared neurological activity which is fascinating stuff and I don't mean to go on a tangent but it's like when two people share an experience and are in the same moment
together in the same task and are enjoying positive emotions they're emotionally engaged what happens neurologically is their brains actually sync up and they're literally like experiencing the exact same thing neurologically like their brains are perfectly in tuned you know the phrase like on the same wavelength that's actually just neurologically what happens and that's how she defines love
And I think that the definition you put forward and that definition really work well together and helped me understand the concept on two different levels.
That if that's how you define love, is that these moments of shared experience of positive emotions with another human being, where your brains are literally linked together in some way, then if you have basic kind of empathy, you would want happiness as part of that person's experience, because that also means your own happiness.
Right.
And sort of tying those two things together, I don't know her, but she certainly sounds like someone to look into and appreciate the share.
I mean, you could have that same experience if you're watching a comedian with a bunch of other people.
You're all laughing at the same time.
And there is that sort of similarity.
The real question, I think, that the love really shows up when it's consistent, right?
And the purpose, of course, of any discipline is to produce consistency, right?
My daughter was saying, you know, I think I'm getting pretty good at xylophone.
And I said, eh, not really.
And she's like, well, sometimes I produce pretty songs.
I'm like, you certainly do.
But can you do it twice?
Can you write down the music?
Can you write a song?
And I said, I'm not trying to be negative, if I want to be honest.
I could conceivably pound away randomly on a piano and produce something beautiful for 20 seconds or whatever, but that's not the same as actually being able to do it consistently.
Right.
Conceivably, I could stumble my way down a ski hill, go over a jump, and do well, but I just couldn't do it again.
The first time I went to play golf, great game, because I didn't know what I was doing.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, you could walk out and do a hole-in-one and never play again and you've been the best golfer ever in terms of your lifetime score, right?
Or whatever, right?
But it's the consistency and the reproducibility that is really the definition of expertise.
And so for me, virtue is about consistency, right?
And so if two people are acting virtuously, they're acting consistently, which is why it's the U in UPB. It's the universality.
And so if two people are acting virtuously, it means they're acting consistently, and therefore if their brains sync up, they're going to stay synced to the greatest degree, if that makes any sense.
Right.
Well, thank you very much for your call, and...
Congratulations on being a dad.
It's a very exciting thing and it's an incredibly awesome responsibility.
Your kid sounds very lucky and you should be very, very pleased and proud, I think, of what you're going to be doing.
What you are doing and what you're going to keep doing.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate that.
Take care.
Ken wrote in, and his question is, does objectivism, as formulated by Rand and Brandon, tend to overinflate the human ego in an unhealthy way?
Is the objectivist view of self-esteem unhealthy and absolutist?
Well, tell me what you think.
I mean, it's a big topic, but tell me what your thoughts are first, if you don't mind.
All right, well, let me tell you.
First, I want to say how much I admire everything that you do with FDR. I think it's wonderful.
My interest in talking about objectivism was piqued by your three-part, I guess it was going to be four-part, but three-part series on Ayn Rand and your farewell show on Brandon that you did recently.
And, you know, Dr.
Albert Ellis, who lived from...
From 1913 to 2007, wrote a book called Is Objectivism a Religion?, in which he asked that question, and he talked about the objectivist view of self-esteem in particular, but he also criticized objectivism with regards to a number of other facets of it,
absolutism and the need for certainty, and demandingness, and He criticized objectivism's embrace of capitalism, which I don't necessarily agree with criticizing, but I wanted to focus mostly on the question of self-esteem.
And Ellis says in his introductory chapter, although objectivism ostensibly rebels against the conformism of our culture, Which so obviously helps many of our citizens to become more or less neurotic, objectivism actually bolsters the obsessive compulsive achievement demands of this very culture.
It tells people that they don't need to be loved by others in order to approve themselves, but it tells them, on the other hand, that they do have to do their very best to succeed in life and that they do have to think to the best of their ability.
This is essentially a religious or theological notion It is an updated version of the Calvinist doctrine of salvation by works.
It makes the individual's self-esteem conditional upon his doing something to earn his own respect and by inference that of others.
It does not in the least accept the theory propounded by rational emotive therapy, that's Ellis' invention, and by existentialist psychology that the individual can Fully accept himself no matter how poor his performances are and who else in the world accepts him.
Nice.
I'll stop there for now.
I mean, look.
Yeah, no, go ahead, go ahead.
You just, you faked me out there, man.
Well, I'll stop there, but wait.
Go ahead.
Okay, well, there are portions of the self-esteem chapter where Ellis directly quotes either...
He mostly quotes Brandon, but he occasionally quotes Rand.
Do you have that stuff there?
Yeah, give me a couple of these quotes if you can.
Okay, I have it right in front of me.
In fact, you know, I was a college student.
I majored in science, but I also had an interest in philosophy because I'd read Ellis before, and so I looked up this book, and that's how I discovered what objectivism was about.
And...
So anyway, Objectivism, like most current philosophies about the individual and his self, seems to have little conception of what true self-confidence or self-esteem is.
Instead, it insists that the individual's acceptance of himself must be contingent on several other things and must therefore be highly conditional.
According to Objectivism, now this is quoting Brandon, self-esteem is the conviction that one is competent, to live and worthy of living.
If a person were to think himself stupid or insane, he would necessarily regard this as a devastating reflection of his ability to deal with reality.
Brandon, 1967.
This is statistically true.
Most humans do think of themselves as pretty worthless if they are not competent to take care of themselves if they are stupid or insane.
If that means, however, that it's quite possible for a person to acknowledge that he is not able to take care of himself adequately And that he is more stupid or psychotic than others and still accept himself as a worthy person.
As long as he accepts the idea that just because he is human, just because he is alive, he deserves to continue to live and be happy, he can unqualifiedly accept himself despite his incompetence.
Going still further, objectivist psychology beholds that when a child or an adult surrenders the expectation of achieving efficacy, he surrenders the possibility of achieving full self-esteem.
If he regards cognitive efficacy as an absolute, not to be surrendered or relinquished, he thereby activates a process of growth and development which continually raises his mind's power.
Brandon, 1967.
Let me skip down a little bit.
Even Ayn Rand, Barbara Brandon, tells us in her biographical essay on the founder of objectivism, often became depressed when minor interruptions prevented her from working.
Skipping down a bit.
Objectivist psychology believes that whether the values by which a person judges himself are conscious or subconscious, rational or irrational, consistent or contradictory, life-serving or life-negating, every human being judges himself by some standard, and the extent that he fails to satisfy that standard, his sense of personal worth and self-respect suffers accordingly.
Brandon, 1967.
Here again, objectivism confused the individual with his performances and It insists that because the latter have to be rated, which they probably have to be in order for the individual to survive, the self or person as a whole has to be rated.
Rational emotive therapy, in contrast, says that a person does not have to rate himself.
His self or total personality is a rather meaningless abstraction or overgeneralization, and even if it can be operationally or precisely defined, there seems to be no mathematically precise method of evaluating it.
So I'll stop there.
I don't want to read the whole chapter, and I certainly don't have time to, but I just want to get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I like Albert Ellis, and I think that his attempt to use reason to combat...
Neurosis and so on.
And his inclusion of emotionality in his therapeutic approach, which is, please understand, I'm certainly no expert and so on, but I've always liked his approach.
I did a conversation called The Death of Self-Esteem with Dr.
Michael R. Edelstein, which you can check out if you like, which...
Shows that, or at least there seems to be strong indications that some very disturbed people have some very high self-esteem, particularly sociopaths seem to have extremely high self-esteem.
It's a big topic, and I apologize for whatever scattered thoughts I'm going to bring to the table here, but I'll certainly try and rein in the mustangs of tensions.
Okay.
But I, you know, I was very influenced by the psychology of self-esteem.
You know, my psychological influences, not in any particular order.
Freud, Dostoevsky, Jung, Turgenev, and Brandon, of course, Ellis to a smaller degree, cognitive behavioral therapy to a fairly significant degree.
And As far as the question of self-esteem goes, for myself, I don't particularly think about self-esteem with regards to myself.
I try to do the best that I can according to the values I have, knowing the compromises that I feel are necessary to sustain a challenging conversation in the world.
As far as judging my worth by my achievements, that seems to me not a good approach.
Now, there certainly does seem to be some of that in objectivism.
In that the heroes are just great at everything.
There is a lot of hero worship.
They're even great at being tortured.
I shouldn't laugh, but John Galt is like, he's being tortured.
Spoiler, he's being tortured.
And the torture machine breaks and he's like, here's how you fix it.
I mean, she got, I think, a little bit hysterically melodramatic.
In her later writing.
And of course, what did she write after Atlas Shrugged?
1983 to what?
1983 to 1982?
That's a lot of years.
And decades and decades, she barely wrote anything.
What's the Dashiell Hammett say?
When's Atlas going to Shrugged again?
She had plans.
I think that she was extraordinarily depressed by the reception of Atlas Shrugged.
Which was a staggering achievement in human literature and in philosophy and all that kind of stuff.
I mean, there'll never be a novel like it again because there is already that novel, right?
It is the Bohemian Rhapsody of 20th century literature.
There'll never be a song like it again because it's already been there, right?
And this is based upon some of the more recent research that's come out from the writers.
She was extraordinarily depressed.
by the reception of Atlas Shracht.
And there is, you know, you ride into a movement with enthusiasm and you're going to change the world with the power of your words and the force of your language and the compulsion of your ideas, the compelling nature of your ideas, and the irrefutable nature of your arguments. and the irrefutable nature of your arguments.
And, you know, then you ride with great confidence into no man's land thinking you can put an end to war and you just hear a high whistling and you wake up in a hospital.
I mean, it's hard.
You know, it's hard because when you pursued a particular discipline, like for me, it's like philosophy or self-knowledge, you pursued it for a long time.
You steep yourself in it.
You surround yourself with people who are good at it and you kind of get this moat of sanity in a crazy world.
And then you're like, ah, I'm going to trust the moat and bring all the sanity in.
Self-knowledge and all that to the world.
And it's like, whoa, things be crazy out here.
So I think that for Ayn Rand, she really did strongly recoil from the world.
And I think what she then did was she retreated into kind of an echo chamber.
And I think that it was an extremely bad idea to try and create a movement.
