Freedomain Radio

Stefan Molyneux:

And your mom?

I get along with her perfectly fine. I go home to visit from college a couple times a year, and its always pleasant. I have even convinced her and my step-father to vote for Ron Paul.  

Stefan Molyneux:

And for those with good relationships with your parents, do they truly understand, respect and share your beliefs?

I can see "truly understand" and "respect", but must one's family "share" an identical belief set for the relationship to be considered "good"?  As long as they're always willing to listen, change their positions when proven wrong, and aren't abusive in response to rationality... then can't the relationship be salvaged?

Of course, you could argue that if you've spent decades trying to convey a rational worldview and they still don't share those beliefs with you, then they really probably aren't listening very closely, value what you say, or are willing to change... in which case I can see "share" as being sort of a long-term criteria...  I'm just saying you don't need to defoo just because your mom says "God Bless You" when you sneeze (although that would be a good time to start the conversation on what a crazy thing that is to say to someone...)

As I see it, when someone stops listening to your arguments, they've effectively ended the relationship for you.  As you eluded to in this series, if you are persistant about logic and truth, they'll do the de-fooing themselves...  Just don't put up with abuse or faked affection...
 

I get along with her perfectly fine. I go home to visit from college a couple times a year, and its always pleasant. I have even convinced her and my step-father to vote for Ron Paul. 

Sorry if you've already told this story, but what was the story between her and your dad and you?

I have told it, but I don't mind doing so again, and I'll be more detailed.

My mom married my dad when they were both young, in college. They both dropped out to marry, but waited almost ten years before having children. They both developed careers, though my mom was, as far as I can tell, more successful, doing very well in the business world. When they had me, my father decided to go back to school in order to become a doctor. Having been physically and emotionally abused by his father, he was always a jerk, and at this point, he started having extra-marital affairs. My father is also really good at manipulating people, and looking back, he definitely manipulated my mother quite a bit and made her feel really guilty about things, and essentially pay for his medical school by working an insane amount and staying with him even when he cheated on her. With my mom working and my dad in school, we had several live in nannies that were around most of the time. At this point, my dad was very manipulative and emotionally abusive to my mom, but never me or my brother. However, my mom eventually met the man who is now my step-father. He good guy, and very perceptive, and and did a lot to open my mom's eyes about my father's behavior. She was not quite convinced that divorcing my dad was a good idea (thinking that it would ruin my brother's and my childhood), and instead moved the family to Florida, where my Dad could more easily get a doctor job (we had live in NY my whole life before hand). At this point I was about 11. However, my father did not become a better person upon becoming a doctor as she thought he would, in fact, he got worse,  so they got divorced. At first I lived with my dad, since I blamed my mom for divorcing my father. But, I think as a result of the divorce, he became very unstable. He "found God" and at the same time, started verbally abusing my brother and me. During this time, my mom moved back up to NY and got a prestigious job, and met my now-step-dad again, and they started dating. When my brother and I visited them for a summer, we realized how much better things were with emotionally stable parents and refused to go back to Florida. My father insisted that we go back, charged my mother of kidnapping, and brought us all to court. My brother and I were forced to live with my father in Florida This was during my first year of high school). As a result, my mom and step-father quit their jobs and moved to Florida, so that they could be nearby. It proved very helpful: my father grew only more unstable, and had a strange obsession with getting me arrested (he would call 911 and claim I was attacking him, then hang up and laugh that I was going to jail). Luckily, my mom's lawyers and the fact that the police didn't believe a skinny little kid with glasses would be an abuser helped me out ( I later learned that my father's father successfully had him arrested for similar reasons, so he was very obviously passing on the abuse). Luckily, we got to visit my mom every other weekend. My father also married a very religious woman with whom I did not get along. At the same time, he continued to have affairs with women, something I confronted him about, and made him very hostile. I told him the day before my high school graduation that I never wished to hear or speak to him again, and despite his best efforts and his illusions that everything is fine between us, I have been successful. My brother graduates in a year and I have encouraged him to do the same. My mom is a good person to be around, though she is very business minded. My step-father is very intellectual, and I spend a lot of time when visiting talking to him about philosophy. He is an atheist and slowly moving in the direction of libertarianism. They are by no means perfect: my mother is sometimes very protective and is fairly stubborn, and he has a short temper and is sometimes, in my opinion, too hard on my brother for letting my father manipulate him. But I enjoy visiting them and have a good time when I'm with them.

