Is there a difference between the term action in aesthetically preferable actions and the term behavior in universally preferable behaviors? I think of actions and behaviors as being synonyms, so I would think you would pick one term and use it in both cases, but you seem to always be careful to use action in APA and behavior in UPB, so it makes me think the terms action and behavior are not synonyms for you. is there a difference between actions and behaviors in your thinking?
To put the question differently would there be anything incorrect or different if I referred to aesthetically preferable actions as aesthetically preferable behaviors? Are the terms actions and behaviors interchangeable there or do they not mean the same thing for you? Cause if they mean the same thing I would think it would go be simpler to use one term instead of 2, so to refer to UPB and APB, but you refer to UPB and APA.
What are the origins of the urge to fail, to waste potential, to drag your feet and do the bare minimum? Hate? Like, I hate you so much I will waste myself rather than blossom in your presence.
What you said about feeling other people's feelings resonates with me. I know some people have baited me into feeling outraged or passionate about some topics in their place. While we can usually see it when it happens in front of us, how do you differentiate your true feelings from those implanted in your head by others when you're alone?
can you please do a full length explanation of what exactly virtue is? I have listened to everything you have put out on the subject but still have a hard time understanding the concept. From what I have gathered listening to your shows, virtue is a relative concept. Is there an objective definition of virtue that isn’t dependent on a particular situation?
I have a friend that I mainly meet because of service exchange (doing major car repairs to me for less than a workshops fee), we do get along well on a personal level, but I feel it's unethical of me as the friendship seem more utilitarian than he himself considers it to be. I feel like I'm using people, at times. How do I get past this?
0:00 - Introduction
6:10 - Ayn Rand's Temptation: Virtue and Wealth
12:20 - Actions vs. Behaviors: Moral Context
17:28 - Going on Strike: Seeking Recognition
22:17 - Emotional Grievances and Self-Liberation
23:17 - Differentiating True Feelings from Implants
24:27 - Evaluating Voices in Your Head
31:26 - Cruelty and Sadism in Abuse
34:04 - The Cruelty of Conditional Love
38:46 - Integrity vs. Virtue
42:46 - Balancing Favors in Friendship
In this episode, I delve into the distinction between actions and behaviors with Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Molyneux highlights how actions are morally neutral, while behaviors encompass habits that carry moral implications. He emphasizes the difference between momentary actions and ingrained behaviors that can lead to consequences, whether positive or negative, such as time off for good behavior or criticism for bad behavior.
We explore the origins of the urge to fail or waste potential through reflections on Ayn Rand's experiences post-Atlas Shrugged. Molyneux discusses how Rand's advocacy for virtues without an underlying ethical foundation drew criticism, particularly from Christian conservatives. This led to a rejection of her philosophy, prompting her withdrawal from society and a hiatus from writing.
Additionally, we analyze the concept of individuals going on strike as a response to feeling undervalued or exploited. Drawing parallels between workers striking for fair treatment and recognition, Molyneux explains how going on strike can be a way for individuals to assert their value. By citing examples from familial and work dynamics, he underscores the importance of feeling acknowledged for one's contributions to prevent the inclination to withhold services or support.
As we delve deeper into the reasons behind individuals going on strike, we connect this behavior to feeling exploited or undervalued. Through familial and work scenarios, we illustrate how the impulse to strike can serve as a tool to demand recognition and highlight one's worth. Emphasizing the significance of acknowledging individuals' contributions, we shed light on the complexities of human behavior and the necessity of valuing others to maintain healthy relationships and work environments.
Furthermore, we tackle the concept of being exploited within personal relationships, such as in family or romantic contexts. We delve into the effects of feeling unappreciated and taken for granted, which can prompt individuals to consider 'going on strike' as a statement. By examining scenarios where individuals seek recognition for their efforts, we stress the importance of advocating for oneself and seeking equitable treatment to address feelings of exploitation.
Moreover, we explore the repercussions of going on strike in personal relationships and the challenges of seeking validation from those unwilling to acknowledge one's struggles. We highlight the importance of addressing past traumas and resentments to pave the way for a more fulfilling and empowered life, free from the constraints of past exploitation. Join us on this illuminating journey as we navigate the complexities of personal relationships, self-worth, and emotional healing.
[0:00] All right. Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Great questions from the great crew at freedomain.locals.com. You can also join a great crew at subscribestar.com slash freedomain. And you can support the show at freedomain.com slash donate. Thank you. Is there a difference between the term action in aesthetically preferable actions and the term behavior in universally preferable behaviors? I think of actions and and behaviors as being synonyms. And I would think you would pick one term and use it in both cases, but you always seem to be careful to use action in APA and behavior in UPB, universally preferable behavior. So it makes me think that the terms action, behavior are not synonyms for you. Is there a difference between actions and behaviors in your thinking? Oh, it's a great, a great point. And I will tell you that actions are morally neutral. Behaviors generally are habits.
