0:03 - Welcome to the Lecture
2:25 - The Misunderstood Concept of Forgiveness
5:22 - The Cost of Confrontation
8:25 - The Nature of Restitution
11:42 - The Process of Apology
13:49 - The Debt of Wrongdoing
17:14 - Rewarding Virtue vs. Punishing Corruption
20:35 - The Burden of Forgiveness
24:59 - The Foundation of Love
26:47 - The Role of Moral Judgment
29:24 - The Importance of Corrective Feedback
33:35 - The Complexity of Generational Responsibility
48:13 - Holding Others Accountable
54:06 - Healing and Forgiveness
1:03:37 - The Weight of Resentment
1:06:23 - Finding Peace in Justice
1:17:06 - Closing Thoughts on Injustice
This lecture explores the complex and often misunderstood topic of forgiveness, emphasizing that it is a virtue that must be earned rather than a mere obligation to be granted unconditionally. The speaker, Stefan Molyneux, presents a compelling argument against the notion that forgiveness should be given freely, regardless of the actions of the wrongdoer. He asserts that such a perspective can perpetuate cycles of exploitation and immorality.
Molyneux begins by highlighting the dangers of unearned forgiveness, illustrating how a lack of accountability can enable individuals to continue their harmful behaviors. He discusses how societal pressures often dictate that one must forgive to foster their peace of mind, but he critiques this belief as a form of emotional manipulation. He draws parallels between granting forgiveness and unearned privileges, arguing that both undermine moral integrity and accountability. Through various examples, he illustrates how this unearned forgiveness can lead to further corruption and a breakdown of societal standards.
As the lecture progresses, Molyneux delves into the psychological implications of forgiveness in relationships. He acknowledges the fear that often accompanies confronting those who have wronged us—that the realization of their lack of care for our well-being can be daunting. The discussion touches on the concept of restitution—how true forgiveness should involve an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, an apology, and corrective actions that restore the harmed relationship to a state of balance. Molyneux argues that without these elements, forgiveness lacks sincerity and simply serves to enable further wrongdoings.
The discourse also emphasizes the nuances of confrontation in scenarios where harm has occurred. Molyneux provides a framework for what constitutes a proper apology and outlines the responsibility of both parties in mending a relationship. He speaks to the necessity of understanding the intentions behind actions, stressing that intentions alone cannot be judicially evaluated. Instead, actions and their consequences must reign supreme in deciding whether forgiveness is appropriate.
Moreover, Molyneux discusses moral responsibility, particularly within generational contexts, examining how past behaviors of individuals can impact their offspring. He suggests that seeking excuses based on upbringing or societal context can dilute personal accountability, arguing instead for a steadfast commitment to reason and virtue. The lecture becomes an exploration of how moral judgments are formed, upheld, and the societal obligations that come with them.
Conversations with audience members further enrich the discussion, providing real-life contexts where forgiveness becomes a necessary and contentious issue. Whether it be familial relationships fraught with betrayal or societal pressures related to unresolved conflicts, Molyneux’s insights resonate deeply with listeners who grapple with their own challenges of forgiveness. The dialogue aims to empower individuals to recognize their own moral agency and to navigate forgiveness in a manner that aligns with ethical integrity rather than fear-based emotional constraints.
In conclusion, the lecture not only reframes the conversation surrounding forgiveness but also challenges listeners to reevaluate their own relationships through a lens of accountability. Molyneux inspires a deeper understanding of forgiveness as a process requiring moral responsibility and mutual respect rather than a simplistic act of letting go. Through this in-depth examination, he calls for a thoughtful engagement with the consequences of actions and the restoration of moral order in personal and broader social interactions.
[0:00] All right, one o'clock. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey, everybody.
[0:04] Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Freedom is the main thing. Freedom should be your domain. And I hope you're having a wonderful day. We are here to talk about a much misunderstood topic, that namely being forgiveness. And there is a curse in the mind of man that forgiveness is something that you selfishly provide to someone, whether they earn it, or not, so that you can be released from the pain of discontent. And forgiveness, like all values, like all virtues, must be earned, like abs. Forgiveness must be earned. It must be. All corruption, all evil arises out of a desire, a thirst for the unearned. A rapist wants sexual activity that he does not earn, therefore he rapes. A thief wants a good or a service he has not earned, so he steals or defrauds.
[1:05] A violent man wishes a dominance that he cannot achieve intellectually or morally, therefore he beats someone bloody to assert dominance. It is a desire for the unearned that drives almost all corruption. And one of the most subtle forms of corruption is people who tell you, well, you have to forgive those who've wronged you, regardless of whether they apologize, regardless of whether they make restitution, regardless of whether they enter into a covenant to not wrong you again. It is something you will and push out from yourself, regardless of the virtue or vices of another that is corrupt beyond words. And who would want to promote such an ideology? In whose interest would it be to say forgiveness need not be earned? Well, of course, it's those who exploit you in which to keep exploiting you. Hey, It's true that I ran over your dog and seduced your daughter, but you have to forgive me. Na-na-na-na-boo-boo, you have to forgive me. That's the rule. You want to get to heaven, don't you? You have to be the big better person. You have to forgive me so I can do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again. Wretched. You cannot reward evil and then complain that the world is corrupt. You cannot give forgiveness to people who have not earned it and then say, gee, there seem to be a lot of nasty predators in the world. How terrible, how incomprehensible that is.
[2:26] I get it. And I look, I sympathize and I understand. If someone wrongs you, it can be kind of scary to confront that person because maybe they wronged you. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I feel terrible. Let me fix it. I'll do whatever I can. Maybe they're a good person and there was some psychological or emotional hiccup or they were inadvertent. It was a mistake. I have shot an arrow over a house and hit my brother. As Hamlet says about Laertes, maybe it's just an accident. Whoopsie. And it happens, right? We all rub shoulders and chaff each other from time to time like a pair of overbleached underpants. Sure, it happens. I get it. I understand.
[3:07] But, but that might not be what is happening. And that's why we don't want to confront those who do us wrong. Because maybe... They don't care about us. Maybe they don't care that they hurt us. Maybe they're relatively happy and content to continue exploiting us, right?
[3:30] Maybe. And we don't want to know that. And I understand why we don't want to know that, because that's a scary thing to know, that someone in your life might not give a rat's behind about hurting or exploiting you. In fact, in fact, they may in fact, let me keep saying in fact, and it'll magically become a fact, but they may in fact like or enjoy hurting you. There are sadists in the world, as we all know, and maybe they get off on it. Maybe it gives them a thrill of power, of control. Maybe they enjoy your naivety. And listen, I say this as somebody who was ridiculously morally naive for most of his life, so with all due humility and no superiority whatsoever, I say that it is very hard for good, decent, honest folk, which I'm sure is most of the people who are listening, to understand the minds and motives of really corrupt and immoral people. It is hard for honest people to understand and process just how much we are lied to by the powers that be. And I mean, we kind of get it with advertisers and marketers, hey, if I buy these glasses, I don't look like that guy in the picture of a guy wearing the glasses, right? We sort of get all of that. But it's hard for us to process just how much we're lied to either by the states. This was the big COVID thing. They can't lie about everything. They can't lie that big. It's like, no, no, the big lies are the dangerous ones. This is all the way back to Nazi ideology. This is the big lie.
[4:59] And this goes all the way back to Plato, who said the noble lie, the big lie, the good lie, that there are gold, silver and bronze people. The big noble lie. So, it's hard for us to process that there may be people in our lives who not only have, don't care that they're cruel to us, may actually enjoy being cruel to us.
[5:18] And certainly enjoy the benefits of being cruel to us, which is our compliance.
