Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - The Ethics of the Prodigal Son! X Space
Aired: 2026-04-04
Duration: 01:21:31


=== A Million Bucks Back Then (04:43) ===

[00:00:00]  Hello, hello.
[00:00:00]  Good afternoon, my friends.
[00:00:02]  I hope you're doing well.
[00:00:03]  24th of March, 2026.
[00:00:05]  Got a question from a listener who wanted to talk about the parable of the prodigal son.
[00:00:16]  This is from Luke 15, 11 to 32 in the Bible.
[00:00:20]  And this is about.
[00:00:26]  God's forgiving love, or at least that's one interpretation of it.
[00:00:32]  And it goes a little something like this.
[00:00:35]  So, a wealthy man has two, count them, two sons.
[00:00:41]  And the youngest son goes up to his father and says, So, dad, you know, it'd be excellent, man, if I could get like my share.
[00:00:55]  Of the inheritance, like now.
[00:00:58]  Because, like, if I have to wait till you're dead, bro, that kind of blows chunks.
[00:01:03]  That kind of sucks.
[00:01:04]  So just make believe, according to the law, or in your head, or in some manner, just make believe you're dead.
[00:01:15]  Give me that good old sweet cash inheritance now, which would be fantastic.
[00:01:20]  You know, hey, man, I'm a reasonable bro.
[00:01:24]  I'm a good dude.
[00:01:24]  I'm a reasonable dude.
[00:01:26]  So, what I will accept is just like a third of the estate.
[00:01:30]  A third.
[00:01:30]  You know, there's you, there's older bro, there's me.
[00:01:36]  33, 33, 33.
[00:01:37]  Third, third, third, we're good.
[00:01:43]  So the father says to his youngest son, okay, yeah, sounds great.
[00:01:51]  So here's what I'm going to do I'm going to divide my property between the two sons.
[00:01:57]  Now, I assume it's a third, a third, a third.
[00:02:00]  So he's given a third of his property to the oldest son, a third of his property to the youngest son.
[00:02:07]  I assume keeping a third of it for himself.
[00:02:11]  So then the younger brother, sweet man, time to go get some serious thrill issues on.
[00:02:19]  So he gathers up all of his wealth and vamooses off to a distant country.
[00:02:28]  Like I did a call with a guy yesterday.
[00:02:31]  He's 47.
[00:02:32]  He wants kids.
[00:02:33]  And he started to really get the itch to have kids in his mid 30s.
[00:02:39]  And I said, Well, what did you do?
[00:02:41]  You really got the itch to have kids in your mid 30s.
[00:02:43]  What did you do?
[00:02:44]  He said, Hey, man, I went backpacking.
[00:02:48]  I went camping.
[00:02:49]  I'm like, Okay.
[00:02:50]  Hey, I've got a pup tent.
[00:02:52]  Want to start a family?
[00:02:54]  Yeah, no.
[00:02:56]  So, the younger brother.
[00:03:00]  Packs up a third of his inheritance, vamooses off to a distant country, and blows it all.
[00:03:10]  You know, like that lottery winner, right?
[00:03:12]  There was a lottery winner who said, Hey man, I won like a million bucks.
[00:03:18]  I ended up broke.
[00:03:19]  And the reporter said, Well, what the hell did you do with all the money?
[00:03:22]  What did you do with all the money?
[00:03:23]  It's a million bucks back when a million bucks was like five million bucks or ten million bucks.
[00:03:29]  And the lottery winner said, Well, you know what?
[00:03:32]  Here's what I did.
[00:03:33]  I took a million dollars, I divided it in two.
[00:03:37]  Now, half of it, like the 500K, I spent on big trucks.
[00:03:44]  I went to a lot of concerts.
[00:03:45]  Frankly, I did quite a bit of drugs, spent money on cheap and loose women, blew it gambling.
[00:03:51]  So that's what I did with the 500,000.
[00:03:54]  Now, the other half, oh man, I just wasted that.
[00:04:01]  If that is not a poverty mindset, I don't know what is.
[00:04:08]  So, younger bro goes out to a distant land and does wild parties, dissipation, excess, pays for bottle service, buys all his friends, lap dances,
[00:04:22]  I'm sure divvies up with the primordial equivalent of credit cards, a couple of lines of booger sugar, blows out his septum, inflates his sinuses, and just blows it.
[00:04:38]  Takes all of his money, wastes it.
[00:04:40]  Which means, basically, he transfers the money.