[0:58] Behaviors are things that we learn over time, we tend to repeat over time, they tend to get easier over time, so they tend to be habits, whereas actions tend to be just things that happen, things that we do that we don't commit in general to repeating. heating. The word behave has fairly strong moral connotations. Oh, behave. That's the most embarrassing thing. But behave well, behave yourself, behave well. So, behaviors have a moral context, usually in that behaviors are positive moral habits. Behave yourself. His behavior was outrageous, and so on. So, it tends to have a moral connotation.
[1:42] Actions But it's not a habit, it's not something you prefer, it's not something that you would criticize someone for at any moral level. So actions tend to be empty things that we do, whereas behaviors tend to be repeat behaviors, sorry, repeat actions, it's not about a tautology. Behaviors tend to be repeat actions that become ingrained within us. A good behavior, he got time off for good behavior. We don't say he got time off his prison sentence for good actions, right? So behaviors tend to be actions that we repeat for good or for ill. He's really bad behavior. It's terrible behavior. We don't say, well, I guess you could say he acted badly, but action tends to be more specific and less morally concentrated. And action generally refers to something that is passing, that is simply a physical movement. whereas behaviours tend to be habits that we accumulate for good.
[2:45] So that's my general approach to it and I wanted a different word. That's why it's aesthetically preferable actions rather than universally preferable behaviors. I wanted a different word for things that we do that we can't enforce and things that we do that we can enforce. force. So if my friend and I keep meeting and he keeps showing up late, well, it's preferable to be on time, but I can't shoot him because he's not imposing his will on me through violence.
[3:18] Whereas if someone tries to attack me, he says he's going to kill me, then I can use violence and self-defense because he is using violence to impose his will upon me. So I needed a different word for that which can be coercively enforced such as persons and property right the protection of persons and property can be coercively enforced you can use violence to protect your persons and your person and your property versus actions that you cannot enforce although we would prefer them right although we would prefer them so if somebody's continually late or says inappropriate things or, I don't know, scratches their butt in public and so on, we would consider that aesthetically negative, but we can't use force to enforce better behavior because they're not using force to impose their behavior upon us. And I find in general, in philosophy, I really, really try not to multi-use words because if I use the word behavior for good and evil.
[4:21] And I also use the word behavior for appropriate, inappropriate, nicer, not nicer, diplomatic, rude, and so on, then I think that the word is doing too much work. I try not to make the words do too much work and try to keep them specific to what it is that I'm talking about. So that's a great point, and I appreciate you bringing it up. The book had some thought behind it. All right. it. What are the origins of the urge to fail, to waste potential, to drag your feet, and to do the bare minimum? Hate? Like, I hate you so much I will waste myself rather than blossom in your presence. Well, we can turn to our good smoky Russian voice Ayn Rand for an example of this. So, of course, I'm sure you've noticed, it's not particularly a stunning observation, that Ayn Rand went on strike after she wrote the great book about geniuses going on strike. And one of the reasons she went on strike was the amount of vitriol and hatred that she received for the book Atlas Shrugged was quite something. It was quite something. And of course, you know, Christian religious conservatives have significant issue with an outright atheist talking about virtues. And the book was tricky because it did not solve the problem of good and evil. Ayn Rand did not solve the problem of morality.
[5:46] So Christians responded with the injunction that we don't give up God and morality for the sake of improved GDP. I mean, again, I can't speak for the Christians, but I would imagine that they viewed a book like Atlas Shrugged as something like the devil's offer to Jesus, if he gave up virtue, he could inherit the world, right?
[6:11] And Galt's Gulch is like Jesus in the desert, right? Going into the desert. And then why do they return? They return to rebuild, not to bring salvation, not to bring virtue. And because the Christians deep down understood that Ayn Rand had not solved the problem of virtue, but was instead offering them a universe with only aesthetic prompts towards virtue. You know, like, well, all the heroes are tall and slender and noble and get the great checks and right. That virtue is a reward for, you know, a crushing kind of literally soulless independence that the Ayn Rand heroes have. I mean, in a very real way, what was Ayn Rand offering the world? Well, you'll get hot kinky sex and a lot of money, right? That you will get the hot girls and you will be a true captain of industry if you follow me. But she could not prove ethics. And so she was selling virtue in a way with hot, frankly, weird sex. And which, you know, I don't find it hot at all. I just, it's weird. But for a lot of people, I guess it is. There's a certainly female approach to sex where coercion seems to be, well, 50 shades of gray, right? We can all understand that.