I've studied objectivism The philosophy and also objectivism, the movement, for many years before I started this show, and holy, it became very clear to me that if you are a philosopher, you should not start a movement.
This to me is so foundational.
You should not name your philosophy something and, you know, Stephanism.
What the hell would that mean?
You know, it's science or it's not.
There's no Dawkinsian biology or whatever, right?
I mean, it's either, you know, valid biology, biological approach, or it's not.
So don't start a movement and don't call it anything other than philosophy.
And certainly don't ever attempt to have people consult you for an answer.
Right?
Don't ever try and turn yourself into an oracle and really recognize the limitations Our philosophy.
So, you know, where they divvied up in objectivism, you know, Beethoven has a macabre sense of life.
Whereas, you know, I mean, it's like, no, you know what?
Sometimes you need Pink Floyd's The Wall pounding through your headphones.
That's fine.
It's not a malevolent.
Of course, it's, you know, it's pretty dark stuff, but that's part of our experience as well.
And so, I do think that focusing on achievement is not a good foundation for self-esteem because achievement fundamentally rests upon the acceptance of others.
And for Ayn Rand to become depressed, she wrote a whole novel that said the world will rather die than change.
The world would rather die than change.
That really is the driving force behind Atlas Shrugged because the world does have to die in order to change.
And James Taggart, anyway, sorry about all the spoilers, people, but James Taggart would rather go insane than change.
The irreducibility of the human compulsion for self-destruction that arises out of a dedication to corruption is, you know, can't reverse the fall of Rome.
That's sort of the, you know...
And so the fact that she wrote this story that said most people, the vast majority of people would rather die than change and then was shocked when they attacked her, well...
But of course, the question is without that, I think that when you have something of value to offer the world in a very abstract, universal, which is to say significant way, it's almost like your unconscious says, yeah, do it, you'll change the world.
And then you go and do it.
And then they say, psych!
Just kidding!
Because I think if she had really listened to her own novel, she wouldn't have written it.
So it's almost like she has to believe that this novel is going to change the world.
I remember Leonard Peikoff when he, of course, was very young, was saying, oh, within a year of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, all these economic controls are going to be dismantled because the arguments are so irresistible.
And the novel is so compelling and so on.
It's mad optimism.
I'm going to do this work to change the world!
And the world says, fuck you, not so much.
So I think she had that optimism, and she did this great achievement, she had this great achievement, and then the world basically said, fuck you!
And she got really depressed.
And I think it was that optimism drove her to write the work, but then she was dependent upon the acceptance of others to maintain her happiness.
Which her own philosophy of objectivism encouraged her to do, perhaps.
Objectivism says that's a second-hander, that the value of what you do is not dependent upon the acceptance of others, particularly upon corrupt others.
But all achievement...
The achievement is relative to the thing itself, not to its reception.
So if you have created the thing of beauty, it is beautiful according to rational values and your own judgment to some degree, right?
Right.
But you can't, there's not a vote, you can't have a vote on it.
To give a vote on it gives too much power to corrupt people.
Right.
Because then they can say, A, what you created is ugly, and B, you're ugly too.
Right.
Their evaluation is more a reflection of them than it is of the Creator.
And that is what Objectivism and Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and Anthem is what they all say.
And then when she put this beautiful work out there, this powerful and compelling work, and people were saying, ah, you can almost hear Ayn Rand screaming, go to the gas chambers, go!
You know, like this complete distortion of everything that she said, you know, like...
She hates the poor.
Unless you're a genius, you're just basically Soma.
You're Soylent Green.
But this was predictable within the framework of her work.
And I think her depression was right.
The novel was wrong.
Her idealized view of the world, her artistic view of the world was wrong.
And her depression was right.
Because it did not...
Change the world.
It failed.
There's the other thing too, right?
I want to learn from Ayn Rand.
Magnificent thinker, amazing writer, fantastic novelist, great plotter, plotzer.
Plots are horrible in novels.
I'll do a whole show on this.
It all feels so artificial, you know?
Alright, so we got this guy in Denmark and his uncle killed his dad and married his mom.
It just feels so artificial, like you're setting up a Jerry Springer show and then pumping soliloquies through people's mouth holes.
But anyway, that's sort of neither here nor there at the moment, but she failed.
And that is an instructive tragedy.
And she failed because she was desperately hoping That she could avoid the necessity of self-knowledge and childhood to change the world.
And I think this is probably where, again, not to speak for Albert Ellis, not that I could, I think he's dead, he's obviously dead now, but I think this is where his criticism is quite valid.
You know, it's childhood that matters.
It's self-knowledge that matters.
It's, you know, what I call the mecosystem, this fact that our consciousness is an amalgam and an ecosystem of competing interests and personalities.
Even to say, I, or me, is a simplification.
It's like a biologist saying, jungle!
What does it really say?
Do you mean the trees?
Do you mean the insects?
Do you mean the airborne viruses?
Do you mean the butterflies?
Do you mean the underground systems?
The roots?
What do you mean?
Do you mean the whole thing?
Do you mean the jaguars?
What do you mean when you say jungle?
It doesn't really explain much.
Do you know what I mean?
And so even when we say self-esteem, self, what the hell does that even mean?
And so anything that reduces personality to A thing, you know?
I have a high regard for myself.
I don't even know what the word self fundamentally means.
You know, it's that old, you know, you can't step in the same river twice.
Kind of true, right?
Was that myself from two years ago?
Is that myself two years from now?
Is that myself when I was a busted up kid?
Is that myself when I was an entrepreneur?
Is that myself when I'm writing a novel or when I'm writing philosophy or when I'm doing a show or when I'm playing with my daughter or when I'm, like, what does that even mean?
I don't know what it means.
It's not even like saying jungle.
It's like saying life or stuff.
Stuff-esteem, not even self-esteem.
I'm with Aristotle as far as eudomania goes.
The exercise of our faculties to their highest potential has something to do with happiness.
That doesn't mean that you achieve it.
It doesn't mean that you appraise for it.
God's sakes, Fifty Shades of Grey, the handbook for abuse, sells a hundred million copies.
A hundred million copies!
Right?
And, I mean, so, you know, quantity is not quality as far as that goes.
So I think that saying that achievement is the key to self-esteem, I think, is a fool's game.
I mean, I could be much, much more successful at what I'm doing if I had made particular compromises that I could not and cannot justify.
I always said to myself, look, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to learn as much as possible from the past, and I'm going to do this thing.
And I'm not going to take the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous exposure if I'm not going to do it properly, right?
And I'm almost done here.
I know it's been a ramble, but I'll shut up in a sec.
So I can only really...
I don't sort of sit there and judge myself, like...
I give myself an 8.5 today.
I didn't know what that would fundamentally mean, compared to what, in relation to what.
In a general sense, I do say, how am I doing relative to my values?
How am I doing relative to that which I can prove?
And that, to me, is just guidance.
I'm in unknown territory out here.
There's never been a show like this before.
There'll never be a show like this again, because there is this show.
I'm really out here in unknown territory.
Anarchism, atheism, new theory of ethics, mycosystem, massive praise for talk therapy.
It's really out there as far as the culture goes.
You've got to navigate fairly attentively when you're way beyond sight of land.
And so I will check in and see, okay, how am I doing relative to my values?
How am I doing relative to that, which I can prove with the necessary, you know, got to get new listeners and, you know, can't go full frontal with every show.
All of that complexity.
And, you know, I think, is it perfect?
I don't even know what that would mean.
I think it's going well.
It's certainly about as well as I think I could do.
Have I made mistakes?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Did I know there were mistakes at the time and did them anyway?
Well, no.
Hindsight is 20-20, blah, blah, blah.
So I do think that focusing on achievement, particularly if it is to do with the approval of others, is not authentic.
It's not self-actualized.
Self-actualized to me means you make your decisions relative to principles of virtue that are rationally sustainable and emotionally admirable.
And you don't start a movement, because a movement is all about vanity.
And I think that basically she was so depressed after Atlas Shrugged came out that when Brandon came along and said, let's start a movement, she was like, yeah, well, okay.
And it was really Brandon that carried the philosophical aspects of the movement, and Ellis' critique is more directed at Brandon than it is at Rand.
And Brandon, to his credit, has also critiqued himself with regards to objectivism and said that objectivism is dangerous for the healthy acceptance of emotions.
Because in a lot of objectivist writing, there's this, you know, he viewed his own pain with cold contempt as if from a great distance.
Ah, you are here again, my old pain.
I understand, but I'm not going to let you dominate me.
It's like this sort of very cold, controlled way of looking at emotional pain and trauma is not healthy, right?
I mean, you know, pain is there to help you.
Pain is there to inform you.
Anxiety is there to tell you that you're probably kind of lost and need to get to a map.
And so I think that the substitution of conclusions for methodology to me has always been the great era of people who attempt to achieve with movements what they're avoiding in their philosophy.
There's no amount of starting a movement or having lecture series or becoming a charismatic central leader of some big damn thing that's going to overcome an absence of dealing with childhood And self-knowledge.
And parenting.
I mean, it's just, you can't, there's no amount of charisma in the world that can wallpaper over that hole.
I mean, if I wanted to, I'd get up tomorrow morning, I could start a pretty big damn movement.
I got entrepreneurial experience, I got energy, I got charisma, I could go do it.
And I won't.
I never will.
Because that is, movements are disempowering to other people because movements are fundamentally about deferring to somebody else.
Can I say one more?
Spray and pray.
I hope I hit a few sentences that were helpful to you, but go ahead.
That was very valuable.
One of the take-home messages here with regards to childhood and parenting in particular is that the contemporary emphasis that our school's place on building up children's self-esteem is misplaced.
The operative word should be unconditional self-acceptance.
And giving kids...
Trophies for participating in a soccer team or, you know, not even having to achieve something at great inflation and so forth are one among many examples of artificial ways that we build up self-esteem.
And too much self-esteem is, I think, dangerous.
The studies of school shooters have shown that they tend to have very high self-esteem.
I'm sure that Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot all had Very high self-esteem.
Encouraging self-esteem is not the best way to improve the world.
No, but to me, this encouragement of self-esteem is like this sort of broken window policing thing.
It's just easier.
It's easier to encourage self-esteem in kids, whatever that even means.
You say giving them prizes for stuff that isn't particularly...
Importance, yeah.
But it's another non-controversial time waster that government employees like to do.
It's not, you know, nobody's going to get that upset.
