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Oct. 1, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
26:37
3843 What Pisses Me Off About The Edmonton Terrorist Attack
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This happened in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is condemning violent events in Edmonton as a terrorist attack following a chaotic night that saw a police officer stabbed and several pedestrians deliberately struck with a cube van.
Edmonton police said they are investigating the incidents as acts of terrorism.
At a news conference early Sunday morning, Chief Rod Necht said police have a 30-year-old man in custody.
They think he acted alone. It's early in the investigation they are ruling out that others were involved.
An Islamic State militant's flag was seized as evidence, he said.
Trudeau said, our thoughts are with those injured, their family and friends, and all those affected by this senseless, you see the programming here, senseless act of violence.
He said, he thanked first responders in law enforcement and said, While the investigation continues, early reports indicate that it is another example of the hate we must remain ever vigilant against.
Okay, see, this is interesting.
You just try and understand the language which is being used here and why.
So, first of all, it is senseless.
And secondly, it is indication of hatred.
But the two things can't be considered the same.
They don't fit together conceptually.
If something is senseless, then it's truly random.
If someone is motivated by hatred, then it is not senseless.
Like if there's a man who truly hates his ex-wife and kills her, then it's not senseless.
It's not moral, but it's not senseless.
You see, these don't make any sense at all.
He went on to say, So it's important to understand what is being done here and what you're being programmed with.
So first of all, when he says, Now, injured is a very neutral term.
You can be injured by a tree that falls on you.
You could be injured by stumbling and tripping.
But if you're injured in an act of terrorism, then that is different, obviously, right?
One is without immoral cause, an accident, and another is with immoral cause, which is terrorism.
So our thoughts are with those injured immediately.
We're taking motivations away.
And then we say senseless act of violence.
What that does is it kind of programs you to anticipate this or receive this emotionally as an act of insanity, like the person is just crazy.
Now, of course, the driver of the car That plowed over the people in Charlottesville was actually clinically, technically crazy.
He had schizophrenia. But that of course was politically motivated without a doubt.
Now this person, who I assume is going to be somewhat motivated by ISIS and other ideologies, well this must be portrayed as senseless.
This is really important.
So, early reports indicate that this is another example of the hate that we must remain ever vigilant against.
That's very interesting.
And what this means, of course, is this person is portrayed as both senseless and full of hate.
Now, what they hate and why they hate and why it manifested must never be described, must never be unpacked.
The ideology at the root of this must never be examined.
Therefore, he says, we cannot and will not let violent extremism take root in our communities.
Of course, how?
How? How is this going to happen?
How is this going to be prevented?
No answer. So we know that Canada's strength comes from our diversity.
And this diversity is strength.
Those on the left say it.
Because by diversity, what they mean is demographic groups that are going to vote for the left.
If diversity is a value, this is really, really important to ponder, to understand.
If diversity is such a value, then what is the relationship to a diverse country with ideologies that themselves do not respect and promote diversity?
This is very, very important.
If we say respect for women is a virtue, what do we do with ideologies that clearly don't have embedded within them respect for women?
If we say that tolerance is a virtue, what do we do with cultures that in their root are fundamentally intolerant?
If diversity is a value, what do we do with cultures and belief systems that do not themselves respect diversity?
And this, of course, can never be questioned, can never be examined.
And then he says, and we will not be cowed by those who seek to divide us or promote fear.
Now, what this is designed to program you to do is if you say your country should examine any policies, any policies anywhere, If you should have some sort of rational objective response to a terrorist attack, you should look at government policies in any variety of fields.
If you should have some rational questions or response to a terrorist attack, then you have lost.
We should not change our course.
We should not change our approach.
We should not change our society and its current values.
We should not even question them, because to do so is to lose to the terrorists.
And that is truly an astounding perspective and an astounding opinion.
To take an extreme example, When, you know, Hitler was spreading across Europe, nobody said, well, we should not change any of our policies or approaches or our ideals at all.
When there is this oogie-boogie man of sort of white nationalism, white supremacy that is largely made up and projected on the media and political landscape, nobody says, well, we shouldn't change any policies or we shouldn't change any of our approaches.
To this issue. They say, well, we should change this, we should change that, we should focus on this, we should focus on that.
The left doesn't say, well, a conservative is going to speak at an American campus.
But we should not change any of our approaches or our policies or our activities or anything in response to that.
No. When something is perceived to threaten the left, they mobilize, they attack, they actually activate their ground troops in many ways.
So when the left feels that their values are threatened, they don't say, well, the important thing is to soldier on and continue as if nothing happened whatsoever.
Let's just ignore it. Let's just pretend that it'll just vanish or go away.
That's not what they do.
You understand? They seek to change policy.
