• 2 years ago
https://freedomain.com/freedomain_books/the-future/

Centuries in the future, an old man awakes from cryogenic sleep to face the judgement of a utopian society that barely survived his past abuses of power. In the vein of 'Atlas Shrugged, philosophy, philosopher Stefan Molyneux has created a compelling and powerful work of imagination. He vividly describes the wonderful future that mankind can achieve - and the barriers to getting there - and all that we need to leave behind to finally live in peace...

Transcript
00:00 The Future by Stéphane Molyneux, chapter 42.
00:05 "Ladies and gentlemen," Cornelius said easily,
00:11 "I was reminded how amazing it was to watch people go from their private personality to their public persona.
00:18 There is always at least two people in there."
00:24 Whenever there is a calamity, we have an urge to find scapegoats,
00:30 to relieve our fear and anger,
00:33 and to imagine that we can magically prevent a recurrence without addressing root causes.
00:40 Superstitious societies, which we claim to have outgrown,
00:46 end up tyrannical because random bad things are always happening in the world,
00:51 and if we associate random actions with those bad things,
00:56 we end up controlling actions to the point of immobility, of paralysis, of dictatorship.
01:04 Lightning strikes a king while a man is dancing, so no more dancing!
01:09 A prince dies while his servant hums, no more humming!
01:17 There have been endless disasters throughout human history.
01:23 Very few have legitimate scapegoats, even to those in the moment who can assess the facts and evidence in the present time.
01:31 Yet we, who claim to have outgrown historical superstition, are looking for a scapegoat for the cataclysms.
01:43 Through fortune, fate, or chance, we have been delivered two people who are relatively easy to blame.
01:54 The president, who sits before you, and his son.
01:59 However, we have a system of justice precisely because it is so easy to blame people.
02:10 Disasters bring fear, fear brings helplessness, and we strive to overcome helplessness by blaming others.
02:20 The root causes of the cataclysms are well understood, but not definitive.
02:31 One thing we have learned in the modern world is to not place our faith in any coercive institutions.
02:40 If the majority of us are good, the existence of government means that we will be ruled by evil.
02:47 If the majority of us are evil, then a democracy ensures that evildoers will rule.
02:53 If a minority of us are good, we still end up ruled by the immoral.
02:59 If a minority of us are evil, those evildoers will rule us through the state.
03:05 There is no circumstance under which the existence of institutionalized coercion leads to a more moral society.
03:15 We know all this. This is what we teach our children.
03:25 I am aware that my client is not on trial for his political actions, but rather his parenting.
03:33 However, we have to ask ourselves,
03:37 would we wish to dig up crimes 500 years past if it weren't for our collective trauma of the cataclysms?
03:47 All who lack self-knowledge are enslaved to their emotions.
03:55 I submit to you that this prosecution is fundamentally psychological.
04:05 The stories of the cataclysms handed down by our ancestors,
04:12 and made vivid through the records that were kept, call out for justice, for vengeance, for punishment.
04:21 Just because we have only two men to punish, does not mean that we should punish those two men.
04:31 If we were to go back in time and change the behaviors or lifespans of these two men,
04:41 do you seriously believe that the cataclysms would never have come to pass?
04:47 It took centuries to sow the demon seeds that resulted in the worldwide disasters.
04:54 The opposition to rationality, the destruction of universal morality,
05:01 the substitution of hysteria for reason,
05:05 the general psychosis provoked by the illusion of infinite resources,
05:09 itself a result of state counterfeiting of currency,
05:13 the collapse of the family, the absence of fathers,
05:17 the understandable inability of single mothers to raise strong sons.
05:22 We could list the causes all day and still have room for more.
05:27 Alice raised her hand.
05:30 "Judge Peters, my colleague is literally creating a straw man out of thin air.
05:34 We are not charging Mr. Staten with causing the cataclysms."
05:38 Judge Peters looked at Cornelius inquisitively.
05:42 Cornelius said, "I appreciate my colleague reminding me of the charges I'm sworn to defend my client against.
05:52 I am seeking to explain to the audience, to those who will judge,
05:59 the psychological causality behind these charges."
06:04 Judge Peters asked him to focus on the charges.
06:10 It is a universal principle of justice that we examine here.
06:17 How much is a man responsible for his moral decisions?
06:23 It used to be said that morality is a social construct.
06:29 We have outgrown that, thank heavens.
06:31 But there is truth in the statement.
06:35 Don't gasp. Give me some room.
06:39 Visitors to your society may have insights that you lack.
06:44 Imagine if we had thawed out some caveman from 50,000 years ago
06:52 and found scraps of human flesh in his belly.
06:55 Now cannibalism is a monstrous crime,
06:58 so would we charge him for taking a bite out of his fellow man?
07:03 Imagine we thawed out a father and child from the same time,
07:07 and the child had marks of abuse on his body.
07:10 Would we charge the caveman father with child abuse?