[5:22] And our compliance is around our avoidance of confronting the person who's done us wrong. If you confront someone who's done you wrong, and they further manipulate you, they further blame you, they make excuses, or they say magical things like, well, I didn't mean to, like you can somehow plumb the depths of their motivation, and crawl into their synapses and determine truth from falsehood like some giant lie detector x-ray of the gods? No, you can't do that. I didn't mean to. I care about facts. I don't care about intentions because intentions are magical thinking. Intentions are easily falsifiable and intentions are unprovable. You don't know. Anyone can claim any intention they want. You can punch someone in the face. I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought there was a big fly on your nose. Intentions are ridiculous and have no validity when it comes to defense against criticism. So somebody wrongs you, you don't want to talk to them about it because they might compound their wrongs against you. You put a dent in my car, right? So you lend your car to someone and they put a dent in your car. What should they do? It's not a huge wrong. It's not inconsequential. What should someone do? If he, I guess you could say slightly more likely she, but let's stay with the he. If he.
[6:44] Puts a dent in your car. What should you do? Well, what should he do? He should say, oh, I'm so sorry, man, I put a dent in your car.
[6:51] I will take it to get fixed. I will buy you lunch for your inconvenience of not having your car while it's fixed. And if he does all of that, oh, and by the way, I realized what I did wrong and I'm going to not do it again, right? I realized that I misread a street sign and I'm going to study up on the street signs. And so he takes responsibility. He restores your car to its natural state, its former state, takes you for lunch for your trouble, and then tells you how it's not going to happen again. Okay, so then restitution is when you are okay with the fact that it happened. You're not happy that it happened. Like, if somebody dents your car and then says, here's a million dollars because I dented your car, well, you're thrilled. Hey, man, is there anything else of mine you can dent because I sure could use another couple of million dollars, well, then that's too much. That's too much restitution. Restitution is when you're not sad that it happened. You're not happy that it happened. You're just okay with it. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Not like that passive-aggressive. It's fine. I'm fine. No, it's okay. You know what? Water under the bridge. Let's move on. That's when restitution has occurred. And the more serious the wrong, the more restitution is needed. And in some cases, restitution is impossible, right? In some cases, restitution is impossible. And that's when the relationship is over. I mean, if somebody drives over your beloved dog and they were drunk, right? They're drunk drive over your beloved dog.
[8:18] There's no rest. You can't bring your dog back to life. There's no restitution. It's possible. You can't fix it. Can't fix it. That's why you try not to do wrongs that can't be fixed.
[8:25] So you need three things in an apology. The actual apology, which has to be sincere, without excuses, without counter blame. Right? If you lend your car to your friend and he puts a dent in it and he says, hey man, it wasn't my fault. You're stupid enough to lend your car to me. You know I don't drive very well. Oh, and your car pulls to the left. It wasn't my fault at all.
[8:45] Then that's not an apology. I'm sorry, but I'm sorry, but it was your fault. I'm sorry, but it wasn't my fault. I'm sorry, but there were circumstances beyond my control. I'm sorry, but that wasn't my intention. Blah, blah, blah. the moment you hear but, you can disregard everything. Beforehand, you need the actual apology. You take ownership. You don't blame the other. You take responsibility. That's number one. Necessary but not sufficient for number two, restitution. Making it right. Making it whole. Making it good. Making it even-steven. You're not thrilled that it happened. You don't mind that it happened. It's fine. I remember when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. This would have been in my early 20s, I was in a relationship with a woman who loved the William Golding book, The Princess Bride, not Diaries Bride, The Princess Bride. It was, of course, a famous movie with Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin and the blonde woman and the short guy. So anyway, it's originally a novel and she loved that book and she lent it to me. And I was reading it and I was on the subway. I ran into an old friend we were chatting I put the book on the little shelf by the window and I left it behind because my friend and I happened to be getting out at the same stop we went to go and have a coffee together and get caught up I completely left.
[10:06] The woman's book on the subway. Now, that was not great because she loved that book.
[10:15] And what could I do? Well, I apologized, obviously. And I didn't say, but it wasn't my fault that I ran into my friend. And it wasn't my fault that they put that stupid shelf in the subway. And it wasn't my fault that he was getting off at the same stop. And it's your fault for lending it to me. You know I'm careless. Like, right? I just like, I lost your book. I'm so sorry. I lost your book. I'm so sorry. So that's number one. Number two, restitution. I spent an entire weekend scouring old bookstores to get a copy of that book. I ended up being unable to find it. So I custom ordered the book, which was hard to get. And I paid money and I was broke at the time. And I didn't tell my girlfriend that I was doing that, but I gave her the book. It was brand spanking new. And I said, look, I know you had a thumbed copy. I know that you had a lot invested in it. I can't obviously get your thumbed copy back, even though I called the Toronto Transit Commission to see if anybody had handed in the book, but I guess it went to another home. So I got the book back, or a copy, obviously. So that's restitution. And she appreciated, of course, there's some sacrifice in spending that amount of time, but I felt bad. And in terms of promising not to do it again, I said, if you lend me another book, I will never take it out of my room. I didn't even have an apartment at that point in my life. I just had a room, right? If you lend me another book, I will never take, I promise I will never take it out of my room. And that way, obviously, she can lend me another. So that's an apology, restitution, and a commitment by which is not going to happen again.
[11:43] Now, if you get all of these three things, you may continue the relationship. I'm not saying you may, like I give you permission, but you may or you may not continue the relationship. Because if somebody continues to F up in various ways, to fudge up, to frack up in various ways, it may just be too unstable. You can't trust the person because there are just constant problems and mistakes and errors and bad things that are going on, right?
[12:09] So forgiveness has to be earned. there has to be a moral difference between people who earn your forgiveness and people who just loftily command you to forgive them, no matter what. It's your obligation. As a Christian, you have to forgive me. And, oh, forgiveness is for you, not for the other person. You forgive so that you're free. No, no. No, no, no. That is not honest. Thou shalt not bear false witness. You forgive without apologies or restitution because you're scared to confront the person. And again, I say this with humility. I'm not lecturing you. I'm not hectoring you. We've all been in that situation where someone has done us wrong and we get a vague instinct that we don't want to confront the person because we're going to find out that they're just kind of selfish and cruel. They don't care. They don't fundamentally care. It doesn't really matter. they're just going to blame and manipulate, and they may promise restitution, but it's never going to come, right? Oh, yeah, no, no, honey, I'll go get you a copy of The Princess Bride. Don't worry, I'll spend, and I never do, which means I understand the importance of restitution. I just won't do it because I'm lazy and selfish and manipulative.
[13:19] Or I make promises. Honey, I'm so, you know, I did. I lost my temper. I lost my temper and yelled at your entire softball team. You know what? That's really bad. I'm going to go to therapy. I'm going to go to anger management. I'm going to sort this out so that it doesn't happen again, because that's really bad. And then I don't go to anger management. I don't go to therapy. I don't sort out whatever emotional issues are causing me to blow up and yell at the softball team. This is not a specific example. It just popped into my head because I want to play hardball on the concept of unearned forgiveness.
[13:50] So people might manipulate us. And they're like, so when you wrong someone, you incur a debt. You incur a debt just as surely as if you'd borrowed $100 from them. If you wrong someone, you incur a debt. Now, people who want to steal from you will borrow from you, promise to pay you back, and then never pay you back, right? I think we've all been in the situation where we've lent money to someone, they promise the money back, and they don't pay us back, or they make it really difficult, or they avoid us, or whatever it is, rather than just saying to us.
[14:23] Oh man, I can't. I mean, I really thought I was going to be able to pay. My paycheck was held up. I had a sudden tax bill, whatever, right? I'm really sorry. Here's what I'm going to do. So you wrong someone, you incur a debt. And an honorable man, an honorable woman, pays his or her debts. Because you can't trust people who don't pay their debts. If you lend someone $100, they don't pay you back. Can you trust that person, if they want to borrow money from you again? What if, I mean, this is an even crazier situation. What if you lend someone $100 and then they don't pay you back, they don't pay you back, and then you're short on cash and they say, you know what, I'm going to lend you $100, but I really want you to pay me back.
