Aug. 17, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:42:37
4169 Anti-Stefan Molyneux Protests? - Call In Show - August 15th, 2018
Question 1: [2:26] – First person account of anti- Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern protests in Auckland, New Zealand following the cancelled and de-platformed event. Question 2: [50:04] - "After learning about the fall of Rome, I have put a lot of thought into how we can solve the problem of the ever-expanding state, and one of the solution that keep coming back to me is the same answer the people of old had, Feudalism. It seems to me that going back to using a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations to replace a centralized state not only would decentralize power but could also create a government that does not violate the non-aggression principle as all parties must agree to a contract beforehand. What are your thoughts on a system like this?"Question 3: [55:11] – “I am dating someone from a different culture and religious perspectives and I believe he can be a good life partner. We are both looking to settle down and I already met his mom. My family however are not approval of him given the cultural and religious differences and they are also concern about his past. They think I'm naive and I am making a wrong choice. I wanted to talk about this with Stefan and get his perspective to see whether I am missing something in my approach.”Question 4: [1:38:55] – “I am in a happy, long term relationship with a wonderful partner. We have built a great life together and share life goals in common. However, we diverge on the idea of marriage. I feel that it's important to have a proper marriage in place to create security, but my partner feels strongly that legal marriage means that we are inviting the state into our relationship, and that this would create a power imbalance in the relationship in my favor. He prefers that we stay unmarried but committed as if we were married. My father agrees with him and urges us NOT to get married. Please help me puzzle this out and understand the philosophical implications, so that my man and I can both get what we need.”Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Here we are on the other side of the near deletion of the entire YouTube channel.
800,000 plus subscribers, thousands of videos, hundreds of millions of views, because boom, out of nowhere, after 12 years of no community, guideline infractions, two within 24 hours.
Thank you everyone so much who pushed back and helped recover us, but we're on the radar now.
Who knows how long we have.
But if you'd like to help out the show, freedomainradio.com slash donate.
That's freedomainradio.com slash donate.
Support is most gratefully and sincerely appreciated.
So, four callers, often talking about other people.
The first actually went to the couple of hundred strong protests that were going on in Auckland.
New Zealand, when Lauren and I were effectively deplatformed because the venue owner pulled back from an agreement and a payment that he had received, so he went to go and see what all the fuss was about, a very interesting discussion there about what drives people in this kind of collectivist hatred.
The second caller, I guess Posterboy101, for not quite reading social cues, but he wanted to tell me that feudalism isn't a government and it is the best way forward.
Now the third caller, this is interesting because immigrant dating is really challenging because you come from a particular place, you've been influenced by a new culture, you have a religion that is part of a larger context.
Finding compatibility is a real challenge.
So I talked to a woman From Iran who wanted to date a guy from Afghanistan.
Oh, complicated, complicated, complicated.
Now, the fourth caller is a woman who's kind of frustrated because her partner of many years doesn't want to get married.
He says, why on earth would I want to involve the state In our romantic life, well, symptom, cause, we had a very deep and powerful exploration of exactly why we think her partner doesn't want to marry her.
Hint, it's not exactly related to the state.
So I hope you enjoyed the show.
I certainly did. Please don't forget to check out The Art of the Argument at theartoftheargument.com.
You can also get it on audible.com.
And these days more than ever, please, please, please go to freedomainradio.com.
Sign up for the newsletter because, well, I refer you to the beginning of the show.
Alright, well first today we have Ian.
Ian wanted to attend the Auckland New Zealand event with Steph and Lauren Southern, but when it was cancelled, decided to check out some of the protests as well.
So Ian's here to give us a first-person perspective of what was going on on the ground.
Welcome to the show, Ian. Hey Ian, how you doing?
Yeah, hi Stefan. Pleasure to speak to you.
Yeah, I'm sorry we couldn't do it in person, but what was the story of your Friday, Ota, recently?
Yeah, so obviously I was pretty excited, looking forward to seeing you guys talking.
I was disappointed, but I have to say not 100% surprised when the email came through that the talk had been cancelled.
So I thought, well, I'm going to have a free evening.
I'm going to walk over to the protest site in Aotea Square just to see what kind of people were there, see what kind of signs they had.
Just to see what was going on, how many people were there.
So I guess as a summary, there were probably about 200, 300 people there.
And there were the usual things you might expect, the white supremacy claims from the speakers.
There were anti-fascist signs.
There were speakers saying things like, this ideology is based on colonialism.
The usual signs say migrants welcome, but as you can probably hear, I'm not a native New Zealander, so I guess this migrant wouldn't have been that welcome if they'd have known the electronic ticket that I had on my phone at the time.
Socialism, Itaroa signs, they looked...
A friend of mine who I was discussing this with said the signs, some of them look very professional.
Not the kind of things that maybe two or three students would just knock up in the afternoon with some cardboard and a few pens, which was interesting.
I guess one of the things which really did strike me as quite chilling, there was a very loud, angry Irish guy who was introducing the speakers.
And one of the things he did was give a quote from Malcolm X And presumably he's talking about his political opponents here.
And he said, be kind, be courteous, but if someone lays a finger on you, send him to the cemetery.
And this got the biggest cheer of the night.
And that just gave me pause for thought.
And it was a bit chilling, to be quite honest.
So right there, if you like, was the in-your-face thing.
Ethical violence creed that we sometimes see from the left.
I've seen it before on YouTube and on videos, but to actually be surrounded by it.
Well, it's interesting, of course, that they mistakenly label me as a white nationalist while quoting Malcolm X noted black nationalist.
But I guess if you're a black nationalist, you're just proud.
And if you're a white nationalist, well, of course, you just want to exterminate polls.
But yeah, so, well, the fact that they're celebrating violence, I mean...
It's not like they have real Nazis to fight.
They invent Nazis so that they can hopefully fight.
They just like to use violence and they need the correct labels to justify it to their ragged remnants of a conscience.
So I would assume that's, you know, they have to invent who Lauren and I are to give themselves a sense of outrage, a legitimacy for violence, and a sense of triumph when they manage to shut down free speech.
Otherwise, you're just kind of an anti-civilizational douchebag, right?
Yeah, I mean, just recently, I think you put out a video where you were talking about the paper tiger that the left had created in order to create some kind of enemy, really.
I guess the question that I wanted to ask you, actually, on the night, if you'd have managed to get to speak to us, was Having seen this protest, they're anti-everything, anti-Trump, anti-Nigel Farage, anti-you, anti-me, anti-everything.
So they talk a lot about what they're against, this group of leftists which you're up against.
But my question is, just what is it that they're for?
What kind of a society would it be where they then say, right, we've arrived at where we need to be and this is our nirvana and our protesting can finally stop?
I'm sure that some of them are completely ignorant of what socialism has achieved or not achieved in the past.
And so I'm a bit dumbfounded about what it is they want to achieve.
What do they want to create other than just be anti- Well, no, that's a good question.
That's a good question. And in general, we're social animals, right?
We are tribal animals.
We need a group.
We need friends.
We need companions. We need our gang.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, or you can say there's something wrong with it, but it doesn't matter because it's still the way that we are.
And there's two ways, fundamentally, that you can get a group of people around you who are going to be somewhat reliable, somewhat loyal, or whatever.
Now, the first way that you can get people around you is you can be a great person.
You can be a virtuous person.
You can be a strong person.
You can be a courageous person.
You can be a good person.
And you find other...
Good people around you, and they respect and recognize your virtue, you respect and recognize their virtue, and you create these bonds of steel based upon being good, decent, helpful people.
This is sometimes known as the Christian approach, though sadly not always.
Now the other way that you can have people around you, I guess there's three, the other way is some sort of neutral...
Non-moral bonding.
Like you think of sports teams and stupid stuff like that, right?
Not that sports are stupid or following sports are stupid, but you get it, right?
I mean, I remember when I was a kid, I guess it starts pretty early, this philosophy stuff, but I was a kid, probably maybe eight or nine, and there was a kid in my neighborhood who was championing his Football team.
This is English soccer, right?
So he's championing his football team.
And my football team, apparently composed mostly of Jamaicans, my football team was called Crystal Palace.
And I think four divisions and they were stuck in the bottom of the second or the top of the third.
They basically had been useless as tits on a ball for decades, right?
I mean, not as bad as the Maple Leafs.
Oh! We'll come back to that another time.
Anyway, so he was, you know, chanting around you like, my team's great.
Your team sucks.
My team, I can't even remember what it was, is great.
Crystal Palace sucks, right?
I remember saying to him, I said, dude, if you lived one street over, you'd be cheering Crystal Palace and opposing your team.
You happen to be born on this street rather than one street over.
Hell, I don't know. Maybe if you lived on one side of the street, you're cheering your team.
If you live on the other side of the street, you're cheering our team.
It makes no sense. I just remember saying that as a kid.
And of course, you just get that thousand-yard stare.
Because when you can invent an enemy, now that enemy can be amoral in terms of sports teams or whatever, or it can be moral in terms of you're the nice socialist who want to help people and are welcoming to people fleeing persecution, and the other team are composed of these evil white Nazi racists blah blah blah blah blah, and you're good and they're evil, And that's pretty tragic.
So, yeah, there's pursuing virtue gets you your tribe, inventing an amoral enemy gets you your tribe, or inventing an immoral enemy gets you your tribe.
And to me, it's a pretty pitiful way.
We've invented some enemies.
We're going to gang together and hate them en masse.
There's no virtue bringing to that.
In fact, there's immorality.
There's slander.
There's lies.
There is horrible things to be said about usually decent people.
So I think they just want a tribe.
They are not of anywhere close to high enough quality To win affection and loyalty and virtue from others.
And so what they do is they invent an enemy.
And then they all have a common purpose, which is to hate that enemy.
And they all will support each other.
And they're all holding hands.
And they're engaged in this Old Testament biblical drama of fighting these terrible people who are just awful.
And aren't we together in this?
And it's all just a show. It's all just...
It's kabuki theater. It's all nonsense.
But it gives them a sense of community...
Which they don't actually have to earn by, say, learning anything or understanding anything or researching anything or thinking in any way, shape or form.
It's a sad, drab little gathering of people who can't win a faction in any way, shape or form and so win a pathetic kind of solidarity by inventing a devil to hate.
So do you think that kind of feeling of Belonging that's generated in some people, for example, let's say feminists who stand at the borders and at the ports with refugees' welcome signs.
That kind of feeling of belonging trumps any rationality about what Islam is and, for example, how it treats women in Iran or the evidence of Evidence of Muslim opinions in the UK where a poll recently showed that 52% of Muslims were all for making homosexuality illegal.
And yet, people on the left will stand up and say we're pro-gay rights and we're women's rights.
This is something that I've also been interested to talk to you about because it baffles me as well.
As well as what the left are for, this kind of hypocrisy that must go along with some Cognitive dissonance, and there's hundreds of people have noticed it, but it still seems to persist.
Right, right. Well, this is back to the old objectivist distinction, right?
So there are what she calls social metaphysicians.
Maybe you're aware of it or not.
I'll just touch on it briefly here.
But the social metaphysician is someone who doesn't say what is true.
He says, what do people think is true?
He doesn't ask what is good, he asks what is popular.
He doesn't exist in relation to reality.
He exists in relationship to the minds of others.
And he has devoted himself to cultivating a good regard from the minds of others in a way that a farmer cultivates essential crops to survive through the winter.
And the social metaphysician, metaphysics being the nature of reality, his reality is social, it's not real.
And so, when people think of Muslims, a lot of times, of course, you know, Islamophobia, which is kind of a made-up word, and nobody says Nazi-phobia, right?
I mean, just making up a word doesn't really mean anything.
No, I'm equating the two, but...
But they don't say, well, you know, Islam is around.
I guess I'd better go read the Hadiths, and I guess I'd better go read the Koran, and I guess I'd better go read the essential texts, and maybe I can go and look at some of the imams preaching online, and I can figure out what's going on.
They don't do that because they don't want to actually have access to any of the source materials or any of the facts involved in any belief system.
And it's true when you're looking at something like Islam for a lot of people.
And it's true, of course, to go back to your earlier point, when people are told that Lauren Southern...
And me, than I, that we are, you know, racist, Nazis, white supremacists, whatever, right?
Well, they don't actually go to any of our shows.
They don't actually go to any of our books.
They don't actually go to anything we've said.
This is your big clue as to whether somebody is being ridiculously maligned, is you hear people talking about these people, but you don't actually hear from the people themselves, right?
So there was a New Zealand...
TV show they sent, they flew over a couple of people to interview us and we put this interview Online.
And then they went and produced a hit piece on us, right?
And it's clear that it's 18 minutes.
We get, I don't know, 20 or 30 seconds or maybe a minute of airtime.
I get like 20 or 30 seconds, maybe.
But the interview does for almost an hour.
And what they do is they don't introduce you like, here's what they say.
Here's their arguments, right?
They don't do any of that, right?
Here's what they've written. Here's what they've said.
No. What they do is they interview people who say, don't you think these are terrible people?
Or something like that. Or they put the scary music on.
Or they talk about us coming to town and then they show pictures of riots.
Like we're somehow responsible for the feral left or something like that.
Because blaming the victim is bad unless your victim happens to be not on the left.
But anyway. So instead of actually just dealing with what we've written and what we've said...
They talk to people about us and get other people's opinions about who we are, which is kind of crazy, right?
It's like being really, really hungry, but instead of making a meal or going to a restaurant, you ask other people to describe the meal you might have had, and then consider yourself full.
It's like, I've really got to exercise, so I'm going to pay someone to leaf through a copy of Men's Health magazine so that I can...
You know, it's like I had this, I put this app on my phone.
I haven't gotten around to doing much with it.
I put this app on, I don't know, like abs, something to do with like 30-day abs.
I was going to get around to it, but, you know, I got real busy over the last little while.
And sort of the joke is, you know, hey, man, I've had this app on my phone for 30 days.
Still don't have any abs, right?
Because it's not real, right?
It's just on my phone.
Yeah. And so they don't want to actually deal with anything that we've said.
They don't actually want to deal with anything that we've written.
They want to deal with other people's hysterically inflated paranoia about us, right?
What do you think of the evil racist white supremacist?
Right? Well, I think they're bad.
Well, look at that. We've just done investigative journalism.
It's pathetic, right?
I think one of the things that's been noticeable...
Here, I mean, I'm in New Zealand and just looking at the social media posts.
Obviously, we don't get it on the mainstream media.
But it seems to have created a bit of a backlash.
You know, the reaction, trying to stamp out you has almost created an equal and opposite backlash on the opposite side, where people are simply asking the very simple question, look, if you and Lauren were really just racist with such shallow arguments, why don't people like Phil Goff Or the leftist MPs or the media.
