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BONUS: Altruism as Appeasement -- A Discussion of Ayn Rand's Essay | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1: Though radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational, self interest, and
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Speaker 1: individual wise.
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Speaker 2: This is the Ran Book Show.
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Speaker 1: Oh right, everybody, welcome to your one book show on
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Speaker 1: this Sunday, March twenty second. I members. This is a
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Speaker 1: members only show, so thank you for joining. All right,
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Speaker 1: we are going to be discussing. Hopefully you guys have
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Speaker 1: read it from iin RAN's The Voice of Reason. The
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Speaker 1: essay altruism is appeasement, which is I think another one
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Speaker 1: of her important and probably not read enough articles. So
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Speaker 1: I figured we do that here. Uh, feel feet up,
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Speaker 1: ask questions, comment. Uh, these sessions are better when they
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Speaker 1: are it's just not giving me, give me the data
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Speaker 1: I want. Once there we go all right, all right,
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Speaker 1: Linda said, you we read it last night. That's good,
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Speaker 1: and I think I think Robert and and Jennifer and stuff.
2:01
Speaker 1: We're partying yesterday too much, too much. I don't know
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Speaker 1: if there's too much to have read to have read it,
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Speaker 1: but maybe anyway, feel free to ask questions, comments comments
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Speaker 1: on the essay as we go along, and that I'll
2:21
Speaker 1: make it more interesting and more interactive and and so on.
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Speaker 1: You can use the chat or the super chat however
2:28
Speaker 1: else you want to do it. I don't know if
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Speaker 1: there is another mechanism, see the chat or the super chat,
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Speaker 1: So use one of those mechanisms to do it. And yeah,
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Speaker 1: we'll jump right into this. So the es it's called
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Speaker 1: altruism as appeasement, altruism as appeasement. And but it's really
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Speaker 1: focused on and it's interesting. All all of our rand's
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Speaker 1: I think hard but also significant and interesting. Asser tend
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Speaker 1: to be quite psychological, tend to be very psychological. Michael
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Speaker 1: is asking about Democrats and Mega. It's focus on the
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Speaker 1: article and then we'll get to Mega and Democrats. So yes,
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Speaker 1: algorithm speech when Perthodio is really focused on the.
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Speaker 2: Psychology of the intellectuals.
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Speaker 1: And I thought this was really interesting because we often
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Speaker 1: talk about kind of the psychology of the people, the
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Speaker 1: psychology of different commentators, the psychology of the intellectuals who.
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Speaker 2: Are kind of behind what is going on in the world.
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Speaker 1: At the end of the day, the craziness and the
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Speaker 1: insanity that we are experiencing in the world is not
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Speaker 1: a consequence of the of the masses.
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Speaker 2: To some extent, at least they get a pass.
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Speaker 1: The I think the primary or the primary cause of
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Speaker 1: what we're experiencing today is a consequence of the ideas
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Speaker 1: filtered through the intellectuals. And it's important to understand how
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Speaker 1: the intellectuals come up with these ideas and why they
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Speaker 1: are so would you even call them dishonest, why they're
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Speaker 1: so irrational, why they're so committed to the ideas that
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Speaker 1: they are committed to. And Rand kind of gives us
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Speaker 1: a step by step analysis of what happens to bright, intelligent,
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Speaker 1: right young students who are at least initially excited about
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Speaker 1: engaging with ideas and engaging in the world, and what
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Speaker 1: happens to drive that out of them and turn them
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Speaker 1: into the intellectuals we see every day on our TV
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Speaker 1: screens and we see every day on out there in
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Speaker 1: the newspapers and everywhere else. How do they become that?
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Speaker 1: And I think this essay is incredibly insightful with regard
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Speaker 1: to that.
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Speaker 2: The essay starts out with a question.
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Speaker 1: She asks a student, So she said, mit in nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty two, And.
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Speaker 2: God, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: I keep thinking, what would I may think of kind
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Speaker 1: of the world in which we live today, the kind
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Speaker 1: of environment we live today, the kind of insanity that
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Speaker 1: is our world today? Well would she think of, you know,
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Speaker 1: of how bad things are, how bad our intellectuals are.
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Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much worse than anything that happened
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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two. But anyway, her context is nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty she's writing in nineteen sixty two.
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Speaker 2: God, I'm saying so, she asked the student. She says,
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Speaker 2: you know why, you know, why are so many of.
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Speaker 1: Today's young intellectuals? Why are so many of the young
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Speaker 1: intellectuals becoming liberals? And liberals for her is a stand
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Speaker 1: in for what we considered today leftists of various forms. Right,
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Speaker 1: why are they? Why are most intellectuals in the culture leftist?
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Speaker 2: And he kind of.
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Speaker 1: Tried to give an explanation at the on spot, but
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Speaker 1: he wrote it back, and he wroted this pretty amazing
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Speaker 1: letter where he tries.
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Speaker 2: To explain this.
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Speaker 1: And it's kind of funny because I have a strong
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Speaker 1: feeling she cites the her in here, but the way
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Speaker 1: it's written sounds like Iran. So you get a sense
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Speaker 1: of a real sense that maybe, uh you know, this
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Speaker 1: was her editing his letter and and putting a lot
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Speaker 1: of it in her terms.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: Uh, So, here's here's what the student says. Uh, he says,
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Speaker 1: they are they are the intelligence. So he says, uh,
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Speaker 1: what do I want to start here in adopting so
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Speaker 1: you know, they they they come in with and they're thinking. Says,
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Speaker 1: they are the intellectuals and they are the outsiders. So
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Speaker 1: he starts in the premise of and she works off
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Speaker 1: of this. Later in the article, she starts at the
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Speaker 1: premise of, these are the intellectuals. They're smart there there,
7:48
Speaker 1: you know there, you know, the smart, nerdy kid in
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Speaker 1: your class. And as such, they've always been outsiders. They've
8:00
Speaker 1: always been outsiders. So she says, this kid is saying,
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Speaker 1: if they are the outsiders, their willingness to think makes
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Speaker 1: them shine forth as a threat to the stagnant security
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Speaker 1: of the leaders in which they are in the levelers,
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Speaker 1: the people who are trying to get everybody the same
8:17
Speaker 1: in which they are immersed. They are teased and rejected
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Speaker 1: by their schoolmates. An immense amount of faith in oneself
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Speaker 1: or a rational philosophical basis are required to set ones
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Speaker 1: oneself against all of society. Right, the man who preaches
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Speaker 1: individual integrity, pride, and self esteem is today virtually non existent.
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Speaker 1: Now that sounds like Iran. It doesn't sound like a student.
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Speaker 1: It might tea writing to her, But anyway, far more
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Speaker 1: common is the man who driven by the young adults
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Speaker 1: driving need for acceptance. So young adults have this driving
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Speaker 1: need for acceptance has compromised, and this is the appeacement.
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Speaker 2: And here is the key. The compromise is the liberal.
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Speaker 2: Now later on she says, not just liberal, but this
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Speaker 2: is This phenomenon is also true of conservatives.
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Speaker 1: The man who has set himself against society by seeking
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Speaker 1: to be rational is almost certain to succumb to the
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Speaker 1: extent of accepting a strong guilt complex. He is declared
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Speaker 1: guilty by his rejection of the omnipresent equality in mediocrity
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Speaker 1: doctrine of today.
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Speaker 2: What is that?
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's basically altruism, right, So you want to
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Speaker 1: stand out, you're exceptional, You're thinking, you're.
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Speaker 2: Trying to understand the world, You're.
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Speaker 1: Pursuing knowledge, you're excited about all that, and then everything
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Speaker 1: around you is pushing you to feel guilty about that
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Speaker 1: because you're not being altruistic. You're not accepting the value
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Speaker 1: you of those who are not as smart as you,
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Speaker 1: not accepting the value of those who are, you know,
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Speaker 1: not as curious as you.
