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Yaron's Rules for Life -- Authenticity??? | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1: A lot of them, fus of edom, last cells and
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Speaker 1: an individual lots. This is the show, all right, everybody,
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Speaker 1: welcome to one book show on this Saturday, May sixteenth,
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Speaker 1: though everybody is having a uh a phenomenal weekend beginning
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Speaker 1: of a weekend. All right. So today I want to
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Speaker 1: go back. I want to address a topic that is
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Speaker 1: uh kind of related to the one Wolves for Life
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Speaker 1: series of talks that and and shows that I did
0:52
Speaker 1: a while ago. Some of you have been climbing for
0:54
Speaker 1: more Yourn's Rules for Life. So here who you are
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Speaker 1: today's day. If you'd like more of these, then let's
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Speaker 1: make sure we get the kind of use to justify it.
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Speaker 1: And of course don't forget the financial support, don't forget
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Speaker 1: to ask questions and all right, So I came across
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Speaker 1: this article well, and that cave across showed up on
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Speaker 1: my email because I'm a subscriber to The Dispatch, and
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Speaker 1: this is an article by Jonah Goldberg, one of the
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Speaker 1: writers for the Dispatch, that I found really interesting and
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Speaker 1: it makes some as often the case with Jonah Goldberg
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Speaker 1: makes a lot of really really good points, and the
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Speaker 1: really really good points almost always in critique of some
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Speaker 1: cultural phenomena out there, and it makes deep significant mistakes error,
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Speaker 1: well mistakes, just you know error. It's the same errors
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Speaker 1: that he always makes, or very similar errors that he
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Speaker 1: always makes in terms of how to deal with them.
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Speaker 1: That is, they're positive, the negative is good, the attack
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Speaker 1: is good. The positive worse than weak destructive, and you
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Speaker 1: can understand the prevalence of the negative given given how
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Speaker 1: destructive the positive that is suggested is. So we're gonna
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Speaker 1: talk today about authenticity. Authenticity. Now, it's one of those
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Speaker 1: words that is everyway right. Yeah, I mean, how many
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Speaker 1: times are you being told? It's like the cool word
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Speaker 1: of the of the error, to be authentic, you know,
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Speaker 1: to be authentic. It's really crucial to be authentic. What
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Speaker 1: does that mean? You know? You know, live your truth,
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Speaker 1: Live your truth. You're told be real, be real, be
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Speaker 1: true to yourself. You'll get celebrities and self help books
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Speaker 1: and self help gurus and commencements, speak and therapists and
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Speaker 1: pretty much everybody, professors, administrators, influencers, politicians, corporate leaders. You know,
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Speaker 1: be authentic, be real, be true to yourself, follow your passion,
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Speaker 1: be true to what you feel. And it's repeated over
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Speaker 1: and over and over again. In the world in which
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Speaker 1: we live. It is the number one form of advice
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Speaker 1: we get. I mean, Jonah Goldbergen writing this article says
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Speaker 1: that you know he spent he spent I don't know
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Speaker 1: twenty minutes. I guess not that much. You know, endless
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Speaker 1: stream of quotes about authenticity. He went to Goodreads and
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Speaker 1: he got it. Here's one. Confidence is knowing who you
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Speaker 1: are and not changing it a bit because of somebody's
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Speaker 1: version of reality is not your reality. Now here's the
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Speaker 1: thing about a quote like that. Wait, there's something appealing
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Speaker 1: about that, and then there's something that's kind of off
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Speaker 1: about that, and there's something right, And there's clearly something
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Speaker 1: wrong about that, but it sounds inspirational, right. That is
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Speaker 1: by Shannon Adlaine. You know, in inspirational author Mandy Hall
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Speaker 1: Hail Hail advisors consider the fact that maybe, just maybe
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Speaker 1: beauty and worth unfound in the makeup bottle or the
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Speaker 1: sell on fresh his style or a fabulous outfit. Maybe
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Speaker 1: I'll sparkle comes from some way deep inside, deeper inside,
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Speaker 1: some way so pure and authentic and real. It doesn't
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Speaker 1: need gloss or polish or glitter or shine. Again, they're
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Speaker 1: kind of a package deal. Okay, there's something true about you,
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Speaker 1: know that, But there's a what does it mean to
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Speaker 1: say you know something so pure and authentic and real
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Speaker 1: deep inside you? Does everybody have it? Everybody beautiful inside?
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Speaker 1: Does everybody shine? Or another one You'll learn as you
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Speaker 1: get older. The rules are made to be broken, break
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Speaker 1: the walls. Be bold enough to live on your terms
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Speaker 1: and never ever apologize for it. Okay, I get that.
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Speaker 1: That's kind of you know, good advice, right, Go against
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Speaker 1: the grain, Okay, refuse to conform, Take the road less
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Speaker 1: traveled instead of the well worn path, Laugh in the
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Speaker 1: face of adversity, and leap before you look. Leap before
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Speaker 1: you look, dance as though everybody is watching, march to
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Speaker 1: the beat of your own drummer, and stubbornly refuse to
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Speaker 1: fit in. Okay again, something you know? Maybe? Okay, there
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Speaker 1: you know? You know, live life in your own terms.
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Speaker 1: But what should those terms be? And does that mean
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Speaker 1: to always take the road less traveled? What if the
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Speaker 1: more travel there is better? In this one instance? Should
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Speaker 1: you always leap before you look? Should you ever leap
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Speaker 1: before you look? What is looking entail? Or A lot
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Speaker 1: of conflict you have in your life exists because you're
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Speaker 1: living in alignment. You need not be being you're not
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Speaker 1: being true to yourself. So what we need is being
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Speaker 1: true to yourself. We have to dare to be ourselves.
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Speaker 1: However frightening a strange that self may prove to be. Really,
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Speaker 1: if yourself is fightening strange, you should accept it, embrace it,
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Speaker 1: and just live it. So authenticity, this idea of being
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Speaker 1: true to self is everywhere everywhere in culture today. You know,
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Speaker 1: authenticity doesn't mean integrity. We'll talk more about what integuity
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Speaker 1: actually means. It doesn't even mean honesty, which would be
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Speaker 1: also you know, be truth truth. Yeah, it doesn't mean.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that. It doesn't certainly mean loyalty to
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Speaker 1: rational principles kind of which is what Ran would views integrity.
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Speaker 1: What does it mean then, It doesn't mean that your words, actions, values,
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Speaker 1: convictions are integrated around irrational principle, around reality, around facts. No,
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Speaker 1: what it almost always means is and what the whole
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Speaker 1: authenticity movement is really about. And the whole you know,
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Speaker 1: in the danger of saying to people, follow your passions,
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Speaker 1: pursue your passions, figure out what your passions are, and
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Speaker 1: go for them. What it usually means is follow you
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Speaker 1: feelings follow your emotions. Authenticity, the authenticity movement, the authenticity
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Speaker 1: claim ninety plus percent of the time just means emotionalism.
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Speaker 1: I feel this, Therefore it is me. You don't. It's
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Speaker 1: not about choosing who you are. It's not by making
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Speaker 1: who you are. It's not by creating who you are.
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Speaker 1: It's just it's I feel this, if it's me, if
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Speaker 1: it's valid, it's valid because it's me. And if I
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Speaker 1: don't accept it, you're repressing me, oppressing me and validating me,
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Speaker 1: denying my truth. This is pure subjectivism. This is whim
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Speaker 1: worshiping presented as self help and repy. And you know
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Speaker 1: a lot of what Jonna gold Book writes about this,
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Speaker 1: it is right. He gets a lot of the critique, right.
