Freedomain Radio Podcast 0
Hello, my name is Stefan Molyneux and I'm the host of Freedomain Radio.
Thank you so much for taking the time to download and listen to this which I guess is podcast 0. I'm actually standing at around podcast 187 at the moment, so what I thought would be worthwhile, based on some suggestions from listeners, would be to bounce back through time and give a bit more of an introduction to a radio show or a podcast show which has grown a little bit beyond what it was that I had originally intended, and so may well be worth an introduction. Now, the motto of Freedomain Radio is “The logic of personal and political liberty.” So of course we are going to examine and figure out how much liberty can be derived, how much freedom can exist within your own personal life and also in your understanding of your political structure that surrounds you and to some degree tells you want to do. So we are very interested here in this conversation in figuring out the maximum liberty concordant with happiness and satisfaction in relationships and all that kind of stuff; the maximum amount of freedom that we can have in our lives. It's certainly my belief that freedom leads to happiness, beneficial relationships, peace of mind, contentment, a sense of virtue, and self esteem. So we're really focused on trying to figure out, both in the political arena and the personal arena: What does it mean to have liberty?
To have freedom in your life? To have freedom in your relationships? To be free to look at things like the government, foreign policy, domestic policy, currency policy, and all that, to look at that from a point of view of clarity, of moral clarity? And also, what does it mean within your romantic relationships, family relationships, acquaintanceships, friends, and business relationships? What does it mean to have freedom? What is the right amount of freedom? To what degree should we conform to the desires of others? To what degree should we expect others to conform to our desires? What can we do to bring flexibility, freedom, liberty, and voluntarism into all of our relationships? And that's really the central goal behind this podcast series: to talk to you about that, to listen to your responses about that, to get everybody involved in a conversation about what I think is the greatest good in life, which is universal morality; which is beneficial, positive, loving, virtuous relationships; which is a clear-eyed view of the world, of the state, of the political arena that we live in; and how we can bring that kind of freedom to bear on our own lives to live happier lives, more peaceful lives, more serene lives, more benevolent lives, and more beneficial lives.
That's really the goal of this conversation, and I think it's a very exciting conversation. It definitely is a conversation in the Socratic tradition of curiosity about ethics and logic and morality and politics and so on, and it's a very open conversation.
Participation is absolutely key. You can obviously send me all the e-mails you want, I'm more than happy to read them, and there's a flourishing message board where you can post questions and ask other listeners about what's going on in the podcasts. So it's very much a dialogue. It's a group of us talking together about freedom and what it means in our own lives. Alright, so that's the good stuff.
What's the bad stuff? Well the bad stuff is that the audio quality sucks a little bit, because I do some of these podcasts from my car. It's a mixture. Some of them are articles that I've written, and some of them are responses to specific e-mails or queries from listeners and some of them are what I call Traffic Jams, which is: I'm driving to work, I have a particular topic and I work it out for 30 or 35 minutes as I drive to work, which I actually find a very good way of getting topics across. It's more chatty, it's a little bit more spontaneous. I try and throw in a little bit of humor to the degree that I am able to. So there are times when things sound good, there are times when things sound bad. I don't have flashy intro music, I don't have sound effects, I don't have sound engineers. It's just me engaging in a conversation with my listeners and hopefully with you about what it might mean to bring freedom to your life. Now aside from the audio quality, there are going to be some other things that are challenging about listening to this podcast series for you.
I think challenging in a good way – at least I hope it's in a good way! – but challenging in that we all have preconceptions about the world that we live in. And as, of course, Socrates and the ancient philosophers found out, when you begin to question those preconceptions logically, some of them, or in some cases a lot of them, don't hold up to a lot of rational scrutiny. And that, obviously, creates challenges within our own lives. You may have your political beliefs challenged, you may have your beliefs about virtue challenged, you may have your beliefs about the good life challenged, you may have your beliefs about your parents challenged, or your lovers, or your friends, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that we can all take that, I think we're all pretty strong and robust people and we can take those kinds of questions. I promise I never harangue anybody, I promise that I'm never going to tell you what to do, because that would not exactly be in concordance with the idea of having a podcast about liberty, but I am going to ask some tough questions, and those tough questions sometimes come from me, they sometimes come from philosophers or historians, they sometimes come from listeners, and hopefully they'll sometimes come from you, because it is a participative conversation, which we hope you will join in. But there will be times when I'm going to be annoying, not because I'm trying top be annoying or provocative, but simply because I'm working out a logical analysis of a particular relationship within society or within one's personal life that might make you uncomfortable, but you're perfectly free to do with these ideas what it is that you want – you're perfectly free to reject them, you're perfectly free to say this is the best stuff ever – so I don't think that the discussion should be at all threatening.
