I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
Luke 12:49-53
0:03 - Introduction and Exploration
2:39 - The Nature of Love
6:56 - Obedience vs. Virtue
12:57 - Parental Power Dynamics
18:36 - Hypocrisy in Parenting
22:04 - Conclusion and Community Engagement
In this episode, I delve into a profound exploration of Luke 12:49-53, where Jesus makes a striking declaration about the divisive nature of His mission. Rather than preach peace, He states, "I came not to send peace, but a sword,” highlighting a confrontation that arises between deep moral truths and societal expectations, particularly within familial relationships. This passage prompts an examination of the core question: What do our parents truly love about us?
I challenge listeners to reflect on whether their parents cherish them for their authentic selves or for their ability to conform and comply. This leads to an essential inquiry about the nature of love itself. True love, I propose, is an involuntary reaction to virtue, where genuine affection cannot be coerced or demanded. Drawing parallels between the relationship between love and virtue, I emphasize that loving another’s obedience is a form of narcissism; it celebrates power over the individual rather than the individual’s true virtues.
Throughout the discussion, I encourage listeners to consider how their upbringing and the virtues instilled by their parents have shaped their sense of self and morality. The concept of virtue is dissected further—we explore the distinction between compliance born out of fear and the internalized understanding of universal principles. A true virtuous act must stem from a place of respect for moral values rather than an avoidance of consequences, exemplified by the contrast between a child’s coercion and a scientist’s adherence to the scientific method.
The dialogue then turns towards how our parents' expectations can sometimes reflect their desires for personal pride rather than a genuine admiration for our individual virtue. I question whether parental love is rooted in the admirable qualities we cultivate or if it is merely a reflection of their control and fulfillment of societal status. This examination leads to a broader implication: as we pursue our paths, understanding what underpins our relationships with those closest to us becomes crucial in navigating introspection and self-acceptance.
In exploring these themes, I also touch on my personal experiences with my children, emphasizing the need for honest communication regarding our values and choices. As I reflect on my relationship with my daughter and our conversations about social media, it becomes apparent how essential it is to embody the virtues we wish to instill, fostering a culture of honesty and accountability.
Ultimately, this episode serves as a call to re-examine the nature of familial love, exploring whether it celebrates our personal virtues or merely serves the interests of those who wield power over us. The exploration of Jesus' teachings allows for a deeper understanding of the core values that should guide both our relationships with our parents and our own self-perception. This journey into the heart of virtue and personal identity offers listeners practical insights into their relationships while encouraging a reevaluation of conventional expectations tied to familial love.
[0:00] Hello, everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Hope you're doing well.
[0:04] So, I had a wild time doing Corinthians yesterday and felt almost divine in my exploration, so I asked listeners for favorite Bible verses, and I've got a bunch. I'm going to choose one every day or two to explicate as best as I am able, and I hope that the grace shall slam into my chest and brain verily like a freight train of wisdom. So this is Luke 12, 49, 53. 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 it's a very powerful statement. It's a very powerful statement. And my interpretation of this goes as follows. What do your parents love about you? What do your parents love about you? They claim to love you. They say they love you. I'm not saying they don't.
[1:16] But what do your parents love about you? Which is related to an even more essential question, which is what do you love about yourself? Now, this is one of the earliest questions that I worked to answer in my philosophical conversation with planet, people, and hopefully eternity, which is, what is love?
[1:41] And love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous. And the reason I put the word involuntary in is that anybody who asks you to to will love or to binds love from you or say that you owe them love is as foolish as a man who overeats and then says to his body.
[2:02] You owe me abs. Well, I mean, I guess there are abs in there somewhere under the mountain of belly fat, but it is as foolish to say to your body when you overeat and don't exercise, you owe me abs, you owe me the viper back, you owe me muscles. No, slenderness muscles are the body's involuntary response. It cannot be willed, or in another way of putting it, it's an effect of your will. If you smoke, demanding that your body provide to you the effects of not smoking is foolish in the extreme. It's deranged. It's delusional.
[2:39] Mad. It's mad. So, the reason that involuntary needs to be in the formulation of love is when you say love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous, the beauty of that is that you cannot be compelled to love. You cannot be compelled to love. It's like asking your body to have the effects of sunlight without actually exposing it to sunlight. A tan is your body's involuntary response to sunlight, and demanding it without the presence of sunlight is madness. I want to tan. I don't want to expose myself to any son or son substitutes, right? Well, you can get a fake tan, it's not a real tan, right? So, what do your parents love about you?
[3:30] Really an intensely and immensely foundational question. What do your parents love about you? Do they love your compliance.