Well, that's about it. Its a pretty concise summary, but I think I touched on all the important details.  

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raureka:

I won't debate semantics, but suffice to say that I find the idea of labeling any and all who don't embrace and apply the freedomain philosophy to their lives 'corrupt' is utterly ludicrous. Who among us stays true with every waking breath to the principles and philosophy we espouse here - apart, of course, from Stef, his wife, and probably Greg. But hey, if there's financial gain to be made from cutting myself off from the worlds 6.5 billion corrupt people, I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon!

OK, so all of that was more than a little passive-aggressive. I could easily edit it out, but I think it's important to stay true to the real and full response I had to your podcast series. So, letting the emotive response subside a little, let me ask a more serious question:

- I often discuss the ideas we explore here at freedomain with my father. My father loves nothing more, and I'm quite comfortable and confident in asserting this, than to sit and converse with his children (myself and two-older brothers). With me, the topic of conversation naturally turns to all things freedomain - philosophy, morality, economics, politics, relationships, etc - and although these aren't his strongest areas of interest, he is always more than happy to sit and listen as I grind my way through the oft challenging concepts covered here, contributing by way of challenging the ideas, asking questions to prompt deeper exploration, etc. He seems, and this is of course supposition on my behalf, to derive great satisfaction and pride from watching me overcome each hurdle conventional ideas throw in my path. Now, that being said, though he agrees with most if not all of the fundamental principles we share here, he has not, shall we say, converted. He agrees, for example, that the state is both immoral and ineffective in achieving its aims, and though he is probably at the very least a libertarian, he has yet to jump over the fence into the realm of anarchism. Why? Some of you, no doubt, are crying out that he's lost to the irrationality and illogic of the state - but I think it's actually quite the opposite. It is exactly because he is a man of logic and rationality that he does not (yet) carry the anarcho-capitalist flag. He is not willing to heap praise upon a socio-economic system the full details of which he knows very little about - even if he agrees with its base principles. Ahh, Stef says, he is a man who considers philosophy to be purely abstract and academic, he doesn't apply principles to his own life, he is irrational and corrupt! Again, I say, quite to the contrary. Does a reasonable, logical, rational man accept and promote a new or different system off-hand simply he because he disagrees with the current system? You cannot embrace that which you don't know. Now, you say, he is quite capable of researching the ideas himself, of reading the literature and (perhaps) listening to a few of Stef's own podcasts to assuage his doubts. To such a charge, I reply that my father is man in his mid-60s, struggling to sell the business he spent much of his life nurturing and building, with wavering health and only one thing on his mind; his rapidly approaching and well-deserved retirement. Our struggle here with the corruption of the state, the immorality of welfare, the complex web of objective morality and universally-preferred-behavior (not to mention the myriad other things we discuss) is the last thing on his mind and rightly so. He is a man deeply loved, admired and respected by everyone in his familial, personal and business life.

So tell me Stef: is my father corrupt? He certainly fits the definition as you stated it in your series. Can he attain true happens without embracing your ideas? Can I have a decent and true and virtuous and moral relationship with him if he doesn't? Should I just cut him out of my life because he hasn't embraced the freedomain ideology? If your answer is yes, I'd be tempted to turn my own subjective definition of corrupt back on you.

 

 

 

And hell, one last one for the road just for kicks: if I vote for Ron Paul at the next election, is it because I secretly want to reform my father?
 

You know, it really takes a lot of the fun out of putting out ideas when I'm faced with with such open hostility to what I openly describe as tentative new theories.

A few points:

• There is no such thing as the 'freedomain philosophy', any more than there is the 'copernican science'. 'Freedomain' is the name of the show, not the methodology, which is logic and the scientific method.
• I certaintly don't stay 'true with every waking breath' to philosophy, as I have openly talked about in many, many podcasts.
• I think you might be underestimating how difficult it was to start doing this full time - I wept openly in podcasts about this challenge, and I think it is unjustly harsh of you to say I am 'jumping on the bandwagon'.
• As I have said repeatedly, the journey is the key, not the destination. It took me decades to get to full anarchism - what's wrong with your father taking his time?
• I also have said that when I was an entrepreneur, I had nothing to do with philosophy, because I was too busy. That sounds like your dad.

