Archive for the ‘Quickies’ Category
Quickies! (April 2010)
April 11th, 2010
Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff
Jesus! Me and Molyneux on Mises! Awww, heck! Why have a bunch of little Quickies! when you can have one big awesome one!
Except that means it’s not a Quickie! anymore, is it?
Oh, shut up. It’s free.
For April, I present to you my almost-encounter with Molyneux himself! We did not actually speak, so as far as I know my belief that Molyneux remains unaware of my existence could still be true. And since this blog is (how shall I put this without hurting my own feelings?) um, insignificant, that’s probably as it should be.
It all started a couple of months ago, when I was innocently engaging in my favorite pastime—googling “QuestEon” and “FDRliberated” to see if anyone’s talking about me. (No, they almost never are.)
But this time I got a hit. Someone at Mises had opened a thread named “Stefan Molyneux.” The conversation was the usual three-ring circus—between Molyneux fans, people who had barely heard of Molyneux, and people who didn’t know anything about Molyneux except they had heard weird things about his psychology.
Then someone dropped in a few links to this site as a resource. So I popped in long enough to give some more specific information about the site. I got one character assassination by a Molyneux fan, gently dealt with that, made a comment to BrainPolice, suggested that everyone not get into the Is FDR a Cult?/Well, What Is A Cult? trap (for once), and then left.
(Aside: Why is it that Molyneux defenders often have one type of behavior at FDR and another everywhere else? I’d love to see them try to critique Molyneux’s thinking at FDR with the same kind of angry, ad hom behavior they use on non-True Believers off-site. I thought this whole “virtue” thing Molyneux strives for is supposed to be a full-time pursuit. Maybe I got it wrong.)
Anyway, then something amazing happened.
Molyneux himself appeared on the thread (three months after it started) to help clarify things. He doesn’t do that very often. And you certainly wouldn’t expect to see him on Mises at all, since he believes Mises is a colossal waste of time: “Writing articles in Mises.org [is] fun, interesting, stimulating. Won’t do a damn thing and hasn’t done a damn thing for the past 80 years since Mises first wrote.”
I decided to jump on the sidelines and watch the proceedings. It was interesting—there are some sharp people on Mises who do get to the heart of the matter. But there was a lot of misrepresentation, too—some of it coming from Molyneux himself.
As he began commenting, I started to get that feeling I had when I first read Molyneux’s response to the UK Guardian. I knew the real truth behind every half truth. But I kept my mouth shut as the thread careened on.
I said nothing as once again Molyneux demonstrated (as I detailed in January’s Quickies!) that he misunderstood, misinterpreted and certainly misrepresented Vincent Felitti’s A.C.E. study as “a study on child abuse” (no, it’s not) and then stole and altered some other doctor’s research to back his misrepresentation of the first guy (yes, he did). What—am I the only one who reads Quickies! around here? Oh, that’s right. Never mind.
Then, finally, I cracked. Molyneux made one blindingly deceptive reply, which I’ve quoted below. Every single line was untrue—the whole thing:
FreedomainRadio replied on 03-22-2010 12:03 PM
The real tragedy here, in my opinion, this even if everyone accepts that I am some really bad guy who for some reason wants to break up families—for fun or profit, take your pick—for parents whose children have separated to take zero responsibility for their family problems, and spend months or years following me around the Internet and attacking me wherever I show up, and setting up websites where they rage against everything that I do—all of this is truly tragic, because their children are doubtless fully aware of their actions on the Web, and when they witness continual displays of extreme anger and blame throwing, it scarcely is going to entice them to return back to their parents.
Even if these parents think that I am running some sort of cult, the literature is very, very careful to subject—that parents should never attack the cult.
In other words, these parents are indulging their own destructive anger at the expense of their future possible relationship with their children—even if we accept that I’m some bad guy who is running a cult.
If these parents were to swallow their anger and pride, and go and get some counseling, and try to truly understand, with humility and taking at least some responsibility, what went wrong in their families, then there could be some real chance for reconciliation, which I think would be wonderful.
If they continue to take no responsibility, blame my podcast for everything, and act out their anger in such a public way, there is very likely no chance whatsoever that their children will view this behavior with admiration and respect, and wish to start up relationships again, because I imagine that their sons and daughters will simply find their decision to take a break from such relationships to be continually reinforced.
It’s time to get some real help and break the cycle.
I am the host of Freedomain Radio, the most popular philosophy show on the web, and a Top 10 Finalist in the 2007 Podcast Awards. http://www.freedomainradio.com
That was it. My steely resolve to remain an observer crumbled like a 17-year-old being convinced by Molyneux her parents are the apotheosis of evil. I just had to pop in to show how Molyneux uses rhetoric to hide what he believes.
So I did. Long reading ahead, but if you’re interested to see how really nice half truths can be used to hide really tragic whole truths—read on.
QuestEon replied on 03-22-2010 6:10 PM
I was trying so hard to be Switzerland here. I really was. Would you mind if I compared some (and by some, I mean all) of your statements from this post to previous statements you’ve made?
FreedomainRadio:
The real tragedy here, in my opinion, this even if everyone accepts that I am some really bad guy who for some reason wants to break up families — for fun or profit, take your pick –…
With respect, I believe your logic dictates that people must discard their parents. Here’s my argument.
The following are your words taken from your essay, which can be read in full here. (I wouldn’t want to appear to be taking your meanings out of context) I wrote my own little essay on this piece because I think it is the foundation of FDR and therefore profoundly important. It can be found right here.
So face it: your parents were bullies, or weak curriers of favour, or manipulative emotional infants themselves. You have no respect for them, for respect requires courage, and courage requires logical morality. You do not love them, since love demands virtue, and manipulating children into blind obedience is not at all virtuous.
You end this essay with these words:
Either the world is not sick, or parents are. Because, as my wife says, it all starts with the family. If you want to perform the greatest service for political liberty, all you have to do is turf all of your unsatisfying relationships. Parents, siblings, spouse, it doesn’t matter.
So, point #1. It’s not a matter of accepting or not accepting that “I am some really bad guy who for some reason wants to break up families.” I know when someone sets up a logical argument and yours, per this essay, is this:
- Your relationship with your parents is unsatisfying.
- You should “turf” all of your unsatisfying relationships.
- Therefore, you should “turf” your parents.
There are no qualifications that you are talking about a few abusive parents. In fact, you clearly end the essay with the words “Do you think it extreme for me to say that almost all parents are horribly bad?”
I don’t know if you personally “want to break up families”—I can’t know your intent and desires. And I’m not saying you’re a “bad guy.” I don’t know what’s in your heart.
But your logic is absolutely inescapable.
Let’s consider your position on parents who may openly criticize you. You said:
FreedomainRadio:
…for parents whose children have separated to take zero responsibility for their family problems, and spend months or years following me around the Internet and attacking me wherever I show up, and setting up websites where they rage against everything that I do—all of this is truly tragic, because their children are doubtless fully aware of their actions on the Web, and when they witness continual displays of extreme anger and blame throwing, it scarcely is going to entice them to return back to their parents.
Even if these parents think that I am running some sort of cult, the literature is very, very careful to subject—that parents should never attack the cult.
For the record, I’m not saying FDR is a cult. [ed., I knew Molyneux meant a "destructive cult" and I responded in kind.] However, there is only one parent Web site that I know of: www.molyneuxrevealed.com. It was created by a man you once interviewed as a “good” parent. Then after the podcast was produced, his son defooed.
Let’s compare your statement above to another one you made in a podcast:
I think the parents of those who have defooed have kept it even more a guilty secret than those who have defood–it’s a very hard thing to talk about. It’s like saying, “hey, here’s my porn collection, let me spread it out over the dinner table while we’re dining out in this fine restaurant.” It feels sometimes like that to talk about defooing with people.