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Speaker 2: So you are encouraged, you.
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Speaker 1: Are pushed to feel guilty for your own virtues, for
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Speaker 1: your own thinking, So he continues. So the intellectual to
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Speaker 1: atone for false guilt becomes today's liberal. He proclaims loudly
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Speaker 1: the brotherhood of all men. He seeks to serve his
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Speaker 1: escapist brothers, guaranteeing them they desire for social security. He
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Speaker 1: sanctions their mediocrity. He works for their welfare above all.
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Speaker 1: He essentially seeks their approval to atone for the guilt
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Speaker 1: they have thrust upon him, in the guise of an
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Speaker 1: absolute moral system which is not open to question. So
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Speaker 1: what I am saying here is, you know, you've got
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Speaker 1: You've got You've got people who are throughout to school,
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Speaker 1: they're schooling high school. They are outsiders, they're ridiculed, they're
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Speaker 1: made fun of because they're the nerdy, the smart guys.
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Speaker 1: And you know, they come to college expecting it to
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Speaker 1: be to meet other people like them, expecting that this
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Speaker 1: is a sanctuary for people like them, expecting that their
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Speaker 1: ideas and their thoughts and their curiosity will be celebrated,
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Speaker 1: and instead their professors and the other students try to
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Speaker 1: make them feel guilty for their exceptionalism, and the only
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Speaker 1: way they can eliminate the guilt. Reduce that guilt work too,
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Speaker 1: you know, eliminate the guilt completely. Is by buying into
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Speaker 1: their dominant moral code, buying into basically the idea of altruism,
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Speaker 1: and by doing so, by doing so, accepting the mediocrity
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Speaker 1: of everybody else, acknowledging them.
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Speaker 2: And giving up, giving up over time.
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Speaker 1: Over their own mind. So using their mind, using their
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Speaker 1: ability to justify them. All code of the crowd, justify them,
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Speaker 1: all code of their professors, justify them, all code of
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Speaker 1: the status quo. And what is that moral code that
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Speaker 1: mall code is altruism. Iman says, you know, this young
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Speaker 1: man does as credit for the extraordinary psychological perceptiveness.
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Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think it's embellished by iron man.
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Speaker 2: But the situation he describes as not new.
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Speaker 1: It is as old as altruism, nor is it confined
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Speaker 1: to liberals.
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Speaker 2: So the way she describes is is you go to
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Speaker 2: college again.
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Speaker 1: You expect to meet these amazing people and instead all
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Speaker 1: the you know, all the attacks against you, the putting
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Speaker 1: you down.
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Speaker 2: Continues.
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Speaker 1: College is no different than high school, and now it
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Speaker 1: comes for the most part from the professors as well. Yes,
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Speaker 1: you might have a couple of good professors who live
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Speaker 1: up to kind of your expectations. But most of them
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Speaker 1: are not. And there was no intellectual companionship. The same
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Speaker 1: gang that has pursued him and ridiculed him and made
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Speaker 1: fun of him and harassed him since kindergarten, that same
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Speaker 1: gang is right there ready to do the same in college.
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Speaker 1: And so many, so many, I mean, the majority are
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Speaker 1: smart people just give up.
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Speaker 2: And what do they give up on?
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Speaker 1: They give up on applying their intellect to the issue
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Speaker 1: of values, to the issues of morality. They accept the
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Speaker 1: all premise in the culture. They accept the altruism. They
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Speaker 1: accept the fact that they need to serve their fellow men,
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Speaker 1: that they need to serve others.
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Speaker 2: It's this altruism.
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Speaker 1: Well, they don't necessarily have to completely buy into it,
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Speaker 1: and indeed, over time they don't.
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Speaker 2: They feel like they have to play along.
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Speaker 1: But in playing along, they suppress their thinking, they suppress
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Speaker 1: their own intellect, they reject their own original thoughts, and
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Speaker 1: they embrace they embrace the altruism of everybody around them.
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Speaker 1: And not only that, but they now are using their
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Speaker 1: intellect to justify the altruism to you know, to to
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Speaker 1: to elaborate on it, to propose policies that expand on it.
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Speaker 1: That you know, they are now using their ability as
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Speaker 1: intellectuals to promote these ideas. And what they lose, what
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Speaker 1: they suppress, what disappears is any sense of personal values
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Speaker 1: and with it, any sense of self esteem. Altruism is
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Speaker 1: the destroyer of self esteem. So they use their own
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Speaker 1: mind to deny their own values, thus destroy the self esteem,
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Speaker 1: and ultimately this also destroys the mind. You know, you
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Speaker 1: can't ultimately function in this way. Now here's the interesting part,
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Speaker 1: because rand is I wonder where Andrew is.
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Speaker 2: Is Andrew around? I haven't seen Andrew in a while,
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Speaker 2: and he's.
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Speaker 1: Always interested in these psychological issues and how people help
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Speaker 1: people get to where they are, what causes them kind
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Speaker 1: of to to to become what they become in this essay,
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Speaker 1: I think is super relevant.
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Speaker 2: So I don't know, I don't see him. He's kind
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Speaker 2: of disappeared lately. I don't know. We're gonna have to,
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Speaker 2: We're gonna find him anyway.
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Speaker 1: He's this is what you wait so because it's it's
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Speaker 1: not that they make a conscious choice to do this.
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Speaker 1: This is not a conscious choice to give up on
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Speaker 1: the internet intellect. It's not a conscious choice to undermine
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Speaker 1: their own values and to give.
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Speaker 2: Up on their own values.
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Speaker 1: So she writes such decisions as seldom, if ever, made consciously,
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Speaker 1: and I think this is true of most bad people.
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Speaker 1: They are made gradually by subconscious emotional motivation and semi
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Speaker 1: conscious rationalization. Rationalization is to pretend that you've got a
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Speaker 1: rational reason for what it is that you hold right.
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Speaker 1: Rationalization is to use your intelligence to try to justify
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Speaker 1: something that you really know is irrational, is wrong. You
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Speaker 1: rationalize it, and you're explaining it to yourself, ignoring the
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Speaker 1: sense that no, there's something wrong here. Altruism offers an
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Speaker 1: arsenal of such rationalizations. If an uninformed, unformed adolescence can
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Speaker 1: tell himself that his cowardice is humanitarian love, that his
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Speaker 1: subservience is unselfishness, that his moral treason is spiritual nobility,
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Speaker 1: he is hooked.
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Speaker 2: So you know he's a coward.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't stand up to them, he doesn't tell them
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Speaker 1: they're full of it, he doesn't tell them they're wrong,
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Speaker 1: he doesn't tell.
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Speaker 2: Them that they have no clue. Well, he's doing that
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Speaker 2: just out.
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Speaker 1: Of respect for them, humanitarian love. Right, he's doing that
18:31
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to make them feel bad. Right,
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Speaker 1: So it's just it's just respect, that's just humanitarian, right.
18:38
Speaker 1: His subservience is unselfishness. So he's not insisting, he's doing
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Speaker 1: what they're asking him to do. He's following the crowd.