Just organize a debate.
It would be so easy just to shoot you down.
If all you want to do is pile up people who are from different cultures and burn them in a pile and that's your argument, well, that would be so easy to shoot down.
But obviously they don't.
So it can't be that.
They must realize that, well, there's something to your argument and therefore we've got to try and shut you down some other way.
I guess if I can just mention one other thing.
The local MP here is a Labour MP and she's a feminist.
I sent her an email asking about the banning of your speech and just in particular the accusation of hate speech and I asked her to give me a specific quote that either you or Lauren had made that she could divine as hate speech and obviously I've got no I've got no reply, and I don't expect to get a reply.
So, I mean, this is what you're up against, I guess.
If you have the mainstream media in control of the narrative, then it's kind of difficult to get your message out there to people who would be receptive but are neutral and maybe don't dig around on YouTube and social media so much.
Well, do you think that's true?
I mean, you could be right. You could be right, but I'm not sure that that's...
I'm not sure that that's true.
And I'll give you sort of an example, right?
So it was One News.
So One News published something August the 5th, I guess 10 days ago, called Fighting Talk.
You know, where's the line between free speech and hate speech?
Canadian far-right commentators Lauren Southern and Stefan Mullen, you have brought that controversial online message right to our doorstep.
And so on, right? Now...
This show, I guess it aired on TV, 17 minutes and 24 seconds long, has 20,486 views, I guess as of today, 7.31pm, August 15th, 2018.
20,000 views. Now I, just by the by, I had a quick look at the videos.
And the comments below the video, right?
And I scrolled, I don't know, maybe five or six pages down before I got kind of bored, but it's every single, every single comment was negative towards the media for this hit piece, right?
Every single comment.
So 20,486 people watched That video, which was, I guess, loosely based on real events, loosely based on an actual interview that we gave.
Now, the actual interview that we gave, I think, is well north of...
300, yeah. No, 285,000 views.
That's on YouTube.
And, you know, I'm going to assume an equivalent or somewhat more number of downloads, right?
So we got 20,000 and change versus close to 600,000.
20,000 and change for the hit piece close to 600,000 for...
The actual interview, which was shot on a cell phone with bad sound and so on, but which, you know, has interesting content.
Now, there's another interview that we did, which was an interview with a bearded fellow whose name escapes me at the moment.
So just sitting around a table with what sounded like Lawrence O'Donnell hammering going on in the background.
And that has well north of...
300,000 views just on YouTube, and again, an equivalent or greater number.
The interview that we did with Patrick Gower on News Hub It's well north of 300,000 views.
And they, I think, turned the comments off on that one.
That is not available in New Zealand for reasons that I think we can all pretty much understand.
Some of the analysis, right? If you look at Computing Forever, he's a great guy.
What we learned from Lauren and Stefan's Australia slash NZ tour, well north of 100,000.
So the...
Interesting question is, who is getting more views?
There's a fascinating question.
For a long time, I didn't do media interviews because the media was big and alternative media was small.
I think that's kind of changed to some degree now, right?
So now it's pretty clear that people see terrible stuff about us, lies about us from a variety.
I don't want to name anyone in particular for reasons I'm sure that will become clear over time.
But I see irreprehensible lies about myself in the mainstream media.
And then, if they have any curiosity, they then go and watch the actual interview where they find reasonable people having an intelligent discussion about complicated topics.
And they're not being hostility, they're not being racism or sexism or fascism or whatever nonsense people come up with.
And... You know, I think it's healthy for the mainstream media to have competition.
It's healthy for the mainstream media to recognize the limitations of where they are.
You know, like when Patrick Gower does a show after, I don't know, was it supposed to be some kind of gotcha?
Like, Steph, you believe that racers are inferior.
No, no, never said that.
Is it supposed to be some big gotcha?
Well, I guess they're, you know, are they lazy?
Have they never... Have they had a challenging debate?
Have they had this giant power to destroy people's lives so long that they no longer feel they have to prepare?
And Patrick Gower did say, you know, they kind of ran circles around me.
I'm paraphrasing, right? And then that changed over time or whatever.
But yeah, it's a very interesting phenomenon.
I think a lot of people are waking up to how bad the mainstream media is.
And they've done a wonderful job helping that message get across by telling such outrageous lies about us.
And then we publish the actual interviews.
And people not only get to hear reasonable philosophical arguments, but also get to see the gap between the interview and the hit piece.
Now, that's an astonishing thing.
And people actually, by a factor of 10 to 1, 20 to 1, 30 to 1, they prefer the long-form interview to the very expensive, highly edited hit piece.
That is very, very...
They prefer low-resolution, cell phone, bad sound hotel room interviews.
To professionally produced, very expensive interview programs.
And that, I think, is why we win in the long run.
Because the form is not that important.
The content matters.
Would you rather hear a bad singer with a fantastic amplification system, or would you rather hear a really great singer on a karaoke machine?
Well, I think we understand which one it is going to be.
And it's the quality of the voice that matters, not...
Yeah, I mean, I agree.
I mean, there's definitely been, you know, an awakening.
And I think a lot of people are rejecting the narrative of mainstream media.
I think what I'd like to see, I'd like to see evidence of that translating into the political process now.
In the last election, National Party, which are nominally conservative, although they're as conservative as the Tories in the UK, whatever that means, they got about 45% of the vote and Labour got 37%.
And now we end up with a Labour Prime Minister who was the, I don't know if many people know this who are listening, but Jacinda Ardern was the previous president of the International Union of Socialist Youth only about 10 years ago or so.
Yeah. So you can imagine what direction, political directions you might want to take the country into.
But I would really like to see, I will believe that people are waking up when there's a political party that grows in membership, which is pro-free speech, and can talk about these key issues, you know, of whether, particularly whether Islam is, and particularly Salafism, is compatible with a Western way of life.
And also, what are the limits of free speech?
And when you're actually allowed back into the country and you're properly protected, that might be a bit of a yardstick that I might use to say, right, okay, we've finally turned the corner.
There is a party here called the New Conservatives, and I get the impression that their membership has gone up a bit, or at least interest in them has gone up.
I kind of detect that on social media.
So every time that the media and politicians do try to stamp out free speech, And people like yourself, then it does create a backlash and it does create a reaction on the other side.
Yeah, I mean, how the hell do you even know if you still have rights, if no one's pushing the envelope?
Well, I said to a friend of mine, look, I was actually quite surprised, to be quite honest.
I mean, in the workplace, I've received emails from Colleagues who are feminists, which have accused me of having white, white, male, Anglo-Saxon privilege.
They've sent me email and I actually pointed out to the HR department that, look, I had to come to this place where I work to actually suffer real racism and bigotry and prejudice to this company that believes in so-called inclusiveness and diversity.
One of the most shocking things just in the workplace was there was a senior HR trainer came down from Auckland recently and she was talking about unconscious bias.
This was a presentation to do with unconscious bias.
Sorry to interrupt, but they say unconscious bias so they don't actually have to prove anything.
Unconscious bias has no validity to it in any psychological testing.
It's just a made-up term which says, I want to be able to accuse you of something without having to provide any proof.
Yeah. I guess to very quickly finish the story off, halfway through, she put a picture up of a board of directors from the UK from about the 1950s.
Mid-1960s maybe, and surprise, surprise, in a country which was probably about 90-95% white with traditional views on the family, the board was all white males over 35 years old.
And she pointed to it and said, look at that, that's pale, male and stale.
And I was kind of gobsmacked.
That is racist and sexist.
It just hit me straight away that this is the same as me standing up As a white male and saying there are too many young black females in this company.
Well, I would be... Well, no. How about you look at the NBA? Or how about you look at Section 8 housing?
Or how about you look at other areas where there would be an overabundance of blacks or engineering departments in Taiwan or something and say, wow, you know, and it just makes some racist statement.
It would be a terrible thing to do.
It would be a terrible thing to do.
Yeah, and so that kind of brought it home to me that while this has infected the young and businesses quite a lot, but then going to this protest site and seeing so many people so well organized with at least what they think is a consistent narrative and a speaker system and professional signs just made me realize that People who do believe in free speech and maybe politics which doesn't revolve around socialism and communism,
we've got a bit of an uphill climb.
Yes, but at least we have some crampons, right?
At least we have...
I mean, can you imagine how things would be going if there was not the internet, if there was not alternative media, if there was not the capacity to have conversations like this?
We would already be halfway, if not three-quarters of the way, to straight-up Venezuela.
Which makes your recent podcast a bit worrying to say that you got two strikes from YouTube because, you know, they're after you.
They've got Alex Jones, Alex McGinnis, they are Gavin McGinnis.
They're after you, surely.
Well, yeah, I mean, they're certainly not after me.
They're after the message and they're in the hopes of serving their political masters.
And, I mean, what can I say other than It would be terrible if they weren't.
Because it would mean I would be having no effect.
You know, there was something that I posted on Twitter the other day where I said, if you have never been shadow banned, you have to look in the mirror and say, what am I doing wrong?
It would be terrible if they weren't after me.
And after the...
You know, I... After, say, I humiliated the New Zealand media and some of the Australian media, well, no, I didn't.
They humiliated themselves by being ridiculously unprepared.
I mean, come on, people.
You're dealing with Lauren Southern, who is a very articulate and intelligent young woman.
You're dealing with me, who runs the biggest philosophy show in the world, and has just written a book called The Art of the Argument.
And you're just going to wander in with half facts and innuendo and think you're going to take me on?
I mean... That is an exercise in humility that people could really grow from.
Could really, really grow from.
I don't think they will, of course, because they just rather make up stories about what they could pretend happened than what actually happened.
But this lack of preparation, you know, that this is humiliating for people.
They are used to being the top dog, and then they realize that they are a big fish in a little pond.
And that is tough for people.
It's a wonderful opportunity for growth, but it is tough for people.
And so, yeah, there's going to be blowback from that kind of stuff.
The fact that so many views, so much interest, so much conversation has occurred as a result of Lauren and I visiting New Zealand and Australia.
Yeah, they don't like that.
The fact that we are good, decent, curious, interested, and reasonable people is very humiliating.
You know, when you... When you try to take people down and you end up enhancing their reputation, You can either look in the mirror and say, hey, maybe I'm the villain here.
Maybe I'm the bad guy here.
Maybe I'm serving particularly dark forces or powers.
Or you can just try and erase people from the internet, right?
I think we all know which way some people have a tendency to go.
And again, I have no idea what was behind all of this.
I assume it was some sort of mass flagging of videos in the hopes that something would get through and I don't imagine, given how quickly YouTube reversed under pressure, that there was much actual focus on the content of the shows.
But yeah, it would be a real shame in a sense if they weren't after me, after doing this for 12 years and having such a big and powerful reach around the world.
I would have to instruct them on how to have a good fight if they weren't after me.
Yeah, I guess what you're talking about there kind of conjures up parallels in my mind with what Cathy Newman tried to do with Jordan Peterson.
That she completely cut her own legs from under herself and ended up enhancing his reputation and his arguments.
It was just the strength of his argument that people I could see were posting below about.
Well, and the lack of, you know, when he had the gotcha moment, right?
When she says, who are you to cause discomfort, basically?
And he said, well, you're causing me discomfort at the moment.
Good for you, right? You're asking me tough questions.
And then you could see that stall.
Wait a minute, I just got to work that out, right?
And it's like, well, that's when you stop.
And that's when you think, and that's when you say, you know what?
That's a pretty obvious thing.
And what's amazing about that Kathy Newman moment, as also occurred in Lauren and I's conversation with the mainstream media, what's amazing about that is that nobody brought that up in the entire studio.
Nobody brought that up in the entire area.
Nobody brought that up.
In the newsroom, in the editorial board, in the producer's area, none of the cameramen.
Like, nobody brought up that obvious point, that obvious question.
And there were a couple of things in the Patrick Gower interview that I decided not to say, because, for a variety of reasons, I can get into another time.
One was, of course, you know, when he praised diversity.
You know, when we came into that studio, it was really wild.
We came into that studio...
Everybody's work had stopped and they were all standing up over their cubicles to watch Lauren and I walk like the devils are here.
They've come to life. They're walking with their flat, wet, stony, smoky footprints through our hallowed home.
It was really wild.
That's a pretty wild situation to be in.
And, you know, one of the questions you could ask if somebody who praises diversity is you could pause and you could ask everyone who's around working the cameras and, you know, we got quite a circle of people who actually seemed to be enjoying what we were doing and say, oh, well, how many people here think that we should have the right to speak, right?
And if it's into diversity, then at least 50%, and in some of the surveys, it was 70 to 80% of the noble Kiwis said that we should have the right to speak and say, oh, okay, how many of you think that we should have the right to speak or should have had the right to speak?
And of course, nobody would put their hands up because they're terrified of getting fired.
It's like, okay, well, where's your diversity then?
You claim to value diversity.
Diversity is a strength. Every single one of the people who work here have exactly the same opinions.
Or they have different opinions, but they're terrified to talk about them.
But why should they be terrified to talk about different opinions if diversity is a strength?
You should be welcoming and embracing these different opinions.
But of course, diversity is not a strength.
Diversity is a weapon to be used against people with integrity.
The other thing that I was going to say at the very end, but I didn't because I thought it was a bit of a cheap shot, was to say, are you standing in for someone, like just out of curiosity, is this your regular job?
Do you actually like host a children's show or something?
Because I don't really get what's going on here.
But I thought that might be a bit of a cheap shot, even though that thought had crossed my mind.
But anyway. Yeah, there were some polls, weren't there, that showed that About 85% of people said that, first of all, you were let into the country, but you should be allowed to speak.
You should have simply been allowed to speak.
I mean, it's also something that's become very astounding to me over the last 10 years, how simple messages like reasonable opinions need to be heard and need to be bounced around in the marketplace of ideas.
In order to test whether they're good for society.
I seem to be in a society now where we have a good proportion of people who don't seem to think that's a good idea.
Arguments which are just full of legal speak.
It's not as if you're saying things which are illegal.
These are just ideas that need to be tested.
People don't want to do that.
They don't want to test all the ideas which are available for people to discuss.
It's kind of worrying. How is society ever going to advance if we can't basically test all the ideas and discuss them and decide which ones are best and throw the bad ones away and keep the good ones?
Well, of course, the left is the new aristocracy.
And they've had so much power for so long that they've become weak and lazy and ineffective at argumentation.
Yet they still want the effects of winning an argument, which is the allegiance of the people.
And so... What do they do?
Well, they shut down opposing voices because they can't compete.
And that's kind of inevitable.