Which leads me to Point #2. If you compare your two statements, what you are telling us (but, far more important, what you’re telling your members) is that when parents speak out against you they are displaying “extreme anger and blame throwing” and when they do not speak out against you they are hiding a “guilty secret.” I believe in Star Trek they refer to this as the Kobayashi Maru.
On to the next.
FreedomainRadio:
….If these parents were to swallow their anger and pride, and go and get some counseling, and try to truly understand, with humility and taking at least some responsibility, what went wrong in their families, then there could be some real chance for reconciliation, which I think would be wonderful.
There are two aspects to this statement that I’d love to get clarification on, if you could, please. Regarding the first, you are on record as saying the following:
I don’t think that it is particularly honorable to remain ‘friends’ with someone who is unwilling to renounce the use of violence against you, but that is everyone’s decision to make of course…
This statement was made in reply to someone asking about being friends with someone who is a statist and/or religious. You told the person that if his friends believed in either of those things, they are advocating violence against you. (I believe it has since become known as your “against me” argument.)
Point #3. Are you saying now, categorically, that one can reconcile and have a good relationship with parents even though they are statist and/or religious? Are you now saying definitively that such a relationship is not dishonorable? What is the likelihood for me and anyone else on this board to have a great relationship with religious and/or statist parents?
The second aspect of your “reconciliation would be wonderful” statement that I’m curious about is this. You say that if parents took some responsibility, there would be some real chance for reconciliation. But reconciliation requires forgiveness and understanding all the way around. That doesn’t compare with this statement from the essay I quoted previously:
You are told to repair things with your parents, but that is an impossible task – a complete waste of time that will also make you crazy. Since they hurt you when you were young, you cannot fix the relationship. To make the point with an extreme example, if you are raped by a man, you cannot cure him of his desire to rape. Maybe someone else can, but you cannot. Since your parents bullied or bribed you into blind obedience, you cannot help them become better people. Maybe someone else can. A therapist perhaps. But not you. You have no hope, since their guilt about how they treated you will always muck up any attempt at honest communication.
And really, it is impossible to forgive someone who has bullied a child. Forgiveness is for repairable events, like being distracted or breaking a vase. A bad childhood cannot be repaired or returned intact. Where restitution is impossible, forgiveness is impossible. Don’t even try.
Does this sound too radical? Do you think it extreme for me to say that almost all parents are horribly bad?
Point #4. You seem to be saying here on Mises that reconciliation is possible and would be wonderful, yet in the above statement you are saying it is an impossible task. Again, this statement is taken from the essay I linked to above, the one that is not talking about a few parents, some parents, or violently abusive parents, but nearly all parents. How is this “wonderful” reconciliation going to occur, when you’ve already said “Forgiveness is impossible. Don’t even try?”
In fact, you have categorically stated that any yearning for reconciliation is futile. As you say in this podcast:
Your yearning for a good family (in the past, I’m not talking about the family you can create in the future)…Your yearning for a good family is a destructive fantasy because it is completely and totally impossible. You will NEVER have had, or have, or will have, a good biological family of origin (or non-biological). It will never happen that you will be well parented. It will never happen, that you will have a good siblinghood, relationship when you were children with your siblings.
If your parents had their brains exchanged by space aliens, those Luxembourgers–if your parents had their brains changed tomorrow, and become wonderful parents, you will never have been well parented, because it’s too late.
It’s too, too, too late.
So, if I follow your logic, yes, such a reconciliation would be wonderful. It is also impossible. It is a destructive fantasy. You will never have a good biological family of origin. It is too, too, too late.
Your words. Your logic. I’m just quoting.
FreedomainRadio:
….I imagine that their sons and daughters will simply find their decision to take a break from such relationships to be continually reinforced.
I certainly agree with the last sentence. Their decision will be continually reinforced.
But by whom?
Molyneux never returned to the thread. I’m going to assume that he just got sidetracked with a lot of more really important stuff and just never saw my post.
Yes, I’m sure that must be it.
That’s all for now. More stuff when I think of it.
Click below to e-mail or DIGG, etc., this article! As always, I welcome your comments!
Posted in Quickies
Quickies! (March 2010)
March 9th, 2010
Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff
TMI RE: QE’s MO. Alas, poor QuestEon finds his disorganized mind literally buried under half- and sometimes three-quarters-written drafts for FDR Liberated. He is feeling the pressure to finish at least one of them, even there is every reason to believe his audience is almost non-existent and his blog little more than a pimple on the ass of the internet.
And suddenly–on top of all that–he feels he must set aside even those efforts long enough to put out a March Quickies! even though it technically isn’t a monthly column and the aforementioned non-existent audience wouldn’t care one way or the other.
All of which is simply to explain why this particular Quickies! is shorter than usual. Off we go!
The Passive-Aggression Principle. Ah, the NAP (non-aggression principle). Where would we be without it? Certainly a wide range of anarchocapitalist possibilities presuppose such a thing must exist.
The non-aggression principle is good, good stuff. It’s easy to see how one could easily create an entire world full of peaceful people with just that one idea. Practically the only thing left to argue about would be what constitutes property. If we can just figure out a way to keep from proactively harming each other, we’re good to go. No wonder Molyneux (along with any libertarian worth his/her salt) mentions the NAP so often.
Why am I going on about all of that? Well, it’s just a little thing I noticed. It may not be anything. Just a harmless bauble of a thought, really. When Molyneux is (or at least appears to me to be) encouraging his followers to defoo, it all sounds very NAP. He uses phrases like “you don’t defoo your family; they defoo you.” Or he may describe you as being a ghost to them–a representation of yourself your family created that isn’t truly you. (So why stay at all?)
Molyneux uses quite a lot of rhetoric to convince his followers that they are walking away from a situation in which they barely exist. It’s no big deal and it’s pretty good for your mental health.
But then I listened to an Ask-a-Therapist podcast (FDR 724, Christina’s Resistance). This podcast (one of several that were purged as a result of scrubbing all traces of Christina’s involvement from FDR) was recorded just before Molyneux took on FDR as his full-time, sole source of income. It was a conversation between Molyneux and his wife about her last-minute resistance to the idea. At several points in the podcast, Molyneux mentions what appears to be one of his own “emotional benefits” in defooing.
15:56 …The ultimate vengeance is to not confront people. The ultimate act of revenge for a wise person is to not confront the unwise with their unwisdom.
Christina: Go on.
It’s something that I’ve noticed as a younger brother as well as a son. That the people that I hate are the people that I don’t confront and that’s exactly the opposite of what people experience…
17:50 …And so those I hate, I don’t confront and I leave them to simmer in the living hell of their own false self.
18:43 …And that’s when you know you really hate someone…
Christina: Uh huh. (agreement)
When you really hate someone is when you will not confront them.
See what troubles me? He’s saying that he hates his family and visited what he consider to be the ultimate act of vengeance upon them. And the pain they feel–the most pain he can imagine inflicting–is a result of forcing them to simmer “in their own living hell.” It’s almost as if he…likes it, a little. And because he encourages defooers to absolutely cut off all communication, his followers rarely recognize any of this–what must be the most intense pain their parents and family will ever endure.
Like I said, it may not be anything. Just a curious and funny example of a man who demonstrates that passive aggression apparently doesn’t fall under the umbrella of the NAP. When it comes to emotional harm, bring on the hell. Still, I wonder why he then characterizes the act in a completely different way for his defooers? Why does he never truthfully tell them that they are simply replicating the ultimate act of hate he showed his own family?
In short, what is defooing to Molyneux? A personal path to mental health? Or simply a way to deal out hate and vengeance?