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Speaker 1: Uh you know he uh, he did the research. He
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Speaker 1: thumbed through all these all these quotations and everything. He
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Speaker 1: you know Goldberg can write. So you know this is
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Speaker 1: this is how we described it. It says an exercise
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Speaker 1: vording on the set of mesochistic So authenticity or this,
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Speaker 1: this claim to authenticity, it is is a claim to emotionalism.
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Speaker 1: The validity above around my emotions, aroun my feelings above
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Speaker 1: all else, above all else, here's what is. Jonah Goldberg
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Speaker 1: describes kind of the phenomena out basis. I love the
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Speaker 1: way he uses uses words. American culture sits atop a
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Speaker 1: vast Permian basin of cliches and aphorisms about being true
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Speaker 1: to yourself. This is right. It's all cliches, cliches about authenticity.
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Speaker 1: Cultures drenched in this stuff, and nobody asks what does
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Speaker 1: it actually mean? What's the substance? Is this good? Advice?
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Speaker 1: Is this right? What we what are we achieving? Here?
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Speaker 1: So again all about emotionalism. Here's again Jonah Goldberg. He
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Speaker 1: says authenticity is laziness because it requires nothing more than
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Speaker 1: grabbing the newest feeling off your own personal shelf of
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Speaker 1: emotions and passions. And that's exactly right. It means looking inside,
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Speaker 1: finding a feeling, attaching mavel significance to it, mavel in
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Speaker 1: the sense of this is right, this is good, this
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Speaker 1: is what I should do with my life, and then
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Speaker 1: doing it, demanding others accept it just whatever happens to be.
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Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Emotions are our tools of cognition.
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Speaker 1: The emotions do not tell you what is true. They
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Speaker 1: do not tell you if something is good. You might
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Speaker 1: discover what you're passionate about, But that is not the
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Speaker 1: same as discovering that that passion is good for you,
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Speaker 1: that that passion will actually lead you to leave live
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Speaker 1: a successful, prosperous life of achievement. Emotions don't tell you
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Speaker 1: what your life requires, the consequences. The automatic response is
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Speaker 1: based on your values and based on your premises, and
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Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they're based on rational values and premises
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Speaker 1: that you hold and believe in and explicit and have
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Speaker 1: validated for yourself, and sometimes then not premises that you
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Speaker 1: might never have examined, values that you might actually consciously reject,
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Speaker 1: all values that might actually be in contradiction with what
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Speaker 1: your life requires. So the fact that you feel something
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Speaker 1: strongly tells you nothing about whether you are right, whether
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Speaker 1: it's good. The fact that you sincerely want something, that
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Speaker 1: you're passionate about something tells you nothing about the whether
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Speaker 1: you should pursue it, whether it is good for you.
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Speaker 1: The fact that something feels authentic tells you nothing about
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Speaker 1: whether it is more. Now, as you integrate your values,
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Speaker 1: as you think about them, as you validate your premises,
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Speaker 1: hopefully you gain greater and greater alignment. But that alignment
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Speaker 1: is not guaranteed, particularly when you're starting out in life,
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Speaker 1: particularly when you're young, particularly when you have not codified
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Speaker 1: your philosophy properly or not codified it at all, when
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Speaker 1: you haven't thought it through, when you haven't integrated it.
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Speaker 1: The integration of your philosophy into your life, of your
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Speaker 1: values into your life requires work, real work. It requires introspection,
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Speaker 1: It requires real analysis, integration. So you know, be true
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Speaker 1: to yourself at some point. One hope that is the achievement,
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Speaker 1: because the achievement is that you created a self that
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Speaker 1: you want to be true to. I mean how it work.
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Speaker 1: Is true to himself. But he knows what that means.
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Speaker 1: He knows what his self is. He has famed, created,
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Speaker 1: chosen a particular self by choosing his values, by rationally
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Speaker 1: choosing his values, by using reason not emotion, to the
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Speaker 1: side what is good for his life, taking into account
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Speaker 1: what he's passionate about and what's important to him and
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Speaker 1: what he feels good about, but not accepting it automatically.
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Speaker 1: So before you can be true to yourself, you have
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Speaker 1: to make sense. You have to make sure that yourself
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Speaker 1: in a sense is built on rational values, that yourself
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Speaker 1: is your thinking self, your chosen values, the character you
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Speaker 1: have earned, the character you have built, you have created,
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Speaker 1: the soul you have created. So you know, but that's
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Speaker 1: not the advice you get out there. Rationality doesn't play
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Speaker 1: a role. Reason doesn't play a role good for you
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Speaker 1: in a sense of values, life affirming doesn't play a role.
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Speaker 1: You're just supposed to be true to whatever you happen
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Speaker 1: to be, whatever happened you happen to be created, whether
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Speaker 1: you did so consciously or not, whatever your values happened
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Speaker 1: to be. And that is dangerous, particularly for somebody young.
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Speaker 1: Are you being true to your resentments, to your envy,
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Speaker 1: to your anger, to your insecurity, to your desire for attention,
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Speaker 1: to your lust for power, to your tribal hatred? I
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Speaker 1: mean all of those. All of those are possibilities. And
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Speaker 1: it's not that one should if one holds them. It's
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Speaker 1: not that one should ignore that. It's not that one
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Speaker 1: should evade that. One should recognize. Oh wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: I have these irrational resentments, I have these moments of envy.
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Speaker 1: What do I do about that? How do I think
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Speaker 1: about that? What is the cause of that? Where does
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Speaker 1: that come from? How do I how do I fix it?
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Speaker 1: How do I turn myself into the kind of person
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Speaker 1: I want to be where being myself is not embracing
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Speaker 1: resentment and envy and anger and insecurity. That's the real challenge,
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Speaker 1: that's the real work. But that's the one thing that
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Speaker 1: people talking about authenticity don't want you to answer. I mean, authenticity, really,
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Speaker 1: if it's going to be is recognize who you are,
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Speaker 1: Recognize the good and the bad within you, and then
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Speaker 1: fix the bad, deal with the bad as you know.
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Speaker 1: Jonah Goldberg asks, what if you have a deceitful jackass,
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Speaker 1: should you still be true to yourself? What if you're
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Speaker 1: allowed what if you're a thug, What if you're a racist,
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Speaker 1: What if you're a rapist, What if you're a terrorist,
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Speaker 1: If you want to be a dictator, if you're a
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Speaker 1: Hamas barbarian, should you be true to yourself? And should
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Speaker 1: we all commend you for being true to yourself or
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Speaker 1: should you challenge the evil premises that are built into that.
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Speaker 1: You've got to recognize who you are. I don't think
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Speaker 1: you have to accept who you are, because you've got
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Speaker 1: to recognize who you are self acceptance. If you've got
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Speaker 1: you know, negative values, if you've got anti life values,
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Speaker 1: recognizing that is important. Accepting it now, rejecting it and
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Speaker 1: working to undo it is what is necessary. I mean, criminal, rapists, murderers,
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Speaker 1: terrorists can all be authentic. Question is not whether you're
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Speaker 1: true to yourself in the sense of their combination of
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Speaker 1: emotions and values and stuff that you have. The issue
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Speaker 1: is whether you are worthy, whether you are good, whether
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Speaker 1: you're working to make yourself the best that you can be,
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Speaker 1: whether you're on a path to self improvement. And that
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Speaker 1: again requires honesty about yourself. It requires introspection. It requires
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Speaker 1: knowing yourself, but then not just accepting it as a
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Speaker 1: fitter complete, but recognizing the good and they're not so good,
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Speaker 1: and working on they're not so good to make it
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Speaker 1: work good and so and for all of that in
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Speaker 1: order to work on, to identify what's good and what's not,
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Speaker 1: in order to be able to work on what's not.