They put activists on the ground, sometimes armed, and that is how they approach a threat to their belief systems.
They do not continue, as before, but what you're programmed to do through these kinds of statements Is to say, well, we don't want to surrender to bad people who are mysteriously senseless at the same time, and therefore we should not seek to change anything about our societies or our policies, because to do so is to lose.
It could be analogous to a man standing on a train track.
The train is coming and we say, well, but you see, to change anything about where you're standing is to lose.
In France, what happened?
French prosecutors say a man has been shot dead at the Saint Charles railway station in Marseille after he attacked passes by with a knife.
Official sources indicate that the attacker was eliminated by army personnel after slitting one woman's throat and stabbing another to death.
The Sun newspaper claims that a police source said that the attacker shouted Allahu Akbar as he struck, but this has not been confirmed.
I will tell you about a particular concern that I have, and I'm just putting it out there.
This is not a sort of fully formed thesis, but I just want to put it out there and you can tell me what you think.
This is my concern.
The West has, I think, to some degree pathologically become a self-critical culture.
We examine our history and what has occurred in the past and we look for any deviations from current moral standards and we damn ourselves retroactively, right?
We have in common law, in a rational legal system, there's no such thing as retroactive law.
We can't make something illegal and then prosecute people for their actions before those actions were made illegal.
But we have this kind of retroactive moral law where we look back in the past, we take the standards of the present, we cast them back in the past, and we say, well, there were huge problems because in the past we did not conform to current moral ideals, therefore everything about our own history is wrong.
And this...
It destroys the foundation of your culture, the foundation of your history, and gives you little to defend.
And any attempt to defend your culture, this is the trap, this is the trick that the left has set up.
It's a very elaborate and powerful trap, and we need to be aware of this.
So I think it's important to understand how this leftist trap works.
Because if we don't understand it, we're gonna go under as a culture.
The leftist trap works like this.
you take current moral standards and you project them back but through time and you find all deviations in the past from current moral standards and you damn the entire culture is immoral right so of course slavery is the big one is segregation colonialism exploitation and so on And what you do is you say,
well, there were elements of enslavement, there were elements, well, there was enslavement, there were elements of repression, there were elements of sexism and racism and homophobia and misogyny, and there were elements of imperialism and exploitation in Western history.
And therefore, you see, and therefore, every time you say there's anything positive about Western history, every time you take pride in your culture and your history and its growth and its progress, Then you are de facto defending its worst conceivable aspects according to current morals.
So if you say there was great nobility in the Enlightenment, you then can't take any pride in it.
You say you can't take anything positive in the Enlightenment because there was slavery, because women didn't have equal rights, because there were empires, and so on, right?
So this is how it works.
You're not allowed to have any pride.
Any pride at all.
Because any pride in your history...
Is considered an automatic defense of the worst possible aspects of one's cultural history.
And therefore, well, if you take pride in European culture and history, North American culture and history, well, immediately you are somehow for the mythical handing of smallpox blankets to natives and the resulting deaths and so on, right?
It's a very elaborate trap that has been laid by the left for two generations at least, arguably three.
And it is very hard to escape this trap.
And I will tell you, though, why it's important and what needs to be done.
So first of all, my great suspicion, my great fear, is that the West has become critical, pathologically self-critical.
Now, the self-critical nature of the West is part of the Socratic humility that comes from ancient Greece, which is, you know, one of the most central and revered intellectuals in Western history.
Socrates said that he was wise because he knew that he knew nothing.
So this starting point of tabula rasa, of a blank slate, I know nothing, I must be humble, and I'm going to build my knowledge up from scratch, is how the West gets to keep reinventing itself and gets to keep improving.
The self-critical nature of Western society has allowed it to overcome a good number of the moral evils practiced by all cultures throughout history.
Practiced slavery. All cultures had empires.
All cultures dominated. All cultures exploited.
All cultures did not have equal rights for women.
Now, the most self-critical culture is the culture that has overcome many of these evils by being self-critical and by saying, well, maybe we're wrong about slavery.
Maybe we're wrong about unequal rights for women.
Maybe we're wrong about empire.
Maybe we're wrong about exploitation.
Maybe we're wrong about... Having an aristocracy.
Maybe we're wrong about big government.
Maybe we're wrong about primogeniture.
Maybe we're wrong about taking our genetically most brilliant people and locking them up in monk towers and so on.
Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we don't know how the human body works.
Maybe blood does circulate around through the body.
Maybe there are tiny invisible...
Germs that actually cause disease.
Maybe we don't have a clue.
Maybe the world isn't flat.
Maybe we're not under a big bowl pierced through with the javelin light of distant stars.
Maybe, just maybe, we don't have a clue.