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Speaker 1: He can't tell himself, I'm subverting my own values. He
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Speaker 1: can't hold it as a undermining own mind. No, he
18:54
Speaker 1: holds it as yeah, I'm not being selfish, you know,
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Speaker 1: to pursue all own values, to pursue on mind, that
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Speaker 1: would selfish. So he's justifying. He's using altruism to justify
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Speaker 1: his appeasement. He's using altruism to justify his secondhandedness. His
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Speaker 1: subservience is unselfish, and his moral treason, moral trees and meaning,
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Speaker 1: his negation of his own values is turning against himself
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Speaker 1: a spiritual nobility again, loving his other loving other people,
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Speaker 1: and sacrificing for other people, and making himself subservient to
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Speaker 1: other people. All of that, all of that is perceived
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Speaker 1: as right, noble, All of that is goodness by this
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Speaker 1: standard of altruism. Jennifer says he should tell them to
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Speaker 1: pound sand. He should, but how many people, how many
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Speaker 1: people have the courage to do that? After in a sense,
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Speaker 1: a lifetime of being bullied, in being marginalized, and being
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Speaker 1: ridiculed for their virtues. She continues, and again, remember she's
20:10
Speaker 1: saying here, these are things that an adolescence does. A
20:15
Speaker 1: late teens, early twenties. Somebody who's very young is doing this.
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Speaker 1: He's trying to get along. He's in college. Now, this
20:22
Speaker 1: is the place where the intellect is supposed to thrive.
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Speaker 1: He's trying to get along. And she says, by the
20:29
Speaker 1: time he's old enough to know better, the erosion of
20:32
Speaker 1: her self esteem.
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Speaker 2: Is such that he dares not face or re examine
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Speaker 2: the issue.
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Speaker 1: He can't, you know, he can't face his own mal treason.
20:43
Speaker 1: And it's not necessarily that, you know, there's this concept
20:47
Speaker 1: in the found hand, in particularly secondhand at Peter Keating.
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Speaker 1: But what Randa's match saying here, it might be that
20:54
Speaker 1: he starts out as a pea Keating and this just
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Speaker 1: and that's the mentality, and he's an invite.
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Speaker 2: But it could be the reverse.
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Speaker 1: It could be that he becomes a ped Keating as
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Speaker 1: he gives up on his mind, as he starts appeasing them.
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Speaker 2: He starts out as independent, he starts out as a thinker.
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Speaker 2: He starts out with his own values, but.
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Speaker 1: He's it's pounded and pounded and pounded, and he needs,
21:21
Speaker 1: you know, in order to be accepted, in order to
21:23
Speaker 1: fit in, in order to get along.
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Speaker 2: Not on everything, not on every issue.
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Speaker 1: But slowly, this is this is how it corrupts the mind, right,
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Speaker 1: bad ideas. Once you have some bad ideas inside. A
21:36
Speaker 1: mind is an integrating machine. It connects everything. So all
21:40
Speaker 1: you need to do is a few bad ideas, a
21:43
Speaker 1: few compromises, a few cases of appeasement, a few cases
21:47
Speaker 1: of not standing up for yourself, not actually you know,
21:52
Speaker 1: telling them to go pounce in, not telling them they're wrong,
21:56
Speaker 1: not telling them they're getting in the wrong direction. It's
21:59
Speaker 1: destroying their lives, even when you know it. A little
22:05
Speaker 1: bit of that, a little bit of that, and a
22:09
Speaker 1: little bit more, and a little bit more, and then
22:11
Speaker 1: it starts polluting everything. You always have to remember the
22:18
Speaker 1: thing about honesty and the thing about integrity. Our mind
22:22
Speaker 1: is an integrating machine. It cannot hold a segment of
22:25
Speaker 1: truth and a segment of folkhood it and keep them independent.
22:30
Speaker 1: Everything ultimately integrates. Bad ideas pollute the good ideas. Bad
22:37
Speaker 1: ideas pollute the good ideas. This is why it's so
22:39
Speaker 1: important to constantly be constantly be integrating your knowledge, constantly,
22:49
Speaker 1: be thinking, constantly, being rational, being vigilant about not letting
22:56
Speaker 1: appeasement and altruism and bad ideas enter interior psychology.
23:01
Speaker 2: And again, we all have it.
23:03
Speaker 1: Because we're all brought up with it, and it's very
23:05
Speaker 1: difficult to not have it. But therefore the diligence has
23:09
Speaker 1: to be eradicated, to not pay attention to it, not
23:12
Speaker 1: allow it to be integrated into the rest of your knowledge,
23:15
Speaker 1: to isolated and eradicated. Here's what she says. He becomes
23:23
Speaker 1: an intellectual appeaser. He surrenders morality, the realm of values
23:31
Speaker 1: in order to be permitted to use his mind, in
23:33
Speaker 1: order to be left alone, not to be ridiculed, and
23:36
Speaker 1: ought to be successful. I mean, one of the things
23:38
Speaker 1: that university does very effectively is that it basically if
23:44
Speaker 1: you don't play along with your professors.
23:47
Speaker 2: Particularly if you want to be an intellectual.
23:49
Speaker 1: Let's say you want to be a professor and you
23:51
Speaker 1: get a master's degree and you get a PhD. At
23:53
Speaker 1: every one of those levels, you are expected to conform
23:57
Speaker 1: or you're out. You have to write a PhD thesis
24:02
Speaker 1: that has to be approved by your professors.
24:04
Speaker 2: But your professors are very narrow.
24:06
Speaker 1: Minded and very locked in on a particular And this
24:10
Speaker 1: is true I think even in the sciences, where the
24:13
Speaker 1: comentagma is what your professors are advocating for, and if
24:17
Speaker 1: you're trying to shatter it, if you've got a new idea,
24:20
Speaker 1: something that's radical and new and wild, shatter what they
24:24
Speaker 1: believe in, they don't want to touch it. So the
24:28
Speaker 1: idea is, Okay, I'll write the dissertation the way they
24:30
Speaker 1: want me to write the dissertation. I won't fight them
24:33
Speaker 1: on the dissertation.
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Speaker 2: I can't.
24:34
Speaker 1: I need to get that PhD. I need to get
24:36
Speaker 1: that degree, right, I need to be admitted into that.
24:40
Speaker 1: So you spend five years in your PhD program, selling out, compromising,
24:49
Speaker 1: making sure not to be too radical, and making sure
24:52
Speaker 1: to fit in so that your professors will let you,
24:56
Speaker 1: will let you, you know, you know, get the PhD
25:01
Speaker 1: and approve your dissertation and give you the diploma. Okay,
25:06
Speaker 1: now you have the diploma, and now you go out
25:08
Speaker 1: and you get a job as an assistant professor somewhere.
25:12
Speaker 2: But now right, they're dangling in front of you.
25:17
Speaker 1: Tanya, Tanya is this magical thing, right, teny and academia
25:23
Speaker 1: is this position where you can't be fired. Almost impossible.
25:30
Speaker 1: You'd have to commit some horrific crime to be fired.
25:33
Speaker 1: Say dangle Tenya in front of you. Seven years. So
25:37
Speaker 1: now for seven years, for seven years, you have to
25:42
Speaker 1: publish and be nice to the other professors and do
25:46
Speaker 1: the things that you expected to do, and not piss
25:48
Speaker 1: anybody off too much because then they might vote against you.
25:51
Speaker 1: For Tenia, and publish and publish and publish in good journals.
25:57
Speaker 1: And how do you publish in good and knows well,
26:01
Speaker 1: you're not gonna you can't be radical, You're nobody right,
26:05
Speaker 1: you can't be you can't have any new thoughts, they
26:08
Speaker 1: won't publish them. So you pick some specialty where you're
26:14
Speaker 1: not going to be too radical, and you just tinker
26:17
Speaker 1: with the existing views, just change things. You just contribute
26:22
Speaker 1: to what's already in existence. And then you get Tenian.
26:28
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. By the time you've gotten Tenian,
26:33
Speaker 1: you've been in academia as a student, you know, let's
26:37
Speaker 1: say four plus right, nine years, as a professor, seven years.
26:43
Speaker 1: And during that whole time you've not been allowed to
26:49
Speaker 1: be yourself. You've not really been allowed to think for yourself.
26:54
Speaker 1: You've not really been allowed to be radical or different
26:59
Speaker 1: or challenge the that is quo.
27:01
Speaker 2: You really haven't been allowed to challenge much at all.
