Stefan Molyneux
  • yesterday
Luke 12:49-53

I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

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Transcript
00:00Hello, everybody, Stephen Molyneux from FreedomAin. Hope you're doing well.
00:04So, I had a wild time doing Corinthians yesterday and felt almost divine in my exploration.
00:12So, I asked listeners for favorite Bible verses and I've got a bunch.
00:17I'm going to choose one every day or two to explicate as best as I am able.
00:23And I hope that the grace shall slam into my chest and brain verily like a freight train of wisdom.
00:30So, this is Luke 12, 49-53. Jesus says,
00:37Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.
00:45For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother,
00:51and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
00:57And it's a very powerful statement. It's a very powerful statement.
01:01And my interpretation of this goes as follows.
01:05What do your parents love about you? What do your parents love about you?
01:12They claim to love you. They say they love you. I'm not saying they don't.
01:17But what do your parents love about you?
01:23Which is related to an even more essential question, which is what do you love about yourself?
01:29Now, this is one of the earliest questions that I worked to answer in my philosophical conversation with planet,
01:37people, and hopefully eternity, which is, what is love?
01:41And love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous.
01:46And the reason I put the word involuntary in is that anybody who asks you to will love,
01:53or demands love from you, or say that you owe them love,
01:56is as foolish as a man who overeats and then says to his body,
02:02You owe me abs. I mean, I guess there are abs in there somewhere under the mountain of belly fat.
02:08But it is as foolish to say to your body when you overeat and don't exercise,
02:14You owe me abs. You owe me the viper back. You owe me muscles.
02:18No. Slenderness, muscles are the body's involuntary response.
02:23It cannot be willed, or in another way of putting it, it's an effect of your will.
02:28If you smoke, demanding that your body provide to you the effects of not smoking is foolish in the extreme.
02:37It's deranged. It's delusional. It's mad. It's mad.
02:41So, the reason that involuntary needs to be in the formulation of love is,
02:47when you say love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous,
02:52the beauty of that is that you cannot be compelled to love.
02:57You cannot be compelled to love.
02:59It's like asking your body to have the effects of sunlight without actually exposing it to sunlight.
03:06A tan is your body's involuntary response to sunlight,
03:11and demanding it without the presence of sunlight is madness.
03:15I want a tan. I don't want to expose myself to any sun or sun substitutes.
03:22Well, you can get a fake tan. It's not a real tan.
03:25So, what do your parents love about you?
03:30Really an intensely and immensely foundational question.
03:35What do your parents love about you?
03:37Do they love your compliance, your conformity, your subjugation, your obedience,
03:45which is to say, do they love not what is you, but what they have forced you to comply to in them?
03:56That's the more foundational question, right?
03:59If you love someone's obedience, then you love narcissistically,
04:05because obedience is something which you perform out of fear or desire.
04:10It is a trained response. It's what an animal, and you can train an animal to be obedient, of course, right?
04:15So, if you train an animal to be obedient, it cannot be virtuous.
04:20You know, people are all like, they project all these virtues onto dogs.
04:23Oh, dogs, we don't deserve dogs. Dogs love us.
04:26So, it's like they've just been bred to be bonded and obedient.
04:30I mean, they then project all of this nonsense, and cats are haughty,
04:34and so it's like, they're just not bonded for, they're not bred or bonded
04:38or have the innate characteristic of that kind of bonding or obedience.
04:42So, what do your parents love about you?
04:45It has to be the virtues that you manifest, because that's what they claim.
04:50Say, I love you. What does that mean?
04:52Now, when you ask someone who says, I love you, what do you mean or what do you love about me?
04:56They usually get angry because you're exposing the narcissism.
04:59So, let's say that you don't want to become a doctor,
05:02but your parents insist or demand or bully you or bribe you into becoming a doctor.
05:09Well, they love the fact that you're a doctor,
05:12but that's loving their commandments, not your identity or self or virtue or being or choices or virtue, right?
05:21Very different matter.
05:23Someone who loves your obedience is only narcissistically worshipping their own capacity to command.
05:31I have forced you to do something, I bullied you to do something, I bribed you to do something.
05:36Therefore, what I love is not you, but my power over you.
05:41That's what I love. I love my power over you.
05:46I take delight in my power over you.
05:49In other words, I am loving power, not virtue.
05:53I love power, not virtue.
05:55What do you love about me, mom? What do you love about me, dad?
05:59That's a very powerful and essential question.
06:02Now, your parents, of course, teach you virtue.