Maybe the earth is not the center.
Either of the solar system or the universe.
Maybe we're wrong. This doubt, this self-criticism, is foundational to the progress that is unique to the Western world.
But self-criticism, when you are facing somebody or a culture which seems to have no capacity for self-criticism, puts you at a disadvantage.
So many, this is a personal anecdote, maybe it will sort of illustrate what I'm talking about.
So many, many years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman.
And it started off pretty well, but, you know, there's the chameleon, there's the laying in wait, there's the wolf spider buried under the sand, out it comes.
It started off pretty well.
And then there was this sort of escalating snowball of nagging.
You know, like the little flake.
Of snow at the top of the mountain, rolls, rolls, catches, rolls, rolls, increase, catches, and there was just this endless increase in sort of put-downs and negativity and nagging.
And another thing! You know, that kind of stuff.
I mean, to the point where, like, my very first, like, when I started a software company, my very first office, I was so proud of it.
I was so proud of it.
And she came in and had a look and said, well, that's a nice view of the parking lot now, isn't it?
And it was a view of the parking lot.
But, you know, that kind of deflation occurred on a regular basis.
And... I mean, I helped her with her artistic endeavors and then asked her to help me with mine and she's like, well, I haven't really got around to it and so on.
It's like, well, I helped you with yours. But you won't help me with mine.
And she said, well, I guess you just haven't motivated me to do it.
And it's like, okay, well, wait a minute.
So it's my fault if you don't help me.
But you're willing to accept mine. Anyway, so you understand how this all works.
And then what happened was...
So I've been a self-critical person my whole life.
It's one of the reasons I've, I think, achieved some significant wisdom.
It's coming out of the place of humility.
Like, I've got a whole book on ethics, which I wrote because I fundamentally realized I don't know what ethics are.
I don't know what virtue is.
So I had to...
Wipe everything clean, which is like a kind of living death.
It's a self-erasure of history.
Personality to say, you know what?
I don't actually have a concrete knowledge of why murder is wrong.
And the concept of faith is not going to do it for me.
This is a philosophical problem that faith is to philosophy as magic is to science.
It doesn't fit in the same category, and it doesn't substantially answer questions.
Faith is, to some degree, a lack of humility, even though humility is a virtue in many religions.
And so... I eventually realized that as long as I was self-critical, but my girlfriend was not, I was going to be losing out because she'd make a criticism and be like, oh, well, I should really think about that.
But whenever I would make a criticism back, I was just attacking, you know, like it just, it never worked.
It was this unequal seesaw where it never balanced out.
You know, there are other culturists in the world that have some pretty dark histories and some pretty dark presence.
I mean, the Muslim invasion or takeover of significant portions of India, hundreds of millions killed.
Muslims were some of the biggest slave traders around, slave owners.
They regularly castrated their slaves.
And If a self-critical culture is facing a non-self-critical culture, what happens?
You can think about this, you know, these sort of big abstractions are a challenge.
You can think about this in terms of just your own life.
Have you ever had, if you're a self-critical person, like if you're listening to this show, if you're interested in philosophy and self-knowledge, I'm going to assume that you have some capacity for self-criticism, which is the foundation of growth.
You know, I don't really criticize the way I walk because I think I've got it down pat, but the way I communicate, the way I think, the way I... I mean, this is all subject to significant improvements, need for improvements.
So if you have the capacity for self-criticism, just take a little scan, you know, put out the sonar, the self-knowledge sonar in your life, and try and figure out who around you It's not self-critical.
I used to call them the period people.
I remember there was a friend of mine when I was younger.
She got married and she had a husband and we were over at one place.
And he was one of these guys, a real cliche in my view, right?
So he was one of these guys who would say, period.
Period. Right? It's just like this.
It's just like this. This is the way it is.
Period. And there was no debate, no examination, no way of opening up the question to a deeper, more subtle, more sophisticated, more robust analysis of the variables.
The period. Period.
And the left is kind of like that, you know, like riches are exploitation, period.
You know, I mean, the West is bad, period.
And so when you have the period people in your life, just have a look at them and say, okay, if you're self-critical and you're around the period people, what is that like?
Who wins? Who loses?
Now, in this relationship that I had, I eventually just got to the point where I was like, you know...
My life is getting better and better.
This person's life is stagnant.
My life is expanding and improving.
This person's life is stagnant.
And the difference is that I'm self-critical and this person isn't.
So eventually the disparities between our lives became so great that I basically lost respect for any criticism and then pushed back and then we broke up because I very...
I quickly found out that this was not a relationship of equality, that when I'm in the presence of somebody who's stubborn and irrationally self-confident, then my self-criticisms become a weakness, become a giant hole in the armor in what sometimes feels like a battle to the death.