And it was really, to me, kind of funny with the New Zealand media and other places as well.
They kept talking about, well, the market has spoken.
You know, the guy didn't want to host you, even though we had an agreement and we paid him.
The guy didn't want to host you.
The market has spoken. And meanwhile, we were traipsed from one taxpayer-subsidized studio to another.
It's like, you guys really seem to like the market when it shuts down people you can't beat in a debate, even if that was the real market, which it's not.
But don't seem to be such a big fan of the market when it comes to people voluntarily paying for what it is that you produce.
No, no, no. Then you run to the government and demand taxpayer money at the point of a gun.
Yeah, you're all about the market.
I get it. Yeah, it did irk me, I have to say, when Phil Goff, who actually spurred me into working out just how much of my salary I give to compulsory taxes and things like GSD and fuel tax, etc. And it turns out to be about 35, 36, 37% of the money that I earn goes in taxes.
And so Phil Goff, the mayor of Auckland, has simply said that he thinks he's in charge of publicly-owned buildings, which I pay for.
I would like you to come and speak to me.
Just speak to me. I would like to speak to you in a publicly-owned building that I pay for.
And he set himself up as some kind of emperor figure.
To say that, well, he's in control.
It just annoys the hell out of me.
And I think a lot of people, you know, when it's okay to demand to take my taxes off me and under threat of prison if I don't pay them, and then tell me who I can and who I cannot speak to in a legal manner.
Well, it's funny, too, because one of the interviewers was asking me, you know, like, An island erupts in the ocean, and water comes out, and who should be in control of that water, right?
Now, he, of course, expected me to say, well, the government should be in control of that water, so it's available to everyone.
But, of course, Phil Garth had banned Lauren and I from speaking from council venues that he didn't pay for, but he just has political control over.
So, of course, I said I want it to be privately owned so that more people can get access to it.
Because, yeah, once the government controls something...
They then can say to you whether you get it or not.
And the people who are forced to pay for it no longer have any control over it.
It just becomes another political pawn to be used to reward your friends and punish your enemies, the usual garbage.
Yeah, the acid test for me will be, you know, just does this translate to him and the Labour government, our prime minister, who has quite clearly said that She said that she speaks for all New Zealanders and that we reject your message.
Well, she doesn't speak.
She doesn't speak for at least one other New Zealander.
No, she got like a third of the vote, right?
She got, I've got it down here, 37% of the vote.
Yeah, and how much of the vote did she get by promising people free stuff?
That's not earning the vote, that's just buying the vote.
Yeah, we know. We know how many people thought that her policies would be wonderful for New Zealand as a whole rather than, wait, she's going to give me free stuff.
Sounds great. Yeah, probably lots.
But I wouldn't... So there you go.
I mean, Labour, I've got it down here, 36.9% of the vote about a year ago, September 2017.
So, I mean, I wonder if they would have done that so close to another election or whether people will forget this.
But we need to keep this with us and we need to keep hammering home this message that if you want free speech, if you value free speech rather than free stuff, I suppose, what do you want?
Do you want free speech or free stuff?
Because you can't have both. Well, let me ask you this.
When is the next big election in New Zealand?
Yeah, I think they're every...
Actually, I think they're every four years.
So it will be 2021, something like that.
So quite a few years away.
I'm sure I'll be back before then.
That would be great to see you back then.
It will be. And I think that they'll have a tough time pulling the same crap twice.
Because I think enough people will have actually looked at what Lauren...
And I have written and said, and it'll be a little bit tough to pull the same old nonsense that they did this time.
Yeah, well, you might have also seen sort of leading on from that.
Very shortly afterwards, Don Brash, who's a former finance minister here and leader of the nationals.
He was the leader of the opposition, not leader of the Nazi Party of New Zealand.
He was the leader of the opposition, the nationals.
He was banned from speaking at Massey University by the Vice-Chancellor there.
Anyone who thinks, well, they're just going to keep out the imaginary Nazis is deluding themselves.
Lauren and I are a test case, just as Alex Jones is a test case to see what they can get away with.
And there is this constant tension, of course, in the world, in world history, and it's going on particularly in the current world, between those people who want to be left alone and those people who just won't leave them alone.
And the people who want to be left alone want to get along with their careers and raising their families and watching a movie or two.
And I get that.
And I sympathize with that.
But they're not going to stop leaving you alone, people.
They're not going to stop leaving you alone.
They're going to keep coming and coming and coming and coming.
It's like somebody with OCD saying, oh, they're going to stop washing their hands any moment now.
It's like, nope. Every time they wash their hands, they are reinforcing their OCD tendencies.
So that is...
What's going to happen? And I'm sorry, you're going to have to be busy for a little while.
You're going to have to have difficult conversations.
You're going to have to take time off from watching movies.
You're going to have to take time off from video games.
You're going to have to start pushing back against everyone who wants to control everything that you're doing.
And if you don't do that, they'll win, you'll lose, and then you won't have any toys to play with anymore.
Yeah, well, when I flew back the next morning, Sunday morning after staying over, In Auckland after you've been banned.
I have to say, I was pretty downhearted and pessimistic, but just how much do you think this has been a good thing?
It's like, peeled the scab off the wound and now we can see just how bad things are and just how repressive things are.
Oh yeah, culturally, in particular for New Zealand.
This has been one of the greatest things to happen to New Zealand culture in recent memory, maybe even since the big liberalizations of the 80s and so on.
But no, this is absolutely essential.
What a wonderful service we have provided to New Zealand and Australia.
What a wonderful service we have provided.
Because you need people to come and exercise their right to free speech who aren't just saying, oh look it's raining or saying jokes about airplane food or making bland speeches about the value of diversity and the the treasure of multiculturalism and and how wonderful helping people is and how it's really nice to help the poor and it's really great when the sick get get health care and you know like the the usual bland unthinking feel-good bullshit garbage that people say well that's what we need free speech for is like no saying popular empty stupid stuff It has nothing to do with free speech.
Free speech is when you're saying things that people don't want to hear or are uncomfortable hearing.
You know, there's not a whole lot of...
Even in North Korea, you probably can't get arrested for saying that two and two make four or that it's raining out when it is in fact raining out.
It's when... People say things you don't want to hear, that's when you need free speech.
So what a wonderful thing we've been able to do to Australia and to New Zealand, which is to say, we came, we wanted to give free speech, there was violence, there was suppression, there was deplatforming, there was political opposition.
So now you know the lay of the land.
Now you know where your government is with regards to your rights.
And you can either damn well do something about it, or you can cuck down and give it all up.
But at least that choice is clear now, probably for the first time in quite some time.
Yeah, I think.
I now, after my initial despondency, do think that it could end up being a net good.
I think people respond, a lot of people respond to very simple choices, simple messages like, do you want free speech or free stuff?
Choose. And also, we'd heard that the mainstream media in Australia and New Zealand That they had been debating how to cover Lauren and I for months.
Well, weeks. Sorry, weeks, probably, because it wasn't months, really, since we had decided.
But for a long time, they were debating, do we even give them any coverage?
How do we cover them? What do we say?
What do we do, right? And you can see the products of what they did.
You can see the products of all this deliberation, which was, okay, we're not going to research anything that they actually say.
We're going to write a bunch of nonsense.
We're going to write a bunch of falsehoods.
We're going to interview people and prime them to hate on these people, and we're going to give them no voice of their own.
This was not a random thing that just we burst through the wall like Mr.
Kool-Aid in a jug, you know?
We didn't burst through the wall.
They had lots of time to prepare, months to prepare, and intensive conversations, what to do about us, for weeks.
And this was what they came up with.
I mean, Patrick Gower said that he was unprepared.
Dude, why are you unprepared?
What, are you crazy? This has been the biggest story in New Zealand for weeks, and you're completely unprepared to have a conversation with us?
I don't know. I mean, it's just, I mean, it's silly.
I wouldn't be here talking to you about this and be able to say to anyone who's in New Zealand listening to this, look, if you support free speech, and we know where our Prime Minister sits, don't vote Labour again.
It's up to you guys who are listening in New Zealand.
You know, the mask is off, the message is clear.
You know, if you If you want a full and free debate and want to be able to speak your mind about things that you care about, don't vote Labour again.
Don't vote for this Prime Minister again.
Oh, this is, I mean, come on. Labour supports a wide variety of groups that have no cultural, religious or historical interest in free speech.
In fact, they tend to hate it. So they're very clear.
I mean, I'm glad that we made it even more clear.
But the left is, they've aligned themselves with cultures and religions that have no...
Interest in free speech and generally oppose it vociferously, right?
And so, yeah, it shouldn't be that complicated to figure out whether the left is into free speech or not.
Just look at who they support. Well, there was a Muslim woman in one of the TV broadcasts saying something like, this will not be allowed.
And it's like, I'm sorry, you're kind of making the point for me.
Oh, I'm kind of glad that you are.
All right. Well, I'm going to move on to the next caller, but I really, really do appreciate the call.
And just wanted to say...
Everyone I met personally, well, everyone not in the mainstream media who I met personally, except for one protester, I guess, were great.
And so I really did enjoy my time in New Zealand, however short it may have been and unsatisfying as far as giving a speech goes.
I hope you make it back one day, Esther.
I hope you make it back, and thanks for giving me the time to...
Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, no, listen, I really had one more speech in me, and I really wanted to give it.
I don't know if you've ever had this thing where you're having a really great cup of coffee, and you think you have more, you pick it up, and it's already empty, and you're like, oh, man.
Well, that's what it was like for me, not being able to give that final speech.
I really wanted to, because there wasn't much about indigenous populations in there.
But I really wanted to give that final speech, and...
Being cock-blocked from a good speaking gig is physically painful for me.
So I'm sure I'll be back to talk more, and I'm sure that people will be more receptive and curious.
All right. Thanks, man. I appreciate the call.
Let's move on to the next caller. Thanks, Stefan.
Bye-bye. Alright, up next we have Samuel.
He wrote in and said, It seems to me that going back to using a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations to replace a centralized state not only would decentralize power, but could also create a government that does not violate the non-aggression principle, as all parties must agree to a contract beforehand.
What are your thoughts on a system like this?
That's from Samuel. Hey Samuel, how you doing?
Oh, hi, Sam. It's an honor, by the way.
Oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
So, a little curious. A government that does not violate the non-aggression principle.
So basically, this is what I saw.
There's a big scaling problem within government right now.
For example, right now we have a government with around 10 million, 100 million people, in which case the government has so much power that they can force basically individuals to do anything.
However, let's change the situation into a government with only 10 people in it.
In this case, you can't exactly actually force anyone to do anything with coercion, because if you do that, That guy will probably bring a few friends into it and resist you.
And then the rest of your population isn't exactly going to be willing to fight for you and then you will lose.
So if your population is very, very small, the number of subjects you have, you don't exactly have the power to violate the non-aggression principle.
No, no, no, hang on though, sorry. I guess it's a definition thing for me.
The government is the agency that can violate the non-aggression principle because the government is funded through taxation, right?
So taxation is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
So when you say you can have a government that doesn't violate the non-aggression principle, it seems to me that you're arguing for a square circle or a self-detonating proposition.
In other words, you're saying, I have an agency that is defined by its right to violate the non-aggression principle, but somehow it's not going to violate the non-aggression principle.
Basically, what I'm saying is this.
So let's say you have a very small government.
However, you can leave it.
So basically, you can either say that you would like to pay taxes and be a part of this government, or you can choose to be a free man or a merchant, something that is outside of the feudal system.
No, but see, if you can choose to leave the government, then why wouldn't you just call it a private company?
Well, I guess so.
Because in a feudal society, the lowest vessels are pretty much private companies.
What they are trying to do is that they are hiring serfs in order to serve the land, and then they keep some of the income for themselves.
So I guess that would be true, yeah.
Yeah, because the government initiates the use of force to take care of taxes, and the government initiates the use of force to prevent competition.
And so if you say, well, I'm going to have a government that doesn't use tax money and doesn't use force to eliminate competition, then you're just talking about a private company, and I think it's less confusing and more accurate if you just talk about private companies.
And for those who want to know more, Welcome, all my new friends.
For those who want to know more about that, I've got two free books at freedomainradio.com.
One is called Practical Anarchy.
The other one is called Everyday Anarchy, which you can start with Everyday Anarchy.
It's more of a gentle introduction. But Practical Anarchy is how society self-organizes in the absence of Sorry about that.
No, no problem at all. Thanks, man.
Bye. Because what I'm saying about government isn't exactly being a government in the traditional sense.
But rather, I'm talking about just a...
Well, I guess I should really just establish the word government and just say a liege lord.
Yeah, okay. So social cues not working too well here.
Okay. So...
But saying that if you say rape is lovemaking, and I say, well, no, it's not.
Rape is unwanted and coerced sexual behavior, and lovemaking is not.
And you say, well, it's not rape in the traditional sense.
You've not solved the problem. So again, I'm going to just tell you, I'm going to end the conversation here.
Go have a look at those books.
Get the definitions that are consistent, and come back, and we'll have more of that conversation.
But just saying, well, it's not government in the traditional sense doesn't solve the contradiction of saying that it's a government that doesn't violate the non-aggression principle, because it does.
By definition, it's like saying, free and voluntary slavery.
It's like, no, no, it can't work that way.
Alright, but thanks for the call, and let's move on.
Alright, well up next we have Anna.
She wrote in and said, I am dating someone from a different culture and religious perspective and believe he can be a good life partner.
We're both looking to settle down, and I already met his mother.
My family, however, do not approve of him, given the cultural and religious differences, and they are concerned about his past.
I think they think I'm naive, and I am making a wrong choice.
I wanted to talk about this with Stefan and get his perspective to see whether I am missing something in my approach.
That's from Anna. Hello, Anna.
How are you doing? I'm good, Stefan.
Very excited to talk with you.
Oh, good. Good. Now...
What are we talking about in terms of these differences?
Well, the religious difference is really, we are both Muslims, but he is from a Sunni background, and I'm from a Shia background.
Right. And as you may already know, there are a lot of conversations and contracts between these two, and so that's a big concept for my parents, sorry, my mom and my brother.
And the other thing is that he is born in Afghanistan, and I'm born in Iran.
So that's another concern that they have.
Right. Now, you said that...
What are your parents' view of this relationship?
Well, I live...
I don't have my dad at all.
They got divorced when I was six years old.
My mom is quite concerned from the cultural perspective.
She thinks that two different cultures may not get along.
She also is concerned from the religious perspective, and she has very strong...
And so she really wants to date someone who is from the same religion.
And she also thinks that, you know, because he has been in US and Afghanistan and now in Canada, it's very hard to figure out what his past, what he has done, what kind of, you know, personality he really has.