07:14 Alice started to say something, but Cornelius raised his hand.
07:18 "I understand the charges," my colleague was about to say,
07:22 "that we would not charge the caveman because the caveman would never have tried to hide his abuse
07:27 or been hypocritical in its application.
07:31 And I understand that as the root of the charges against my client,
07:36 but an essential moral element is missing from the case,
07:40 which I believe exonerates my client completely.
07:44 My client is charged with child abuse because,
07:51 according to his son and other evidence,
07:54 he beat his son, neglected his son, and verbally abused him as well.
07:59 The hypocritical element is that he hid all of this from public view
08:03 and claimed to be a loving father.
08:06 To our eyes, this appears monstrous and truly damning.
08:14 However, the essential element I referred to earlier is this.
08:22 This hypocrisy was ubiquitous within his society.
08:30 It takes a mere moment of logical examination to unravel this hypocrisy in the present
08:38 and arguably in the past,
08:40 but almost no parents were able to achieve this rational feat 500 years ago.
08:47 Hypocrisy was the norm, the near universal norm.
08:53 To hit in private and be peaceful in public was the modus operandi of almost every parent the entire world over.
09:03 All parents praised peace in public and waged war against their children in private.
09:12 It took the entire length and breadth of the cataclysms for this obvious contradiction to be finally unraveled,
09:21 giving birth to the modern, peaceful world.
09:25 The deaths of billions, continents in flames, starvation, disease, war, and literal hell on earth.
09:35 This is what it took for humanity to wake up from the dogmatic slumber
09:39 of justifying violence against our children.
09:43 We all, humanity as a whole, had to fall into hell and burn there for generations
09:53 in order to finally declare peace against our own children.
09:59 Yet, we stand here in judgment over one single, solitary man
10:06 for failing to discover what it took humanity centuries of destruction to learn.
10:11 In order to prove our case, my colleague has to first establish that these beatings occurred,
10:24 and then that my client had the moral knowledge and responsibility to prevent them,
10:30 and that his behavior differed markedly from those around him in his time.
10:37 This is an insurmountable task.
10:42 We can regret these alleged beatings.
10:47 We can be horrified by the standards of the past, which I applaud.
10:51 It is that horror which has built the present.
10:54 But they were the standards all over the world for almost every parent.
11:00 We can say that my client should have been aware of the tiny,
11:04 fringe extremist movement of peaceful parenting.
11:07 But the proponents of such a radical philosophy were expelled from society by the abusers
11:12 long before they became mainstream.
11:14 It is really those censors that we should thaw and blame for the cataclysms,
11:19 because if peaceful parenting had been allowed to flourish,
11:23 we would have avoided that endless span of hell altogether.
11:29 Cornelius paused.
11:34 My eyes widened.
11:37 He was either thinking deeply on the fly or giving an incredible simulation of it.
11:47 We praise ourselves as a just and empathetic society.
11:53 But empathy is a real challenge.
11:57 It is not just divining the needs and emotions of others,
12:01 but instead putting ourselves directly in their shoes.
12:06 So let me take you on a brief journey, and then I will sit down.
12:16 I want you to come back with me in time.
12:21 500 years.
12:23 Your parents are stressed workaholics,
12:28 facing a society coming apart at the seams.
12:33 Massive debt, escalating taxes, foreign attacks,
12:38 increasing censorship and growing political violence.
12:44 If you are raised at home, your mother spends her days panicking
12:47 over bad news on her phone rather than loving you.
12:51 More likely, you are dumped in a government-controlled daycare
12:54 within a few weeks or months of being born,
12:57 where you struggle to survive in a dangerous and chaotic clan of disturbed children.
13:05 When you are sent to what was historically called a school,
13:12 you are taught to hate your culture, your history, your country, your civilization.
13:19 You are exposed to sexual content at a very early age.
13:25 The most disturbed children rule your social landscape,
13:29 and your parents very likely get divorced.
13:37 You are neglected, an afterthought to the fear and vanity of those around you.
13:44 You are spanked according to religious misinterpretation or simple frustration.
13:51 Your property is taken away.
13:53 You are left unattended for hours at a time,
13:57 and you struggle to learn how to negotiate with the crazy children around you.
14:05 You are distracted by video games,
14:08 which at least provide a semblance of stability, predictability, and achievement.
14:14 You have no idea how you are going to grow up, find a spouse, start a family.
14:24 You don't want the lives your parents have,
14:28 but don't know how to create any other options.
14:34 Your only potential path to security is political power.
14:41 Your father was a politician.
14:45 He was violent towards you, just as your mother was.
14:48 He opens the door to power for you.
14:54 If you don't walk through it, you have no future.
15:00 So you do.
15:04 You take political power.
15:06 You find a wife and have children.
15:09 The anti-rational mob whose votes you rely on
15:15 constantly demand that you cater to them,
15:18 to their every whim and need,
15:21 rather than spending time with your own family.
