But majevska, rather than using the word “culty,” which is divisive, can we just leave it at saying that the Freedomain Radio community is doctrinaire in their refusal to question the fundamental insights of their leader (though I’d point out that they do allow for disputes over minutiae)? I think that’s an extremely condemning observation on its own, and much clearer to people who don’t already think that the community is a cult (or “culty”). If that characterization is true, it’s especially unacceptable in light of Stefan’s and others’ insistence that Freedomain Radio is a forum for learning philosophy. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty:
There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.
If Stefan is stifling debate and objection by expelling objectors, by administering unreasonably strict rules of conduct for the airing of dissent, or by using a different standard in dealing with dissenters than with allies, it would be a very serious blow to the credibility of his online community as a place to properly learn philosophy. Does anyone think that this characterization is false or unsubstantiated?
I never saw any rules posted. It’s one thing if you have forum rules and someone violates those. But simply because you don’t like what they say. That’s no libertarian approach in my opinion. Banning their IP address because they went to a website that you don’t approve of is a bit strange. Again, just my 2 cents and I am done for the night [:#]
Katja, Stefan has insisted that his forum should be thought of using a metaphor of a dinner party that he’s hosting. His guests can do what they want, within reason, but he won’t put up with disrespect, rudeness, or hostility. I glanced quickly at the Freedomain Radio forum and was unable to find any rules of conduct, so you may be right about their absence. Does anyone know if there are any rules available?
In any case, Stefan has been quick to note that his message board is his own private property, and he is free to do as he pleases with it. Accordingly, it’s not “unlibertarian” of him to enforce strict or even unreasonable rules. However, it could be contrary to the ideal of maintaining a healthy forum for the intellectual development of its members.
By the way, do we have any sort of double blind testing of this IP ban policy towards dissenting websites?
The main thing I would like to say to Stefan is that I don’t think you should be asking for sympathy from the Mises board or anyone who identifies as libertarian. You’ve said Mises was a failure, Roderick Long a fatso, and that pretty much all libertarians in acadamia are accomplishing nothing and are hypocrites. I remember one podcast where you called libertarianism “a false cure,” and several others in which you’ve tried to distance yourself from libertarianism in general and claimed that FDR alone has the keys to freedom. Since you’ve already tried to set yourself aside as better than the rest of the freedom movement and even to distance yourself from the term “libertarianism,” please keep doing so, especially now that you’re in trouble with MSM. I really do fear you’ll embarass libertarianism, so please continue to distance yourself from it.
Liberty student, I certainly understand the argument in favor of identifying Freedomain Radio as a cult. I just think that using the term isn’t very constructive, since it doesn’t have a very precise meaning and because if I were a member of FDR, I would feel really hurt and offended by that characterization.
The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
The group is preoccupied with making money.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
If you listen to Stefan’s way of speaking, ending 95% of his sentences in “right?” you’ll see what technique he uses, maybe even subconsciously to have the kids agree with him. We are not talking about 100% healthy individuals. Someone who isn’t experiencing stress or other emotional problems would never call into one of Stefan’s psychobabble show nor would they put up with him. He is framing his sentences in a way that the children have no way of disagreeing with him after all, what teenager with low selfesteem is going to say after Stefan finishes his statement with “right?” “Wrong!”. It’s a very interesting way of winning a discussion, right?
I find all this very reactionary and sectarian (and don’t strawman me as a “fanboy”, I don’t really post at his board anymore and have some disagreements of my own). Concerns about his psychological and familial stuff aside, Molyneux has brought countless people into the libertarian movement (particularly objectivists or former objectivists), and they hardly just focus on Molyneux and his work. While there is plenty of room for respectful disagreement, to just brush off his relevancy in the libertarian movement entirely is simply ridiculous. He has his place within the libertarian movement, and while it might not be the exact same place as the Mises Institute, it is a place all the same.
While I definitely do think that he has a cult of personality around him, the same could be said for just about anyone else (like the cult of personality around Rothbard, Mises or Ron Paul). I recall not very long ago during the primaries when Lew Rockwell’s blog became filled with cult-like worshoping of Ron Paul, combined with a naive optimism (thank god that has toned down a bit now). Frankly, the contemporary libertarian movement as a whole could be dispairaged this way because its radical wing is so small and centered around so few people. The very fact that we have terms like “Rothbardian” and “Misean” indicates that there are very few people for us to cling to.
