0:02 - The Power of Christianity
24:37 - The Sword of Self-Defense
31:11 - Generational Conflict and Moral Standards
42:37 - Morality as Control and Humiliation
49:41 - The Challenge of Universalism
This lecture, presented by Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain, explores the profound and often turbulent relationships that arise in the context of truth and hypocrisy within society through a Christian philosophical lens. Beginning with a close examination of Matthew 10:34-36 from the King James Version, Molyneux reflects on Jesus’s declaration of coming not to send peace but a sword. He emphasizes that this "sword" serves as a metaphor for mental self-defense against false ideologies and the dangers posed by societal norms inherited from previous generations.
Molyneux articulates the role of the sword as a tool for discernment rather than as an instrument of violence. He dissects the meaning of Jesus's words, arguing that the sword represents a cognitive capability for young individuals to critically evaluate the moral claims put forth by their elders. By referencing popular culture, he illustrates how narratives of despair and death wishes resonate in contemporary society, portraying characters disillusioned by the world who cling to destructive behaviors as a manifestation of a broader existential crisis.
The lecturer asserts that many people labor under a "death impulse," driven primarily by the hypocrisy they observe around them. This hypocrisy, he argues, is more detrimental than overt immorality as it creates an environment where deceit is disguised as virtue. Asserting that moral standards are often manipulated to maintain power over youth, Molyneux advocates for the necessity of skepticism in the face of traditional moral teachings, encouraging listeners to question the integrity of their societal pillars.
Drawing parallels to historical and philosophical frameworks, he references notable figures and eras, reflecting on how established truths in history often hide contradictions and outdated assumptions. Molyneux emphasizes the transformative potential of a young generation that is empowered to question the narratives propagated by their elders, aligning himself with both Jesus and Socrates in their pursuit of truth.
By infusing personal anecdotes into the lecture, Molyneux connects the philosophical discourse to lived experiences, exploring how entrenched social morals can inflict harm and manipulate perception, especially for younger individuals. He posits that when society's elders fail to adhere to the moral codes they profess, it is essential for the youth to employ their figurative swords to carve out their own understanding of truth and accountability.
This deeply analytical segment culminates in a call for awareness and action against the pervasive hypocrisy pervasive within societal structures. Molyneux concludes with a bold message: to dismantle the ineffective morals that perpetuate inequalities and to embrace the battle for truth that empowers the younger generation to break free from inherited manipulations. The lecture urges listeners not only to reflect on their own relationships with authority and morality but also to take a stand in favor of genuine virtue and accountability.
[0:00] Well, good morning, everybody. This is Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain.
[0:02] Here we are getting to the core, at least for me, of the power of Christianity, and by the by, it overlaps quite a bit with philosophy. Matthew 10 34 36 and we want to look at as usual in my particular preference the King James version Jesus says think not that I am come to send peace on earth I came not to send peace but a sword for I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. And a man's foes shall be those of his own household.
[0:57] Now, of course, Jesus is not a big fan of physical swords. When Peter takes up a sword, I think it's Peter, Jesus says to him, if you draw the sword, you shall die by the sword. And the draw the sword is important. I know that there are various translations and so on. But the drawing by the sword, right? Peter took up a sword to defend Jesus in the garden of, guess the me, guess the main. Jesus said, no, no, no. For all who draw the sword will die by the sword. The draw the sword is important. Drawing the sword is the initiation of the use of force.
[1:40] Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword means that you are a robber, a thief. He's not talking about self-defense. Those who draw the sword, those who live by the sword means those who initiate the use of force will die by the sword. But of course, the initiation of force comes in the same psychological place as suicide because it creates a world wherein life becomes very rapidly unsustainable. There's a lot of people who don't want to live. A lot of people out there who don't want to live. And you can see this, right? They overeat, they drink too much, they do drugs, risky sports, sleep around, and court diseases. And I mean, they're just, for a lot of people, life is unbearable. But unfortunately, there's a big economy based upon people's death wishes. And the initiation of these, of course, is a form of suicide because it creates a world in which most life is unsustainable.
[2:40] People who want to, like when you could sort of say in the past that this was much less known, you know, the sort of communism, socialism, collectivism stuff, even the fascism stuff. But now it's just clear, like people who say, well, we want to collectivize the farms. It's a powerful line from Sam Cooke's last song. It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die because I don't know what's up there beyond the sky. It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die. So when you want to die deep down, and a lot of that has to do with having a bad conscience, but you will simply create, circumstances or situations in which death will come sooner.
