Jan. 12, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
09:09
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| All righty, righty, hope you're doing well. | |
| So, somebody wrote, definitions always give me trouble. | |
| Is moral subjectivity or relativism basically nihilism? | |
| Or is it a path to nihilism? | |
| Everything can be a virtue and a value, which also means nothing can. | |
| Subjectivity slash relativism, there are no universal standards really, so anything can be justified. | |
| Nihilism, nothing matters. | |
| Just do what you will. Okay. | |
| So, what you need to understand about these things. | |
| So, if somebody says to you, there are no standards, there are no objective values, no objective meanings, no objective anything, they're lying. | |
| They're lying to your face. | |
| It's, I hate to say an IQ test, but it's definitely a test of any expertise in philosophy. | |
| So, somebody says to you, Well, there's no such thing as objective standards. | |
| It's like, okay, well, you just used objective definitions of words to communicate to me that there's no such thing as objective definitions. | |
| Again, it's one of these IQ tests. | |
| I mean, once you see it, right, nobody will be able to fool you again, right? | |
| So if somebody assembles a coherent sentence to you and communicates something, then they cannot possibly Communicate an argument that contradicts the form of their communication. | |
| The form of the communication is the argument. | |
| Discard everything that anyone is saying at any time, any place, and simply look at the form of the argument. | |
| Forget about the content. Everybody wants to jump over the form, jump straight into the content. | |
| Literally 90 to 95 percent of philosophical problems that you have with people or the people are trying to bamboozle you with Can be solved by simply, merely looking at the form of the argument. | |
| Somebody says to you, the senses are not valid. | |
| It's like, oh, you just used my senses to communicate that the senses are not valid. | |
| So you're lying to me. | |
| You're trying to manipulate and bamboozle me, right? | |
| Somebody says to you, there's no such thing as truth. | |
| Well, that's a truth statement that they're claiming to make, therefore it. | |
| And if somebody says to you, there's no such thing as objective standards, then I would say, well, why would you assemble the words in that order? | |
| Why don't you just say, flim flam behoot if I can get all of me the hell out of me, right? | |
| Well, because if there's no such thing as objective standards, why are you using coherently structured objective definitions of words and grammar and structure and so on, right? | |
| If somebody says to you, well, you don't exist, or how can you prove to me that you exist? | |
| It's like, well, you're talking to me. | |
| So you accept that I exist because you're talking to me. | |
| So literally 90 to 95% of philosophical problems It can be solved. | |
| And people don't like it because it doesn't allow them to con you, right? | |
| Like somebody who has counterfeit money doesn't want a counterfeit detection machine that works right away, right? | |
| They don't want that, right? They just take the money and keep moving, right? | |
| So if somebody says to you, well, there's no such thing as objective value, well, clearly they're trying to communicate a truth to you. | |
| They're saying the truth is preferable to error objectively, because I'm not saying it's my opinion. | |
| They're saying it is. There is no such thing as objective value. | |
| Well, why would you tell me that? | |
| Are you saying that it's better for me to understand that there's no such thing as anything better than the other? | |
| I mean, again, none of it makes any sense. | |
| It's all complete Machiavellian power-grabbing nonsense. | |
| Like, once you understand human beings, we are functionally incapable. | |
| We are functionally incapable of comparing proposed actions to ideal standards. | |
| We can't do it. | |
| We can't avoid doing that. | |
| Once you understand that's the human mechanism, then if somebody can convince you, well, there's no such thing as objective value, then the moment you start thinking of objective values, you'll have this ideal standard called, well, there's no such thing as objective values, and you will nullify that within your own mind. | |
| We are... We are objective-seeking machines. | |
| We are ideal standard-seeking machines. | |
| And people will constantly deploy that against you. | |
| In order to cripple you, in order to invalidate anything that you might do to block their use of power over you. | |
| So a lot of postmodernists will say, well, there's no such thing as truth, there's no such thing as value, right? | |
| Okay, so, okay, so if there's no such thing as truth and there's no such thing as value, then there's no truth value in communicating that. | |
| If nothing's better than anything else, you would never bother to communicate that to anyone, right? | |
| I mean, is it objectively true that red is a better color than blue? | |
| No, I mean, just personal preference, what you happen to like, except with eye color. | |
| Totally sexy. Right, so there's no objectively better color. | |
| I mean, just talking about subjective preference, like, you know, what color car should you buy? | |