As for the comments that are being characterized as attacks on libertarians, you guys are dropping the context, I.E. a criticism of the use of political means to achieve libertarian ends. He’s completely correct in claiming that libertarianism has been a total failure in light of its own alleged goals due to a continual tendency to choose political means, dwelling on utilitarian arguments and being in questionable alliances with statists. This is part of why people like Ron Paul and many historical libertarian figures have been critisized. Apparently internal criticism isn’t taken very well though.
If Rothbard were still alive, the same could be said for the Mises Institute, which should probably be more properly named the Rothbard Institute considering the disagreements between Mises and Rothbard and the degree to which the prominent members of the Mises Instiute are Rothbardian anarchists (a position Mises couldn’t bring himself to adopt).
I will grant this though: Molyneux does have some uber-fanboys at his boards who display such behavior. I’m not sure about the extent to which Molyneux encourages or enables this though.
What group ISN’T preoccupied with bringing in new members? The same could be said for the libertarian movement as a whole.
What group ISN’T preoccupied with making money? Isn’t this a feature of any buisiness venture? Are buisinesses “cults” then?
There is definitely an element of this at both FDR and this board, probably moreso at FDR.
I see no evidence for this one.
There is no such direct control at FDR; he doesn’t directly control anyone’s life. However, I will grant that Molyneux functions as the person to turn to for advise on such things, and he does abuse the prestige that comes with it. But it’s nowhere near the level of cultyness as Ayn Rand’s cult, which wasn’t an online message board but took place in real life in rooms with real purging secessions.
To an extent, this is true of all groups. Is the Mises Institute not elitist in this way when it comes to setting itself apart from groups like Reason and Cato?
Sort of like the way in which some people on this thread wish to purge the Molyneux group from the libertarian movement?
Why is this necessarily a bad thing? We’re anarchists!
I’m not sure of the significance of this one.
There’s definitely a degree of this, but it begs the question of guilt for what.
This is definitely true of FDR, but I’m not sure if cutting ties with some people (in a certain context) should be assumed to be a bad thing.
There are no such obligations at FDR.
Not really a trait of FDR, there is no agenda to get members to live together.
Even ignoring the question of whether Stefan’s influence has been dangerous for his members, wouldn’t you think it worrisome if his actual contributions to libertarian ethical thought were fatally flawed, and yet he were the frontman for our movement? Especially if he weren’t tolerating dissent from people who pointed out those flaws? I mean, I guess I feel like that’s something that at least needs to be pointed out as a potential concern.
So besides the culty stuff, he does a good job? I know, you didn’t say that, although it was damn close.
Speaking of context, this whole thread is about the culty stuff, not his libertarianism. Sure it was mentioned, but another issue is, if he thinks Mises is a failure, why is he posting here? And if he isn’t heavy handed, then who is doing the IP bans? And does Stef know/approve?
I don’t think you understand what’s meant by failure. Failure in light of what goals? Did Mises’s work have the causal effect of actually decreasing the power of the state? No, it didn’t, and hence in light of that goal he gailed. Did Mises’s calculation argument actually have the effect of making people abandon the ideology of socialism? No, it didn’t (the socialists just shifted to technocratic arguments and continued to insist on having the moral highground), and hence in light of that goal he failed. That’s what Stefan is talking about with regaurd to failure, I.E. not necessarily that such people are incorrect but that they have not been effective at achieving their ends and their arguments have been weak at convincing people.
Furthermore, aren’t you engaging in the exact same mentality that you’re trying to critisize by implying that the absolute adoration of Mises is a prerequisite for posting here?
Funny, you didn’t seem to mind so much when it was other members wanting to “purge the parlour revolutionaries”. Not that I mind, it’s necessary to remove bad elements from a movement. Which is exactly what the libertarian movement should be doing to non Austrians and the likes of Molyneux. Lenin was exactly right in this regard.
Nonetheless, you have double standards.
Indeed, posting “ROFL” to a most unamusing post by somebody you’ve gone to great lengths to defend (wrongly) in the past, especially when this individuals in question in one in regards to whom you have double standards, that is not in the least bit “fanboyish”.