Nobody's really going to get mad at you.
And, you know, as far as self-esteem goes and encouraging, I think just honesty.
Just honesty.
You said unconditional self-acceptance.
And I certainly think...
Yeah, and I don't believe that's...
Again, this is self.
What does that even mean?
And unconditional, to me, sounds very close to indiscriminate.
No matter what I do, I'm right.
Well, that sounds pretty detached to me.
No matter what I do, I'm right.
No matter what I do, I'm still a worthwhile person, but myself is not equal to my performance.
Yeah, but you see, I don't even know what worthwhile means.
And certainly, I would never say to somebody, well, no matter what you do, you're great.
I mean, I'm not trying to oversimplify what he's saying, but I think there are things that people can do that make them extremely unworthwhile.
You know, I mean, obviously, if somebody's like a serial pedophile or something, it's like, you are an extremely unworthwhile person who should not be in society, right?
Yeah.
But I think what he's probably reacting to, because remember, of course, these guys deal a lot more with neurotics than they do with psychopaths, right?
And so he's probably, you know, the people who are down on themselves, you know, like, oh, I was at this dinner party last night, and I made this joke, I thought it was going to be funny, and I think some guys were kind of offended, and they just beat themselves up for like four days about it.
And that, of course, that sort of pathological self-attack Is probably where those people could use a little bit more self-acceptance.
They're not out there strangling hobos.
So I think from that standpoint, yeah, that's definitely something to be battled.
But that can't be battled with a mantra called unconditional self-acceptance.
I think that would be battled by looking at the inner alter egos that are pursuing that kind of totalitarianism against the personality.
I have some concerns about sort of unconditional self-acceptance.
I think for me, psychology has also evolved in an absence of philosophical standards.
I don't mean it's got no philosophical standards or anything like that, but psychology has evolved like alchemy evolved in the absence of a scientific method.
So if the work that I'm doing is as important as I think it is, Always a caveat, as I think it is, then if we have a standard of virtue, then you would be comparing yourself to that standard of virtue.
And this has always been the problem with psychology as it stands, is compared to what?
Right?
So psychology says, you know, well, if you It's a problem if it causes an impairment of your functioning within society.
It's like, well, I don't know that that's always a problem.
I mean, the people who were hiding Anne Frank from the Gestapo, that was interfering with their ability to function normally in society, but that was brave and heroic.
So, to me, the standard with psychology is always like, okay, well, Kids have ADHD, say, relative to government schools.
Well, is that the problem with the kids or is that a problem with the government schools?
Or, you know, people are depressed and, you know, but society is kind of haywire and chaotic and random.
You know, society is like, here, you should be a computer programmer.
Oh, sorry, we've outsold most of the computer programmer jobs.
Maybe if you're a professor, a lot of those are going to be retiring soon.
Oh, Oh, sorry, they've decided to linger on as undead professor emerituses and all that.
I mean, there's just so much random stuff.
You've got to get a college education or you're never going to get ahead in this world because you really need a degree in psychology in order to be a good barista at Starbucks and have $40,000 in debt that will take you the next 15 years to pay off.
And so there is a lot of chaos and confusion in society at the moment, a lot of frustration, a lot of paralysis, a lot of Nobody knows what's happening or what needs to change or what's coming next.
Well, few people do, but we're mostly kept out of the limelight.
And so I hope that in my own little way, I'm going to be able to contribute a compared to what for psychology at some point in the future to say, well, compared to rational and objective values, compared to secular and philosophical virtues,
that is what we're going to compare your Right now, because psychologists are either religious or secular, and with religious they're comparing mental health to ancient texts of superstition, and if they're secular, they're comparing it to conformity with largely mad society.
I think that there is still a chilling degree of subjectivism within Psychology, you know, what does it mean to be well-adjusted, right?
There's that old saying which says it is no mark of mental health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Is it happiness?
Well, lots of crazy people are pretty damn happy.
I mean, you see Hitler doing a jig around the Eiffel Tower when they invaded and took over France.
It's a pretty happy moment.
Obviously, he worked for a long time to get that kind of power.
And, you know, Stalin certainly didn't give it up and say, this is making me sad, killing all these people young under power and killed people who tried to get close to him, to that power.
So, this is great blank space, this blank spot, to me, at the very center of the psychological discipline, which is What are you comparing optimum functioning to?
It cannot be conformity.
It cannot be religious edicts.
It cannot be the approval of the tribe.
It cannot be mere happiness because sadists are happy and so on.
So that to me is the great challenge that I think psychology cannot solve but that's the job of a philosopher to provide the compared to what I think I also would agree that there is no definite standard to compare oneself to, so that's why it's not worth rating oneself.
But, you know, unconditional self-acceptance is not the same thing as unconditional self-esteem.
And if we change the word esteem to acceptance, that makes a big difference, because even if someone behaves very poorly and does harmful things to other people or to himself, he can always Evaluate what he's doing and dispute his beliefs and change as long as he has unconditional self-acceptance.
But, I mean, the alternative is self-rejection, which is largely the cause of depression and other neurosis.
Well, but, I mean, did he do much work with sociopaths or psychopaths?
I guess sociopaths and psychopaths I have self-acceptance and probably a lot of them have very high self-esteem, which gets them in trouble with the rest of the world.
Yeah, I don't think the high self-esteem is what gets them in trouble.
I think it's the pathological selfishness and viewing other people as livestock to be manipulated for their own pleasure that gets them in trouble.
The self-esteem arises from, they have no, I mean this is why, as far as I understand it, it's why they're so difficult to treat.
Because they don't have any problems with who they are.
They do accept who they are, right?
They don't, You know, they have high self-esteem and they're quite confident and they're happy with what they're doing and there's no particular friction.
And so that is...
Are you contending that unconditional self-acceptance may not be compatible with UPB? Well, because I don't even know what unconditional self-acceptance means.
So I would hardly...
Because UPB is a standard of rationality, it would be for me like if I was saying, well, you know, we should follow the scientific method, and you were to say, well, I want my scientific theories to be unconditionally accepted.
It's like, well, that's not compatible, right?
I mean, you can't unconditionally accept scientific hypotheses, is a better way of putting it, because the purpose is to use the scientific method to determine which is valid and which is not, which is true and which is false, which is...
Sustainable, empirically, and which is rejected by the evidence.
So I don't know what unconditional self-acceptance means, but when I hear unconditional, I hear without standard, without a criteria.
And that's not philosophical.
Then it's something, but it's not philosophy, because philosophy The epistemology of philosophy is about having a rigorous and objective methodology for determining truth from falsehood.
Same with the scientific method or anything.
There's no such thing as unconditional acceptance with science.
The whole point of science is to have conditional acceptance.
Unconditional self-acceptance, it sounds nice, I guess, but I don't know what that would mean in practice.
But the moment there's unconditionality to it, then it's without standards, without rigor, without any compared to what.
And so I would say that where we fail, we should not self-attack.
Right.
I mean, I find self-attack to be almost universally a negative thing to do.
And it's also kind of self-absorbed.
In a weird way, I find self-attack kind of selfish.
Because it draws attention to you rather than to those you've harmed.
You know, you start beating up on yourself and like people, oh, don't beat up on yourself so much and so on.
It's like, it just becomes about you again.
It's a kind of narcissism to be involved in self-attack, particularly when it's public or whatever.
And, you know, like, oh, I just can't do anything right.
You know, people are like, oh, no, you can.
You can do things right.
I remember this time when you crossed the street without falling into the subway.
Great.
You know, like, so I think that self-attack is not particularly helpful because, again, self-attack is without rigor.
It is without standard.
Self-criticism can be valid, of course, if I do something that is illegitimately against my own values, then yeah, I mean, then self-criticism is valid.
But self-attack is just, you know, beating yourself up because you're just mad at yourself without any standard.
It's abusive, right?
All, I guess you could say, quote, attacks without any standards would be, I think, considered abusive, but...
So I think to me it's like I want to know where the standard is relative to an objective philosophical standard for which or of which virtue would have to be at the center.
I think focusing on Doing reasonably well, because you don't want to make the pursuit of virtue something obsessive.
You want to be healthy, you don't necessarily want to be so muscular you can't walk through a double door without turning sideways.
So, not to make it obsessive, but to focus on improving your own courage and virtue and self-honesty and all of that.
Not to the point of...
Drawing a pogrom or some sort of pitchforks and villages with torches and you're like Shrek running through the woods or whatever.
But I think focusing on that.
But I think that is really the challenge.
Do you diagnose the individual?
Do you diagnose society?
Do you diagnose the religion?
Do you diagnose the family?
And I would say all of these things need to be compared to rational and objective philosophical values, and that to me is what psychology remains a challenge.
Well, I guess in conclusion, there are aspects of objectivism as well as rational and emotive therapy that need to be questioned and held to some degree of scientific rigor and are still open to debate.
Yes, and any attempt to substitute personality for methodology is doomed and disempowers people.
That's the basic equation that is reported.
I don't know whether it's verified.
Where Ayn Rand said, well, you must love the most rational, and I'm the most rational, so you should love me the most.
And that seems to me very much a twisting of philosophy to narcissistic vanity.
It would be like saying, well everyone has to love me the most.
Whatever that would mean.
People have tastes as well.
But I think that stuff...
Is not particularly healthy.
Because you say, oh, well, if you're the most rational, then why are you depressed?
Well, I'm depressed because the world is not accepting my novel.
It's like, well, doesn't your novel not perfectly predict that the world is not going to accept your novel?
You know, I mean, these guys are making all these great speeches.
I mean, John Galt goes and makes this 60-page speech on the radio and nothing changes.
So you went and wrote 1,300 pages, including the 60-page speech, and now you're depressed because nothing changes?
That's exactly what your book says.
Well, but it's different because I think that Nathaniel Brandon is hot.
Whatever, right?
So I think that's...
With all due respect to Ayn Rand, you know, I mean, one of a kind and so on.
But I have tried to...
Learn.
And there is this, of course, when you feel like you have an important truth in the world, you get impatient.
You get impatient.
You want people to do the right thing.
But impatience leads to totalitarianism.
Impatience leads to bullying.
Yeah.
And, you know, we do have to let the roses grow.
Even though we know how beautiful they're going to be, when they're as tall as we are, there's no point yanking them up to make them taller.
You just pull them out of the ground.
You have to water the damn ground and let things grow.
