The truth behind Stefan Molyneux's response to the UK Guardian

[QuestEon]

In November 2008, the UK’s Guardian newspaper broke the first story about an FDR-defooed family. Stefan Molyneux wrote a response. This article contains a line-by-line analysis of that response. (Fair warning—this is a lengthy article that offers an in-depth view of FDR.)

Read the article here:  The truth behind Stefan Molyneux's response to the UK Guardian

Read the archive of previous comments on Liberating Minds here:  Liberating Minds--Molyneux's response to the UK Guardian

And please...continue the discussion below!

[Elvis_left_the_building]

If it was true that journalists are natural scepticists, this article wouldn't be biased. I am sure to annihilate half the population of the earth would be benefitial to some people. By saying that it is not hard news, you create arbitrary categories were shitty journalism is not permissible. Either shitty journalism is permissible which means it could be an outlet for the ministry of propaganda or it is not permissible, which means it is flawed to begin with.

[Mike_Lice]

really liked this part in the article.

From Voodoo to Crazy Therapy

I believe if there was any surprise to Molyneux, it was a pleasant surprise. Leaders of therapeutic groups such as FDR commonly tell their victims that they must experience the pain their “therapies” dish out in order to feel better. Molyneux himself once described the pain and depression you feel as your “old limbs reawakening.”

In his review of Crazy Therapies, by Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich, Bob Conrad noted:

“Finally, it is quite amazing that most of the therapists discussed by Singer and Lalich seem oblivious or indifferent to their role in priming and prompting their patients. They condition their patients, prompt them, and in some cases, clearly plant notions in their patient’s minds. They give their patients books to read or videos to watch not to help the patient understand a problem but to prime the patient for belief in some crazy therapy. They plant notions during hypnosis, group sessions, etc., and then these planted notions are “recovered” and offered as validation of their therapeutic techniques and theories. Rather than provide real therapy, these “crazy” therapists indoctrinate patients into their own worldviews. This is surreal pseudoscience at its worst.”

In the book, the authors also implore readers to immediately abandon any therapist who “requires as a condition for therapy that you cut off all relations with your spouse, children, parents and other loved ones.”

Molyneux completely misrepresents his role as a mere “sympathizer” for Tom. As Crazy Therapies suggests, Tom was primed prior to his Molyneux “therapy” session with hundreds of podcasts and forum conversations about evil parents. In none of these do you find Molyneux simply expressing sympathy for “child over the parent”—the subject is always child as victim of the parent. Always. When the already primed Tom showed up for his podcast therapy with Molyneux (as linked above), he was then prompted throughout until the goal of demonizing his mother was reached.

Absolutely no legitimate psychologist would validate the kind of leading, guided “therapy” Molyneux conducts.

[CupOTea]

The part of this article by QuestEon, pointing out how Molyneux manipulates the facts into horrible things about their family, is vitally important.   This has been true of every story I am aware of, about victims of his abuse.  The defooer makes bizarre accusations that they've been convinced are true.  However they are so weird that they actually seem mentally ill.  No connection to reality.  It really isn't mentally ill in the traditional sense.  But a temporary break with reality that is the result of mental and emotional manipulation, that could last for months or years.

It's clear that the things said by the poor victims, are from Molyneux because all the accusations are the same from person to person.  And it is Molyneux's issues.  They are all the same.  Tom had already been prepped by listening to a ton of podcasts, just like the rest of them.  So I am skeptical about how much was true in Tom's original statements, even before Molyneux manipulated, twisted and flat out embellished the meaning of it. 

[Weston Dupree]

It's clear that the things said by the poor victims, are from Molyneux because all the accusations are the same from person to person.  And it is Molyneux's issues.  They are all the same.  Tom had already been prepped by listening to a ton of podcasts, just like the rest of them.  So I am skeptical about how much was true in Tom's original statements, even before Molyneux manipulated, twisted and flat out embellished the meaning of it.

I think you're probably right. Even if you take what Tom said at face value, all I got from it was that his father had a temper. Maybe you could say that his father was an asshole. But nothing Tom said indicates that he was abusive. The type of language Molyneux used was insane and blew the whole thing way out of proportion. 

[CupOTea]

It's clear that the things said by the poor victims, are from Molyneux because all the accusations are the same from person to person.  And it is Molyneux's issues.  They are all the same.  Tom had already been prepped by listening to a ton of podcasts, just like the rest of them.  So I am skeptical about how much was true in Tom's original statements, even before Molyneux manipulated, twisted and flat out embellished the meaning of it.