27:11
Speaker 2: You're fine as long as you play along.
27:14
Speaker 1: And I've seen so many students who are you know,
27:18
Speaker 1: smart and good and radical and and and they want
27:23
Speaker 1: to do something important, and it's pounded out of them,
27:27
Speaker 1: and by the time they get tenure they're like everybody else.
27:31
Speaker 2: They're like everybody else. It's too late.
27:35
Speaker 1: Their mind is gone, they've appeased, and they've compromised their
27:39
Speaker 1: own values, their own thoughts, their own beliefs.
27:42
Speaker 2: And by the time they get that tenure.
27:46
Speaker 1: So professors, when you go in, so many of them
27:50
Speaker 1: think alike, radicalism is.
27:55
Speaker 2: Even though right, even though they completely safe.
28:01
Speaker 1: So once you have tenure, you can be super radical.
28:04
Speaker 1: You can say whatever you want to say. They can't
28:06
Speaker 1: kick you out for your ideas anymore. By the time
28:09
Speaker 1: you get it, you've got nothing to say. This is
28:16
Speaker 1: exactly the process that I'm man described. You're appeased and appeased,
28:22
Speaker 1: and appeased and appeased, and by appeasing, you've destroyed your
28:27
Speaker 1: own mind. You've destroyed your own soul. It would be
28:30
Speaker 1: like somebody in a regular job doing the same thing.
28:32
Speaker 1: You go into a job and you've got ideas about
28:35
Speaker 1: how to do it and how to do it better,
28:37
Speaker 1: and how to contribute and so on. But hey, you've
28:41
Speaker 1: got a boss, and you've got to be nice to the boss,
28:43
Speaker 1: and you don't want to rattle the cage, and you
28:45
Speaker 1: don't want to do anything to controversial.
28:47
Speaker 2: Oh, one day I'll be the boss.
28:49
Speaker 1: One day I'll be the boss's boss's boss, and then
28:52
Speaker 1: then I'll be radical and new and innovative and exciting
28:56
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff. And by the time, by
28:59
Speaker 1: the time you get there, just just like everybody else,
29:01
Speaker 1: you've been conditioned to be just like everybody else. You've
29:05
Speaker 1: appeased yourself into mediocrity. You've appeased yourself into lack of
29:11
Speaker 1: self esteem and intellectual So this is backtilling Ran. She
29:19
Speaker 1: writes the intellectual appeace of Surrender's morality the realm of values.
29:23
Speaker 1: In order to be permitted to use his mind in
29:26
Speaker 1: order to write that dissertation or to publish, the degree
29:29
Speaker 1: of self abasement is greater the implicit view of values
29:35
Speaker 1: as irrelevant to the mind is disastrous. The implicit view
29:39
Speaker 1: of the mind as functioning by permission of the mindless
29:44
Speaker 1: is unspeakable.
29:45
Speaker 2: But that's exactly what happens.
29:48
Speaker 1: Your thinking is not by permission, by the permission of
29:52
Speaker 1: the committee, by permission of the journals, by permission.
29:55
Speaker 2: Of your colleagues.
30:02
Speaker 1: So Rand is discovering, is discussing, you know, this process
30:10
Speaker 1: of appeasement that destroys the able, makes them mediocrites, makes
30:16
Speaker 1: them sellouts.
30:18
Speaker 2: And so many of intellectuals are like this.
30:21
Speaker 1: They had promises young people they're super smart, that is
30:24
Speaker 1: a you know, and they're super able, and you know,
30:35
Speaker 1: university intellectual life or the lack of it, really.
30:40
Speaker 2: Drives them to.
30:42
Speaker 1: Abandon personal values, abandon their own ideas, abandoned, which means
30:46
Speaker 1: ultimately abandon their own mind.
30:49
Speaker 2: Ban in their own minds.
30:56
Speaker 1: And of course, so they all become the if they're
31:00
Speaker 1: in an intellectual field, they all become some.
31:02
Speaker 2: Version of altruism.
31:05
Speaker 1: They all advocate for altruistic ideas, whether it's from the
31:07
Speaker 1: left and from the right, they advocate for those altruistic
31:10
Speaker 1: ideas because that's how you advance. If you argue for
31:13
Speaker 1: something different, nobody is going to take you seriously. The
31:17
Speaker 1: group the people out there just don't take you seriously.
31:27
Speaker 1: So you know, she writes, your mandatarian love is what
31:30
Speaker 1: the altruist appeas he never achieves. Instead, it's sailing characteristics
31:35
Speaker 1: is a mixture a bit of contempt, an intense, profound
31:40
Speaker 1: hatred for mankind, a hatred impervious to reason. Now see,
31:46
Speaker 1: you get these intellectuals, academics who have lost the passion,
31:54
Speaker 1: have lost the drive, have lost the independent thought, and
31:57
Speaker 1: now they just resent.
31:59
Speaker 2: They just ain't and they fearful.
32:04
Speaker 1: She writes, you a god's man, as evil my nature.
32:06
Speaker 1: He complains about the congenial stupidity, mediocrity, depravity, yet slams
32:12
Speaker 1: in his mind ferociously shut to any argument the challenge
32:16
Speaker 1: challenges his estemate. So yeah, I mean, others have always
32:21
Speaker 1: impacted him in a negative way, but he's succumbed, and
32:25
Speaker 1: now he lashes out at the others.
32:29
Speaker 2: People.
32:30
Speaker 1: Generally he views himself as superior to them, although he
32:35
Speaker 1: has already succumbed to them. So he's riddled with fear,
32:44
Speaker 1: fear of others, fear of the knowledge of what he's
32:50
Speaker 1: done to himself. She talks about the fact that these
32:58
Speaker 1: intellectuals always think about the car man as a brute,
33:01
Speaker 1: you know, and they're afraid of him.
33:04
Speaker 2: They're fraid of the common man.
33:05
Speaker 1: They're fate of the people they've tried to appease, and
33:07
Speaker 1: they are constantly appeasing. And she says, you know, there's
33:12
Speaker 1: a truth to that, not that they're physical brute, but
33:17
Speaker 1: it represents a psychological.
33:18
Speaker 2: Truth to these people. The brute is the.
33:26
Speaker 1: Frozen embodiment of mankind as projected by the emotions of
33:31
Speaker 1: an adolescent, adolescent appeaser.
33:35
Speaker 2: So he's appeased these people.
33:37
Speaker 1: Who made fun of him, these people who ridy killed him.
33:41
Speaker 2: And now that is the image.
33:43
Speaker 1: Frozen means no new data. That is the image he has,
33:48
Speaker 1: That is the feeling he gets from them. That is
33:50
Speaker 1: who they offer him. They're brutes. There's somebody to be
33:54
Speaker 1: afraid of, all right, let's see.
34:06
Speaker 2: Now. The other thing about these intellectuals is.
34:11
Speaker 1: It's it's that they're not you know, they're not altruists
34:16
Speaker 1: in a sense of, you know, they don't take altruism seriously.
34:22
Speaker 1: They adopted altruism in order to appease everybody else, but
34:26
Speaker 1: they can't hold that and they've never really bought into it.
34:30
Speaker 1: How many people really buy into altruism who are smart?
34:33
Speaker 1: Most people buy into altruism because it's all they know.
34:35
Speaker 1: They don't know anything. They just buy into it and
34:39
Speaker 1: they live with it. They don't live it, but they
34:42
Speaker 1: live with it, and it results in guilt and all
34:45
Speaker 1: the other stuff and weird behavior and and and expectations
34:49
Speaker 1: of intitument and all the stuff that altruism causes you feel.
34:52
Speaker 1: But the intellectual, the guy, the person with a high
34:55
Speaker 1: level of intelligence, never really buys.