And there's no way to figure out what his background is.
So that's my mom's perspective.
Right. And what is it that you find attractive about the men?
I guess in the beginning, we had a lot of conversation online.
It was a dating website. Sorry, your microphone is a little fuzzy.
If you could just get a little bit closer and speak a little slower, that would be very helpful.
Sure, I'm sorry. No, no problem.
Is it any better? Yes, thank you.
Okay, great. So, we just talked in the beginning and my biggest concern was the actual religion conversation because There are a lot of people who identify themselves as a certain religion, but they have very different perspectives one compared to another.
I was not looking for a religious person.
I was looking for someone who just believes in the basic and someone who accepts my religion but doesn't necessarily want me to practice anything specific.
So I spoke with him a lot of times online and then we moved to the phone and he seemed to be a very wise man and that's how we ended up starting to see each other.
And how would you describe how you learned about his wisdom?
How would you know that he's wise?
Well, I guess a lot of it was because I asked him about, you know, specifically his visions for life, what he thinks is of value, what he wants to do in the future.
I used to listen to Dr.
Peterson quite a lot and a lot of things that he mentioned.
We're the things that Dr.
Peterson considers someone who is virtuous, who would have those kind of perspectives.
And also I asked him about his future plans for family and children and what he wants to do in life.
And I just felt that we have very close connection regarding our belief system, our values and our future plans.
How does it work in terms of raising children, the challenges between Sunni versus Shia?
So we agreed that we're not going to really choose for them.
It's going to be their decision.
We will introduce them to both Islam and Christianity.
He has a very good perspective in Christianity because he has been raised around Christians.
And I also studied Bible myself, so we decided to just give them the choice, basically.
Right. Now, what if they choose agnosticism or atheism?
That's fine. My brother is atheism.
I personally don't have any problem With a specific religion, the only thing that was important for me was that I would not get limited on what I want to do and what I don't want to do because, you know, a lot of things in Islam, for example, for women, there are a lot of restrictions and I was not looking for those.
Right, right. Sorry, I don't mean to laugh because it's not that funny a subject, but let me just tell you I can completely understand where you're coming from.
No, I understand, yes.
So, what do you think of his mom?
I basically think she was nice.
She was very excited to see me.
We didn't meet for a very long time.
It was a 20-minute discussion.
She seemed to be someone who minds her own business.
And what she told me was that I really want my son to be happy, and if you can make him happy, I'm really happy that he found you.
His conversation with his family was very different from my conversation, because the person that I told my family, where is he from, what's religion, both my mom and my brother said no.
But his side of family mentioned that if she's a good girl and if she can make you happy, then we think you should go ahead and get to know her.
So his mom was very welcoming.
And how did you meet him to begin with?
It was an online dating website.
So we started to chat and then we decided to meet and then we continued to talk.
And was it a Muslim dating website?
No, no, no. I do not.
Oh, no! Like I just hit you with an electrical shock or something like that.
All right. Okay. Just checking.
Just because, I mean, I know there are, and I was just curious if that had...
No, one of the things that I really like about him was that in his profile, he had a lot of...
A lot of quotes from biblical stories, which I happened to be just attending from Dr.
Peterson's lectures.
And so that was one of the things that really attracted me to him because I realized that he's not an orthodox, absent-minded Muslim.
I'm not trying to offend any religion here, but you know what I mean.
Wait, an absent-minded Muslim?
Okay, stubborn Indian, I've heard.
There's a couple of other good at dance games, East Asian.
What is absent-minded Muslim?
That's new to me. This is how I define them.
These are the people who just on the surface follow a religion, but in reality they haven't really learned or practiced anything from the religion.
For example, someone who prays 24-7, but they don't mind harming others or shooting people in the street because they support the government.
So that to me is called an absent-minded person.
Well, all the ones who go for the interpretation from the later hadiths, that may be another way of putting it, but all right.
Now, you did say when contacting us that you had some time pressure for settling down and have a family?
Yes, I have a lot of time pressure.
Okay, so, I mean, you don't have to tell me your age, but I'm sort of going to put myself in the ballpark, like sort of late 20s, early 30s or whatever.
I'm 35 actually, sorry. I'm sorry?
I'm 35. 35.
What have you been doing with your time, young lady?
Well, the thing is, Stefan, I moved to Canada when I was 27 years old, and the first thing that I decided to do was to establish a career, go to school, and build a life here.
And my main focus was on those.
But why? Because the way that I was raised, I was always a provider.
My parents got divorced when I was six.
My brother was quite young.
My mom Struggled a lot regarding establishing her career and so I entered the job market quite early age and I was always one of the providers and so coming here, having to start over and having to support, I had a lot of pressure on me to make sure I still can provide.
But does your mother not have an income?
She did, but it wasn't enough for a family of three.
So I... I basically was supporting when we were back in Iran, and when we moved here, my mom was not able to enter the job market.
She still struggles with the language.
Oh, so she moved to Canada, but she doesn't speak any English and doesn't have job skills that translate too well.
Is that right? No, she started nursing back in Iran, but here she had to clear a few exams and take some courses.
She was not able to clear the exam, so she basically didn't enter the job market.
And was that because of language issues?
Yes, she has struggled a lot with English.
Why do you think that she has?
I'm not sure because I always thought of her as a very smart person.
I mean, she had a masters in Iran.
She always was someone who would read and study.
But here, it just didn't happen.
We really tried. We tried to send her to school, you know, talk with her, make her to watch TV, news, listen to different things.
It just didn't work. But how long did she know she was going to be moved?
How long before you guys moved to Canada did you plan to move to Canada?
We had a plan going on for a while, but after 9-11, our file has been postponed for a few years.
So from the time that we figured out we are coming here to the time that we actually arrived, it was a window of around four months.
No, no, but she knew that she wanted to come to Canada.
It had just stalled, right? So she did have years to study English or French.
She did, yeah.
And she didn't? No, no, she did not.
And is that because she was relying upon you to make her money for her, or was she just going to go on welfare, or what was the plan?
To be honest, I don't think she really had a plan, but I think I definitely had a part on this by enabling the fact that I'm there for you.
Therefore, you can study.
I'm there for you. Therefore, you don't have to worry.
I definitely think that was one of the reasons.
But how were you supposed to have a life If you're supporting your mom because she's not learning English or getting a job?
That's a very good question and I actually brought it to her a couple of years later because she kept telling me that you should start seeing men here, you should start dating and I kept telling her I'm literally living in a room and you're living in a different room and we are basically struggling to survive on a daily basis and my job is not the best job.
How How do you even want me to think about marriage at the time?
It's just not possible.
So instead of, I guess, being a help, she actually blamed me that you postponed your marriage, you didn't want to meet guys, it's all your fault, rather than maybe, I don't know, doing something, trying to provide or support so that I could actually think about guys.
Well, you did fill out an adverse childhood experience score, Hannah.
And you experienced verbal abuse and threats, no family love or support, neglect, not enough food, dirty clothes, no protection or medical treatment, and of course your parents divorced.
And what's the story around the neglect or the no family love or support?
What was that like? What happened?
After my parents got separated, me and my mom and my brother moved with my grandparents, which were my mom's parents.
And they provided a shelter for us and they provided the food as well because my mom literally just got divorced.
She didn't have a job at the time.
She decided to go back to school in order to gain skills and enter the job market.
But during that time, we were basically supported by my grandparents.
And the way that I guess the family setting was working was that from a very young age, I was supposed to work At home, I was supposed to make sure I help with, for example, dishes, I don't know, clean the stairs, whatever that you can imagine, every house job that could be there, I was doing it, and I was probably six years old at the time.
So anytime that I was not providing the standard, which was quite high, because my grandmother used to clean all the time, so she would always tell me, you're not doing enough, this is not good enough, you're not doing what you're supposed to do.
Every time that that would happen, then she would tell me, you know what, it was a mistake to bring you guys here.
I think you should go back and live with your dad.
And speaking about my dad, he was a psycho.
I have a very vivid memory of my childhood, and I remember him abusing my mom both verbally and physically.
So that was a very horrible imagination for me to be forced to go back.
What did he do?
I would always, you know, cry and try to do more and more and more.
No, no, what would he do to your mom?
Oh, he would...
Well, the argument was just a normal thing.
It was for every single possible subject matter.
He would not provide enough food.
He was supposed to be the provider, and my mom was a housewife.
I remember being hungry a lot of times as a child, and he would also physically abuse her, so I would actually...
In front of me, and maybe my brother, he probably doesn't remember much, but he would basically hit her, and I witnessed that.
Wow. Was this common in the community or the neighborhood, or was your father an outlier with regards to that?
Because, you know, there is the cliche of the Middle Eastern Muslim man with a pretty heavy hand, and there certainly are justifications for that in the Koran.
And was that unusual with regards to your father?
It might have been because there were other examples in my family who men happened to be very supportive and respected, you know, their wives.
So I guess he was an outlier.
Right, okay. Do you have any idea why your mother would have chosen such a violent man?
She outlined a few things and that's one of the reasons that I'm very concerned about my choice.
Yeah, that's why I'm asking, but so go on.
Exactly. I know you always tell men that, you know what, you're going to find someone as crazy as your mom.
Hey, Anna, be fair.
I don't always say that.
I'm just saying it's a risk.
There's a little bit of a repeat scratch on the record of history.
Oh, sorry, that's too old an analogy for most people these days.
But yeah, that's why we're talking about this, because if you can figure out your mom's choices, you're more likely to make better choices yourself, right?
Exactly, and that's one of my very concerns, that what if I'm making an exact choice as my mom did, which was a wrong choice.
Yeah, so why did she choose him?
I guess they fell in love.
That's what she told me. She told me that he was her teacher, chemistry teacher, and he wanted...
Oh no, so there was chemistry between them?
Oh! I'm sorry.
That's a terrible joke. I apologize.
Go on. Yeah, that's what she told me.
And when my grandparents met the family, they...
They told her, you know what, they are coming from a village, basically.
We have a very lavish life here.
You're not going to be able to adjust.
It's going to be very hard for you.
And they told him no a few times, but he persisted, and his family persisted, and my mom also was already in love, so she also persisted, and eventually they got married, and they had fights from the very Early days, but it was a shame to get divorced in the culture and also in the family.
Still not sure what she found so attractive about him, though.
Was he handsome? I would say he was okay, but I'm not actually sure, to be honest.
She never said anything good about him.
Have you seen pictures of him when he was younger?
Yes, I used to meet him.
He would come and visit us until I was 15, so I saw him.
Was he handsome then?
No. So handsome, not handsome, physical abuse, verbal abuse.
I'm not seeing it.
Like why she would marry him.
Yeah, that's something that it's very hard to have this conversation with her because she gets very emotional and she wants to talk about it and she always talks about...
Well, I gotta tell you, I'm kind of suspicious of that kind of emotion.
I'm too emotional to talk about it usually means I have something to hide.
Right. Right.
Yeah. All right.
All right. So, has she dated anyone else that you know of since your father?
Yes. She actually tried a couple of times, and there were some good cases, I guess, at the time, but most of them were not getting anywhere because they clearly mentioned that they only want her son, for example, or they only want her daughter, or they don't want any children.
If they want to marry her.
And so she basically gave up on the relationships.
Hmm. All right.
Now, here comes the part of the conversation where you might hang up.
Are you ready? Oh, yeah.
All right. So, Anna, what do you think the guy, the boyfriend, is going to think of your mom?
I don't think he will like her.
Right. Right. Now, what do you think your boyfriend is going to think about your mom putting you to work rather than learning English?
Definitely not liking that either.
What's he going to think of in the Middle Eastern tradition of, well, mom's getting older, it's time she came and lived with us?
Well, he thinks like that about his mom, and he told me that if you want to have your mom living with us, she's more than welcome.
So he made that very clear in the beginning because he believed in supporting the parents.
Okay, so you're going to have the two mother-in-laws living with you?
No, I'm definitely not planning on having my mom living with me.
I'm happy to support her if necessary, which I prefer not, but let's say no other option.
But I definitely don't want her to live with us because she does her own thing and she doesn't really...
She's not a flexible person and I assume there would be a lot of She's not a flexible person.
That's a very nice way to put it.
You sound like a very nice young lady, let me put it.
Perhaps too nice. But, you know, as a white person, who am I to talk?
Alright, so I guess my next question is...
Did your mother ever abuse you?
No. Exploit perhaps a little, but she didn't yell at you, call you names, or hit you?
Well, she did when I was a kid, but it happened a lot since I'm dating my boyfriend, basically, because she thinks that I'm disrespecting the religion by going for a different religion, and she even told me that, you know what, I... I just don't think you, because I take pride in not having any physical relationship in the past.
And so what she told me was that, oh, maybe you actually are not a virgin and that's why you're trying to go with someone from a different culture.
Which she refused to recognize in the future.
So when I told her later on, she said, no, I didn't do that.
I didn't mean anything.
I'm just your mother. Wait, I'm sorry. I got a little bit lost there.
So you said you've not had a physical relationship in the past.
And then your mom said something about you want...
Oh, you want another religion because she doesn't think you're a virgin?
Yeah. So she thinks that you're lying to her about keeping your virginity into your mid-30s.
Yeah. Yeah, it's very sad actually, but yeah.
And has she called you any derogatory or negative names as a result of these suspicions on her part?
We had quite a few arguments, but this was probably the most horrible thing that she said, which is a very horrible thing to say to someone, but that was the most horrible one.
Right. I guess I'm kind of curious, Anna, how she feels that she has any credibility telling you how to get a man when the man she got was a monster.
Yeah, that's true.
All right. And so your boyfriend's mom you said you liked, right?
Yeah. And do you know much about his childhood?
Yes, actually. He told me a lot of things.
So when he was a child, his father was a surgeon in Afghanistan and his mom was a teacher.
So his father gets killed by Taliban, which was at the time the war going on there.
And so his mom decides to send all the children to U.S. where they had a family member.
Because he was the eldest boy, he would have to go to military.
So she basically sent him over the first.
Oh, she would have to go to the military in Afghanistan.
And this is when the Taliban were in control of significant portions of the country, right?
So they just would draft young men to fight, right?
Exactly. So she was scared for his life, basically.
So she sent him over to the U.S. And then something happens with the exit from the country policy.
And so the other siblings end up coming very, very late.
So for around 20 years, he was living with his uncle, then his grandmother, and then he was living alone in the US before he moved to Canada, where his family eventually settled down.
And what did he end up becoming professionally?
He studied economics and international relations, and he ended up working in economy and finance.
Right. Oh, a son of a surgeon and a teacher, so he's going to be smart as a whip, I would assume, right?