[3:28] There was a very, it's funny because I remember thinking Married with Children, oh, it's a sort of sophisticated comedy. A la 30-something occurrence out, of course it is. extremely low-rent trash, but it had its amusing parts, and the show Married with Children had Al Bundy, right, named after a serial killer. Al Bundy was a sort of sad sack who staggered from various stimulations to various stimulations, always looking to be left alone and not be bothered and, you know, nothing but contempt for his family and full of shallow lusts, you know, a fool, a sort of classic fool. But one of the things that was a constant theme in the show, and honestly, I don't want to sound, I'm not high rent this way, I'm not like, I didn't watch that many of them. But I mean, they were certainly funny at times. But one of the things that I saw in the couple of shows that I watched was, you know, he prayed for death. Couldn't come soon enough.
[4:34] This was also the case with the John Cleese character, Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, that he had a death wish on it because his life was unbearable with his wife and the people who surrounded him, his neuroses. He found life agonizing because of, you know, hostility, neuroses, paranoia, the will to be right, the will to dominate. The will to dominate combined with...
[5:01] A weak will is really frustrating for people. So, you know, don't underestimate the number of people out in the world with, you know, what Freud called thanatos, or the death impulse. They just, they don't want to live. And so, they also don't want to live, how can you just leave me standing alone in the world is so cold? They don't want to live because the world, you know, you can carve out your areas of warmth and comfort. You really can. I mean, I have good friends, great marriage, and I love my listeners. Thank you so much, guys, for all that you do and all that you support. So you can carve out your warm spots, but the world as a whole is in general a just kind of unthinking hell of people easily weaponized against individual thought. People who are absolutely certain they're right because the TV told them what's true and when both they and the TV are proven to be wrong, they never retract, never admit, only escalate. NPCs, right? We are in a world of dangerous zombies with a sort of necromancer who can point the horde at any individual and take them down.
[6:28] And it is really, I think, the death impulse or the don't-wanna-be-here impulse comes in general not from society's immorality, but from its hypocrisy. Openly immoral people at least have a certain kind of integrity to them, and a certain kind of dark energy to them, and a certain insouciance and often wit. But it is the people who pretend to be good while secretly wishing for evil, who collude with evildoers under the guise of doing good, that is the hell. The hell is not the immorality. The hell is the hypocrisy. It's not the evil, but the virtue signaling. It's not the predation. It is the smug, pathological altruism. That's where the real hell is. Evil, at least, will sort of fight you openly if you're virtuous.
[7:27] But the majority of people will pretend to side with you while stabbing you in the back while claiming to be virtuous and that they didn't do anything wrong. It's that lostness that is what makes things kind of hell as a whole.
[7:43] As I sort of talked about before, the society that says, oh, we care about our children so much. We just, we want them to be healthy and happy and well-educated. We just care about our children so much. And then, you know, buries them in debt, puts them in terrible schools, subjects them to violence. And if any child grows up to complain about the general immorality and hypocrisy of society, the society that claims to care so much about the children, when informed, by an adult of how bad childhood is for most children. It attacks and undermines and attempts to destroy said person. So it really is that hypocrisy. Evil can be fought, and evil sometimes can be redeemed, but hypocrisy is eternal. Hypocrisy is eternal. So hypocrisy is the ultimate a thief, right? Because it steals self-esteem, reputation, and virtue while doing evil. So, the reason why hypocrisy can't be redeemed is it recognizes the value of virtue as a skin suit and wears it regularly and forgets that it ever put it on, right? So, it's pretty monstrous. So.
[8:58] People don't want to live when they despair that society will ever tell the truth. See, and this is sort of a lead-in to what I'm talking about with Jesus and the sword. And again, I mean, forgive me for all that I get wrong, as best you can, but I'm certainly no theologian. These are my thoughts based on a good study of philosophy and personal experience and growing up Christian, but again, please extend forbearance for all that I get wrong, which I'm sure is not going to be a tiny amount. So, how does society survive back then in the time of Jesus, 2025 plus years ago? How does society survive? Well, society survives by teaching children X is true.
[9:53] Ex-tribal belief, it's true. It's true. It's absolute. It's universal. It's a fact. It's as wound into the nature of things as gravity, sunlight, and physics itself. This is true. And the truth of this is inflicted upon children or taught to children as an absolute truth. So, one of the examples which you may have gone through or not gone through is that, you know, when I was a kid, I was taught that there were no communists in the American government. McCarthy was a paranoid witch hunter. This was just absolutely true. That Nixon was just hopelessly corrupt, and all these things were all just absolutely true. That men were male chauvinist pigs who exploited women, and women were helpless, delicate creatures, yearning for freedom and responsibility, and they're just things just taught as absolute truth.
