July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
25:00
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| Well, thank you so much for taking the time. | |
| Dr. Brandon, of course, is an internationally renowned psychologist and the author of a large number of books that have sold over 4 million copies, and it's a great pleasure to be able to speak with him today. | |
| And if I may, Dr. | |
| Brandon, to start with a question that has plagued me for many years, and I was wondering if you might have some thoughts about it. | |
| What's that? Well, in bringing what we may call psychological enlightenment or a thirst for the pursuit of Of self-knowledge to people. | |
| It would seem that there are some people who very quickly fall into or have a strong desire to pursue self-knowledge and wisdom, while of course it seems like the vast majority of people don't have that same desire to pursue self-knowledge. | |
| I was wondering if in your experience over the years you've found any particular characteristics of people that would lead you to believe that they would be more open to the idea of pursuing self-knowledge and less sort of closed and rigid emotionally or intellectually, whether you've seen any characteristics that make a person more likely to pursue self-knowledge as opposed to avoid it. | |
| Well, yes. I mean, emphatically yes, because often Our lives meet. | |
| We have shared interests and often shared values and often shared concerns so that in the normal course of a lifetime, if one is awake and open to experiences with other human beings, it certainly would be in the natural order of things that sometimes you'll run into people who are really interested in personal development. | |
| Not primarily or exclusively to handle some unresolved conflicts of their own, although that can be helpful too, but just interested in the whole process of personal development and growth because we are not born finished. | |
| Right. I see what you're saying. | |
| There has been, I mean, your original and I think still current concept of self-esteem is very much focused on a high self-regard as an earned state of mind, much like physical or nutritional health, that you have to perform particular actions in your life to achieve the positive mental state of self-esteem. | |
| Now, that term seemed to me to get hijacked for quite some time, generally, I think, by the state. | |
| Which then turned it into something like, if you praise someone, they will achieve high self-esteem. | |
| And the bottom seems to have fallen out of that recently. | |
| Is that something that you've noticed as well? | |
| This idea that you tell someone that they've achieved well, everybody on the team gets a medal, and then people feel better. | |
| And I really don't think that has worked out in the way that people hoped, which I think was quite well predicted by your theory. | |
| Well, of course, the job of schools... | |
| It's to help to prepare children for survival as independent human beings in the world. | |
| Now, in the world, you're not going to get a medal just for showing up. | |
| You're going to have to produce something. | |
| You're going to have to deliver. So it's a real crime committed against children when you give everybody in the talker team the identical reward at the end of the game as though you're all winners. | |
| They're not stupid. Most of them are not winners. | |
| So there's even a message of contempt implicit in that kind of deception. | |
| It's not in the service of rational self-esteem. | |
| Right, right. And there seems to be some growing empirical evidence I've been reading lately that suggests, in fact, I think quite handily proves the idea that if you praise a child for innate attributes like intelligence rather than the work that the child infuses into a particular kind of achievement, The child actually becomes risk-averse. | |
| If you praise a child for being intelligent, the child will then become averse to tasks that challenge his intelligence because he's being praised for something that is innate rather than something that is earned. | |
| There's quite a lot of empirical evidence piling up, I think, again, in support of the theories that you've been talking about for years. | |
| That's very interesting. | |
| I'm not certain that I would share the view that every aspect of self-esteem is innate. | |
| I do think the choices we make growing up play an important part in what we are likely to find interesting later in life. | |
| It's true that in order to have a good self-esteem, we do have to do certain things. | |
| We need to learn to operate in certain ways, but some of that I believe is innate and a good deal of that is acquired and learned. | |
| Yeah, I certainly would agree with that. | |
| Now, another question that I have is, and this puts, I think, into some very broad and not exactly razor-sharp, accurate dichotomy, but there seems to be two general approaches to the achievement of human freedom. | |
| And the first is the inside-out approach, where you take the Socratic approach of know thyself, to live consciously, as you talk about in your books. | |
| And the idea is that as we become more self-aware and more enlightened and possess greater self-knowledge, that human institutions like the state and like the schools and perhaps even like churches will change as a result of people's growing awareness of their own psychology and emotional depths. | |
| And there's another approach though, which is taken perhaps a little bit more by objectivism and certainly by libertarianism, Which is the idea that if we can only get these huge social institutions off our back, like the state, then human freedom will come out as a result. | |
| And I confess to have been a little bit more outside-in in terms of freedom, but I'm certainly much more, I think, interested in the inside-out approach. | |