So I find this pile-on on the Western culture.
All the criticism of the Western culture is vile.
It's vile. It is cowardly.
It is hypocritical because there are other cultures in the world right now as we speak, as I'm speaking, as you're listening.
There are other cultures in the world...
Far worse than the worst aspects of Western culture, which have at least the defenses of being decades or centuries or millennia, in fact, in the past.
We don't look at a 15th century doctor and say that doctor was terrible because he didn't use an MRI and never prescribed antibiotics.
Terrible, terrible doctor. We say, well, no, the doctor was doing the best he could with the knowledge and technology he had at the time.
Ethics, morality, it's kind of technology.
You can't know before you know.
We don't call someone a bad navigator If they existed prior to the compass, for not using a compass.
Well, they didn't have a compass. That's why the compass was invented.
We don't say that the internet of the 15th century was subpar.
Knowledge, ethics, virtue, universality, consistency, philosophy, it's a kind of Technology, understand?
And it's a pitiful and ludicrous and intellectually embarrassing exercise to go around criticizing people in the past for failing to have the moral technology that we have in the present, the moral knowledge that we have in the present.
And it is merely a form of incompetent exploitation to convince Westerners that we're just bad and like we owe reparations or something like that.
I mean, it's just all ridiculous.
And people who are complaining about slavery, I mean, there's slavery actually going on right now.
There are open slave markets in Libya for migrants trying to get into Europe.
And people are kvetching and crabbing and bitching about the four or five percent of southerners who owned slaves 150 plus years ago, rather than the countless slaves currently being bought and sold in the world, in North Africa, at the present.
Well, of course, and of course you see on the UN. The UN's recently demanding, oh, Canada owes reparations for slavery.
Well, first of all, the welfare state could be considered reparations for slavery in many ways, but with terrible effects.
Well, slavery had terrible effects.
The welfare state has had terrible effects.
But nobody's going to the current slave owners or those other cultures, like the Muslim cultures, who had a far bigger slave trade than the Europeans ever did, and saying, well, you owe reparations for slavery.
Why not? Why not?
It's a very important question.
It's a very important question.
Why not? I think we all know the answer to that, which is that if you go to European-derived cultures and people and you say, well, there are these bad things in the past, and they'll say, ah, well, that's interesting.
Tell me more. You know, I'm self-critical and want to improve and so on, right?
The creative destruction of self-criticism according to rational and objective principles.
You go to other cultures and demand reparations, what happens?
We know, right? I mean, I don't have to go into any details about this.
So the answer to this, the sort of defense that we need at the moment is to say this.
If you're going to criticize my culture, my history, then you need to tell me by which objective standards you're talking to me first.
White Western European Christians spent untold amounts of blood and treasure to end slavery worldwide, and did a good job for the most part.
Why on earth would the culture that ends slavery for the first time in human history...
Slave markets being depicted in ancient cave drawings from untold thousands of years ago.
Human beings have always bought and sold slaves up until the 19th century, up until white Western European Christian cultures ended the barbaric practice worldwide.
Why would the culture that spent hundreds of thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars to end slavery Why would that be the only culture criticized for slavery?
Why? Because you sent up a flag saying, we think slavery is wrong.
So then people come swarming in, attempting to provoke guilt and use the power of the state to extract resources from those who've already admitted they have a problem with slavery.
We don't like slavery. Slavery is immoral.
Slavery is wrong. Oh yeah, well your culture had slavery and therefore you owe me.
It's like, therefore the confession of moral sensitivity is the opening up Of coercive exploitation, to be morally sensitive in a world significantly populated by period people, blind brutes, is to open yourself up to being exploited.
So the answer is, whatever you're being criticized for, racism, sexism, homophobia, whatever, right?
Why are you talking to me first?
Where across the world have you looked and found that I am the person to talk to?
Is there no racism in the world anywhere except where I am, where my culture is?
Is there no slavery?
Is there no exploitation? Are there no empires anywhere in the world?
Is there no history of empire building anywhere in the world except in my culture's history?
Give me the rational objective algorithm by which you sought all of the wrongs in the world and dare to talk to me first.
And there is no rational explanation for any of this, other than, well, if I can make you feel guilty, I can get your resources.
And that is the true exploitation that is going on in the world.
It's a bit of a trick. It's a bit of a card trick.
It's an amateur magician trick. To complain about exploitation as a means of exploiting others is a very powerful and deep process.
It is a very powerful and deep argument.
It is the magic words that move trillions of dollars of resources from one group to another or others.
It must be resisted.
To have empathy in a heartless world is to go the way of the dodo, my friends.
And we deserve better.
Our ancestors provided better.
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