15:27 You have a son who turns out to be quite different.
15:34 You don't understand him.
15:37 You have no time to learn how to understand him.
15:41 And his rebellion is something you would never have imagined
15:45 inflicting on your own father for fear of his violence.
15:51 Your entire society is drenched in violence.
15:57 The state commands and controls and subjugates with the power of force.
16:03 Reputations are casually destroyed through lies.
16:08 Friends are separated into blind opposing camps.
16:12 Families and marriages splinter under the pressure of an uncontrollable world.
16:20 In this violence, chaos and disintegration,
16:26 what decisions would you make?
16:31 With no better examples before your eyes,
16:36 how would you parent?
16:39 Cornelius's eyes grew steely.
16:43 Most importantly,
16:46 how much free will do you have?
16:51 We accept that a man who commits a crime under direct coercion
16:59 is not responsible for his actions.
17:02 If I force you to rob a bank, it is I who am charged, not you.
17:07 Five hundred years ago,
17:12 the whole world was breaking and cracking apart under compulsion.
17:19 The reason we allow no exceptions to the non-aggression principle
17:25 is that the historical world is the clearest example of a slippery slope
17:31 that could possibly be imagined.
17:34 A slope slippery with blood.
17:39 Once the state has the power to tax,
17:43 definition of the state, really,
17:46 it has the power to create schools that indoctrinate the young.
17:52 After that, it is just a matter of time before the end.
18:00 Do we blame citizens for having allegiance to the state that raised them?
18:07 Do we blame citizens for failing to see that the state is coercion?
18:11 When to understand that would be to know for certain
18:14 that their parents voluntarily put them under the control of a coercive organization.
18:19 My client was raised with violence,
18:25 in a violent society, by violent people.
18:29 That was the language he spoke, the world that he had to survive in.
18:35 We can condemn him for what he did to survive in the world he never made,
18:42 or we can be grateful at the lessons learned from his actions,
18:50 from the actions of almost every parent in his world.
18:55 This would be like condemning the reptile for not being a mammal,
19:02 or the monkey for not being a human.
19:06 There was a slight murmur of laughter. I bristled with anger.
19:12 Cornelius said, "It is unjust to blame a man for his circumstances,
19:24 and it is unjust to the point of immorality to blame a man for failing to learn
19:29 what took the rupture of the entire planet to discover."
19:33 We can mourn the life he had, sympathize with the world he was raised in,
19:43 but to condemn him will be utterly unjust.
19:49 Chapter 43
19:57 Judge Peters looked up from his sandwich as the door to his chambers opened.
20:04 Alice and Cornelius came in.
20:07 Cornelius said, "Judge Peters, I have a concern, more than one, actually.
20:14 My client, Mr. Staten, is not taking any advice or instruction from me."
20:21 Judge Peters nodded. "Does he want another representative?"
20:25 "No, he seems happy with me, but he won't prepare, he won't take any advice.
20:32 I'm concerned that he might be aiming for a mistrial."
20:36 "I assume his position is well documented?"
20:40 "Oh, I make him sign every morning. I've gone over all the consequences.
20:44 He knows that his refusal to take advice won't affect the legitimacy of the trial.
20:48 I've told him that he can be cross-examined by his own son, but he doesn't seem to care."
20:54 The judge shrugged, turning to Alice. "Comments?" She shook her head.
21:01 The judge said, "Everyone has the right to refuse good advice."
21:07 "Must be one hell of a shock to go from the top of the world to the bottom of the heap
21:11 in the blink of an eye. Nothing like this would ever have happened in his world.
21:17 I've always been curious how..."
21:20 "No, never mind, inappropriate," he sighed. "If your colleague has no objection,
21:26 and I have no objection, I suppose I appreciate you bringing it to my attention,
21:31 but we must plow on." Cornelius nodded a pained expression on his face.
21:37 After lunch, Alice stood up in the courtroom.
21:45 "For my first witness, my only eyewitness, of course, I am calling Jake Staten."
21:53 The two wide, white, double doors opened, and an elderly man strode into the courtroom.
22:00 He had an air of newly-minted vitality, as if his knees had just been replaced.
22:06 Mr. Staten cried, "Good God, you're so old!"
22:11 Jake nodded, his eyes wide.
22:14 "Dad," he murmured. Cornelius leaned over and whispered something to his client.
22:22 "Mr. Staten stood up and strode over to the stand," he said, comfortable and erect,
22:29 surveying the crowd. Alice rose and wished him good afternoon.
22:35 "Good afternoon," he replied coldly.
22:41 "It must be quite a shock meeting your son who is twenty years older than you."
22:48 For all his bravado, a ripple of vulnerable shock ran across Mr. Staten's face.
22:54 "Yes, you have no idea."
22:58 Alice said, "I once played with a VR simulation of my father as a boy,
23:03 since he said he wanted me to know him before I came along, but I don't imagine it's anything close."