[10:57] So, society tells you these things are true, teachers, preachers, authoritative as parents, the media, I mean, you name it, right? So, people tell you these things are absolutely true. And when you're a kid, you accept these things as true, and you also accept that you're too young to be stepped through the methodology by which these things are determined to be true, right? So, you're told X, Y, and Z, and this is particularly to do with morality and so on. So you're taught X, Y, and Z. This is absolutely true. These things are absolutely true. And then you accept that you are too young to follow all the steps by which society has determined these things to be absolutely true. So when I was a kid, of course, I was taught, oh, the world is a sphere, but no one stepped me through all of the testable, logical, and empirical sequences that you go through in order to know that the world is a sphere. I just accepted it. And then later on, I went through and understood all of the sort of steps by which this is established, right?
[12:18] Taught all of these things, myriad of things, countless things. They're all true. And source, I mean, honestly, you know, this meme, like source, trust me, bro. But the source is, trust me, bro. The sun and the moon look the same size. I'm told that they are vastly different sizes. Okay. The stars look like they flicker. I am told they do not flicker in and of themselves. It's just ripples and eddies of air that cause the light to waver. That looks like a flicker. and so on, right? It looks like the bigger stars are closer and the faintest stars are further away. I'm told that this is not, in fact, the case. It has an effect, but some of the brighter stars are further away. They just happen to be bigger. You know, all of these sorts of things, right? I am told that although it feels like I'm on a stable surface, I am, in fact, on a rock that whirls around. Okay, I accept it's not that the sun rises and sets, it's that the earth turns relative to the stable sun, except the sun isn't stable, right? The earth turns, it rockets around the sun, the sun rockets around the galaxy, and so on, right? And then I can step through the methodology of these things if I want. Okay.
[13:36] When it comes, or at least in the past, before science was taken over by government funding and the infinite squid tentacles of corruption wrapped around the jugulars of integrity of the scientists and turned them into propaganda spouting data zombies. Before that, you know, science was pretty, pretty reliable. So society tells you all of these things and says, yeah, this is true. This is right. Virtuous, good. But when you get older, we'll teach you the methodology. And I accept that. That's rational. Makes sense, right?
[14:15] Told, of course, to be careful of the stove. We had this gas stove in the little apartment we lived in, in England, the flat. And I said, I was told, be careful, don't turn on the stove without lighting it. Turn it off when you're done. Don't touch hot things. I was told all of these things, of course, long before I was anywhere close to understanding the physics of lighting gas in a controlled environment, right?
[14:42] So, I accept that. You are told to be careful running down hills long before you are informed of the deep math and physics of mass and gravity. Okay, so yeah, all these rules, and they're like, trust me, we'll explain this, we'll explain this whole methodology to you when you get older. And of course, society can explain some of these things when you get older, and society really, really can't explain some of these things when you get older, particularly around history and morality. I mean, with McCarthyism, and they say, oh, no, McCarthy was just this crazy witch hunter. He had no examples, no proof, no nothing, right? And then you find out that that's all not true, and you bring it up. And everyone's gone through this at some point. I mean, certainly everyone who's listening to this has gone through this at some point, where you're told some absolutely outlandish lies with a completely straight face and it's absolutely factual and so on. You're told these completely outlandish lies. And then what happens is you bring up some counterexamples and you get attacked. You get attacked. And then you begin to suspect a whole bunch of things. Like one of the big things for me was McCarthyism.
[16:03] Okay, well, if there weren't any communists in the American government, why was Eastern Europe handed over to communism? That wouldn't seem to be a very wise thing to do. And just a bunch of other things, right? And, of course, I had, when I was in my teens, of course, I read ferociously about, like I read Ayn Rand's works and Nathaniel Brandon's works and Leonard Peikoff, and I read about Ayn Rand's life, and Ayn Rand, of course, testified to the HUAC committee about Soviet propaganda in Hollywood, all of the sort of pro-Soviet movies. Now, of course, some of those would have come about because they were allies. The Soviet Union was, of course, allies to the Western powers in the fight against the triumvirate of Japan, Italy, and Germany.
[16:50] Mission to Moscow, I think, was one of them, which is complete pro-Soviet trash. In fact, and just by the by, if you ever get to see it, it's actually a good movie. We the Living was made under, I think it was under Mussolini, We the Living was made as an anti-communist movie. And it's actually, it's pretty good, certainly way better than The Fountainhead, or the unfortunately made Atlas Shrugged movies. So you start to read these things and you're like, okay, so hang on, some of this stuff doesn't really hang together. And you start to ask questions, and then you're just told that you're just difficult and obstructive and wrong. And so you ask for answers, or you point out inconsistencies, and you get aggression. And that's when you begin to think, holy shit. If communists did control significant portions of the government in the 1940s and the 1950s, this is exactly the narrative they would produce.