And that, I can say, at the ripe old age of 48, which I'm not sure I could even say at the ripe old age of 44 or 45, but there is a hurry.
And I think that the objectivists were in too much of a hurry...
To go to the root causes.
And I think that is...
It just popped into my head.
There's this old Tim Allen comedy called Santa Claus.
And he basically starts turning into Santa Claus.
And he's like, well, the doctor's like, why are you getting so fat?
He's like, I tell you, I'm eating a lot of milk and cookies.
He's like, well, stop that.
He's like, I guess I could cut back on the milk a bit.
Well, no, man.
It's really the cookies that's the major part of the equation.
And when you come across a brain-scalding truth that you know will save the world from war and paralysis and destruction and depression and debt and And slavery and superstition and murder and, you know, abuse.
You stumble across this giant glowing brain thought that you want to spread across the whole world and you basically want to like, eat this!
I don't care if you don't eat it, it's good for you!
And all that happens is you get bitten.
You just, you gotta lay the table and just let people wander by and you can tell them it's good for them.
Even though it doesn't taste that great to begin with.
But you can't drag people to the gym and you can't put security guards in front of their fridges if they're overeating.
These are all temptations to alter behavior in the moment that only lead to more totalitarianism.
And I think because I've really accepted that it is to do with the self-knowledge which leads to the peaceful raising of children, which leads to a free society, I have the luxury of Of not hurrying.
Because hurrying, you know, haste makes waste.
There's nothing worse for a movement than to be in a big hurry.
And, I mean, that's communism, fascism, totalitarianism of every kind.
We're going to make society better.
We've got a great idea.
Now everybody get in line or we'll shoot you.
Like, I don't know.
No, no, no.
That's just not going to work.
So, I mean, I've really had tried to sort of done a lot of work before I even started the show, just studying stuff that worked and studying stuff that didn't.
And the politics is being in a hurry.
And I'm also a bit concerned that some of this feel-good stuff in psychology, whether it's self-esteem or some of the NVC stuff or some of the unconditional self-acceptance stuff, might not just be in a hurry.
And...
As I said from the beginning, this is a multi-generational change, which means we have the luxury to really get down to root causes.
Anyway, I hope that helps.
I've got to get on to the next caller, but please feel free to call in any time.
Great questions.
Thanks for your discussion and your input on Albert Ellis.
Oh, yeah.
I appreciate it, too.
I appreciate you bringing him up, because I read him, not exhaustively, but not insignificantly, but I have actually been meaning to sort of dig him up again, because there's nothing more delicious in some ways than reading somebody who influenced you when you were younger, when you get older.
And so I appreciate you bringing him up again.
He's certainly somebody well worth reading.
His autobiography is great, by the way.
Oh, yeah?
It came out in 2008, and it tells us, Tells about all his sexual exploits.
Apparently he had a lot of them, which is kind of juicy, but it also has, you know, it has all his correspondence and many aspects of his life.
It's a very good read, I thought.
I appreciate that.
No, I love a good autobiography, and I think that sounds delightful, so thank you for the recommendation.
Okay, thank you.
All right, take care, man.
Talk to you soon.
Bye-bye.
So, and I just, you know, before we go on, that was about as incoherent and random a set of thoughts as you're probably going to hear from me for at least the next 20 minutes.
Hey, Steph, I was just shocked that you did a random impression without a hilarious coughing fit.
Oh, yeah.
You know why?
Because that's not easy to sustain a call.
I try to put those at the end of calls because otherwise it's like, X caller!
Alright, we got one more caller tonight.
John is up next.
John wrote in and his question is, why are 18th and 19th century writers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer considered philosophers?
Clearly, they're idealists writing about their own opinions.
For example, Schopenhauer wrote about how philosophy has failed, but biology, engineering sciences, advanced mathematics, and physics, the philosophical scientific method is very much successful.
So, is your question, what is a philosopher?
Yes.
Essentially, because...
Well, it came up...
In another conversation I had, and the argument was, well, Schopenhauer, he said that philosophy is a failure, and I said, no way, because we have science because of philosophy.
That was my position.
I'm still sticking to it.
And you certainly could argue that we have the free market because of philosophy.
Exactly.
That's economic philosophy.
Well, no, it was economic philosophy to some degree, but it was also a philosophy of the extension and expansion of human rights.
Which, you know, because I denied the existence of human rights at the beginning of the show, so I want to mention it again here, too.
But it wasn't just economic philosophy, but there was a moral drive behind it as well.
But anyway, it's neither here nor there right now.
But yeah, certainly philosophy has provided some great boons.
Now, in my opinion, I don't think these writers...
The 18th, 19th century writers, like I mentioned, I don't think they have much to offer compared to the actual implementation of philosophy, whereas we got the scientific method, as you mentioned.
We got good economic understanding.
I don't think that these guys offer very much in the way of philosophy.
And I think they're idealists.
I put them in the same category as I would.
Religion.
Right.
Right.
So my question is, why do people perceive...
Like, if you go to a bookstore, you'll find these guys in the philosophy section.
Right.
And I find a lot of philosophy that is not in the philosophy section.
They should be.
Oh, yeah.
No, and the fact that it's mine, you have this self-help section.
It's another...
I just read a book, for example.
I just read a book called The Talent Code.
And it goes into the neurology of learning and this sort of thing.
And he makes a really good case.
He has all scientific fact and then the implementation of learning...
And he comes to a logical conclusion, and that's probably in the self-help.
I got it online, but if you go to a bookstore, it's probably in the self-help section.
In my opinion, that clearly should be in the philosophy section.
Right.
Right.
So, I mean, then we have, I guess, the two major words which we should work at defining is, number one, philosophy, and number two, idealism or idealist, which is where you put Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, right?
Yes.
Alright, so which one do you want to tackle first?
Schopenhauer.
No, no, the definitions, not the people in the definitions.
Oh, sorry.
The mammals, not the duck-billed platypus, but anyway.
Okay, philosophy, because in the same conversation, that definition came up, and I defined it.
And what was your definition?
A rational attitude towards empirical evidence, scientifically proven fact, coming to a logical conclusion.
Yeah, I mean, that's fairly close to the scientific method, right?
Well, yeah, but it applies even in economics.
It does, but is it something particular to philosophy?
Excuse me?
Is it something that would be particular to philosophy, or is it something that would be more of an umbrella term for the other disciplines?
No, that's philosophy to me.
I know recently you did a show on identifying philosophy.
It's the same definition I used to identify philosophy.
That's why I was able to identify this book I read.
It's probably in the self-help section.
I identified it as philosophy because it fit that criteria.
Right, right, okay.
But I think that philosophy would have something more to do with first principles derived from objective reality and, you know, the consistent application of rational principles to To universal standards.
I think that would certainly have...
And the challenge is that where do you plug ethics into your definition?
Because to me, the whole purpose of philosophy is ethics.
That's what it's for.
I mean, the other stuff is great.
It's great that we have iPads.
The point is that it's great we have the scientific method.
But the point of philosophy, get to the ethics.
The point of pharmaceutical companies is to give you a pill or something that makes you better.
Everything sort of leads to that.
And every step that comes before that pill is, you know, necessary and important, but the point of it is the pill.
And to me, the point of philosophy is to get to ethics.
So if you can just give me through your definition again and see where ethics might fit into that.
You were saying it's a rational approach?
A rational approach to empirical evidence and scientifically proven fact or irrefutable fact coming to a logical conclusion.
Right.
Now, there's not much about universality in there, if I understand it, other than you would say that logic is universal, right?
Right.
Right.
I think the universality is where philosophy really shines its...
It really gets its teeth whitened, so to speak, right?
Because science certainly has universality...
I mean, I'm thinking of some particular in physics, right?
Universality is really key, because physics is supposed to be across the entire, at least known universe, right?
So...
Which is why they can send a space probe out.
I think it's passing Pluto or has recently passed Pluto or something like that.
So universality is sort of implicit within science, but universality I think is really the key in philosophy.
Rational, consistent universality.
And of course empiricism is tied into that universality because empiricism or The universalization of sense data is certainly implied in that, but because the U in UPB, like universally preferable behavior, the universality to me is the part which makes it the most philosophy-based, if that makes sense.
And I think the reason why I'm saying all this is I think it's very helpful in organizing people like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to think about philosophy in terms of universality.
There are first principles that are universal.
Because you say, well, logic, yeah, but how do we even know logic is valid?
How do we know logic is true?
How do we know logic versus superstition is true, right?
So if you accept logic as being valid, then okay.
Then you're in the realm of, you know, logicians or scientific method or, you know, economics or math.
But the question that philosophy would first ask is, well, how do we even know that logic is preferable to...
Intuition or superstition or prayer or whatever it is, right?
And some of that would have to do with empiricism, but that's kind of begging the question.
And I've got a 17-part Introduction to Philosophy series on YouTube at FDRpodcast.com, so I don't want to run through all of those arguments.
But I do think that if you are working from first principles...
With the goal of universality or bust, like it's universalizable or it's not philosophy, then I think we are in a better position to look at people like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and other thinkers as well and see where are they with regards to that.
Well, I think logic based on fact is pretty universal.
It's certainly not.
I'm sorry to be annoying.
You must have some very rational people around you, but I mean, if you look at the prevalence of religion or nationalism or anything, like everybody knows that their sports team is not more virtuous than the other sports team, but they cheer for their own people anyway.
There's nothing rational or universal or logical about that at all.
Well, if you have fact, like for example, and the One of the coolest things that I heard on your show recently was the comparison of, say, God to gravity.
And that was an amazing analogy.
Well, we have gravity and why is gravity proven and why God doesn't exist.
And that was a great example.
And in that example, there's a lot of You know, you come to a logical conclusion based on the physical definition of something, matter and energy or the effects thereof.
That was your definition.
So I don't know how that could be argued and that seems pretty universal to me and pretty logical.
Well, but most people would say, well, that's fine for this universe, but what about the higher plane and heaven and nirvana and Elysium and Ragnarok and, you know, the higher plane of existence?
God is all-present and all-important, right?
So even if people will go so far as to say that within the realm of detectable matter, physics and the scientific method are all well and good, but the really important stuff in life is your relationship to Jesus and your soul and getting to heaven, which is nothing that can be measured by science.
So some people will say, well, this world is a demonic delusion and so on, and the only thing that matters is the afterlife.
And other people will have this split, right?