23:10 Mr. Staten stared at her. As if by a gravity well, his eyes were drawn to his son.
23:18 He murmured something. "Excuse me?" He cleared his throat.
23:24 "It is strange when your eldest son becomes your eldest son."
23:32 There was an exquisite vulnerability in his demeanor, but it vanished immediately.
23:37 "Do you need a moment?" "I do not." Alice nodded.
23:42 "Could you tell us your philosophy of parenting, please?" Mr. Staten paused.
23:49 "That is a big question." Cornelius said, too open-ended.
23:54 Alice shook her head. "We are separated by centuries, Judge Peters.
23:59 Not many people here would know the parenting practices of five hundred years ago,
24:03 and you should never judge what you don't understand."
24:07 Judge Peters allowed the question to stand. Mr. Staten smiled.
24:12 "Is there no statute of limitations for inconvenient memories?" Alice did not reply.
24:20 He said, "My general goal was to prepare my children for the world.
24:29 The world that was, I suppose. A different world.
24:34 I knew an idealist when I was younger. Two, in fact.
24:40 Life did not end well for either of them.
24:46 Those who want to improve the world are usually the first to go."
24:50 He smiled, self-deprecatingly. "I never had that kind of courage.
24:56 Managing things, I was good at that. I'm getting to my parenting.
25:01 Be patient, young lady." "How can I fit everything that was
25:06 through the eye of this needle?" He gestured at his mouth and spread his hands.
25:14 "There were two poles, I suppose, in my day.
25:20 It seemed to me like an old man on a porch with short suspenders.
25:26 On the one side were parents who wanted to be buddies to their children,
25:32 like friends or like siblings, I think.
25:36 They never wanted to displease their children.
25:40 My wife was a little bit that way. I think a lot of mothers are.
25:44 But that gives way too much power to the children.
25:47 They end up ruling the roost, wagging the dog, if that makes sense.
25:51 And I remember reading somewhere that if you don't give any limits to your children
25:55 and keep making excuses, that's the best way to turn them into criminals."
26:01 He smiled wryly. "I know how precious that sounds.
26:05 I'm on trial for a crime and talking about how to prevent criminality.
26:11 But that was the way we were, the best information we could go on.
26:17 And I had the example of my friends and relatives when I was a boy.
26:24 And I was not a very young father, so I got to see how some of that played out
26:30 before I put my shoulder to the wheel, so to speak.
26:34 The kids with no discipline, well, they just wasted their lives.
26:42 Everything was an imposition, every speed bump, a brick wall.
26:46 They never wanted to do any paperwork or meet with any lawyers
26:49 or do anything difficult or unpleasant.
26:52 They lived their easy lives and just faded into the woodwork, got nowhere, or died.
27:00 That wasn't as rare as it should have been.
27:04 Drugs were a big issue. We all hung over that canyon to nowhere.
27:11 My father was, well, one hell of a disciplinarian.
27:19 You almost had to salute when he walked by.
27:22 "We're not here for pleasure," he made that clear.
27:26 "We're here to be of use, to be of service."
27:30 Well, that requires discipline.
27:34 You can't be a coach unless you know how to play,
27:37 and you'll never learn how to play by lazing around.
27:41 Get up early, make the bed so tight you can bounce a coin on it,
27:45 shave even on a Sunday, do your push-ups, plan your day, and stick to it.
27:50 Say your prayers, go to bed early, don't waste time.
27:55 "Plenty of time for laziness after you're dead," he used to say.
27:59 And he did it. He made everything for us.
28:04 Pulled us up out of nothing, 40 acres and a mule,
28:08 and put us right at the center of American life.
28:11 Overalls, two tuxedos, two generations.
28:15 And we were supposed to stay there forever, but I guess we didn't.
28:22 His voice faltered slightly.
28:26 The entire audience was fascinated by this voice from the past,
28:29 this warped window to a dead world.
28:35 He continued, "You seem to have a very pleasant life here, all of you.
28:43 Maybe our sacrifices were not entirely in vain.
28:48 To be honest, and with all respect and gratitude for you awakening me,
28:55 it is a little too soft for my tastes.
29:02 But I suppose that is the point.
29:05 My great-grandfather's life, well, I suppose my life would have seemed pretty soft to him.
29:12 I suppose that is the point. To make things easier for your kids, then nag them for being soft."
29:20 Mr. Staten chuckled. Alice started to rise.
29:22 "I know. My parenting.
29:26 Here I have been silent for 500 years, and now I am nagged to get to the point.
29:32 But that's all right. This is a formal place. A place of justice, I am told.
29:40 I've spent so much time flying around the sky that I'm surprised I'm not being judged in the clouds."
29:46 He smiled at the judge. "Although I suppose it is fitting that your name is Peters."
29:52 He took a deep breath.
29:55 "As to parenting, well, I was tough.
30:00 You call this abuse now, which I suppose could be understood.