I think you're probably right. Even if you take what Tom said at face value, all I got from it was that his father had a temper. Maybe you could say that his father was an asshole. But nothing Tom said indicates that he was abusive. The type of language Molyneux used was insane and blew the whole thing way out of proportion.

Yes Weston, and judging from the crazy and exaggerated things that our defooers say, I would really questions if his dad was bad at all.  Maybe he was, or maybe he wasn't.  You really can't tell when they start the Molyneux culty talk.  His other son said that they had a great childhood.  I know everyone's experience is different and we all respond to any particular situation differently.  I totally respect that.  But its a clue that what Tom is staying may not be accurate at all.  It may just be his emotions and perceptions have been destructively influenced by this guy Molyneux.  That's my guess.

[money detonator]

It has been a while since I looked at this one.

The only thing I remember Tom actually saying was that his father yelled at the cat.

This story got embellished each time it got retold by Molyneux.

Molyneux actually told this story again last year, and it turned into something insane where the dad trashed an entire room, breaking windows and throwing projectiles and actually endangering the life of the child.

[Koop]

It has been a while since I looked at this one.

The only thing I remember Tom actually saying was that his father yelled at the cat.

This story got embellished each time it got retold by Molyneux.

Molyneux actually told this story again last year, and it turned into something insane where the dad trashed an entire room, breaking windows and throwing projectiles and actually endangering the life of the child.

Molyneux does this a lot with his callers, the caller seeds him with the tiniest piece of information and Molyneux grows it into a whole narrative, not stopping to check whether what he is saying is accurate - he'll commonly tell people, who he's spoken to for just a few minutes, all about their lives, you'd think in these kinds of conversations it should be the person who actually lived that life to be the one to take the lead.

. . . . . .

Caller: Hi Stef, where I work the people are so stupid and brainwashed, when I try and lecture them about all aspects of their lives and recommend they watch several hundred hours of your brilliant videos they feign disinterest and pretend they would rather not talk to me - whereas on the other-hand I am a profoundly insightful and nuanced thinker who is open to new ideas (when you put them out on video), how can deeply virtuous people like me and you, Stef, connect with these benighted savages ?


Molyneux: So, did your father hit you ?

Caller: No, he was really great . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: So it was your mother who did the beating ?

Caller: No, not at all, my mother did shout a few . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: So shouting is not abuse ?

Caller: I thought you said 'beating', neither of them beat . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: Look, you need to stop bullshitting me, right, you need to bring your heart to this conversation, and not just your brain, you need be vulnerable, you need to be honest, otherwise how can we get to the truth, right, if you close up on me like this, if you refuse to be part of the conversation rather than just a passenger then we'll have to move onto the next caller, right ?

Caller: Sure, sorry Stef, I was just trying to explain that . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: So how did your mother abuse you, what kind of things did she do, was it only this psychological abuse, this 'gas-lighting' ? Did you know nazi interrogators found that in the interrogation of captives shouting was more effective than even holding a gun to someone's head - there have been studies done, shouting does more damage than being shot in the head by a rifle, I'll put a link in the low-bar, so when your mother abused you in this way, what was the reaction of your siblings ? What did your brother do, did he help you, or did he just sit back and watch her attack you ?

Caller: I don't have a brother ? . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: And your sister, did she join your brother in his apathy towards your torture ? Or was she too busy covering herself in make-up so as to fool men into handing over their resources ?

Caller: Sorry, I don't have a brother or a sis- . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: You see this is the problem with families under the state system, they, the elites, arrange affairs so the victim of this kind of physical abuse - and let's not forget that shouting to the human brain is actual physical abuse - are isolated within the family unit so as to enable the attacker, almost always a woman, this is the only way the state can get complete compliance for their moonshot-of-a-Mount-Fuji-Vietcong-bomb-in-the-brain-clusterf*ck-tsumnai of an education system, right ? And where was your father when you were being humiliated and attacked and psychologically eviscerated by this animal who called herself your 'mother', when the woman he married, who he entrusted to look after his children, was beating you, was abusing you, was deliberately and wilfully reducing your IQ, did you know beating children like this reduces actual measurable IQ, this information is freely available, so your mother would have known that's what she was doing, if she didn't know, then why on earth did she decide to have children if she didn't know the first thing about raising children, about brain development or the impact and influences that shape a child's cognitive landscape into adulthood, so she must have know about this stuff, otherwise why is she having children, right, so if she knew, and she still decided to beat you like this she was basically attempting to degrade your brain development . . . THAT'S SICK !! THAT'S f*ckING SICK, are these the behaviours of a sane person ? If a man repeatedly beats his own child, until the child is permanently and irreversibly damaged, would you call this man good ? Right ? I mean that would be insane, how can anyone say a man who beats his own child to the point where that child needs to spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair is a good parent ? Right ?