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Speaker 1: In order to make it good, you need a standard.
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Speaker 1: You need a standard, and the standard can be what
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Speaker 1: you feel like. It can be your emotion. It cannot
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Speaker 1: be sincerity, although honesty is required, it cannot be how
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Speaker 1: intensely you feel something. The standard has to be reality.
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Speaker 1: It has to be grasped by reason. It has to
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Speaker 1: be life. I mean, a lot of what the authenticity
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Speaker 1: movement is pushing is what's called anti conformity. We had
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Speaker 1: that quote earlier on about never conform you know, leap
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Speaker 1: before you look or whatever. In other words, follow your emotions,
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Speaker 1: dealt with reasons, deal with eyesight, deal with with information,
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Speaker 1: to help with the evidence of our senses. Just make
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Speaker 1: your wishes your commands. Primacy of consciousness. So the modern
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Speaker 1: cultus of authenticity, or the modern phenomena of authenticity that
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Speaker 1: is constantly being preached by self help and everybody else
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Speaker 1: out there in the culture. Once you to reject conformity,
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Speaker 1: to be anti conformists. But as I Ran points out
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Speaker 1: in the Phone Today, for example, to be anti conformist
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Speaker 1: is to be conformist. This is Jonah Goldberg. In the article,
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Speaker 1: he says, the idea of define conformity by being authentically
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Speaker 1: you is one of the defining features of intellectual, psychological,
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Speaker 1: and even spiritual conformity in modern life. In other words,
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Speaker 1: the conforming thing to do today is to follow your emotions,
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Speaker 1: is to be authentically you. Be rebellious in this particular way.
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Speaker 1: Here's an example that Jonah gives the tech billionaire who
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Speaker 1: wears a hoodie and sneakers to seem authentic is just
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Speaker 1: wearing the uniform of the authentically of the authentically industrial complex.
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Speaker 1: The hoodie is a costume, the sneakers a costume. The
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Speaker 1: casual language is a costume. The anti establish and pose
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Speaker 1: is a costume. And they all start looking the same
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Speaker 1: because they're all conforming to the anti conformists. They're anti Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean you see this in at universities. I mean,
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Speaker 1: everybody is radical because everybody's anti bourgeois. But everybody is
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Speaker 1: anti bourgeois. What's so radical about that? You know, everybody
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Speaker 1: hates capitalism. There's nothing there's nothing authentic about that. There's
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Speaker 1: nothing anti conformist about that. Indeed, the most conformist thing
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Speaker 1: you could do today is where a kafa and and
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Speaker 1: and and have a saying from the river to the sea.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't require thought understanding. It just requires following emotions,
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Speaker 1: emotions that are be shaped by the conclusions that your
24:15
Speaker 1: professors are fed into you and fed into a whole
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Speaker 1: class of people all at once. To actually be not
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Speaker 1: anti conformist, but to actually be an individualist, requires something
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Speaker 1: very different. What is it require? Doesn't require being anti conformist.
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Speaker 1: It requires rejecting the whole standard of others. It requires
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Speaker 1: independent thinking. To be an individualist is to think independently.
24:57
Speaker 1: To be an individualist is to think for oneself, think
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Speaker 1: use one mind. The conformist and the anti conformist who
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Speaker 1: is anti conformist unquote principle just all being secondhanded. They
25:17
Speaker 1: don't live by their own judgment. They live by some
25:20
Speaker 1: standard that's floating out there in the world that they
25:23
Speaker 1: have embraced, or they are rejecting wholeheartedly without thinking about
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Speaker 1: it one way or the other. The conformists and anti
25:33
Speaker 1: conformists don't look at reality and think. They live through
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Speaker 1: the eyes of others. They don't ask the question, and
25:42
Speaker 1: this is the question that you must ask yourself to
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Speaker 1: be a true individualist. The question is what is true?
25:52
Speaker 1: They ask how am I being perceived? Am I seen
25:57
Speaker 1: as a rebellions? Am I seen as am I seen
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Speaker 1: as a g am I seen as authentic? So it's
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Speaker 1: all about other people. It's all about their approval. It's
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Speaker 1: all about your own emotions. But your emotions have to
26:23
Speaker 1: conform to the rebellious, the rebellion of the moment. So
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Speaker 1: much of what is positioned as authenticity today is completely fake.
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Speaker 1: It's not an expression of an independent mind, an independent self,
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Speaker 1: and an independent thinker. It's it's performance of the appearance
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Speaker 1: of independence for some kind of social something years again,
27:07
Speaker 1: Joan a Book, Gold Book, This is a nice phrase.
27:09
Speaker 1: I like Jonah gold Books writing, so I'm quoting him.
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Speaker 1: How much prep time is required to look unconcerned with
27:15
Speaker 1: how you look? How much prep time is required to
27:20
Speaker 1: look unconcerned with how you look? And this is the
27:29
Speaker 1: culture we live in. We live in the culture where
27:31
Speaker 1: we're told to feel, not think, be authentic, be nonconformists,
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Speaker 1: but fit in. It's people desperately trying to present things
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Speaker 1: as if it's themselves. But it's all secondhanded, it's all others,
27:58
Speaker 1: it's all other oriented, and it's all emotion. People are guided.
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Speaker 1: The whole authenticity movement is guided by feelings, feelings, your
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Speaker 1: own feelings and the feelings you want to evoke in
28:18
Speaker 1: other people. What most of them want is admiration. Oh look,
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Speaker 1: how authentic I am. They they want status. They want
28:30
Speaker 1: to seem deep or rebellious, or oppressed or courageous. But
28:36
Speaker 1: it's all about being seen, not about actually being There's
28:42
Speaker 1: no independence there. There is complete dependence of the other.
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Speaker 1: I mean, what does independence actually mean. It means thinking
28:50
Speaker 1: for yourself. I mean judging yourself, not based on what
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Speaker 1: others think, but based on your own evaluation. It means
29:03
Speaker 1: not surrending your mind to your emotions, not servending your
29:07
Speaker 1: mind to the mob. Not a leftist mob, not a
29:12
Speaker 1: rightist mob, not a conservative mob, not a maga mob,
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Speaker 1: not a religious mob, not a national mob, not an
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Speaker 1: anti capitalist mob, not the authenticity mob. No, it's about
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Speaker 1: It's about judging yourself, evaluating yourself, making sure your values
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Speaker 1: are truly yours, and that they are leading to that
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Speaker 1: they are consistent with life, happiness and a system of
29:45
Speaker 1: Mael virtue standard. The standard is Maral virtue, objective Maral virtue.
29:57
Speaker 1: Here's Jonah Goldberg about being transgressive being anti He says,
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Speaker 1: the problem with transgressive, transgressive ness for its own sake
30:12
Speaker 1: is like the problem with heroin. One needs an evergraded
30:15
Speaker 1: dose just to get the same high. And this is
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Speaker 1: what happens with the constant rebellions. It's cosplay, it's pretend,
30:34
Speaker 1: it's fake. And you can see this with the campus,
30:40
Speaker 1: with the campus revolutionaries, so called revolutionaries. You know they're
30:44
Speaker 1: putting on an act. But this is this is really dangerous.
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Speaker 1: This is really dangerous and can easily become violent feelings.