30:06 How my father was raised was much harsher than how I raised my son.
30:11 Perhaps it is supposed to diminish until we get to this heaven, this utopia."
30:17 He sighed.
30:20 "I wanted to...
30:24 I wanted my approval to be something that my children strove for, or after.
30:30 I suppose I was obsessed with approval ratings myself.
30:34 But you do have to get the approval of other people in this life in order to succeed.
30:41 People have to want to eat at your restaurant."
30:45 "Oh, and have you guys tried this one at the top of the tree run by... Mavis, was it?"
30:50 He laughed. "Okay, okay. I'll withdraw that myself. But it really is amazing, believe me."
30:56 "So...
30:59 I withheld my approval for my children, particularly my eldest.
31:05 Hello again, stranger. Because he, in fact, had the most potential of all of my children.
31:11 My middle child was like a horse, strong, fast, but not much between the ears.
31:19 My daughter... well, it's a whole other situation.
31:24 Unless you dig her up as well. Sorry. Poor taste."
31:30 And I did that. Yes, I did spank my children, on occasion.
31:36 But I wasn't about to teach them discipline while being undisciplined myself.
31:42 There were a series of steps. Each one had to be followed. It wasn't some random blow from the sky.
31:48 You give a warning, then another warning, and then you explain why the spanking is about to happen.
31:55 And then you administer the spanking through clothing. It was really designed to shock rather than hurt.
32:01 And then you check in with the child, whether he or she understands why the punishment has occurred.
32:08 You never did it out of anger. You didn't do it out of hatred.
32:13 And you didn't do it because of some silly disagreement.
32:17 Mrs. Staten held up a finger.
32:19 "And you certainly made sure that the child understood the rules before applying the punishment."
32:27 He craned his head, looking around the gallery.
32:30 "I'm with you. All. I hated the parents who just beat the hell out of their children.
32:38 They were just creating monsters we would all have to deal with for the rest of our lives."
32:43 He spread his hands again. "The kids with no discipline just kind of dissolved.
32:52 The kids who were beaten just rebelled. They just dissolved in opposition.
32:59 Instead, same outcome. Me? I've always been, for the Aristotelian, mean."
33:07 Alice stood. "How often did you spank your children?"
33:12 Mr. Staten's eyes widened.
33:16 "Gosh, I know this sounds like a cop-out, but I'm actually having some trouble accessing middle memories.
33:25 I guess the cryogenic technology was kind of primitive.
33:31 I can remember a few instances. One when my middle son was running towards a busy road.
33:37 And another when my daughter knocked over a propane lamp while we were camping. Could have set us all ablaze."
33:42 He wagged a finger towards his son. "And this one, always hungry, grabbing at things on the stove.
33:50 A woman I dated when I was a teenager had terrible burns all down her back.
33:54 That really stuck with me. She couldn't get anywhere in life. She was afraid of the beach."
34:01 His voice seemed to grow unconsciously aggrieved.
34:04 "And yes, we turned the handles of the pans to the back, but he just kept grabbing at them.
34:10 And it's tough for three kids. They would also do whatever he did, so it spread."
34:15 He turned to his son with a smile. "You got to stay up later. You got more allowance.
34:22 But you were also a template for your siblings. And with great power comes great responsibility."
34:30 There was also a rule about the phone. He was a needy kid. Always wanted me around.
34:38 I would try to stay home on occasion, and sometimes there would be very important phone calls.
34:45 Which is funny, because nothing seems important now, but then...
34:50 And he would constantly want to show me something while I was on the phone.
34:54 And I confess, it created a kind of static in my brain. Oh man, really frustrating.
35:01 It was a real high-wire act, my life.
35:06 You can only explain those kinds of interruptions so many times
35:12 before you sound like some emasculated househusband. Couldn't have that.
35:17 And there wasn't much reasoning. That is the young puppy phase of childhood.
35:22 You just have to train them. But it's a phase, and it ends, like everything.
35:28 Except my life, I suppose. He laughed, apparently self-consciously.
35:34 There was a strange silence in the amphitheater after his words.
35:40 He turned around, scanning the audience. Alice said, "You never spanked your children in public.
35:49 I also do not defecate in public either, or have sex. Does that make me a hypocrite?"
35:55 "Analogies are not arguments, Mr. State inside."
36:00 "I suppose it comes from my managerial experience. Praise in public, chastise in private."
36:11 I cheered my middle son during his endless football games.
36:16 I wasn't screaming from the stands at him, though, when he did something wrong.
36:20 I would talk about that with him in private.
36:23 You want it to be instructional, not humiliating, so you don't do it in front of his friends,
36:28 or strangers, or photographers, or the media. That, to me, would be utterly abusive.
36:35 Alice paused. "You said that your children were like puppies," Mr. Staten's voice sharpened.
36:41 "No." "You didn't?" "Don't reduce it to that. With regards to self-discipline,
36:48 I said that they were in a puppy-like phase." "And how long did that phase last?"