34:59
Speaker 2: Into it, you know. Here's what she writes about this.
35:06
Speaker 1: An appiece's professional success of failure, as well as the
35:09
Speaker 1: degree of his precarious psychological adjustment, depends on the slowness
35:16
Speaker 1: of speed of a process common to all appeass The
35:20
Speaker 1: erosion of his sense of values, The renunciation of values,
35:28
Speaker 1: the acceptance of an irrational morality was the specific form
35:33
Speaker 1: of his surrender the pretense of any This is important.
35:42
Speaker 1: The pretense of any belief in altruism vanishes from his
35:46
Speaker 1: mind in a very few years, and there is nothing.
35:51
Speaker 2: Left to replace it. What is he going to stand for?
35:55
Speaker 2: His independent capacity to value is being repressed, and his
36:00
Speaker 2: fear of the brute of the common person of the
36:03
Speaker 2: people who've influenced.
36:04
Speaker 1: Him, makes the pursuit of values seem hopelessly impractical. What
36:11
Speaker 1: sets in therefore, and this is so real if you
36:14
Speaker 1: know intellectuals, this is so and this is intellectuals. It
36:17
Speaker 1: can be it leftists, It could be conservatives, it could
36:21
Speaker 1: be libertarians.
36:22
Speaker 2: You see it everywhere.
36:24
Speaker 1: What sets in thereafter is the dry rot of cynicism,
36:31
Speaker 1: like a kind of premature sinility.
36:34
Speaker 2: Of the spirit.
36:35
Speaker 1: That is an amazing sentence, that kind of one Rand
36:40
Speaker 1: can write, right, think about this, a premature sinility of
36:45
Speaker 1: the spirit, premature sinility of the spirit.
36:50
Speaker 2: I love that.
36:52
Speaker 1: A thin coating, a belligerent ammorality over a swamp of
36:59
Speaker 1: lifeless That's another I ran only sentence, right, A thin coating,
37:05
Speaker 1: a belligerent I don't believe in morality, amordelism, right, nothing
37:09
Speaker 1: but underneath that is a swamp.
37:13
Speaker 2: Of lifeless.
37:16
Speaker 1: Resignation, just giving up. They have given up, and there's
37:21
Speaker 1: no spirit in it. This is the sinility of the spirit. Right,
37:25
Speaker 1: there's no spirit, there's no passion, there's no you know,
37:30
Speaker 1: there's no excitement.
37:30
Speaker 2: Why is there no excitement or passion?
37:33
Speaker 1: Because they've given up on values, They've given up on
37:35
Speaker 1: their own mind. The result is a muted, improvished, extinguished personality,
37:42
Speaker 1: the impersonal personality of a man with an ever shrinking
37:46
Speaker 1: rage range of concern, with nothing to seek, to achieve,
37:51
Speaker 1: to admire or oppose, and some self assertion is the
37:56
Speaker 1: assertion of one's values, with no self.
38:00
Speaker 2: To assert, So they just regurgitate stuff that.
38:07
Speaker 1: They believe, they think they believe, But there's no passion,
38:11
Speaker 1: there's no belief, there's no self, there's no real values.
38:18
Speaker 1: One of the bitter penalties of their pieces is that
38:21
Speaker 1: even the most brilliant of them turn out as persons
38:26
Speaker 1: to be conventional, empty, dull, pretty brutal. They say, the
38:38
Speaker 1: ultimate penalty is still worse. A worse premise does not
38:41
Speaker 1: merely fail, It achieves its own opposite. After years of
38:45
Speaker 1: intellectual faking, they looting, corner cutting in order to smuggle
38:48
Speaker 1: his ideas, pasted an imaginary sensor in order to that's
38:52
Speaker 1: the you know, tend committee, the journals whatever, in order
38:56
Speaker 1: to placate irrationality, stupidity, dishonesty, prejudice, malice of about garity.
39:01
Speaker 1: That peace's own mind assumes the standards of those who
39:05
Speaker 1: profess to despise a mind cannot maintain a double standard
39:09
Speaker 1: of judgment indefinitely. Any man who is willing to speak
39:13
Speaker 1: or write down, to think down, who distorts his own
39:17
Speaker 1: ideas in order to accommodate the mindless, who subordinates truth
39:22
Speaker 1: to fear, becomes eventually indistinguishable from the hack who caters
39:31
Speaker 1: to the alleged public taste.
39:37
Speaker 2: She becomes a nobody.
39:38
Speaker 1: And this is again, so many of our intellectual so
39:42
Speaker 1: many of our professors. I mean, how many professors did
39:46
Speaker 1: you have in college that you felt that you thought
39:50
Speaker 1: really had something contributed and really cared and really had ideas.
39:57
Speaker 1: And they're willing to stand by those ideas. So they
40:12
Speaker 1: land up feeling the common man. They land up hating
40:17
Speaker 1: the common man. They land up empty shells of themselves.
40:24
Speaker 1: And this is what altruism, This is what appeasing in
40:28
Speaker 1: the name of altruism does to you.
40:31
Speaker 2: Appeasing in the name of altuism does to you. And
40:33
Speaker 2: I think this is not just true of intellectuals.
40:36
Speaker 1: This is true of anybody smart, anybody first handed, anybody
40:41
Speaker 1: who starts out life with ideas, with passions, with.
40:47
Speaker 2: An independent mind.
40:51
Speaker 1: And then compromises, sells out, appeases in the name of altruism.
40:59
Speaker 1: Refuse is to stand up, refuses to stand up, refuses
41:06
Speaker 1: to fight intellectually, fight for what he believes, what he holds,
41:14
Speaker 1: and the consequence is the same kind of erosion, the
41:17
Speaker 1: same kind of dominance of fear. We talk a lot
41:21
Speaker 1: on the show about how fear and hatred dominate the
41:25
Speaker 1: world out there, and if our intellectuals have this and
41:31
Speaker 1: they project it onto the people, the people have it
41:33
Speaker 1: in spades. Now, this is what Angman writes about kind
41:43
Speaker 1: of the common man, the common man out there, the
41:46
Speaker 1: non intellectuals. She says, No, men are not brutes. Neither
41:52
Speaker 1: are they all independent thinkers. The majority of men are
41:57
Speaker 1: not intellectual initiators or originators, just a reality. They accept
42:02
Speaker 1: what the culture offers them. It is not that they
42:06
Speaker 1: don't think. It is that they don't sustain their thinking
42:10
Speaker 1: consistently as a way of life, and that the abstract
42:14
Speaker 1: range is limited. We read an essay together that covered this.
42:18
Speaker 1: What was that essay? But do you know what that
42:20
Speaker 1: essay was? What was the essay that covered this.
42:23
Speaker 2: Kind of limited range?
42:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, they think, but it's limited, it's capped, It doesn't
42:29
Speaker 1: go beyond a certain point. If you remember that essay,
42:33
Speaker 1: was the missing link, right, The missing link was that essay. Now,
42:43
Speaker 1: she says, to what extent they are stunted by an
42:47
Speaker 1: anti rational by the anti rational influences of our cultural traditions,
42:54
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. What is known, however, is that
42:58
Speaker 1: the majority of men use only a small part of
43:02
Speaker 1: their potential intellectual capacity. And she says, you know, so
43:08
Speaker 1: she's implying here, try to tell whether that comes from
43:11
Speaker 1: the fact that the culture oppresses Oh, whether that's just
43:15
Speaker 1: inherent in human beings. Oh, some human beings just make
43:20
Speaker 1: that choice. I think it's probably both. Some people make
43:26
Speaker 1: that choice. But the culture oppressing independent thinking, you know,
43:30
Speaker 1: not teaching you how to think, not encourage you to think,
43:33
Speaker 1: not stimulating thought, you know, clearly makes it significantly, I
43:40
Speaker 1: think significantly worse. So it discourages those who would all right,
43:56
Speaker 1: she says, the truly and deliberately evil men are a
44:01
Speaker 1: very small minority. I think that's true. It is the
44:06
Speaker 1: appeaser who unleashes them on mankind. It is the appeaser's
44:13
Speaker 1: intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a
44:20
Speaker 1: culture's dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over.