Molyneux adopts one of his static, rigidly held scowling faces, staring at the camera, wide eyed, angered at the subject of his own invention, he holds this face for near 20 seconds . . .

Caller: . . . . but, I was -

Molyneux immediately cuts him off . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: So you are trapped in a prison, let's be clear here, all children are in prison, right ? Let's ask a simple question, where you able, as a child, to leave the house, to set up your own home and live on your own, to make your own choices about your life ?

Caller: Well, no, but that's because . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: So you were trapped in a prison, where you were being repeatedly tortured by a women who had the specific aim of causing you permanent brain damage, where your sisters and brothers sat by and watched as these attacks unfolded in front of them, as if it were some kind of entertainment ! And it was very very likely that they were also laughing as this all went on, not that you could remember, right, after all you were fighting off your attacker . . . and why do you suppose they might be laughing at all this, what do you think would cause someone to laugh in a situation like this . . . ?

Caller: I didn't have any brothers or sisters, and was never beat- . . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: Conformity, that's why, you speak up, you get beat down, you raise your head above the parapet you get your head blown off by a 40mm shell, so everyone conforms, everyone ignores and hides and excuses the sheer avalanche of World War II scale concentration camp ultra-violence that is right there in front of them, which would you rather have, your head blown off by a live shell, right, or your head not being blown off . . . ?

Caller: I was trying to say that I didn't have any brothers or- . . .

Molyneux [interrupting]: Head blown off by a live shell, or your head not being blown off ? Head blown off by a live shell, or your head not being blown off ? It's simple yes or no question, who wants their head blown off, does a dog want its legs cut off, does a bird want its wings hacked off, does a cat want its legs ripped from its frightened trembling body, how would it walk, how would that cat walk . . . [Molynuex's voice drops to a whisper, his head now bowed] . . . how would it walk . . . [15 second silent pause] . . . [Molynuex stymies his tears, gazing off-camera, as if looking wistfully at a painting of a sad cat's face, then his voice perks up, he turns to the camera with a broad smile] . . . . . . "has that been any help at all ? Ok Mike, can we have the next caller".

[Rafaman]

Molyneux: "has that been any help at all ? Ok Mike, can we have the next caller".

I can never wrap my head around this. After verbally crapping all over a caller’s life choices, family members and any thought that deviates from his own; Moly still WANTS to be praised. It is totally inappropriate for him to yank those final drops of narcissistic supply from the caller. I view it as unempathetic and selfish.

Why people subject themselves to these types of conversations is beyond me. Incredulously, many callers will actually encourage Moly’s condescending lectures. Callers will say “I know I need this” or “I need someone to tell me straight up”. The callers want to dressed down by Moly because in some way this is helpful. 

[mikef]

Why people subject themselves to these types of conversations is beyond me. Incredulously, many callers will actually encourage Moly’s condescending lectures. Callers will say “I know I need this” or “I need someone to tell me straight up”. The callers want to dressed down by Moly because in some way this is helpful.

I'm not surprised.  I've seen it with other narcissists.   Broadly it's called gaslighting, making other people think that something is wrong with them and having the narcissist perceived as being almost perfect.  I knew someone  under the thrall of a narcissist who was going to psychiatrists and seeking out behaviour modification to fix themselves.     

[QuestEon]

When Tom was 17, he and his then-girlfriend loved to get together and complain about their "awful" parents, just like millions of other kids their age.

It's hard to tell how the story would have turned out without the intervention of FDR. Perhaps, like millions of other teenagers past and present, they would have simply continued the long and difficult process of becoming independent adults and their relationship with their parents would have evolved as well.

Instead, Tom and his girlfriend began listening to podcasts by a man who told them every single thing that was wrong in their lives was because their parents were evil. One of Tom's first posts on FDR was titled "Confirming the evil of my parents." I always thought that was sad and amusing--as if he had by then wholly subordinated his own critical faculties and was looking to FDR to make the judgements about his family. He certainly wouldn't be the first minor to be completely dazzled by a fast-talking adult.

Tom and his girlfriend read "On Truth" and believed every claim that their childhoods were prisons. Even the father yelling at the annoying family cat, as Molyneux would later "prove," was somehow clear evidence of Tom's endless abuse. 

Tom called Molyneux for advice and couldn't believe that Molyneux was taking a personal interest in the struggles of a 17-year-old kid. He told his mother about this professional philosopher he had talked to. This man had actually published books. And he was talking to Tom! It was almost too much to comprehend. Tom didn't understand that Molyneux was interested in something more than helping him. He was making podcasts for his own self-aggrandizement and profit. If Tom never called again, Molyneux would not have given it a second thought.