And (if you want to toy with the bauble a bit more) I wonder–when someone defoos as a result of Molyneux’s encouragement, who’s getting the biggest emotional benefit?
Godless crimes against UPB. When I wrote the series about The Promise and Failure of UPB, I focused on responses from notable folks in the ancap community. I didn’t consider the potential impact a work like this might have on atheists in general. Silly me. As a visitor to Liberating Minds pointed out in this conversation, “…most (if not all) Athesists would welcome such a monumental proof of secular ethics. If they had any bias at all, it would be in favour of UPB, not against it.”
So you’d think.
But then the visitor offered a link to this thoughtful review of UPB by atheist Luke Muehlhauser who took a sledgehammer of logic to the more popular UPB chestnuts: “the act of arguing against UPB actually validates it” (See Muehlhauser’s dissection of Proof 1) and the ever-popular “yes, I really did get an ought from an is,” argument (See Proof 3). Muehlhauser’s summary is similar to most of the thoughtful reviewers I’ve read: “…after reading the book, I still have no idea what a Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) is.” He gives a good college try toward finding something comprehensible before ending with this conclusion:
I get the impression that one day Molyneux was impressed by a book with many sections of numbered statements, the last always beginning with “Therefore…”, then decided to write his own book just like it, without first learning anything about how logic or argument works.
To Molyneux and everyone else, I recommend Weston’s A Rulebook for Arguments and Copi & Cohen’s Introduction to Logic.
Ouch. Looks like mainstream atheists aren’t buying UPB, either.
In Molyneux’s defense, one commenter–who called himself “Nathan”–attempted to demolish the review with this comeback:
“So what you are saying is that in order to be valid, Stef’s theory should contain logical arguments?”
I am not making this up.
Yes, that’s right, against you. I think that Molyneux’s insights about contemporary politics and the economy, etc., can be so clarifyingly brilliant.
But there’s a very popular one that I’m going to be contrarian about, which surprised even me.
It’s all about Molyneux’s “Against me” argument. I don’t get it.
As far as I know, this is a rough example of how “Against me” is supposed to work:
Dope: Abortion should be illegal.
Molyneuvian: OK. Am I free to disagree with you?
Dope: Sure.
Molyneuvian: Then you won’t mind if I (and any one else who feels the way I do) refuse to pay taxes to support babies that people are being forced to have?
Dope: I sure would! We have to support the gov’nment.
Molyneuvian: If I don’t pay taxes, are you OK if they arrest me using any means necessary?
Dope: Of course. We have to support the gov’nment.
Molyneuvian: Well, then. Doesn’t that mean you advocate violence against me if I disagree with you about abortion? And doesn’t it follow from that I am not free to disagree with you?
Dope: Your impeccable logic has caught me out, sir! I shall now vote for anarchocapitalism in all future elections!
As I understand it, the alleged beauty of the “Against me” argument is that you can stun statists into hopeless submission by taking their abstract positions on state issues and make them very personal. In virtually every case, that means “do you support having policemen shoot me if I don’t pay taxes to support whatever it is you’re arguing for?” This argument works wonderfully well in the world inside Molyneux’s head, where all statists and religious-types are dopes.
But does this argument get people any closer to the truth? Or is it simply one more Molyneux rhetorical trick–like so many others already identified here–that simply helps him win a debate in the moment, truth be damned?
How many of those so stunned by this sudden, personalized rhetorical trick realize (on their way home, after losing the debate) that nearly any argument–statist or not–can be reduced to an “against me” argument?
Dope: I have learned that Senator Porkbottom has inserted a $1,000,000 line item into a highway bill for the study of the fuchsia-breasted titwillow. We should call our representatives at once to support the increased taxes this bill will require!
Molyneuvian: Am I free to disagree with you?
Dope: Only in principle.
Molyneuvian: So I take it you would mind if I (and any one else who feels the way I do) refuse to pay taxes to support the study of the fuchsia-breasted titwillow?
Dope: I sure would!
Molyneuvian: If I don’t pay taxes, are you OK if they arrest me using any means necessary?
Dope: Of course.
Molyneuvian: Well, then. Doesn’t that mean you advocate violence against me if I disagree with you about taxation for the fuchsia-breasted titwillow study?
Dope: Isn’t that obvious?
Molyneuvian: Then I will refuse to continue this conversation with you. You are violent and therefore beyond reason.
Dope: Really? Did you not know the fuchsia-breasted titwillow is an irreplacable and indispensible link in the food chain in my state? That without it our state’s agriculture would collapse?
Molyneuvian: No, but that doesn’t matter. We’re talking about violence against me.
Dope: My family eats. I eat. Without agriculture, we will starve. Since you are against this legislation, you are advocating starvation, and therefore violence, against my family. Against me.
Molyneuvian: That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever hea–
Dope: Release the hounds!
Now, the fact that the dope’s argument fails from a libertarian perspective isn’t the point. The point is that even the average dopey statist can blow up the first silly “against me” argument with one of us his own. You see, the flaw is that the so-called abstract positions are never really abstract. You beat the “against me” argument by revealing the “against me” on the opposite side. There almost always is one.
For a serious example, there’s no way to stop US misadventures in Afghanistan by straw-manning the war’s supporters as people who love violence and killing. They support the war because they believe it will prevent future murders by terrorists. And they firmly believe that if you withhold support then you are ultimately advocating violence. Against them.
And believe me–they will release the hounds.
So, good intentions, Stefan, but not the greatest argument. Let’s move away from rhetorical tricks and back to logic, shall we?
That’s it for now. More stuff when I think of it.
Click below to e-mail or DIGG, etc., this article! As always, I welcome your comments!
Posted in Quickies
Quickies! (February 2010)
February 10th, 2010
Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff
Sure, but which curb? The new year caught QuestEon in a sentimental (if not mawkish) mood, the sure side effects of annual reflection combined with a couple of frosty 40s. My thoughts were brought on by two things. First, the surprising veiled condemnation Molyneux presents in his Why We Are Different podcast (FDR 1551).
In that podcast, we learn that those who merely join the FDR forum but are unable to fully commit to FDR teachings (i.e., defoo their families) are prevented from doing so because they are abusive people, which has given them brain damage.
Second, during the course of writing FDR Liberated, I’ve encountered several people who came within a hair’s breadth or actually did sever all ties with their family and friends–only to leave FDR later to rejoin them. Their stories are nearly always instructive and touching. They discovered, once in FDR, that they were kicking the wrong people to the wrong curb, so to speak. In the end, the FDR relationship was making them unhappy and reconciling with former friends and families made them happier.
Of course, my takeway is completely unscientific and my experiences are with a small number of people. However, I have been able to see some of the differences between families and FDR. For example, when families are left behind, they do not make podcasts condeming the defooers. They wait. They keep their faith that the one who left will someday see them clearly again. And they hope.
And the ones who leave do not have to beg for a second chance and a forgiveness that seems to be granted merely by whim, as do those who are asked to leave Molyneux’s “dinner party” (as he calls it). So far, their families seem to accept them back unconditionally and are simply grateful for the opportunity to reunite.
Most important, leaving FDR didn’t seem to dim their passion for liberty or their quest for ethics, it only seemed to strengthen it. It is as if, to them, FDR was a rite of passage. True happiness lay somewhere beyond–after ultimately kicking the final, least satisfying relationship out of their lives, FDR itself.
Here’s looking forward to 2010, a year of better relationships (and, hopefully, much better alcohol).
The destructive triangle in your head. You can capture the essence and the danger involved in a Molyneux “convo” in three words: Therapy, Socrates, and Debate. Together, those three words combine to become the destructive triangle in your head.