44:27
Speaker 1: The appeasers, the pieces, appease the thugs. That's what is available.
44:34
Speaker 1: When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed,
44:42
Speaker 1: vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure
44:48
Speaker 1: to bring out the worst. When the noblest men, when
44:52
Speaker 1: the ablest men sorrey, When the ablest men turn into cowards,
44:57
Speaker 1: the average man turns into brutes. And that's the state
45:08
Speaker 1: of our intellectuals, that's the state of our culture. And
45:11
Speaker 1: I think that explains much of what's going on in
45:13
Speaker 1: the world today. It explains how we got here and
45:17
Speaker 1: how we sustain here. She says, it's not them all.
45:23
Speaker 1: This is how she ends the essay. She ends the
45:26
Speaker 1: essay on a positive if you will, No, it's not
45:31
Speaker 1: the intellect the intelligence man. The intelligent man's moral obligation
45:35
Speaker 1: to serve as a leader or teacher of his less
45:39
Speaker 1: endowed brothers, his foremost moral obligation. His foremost moral obligation
45:50
Speaker 1: is to preserve the integrity of his mind and of
45:54
Speaker 1: his self esteem, which means to be proud of his intelligence,
46:01
Speaker 1: regardless of their approval or disapproval, no matter how hard
46:08
Speaker 1: this might be in a corrupt age. So stay proud
46:16
Speaker 1: of your intelligence. But it's not just the shoe intelligence,
46:19
Speaker 1: but your independence, your mind, your rationality, your values, your values.
46:30
Speaker 2: No matter how hard this might be.
46:33
Speaker 1: In a corrupt age like ours, he has in fact
46:36
Speaker 1: no alternative. It is the only chance of a world
46:41
Speaker 1: where intelligence can function, which means a world where he
46:45
Speaker 1: and incidentally they.
46:47
Speaker 2: Common people can survive.
46:52
Speaker 1: So, anybody with intelligence, your obligation to yourself is to
47:04
Speaker 1: be proud of it, to use it in pursuit of
47:07
Speaker 1: your own values. Never give up on being rational and
47:11
Speaker 1: being independent, unidentifying and pursuing rational values. Appeasement at any level,
47:23
Speaker 1: appeasement is a force of destruction. Appeasement is a force
47:30
Speaker 1: of corruption. Now you can recover from it. So you know,
47:33
Speaker 1: there's no question that to get a PhD, you have
47:36
Speaker 1: to appease. You have to appeace. But then you have
47:40
Speaker 1: to find ways to maintain your intelligence and not give
47:44
Speaker 1: in to that appeasement. You have to you don't compropmentalize
47:48
Speaker 1: that piece. Okay, I have to do this thing in
47:50
Speaker 1: order to get my PhD and minimize it, and then
47:54
Speaker 1: you know, spend other time being creative, being first handed,
47:58
Speaker 1: pursuing your own values, using your own mind, in the
48:02
Speaker 1: way that you want. And if you're in academia, it's
48:05
Speaker 1: very difficult. And it's very difficult then to go into.
48:07
Speaker 2: Tenure and and and and and and.
48:10
Speaker 1: Survive those seven years. You have to find channels that
48:15
Speaker 1: allow you to maintain your independence, and maintain your mind,
48:19
Speaker 1: and maintain your rationality, and most importantly of all, maintain
48:23
Speaker 1: your values, your values, and not appease on those values,
48:27
Speaker 1: not compromise on those values, not let go of those values.
48:34
Speaker 2: So we live in a world today where you know,
48:40
Speaker 2: a culture is.
48:41
Speaker 1: Dominated by altruism, and where our intell exos, both on
48:45
Speaker 1: the left and the right are there too, you know,
48:49
Speaker 1: basically just you know, appease the.
48:54
Speaker 2: The masses because that's what they have to deal with.
48:57
Speaker 2: Here's what you write about conservatives.
48:58
Speaker 1: This is kind of interesting, particularly in the context of
49:01
Speaker 1: conservatives today.
49:03
Speaker 2: So she talks about the left.
49:05
Speaker 1: She talks about you know, the you know, the the
49:11
Speaker 1: leftist intellectuals create for you know, they create for government recognition,
49:17
Speaker 1: and you know, they're susceptible to bribes given to them
49:23
Speaker 1: by you know, prizes and positions and power. Right, they're
49:28
Speaker 1: very inclined towards power. And then she writes the more
49:35
Speaker 1: timorous type of appeasers. The conservatives take a different line.
49:42
Speaker 1: They share the notion of an intellectual elite, just like
49:44
Speaker 1: the left does, and therefore they discard intellectuality as numerically unimportant.
49:53
Speaker 1: Most people, it's just not intellectual, so it's not that
49:55
Speaker 1: important to be intellectual, and they concentrate on joeling the
50:00
Speaker 1: brute the masses with baby talk.
50:06
Speaker 2: So so right on, if.
50:08
Speaker 1: You think about, if you think about like the conservative
50:11
Speaker 1: influences today with baby talk, with vapid slogans, flattering bromides,
50:18
Speaker 1: folk see speeches in two syllable words, on the explicit
50:22
Speaker 1: premise that reason does not work, that the brute the
50:28
Speaker 1: masses must be won through appeals there's emotion, and must
50:33
Speaker 1: somehow be fooled or cheated into taking.
50:38
Speaker 2: The right road. Yeah, so I think that's so.
50:51
Speaker 1: I think now of you know, all the all the
50:53
Speaker 1: conservative commentators out there, all the influences in the conservative world,
50:58
Speaker 1: they're exactly like that. All the politicians, you know, baby talk, conjoling,
51:04
Speaker 1: appelt emotion, no more than two syllable words that don't
51:08
Speaker 1: ever complicated. Treat them like they're idiots. That's the way
51:14
Speaker 1: to deal with people. That's the way to deal with
51:16
Speaker 1: the masses. That's how you achieve political power. Vann Harper says,
51:23
Speaker 1: Leni Pickoff covers this sort of appeasement to your professors
51:28
Speaker 1: in the art of thinking.
51:28
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's absolutely.
51:32
Speaker 1: The case, all right, That is Iman's I mean, what
51:37
Speaker 1: I find here super interesting is how she does this right,
51:43
Speaker 1: how psychological imand is how she thinks about what drives
51:49
Speaker 1: people to.
51:52
Speaker 2: The views and the.
51:56
Speaker 1: That they have, and how that affects the psychology, and
52:01
Speaker 1: that effects how they behave and that effects how they
52:04
Speaker 1: feel about the world. Here they become cynics and it's
52:10
Speaker 1: really really powerful. And you know, to me, it's I
52:14
Speaker 1: find it very difficult to think about the psychological motivations
52:19
Speaker 1: of people or the psychological influences people. But for Rant,
52:23
Speaker 1: who was a novelist, she had to think about motivation,
52:26
Speaker 1: She had to think about influence. She had to think
52:27
Speaker 1: about how the characters she's creating on the page came
52:31
Speaker 1: to be and what drives them, what motivates them, how
52:35
Speaker 1: they think, how they emote, how they respond to things.
52:39
Speaker 1: And I think because she was a novelist, she had
52:42
Speaker 1: this ability to project psychology and or to integrate psychology
52:48
Speaker 1: with philosophy in profound ways.
52:52
Speaker 2: And I think that's what makes her essays.