And Tom was also too naive to understand the philosopher had never been able to get any publisher interested in any of his work and that all his books were self-published.

Technically, Tom was 18 when he defooed but a minor when Molyneux targeted him. The girlfriend defooed as well. I'm not sure how old she was at the time. Later, she and Tom broke up and she began dating another inner circle member. Tom began associating with other FDR members in the UK.

The philosopher with his books and his bold, emotional podcasts, was too much of a coward to admit that he had encouraged Tom to defoo. In the glaring light of public exposure, he weaseled away like a shady used-car salesman caught red-handed rather than stand up for his beliefs. Just the same as he would later do on the Joe Rogan show.

To the best of my knowledge, the girlfriend, her boyfriend, and most (all?) of Tom's associates from that time have since left FDR and today denounce both it and Molyneux. Tom, however, still apparently refuses all contact with his family, including parents and siblings. (From the very start, defoo hasn't been about only parents. Defoo means everybody.)

It's hard to calculate in this one isolated story how much damage was caused by "the salvation of philosophy." And anyone who thinks Molyneux has changed one iota in his beliefs since then is very mistaken.

I don't know what happened to the annoying family cat.

[Koop]

I can never wrap my head around this. After verbally crapping all over a caller’s life choices, family members and any thought that deviates from his own; Moly still WANTS to be praised.

There was one fairly recent call-in show, I think in the last 6 months or so, where Molyneux, in response to a question (a question he'd typically marched the caller towards), had launched into one of his longwinded ornamental tangents, clearly arousing himself with his own magnificence and the sound of his vocal chords rattling out some ridiculous unfolding fantasy, and when finished, when he felt he'd delivered the money shot, satisfied himself that, yet again, he'd gifted the world more of his profoundly deep wisdom, the caller - quite reasonably - tried to get the conversation back on track, I forget his response, but it was something mildly fawning (as with the majority of callers) along the lines of 'Oh, yeah, that's true/great Stef, so as I was saying . . . ' - but Molyneux was aghast, he'd just given the world another solid gold intellectual treasure, and all he was getting was 'that's true/great Stef', he interrupted the guy with something along the lines of: "Wait . . . wait . . . I give you that, I do a speech like that, and all you have to say is 'that's true/great Stef' ?", he was visiably offended ! What on earth was he expecting (well, demanding), that the caller start wildly clapping though his tears of joy, barely able to hold himself together such was the power and grace and virtue of Molyneux's words ?

I honestly laughed out loud at Molyneux's response.

narcissistic supply

Yup!

[Rafaman]

I can never wrap my head around this. After verbally crapping all over a caller’s life choices, family members and any thought that deviates from his own; Moly still WANTS to be praised.

There was one fairly recent call-in show, I think in the last 6 months or so, where Molyneux, in response to a question (a question he'd typically marched the caller towards), had launched into one of his longwinded ornamental tangents, clearly arousing himself with his own magnificence and the sound of his vocal chords rattling out some ridiculous unfolding fantasy, and when finished, when he felt he'd delivered the money shot, satisfied himself that, yet again, he'd gifted the world more of his profoundly deep wisdom, the caller - quite reasonably - tried to get the conversation back on track, I forget his response, but it was something mildly fawning (as with the majority of callers) along the lines of 'Oh, yeah, that's true/great Stef, so as I was saying . . . ' - but Molyneux was aghast, he'd just given the world another solid gold intellectual treasure, and all he was getting was 'that's true/great Stef', he interrupted the guy with something along the lines of: "Wait . . . wait . . . I give you that, I do a speech like that, and all you have to say is 'that's true/great Stef' ?", he was visiably offended ! What on earth was he expecting (well, demanding), that the caller start wildly clapping though his tears of joy, barely able to hold himself together such was the power and grace and virtue of Molyneux's words ?

I honestly laughed out loud at Molyneux's response.

narcissistic supply

Yup!

I would love to listen to that certain podcast. Anyone know the episode number?

[Koop]

I would love to listen to that certain podcast. Anyone know the episode number?

I'll try and track it down - but with the obvious caveat that blights all critiques that rely on quoting the great man, having to dig through hundreds of hours of gruelling inanity, but I'll give it a go, I have some memories of roughly where it might be, that it was with Molynuex on camera (rather than a still image, FDR logo), a male caller, perhaps hispanic . . . . also I know (perhaps the best and only tool in these situations) what it was not about, so I can skip 'why women are f*cking bastards except for my wife and child', 'why police should kill more black people' and 'DROs are definitely not policemen / prison guards'.