So they split metaphysics into the sensual, or what I called in my master's thesis some years back, the sensual and the suprasensual.
Sensual being that which, of course, is sense data and empiricism and reality.
And the other is something beyond the senses, you know, the platonic world of forms, or heaven, or nirvana, or what Immanuel Kant called the nuomenal realm, which is beyond mere logic and so on.
So they just split reality into two things, one of which is sane and one of which is completely insane, which is where they stuff all the crazy stuff and say that it's at least equal to but generally is superior to mere reason.
But boy, the world is largely composed of crazy people thinking that their senses are always disappointing them because they're not showing them what their fantasies demand should exist.
Well, in that sense, when we're talking about other realms, you use the word realms for dimensionality, I think.
And these other realms, they haven't even been proven to exist.
No, I get that.
But that's the whole point.
These people would say, well, of course you can't prove it to exist.
Of course you can.
Because it's a non-material realm.
Of course you can't prove it to exist.
So what?
But you have to.
No, but what I'm saying...
No, no, you're saying...
No, look, I don't get into an argument.
I agree with you, but what you're saying is that I think...
You said I think logic is pretty universal, and I'm saying it absolutely is not, because the vast majority of human beings make the vast majority of important life decisions based on completely anti-rational standards.
It's not universal.
For you, yeah.
For me, yeah.
For a lot of people who listen to this show, hopefully more and more every day, yeah.
But it certainly is not universal in human history or even across the world, right?
Okay, I understand.
So, the rational ideas exist only in someone else's mind, right?
Well, yeah, reason is universal, but the belief that reason is universal and absolute is not itself universal and absolute.
That's all I'm saying.
I agree with you, reason is absolute and universal, yeah, but most people would reject the metaphysics that sense data is the only reality and everything else that is not sense data is not real and does not exist.
Right?
So I think you and I would accept that because, you know, we're base, snuffling materialists, but that is not the belief of the vast majority of human beings.
And even if they, you know, even if they're more secular, like they say they're communists, well then they believe in classes, or they believe in the class struggle, or they believe in something called false consciousness, which is that if you don't feel oppressed, you're wrong.
Because you are oppressed, and if you don't feel oppressed, then you have false consciousness, and you're wrong.
So they can just tell you that you're wrong, even if you disagree with them.
And the more you try to disagree with them, the more it's evidence of your false consciousness, and you need to be sent to Siberia for reprogramming or something like that.
Or they believe in countries, or they believe in governments, or they believe whatever, right?
I mean, they just believe in all this stuff.
There's no empirical basis for any of this shit whatsoever.
But people just live this life in these cloud castles, barely ever brushing into mere tangible reality, except maybe when they're driving.
Okay, fair enough.
Then what use is it to read guys like Nishi?
Sorry to interrupt, but let's say that we've got something to do with philosophy, that it's around defining the metaphysics of empirical reality.
And the epistemology of reason and evidence.
That's sort of the framework.
Because the word philosophy, I think, is used in two ways.
In the same way that the word science is used in two ways.
And tragically, UPB is used in two ways.
So science is both the scientific method and the practice of being a scientist, right?
I mean, there's no scientist who will go to a physics conference and say, I'm going to present the scientific method, because everybody already knows it, for the most part, right?
They're going to present the framework that they're going to present their hypotheses and theories and conclusions and evidence that they are using within the framework of the scientific method, right?
So in the same way, philosophy, I think, means sort of two things.
One is the methodology of philosophy as a whole, which would be the equivalent of the scientific method as a whole.
And then there's stuff that you put into the machine of Philosophy or the scientific method, which then produces particular things.
So UPB would be the practice of philosophy, whereas metaphysics and epistemology would be the framework of philosophy.
Does that make any sense?
Kind of.
So there's a scientific theory, which is what you use to evaluate scientific hypotheses, right?
Sorry, there's a scientific method which you would use to evaluate scientific hypotheses, right?
Yeah.
Okay, like there's a free market, which is a principle, and then there's an actual trade in the free market, which is the instance of something happening, right?
Okay, and in the same way in philosophy, there's a framework for philosophy, and then there's stuff that you do in that particular framework.
So, the framework of philosophy is, you know, reason and evidence and universality and so on.
And then my specific theory of ethics, which is UPB, would be an example of a hypothesis that you would test within the framework of philosophy.
In the same way that the general theory of relativity is a hypothesis that you would test using the scientific method.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
So there's the framework and then there's the stuff you do in that framework.
Like there's the road and then there's driving down the road, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what is a philosopher?
Well, a philosopher, I would think, would be sort of like a scientist.
And the reason why I say a scientist now is not somebody who works on the scientific field.
I mean, you say Karl Popper and other theorists of science and so on, but I think the scientific theory is pretty well understood and explicated now, and it would be tough to, I think, make major contributions to the scientific method at the moment.
Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it's sort of my understanding, at least as a layman.
But philosophy is still way early in that we're still waiting for Francis Bacon.
We're still waiting for someone...
I mean, I know Aristotle was very much into empiricism in the ancient Greeks, but...
I think it really took Francis Bacon to say, look, sucks to you, alchemy.
Like, move aside.
Sucks to you, religious metaphysics.
Move aside.
You know, we've got to be rigorous.
We've got to test.
This is sort of 16th century stuff, if I remember the dates correctly.
We're still waiting for our Francis Bacon.
You know, I'm certainly trying to do my best, but I don't know if my best is going to be anywhere near good enough.
But we're still waiting for our Francis Bacon to say, you know, sucks to you relativism, sucks to you communism, sucks to you socialism, sucks to you existentialism, sucks to you whatever, right?
Mysticism, move aside.
We've got to have a really rigorous and empirical and rational metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, whatever, right?
So we're still really...
So a philosopher to me...
I think the most necessary part of philosophy at the moment is working on the framework.
It's getting our scientific method down for philosophy.
Driving the ghosts and demons and concepts and collectivisms of history out of the metaphysics so that we can actually think clearly about something as simple and natural and normal as prosaic sense-based reality.
So that's sort of the one...
Before you build the house, you've got to clear the old house.
You've got to get rid of the old junk and dig out the foundations and just cart it all off.
And so I think we're still like, we've got this haunted house of history that we're trying to build a philosophy mansion over, and there's a lot of undoing before there's doing.
So that, I think, is the most necessary work of philosophy.
And that, tragically, is underutilized.
I think it was Wittgenstein who said that Metaphysics is not a problem to be solved, but a disease to be cured.
I mean, everybody hated metaphysics because metaphysics is so volatile.
It's so incredibly volatile to existing power structures, which is why everyone wants to dash around talking about, I don't know, what laws should be passed or some really, you know, do nouns exist?
And, you know, it's still non-volatile stuff.
But metaphysics is really volatile because metaphysics slams the door On non-empirical concepts like countries, governments, collectives, gods, hell, prayer.
Like, it's just souls.
I mean, metaphysics just slams the door on that shit and says, nope!
No ghosts allowed in the party.
It's not going to happen.
And metaphysics is so volatile that most people got killed in the past for questioning metaphysics.
Like, if you said that, which is not material, does not exist, I mean, you get burned in the stake.
You just get killed.
Metaphysics is like, here, you hold this grenade that's ticking.
And so I think that we need a lot of work on the nature of reality and what is real.
What does it mean to exist?
What does it mean to actually have...
Truth.
Well, first of all, you have to know what is real, then you can know what is true, and so on.
You can know what is moral, then you can know what is actionable, and so on, right?
Now, as far as I know it, I've read both philosophers, I've read more Nietzsche than Schopenhauer, but as far as I know it, they didn't do no stinking metaphysics.
And they sure as hell didn't do any epistemology, to my knowledge.
What they did was insights.
You know, like, so...
Schopenhauer had his insights on the nature of women and Schopenhauer on happiness and so on.
Nietzsche had his insights into this sort of master and slave morality and the overman and so on.
And they had a lot of really cool, thought-provoking insights.
But to me, that was not where the major and meaty work of philosophy needed to be done.
Though I can really understand why they didn't do it, given the time, given what they saw maybe to happen to Spinoza, particularly Nietzsche.
But I would not classify them...
I know this sounds completely ridiculous, you know, I'm just an idiot podcaster from Canada, but if we accept that the definition of philosophy is a framework of empirical universals from first principles, then I think that however potent their insights were, and they were potent and fascinating to read...
I'm not sure that I would put them right at the core of what is the most necessary in philosophy, though I'm not sure that what was the most necessary in philosophy was even possible to achieve in their lifetime, since it's still pretty hazardous even now.
Does that help at all?
Oh, totally.
You hit the nail on the head.
Essentially, what they did wasn't that important to philosophy.
And to read them and go, okay, now I know philosophy because I read...
I read these guys.
I don't know.
It seems more like English literature to me.
Good ideas, well-written, obviously, and different perspectives, but still not the most important part of philosophy.
Well, yeah.
But as far as self-knowledge goes, you could really argue that self-knowledge is even more important than philosophy.
Because...
If you don't know yourself, you don't even know what you're lying to yourself about or why you might be lying to yourself or even if there's lying going on.
And so, because we avoid that which is uncomfortable and if we are...
All lies are inflicted on children through threats and bribes.
Because lies are not evident and not there and not real and so on.
And so we over...
We basically not overcome.
It's almost too gentle.
We overrun the natural skepticism of children with threats and bribes.
And that's why we accept lies is because of threats and bribes.
You know, heaven and hell and detention and gold stars and, you know, all that crap that goes on.
Being spanked versus getting a piece of candy with threats and bribes, right?
And it's very painful to sort of look back and say, God damn, I was manipulated.
Like, holy crap!
I mean, basically I was just this Pavlovian dog, you know?
Good doggy!
Here's a bone!
Bad doggy!
I'm going to give you a swat to the butt.
I mean, that's a pretty shameful way to develop your identity, a pretty shameful way to develop your beliefs, so to speak.
It's just all conditioned and manipulated and so on.
So self-knowledge is...
Arguably, I mean, arguably, arguably, but you could say that in the absence of self-knowledge, philosophy is not particularly helpful because it's like having a compass but being blind.
You know, the compass is still reading right, you can't see it, right?
No, it's not a braille compass.
Sorry, not you, but the nitpickers.
So, with Nietzsche...
In particular, or Schopenhauer to some degree, but Nietzsche definitely in particular, there's just stuff that he says that is electrifying in terms of self-knowledge, right?