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Speaker 1: The standard then rage anger is like proof that something
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Speaker 1: needs to be done. Resentment requires so called justice, suffering oppression,
31:18
Speaker 1: perceived oppression becomes some kind of moral authority, and actually
31:24
Speaker 1: violence then becomes authenticity. This is how October seventh can
31:31
Speaker 1: be justified. House the News is being authentic. They were
31:34
Speaker 1: just you know, this is what happened when you oppress
31:36
Speaker 1: them all these years. This is just them expressing their
31:40
Speaker 1: feelings about being oppressed. When you know, Maggionia, whatever his
31:49
Speaker 1: name is, he shoots the CEO of United Healthcare. This
31:56
Speaker 1: is just just a manifestation of the anger that we
32:00
Speaker 1: all feel towards in shows companies. This is justice, This
32:05
Speaker 1: is us just being true to ourselves. But this is
32:21
Speaker 1: of course, so this is where Jonah Goldberg is good,
32:26
Speaker 1: right attacking and ridiculing and you know, all this authenticity
32:32
Speaker 1: and emotionalism and orientation towards emotion, although he doesn't quite
32:37
Speaker 1: identify it that way. The anti conformist conformists. Yeah, he's
32:44
Speaker 1: good at identifying that and making fun of him. But
32:50
Speaker 1: what does he see as the alternative. I mean, you
32:54
Speaker 1: can't see reason is the alternative. That's not his orientation.
33:00
Speaker 1: And he would argue reason probably is subjective, an individualistic.
33:09
Speaker 1: He can't see, you know, a rational moral code as
33:19
Speaker 1: kind of the standard of, if you will, true authenticity,
33:24
Speaker 1: because he doesn't believe in one. So while he sees
33:33
Speaker 1: being true to yourself as a bundle of feelings, emotions,
33:42
Speaker 1: and he sees that you need some kind of moral
33:45
Speaker 1: foundation to ground all this, where does he turn to
33:50
Speaker 1: for morality? Where does he turn to for an alternative? Well,
33:58
Speaker 1: not to reason, not a rationality, but of course to
34:02
Speaker 1: the only place he can turn to. Sadly, his mind
34:07
Speaker 1: will allow him to turn to, and that is towards Christianity.
34:14
Speaker 1: So for example, he writes, quote, say what you will
34:19
Speaker 1: about the old Christian dogmatists. They understood that being true
34:23
Speaker 1: to yourself was the way of sin. But what does
34:27
Speaker 1: that mean? Why as being true to yourself the way
34:29
Speaker 1: of sin because it was self interested, because they rejected
34:43
Speaker 1: you as the standard. Your life is the standard. So
34:47
Speaker 1: I mean there's a sense which is the way to
34:49
Speaker 1: sin to the extent that it is emotionalism. But that's
34:52
Speaker 1: not what they're talking about because what is ultimately Christian dogmatism.
34:55
Speaker 1: We'll get to that. No, they're offended by it because
35:04
Speaker 1: you are the standard. You your values, your passions, your life.
35:10
Speaker 1: That's what offends the Christian. But here's the thing. The
35:15
Speaker 1: problem with authenticity is its emotionalism. But the opposite of
35:19
Speaker 1: emotionalism is not religion. The problem with the authenticity is
35:27
Speaker 1: lack of any kind of moral standard. But there alternative
35:35
Speaker 1: is not a Christian model standard that depreciates the self.
35:45
Speaker 1: The problem with authenticity is that it doesn't recognize that
35:57
Speaker 1: there is a right a good soul and a bad soul,
36:01
Speaker 1: what constructed soul and a badly constructed soul. It doesn't
36:05
Speaker 1: even talk about constructing. It just talks about accepting. But
36:12
Speaker 1: isn't that what Christianity also really teaches us? I mean,
36:16
Speaker 1: isn't ultimately religion just emotionalism? How do they know the
36:22
Speaker 1: truths of the Bible? I mean, just because it's dogma
36:27
Speaker 1: and they have to believe it. But isn't that ultimately
36:30
Speaker 1: just emotion? Faith? Isn't faith just an emotion? What else
36:35
Speaker 1: is there? There is no revelation. Religion can't be the answer,
36:41
Speaker 1: the rational answer to emotionalism because religion just replaces one
36:49
Speaker 1: non rational authority your emotion with a no non rational
36:52
Speaker 1: authority faith, and that faith comes from where ultimately it's
36:57
Speaker 1: grounded in emotion. I mean one the authenticity move and
37:04
Speaker 1: focus on the culture and society and what they tell you,
37:09
Speaker 1: and the other focuses on what God tells you. But
37:13
Speaker 1: both the arbitrary I mean Goldbog would say, yeah, but
37:20
Speaker 1: one's being tested by tradition in the past. Tradition in
37:25
Speaker 1: the past. The past should not be a guide to
37:28
Speaker 1: the future. Of the past. We should learn from the past.
37:31
Speaker 1: But the past is not the standard. Tradition is not
37:34
Speaker 1: the standard. I mean, the tradition of religion is pretty
37:39
Speaker 1: blood soaked. The standard should be reason and rationality. What
37:49
Speaker 1: is truly good? It should be a rational morality. What
37:55
Speaker 1: should guide us is rational virtues and rational values in
38:01
Speaker 1: that they promote your life and that you can see
38:05
Speaker 1: how they promote your life. Now, it's true that Christianity
38:09
Speaker 1: understands that raw emotions, raw impulses are dangerous or can
38:14
Speaker 1: be dangerous, But what do they offer in instead religion?
38:22
Speaker 1: Religious passion? Religion understands that human beings need moral guidance.
38:30
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right, which the authenticity crowd you know just
38:37
Speaker 1: assumes a way. It understands that emotions, desires can lead
38:44
Speaker 1: people into destructive behaviors, But what are the behaviors Christianity demands?
38:51
Speaker 1: Are they not destructive? Is the turning off of your
38:55
Speaker 1: mind and your brain not destructive? Doesn't Christianity often your
39:02
Speaker 1: own self interest, your own oathly happiness as suspect or
39:09
Speaker 1: as negative completely and treats with suspicion, your ambition, your pride.
39:19
Speaker 1: So Christianity is just another It's an alternative with authenticity
39:24
Speaker 1: that is equally disastrous, equally destructive. So the question, the
39:39
Speaker 1: question you have to ask is the question you have
39:44
Speaker 1: to focus on instead of authenticity, is the issue of integrity. So,
39:54
Speaker 1: just in terms of the religion you know, your life
40:00
Speaker 1: does not acquire does not acquire wim worshiping. But it
40:04
Speaker 1: does not acquire self denial either. It requires thinking, It
40:11
Speaker 1: requires virtue. You need to think. You need to identify fact.
40:17
Speaker 1: You need to choose values within the context of your life.
40:21
Speaker 1: You need to form principles by which you can live.
40:24
Speaker 1: You need to build a character, build a soul. You
40:28
Speaker 1: need to integrate your emotions and your rational convictions. You
40:31
Speaker 1: can't just take them as given and that's it. You
40:35
Speaker 1: have to actively be engaged. Here's here's Greenberg Goldberg again,
40:54
Speaker 1: but this is this is so bad, But this is
40:58
Speaker 1: the kind of idea that you know. To be a
41:00
Speaker 1: good person, you have to first behave like a good person,
41:03
Speaker 1: and you'll become a good person right through your behavior.