He's very smart. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right. All right.
Does he have any siblings, your boyfriend?
Oh, sorry, you said that he has siblings who came over later, is that right?
Yeah. Okay, okay.
All right. Now, what's his dating history?
And how old is he? He's 43, so he's eight years older than me.
And he told me that he always had girlfriends and he had relationships.
But why did he never settle down?
I asked him that question and he mentioned because there were always people around him available and at the time that he was living alone he didn't really have a perspective of family around him and he was just with friends spending time and so he never really thought about settling down but once he moved to Canada started to live closer to the family and saw the family relationships he started to grow appreciation for that and that's when he decided to start a family.
Well, I guess my first question to him would be, did none of the girls you date want to settle down?
I mean, I assume he was dating some Muslim women, and from my understanding, Muslim women like the idea of settling down, you know, a little bit more so than the random, you know, Western women and so on, or Christian women.
So he says, well, he never really thought about settling down, but I wonder if any of the women he dated ever wanted to settle down.
And what happened with that?
Yes, so I had that question from him as well.
It's like we're of one mind here.
Anyway. I asked him a lot of questions, so that's why I have an answer for you.
So first of all, he dated a lot of Christians when he was at US. He never dated a Muslim when he was there.
Once he moved here in Canada, being surrounded by the family and the Muslim culture, he started to date Muslims.
Oh, no, no. See, according to theory, he should be assimilating and should date even more non-Muslims in Canada.
But anyway, go on. So he started dating Muslims.
And I guess at his age then, there would have been some significant pressure to settle down, right?
Apparently not. Because his brother just got married and his brother is like 40 years old.
Which is so weird to me, to be honest, because Being from Muslim culture myself, I know that guys are supposed to start a family.
The late is 32 years old, it's still considered late.
But apparently from his family, it's really not a thing.
All right.
And do you know when his last girlfriend was before?
I assume he's not dating anyone now other than you.
When was his last girlfriend before you?
So he was blind dating a girl back in August 2017 and they ended up dating for a couple of months and then they broke up.
And do you know why? She was married and she had a son and so apparently there were a lot of arguments because she had She was coming from an abusive relationship and she was very suspicious about whatever he was doing.
That's the story that he told me.
Wait, wait. He was dating a single mom from an abusive relationship?
Yes. So it was a family, like a very far family member who was introduced to him because she was going to settle down.
He was going to settle down.
So they said, you guys should meet.
So his family thinks that a single mom escaping an abusive relationship is a good fit for him.
I don't think they actually...
The family member who introduced them is like a cousin of the girl who happens to be a far, far cousin of his mom.
So there wasn't any actual conversation between the families.
But he happened to know this family member and this family member happened to know both the girl and him.
So it wasn't an official conversation with the family.
It was someone telling them, hey, you two want to date.
And they started to see each other.
That's what he told me.
That's a... Bit of a red flag there, right?
That he thinks that a single mom fleeing an abusive relationship is a good person to even go on a date with.
Oh, I'm not sure if you actually know she's coming from an abusive...
Well, I guess when you are divorced, there should be some kind of abuse anyways, but...
Well, you find that out pretty quickly, right?
You find out... Before you go on a date with someone, if there's anyone who knows anything about her, you're grilling that person so you don't waste your time, right?
Yes. All right. It's not the end of the world or anything, but it's just like...
Because he has a lot of experience not staying in relationships.
Do you know what his longest relationship was, Anna?
Two years. Two years.
And do you know why that one ended? Apparently, he moved to a different location because he owned his business at the time.
So he moved to a different location and they were not able to keep in touch because the girl was coming from a very big family.
He has a big family.
And eventually they started to argue that why they can't spend time with each other.
And I'm not pretty sure what actually triggered the breakup, but I know that, as you mentioned, the girl actually settled down after a few months of breaking up with him.
But I'm not... Well, I mean, why wouldn't they get married?
I mean, so do you know how old he was when he was in the two-year relationship?
It was in Canada, so I'm guessing it was probably, he was in 36 years old, something like that.
36? Do you know how old the woman was?
No, I didn't know that.
But we can assume not wildly off in terms of age, right?
Yeah. Yeah, so my question is, if you're in your mid-30s, why are you dating a woman for two years without getting married?
Like, what are you doing?
I mean, everyone knows time's ticking on, right?
You know this. You feel this quite strongly, and I understand why.
But why would you be dating someone for a couple of years without figuring out whether you wanted to get married?
Because if he'd been married and he had to move, then she goes with him, right?
Right. And if she had to move and it was more convenient for him to leave, then he would go with her.
That when you're married, these questions aren't That complicated, right?
But when you're not married, then these questions are very complicated, because what do you do, right?
So I guess the question is, why would he get involved in his mid-30s with a woman for a couple of years without getting married?
Because he said that it wasn't until he came to Canada that he started thinking about family.
But he was in Canada dating a woman, we assume in her mid-30s, for two years without getting married to her.
Right. So, again, these aren't deal breakers to me, but these are just, I would really, really want lots of answers for these kinds of questions, right?
Because it doesn't seem like you're going to get any good advice from your mom.
I'm definitely not.
So, Stefan, can I ask you, what do you think would be the right, like, if he answers, let's say, whatever, how do I determine this is the right answer or this makes sense based on asking him about why you didn't marry the girl in your mid-30s?
Like, what should be the right answer to that?
Well, it's kind of a trick question, because I'm not sure there is one.
Because he could say, well, you know, it was just, it wasn't that serious a relationship, but that's kind of cold-hearted.
Like, you don't date a woman in her mid-30s if you're not seriously intending something or other, because you're just wasting her fertility window.
It's very cruel, right?
Or he could say, she was crazy, in which case, why are you with her for two years?
Or you could say, I was crazy, in which case that's a red...
Like, there isn't really a good answer.
Right. You know, other than maybe we were both abducted by space aliens and something put on a farm to breed, but it didn't work out or I don't know what, right?
But well, that may be another red flag.
Red flag on a red planet.
So these are just concerns.
They're not, to me, deal breakers, you know, like, I mean, but these are things that I would want to know about someone because, and I'm sorry if you said this, but how long have you been dating her?
Him, sorry, him. It's almost six months now.
Almost six months. And ideally, when would you like to settle down and have kids?
I mean, soon, I guess, right?
Definitely sooner than later.
But we spoke about the timeline because I had a clear idea of what I want to do.
And he did as well.
So my mom is coming to Canada in around two months.
He wants to visit my mom, get the permission.
He likes to have the ceremony going on.
No later than December.
And then he wants to buy a house and be moving on like January, February.
So that's when we start living together and I'm guessing maybe a year after that would be the children.
I would think sooner. I don't mind that.
No, no, I'm just, you know, you need to look this up.
I mean, it does get progressively more risky as you get into your late 30s.
And especially if you want more, more than one.
I'm concerned for that as well.
Sure, sure. Now, your mom is coming to visit from where to?
I'm sorry, I lost the geography of where your mom's at.
I'm sorry, she's in Iran now.
She went to visit and she's coming back.
Right. Now, if you get busy making babies, my friend, who's paying for your mom?
Don't get into my tax wallet, please.
No, no. We had a lot of conversations about that.
She can't manage her life well in Iran, but she can't here.
So her plan that she told me is that she will go back and she will stay there.
So she basically comes here to visit us from time to time, but she doesn't I have plans to stay because she can't work here.
Well, unless she learns English.
Which is unlikely. From knowing her, I don't think she...
That's such a shame, you know. I would learn Klingon if it meant I could spend more time with my daughter.
But anyway, that's just me, perhaps.
So, let me tell you about the pluses, which I'm sure you already know.
This is just as I see them, right?
I mean, this is not anything...
Conclusive, this is just the pluses as I see them.
So, I'm not going to say, well, you're both Muslim, because that's one big blob, right?
And Sunni versus Shia is, you know, considerable, and if I remember Iran and Iraq, important.
But the fact that you are both willing to let your children think their way through to their own conclusions, and the fact that you both agree with that, to me, is admirable.
And it's actually something that's interesting, because...
Years ago, I was dating a woman.
No, no, see, that's the thing.
I wasn't actually dating. We hung out.
We hung out. And we were kind of trying to figure...
We liked each other, and we were trying to figure out sort of if there was any compatibility between my strong atheism and her Christianity.
And we did talk about kids, and I said I would not raise my children religious, but if my children, after being exposed to religion as they got older, wished to become religious, I certainly would...
Would accept that, right? Because you have to accept your kids.
You're raising them.
So she wasn't able to get there.
She wasn't able to make that...
To cross that bridge. She wasn't able to make that commitment.
She was like, no, no, no. You would sleep in.
She said, my father is an atheist.
My father sleeps in. My mom takes the kids to church.
And you could sleep in on Sundays.
I would take the kids to church.
And that would be fine. Which I thought was interesting.
But anyway. So the fact that you're both willing to say, let your kids grow up and choose what they want.
Obviously, you know, as babies to toddlers, you would have my podcast playing 24-7 on their crib monitors.
I mean, obviously. I mean, that probably scarcely even needs to be said.
But I think that's a great plus.
The fact that you have, I don't want to say, it's not like similar cultural backgrounds, because I know that Iran and Afghanistan are far from the same country.
But to me, it's sort of like Poland and England, if this makes any sense.
There's still quite a bit in common relative to, say, Poland and Syria, if that makes any sense.
I mean, is that even a reasonable way to put it, that there is some similarity of background that is easier to bridge than something that would be really different?
Yes, for sure. The fact that he is willing and ready to settle down and seems to be in a timeline where that can happen sooner rather than later, I think is definitely a plus.
And given – look, I hate to say this because this makes it sound like beggars can't be choosers and I have pride regarding that, you have pride regarding that, so I'm not trying to put it that way.
But – You know how when you're 20, you can reasonably wait for a better opportunity?
But when you're 35, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, if that makes any sense?
It does. That's one of the reasons that I really want to make sure if it's going to work out, I'm going forward with it.
If it's the wrong decision, then I have to leave and find the next opportunity because I just can't afford to waste time.
Well, and finding somebody with...
I mean, you know, this is one of the great problems.
Of migration, which I'm sure you're aware of, but I'm just going to mention this to the audience.
And I remember having a girlfriend talking about this.
Her family had come from pretty far away to Canada.
You know, if you're growing up in the same town in Greece or in Afghanistan or in Iran, you have so many similar values.
You know, the pluses and minuses of all of that.
You have so many similar values that there's just a big, wide swath of people to choose from, right?
Right. But if you're like, well, I lived here, and then I lived here, and then I was exposed to this, and then I was exposed to that culture, and then I learned this language, and it's like you've become whittled down to such a unique individual that finding someone else with prefabricated compatibility is almost impossible.
And that's one of the big challenges of migration.
And I noticed this even a relatively short distance just coming from England to Canada in 1977.
There was a difference.
There was a big difference.
And the distance...
Of coming from England to Canada is tiny compared to the distance from Iran to Canada or Afghanistan to Canada.
And so as far as where you are in life, where he's at in life, look, he doesn't want to get that much older.
I'm telling you that. I mean, there's this weird thing, you know, like this Zorba the Greek thing.
Men can become fathers at any age.
It's like, not really.
No, no. Your knees give out.
Like, I'm sorry, like, even now, you know, my daughter is like jumping from the eighth step.
She's like, why don't you jump, Dad?
It's like, because I could do that but once in my life at this point, because, you know, my knees, even now, like, I'm tying my shoe, I get up, I go, ugh.
I didn't used to make that sound before.
I think that's me. I don't know if it's my back or whatever, but you don't want to be the guy who's becoming a dad when he's 50 or 60.
I mean, some people do it, Steve Martin and all, but You know, Anthony Quinn did it, I think, in his 70s or something.
But I don't think that's particularly fair.
Kids need their roughhousing.
Kids need their play.
You want to be able to join in with them at the playground and so on.
And, you know, I even noticed this and went on tour with Lauren Southern.
Like, we went to a couple of playgrounds with my daughter.
And I'm like, Lauren Southern is, you know, very young and very fit and all of that.
And, you know, she's climbing all over and doing great stuff.
And I'm like, I'm keeping up.
But I'm telling you, I'm not keeping up.
Very easily. And I'm a pretty fit guy and all that.
So, you know, for him too, there's time pressure if he wants to be an involved and engaged and fit and healthy father.
So, you're not the only one who's under the time pressure.
I mean, and also, you know, a male sperm does decline in quality over time.
And it's important not to have some dino juice going into your wife's love canal or whatever.
So... I would say that given all of the complications and given all of the challenges, I gotta tell you, I think it's a pretty cautious thumbs up.
Cautious meaning not like, you gotta be scared, but it's like, based upon the information that you've given me, you're like his mom, your mom's not around much, and I think that's actually gonna be for the betterment of your relationship, because When people without a lot of self-knowledge, and, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, Anna, but it doesn't sound like your mom has an excess of self-knowledge.
But when people don't have self-knowledge in your life, they tend to be kind of chaotic and somewhat sabotagey, even despite their best or proclaimed intentions.
And if your mom had a terrible marriage, like a biblically terrible marriage, and if you have a good marriage, your mom may end up sabotaging it.
Not because she's mean, but just that's the way things work when you don't have self-knowledge.
So, now, is he comfortable with you staying home with the kids?
Yes, that was actually one of the very first discussions.
I have a very good job here, I'm a professional, and I went to graduate school, so I had a big debt.
So I told him, it was the very first day, I told him, this is my debt, I'm working to pay it off.
But once it's paid, and I have children, I'm not planning on working, I want to stay around.
Maybe I'll get back to job market, maybe not, but that's not the plan at work now.
And he mentioned that, you know, when we live together, I have an income so we can focus on paying debt faster.
And I actually appreciate to have women being at home around children because I had to get separated from my mom in a very young age.
So I understand the importance of having the mother around.
So we already have that in agreement.
Good. Well, that's good. And, you know, if he listens to this, and I hope that he does, like he'll make more money and be more successful with you organizing the home.
Everyone's like, well, you know, you got to have the man, you got to have the husband and the wife working, the mom and the dad working because it's like, no, no, no, you get a well-run household.
His career can take off in ways that can scarcely be imagined by people when both the mom and the dad are working.
So it's not some big sacrifice.
Well, you stay home and therefore our income is cut in half.
It's like, no, it's not. First of all, you've got someone to take care of the kids.
You don't have to drive them everywhere and pay for daycare and have them exposed to heaven knows what kinds of trauma out there.
But also having a well-run household and having well-behaved and polite and respectful and happy children It's a wonderful thing for a man's career, you know?