06:05They teach you goodness, how to be good, how to be virtuous, how to be righteous, how to be noble.
06:09And they say, be honest, okay?
06:12So, virtue cannot just be obedience.
06:16Virtue cannot just be obedience.
06:19So, for instance, if a man is about to steal something from a store,
06:24and then he notices a security camera, and then he decides not to pocket the item,
06:31but instead to put it back, has that man discovered virtue?
06:35Has he discovered the value and virtue of property rights and self-ownership and respect for other people's labor?
06:40No, he just is afraid of getting caught, doesn't want to get caught.
06:45I'm sure you've seen these videos online where some skeevy guy lifts a wallet from the guy standing in line ahead of him,
06:51sees that there's a security camera, bobs, bows, and prays, and puts the wallet back in the guy's pocket.
06:56That's not virtue. That's just fear of getting caught.
07:00Virtue has to be an internally generated state of the pursuit of UPB and the advocacy for UPB for the sake of virtue itself.
07:09And, of course, reason equals virtue equals happiness.
07:12I get all of that. I subscribe to all of that. I advocate for all of that.
07:15So, there's nothing wrong with taking—I'm not a Kantian—there's nothing wrong with taking pleasure in virtue.
07:21But it has to be something that you choose not to obey an individual out of fear or desire,
07:29that you choose to obey an individual not out of fear or desire,
07:32but you choose to pursue or obey universal principles out of joy in the truth.
07:41And a recognition that your conscience is universal and it's in you whether you like it or not.
07:47Your preferences do not alter universal principles.
07:51If you smoke, your lungs will be damaged. That is a universal principle.
07:56There's no one who can liberate you from that, or change that, or will or wish that away,
08:00or have that not happen, or reverse time, or change the effects of carcinogens on lung tissue.
08:06It is what it is.
08:09In the realm of science, we do not obey a scientist.
08:13Trust the science means obey a skeevy, white-coated government goblin ordering you around with threats and bribes.
08:22So, in science, we don't obey individuals.
08:26We obey rational, universal principles of the scientific method.
08:29A scientist would never say—a good scientist would never say to his protege, to his student,
08:35do what I do or else, believe what I believe or else.
08:39That would be the opposite of science.
08:42That would be utterly corrupt.
08:43That would be a cult or a bizarre atheistic religious fundamentalism,
08:49a.k.a. a lot of modern science, paid for by the state and corrupted by perverse incentives.
08:55So, a scientist loves the scientific method, pursues the scientific method,
09:00and is a good scientist to the degree that he does pursue the scientific method and adhere to it.
09:07With all the recognition of personal preferences and, you know, the sunk costs, right?
09:12If you've spent 10 years of your life pursuing a theory, it's pretty tough to figure out that it's not true.
09:17So, we do our best, right? We do our best.
09:20I mean, the other day, I got tempted.
09:23I watched Mark Zuckerberg's speech on free speech.
09:27And I was curious if my Instagram account had been restored or was available,
09:34because I was deplatformed from Instagram.
09:37And I mentioned this to my daughter, and she said,
09:41but wouldn't the same principles of your relationship to Twitter also apply to your relationship to Instagram?
09:49And I literally stopped in my tracks, and I was like, of course, of course, thank you.
09:54I got a little hung up in the moment, a little hung up in the details.
09:57And of course, absolutely, yes, of course, right? Of course.
10:02That's a reminder, right? We all need, at least I do.
10:05Maybe you're beyond it. I certainly do.
10:07Because I always have this big disco ball of, but it's good for the world if I talk, kind of thing.
10:13Anyway, so she caught me and helped me, and that was great.
10:18That was great. That's what you need, right?
10:20So what do your parents love about you?
10:24Well, what does a good scientist respect or admire in another scientist?
10:31Well, a good scientist respects or admires in another scientist the dedicated pursuit of the scientific method.
10:39In other words, he loves the manifestation of universal principles in an individual's choices.
10:44He loves the manifestation of universal principles in another person's choices.
10:49He loves the universal as it is reflected in the choices of an individual.
10:55If you are honest, you will admire people who tell the truth.
11:00Telling the truth is a universal principle manifested in the actions of an individual.
11:06So what do your parents love in you?
11:09It has to be, or the only thing that they can love in you is the manifestation of universal values in your free choices.
11:19Now, of course, as parents we want to teach our kids universal values and so on,
11:23but eventually it's up to the kids themselves to manifest them.
11:26We can manifest them ourselves, and we can show the value and virtue of those manifestations,
11:32but it is up to our kids to manifest.
