0:00 - Introduction
5:39 - Central Thesis Critique
9:21 - Impact of Truth Exposure
14:06 - Breaking the Conflict Cycle
18:00 - Emotional Energy and Mythology
22:09 - Seeking Existence Through Control
24:14 - Infusing Mythology with Emotions
25:35 - Final Thoughts and Call for Donations
Steph discusses the reasons behind bringing the Ron Paul issue to the forefront, highlighting the intense emotions and illogical reactions it triggers in supporters. She reflects on the history of political hopes and the significance of challenging fantasies to reveal underlying wounds. Steph delves into the psychology behind defending false beliefs and the volatile process of dismantling illusions. She emphasizes the importance of not engaging in conflicts fueled by emotional reactions and how responding calmly can disrupt the cycle of aggression. Steph uncovers the motivation behind provoking attacks and the role of emotional energy in reinforcing myths and ideologies. She delves into the dynamics of social metaphysics and the need for empathy to truly enlighten others. The discussion touches on controlling reactions, avoiding emotional entanglements, and the power of withholding emotional fuel from toxic interactions to deflate conflicts. Steph concludes by encouraging donations to support the podcast and expressing gratitude for listeners' contributions.
[0:00] Good afternoon, everybody. It's Steph. Hope you're doing well. Just a little toodle. I'm off to get a little massage to have a pulled a tendon in my back about a couple of months ago, and it's taking its own sweet time. I tell you, tissue damage, like I had better luck when I cracked a rib in terms of getting healing done. But this is taking a while, so I've been getting a series of massages to loosen the muscles that are attempting to compensate for the musculoskeletal problem. So anyway, I'm on my way to do that. And I had some questions sort of around, that floated into my inbox today, around why I'm sort of dropping the Ron Paul, or sort of putting the Ron Paul thing on the front burner. Rather than the backburner where it's been for quite some time. And I did that, of course, partly as a way of demonstrating the ugliness that politics engenders.
[0:57] There's simply no way that somebody who criticizes an approach could, and has sort of a series of rational arguments as to why, why there's just no reasonable explanation other than psychology, which is, of course, what we've talked about before with the Ron Paul supporters. There is no reasonable way of explaining why there would be such hostility towards somebody who questioned the efficacy and had good reasons for doing so of voting for Ron Paul as a way of securing liberty.
[1:33] And, of course, I mean, the way that I see it is that people are going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars, they are going to spend, and years of their life, if they've been sort of former Harry Brown supporters or whatever, years of their life is dedicated to this fantasy around getting somebody into power who's going to set them free, and that time, that energy, that money, and you can spend your whole life running after this nonsense. You can spend your whole life running after this nonsense. And...
[2:10] When the hope gets greater, and certainly Ron Paul is the greatest hope since Reagan for a – I mean, Reagan read free market economics. He read his Hayek. He read his – you know, the other sort of Austrian-style economists. Economists. And this is the greatest hope that people have had for liberty in, I guess, if you count Reagan bubbling up in the 70s, 30 years. And of course, for a lot of people who weren't around during the Reagan time, this is... And I remember the Reagan time. I remember the Reagan time was like really thrilling. I was, gosh, how old was I? In my early 20s. No, I was in my teens when Reagan came in. And I was 16. Is that right? 14 when Reagan came in. And there was a great deal of excitement around freedom and liberty and so on. And I remember having debates with a friend of mine about whether this would bring about the free market and so on.
[3:10] And Reagan didn't go quite as far as Ron Paul did verbally, but of course, there was less government to get rid of back in Reagan's time. So it's about the same. I guess you could say Ron Paul's going further when there's more government to get rid of. There was no big embedded and unpopular war and so on. So why would I sort of bring this sort of stuff up? Well, I wanted to show you the degree of hostility and hysteria that is in the sort of Ron Paul supporters. And also, I wanted to show the degree of reasonableness that is also out there. I've had a large number of people subscribe to the videos. It could be Ron Paul supporters looking to get the next Ron Paul question or the next Ron Paul criticism and jump all over it and nail it and this and that and the other.
[3:57] But lots more subscribers to the videos, which I think is good. And there have been some positive and reasonable comments about that. But as I sort of mentioned, both on the board and in my comments to the Ron Paul and at the end of the Ron Paul, last Ron Paul video, it's not because I'm expecting anybody to give up this fantasy or this illusion, right? To me, it's a perfectly valid strategy to be around when somebody falls. Right? So to be around when somebody falls. Somebody says, this hookers and blow party lifestyle, I can manage it. It's going to work out for me. It's going to make me happy. They're not going to have any problems. It's okay to sort of put out your criticisms, to hold your peace, and then be around when time proves you right. I mean, when you are certain of a thesis, you don't need to hammer it down people's heads. You don't need to get hysterical and angry, because time will prove you right.