41:07
Speaker 1: Quote in order to be a good person, one must
41:10
Speaker 1: first try to seem like a good person. Really, no,
41:20
Speaker 1: to be a good person, one must first understand what
41:22
Speaker 1: that means, what that is, what good means, and then
41:30
Speaker 1: one must live that goodness. And you know imperfectly as
41:36
Speaker 1: it may be as you're trying to navigate and figure
41:40
Speaker 1: out what it is and how to live. Not obvious,
41:44
Speaker 1: particularly when you're young. But faking it won't make it.
41:52
Speaker 1: You see, for Goldberg, morality is dogma. It's something that
42:00
Speaker 1: is dictated from above. It's something that's imposed on you. You're
42:05
Speaker 1: never gonna understand it, you're never gonna be able to
42:08
Speaker 1: reason it. So you just have to accept it and
42:12
Speaker 1: start living it. And with living as you live it,
42:16
Speaker 1: you will integrate the dogma into your life and it'll
42:20
Speaker 1: become part of you. But it's not about achieving happiness.
42:23
Speaker 1: It's not about having, you know, understanding it and fully
42:27
Speaker 1: integrating it into your soul, because you're not responsible for that,
42:31
Speaker 1: and you can never do that because it's being imposed
42:35
Speaker 1: on you. There's no why, there's no reason. But morality
42:43
Speaker 1: is not dogma, rally is meaningless if it's not understood.
42:49
Speaker 1: To be a good person, one must understands what goodness
42:52
Speaker 1: means and what it means to be a good person
42:55
Speaker 1: and learn and act based on it, learning what it
43:01
Speaker 1: actually involves. Now, we teach children, and often, you know,
43:13
Speaker 1: we teach children don't steal or don't do this, and
43:17
Speaker 1: for a while that's good enough because for a while
43:20
Speaker 1: that's all they can comprehend. But at some point the
43:25
Speaker 1: teaching becomes meaningful only when one is willing to actually
43:29
Speaker 1: explain why. All right, So it's so disappointing when you eat.
43:53
Speaker 1: You know, somebody who's smart say something like, in order
43:56
Speaker 1: to be a good person, one must first try to
43:59
Speaker 1: seem like a person. Mol Education is about explaining, not
44:06
Speaker 1: about dictating, not about passing on the dogma of the past,
44:12
Speaker 1: but about explaining, modeling what life requires, what a good
44:21
Speaker 1: life requires, what a flourishing life requires. So you know,
44:37
Speaker 1: gold bigger is right. You need moral education, you need
44:40
Speaker 1: a morality. You can just follow emotions and follow feelings.
44:50
Speaker 1: You know, if authenticity means true for me, true for
44:53
Speaker 1: me by what standard? What is the standard of truth?
44:57
Speaker 1: You need a standard. All of that is subjectivist and emotionalist,
45:03
Speaker 1: and that is true. But the solution to subjectivism and
45:15
Speaker 1: emotionalism is not religion, which is subjective and emotional. Just
45:19
Speaker 1: to ask different people from different religions what they think
45:21
Speaker 1: about anything. There has to be an objective, male standard.
45:31
Speaker 1: So what is the mall standard that relates to this
45:35
Speaker 1: idea of authenticity? Right? What relates to authenticity? Well, the
45:46
Speaker 1: virtue is integrity, But integrity is not just accepting who
45:51
Speaker 1: you are and being consistent with it. In some way,
45:57
Speaker 1: integrity means loyalty and action, acting loyalty in action to
46:03
Speaker 1: rational principles. It means living your principles. But you have
46:11
Speaker 1: to have principles first, and the principles are not gonna
46:15
Speaker 1: be there automatically. They're not just gonna appear. They're not
46:18
Speaker 1: gonna be there because you read a book. They're not
46:20
Speaker 1: gonnappear there because you've decided to be authentic. They're not
46:22
Speaker 1: gonna appear there because you are alive. They're only gonna
46:26
Speaker 1: hear there if you formulate them, if you understand them,
46:30
Speaker 1: if you integrate them, if you embody them into your soul,
46:34
Speaker 1: into your character, into who and what you are. It
46:37
Speaker 1: requires action, It requires engagement, It requires integration. It doesn't
46:44
Speaker 1: just happen. Principles don't just appear. Now. Integrity is what
46:53
Speaker 1: some of these people, at least the better people, are
46:55
Speaker 1: groping for. When they praise authenticity, you don't know what
47:00
Speaker 1: to do with it, because they're looking for something that's passive.
47:08
Speaker 1: Integrity means you should have no split between your mind
47:11
Speaker 1: and your actions. But that requires work. That does not
47:17
Speaker 1: happen just because you exist. It does not happen just
47:21
Speaker 1: because you feel. You have to understand what you believe,
47:30
Speaker 1: and you know, and you understand what you believe because
47:33
Speaker 1: you've thought it through, and then you have to act
47:37
Speaker 1: on it. And you act on it not because it's dogma,
47:42
Speaker 1: not because you'll be told to do it, not because
47:44
Speaker 1: it's anti conformist or conformist, but because you understand that
47:52
Speaker 1: it is good for you, that it is consistent with reality,
47:58
Speaker 1: and because you refuse to fake reality. Have integrity. Is
48:06
Speaker 1: to refuse to pretend, to refuse to conform. But most importantly,
48:12
Speaker 1: it's to refuse to betray your rational values, values that
48:19
Speaker 1: you have validated as rational, as pro life, as leading
48:25
Speaker 1: to your success. So integrity becomes a virtue when the
48:33
Speaker 1: principles you're fighting for are rational. If they're not rational,
48:37
Speaker 1: then integrity to irrational values is a vice. You know,
48:45
Speaker 1: Authenticity to a soul that is law that is not
48:52
Speaker 1: good is a disaster. Loyalty to irrational principles is not integrity.
49:03
Speaker 1: It's not a virtue. It's dogma, it's fanaticism. It's maybe authenticity,
49:09
Speaker 1: but that's not good. So if you want to you know,
49:27
Speaker 1: if you want to live a good life, it's not
49:32
Speaker 1: about being authentic being yourself, although you should be yourself
49:39
Speaker 1: after you've created yourself worth being. And to do that
49:51
Speaker 1: you have to formulate rational principles for living, rational principles
49:59
Speaker 1: for living, and they have to live them, and that's
50:05
Speaker 1: called integrity. Living your rational values is integrity. So to
50:11
Speaker 1: be rationally authentic, to be properly authentic, to be properly authentic,
50:24
Speaker 1: one must have integrity. One must have rational principles, and
50:34
Speaker 1: one must be committed to living by them, to integrating them,
50:39
Speaker 1: to understanding them, and to making your life consistent with them.
50:48
Speaker 1: So don't just emote. Don't look to others to live
50:57
Speaker 1: by their standards, or don't look to others to live
51:00
Speaker 1: by the opposite of their standards, because both up not you.
51:04
Speaker 1: To be truly, you know, authentic, you have to have
51:10
Speaker 1: a you. There has to be something there. So look
51:19
Speaker 1: to your own life, to your own character, to the
51:23
Speaker 1: values you pursue, and make sure they are consistent with
51:27
Speaker 1: the kind of human being you want to be. Right,
51:39
Speaker 1: and that means adopting a rational model code. It means
51:44
Speaker 1: living it. It means constantly working on it means constantly
51:49
Speaker 1: integrating it. It means having integrity, acting on your rational convictions,
51:57
Speaker 1: never faking values, never betraying what you know to be true.