| Would you say that, A, that's a valid distinction, and B, that your approach has been more, we gain freedom from within, and our social institutions will eventually reflect the inner freedoms that we have, or the inner honesties and integrities that we have? | |
| Well, if I understand you correctly, I think I would vote for the latter position in the list you have just given. | |
| I think you're on the right track there. | |
| Right, because you've had some criticisms, if I understand it rightly, of the Libertarian Party, and where do you stand with regards to that? | |
| I guess I read the last thing I read of yours about that was 2004, which I think was before the Ron Paul phenomenon. | |
| Have you had any particular thoughts about Libertarianism as a political movement since then? | |
| It's not a political movement as yet, and the Libertarian Party in California is nothing to get excited about. | |
| We're at an earlier stage in my view. | |
| This is the time when we need writers, we need novelists, we need cultural forces highlighting the significance of human freedom, the superiority of a society based upon individual rights to a society that deplores them, sabotages them, violates them. | |
| So, I don't think so much that institutions create I think more evolved human beings are likely to influence the outcome in the battle of the states. | |
| I think I understand. | |
| The way I put it with people is I would much rather have 50% taxation and a happy marriage than no taxation and an unhappy marriage. | |
| I'm much more free in the former scenario. | |
| That's the way it's always worked for me. | |
| Well, I applaud your choice. | |
| I think it's relatively reasonable. | |
| Right, right. One thing that I've noticed that has been, I think, unless I've missed something enormously large, conspicuously absent from both libertarianism and some of the sort of modern movements around enlightenment, It's a focus on parenting. | |
| I'm very strongly focused on the idea that human freedom is best advanced through an intergenerational application of rational principles. | |
| It's very hard as you know to change people who are older, but if you give children the right tools, I think that things move forward that way. | |
| And certainly it's always been a surprise to me that in the field of objectivism there has not been a sort of how to raise your kids to be rational, because of course they face a lot of anti-rational propaganda from schools and churches and culture as a whole. | |
| Is that something that I've missed or is there some reason why you think there hasn't been more of a focus on parenting methodologies in these philosophies? | |
| Well, there have been a number of quite worthwhile books On how to raise self-reliant, self-responsible children. | |
| Rarely, however, does a linkage made between that and social issues pertaining to political freedom but pertain more to the lives of individuals as they grow up. | |
| The distinction that needs to be made is between the individual awareness of the importance of self-responsibility to its translation into meaningful political terms. | |
| What often amazes me is psychologists who are very, very clear when they're in their office dealing with clients to teach people the importance of operating self-responsibly. | |
| Then the day it comes to an end and he goes down to the ballot box to vote. | |
| For political programs that, in effect, infantilize grown-up individual people, make them totally dependent on the state. | |
| So the point is that people can be clear on... | |
| I'm usually giving one example, of course. | |
| People can be clear on the importance of self-responsibility in one sphere and hold almost just the opposite in another sphere. | |
| Right, right. Right. | |
| And something that you've mentioned a number of times, the idea, which is it's hard for people to give up, that someone is going to come riding over the horizon, that the cavalry of the state or the church or someone, right? | |
| Someone is coming to save you. | |
| And of course, you say no one is coming to save you. | |
| And people still cling to that. | |
| And of course, the latest savior is Barack Obama, that he's going to come and change everything and make everything better. | |
| Have you had any particular thoughts about... | |
| That kind of delusion and how incredibly stubborn it is within the psyche to believe that some external agency can make your life more free. | |
| I have nothing fresh or new to say on this particular subject except that I find it horrifying that people are not 20 times more outraged than they already are in terms of the impact on their lives, which is Obama's programs are going to eventuate in. | |
| Right. I have this vague fantasy that because there has been such a swing in many ways between somebody in a sense as archaic as George W. Bush to somebody who's supposedly sort of hip and new and fresh as Barack Obama, and yet nothing has changed, right? The wars continue to escalate. | |
| The economy continues to deteriorate. | |
| State power continues to grow. | |
| Exactly. Yeah, but hopefully people will say, well, with this amount of difference between the candidates, if the fact that things stay the same, you almost couldn't have Yeah. | |
| Exactly. | |
| You have to cling to these things to get through the day, and maybe I'm deluded, but that's my particular hope. | |
| Well, I think you're quite right. | |
| Yeah, I hope so. | |
| Because I view, you said on your website and you said earlier that there is, and I think I detected some urgency in your tone, which I certainly would share, you know, that we need communicators, we need writers, we need people who are passionate and compelling with regards to talking about human freedom. | |
| Because I really feel that the progress of the species is not something we can take for granted. | |
| It's not like evolution. | |
| It's not an automatic process. | |