[7:35] So, what was Ayn Rand offering? Well, you get to be totally cool, you get to make a lot of money because you're a captain of industry, you're a Hank Reardon or whatever, and you get weird women to have bizarre sex with. And like, it's a little bit demonic, right? It's a little bit on the, when you sell virtue based on aesthetics, then it is a fairly devilish temptation. Again, I'm talking about it in general, from the Christian view. So, I mean, the woman labored for 13 years, was it, on Atlas Shrugged. And again, it is a magnificent novel, and it's a great book, and she is a total stone genius. years. But from the Christian perspective, she's saying, get rid of God and we'll replace it with semi-coercive sex and a whole lot of money. And that is not a good offer. I mean, it's not a good offer in general. It's not a good offer from the Christian perspective, because Ayn Rand was saying, well, you don't really need community. You don't really need shared faith. You don't need God. but what you get is a really efficient market system that produces a lot of wealth and you get weird sex and no kids right there are no children in Ayn Rand's novels and no parents well I mean there's the weird single mother of Peter Keating and you know one or two other examples.
[9:04] So Ayn Rand poured heart and soul into what she thought was a great novel of virtue and freedom and so on. And, you know, economically, hard to argue. And the metaphysics, hard to argue. Epistemology, hard to argue.
[9:19] And, I mean, the fact that she remained a statist was easy to argue, but most fundamentally, the issue was that she did not prove ethics. She did not prove virtue. So she was leading people away from Christian ethics and replacing them with matters of the flesh, temptations of the flesh, avarice, greed, lust, sex, and so on. And so she got a fairly instinctive storm of rejection and hostility. And then after writing the great novel of geniuses going on strike, she then went on strike for the rest of her life. 1957 until her death in the early 80s. She barely wrote anything. Didn't do a whole lot. I mean, had affairs and pursued her own. Well, I mean, to some degree, hedonism and so on. But it was quite tragic so why why do people go on strike well if we just look at it economically which is not a bad place to start people go on strike because their suffering is unrecognized so if you look at workers who are in their view then they're not paid a living wage they're have terrible conditions you know they're the coal miners in the 1920s and so on george orwell well wrote a great book called Down and Out in Paris and London about all of this with the plungers and all the people who worked these terrible jobs.
[10:45] And their suffering is unacknowledged. And when your suffering is unacknowledged, your impulse is to go on strike. And you go on strike so that your value can be ascertained.
[11:00] So if, let's say, you are doing chores as a teenager around the home, and let's say you do a fair amount of chores, nobody ever thanks you, all they do is criticize you, then people are not seeing the value that you're providing. And one of the ways to get people to see the value that you're providing is to go on strike. Oh, if you don't think I'm doing that much, see what your life is like when I do nothing. think. And then when you go on strike, people will then see your value. So you think of a scenario where the parents are inattentive and there's an elder sibling who has to take care of a handful of younger siblings and the sort of lazy parents who put her in this position. The lazy parents are not thankful. They're not appreciative. All they do is criticize her. So then her urge and impulse, because she's unvalued, her urgent impulse will be to go on strike so that the parents see how much work she's doing that is invisible to them. And then they will say, oh my gosh, we didn't realize, you know, how important it is what you're doing. And by gosh, do we ever thank you? And we're sorry that we were taking you for granted, right? Because they see how much work.
[12:21] She's really been doing. So if you're unvalued, then you go on strike so that people can see the value that you're providing. That's one of the brilliant things about Atlas Strike is the people at the top go on strike.
[12:37] And there's an ancient story, Lizistrata or something like that, where the women want an end to the, what, Peloponnesian War or something like that, and so they go on sexual strike. They will not have sex with their husbands until the war is stopped, right? So they're on strike. So the women are saying, well, look at the value we provide in giving sex. And if we don't give sex, you'll change your behavior. That's sort of a form of...
[13:03] So, yeah, and so Atlas Shrugged, the wealthy and the productive are maligned and attacked and scorned and put down and ridiculed and stolen from. And then they decide to go on strike. Reich, and then society says, right, this is the Pareto principle, right, that if the people who, you know, it's like there are probably a couple of thousand people across the whole world that keep the economy running, and those people are constantly attacked and maligned, and, you know, they're going to get impatient and annoyed, and at some point they might want to withdraw their services, and it certainly does happen, for sure, people retire. Retirement, to some degree is annoyance at lack of value, right? So if you are a worker and you feel that you should be paid more and the boss won't give you more money, then you go on strike. And then if the boss can't replace you, except for someone with higher wages, right? So let's say you make $25 an hour and you think you should make $35 an hour, then you go on strike. Now the boss then, Then, you know, in a free market society, the boss will try to replace you. But if nobody will work for him for less than $35 an hour, then he makes a big apology and gives you your $35 an hour because you're already trained and you know the business and you can just go back in and start working, right?
[14:20] So, if your work is taken for granted, then you withdraw your services so that people see the difference and then can evaluate your contributions more vividly. Now, of course, why would you, in a family situation, why would you feel unappreciated? Well, because you're being exploited. So if you have the lazy parents who demand that the elder daughter take care of the siblings, you know, for, I don't know, 60 hours a week or whatever, then they're exploiting her. It's not her job, right? She didn't, she's not the parent and they're exploiting her. There could be some emergency where, you know, both parents are ill and the daughter, you know, they beg the daughter to step up. They show her great appreciation and thanks and she's not going to feel exploited. She's going to feel like she wants to contribute and she's being appreciated.