52:04
Speaker 1: It means being just judging people by their choices and actions,
52:10
Speaker 1: not excusing evil because it is sincere passionate or authentic,
52:14
Speaker 1: oppressed or fashionable, or whatever the hell it is. It
52:21
Speaker 1: means being independent. Don't live through the eyes of others
52:26
Speaker 1: one way or the other. Do not conform to the mob,
52:30
Speaker 1: or to anybody else, or to your mother, Do not
52:33
Speaker 1: perform rebellion for the sake of rebellion or for the
52:36
Speaker 1: sake of applause. To live a good life, to be
52:47
Speaker 1: truly authentic, you must have pride. Don't worship your unformed self.
52:57
Speaker 1: Do not worship your unformed That's what the authenticity movement
53:02
Speaker 1: teaches you to do. Pride is the virtue that tells
53:08
Speaker 1: you build your character. Pride is the virtue that tells
53:14
Speaker 1: you earn your self esteem. Pride is the virtue that
53:21
Speaker 1: tells you take your morality seriously. Takes virtues and values
53:27
Speaker 1: rational values seriously, live by them. Authenticity tells you accept
53:40
Speaker 1: the way you are and just embrace it. That is
53:46
Speaker 1: a recipe for self for disaster. You don't discover who
53:53
Speaker 1: you are by you know or what you don't discover
53:56
Speaker 1: what you should be by consulting your feelings. You can
53:59
Speaker 1: discover who you are who you are right now by
54:02
Speaker 1: consulting your feelings, and it indicates what kind of work
54:06
Speaker 1: you need to do. But you are changeable, particularly when
54:14
Speaker 1: you're young. You are changeable, So don't be true to
54:20
Speaker 1: yourself your unformed self. Be true to reality, be true
54:27
Speaker 1: to reason, be true to your values and your virtues,
54:30
Speaker 1: and create a self that you can be true to Ultimately,
54:34
Speaker 1: being true to yourself is absolutely what you should be.
54:41
Speaker 1: But first make sure you've created a self be worthy
54:45
Speaker 1: of that, and to do that. You don't replace emotionalism
54:51
Speaker 1: with faith. You place emotionalism and faith with reason. You
54:56
Speaker 1: don't replace follow your heart with ba the scriptures. You
55:01
Speaker 1: don't replace subjectivism with dogma. It's all the same thing.
55:07
Speaker 1: You have to be true to reality, true to reason,
55:10
Speaker 1: true to rational judgment, true do your values. You know, uh,
55:19
Speaker 1: how do work when you think about when you think
55:23
Speaker 1: about the fountain head? Right? How to work? Is true
55:30
Speaker 1: to himself? But what does that mean? Right? I mean
55:38
Speaker 1: out of work? Is the most uncompromising individual probably in
55:41
Speaker 1: all American fiction. Right, refuse us to alta his character.
55:49
Speaker 1: Refuse sorry, he refused us to alta is architectural designs
55:54
Speaker 1: to suit other people's stays. Refuse us to surrender his
55:57
Speaker 1: work to a committee. Even in the face of having
56:00
Speaker 1: to go work in a quarry. He goes broke rather
56:04
Speaker 1: than compromise. He dynamites a building. Rather than see his
56:08
Speaker 1: vision perverted, I mean see being true to himself? Yeah,
56:14
Speaker 1: he is, absolutely, but what does that mean in this context?
56:28
Speaker 1: Being true to himself is not being true to some
56:31
Speaker 1: misunderstood or random or you know, feeling he might have.
56:37
Speaker 1: It's not about his feelings, it's not about his impulses.
56:41
Speaker 1: It's not some vague, authentic in a glow. What he
56:48
Speaker 1: refuses to compromise on is his thinking, And in the
56:53
Speaker 1: case of how to Walk, that thinking is so well
56:56
Speaker 1: integrated that, yes, it's consistent with his emotions. His emotions
56:59
Speaker 1: are not fighting him how do What confuses to compromise
57:06
Speaker 1: his thinking, his judgment, his rational understanding of what great
57:11
Speaker 1: architecture requires. He refuses to compromise his aesthetic judgment. He knows,
57:27
Speaker 1: he knows because he's thought about it. He knows what
57:31
Speaker 1: he values, and he knows why he values it. His
57:36
Speaker 1: integrity is the integrity of a mind of a rational thinker,
57:43
Speaker 1: not the integrity integrity in quotation marks of a mood. Right,
57:51
Speaker 1: He's the furthest thing imaginable from just be yourself. He
57:55
Speaker 1: is a character who's built himself. He's constructed himself through
58:01
Speaker 1: years of dedicated thought and work and refusal to evade
58:06
Speaker 1: a self worth being. So that's the difference. The self
58:12
Speaker 1: help version of authenticity starts with the premise that you're
58:16
Speaker 1: already complete already worth being. All you need to do
58:19
Speaker 1: is express it. The objective's version is the irrational version. It
58:26
Speaker 1: says you have the capacity to build a great self.
58:31
Speaker 1: But that building is the work. It's, to some extent,
58:35
Speaker 1: the work of a lifetime, and the only guide for
58:39
Speaker 1: that work is reason, fact reality. All right, So finally
58:57
Speaker 1: we'll just say, build yourself, use reason as a tool.
59:04
Speaker 1: Think honestly about what values actually serve your life, not
59:08
Speaker 1: just what feels good in the moment, not just what
59:10
Speaker 1: the crowd approves of, not just what the scripture commands,
59:13
Speaker 1: not even just what Ironman wrote. Think it through, examine it.
59:20
Speaker 1: Be willing to challenge your own premises, be willing to
59:24
Speaker 1: challenge Iran's premises. That's what individualism means. What's what it requires.
59:31
Speaker 1: That's what self respect means. Be yourself as good advice
59:39
Speaker 1: only once that self has been built through honest, rigorous thinking.
59:46
Speaker 1: The self has to be earned. Anything else is just
59:54
Speaker 1: follow your feelings, follow your faith. That's a way of
59:57
Speaker 1: evading what a human being requires. All right, Thank you, guys.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: That is the episode today, the latest in my rules
1:00:13
Speaker 1: for life. Hopefully you enjoyed that. Happy to get any
1:00:17
Speaker 1: kind of comments you might have. Don't forget to press
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Speaker 1: Most importantly, almost significantly put it that way, is Troy.
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Speaker 1: Thank you Troy, five hundred Australian dollars. That is amazing
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Speaker 1: you Troy. Thanks for the support over the years and
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Speaker 1: all right, Jack, thank you for the sticker of Roland, Bonnie, Mike,
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Speaker 1: thank you guys. I know the more stickers up top,
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Speaker 1: let's find these. No, that's it all right, So that's
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Speaker 1: those are the stickers. Thank you guys, really appreciate it.