| What's the objectively best color? | |
| Nobody can say that. So there's no morality of car colors, right? | |
| There's something that it's a matter of personal taste and so on. | |
| So people aren't sitting there saying, well, it's evil to want a red car and it's virtuous and noble and good to want a blue car. | |
| And there aren't people saying to you that you must choose one car or you're a bad person if you don't. | |
| And people also don't get very ferocious And should I grab you by the shoulders and yell at you that there's no such thing as a better or worse car color? | |
| Because that's kind of understood. | |
| So given that the sophists among us know that if they can convince us that there's no such thing as truth or virtue or values, then we won't pursue those things in general. | |
| And we're doing that because we're pursuing the truth value that there's no such thing as truth value. | |
| And when they then manipulate Morals. | |
| Which they'll inevitably do. | |
| All the people who are postmodernists who say there's no such thing as truth or virtue or value will absolutely scream at you for things that they have defined as evil, as immoral, and so on. | |
| They don't believe any of it. | |
| But what they want to do is they want you to not have an objective standard by which you can push back against their moral manipulations. | |
| Like, please understand. It's fundamental to understanding the modern world. | |
| People who tell you that there's no such thing as truth and virtue, objective truth and virtue, everything's relative, everything's subjective, They are planning on hijacking moral definitions in order to control society. | |
| And they desperately need you to not have an objective moral standard by which to push back. | |
| They want you to abandon the field so that they can come in and define whatever they want in order to gain power and control. | |
| Other people, right? | |
| So all the people who were like, well, you know, you've got to take this medication or this treatment or whatever because you care about other people, don't you? | |
| You don't want other people to be harmed. | |
| Those are the same people running up multi-tens of trillions of dollars of national debt and having children born into a million dollars worth of slavery. | |
| They don't care about the debt, but they know you care. | |
| If you have an objective and universal moral definition of the good, universally preferable behavior, non-aggression principle of property rights, then when people come and try and control you by manipulating your moral compass, they say, this is the good, this is the evil. | |
| Now, if you have a universal standard to push back against, they can't control you based upon that. | |
| They can't control you if you have an objective moral definition of virtue. | |
| If you don't, Then it's like you've got a compass, you're going to follow that compass, right? | |
| What they want to do is be able to move the magnets. | |
| They want to be able to move the magnets so you'll just follow the virtue however they define it, right? | |
| So, Nazism is evil, right? | |
| But they say, oh, well, there's no such thing as objective truth, objective virtue, objective values, but Nazism is evil, right? | |
| Well, you can't have it both ways. | |
| If Nazism is evil, we have to say why. | |
| Well, it's socialistic, it's the initiation of the use of force, it's collectivistic, and so on. | |
| It's like, okay, well then, you've got a problem with communism too, right? | |
| So, there's no such thing as truth, there's no such thing as virtue, there's no such thing as value. | |
| It means we don't want anything that you can navigate by rationally on your own. | |
| We want to destroy your sense that you can navigate and universalize virtues and values. | |
| And therefore, we can put you on the train tracks, right? | |
| Whoever defines the good controls the future. | |
| I'm telling you this. Whoever defines the good controls the future. | |
| And so if the good is something that you can process, like UPB, you can process, you can universalize, you can use to push back against this kind of control and manipulation... | |
| Then you control your future. | |
| UPB is the most empowering thing known to man because it has you push back against the softwares who want to put you on the train track that they're designing, that they're in control of. | |
| And if they can put you on their train track and say, well, this is the good and this is the evil and you can't reason about it. | |
| So what they're saying is you can't reason... | |
| About good and evil. You can't reason about objective values and morality. | |
| You can't reason about these things. | |
| Therefore, they get to define them in a way that allows them to pursue and maintain and expand their control over you. | |
| Right? So, if you say non-aggression principle and property rights is the virtue, then the welfare state is a violation of those things. | |
| But if they can say, well, caring for others is a virtue, and the only way we can do it is through the welfare state. | |
| Well, I want to care for others. You just, you can't reason about it. | |
| You can't reason about it. They turn the science of ethics into the superstition of obedience. |
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