Let’s start with Therapy. Molyneux says he is not providing therapy in his “convos,” but I think he is. He’s using a confused version of cognitive behavioral therapy. If you want a tiebreaker, find a licensed therapist and play for him or her any of the Podcasts in which Molyneux helps FDR members realize that the bad feeling (whatever it may be at the time) they’re feeling right now is a result of some childhood parental abuse. Ask the therapist this question: “Does it sound to you like this guy is trying to provide therapy?” I’ll go with whatever answer you get back.
On to Socrates. In the past, Molyneux has said he uses the Socratic method when he teaches his followers/students–helping them see the light through precisely chosen questions. That sounds great, but I’ve never heard any of his followers wonder whether Molyneux has any actual skill in this type of thing or even if he knows which questions to ask, which was something that was fairly important to Socrates. That’s a “fail” when teaching philosophy, but a disaster when you’re conducting pseudo-therapy. In a recent interview with crackpot therapist Daniel Mackler, Molyneux says:
…as far as I understand it, the therapeutic relationship is an authority relationship. The therapist is assumed to be an expert, has training, and has a goal in mind which is sort of revealed over time, which he’s leading the person toward, the patient towards, on a long-term basis. It’s a series of questions which, in a sense, the therapist is asking because he believes he already knows the answer.
This probably horrified Mackler, which is saying something. It is the very definition of a bad therapist. Even Socrates would know the therapeutic difference between “How did that make you feel?” and “I’m going to suggest a theory here–and I could be totally wrong–but your parents used guilt to control you every day of your life. Right? Right?”
The third part of the destructive triangle is captured in the word Debate, which you already saw a bit of in the above paragraph. It isn’t enough that Molyneux has already decided your lousy feelings are a result of your lousy parents, or that he’s asking questions not to discover anything about you but to guide you where he’s already decided you need to go, he’s going to push pretty hard for what he believes is true until you’re convinced. Because he’s a debator. Whether you realize it or not, you’re in a debate.
And he plans to win.
Trying to sort out some troubles in your life and planning to Skype with Molyneux? Just think–Therapy. Socrates. Debate. Are you sure?
You could have predicted I would write this.
The ad copy for FreeDomain Radio (“The largest and most popular philosophical discussion in the world!“) reads like this:
Powerful ideas for all lovers of personal and political freedom – Freedomain Radio is the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web, and was a Top 10 Finalist in the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Podcast Awards. Topics range from politics to philosophy to science to economics to relationships to atheism – and how to achieve real freedom in your life today. Passionate, articulate, funny and irreverent, Freedomain Radio shines a bold light on old topics, and invents a few new ones to boot!
You would think a forum like this (the world’s largest, mind you!) would have freewheeling discussions on about every philosophical concept under the sun. And you would be completely wrong. No matter how well behaved you are, if you step outside Molyneux’s narrow view of the universe, prepare to be banned.
Case in point, a very recent thread on Determinism that offers yet another window on the strange nature of the FDR “community.” Determinism, very loosely stated, is the idea that everything that happens is a result of cause and effect and if you knew all of the physical laws operating at any time, then theoretically you could predict what people will do.
And of course there are lots of off-shoots and side theories and what not, but the most important thing to know is that Molyneux has decided that it is all stuff and nonsense and NO MEMBER shall start a determinism conversation with another member on the forum, even if they’re very polite and no animals are harmed.
As far as I know, we didn’t have any defections this time like we did with Allison’s last card, but the thread did inspire two heartfelt, separately posted public apologies from chastised members. (Remember, their “crime” was discussing an idea.)
[Post-publication oopsie! I've been corrected that the determinism thread DID result in a defection from a member named Paul. (Paul, we hardly knew ye!) He asked that his account and all posts get deleted but his last message lives on briefly here. FDR Liberated regrets this error. Well, not really. I was pretending to be a real journalist for a second.]
One of the first interesting things about the thread is a Philosopher King who shows up four posts in. He seems to think, as far as I understand, that determinism is a topic well worth talking about. Actually, what he really seems to be doing (as Liberating Minds administrator Conrad points out) is debating Molyneux by proxy. He’s not really taking on Molyneux but he is challenging Molyneux’s position without invoking Molyneux in any way. Perhaps, in such a restrictive environment, debate-by-proxy is the best one can hope for.
Later, on Page 1, another PK openly wonders if they are discussing a “banned topic,” offering to delete his post if so.
But it isn’t until five posts into Page 2, that an “enforcer” PK shows up, someone who has voluntarily taken on the role (for whatever reason) of ensuring compliance with Molyneux’s wishes. Perhaps it is out of fear, but no one seems to be curious and empathetic about the “enforcer” PK’s motivations.
After that, the thread begins to subside, ending with the determinism-interested PK offering to start an e-mail conversation so they can talk in secret.
The conversation itself was very interesting, but I couldn’t help being more interested to see once again just how “unfree” FreeDomain is when it comes to ideas, forcing some PKs to keep their explorations secret and inspiring other PKs to become self-appointed watchdogs who snarl at anyone who steps out of line.
These are libertarians, right?
Ah, well. See you next time.
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Posted in Quickies
Quickies! (January 2010)
January 9th, 2010
Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff
Christina’s Web. I can’t stop thinking about Molyneux’s wife. Should I tell my therapist? Anyway, I continually wonder about her migraine-inducing weltanschauung. Consider the following intricate web of beliefs she has used to build her relationships with her husband, profession, employees, and patients.
As noted earlier, Christina and her husband are apparently doing everything they can to purge evidence of her prior involvement with the FreeDomain Radio site. However, he cannot delete from his foundational essays his claims that her singular insight was the intellectual wellspring for his psychology/philosophy connection.
What was her magic insight? She said, “It all starts with the family.”
Now, to me personally, that sounds like something my slightly inebriated Aunt Tizzy might blurt out at a family reunion instead of the psychological foundation of a world-reshaping philosophy. In fact, I’d venture to say that virtually every psychology expert in the world would call her magic insight a gross and somewhat inaccurate oversimplification. But what do I know?
But by pretending that “it all starts with the family” is some kind of insight, Molyneux was able to use his wife’s credibility in his initial essays. Perhaps he was also patronizing her in an attempt to improve their relationship. Maybe not. Who knows? But somewhere in that tangled web of beliefs between the two of them lies the foundation of the anti-parent/anti-family stance of FDR.
So what could make more sense for Christina, the intellectual wellspring for the anti-family psychology of FDR, than starting a…wait for it…family therapy clinic, right? She used to run it out of the Molyneux home but, when her husband decided to take his FDR business full time, she moved it to a new location and decided to grow her practice to bring in more revenue.
Christina then hires an associate who earned a Master’s Degree in Psychology (Christina doesn’t have one of those) by writing a thesis that suggested…drumroll…peer influence may actually have a much greater impact than parents on adolescent development and stuff like personality and behavior!
So there is another interesting web in Christina’s clinic, where apparently it’s a matter of random chance whether you pick Christina behind Door #1, who believes family and religion are the source of all the world’s problems or her employee behind Door #2, who actually belongs to a religion (I verified it) and probably thinks that blaming your parents for everything wrong in your life is preposterous (and maybe a little, um, adolescent). Can you choose wisely, troubled one?
Like I said, migraine-inducing. I wonder what those two talk about at lunch?
Conrad’s Conundrum. Hey–did you ever wonder how and why Liberating Minds got started and why Molyneux hates it so much? Pull up a chair. It’s a good story. Somewhere around 2007, Molyneux began to be more public in his belief that his philosophy was the one-true-road-to-happiness. I think that led to a lot of unrest and argument on his FDR forum among the early members who tended to be more free thinkers. (That sort of thing can’t happen on today’s FDR, where the only dissenters are newbies and they are quickly purged.)