=== Wasting It All Away (15:49) ===

[00:04:43]  From his responsible father to a bunch of criminals, right?
[00:04:47]  It's remembered.
[00:04:47]  You go to strip clubs, you go to a lot of gambling joints and so on.
[00:04:50]  Not all, obviously, but to some degree, you're just giving your money to criminals and it's bad.
[00:04:57]  Like OnlyFans.
[00:04:59]  Anyway, I'm not calling them all criminals.
[00:05:01]  I'm just saying I think there's some criminals involved.
[00:05:04]  In parts, my personal opinion.
[00:05:06]  Now, then a couple of things happened.
[00:05:14]  A, the prodigal son, prodigal just means wasteful, runs out of coal, like Canada.
[00:05:28]  And then, boom, severe famine hits, and he's destitute.
[00:05:33]  Now, he's desperate.
[00:05:35]  He hires himself out to some local citizen who sends him to feed the pigs, which is particularly humiliating for a Jew because pigs are unclean.
[00:05:45]  And he's hungry because it's a famine.
[00:05:48]  And you know, pigs eat this vomit slop, if you've ever seen pigs eat.
[00:05:52]  There's a reason why they feed bodies to pigs.
[00:05:56]  They'll eat anything, and pig slop, just leftovers and junk and crap.
[00:06:00]  Pigs will eat it all, digest it all.
[00:06:06]  And the younger brother is touching these religiously unclean animals.
[00:06:15]  He's hungry and he's looking at the vomit slop the pigs are eating, and he's like, Dang!
[00:06:24]  Oh, I could eat that.
[00:06:26]  I'm so hungry.
[00:06:27]  I could eat what the pigs are snuffling through these vile, unclean beasts.
[00:06:37]  And then he has a revelation, an epiphany, a I guess it's not quite a come to Jesus moment, obviously, but he has a thought.
[00:06:48]  And he's like, oh, this is crazy.
[00:06:52]  This is absolutely nuts.
[00:06:54]  My father's servants have enough to eat.
[00:06:58]  I'm half starving to death in this foreign land.
[00:07:00]  I got no money.
[00:07:01]  And I want to put my face in the pig slop vomit and eat my fill.
[00:07:09]  Which, you know, think of the most, it's like, I guess for Jews, it would be like eating a handful of baby spiders.
[00:07:20]  So he's like, I'm way worse off than my father's servants who at least have enough to eat and a roof over their head, and they're not doing this vile task.
[00:07:35]  And then he's like, Okay, man, kind of blew it here just a little.
[00:07:40]  How am I going to get out of this?
[00:07:43]  I know, I know.
[00:07:44]  Okay, okay, I've got to come up with a speech here.
[00:07:47]  I've got to figure out what I'm going to say.
[00:07:49]  I've got to go back to dad on bended knee.
[00:07:51]  Oh, man.
[00:07:52]  I basically wished he was dead.
[00:07:55]  To get money, he gave me the money.
[00:07:57]  I blew it all.
[00:07:58]  Got a lot of great memories, don't get me wrong.
[00:08:01]  A lot of fun times, a lot of fantastic stories that didn't start with, well, I had a salad and then.
[00:08:08]  So, yeah.
[00:08:09]  I mean, I'm not sure how my liver's doing, probably not well.
[00:08:12]  But, yeah, I blew it all.
[00:08:14]  So, I gotta talk to dad.
[00:08:16]  I gotta go talk to dad.
[00:08:18]  Oh, what am I gonna say?
[00:08:19]  What am I gonna say?
[00:08:21]  Um.
[00:08:25]  Yeah, you know what?
[00:08:26]  I can grovel.
[00:08:27]  I mean, who am I kidding?
[00:08:29]  I've groveled in the gutter looking for a couple of dropped coppers.
[00:08:33]  Here I am, eyeing the pig vomit slop like it's a porterhouse steak.
[00:08:37]  Yeah, you know what?
[00:08:38]  I can totally grovel.
[00:08:39]  I can do it.
[00:08:40]  I can do it.
[00:08:41]  I've got nothing left.
[00:08:42]  No pride left.
[00:08:43]  Nothing.
[00:08:44]  So here's what I'm going to do I'm going to say, Oh, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
[00:08:54]  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
[00:08:58]  Hire me out.
[00:08:59]  Daddy, just make me like one of your hired servants.
[00:09:03]  Just, for the love of God, give me some food.
[00:09:10]  So he rehearses this a whole bunch of times in his head.
[00:09:14]  Could it be said that a rehearsed speech does not smack overly of authenticity?
[00:09:19]  Yeah, obviously it could be.
[00:09:21]  So he abscondeth from the pig's pen and he's heading home.
[00:09:31]  Maybe he's hoping, just man, put me to work in the fields, put me to work.
[00:09:35]  I'll move furniture, I'll do bricklaying, I'll.
[00:09:40]  Do clay.
[00:09:40]  I don't care.
[00:09:41]  It doesn't matter.
[00:09:42]  I just, I'm starving here.
[00:09:44]  Now, scene change, we switch to the father who has not heard from his youngest son in years.
[00:09:56]  It's not really specified in the text, but we can assume to go through a third of a fairly decent inheritance takes more than a Brewster's Millions couple of days.
[00:10:10]  Oldest son has been responsible.
[00:10:12]  He's saved his money.
[00:10:14]  He's invested.
[00:10:15]  He's worked hard.
[00:10:16]  And he's been a good person, a good son.
[00:10:20]  He hasn't taken massive amounts of family wealth and poured it down the gullets of cheap women, have to pay for voodoo healings of various sexually transmitted diseases.
[00:10:35]  He hasn't given a whole bunch of money over to criminals.
[00:10:39]  He hasn't been like my grandfather, who was a.
[00:10:41]  Notorious drunk and sold off the family's ancestral lands in Hoyerland, thus casting me to the four winds of fate to be raised in severe poverty.
[00:10:52]  So the older brother's been responsible, the younger brother's been a complete wastrel, a rake, a vagabond.
[00:10:58]  No, not really a vagabond, just a party, a wasteful party dude, a dilettante.
[00:11:08]  So, switch to the father's view.
[00:11:10]  The father, through the shimmering heat, Of the Middle East, I suppose, through the various light bouncing thermoclines of distant vision he sees.
[00:11:23]  Like Lawrence of Arabia coming through the shimmering mirage as he sees his youngest son approaching.
[00:11:34]  And the father felt great love opening in his heart like a cracked yoke spilling over.
[00:11:43]  And he runs, which is very undignified for an old man, but he runs to his son across the desert, embraces him, kisses him fervently.
[00:11:53]  And the son is like, ahem, all right, here we go.
[00:11:57]  Authenticity mode switched on.
[00:11:59]  Oh, father, I, and the father's like, oh, oh, oh, no.
[00:12:04]  Don't worry.
[00:12:05]  Shut up.
[00:12:05]  Shut up.
[00:12:05]  Doesn't matter.
[00:12:07]  And he orders his servants, drags his son back to the house, orders his servants bring the best robe.
[00:12:11]  Put a ring on his hand, sandals on his feet.
[00:12:13]  Kill the fatted calf for a feast.
[00:12:16]  This son of mine was dead and is alive again.
[00:12:19]  He was lost and is found.
[00:12:24]  Weeping tears and ordering food and wine and celebration and parties may not be the best thing for a rancid alcoholic and possibly drug addict who's bow legged from STDs.
[00:12:37]  Who knows?
[00:12:40]  So, meanwhile, the older son is out in the fields.
[00:12:46]  He hears music and dancing, celebration, caterwauls of ululating joy.
[00:12:54]  And a servant is running around.
[00:12:55]  He says, What the hell?
[00:12:57]  What's going on?
[00:12:59]  And a servant says, Oh, bro, your younger brother has returned.
[00:13:08]  Your younger brother has returned broke, skinny, starving, with nothing left.
[00:13:16]  He took a third of the family fortune, maybe a half, but at least a third.
[00:13:19]  He's got nothing left.
[00:13:23]  And now, of course, the older brother, being wiser by definition, the older brother knows what this means.
[00:13:34]  I mean, brothers often see brothers a lot clearer than fathers do.
[00:13:41]  And what does the older brother know?
[00:13:43]  The older brother knows that his younger brother has come back.
[00:13:48]  Why?
[00:13:49]  Because he's seen the lights.
[00:13:52]  No, he's broke.
[00:13:54]  He's out of money.
[00:13:56]  He's blown it all.
[00:13:57]  He's broke.
[00:13:58]  And he's back to prey upon the family again.
[00:14:03]  Because he's an addict.
[00:14:05]  He's a gambling addict, a sex addict, an alcoholic.
[00:14:12]  Drug addict.
[00:14:13]  He is an addict.
[00:14:15]  And he has scooped up vast chunks of the family fortune and cast it to the four winds of hedonism, turning his heart inside out and evacuating his soul in the pursuit of mere short term transient fleshly pleasures.
[00:14:28]  He's lived like an animal out there in a foreign country.
[00:14:34]  Except an animal usually can't provoke guilt in you.
[00:14:43]  So, the father says to the older son, Come in, come in!
[00:14:48]  Your brother has returned!
[00:14:50]  It is time to celebrate!
[00:14:53]  And the older brother says, No, I'm not coming in.
[00:14:56]  What are you, crazy?
[00:14:58]  What's the matter?
[00:14:59]  What's the matter with you?
[00:15:01]  I slaved away on this family farm all these years!
[00:15:08]  I don't disobey you, I don't do the wrong thing, I don't drink.
[00:15:13]  I barely even touched the samovar.
[00:15:17]  Geographical inaccuracies abound in this story that I'm telling.
[00:15:23]  I don't use drugs.
[00:15:24]  I don't womanize.
[00:15:28]  And not a month ago, not a month ago, I wanted a party with my friends to celebrate a very important occasion.
[00:15:43]  And you wouldn't even give me a little goat for the party.
[00:15:54]  But for this son, this a hole son, who has devoured your property with wine, song, drugs, and prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf.
[00:16:12]  I am not coming in.
[00:16:13]  I have nothing to celebrate.
[00:16:15]  This is embarrassing and ridiculous, old man.
[00:16:21]  And the father says, Son, you are always with me, and all I have is yours.
[00:16:31]  But we have to celebrate, for this brother was dead and is alive, was lost, and now is found.
[00:16:44]  And all is sunny and all is wonderful.
[00:16:51]  In the heart of the father, and we don't know how this is resolved.
[00:16:55]  This is the start and end of the story.
[00:17:00]  You know, a man has two sons, Simon and Adrian, right?
[00:17:03]  That's from the life of Brian.
[00:17:05]  This is like Cain and Abel or Jacob and Esau.
[00:17:11]  And it's a fairly original story.
[00:17:19]  Now, why did Jesus?
[00:17:20]  Tell the parable of the prodigal son.
[00:17:22]  Well, I imagine it's because the Pharisees and teachers of the law were criticizing him for welcoming and eating the tax collectors and sinners, took the side of the stoned, sorry, took the side of the adulterous woman, he who was out sin, you can cast the first stone.
[00:17:48]  So, these sinners, the tax collectors, the outcasts, the criminals, liked Jesus.
[00:17:58]  He who was last shall become first, he who was the lowest shall become the highest.
[00:18:01]  There's a sort of Nietzschean resentment and desire for the wheel of fortune to switch in the afterlife.
[00:18:07]  So, the losers, the vagabonds, the criminals, the lowlifes are drawn towards Jesus' message.
[00:18:19]  Because he says everyone's a sinner.
[00:18:20]  Well, you just know it better than others because you've actually sinned.
[00:18:23]  Everyone else is just pretending not to, like a Charles Dickensian quote, good guy.
[00:18:30]  So the religious leaders muttered about Jesus's taking in of the sinners.
[00:18:35]  This man receives sinners and eats with them.
[00:18:40]  So, of course, the younger son mirrors the sinners that Jesus embraces, and the father is God who shows eager forgiveness.
[00:18:52]  The elder brother is the self righteous Pharisees.
[00:18:59]  And the story is in part designed to expose their resentment towards God's grace for others despite their own faithfulness.
[00:19:05]  I have not broken the law.
[00:19:06]  Why should you celebrate when somebody has broken the law and comes back?
[00:19:13]  That there is more celebration in heaven for one repentant sinner than a thousand righteous men.
[00:19:25]  So it's a very interesting story.
[00:19:34]  Very interesting story.
[00:19:38]  And where does it go?
[00:19:41]  Where does it go?
[00:19:44]  There are tons of parallels in the modern world, of course.
[00:19:49]  One of the most common parallels that I would put forward is the welfare state.
[00:19:57]  That people in general who make bad, wrong, immature, foolish, and stupid decisions. Are lavished with gifts from the government.
[00:20:11]  Single mom with two kids in America earns the equivalent of well over a hundred thousand dollars of pre tax income in social programs.
[00:20:20]  That is a Kim Kardashian BBL big ass number.