It may make you uncomfortable at times, but you're not made of glass and it's well worth I think examining just about everything that we believe, because the rigor of a logical analysis of philosophy, of sometimes the study of reality, the study of knowledge, the study of ethics, is a very powerful and liberating pursuit to have within your life, and it definitely will make you freer, and it will make you happier. It's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I guess you could say, of participating in this conversation. Now, in general, the podcasts are divided into three major categories, and the first is the theory, what is the theory of a logical and moral philosophy mean, because if you don't have a theory down about how you're going to discuss the facts of relationships and existence and so on, then you're kind of just swinging wildly hoping to connect with something that's called truth, and I don't think that's very productive.
We talk a little bit about theory at the beginning, and some of that is just me reading articles that I have written that have had some positive responses in this area of discussing ethics. We also discuss what that looks like in terms of social organizations, the science of human relationships, which is to some degree the study of political science, and of course I'm very interested since I'm interested in pacifism, and I'm interested in freedom, and I'm interested in any non-coercive solutions to whatever problems exist within human relationships. One of the first things that I do is discuss how society might exist in the absence of a central and coercive state monopoly like a government and that can be a challenge for people.
You may never have heard these theories before, and that's okay. I'm just putting theories out there, seeing what I can connect with that can minimize violence or coercion in human relations, because I do believe that our political environment has a lot to do with how our personal relationships shape out, and vice versa. To me there's a strong interweaving between the political and the personal, which is why both are in the motto of the podcast. So we do talk about politics, we talk about the state, we look at nonviolent solutions to social problems, because one of the major problems with the state is that it tends to have a lot of enforcement involved with it, right?
It tends to pass laws that if you don't obey then you're going to get some sort of violent sanction applied against you, police going to come and take you off to jail or whatever. My major goal is to try and figure out ways that that kind of interaction can be minimized. I mean you can't eliminate it completely, I mean there's things like self defense (which I'm completely comfortable with), but if there's ways that we can structure human relations that we can end up with more carrots and fewer sticks – more positive reinforcement and less people waving guns in each other's faces and telling them what to do – I think that's a good thing. I think that's definitely a goal worth struggling toward. And to understand that in terms of the political sphere, in terms of political coercion, people waving guns around, is, I think, also to understand that in the personal sphere, in one's personal relationships, where, sometimes, manipulation, guilt, and obligation and so on render us less free than I think we could be in our personal relationships, and render those personal relationships less satisfying and less rich thereby. So it really is a large approach to take to the problem of freedom, but it certainly has been my life's work to try and understand this stuff and to try to communicate about it, and so I think it can be a very useful conversation to have and can be very liberating for you. So the three major areas are theory, politics, and personal relationships.
The theory talks about and touches upon the political and personal relationships. And so I think that there's something here for you if you're interested in politics or if you're interested in the ways in which violence can be minimized in human affairs, and also if you're just interested in improving the quality of your relationships, then I would say that there's something here for you as well. And I think that the two overlap enough so that if you have only one or the other you might learn something about the other one, so I think that can be very useful and very helpful for you. Now the general methodology for how we're going to approach these problems is pretty specific.
I take an enormous amount from the scientific method of approaching problems. And this doesn't mean that there is going to be lots of equations and experiments for you to reproduce at home, but it does mean that we're going to need logic and empirical evidence, like something that's happened in the world that can justify or not justify a particular position. So this is not a show about opinions. This is not a show about “I think you should,” or “I think this,” or “I think that” – which may be a little bit different from the talk podcasts or talk radio that you're used to hearing – but we have a very strict, in a sense, methodology for how we determine truth from falsehood through these podcasts, which is: you've got to have it logical, it's got to be logical, it's got to be worked out from first premises in a way that's instructive and enjoyable and so on, and it also has to have some evidence. We can't just make assertions; we have to have some evidence behind them.