| It seems that, you know, with the rise of fundamentalism, with the increased imperialism of the US government, with the rise of Islam and other anti-rational philosophies, that the security of the future is by no means guaranteed. | |
| And I really feel a very strong urgency to act. | |
| And is that something that you feel? | |
| Do you feel like it's going to happen in a sort of inevitable way? | |
| Or do you think it's something that we really do have to will to achieve? | |
| Yeah. Do we have to achieve what? | |
| Freedom or the opposite? Oh, no. | |
| I feel that it's almost like there's a race for the future between irrational forces and rational forces. | |
| It seems like the irrational forces are kind of on the ascendancy, which was not something that I sort of expected after the fall of communism and things where it seemed like we were moving towards a new dawn. | |
| It seems like we're kind of in a race against forces that are anti-enlightenment or anti-rational. | |
| Well, this I think is quite true and I think there's a great deal to be very seriously worried about. | |
| I don't know how things will play out because all sorts of unimagined alterations could be in our whole world in which we all live. | |
| For example, I don't know if you've heard about this invention, one can call it an invention of producing Artificially made food, meaning steaks which are not taken from a cow, but taste 20 times better flavor, better healthy for you, and that can duplicate most foods, but to do it chemically at minimal the cost of having these big agricultural farms, etc. | |
| Well, if there were a real revolution of that kind, then it really happened. | |
| It would change everything. If suddenly feeding people became like a Figuratively speaking, a nickel and dime operation changes a great, great deal, obviously, socially and politically. | |
| So it's really hard to say, one can say, if things don't get better, we're going to go through a dark period. | |
| Even if things do go better, we're already in a dark period. | |
| We may bounce out of it in 10 or 20 or 30 years, or we may really stagnate and just get slowly worse and worse and worse, taking more and more horror for granted. | |
| And no one knows which way it's going to play out. | |
| I'm not pessimistic, but I'm not optimistic either. | |
| Right, right. | |
| I mean, the best we can do is expend as much energy as we can spare trying to bring people to a more rational view of the world and, in a sense, cross your fingers after that, right? | |
| Quite so. The sad thing is that evil can be imposed but virtue cannot, right? | |
| So we're kind of at a loss in that battle because we have to encourage, we can't coerce and that is a greater challenge. | |
| I'm afraid I don't understand what you just said. | |
| Oh, sorry. What I mean is that if you want to do bad things in the world, like if you want to control people or coerce people, you can run for government, you can pass a law, and then you can impose your will upon people. | |
| So bad things in the world can be quite easily imposed with the existing social structure. | |
| But virtue must be encouraged. | |
| It must be coaxed. | |
| It must be demonstrated. | |
| You can't impose virtue, but you can impose vice. | |
| And so we're kind of at a disadvantage in the face of the state, which doesn't mean that we're going to lose, but it means that I think we have to work harder than bad people to achieve a good end. | |
| I think that's true. | |
| I don't know that vice can be imposed either. | |
| Vice can be exemplified. | |
| It doesn't necessarily mean forced. | |
| I don't see how you can say it's vice to people. | |
| Well, so an example would be like if you want to inflict propaganda on children, you have a state school system that's going to do it. | |
| And it doesn't make them... | |
| Oh, I see what you're saying. | |
| You can impose negative or irrational views on people in a way, but you can't really impose rational views because rationality has to be desired and pursued. | |
| It can't really be imposed in the way that dysfunctional stuff can be imposed. | |
| Well, yes and no, because after all, you could have schools Which taught the virtues and the values of free market capitalism and if children were brought up to understand this, to understand how a business runs, | |
| how a social system runs, and naturally the child with this background gravitates toward a free society, I wouldn't say that you imposed, but you certainly have inspired, you certainly have illuminated the principles of freedom for this young person Right. | |
| Yeah, I would certainly agree with that. | |
| And I think what also gives me hope is the idea that when you have a rational philosophy combined with obviously a rational universe, I think is quite unbreakable. | |
| I mean, irrationality will always end up undermining itself because it is opposed to objective reality. | |
| I guess the idea is that when we get it right, you know, as a species, when we have rational philosophies in a rational universe, it will be irreversible in the same way that slavery in the West is kind of like nobody says, let's go back to being slaves or having slaves. | |
| So, you know, the goal is that once we get it right, it will be irreversible. | |
| But I think there's no guarantee that we're heading in that direction automatically. | |
| It seems to be a matter of teeth-gritting will at times to make it happen. | |
| I'm afraid to say that you're right. | |
| You're right. I think that's quite true. | |
| But I think that the more honor goes to those, I think, who are fighting the hardest. | |
| I think that's the one thing. | |
| The bigger the fight, the greater the honor. | |
| That, I think, is the other thing that keeps me excited about those possibilities. | |
| How did you become interested in these subjects? | |
| Well, the band Rush is a rock band from Canada, and the drummer is a big fan of objectivism. | |
| And through a friend of mine who was into that band, I got a hold of The Fountainhead and started reading it. | |