So tell me - why on earth did you get so angry?

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Stef, I hope I didn't come across as hostile: I realize your theory is tentative. New theories should be scrutinized, though, and held up to intellectual rigor. But I definitely don't want to be hostile, being so will accomplish nothing. Quite the opposite, I think your theories are important, and I have been willing to talk about very personal things that I don't like to normally discuss, just to contribute to the process, because I realize the importance of what is being discussed here.

Chris:

Stef, I hope I didn't come across as hostile: I realize your theory is tentative. New theories should be scrutinized, though, and held up to intellectual rigor. But I definitely don't want to be hostile, being so will accomplish nothing. Quite the opposite, I think your theories are important, and I have been willing to talk about very personal things that I don't like to normally discuss, just to contribute to the process, because I realize the importance of what is being discussed here.

Questioning, testing, scrutinizing or criticizing a theory is not hostile at all in fact those things should be welcomed.  What is hostile is when someone is being passive aggressive or condescending and attacking the person who is proposing the theory.

Theories should be tested.  Einstein's theory of relativity was tested by plenty of people who were in doubt.  Have you tried testing these theories in your personal life? 

Nathan McKaskle:

Questioning, testing, scrutinizing or criticizing a theory is not hostile at all in fact those things should be welcomed.  What is hostile is when someone is being passive aggressive or condescending and attacking the person who is proposing the theory.

Theories should be tested.  Einstein's theory of relativity was tested by plenty of people who were in doubt.  Have you tried testing these theories in your personal life? 

Well, I don't think I was passive aggressive or condescending. I like testing theories, Einstein is a bit out of my league, but, as most people with some interest in science do, I have tested scientific theories such as those of Galileo and Lamarck, even if I know they are right in advance, just because it is the duty of any rational person to test the theories of other rational people. As for Stef's theories, I believe most of his theories are very accurate, I am merely challenging them, in, what I think, is a friendly manner.

Chris:

Nathan McKaskle:

Questioning, testing, scrutinizing or criticizing a theory is not hostile at all in fact those things should be welcomed.  What is hostile is when someone is being passive aggressive or condescending and attacking the person who is proposing the theory.

Theories should be tested.  Einstein's theory of relativity was tested by plenty of people who were in doubt.  Have you tried testing these theories in your personal life? 

Well, I don't think I was passive aggressive or condescending. I like testing theories, Einstein is a bit out of my league, but, as most people with some interest in science do, I have tested scientific theories such as those of Galileo and Lamarck, even if I know they are right in advance, just because it is the duty of any rational person to test the theories of other rational people. As for Stef's theories, I believe most of his theories are very accurate, I am merely challenging them, in, what I think, is a friendly manner.

Yeah, I wasn't saying you were I just meant all that in general. 

Chris:

Nathan McKaskle:

Questioning, testing, scrutinizing or criticizing a theory is not hostile at all in fact those things should be welcomed.  What is hostile is when someone is being passive aggressive or condescending and attacking the person who is proposing the theory. Theories should be tested.  Einstein's theory of relativity was tested by plenty of people who were in doubt.  Have you tried testing these theories in your personal life? 

Well, I don't think I was passive aggressive or condescending. I like testing theories, Einstein is a bit out of my league, but, as most people with some interest in science do, I have tested scientific theories such as those of Galileo and Lamarck, even if I know they are right in advance, just because it is the duty of any rational person to test the theories of other rational people. As for Stef's theories, I believe most of his theories are very accurate, I am merely challenging them, in, what I think, is a friendly manner.

This is something I have always had a problem with, and this is my general conclusion:  If someone thinks you are being rude, sarcastic, & passive aggressive, but they neglect to tell you they feel that, then it is their fault if they continue to feel insulted, and they have no right to fault you that you are continuing said behaviour unless you continue to act so, and they have explained their feelings to you.  Of course, I'm assuming that the behaviour IS rude, sarcastic, etc., and that they are not just trying to give you a hard time. And don't even get me started on how sarcastic for one person does not necessarily mean sarcasm for another.