[4:56] And so, I mean, we talked with Nate on Sunday about his dating after defooing, and we all knew. We all knew, but you don't need to sort of phone him up every day and say, so, you know, has it messed up yet? You can be patient, you can put forward the prediction, and then when it comes true, you have more credibility, right? In the absence of that kind of credibility, there's not a whole lot that you can do, because most people don't really know how to debate. And nobody, of course, of all of the, I don't know, hundreds of responses I got, both on my inbox and through YouTube and on the videos themselves...
[5:39] Not one person is dealing with the central thesis, right? So there are all these arguments about whether Ron Paul actually does want to deport 10 to 20 million Americans or whatever, illegal immigrants. And, of course, that's all nonsense, right? I mean, whether he wants to deport 1 or 10 or 20 million doesn't fundamentally matter that much. The fact that he is violating his own ethical principles by even considering such a thing, let alone advocating it, is the key. And of course the other thing that is the key is that there's no plan there's no plan about how this is actually going to be achieved and nobody has pointed me towards any plan right this is the blank out that occurs with people and of course i wanted also to to show that it's uh it's it's hard to take away false hope from people it's very very hard to take away false hope a lot of what is involved in therapy is just this endless elimination of false hope, right? This is what you do if you are a therapist or a psychologist or, I guess, anybody who gives even good advice is that you are in the endless process of taking away false hope from people, right? Because fantasy is paralysis, right? Fantasy is paralysis.
[6:57] And that process, though, is a volatile one. I I mean, as we have seen on the board, as we've seen in various venues, it's a highly volatile process to take away people's illusions, right? The illusion is a scar tissue over abuse, right? Fantasy is the scar tissue that forms over abuse. It starts with dissociation and then it continues with mythology, mythologizing.
[7:26] And when you begin to peel back these layers of mythology, of fantasy, and you ask for facts, right? Because Ron Paul is going to set us free. Well, that's very interesting. Can you tell me how this is actually going to happen in practice? People get really mad at you, because as you peel back the layers of fantasy and dissociation that people have, they begin to approach the initial abuse that has given rise to these defenses, right? And that is a highly volatile process. And you will notice, of course, that people's loyalty to their original abusers, which is what causes this dissociation and so on, their loyalty to their original abusers causes them fundamentally to side with the abusers and to attack the questioner. This is the Socrates story, and it's, in a sense, the Jesus story in many ways as well. It's sort of written over and over it's also the Atlas Shrugged story the idea that the person who is telling the truth is the enemy not the lie that it's not a lie until you call it a lie that it's not pain until you.
[8:40] Until you call it pain that there's no problem with drugs until you take away the heroin Right. And of course, in a sequential way, that kind of makes sense, right? I mean, just if you're not psychologically minded or sophisticated in any way, then at a sheer sequential cause and effect way, if you take away somebody's heroin, you catapult them into withdrawal.
[9:10] Which is very painful, right? So it's not the heroine that people associate with pain. In fact, the heroine feels damn good.
[9:21] What they associate with pain is the person who takes away the heroine. So the person, the dream crusher, the person who takes away the illusion. And if you've ever known anybody who's got sort of mediocre talent in a particular area, you know, like if I said I'm going to go be an opera singer, People would be like, dude, you know, you can hold it, dude, maybe, but that's a whole way from Enrico Caruso, right? And that would be perfectly right. And so I would be unjust in attacking them for their honesty. Now, it certainly is the case that, let's say, I had some gorgeous, glorious voice that somebody might be negative towards it because of their own hostility. Maybe they hadn't fulfilled their own dreams. Maybe any kind of aspiration makes them anxious. Blah, blah, blah. All of this kind of stuff could absolutely and totally be occurring. And, of course, the way that you figure that out is you go on auditions. And if you go on auditions and you never get any singing roles and nobody wants to hear you sing or whatever, then you have some sort of backup for it.
[10:32] And that's sort of why I talked about this 150 years of history where the state has not been controlled and people say, well, there are more libertarians around now. Somebody sort of posted, somebody from the Limey board posted on the YouTube videos, well, there are more libertarians around. It's like, well, I guess there are but there was nobody who advocated the welfare state around in 1880.