I mean, you can really free your mind to pursue excellence in your career, and I think it is really one of these situations where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts, economically speaking.
I don't think he's going to end up sacrificing anything.
I think it could be For the better.
So, yeah, I'm not seeing anything where, to me at least, Anna, it's like, run screaming, this is disaster.
Now, again, please understand, I'm scarcely an expert on tensions between Sunni versus Shia in Canada from Afghanistan versus...
Like, that's way too complicated for me.
So, I can't really speak much to that.
But again, if you guys... Are willing to raise your children in a secular manner and let them choose for themselves, then those tensions should be much less.
Now, again, I don't know how much relatives are going to start lobbying for, you know, a lot of times you get a lot of leeway from relatives until you have kids, and then this religious stuff, you know, it comes in.
It's like, you got to do this, you got to do that.
But if you're both committed to keeping that at bay, then I'm sure that will be fine.
Yeah, you know, I would say...
Go for it! No, I would say that this seems like a reasonable and positive thing to keep exploring, if that helps.
Okay, that's actually a great advice.
I really appreciate your time.
You're welcome, you're welcome.
And please let me know how it goes.
And I will, of course, send you my meal choices for the wedding.
Mostly it's just half the cake.
But yeah, thanks very much for your call.
And do let me know how it goes.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thanks, Anna. Thanks, bye.
Okay, up next we have Lauren.
Lauren wrote in and said, I'm in a happy long-term relationship with a wonderful partner.
We have built a great life together and share life goals in common.
However, we diverge on the idea of marriage.
I feel that it's important to have a proper marriage in place to create security, but my partner feels strongly that legal marriage means that we are inviting the state into our relationship and that this would create a power imbalance in the relationship in my favor.
He prefers that we stay unmarried but committed as if we were married.
My father agrees with him and urges us not to get married.
Please help me puzzle this out and understand the philosophical implications so that my man and I can both get what we need.
That's from Lauren. Hey Lauren, how are you doing?
I'm very well. How are you, Steph?
I'm well, I'm well, I'm well.
Oh, I like that. We're on a first-syllable basis.
That's excellent. That's good.
You know, since we're talking about your life, that seems only fair.
Well, um...
How long have you guys been going out?
We are in our fourth year.
All right. And where are you in the life arc as a whole, like youth, middle age?
I'm 30 and he's 34.
Four years, okay.
And things going well? Yeah, yeah, things are wonderful.
He's everything that I could ask for in a partner.
Have you given him any reason to mistrust you?
Oh, that's a good question.
Ah, you know, every now and then I like to rip one out from time to time.
Because this is an expression of mistrust, right?
Forget the state. It's do you trust the woman?
Right, right. You know, I think we've had a couple of rough patches and I do have a temper.
I do have a temper.
I like the passive voice there.
You know, like you have a... I do have demonic possession that I can't possibly control.
It's like you get angry and you lash out, right?
Is that fair to say? Yeah, there have been a few times when we've had, you know, discord between us over something fairly minor that escalated.
I tend to want to push, push, push in conflict until we either settle it or...
Just have a total blowout.
Oh, so you get anxious when there's disagreement in the air that's not resolved.
Exactly. And you'd rather have a rather than a, right?
It'd go on and on, right?
That's right. Yeah. You're not the first woman I've ever heard that from.
Just wanted to let you know.
Don't want to make you feel less individualistic, but it's not uncommon.
Well, and I'm sure it'll be a total shock to you to hear that he prefers to step back In the face of conflict, take some space, cool down, think about it, do something else for a while, decompress, and then come back to it later.
Oh, wait, can I guess something here?
Sure. So he says, the reason I have to back away is because you get angry.
But you say, the reason I get angry is because you back away.
Something like that, yes.
Step towards the fire and the fire goes out.
So there is that. Yeah, you know, I mean, he apparently trusts me enough to talk about having children and starting a family and all of that.
So, you know, to me, if he's talking like that, then that's a huge commitment.
And that's not something that he would enter into lightly.
But the marriage thing is the hang-up.
And I think he's of the mind that we can raise a family and all of that without having a marriage in place.
Where do you guys live? Which country do you live in?
We're in the US. So has he not heard of common law?
Yeah, he has. He has.
Do you live in, you don't have to tell me the state, but do you live in a state where common law just kind of accrues to you like barnacles on the bottom of a ship?
Not exactly. It has to be declared.
Oh, okay. Okay. So you can stay boyfriend, girlfriend, orbit forever, right?
Right. Legally, right?
Right. And then if you break up, then you have no recourse to alimony, to child support.
Is that fair? Oh, no. Child support, I would assume, because he would be the biological father, right?
Right, right. But what about family court system alimony prior to kids if you break up?
Yeah, you know, I think in our state, it's a 50-50 state.
It's not super common that people get awarded alimony in this state.
People tend to just be given kind of what they had in the relationship when they entered, when they leave.
So I don't think that that...
Would necessarily come into play, even if we were married.
But, you know, I totally do understand his concerns.
Do you? Well, yes.
I'm gonna have to say, let's put that as a maybe at the moment, just based on what I've thought so far.
I could be completely wrong, but go ahead.
Okay. Well, and the reason I say that is that I watched my father get, like, brutally drug through the family court system.
Right. I am a child of divorce and so was my partner.
He saw a similar thing, although his parents' divorce was much more amicable than mine.
Well, it's still horrible though, right?
People say an amicable divorce, but it's still horrible because people, oh, I'm still friends with my ex.
It's like, well, why the hell aren't you married?
Like, oh, we get along so well.
It's all wonderful. It's like, then why the hell aren't you still married?
There always has to be something to pull...
To pull the pin on the grenade of a marriage is a very, very big deal.
And there's always acrimony and negativity and hostility involved, no matter how much people may wallpaper over it.
Because if everyone's getting along great, then why on earth would you blow up the family?
Right, right. Well, they clearly weren't getting along great.
But, you know, his parents' divorce wasn't nearly as terrible as mine was.
What happened with yours?
What happened with your parents?
Like, how bad did they get?
It was bad. My parents actually divorced when I was a year old.
My God, you must have been a difficult baby.
No, I'm just kidding. What did you do to your poor parents, Lauren?
Are we talking abuse allegations?
I mean, how bad did it get? No, my mother is a bit of a train wreck and she drug my father through hell and back.
And ultimately ended up getting something like 75% of his income for 18 years.
Yeah. How many kids does she have?
One. One?
Just you? She gets 75%?
Oh, he must have just given up.
He must have been just like, fine, take it.
I can't do this anymore. Yeah.
Knowing my mother, that's probably what happened.
And from the time I was, you know, Basically two years old, they didn't speak to each other anymore.
She's like, wow, can I get 75%?
I'll take 75% and I want three testicles from him.
And they're like, he only has two.
No! Find another one!
Bring me the third.
Oh man, that's rough. Yeah, yeah.
She economically crippled him for almost two decades.
And what happened with her life?
After the divorce? Well, just as a whole.
I mean, that's... Pretty horrible.
I always think that there's some kind of, you know, karma, blowback.
Like, I can't imagine you do something like that for so long to the former love of your life, to the father of your daughter, and just skate away scot-free, psychologically.
Right, right. She's not a very good person.
I can say that.
She's... She's always looking for handouts.
She's always looking for someone to take care of her, save her, provide for her.
She's, you know, really good at using charities.
She's been on welfare off and on all of my life, you know, that kind of thing.
So it was an opportunity for her and she took it and it was horribly unfair.
And what happened to you?
In that divorce, where did you end up and what happened?
My parents had split custody for quite a few years.
I would spend about half my time with my dad, half my time with my mother, until when I was about eight years old one day, my mother just announced out of the blue that she was moving me two states away and that basically my dad could eat a peach if he didn't like it.
And that's what she did. She moved us 1,500 miles away, and I went from seeing my dad four or five days a week to seeing him once a year for about a month at a time.
Why do you think she did that?
It wasn't for work, I can assume.
No, no. Well, what she told my father was that she wanted to move to be closer to her family so that she could get free childcare and she could have more time for her.
But she only had you 50% of the time, right?
Right. So it wasn't that.
There was something else. You were eight, right?
I was eight, yeah.
Her mother and her family were in the state that she moved us to.
Yeah. Like close by?
Because, you know, in the state, you know, states are pretty big, some of them.
Yeah, yeah. She moved like two doors down from her family.
Right, okay. Yeah, which was, you know, not necessarily a great choice because they're not good people either.
Yeah. I think that almost goes at this point without saying.
Did she ask you at all?
Oh, no, no.
And does your boyfriend know all of this?
Yes. Is your mother still around in your life?
No, not really.
I'm extremely, extremely low contact with her, almost no contact.
And actually that happened partly because of my boyfriend.
I'm warming to him.
Go on. There was an incident where he confronted her directly about some of her behaviors and that was pretty much the end of them having any kind of civil relationship, which was fine.
You know, it needed to happen.
But it was also the beginning of the end of my relationship with her and I really started to clearly see some of her behaviors and how toxic they were.
So I... Got away.
I put a bunch of space between us.
I stopped taking her phone calls.
I explained to her that I needed to not have much of a relationship with her anymore.
And I told her why.
And I said, you know, it's time for me to get on with my life.
I've got things I need to accomplish.
Your behavior makes it really difficult.
You've made your choices, Mom.
I'm going to have to make mine now.
You had your life. You made your choices.
It's mine now. Yeah, I know that moment.
Exactly. Exactly.
And I've held to that with no problem ever since.
Right. And your father?
My father is...
I have a very good relationship with him.
I always thought that if he had had custody of me, my life would have gone a lot smoother.
Why did he choose your mom?
That's a million dollar question.
I don't know. I think you need to.
I think you need to.
You know, we really, really do need to plumb these family histories.
They're so helpful and so important because they can relieve so much anxiety about choices going forward, right?
Right. Because your father chose the wrong woman.
You, I'm sure, chose someone a little bit like your father, who is also afraid of choosing the wrong woman.
Right? Right.
So, what's that creaking?
It sounds like you're on the back of a mechanical elephant that needs oiling.
Oh, sorry. I'm on a yard swing.
I'll stop swinging. Oh, no, that's fine.
I thought we were sleeping together, but all right.
Fair enough. Yeah, so, I mean, was she pretty?
You know, whenever I, you know, the hot mess, right?
Like, whenever you see the hot crazy Matrix thing, like, whenever you hear, like, she's insane.
Well, someone married her.
Why? She was insane, but hot.
I mean, do you know? I mean, what do you think?
Oh, yeah. She was the total hottie when she was younger.
And so was he.
And he was 18 when he met her.
Ah, when men are making the wisest decisions when it comes to sexual access.
Right. What is it?
Young, dumb, and full of rum?
Something like that. Anyway. Wow.
And how old was your mom?
Similar age when they got together?
She was a few years older.
Right. She was a few years older and had a lot more street smarts.
Well, or wear and tear.
Yeah, that too.
That too. It's funny, you know, because the boomers kind of gave up on teaching us values.
And so basically, everyone just ended up making decisions based upon inconsequential physical attributes like mere hotness or something like that, right?
I mean, it really is tragic, but kind of inevitable.
And now we're just trying to relearn all of that wisdom that was dropped by the boomers about how to have a vaguely happy life, which is kind of, it sounds like you've learned some of those lessons.
And I guess that's what we're trying to figure out now, right?
Right, right. You know, I know the story about how they met, and I've heard both sides of the story from each of them about how the marriage came to be, but I'm still not sure that I know the actual story, if that makes any sense.
Do you think that they may have gotten married because she got pregnant?
No. No, no.
They were actually together for 10 years by the time I came along.
Oh. All right.
Right. I'm sure they were waiting virtuously with knees crossed.
So that's interesting.
So your father then, did he know her before they got together?
No. They met randomly one day on a street corner.
Don't make me make that joke, Ben.
Don't. So she was walking on the street.
All right. So He knew her for 10 years before, well, nine years and three months or whatever, right?
So he knew her for more than nine years before he thought, you know what would be great?
Having a baby with this woman.
Right. So what was his major malfunction in terms of judgment?
Because she didn't just suddenly turn crazy, I assume, right?
No, no, no.
I mean, when they met, she already had an established drug problem as a holdover from the 60s.
She was a drug addict when they met?
Yeah. And the story was that they got together and she totally cleaned up and he's a very straight-laced, hard-working guy and the tale is that she was kind of saved by him and They started this life together and everything was quite good for a long time until suddenly it wasn't.
And the story that she actually tells me is that they had the perfect marriage until I showed up.
Oh no. Boy, there's self-ownership for you.
And what's her story?
What's her story, Lauren, about how you messed things up?
My earlier joke becomes a little bit less funny, but still funny.
So what was her theory as to what you did that made things so terrible?
Yeah, that was a funny intuition on your part, by the way.
But... The way she tells it is that they had this picture-perfect marriage.
Everyone was jealous of them.
It was a beautiful storybook romance until I came into the picture and they had me.
I'm their only child. Something snapped in my father, she says.
One day, shortly after I was born, he just shut down emotionally and pulled back and kind of disappeared.
And became completely unavailable to me and to her, apparently, and that this went on for a while.
Of course, the story he tells is very different, so I take that entire thing with a grain of sand.
What he says is that I am the breath in his lungs, the love of his life.
I am his child.
He has loved me since the first moment he met me, you know?
And that I had absolutely nothing to do with the marriage breaking up.
That it was actually a series of events that occurred between them, which culminated in him realizing that he could not be in a relationship with this woman.
And her deciding that she couldn't trust him anymore.
No, but what did she do, according to him, that had him make that decision?
Well, actually...
If we take a step back, he had an affair.
And she found out about it.
And there was a big blowout.
And then they later decided to try to get back together and work it out.
This was when I was maybe six months old or something like that.
And she decided that she couldn't trust him anymore.
She stopped wanting to participate in the relationship.
They kind of went back and forth a few times.
On and off. Went through some counseling.
Nothing seemed to stick. And then they kind of both decided that this needed to be put out of its misery.
And do you know why he had an affair?
Well, I have my theory.
What's your theory? My theory is that knowing my mother, she is a ball buster.
She is hard on her male partners.
She is... Completely incapable of taking responsibility for her part.
She is extremely critical and she tends to work really hard to rope someone in and then once she has them she just kind of gives up and lets herself go and quits trying and becomes a really difficult person to be around.
You know, she's really good at putting on a mask but it eventually slips.
Yeah, it's funny, you know, finger wagging kills penis.
Yeah. You know, when you wag your finger, like you got this little phallic symbol going up and down?
Well, that stops other phallic symbols from going up and down.
I just wanted to point that you can wag your fingers or you can have a functioning penis in the vicinity.