[15:06] Well, at that point, you might as well take the $100 and not pay it back because they owe you that anyway. Treat people the best you can. The first time you meet them after that, treat them as they treat you. See, we're all in this collective goal or drive or desire or mission or calling to improve the virtues of people in the world. Because if you don't improve the virtues of people in the world, you live in an amoral, corrupt world where civilization collapses and you end up eating your own toes somewhere in the frozen tundra. And we have a self-interest in improving the virtues and ethics of people in the world. Now, improving the virtues and ethics of people in the world means rewarding virtue and punishing evil, punishing falsehood, punishing lies, punishing corruptions. I'm not putting manipulation and lies in the same category as outright evil, which would be violations of the non-aggression principle, rape, theft, assault, and murder, and so on. So, corruption. Let's say corruption. Corruption is when you pretend to be more virtuous than you are or intend to be in order to gain resources. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll pay you back the hundred bucks. Well, you get a free hundred dollars, which you never intend to pay back. That's corruption. It's a form of fraud.
[16:11] So if you run a business, and one of the things I look for when people are making moral pronouncements is have you run a business because that's an important factor. And the reason I say that is if you pay the excellent worker the same as the worker who doesn't even show up, what happens to the productivity of your business over time? Some guy doesn't even show up to work. Some guys work in 12 hours a day. And at the end of the month, you give both the guy who didn't even show up for the whole month and the guy who worked really hard, you give them both a $5,000 bonus. Well, and everyone sees this. Everyone knows it. Well, what happens to the work ethic? It collapses because you are rewarding both the lazy and the industrious equally. I mean, this is socialism. The transfer of the unearned on the basis of need and preference rather than virtue and productivity, honor, integrity. So, in order to help the world guide itself towards their moral.
[17:14] Heights, heights of integrity, right? In order to do that, we have to have a process wherein we reward the virtuous and punish the corrupt. That's how the law works, and oh, by the by, that's how heaven and hell works. You punish the corrupt, and you reward the virtuous with hell and heaven respectively. This is how tests work. you reward those who pass the test and you punish those who fail the test it may not be a specific punishment it could just be you don't get to advance you don't get to be a lawyer you don't get to be a doctor you don't get to pass grade three or whatever is happening so the reward for the virtue virtuous and the punishment of the sinful is essential to the moral mission of mankind we are all involved in promoting virtue or promoting vice in the world and there's almost nothing in between. And those who complain about the corruption of the world and then say, well, you have to forgive even people who don't earn it, are like those who are complaining about unproductive workers and then saying, well, you have to pay the lazy and the industrious equally. It's socialism, it's communism, which is the institutionalization of the thirst for the unearned, for the sake of the lazy, the incompetent, the corrupt, the thieving, the takers, not the makers and the takers.
[18:43] Can you imagine you have two children, and they're twins. They're 11 years old, and they have their chores to do.
[18:53] And they have pocket money, right? We used to call it pocket money. It's called an allowance, I think, here in North America. And you've got two, Simon and Adrian. Let's take something from the life of Brian, right? Simon and Adrian are your kids. Simon does all his chores, you know, mows and bags of grass in the hot sun, takes out the garbage, cleans the basement.
[19:14] And Adrian doesn't do any of those things, just lazes around, picking belly lint out of his belly button and playing away on his Nintendo Switch or his ROG LiX. And then you give both of them equal pocket money and they both get equal privileges. And, well, what happens? Well, Simon doesn't want to work as hard, and Adrian smugly shoots a look at Simon and saying, look at that, I got away with everything.
[19:40] Not how life works. It's not how the world works at all. We fail those who don't study for a test and we pass those who study and execute well. If you're going to audition for a choir, you will be chosen if you're a good singer and you will not be chosen if you're a bad singer. We reward competence and we punish incompetence. And there's competence and incompetence in the realm of morality. And this blank check thing where you give corrupt people exactly the same rewards as you would give moral people is monstrous. It's revolting. It's repulsive. It's skin-crawlingly awful. And it is only promoted by the corrupt. People who say, well, you have to forgive the corrupt, even if they never ask for forgiveness, it's exactly the same motive as a lazy guy at work saying, well, you have to give bonuses to everyone, regardless of how productive they are. That only comes from the unproductive. The corrupt people want the same benefits as the virtuous people.
[20:36] The lazy want the same benefits as the hard-working people. I get it. But don't give it. Don't give it. It's morally monstrous and contributes to the decay and collapse of the moral order that keeps the world in food and shelter.
[20:53] It's bad. It's wrong. And it comes out of fear. And I understand the fear. I'm not condemning the fear. I'm not condemning the fear at all. but it's important to be honest. You forgive people who don't earn it because you're afraid that they don't care about earning it. They don't want to earn it and they just enjoy the exploitation. They enjoy the benefits. They want to be able to do wrong without having the inconvenience of marching from bookstore to bookstore over a weekend begging for a copy of The Princess Bride. I get it. People want something for nothing and there's nothing foundationally wrong with that. I want to be able to give this lecture without knocking on your front door one by one. I want to be able to change the channel on the TV without getting up from the couch. I want something for nothing. Sure. And that's fine in the realm of mechanical or material or engineering productivity. Sure. Yes. Something for nothing. I want to be able to drive to a town rather than walk or crawl.
[21:53] This idea that forgiveness does not have to be earned is repulsive to the conscience and to the models. And by the way, it is an elegant form of sabotaging a wrongdoer to not give him feedback on the wrongs that he's doing. You know, if you really want to kill someone with a toothache, and you could wave a wand and have them not feel the toothache, right, you would do that. Because by not feeling the toothache, their body accumulates more and more bacteria. You know, They swallow it, it goes down to the heart, it infects the heart. You could very easily kill someone through numbing them to essential feedback. And if people are doing wrong and you shield them from the consequences of doing wrong, you are damning them to a continuation of a very bad path.
[22:38] Sometimes the way that we turn away from corruption is through suffering. In the same way that sometimes people have to have knee or back pain before they lose weight. Sometimes people have to be on a hike with their friends and be unable to make it up a hill and they're like oh man i gotta i gotta side exercise oh my god this is this is terrible i'm only 22 i can't make it up a hill right suffering is an intense guide and a very helpful guide pleasure is a good guide and suffering is another if pain was not a good guide to health, the good lord or darwin would not have brought it to being in our nature i remember when i I was a kid complaining about pain and a scout leader, I was in the scouts, the boy scouts, and scout leader said, look, climbing a tree, you disturb a wasp's nest. They sting you on the back. You don't feel it. You just keep climbing until the poison overwhelms you and you fall and die or break an arm or break a leg. You want the pain of the wasps stinging you. So you turn around, turn around, right? You get it, right? So by withholding discomfort for corruption from people.
[23:49] Numb them to the infection of immorality, which means the infection spreads and takes them down. It is not loving. It is not helpful. It is not virtuous. It is not moral. It is not caring to withhold correction from people who are doing wrong. And if somebody wrongs you and you say, hey, you've wronged me, I need you to apologize. I need you to make restitution. I need a commitment. How is that going to happen again? If you withhold that from people, you simply allow them to continue to do wrong, to become corrupted, to become more selfish, more entitled, less integrity, less trustworthy, and less capable of the greatest gift in the universe. The greatest gift of the universe is not life, since that is miserable for many. The greatest gift in the universe, my friends, as you know, is love. Can you be loved if you are not trustworthy? I've known my wife for near on a quarter century, and when we wake up in the morning, hugs and kisses, what's up with your day? We just had lunch together, laughs and chats, consistent.
[24:59] I don't wake up every morning thinking, oh my god, what kind of mood is she going to be? Is she going to be happy? Is she going to be not happy? Is she going to be angry, moody? Oh, God. No, she is. Well, she's just a relentless positive force. It's really amazing. And I've been very humbled by that and tried to learn from it.
[25:16] But I mean, of course, she was a mental health professional for decades. So she has some insight into these matters. And I think she's just naturally a buoyant person, which doesn't mean I can't learn from her. I have. But it's that consistency.
[25:29] Consistency is the foundation of love, which is why reason equals virtue equals happiness. Reason means you have standards of consistent behavior. Virtue means you actually practice them, and the result is love. You can't love someone who intimately caresses you and punches you, who hugs you and squeezes you until you can't breathe, who gives you compliments and curses in equal measure, depending on which way the wind is blowing. You can't trust. Love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous, which means you have to have consistent positive behavior. Not perfect, not perfection, importantly.