[3:41] Your conformity, your subjugation, your obedience, which is to say, do they love not what is you, but what they have forced you to comply to in them? That's the more foundational question, right? If you love someone's obedience, then you love narcissistically, because obedience is something which you perform out of fear or desire. It is a trained response. It's what an animal, and you can train an animal to be obedient, of course, right? So, if you train an animal to be obedient, it cannot be virtuous. You know, people are all like, they project all these virtues onto dogs. Oh, dogs, we don't deserve dogs. Dogs love us. So, it's like, well, they've just been bred to be bonded and obedient. I mean, they then project all of this nonsense and cats are haughty and so it's like they're just not bonded for they're not bred or bonded or have the innate characteristic of that kind of bonding or obedience so what do your parents love about you it has to be the virtues that you manifest.
[4:49] Because that's what they claim. Say, I love you. What does that mean? Now, when you ask someone who says, I love you, what do you mean or what do you love about me? They usually get angry because you're exposing the narcissism. So, let's say that you don't want to become a doctor, but your parents insist or demand or bully you or bribe you into becoming a doctor. Well, they love the fact that you're a doctor, but that's loving their commandments, not your identity or self or virtue or being or choices or virtue, right? Very different manner. Someone who loves your obedience is only narcissistically worshipping their own capacity to command. I have forced you to do something. I bullied you to do something. I bribed you to do something. Therefore, what I love is not you, but my power over you. That's what I love. I love my power over you. I take delight in my power over you. In other words, I am loving power, not virtue. I love power, not virtue. What do you love about me, mom? What do you love about me, dad? That's a very powerful and essential question. Now, your parents, of course, teach you virtue. They teach you goodness, how to be good, how to be virtuous, how to be righteous, how to be noble. And they say, be honest, okay? So, virtue cannot just be obedience.
[6:16] Virtue cannot just be obedience. So, for instance, if a man is about to steal something from a store, and then he notices a security camera, and then he decides not to pocket the item, but instead to put it back, is that man, has that man discovered virtue? Has he discovered the value and virtue of property rights and self-ownership and respect for other people's labor. No, he just is afraid of getting caught, doesn't want to get caught.
[6:45] Right? I'm sure you've seen these videos online where some skeevy guy lifts a wallet from the guy standing in line ahead of him, sees that there's a security gamma, bobs, bows, and prays, and puts the wallet back in the guy's pocket.
[6:56] Well, he's not, he's just afraid of, that's not virtue, right? That's just fear of getting caught. Virtue has to be an internally generated state of the pursuit of UPB and the advocacy for UPB for the sake of virtue itself. And of course, you know, reason equals virtue equals happiness. I get all of that. I subscribe to all of that. and I advocate for all of that. So there's nothing wrong with taking, I'm not a countian, there's nothing wrong with taking pleasure in virtue. But it has to be something that you choose not to obey an individual out of fear or desire, that you choose to obey an individual not out of fear or desire, but you choose to pursue or obey universal principles out of joy in the truth and a recognition that your conscience is universal and it's in you whether you like it or not. Your preferences do not alter universal principles. If you smoke, your lungs will be damaged. That is a universal principle. There's no one who can liberate you from that or change that or will or wish that away or have that not happen or reverse time or change the effects of carcinogens on lung tissue. It is what it is. In the realm of science, we do not obey a scientist.
[8:13] Trust the science means obey a skeevy, white-coated government goblin ordering you around with threats and bribes. So in science, we don't obey individuals. We obey rational, universal principles of the scientific method. A scientist would never say, a good scientist would never say to his protege, to his student, do what I do or else, believe what I believe or else.
[8:40] That would be the opposite of science. That would be utterly corrupt. That would be a cult or a bizarre atheistic religious fundamentalism, aka a lot of modern science, paid for by the state and corrupted by perverse incentives. So, a scientist loves the scientific method, pursues the scientific method, and is a good scientist to the degree that he does pursue the scientific method and adhere to it. With all the recognition of personal preferences and you know, the sunk costs, right? And if you've spent 10 years of your life pursuing a theory, it's pretty tough to figure out that it's not true. So we do our best, right? We do our best. I mean, the other day I got tempted. I watched Mark Zuckerberg's speech on free speech. And I was curious if my Instagram account had been restored or was available because I was deplatformed from Instagram. And I mentioned this to my daughter, and she said, but wouldn't the same principles of your relationship to Twitter also apply to your relationship to Instagram?
[9:49] And I literally stopped in my tracks, and I was like, of course, of course, thank you. I got a little hung up in the moment, a little hung up in the details. And of course, absolutely, yes, of course. Okay. Of course. That's a reminder, right? We all need, at least I do. Maybe you're beyond it. I certainly do, because I always have this big disco ball of, but it's good for the world if I talk, kind of thing. Anyway, so she caught me and helped me, and that was great. It was great. It's what you need, right?