[15:10] So, the urge to go on strike arises from a deep feeling of being exploited. A deep feeling of being exploited. And it's the hope that someone sees your value when you refuse to provide. Now, this could have some value.
[15:35] I mean, let's just talk personally, right? Right. So if your family is exploiting you, right, you do all the stuff, you take care of people, maybe you pay some bills and, you know, like you're being exploited in that there's a significant amount of work that you are, that your parents demand that you provide. And they are not appreciative. And in fact, they're just critical. So they criticize what you do. They criticize you when you don't do it, but they never give you any appreciation for what you do. you. Right? So example would be in a sort of husband-wife relationship that the wife works very hard to get the fresh ingredients to make great meals and so on. And the husband only complains. And that shows no appreciation for the food, but only complains when there's a little bit too much salt or it's not quite warm enough. Then she's going to feel, of course, unappreciated. And she is going to feel the urge to go and strike because he's taking her for granted and And he's exploiting her, really, in my view. Now, the same thing can happen on his side if she, you know, spends the money and never says thank you for going to work, never says thank you for bringing in an income, never says thank you for, you know, going on that business trip when you had a bit of a, when you have a really bad headache and like, I really appreciate that. And right, so if he's taken, feeling taken for granted, then he may have the urge to go on strike as well.
[17:01] So, in a family situation, if you are exploited, which means your services are taken for granted, your contributions are taken for granted, and you're either ignored or criticized for everything that you do, well then, yeah, you're being exploited. So, then you're going to feel the urge to go on strike. Now, that can work in a family situation, although it's pretty volatile. It's pretty volatile because the reason why you would be taken for granted is people lack empathy.
[17:29] And if you try to in a sense force people to show you empathy well one of the reasons they don't have empathy is that they themselves were forced as children so more force may in a sense coerce a temporary compliance fine you're good at what you do yeah is that what you want okay thank you thank you for contributing to this family right or they may even be pretend to be more genuine but nothing in about it is particularly real and you're going to face blowback right because if If people exploit you and then you go on strike, you can force some concessions out of them, but you'll pay later, right? They'll just find some other way to undermine you. But it can happen.
[18:09] It can happen. That's a positive outcome. Economically, it can happen. Let's say that, and I was directly involved in this in the business world, about a couple of dozen of my employees, when I was working for a company, came to me and said, we're We're underpaid, and here's the market average, and we're getting better job offers, and so on. And they said, listen, we like working for you. We like this job, but we don't like being underpaid. And so, yeah, I commissioned an independent salary survey and made the case and calculated the cost of replacing people based upon the size of the code base and the need for training and so on, and I made the case. And I got people over a million dollars a year extra in wages.
[18:55] Over time. It was a million dollars. Sorry, it was a million dollars over a couple of years. But yeah, it was, you know, I helped the people who were less well off. And so this is why social is kind of annoying. It's like, just go do that kind of stuff. And you'll really help people rather than just nagging and complaining. So people go on strike because they feel exploited and they want their suffering to be seen. So that can happen, right? If you think you're worth $35 an hour and you go on strike and your boss can't replace you for anything less than $35 an hour then he's going to have to pay you more right so it can work in an economic sense it can even work.
[19:38] You know i mean if someone's really impatient like say the husband is really distracted and the wife finally says you know what all you do is complain about my cooking so i'm not going to cook anymore what's he going to say oh sorry you know what that was that was rude like you know if If he's got a half a brain in his head, he'll apologize and, oh, that was rude and I'm sorry and whatever he's going to say. So it can work to sort of startle people out of a sort of selfishness that, you know, in relationships, sometimes it creeps in and you kind of need that reminder and that's fine. But here's the problem, though, is that if you have this feeling with regards to your parents or your teachers, you're just mad at them and they never appreciated you and all they did was criticize you and nobody praised you. And right so then if you decide to in a sense go on strike as an adult so that people will see you're suffering well what's going to happen well you are going to wreck your life and.
[20:38] No one's going to see your suffering and you're just gonna toast yourself and so when you get it to being adults, honestly, like, I hate to say it, but it is one of these things about adulthood. Your friends and family care about your suffering.
[20:55] The world, and society as a whole doesn't. And if you want to understand this, just think about some random person you meet in the street. Do you care about their suffering? Nope. No, because they're not within your circle of concern. A circle of concern is the people that you're willing to make sacrifices for in order to help them, right? If your neighbor, you know, three doors down has a baby, it seems unlikely to me that you're going to get up three or four times a night to feed the baby. Oh, you know, you just pump your breast milk, I'll sleep on the couch, I'll, you know, like that would be a little weird, right? Go and take care of somebody else's baby, just some neighbor, right? On the other hand, if you yourself have a baby, then you are going to get up a couple of times a night to take care of the baby. It's your circle of care, right?