[10:57] So, yeah, there are more libertarians, but there are far more government programs and the state is way bigger and has much more power relative to the general population. This stuff isn't hard to figure out. I mean, when people are very smart and they say silly things, it's because they're avoiding the truth. Right. So when people who are very smart say, well, but there are more libertarians around now without, you know, yes, it's true that the army may have been bigger, but now there are 50 times more dragons. Right. So relative to right relative, the state has far more power per libertarian now than it did in 1890 or 1920 or whatever. Right. And so when people say that kind of stuff, it's simply because they are avoiding a truth and they're avoiding a truth because the truth hurts. The truth hurts the false self. The truth hurts the illusions. Once you give up on external, nonsensical, busy work action, like supporting a political candidate in terms of human freedom, once you give up on that kind of stuff, then the real cause of your emotional upset becomes clear, right? So one thing that psychologists will continually try and do with a patient is to get them to stop masking actions, using masking actions, using busy work, being busy, going out, getting drunk, going to party, going to do this and that, to avoid feeling the feelings that are actually occurring for them.
[12:24] So I suppose that the question is, what to do, right? So when you do debate somebody or when you challenge somebody's distractions or defenses or their masking mechanisms, their emotional redirects, so to speak, then you threaten to expose a wound. And, of course, this triggers strong defenses in them because in the past, when their wounds were exposed, it was in order to be attacked, right? And so when you threaten to expose somebody's wounds, they perceive it as an imminent attack. And so what they do is they attack you. And what the hope, of course, is, the mechanism behind it, what is actually happening, is that they're expecting an attack, and in order to avoid the stress of expectation, they simply provoke an attack, right? So everybody likes to feel that they're in control of their own environment. Everybody likes to feel that they can accurately predict for better or for worse. They like to feel that they can accurately predict what is going to happen, that there's a cause and effect that makes sense to them.
[13:47] And so, the reason that people put out fantasies, right, the reason that people subscribe to and loudly trumpet fantasies is to provoke attack or to provoke obliteration of the other, of the person that they're espousing the fantasy to.
[14:07] The only way, the reason that nonviolence and pacifism and the sort of Gandhian in the abstract approach works is it simply breaks the cycle. It simply breaks the cycle. So when somebody posts something ugly or sends you an email that's just full of ugliness of one kind or another, other, what happens is they are desperate for you to respond with an attack. Desperate. And if you do respond to an attack, then they feel that they are justified in their aggressive approach to the world. So people do try to, this is what I mean when I say don't engage. It just means that you don't want to get involved in a debate with somebody and then have them write the emotions, have them pull the strings and make you into their defenso puppet.
[15:11] And so, when somebody puts forward a fantasy to you, then either you agree with the fantasy, in which case you get obliterated and are no longer a threat to them, both because of agreement and also because you clearly aren't somebody who is going to be a threat to their fantasy, if you agree with it, right? So, if a Christian comes forward and says, praise Jesus, and you say, praise Jesus, then you are not a threat to their fantasy or to them.
[15:44] Or you say, God does not exist. Or you say it in a sort of angry and dismissive way. Oh, don't be such a Jesus freak. There is no God, right? In which case, the mythology that can arise is, well, this guy doesn't like me because I'm virtuous, and Jesus entirely predicted that bad people in the world would get mad at me if I was, you know... You can create a mythology out of somebody's emotional energy, right? That's sort of what I'm trying to get to. You can create a mythology out of somebody's emotional energy, and that's why calm is the opposite of fantasy.
[16:30] Mythology is the investment of emotional energy into fantasy. It's imbuing fantasy with meaning. That's what mythology is, with moral meaning, with spiritual meaning, whatever you want to, but fundamentally with moral meaning. Without emotional energy, fantasy is meaningless, or is, in fact, just revealed as fantasy. So when you have a strong emotional reaction to a criticism, I primarily mean non-empathetic reaction. When you have a strong reaction to a fantasy, what you're doing is infusing that fantasy with emotional energy that simply makes it stronger. To hate God is not to get rid of God.
[17:35] To hate the state is not to get rid of the state. To hate irrationality is not to get rid of irrationality. The more that you hate this kind of stuff, the more emotional energy you are putting out there, with which people can infuse more meaning into their mythologies.
[18:00] Hating the state is like hating a unicorn. Damn unicorn, gourd my cat. That's something else for the remix tapes. Damn unicorn, gourd my cat. At 1817 on this FDR 12 million. When people put forward intense emotionally intense craziness, if you respond with emotional intensity you're only putting fuel on the fire just putting out the fire with gasoline.
[18:51] And we all feel this temptation. I mean, I do, right? Some guy posted, you're fat, you live off your wife's paycheck. And I think the same guy wrote that I take welfare from the Canadian guy. Something like that, right? And, of course, part of me is like, oh, yeah. But, of course, that would simply give emotional energy back, right? Right? Without emotional energy, people cannot fashion a credible mythology. Without your emotional energy, people cannot fashion a credible mythology. So if this guy who posted this on YouTube, if he wins, I get really mad, and I snarl back at him in some manner, then he gets to say, well, I guess I hit a nerve, didn't I? He feels the satisfaction of a palpable hit right, and then he can say well it must be true because Steph's getting mad, what I did write back was sadly telling lies about me does not make your position any more rational.