Some of Molyneux’s followers (as you saw in The Promise and Failure of UPB) believe him to be the most important philosopher in the last 6,000 years. But–darn it all–he’s not even the most important philosopher in the Molyneux family!
Distant ancestor William Molyneux, who came up with the relatively obscure question known as Molyneux’s Problem, wins that title. Sorry, Stefan–but I do think there’s a philosophical problem you can claim at least partial ownership for–a so-far unanswerable question I’ll call Conrad’s Conundrum.
During those early years of FDR, a thoughtful member named Conrad asked Molyneux a seriously troubling question. You see, among the well-read FDR members, it is known that a number of Molyneux’s theories are derived from Murray Rothbard’s ideas. The new wrinkle Molyneux added was his own peculiar take on the psychology/philosophy connection–you know, the idea that you are completely corrupt if you continue to even associate with your religious or statist parents/family/friends.
So, Conrad wanted to know, if it could be shown that Rothbard associated with his families or religious/statist friends, would that mean Rothbard–the uncredited originator of much of the FDR ancap philosophy–was also corrupt? And what if the same were true for the great Ludwig von Mises himself? Hmm…
Molyneux responded by immediately banning Conrad, of course. (Reminds me of that famous Ring Lardner line: “Shut up,” he explained.) Whether it was because…
- Conrad pointed out an unanswerable logical flaw
- exposed that Molyneux’s best “ideas” aren’t exactly original
- reminded Molyneux that he’d been sidestepping more than a few other flaw-exposing questions
- or simply embarrased Molyneux by reminding him that he has absurdly predicted a total economic system collapse within 5-10 years (even less now!)
…remains to be seen.
It all happens in this short thread, which is one of my all-time favorites. (In just a few short answers, Molyneux exhibits at least #3, #5, and #7 from the list of known Molyneux debating techniques.)
Conrad was asking about more than a point of logic. With one question, he more or less blew up the whole Molyneux philosophic universe, so you can hardly blame Molyneux for the rapid banning. Following that abrupt dismissal, something completely unexpected happened. Instead of slinking away wounded into that good night, as expected, Conrad simply started the rival philosophy forum known as Liberating Minds.
So there you go. It turns out that for Stefan, the least-answerable philosophic problem isn’t ancestor William’s “Molyneux Problem,” but the far more vexing “Conrad’s Conundrum.”
Any takers?
A.C.E.ing out Dr. Vincent J. Felitti. Just as he did with Alice Miller, Molyneux is now exploiting another doctor’s work. This time, it’s Vincent Felitti and the research he’s conducting for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. It’s called the A.C.E. (Adverse Childhood Events) Study.
The study is a fairly simple but good idea in that it tries to establish scientific parameters for what nearly everyone intuitively knows; i.e., that people with messed-up childhoods can grow up to have messed-up lives. Molyneux presents it to his members as a giddy revelation. Some of his True Believers have taken the short A.C.E. quiz and are beginning to report their own A.C.E. scores. (It’s easy! Get yours at www.acestudy.org!).
The point of Dr. Felitti’s work is to assess the health-care burden of a number of bad things that can happen in childhood. It assesses 10 possible events that have been divided into three categories:
- abuse (physicial, sexual, emotional
- neglect (emotional, physical)
- household dysfunction (mother treated violently, household substance abuse, household mental illness, separation/divorce, someone incarcerated)
I have no problems with the study itself, although there doesn’t seem to be an attempt to quantify the relative danger of each A.C.E., if any. For example, “my brother smoked weed” and “my father raped me” would each get an A.C.E. score of 1. If you had sex with a 22-year-old the day before your 18th birthday, that is an adverse childhood event. Even if the other person was smokin’ hot.
But I suspect most people who view Molyneux’s little (YouTube presentation) don’t notice how he cleverly misuses the report solely to support and lend credibility to own theories. Remember, Molyneux believes that nearly everyone is badly abused by their parents. But the A.C.E. Study is about a wide range of possible Adverse Events, not just abuse! Given the report’s very wide criteria of possible adverse events, it’s no surprise that only a little more than a third of the respondents reported having none.
Now that’s perfectly appropriate in the context of the study, I suppose, but Molyneux completely misinterprets the findings for his own ends. He leads you to believe that every event in the study falls into the category of abuse when, in truth, it does nothing to shore up Molyneux’s claim that nearly everyone is abused (and certainly doesn’t suggest that the only solution for any “virtuous” person is defoo his or her family), nor would the doctors conducting the study ever dream of making such claims.
What I’m talking about here is not the problem of childhood abuse, but Molyneux’s continued flagrant practice of Psychologist Abuse; specifically, borrowing the credibility of others to create the illusion that they support his own unsupportable ideas. Would Dr. Felitti really have granted an interview to Molyneux if he had known his work would be misused to encourage current and prospective new defooers? I don’t think so. So, Vince, if you just googled your name and found this, well, you’re a part of FDR now. Deal with it.
This is your brain on abuse. All I can say is fasten your seat belts. In the YouTube video we were just talking about (here’s the link again) and also in the outstandingly bizarre recent podcast entitled Why We Are Different (FDR 1551), Molyneux pulls out the latest intellectual bauble he’s been playing with–his conjectures about the physiological effects of child abuse; specifically, that all child abuse causes some kind of permanent brain damage. (Depending on the type and severity of the abuse, there may be a bit of truth to that, but stay with me…).
Here’s what he says in that podcast:
01:45…[in the future] where it [child abuse] does occur, there will be simply brain scans, right? And the brain scan of the child will show the effect of the abuse. And I believe the brain scan of the parent or primary abuser, whoever that is will show the effects of being an abuser….I believe that the perpetration of abuse creates brain changes as significant if not more significant than being the receiver or victim of child abuse.
So, if you watched the YouTube video, you probably saw at about 2:31 a CT scan image that Molyneux believes is a “proof” that abuse causes brain damage.
Well now. Let’s just take a look at where that slide came from, shall we?
Molyneux obscures the fact this image came from Dr. Bruce Perry’s study Altered brain development following global neglect in early childhood. Dr. Perry’s study is about neglect. Certainly, neglect and abuse are kissin’ cousins, but they are not exactly the same. Moreover, the subject matter of Dr. Perry’s study and the subject matter of Dr. Felitti’s work are miles apart. Which is probably one of the reasons Molyneux doesn’t want you to know about the origin of that CT scan image.
Specifically, Dr. Perry’s research focused on “globally neglected children,” those suffering from severe malnutrition, very little social contact, etc. Some of them were so badly neglected that they “were raised in cages in dark rooms for the first years of their lives.”
It seems Molyneux is entirely misrepresenting Perry’s work to make his own points. I guess Neuroscientist Abuse is just as acceptable as Psychologist Abuse. In his defense, Molyneux would probably say that while the image is on-screen, he uses the word “neglect,” but he is clearly slipping it in as if it is part of Felitti’s work.
Not convinced, huh?
Then let’s freeze the YouTube image at 2:31 and compare it to the one on the Perry study I linked to. Notice something? That’s right, Molyneux blocked out the labels beneath the two brain scans, the one saying “Normal” on the left and the one saying “Extreme Neglect” on the right!
I guess Molyneux was afraid you’d worry yourself sick trying to understand what, if anything, that slide had to do with the point he was making about abuse. And that kind of thing could cause brain damage. So he just blocked it out so you wouldn’t be confused. Another little thing he overlooked (and blocked out) was the really, really big text beneath the slide that said “All rights for reproduction of the above image are reserved, Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine.” Maybe there’s a Fair (mis)Use Doctrine I didn’t know about.