[21:45] So the people who are on strike are people who have an open wound of prior exploitation, and they're hoping that by going on strike, someone's going to notice and care, but the reality is nobody notices, nobody cares, and you're just wrecking yourself. Going on strike to express a grievance doesn't matter if society doesn't care, right? So you have to find a way to deal with your grievances without acting them out.
[22:17] Emotional grievances in particular, right? So if your parents and teachers or whatever, they took you for granted, they exploited you, then you've got to deal with that so that you can liberate your energies and enthusiasms for life because if you go on strike so that your parents understand that they were bad parents you're just allowing that bad parenting to continue to sabotage your adult life and you're wrecking everything for the sake of people who won't change, so don't do that deal with the pain of having been exploited and ignored recognize that people who didn't see your suffering as a child will never see your suffering as an adult and that society as a whole doesn't care just as you don't care that much about other people as a whole and find some way to get beautiful things going in your life. What you said about feeling other people's feelings to someone else resonates with me. I know some people have been...
[23:07] Have baited me into feeling outraged or passionate about some topics in their place. While we can usually see it when it happens in front of us, how do you differentiate your true feelings from those implanted in your head by others when you're alone?
[23:17] Well, you know, just ask yourself, okay, does this serve me? Right, so if you have, and I'm going to talk about myself here, I think I've dealt with most of this stuff, but does it serve me? Or does it serve somebody else? How does this thought or feeling or idea in my head, how does it help me? Right so your immune system has to do this like on a daily basis right because you're constantly getting exposed to bacteria and and you know if you're a nail biter then you actually get exposed to a little bit more bacteria it actually trains your immune system in a positive way so your body constantly has to say okay is this is this organism within me positive or negative right because there are lots of organisms within you that aren't you that are hugely positive like like the gut bacteria, right, that help you digest your food and so on, right?
[24:05] So your immune system constantly has to evaluate the presence of organisms and say good, bad, positive, negative. You know, if it's a cancer, you want your immune system to kill it before it grows. You want it to attack infectious bacteria, but not the bacteria in your gut. It's constantly having to differentiate. Is this good for me or not? Is this a positive or a negative for me?
[24:27] And so when it comes to ideas and thoughts in your head you have to go through that evaluation okay let's say that your parents abused you and said that you were terrible and bad and trash and, selfish and whatever right okay so those voices are going to come up in your head and you have to say okay is this beneficial to me or is this an infection does this serve me or or not right And if people are serving their own interests by attacking and insulting you, then, you know, it's not personal. You know, one of the great mistakes of being abused as a child is to take it personally, like it's got something to do with you. It doesn't. Child abuse doesn't have anything to do with you. People who abuse children, you know, are cruel and sadistic, and any and every victim is interchangeable. And if you have child abusers who treat one child better or who treat other children better they're just doing that to further hurt you and make you blame yourself more for these people who can obviously be nice but they just can't to you because you're so terrible and but it's not personal it's not personal and there are not a lot let's just put it this way let's be as nice as possible. The world is not precisely overflowing with people who objectively and without ego evaluate others.
[25:53] Right? Most people evaluate others with regards to cost-benefit.
[25:59] Your parents, if they were cruel and abusive, they evaluated you according to their own needs and preferences. Will I feel better if I indulge myself and yell at or kick or hit or abuse this child? They're not evaluating you. They're evaluating how you serve their needs, right? If you are having a big bowl of soup, and you open the draw, the cutlery draw, and there are teaspoons and tablespoons, what are you going to choose? You're going to choose a tablespoon, because the tablespoon better serves your needs of eating soup. Soup. You're not evaluating or judging the tablespoons in sort of morality or overall fitness or, you know, these teaspoons are trash. They can't hold any soup at all, right? Whereas if you want to stir your tea and you don't want it to slop, you're going to choose a teaspoon or, you know, something like that, right? If you're baking and it says one tablespoon, you'll measure out a tablespoon. If it says one teaspoon, you'll measure out a teaspoon using either a teaspoon, tablespoon or some container that approximates that shape. It's just not personal. You're not evaluating or judging the teaspoon. You're just using that which serves your needs.
[27:17] You're just using that which serves your needs. It's not personal. I really can't, I cannot empathize this too much. It's not personal. You know, when my mother said, I hate you, she's not evaluating me based upon some objective standard that I'm found wanting. I mean, for heaven's sakes, I was like five years old or whatever, right? So it's not personal. She just felt better in the moment by discharging her hatred. Her hatred was not of me. It was not objective. It was not a judgment. She would have just said it to anyone she had power over, right? I mean, there was a boy who was kidnapped by an older male sexual predator. And he was held hostage by this sexual predator for many years.
[28:07] One point the sexual predator said something like, hey, you know, sorry kid, it's nothing personal. You just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's not personal.
