I wrote this in a response to my tiring attitude of Molyneux and his militant Atheism.
I am personally a fan of Molyneux. I usually read the stuff he submits to LRC, but don’t look at his podcasts. He is the one that really brought me into libertarianism, with his article “argument from morality.” But looking at some paragraphs, certain things are “unclear.”
“Like the resurrection of Ayn Rand, that butch, Russian lady serving as an example of what happens to women if they don’t get laid every so often, Molyneux regurgitates the atmosphere of the times where men in lab-coats and glasses assert themselves as the new preachers of ignorance and the rapists of man’s interior soul.”
This statement confuses me, because since I have not read ayn rand’s philsophy, and the only tidbits I get about her are ad-homineum attacks like this, I don’t know what she really stands for..or what really you disagree with. Personally, I can not really care about his views on religion. I still feel that his views against the state are legitimate…and that the state should not exist.
I suppose that blogs are more or less intended to be informal, that is they don’t usually go into the details of every philosopher, so without a prior knowledge of some of this stuff, I can see the confusion.
I started to get these anti-Molyneux vibes after listening to Tremblay and then actually paying attention to his podcasts and articles on religion. I made the blog particularly venomous in response to his ad hominems of every religion out there opposite from his own - a cross betwee Wotanism and his own brand of Satanism. Mostly, I was attempting to draw him out as the disgusting jerk he can truly be concerning religion. Seriously, even express a slight interest in religion and he’ll go nuts on you. Christianity, Islam, Judaism - OH MAN does Molyneux hate Judaism! Then again though, the Jews do possess the cultural disposition for the dreaded, Communism virus, see Podcast 82 [8-)].
The man doesn’t possess a civil bone in his body. I’d advise you to be very cautious in what you take from him. There are many other resources out there too, y’know.
I can definitely relate with you. His hatred of all things religion (except his own, of course), especially Christian, does get annoying and frustrating at times.
However, I think when he talks about libertarianism, economics, and about the state he is a very brilliant person. Even then, I disagree on some things, but that doesn’t stop me from listening/watching him from time to time.
He’s a great speaker, and also a good entertainer to boot.
My disagreements with Molyneux mostly hinge on his psychological views. I am 99.99% in agreement with him about politics and religion. But then he starts to psycho-analyize everyone and tries to link literally everything to one’s parents. It’s like Frued on speed. Sometimes the psycho-analysis becomes a way to avoid having an actual debate about something, for he personalizes it. I mean, he does have a good point about the cult of the family, but I think he just takes it too far or misapplies it.
I also partially agree with Tremblay that he acts like a cult leader. In either case, I still participate on his forums and listen to his podcasts and watch his videos. I just get a bit of a strange feeling that many of the people on his site don’t like me because I never donated and I’ve openly disagreed with and criticized Stefan from time to time. I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t been banned yet. If you say the wrong thing, not even in any confrontational manner, you might get asked to leave and if you persist you will be banned.
Has anybody had a chance to evaluate his new book on universally preferable behavior yet? If so, what do you think about it?
I believe user “Donny with an A” has been working on just that. The link has some evaulation of it. It seems that he has devoted a good porton of his blog to an attempt at refuting Stefan (19 blog posts so far, in fact).
I once tried to sit through his podcasts on why agnosticism is an untenable position to hold. He takes so long to make any sort of point I just gave up after 15 minutes or so and went and did something more productive.
Definitely. I appreciate his opinions on ANYTHING else, I mean it, ANYTHING other than religion. But for some reason, when it comes to anything religious, oh man… you’ve done it.
How DARE you believe in unexplainable, universal phenomenon originating from a divine creator!
[8-)]
I really wonder how Molyneux would react to reading Thomas Szasz. Is anyone here familiar with his work? The Myth of Mental Illness was a very eye-opening book for me, and it’s really quite unfortunate that any time you try to bring up his critiques of psychiatry, you get shouted down for being a Scientologist. The irony of course is that Szasz is an athiest.
Even though he runs an organization that is funded by Scientology, he still doesn’t support the religion.
edit
I’ll have to e-mail him about it. I haven’t really found anything in “On Truth” that contradicts Szasz, but I’m only halfway through it.
In regards to Ayn Rand, she was a brilliant philosopher that libertarians are indebted to. She basically laid the foundation of rational individualism. My only problem with her was that she rejected free-market anarchism but many anarchists including professor George H. Smith believe her ethics logically lead to market anarchism. Her advocacy of reason and egoism is what the libertarian movement needs. Libertarianism, let alone anarcho-capitalism, cannot be logically defended on any religious, emotional, or irrational basis. I don’t see how any libertarian could defame Rand despite the fact that she dismissed both the terms anarchist and libertarian.
I admire Molyneux and Rand equally, although I am far more familiar with the latter’s viewpoints. The flipside of Rand is that
she was a basketcase and probably suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. She was literally a cult leader.
Although her writings were very idealistic, in real life she was self-serving and hypocritical, at least according to
Rothbard. She argued against anarchism, and I would cite her a perfect example of a neoconservative. If she were alive today
she would be an active supporter of President Bush, and no doubt go even farther that Rush Limbaugh or anyone else
in championing aggressive warfare in the Middle East.
I don’t know about that. She was not nearly as bad on war as most of her followers have become. Plus, she would have abhorred Bush’s mysticism.
Does he even have any connection with LRC anymore? I have listened to a little of his stuff, and he takes a long time to say waht he has to say, and he makes many absurd points. I don’t like him. I imagine him as hating everyone.