[26:04] Consistent dedication to predictable and positive behavior, you get loved. If you withhold from people the effects of the wrongdoings they do, you prevent them from course-correcting their behavior, and thus you prevent them from being able to fall in love and stay in love. And they may get lust, and they may get fusion, what they call fusion. Oh, you're the best person ever. I hate you.
[26:30] I hate you. Don't leave me. They'll get that ridiculous, unstable fusion, which is like atoms clinging together and rushing together and then detonating. You're cursing them. Now, it is not your job to fix people, of course, but it is your job to be honest in your relationships.
[26:48] If somebody hurts you and you don't trust them, you need to tell them that. Thou shalt not bear false witness should not be a controversial statement, particularly to our good friends, the Christians. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Ah, judge not, lest ye be judged. Now, by judgment, that means be judgmental. That means don't be hypocritical. It means if you're constantly late, don't scream at people who are late. Be self-critical before you judge others. Judge not, lest ye be judged, means don't be pathologically judgmental and excuse yourself. It doesn't mean don't have any judgment. Because God judges you for your moral judgment and your conscience, whether you believe in God or not, your conscience does the job either way. Your conscience is the universalizing aspect of your consciousness, which we are very good at. You look at one tree. And I remember when my daughter was very little, watching concept formation, this incredible thing. Hey, honey, that's a tree. Oh, cool. Oh, look at that tree. But she points at a different tree. Boom. She's got the definition of tree in her brain. We universalize. And then I say, draw a tree. She knows how to draw a tree. She knows what a tree is, right? It's.
[27:57] It's a wild automatic process. We universalize everything all the time, and whatever morals we bring to bear in the situation, we universalize. And the conscience is that part of our brain which universalizes our moral actions and judgments and condemns us for hypocrisy. Whether we like it or not, it's an autonomic process. To try to command your conscience is like trying to command your stomach to not digest. It is an automatic operation of consciousness. It's like trying to open your eyes, if you can see, and will them to not see. You can't do it. You can't go into a loud environment and wish your ears to be silent. Conscience is an autonomous process of the mind. And judge not lest ye be judged means don't be a hypocrite. And judge and be prepared to be judged. I said this on X just today. Somebody quoted, judge not lest ye be judged. I'm like, I'm happy to be judged. My conscience does it every day, every day. Probably 10 or 20% of the tweets that I compose, I delete. Not after, but I delete even before I post them because I'm like, no, that doesn't feel right. That's not, my conscience is telling me this is not the right approach.
[29:11] Withhold from others the feedback they need to improve themselves morally. Otherwise, you are a saboteur. You are a saboteur, numbing the moral feedback they need for improvement.
[29:25] I mean, if you were a piano teacher and somebody was playing the piano wrong, let's say they were playing it upside down with their feet and you said, that's perfect, no problem, I've got nothing to correct you on, you would be sabotaging their ability to play piano.
[29:38] If you gave someone bad instructions or did not correct them, if they were lifting weights with very bad form and posture, you are encouraging them to injury. You are sabotaging them. If you care about people, care enough for their conscience and their souls to give them corrective feedback and to welcome corrective feedback from others. Otherwise, we play a foul, pipist tune as we all march towards It's the everlasting fire of hell if you're a Christian or a bad conscience and a bad effect on the world if you're not. Don't do it. Both the good and the ill that we do live on after us in concentric circles, like the ripples of a stone thrown in a still leg. They ripple and ricochet and reverberate. Aim for moral instruction. Submit yourself to moral instruction. And virtue and a beautiful world shall be yours. Provide forgiveness in order to avoid moral correction, and you curse the person who wronged you and in a real way do more wrong to them than they ever did to you. Resist that urge. It is devilish, and it contributes horribly to the decadence, hedonism, and decay of this, our lovely world.
[31:03] My speech. I'm happy to be corrected on anything that I may have gone astray on. I welcome your feedback, and I thank you for dropping by today, of course, and I appreciate, of course, everyone who's joined my feed at x.com slash Stefan Molyneux, S-T-E-F-A-N-M-O-L-Y-N-U-X. If you have comments, issues, problems, criticisms, I am thrilled, of course, to hear them. I am the furthest thing from omniscience as all humility could generate. And if you want to speak, if you're stunned by what I said and you need time to process it, of course, that's totally fine. But if you do want to speak, I'll just give people a moment if you want to. You just need to raise your hand and I can let you in. You can enjoy the sounds of the Canadian birds, which is, I guess, appropriate because, is it still the blue bird? The blue bird is the symbol of X. All right. Anybody? You all could be at work as well, too, right? I'll just wait here for a moment, if anybody has. And this doesn't have to be on the topic of forgiveness. It can be on anything that your heart and mind desires in the realm of philosophy. I am very happy to hear. Otherwise, I'll go through a tweet or two and we can close it off for today. But yes, Monsieur Charles, If you unmute, I am happy to hear what's on your mind.
[32:30] Yeah first thank you for coming back on x and yeah over the years it was great uh i mean yeah it sucked that you weren't around it's great that you're back i want to ask on the topic of forgiveness what about if we have parents you know this this generation of of boomers who have this issue of taking responsibility and if we're raised by them often they they kind of like blamed they gave to the kids responsibility of adults could kind of like shift it this way and you know they're just like it's foolishness you know so it's like they don't ask for, forgiveness because it's out of their perception that they even did like something wrong but you know you know what i mean it's more like a little bit like in a in a play like the the idiot of a play kind of so we can't fully blame them if this makes sense i'm sorry why why could we not blame them it's just they were a little bit like raised this way this generation of kind of being very, it's just a trait of their generation that they would often have issue with responsibility as a whole.
[33:35] So it's just ingrained in them that they have this issue. Well, I mean, I'm not sure what ingrained in the means. Are you saying that they don't have free will? Not necessarily, just more that it's just part of their culture. In a way, it was taught to them. Okay. So what I understand is that you're saying that boomers don't really have.
[33:56] A sense of moral responsibility or accountability. So we should not hold them morally responsible or to account. Is that right? I'm not trying to parody your perspective. I just want to make sure I understand it. Yeah, it's a little bit like that. It's a little bit my meaning. Okay, fantastic. Fantastic. Okay. So the way that we know if somebody should be held to a standard is, have they ever inflicted that standard on others? So, for instance, if I say to my child, you are morally responsible for what you do, or if I say to others, you are morally responsible for what you do, then clearly I accept and believe in the concept of moral responsibility. Is that fair to say? Yes. So I can't speak fluent Japanese and then be forgiven for not knowing japanese so the question is did the boomers say to their children you are right or wrong you are good or bad this is better or worse behavior did they say to society as a whole this is good or bad behavior this is the right or wrong way to do things you have to be nice to the poor a racism is bad and and you you have responsibilities for others and you've got to take care of the old and and you know so you you've got to listen to your teacher you've got like did the boomers pass moral judgments and have moral requirements for their children and for others in society.
[35:19] Yeah, they did for the most part. Yeah, for sure. So then they cannot claim exceptions from the moral rules that they very aggressively, I might add, imposed on others. I mean, I'm just a little bit shy of the boomer generation, like by a year and a half or whatever, right? No, about a year. So the boomer is supposed to end sort of 64, 65, and I was 66, right? So, you know, I guess like Indiana Jones grabbing my hat, the door comes down, I grab my Generation X badge, right? But when I was a kid, the boomers, and by that I mean, you know, so when I was a kid, the boomers were like in their early 20s, right, when I was born, right? So when I was 10, you know, there were a lot of teachers who were 30, which would be technically sort of post-war boomers and so on, right?
[36:07] So the boomers were incredibly judgmental, right? I was punished. I was rewarded. I was held to moral account. I was told I was good, bad, evil, indifferent, whatever, right? And the boomers have cast massive moral judgments on people all over the time, all over the place, right? Let's say that we say to the boomers, listen, we got to cut your old age pensions because there's no money and there's no money, there's no money. And so you're just stealing from the young at this point, and you're the richest generation in history and the young are really struggling. So we got to cut your social security or the retirement benefits. What would the boomers say to that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, usually they would say that they've paid their own dues and that they're in their own right to get that pension money. Yeah, I paid into the system, I have a moral right, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to which you might then say, yeah, but the system is massively in debt and has unfunded liabilities, so you didn't pay into the system. By definition, you're not paying enough into the system if it's in deficit and debt, and the debt vastly dwarfs the economy, and the unfunded liabilities are like 15 times the economy or 10 times the economy. So you didn't pay into the system because if you had paid into the system enough to pay for your pensions, there wouldn't be a debt.