[17:54] There were no communists, McCarthy was a witch hunter, it was all crazy, paranoia, and how dare you point out any inconsistencies or ask for any proof. So you begin to get this creepy sense that stuff you've been told is a lie, and a very manipulative and deliberate lie. But then you think, okay, well, hang on, hang on, hang on. If the people in charge of the educational institutions or liars and propagandists, then I don't have a culture.
[18:31] Occupied. We are controlled, right? So, when you're young, people in authority tell you all this stuff. And then, when you get older, you find counter examples and you ask for proof. Now, only in some areas is this a problem, right? So, if you're being taught science as a little kid, and you say, they say there's gravity, things fall down, and you say, well, hey, man, what about helium balloons and soap bubbles and clouds and like, and, and people don't get mad at you, right? They don't call you names. They don't escalate. They don't punish you. They don't mock you. They don't turn the idiot, vacant grinning attack mob on your budding thoughts. No, what did they do? They say, oh yeah, it's a, it's a great question. It's really observant of you. And, uh, you know, here's why helium is lighter than air and they go soap bubbles. They do actually in general fall down, but they're so subject to the whim of the currents of the air and so on, right? And the clouds are actually tiny. They're not solid. They look more solid, but they're actually just tiny drops of water vapor and dust or whatever, right? So you are actually applauded for pointing out exceptions. And the teachers of physics say, the teachers are pleased? It's a great question. This is what science is, right? We look for exceptions and we try and figure out what the rules are.
[19:59] I mean, of course, when you're told about gravity and things falling down and then you see some giant Boeing 747, you know, plunging through the air, you have questions, right? You say, oh, well, you know, but the wings are shaped so that there's lift as it moves forward and, right, all of that kind of stuff, right?
[20:17] Make your paper airplanes as a way of messing around with the sense of gravity, and, you know, you do all these. So when you see exceptions or what look like contradictions in the realm of science, you are praised. Yeah, it's a great question, you know, good observation, let's work through this, and you're given easy convivial proof, or at least explanations, but say with something like McCarthyism, and you say, well, okay, first of all, this is kind of what the communists would say if they won, and, you know, England, for instance, went to war to save Poland and then handed Poland over to the communists and so on, right? You sort of notice these inconsistencies. And then you find out about the whole Alger Hiss thing and the pumpkin papers and all kinds of crazy stuff going on. And then you notice that the propaganda still seems to be there in many ways.
[21:16] On beauty and culture to demoralize people. So, and then as of course, as a kid, I was told, you know, communism is a problem. Communism is bad. And there was, you know, mixed things, but I certainly got that message from the older generation. And then I would find out that the government was regularly shipping billions of dollars of free food over to the communists, which made no sense to me i mean if if communism is this big dangerous enemy why are we feeding them i mean that would be like shipping arms to your enemy in a war this doesn't right i mean i know what happens that doesn't really make any sense from a logical standpoint so i mean we've all gone through these things you probably have your things of course where you're like huh wait a second some of this doesn't quite hang together and you ask questions and you are a mocked and ridiculed and attacked. And you're given, you know, completely unsatisfying non-answers, right?
[22:17] So, you begin to understand that that which you're told is absolutely true has no proof. Or if there is proof or quote proof, you start looking into it and you realize it's all kind of circular, like it's just this sort of circle joke of people referencing each other and so on. And then there's always this snarky language and so on, right? I remember a professor, when I did my history degree, I remember a professor talking about, Richard Nixon and never once mentioned the connection between Nixon and McCarthy, of course, but I remember him contorting himself to saying, oh, he accidentally pushed the erase button and everybody was laughing. And I'm like, something's not right about this. sort of mockery stuff, right? So, you know, just counter examples, right? You know, I remember taking a course on race relations, and the professor was like, you know, well, it's racism, racism, racism, and I said, well, you know, but the sort of West African blacks have a higher per capita income than whites in America, so it's like, oh, the legacy of slavery, and I said, well, you know, but this group and this group in society were enslaved and did well afterwards, and right so the Japanese American oh but it wasn't long enough and it's like well you know anyway so it was just this shifting, it was just this shifting sense like you couldn't.
[23:46] Good answers. So, the reason why I think Jesus talks about bringing a sword, because he is the prince of peace, and he of course wants to heal the relationship between man and God, and so he opposes the sword in terms of the initiation of violence. So, when he says he comes to bring a sword, obviously it's an analogy, and what is the sword? Since Jesus is not talking about the initiation of the use of force, he must be talking. This is, sorry, this is just the logistics, so it's going to be hard to escape, but I'm certainly happy to be corrected if I've missed something. But because Jesus talks about, if you live by the sword, if you draw the sword, you're not going to do well, it's bad, it's wrong. Thou shalt not murder, right? Murder is the initiation of the use of force.
[24:37] He does not say thou shalt not kill.