=== The Welfare State Parallel (02:59) ===

[00:20:32]  When I was a kid playing hide and go seek, I hid behind a couch and fell asleep.
[00:20:39]  And my mother and a couple of other adults were looking all over the place, thought I'd wandered off, left maybe they left the door ajar and I wandered off.
[00:20:48]  I was like maybe three years old.
[00:20:51]  As they started roaming the neighborhood or they were about to call the cops, When a fat woman sat heavily at the couch, pushing it backwards, woke me up and I cried out.
[00:21:05]  And my mother, of course, did the slap with anger, hug with passion, doci do one, two punch of rage and affection, relief.
[00:21:17]  And of course, in that moment, she treasured me because she thought I was lost and lo, I was found as behind the couch by the careening ass of a tubby British woman.
[00:21:36]  So.
[00:21:42]  What happens?
[00:21:44]  Well, the addict hits rock bottom.
[00:21:47]  Now, if you've ever been around addicts, they lie, first and foremost to themselves.
[00:21:54]  When I'm trying to bring the truth to someone in a call in show or a conversation or a debate or something like that, one of the first things I probe, I'm sure you've heard me do this a million times if you listen to my show, one of the first things that I probe is does this person lie to himself or herself?
[00:22:14]  So, I point out a contradiction.
[00:22:16]  I point out an inconsistency.
[00:22:17]  I point out a fact that they have not acknowledged that is obviously fairly obvious, he said redundantly.
[00:22:23]  And I see, do they say, oh, that's true?
[00:22:25]  Or do they just make something up and smoothly move on to the next topic?
[00:22:29]  Because if somebody is going to lie to themselves, then expecting them to achieve the truth is like expecting Gary Coleman to rise to the top of the NBA.
[00:22:43]  That's a short actor, by the way.
[00:22:46]  Deceased now, I think.
[00:22:50]  So, does he figure out that what he did is wrong and bad?
[00:23:02]  No, he's just hungry.
[00:23:05]  And especially if you've been around drug addicts or alcoholics, you know for an absolute fact that if you give them $1,000, they will go away for the weekend, party themselves crazy, and will not even have two bucks for the bus fare home.
[00:23:23]  They come home when they're out of money, not because they have understood anything, not because they have achieved any virtue.

=== False Masculinity Defined (03:12) ===

[00:23:32]  They come home because they need more resources, which is why he rehearses a speech.
[00:23:45]  It's a very important detail.
[00:23:46]  He rehearses a speech Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
[00:23:52]  Treat me as one of your hired servants.
[00:23:56]  He's rehearsing a speech.
[00:24:01]  Nowhere in the story does he come to any revelation about his laziness, his corruption, his greed, his dissolution, and his promotion of.
[00:24:19]  Decadence and hedonism.
[00:24:21]  Because people who have a lot of money and who are addicts spend their money often, not just on criminals, but also on, hey, bottles for my friends, and they get other people into the lifestyle.
[00:24:34]  And they are advertisements for that lifestyle.
[00:24:37]  You know, like there's this manosphere thing.
[00:24:39]  I watched this documentary with Louis Thoreau, really manipulative and petty and weird.
[00:24:44]  But for boys who grew up without fathers, in other words, without an intimate knowledge of masculinity based upon the Provision and protection duality of masculinity, boys who grew up without fathers are easy to sell caricatures of masculinity.
[00:25:04]  It's easy to say to boys who grew up without fathers, Well, son, being a man is having an expensive car, being a man is having a lot of money, being a man is having a lot of muscles, being a man is having a lot of bikini clad babes, being a man is having threesomes.
[00:25:25]  That's just a caricature.
[00:25:31]  Being a man is being a high status ape, not a virtuous provider and protector and defender of civilization.
[00:25:39]  Because masculinity and femininity both exist for the sole purpose of creating and protecting children.
[00:25:47]  And so you get these men, these puffed up cartoon characters, and it's easy to sell this kind of vapid materialistic.
[00:25:59]  Pompous blowhard caricature of masculinity to boys who've grown up without fathers and therefore want to know how to become men and say, ah, men is Bugatti, men is expensive watch, men is muscle, men is abs, men is.
[00:26:16]  It's all ridiculous.
[00:26:17]  It's embarrassing, really, but they are spreading this corruption, this hedonism, this shallowness.
[00:26:29]  Being a man, really, is having moral courage.
[00:26:32]  Not a frickin' yacht.
[00:26:37]  So, he hits rock bottom.
[00:26:40]  He's dealing with the filthiest animals that Jews can deal with.