52:56
Speaker 1: Really, really, really interesting and always kind of unexpected, very
53:04
Speaker 1: very different than what you typically get in a philosophy essay,
53:09
Speaker 1: different than.
53:09
Speaker 2: One other objectives.
53:10
Speaker 1: The intellectual's right because none of us are overented around psychology.
53:17
Speaker 1: And I find whenever I read like this essay, I
53:21
Speaker 1: don't know how to read three times or four times
53:23
Speaker 1: to try to get what she's actually saying, because it's
53:28
Speaker 1: not just a sequence of philosophical arguments. It's completely integrated
53:35
Speaker 1: with psychological motivations, which is not the way I think,
53:38
Speaker 1: and it's I think, not the way a lot of
53:40
Speaker 1: people think.
53:40
Speaker 2: So again, I highly.
53:42
Speaker 1: Recommend the Voice of Reason these essays to try to
53:48
Speaker 1: I mean, she really has a deep understanding of the
53:54
Speaker 1: world in which we live. She has a deep understanding
53:59
Speaker 1: of a culture and what motivates people and how they
54:05
Speaker 1: you know, how they function and how they act. All right,
54:11
Speaker 1: that is that is my review of this essay. I'm
54:16
Speaker 1: interested in any questions you might have about this. The
54:21
Speaker 1: super chat is open.
54:22
Speaker 2: The chat. I'm going to try to read the chat.
54:28
Speaker 1: Fennhopasays, I've been thinking about the best way to explain
54:31
Speaker 1: to the late people the interplay between philosophy and psychology,
54:36
Speaker 1: your ideas and views versus your experience.
54:40
Speaker 2: And the fact of free will.
54:42
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know, most people don't actually hold philosophy.
54:51
Speaker 1: They don't hold a set of consistent or attempt to
54:56
Speaker 1: hold a system consistent ideas. Consciously, they hold a mishmash
55:02
Speaker 1: of ideas. And I think the way it integrates into
55:06
Speaker 1: the psychology and into their emotions is they resist ideas.
55:10
Speaker 1: They resist input of ideas and integrating ideas that make
55:16
Speaker 1: them feel uncomfortable. They make the feeld outsiders that you know,
55:23
Speaker 1: that make them, that make people look at them funny,
55:31
Speaker 1: make them feel funny. It's people are so many people
55:36
Speaker 1: are motivated by the effort to fit in, to be
55:40
Speaker 1: like others, to you know, to have to have social
55:48
Speaker 1: social relations, and social relations are so important for people,
55:52
Speaker 1: so their emotions. The psychology is driving what ideas they
55:58
Speaker 1: are willing to contemplate. It's one of the problems when
56:01
Speaker 1: you are advocating something pretty radical is the number of
56:06
Speaker 1: people who just turn you off because.
56:09
Speaker 2: It's upsetting the status quo.
56:13
Speaker 1: It's you know, I mentioned, you know, this group that
56:17
Speaker 1: I belong to a dialogue where.
56:19
Speaker 2: I meet these successful people and talk.
56:21
Speaker 1: And one of the things I respect about a lot
56:23
Speaker 1: of people there is they're willing to engage. They're actually
56:26
Speaker 1: willing to consider ideas they've never thought of before. You know,
56:30
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I've convinced anybody, but it's like their
56:35
Speaker 1: attitude is, at least in the context in which we're
56:39
Speaker 1: discussing it, not complete rejection and shutting off. And sometimes
56:43
Speaker 1: I see I say something and they go, WHOA, did
56:46
Speaker 1: you just say that?
56:49
Speaker 2: But then they're willing.
56:50
Speaker 1: To come back from that, you know, distancing and engage
56:55
Speaker 1: with the ideas for a little bit.
56:59
Speaker 2: And you don't find a lot of people out there
57:02
Speaker 2: that will do that.
57:03
Speaker 1: You say something and they go, well, you know, he
57:06
Speaker 1: can't say that, and you've lost them.
57:09
Speaker 2: And yet with this group, and with enough people, I found,
57:13
Speaker 2: they're willing to engage with those ideas. They're willing to be.
57:18
Speaker 1: Challenged, they're willing to think outside of the box, which
57:21
Speaker 1: is unusual, particularly the younger members. I'd say of this group,
57:25
Speaker 1: you know, part of it is they're you know, they're entrepreneurs.
57:32
Speaker 1: They've in some part of their life their original thinkers,
57:36
Speaker 1: in some part of their life, they're going against the
57:39
Speaker 1: grain in some part of their life. They're creative and productive,
57:44
Speaker 1: and you know, yes, they've accepted a lot of conventional thinking,
57:50
Speaker 1: and when they're confronting somebody who has something unconventional to say,
57:54
Speaker 1: it surprises them because in the political, intellectual, philosophical realm,
57:58
Speaker 1: almost everybody out there is convention, you know.
58:01
Speaker 2: But then they're not dismissive of it. They're not dismissive
58:05
Speaker 2: of it.
58:06
Speaker 1: It's like the difference between Remember I told you about
58:08
Speaker 1: that debate I did about Christianity in Silicon Valley, And
58:13
Speaker 1: if I'd had the same debate, I think in like
58:16
Speaker 1: the South, I would have been booed out of the
58:19
Speaker 1: people would have been.
58:19
Speaker 2: Shocked and upset.
58:20
Speaker 1: And but in Silicon Valley I got a standing ovation
58:24
Speaker 1: even though they disagreed with me, because they were There's
58:30
Speaker 1: a certain attitude that entrepreneurs have, even if they're religious,
58:35
Speaker 1: that is open to ideas, that is open to being challenged,
58:39
Speaker 1: that is open to something new and different.
58:45
Speaker 2: And that's unusual.
58:47
Speaker 1: And when you find people like that, embrace embrace them, right, uh,
58:55
Speaker 1: you know.
58:55
Speaker 2: It's it's it's unusual in the culture generally.
58:59
Speaker 1: All right, questions you can use the super chat. You
59:05
Speaker 1: can ask about anything, So Michael, you can ask about anything.
59:09
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to discoverage you from asking more questions.
59:13
Speaker 1: Michael's asked two, but feel free to jump in with questions.
59:18
Speaker 1: So I've only got three questions in the super chat,
59:21
Speaker 1: which is fine. We can do those few questions and
59:24
Speaker 1: call it an afternoon. But if you have any follow
59:28
Speaker 1: ups on the article, in particular, anything I've said, for free.
59:32
Speaker 2: But if you have questions.
59:33
Speaker 1: About anything really in the news or anything else out
59:37
Speaker 1: there in the culture, feel free to jump in with questions.
59:42
Speaker 2: Now.
59:43
Speaker 1: So let's start with Jennifer, who has a twenty dollars question.
59:48
Speaker 2: This is some Neil.
59:49
Speaker 1: She's got a quote from Neil Poets and that is
59:53
Speaker 1: put wrote a bit of people who sell out quote.
59:57
Speaker 1: No hero in your tragedy, no daring in your escape,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: no salutes for your surrender, nothing noble in your fate.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: Christ, what have you done?
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's great, and that what have you done
1:00:18
Speaker 1: to yourself? It's not even that there's no none of
1:00:22
Speaker 1: these things from the outside.
1:00:25
Speaker 2: There's none of that from you. You will get no
1:00:30
Speaker 2: none of that.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get a salute from yourself. You're not
1:00:34
Speaker 1: gonna get any kind of recognition. You are going to
1:00:41
Speaker 1: be penalizing yourself. It's not that others will not salute you,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: is that you will not salute you. It is fundamentally
1:00:51
Speaker 1: destructive to your self esteem. This is why you know,
1:00:55
Speaker 1: down't appease. There's so many opportunities out there to appease
1:00:59
Speaker 1: because you hold radical ideas and everybody around you holds
1:01:04
Speaker 1: different ones.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: Don't let go, don't give up, don't compromise.