[37:20] So, but the boomers would say, I'm owed this money. I paid into the system. It is a moral obligation to provide to me this money, which means that it's a moral obligation to pay your debts. But if it's a moral obligation to pay your debts, why the living hell is there a debt or a deficit in any Western countries? If it's a moral obligation to pay your debts, why did the boomers run us into the ground economically with endless deficit spending? Right so i hold people first i mean there's a universal morals which i've talked about in my book free book you can get it at freedomain.com slash books upb universally preferable behavior irrational proof of secular ethics so there are universal standards and there are people who are genuinely exempt from universal standards those who have massive cognitive deficiencies right the iqs of like 40 or 50 or whatever right massive cognitive deficiencies there are people who are in a coma. They're not responsible for morality. There are babies and early toddlers that we would not hold to a moral account and so on, right? So there are people who are definitely exempted from moral standards, but those people, we know that they're exempted from moral standards because they never try to impose moral standards on others. But the moment you impose moral standards on others, you cannot then claim, and neither can you be granted the category of, well, beyond morality that they don't understand morality that right so if the boomers as they did, inflicted moral standards and moral obligations on their children on society as a whole and on others.
[38:50] Well sorry one sec it's loud you know that track probably driven by a boomer just kidding actually no it's not but so that's how we know if someone is subject to moral judgment is they've inflicted and imposed moral judgments on others. Does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense.
[39:13] And since it's, yeah, I guess I would guess your answer to my question is that in a way they were just not taught it. So they were never taught it. Sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on. When you say it, I need to know what you're talking about. Oh, what do you mean? They've been never taught it. And I'm not trying to be confrontational. I'm genuinely curious. What does it refer to here? Yeah, of course. So by it, I would say they were never taught. I'd say, they kind of navigated a field through life, through instinct in a way. So they were never really taught to lay things, I'd say, very rationally. And they were more or less very, I'd say, emotional in their decision making. Sorry, sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. So you're saying that the boomers were never taught how to think rationally? Not necessarily. It's not exactly what I meant. More in the sense of generational trauma, that they were not necessarily really taught how to, I'd say, for example, raise kids. When it comes to imposing moral standards, maybe they were not really taught how to reason on this kind of topic. Sorry, so if the boomers were not able to reason morally, then they should have not made reasoned moral arguments, right? Right.
[40:39] Yes. Okay. Have you ever heard a boomer made a recent moral argument? In other words, if you were to say we need to cut retirement pensions or health care, they would make a recent moral argument. They wouldn't just say, squawk, well, I need it, right? They would make a recent moral argument. I paid into the system. There's a moral obligation and it's a social contract. And they would say not, I want, I need based upon my emotions with no justice. They would say, based upon principles of justice and reciprocity and contract and social contract that we paid in, that we are owed this money. That is a reasoned moral argument. That's not just emotions, is it?
[41:16] Yeah, that's true. They can build a reasoning. Yeah, they cover their emotional greed in pseudo-rational moralizing all the time, which means they know how to morally reason. Yeah, yeah. It makes sense, yeah. I mean, if you were to say, well, we need to cut the welfare state because it's destructive to the lives of the poor and it's unsustainable and it's kind of cruel to have people be dependent on a system that can't be sustained, right? If you were to make that case, the boomers would say, well, no, no, no, we have an obligation to the less fortunate. We're wealthy enough to help the poor. And if you don't help the poor, really bad things are going to happen. So, you know, this is morality, inconsequentialism, pragmatism, utilitarianism. These are all, you know, I obviously don't think particularly valid, but they certainly are recent moral arguments. They don't just say, well, I feel bad seeing pictures of poor people, so we need to just wallpaper over those negative images with other people's money, right? They don't just say it. They make reasoned moral arguments all the time. Yes, yeah. Yeah.
[42:18] They are capable, for example, whether it's for reciting at the lowest level or actually debating, they are capable of doing that. Sure. Yeah, they don't just do this vague autistic screeching whenever they're disagreed with. I mean, maybe it comes to that if you keep disagreeing with them. But no, no, they absolutely know how to make recent moral arguments because they inflict them on others all the time. And here's the other thing, too. And so this is the first level of me holding somebody morally accountable is, do they inflict universal morals on others? Well, sure. Of course, boomers inflict universal morals on others all the time. That's number one. Number two, are they capable of moral reasoning? Right? So if I move to Japan, and I don't speak Japanese, obviously, that's in part because I wasn't raised to speak Japanese. Right? I have never spoken Japanese to others. so I can't be held accountable for knowing Japanese or let's say I refuse to speak Japanese in Japan if somebody's heard me having fluid conversations in Japanese they'd say well it's not that I'm incapable it's just that I don't want to I don't choose not to right it's the same thing with moral reasoning but even if I move to Japan, and I never was taught Japanese well I knew I was moving to Japan I have a responsibility to learn Japanese don't I.
[43:36] I don't mean just visiting I mean I'm going to move there permanently at least some, right, then if I want to participate and function in Japanese society, especially if I'm not in a big city, then I have a responsibility to learn Japanese. Yes, of course. So if people are capable of moral reasoning, which we know if they inflict moral reasoning on others, but even if they've never made a moral reasoning towards others, they're still responsible for thinking. Every human being is responsible for thinking. and i can't give people this massive out which is you know i mean have you ever heard the phrase it was all over the place when i was a kid ignorance of the law is no excuse, right now boomers boomers told me all of this boomers told me all of this stuff boomers told me ignorance of the law is no excuse like when i was in boarding school i climbed a fence to get a ball, and I was hauled off to the headmaster, and I was cane. I didn't know that it was wrong to climb that wall to get the ball. It didn't matter. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, right? So if somebody has not bothered to learn basic ethics, has not bothered to learn how to think.
[44:47] Because if we say a failure of knowledge that you're supposed to have is an excuse, then we have to pass everyone whenever there's a test.
[45:01] Right now, if I have a math test coming up, and I was told this, you know, like if I forgot that there was a math test, like genuinely forgot, didn't matter, I got failed, right? If I knew there was a math test, but decided to go out with my friends instead of studying, I still got failed, right? And so everybody knows you need to think Everybody knows that you need to reason, And those who fail to learn it Are responsible for failing to learn it In the same way that if I fail to learn, The math that was required for the test I failed the test, And I didn't get any excuses Not one excuse Nobody even said well you've got a crazy mother And it's very violent at home And you're hungry and you don't get any sleep Because your mother is like smoking and typing On electric typewriter in your room all night Like, nobody gave me any excuses for valid issues I had as a child when it came to studying and learning. Nobody. Nobody. When I was too broke to pay for a school lunch, which was pretty common on my family, was too broke when I was in England as a kid, to pay for a school lunch after boarding school, they gave me this big rubber band I had to wear around my wrist, this big, thick rubber band, which indicated that I hadn't paid for my lunch. It was kind of humiliating. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault. That it was my fault that my mom didn't have money to pay for my lunch. So I was constantly blamed for things, even when I had genuine and valid excuses.
[46:23] And so when it comes to the elder generations trying to claim excuses, if we give excuses, everyone's going to claim it. The reason why ignorance of the law is no excuse is that if it is an excuse, everyone's going to say, like that old Steve Martin thing, I forgot armed robbery was illegal, right? They just say, oh, I didn't know. If they didn't give me any excuses Why would I give them If they didn't give me any excuses as a child When I had legitimate, Genuine sleeplessness Hunger, chaos, violence in the home I got no excuses, The teacher's role was Well you know if effort matched ability You'd be an A plus I don't know why you're so lazy I'm not lazy I'm hungry and tired Look how hard I work now I'm not lazy, And this was universal and constant, So if I wasn't given any excuses As an abused child A neglected and hungry and tired child.