[24:43] Thou So, Jesus is talking about the sword in self-defense, and it's not a real sword. And he's talking about set people at variance with, right? Not physical fight, not mutual poisoning, not at variance with, at odds with. Set people against each other. so since Jesus is referring to, an analogy of a sword to be used in self-defense what is he talking about and why is it in particular the young versus the old son against father daughter against mother daughter-in-law against mother-in-law son-in-law against mother-in-law it's a generational thing, so what does Jesus mean when he says I have come to bring, mental self-defense to the young because that's what it is, right? It's not a physical sword, it's a mental sword. It is not the initiation of force. It is self-defense and it is from the young to the old. So what did Jesus mean when he said, I have come to bring mental self-defense.
[25:54] Against the old. I have come to bring mental self-defense and provide it to the young against the old. Now, you can understand why this might be a teeny tiny bit personal for me. Right. Teeny, teeny, just, you know, a tiny overlapping Venn diagram. A teeny tiny little bit for me. What does he mean? Well, I am the way, I am the truth. He is morally perfect, he cannot lie. So, when Jesus says, I have come to bring mental self-defense provided to the young against the old, it.
[26:33] The truth to the young and give them defenses against the old, he can only really be referring to the infliction of lies by the older generation on the younger. That's all he could be referring to. This is not, this is deduction, not induction. He cannot lie. He is the way and the truth. He's bringing mental self-defense and providing it to the young against the old. And the question then is defense against what? Well, what do you need mental self-defense for? People who lie to you, people who propagandize you, people who are false, people who manipulate you, people who use pretend truths in order to control you, people who say, because Christianity was the first universal ethics.
[27:19] Certainly in the theological sense, at least in the West, or I guess from the Middle East us the West, let's stretch out our definition a bit. The first moral universal. So, how do tribes operate? Well, tribes operate by saying, this is a universal truth that only applies to us. Okay, it's kind of a contradiction. The in-group preference, right? Tribalism.
[27:41] Every tribe says, we are the greatest, can't all be true, right? If every athlete says, I'm the faster runner, all but one is lying. So, every tribe says, we are the greatest, and they can't all be telling the truth, which means that there's a corruption called vanity being inflicted on the young by the older. And what is one of the most foundational Christian virtues is not vanity, but humility, humbleness. So, tribes say, you are the greatest, we are the greatest, and the way that you keep this false pride is don't ask too many freaking questions, kid. Because if you ask too many freaking questions, then the whole lie of the pathological vanity of the tribe falls apart. So, Jesus brings to the young skepticism of the, quote, truths inflicted upon them by their elders. And, of course, this is the same thing that Socrates was up to, though, of course, in a much less theological context, right? So when, in ancient Greece, people said...
[28:58] The good is known from the gods. The good is known from the gods. So Socrates had two basic counter-arguments, which is, how do we know the gods are good? Is it just because of what they do, or because of reference to some external standard? If the gods are all powerful, and I did this almost 20 years ago in a podcast called Power Versus Virtue, A Love Story, so are the gods good because they conform to some external standard of good, in which case we should really worship that external standard, not the gods? Or are the gods good simply because they're powerful, in which case we're just worshiping power, not virtue? Number one. Number two, of course, is that the gods are in conflict. They fight with each other. They disagree. They even go to war sometimes. So, if we know what is good because of the gods, how do we reconcile the fact that the gods disagree with each other about what is good. And then we have to pick a God, but then we're ignoring all the gods who disagree, but, you know, this sort of basic, basic argument, right? So when he says, I'm here to bring a sword and to set, I mean, he didn't mean children, right? Because he says, daughter-in-law, you know, son-in-law, that kind of stuff. And that's not a child, that is an adult child, right? A former a child because you're married, right?
[30:16] So Jesus is coming down, and I completely apologize for all the butchering I'm about to do, but I think it's important at least to get this argument across, and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. But Jesus comes down with the most essential question in philosophy, in virtue, compared to what? This is an old joke about a philosophy professor, somebody says, how's your wife? And he says, well, compared to what? Like.
[30:46] 60, well, compared to a 20-year-old, she's old. Compared to an 80-year-old, she's younger. Compared to a 20-year-old, she's probably less anxious, but she's also less springy in her step. Right? So, compared to what? It's just an important question, right?
[31:04] Oh, what a drag it is getting old, right? So, you say, oh, it's such a drag getting old. Well, compared to what? Compared to dying?
[31:11] And getting old is not bad if you stay movement-based and exercise and this, that, and the other. It's, you know, not so bad. If you, you know, let yourself kind of sit and rot and your bones get weak and all your joints weaken, like, then you're having a bad time of it, to put it mildly. So, you say, oh, getting old is a drag. Well, compared to what? So, Nixon was corrupt compared to who? Compared to LBJ? To JFK? Hell.