So where did we end up on this? Here’s my read. Molyneux (when he’s not going on and on about his own ethics and virtue) is perfectly O.K. with misrepresenting one physician’s work (that he’s using without permission) to aid in the misrepresentation of another physician’s work, all to support his otherwise completely unsupportable theories. There’s something really awesome about all that, in a master-criminal kind of way.
…And this is your brain on philosophy. Any questions? You probably think I’m all through with that Podcast 1551 stuff right? And you would be wrong.
Molyneux says he made the podcast because one of his True Believers asked why are “we” (we, meaning the most ardent FDR members) so different? I’m assuming that means “why are we so amazingly superior to our hateful families and the violent, chaotic, knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers we have to put up with in our daily lives?”
Molyneux’s answer, about those he considers “successful” at FDR, is pitch perfect:
02:45….so the one thing I have noticed that is centrally characteristic of those who are participating in this conversation and particularly those who continue–who don’t hit a plateau and just kind of stop and circle, slowly. is that they have not harmed others. They have not harmed others.
So, once you’ve defooed and tossed in your $500 to become a Philosopher King, you can proudly announce you’ve never harmed anyone. That’s much better than getting absolution as a Catholic, because this is actually retroactive. A few seconds later, Molyneux makes his case that he’s never been a bully (which I guess means we’ve forgotten all about that Conrad’s Conundrum incident.)
Alrighty, then. At least now we have an answer for why some FDR members become True Believers and some do not. If you have joined the FDR forum but haven’t completely given over to defooing and hating your family and whatnot, it is because you have given yourself brain damage from abusing others. Frankly, I’m glad I don’t know you. So, circle on, you harmful bastards.
Whew! January was a busy Quickies! month, wasn’t it? By the way, I’m not actually promising to do these monthly, you know, so don’t get all excited. See you next time.
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Posted in Quickies
Quickies! (December 2009)
December 6th, 2009
Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff
I hope you’ll forgive me for not mentioning this. You know that little article I wrote about the crazy thinking behind Molyneux’s Philosophy of (un)Forgiveness?
It occurred to me shortly afterwards that with one simple change, Molyneux could have turned it from one of his more destructive podcasts into one of his very best. Do you know what that change is? Instead of “proving” why you should make loved ones who hurt you grovel for your mercy, he should have said “this is what you should do if you hurt someone you love.”
One simple change in focus, and it transforms from a narcissistic exposition on selfishness into a loving exposition on caring for the most important people in your life. (I probably should have saved this post for Valentine’s Day. Whatever.)
He got everything right except the direction. And that is why he got it so terribly wrong and created something so sadly revealing.
The sad little life of Izzy, the symbol. For some time now, Molyneux has been posting countless new photographs of himself with baby Isabella on FDR. Surprising, when you consider that most FDR True Believers condemn the pride their parents showed in them as something that was selfishly motivated, something they were taking credit for. You know, just another example of parental narcissism. (Hey, I just report the facts–don’t blame me if they don’t make sense.)
True Believers have accepted with all their hearts the Molyneux revelation that there aren’t any “really good parents out there.” That is, of course, until Molyneux came along, sired Izzy, and is now blazing the trail of perfect parenthood for all of us.
And so Izzy has become a symbol. To the True Believers, a symbol of what the world might be like if everyone had really good parents. A symbol for their own lost childhoods that became instead the damaged “inner child” they must now carry around inside–the child unforgivably ill-used by their own not-really-good parents. A symbol for the children they hope to bring into the world. A symbol for the future.
Izzy has been exposed to the world enough, so I’ll just gently tiptoe around a reality, a cynical little reality almost obscured by all those symbols. By constantly posting Izzy’s pictures, using her as little more than an advertisement for himself and his own perfect parenthood, using her as part of his promotion of FDR, Molyneux is simply exploiting his poor daughter in a way his True Believer’s parents never even dreamed of.
But hey, good marketing is where you find it, right?
And so it goes.
So, is this “FDR II, THE SEQUEL”? FDR has been through interesting changes over the years…
…the 2006 version when it actually was a community and Molyneux actually wrote the cogent essays he later recorded as podcasts (instead of simply recording barely-focused ramblings off the top of his head and releasing them un-edited as he does today)…
…the 2007 blow-up as Molyneux became bigger-than-FDR, a number of his free-er thinking members departed, his site became his livelihood, and he began granting “Philosopher King” titles at $500 a pop…
…the media attention in 2008 from The Guardian and other journalists that ended the bold and transparent role Molyneux played in separating his followers from their parents (didn’t end the role altogether, of course, just the bold and transparent part)…
..and now the 2009+ refined FDR in which Molyneux refuses to acknowledge (but never repudiate) the foundational philosophy of FDR.
I hate to bring up Scientology (because it sounds like I’m going to use the “c”ult word), but doesn’t it kind of remind you of the way L. Ron Hubbard’s craziest notions are now carefully hidden from normal people’s view until they become deeply integrated into that “community”?
So instead of Scientology, I’ll use a Godfather II analogy. Doesn’t it seem like FDR has suddenly moved to Vegas and is trying to be legit? I’ve already noted that many of the more embarrasing “psychology” documents and podcasts (along with evidence of any involvement of his wife Christina) are being rapidly purged from the site. And now Molyneux has his web radio show where he interviews libertarians of more significance than himself (and who don’t really have a clue who he is) in an attempt to lend their credibility to his.
But his original followers? They’re quickly becoming a minority and maybe an embarrasing one at that. A greater percentage of newer donating FDR members appear to have bought into the myth (for now) that Molyneux advocates defooing only in the most extreme situations, greatly outnumbering the original True Believers–the ones who learned in Molyneux’s early essays that defooing is an essential step for every virtuous AnCap.
You know, the ones who actually built his “community.”
In my view, if you are going to have a philosophy–no matter how crazy–you should live it. And you certainly shouldn’t be afraid to say it out loud. If not, then admit you were wrong. Molyneux has never actually rescinded his absolutist views on the psychology/philosophy connection (I don’t think he can, actually). No, those ideas have simply become the crazy uncle in the attic that no one talks about. (Oops, forgot! This is supposed to be a Godfather II analogy…) They’re the bodies Molyneux left floating in the East River before FDR put on its silk suit and skipped town.
At the risk of appearing to care more about Molyneux’s members than he does…If I’m right and Molyneux is changing the face of FDR to something that appears less crazy, then what of those defooed members–the poor folks on whose backs he built FDR? They’re scattered out there, mostly friendless and unable to socialize with the people around them, believing themselves to be victims of parental abuse, ekeing out some kind of minimum wage and sending in their donations. Will he one day call “All-y all-y in free!” and send them back to their friends and families? Or will he absolve himself of them, wash his hands, and move on?
I wonder what Michael Corleone would do?
I’m probably some kind of genius or something. Several weeks have elapsed between the time I wrote the note directly above this one and now. During that time, FDR completely changed its home page and made everything I wrote above sound almost…prescient. (Of course, I’m the only one who knows that since I’m publishing them both at the same time, but trust me!)
The “Corleones-move-to-Las-Vegas” maneuver is nearly complete. Molyneux continues to take on the air of legitimacy, advertising the Blog Talk Radio interviews he now does with freedom luminaries. They honestly believe he is promoting them and not using them to promote himself, poor dears.
I wonder if he mentions to his interviewees that if their parents believe(d) in government or religion they are victims of child abuse? Or that if they believe in either of those then they are/will be abusers? I’m going to take a stab and guess “no.” I didn’t hear his interview with Dr. Stuart Shankar, Prof. of Philosophy and Psychology at York University, but I wonder if he mentioned to him that he thinks academic philosophers have turned ethics into “a subjective and murky swamp”? Again, probably not.