[47:21] And this is not just as a kid, right? To get even more personal, even as an adult, right? There are people who think I'm like just a terrible guy, right? Terrible guy, right? Well, they could say, yes, well, you know, but, you know, you got to remember, you know, he grew up in this abusive household and, you know, all of this kind of stuff, right? Society didn't betray him because they didn't protect him. And, you know, he was blamed for the effects of his own child abuse when he was still a child. Like he was lazy, not tired and hungry. So we can understand how he could have certain perspectives that we might not agree with. Like do i did i get any of that nope just a bad guy just a incomprehensible bad guy with no no history so as a kid i wasn't given any excuses as a as a young man i wasn't given any excuses as a middle-aged and later middle-aged man i'm given no excuses so i mean that's fine i mean listen i'm one of the reasons that i have done well in life is because i don't get excuses and i don't give excuses.
[48:13] I mean, unless there's really compelling reasons, right? So I think that we should not, withdraw moral judgment and create all of these trickly mouthed excuses from people who imposed vicious and sometimes violent moral judgments on others throughout their whole lives. I think we hold them to the standard they held children to.
[48:36] All right. Well, thanks for the call. I appreciate that, and no problem. Josh, if you want to... Sorry, Kevin, I missed you. He showed up above you. I'll try and do that quickly, and Josh, if you want to unmute, I'm all ears. Really? A medium. You're in a car, but okay. Just drive safe. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's been a couple episodes here, Stef, and I really appreciated our last discussion, and here you are with another interesting subject.
[49:03] This is definitely on topic, but I just wanted to know about your philosophy be regarding forgiveness of the state. So for example, any Canadians have, time, forgiving the government by their coal policies. To use one person as an example, Justin Trudeau, who was by and large responsible for implementing some of those policies, obviously the provinces, he's gone. I guess it's forgive and forget is the saying. I'm not endorsing that, but when it comes to the state, and the state committee... I need to interrupt you just because A, I'm not really doing politics anymore, and B, there's no such thing as a state. There's only people, right?
[49:50] So the question is not forgiving people who had political power over the course of COVID because there is no forgiveness because there has been no apology, no restitution, and no commitment as to how it's never going to happen again. So forgiveness doesn't happen there. The real question is not so much people's relationship with this abstraction called the state, which again doesn't exist in empirical reality. The real question is people's relationship to those around them who cheered and championed the stripping of basic human rights from the unvaccinated, right? That's where apologies, restitution, the commitment that it's not going to happen again is important. It's not only important to me, it would be essential. I don't have anyone in my life who cheered on the lockdowns and the stripping of travel rights and other rights of work and study from the unvaccinated. I just wouldn't, right? I mean, if they, you know, listen to reason and make genuine apologies. I don't know what it means for restitution. I don't know what it means. You know, the fact that kids were locked down for months, lost their proms, lost their sports, lost their socializing, were chained up in a room, basically, like a gulag. I don't know what restitution means to that. I don't know. I don't think it's possible at this point. So I would try and avoid abstractions like the state or whatever it is. And I would focus on individual conversations. So I'm going to move on to Kevin, because I don't want to do too much philosophy while you're driving.
[51:16] Kevin, thank you for your patience. I appreciate that. All ears.
[51:21] Kevin, go on once. Hey, Stefan. Thank you for covering this topic. You know, you touched on this last week, and it really struck me. It's very simple and maybe even obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me. I personally had a situation with a family member. I'd rather not dox them, but close family members. No, please don't. Keep it.
[51:41] Octogenarian who did another family member very, very, very wrong. Yeah, this happens all the time in wills and probates. But anyway. Well, this was more of squandering of life savings and then leaving this family member, you know, abandoning the marriage. And yet this family member sought and received, you know, forgiveness. But it felt hollow. It felt incomplete. It felt incredibly...
[52:09] Say unsatisfying but i can't find another listen listen moral moral instincts are very important and people will often find i don't want to make this a big speech but people will often try and talk you out of your moral instincts you know oh i got a bad feeling about this person oh don't believe whatever prejudiced or bigoted or you know whatever it is you know uh and and so people will because you've got a second brain right you've got a absolutely actually has massive like a massive amounts of neurons and it's there as your instinctual sense in particular for moral danger So the things feeling incomplete and unsatisfying, it's not absolute proof, but it's wrong evidence. But sorry, it is. I was just going to say, first off, thank you. And I don't know that this is salvageable because, you know, this person happens to be a boomer. And, you know, come on, it's not like the moral awful, though. I know, but our house was full of these. I'm OK. You're OK. just sappy bullshit, you know, the typical 70s, you know, very, very shallow self-help crap. And I think it destroyed so many families because it was just this... No, no, no, no, no, no. Sometimes, no, the books did nothing. They just sat on a shelf.
[53:25] Well, in our house, my parents took it to heart, right? That's a choice. I will say that. No, no, that's a choice. The book did nothing The writers just made their case Yeah, that's true I say this as an author Because people say, oh, Stapp's book Did this and that No, no, I made a case.
[53:46] So don't blame the books Your parents made specific choices And it's not the fault of the authors But, Absolutely correct. And I misspoke there. I was just trying to give a little additional context on my upbringing. No, but I just gave a whole speech about responsibility, so I can't shift it from the propagandist to the book authors. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
[54:06] You're 100% correct. Anyway, I just appreciate, because it feels like you've given a simple yet rigorous sort of set of requirements to offer and to accept forgiveness that are true, I guess, is my reaction. So I appreciate it, and I'm going to use this myself when I need to undoubtedly seek forgiveness. Yeah, you'll get a lot of pushback. When you say forgiveness needs to be earned, you'll get a lot of pushback from people who are kind of corrupt and who want something for nothing. And, you know, I couldn't help but think, and I know this is a very charged term, but the term repentance really, as I understand, simply means turn in the other direction and walk. In that direction you know unfortunately the fundamentalists have you know supercharged it with a lot of other connotation but it's all about turning in that other direction and then.
[55:05] Taking action and and you know going in that new direction yeah i'm so sorry man i'm going to move on to another caller okay thank you but that's just way too abstract for me turning in the other direction i'm not saying it's your fault but i don't know what that means all right jp if you You can unmute Amolius, what's on your mind?
[55:23] Speak. The question is, will he? Or is he gesturing madly, hoping to be found on Uber Cam?
[55:30] All right. It looks like JP is AFK. So we will go to Christ's Scourge. Wow, that's quite the name. I wonder if that's going to prejudice me about what's on your mind. So Christ's Scourge. If you want to unmute, I assume you've got a voice changer and you're going to sound like this. Sorry go ahead no no no sorry i'm a little nervous i didn't ever expect it to actually be speaking to you but i saw the title and i've seen some of the things that you said today about forgiveness and it does seem to resonate with me quite a lot at the moment just because of what i'm going through i have a narcissistic mother who has made me homeless recently and part of the reason for that is because there's an ongoing resentment because i was sexually abused and my mom blamed me for abuse and she still does to this day your mom did what she blamed me for my sexual abuse when i was a minor oh god i'm so sorry to hear about all of this uh my friend but please go on i'm trying i'm trying to keep it brief because i don't want to go into all the gory details but more or less that has obviously also she's just been abusive in many other different ways as well and like physically emotionally psychologically all that stuff and obviously that builds resentment and some of the stuff you've been saying today about how forgiveness has to be earned like that that does resonate a lot sorry to interrupt but at this point.
[56:57] How could it be earned well if she showed genuine remorse and a change no no but hang on hang on that's only one ingredient how can she make your childhood okay with you.