[10:21] So what do your parents love about you? Well, what does a good scientist respect or admire in another scientist. Well, a good scientist respects or admires in another scientist the dedicated pursuit of the scientific method. In other words, he loves the manifestation of universal principles in an individual's choices. He loves the manifestation of universal principles in another person's choices. He loves the universal as it is reflected in the choices of an individual. If you are honest, you will admire people who tell the truth. Telling the truth is a universal principle manifested in the actions of an individual.
[11:07] So, what do your parents love in you? It has to be, or the only thing that they can love in you, is the manifestation of universal values in your free choices. Now, of course, as parents, We want to teach our kids universal values and so on. But eventually, it's up to the kids themselves to manifest them. We can manifest them ourselves, and we can show the value and virtue of those manifestations.
[11:32] But it is up to our kids to manifest. You know, I mean, I love my daughter. And one of the reasons I love my daughter is she's like, Dad, hey, you're considering taking an unprincipled approach to Instagram, whereas you took a principled approach to Twitter. And I'm like, yes, you're absolutely right. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Whoops, get thee behind me. Zuckerberg slash devil, right? So that's good. I respect and admire her in that. I respect and admire the way she deals with social situations and has almost no susceptibility to peer pressure and is a good friend to her friends and takes stands and all of that. I mean, it's just very admirable. and in ways that surpass, in some instances, my own particular manifestations. I mean, for a variety of reasons, it doesn't really matter, but it doesn't detract from what is the same thing with my wife. I admire her strength and courage and virtue and resilience and honesty and all of these kinds of good things. So, Jesus was the manifestation of universal values.
[12:38] Jesus did to morals what Socrates did to logic, made it universal and brought skepticism. How do we know that obedience to threats is virtue? Well, I think, I think, we know, basically, that obedience to threats cannot be virtue.
[12:58] How could obedience to threats be virtue? That's like saying that somebody's agoraphobic because some psycho locked him in the basement. Well, he just never goes out. They don't have a choice. He's trapped. So do your parents love their power over you? Love the status that you provide to them? If your parents want you to be a doctor so they can say, oh, my child's a doctor. true. My child's getting straight A's in top-tier university. Sorry, I'm going to punch myself in the throat if I do that too much.
[13:28] So, do your parents love you as a vanity object? Do I not love you? Do your parents find value in you as a vanity object, as a source of pride and esteem and all kinds of that stuff? Do they love their power over you, the fact that they say jump and you are programmed by nature to say how high and to obey them? Do they love the flex they have over you? Do they love you for the resources they expect you to provide them as they age, and so on? Or do they love the manifestation of the universal in your chosen actions? Virtue. So, Jesus, in saying I've come to set, child against parent, says there are these universal virtues and values. And if you start to believe in these universal virtues and values, how do your parents react? In other words, how do your parents react if you actually become good rather than simply pursue the virtue, quote, virtue called obedience. And the way that this manifests, at least in terms of what I talk about with people in call-in shows, is do your parents say honesty is a virtue? Great. Okay. Then you should be honest with them about any negative experiences you've had that are significant. I mean, you can be honest with them about anything, but if your parents say that honesty is a virtue, then it seems to me that you should be honest with your parents. And if you dislike certain things about them or have an issue with the way they raised you in some significant manner or insignificant doesn't really matter then you should tell them because honesty is a virtue.
[14:55] Now, if your parents say honesty is a virtue, and then they get angry at you for being honest with them, then they don't believe that honesty is a virtue. In other words, when you're in possession of information your parents want to get a hold of, who broke this lamp, who dinged the car, honesty is a virtue. But when you're in possession of information your parents don't want, i.e., you treated me badly as a child, then honesty is no longer a virtue, then it becomes disrespect and dishonor and gaslight against you or aggression or whatever, right? So, another way of checking to see if your parents are actually interested in virtue rather than power, control, and resources, and having you as a status symbol and loving their own narcissistic power over you, is to examine the excuses your parents give for bad behavior when they were adults and compare them to the excuses they denied to you for, quote, bad behavior when you were a child, right? So, if your parents ever said your best isn't good enough, or if you didn't study for a test, failed the test, or did badly on the test, and your parents said you should have studied, you were responsible for studying, it's bad that you're getting bad grades, you need to do better. But then when you talk to them about negative aspects of their parenting, and they say, well, we did the best we could with the knowledge we had, and I had a bad childhood, and they make up all of these excuses, the same excuses they never would have allowed for you as a child, right? Were you allowed to fail a test saying, well, I'm having a bad time at home? Were you allowed to fail a test if you didn't study and everything would be fine? Like you were never criticized?