=== Resentment and Reality (14:25) ===

[00:26:44]  He's envying their pig slop.
[00:26:49]  I mean, it's a famine.
[00:26:50]  Imagine how bad the food is being fed to the pigs.
[00:26:54]  And he's envying that.
[00:26:55]  And so he's like, ah, I got a new play to make, man, I got a new play to make.
[00:27:01]  Gonna go back to dad?
[00:27:03]  I'm gonna be, I'm so terrible.
[00:27:06]  He doesn't say that to himself.
[00:27:09]  He doesn't say that to himself.
[00:27:11]  He could say, Oh, I'm so degraded.
[00:27:13]  I've hit rock bottom.
[00:27:14]  I've made terrible decisions.
[00:27:16]  I've left God and my father and culture and wisdom and virtue behind.
[00:27:20]  He doesn't say any of that.
[00:27:23]  And the story is omniscient.
[00:27:25]  I mean, if anyone can write an omniscient story, it would be God.
[00:27:32]  Himself, Jesus, omniscient, right?
[00:27:37]  So God can certainly see into the mind of the younger brother.
[00:27:41]  And what does God say about the younger brother?
[00:27:46]  Well, the younger brother says, I'm envying the pigs.
[00:27:50]  And at least my father's servants have some food.
[00:27:58]  So I. I'm going to go home and I'm going to talk about being a centerer and I'm going to get some food and some shelter from my father because he rehearses the speech.
[00:28:16]  He practices the exact words.
[00:28:23]  He begins the speech when he gets back, but admits the treat me like a hired servant because the father's embrace interrupts him, and so on.
[00:28:34]  And so clearly, this is a favorite son.
[00:28:39]  This is the father's favorite son.
[00:28:40]  I've been meaning to post this on X, I haven't gotten around to it yet, but come on.
[00:28:46]  Everybody knows there are favorites within siblings, and it's brutal, but it's factual.
[00:28:51]  I was my mother's favorite.
[00:28:54]  It was not fair.
[00:28:55]  Of course, she associated my personality and abilities with those of her father, who was a famous intellectual and writer in Germany.
[00:29:05]  So she associated me with her beloved father.
[00:29:08]  Unfortunately, she associated my brother with her despised ex husband.
[00:29:12]  Absolutely unfair, but that is the way that it is.
[00:29:17]  So the father cares the most for the youngest.
[00:29:24]  Brother, there's an echo of this in an old Ron Howard movie, which is really a good movie called Parenthood.
[00:29:37]  Tom Hulse of Amadeus fame plays the wayward younger son, gambling addict, schemer, deal maker with a biracial son named Jazz that he had with a stripper.
[00:29:56]  And he is the father's favorite, and the more responsible son is treated with relative contempt by the father.
[00:30:08]  The story has issues and challenges, and we'll get to the final bit, right?
[00:30:14]  I mean, this always reminds me of Pip and Great Expectations.
[00:30:19]  But it doesn't make a lot of sense because the father divides his property between two sons.
[00:30:27]  And the eldest son works the field, says, I've slaved for you all these years, never disobeyed.
[00:30:33]  But why would he slave for his father if his father has given him a third of his fortune?
[00:30:38]  So that doesn't make much sense.
[00:30:40]  It would make sense to me, more sense, if the father hives off or carves off a third of his fortune and gives it to the younger sibling.
[00:30:57]  And then does not give any money to the elder sibling.
[00:31:00]  That to me would explain the resentment more, but at least according to the story, he gives a third a third, or a half a half, since he divides his property, but I don't think it's half and half.
[00:31:12]  So it's the big question.
[00:31:16]  The redeemed sinner is infinitely more valuable than the upright man.
[00:31:23]  In other words, it is more pleasurable to.
[00:31:27]  Forgive than to respect.
[00:31:32]  It is more pleasurable to forgive than to respect.
[00:31:38]  We forgive the sinner, we respect the good man.
[00:31:44]  Now, part of forgiving the sinner is just relief that he's back.
[00:31:51]  But the real villain, in my view, in this story, is the father.
[00:31:57]  So, of course, as a father, it is your job, one of your foundational jobs, to know your children's natures.
[00:32:08]  See, parenting doesn't have a big effect on personality.
[00:32:16]  Personality is significantly and in some measures overwhelmingly genetic.
[00:32:21]  You know, extroverted, introverted, agreeableness, defiance, big five personality traits, and a bunch of other stuff that you can kind of throw into the mix.
[00:32:30]  But personality is significantly, if not downright overwhelmingly, genetic.
[00:32:35]  Now, you can give your children moral values, of course, right?
[00:32:39]  And you can see that happening all over the world.
[00:32:42]  So, moral values, wisdom, and instruction, but the personality of the child is genetic.
[00:32:53]  The parents' job, the father's job to know and to understand.
[00:32:56]  The big question is why does the father give the wastrel's son a million dollars?
[00:33:09]  Right?
[00:33:09]  Let's say three million dollar estate, a third, a third, a third.
[00:33:14]  A third of a million goes to the eldest, a third kept by the father, a third goes to the youngest.
[00:33:18]  Well, why would you give a wastrel's son who demands money ahead of your inheritance, says, I want money as if you're dead, dad?
[00:33:26]  Why would you give that money to your son?
[00:33:33]  This is incredibly unwise parenting.
[00:33:42]  Because it's your job as a parent to know whether your son is going to put that money to good or bad ends.
[00:33:49]  Now, maybe the son lied to the father.
[00:33:54]  I hear there's a fantastic bridge building.
[00:33:56]  Opportunity in Mesopotamia, dad.
[00:33:58]  I'm going to go down and invest it and make a fortune.
[00:34:01]  Maybe the son lied to the dad.
[00:34:02]  But of course, it is the father's job to know how the resources are going to be used.
[00:34:07]  And you don't give a million dollars to a lying, addicted, wastrel of a son.
[00:34:13]  Now, why, of course, also why is the son a lying and wasteful person?
[00:34:23]  Why is he false?
[00:34:26]  Why does he blow his money?
[00:34:27]  Why is he irresponsible?
[00:34:28]  Because you've got the responsible son.
[00:34:30]  And you have the irresponsible son.
[00:34:33]  Of course, there's no mention of the mother really, so we don't really know, because this is a masculine story.
[00:34:41]  Now, the older brother's frustration, of course, is completely understandable.
[00:34:46]  So I do the right thing, you old skinflint.
[00:34:49]  I do the right thing.
[00:34:50]  I slave, I work, I defer gratification, I act with honor and nobility and integrity and restraint.
[00:34:58]  I defer gratification, and I get nothing.
[00:35:01]  I get to be a servantslash slave.
[00:35:03]  And when I want to have even a small party with my friends, you won't even give me a wizened old little goat.
[00:35:11]  To cook up and share around.
[00:35:14]  Now, again, if he's been given a third of the wealth, obviously he would have the money to buy things himself, but the story is a little freaky that way, a little ambiguous.
[00:35:22]  Because if he's got a third of the wealth, he can throw his own party, right?
[00:35:26]  This is why I think that the story only works logically if the father gives a third of his fortune to the youngest sibling, but nothing to the oldest.
[00:35:38]  In which case, why?
[00:35:41]  Why?
[00:35:43]  It is also, of course, a parable of spoiling that when you give in to children's demands, then you make them less thoughtful.
[00:35:56]  You make them less able to defer gratification and plan.
[00:36:00]  You know, very early on, when my daughter would want something at a store or some toy or whatever, I mean, I would, when she was very young, yeah, sure.
[00:36:11]  But when she got older, it'd be like, great.
[00:36:14]  You can pay half.
[00:36:16]  I pay half.
[00:36:16]  Or I think it started off just pay a quarter.
[00:36:19]  And then suddenly it's like, whoa, whoa, hang on.
[00:36:21]  If this isn't like just infinite parental money bags, that's a different matter.
[00:36:28]  And that's how you teach children the value of money and restraint and deferral of gratification and all kinds of good things.
[00:36:38]  I don't subscribe to this point of view.
[00:36:41]  It would be such an ignorant thing to do if the Russians left their children to.
[00:36:45]  I don't subscribe to this point of view.
[00:36:48]  I don't believe that the son has learnt anything.
[00:36:52]  I think the son blew all of his money and came home.
[00:36:57]  And the same indulgence that the father gives to the son by giving him, who's obviously a wastrel and an addict, a third of the family fortune, is then, ah, don't say anything, you're forgiven just because you ran out of money.
[00:37:14]  Now, this is not a good analogy.
[00:37:18]  For God, sinners, and forgiveness, because God knows what is in the sinner's heart.
[00:37:25]  Has the sinner really changed his mind?
[00:37:27]  Has he really learned virtue?
[00:37:29]  Has he processed it all?
[00:37:31]  How much harm he's done to others?
[00:37:35]  Right?
[00:37:35]  Has he processed it all?
[00:37:36]  This is the addicts.
[00:37:38]  This is one of the reasons why addicts are so tough to reform, because they've accumulated so much wrong and harm that they've done to others that their conscience has become a viper or a boa constrictor that will squeeze the life out of them.
[00:37:49]  Should they ever admit to themselves or to others the wrongs that they have done.
[00:38:00]  So, the speech!
[00:38:06]  Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
[00:38:09]  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
[00:38:12]  Make me like one of your hired servants.
[00:38:17]  Sins against heaven and before you.
[00:38:22]  He hasn't said, I lied, I manipulated, I ran away to escape responsibilities, I gave a lot of money to criminals, prostitutes, and drug dealers.
[00:38:33]  I encourage this kind of lifestyle.
[00:38:35]  See, when people are out there living consequence free, it spreads psychosis to everyone else.
[00:38:39]  I'm not kidding about this.
[00:38:41]  I'm not kidding about this.
[00:38:42]  Like, if you get up and you go to work and shovel your driveway and it's six o'clock in the morning and your neighbor, you know, lazes around, sleeps in till 11 a.m., doesn't really do anything.
[00:39:00]  European refugee style.
[00:39:02]  Then you start to resent that.
[00:39:04]  If you're both getting up and shoveling your driveway and going to work, then at least you have that in common.
[00:39:08]  But you start to resent people who seem to be getting away with stuff.
[00:39:14]  Haven't we all felt that?
[00:39:19]  You can't afford a house, but there's a bunch of subsidies for other people that allow them to get a house.
[00:39:26]  Right?
[00:39:29]  Have you ever been in that awkward position where you've studied for a test?
[00:39:33]  And you know someone who's cheating, it makes you resentful.
[00:39:40]  When society allows small wrongs to accumulate, large wrongs are inevitable.
[00:39:49]  And so, this guy, by showing up in town in a blaze of glory and spending and having a great time, and I'm living the dream, man.
[00:39:58]  I'm living the dream.
[00:40:01]  I don't have any consequences.
[00:40:03]  Nothing bad happens.
[00:40:04]  It's all perfect.
[00:40:05]  Anyone who works is a sucker.
[00:40:07]  Fun is all that matters.
[00:40:09]  Look at these hot bikini babes, blah, blah, blah.
[00:40:12]  I mean, you're spreading just a kind of psychosis.
[00:40:16]  A psychosis is when you kind of lose track of two things.
[00:40:22]  One, reason equals virtue equals happiness.
[00:40:25]  And number two, in order to consume, you have to produce.
[00:40:30]  One is morality, and the other is reality.
[00:40:38]  And if you live in reality but reject morality, you will survive, but you will never be loved.
[00:40:49]  If you focus on morality and reject reality, then you may be loved briefly, but you can never provide for a family because you're rejecting cause and effect, and that in order to consume, you need to produce.