[57:11] She probably couldn't necessarily. I mean, look, let's say she gave you a million dollars. Would that make up for your childhood? It wouldn't make up for it, but it'd make up for my future, I guess. Well, no, that's not what I'm asking. Would it make... Like, in other words, all of the horrors that you experienced as a child, for which I have unbelievable bottomless sympathy, and I'm so sorry for that. Is there any amount of restitution that would make you okay with the sexual abuse and victimization that you experienced as a child? I think there is actually, yeah Okay, what kind of restitution would you take to make your childhood okay? Just a genuine change in her perspective and behavior But I just know that's not going to come No, no, that would be to change things going forward So if I borrow your car and I dent your car And I have a change in heart going forward But I don't fix your car, is that genuine apology? She's got to fix the past I guess she can't do that though Well, I mean, whatever moral monster sexually abused you, is there any amount of money that that person could give you where you'd say, yeah, I'm okay with it now?
[58:20] I guess not. Well, no, you might appreciate the money, I suppose, but it wouldn't fix everything because your emotions would still have gone through the trauma of being sexually exploited as a child, right? Yeah. I mean, if someone accidentally cuts your arm off, I don't know, it's bizarre. I guess it would if they cut my arm off and then they then they cut your arm off go on sorry hang on hang on they could give you hang on no but if they cut your arm off they can give you restitution but your arm can't regrow right no but i do think there is something to repentance though i do think there is something to repay it's not that i'm asking her to make it all okay i'm asking that's not necessarily what i'm looking for.
[59:04] Well, what are you looking for? I guess a change so that we can have a future. I don't mean like, what the heck are you looking for? I'm genuinely curious. Well, yeah, yeah. Just like a change so that we can have a future. So it's not constantly this.
[59:17] Okay. You don't have to obviously give details. Is your mother in her, say, 50s or 60s or 70s? What decade is she in? She is 55, I think. Okay, I noticed. Okay. So she's in her 50s. Okay, she's in her 50s. Yeah. Okay.
[59:33] And... She has been, you said, narcissistic, right? She's been narcissistic? Very deeply, yeah. Okay. So has she admitted that she has a problem with, as you say, narcissism or selfishness? Has she taken this on as an emergency moral or psychological problem that she needs to deal with urgently because of its negative consequences to you and others? No. She recognizes there's a problem, but she hasn't taken any action. Oh, so she says that she has a problem with selfishness? Not selfishness specifically, but that she has a mental problem, yeah. And what does that mean, a mental problem? Well, she thinks there's something wrong with her, but she doesn't know what it is. Okay. So, has she ever gone to therapy? No. Okay. Has she ever consulted, if she's religious, with a religious leader about the moral or psychological issues that she has? Not that I'm aware of. Okay. So in her mid-50s, after decades of, I assume, cruelty and certainly a failure to protect and blaming a child for being sexually abused, which is as bad and monstrous a thing as I can think of, having performed, by your reports, great and destructive evils in the world.
[1:00:52] Has no practical understanding of the problem and no commitments to any solution? More or less, yeah. Okay. So, is she going to change? Basically, no, I would imagine. Okay. What is basically? I guess there's a small optimism in me that maybe people can change, but I don't really think it will happen. No, but we have to be practical, right? I mean, that's like saying, well, I don't to save for my retirement because I'm going to play the lottery once and I'll be fine. Well, that's more likely than an unrepentant narcissist changing. So we do have to be realistic about these things because there's a cost benefit. The more you stand around hoping that corrupt people are going to become virtuous, the less likely you are to have corrupt people in your life because corrupt people don't want to be around. Sorry, uncorrupted, like good people don't want to be around corrupt people. So if you're floating around your mom and other corrupt people who were selfish and greedy and destructive and all of that well there aren't good people around in those environments right yeah so there is a price to be paid for waiting around the grave of someone's heart hoping and praying and crossing your fingers for some lazarus style moral resurrection yeah for sure and the price is enormous yeah it has been yeah.
[1:02:15] Think if you want a good future, we have to eradicate irrational hope. Because irrational hope, I mean, I assume that your mother wants you around, right? She enjoys your company. She needs you around for various reasons, I'm sure, are almost entirely selfish. So how do you know that you're serving what's best for you or just serving what your mother needs? I've been more or less well I've been out of the home since I was 18, it was extraneous circumstances that I had to move in with them not long ago about a couple of weeks ago, I lost my job and I lost my house basically because of this and the plan was and then I tried to kill myself because my mum blamed me for my abuse yet again during an argument.
[1:03:05] And see this is part of the price I'm talking about yeah listen I really, really need you to avail yourself. Please, please, I'm begging you. Avail yourself with mental health resources. There are people that you can go. There are places that you can see where you won't even get charged, where you can really start to wrestle with this. This is obviously a little bit beyond what a... Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying there's some big, dire thing and you've got a monolith rolling down and you're like an Indiana Jones ball. But what I am saying is that if you're feeling self-destructive, there are suicide hotlines.
[1:03:37] There's and you can go to the er you can go to any institution and they will get you help and i i really really strongly urge you to avail yourself of that and if i am already doing that kind of stuff yeah okay good so and if your mother blaming you for the sexual abuse that was inflicted upon you under her watch under her care and guardianship if that makes you suicidal then you are in a very dangerous relationship and it's not even really a relationship it's just exploitation and again lean on your mental health professionals but you are under no moral obligation to serve those who betrayed you in such a manner i guess i was just trying to square my psychology of like have i been justified in holding on to this resentment i don't know i don't know how to square that resentment regarding resentment regarding what just in my mom mom like because my mom's problem with me is that i hold on to this resentment.
[1:04:31] You mean by hold on well because she's never shown any remorse you know you feel resentment at having been betrayed by your mother right yes so why wouldn't you well that's not how i think i'll be supposed to feel that's such a foundational betrayal well that's kind of how i think too but, it's well of course he wants you to let go of it because she feels bad when you're angry yeah get that you know i mean if if uh if someone robs the bank he wants the bank to let go of the resentment because he doesn't want to be caught. So no, I think that the resentments obviously don't act in any violent manner, but the resentment as an emotional state is, I think, perfectly valid. I think it would be not healthy if you felt no resentment about having been betrayed in such a manner, not just in the past, but also in the present.
[1:05:21] So yeah, trust your instincts and don't let people who betrayed you tell you how you should feel about it because because they will always serve themselves and not you. All right, listen. All right, thank you. I really appreciate the call, and I wish you the very best, my friend, and I'm incredibly, deeply, foundationally sorry for what happened to you as a child. You can have a great life, but having the corrupt manipulators around you may not be the path for that. So I hope you'll keep me posted. You can always email me, host at freedomain.com. We can maybe do a call-in show. You can also go to freedomain.com slash call, and you can schedule that. We can do a call-in conversation about this. So I just wish you the very best. I gave you a big hug. Thank you very much. If I knew where you were, and I hope you'll stay intact. All right. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Thank you. All right. KT. KT, you are on the air. And what's on your mind?
[1:06:16] Yes, indeed. Oh, hi. Well, thanks for bringing me up. My heart was... I'm so surprised. No, it's just because it glitched.
[1:06:24] When I'm speaking, what the heck is going on? No, it's only because there was not a glitch, but, you know, there's that very small moment of when you all speak and then I can't hear because it's bringing me up on the stage. So apologies for that. Also, my son and I, God bless them, we are getting our little chickens out of their coop. There's some fun in the kitchen. Oh, how lovely. Oh, my goodness. So we've had ducks. Really? Oh, yes. I don't know what it is with ducks. We hatched two chicks. Yes. Very good. Sorry. I'm so happy that there are some chicks on the show because everyone thinks it's a total sausage fest. So I'm pleased for that.
[1:07:08] So I was listening to... that gentleman's story and my okay and my heart was very much moved and I wanted to a you know just share that I am I'm not okay that he is not alone and I think that what you shared with him was very lovely of you and very right to say that if anybody listening is navigating something difficult where they find themselves in such a situation that they perhaps obviously I've got little ears here but you know they don't want to ideas they don't want to be here anymore that there's people out there that they can't I'm just moving away just whilst I say this fantastic but you know I just wanted to share something that I had learned myself who'd been through a little bit of a to say it politely not a very nice time.
[1:08:05] But one thing I've learned on my own journey of healing is when one, and I don't want to speak on part of anybody else other than my personal experience, but I understand that want and longing. Okay, given that we're all mortal, my friend, perhaps you can get to the story. Yep, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Thank you, yep.