That is an exagerration. In any case, the leap is hardly a huge one. Not to mention, you assume FDR is good for the movment. It isn’t.We need to move beyond Youtube.
Of course, you know who did get beyond Youtube and converted thousands more than your idol? Ron Paul, I wonder why you’re not fond of him. Is it because of his cultural conservatism or the fact that he proved the political process to be effective.
Respectful in this context being one of those Newspeak words that means one thing when applied to a friend, another to an enemy.
He can have a place in regards to the libertarian movement: outside it. We don’t need bloggers, we need serious thinkers.
There’s no cult around Rothbard, he’s deeply respected within the movement and rightly so when one considers both his academic and strategic work. Likewise, it’s no doubt the Mises is respected, he is the beginning of the modern Austrian school. Same applies for Ron Paul,for most people RP was the first person they’d seen on TV preaching sound economics and civil liberties, he’s the first principled politician in a long time, it’s no doubt that when RP was spreading libertarianism at such a big scale there was hope. Ron Paul should be highly respected, instead fools like yourself would put Molyneux a second rate thinker and egocentric moron above a genuine libertarian. What a digrace. What does he represent for the movement anyway? The usual marxist tirade against family and religion? That has no place in society let alone the libertarian movement.
The bottom line is Molyneux needs to be purged from the movementl.
The context? What context is this in regards to his unwarranted attacks on Long? The guy’s an idiot.
How is he completely correct? Rothbard is the founded of the modern libertarian movement, and he quite clearly favoured an alliance with statists. How many people visit the Mises institute founded by the dreaded paleocons you hate? Far more than visit his woeful website, how many people have read The Revolution: A Manifesto? Thankfully more than have ever read his poor excuse of a book.
He’s jealous that he isn’t getting in on this, that’s what it is.
You have one set of standard for Molyneux, another for Paul. Which is fine, just don’t pretend to be promoting libertarianism when you do.
Funny, you didn’t seem to mind so much when it was other members wanting to “purge the parlour revolutionaries”. Not that I mind, it’s necessary to remove bad elements from a movement. Which is exactly what the libertarian movement should be doing to non Austrians and the likes of Molyneux. Lenin was exactly right in this regard.
Nonetheless, you have double standards.
Indeed, posting “ROFL” to a most unamusing post by somebody you’ve gone to great lengths to defend (wrongly) in the past, especially when this individuals in question in one in regards to whom you have double standards, that is not in the least bit “fanboyish”.
That is an exagerration. In any case, the leap is hardly a huge one. Not to mention, you assume FDR is good for the movment. It isn’t.We need to move beyond Youtube.
Of course, you know who did get beyond Youtube and converted thousands more than your idol? Ron Paul, I wonder why you’re not fond of him. Is it because of his cultural conservatism or the fact that he proved the political process to be effective.
Respectful in this context being one of those Newspeak words that means one thing when applied to a friend, another to an enemy.
He can have a place in regards to the libertarian movement: outside it. We don’t need bloggers, we need serious thinkers.
There’s no cult around Rothbard, he’s deeply respected within the movement and rightly so when one considers both his academic and strategic work. Likewise, it’s no doubt the Mises is respected, he is the beginning of the modern Austrian school. Same applies for Ron Paul,for most people RP was the first person they’d seen on TV preaching sound economics and civil liberties, he’s the first principled politician in a long time, it’s no doubt that when RP was spreading libertarianism at such a big scale there was hope. Ron Paul should be highly respected, instead fools like yourself would put Molyneux a second rate thinker and egocentric moron above a genuine libertarian. What a digrace. What does he represent for the movement anyway? The usual marxist tirade against family and religion? That has no place in society let alone the libertarian movement.
The bottom line is Molyneux needs to be purged from the movementl.
The context? What context is this in regards to his unwarranted attacks on Long? The guy’s an idiot.
How is he completely correct? Rothbard is the founded of the modern libertarian movement, and he quite clearly favoured an alliance with statists. How many people visit the Mises institute founded by the dreaded paleocons you hate? Far more than visit his woeful website, how many people have read The Revolution: A Manifesto? Thankfully more than have ever read his poor excuse of a book.
He’s jealous that he isn’t getting in on this, that’s what it is.
You have one set of standard for Molyneux, another for Paul. Which is fine, just don’t pretend to be promoting libertarianism when you do.