1:01:10
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't mean you have to pick fights,
1:01:15
Speaker 1: but it also shouldn't mean. But it does mean don't
1:01:18
Speaker 1: stay silent, particularly not when it's important and in your head,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: recognize what's going on.
1:01:28
Speaker 2: Don't allow yourself to slip.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: Even if you say, well, this is not the place
1:01:32
Speaker 1: for me to speak up, speak up in your own mind.
1:01:35
Speaker 1: At least make clear what you disagree about. Hold the truth,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: are sacred, and recognize it and.
1:01:44
Speaker 2: Work on it. Work on it. Thank you, Jennifer. All right.
1:01:52
Speaker 1: Michael asked if the Democrats can't control the crazies in
1:01:58
Speaker 1: their party, will Mega keep winning. Well, I mean it
1:02:01
Speaker 1: depends because of course Mega is crazy as well, So
1:02:05
Speaker 1: it depends on kind of what's going on in the economy,
1:02:09
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world, and at any given
1:02:11
Speaker 1: point in time, are the independents who tend to swing
1:02:15
Speaker 1: between Republicans and Democrats? Are they more afraid of the
1:02:19
Speaker 1: crazies on the left of the crazies on the right.
1:02:24
Speaker 1: And you know, MEGA is still a minority within the
1:02:28
Speaker 1: Republican Party. Probably maybe it's a majority, Maybe it's forty percent,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: maybe it's fifty percent. I don't know, But you know,
1:02:37
Speaker 1: is MEGA willing to compromise on a Republican Party a
1:02:40
Speaker 1: candidate who's not one of them if they're faced with
1:02:43
Speaker 1: alternative a Democrat. You know, politics is dynamic, and it's
1:02:48
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't all go in one direction, and it's
1:02:51
Speaker 1: impacted by a lot of different things in a lot
1:02:53
Speaker 1: of different ways. So I don't think there's I don't
1:02:56
Speaker 1: think there's a clear answer to that, given that they're
1:03:00
Speaker 1: crazies on both sides, and it's not clear how independence
1:03:03
Speaker 1: will ultimately ultimately go. But look, if the economy is
1:03:07
Speaker 1: doing well and people are feeling good, and the one
1:03:10
Speaker 1: you wan is one, then yeah, people will vote most
1:03:13
Speaker 1: towards MEGA. Given the crazies and the left right. If
1:03:16
Speaker 1: we're session inflation is up and and things are going
1:03:21
Speaker 1: badly in the country, then people are going to abandon
1:03:23
Speaker 1: whoever they associated with MEGA and go with the left,
1:03:26
Speaker 1: even if it has crazy is in it, because they
1:03:28
Speaker 1: know the crazy and the right have just you know,
1:03:31
Speaker 1: destroyed their lives, right, Michael, this is the last questions.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: If you have a question, now is the time to
1:03:44
Speaker 1: ask it. Is it likely in thirty to fifty years
1:03:49
Speaker 1: most education systems will be privately produced and run.
1:03:55
Speaker 2: I mean thirty to fifty years.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: No, maybe it's in thirty fifty as you start seeing
1:04:00
Speaker 1: a trend towards that direction, and it.
1:04:05
Speaker 2: Depends what you mean. I mean is that including universities.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: I mean you're saying all education most education systems, So
1:04:12
Speaker 1: education systems that includes colleges and universities and high schools
1:04:17
Speaker 1: and kindergartens and the whole thing. Thirty to fifty years.
1:04:21
Speaker 1: We can hope that that is the beginning of the
1:04:26
Speaker 1: the beginning of the trend towards that. It's not happening now.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: Thanks Michael Moulten. Moulten Splendi. I listened to debate with
1:04:38
Speaker 1: Matt Barring that you had a year ago and was
1:04:43
Speaker 1: so confused by how a supposedly smart person hadn't could
1:04:49
Speaker 1: kept so many wrong ideas.
1:04:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is that is not that's true.
1:05:00
Speaker 2: I accidentally had the stream public on X.
1:05:05
Speaker 1: And on Facebook, you know, on Exit kind of dies
1:05:09
Speaker 1: its own death, and Facebook, I'll go delete it afterwards.
1:05:12
Speaker 2: But yes, people could have watched it on X and
1:05:14
Speaker 2: on Facebook, so be it.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is often shocking the extent to which people
1:05:24
Speaker 1: holde bad ideas. And the point is that once they
1:05:27
Speaker 1: embrace a particular set of bad ideas, then you know,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: that opens them up to a whole universe of bad ideas,
1:05:36
Speaker 1: because again, we are integrating machines. So once you allow
1:05:40
Speaker 1: that one bad idea, that one bad premise, there's no
1:05:46
Speaker 1: stopping how many bad ideas you're going to adopt, because
1:05:50
Speaker 1: it's constantly integrating, it's constantly going, it's constantly interpreting everything
1:05:54
Speaker 1: you see in the world out there based on this
1:05:56
Speaker 1: wrong premise, and suddenly you've got a whole building, a
1:06:00
Speaker 1: whole set of ideas that are just wrong through and through,
1:06:05
Speaker 1: and Matt and many people on the left exactly that way.
1:06:09
Speaker 2: It's it's shocking the extent to which they have just.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: Awful horrific ideas and pretty much every realm of life,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: pretty much every realm of life. All right, I think
1:06:27
Speaker 1: that's I think that's it. I don't see any other
1:06:31
Speaker 1: questions out there. Thanks guys for joining me. Let me
1:06:35
Speaker 1: know what if this is the kind of show you
1:06:38
Speaker 1: want on their members only shows, it's hard for me
1:06:41
Speaker 1: to tell the miss and let me know what, what.
1:06:47
Speaker 2: Are the shows you would prefer for members only shows.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to do more this year than
1:06:52
Speaker 1: I have in the past, but for that I need
1:06:55
Speaker 1: to have a better clue about what it is you
1:06:58
Speaker 1: guys want. Fand Harper really likes these, but I don't
1:07:01
Speaker 1: know that Fred Happer is representative of our members out there.
1:07:06
Speaker 2: So let me know. Jennifer likes them.
1:07:09
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you guys are here, all of you listening afterwards,
1:07:12
Speaker 1: let me know. And there are so many good essays.
1:07:17
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: Niman Jah says he liked the show very much, all right,
1:07:25
Speaker 1: So people saying yes yes, like stepping through these articles
1:07:31
Speaker 1: and hearing you expand on them.
1:07:33
Speaker 2: All right, we'll keep going, uh and get more.
1:07:38
Speaker 1: They don't get a lot of views. Not a lot
1:07:40
Speaker 1: of people join us live. You don't ask a lot
1:07:43
Speaker 1: of questions. That's why I'm wondering. I mean a lot
1:07:46
Speaker 1: of questions about the article. Right, that's why I'm wondering.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: So there's not a lot of engagement. I like engagement. Guys,
1:07:52
Speaker 1: gotta gotta get more engaged. All right, I will see
1:07:57
Speaker 1: you all tomorrow at our usual time. Oh tomorrow, we've
1:08:02
Speaker 1: got two shows. Right, We've got in the evening. At night,
1:08:07
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing Don Watkins. So we've got Don Watkins in
1:08:15
Speaker 1: the evening and during the day either two or three
1:08:18
Speaker 1: o'clock Eastern time, we have a new show. So tomorrow
1:08:22
Speaker 1: two shows, new show and then Don Watkins.
1:08:25
Speaker 2: So stay tuned. I will see you guys tomorrow. Have
1:08:30
Speaker 2: a great rest of your weekend.
1:08:32
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me, and thanks for the super Chatters,
1:08:36
Speaker 1: and thanks for being members, and see tomorrow.
1:08:40
Speaker 2: Bye everybody.