[31:45] Woodrow Wilson compared to Abraham Lincoln? Wheelchair World War II guy? Compared to what? Is he singularly corrupt? Well, if he wasn't corrupt, he would be called corrupt by the corrupt, right? Because this is a basic thing. The corrupt people accuse you of what they're doing. They accuse you of manifesting what they're actually doing. I mean, of course, right? If you are the murderer, you want to lead the mob to find the murderer, and failing all of that, you definitely want to be on the jury. So, when you're young and you notice what seem like inconsistencies in physics, things are supposed to fall, but sometimes they float. And you're, you know, it's all wind resistance and lighter than air and all that kind of stuff, right? So that's not a negative, that's considered a positive. And you're now thinking like a scientist, asking questions.
[32:41] When you start inquiring as to the moral stories, the mythologies, the things which are presented as absolutely true, then you say, compared to what? Well, Jesus gave a wide variety of moral commandments to which you can compare your elders to. So, for instance, if your elders say that they're very moral and the morality they follow says, give to the poor, right? So somebody who's very wealthy who says, I'm moral, and the morals I follow say, give to the poor, you can compare their claims of being moral to whether they actually give to the poor or not, if that makes sense. Yeah, of course it makes sense. It makes sense, right? Compared to what?
[33:35] So if your elders, as all elders do, say it's very important, you must, it's totally moral to tell the truth, and lying is really bad, then you have a standard by which you can compare your elders to, which is called telling the truth, be honest, thou shalt not bear false witness. And if you find that your elders are not telling the truth, then you are now at odds with them, because they tell you it's really important to tell the truth, and then, you ask them how they know what they know compared to what and you find that they lie, misrepresent, attack, manipulate, undermine, mock, provoke aggression or laughter against you, threaten you, well then you say okay so then they don't really.
[34:25] Believe in telling the truth and, this is all over the philosophy of peaceful parenting. And you've heard me say this countless times in Corlens, right? When you say to your parents, you did this or that wrong as parents, and you hurt me and harmed me, and they start coming up with their excuses and justifications, the simple question is, okay, would these excuses and justifications have been acceptable to you when you were a child, right? Would they have accepted these excuses, right? So if they say, well, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had, but they failed to study anything about parenting, despite knowing the fact that they were raised themselves badly. Well, if you had failed to study for a test and failed it, when you were in grade eight, some stupid math test or spelling test or something, if you failed to study for it and failed it, then you would be held accountable. You knew this test was coming and you're responsible for getting the knowledge, and you are bad and wrong and you might be punished for failing the test. Okay. So when you were a kid, there's no excuse called, I did the best I could, but the knowledge I had, because you're responsible for gaining the knowledge, knowing that the test is coming. And of course, people have a more advanced warning of becoming parents than kids have for any test known to man, right? So you've got at least nine months, probably having unprotected sex for a couple of months before that. So probably a year ahead of time, you know, you're going to most likely become a parent. So if you've got a year to study for the test, and then you fail that test for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, well, that's important, right?
[35:54] If you're punished for far less important quote, transgressions than your parents manifest in their bad parenting, then your parents don't care about the moral rules, they only care about power.
[36:05] They claim excuses for far more important things than, they would never accept from you about far less important things, like a spelling bee or a math test or something. So then, of course, when you go to your elders and you question them about what they claim is absolutely true, and they told you these things were true, while basically saying you're too young to know why it's true, and then you get older and you ask them, okay, I'm ready now, tell me why this is true, and they can't answer you, and they just attack and mock and undermine and, right, you name it, threatened, right? Okay, so then what? Then what?
[36:45] It's a risky time for society. I mean, just look at, you know, basic being a warrior, like WA, right? Well, fighting for the collective requires a belief in the virtue of the collective, which is why when you want to take over a country, you work to undermine its social myths and thus destroy the willingness of young men to fight for that which they no longer believe to be true. So, what did Jesus come to say? I come to bring a sword. Well, mental sword, self-defense, young to old. And it is to give the young moral standards by which they can judge the actions of their elders. This is the most foundational thing. Moral standards by which they can judge the actions of their elders, because their elders will always claim to be moral, and they will claim to have adherence, right? To moral standards, right?
[37:45] They say, ah, we claim to have adherence to these moral standards, so when the elders say, we really, really care about the young, say, okay, well, what have you done? Have the schools improved? Have you taken on those who wish to corrupt and lie to the young? Have you used the young as collateral to feed your own.