=== Virtue Does Not Equal Happiness (14:46) ===

[00:41:10]  So there's no conscience.
[00:41:11]  Oh, I've sinned before God.
[00:41:12]  It's all abstract, right?
[00:41:16]  And the father doesn't even let him apologize, but showers him with more goodies.
[00:41:25]  That's terrible parenting.
[00:41:28]  A terrible parenting.
[00:41:29]  Because you don't know why he's back.
[00:41:30]  You don't know if it's real.
[00:41:31]  You don't know if it's rehearsed.
[00:41:32]  You don't know if it's factual.
[00:41:33]  You don't know if there's been any moral awakening or anything like that.
[00:41:37]  And of course, I mean, they make this very clear that he's starving.
[00:41:41]  In the story.
[00:41:45]  Right?
[00:41:46]  He's starving.
[00:41:47]  And the reason he comes back is he needs food.
[00:41:50]  I mean, that's very clear in the story.
[00:41:52]  I mean, there's a famine, right?
[00:41:53]  He's envying the pig slops.
[00:41:55]  He's starving.
[00:41:56]  And it's been years.
[00:41:57]  Now, we don't know how long the famine is, but it's long enough that he's starving, which means he's skinny.
[00:42:07]  So, what that means is that when he comes back, He's walking.
[00:42:12]  He's not on an elephant or a camel or a horse or a carriage.
[00:42:17]  I guess not really a carriage much.
[00:42:18]  It's a sand or whatever, but something, a cart.
[00:42:21]  He's not on a burrow.
[00:42:24]  So clearly he's broke.
[00:42:27]  So the father knows for certain.
[00:42:29]  I assume the son is coming back in ragged clothes because he would have sold more expensive clothes to get food.
[00:42:35]  So he's coming back a skinny, ragged ass, homeless wastrel who's blown everything.
[00:42:44]  The family is now.
[00:42:46]  A third poorer.
[00:42:49]  Plus whatever could have been recovered or gained by investing that money over some years.
[00:43:01]  Now, the father has servants, which means, and his oldest son is working in the field.
[00:43:09]  What that means is this is a land owning family.
[00:43:13]  Now, if you want a third of your inheritance, it's not like.
[00:43:17]  The youngest son can carry a bunch of land in a backpack.
[00:43:20]  So, what that means is that the father has had to sell off a whole bunch of land and shrink the family's holdings by a third of value.
[00:43:29]  May not be a third in land mass because the land has differing levels of value depending on its fecundity or fertility, or if you want that sort of rich loam of the breadbasket of Europe or Ukrainian soil or something like that.
[00:43:48]  So, the father has lost a third of the value of his holdings, which means he's had to sell a whole bunch of land and the family wealth has declined.
[00:44:00]  In other words, basically, a whole bunch of land was sold in order to enrich bartenders, prostitutes, pimps, gangs, and people who do street gambling.
[00:44:16]  And nobody's talking about that, about the harm that has been done to the community that this young man has gone to.
[00:44:21]  And given his father's hard earned money, his ancestors' hard earned money, into the hands of pretty vile and despicable people.
[00:44:32]  He has swelled the criminal elbow.
[00:44:34]  Nothing, of course, like that is talked about, nothing is mentioned.
[00:44:39]  Doesn't matter.
[00:44:46]  So, why is the son a wastrel?
[00:44:50]  Well, a wastrel is somebody who blows scarce resources in the pursuit of pleasure in the here and now and does not defer gratification for the long term.
[00:45:00]  And of course, the winter culture equivalent is eating your food in the fall and early winter and then starving to death by springtime, which usually involves your children starving to death by springtime.
[00:45:21]  So, the father has inculcated the wastrel nature, the prodigal nature of the son.
[00:45:32]  Because the father cannot say no, cannot defer gratification, and looks for approval in the moment.
[00:45:41]  So, when the son says, Yo, dad, I'm irresponsible, you know that because you're my father, I want you to sell a whole bunch of land, diminish the family fortunes, and give me a third of the value.
[00:45:53]  Of the inheritance as if you were dead.
[00:45:55]  Now, of course, the father, what should the father do is the father should say, No, no, no, I'm not doing that.
[00:46:02]  I mean, you want money, get a job.
[00:46:07]  You want resources, defer gratification, and minimize your consumption.
[00:46:13]  That's how you save money.
[00:46:15]  You spend little.
[00:46:19]  But the father says, Okay, here you go.
[00:46:22]  So the father.
[00:46:27]  Does not defer gratification, cannot say no.
[00:46:29]  And that's what an addict is.
[00:46:30]  So the father is an addict to his son's approval, which is why the son is an addict to immediate gratification.
[00:46:38]  Saying no to your children means deferring gratification.
[00:46:43]  Saying no to your children, I mean with reason, not just blindly or blankly, but saying no to your children is essential for their happiness.
[00:46:51]  You cannot expect your children to develop self restraint if.
[00:46:55]  Every woman wish of theirs is granted without question.
[00:46:59]  So the father is a cock.
[00:47:01]  The father is weak.
[00:47:03]  The father is pathetic.
[00:47:07]  Because the father wants immediate happiness at the expense of long term success and survival.
[00:47:14]  So he wants the immediate happiness of the approval of his son by selling all his land and handing over bagfuls of gold to his clearly wasteful and addicted son.
[00:47:24]  So the father is addicted to approval.
[00:47:29]  The approval and happiness of the son, the younger son in this case, is what has modeled the son's wasteful ways.
[00:47:45]  The father is willing to give a million dollars to a rampant addict just for the sake of that rampant addict giving him short term approval, even though it causes massive destruction in the family, in the wealth, in the holdings, and in the community.
[00:48:03]  That his son ends up going and blowing all his money in.
[00:48:07]  So the father is the real addict.
[00:48:12]  The father is the real addict.
[00:48:16]  The father wants happiness now to help with the consequences later.
[00:48:22]  So he will not say no to his son.
[00:48:25]  He is a hedonist for the pleasure of approval in the moment rather than doing what's right, though it causes disapproval and upset in the moment.
[00:48:34]  So, the father is the real addict.
[00:48:36]  Now, of course, the eldest son has looked at that and has been repulsed by it, and therefore is responsible in a way that the father is not.
[00:48:44]  The son clearly defers gratification.
[00:48:47]  Of course, it's unfair.
[00:48:50]  The father is unfair because the father says to the youngest son, Oh, you want a third of the family's land converted to gold so you can go and waste it on hookers and blow?
[00:49:02]  Sure.
[00:49:02]  No, no problem.
[00:49:03]  Yeah, you got it.
[00:49:04]  The oldest son asks for a small goat to celebrate his friends with.
[00:49:07]  The father's like, No.
[00:49:10]  So, the father has no principles.
[00:49:14]  It's just that the older brother will not apply the kind of emotional terrorism against his father that the younger brother will.
[00:49:21]  Because the father clearly is frightened of the younger brother or frightened of his disapproval.
[00:49:26]  And the younger brother must be vicious.
[00:49:30]  Because the father can clearly say no to the responsible older brother because the older brother says, You won't even give me a goat to celebrate with my friends.
[00:49:37]  But you'll give this guy a third of the family fortune as if you were dead.
[00:49:40]  Are you mad?
[00:49:44]  So, what does this mean?
[00:49:45]  This means that the youngest son, who's an emotional terrorist, gets his way, and the oldest son, who's responsible, gets rejected.
[00:49:52]  And this is the way of the world, right?
[00:49:54]  You know this, right?
[00:49:55]  You know this.
[00:49:56]  It's a sad and pathetic state of affairs, but this is the way of the world for the most part.
[00:49:59]  You can change it in your personal life, but it's almost a universal law that those who are the most aggressive get their way.
[00:50:09]  Those who are the most volatile, the most bullying, the most sycophantic, they all get their way.
[00:50:15]  And those of us who are responsible, rational, defer gratification, who are reasonable, get screwed for the most part.
[00:50:26]  When there's a conflict between two people, everyone looks at that conflict and says, Ooh, okay, who has the power to do me the most damage?
[00:50:39]  Who's the craziest?
[00:50:39]  Who's the most aggressive?
[00:50:40]  Okay, we'll defer to them and call ourselves moral.
[00:50:45]  So, if I'm in a conflict with some crazy person who's willing to escalate and spread rumors and lie and blah, blah, blah, then people say, well, you know, Steph's probably not going to do that.
[00:50:56]  This other person is.
[00:50:56]  So we'll side with that person and call ourselves moral.
[00:51:03]  So the father rewards the irresponsibility and greed and emotional terrorism of the younger sibling while punishing the responsibility and reasonableness of the elder sibling.
[00:51:22]  The father is the addict.
[00:51:25]  The younger sibling is the manifestation of that addiction.
[00:51:29]  Because the father doesn't even find out why the son is back.
[00:51:35]  The father is so happy and relieved that the son is back that he doesn't care why.
[00:51:40]  But the why really matters.
[00:51:43]  The why really matters.
[00:51:45]  Now, the older brother knows why the son is back, which is why he refuses to join the celebration.
[00:51:56]  And the relief when people who've made bad decisions hit rock bottom and then start promising to make better decisions, the relief is an addiction.
[00:52:13]  Parents of drug addicts, the drug addict says, Oh, I'm never going to do that drug again.
[00:52:17]  I've really learned my lesson.
[00:52:18]  Oh, thank goodness.
[00:52:19]  Oh, relief.
[00:52:22]  It is a father who is run by the pleasure pain principle.
[00:52:26]  Well, the youngest sibling, my youngest son, well, he's a real bully.
[00:52:30]  He pouts.
[00:52:32]  He enlists his mother.
[00:52:33]  He doesn't let me sleep.
[00:52:35]  He nags and nags and nags.
[00:52:36]  So he applies a lot of negative pressure because he's a bully, kind of emotional terrorist, as the phrase goes.
[00:52:42]  So, okay, he wants the, oh, fine.
[00:52:44]  He wants the third of the family fortune.
[00:52:47]  Fine.
[00:52:49]  It's just the pleasure principle.
[00:52:50]  Oh, Dad, you're so great.
[00:52:51]  I love you so much.
[00:52:52]  Oh, that feels wonderful.
[00:52:54]  Just as the pleasure pain principle.
[00:52:57]  And then the son is very happy to have all this money, the youngest son, and goes off to this far off land and whores and drugs and drinks and gambles, whatever he does, blows all the money.
[00:53:08]  So he's happy to be doing that, gives him pleasure.
[00:53:12]  Then he runs out of money, there's a famine, he's feeding the pig slop, and now he's in a state of pain.
[00:53:17]  Oh no!
[00:53:19]  Things are bad, I'm hurting.
[00:53:23]  So then he doesn't reflect upon all the wrongs that he's done, he doesn't reflect that he half wished his father dead in order to.
[00:53:28]  To get the money.
[00:53:28]  No, no, no.
[00:53:30]  He just says, Ooh, you know, at dad's place, yeah, that's nice, man.
[00:53:38]  At dad's place, there's food.
[00:53:41]  Again, it's all the body, it's all pleasure, pain, principle.
[00:53:50]  Now, the older brother, the honorable brother, perhaps a little bit masochistic because he's sticking out this crazy situation, but the older brother refuses to inflict negative consequences, at least at the beginning, on the father.
[00:54:09]  And so, if the father says no to the youngest son wanting a third of the fortune, the youngest son escalates and bullies and nags and complains and bitches and moans and whines until the father's like, okay, fine, here you go, just go, right?
[00:54:23]  Pleasure, pain.
[00:54:24]  Principle.
[00:54:25]  Oh, you're the best pleasure to the father.
[00:54:29]  Now, the oldest son can't even get a single goat out of his father for a party.
[00:54:41]  What that means is that the father is not afraid of him because he won't inflict negative consequences, which means the father operates not on any virtue but on the pleasure pain principle.
[00:54:57]  Because why would he give the son the third of the fortune when he won't give the other son even one thin goat?
[00:55:06]  A fatted calf is worth dozens of times more than one single goat because his youngest son is an expert manipulator, as is he, the father.
[00:55:23]  And so the family is operating on the pleasure pain principle.
[00:55:26]  And then the son returns, and the father doesn't even care why.
[00:55:29]  He's so happy, it doesn't even matter.
[00:55:32]  The son doesn't even get to say, Hey, man, just put me to work in the fields.
[00:55:36]  I just need, give me a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, and a straw mat, and I'm good, man.
[00:55:43]  It's all I'm looking for.
[00:55:47]  The father doesn't even want to know what happened, he doesn't want to know where the money is, he doesn't know what.