| And like most people, I felt very excited by the possibilities of Ayn Rand's universe and was entirely thrilled. | |
| But I was not a big fan of her approach to emotionality. | |
| It seemed to me a huge split. | |
| Because at times, she seemed very hostile towards the emotions, while at other times, her characters would keep getting these emotional prompts about the truth, which they would ignore. | |
| And I couldn't figure out the role of emotions within the objectivist universe. | |
| Are they good? Are they bad? | |
| Are they something you listen to? | |
| Are they something you repress and control? | |
| And of course, through Rand, I came to your writings and read Psychology of Self-Esteem. | |
| I think it was... Oh, heavens, over 20 years ago. | |
| That, to me, was a huge sunburst of illumination that the role of the emotions is as wise counselors and occasionally challenging counselors to really help you through life. | |
| And through that, I went into therapy and had a great deal of excitement and pleasure on that. | |
| And I've really been working in that field. | |
| And so when I started this philosophy show, I really wanted people to respect that. | |
| And listen to the instincts, to the emotions, which I think are very rational if you listen to them in the right context. | |
| And I think that's the very short answer of how I got interested in the philosophy and threw that into the real meat of the matter, which I think is self-knowledge. | |
| You can't really be rational if you don't know yourself. | |
| And I think most people aim for the rationality without the self-knowledge. | |
| And I think that makes it have a lot less traction in the real world. | |
| Well, we agree. | |
| Excellent, excellent. | |
| The short answer to my question could have been, I discovered the Fountainhead, then I discovered Ayn Rand, then I discovered Atlas Shrugged. | |
| That's how I became a libertarian. | |
| That could have been a short answer, absolutely. | |
| I will make note of that. Be shorter next time. | |
| It's not a criticism. What you were saying was quite interesting, so I don't mean to come across as a criticism. | |
| It's just, I'm always interested in how many people...arrived at their politics of today from just that progression. | |
| The Fountainhead, the author, what else has she written, and ultimately Atlas Shrugged. | |
| Right. And of course, she's going through quite a resurgence, I'm sure you're aware, at the moment. | |
| Unbelievable. It's an incredible resurgence that she's going on worldwide. | |
| I have a friend who's a professor who spent, a few years ago, two years in India. | |
| And one day he was out for a walk. | |
| There was a bookstore there. | |
| So he wandered in, he wanted to see what they were writing, but they had an English-speaking section, and was amazed to see the large quantities of the shrug there, and so he asked the owner, do people here read Ayn Rand, read Ayn Rand, read Ayn Rand? | |
| Oh, yes, yes, yes, we know who John Galt is! | |
| That's wonderful! And he decided he would check this out further, so he began roaming around, and wherever, even little, what's it called, like, me-abs, or re-abs, there's a name for it, Like a small little stand where you're selling something. | |
| The number of these scattered through India. | |
| And they have books there. And always they saw copies of Atlas Shrug there. | |
| And they'd always joke about, yes, we know who Jean Gault is. | |
| We know who Jean Gault is. | |
| People in India are excited over it. | |
| Who couldn't be clear what miracles are going to happen next? | |
| Well, it's funny. It's like America was founded almost as a reaction against the aristocracy and the religiosity of Europe, and that was the new world. | |
| And it's almost like you could look at India and other areas, some areas of China, as a new world that is founded upon the economic errors of the old new world, right? | |
| That they're fixing the errors that we couldn't fix with regards to socialism, whereas we fixed the errors that Europe couldn't fix with regards to aristocracy and religiosity. | |
| Quite so, quite so. | |
| I'm afraid we're running on this theme. | |
| Probably that's the penalty for agreeing too much. | |
| No problem at all. Listen, I know you have another appointment to get to. | |
| I really do appreciate your time, and I will send you a link if you're interested to the interview when it is published. | |
| Thank you again so much. | |
| Just on a personal note, I really just wanted to thank you for the writing that you've put out over the years. | |
| It has been, I think, a wonderful, wonderful foundation to the journey towards self-knowledge and a respect for For the instincts and the emotions that I think is missing from a lot of other philosophies. | |
| So, thank you so much. | |
| I have a book coming out in a few months called The Vision of Ayn Rand, Basic Principles of Objectivism. | |
| And people are naturally very interested in where my disagreements are. | |
| So, I'm reproducing the book, the lecture on the 20 lecture course that started the whole movement. | |
| But then, in an epilogue, I would discuss where I Right. | |
| Well, I certainly look forward to that and it's very timely, of course, because One of the most frustrating things about hearing this research in Ayn Rand is the number of people in the media who simply will refuse to engage her at a philosophical level. | |
| And they just, you know, come up with all these clichés and all of this bias and nonsense. | |
| And it's like, it's so frustrating because she's a real workout to challenge at an intellectual level. | |
| But of course, most people will retreat into cliché and slander, which I think is a real shame. | |
| I've got to go now. | |
| But it was fun talking with you and good luck with your program. | |
| Thank you so much. All the best, Dr. |
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