You can't have both. All right.
Yep. You know, the ultimate boner killer is, and another thing!
Oh. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, she's, you know, I give her a lot of responsibility for her part of the relationship falling flat.
I can totally see how that would have happened.
Even the horniest man gets tired of hate sex after a while.
It just gets exhausting and debilitating.
Right, right. And of course, nothing's ever her fault.
So, you know, she's an expert blame placer.
Yeah, blame thrower, right?
Yeah, yeah, blame thrower.
I like that. Yeah, so ultimately he ended up meeting someone who was totally the opposite of my mother.
Yeah, she was very respectful, very feminine, very soft, very sweet.
You know, sat at his feet, literally, and worshipped the ground he walked on.
And I guess that was an incredible temptation.
So at this point he was, I don't know, in his mid-twenties and had had ten years of...
Shaming and guilt, and I guess he took the opportunity.
Now, do you know if you were planned?
I was.
I was planned and wanted.
And by both parents equally?
Yes, yes.
So, your father's judgment was deficient in this manner, right?
Oh, absolutely.
And does he take ownership for choosing your mom?
Because, you know, you've got your mom doesn't take ownership and so on.
Does he take ownership for choosing your mom?
Periodically, he does.
When he's drunk, maybe a little.
There have been times when we've had heart-to-heart conversations about it and he apologized to me and said, you know, I'm terribly sorry.
I chose the wrong person.
I should have protected you better.
I should have gotten custody.
I didn't do any of those things.
That's my fault. That was bad judgment.
But then there are other times...
But does he know why? Because, you know, I think it's fine when people apologize, but it's better if, to me, the apology sticks when they know why.
Like, what happened?
How did he end up choosing your mom?
Well, the story, as he tells it, and this has always concerned me, is that he was, you know, he was batching it For the first time, he was out of the home.
He was a young man, like, off in the woods doing the cabin living thing.
Wait, he was batching it?
That means he was being a bachelor?
Yeah. All right. Okay, just good.
That's my new phrase for the night. All right, go on.
And he was kind of pursuing some of his dreams about living off the land.
He's kind of a Henry David Thoreau type, you know.
And he met her in town one day.
They played some music together.
They had a great time.
And they parted ways that night and she went back to her hometown.
But apparently she started writing letters to him.
And they communicated a little bit by letter and, you know, kind of being friendly.
Nothing had happened. They were just platonic at this point.
But ultimately, long story short, she decided that this was her soulmate and that she was going to go get him with or without an invitation.
And she tracked him down.
She showed up at his door with her duffel bag and basically said, Hi, nice to see you.
I'm moving in. Well, that's a bit of a red flag, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, yeah. And he rolled over and let her move in.
Right. Well, he's 18, you know.
Yeah, well... And I'm guessing that she kind of lived off him?
Yeah, they were extremely impoverished for those several years.
Like no running water and electricity kind of impoverished.
Because that was kind of what he wanted to do.
He was doing the whole mountain man thing and that was his gig.
And she had to kind of go along with it if she was going to live with him.
So... Yeah, neither of them really had resources.
They would do a little art to make enough money to buy some beans kind of a thing.
And other than that, they were completely broke.
And that went on for these 10 years?
That went on for about 5 or 6 years.
And then they decided that they wanted to start trying to have a family.
I think they got married after the 5th year or something like that.
Decided they wanted to have a family and that they'd better get into better accommodations if they were going to bring kids into the picture.
Right. And what took so long?
I don't know.
I think my dad just really loved the lifestyle and what he was doing.
He was a fur trapper and he loved to be out in the woods and that was just totally his gig.
And I think he probably would have done that for 20 years if he had been alive.
He was a fur trapper who got trapped by fur.
Okay, I get it. I get it.
I get it. It's very complex.
Very complex analogy.
All right. All right.
All right. So then you came along after a couple of years of trying and then the marriage busted up and you were one, right?
Do you know, I mean, what was your mom's relationship like with her mom?
Because I think that has a strong effect on how moms bond with their babies.
She and her mom were extremely enmeshed, and her mother was kind of a harsh person, but my mother was the golden child out of a stack of kids.
Well, that usually means the child that gave your mother the highest status, maybe because of your mother's looks?
Maybe so. Okay.
All right. So, do you think it's fair to say that your mom seeks validation from external sources?
Yes. I would say she has no internal validation mechanism at all, actually.
And that's probably one of the reasons why she had such trouble being a new mom, right?
Babies don't validate you.
Everyone thinks you already have your babies.
They're going to love you. They're going to stare at you.
They're going to coo at you. It's like, no, they're monsters of narcissistic need and it's exactly how they should be.
Babies don't validate you.
Certainly not for them. They'll smile at 12 weeks or whatever and coo and gurgle and they'll start laughing at a couple of months and so on.
But if you're empty inside, You will not be able to be an effective parent.
You will not be able to bond because you've got no resources to provide.
It's like trying to pay a bill with an empty wallet.
You've got nothing. And when you have children All of your personal deficiencies are brought into light.
All of the things that you maybe think that you've dealt with, because you have to be there for someone else 150%.
The baby is not there for you.
The baby doesn't care about your thoughts and your feelings.
The baby's hungry and it cries.
Of course, right? Of course.
And that's exactly what you want from your baby, to be truly narcissistic.
And focus only on their own needs and their own pleasures.
They don't care that you're sleeping at 4 o'clock in the morning.
They need to be changed. They're going to cry until you do it.
There's an assertive, in a sense, bullying.
No, moral judgment.
It's just an assertive bullying world that babies represent.
Babies manifest. And you have to recognize that you're there for the baby.
The baby ain't there for you.
And if you're used to being selfish...
It kind of causes you to fall apart emotionally.
If you're used to getting attention, if you're used to being admired, if you're used to people there worshipping you, and this is why I asked about your mom's relationship with your mom, babies ain't gonna do that.
Babies ain't gonna do that.
They don't care. It's about them.
So if you are someone for whom it's always been about you, when a baby comes along, it's all about the baby.
And for most people, for people who are that way inclined, they can't change that perspective quick enough.
They can't rewire their whole brain quick enough to reverse 20 or 30 years of selfishness.
And they resent the baby then!
And also, if you're used to getting a lot of attention, being the center of attention, Well, what happens when people come over after your new mom?
They want to see the baby.
It's about the baby.
So you don't get the attention as much anymore.
If you're used to commanding attention based upon your looks and your figure, well, guess what?
Your boobs are leaking and your hips are big.
And you have a baby pouch like you're a kangaroo leaning over.
And it just reorients everything.
And for people who are, you know, healthy and strong and wise and giving and so on, it's a wonderful experience.
You can't beat it. It's a fantastic experience.
But if you're kind of selfish and used to being the center of attention and it's all about you, it's the worst thing you're going to go through.
Feels like the baby has stolen your identity.
It feels like the baby is attacking you.
It feels like the baby is stealing from you and doing you.
I think, to some degree, that's what postpartum is about.
Just my amateur opinion, of course, right?
But that's why I was sort of asking these things about your mom.
Now, the other thing that struck me about what you said, Lauren, what was your mom's big complaint about your father after you were born?
He was emotionally...
Unavailable.
He distanced himself. He backed away.
What's the first complaint you gave me about your boyfriend?
Well, that he distances himself and he backs away when we have conflict.
I'm sure that's just a coincidence, though.
Just one of these random spin-the-wheel things that happens in life.
Yeah. Right. Right.
So, where did your temper come from?
Why do you get angry? Hmm.
That's a good question. Why do you indulge in the...
Sin of anger.
I mean, don't get me wrong, being angry is fine, but why is it destructive in your relationship?
Why do you allow yourself to do that?
Well, I guess my best theory would be that there were many years in my childhood where my emotions and feelings about situations had to be repressed, were not welcome to be expressed.
And I started...
Really having a distinct rage problem in my teens.
I remember as a teenager, there were times where I was just so angry I felt like I was going to implode.
And that, you know, there was no one in my vicinity that wanted to understand why I was angry.
Or worse, not only didn't want to understand, but Well, your mom has a temper, right? She has a little bit of a temper.
No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.
Listen, come on. Come on, woman.
You can't possibly tell me that your mom dragged your father through family court, destroyed him economically for 20 years, took 75% of his money while only having 50% of the custody, but she only has a little bit of a temper.
That has sustained chronic rage for a long time.
That's right. All right, so let's be straight about that.
Yeah, she doesn't have a temper that she expresses openly.
She's kind of a passive-aggressive, you know.
She doesn't speak loudly and get openly upset the way I do.
So I guess I don't identify that as having a temper like mine.
But yeah, she's definitely capable of holding a grudge for decades.
Right. Now, were you also angry at your father, I guess, for you ending up with your mom, right?
Yes. Because you're not allowed.
To take your child to another state, right?
Right. If you're co-parenting with someone, nah-ah-ah, right?
Right. You can't do it.
And your father didn't fight it, right?
Right. Did he stay with the woman?
Did he ever get back together with the woman he had the affair with?
No, she actually ended up deported.
She was a foreigner. Deported?
Oh, to Mexico? No, no.
She was from an Asian country.
She was in an exchange program, an educational exchange program, and my mother basically hounded the authorities until they sent her back to her home country.
Wait, your mother didn't just destroy your father financially, but she destroyed him romantically?
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
And continued to try to do so with the next woman that he got involved with, who he's actually still with to this day, but yeah.
So your mother is, like, pretty terrifying, right?
Yeah. Yep.
Right. I mean, a real troll.
Right. So you gave me a lovely story, and I'm going to be really straight with you because I want you to get what you want.
I want you to get married. I want you to have that security.
So I'm going to be, obviously, as I always am, completely straight with you.
So you say that you allow yourself...
to harm your relationship by indulging in anger destructive anger because you suffered as a teenager right?
But one of the things that you suffered from as a teenager was people indulging their anger, right?
Like your mother indulging her anger in trying to destroy your father, your mother indulging in her anger to just yank you away and take you somewhere else, right?
Your selfishness and so on.
So to me, the fact that you've suffered under someone's anger would be a great argument as to why you would never indulge in anger yourself.
Because you know how destructive it is, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And if you know how destructive anger is, but you still indulge in it, then you aren't trustworthy and that's why you're not getting married yet.
You know what it's like to be on the receiving end of anger, right?
Right. You know how terrible it is, how awful it is.
And so you should, of all people, be thoroughly committed to never reproducing that in your relationship because you know exactly how destructive it is, right?
Right.
So, why have you given yourself an excuse when you could have been giving yourself an absolute?
Hmm.
Well, that's a good question.
Hmm.
I know. And I guess the question I would Return is, what do I do with...
No, no, no, no. You've got to answer.
Why you give yourself the indulgence, knowing how destructive it is.
Now, once you have that answer, because there's no way you can just say, I'm not going to get angry anymore.
I'm not going to express anger anymore.
Because then you bite it down, you chew it back, and you end up emotionally distant, which is not going to help, right?
You've got to get to the root cause.
You've got to get to the source. And then you won't have to end up managing your anger.
Because it really won't be there.
I mean, in a destructive way.
I mean, I get angry, but I'm not destructive.
Right, right.
So what does anger look like when it's expressed in a healthy way or a non-destructive way?
Well, it brings people closer to you.
See, we have this idea like anger is this bomb.
Anger is this white hot furnace that nobody can approach without their face melting off like someone in Indiana Jones, right?
But anger can be an intensely intimate experience.
It can be a very healthy and connected way.
It can build trust, not drive people away.
Anger is essential, I think, to be close to someone means to have access to the full range of their emotions, right?
Right. And if one of those emotions is destructive, of course people are going to back away, right?
That's why I asked the question earlier, if there was a cycle where you say, well, I'm angry because you're backing away, and he says, well, I'm backing away because you're angry.
Now, I can give you the answer, I think, which is that The reason that you allow yourself to indulge in anger is because you've not experienced the pain of being raged against as much as you experience it deep down.
You're not avoiding healthy anger.
You're avoiding the pain of having been the victim of unjust anger in the past.
And because you're avoiding the pain of being a victim of unjust anger, you're inflicting unjust anger.
You're not angry at him.
You're protecting your own vulnerability in the past.
You were treated terribly.
You were treated terribly.
You watched your mother, like a psycho, disassemble your father's finances, life, security, happiness, and eventually your entire relationship with him.
That is a horrifying level of rage and destructiveness.
And it was wrong on Just about every conceivable level that I can think of.
And you would never want to reproduce even the tiniest whiff of that agony to your boyfriend, right?
You'd never want him to feel as you felt as a teenager, right?
Absolutely. Yet you are, and that's the great mystery, right?
Now, what would have happened if you had expressed...
Your anger as a teenager.
I don't mean like setting fire to things or beating people up or screaming like senselessly or anything.
But if you'd just been able to say, what is going on in my life is so wrong, I don't even know where to begin.
And the wrongness is not my fault.
You all divorced when I was a year old.
You didn't plan for it. You didn't prepare for it.
Whatever you did to get ready for parenting was not enough.
And I'm paying the price.
Mom, you should not have disassembled Dad.
That was wrong. That was egregious.
You should not have yanked me away from my father when I was eight years old.
Without asking.
Without even asking. And Dad, you should have fought harder for me.
You should have chosen a better mom for me.
And you guys should both give me the respect of humbly explaining everything that happened so that I can help avoid these kinds of disasters.
Because right now my life is stalled because your lives are falsified to me.
I don't know whatever it would be, right?
Whatever it would be. But if you were able to have that kind of direct, like what would it have looked like or how would it have played out, do you think, if you had said what you truly felt, without screaming with abuse, but you said what you truly felt to your parents when you were a teenager?
Well, I think it would have sparked off extreme rage and abuse from my mother.
Right. And I think my father would have made me feel...
I think he would have responded in a guilty way that made me feel terrible about bringing it up.
Well, he also would, I think, be afraid of your mother's temper and try and side with her as a way of appeasing her and getting her to not attack him in some other horrible way.
Right. Right.
So you had nobody looking out for your interest.
Is that fair to say? Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair to say. Right.
Right. What if you had said, would you have preferred to live with your dad rather than your mom as a teenager?
Yeah, and actually I tried to a couple of times leave and go live with my father.
And every time I would communicate that to my mother, she would kind of hoover me back in with tears and guilt and, please don't leave me, I'm sorry, you know, we'll fix this.
Well, she would vacillate between the sickly sweet hoovering and the abuse.
She would go from, you know, please don't leave me, kind of fear of abandonment stuff, to, well, you know, your father's just a terrible person, his wife's a terrible person, well, not his wife, he's not.
Remarried. But the woman he's been with for 20 years, she's a terrible person.