I once wrote Walter Block asking him to write something about Molyneux for LRC. He suggested I do it. I have never written an article for LRC. I don’t know if something written against Molyneux would be published. I’m not much of a writer anyway. I would need to listen to more of his stuff first.
Ayn Rand was a fire-breather but she certainly wasn’t a neoconservative. Neoconservatism is a philosophy of governance. If you ever read what Irving Kristol has written, he places much stress on the augmentation of the state. Kristol also had the nerve to dismiss Hayek in his infamous Weekly Standard article on page two where he states,
“Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on “the road to serfdom.” Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable. Because they tend to be more interested in history than economics or sociology, they know that the 19th-century idea, so neatly propounded by Herbert Spencer in his “The Man Versus the State,” was a historical eccentricity.” Italics mine
Kristol admired Machiavelli’s amoral realism. Political power in the hands of a conservative controlled government is what Kristol’s neoconservatism advocates. Neocons tend to be very religious too. Rand however had nothing but vitriole for conservatism, especially religious conservatism, and rightly so as religion is philosophically inimical to reason and capitalism. Neoconservatism is simply a new conservatism where aspirations for limited government are non-existent, assuming that free-market anarchism shouldn’t be the ultimate ideal for a person of freedom.
Rand explicitly rejected a strong central government and religion and therefore cannot be considered a neocon.
Neocons also believe in democracy, at least verbally, and are very enthusiastic about the idea of using the military to overthrow foreign dictatorships and actively establish democracies globally. Rand however rejected democracy too branding it as mob rule, which it is. It is unusual though why neocons have verbally promoted democracy because Kristol believed in a powerful government controlled by the elites and not by the majority. True neocon support for “democracy” is philosophically impossible, but nevertheless, they believe in the Leviathan state as well as the military-industrial-congressional complex. Rand rejected such a government.
I would write a more formal critique of Molyneux for LRC - though I have my reservations for them as well - but I’m busy writing one on Hoppe. Don’t worry though guys, I will not crucify Hoppe as I did Molyneux, nor would I in a different article.
On what specifically? His political views and social conservatism? Or his argumentation ethics? I have a working paper critiquing his Kantian version of praxeology, arguing in favor of an Aristotelian version. And I plan to critique his argumentation ethics as well, probably for next year’s ASC.
His social conservatism and its relationship to some of his opinions in regards to libertarian matters, immigration, borders, nation, and a little bit on the proper way for the state to dissintegrated.
Don’t you guys find it a bit of a curious point that this thread has primarily been ad-hominems against Molyneux.
As for his psychological themes his wife is a psychologist up in Canada so it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve even read some of the works of the psychologists he trusts the most and have found their books more than enlightening. None of the Freudian bullshit that pop culture seems to love so much.
There is a certain brand of atheism that looks upon a parent’s advocacy to their children of “faith” as a corruption of a child’s ability to reason. To these atheists this corruption can be seen in a way as emotional or mental abuse and they have decided to treat it as such. Also the fact that many religions push the belief that non-believers should and will go to hell is one that doesn’t sit well with many atheists. The idea that we are supposed to be like brothers with someone who openly believes we should go to hell because we don’t believe what they believe in is both absurd and an offense to one’s being.
Here the guy has been primarily working toward proving a rational proof of secular ethics that basically proves the non-aggression principle and instead of praising him for his work as a libertarian you criticize his atheism…
I have a feeling most of you guys have not sat through his 900+ podcasting series, huh? It starts off as pure libertarianism stuff but eventually works its way into psychology and I personally think it’s way head of its time. He’s gotten plenty of listeners to jump off the religion bandwagon, which is always a frightening ordeal, and embrace their own perceptions.
I find it funny you guys call him a cult leader. Go over to his boards and just prove where he is wrong from a rational standpoint instead of ad-homineming him. As long as you’re staying away from the ad hominems or trying to abuse the discussion board system then you are not going to get banned. Doesn’t sound like scientology garbage to me. Maybe you guys should think about why his podcasts strike an emotional cord in you. When a handicapped kid goes around saying stupid stuff it doesn’t bother you because you know it’s wrong, right? Then why do you guys care about this stuff?
PS Yes I know I just joined today but I was looking for some podcasts from this site and saw “Molyneux” in the topic of one of the threads. Being a fairly avid listener I was interested to see what it was about. Hope you don’t mind.
PPS I am pretty sure he stopped writing for LewRockwell.com because of some of the anti-atheistic stuff that gets posted there. Most self-respecting atheists (as well as theists for that matter) would think twice before making a career out of writing for a publication that was openly condescending toward their core belief system (without ever rationally debating the topic, for that matter).
Actually I’m a pretty big fan of Stefan and his podcasts were one of the biggest contributing factors to my shift towards anarchism. I have listened to a good chunk of his podcasts and watched most of his videos. And I didn’t particularly agree with Niccolo’s stance on Stefan as it relates to religion, being an atheist myself. I just think that Stefan’s “followers” tend to act a little too much like, well, “followers”. If he’s not deliberately trying to be a cult leader, he’s certainly being treated like one by at least some of the people on his board. And his tendecy to link literally everything to one’s parents and psycho-analize you based on that premise can get a bit absurd. Although I do essentially agree that people’s psychological regaurd for their parents ends up manifesting itself in politics and that familial tyranny is the seed by which all political tyranny has spawned from. Of course, Stefan is hardly the first person to make this connection, but he has certainly solidified it and made it a central part of his philosophy.