11:35I mean, I love my daughter, and one of the reasons I love my daughter is she's like,
11:39Dad, hey, you're considering taking an unprincipled approach to Instagram, whereas you took a principled approach to Twitter.
11:48And I'm like, yes, you're absolutely right, thank you so much.
11:52I appreciate that.
11:53Whoops, get thee behind me, Zuckerberg slash devil, right?
11:58So that's good.
11:59I respect and admire her in that I respect and admire the way she deals with social situations
12:04and has almost no susceptibility to peer pressure and is a good friend to her friends and takes stands and all of that.
12:13I mean, it's just very admirable, and in ways that surpass, in some instances, my own particular manifestations.
12:24I mean, for a variety of reasons, it doesn't really matter, but it doesn't detract from what is the same thing with my wife.
12:29I admire her strength and courage and virtue and resilience and honesty and all of these kinds of good things.
12:34So Jesus was the manifestation of universal values.
12:38Jesus did to morals what Socrates did to logic, made it universal and brought skepticism.
12:45How do we know that obedience to threats is virtue?
12:50Well, I think, I think we know, basically, that obedience to threats cannot be virtue.
12:58How could obedience to threats be virtue?
13:01That's like saying that somebody's agoraphobic because some psycho locked him in the basement.
13:06Well, he just never goes out. They don't have a choice. He's trapped.
13:09So do your parents love their power over you?
13:13Love the status that you provide to them if your parents want you to be a doctor so they can say,
13:18Oh, my child's a doctor. My child's getting straight A's in top-tier university.
13:25Sorry, I'm going to punch myself in the throat if I do that too much.
13:28So do your parents love you as a vanity object?
13:32Do your parents find value in you as a vanity object, as a source of pride and esteem and all kinds of that stuff?
13:40Do they love their power over you, the fact that they say jump and you are programmed by nature to say how high and to obey them?
13:47Do they love the flex they have over you?
13:49Do they love you for the resources they expect you to provide them as they age and so on?
13:53Or do they love the manifestation of the universal in your chosen actions?
13:57Virtue.
13:58So Jesus, in saying, I've come to set child against parent, says there are these universal virtues and values.
14:06And if you start to believe in these universal virtues and values, how do your parents react?
14:12In other words, how do your parents react if you actually become good rather than simply pursue the virtue, quote, virtue called obedience?
14:20And the way that this manifests, at least in terms of what I talk about with people in call-in shows, is do your parents say honesty is a virtue?
14:30Great. Okay.
14:31Then you should be honest with them about any negative experiences you've had that are significant.
14:36I mean, you can be honest with them about anything.
14:38But if your parents say that honesty is a virtue, then it seems to me that you should be honest with your parents.
14:45And if you dislike certain things about them or have an issue with the way they raised you in some significant manner or insignificant, it doesn't really matter, then you should tell them because honesty is a virtue.
14:55Now, if your parents say honesty is a virtue and then they get angry at you for being honest with them, then they don't believe that honesty is a virtue.
15:03In other words, when you're in possession of information your parents want to get a hold of, who broke this lamp, who dinged the car, honesty is a virtue.
15:10But when you're in possession of information your parents don't want, i.e., you treated me badly as a child, then honesty is no longer a virtue.
15:16Then it becomes disrespect and dishonor and gaslight against you or aggression or whatever, right?
15:22So, another way of checking to see if your parents are actually interested in virtue rather than power control and resources and having you as a status symbol and loving their own narcissistic power over you,
15:32is to examine the excuses your parents give for bad behavior when they were adults and compare them to the excuses they denied to you for, quote, bad behavior when you were a child, right?
15:42So, if your parents ever said your best isn't good enough or if you didn't study for a test, failed the test or did badly on the test,
15:50and your parents said you should have studied, you were responsible for studying, it's bad that you're getting bad grades, you need to do better.
15:57But then when you talk to them about negative aspects of their parenting and they say, well, we did the best we could with the knowledge we had and I had a bad childhood and they make up all of these excuses,
16:07the same excuses they never would have allowed for you as a child, right?
16:12Were you allowed to fail the test saying, well, I'm having a bad time at home?
16:15Were you allowed to fail the test if you didn't study and everything would be fine, like you were never criticized?
16:22Well, I mean, parenting is infinitely more important than some stupid spelling bee in grade 8,
16:27but you would get criticized for a lack of preparation for a spelling bee in grade 8,
16:31but then your parents completely defend their own lack of preparation for parenting.
16:35And they say, well, I had a bad childhood.
16:37Well, given that you had a bad childhood, that makes you all the more responsible for studying how to be a better parent.