So one quote that has always stuck with me, he said, vanity is the fear of appearing original.
I'm probably paraphrasing it, but that really struck me.
Vanity is the fear of appearing original.
Because vanity is, I want approval from others, which means I have to subject myself to their virtues and values, or vices and values generally.
Which is subjugating yourself to the second-hand opinions of others, which is not being original, not being who you are.
Now, I mean, that's not metaphysics, but it does lead you somewhere to do with self-knowledge, that originality is the opposite of vanity.
Originality, I think, by that I think he meant that really clearly thinking for yourself.
Vanity is the fear of thinking, really thinking rigorously for yourself.
And that has value insofar as self-knowledge gives you the blueprint of the ancient house that needs to be taken down.
It tells you which walls to hit with the wrecking ball to take down the haunted houses of history.
And self-knowledge will take down the old houses and at least gives you a clear land to start building a rational metaphysics and epistemology on.
And so from that standpoint, I think they have value.
I'm not saying that they're not philosophers.
I mean, it would be a ridiculous thing for me to say.
I get that, right?
But I will say that in the realm of philosophy, they have as much to do with philosophy as a wrecking ball does to architecture.
I mean, you can't build anything if there's something in the way.
But the wrecking ball does not need to be wielded by an architect.
It needs to be wielded by somebody who has knowledge of the building, but not quite the same as a builder.
Does that...
Make any sense, or is this completely incoherent?
Yeah, it makes sense, but I'm not sure I agree with the wrecking ball analogy.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm not saying I do either.
It's just something that popped into my head.
Okay, so let me just kind of change it a little bit.
If someone was to, say, start studying philosophy, they don't know anything about philosophy, they start studying...
I wouldn't say that these guys are a good place to start, for example.
Who would you say is a good place to start?
Well, Socrates, right?
In my opinion.
I mean, question everything, really.
But Socrates does not work with metaphysics, and he barely works with epistemology.
Right.
But I would say that Okay, so for example, to understand a lot of things, it's a good place to start.
It's a kind of foundation.
And he's not that big on self-knowledge.
No, he's not.
But he does start the phenomenon of question everything.
Yeah, but Socrates has such a dickish element to him.
Plato!
No, not as bad as...
Plato has a seriously dickish...
Plato's philosophy is like the tank line up in Tiananmen Square and anybody with any brains is like that poor little Chinese kid in front of them, right?
So, no, Plato is like...
He's a dick with high-powered dildo plus canon.
But there's always something that...
Like in King Lear, like Cordelia, the youngest...
I played Gloucester in King Lear many years ago.
In King Lear, the youngest, Cordelia, the youngest sister, right?
The father has this love test.
The king, the old king, says, how much do you love me?
And the elder sister, oh, the sun, the moon, the youngest sister, I love you.
And then the youngest sister's like, I love you as my station, no more, no less.
You know, it's kind of dickish, right?
I mean, you don't necessarily want to stroke the old king's ego.
And with Socrates, I'm not saying that the hemlock was justified.
Of course not, right?
But he was kind of like a concerned troll of philosophy.
He's like, ah, you know what is justice.
Excellent.
Tell me what is justice.
Right?
And the people say stuff is like, well, then this would be justice too.
Oh, that's not it?
Well, then maybe you don't know as much about justice as you think you do.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right?
And nobody ever gets to turn and question him, at least when he does.
He goes off on these windbaggy kind of stuff, symposium nonsense, which gets really kind of abstract, you know.
Love is the golden calf of a hind's leg.
Dreaming.
But he's kind of dickish because he's, well, you know, I just, I know that I know nothing and you claim to know everything.
I just want you to teach me.
You know.
He knows that these sophists don't have anything.
They got nothing, you know.
I'm just, you know, he's concerned for all, you know.
I just, I would really like for you to instruct me on your deep and wise, he knows they got nothing under the kimono, right?
And he's still asking them for underwear.
And there is this kind of dickish aspect to Socrates that is pretty manipulative.
And I would not give him extremely high marks for honesty.
Of course, I don't know what the real guy was like.
We only have Plato's writing to a large degree and other people's recollections.
I mean, he's a real guy and all that.
But if he was like he is in the dialogues...
He's kind of a dick.
And the other thing, too, is that, you know, he says, you know, first commandment, know thyself.
But what the hell did he ever do in terms of trying to figure out self-knowledge?
Could he have maybe figured out how important childhood is?
Maybe you've talked a little bit about trauma.
Can you imagine how badly these Greek kids were treated?
They're all half the time off in war and so on.
I mean, they must have been brutally beaten as children.
You know, maybe kick that rock over a little bit.
So...
Socrates is a great place to start in terms of the Socratic method and so on.
But to me, philosophy has got to start, first of all, with self-knowledge.
Once you have worked yourself up, then you step in the ring with the Mike Tyson of philosophy, which is metaphysics.
But you've got to, first of all, train.
You don't step into the ring with Mike Tyson without five or ten years of pretty intensive training.
And that's why I'm all sort of focusing.
I don't say to people, go read Socrates.
I say, go to therapy.
Journal.
Learn about yourself.
Because if you can figure out why you are resistant to simple, obvious truths, if you can figure out why you're resistant to, taxation is theft, right?
Why do people freak out so much about that?
Why is it like you're just holding up, like you're touching Electrical wires, live electrical wires in front of their eyeballs.
Why are they so freaked out by that stuff?
Well, going around yelling that taxation is theft if you don't know why people are so freaked out isn't going to do you much good and you might end up with your own little cup of hemlock after a certain amount of time.
So he had this kind of concern troll fuck you superiority where he was unmasking people he damn well knew had nothing behind their bullshit.
And I think the lack of curiosity and compassion in that unmasking was, to me, evidence of a pretty cold personality streak.
And if he had sort of asked and said, well, the child is the father of the man, and if people hate and fear wisdom and truth so much, we must first ask why.
Is it innate or For human beings to hate the truth, or is it something that is inflicted upon us?
And if it is inflicted upon us, it must be inflicted upon us very young.
None of us really remember learning how to walk, yet still we walk.
And if people's hostility to truth is not something that they are aware of in their mind, then it must have happened very early, just like learning how to walk.
Or learning how to suckle at your mother's breast.
We don't remember that, yet we know that we did it.
And so, if we have a hostility to truth, either it is innate to the species, in which case I cannot be a human being, or it is something which is inflicted upon us so early that we cannot recall when and how it happened, which means that the first place we need to look for in people's resistance and hostility towards the truth is in their earliest days.
That to me would have been an incredibly powerful thing to do and to say.
It's not that complicated logically.
I mean, I'm not as smart as Socrates and I figured it out, but it means that he himself would rather pick at other people's obvious ignorance and be superior to them than look at his own childhood and figure out how he was shaped.
And I think that that tragedy two and a half millennia ago Of him saying, the first commandment is know thyself, but he did not look at his own history, he did not look at the history of the people he was examining, and he did not figure out why they were hostile to the truth, to the point where they were willing to vote him to be put to death.
And because of that fundamental deficiency in the ancient Greek philosophy, which was the focus upon Childhood.
Was it because these guys were gay and didn't have kids?
I don't know.
Well, no, Socrates had sons.
And I don't know.
Was he himself a brutal father?
I have no doubt that he was.
Because that was the standard.
And there was no one who said the worst thing about Socrates is he refuses to beat his children.
Because it certainly would have been remarked upon at the time.
It would be as shocking as Some of the religious fundamentalists who refuse to get medical treatment for their sick children but instead rely exclusively on prayer, we would view that as such a serious deviation that it would be pretty widely talked about.
And the most gentle in a new moral paradigm are always the most slandered because they arouse fears of evil from the people who've done wrong until their example has shown up.
So I think that Socrates is a great place to start, maybe, but I think it puts people in the realm of observing philosophy rather than doing philosophy, which is like everybody needs to diet and they need to change their eating habits, not just read diet books.
And my concern is that with With Socrates you get the idea that the purpose of philosophy is to one-up idiots by pretending that they know something.
And that to me is pretty volatile and gives people a pretty hostile view of philosophy.
And does not aid them in the pursuit of self-knowledge, which is the tearing down of the old house to build the new, which is necessary before you start going into the ring with the Mike Tyson of metaphysics and the Muhammad Ali of epistemology and then the nuclear airstrike known as ethics.
So I would say for people who want to study philosophy, listen to Socrates' first commandment, know thyself, And when you have figured out your own prior traumas and your own prior challenges in life and where you have avoided knowledge or knowledge has been denied to you as the result of bribes and threats,
once you have mapped that out, then you can confidently go into the realm of philosophy knowing where your trigger warnings are, where your landmines are, where your challenges to accepting truth are, and then you'll find truth just so much easier.
Or infinitely easier, because I think you'll be able to achieve it in a sustainable way.
Does that make any sense to you?
It makes a lot of sense, actually.
That went in a completely different direction than what I thought it would.
A good direction.
So, then, what would be the point of studying Nietzsche and Schopenhauer?
Well, to stimulate you to self-knowledge, I would say.
So, I mean, Nietzsche's Master and Slave Morality, for instance...
So the question then would be, why am I taught that humility is a virtue?
Right now, Nietzsche would say, I think, you know, obviously I can't speak for the giant walrus, mustachioed, horse-kissing crazy guy, but he would probably say something like, well, you were taught humility as a virtue because for your ancestors, humility was the only possible course of action because they were slaves.
And so you were taught humility and obedience to power and meekness and so on because these were the only states of mind or actions available to slaves and so they might as well make them a virtue because they got no choice in the implementation of their virtues, right?
So whatever I'm forced to do, I'm going to make it a virtue.
Plus it's a passive-aggressive fuck you to the masters and so on, right?
Plus maybe I'll infect a few masters with the slave morality and that will make them give me some freedoms or whatever, right?
And so the question then is, why am I taught that humility is a virtue?
That meekness and self-effacement and turn the other cheek is a virtue?
Well, when you're a slave and your master hits you, can you do an eye for an eye?
You certainly can't, right?
Bye-bye Spartacus, right?
And so if you're a slave and your master hits you, you have to suck it up, you have to swallow it, and you have to Spit blood into the gutter, wipe your mouth, and go and bring him some ouzo.
And so, the anger that you feel could be sublimated into turning the other cheek is a virtue.
Turning the other cheek is a virtue.