The new home page tells us that FDR is “The largest and most popular philosophical conversation in the world.” This will probably come as a shock to the freedom-focused folks at Mises.org, Anti-State, Free Talk Live, and elsewhere. Especially because FDR has 7,000 members and they have, well, more.
Maybe Molyneux is counting the number of people who download his podcasts or listen to Blog Talk Radio (but aren’t interested enough in what he’s saying to actually join the “conversation”)?
Maybe he is referring strictly to sites that bill themselves as Philosophy forums. That’s it.
But wait. I just picked a couple sites at random and it turns out that The Philosophy Forums has nearly 27,000 members and the Online Philosophy Club has nearly 36,000. I’m crazy like this but isn’t that also more than FDR’s 7,000? I’m confused now. They promised me there would be no math in blogging.
I’m reluctant to suggest again that FDR’s proud 7,000 are mostly spam accounts but, as I mentioned in last month’s Quickies!, a few thousand of those folks seem to have e-mail addresses like putajackhammerinyourpants@sexpills.ca so I’m just not sure.
You know what I’d say to defooers? I had a chance to once because someone who was thinking about it asked over at Liberating Minds. It was a pretty courageous thing to do, since Molyneux tends to ban members who post on sites he hasn’t approved. (I know, I know…I guess you can only have a Free Domain if you keep your members from being “corrupted” by outside opinions, but that’s for another Quickie!)
The conversation was about a pretty knotty problem–about the feelings and motivations behind a defoo. Defooing is a painfully emotional experience. Blame can get thrown around a lot, along with accusations of insensitivity on either side.
I don’t know if the person actually defooed or is still an FDR member. Anyway, this is what I said (after I edited some unnecessary junk out and deleted the user’s name):
Hi, there!
Welcome! I appreciated your thoughtful post and I hope it is the first of many. I don’t think anyone can really understand the child who leaves his or her family until one understands what a tremendously terrifying and painful step it must have been–a desperate step people take when they believe they have no other choice, when they believe the family has become entirely insensitive to their basic needs.
In fact, I think that having a clear understanding of how everyone is experiencing the family is so important, it’s universal.
In other words, it should exist on both sides.
Unfortunately, people who become associated with FDR are given equally insensitive claims about the hurt their families experience following a defoo. These claims–and most attempts by Molyneux/FDR to extend the defoo–bring the issues no closer to resolution than ignoring the pain of the child before the defoo.
Stefan Molyneux repeatedly–as sweeping generalities–counsels defooers that the family isn’t hurt when they leave. Or if there is pain, it isn’t real or legitimate. Repeatedly, he has used clever phrases such as “you don’t defoo your family, they defoo you.” He characterizes the heart-wrenching and anguished attempts of the family to reach out to their child as simply the wailing and gnashing of teeth from those who have lost their ability to control or humiliate. He counsels defooers to cut off all communications which, not coincidentally, also shields them from seeing first hand what the family is experiencing.
Any attempt by Molyneux to claim he does this on a case-by-case basis is clearly false. In books such as “On Truth,” and many, many podcasts, he makes blanket condemnations of parents and families.
If it is wrong for parents to ask a defooed child “did you set out to hurt your family?” without really understanding what the child has gone through, it is just as wrong for a counselor to consistently claim–”go ahead and leave–your parents don’t understand you anyway and you aren’t going to be hurting them in a way that should matter to anyone.”
Because in summary, that is Molyneux’s opinion and that is his advice.
My question has always been–once the defooed child has made his/her escape, once they’ve established the separate peace they need and deserve for their mental health–what next? If hanging around FDR is the answer, then why do the closest members of Molyneux’s inner circle seem no happier today–and in fact are still posting with their same family complaints–than the day they joined FDR? (In my opinion, the longer they stay, the worse the family complaints actually become!)
Clearly, clearly there are unresolved feelings. For those who have such feelings, why not just say to their families: “I left because I felt I had to. I’m not apologizing for it and I’d be disappointed if you didn’t make an earnest attempt to understand why. However, I do have unresolved feelings. Some of them are anger. Some of them could be love. I’m willing to do the work to see if we can have a family relationship, but only if you are prepared to do the same. If so, then we all need to go into counseling together and resolve these feelings and I need your commitment that you will fully participate. This is the only available, non-negotiable, next step for us–take it or leave it.”
That seems so extraordinarily common-sense to me. Yet, in hundreds of thousands of posts on FDR and in over a thousand podcasts, I’ve never seen it seriously suggested–not once–that troubled families should seek counseling. Only separation.
Why is that, do you suppose?
I wish more FDR members were curious about that one.
Click below to e-mail or DIGG, etc., this article! As always, I welcome your comments!
Posted in Quickies
Quickies! (November 2009)
November 10th, 2009
Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff
(I’m going to experiment with putting up short bits without in-depth analyses occasionally–just little observations or notes about FDR. Here’s the first. And maybe the last! We’ll see.)
What families and Humpty Dumpty have in common at FDR. After recording over 1,500 podcasts, Molyneux has never made one on repairing families. Amazingly, his followers still believe his sole goal is not to separate them from theirs.
Curiosity and empathy are one-way streets. One of the most commonly used phrases among FDR believers is “curiosity and empathy.” It’s almost like a mantra. Yet none of those who have defooed have the slightest curiosity or empathy about how their families are doing. When they get letters, e-mails, or calls, instead of being curious or empathetic about their parent’s meaning or motive, they simply turn to their fellow FDR members (and Molyneux) for instant confirmation about their family’s “manipulation” and “corruption.” Maybe it’s just me, but I think it reveals a stunning lack of curiousity to instantly and uncritically classify every family/friend attempt at contact for every FDR member as a “Foo Attack.”
Surprise!–it turns out that the “curiousity and empathy” mantra is simply a code meaning only one thing: Outsiders are to be tested for their curiousity and empathy to FDR members. If they display any, then the conversion process can begin. If they do not, they are illogical, irrational, and disposable. Of course it’s one-way! Who would want to show any curiousity or empathy to the irrational?
The rapidly vanishing Christina. First, all of the “Ask a Therapist” podcasts featuring Molyneux’s therapist wife, Christina, suddenly disappeared from the FDR site.
Then, the line on the site’s home page that formerly read “Topics range from politics to philosophy to psychology to economics to relationships to atheism” (with links to summary pages of Molyneux’s views on each) was altered: specifically, the word psychology and its associated linked page were deleted without explanation.
And now the infamous podcasts–Defooing, Parts 1 & 2 (#451 and #452)–recorded during an autumn hike as Chistina and her husband ridicule an anquished letter from her own parents, have simply vanished.
It appears that all traces of Christina’s involvement with FDR psychology are being rapidly purged from FreeDomain Radio. Does it matter? Well, the differentiating foundation of the FDR philosophy is the psychology/philosophy connection. In Molyneux’s own words, it was a foundation inspired and co-authored by Christina. If there’s no psychology in the theory, there’s no FDR. Not as we know it.
But these days, Molyneux downplays Christina’s involvement while insistently reminding followers that he is not a therapist and his “convos” are not therapy. They just happen to be a conversation between two friends. Except in this particular case, the younger friend has an emotional problem and the older friend always traces the source of that problem back to the younger friend’s parents using the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy (a service for which he gladly accepts donations).
But that’s only a coincidence–it’s just two friends talkin’.
At any rate, what is going on with Christina and FDR psychology these days?