[16:22] Well, I mean, parenting is infinitely more important than some stupid spelling bee in grade eight, but you would get criticized for a lack of preparation for a spelling bee in grade eight. But then your parents completely defend their own lack of preparation for parenting. And they say, well, I had a bad childhood. Well, given that you had a bad childhood, that makes you all the more responsible for studying how to be a better parent. So if your parents, when they were your parents at the age of 25 or 30 or 35 or whatever, have endless excuses for their own bad behavior, but then when you were 5 or 7 or 10 or 15, they gave you zero excuses for your own, quote, bad behavior, then that's hypocritical.
[16:58] Then all of the, quote, morals that they inflicted upon you were mere exercises of power. Right? Like in the same way that, you know, governments can lose hundreds of billions of dollars or more, never get audited, not know what's going on with their own finances. But if you lose one receipt, you can get in serious trouble, right? So when Jesus says, I have come to set citing his father, he's saying, I have come to test parental virtues by the standards of universality. It cannot be morally possible that a five-year-old would have infinitely higher moral standards and requirements than a 35-year-old. And it also cannot be morally defended at all that a very low-stakes moral situation is infinitely more important than the very highest-stakes moral situation. In other words, studying for a spelling bee is a fairly unimportant situation.
[18:00] Using violence, coercion, gaslighting, manipulation, and bullying with your children for years is the very highest moral situation. So it cannot be that the standards are infinitely higher for something that has almost no moral impact, and the standards, the moral standards are infinitely lower for something that has the greatest moral impact, which is parenting. Do your parents love virtue and the virtue in you, or are they narcissistically addicted to the joy and dopamine of having power over you and gaining resources from you and using you as a vanity prop?
[18:36] It's an important question. What do your parents love about you? Do they love the universal manifesting in your free will? Or, do they love your obedience, status, opportunities, and resource acquisition as they age?
[18:51] Do they love having people that they say come over and they're always going to come over? Do they love having warm bodies in the house for Christmas and Thanksgiving? Or do they take delight in your presence because of your manifestations of the virtues you all share? So in bringing universality, and it doesn't mean a big abstract universality. I mean, the best arguments are the ones that don't need to reach outside the circumstances, right? So, if your parents believe or proclaim or teach you the virtue of honesty, then you don't need any external proof of the virtue of honesty to call them on their hostility to and opposition to your honesty about their deficiencies as parents. Sorry, that was a long ass sinuous sentence. Let me try that again. So, you don't need to prove the value of honesty to parents who, when you were a kid, demanded that you be honest, because they've already accepted the value of honesty. So, you don't need to go outside what they proclaim, hoisted by their own petard, is sort of the phrase, right? You don't need to prove the virtue of honesty to parents who demanded you tell the truth when you were a kid. Who broke the lamp? Tell the truth. Who dinked the car? Tell the truth. Were you at school today? Tell the truth.
[20:07] Are you dating so-and-so? Tell the truth. Did you play video games today? Tell the truth. So telling the truth is a virtue. So you don't need to go outside and prove the value and virtue of telling the truth because they already manifested when you were a kid the value and virtue of telling the truth. What this means is that as a grown child, as an adult child, when you attempt to apply your parents' moral instructions to your parents themselves in a universal fashion, you will find out very often, not always, but very often you will find out that they were rank hypocrites.
[20:45] Who cloaked their lust for power and control, bullying, and vanity-based status stimuli. They cloaked all of that in the guise of universal morality. In other words, they used morality as an excuse to exercise brute power over you, which is fundamentally corrupt to the very core. So, Jesus did not come to wantonly troll-like provoke conflicts between parents and children, but let he who is without sin cast the first stone is very powerful which is to say that moral condemnation as a cover-up for moral corruption is demonic it's devilish it's evil corrupt to the core and to condemn your children morally for moral rules you rail against them when they.
[21:40] Apply them back, right? It's the typical thing where the mother is yelling at the children, the children yell back, and the mother is appalled, and don't you yell. And they say, well, you were just yelling, and you know, this kind of stuff, right? If you want your children to practice non-aggression, don't aggress against them. It's not that complicated. So, I hope this helps. I really do appreciate these quotes from the Bible.
[22:04] They do a lot to stimulate my brain, and I hope that you find value in what it is that I'm providing back. So you can post more of them. The best way to do that is to join one of the free domain communities, which you can go to subscribestar.com slash free domain. You can go to freedomand.locals.com and you can sign up for the communities. That's the best way for me to see them. I really do appreciate your love and support. And thank you so much. freedomand.com slash donate to help out the show. Take care. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