36:55 Mr. Staten shrugged. "It was different for each kid. My eldest son fought me,
37:01 my middle obeyed, and my daughter just avoided me. Clung to her mother, I guess."
37:10 "Are you asking me when the last time was I spanked my children? For each of them?
37:17 Let's just stick to your eldest." Mr. Staten's eyes narrowed. "That's a tough one.
37:26 If you're going to ask me, then you're going to ask him.
37:30 Or maybe he will ask me. Apparently it works that way now.
37:33 And if there is a discrepancy, then one of us is lying, or both of us."
37:39 "The fact is that it was not a central or important part of my parenting,
37:44 so it's like asking exactly how old your children were when they lost their last baby tooth.
37:51 It's just part of parenting, part of the general flow, not important enough to mark in your brain
37:56 like a birthday." My wife would remember. She could recite all our illnesses in her sleep.
38:02 Alice said, "Just give me a rough age range." He took a deep breath. "Whew!"
38:11 He tried to catch his son's eye, but Jake was looking down. "I'm going to guess...
38:17 And remember, some of my memories didn't survive the deep freeze.
38:22 Before puberty for sure. Maybe nine or ten? No, it must have been younger than that."
38:31 Alice waited. Mr. Staten looked at her helplessly. "I... I couldn't honestly tell you.
38:40 Was he over five?" "I think so." "And did you try reasoning with him before hitting him?"
38:47 Cornelius said, "Asked and answered. He already said that he explained the rules before spanking."
38:52 Alice replied, "Explaining rules is not reasoning." Judge Peters pursed his lips.
38:58 "I think we could all use more detail." Mr. Staten paused, glancing at the judge.
39:05 "So I'm... to answer?" "Yes." He blew through his lips. "Pfft. Reasoning.
39:15 That was pretty much the same as pleading in my day. And I don't think I ever saw a different example."
39:23 "Life is busy. Everyone here has enough leisure to come and lounge around.
39:31 And I don't think I've seen one genuine emergency since I came back to life.
39:37 You're all like a bunch of Roman..." He laughed softly. "Well, you have time.
39:47 But that wasn't how it was for us. I guess this is a special case of historical pleading,
39:55 but you have no idea how busy we were. I would get up at 5.30 in the morning, before dawn usually,
40:04 exercise, do e-mails, social media, breakfast, calls, endless, endless calls,
40:12 and usually head off to the office before the kids were even up.
40:16 Sometimes I wouldn't get home until after they'd gone to bed, which I hated.
40:20 I always wanted to read them a story when they were young." His eyes grew distant.
40:27 "Everything was mad, looking back. It was a mad life. But I loved it at the time.
40:35 I frankly don't know how you all fill up your days. And even the weekends,
40:42 there was always some family function or donor dinner.
40:45 Someone was always having an anniversary or a christening or a birthday.
40:49 It was just a mad treadmill, as I said. There was no time for reason." He smiled sadly.
41:00 "Although I suppose you will say that there was no time because we weren't reasoning.
41:05 But you get the world. You try to improve it, but you can't remake it from scratch."
41:11 "Unless it burns to the ground," said Alice softly, then lifted up her left hand, withdrawn.
41:19 Mrs. Staten stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged.
41:25 "So, of course, you do try to reason with your kids. But you can't spend your entire life
41:31 trying to reason with your kids. You have to get things done as well.
41:35 And I love the leisure that you have now. This world without emergencies
41:46 makes my world look like a madhouse. Maybe it was."
41:51 Alice said, "Of course, you never hit another adult, correct?"
41:56 Mrs. Staten shrugged. "Maybe some drunken stuff in my teens, but no, not really."
42:02 "Why did you hit your children, but not adults?"
42:06 "Oh, I don't know how to say this without sounding insulting.
42:14 But children's brains are immature, deficient in reason, just like they are deficient in height
42:23 relative to adulthood." Alice checked her notes.
42:27 "What was your grandfather's name?" Mrs. Staten blinked.
42:32 "John." "And he spent years with diminished capacity, is that right?"
42:39 "I don't remember how long it was, but it was a while, yeah."
42:43 "And would you say that John was deficient in reason relative to his adulthood?"
42:49 "He had dementia." Alice nodded. "So he had a physical deficiency in his brain
42:57 which reduced his capacity to reason." Mrs. Staten stared at her.
43:02 Cornelia said, "We need a question." Mrs. Staten said, "I'm not a doctor, and I was a kid.
43:10 I don't know what was wrong with him, but you said he had dementia."
43:13 He shrugged. "That's what I was told. That was the common word, but I didn't
43:18 diagnose him like a doctor would." "But it wasn't some moral failing, right?
43:25 Something was wrong with his brain, which reduced his capacity to reason."