[38:05] Greed, have you left the country in a better place for your young, your offspring, then you found it, you know, because the empirical facts inevitably accumulate as you age. You know, when you're young, I don't know, you can talk about giving to the poor all you want, but you don't have any stuff, so you can't really give to the poor. But, you know, you start to get into your peak earning years, particularly as a man, so do your 40s, your 50s. Okay, well, now you've got enough stuff that you could give to the poor. Do you, in fact, do it? And, horrifying passage. It really is like a horrifying Minds of Moria bulrog passage where you look at your elders and you see skeevy manipulative toddlers. A lot of times, not always, skeevy manipulative toddlers. So, you look at your elders and they say, oh, we love the young, we care about the young, right? And then you say, okay, what's your evidence?
[39:04] What's the evidence? And look at the boomers. What is the evidence they genuinely care about their children? I mean, the West is worse off in many ways than it was. You've got national debts, unfunded liabilities, the richest generation the world has ever known, like 4 billion years of history of life, right? 13 plus or 14 plus billion years of history of the universe. The boomers are the wealthiest generation that's ever existed in the history of the universe. And they prey upon the young for their old age pensions?
[39:39] Well, what is the evidence the boomers care about the young? They'll endlessly talk about how much they care about their young or the boomers say, well, you know, you got to vote because then you're responsible for what the government does. But then they say, well, we're not responsible for what the government did, right? You know, just these basic contradictions, right? Or they'll say, you know, So when you're a kid, you want to go out and play, so you've got to test. Well, you've got to sacrifice. You've got to make sacrifices. You know, you don't want to get up at dawn to go do hockey practice. Say, well, if you want to be good, you've got to make sacrifices. You've got to do the hard thing, the tough thing. You've got to make sacrifices. Okay? So there's no money to pay the pensions. What sacrifices are they? Oh, no. You better not touch my pension. Okay, so then they don't really believe that you've got to... And particularly if you've made the mistake, right? If you've made the mistake, you've got to suffer the consequences, right? If you sneak your dad's, and then crash his car, you've got to pay for the repair. If you steal from a store, you've got to hand the stuff back and apologize. You've got to pay for your moral mistakes.
[40:48] Okay. Well, do we have more or less free speech since the boomers were around first politically active? Do we have more or less national debt? Do we have more or less unfunded liabilities? these, I mean, you sort of go, is the culture better or worse?
[41:05] Do the children have a dimmer or a brighter future as they emerge into adulthood under the scabrous wing of the tartaring ghoul-based boomers? I mean, it's pretty easy to answer these questions, right? And most importantly, the boomers would say, you know, who broke this lamp? Own up, fess up, come on, who did it? Who did it? You've got to confess what you did. A lot of times there would be collective punishment, right? Some kid does something, you know, puts a thumbtack on the teacher's chair, and the whole class has to stay until the person confesses. So you got to own up to what you did, man. You got to take responsibility for what you did. If you did something wrong, you got to own up, right? You got to take responsibility for what you did. But then when you try and hold the boomers accountable, as they age, they won't admit to anything. They'll never admit they did anything wrong, and so they don't genuinely believe that you should own up. That if you made a mistake and you did wrong, you should just confess and take your punishment like a man, like a woman, like an adult, or whatever, right? They don't believe any of that. They don't believe in telling the truth. They don't believe in honor. They don't believe in taking care of the children. They don't believe in virtue. They don't believe in moral responsibility or self-accountability. They just inflicted these things on the young so that they could have power over them, that morality is invented to bully and control the young, not to be followed. Like, The moment you have power, you completely abandon morality.
[42:29] That morality is the exercise of power through humiliation against those who have a conscience.
[42:38] Morality doesn't touch those who don't have a conscience. They may obey it for the sake of power, but never for the sake of virtue. So morality is used to punish the virtuous and those with a conscience as a mere exercise of power. Morality is a humiliation ritual in most framings. right? Morality is a humiliation ritual that is used to punish those with a conscience.
[43:01] So, I mean, when I was a kid in boarding school, we would go through these hysterias, right? I remember the two big ones were conquerors. You'd put a little chestnut, you'd put a string through it, and you'd swing it against other kids. I guess early fortnight, swing it against other kids' chestnuts and see which would break. So, there were conquerors. I guess conquerors, right? to hominem. And then there were paper airplanes. Who could make the best paper airplane? Who could make it do the most tricks and so on? And I remember I tore a page because we couldn't get paper to do these things. Newspaper wasn't very good. I just folded up. So I remember I took a ruler and tore a page out of my Guinness Book of World Records. It was something to do with Roman coins I didn't care about. And I made an absolutely fantastic paper airplane.
[43:46] Me lots of cheers because it floated forever and ever. Amen. And the kids were running after it and cheering. It's a great memory for my childhood. Like one stupid page in a book about Roman coins got me cheers and fun and excitement and status. It's great, great, great memory. And then of course the teacher found out about it. I was dragged up in front of the class and given this endless lecture on respect for other people's property. My mother worked hard for this book. How dare I destroy it? It's blah, blah, blah, right? Okay. So nobody ever asked, why was it important to you? What did it matter? And do you care about Roman coins? And, you know, help me understand your calculations and so on, right? Nobody, nobody cared. It's just a humiliation ritual, just a humiliation ritual.