16:42So, if your parents, when they were your parents at the age of 25 or 30 or 35 or whatever, have endless excuses for their own bad behavior,
16:50but then when you were 5 or 7 or 10 or 15, they gave you zero excuses for your own, quote, bad behavior, then that's hypocritical.
16:58Then all of the, quote, morals that they inflicted upon you were mere exercises of power, right?
17:04Like in the same way that, you know, governments can lose hundreds of billions of dollars or more,
17:09never get audited, not know what's going on with their own finances,
17:12but if you lose one receipt, you can get in serious trouble, right?
17:17So, when Jesus says, I have come to set, setting his father, he's saying,
17:24I have come to test parental virtues by the standards of universality.
17:31It cannot be morally possible that a 5-year-old would have infinitely higher moral standards and requirements than a 35-year-old.
17:42And it also cannot be morally defended at all that a very low stakes moral situation is infinitely more important than a very highest,
17:51the very highest stakes moral situation.
17:54In other words, studying for a spelling bee is a fairly unimportant situation.
17:59Using violence, coercion, gaslighting, manipulation and bullying with your children for years is the very highest moral situation.
18:08So, it cannot be that the standards are infinitely higher for something that has almost no moral impact
18:14and the standards, the moral standards are infinitely lower for something that has the greatest moral impact, which is parenting.
18:22Do your parents love virtue and the virtue in you?
18:26Or are they narcissistically addicted to the joy and dopamine of having power over you
18:33and gaining resources from you and using you as a vanity prop?
18:36It's an important question. What do your parents love about you?
18:39Do they love the universal manifesting in your free will?
18:43Or do they love your obedience, status, opportunities and resource acquisition as they age?
18:50Do they love having people that they say come over and they're always going to come over?
18:55Do they love having warm bodies in the house for Christmas and Thanksgiving?
18:59Do they take delight in your presence because of your manifestations of the virtues you all share?
19:06So, in bringing universality, and it doesn't mean a big abstract universality,
19:11I mean, the best arguments are the ones that don't need to reach outside the circumstances, right?
19:16So, if your parents believe or proclaim or teach you the virtue of honesty,
19:24then you don't need any external proof of the virtue of honesty
19:28to call them on their hostility to and opposition to your honesty about their deficiencies as parents.
19:35Sorry, that was a long-ass, sinuous sentence. Let me try that again.
19:39So, you don't need to prove the value of honesty to parents who, when you were a kid,
19:44demanded that you be honest because they've already accepted the value of honesty.
19:48So, you don't need to go outside what they proclaim.
19:51Hoisted by their own petard is sort of the phrase, right?
19:56You don't need to prove the virtue of honesty to parents who demanded you tell the truth when you were a kid.
20:01Who broke the lamp? Tell the truth.
20:03Who dinked the car? Tell the truth.
20:05Were you at school today? Tell the truth.
20:07Are you dating so-and-so? Tell the truth.
20:09Did you play video games today? Tell the truth.
20:12So, telling the truth is a virtue.
20:14So, you don't need to go outside and prove the value and virtue of telling the truth
20:17because they already manifested when you were a kid the value and virtue of telling the truth.
20:22What this means is that as a grown child, as an adult child,
20:30when you attempt to apply your parents' moral instructions to your parents themselves in a universal fashion,
20:38you will find out very often, not always, but very often you will find out
20:43that they were rank hypocrites who cloaked their lust for power and control,
20:48bullying, and vanity-based status stimuli.
20:52They cloaked all of that in the guise of universal morality.
20:55In other words, they used morality as an excuse to exercise brute power over you,
21:01which is fundamentally corrupt to the very core.
21:06So, Jesus did not come to wantonly troll-like provoke conflicts between parents and children,
21:15but let he who is without sin cast the first stone, it's very powerful,
21:19which is to say that moral condemnation as a cover-up for moral corruption is demonic,
21:28it's devilish, it's evil, corrupt to the core.
21:32And to condemn your children morally for moral rules, you rail against them when they apply them back.
21:42It's the typical thing where the mother is yelling at the children,
21:46the children yell back and the mother is appalled and don't you yell,
21:49and they say, but you were just yelling, and you know, this kind of stuff, right?
21:53If you want your children to practice non-aggression, don't aggress against them.
21:56It's not that complicated.
21:58So, I hope this helps.
22:00I really do appreciate these quotes from the Bible.
22:04They do a lot to stimulate my brain, and I hope that you find value in what it is that I'm providing back.
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22:34Take care. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.