[1:08:28] That the answers lay within oneself is that no matter how many times you ask a question to the person that did you wrong or the people around you that could have potentially prevented it or didn't necessarily do what you would hope or be who you would hope they would be no matter the answer that they give you back it's not going to be the answer that you think that you want to hear the answers lie within you and that I believe is the next stage of acceptance and of feeling and when it comes to forgiveness and forgive me for saying this I believe like just much like you forgiveness is earned it doesn't mean that I have to suffer because I'm not forgiving someone but there are people who have put myself through some horrific stuff, that I would never forgive them, ever, because they don't deserve it. I wouldn't want to give them my forgiveness. So I don't know why my accent's going all over the place. Quite a journey. I know, I'm so sorry. But yeah, they don't deserve my forgiveness. I don't want to give them my forgiveness. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that it makes any difference to my healing.
[1:09:45] Ah, but Katie, haven't you heard of this curse? Oh, no. very very scary this curse and the curse goes something like this katie if you don't forgive people you will carry this fiery demon of discontent and grudge holding and negativity and problems it's like disturbing the wrong pharaoh's tomb katie oh no if you were going to be cursed forever with discontent and it's a weird it's just a secret form of emotional abuse it's like emotional terrorism you have to forgive or you're going to hold this grudge and it's going poison your heart and you forgive so that you let go of the anger and it's like i don't know because i've got closure closure is when you move on you know closure is when you have certainty about a relationship so this curse that that you constantly see which is that if you don't forgive someone you carry the bitterness and you carry this it's not true at all that's not true people yeah it's just it's just a curse it's like it's like giving money to the mafia or they'll burn down your store it's just a shakedown it's got nothing to do with morality i feel very refreshed knowing that I'm not the only person that thinks in this way. So I appreciate you for saying that because trust and believe I have a very big heart and all the love in the world to give. It doesn't impact my day-to-day.
[1:10:59] If anything, it makes me feel like I haven't just given in and just forgiven because somebody told me to. It's just I'm following my... Other people don't get to put a curse on my heart because I don't do what they want. I'm living in Jamaican voodoo lands or something like that. It's like, if you don't do what I want, you're going to be miserable forever. It's like, not if I don't believe you. Exactly. However, you know, I understand that when people have been through something traumatic, and I speak from first-hand experience, that because I am, okay, my little ears, they've gone back upstairs, but I am myself a victim of sexual assault, of grooming and trafficking in the creative industries, and it is just awful.
[1:11:43] Yeah, the artistic industries, or the pits of Satan that have a good bass beat. Okay there you go yep no i know it's awful it's horrible but you know my mantra is to turn poison into medicine but it's taken me a very long time i'm still going through my own version of some healing process but if these mother truckers think that they're going to get forgiveness from me and i don't hold it heavy in my heart on a day-to-day basis i just don't think about it.
[1:12:12] I'm like no way no so no and i appreciate that because people think that that the anger at the people who've wronged you is just some all-consuming festering thing like somebody was saying to me on x today i don't hold a grudge i'm like don't a don't tell me what to do it you can tell me i just won't listen but i don't hold a grudge like i'm holding a weight overhead i mentally know people who've done me wrong and if the opportunity arises i will take my revenge but I don't sit there and plot for it and plan for it. But if the opportunity arises, I will take my revenge. But it's not this constant burning thing in my butt that I'm uncomfortable from. It's just a mental note. It's passive until the opportunity arises, and then it rises within me. And I've done this on numerous occasions over the course of my life. If somebody needs my help, I won't provide it. If somebody needs my protection, I won't provide it. But I'm not hunting people down. But if they knock on my door, I'll just smile through the key, through the window. So, yeah, I mean, this idea that you're holding a grudge and it just burns you up. It's like, no, that's what bad people do. I couldn't agree more. I have a question there for you. And I've got goosebumps and it's just kind of popped into my mind.
[1:13:19] If the people, okay, for example, if I take my scenario, for example, if those that should be in jail were actually held to account and put in jail for the wrongdoings that they had done, the crimes they had committed. What?
[1:13:37] Settle my mind a little more? Would that make, not forgive them, because obviously they've done wrong, but would that make me find peace a little easier? Yes, absolutely. So I want- Yes, but I think, Katie, sorry to interrupt, but I think, Katie, that would have to do not with healing your past. But the problem is if the people who abused you are still out and roaming about, they're still doing considerable evils in the world. And so it's not so much that it heals your past, but if the evil people are removed from society, whether we call it jail or something else, at least we can have some peace of mind knowing that their evils aren't continuing. But when people get away with stuff and continue to escape and evade justice, what makes us uneasy is not just our own suffering, but that it continues out there in the world. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Yes, you've said everything that I wish to have said. Just with that, you're absolutely right. And I think that just for me personally, the only irk that i carry is that we're not there yet but the word yet is the pilot light on uh, on the stove if you if you like well and my my goal with what it is that i do is i obviously i'm in no command or control of any political or legal systems obviously but i am able to encourage, ostracism of the corrupt if they're if they don't repent if they're under deeming if they They continue to abuse. As I've always said, you don't have to be in a relationship with any abusers.
[1:15:04] Right. And so wherever the relationship is, is voluntary. And as an adult, whether it's close family or distant family or friends or siblings or whatever, the relationship is relentlessly abusive, you don't have to be there. So I can at least pull people out of, or not pull people out, but remind people of a way out of a corrupt situation. And I think that is the best that can be done in the current circumstances because the corrupt people are largely in charge of the, quote, justice structures of the world. Not for much longer, though, because it is my life purpose and mission to change that. And whether I'm a fantasist or a realist, I please trust and believe that that really is my goal. I'm a big fan of big goals. Well, thank you. It's a mark of extreme vanity to think that we know our own limitations. I don't know my own. I've been doing philosophy for 40 years. I still don't know my own limitations. And I'm not going to be so vain as to think I know what the cap on my abilities is.
[1:16:02] And so I think it is a mark of humility to have big goals because it says, I don't know what I'm capable of, which is a true and honest statement because so much of our capabilities are drawn out of us by having big goals, that having small goals is an insult to everything you're capable of. I'm so pleased that this space is recorded because honestly, I have goosebumps and I have tears in my eyes, not because I'm sad, but because I feel understood and heard. And I appreciate your words very much so. And I'm honored to know where my place in the world is in this present moment, but I'm more so honored to be open to whatever comes at me to ebb and flow with that. The world keeps turning, keeps evolving, keeps changing. And it's just in my, it's just who I am is that I.
[1:16:56] A duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck. It's a duck. And I just, I cannot stand for injustice. Duck them all. Yes, exactly. Duck them all. Duck them all.
[1:17:07] I'm going to close off here, but I do want to say, Katie, I mean, I could hear clear as day the affection that you have for your little one. And given everything that you suffered, the fact that you've maintained this oceanic and large and beautiful heart is testament to a courage that is hard for people who haven't suffered as much as you to understand. I haven't suffered as much as you. So I say this with all due humility and respect your journey back from where you came from, from the trafficking and the abuse to a place where you can have that much love for the beauty of a growing life. I am honored to have the conversation. My admiration for you is boundless. And I just, I know you've heard a lot of harsh words in your life. I'm sure you've heard kind ones too. And I really want to add my absolutely immense respect and admiration for the journey that you have done and made. It is absolutely magnificent and inspires me to even be in the conversation.
[1:18:01] Thank you so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are very welcome. I'm very sorry we didn't get to everyone. I'm afraid I have another engagement just starting in a few minutes. So I'm going to close this space off. I just love you guys for dropping by. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. It is just an honor to have these conversations with you, and I really do appreciate it. If you find the show to be of value, freedomain.com slash donate to help out. I would really appreciate that. If you're a new listener, don't worry about it. Enjoy, consume. If you've been around for a while, it would be greatly appreciated if you would help out for the show. Freedomain.com slash donate, and don't forget my book on parenting, peacefulparenting.com. Lots of love, my friends. Have yourself a lovely afternoon. I'll see you tomorrow night No, well, yes, tomorrow night 7pm Eastern for another live stream Bye.
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