=== The Father's Silent Return (05:08) ===

[00:55:57]  Compromises have been made.
[00:55:59]  The father doesn't even do the sensible thing.
[00:56:02]  See, the son almost certainly ran up debts.
[00:56:07]  You know, you show off your wealth, people will lend you money.
[00:56:11]  Usually, quite bad people in this situation.
[00:56:14]  It's not like he's got a line of credit or a Bitcoin Visa card.
[00:56:18]  So, there are bad people in the land that the prodigal son went to.
[00:56:29]  There are bad people he almost certainly owes money to.
[00:56:33]  Again, if you're around addicts, particularly gambling addicts, they don't just stop when they run out of money, they stop when they run out of credit.
[00:56:42]  It's a whole different matter.
[00:56:46]  So there could be people over the hill, over the sand dune, past the youngest son.
[00:56:57]  Who are coming to extract money from the family by hook or by crook or by bludgeoning or by kidnapping or by theft or by knee breaking or curbing?
[00:57:14]  So, father doesn't care.
[00:57:16]  He's just happy.
[00:57:17]  He's in the pleasure principle, no responsibility.
[00:57:22]  So, he wants to reward his son, to bribe him.
[00:57:29]  The father, frankly, in this story, is a silly old fool.
[00:57:33]  Hedonistic, pleasure pain principle, a bully to the rational, and a slave to the bullying.
[00:57:43]  Very common situation in the world.
[00:57:49]  Should you forgive people who don't apologize?
[00:57:57]  That's the big question, right?
[00:57:59]  That's what this story is all about.
[00:58:02]  Should you forgive people who don't apologize?
[00:58:12]  Well, if it's God, obviously you know if they have apologies deep within their hearts or not.
[00:58:19]  But the father certainly doesn't.
[00:58:21]  He doesn't even find out what happened.
[00:58:25]  I mean, the son coming back, ragged, thin, maybe he joined some kind of monastery or some kind of ascetic order, gave the money away to the poor.
[00:58:38]  He doesn't find out anything.
[00:58:39]  Oh, I'm so happy you're back.
[00:58:40]  Let's have a big feast.
[00:58:42]  Yay, fun.
[00:58:43]  Woohoo.
[00:58:44]  Right?
[00:58:45]  An old fool.
[00:58:46]  I'm not talking about God.
[00:58:47]  I'm talking about the father in this entirely mortal story.
[00:58:51]  It's an old fool.
[00:58:54]  I remember when I produced my first play.
[00:59:05]  After I left theater school, I'd written a play, an adaptation of Turgenia's Fathers and Sons.
[00:59:10]  I called it Seduction.
[00:59:11]  And it was a pretty good play, I think.
[00:59:12]  I really enjoyed it, and the audience really liked it, and so on.
[00:59:15]  And I hired.
[00:59:17]  An actor to play an old fool.
[00:59:22]  Unfortunately, the actor also was an old fool, and I'm sure you've met people like this the King Lears, the Thou Should Not Have Been Old Before Thou Wert Wise, or the old saying, There's no fool like an old fool.
[00:59:39]  So I hired this guy because he really played the old fool quite well.
[00:59:48]  But his acting, he was uncoachable.
[00:59:51]  And of course, there's no point hiring actors unless they're hugely skilled and experienced to just do their own thing.
[00:59:57]  You have to get the actor's performance to mesh in with the story as a whole.
[01:00:00]  And every time I tried to give him feedback, he just got angry.
[01:00:05]  Now, I was 21 and working a job in a restaurant to fund the play.
[01:00:13]  So I get it.
[01:00:14]  He was in his 60s.
[01:00:16]  So maybe he felt it was kind of tough to be taken.
[01:00:20]  Feedback and coaching and take notes from a young whippersnapper like me, but he just got volatile.
[01:00:27]  So I fired him.
[01:00:29]  And I remember in the theater, he was.
[01:00:31]  No, we were.
[01:00:31]  Sorry, we were practicing in the park.
[01:00:33]  I didn't get the theater until a couple of days before opening, wherein the stage manager carted in real trees because it took place in a series of gardens and she hired in real trees.
[01:00:44]  It was amazing.
[01:00:46]  Never seen that before.
[01:00:49]  And yeah, the old fool who I hired to play an old fool who wouldn't take any coaching.
[01:00:56]  I was yelling at me.
[01:00:58]  You owe me.
[01:00:59]  Ow, I'm going to send you a bill.
[01:01:00]  You owe me an hourly rate for every blah, blah, blah.
[01:01:03]  No, just whatever.