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Speaker 1: to give you scholarships. So go go do it. You
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1:02:35
Speaker 1: Alex Ebstein is the number one expert on all things energy.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: You know, he's becoming an expert to on AI. One
1:02:46
Speaker 1: of his projects is to defend AI from from you know,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: the constant attacks that are out there. So yeah, check
1:02:53
Speaker 1: out Alex I think you'll learn a lot, you'll become
1:02:57
Speaker 1: better communicator about ideas. And Alex's is really good. By
1:03:04
Speaker 1: the way, the article that I was citing, I'm going
1:03:07
Speaker 1: to put it in the chat here. It was on
1:03:09
Speaker 1: the Dispatch. It's called Transgression. For its own sake, it's
1:03:13
Speaker 1: worth reading partially because I think Jonah Goldberg is a
1:03:16
Speaker 1: good writer. Partially because you can see where he goes
1:03:20
Speaker 1: wrong and where the whole right goes wrong, because his
1:03:24
Speaker 1: error is the whole rights era. They can only see.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: The alternative to subjectivism is religion. The alternative to subjectivism
1:03:36
Speaker 1: is religion. And by the way, if you're interested in
1:03:42
Speaker 1: some of the work that is necessary to do in
1:03:46
Speaker 1: order to kind of do the work to build your soul,
1:03:51
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a great article by Ankar Gata in
1:03:56
Speaker 1: a Companion's iron Man Studies about building a soul that
1:04:01
Speaker 1: is really good to discuss design RAN's view. And then
1:04:05
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of work by by our psychologists.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: You know, if you've listened to some of the shows
1:04:11
Speaker 1: of Jean Binswanger's work on this is uh, you know
1:04:22
Speaker 1: she she spends a lot of time thinking about this
1:04:24
Speaker 1: and has workshops and uh, you know, so there's a
1:04:29
Speaker 1: there's a body of knowledge and how to how to
1:04:32
Speaker 1: do it right, how to actually understand yourself, figure out
1:04:40
Speaker 1: and then figure out how to make yourself better, how
1:04:43
Speaker 1: to integrate your ideas, your your your philosophy better into
1:04:47
Speaker 1: your life. All right, let's jump to your questions. A
1:04:55
Speaker 1: J says, I love shows like these, doctor Brook. Thank you.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that, and that is great. We have
1:05:02
Speaker 1: the goal is another one hundred and ninety one dollars, guys,
1:05:04
Speaker 1: So if there's anybody out there would like to contribute
1:05:07
Speaker 1: to make sure we do a lot more shows like this,
1:05:10
Speaker 1: then that that is the goal. We've got a few
1:05:14
Speaker 1: minutes to try to make it. Franks, as have to
1:05:19
Speaker 1: exit and go make some money. That's always important. Sometimes
1:05:23
Speaker 1: short and sweet is good. Appreciate that, Frank, thanks for
1:05:26
Speaker 1: joining us, and thanks you for the fifty dollars. That's amazing.
1:05:29
Speaker 1: Thank you AJ for the fifty dollars as well. All right,
1:05:32
Speaker 1: twenty dollars questions. Let's see, Adam, starting before memory, I
1:05:38
Speaker 1: had a life goal of satisfying my curiosity, and I
1:05:41
Speaker 1: never subjected this goal to explicit judgment. Now I'm eighty
1:05:44
Speaker 1: and I'm happy about my life and I never questioned
1:05:47
Speaker 1: my goal. Did I evade something, well, I mean, I
1:05:53
Speaker 1: don't know. But my guess is that as you embraced
1:05:59
Speaker 1: a rational morality, irrational philosophy, what you found, whether that
1:06:04
Speaker 1: was explicit, you know, through the itsegrading of your various values,
1:06:10
Speaker 1: what you found was the value of curiosity. The goal
1:06:14
Speaker 1: of curiosity was consistent with everything else that indeed, all
1:06:21
Speaker 1: your other values. You're an objectivist, so you know your
1:06:25
Speaker 1: values being objectivest values, the idea of reason, purpose, self esteem,
1:06:30
Speaker 1: the virtues are consistent with the idea, not just consistent,
1:06:35
Speaker 1: they rest on almost a requirement of some level of curiosity,
1:06:42
Speaker 1: of being a truth seeker. And I'd say you evaded
1:06:48
Speaker 1: if you'd found a conflict and you ignored it. But
1:06:52
Speaker 1: given that you have you had chosen at a very
1:06:54
Speaker 1: young age, pre memory in terms of why you chose it.
1:06:59
Speaker 1: But from a very young age you chose the goal
1:07:03
Speaker 1: of being curious, and then as you gained other values,
1:07:06
Speaker 1: and as you gain moral values, you found it. I think,
1:07:11
Speaker 1: whether explicitly actively or not, that you found them all
1:07:15
Speaker 1: you found it consistent, then I don't think there was
1:07:19
Speaker 1: any evasion. Evasion involved. If there'd been a moment of
1:07:25
Speaker 1: again conflict, something's off and you ignored it, that would
1:07:32
Speaker 1: constitute evasion. So it could be some of us in
1:07:38
Speaker 1: childhood develop a pretty good self. Our values are really good,
1:07:44
Speaker 1: and then we adopt explicit moral values. They integrate really
1:07:49
Speaker 1: nicely and quickly and easily, and that's great when that happens.
1:07:53
Speaker 1: But for most of us we have a mixture because
1:07:57
Speaker 1: we're raised with altruism, raised with I don't know, all
1:08:00
Speaker 1: kinds of collectivism, and a variety of different bad values,
1:08:04
Speaker 1: wrong values, and to create conflicts. And then the question
1:08:08
Speaker 1: is how do I address those conflicts? How do I
1:08:10
Speaker 1: deal with those conflicts? Once I embrace the set of
1:08:13
Speaker 1: rational values, And you have to first embrace the set
1:08:16
Speaker 1: of rational values. You have to first embrace an explos
1:08:19
Speaker 1: a set of virtues and values, and then you have
1:08:25
Speaker 1: to integrate and work. And if that work results in
1:08:33
Speaker 1: no conflicts, that's phenomenal. Not you have an algorithm. When
1:08:41
Speaker 1: did hate become cool in the culture? You know? I
1:08:45
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean suddenly hate was cool in the
1:08:49
Speaker 1: sixties when they were yelling love and really meant hate.
1:08:54
Speaker 1: I think hate is a feature of emotionalism. I think
1:08:58
Speaker 1: hate is a feature of kind of the post modern
1:09:01
Speaker 1: rejection of reason, rejection of reality, rejection of logic and
1:09:08
Speaker 1: and and and uh truth. But when you reject the
1:09:17
Speaker 1: human mind, all you have left with is emotions, and
1:09:24
Speaker 1: the rejection of reason in the mind make you impotent
1:09:28
Speaker 1: in the face of reality, in the face of what's
1:09:32
Speaker 1: going on in the world, and that generates fear, and
1:09:38
Speaker 1: that fear can easily morph into hate. You hate those
1:09:45
Speaker 1: people who seem to be connected to reality, seem to
1:09:47
Speaker 1: be successful, who seem to manage to navigate this. I
1:09:49
Speaker 1: can't manage it. I don't know how to navigate it.
1:09:52
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't and
1:09:54
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like I don't have the tool
1:09:57
Speaker 1: to properly manage my life because yeah, you don't, you're
1:10:00
Speaker 1: not using reason, and ifore, I am angry and I
1:10:04
Speaker 1: hate the people who do seem to manage. And we've
1:10:09
Speaker 1: talked about this that the fear, the anxiety caused by
1:10:16
Speaker 1: the emptiness that is left when we reject reason, leads
1:10:21
Speaker 1: one towards tribalism, leads once towards the protection of the
1:10:24
Speaker 1: tribe of the group, and then a big part of
1:10:29
Speaker 1: the tribe is, well, this is my tribe, and everybody
1:10:33
Speaker 1: else's tribes are threats to my tribe. It's ultimately it
1:10:39
Speaker 1: looks like it's there's some world after all. So you know,
1:10:41
Speaker 1: what they have is a threat to what I have.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: So hatred is a consequence of the rejection of reason,
1:10:51
Speaker 1: which is an ongoing process that we've engauged in. I mean,
1:10:55
Speaker 1: I hate has always been a part of human life,
1:10:58
Speaker 1: particularly in irrational, faith based, emotion based cultures. You hate
1:11:05
Speaker 1: the other, You hate the Jew, you hate the Protestant,
1:11:08
Speaker 1: you hate the Catholic, you hate you know, the indigenous people.
