1. 

   richardcollins
   Administrator

   Parenting is hard. We know this from talking to over 450 parents on our Amazon parenting discussion forum project. Their hearts are in the right place (for the majority, anyway) but in the press of day to day events it is often a fly by the seat of the pants operation.

   Stefan Molyneux has pinpointed a central issue that parents might want to think about: the fiction that they must always be right about everything. Everything they tell their children must be interpreted as truth. This illusion is a corrosive force if not recognized and dealt with honestly and forthrightly.

   Stefans book (actually, I think of it more as a lengthy essay) is available here:

   http://freedomainradio.com/board/blogs/freedomain/archive/2008/09/11/book-on-truth-the-tyranny-of-illusion.aspx

   You can read the entire piece in around an hour, or download an audio version and listen during your commute. My initial thought is to discuss each of the major themes in sub-discussions if you will, and then tie our conclusions together in a central discussion. I am open to ideas about how to go about this.

   
   

   Posted 1 year ago #
2. 

   Kevin R Brown
   Member

   Alright; I can (and do) appreciate some of Stefan's thoughts in the essay, but his far right wing anti-government rhetoric is appalling. I don't know why he would think that anyone would need to 'fantasize' about what happens when the checks and balances of the law dissolve as the result of the collapse of government; we have an example right across the pond (for those of us in North America).

   Somalia's government fell apart in the early 1990s.

   As you (and I would imagine, Stefan) already know, Somalia has not exactly transformed into a place where the streets are paved with gold, rainbows sew forth from the buttocks of citizens and Trix are not just for kids anymore (Sorry, you silly rabbit). It is largely ruled by warlords, gun runners and pirates - the 3 most lucrative trades in the post-law environment.

   Northern Somalia, conversely (an autonomous body known as 'Somaliland'), is relatively stable (in comparison to the rest of the nation) thanks to the stabilizing influence of it's central state.

   It frustrates me to no end that there are people as intelligent as Stefan who think this way. How can a person claim to know about the rough and perilous evolutionary journey of life on the planet out of one side of their mouth, and then out the other claim that competition is a positive, benign force that leads to equilibrium? Competition is only a precursory condition to eventual subjugation by the top competitor, and our present state as the uncontested lords over our tiny globe is testament to that.

   We are very, very lucky to live in the times and conditions that we currently do, where our needs are so well looked after as a community effort that we can sit around blogging & bullshitting on the internet rather than chasing down game or memorizing the location of watering holes. Rejection of our social infrastructure in favor of playing the game our genes want us to is insanity.

   Posted 1 year ago #
3. 

   richardcollins
   Administrator

   Actually, Stefan styles himself as a Libertarian. I don't personally have a lot of faith in Libertarianism. I do believe that what he writes concerning parents is pretty much true.

   
   

   Posted 1 year ago #

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