[28:16] Predation is not personal. The lion does not eat a particular zebra because he just finds that particular zebra morally objectionable and that particular zebra is selfish and mean and doesn't take care of her own foal and grazes too much grass and doesn't share. And so he is going to act as the hammer of Thor and bloody moral vengeance upon this evil zebra. Like, it's just, oh, okay, that zebra's the closest, and that's the one I can catch. It's not personal. Predation is not personal. I mean, just think about this. You order a hamburger, do you bite into it saying, oh, that cow, that cow was a real jerk. That cow was so terrible. I hate that cow. I'm enjoying eating this cow because this is the punishment. It's like, come on, right? It's not how things work, right? If there's a mosquito on your arm and you slap the mosquito, you're not hating the mosquito as an individual. You're hating the effects of the mosquitoes or you're having a problem with the effects the mosquito is going to have on you, right? It's not personal. Predation is not personal. Abuse is not personal. Now, I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand why people think that way because one of the ways that abuse is enacted is to make you feel like it's personal, right? I mean, the poor who use the power of the state to get money from the wealthy, they don't hate the wealthy. They don't evaluate the moral character of the wealthy and have these great moral judgments.
[29:44] They're just exploiters. None of that's the case. They just want the money. A guy who robs you in an alley, right? He doesn't hate you as a person. He hasn't evaluated you from some moral standpoint. point and he's enacting some Robin Hood vengeance. It's like, no, he just wants your money because he's got a drug habit or something. Like, you're just a means to an end. And if you're just a means to an end and you take things personally, you are not correctly evaluating the situation. I absolutely beg and promise you to take on this truth. To take on this truth. You know, if you you were to run for office on the platform of reducing the welfare state or whatever, right? You would be attacked and you'd be called all these terrible names and you're a baby killer and you just want people to die in the streets and you're cold and heartless and a fascist and whatever, right? Okay. I mean, but it's not personal. They haven't evaluated you. You're just standing between them and the money they want, right? They want the money for the welfare state. And if you interfere with that, they will attack you, but it's not personal. It's not personal.
[30:56] You think it's personal, then, I mean, I sort of hate to say, but that's a little selfish, right? Thinking it's about you when it's not, you know, like if you have an issue with your mother and then she makes it all about her, that's kind of annoying, right? Seems a little narcissistic. And so one of the ways that this kind of narcissism, just using the term from an amateur context, of course, but one of the ways in which this narcissism transmits is your parents say you're bad.
[31:27] Because saying you're bad serves their own immediate needs of avoidance of pain or pursuit of pleasure. And then you, because they're being selfish, right? They're being narcissistic. They're hurting you for the sake of pleasing themselves. And the hurt of you doesn't really go into the calculation. The only thing that goes into the calculation is the pleasing of themselves. Like it's a primitive predator mentality. The lion does not think of how painful it is for the zebra when the lion chews on the ass of the zebra. Now, can you imagine the zebra in his mind saying, I can't believe why that, why does that lion hate me so much? Why has that lion got it in for me? Why does that lion judge me so harshly? Why does that lion think I'm so bad? It's like, no, the lion's just hungry and it's just doing what lions do. And if you're abused, your abusers are just assholes who are are doing what assholes do, which is to hurt other people for the sake of their own immediate gratification. They know empathy, just cruelty. It's not about you. You're just a spoon and they have a big bowl of bloody soup. They're just using you like you would use an implement. It's not personal. And that's when you free yourself from the abuse, is when you say, right, this is the most fundamental liberating thing about all of this, is you say, could have been anyone. Could have been anyone. Could have been anyone.
[32:49] Right? There is no child. It's really important. Really, really important. There is no child to whom my mother would have been a good mother. Do you follow? Therefore, it's not personal. There is no child to whom my mother would have been a good mother. And you just kind of net this into your bone marrow if you look at your own... If you were abused, my sympathies, of course, right? If you were abused as a child, you simply have to look at the other children in your parents' orbit and say.
[33:28] A good, really great and wonderful, good, thoughtful, kind, and sympathetic to other children. Well, of course not. And even if they appeared to be that way, the fact that they were cruel to you while being kind to others is part of the abuse. And then you can look at their relationships at work. You can look at their relationships in romance. You can look at their friendships. You can look at the arc of their life. You know, my mother went, in my view, from being cruel to her children, to being cruel to her friends, to being cruel to boyfriends, to being cruel to doctors, to being cruel, like just, that's the, it's not personal.
[34:04] Because one of the ways that parents harm you, if they're abusive, is they say, I'd love you if you were better. That's part of the cruelty, right? I'd love you if you were better, if you just listened, if you didn't talk back, if you just did your chores, if you just did the right thing, if you just obeyed, if you just showed me respect, if if you just did your duty, if you're just a better kid, right? Then I'd love you, right? And of course, that's nonsense. It's nonsense. It is through being loved. Being loved is the easiest way to become good. Being loved is the easiest way to become good. And so saying, I withhold love until you're better is like saying to a starving athlete, well, you'll get food when you win the race. But of course, the athlete can't win the race without food because he's starving. He's no energy. Well, you're starving, but when you win that gold medal, you'll get some food. It's like, nope, the best way to get the gold medal is to have adequate nutrition, right? Good, healthy food.