1:11:13
Speaker 1: You hate because they're different, because you can't understand them,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: because your religion, your emotions have not giving you a
1:11:20
Speaker 1: tool to understand the world in which we live, and
1:11:23
Speaker 1: therefore you land up hating it. Stephen, thank you for
1:11:27
Speaker 1: the sticker. Berry, Thank you for the sticker. I really
1:11:30
Speaker 1: appreciate that you guys are helping chip away at that goal.
1:11:33
Speaker 1: That's great. Na Yavijahouham says, do you believe academics so
1:11:38
Speaker 1: intellectuals have intentionally suppressed Iran? That's why so few students
1:11:43
Speaker 1: aware of her work. Yes, I mean they have. There's
1:11:46
Speaker 1: no question. When students do raise her and ask questions
1:11:50
Speaker 1: about her, they're often ridiculed and shut down. And now
1:11:54
Speaker 1: it's just particularly in the United States, less so I
1:11:56
Speaker 1: think in Europe or elsewhere, because there's not that viscual
1:12:00
Speaker 1: hatred towards her that exists here. Now. I don't think
1:12:04
Speaker 1: there's a conspiracy to do that. I just think it's
1:12:07
Speaker 1: they don't take it seriously. They think they know at
1:12:12
Speaker 1: some level that she opposes everything they stand for, and
1:12:16
Speaker 1: they rebel against her, these academics and intellectuals, and therefore
1:12:20
Speaker 1: they want to shut down any anytime, anytime who ideas
1:12:25
Speaker 1: pop up in the culture, they want to shut it down,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: and they do. They make every effort to do it.
1:12:31
Speaker 1: And part of the way they do it is by
1:12:32
Speaker 1: ridiculing here. Part of the way they do it is
1:12:35
Speaker 1: by making fun and so. And do they do that
1:12:43
Speaker 1: on purpose, Yes, they do it on purpose. She is
1:12:46
Speaker 1: a threat. She challenges what they believe, So I don't
1:12:51
Speaker 1: on purpose doesn't mean that it's completely conscious. I don't
1:12:53
Speaker 1: think it is, but it's built in. This is the
1:12:57
Speaker 1: response they have to what they you know, to what
1:13:03
Speaker 1: they feel feel again, is a threat to them. Mindspan
1:13:10
Speaker 1: What about this rational authenticity is the uncompromising application of
1:13:15
Speaker 1: reason to exist independently, living in alignment with both your
1:13:20
Speaker 1: objective human nature and your unique individual nature. Yeah, I mean,
1:13:25
Speaker 1: I think that's having integrity. I don't see any problem
1:13:32
Speaker 1: with saying you can be rationally authentic. That's absolutely right.
1:13:36
Speaker 1: It's but you again, you have to recognize that you
1:13:39
Speaker 1: can only be rationally authentic after you have aligned your
1:13:46
Speaker 1: individual values individual nature as you call it, but individual spirit,
1:13:52
Speaker 1: with what you believe is rational and good. So in
1:14:01
Speaker 1: that sense, sure, you could be rationally authentic in that sense,
1:14:05
Speaker 1: but it has to be it has to be that
1:14:10
Speaker 1: your nature is the nature that you want to have
1:14:16
Speaker 1: that is been validated by reason. All right, Richard says,
1:14:20
Speaker 1: I love the show. I'm voting with my wallet for
1:14:23
Speaker 1: more shows like this things. Thank you, Richard, I appreciate
1:14:25
Speaker 1: that I'm taking all of this into account. There will
1:14:29
Speaker 1: be more shows like this. Val watching Mister Sunshine, You're right,
1:14:35
Speaker 1: it's epic. Halfway through one boss scene with the Korean,
1:14:39
Speaker 1: American and Japanese men drinking together is incredible. Hidden themes too,
1:14:45
Speaker 1: They become alien allies. Love it? Yes, I mean, think
1:14:49
Speaker 1: about the three guys and three, the three characters, and
1:14:53
Speaker 1: Alice shrug that they might each one they might actually
1:14:56
Speaker 1: remind you of It is interesting you guys who are
1:15:03
Speaker 1: all very different but allies, and who loved the same woman.
1:15:08
Speaker 1: There's something about that in Atlas. I think James did
1:15:13
Speaker 1: thank you about Did Margaret Thatcher get re elected in
1:15:17
Speaker 1: a landslide like Reagan did? Is there an appetite for
1:15:20
Speaker 1: freedom once people see it works? She did, but she
1:15:24
Speaker 1: didn't get re elected because of freedom. She didn't really
1:15:28
Speaker 1: get reelected because it was working. Economically, she had a
1:15:31
Speaker 1: lot of opposition to her domestic agenda. I mean she
1:15:37
Speaker 1: got re elected in a landslide or in a big
1:15:39
Speaker 1: way because she won the war on folklands. She tapped
1:15:44
Speaker 1: into a patriotism that was there. She was not doing
1:15:51
Speaker 1: well in the polls, and then the war over the
1:15:53
Speaker 1: folkland's Folkland's broke out and she was tough and resolute
1:15:58
Speaker 1: and she won and the British people just rallied around her,
1:16:05
Speaker 1: and she recognized that as an opportunity and I think
1:16:07
Speaker 1: called for an election and did very very well. So
1:16:12
Speaker 1: one can't say that her economic policies or what Indeed,
1:16:16
Speaker 1: she constantly got into trouble and ultimately she had a
1:16:19
Speaker 1: lead because too many of our policies were not popular
1:16:24
Speaker 1: even within her own party, never mind with among the
1:16:27
Speaker 1: British people, and most of the policies that were not
1:16:30
Speaker 1: popular will pro ultimately pro moving Great Britain even further
1:16:35
Speaker 1: towards more freedom and liberty. Jack says, thank you Ron.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that is it. That's all the questions
1:16:44
Speaker 1: I have. Remember tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll have Nicosia. We'll be
1:16:48
Speaker 1: talking about the Knakaba, Israel's War of Independence nineteen forty eight.
1:16:55
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen forty eight, is Well declared independence.
1:16:59
Speaker 1: The state of Israel was born, and we'll be talking
1:17:02
Speaker 1: about that. And of course the Palestinians consider that the
1:17:07
Speaker 1: knock about which is the disaster the catastrophe. We'll talk
1:17:11
Speaker 1: about the catastrophe because it was a catastrophe for Palestinians.
1:17:15
Speaker 1: I agree with them, there was a catastrophe. The question
1:17:18
Speaker 1: is whose fault was it. You'll see Toma, So check
1:17:24
Speaker 1: it out. I think you will find a pretty deep
1:17:29
Speaker 1: analysystem aw with Nikos and I about the history and
1:17:34
Speaker 1: the morality behind it, and you will gain much more
1:17:39
Speaker 1: insight into what is going on in the Israeli Palestinian
1:17:43
Speaker 1: conflict as a consequence. All right, guys, see Toma and
1:17:47
Speaker 1: then if I'm healthy, if everything goes well all of
1:17:52
Speaker 1: next week. Thank you to all the super chatters you know,
1:17:56
Speaker 1: in particular, thank you Troy really appreciated, uh yop yep.
1:18:02
Speaker 1: And thank you to everybody else Frank and A J
1:18:06
Speaker 1: and everyone else. And I will see you guys tomorrow.
1:18:11
Speaker 1: By everybody,