43:29 "That would be my assumption." "Would it have been appropriate for your father to
43:35 hit his father if his father did not act rationally?" Mrs. Staten turned with oddly
43:42 pleading eyes to Cornelius. His representative walked over to him,
43:46 and they conferred quietly. Cornelius said, "Judge Peters, my client cannot reasonably
43:52 answer what he thought his father should have done about his grandfather's illness."
43:57 Alice snorted. "I'm asking -- I do apologize for the unclear wording.
44:03 I am asking if Mr. Staten believes it would be morally right or acceptable for his
44:09 father to have hit his grandfather for failing to act rationally."
44:13 Instantly, Mrs. Staten said, "That would be elder."
44:18 He stopped immediately. Alice turned to him with laser focus.
44:24 "What was the next word? What were you about to say?"
44:28 Mrs. Staten looked at Cornelius, who looked at Judge Peters.
44:33 "Please answer," said the judge, leaning forward.
44:39 Mrs. Staten sat silently. Everyone waited for an endless thirty seconds.
44:50 "Cornelius, please inform your client of the penalties for failing to answer honestly."
44:58 Another huddled conference. Much gesticulation. A recess.
45:06 Eventually, Mr. Staten returned to the stand.
45:12 Judge Peters asked, "Are you ready to answer the question?"
45:16 "I am." "Please repeat the question."
45:20 Alice said, "Would it be morally acceptable for his father to have hit his grandfather
45:25 for failing to act rationally?" "No, because that would be elder abuse."
45:34 A ripple of breathy sound flew through the amphitheater.
45:38 Alice said, "Why would that be abuse?"
45:42 Mr. Staten said, "Well, it's not his fault that he has dementia."
45:48 "Is it your children's fault that they had childhood?"
45:52 "I don't understand the question."
45:55 "Is it a child's fault that his brain is immature relative to his adulthood?"
46:00 "Of course not."
46:02 "So, if we cannot punish the elderly for their diminished mental capacity,
46:07 is it moral to punish children for their diminished mental capacity?"
46:12 "Because children are going to grow into adulthood.
46:16 They have potential that my grandfather did not."
46:20 "So you are changing your answer?"
46:22 "Excuse me? I'm doing no such thing."
46:24 "You certainly are."
46:26 Mr. Staten stared at Alice stonily.
46:30 "Would you like me to tell you how your answer has changed?" asked Alice.
46:35 "Silence."
46:37 She leaned forward over her white desk.
46:41 "Your answer has changed because earlier you said that you punished your children
46:46 because of their diminished capacity.
46:48 When I pointed out that you did not punish your grandfather,
46:51 or you would not approve of him being punished because of his diminished capacity,
46:56 you now say that your children can be punished because they have potential,
47:00 intellectual potential.
47:02 In other words, it is not diminished capacity that is the cause of punishment,
47:06 but rather diminished capacity plus intellectual potential.
47:10 Diminished capacity alone is not enough."
47:13 "Hairsplitting 101."
47:15 "I don't understand," said Alice.
47:18 "An introductory course is called 101," said Mr. Staten coldly.
47:23 "My children are not my grandfather. Different rules apply.
47:27 Sure, they both wore diapers, I suppose, but only one of them breastfed.
47:31 At least I hope so."
47:34 The expected laughter did not manifest.
47:38 Alice slowly began walking towards Mr. Staten.
47:43 "Let us suppose that there was a course of treatment
47:46 that helped your grandfather regain his intellectual capacity.
47:49 Every day he got a little bit better, although it would take years to recover completely.
47:54 Would it be acceptable to strike him then if he failed to obey the rules?
47:59 I get where you're coming from, but please let's not waste time and insult her intelligence.
48:05 My grandfather had had his life.
48:08 He knew all the rules, and they had been taken away from him by bad luck, by nature, whatever.
48:15 My children were born blank slates, tabula rasa.
48:20 The rules had to be imprinted on them.
48:24 The wax steams on impact, doesn't make the king evil.
48:27 You are changing your answer again."
48:30 "What the hell?"
48:34 Alice paused after his outburst, then slowly ticked off her fingers.
48:40 "First it was hitting based on diminished capacity.
48:44 Then it was diminished capacity plus intellectual potential.
48:49 Now it is diminished capacity plus intellectual potential plus a lack of prior knowledge about the rules.
48:57 Does it trouble you that you are continually changing your story?
49:01 Do you know what the word 'defensive' means?"
49:03 Cornelius jumped up. "Rhetorical questions!"
49:06 Judge Peter signaled for Alice to move on.
49:09 She nodded.
49:12 "Earlier you said that you could not remember when you stopped hitting your children.
49:16 Do you remember that?"
49:17 "Yes."
49:19 "Do you think that we should judge you more harshly or less harshly based on your lack of knowledge, your forgetfulness?"
49:26 "My brain was frozen!"
49:29 "Agreed. You have an intellectual deficiency outside of your control.
49:34 At least we have to take your word on that.