I will get my reward in heaven because I cannot achieve any power on earth.
And what that does is it doesn't disprove religion, obviously, right?
And it doesn't, there's not around the metaphysics of that which exists and that which doesn't.
But what it does do is it gives you a sense or an idea that there is an emotionally, darkly satisfying evolution to particular ideas that has nothing to do with metaphysics, but everything to do with A passive-aggressive, vengeful, emotional need for feeling superior in a state of infinite subjugation.
And that allows you to look at this virtue not as some automatic physics.
Well, you see, turning the other cheek and humility and meekness are good, they're just moral, they're right.
But it gives you a sense of why and how these particular ethics may have evolved based upon the helpless rage of the subjugated.
If I cannot act, I will call inaction a virtue.
And this is a very common phenomenon, right?
You know, there's lots of people who feel really proud of their video game prowess.
I'm one of them.
Yeah, okay, great, but you understand that video game prowess is a whole bunch of shit you haven't done.
Like, learn guitar, or, you know, mountain climb, or whatever, right?
Do sit-ups.
Right?
And it's, to some degree, people get trapped in video games, not saying you, but people get trapped because they feel helpless in other areas in their life and it becomes a self-feeding mechanism, right?
Then you have to get more satisfaction out of your video game prowess because you've given up so much else that would actually have maybe more practical value.
Like I was reading in Dr.
Philip Zimbardo's book, The Demise of Guys, he says, look, you give up Take the time you would have spent playing video games for six months.
Learn guitar.
You'll be a pretty good guitarist.
And so with Nietzsche and so on, it gives you a context and perspective that takes ethics out of the realm of physics.
Everyone wants to tell you that their ethics are like physics.
It just is.
You honor your mother and your father.
No other gods before me.
Turn the other cheek.
It just is.
Balls fall down, turn the other cheek.
And what Nietzsche does, I think, is he says, you know what?
This developed for specific emotional needs to do with the need to find some sort of pride in being subjugated.
And since human beings are driven by ethics and vanity, you put the two together, helplessness plus ethics plus vanity equals a worship of the slave morality, or the generation of the slave morality.
And it gives you a perspective that the virtues that you are given, or that are inflicted upon you, that those virtues were not developed through reason, were not developed through evidence, were not developed through philosophy, but evolved.
Out of helplessness, evolved out of desperation, evolved out of despair, and evolved out of giving up.
I cannot improve my station, so I will praise my subjugation.
Oh, I feel a rap coming on.
And it takes the physics out of ethics.
I mean, I was told to be meek and humble and mild and so on, and I was beaten if I wasn't.
It's like, wait a minute, where's this fucking turn the other cheek when I'm getting caned with this Christian headmaster in my boarding school?
Where's this love your enemy?
Oh wait!
He gets to hit me but I have to turn the other cheek.
So he has one set of ethics and I am supposed to have another.
But they tell me it's universal.
So what the fuck?
And Nietzsche helps you to understand that and it helps you decouple the ethics that you were given from any claim to universality and that Can really help grease the slippery slope towards self-knowledge, if that helps.
Wow, yeah.
So, Schopenhauer claimed that philosophy failed.
But I don't think he was talking about the scientific method.
No, no, he couldn't have been.
But the question is, what was his standard for success, right?
What would that mean?
I can't define it.
First of all, I just wanted to mention about Arthur Schopenhauer, that he was like two skipped haircuts away from looking like an X-Wing.
I just wanted to mention that, and you can look him up on Wiki, but that's not anything particularly important.
I just think that's some pretty fucking funny hair.
He's like one Donald Trump weave away from being the bird hair Nick Cage meme, but anyway.
Yeah, I saw a picture.
The reason it came up is because during a conversation, it was said, well, philosophy is a total failure.
The particular individual I was talking to said, oh, I read Nishi, I read Schopenhauer, and Schopenhauer is the guy who says it's just all a waste of time.
And I said, no, no, philosophy's really, you know, successful in science, biology, chemistry, astrophysics, mathematics, blah, blah, blah.
And that was my position.
I left it at that.
But that's not Schopenhauer, right?
Schopenhauer would have hated all that stuff.
Because Schopenhauer was like, this universe is not rational.
So if his philosophy is that the universe isn't rational, the more that science and the free market and medicine, the more that they succeed, the more philosophy in his eyes fails.
Life is frustration.
Life is pain.
The universe is irrational.
Hey, people are getting more food.
They seem happier.
Science is advancing our human knowledge.
Well, of course he's going to feel like philosophy failed because his philosophy was fucked!
Anyway, go ahead.
Well, see, that's the thing.
I don't see it as being philosophy.
I see it as being idealism based on his opinion.
It's not philosophy.
It doesn't meet the definition.
Why do you need...
It's just wrong.
I mean, it's just...
It's wrong philosophy.
It's like bad science.
You don't take a shitty scientific theory and say, well, it's idealism.
It's like, nope!
This is wrong.
Well, I don't see it as philosophy if it doesn't meet the definition.
I mean, it's like saying that the Bible is philosophy.
No, no, but he's got arguments about the irrationality of the universe, right?
Yeah, but...
That's not philosophy, because these ideas only exist in his mind.
And for religion, the religion only exists in the religious person's mind.
It doesn't exist outside.
It doesn't meet the definition of philosophy.
But they call it philosophy.
It's just an idea that he describes.
Oh, right, right, right, right, right, right.
No, I think I see where you're going with that.
I get what you're coming with that.
So, that was my position, that...
He can have some great ideas and be a really good writer and have some linguistic skills in describing his opinions, but that's all they are because they're not based on anything other than his opinion and what he thinks.
Just like the religions.
All of them, I lumped them together.
They're ideas.
I mean, from Scientology to Christianity to, you know, the most popular, I mean...
Think about it.
If it's Scientology, which the reason I bring it up is recently there's been some documentaries on it.
I found it kind of interesting.
But the person who created that, actually, he was a science fiction writer.
He just made things up.
And created, became a religion somehow.
And it's based on absolutely nothing other than his imagination.
Same with all these other religions.
And so when you get a writer like Schopenhauer, it's kind of the same thing.
It's just something that he thought of.
It's based on nothing.
And it's idealism.
I'm still not sure why you come up with the word idealism.
If something is false, it's just wrong, isn't it?
Right.
And that's what I call idealism.
Sorry.
So I guess the definition...
No, but I don't think you're doing much help to this.
See, there's a separate category in philosophy called idealism.
It's like, nope.
Right?
There's a special category of good science called bad science.
Nope.
It's just bad science, right?
It's just incorrect.
No, I think you misunderstood.
Okay, go ahead.
I don't consider idealism philosophy.
I don't.
But if somebody says, I'm a philosopher, and they make lots of mistakes, they're just bad at it, right?
If I say, I'm a great programmer, I'll write this code for you, and then I type a bunch of wingdings into a compiler and it doesn't compile, you say, well, that's idealistic programming.
You don't!
You say, that's wingdings, and I'm not paying you.
You might as well be typing with your forehead on a Japanese kanji computer in the dark, right?
Okay.
Fair enough.
I wouldn't create this separate category, and I've said this from the very beginning of this show.
You know, because people say, well, in your philosophy or in this branch of philosophy, that just tells you that philosophy is still pretty much fucked.
Right?
There should not be branches of philosophy.
There should be disciplines within philosophy and focus on metaphysics or epistemology or ethics or, you know, whatever it is, right?
But there should not be different schools of philosophy.
Right?
I mean, there are people who follow, like, a cutting edge in physics.
There are people who follow, you know, string theory or whatever it is, right?
But those aren't different schools.
There's just stuff yet to be proved, right?
Actually, it's a make-work project for government money, but who knows, right?
But there's not different schools of scientists where...
I use chicken entrails.
I pray to Kim Kardashian's left nipple.
Well, who doesn't?
But, you know, I use the scientific method, right?
I... I look at ancient Aztec ruins to figure out the end times.
That's not how science works.
I would not ever countenance the establishment of different schools of philosophy.
Because philosophy is universal reason, evidence, and so on.
If you're not doing that, you don't get to say, well, I'm just doing philosophy a different way.
I'm just doing surgery a different way.
I do it with a hand grenade.
That's not surgery.
That's terrorism.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it makes total sense.
So, is religion philosophy?
No.
Religion is absolutely not philosophy.
And that's when people say, well, I'm studying the philosophy of religion.
It's like, no, you're not studying the physics of unicorns.
The moment you're talking about unicorns, you're not talking about physics.
There's no such thing as the philosophy of religion.
Because religion is revelation, and it's anti-empirical, it's anti-science, it's anti-sense data, because none of those things support the existence of God, which is required for religion.
Exactly.
Okay.
So I was kind of putting Nietzsche and Schopenhauer on the same level as religion, because they've come up with...
No, I don't think so, because at least I don't think that's fair.
Now...
But Schopenhauer is more rigorous than Nietzsche.
Again, I'm not going to go into any sort of...
And I don't have the expertise to go into detailed explanations or explications of these two philosophies.
I know more about Nietzsche than Schopenhauer.
But no, because I would say that someone like Immanuel Kant, who was a big influence...
But Immanuel Kant would be closer to religion because he's got this whole new aminal realm.
So he's just fucking Buddhist, basically.
He's Buddhist with a very regular walking schedule.
People can apparently set their clocks by him going for a walk in his hometown.
But the moment that people bring some kind of revelation, some kind of anti-empirical higher realm and this sort of shit, they're not doing philosophy anymore.
We have to have standards in this discipline.
Something cannot be in a discipline and its exact fucking opposite be in the discipline too.
You know, I study evolution and TMZ. That's both biology, right?
It's like, no, it's really not.
So ideology is different from religion.
I don't know, because now you're just bringing in another damn word we have to define.
What do you mean by ideology?
Religion, that's exactly what I mean.
But I don't know what you mean by ideology.
It's just an idea with no fact, empirical evidence, or logical conclusion.
It's someone's opinion.
I don't know if that's the definition of ideology, but certainly if you just have an idea and you don't have any arguments or facts or evidence for it, then yeah, it's nothing to do with philosophy.
Yeah, it's ideology.
That's what I call it, anyways.
And even if it's universal, right?
You say, rocks fall!
That's not science, really.
But, uh, so, um...