They don't want you. Wait.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Lauren.
You get that connection, right?
My father who's refused to remarry?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Okay. So just in case, I'm sure you did, but just for the audience's sake, right?
So... Your father won't marry his girlfriend.
Your boyfriend won't marry you.
Right. Okay. Just so we're aware.
All right. So you did try to get what you want, and there was this manipulation, this control, this, right?
And it's funny, you know, I had a friend once who went to go and visit his in-laws in another country.
And the in-laws kind of ignored them for the most part, which is kind of weird, you know, when you're in someone else's house and they're just kind of ignoring you.
And then, you know, after a couple of days, he's like, well, you know, I guess we're going to head back.
And they're like, no, you must stay.
You're a family. I'm like, okay.
And then they just go back to ignoring him.
And then he's like, okay, well, yeah, this has been great.
I appreciate the hospitality. No, you must stay.
And it's like, what the...
What are you doing? You're ignoring us and then when we try to get out, it's like the trap only activates when you try to leave and then you get ignored again.
I don't know. Just people like that.
Life's too short, man. I'm telling you.
Right. It's like a push. It's a crazy making push-pull.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Not for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like you ignore your wife and then you stalk her when she goes out.
It's just weird. It's just weird.
Right. Do you think if you solve the problem of your temper...
That your boyfriend will trust you more?
Yes. Because I'm telling you, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I apologize. No, finish your thought, and I'll try not to be so rude as to interrupt you again.
Please, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, we've had that conversation.
He has actually said to me, you know, I have concerns about legal power in the state, which I absolutely believe is true, because he's He's not the kind of person to say something he doesn't mean, right?
But he has also said, and also, there is the fact that I've seen you angry, and I am afraid of giving you that kind of power.
Yeah, see, what he sees when you...
Do you yell at him? Is that right?
Yeah, yeah. We both yell.
Do you call him names? I don't, no.
I'm very careful to not use abusive...
Terms, but my tone of voice is definitely not kind.
Bonner Keller. All right.
And you said you don't.
Does he? Call names?
Yeah. Every once in a while.
What's he called you? Oh, he's called me a dumbass before in the middle of a fight for pushing and saying, you know, we need to settle this right now.
We need to... I'm not going to back down from this conflict until we have a resolution.
And he's like, you're just being a dumbass.
Would you get out of my space, please?
This is like, you're pushing me, you're pushing me, and I can't take it.
I need you to get out for a while and give me some space.
That's, you know, that's the worst he's ever said to me.
Right, okay. Because when he sees you angry at him, he sees you angry at him with three policemen behind you.
That's marriage. You understand?
Right. Right.
Because I don't know if he's done the MGTOW route, but he's obviously aware of the power that women have with regards to what they could do to a man through the state, right?
Yeah. And it's scary enough when your girlfriend's mad at you and expressing it in a way that's kind of destructive, and then you think of giving her an army as well.
And that's terrifying, right?
Right. You said he was a child to divorce?
Yes. But his parents' divorce was more amicable?
Yeah, yeah.
It wasn't like mine.
His parents divorced when he was 14, so there was a lot less kind of fraught early family stuff going on.
Why did his parents divorce?
You know, I haven't spoken to his parents about it, so I'm not sure what they would say.
Yeah, the way he says it is that his father is a very, very overbearing, kind of type A harsh person, and his mother finally hit a point where she said, I just can't take this anymore and decided to leave.
Right. So what happens if you're in a conflict...
What happens to you emotionally, Lauren, if you're in a conflict and it's not resolved?
I tend to go to the worst case scenario in my mind.
I tend to think, oh my gosh, this is the end of this relationship.
This is... This is destruction for us.
This is, you know, if we are fighting right now, there's a serious problem that cannot be overcome.
Does that make sense? Oh, no, totally.
Yeah, absolutely. If I don't resolve this now, the relationship is over, right?
Right. If this goes on, like if this, you know, there's this don't go to bed angry or whatever it is, right?
Well, I don't believe that.
I mean, that's just an order. That's not an argument.
Right. There is this weird kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, like the relationship's going to be harmed if we don't get along better, but then the way that you try and solve it harms the relationship, right?
Right, exactly.
Right. Exactly.
So, we know who he is in your life.
Who do you think you are in his life that this has been, I guess, a problem that continues?
Um... Ask me that in a different way.
Yeah, sorry, that wasn't particularly clear.
My apologies. Is there anyone like, or anyone who reproduces this pattern in his past?
As far as...
He can't get to the root of the person's anger, and he just tries to manage the symptoms.
Yeah, yeah, his father.
Right, okay. So, is it fair to say that his father has never gotten to the root of his father's own or his own aggressiveness, Taipei-ness, or whatever?
Yeah, I would say that's true, and it's kind of a long family lineage in the males in his family, from father to son.
There's like several generations of that pattern playing out.
Right. So you think that the relationship is perhaps irretrievably harmed if the disagreement is not solved, and he probably thinks, your boyfriend that is, he probably thinks that the relationship is irredeemably harmed if you try to solve the conflict in the moment.
Hmm, interesting.
Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, I hadn't considered that.
So, and that's why you're kind of trapped in limbo.
And that's why I would assume that you can't move forward because it doesn't have anything to do with the state fundamentally.
Of course, if you get married as a man, you give your wife extraordinary power.
But if you trust her, that doesn't really matter.
It's sort of like saying, well, honey, I can't buy you a gun because you'd shoot me.
It's like, if you're worried about your wife or your girlfriend shooting you, it's probably more important than the gun itself, right?
And it's the same thing with the state.
Well, I don't want to give you power over me using the state.
Well, my wife has power over me using the state.
It's fine with me, because I trust her.
Right? And I like to live like there's no government.
Pay them off, sure. I like to live like there's no government.
Right? And don't...
I mean, to me, you want to have kids, right?
Yeah, definitely. And, like, that's a commitment.
And it's a multi-deck.
It's a commitment for the rest of your life.
You'll never stop being a parent. Your kids will grow up.
You'll never stop being. So once you have kids, boom, you're like mated like geese.
You are together forever, right?
Yeah. Once you have kids, right?
Once you have kids, that's it, right?
Especially you're going to have grandkids.
You're in. You're in like Flynn.
And you're just there.
And so why not make that a public commitment?
And you're saying, well, the state gets involved.
The state gets involved. It's like, yeah, so what?
The state's involved in building the roads.
Do you boycott the roads? The state's involved in libraries.
Does that mean you never go to the library?
Like, you know what I mean? The state's involved in the internet.
You can't use the internet, right?
Come on. That's not a reason.
It's not about the state.
It's about trust. And if you want to get married and have children, then...
You have to not be scary to him.
You have to find a way to get what you want without scaring him.
And we all know that we don't want to scare the people we love, right?
Right. We know that.
But it's tough to achieve, but we know that we don't want to scare people to get what we want because that's kind of being a bully, right?
Right. And you've suffered enough from bullying to know how destructive it is.
So, look, I'm not saying, please understand, Lauren, I'm not saying you're a bully, but you may have a little bit of that tendency when there's conflict, right?
Like, it's about your needs.
And it's not about, you understand, your anger is not about anger.
It's about fear. And you told me that directly, because you're not angry at him, you're afraid it's the end of the relationship.
Right. So, what's the most honest thing to say to him in that moment?
Just to say that.
I'm terrified. Yep.
And that's what I talk about in the free book, Real-Time Relationships.
You're honest with people in the moment about what you're experiencing.
You get into those conflicts, it's almost like this low-grade panic attack that you have to cover up through aggression, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So, we trust people.
When they're honest with us, right?
Yep. And if you're pretending to be angry when you are in fact terrified, you're not trustworthy because you're not telling the truth.
You're having an affair with your anger when you're actually married to your fear.
The true relationship is with your fear.
The cover relationship is the pretend anger, right?
Right. Now, if you express that and he understands that, that's what I mean when I say getting angry at someone can be an intensely intimate experience because if you are honest with him about your fear, do you understand how close that brings to you to each other?
Right. Anyway, go ahead.
I've seen that play out a few times recently.
We have a lot less conflict these days than we used to have.
We might have a conflict that's three times a year, I would say, these days.
But the last time we had a conflict, I kind of intuited in the middle of my angry ranting that I was misdirecting anger.
And I just stopped and I said, I kind of walked out of the room for a few minutes and came back and scratched on his office door and said, Hey, I'm very sorry.
That was entirely me.
That wasn't you. Something that you said set off this insecurity of mine, but that's my stuff to deal with.
And I'm sorry for Launching that at you so aggressively.
And he just immediately softened and hugged me and said, you know, thank you.
And here's the thing, though, too.
So you're terrified or frightened of conflict.
What if I could tell you that you should welcome it?
Not that you should try to create it, but if it comes along, you should welcome it because it is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about yourself and to learn more about your history and to learn more about your partner.
Because it's new ground.
The new ground being honesty about what's really going on.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Thank you.
And you have to be honest with people.
I mean, this sounds like such a silly cliche, but you have to be honest with people.
You know, I woke up this morning with two community guideline strikes against my channel, and it was hanging by a thread.
12 years of work on YouTube, boom, could have vanished at any moment, right?
So I'm chatting with my daughter.
Now, I, you know, tell her to some degree what's going on in sort of age-appropriate language and so on.
Why? Because I can't pretend that I'm not thinking about it, and I don't want to pretend...
with her that nothing's going on because that's false.
And if you get down to the raw emotions and forget the cover-up, that's when you finally escape history.
All of our dysfunctional history, Lauren seems to instruct us to be false in the moment.
And when you are true in the moment, when you are honest in the moment, that's when you finally, finally overcome your childhood.
That's when you finally win because you won't let dysfunctional people keep the truth from the people you love.
You understand? It's your parents running interference in your relationship with your boyfriend.
Your parents don't want you to tell the truth to him because that reveals the dysfunction in that relationship or those relationships.
They would rather keep you false than up their game to real truth.
Not consciously, but I think that's the way the script runs.
Right. So do you think that's why my father encourages us to not get married, or is there something else there?
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about your father's life, and I think they're unanswered to him as well.
If you don't even know why he chose your mom, or why he didn't fight harder for you, then it's possible that he doesn't even know either.
Now, if he doesn't know these essential answers to essential questions about his own life and his own choices, Then he's, to some degree, so avoidant that he can't have a frank, deep, open, and honest relationship with you.
Because he's always pivoting to avoid the truth of his own motivations.
Right? And if that's the case, right?
I mean, if there's all of this unspoken questions and necessary answers that are going on in the relationship, avoided answers, then he can't be direct and honest with you because he's constantly on guard, not against you, but against himself.
Can't be authentic. You know, people in my life, they can ask me anything.
I try to be as open a book as I can be.
Because I don't want there to be any barriers between me and the people I live with and I love.
And if you have a relationship with your boyfriend that is different than the one you've had, What does that do to your relationship with your father?
What if you are as honest with your father as I'm suggesting you be with your boyfriend, and you talk about the rude emotions rather than the surface distractions?
That's going to have an impact on him.
That is going to have an impact on his current relationship.
That's going to have an impact on how he thinks about his whole life.
Maybe he doesn't want that or maybe he's scared of that because he doesn't know what's on the other side of that, which I understand and I sympathize with.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but I understand.
Right. What happens if we're just honest?
What does it do to the house of cards that so many people build around the emptiness that's in their relationships, the avoidance, the distraction?
The destruction sometimes that's in their relationships.
What if the simple, clear answer is just tell the truth about what you feel?
If you do that, then you are trustworthy.
it.
Because it's never going to deflect, it's never going to avoid, it's never going to escalate.
The truth, as you found when you were more honest with your boyfriend, the truth de-escalates.
Lies, avoidance, falsification.
That escalates. The truth generally de-escalates.
Now, the truth will...
And I say this with full consideration to the fact, Lauren, that when I asked you about what would happen if you told the truth as a teenager, well, you told me your mom would escalate like crazy, right?
Yeah. So around people who have a commitment to and capacity for honesty, the truth de-escalates.
Around compulsive liars and falsifiers, social metaphysicians, the truth...
It escalates enormously quickly.
Which is why you want to tell the truth.
Because telling the truth lets you learn the truth about your relationships.
Can your relationships handle the freaking truth?
Can they handle your genuine experience?
Can they handle you being honest?
This is why you tell the truth in life.
Because it very quickly identifies the dysfunctional and destructive people who rage against the truth.
Who can't handle the truth.
And it brings you closer to the people who respect and value the truth.
That's the great power of the truth.
Drives away the demons and brings the angels closer to you.
And isn't that what we all want?
Yeah, yeah. Well, it did immediately shudder my relationship with my mother.
So I can see the truth in that statement.
Oh, yes. When you have told the truth to very destructive people in your life and seen...
The eruption and the explosion and the rage and the hostility and the dysfunction and the abuse that comes pouring out of their mouths when they come in contact with the truth.
It's like you're running at them with a chainsaw when you're actually opening your arms to speak facts of your life.
You see the hysterical reaction, like a devil with holy water, how they're dysfunctional with the truth.
It's revelatory. And this is why when you've spoken the truth to really dysfunctional people in your life, like your mom, like I have with my mom, telling the truth to the world, it's really not that complicated after that.
Alright, is that a good place to start?
I think so.
And I would just add that the...
The truth-telling is why I chose my partner.
He is very direct.
He is very honest.
He is very no-holds-barred kind of dude.
And that's very attractive to me after being in dysfunctional relationships where the truth was not allowed.
So I think he's going to be very easy to explore this with.
And I know that I can throw any truth at him and he'll appreciate it.
Yeah. He might be a bit mad about years of you going at him instead of being honest about being afraid, but that can bring you closer as well.
That's his genuine lived experience.
And don't you want to know the truth about the people you live with and love?
I think that's essential.
Well, good. I'm glad the conversation was helpful.
Thank you so much. Let me know, of course, how it goes if you'd be so kind, my dear.
I would really, really like to know how this plays out.
Thank you everyone so much for, I guess, one more day!
We're still on the internet, we're still on YouTube, and it may be a day-by-day thing at the moment, but that's the price of telling the truth.
If you'd like to help out the show, as always, absolutely appreciated, very much necessary, freedomainradio.com slash donate.
You can pick up a copy of the great book, The Art of the Argument, At theartoftheargument.com.
If you've got some shopping to do, FDRURL.com forward slash Amazon is a good place to go.
It doesn't cost you anything and helps us make a little bit of money.
You can follow me on Twitter at Stefan Molyneux.
And I guess these days more than ever, please sign up for our newsletter at freedomainradio.com because, hey, you just really don't know what's happening next.