Hundreds of people are flocking to the FDR Community! Every time you hit the FDR forum page, you see a bunch of new members have joined! The community has over 5,000 members and is growing by leaps and bounds. However, is it my imagination or are most of those names suspiciously weird? I’m probably just jumping to conclusions. I’m certain that lcdtvprice11, samedayloans, christiandating (my favorite!), greenteafatburn, and freeappleiphon are perfectly thoughtful philosophers who just coincidentally picked user names that sound like spam e-mail addresses. I mean, who would neglect to throw the switch on the ol’ user registration spam filter simply so they could claim on their home page that they have “largest and most popular philosophy show on the web”? That’s crazy talk.
The one thing you’ll never hear at a therapist’s office. Molyneux wants his followers to seek therapy, right? Trouble is, by the time they are deeply enough into the FDR mind-set to follow that advice, they fully believe they have grown up as abuse victims. I wonder if any of them have had the courage to begin their therapy sessions this way:
“Hello. I’ve come to see you because I believe I am a victim of parental abuse. I’ve left my parents, of course, but in addition I’ve left everyone else in my family and all of my friends because they are also corrupt. I did this after I became part of an internet group. It’s run by a man and his wife. He has left all his family and friends. Then he helped his wife realize she needed to leave hers. By a strange coincidence, it turns out that both of their parents were abusers and all of their friends and everyone else in their families were also corrupt.
“Following their advice, I listened to a few hundred of their hour-long podcasts back to back. They have a lot more for me to listen to, though! During that experience, I spent a lot of time on the man’s forum and chat room and skype conferences where everyone I talked to helpfully pointed out reasons why I was a victim of abuse and surrounded by corruption.
“Those people, who previously left their families and friends, have now become my new friends. They’ve accepted me unconditionally. Every time I post about my former abuse, they respond with little “hug” icons, so I can tell they really love and empathize with me. They know that all of my bad feelings are a result of my family and corrupt friends. Now I talk exclusively to them on this man’s internet site. We call it a “community.”
“Here are some of the podcasts and books that convinced me I was being abused, so you can see for yourself that I came to my new beliefs entirely on my own. Surely you can see that, right?
“Let’s begin our therapy! Where do you think we should start?”
“Pay no attention to that man behind the diploma!” Molyneux reportedly tells his followers they don’t need college degrees. Fair enough, but…did you notice that Molyneux prominently features his own academic credentials in his own FDR bio? And doesn’t he tend to use his wife’s academic credentials as validation for his own psychology theories? Her certification–made possible by her degree–is the reason she could (a) open a practice and (b) support Molyneux’s FDR venture.
Molyneux recently appears to be fiercely anti-academic. But I wonder there is more to it. Sounds crazy, but it appears as if he believes he has replaced academia, as if “graduating” from FDR (however one defines it) is all you need for a fulfulling life. Judging by his and his wife’s actions, however, they certainly seem to think their degrees are pretty useful.
Is this a little harsh? I don’t know. Someone left this comment on MolyneuxRevealed and it amused me:
If you want to be a philosopher, and you are asking Stefan Molyneux for advice, then it’s probably getting close to being time to find a new dream. As it is, there are more people who want to be philosophers than the market can support. Many of them are really, really good. If you don’t see what’s wrong with Molyneux’s arguments, in spite of widely publicized, rigorous discussions of those problems, then you probably don’t have what it takes to compete with them.
As a (presumably atheist) libertarian interested in studying (presumably political) philosophy, it makes sense to try to go to the University of Arizona to learn from Schmidtz and Gaus, the University of Virginia to learn from Lomasky and Simmons, the University of Wisconsin to learn from Lester Hunt, Tulane University to learn from Eric Mack, Brown University to learn from Jason Brennan, Auburn University to learn from Roderick Long, West Virginia University to learn from Daniel Shapiro, the University of San Diego to learn from Matt Zwolinski, the College of New Jersey to learn from James Stacy Taylor, Ohio University in Athens to learn from Mark LeBar…I could probably go on. The point is, there are MANY options out there. Learning your craft from a self-published web site manager whose primary philosophical audience doesn’t know anything about philosophy should not be one of them.
OK. Maybe that is a little harsh. So let me just add: ouch!
Why don’t people do this more often before they defoo? If you have time and money to spare you might find it very revealing to ask a legitimate, reputable therapist to listen to one of the “therapy” podcasts Molyneux has conducted with a listener and critique Moyneux’s methods. (I did, but thankfully she did it for free!) Here is what you will learn:
Competent therapists always ask open-ended questions. They do not guide patients to a conclusion they have already reached. They never plant. They never create their own connections between your feelings and events and convince you to accept them. They never use the technique of saying obvious truths in the beginning, followed by “Right? Right?” until you fall into the resultant pattern of saying “yes, yes” to everything else they suggest later on. And when you reach the core of what you are trying to understand about your relationships, they never demonize the other party in an attempt to drive you further away.
“And then Tom suddenly defooed….” Those who think that Tom (of the UK Guardian article) suddenly decided on his own to defoo after one podcast “convo” with Molyneux have been misled. It rarely happens that way. Tom–along with the vast majority of FDR members who defooed–was actually conditioned over a number of months, first through indoctrination tools such as Molyneux’s book “On Truth” and the hundreds of podcasts on evil parents and then later through the love-bombing that occurs on the forum, chatroom, twitter, and skype conferences. By the time most FDR members defoo their bewildered families, they have fully accepted a view of themselves as victims of abuse. There is nothing sudden about it and many people have contributed in helping the new member accept this belief.
To sell the truth. What happens when you stop pursuing the truth for its own sake and start selling it? I don’t know. I’m just asking.
In his 2006 podcasts, Molyneux was just a guy with a job he doesn’t like who ALSO had an interest in a wide range of areas related to governance, economics, psychology, truth, and philsophy. A lot of people connected with Molyneux at that time and, from what I gather, had their healthiest relationships with him at or before that time. In my view, his very best essays and podcasts were during that era.
Then, in 2007, he made the decision to have FreeDomain Radio and activities related to it be his main source of income.
So what happens when your focus changes from pursuing the truth for its own sake to packaging and selling the truth for your own livelihood? Well, for starters, the most important thing in the former is “the truth” and the most important thing in the latter is “your livelihood.”
In the former, it is a personal pursuit of something, irrespective of the emotional/financial cost. In the latter, it is a two-way transactional relationship. There must be something in the way the truth is served up–packaged, polished, made more palatable, more enticing, whatever–that makes “your customers” want to pay for it.
So when the direction of FDR changed in 2007, Molyneux was no longer asking people to share the burden as they shared their experiences in their personal quests for the truth. Now he was asking them to support a profit-based enterprise designed to provide he and Christina with financial freedom. They were no longer supporting each other in the quest. They were supporting him.
And it makes me wonder. On that new Web site, what would it mean if people openly challenged the “truth” as Molyneux sees it? Doesn’t that mean they might also be interfering with sales? (Imagine a bunch of people in McDonalds shouting, “This food sucks!”) So wouldn’t that hurt the earning potential of his product? Wouldn’t it make the forum look more attractive and with more apparent value to new customers/members if everyone on the site appeared to be happy and fully on-board with Molyneux’s teaching?
And…so…wouldn’t it make sense for the “greater good” if those dissenting people and their comments just, kind of…went away? Even if some of the things they were saying was just a little bit true, too?
More than that, what if you’re doing something potentially risky, such as telling confused teens and 20-year-olds that they’re sad not because they’re growing up and going through something everyone goes through but because their families are corrupt and they should abandon them permanently? (Even though when they’re 30, they’ll realize it really was that first thing)?
Does it make a moral difference if it’s coming from a guy on a personal journey sharing truth as he’s found it versus a guy who stands to make a profit by how he influences them?
And so there it is–does selling truth for money corrupt? Just asking questions…
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