I mean, so I know, so there are all these German idealists, and I don't want to bore the shit out of everyone, but Schelling and Hegel and Fisch and so on, all these German idealists, and they believed that the world was coalescing like a rainbow river joining in one harmonious whole to the world spirit moving towards what became Nazism.
And it was not their fault, but exactly.
But they sort of believed that there was this world spirit moving through and organizing things, and it's like, oh, fuck off.
You have now just made a church out of your books, right?
Yeah, so that...
Okay, that makes sense.
Because I also consider...
I don't consider Marxism religion, but I consider idealism.
And why don't you consider Marxism a religion?
I mean, there's no God, obviously, right?
I mean, but...
I wouldn't call it religion, even though it is?
Yeah, we'd have to say, yeah.
I would call it idealism.
But it's not religion.
There's no Bible.
Well, there is.
The Communist Manifesto.
No, but there's no Bible like it's the revealed word of a deity, right?
Right.
But it's idealism the same as religion.
That would be an example of where I'm coming from and how I'm thinking.
Right.
Right.
So, they're one and the same...
Yeah, but no, you can have a higher realm that is not inhabited by a deity, right?
I mean...
The Platonic world of forms technically could exist without being inhabited by a deity.
Now, if we say that religion is principles derived from realms opposite to reality, then that would fit.
But if we say religion requires a deity, then it wouldn't be.
It would just be bad philosophy.
And see, that's where I would stop and say, it's not bad philosophy, it's just not philosophy.
Oh, so in the same way, if I were to say that the reason that we stick to the ground is that the Earth loves us and wants to keep us close, that would not be bad science, that just wouldn't be science, right?
Exactly.
Okay.
Yeah, I think I see where you're coming from, and I'm certainly being drawn into the black hole, if you're correctness.
Well, there's a compliment that you can take both ways.
No, no, I think, yeah, you're right.
I mean, if people are just making these assertions, there's a higher realm.
There's a world of platonic forms, and that's where we get concepts from.
It's like, where's your proof of this exactly?
I don't know, let me tell you a dreamy story about a cave, and hope that lulls you into agreement, right?
And then, for me, and they say, well, that's just bad philosophy.
No, how about that's just not philosophy at all.
Right.
Because it's not universal, it's not empirical, it's not rational.
In fact, it's really the opposite of all these things, right?
So, that's what I call idealism.
It's an ideal.
Yeah, well then, I would, again, to hammer my point, I would not...
Don't call it idealism.
Because idealism has, like, a positive connotation to it, right?
Oh.
Really?
Like, he's such an idealist, means that he has high-shining, you know, maybe naive or whatever, but he's high-shining...
Principles and so on that may be unrealistic, but wouldn't you just say that's just not philosophy?
Like the moment you start talking about higher realms and anti-imperialism, it's the same thing in science, right?
If you can say, well, my thesis is not true, well, my hypothesis is not true in any measurable way, but it is true in opposite science land, right?
Then people would say...
I don't know what you're doing, but it's got nothing to do with science, right?
You may be using the word science, but, you know, as Indigo Montez says, this word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
It's just not, it's not what, it's not science.
And to me, when people start talking about, you know, the world spirit moving cultures towards a unified blah-de-blah based on the higher realm principles, it's like, you know, I don't know what shit you're smoking, but it ain't shit called philosophy anymore.
Right, and so people just sometimes refer to it as bad philosophy, and I just don't refer to it as philosophy at all.
Well, except you've got this thing called idealism.
And that's where I put everything that's not philosophical.
Religion, Marxism, Scientology, I just call it idealism.
Because is the word wrong hard to pronounce for you?
Is it the W, the silent W at the beginning?
We're wrong?
It's just wrong.
But then people call it philosophy, and if they go to a bookstore, it's in the philosophy section.
And they say, well, it is philosophy, because look at the bookstore.
That would be kind of a stupid argument someone would say.
And I would say, no, it's idealism.
Even though it's wrong, obviously.
I just...
I don't know, maybe my...
Well, no, then you have to find a way not just to conquer Schopenhauer, but to conquer the Dewey Decimal System, right?
You have to find a way not just to feel superior to Nietzsche...
But also to feel superior to whoever organizes the bookshelves at chapters.
You know, I think if you can overcome Schopenhauer, you know, the filing clerk at the local Blue Indigo is not going to be the big problem, right?
Okay, fair enough.
So...
So I should use a different word besides idealism.
What would I call...
If I was to hypothetically...
Wrong!
It's wrong!
It's just wrong!
You know, 2 plus 2 is 5 is not idealistic math.
I didn't get marked, you get full marks in idealism.
In math, not so much, right?
You've got a degree in idealism.
It's like, you are best at wrongness.
You've got a PhD in fucked in the head.
You are the king of error!
Okay, fair enough.
Can I ask?
It's got to assert the standards, right?
I mean, it's an annoying revolution, and I get that it sounds completely insane, and I get, you guys, what the hell do they know?
I mean, are they...
No, sorry, you know...
Discipline's got to progress.
And at some point, people had to stop pretending that alchemy was science.
And people had to stop pretending that prayer was medicine.
And at some point, people have to stop pretending that error is philosophy.
Pseudo-philosophy.
Not even pseudo!
I guess you could say, yes, sophistry, I guess you could say.
Okay, soft history.
But with the emphasis on error.
With the emphasis on error.
Emphasis on error.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
So then what is ideology?
I was using the term.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, you know, what is ideology?
You can sort of go to the dictionary and all that.
But to me, ideology is when you have an emotionally driven belief set And you're really, really mostly or exclusively interested in that which confirms it.
It's when you don't take the hammer of skepticism against the most crystalline vases of your belief systems and really put them to the test.
It is when you have a belief system that is not falsifiable, has no null hypothesis in particular.
You know, the fuck does it take to make communists say, bad idea?
Like, oh my god.
I mean, seriously.
It's like giant human smoking craters filled with hundreds of millions of bodies and they're like, next time.
Next time, couple of tweaks.
We've got it, you know?
A couple tweaks here.
You know, it's literally like lining people up with brain tumors, shooting them through the head.
They all fucking die.
And the next, you know, next guy, I'm just shooting the tumor.
It's like, no, no.
Come on.
Stop with the bullets and the brain surgery, right?
It's not brain surgery.
You're just killing people.
So what does it take for people to say, you know, something's really wrong with communism.
We need to figure out what it is, and we also need to figure out what's really wrong with communists.
Like, I get it.
When I was 12, I was a socialist.
When I was 14, I was a socialist.
I get it.
Because you've arrested development when you're a kid, right?
And, you know, at some point, when I was younger than that, I was Christian and devout and did church choir.
I get it, right?
But you've got to, you know, no point is to sort of surmount and grow and...
I was an objectivist.
You've got to just keep hammering at these things.
And where you have doubts, you pursue those doubts and all of that.
Skepticism is very important in business, but seems to be very absent from the realm of philosophy or just ideology.
So in particular, to me, being ideological or having an ideology is having a belief system that can't be disproven.
Like, seriously, I mean, for communists, it's like, what the, I mean, what do you need?
Every single goddamn communist country has turned into a nightmarish hellhole of blood and despotism and slaughter and, I mean, Jesus God, what the, how many bodies is it going to take for this ideology to be questioned?
And I want to do a, the state of statism, I want to do a fairly lengthy presentation on how a government's doing throughout the world.
I was just reading about how unbelievably, appallingly, terribly China is in debt these days.
Look at Japan, GDP. You wouldn't know.
You wouldn't know from being here.
Well, you never know until they run out of money.
Your neighbors may have stopped working three months ago living on their visa, but sooner or later, you know, math hits you.
You don't get to write your idealistic checks to the visa people.
And I just wonder, like, how many, you know...
How many countries have to be completely swallowed up by the giant gila monster of intergenerational debt before we say, hey, you know, we've got some problems with this system.
Something's not going right.
You know, Greece of the last 190 years, 170 years, Greece has spent like 92 of those years in fiscal collapse of one kind or another.
At what point are they going to say, I know we invented democracy, it might need some work.
And that work is not new leaders!
New leaders is just a fool's hope for change, but...
New leaders!
Math is repealed!
Well, if they think voting someone else in is the solution to the problem, they don't understand the problem.
Right.
Right.
Oh, they're just, like, making noise and taking stuff, which is what democracy is generally all about.
So, yeah, I think...
That's always my question.
Like, what's the null hypothesis?
How would you know if you're wrong?
How would you know?
You know, what accumulation of evidence and what accumulation...
You've got fucking people on the left who are like, you know, wow, you know, the Chicago economists went to go and they really gave some good advice, some advice to Auguste Pinochet and therefore the free market is a failure.
You know, it's like, really?
Yes.
So a couple of free market guys went down to talk to a guy they didn't even know was a dictator who barely implemented any of their policies and therefore free market is a failure.
Fucking lefties.
Communism is like a giant soul-eating monster.
Like an intergenerational Nazgul that sucks lifeblood out of hundreds of millions of human beings but you're still okay being on the left.
But boy, you know, a couple of Chicago economists give some advice to Auguste Pinochet when they have no experience in politics before he became the butcher, as he was called, and he didn't really even implement their policies.
But free market equals failure.
Yeah, because you're all so fucking empirical that, you know, 150 years of death by communism doesn't shake your faith in that shit.
But anyway, a couple of academics talked to a guy in Chile.
Anyway.
So yeah, if there's no null hypothesis, it's not philosophy.
Because something has to be wrong, it has to have the capacity of being wrong in order for it to be right.
If you have an untestable scientific hypothesis, it is neither scientific nor a hypothesis.
You are just making syllables with your breathing hole.
Very good.
All right.
I am done with my breathing hole, so I really appreciate your call.
Feel free to call back in any time.
It was a very enjoyable chat.
Hopefully other people find it useful.
Thanks again a million.
Was it helpful to you?
Oh, very helpful.
It just went in three or four different directions that I didn't expect it to.
That's learning.
Well, if it's predictable, why bother calling?
Right.
Well, you know, you cover so many different topics, it's not often that I have to phone in, because it's almost always covered in another conversation.
No, but this was some really important stuff, so I really appreciate the questions.
They were great.
I appreciate the answers.
Thank you very much for your time.
You're very welcome.
And I think that, yeah, that's it for our show tonight.
Ooh, nice, juicy three hours and 40 minutes.
So that's it.
No shows for the rest of the month.
Just kidding.
I'm looking forward to the next one already.
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