[35:04] So it's, you know, and it's really like realizing that you're just a spoon in a drawer, right? You're just a spoon in a drawer.
[35:15] Personal. It was never about judging you. It was just about saying whatever could be said in order to transfer pain from the abuser to the victim for the temporary relief of the abuser. That's all about. You're just a vehicle, right? If you need to throw up and you just grab a bowl and vomit into the bowl, do you hate the bowl? Are you vomiting in the bowl as punishment for the bowl's immorality and lack of respect and selfish? It's like, no, it's just that's the closest bowl and I need to throw up. So when you're around, you're the closest powerless victim and your parents, if they're abusive, need to discharge their aggression, need to discharge their helplessness, need to exercise control over someone so they don't feel as much out of control in the moment, right? It's not personal. You're a bowl, you're a spoon, you're a zebra. It's not personal. It has no substance or landing or effect or stickiness to you and your personality in any way, shape or form whatsoever at all. I suppose that's clear enough. But yeah, meditate on that. It's not about me. It was not about me. It's not about me. My quote friends when I was younger who were pretty hostile to me getting into philosophy and never really wanted to hear about it and would in fact oppose me talking about it. Was that personal? Nope.
[36:33] You know, they would sometimes apply negative labels to me for my interest in philosophy. But it was because philosophy would have harmed their interests. It's not personal to me. They didn't think I was doing anything wrong. They didn't judge me. See, narcissistic people can't judge you. Selfish people cannot judge you.
[36:53] Selfish people cannot judge you. The only thing that selfish and narcissistic people can do is judge your utility to them in the moment, which is independent of you as a person.
[37:08] Selfish people can only judge your utility to them in the moment, which has nothing to do with you as a person. If you are feeling helpless and you're losing your temper, you can smack your kids and yell at them. Because you can't. Because they're your kids. And you have power and control over them. So you can exercise that power and control because they are in the category called children or dependents or helpless, not because of you as an individual. It's not personal. Now, I know we try to create this bond with abusive parents and think it's personal and that there's some connection and they've evaluated us and they care about us. It's like, yeah, I'm sorry, that's just not the case. And this is why, you know, if you have abusive parents, you had abusive parents, go talk to them and see what it's like when you're an independent adult and you come to them with a need. I need you to tell the truth. I need to talk about this. This is what I want. This is what I need. Come to them with your own needs that go against their immediate preferences and see what happens. And that way you can very quickly find out it has nothing to do with you. Hi, Steph, says somebody else. Can you please do a full length explanation as to of what exactly virtue is? I've listened to everything you've put out on the subject, but still have a hard time understanding the concept. From what I've gathered, Third, listening to shows, virtue is a relative concept. Is there an objective definition of virtue that isn't dependent on a particular situation?
[38:33] Virtue is the consistent following of the moral rules you claim, right? Virtue is the consistent following of the moral rules you claim. Well, sorry, let me put it this way. Let me sort of reframe that. My apologies.
[38:47] Integrity is following the moral rules that you claim. Virtue is when those moral rules are UPB. So honor is loyalty and honor among thieves, right? I mean, the honor among the Cosa Nostra, right? The mafia, whatever, right? So there can be honor among thieves and, you know, some people can go to jail for a long time to not rat out their criminal companions and so on. There can be integrity to a thief's code or a criminal's code or something like that. So integrity is when you are consistent with the moral virtues you claim and all the values that you claim. And virtue is when those values are UPV, right? So I'll sort of give you an example, right? Right. So with my mother, she would hit me when I was younger. And then when I fought back, when I got to be in my early teens and got bigger, I was a fairly smallish kid. And then I got above average in height and weight as I got into my teens. So violence was perfectly acceptable when my mother was bigger than me and stronger than me and could enact violence against me. And but then violence you see was absolutely unacceptable when i got bigger and stronger than her right and i never used violence against her like i never beat her up or anything like that but i i would use violence to prevent her from i would use strength size and strength to prevent her from hitting me which was appalling right just appalling so that's hypocrisy right.
[40:15] Hypocrisy. So, parents who say, we should not use violence to get our way, and then approve a system which is significantly coercive, or hit their children, or whatever it is, right? That is hypocrisy, right? Right. So virtue is when you act in accordance with rational morality. That's virtue. I mean, you can have integrity as well. If you say, as a Christian, I must love my enemies, and then you gossip about an attempt to destroy someone who you disagree with, then that's hypocrisy. And so the first step is integrity. The second step is virtue. So if somebody has a moral standard, right, then you should say, live by that moral standard. If they can't live by that moral standard, then they'll be interested in exploring other morals. But if somebody makes a claim, like somebody makes a claim, oh, I value free speech, and then they want to cancel someone, and they want laws put in place to prevent people from speaking, and they want violence to be used against people who say things they disagree with, then that's a corrupt person because they're making a claim to a virtue, and then they are living in violation and advocating for complete violations of that virtue. So virtue is integrity to rational morality. All right, let's see here. Let's do one more.