My particular training is in history and philosophy, so I have a graduate degree in history and I focus very much on the history of philosophy, so I can bring some facts ,I guess, to bring to bear on some of the opinions that I have, and so when people phone in or send me e-mails we ask for logic and evidence because the last thing you want to do when you're building a foundation of thought within your own mind is to not have a strict and objective methodology for determining truth from falsehood, for determining what is accurate answer and separating that from what is simply one's opinion or what feels right or what one is used to and that sort of stuff. And like most of philosophy, of course, the major goal is to take the common sense moral things that we all believe, like “you shouldn't steal,” “you shouldn't kill,” “you shouldn't rape,” “you shouldn't lie, defraud people,” and so on, and all of these basic moral principles that we all believe in and live to the degree to which we are able in our own lives.
And a lot of philosophy has to do with extracting the general principles out of that, in the same way that in physics: you have a rock that falls from a cliff, you want to look at that and extract the principle, so that you can apply it to other things, like the orbits of the Earth and the orbits of the Moon, which may not be as directly observable, but you can use the principles derived from very specific things to generalize about other things and come to pretty accurate conclusions thereby. That's the same sort of approach that we take. So you're not going to hear anything freaky like, “theft is good,” and “killing is good,” or anything like that, but the conclusions that come out of taking the principles from those common sense moral axioms and then applying them in the wider sphere can sometimes be very surprising, and can challenge a lot of the things that you may have learned throughout your own state sponsored education and so on. And it also may cause you to have some interesting conversations with the people around you, so might be worthwhile to send this link to other people if you're going to go through this process so that you don't have to end up explaining a whole lot.
I mean, obviously I appreciate the extra listeners, but it also might make it more enjoyable for you to go through this process, because you'll be talking about the same kinds of things with the same sorts of understandings with people, so I think that would be good. Now, the last thing I'll talk about before we get on with podcasts themselves is that the question has come up, “Do we have to have to listen to these in sequence?” Well, I think it's not a bad thing to listen to them in sequence.
There is a general plan for the sequence of the podcasts, so it probably is going to be worth it. And I do refer in podcasts to previous podcasts. But that having been said . I mean, the whole thing's about freedom, right? Yeah, it's a suggested thing, but you can do what you want. There's certainly no particular harm in cherry-picking from the podcasts and figuring out what is of interest to you. Certainly, it may be worth while for you to just take this podcast and that podcast, have a look through the list, just to see if the way that we talk about these issues is something that resonates with you, and works for you, and is important enough for you to invest the time. Now if you find that they are, then I would – without trying to nag you – that maybe it might be beneficial to listen to them in sequence, because it is a pyramid building of knowledge that we're trying to do here, so I think that it may be worth doing that.
Of course, it's completely up to you, but some people cherry-picked and then have sent me e-mail and say, “Well, this isn't very explained very well,” and I'm like, “Go back three podcasts, I'm building in on this,” so feel free to do that as well. So, I hope that you invest the time, of course.
A lot of time and energy has gone into the thoughts behind these podcasts. I think that they're kind of unique – at least, I haven't seen anything out there that's similar – and so I think that you have a one-of-a-kind opportunity here to get involved in a conversation about freedom and virtue and philosophy, which I think is just the most important thing in the world, the most important thing in your life, the thing that is going to bring you the greatest joy. It certainly has brought me the greatest joy in the world, and I just want do whatever I can to share that with everybody else. So my enthusiasm is very high, and I hope that that translates into an enjoyable experience for you. So thank you so much again for taking the time to have a listen to this.
I hope that you enjoy them. Please come and take a look at www.freedomainradio.com. You can join in on the boards, you can send me e-mails to the form mail, there's lots of juicy stuff up there that can be helpful for you. And, last but not least, on a financial note: I have costs, and I'm certainly happy to put these out there for free. If you find that you do really enjoy the podcasts, and they have a really strong and beneficial effect for you, and you really get engaged in a conversation, and it has significant benefits for you, then there is a place that you can donate, at www.freedomainradio.com, and of course I would appreciate any opportunities that you take to do that with great gratitude. It's a voluntary relationship, and of course freedom is around you having a sense of how important and how beneficial the podcasts are for you, and then you can come and toss some cash my way if you think that that's the right thing to do. So I certainly would appreciate any donations that you come up with. And, that having been said, on with the podcasts!
Please have a listen, please let me know what you think. I always look forward to hearing comments. And enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Thanks so much.