=== Forgiveness Must Be Earned (04:23) ===

[01:01:05]  Leave.
[01:01:06]  Of course, I never heard from him again.
[01:01:09]  But that's an old fool.
[01:01:15]  And so he forgives based on the pleasure principle.
[01:01:17]  He's so relieved that his son is back that he doesn't care why.
[01:01:24]  He doesn't care why.
[01:01:26]  I mean, if you've ever been around addicts, of course, sorry to reiterate, but when they come home, like as not, they're there to steal stuff.
[01:01:41]  They're there to steal stuff.
[01:01:44]  In the movie Parenthood, the Addict who owes money comes home because he and he ends up wanting to steal his grandfather's car and sell it to pay off the debt.
[01:02:01]  So the old fool wants to celebrate that the son is home without any judgment, without any requirement for knowledge, without any evaluation of the situation.
[01:02:11]  His son doesn't get to say anything.
[01:02:13]  Now, it could be because the father knows his son well enough to know, like, why does the father stop the speech?
[01:02:19]  I think deep down because the father knows the son is lying.
[01:02:22]  Oh, I have sinned against.
[01:02:23]  Oh, yeah, shut up.
[01:02:24]  Just don't talk.
[01:02:25]  I'm happy you're home, but please don't start off the whole prodigal son returns by lying to me.
[01:02:33]  I can't then maintain my illusion that it's a good thing.
[01:02:39]  I don't forgive unless it's earned.
[01:02:44]  I am not a charity of altruism.
[01:02:49]  I will not dishonor those.
[01:02:51]  Who have genuinely apologized to me, as I believe I have genuinely apologized to other people, that's a difficult and humbling thing to do.
[01:03:00]  And it's a very honorable and noble thing to do.
[01:03:02]  I am more in certainty of a relationship where there have been wrongs and apologies than one in which there have been no wrongs at all.
[01:03:11]  In the same way that if I'm in a street fight, I want to be in a street fight with somebody else I've been in a street fight with before.
[01:03:22]  Because I know what they're going to do.
[01:03:23]  I know they're going to handle themselves.
[01:03:24]  I know they're not going to run away or scream or wet themselves or join the enemy team, right?
[01:03:30]  So I have stronger relationships with those who've apologized genuinely than I have with those who've never apologized.
[01:03:41]  Maybe they've never done any wrong.
[01:03:42]  Maybe they're perfect or whatever.
[01:03:43]  I don't know.
[01:03:44]  But generally, the relationships that I like and that I feel comfortable with.
[01:03:48]  And the same is true.
[01:03:49]  Like, I wouldn't expect anyone to trust me hugely.
[01:03:52]  Unless I had done them wrong and apologized.
[01:03:59]  And I would say I probably apologize at least once a month, if not maybe more, because I don't have a standard of perfection, yet I still must act, which means sometimes I will act in the wrong way.
[01:04:17]  So, yeah, I apologized to my wife a couple of days ago.
[01:04:20]  I apologized to my daughter last weekend.
[01:04:22]  Nope, it's fine.
[01:04:25]  And that's a humbling and I think fairly noble thing to do.
[01:04:30]  I have never, ever, ever lowered my respect for someone who has come up with a genuine apology with the restitution, reasonable ways in which it's never going to happen again, blah, blah, blah.
[01:04:50]  Now, where I do lose respect is people who won't admit fault and won't apologize, even when they're clearly in the wrong.
[01:04:55]  I have no respect for that.
[01:04:56]  That's sad.
[01:04:58]  That's really pathetic.
[01:05:00]  It's embarrassing, it's cringe.
[01:05:08]  So, people with no history of apologizing can't apologize.
[01:05:14]  I mean, you have to work your way up.
[01:05:16]  It's a muscle you need to develop, it's a humility you need to develop.
[01:05:20]  And people who don't apologize are operating on the base assumption that they've never done anything wrong and they never will.