[41:40] I have a friend that I mainly meet because of service exchange, doing major car repairs to me for less than a workshop fee. We do get along well on a personal level, but I feel it's unethical of me as the friendship seems more utilitarian than he himself considers it to be, I feel like I'm using people at times. How do I get past this? Now, I can't quite follow this question. I'm sorry if I'm missing something.
[42:05] So you're saying, with all primeval Adam and Eve innocence, you're saying, hey, Steph, my friend... Favors for me than I do for him. How can this possibly be solved, right? You can't. I mean, are you really asking me this question? I'm a little baffled. I mean, you understand the problem, right? My friend does 10 favors for me a year, and I do no favors for him. What could possibly be the solution? So, when I put it like that, I mean, the answer, I assume, is pretty obvious, which is start doing some favors for your friends.
[42:47] Right? You know, my friend keeps lending me money when I'm in need. I never lend him any money when he's in need, and I want to equalize the situation. What could the answer, Steph, possibly be?
[43:01] That's hard to take seriously. I mean, maybe you're trolling, but it seems hard to take seriously is the real question. If you feel like you're exploiting someone's friendship and friendliness and goodwill towards you, then the simple answer is A. Stop exploiting him or B. Start returning the favors. Right? So if for whatever reason you can't provide any value to this guy right? Then you have to stop accepting favors from him because it's kind of exploitive, right?
[43:29] And you know guaranteed this mechanic or whatever he is comes from a social or probably a familial environment where he's being exploited and he doesn't think he's worth very much and so he does all these phases There's people in the desperate hope that they'll like him, and you're just playing right along with that. You're stepping into the shoes of exploited parents or girlfriends or whoever, right, who's exploited him, and you're pillaging, in a sense, his prior exploitation, because he's used to being a one-sided provider of value in a, quote, relationship. So you're stepping into the shoes left by exploitive people in his past and continuing to exploit him. And you're saying you have no idea how to solve this? Give him some value back.
[44:09] There must be something that you can do that he would appreciate, right? Maybe he's a big fan of some sports team. Buy him some tickets for the game, you know? I mean, maybe he, you know, you can say, let's go for a coffee. You can ask him about his life. Maybe he's kind of lonely. Maybe he needs someone to show some interest, right? Now, if you say, well, I don't want to do any of that. I mean, the guy saved me $1,000 in car repair bills. Why would I bother giving some of that money back because then it's not even a value to me okay well then it's just material and then you're just kind of exploiting him and i'm not saying that this is like deeply immoral or or evil or anything like that it's all voluntary it's no no no falsehood or coercion involved but it's kind of like if you meet a woman who is so desperate for affection and has so little self-esteem that she'll just have sex with you on the first date and you go ahead with that that's You're not having sex, in a sense, with her vagina, but with her wound, right?
[45:08] Involved? Nope. But there almost certainly was prior coercion involved in terms of how she was abused as a child. It could be sexually, it could be in any other ways, but you are, you know, you're pressing on a wound made by others in order to get what you want. And I generally think that's not a good plan because it's, you know, it's not going to make you feel all kinds of great about at yourself, right? If I give somebody a firm handshake, that's not immoral. But if I know that their fingers are broken and I give them a firm handshake, suddenly that becomes bad, right? The exact same action. If there's no wound, it's fine. If there is a wound, it's pretty bad because I'm now causing that person massive pain. And I see them, right? I see they've got splints on their hands, and I reach, I grab their hand, give them a firm handshake, and they scream out in agony because I'm hurting their broken fingers. It's the same action, right?
[46:06] Sleeping with a woman, you know, you're committed, you're in love, hopefully you're married or whatever, it's a great thing. Sleeping with a woman who's been sexually exploited or abused as a child and is desperate for any kind of affection and doesn't know how to approach the world without offering bring up sex. It's the same action, but it's a totally different set of ethics. And again, you know, these are extreme examples, and this is just a guy who gives you some breaks on your car bills. But in general, you have to look at where, like, why is this, if this is a serious question, why is this a serious question, right? Why is this a question that needs a lot of examination? Because when I pointed out that if someone's doing favors for you, and you feel like you're exploiting that person, you either stop taking the favors, or you give them favors back. And even if you stop giving the favors, you should give at least one favor back, right? Or a couple of favors back, because you've already taken some favors. So you're in some kind of obligation, some situation of obligation, right?
[47:04] So, yeah. Listen to these crows. I don't know if you can hear them. But, yeah, so just stop exploiting people. And stop working the wounds in people left by others. And work to try and heal those wounds if you can, or at least don't make them worse, if you don't want to or can't. I hope that helps freedomain.com slash donate thank you for these great questions, I do appreciate the brain tickles and it's a great way to start the day so have yourself a wonderful wonderful day I will talk to you soon freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show lots of love from up here I'll talk to you soon bye.
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