49:37 Do you think we should judge you more harshly or less harshly because you no longer remember when you stopped hitting your children?"
49:45 "I don't know. This world is new to me."
49:49 "What do you mean?"
49:51 "If you come across some pygmy tribe in the middle of nowhere,
49:55 and they ask you how they should feel or think about something, you wouldn't have a clue,
50:00 because you don't know them at all.
50:02 Well, you are even more foreign than that to me.
50:06 I have no idea how you should or should not judge me.
50:10 I'm just telling the truth."
50:14 "All right. Let us say you have a personal assistant, and she does not schedule an appointment.
50:23 Two scenarios.
50:24 One, you told her about the appointment and she forgot.
50:28 And two, you never told her about the appointment at all.
50:32 Would you judge her more negatively if you had told her about that appointment and she just forgot it?"
50:38 "I would judge her more negatively, yes."
50:42 "What if it turned out that she had some brain disease, which caused her to forget the appointment?"
50:49 Mr. Staten rolled his eyes.
50:51 "Well, then of course I wouldn't judge her negatively.
50:56 And of course, if you had never told her of the appointment, you wouldn't judge her negatively at all
51:01 for failing to forget that which she had never learned.
51:04 Yes."
51:06 "So now you are changing your answer once more."
51:10 Mr. Staten jumped up. "Oh, come on!"
51:13 The judge gestured for him to sit again.
51:16 "You have."
51:18 "You are," said Alice, walking slowly closer.
51:22 "Now we have another standard excusing or justifying you hitting your children.
51:30 You said that you could hit them, but not your grandfather,
51:33 because they had diminished capacity with the potential for maturity,
51:38 and because your grandfather had prior knowledge of the rules, while your children did not.
51:43 Now you claim that you would not judge your personal assistant negatively
51:48 for having no knowledge of an appointment.
51:50 In other words, if she didn't know something, you would not judge her negatively for the inevitable result."
51:57 Cornelius raised his hand.
51:59 "Judge Peters, I'm getting confused."
52:02 "Try again," said the judge.
52:05 "No need," said Mr. Staten briskly.
52:08 "I did say that my grandfather should not be hit, because he used to know the rules and has forgotten them.
52:12 But that was not the case with my children, because I explicitly told them the rules before spanking them.
52:19 Gave them many, many warnings, in fact.
52:22 So the two situations are not analogous."
52:26 Was there a time early in your grandfather's disease when you or your father, or anyone really,
52:33 reminded him of the rules, but he failed to follow them because of his reduced intellectual capacity?
52:40 I'm sure there was.
52:42 So, reduced intellectual capacity can lead one to not follow the rules,
52:50 even if they have been made explicit recently.
52:54 Pause.
53:00 "Mr. Staten?" Silence.
53:04 Cornelius's lower lip trembled.
53:07 "Mr. Staten, why the hell are we talking about my grandfather's dying mind from centuries ago?
53:14 He's not here, my father isn't here, you're all just obsessed with the past,
53:19 with railroading me and cornering me and twisting my words."
53:23 The judge raised his hand. "Mr. Staten."
53:26 He took a deep breath.
53:30 "You must answer the question."
53:33 Mr. Staten stared at Alice for a moment.
53:37 "Repeat," Alice said.
53:42 "Is it possible for a person with diminished intellectual capacity
53:47 to fail to follow rules that have been explained shortly before?"
53:52 "Yes."
53:54 "So, there's justification too for hitting children."
53:58 "Fails. Falls flat. Is invalid."
54:02 Silence.
54:05 "Every characteristic that you claim justifies hitting children applies only to children,
54:14 even though those characteristics also apply to adults with mental deficiencies.
54:19 This means that..."
54:21 "Do you know what ex post facto reasoning is?"
54:26 "Of course, although I know you will explain it again."
54:29 "Reasoning after the fact. You act, and then you justify.
54:34 You hit children because they are smaller and weaker and dependent upon you.
54:42 You hit children because you were hit as a child.
54:47 You have not processed that pain, that fear and anger,
54:52 and so you re-inflicted upon your own children,
54:55 which was a cycle of history that led to the horrors of the cataclysms.
55:00 You have no moral justification for hitting children.
55:05 If in your old age you had diminished mental capacity, as we all do,
55:11 and your adult children hit you as you had hit them,
55:14 you would have screamed that it was elder abuse and called the police.
55:19 You complain that I insult your intelligence.
55:22 Do not insult this entire assembly, the entire world,
55:26 by pretending that your violence towards your children was anything other
55:30 than the brute exercise of power over them."
55:33 She turned and pointed at Jake.
55:35 "One of them is still here against all odds,
55:39 and I would bet a bitcoin that this is the first time he has heard
55:44 all of these excuses and justifications for your brutality towards him.
55:49 We will get an apology out of you, Mr. Staten,
55:53 even if it is 500 years too late.
55:56 We are here for justice!"
55:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]