[20:09] With no particular emotional energy. This guy from the Limey boards posting madly on YouTube.
[20:21] Because he can't get to the forum. He's posting madly on YouTube.
[20:30] Mad, desperate. Oh!
[20:39] This is the guy who accused me of slandering Ron Paul, because I said that Ron Paul wanted to deport $10 to $20 million. And he comes back and makes no mention of that after I point him to Ron Paul's website. He keeps trying to debate with me, and I said, but you haven't apologized to me for falsely accusing me of slander. So if you lack even that basic level of responsibility for your mistakes, then why would I debate anything abstract with you? You didn't answer all my questions about the last video. Oh, I could make up metaphors too, right? But that's just nonsense, right? Anyway, I just blocked it. I just don't mean it. I don't have time for that kind of stuff. But that's sort of why you have to bite back your responses. Because upset, tension, frustration, rage is fuel for metaphor, fuel for mythology.
[21:39] And it really does bring people's emotional craziness to life. It fills it. It's like blowing gently on a fire, right? It just gives them more energy. And if you break the cycle, if you don't give them what they're demanding, what they're provoking, which is conflict and problems and messes and this and that, emotional upset, it's also how they feel real. They can't have a positive impact on somebody because they're too full of anger and bitterness.
[22:10] So what they do is they feel that they have reality, they have impact, they have existence through negative, through inflicting pain. This is fundamentally a sadist. He feels that he doesn't exist. George Bush has to invade Iraq in order to stave off existential non-existence. This is the end of Atlas Strike James Taggart experience.
[22:35] People have to control and frustrate other people for them to feel that they have traction in reality, in existence. If you're a social metaphysician, you can't enlighten people. You can only control and frustrate people. You can't enlighten people because to be a social metaphysician is to use people. And you can't enlighten people by using them. You can't have them serve your ego and also enlighten them because to enlighten them requires that you have real empathy for them. And if you're just using them to feed your own ego in a social metaphysical kind of way, then you can't enlighten them. All you can do is have control over them and gain a sick sense of efficacy thereby. So if you don't respond with anger, with... I mean, don't get me wrong, it's okay to get angry, but if you don't, just sort of lash back, I guess is the way I'm putting it, then their unreality gets more real to them and they'll either escalate in which case you simply stop interacting with them but most often they'll just run away to find another victim, right? But they'll stop interacting with you for sure.
[23:54] But that is something that is hard. It's hard with the Ron Paul people. It's hard with status. It's hard with people who are heavily invested in family stuff. It's hard. It's hard with people. It's hard for people to do that. Hard for me. Maybe it's easy for you. I think it's hard for everyone, but maybe it's easier for you. In which case, ooh, do tell me your secret. But...
[24:15] Refusing to infuse mythology with emotional energy is really, really crucial, right? That's why hating God, hating the state, hating the family, God forbid, right, will only prolong the journey that we must take, right? We'll only make it longer, make it harder, make it worse, because we bring life to fantasy through our emotional reactions. And to avoid doing that, what happens is you're taking, it's like you've got one of those big hot air balloons, right? It's a metaphor that comes easily to me. And you crank it up the fire, crank it up the fire. Of course, it gets bigger, you know, seems to fly. But the moment you just like, turn off the fire, turn off the fire, imagine it's on the ground. What happens is just it slowly starts deflating. Now, it's more rapid in conversation. But that is something that I sort of wanted to show, right? The hysteria and the frustration that people in these particular areas have.
[25:09] And of course, it's harder to get Christians to respond to this kind of stuff, right? But the Ron Paul people, it's easy, right? But when you see that, and you see the lack of response, you can see that the comments get more and more civilized. And if you look at the comments, right, the earlier ones are very, very abrasive and abusive, and some of the later ones are too, but they get more civilized over time. And that's what I mean when I say we have a huge amount of control over our environment, the quality of our interactions, regardless of the actions of other people.
[25:36] I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to your donations. Remember, buying a t-shirt just as buying a book is not the same as a donation, right? The donations are podcast-centric. The t-shirts and books are products in and of themselves. So if you haven't donated in a while, and it's been a while since I've had a sort of donation other than books and t-shirts, which is not a donation, I would really, really appreciate it if you could see your way clear too. Drop in a few bucks in my account. Thank you so much. I will talk to you soon.
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