[44:32] So I, and I remember even at the time just thinking, okay, this is just something I have to nod my head and get through. And I don't know, I didn't care. I mean, this was a boarding school that beat me and other children, right? So I don't, I don't care about my virtues, my soul, my happiness. They didn't know anything about me. They're just, it's an object to be used for a propaganda and income. It's a bookmark. Now, of, And these, I still remember the guy's name, though I won't say it here, but the guy who was giving me this lecture, didn't do it in private, right? Just did it in front of the class.
[45:11] So I could get all the, ooh, you're in trouble, ooh, you know, all of this horizontal slave on slave nonsense, right? So he didn't do it in private, didn't sort of help me understand things or give me sort of any education or principles. It was just, you know, humiliation and how dare I, you know, all of that bullshit and that boomers do. Now, of course, you know, I obviously don't know this guy's political leanings, although I have some idea, but this guy, he for sure voted for the welfare state and voted for old age pensions and voted for, you know, he was a young, hip guy to some degree. He wasn't the headmaster, actually. No, he was not the headmaster. The headmaster was an old Prince Charles-looking fellow, but this was a younger guy. He had sort of the cool Polaroid shades, darkened. I think that was new technology. Is that right?
[45:55] Anyway, I just remember being him in these sunglasses and he ended up dating the music teacher and, you know, it's just kind of a cool hip guy. So for sure, he was probably on the left and sorry, for sure, probably most likely on the left. So voted for a sort of socialism. And so at the same time as he was telling me to respect other people's property, he was voting away my financial future by voting for endless debt-based policies. So it's all nonsense, right? It's all nonsense. And I never really believed in the virtue of my elders at all, like never. And the reason is that I was being abused in society. Nobody ever asked me, nobody ever cared, nobody ever lifted a finger to inquire, to help, to write. So no, it was all nonsense, right? I just, I never believed any of the social morals in the society I was embedded in, because of course.
[46:45] If you're being, you know, brutalized and tortured and so on, and then people are telling you all about their virtues without doing anything about you being brutalized and tortured, I mean, you just know it's all lies and nonsense, right, and this is sort of the price. And certainly the British people are paying the price with interest for this kind of stuff.
[47:04] What does Jesus mean? Come to bring a sword. Well, it's a mental sword of self-defense against the elders. And a sword in many ways is used to test the strength of something, right? So a sword against armor is fairly ineffective. A sword against skin is very effective. So a sword is used to test the strength of something. A sword against the ribbon cuts through it. A sword against a metal beam does not. The sword, in fact, gets damaged. So, you know, the debating is similar to dueling. It's a fencing with words, they sort of call it sometimes, right? So you're just seeing who has the better arguments and the stronger case and the better evidence and so on. So Jesus, as one of the first universalists, says to the young, this is what your elders claim is virtuous. See how they act and see how they respond to you asking, is it true? And this is the foundational question of let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Are you an aggressive moralist to cover up your own immorality? This is very, very common, very common. So when he says he's come to set the young against the old with a mental sword of self-defense against corruption, he's saying, I'm giving you moral rules and a testable hypothesis by which you can judge the true morals of your elders.
[48:31] And foundationally Jesus was highly restricted by a lack of free speech so whenever the elders, are promoting restrictions on free speech you know all the hate speech stuff and all of that whenever they're promoting restrictions on free speech they're saying we can't answer you morally we can't answer certain things so we have to ban them we can't answer.
[48:54] So he's giving you right if a physicist If he said, you know, stuff falls, and then you said, well, what about hot air balloons and bubbles? And he said, that's illegal, you're going to jail. Would you think he had a good answer to these things? No. Of course not. If he said, you know, stuff falls, and you said, well, what about clouds? They seem to stay in the sky. And he said, that's offensive blasphemy. I'm throwing you in jail. Would you think he had a good answer? No, no, no. I mean, restrictions on free speech are always confessions that you don't have a good answer, and you're using morality for domination. So, I hope that helps. I really do appreciate it. Thank you for your patience in this rather lengthy speech. But I think it's really, really important to understand this.
[49:41] And this is the continual process of universalism. the continual process of universalism, is to challenge and undo with a compared to what the vanity and pseudo moral or moral pretense domination of the young by the old. And those who claim to live by universalism who are then challenged with real universalism well, live by the sword, die by the sword. Freedomman.com slash donate to help out the show. I'd really appreciate it. Have yourself a glorious, wonderful, beautiful day. Thank you for your time care attention and support i'll talk to you soon bye.
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