=== Sexual Imprinting and Evil (14:15) ===

[01:05:28]  And that's just not true.
[01:05:29]  That's just a lie.
[01:05:33]  Everybody over the inevitable jagged road bump course of human affairs, interactions, and events is going to do things wrong, is going to do something wrong.
[01:05:43]  And therefore, needs to apologize.
[01:05:45]  But vain people won't admit that they're wrong, and also vain people will never apologize because they imagine that those they apologize to would behave in the same vainglorious, vindictive way that they would if someone apologized to them.
[01:05:58]  It's just projection.
[01:06:00]  People won't humble themselves to apologize because they're vain.
[01:06:04]  And you can't have a relationship with vain people because they'll always choose their own vanity over you and the truth.
[01:06:13]  So that's my very brief analysis because somebody did axe.
[01:06:17]  Somebody did axe for this.
[01:06:19]  That's my sort of very brief analysis of the parable of the prodigal son.
[01:06:27]  It's a vile story of intergenerational addiction.
[01:06:32]  It's a vile story of emotional bullying and manipulation.
[01:06:36]  And it's a vile story of the punishment of the virtuous for the sake of bribing the emotional terrorists and addicts among us.
[01:06:43]  It's heinous in my view.
[01:06:46]  All right.
[01:06:47]  We have a caller or two.
[01:06:49]  I don't know, Will, man.
[01:06:50]  Hasn't been much fun lately with you.
[01:06:52]  Let's go to Vanilla.
[01:06:55]  If you have the thoughts, I have the ears.
[01:07:02]  Thank you for your patience.
[01:07:05]  If you want to unmute, give it a try.
[01:07:11]  Anybody else is certainly welcome to join in.
[01:07:16]  Greetings, Stefan.
[01:07:17]  Can you hear me?
[01:07:18]  Yes, sir.
[01:07:18]  Go ahead.
[01:07:21]  Okay, I've actually been watching you for about 10 years now.
[01:07:26]  It's great to finally talk to you.
[01:07:28]  Nice to talk to you.
[01:07:29]  Thank you for your attention.
[01:07:31]  Okay, I am from South Africa, if you couldn't tell by my accent, but that's not really why I'm calling here.
[01:07:38]  I want to ask you what or how would you define evil?
[01:07:46]  Evil is the pretense of virtue to gain resources in general.
[01:07:55]  Evil, more specifically, is the initiation of the use of force, the violation of property rights, and the execution of fraud.
[01:08:05]  That's sort of the more matter of fact ways of doing it.
[01:08:09]  But for me, true evil lies in the pretense of virtue, which masks actual.
[01:08:17]  Predation.
[01:08:18]  Because when evil people pretend to be virtuous, they're saying, I know what virtue is.
[01:08:26]  I know how to put on the skin suit of virtue in order to do evil.
[01:08:30]  Now, once you know what virtue is, then using it to do evil means that you are truly despicable.
[01:08:38]  Because you can't claim to be ignorant of virtue if you are pretending to be virtuous in order to do evil, if that makes sense.
[01:08:48]  I think I understand.
[01:08:49]  The reason I was asking this is I was reading through Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk, and at some point, Elon Musk describes his father as evil, or more specifically, purposefully choosing to do evil because it's evil.
[01:09:14]  Sorry, I need to get my thoughts straight here.
[01:09:19]  He basically doesn't say it outright, but it is implied that his father might have sexually abused him.
[01:09:31]  What I do know is a fact he adopted, this is now Elon Musk's father, he's called Errol Musk.
[01:09:41]  He adopted the daughter of a woman who he briefly married, and when the When the girl grew up, he ended up having a child with her.
[01:09:53]  So, what do you think of that?
[01:09:56]  Well, you put out a lot of information.
[01:09:58]  Could you be a bit more specific?
[01:10:04]  What do you think of the actions of Elon Musk's father?
[01:10:09]  So, what you're saying is that, and I don't know the facts behind the story, what you're saying is that Elon Musk's father adopted a girl, and then when that girl became an adult, he got the girl pregnant.
[01:10:22]  Is that right?
[01:10:25]  And what age was she when she was adopted?
[01:10:30]  Four or six, I think.
[01:10:32]  Right.
[01:10:32]  Well, I think that's vile.
[01:10:34]  It's vile beyond words.
[01:10:36]  I don't know.
[01:10:37]  Again, I can't verify the truth of the story, so we won't make it about Errol Musk.
[01:10:43]  But yeah, if a man adopts a child, then he is playing the role or he is acting in the role of father.
[01:10:52]  And of course, although you could say, well, it's not direct, specific biological incest because she's adopted, it doesn't particularly matter from a psychological standpoint.
[01:11:00]  A father has undue influence and authority over a child.
[01:11:06]  Children are programmed to obey their parents in the same way that ducklings are programmed by nature to follow the path of the largest living organism they see, or I guess it could even be an orange balloon or something, after they leave the egg.
[01:11:21]  So, given that children are programmed to obey and bond with their parents, they cannot consent to any sexual activity with regards to a parent.
[01:11:34]  No matter what age, because it is not a matter of choice, but biological programming.
[01:11:41]  And so it is an absolute horrendous abuse of power for this kind of thing to happen.
[01:11:48]  Yes, I agree with you, Dave.
[01:11:53]  I guess this is kind of related to the nature of evil.
[01:11:56]  But why do you think people choose to do things that are blatantly evil, such as, for example, Or just inflicting pain for the pleasure of it.
[01:12:14]  Oh, you mean, why are people sadistic?
[01:12:17]  Yes.
[01:12:20]  Well, I mean, there's wiring.
[01:12:22]  I mean, the sort of basic answer from a biological standpoint, and we've seen this in brain scans, is that when you show videos of people being tortured to normal, healthy, decent people, then revulsion centers, fear centers, pain centers light up.
[01:12:42]  I can't watch some of these videos, you know, like the videos where you see some guy getting hit in the nether regions by some baseball or cricket ball or something.
[01:12:51]  I can't watch those because I feel it.
[01:12:53]  I feel it in my own groin and it's very unpleasant.
[01:12:56]  And so, in normal healthy humans, there are mirror neurons, and mirror neurons are that which recreate injuries you see in another within your own body, and it gives you kind of physical empathy for people.
[01:13:11]  Now, with sadists, or evil people, I suppose, when they see videos of people being tortured, the happiness, the semi orgasmic, the arousal response centers of the brain light up.
[01:13:26]  They find it sexually exciting.
[01:13:27]  They find it a turn on.
[01:13:31]  They would pursue that kind of pain in the same way that most people would pursue sexual gratification or a fantastic meal or a beautiful piece of music.
[01:13:42]  It gives them great pleasure.
[01:13:45]  So that would be one of the reasons why.
[01:13:47]  Now, as to why they end up with these pain centers lighting up sorry, when they see pain, their pleasure centers lighting up instead of their empathy or mirror neurons or pain centers.
[01:14:00]  I assume that would have to do with horrendous early child abuse that fundamentally rewires their brains in horrific ways.
[01:14:09]  And we could sort of get into the mechanics of that, but the early child abuse really does rewire people's brains.
[01:14:16]  My mother suffered such extreme child abuse that her brain was permanently rewired and she lost any capacity for self criticism.
[01:14:23]  I'm sorry, go ahead.
[01:14:26]  What I've noticed is that in some cultures, there is a very high prevalence of this, at least in the sexual fantasy sense.
[01:14:40]  Like the Germans and the Japanese are quite famous for this.
[01:14:46]  I suspect this probably has something to do with World War II or the atomic bombing.
[01:14:53]  Would you agree with that?
[01:14:55]  I couldn't really answer that with any.
[01:14:58]  I don't know enough about that sort of history of the two countries or what might have occurred in that way.
[01:15:05]  I do think that for children, a lot of times, I assume, this is a very rough sketch, so I'm not, you know, don't hold me to this in any foundational way.
[01:15:16]  But for children, there are very strong associations.
[01:15:23]  If they hear sexual activity, they think it's pain.
[01:15:28]  The moaning, the crying out, and so on.
[01:15:31]  And so, for children, they may think that sexual activity is pain based.
[01:15:38]  And of course, if they see videos, something comes up in a show or something where a woman is giving birth, obviously she's in great pain.
[01:15:49]  And then, if they hear the sounds of sexual activity, they may think or assume that it is painful, and so on.
[01:15:57]  And so, if I assume Sorry, hang on.
[01:16:03]  So, if they go through the experience of thinking that sexual activity is based upon pain, and if that's how their brain gets wired, then when they hear or see the sounds of pain, it may give them a sexual connotation or association.
[01:16:17]  The one thing I think that's very true about human sexuality is it's almost infinitely malleable.
[01:16:23]  And that's because our human genomes, our human genes, we have no idea what kind of society we're going to be born into.
[01:16:31]  And yet, we have to adapt to the sexual practices of that tribe.
[01:16:36]  And so, we don't know what women find attractive.
[01:16:40]  We don't know what men find attractive.
[01:16:42]  We don't know what is the methodology of sexual pursuit.
[01:16:45]  We don't know what the cultural practices are.
[01:16:47]  We don't know what the sexual practices are.
[01:16:49]  Is it public?
[01:16:50]  Is it private?
[01:16:51]  Is it monosexual?
[01:16:52]  Is it harem based?
[01:16:55]  Is it monogamous?
[01:16:55]  I mean, so the sexual practices is, you know, in some tribes in Africa, they have these incredibly elongated necks that they stretch out with these hoops and so on.
[01:17:05]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:17:06]  So, whereas, you know, in other cultures, I think the one thing that's common for men is that large breasts are considered attractive in just about every culture, except maybe the upper class British or whatever.
[01:17:16]  So, your sexuality, my sexuality, is born almost completely fluid.
[01:17:23]  We have the potential, of course, and the potential when we're born for sexual activity is built in and baked in and so on.
[01:17:34]  But the form that that sexual activity takes is.
[01:17:41]  Not set in stone.
[01:17:43]  In the same way, we have a great capacity for language development, but the form of that language development, whether it's, of course, English or Japanese or Croatian or whatever, the content is not there.
[01:17:54]  The content is determined by the environment.
[01:17:57]  The form is determined by nature.
[01:17:58]  And in the same way, the form of sexual activity, which is that it's going to be one of the strongest drives in humanity, that is soft but moldable.
[01:18:10]  So, with regards to sexuality, there has to have been Something I would assume that imprints upon the mind of a sadist and what the standards are.
[01:18:25]  I mean, you wouldn't want to be a Genghis Khan type person in Victorian England because you just get hung, right?
[01:18:33]  Because England went through a couple of hundred years of hanging or disabling, in one way or another, the 1% of psychopaths and sociopaths, which is how they ended up with a relatively restrained and civilized society.
[01:18:46]  And so you wouldn't want to be, yeah, you wouldn't want to be a Genghis Khan style person in Victorian England.
[01:18:52]  You'd just get killed.
[01:18:55]  But at the same time, you wouldn't want to be a Victorian gentleman in Genghis Khan's army because then you would get killed for not being aggressive enough.
[01:19:03]  So we have to have a very fluid and adaptable nature.
[01:19:08]  And our sexuality, I think of it like water, it just gets poured into whatever container you are exposed to.
[01:19:16]  First.
[01:19:16]  So we imprint sexually usually upon the first or the first couple of sexual experiences that we have.
[01:19:25]  And that's the best way for our genes to survive since it is water and it doesn't know what container it's going to be poured into.
[01:19:31]  But it's kind of like water that freezes to sort of overextend the analogy, perhaps, and then can't unfreeze after that, or at least it's very hard to.
[01:19:38]  Does that sort of make sense?

=== Support the Show Today (01:47) ===

[01:19:44]  All right, he may be here.
[01:19:45]  The one other thing I would say, and I I do this in the R versus K presentations and so on, gene wars.
[01:19:50]  But the other thing that I would say is that we know that fatherlessness promotes promiscuity as a whole.
[01:20:02]  Fatherlessness tends to promote promiscuity, and fatherlessness will tend to have girls go into menstruation earlier and have a higher sex drive and so on, because fatherlessness assumes that it's a dangerous and unpredictable environment, and therefore to have more children.
[01:20:19]  With lower investment, it would be the best survival strategy as a whole.
[01:20:26]  All right, I think he's been lost a little bit.
[01:20:29]  The tech seems to be a bit dicey.
[01:20:33]  So, all right, if there's anyone else who has any thoughts, I would be happy to hear them.
[01:20:40]  Of course, nice to see some familiar faces in the list of people watching.
[01:20:44]  I won't call you out by name, but trust me, I have seen, I know, I grok, I comprehend.
[01:20:51]  I absorb the knowledge.
[01:20:54]  All right.
[01:20:55]  I don't know if we have any tech issues.
[01:20:57]  Going once, going twice.
[01:20:58]  If anyone has any thoughts, happy to hear, happy to hear.
[01:21:00]  If not, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
[01:21:04]  I really, really would appreciate it.
[01:21:07]  And shop.freedomain.com for your merch and freedomain.com slash call if you want to set up a call in show.
[01:21:12]  They're booking up fast.
[01:21:13]  So get yourself in free or private.
[01:21:17]  It's totally up to you.
[01:21:18]  Freedomain.com slash call and freedomain.com slash books for all of the great text I have cranked out.
[01:21:25]  Over the years.
[01:21:25]  All right.
[01:21:26]  Thanks, everyone, so much.
[01:21:27]  Have a glorious evening.
[01:21:28]  Lots of love from up here.
[01:21:29]  I'll talk to you soon.
[01:21:31]  Bye.