A Response to the Globe and Mail Article about Freedomain Radio
It is interesting to look at the construction of a media article like the recent one about my website Freedomain Radio, published in the Globe and Mail on December 13, 2008, written by Tu Thanh Ha. Mr. Ha learned about me by reading an article in the British newspaper The Guardian, written by Kate Hilpern.
I was originally interviewed by Mr. Ha on November 20, 2008, for about an hour. The article that emerged is a masterpiece of misdirection, so it's worth looking at in more detail.
The article opens with a mother describing her son as “quarrelsome” and “petulant” – while in fact he was posting on my website that he believed his parents were evil, and compared his life with them to life in a prison. The article clearly states this “pre-existing condition,” and that the young man was voluntarily bringing this perspective to Freedomain Radio. (As a child, he was endlessly terrified and bullied by his father's destructive rages – kicking in windows, attacking pets, trashing rooms, and so on.)
Although her son was regularly expressing his unhappiness with his abusive family history (called “petulance”), his mother decided to do nothing about these issues other than mock and belittle him – and then she reports that, one day, he just mysteriously vanished. (This is in stark contrast to her previous description in the Guardian about what happened, which is that she tried “everything” to save the relationship. Mr. Ha read that article, but refuses to point out this obvious falsehood.)
Then, Mr. Ha writes:
“The man running the website is a Toronto-area resident named Stefan Molyneux, who encourages people to cut contact with their parents, even outlining scripts they can follow in the breakup.”
No evidence is provided that I “encourage people to cut contact with their parents” – since of course it is not true. Many of my other statements in the article – out of context, but at least relatively accurate – are backed up by podcast or book quotes. This accusation is asserted with no evidence whatsoever.
That is very telling.
In fact, in the call with the young man in question, which Mr. Ha refers to later, I did not even suggest that he cut contact with his abusive parents. Rather, in my books and podcasts, I consistently exhort people with challenging familial relationships to get professional therapeutic help and strive as hard as possible to openly communicate with their family. (In the call-in show, the young man mentions that he has read my book Real-Time Relationships, which discusses all this in great detail.)
As to the question of whether or not I “provide scripts,” a simple courtesy call or e-mail to me could have quickly corrected that misperception.
The truth is that a number of people who had voluntarily decided to take a break from their families were posting separation letters and asking for feedback. Most of these letters contained angry denunciations or other kinds of criticisms. My consistent response was to suggest that if they still had these very strong feelings of upset about their families, then they should sit down and honestly communicate them. (And that they should never separate from their families without consulting a professional therapist.) This was confusing to many people, and they asked me for an example of a deFOO letter, which I then provided to illustrate what a letter looks like when you actually have achieved some closure.
Apparently, Mr. Ha did not find the facts of this matter worth exploring.
After mentioning that I “stare intently” into the camera when I talk “intensely” about “relationships, politics or the economy” (I guess intensity is supposed to be creepy?), Mr. Ha writes:
“And he isn't shy about what he does. He says he knows of 20 cases where supporters left their relatives.”
This is a complete non sequitur. The two thoughts are not connected in any rational way, but joining them together provides the impression that I am boasting about breaking up 20 families.
Then:
“About one of his self-published works, he says that ‘100 years from now they'll remember this book.’”
It is interesting that Mr. Ha does not provide the title of this book, although he does provide the titles to two of my other books. This omission is revealing, because if he had included the rather technical title of the work in question – “Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics” – the context of the quote would have made more sense, instead of serving the purpose of making me sound megalomaniacal and vainglorious.
If I have successfully proven the validity of secular ethics without gods and governments, then of course thinkers will be talking about it in 100 years, since it is the ultimate holy grail of rational philosophy. Also, the fact that I have developed a fairly significant theory of ethics, which requires significant reasoning and writing abilities, would undermine the general tone of the article, which portrays me as sort of a greedy and irresponsible hack.
Naturally, it is entirely possible that I have failed in my task, as I openly state the introduction to my book on ethics. However, I certainly do not want to waste my time producing works of philosophy that will be forgotten next week. If striving for excellence, relevance, depth and value is a crime, then I suppose I must accept my sentence.
The Missing Link
The next book that Mr. Ha mentions is “On Truth” (he omits the full title, “On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion,” perhaps because that sounds too intelligent), and he only provides a link to the print version, not the free downloadable version, although he does provide a link to the free version of my other book, “Real-Time Relationships.”
This exception is very interesting.
“On Truth” discusses in great detail the topics of family and virtue – topics that are directly relevant to the endless criticisms of me throughout the article. Why would Mr. Ha not link readers to the free version, but only to the version that they would have to pay for?
“On Truth” is a very short, clear and direct book. If it were nutty, or strange, or badly written, surely linking directly to the free PDF book would support Mr. Ha’s case. I suppose I can take it as a compliment that he avoided giving interested readers direct access to a free version of the book that is most relevant to his criticisms of me. (If you poke around, you will discover that you can download the print version of “On Truth” for free.)
Next, Mr. Ha says:
“Having read his books, with titles such as ‘On Truth,’ having watched his videos or sat through hundreds of podcasts, his supporters bond online, sharing each others' tales of alienation and family estrangement.”
This implies that people are somehow required to review hundreds of podcasts before posting – which is not the case, of course – and the phrase “sat through” implies some sort of imposed requirement, like perhaps in Scientology where certain lectures are “required.”
What are the actual facts?
Fewer than 5% of my listeners end up posting on the Freedomain Radio board – and very few of those have listened to hundreds of podcasts. Furthermore, they do not support me, of course, but rather are interested in philosophy, and post on a wide variety of subjects, from economics to agnosticism to free will to global warming – and so this entire sentence is misleading.
Numbers and Facts
Next, we have the remarkable paragraph:
“The confessional tone, the devoted loyalty of the supporters, their estrangement from their family, Mr. Molyneux’s unaccountable role, all this have led aggrieved parents and former members to charge that FDR is a cyberversion of a therapy cult.”
A few paragraphs previously, Mr. Ha said that only 20 listeners have temporarily separated from their families. He openly states that I claim there are 50,000 listeners (which is actually not correct, as I mentioned in our interview).
Let us say that there are a dozen or so people who are talking about family issues at any given time (probably too high, but let's be generous) how does this tiny number magically blossom into everyone who listens to Freedomain Radio?
Let's look at the facts.
A search of the Freedomain Radio forum for the term “deFOO” results in a grand total of 912 individual posts. We can conservatively cut this number by two thirds, since it includes all the responses to the original post. (This assumes only two responses to the original post – but again, let's be generous.)
As of December 13, 2008, there were 139,984 posts on the Freedomain Radio board, on an enormously wide variety of topics.
At most, a grand total of 304 deal with family separation issues.
This represents 0.24% of the total posts.
Does this indicate that family separation is a core issue at Freedomain Radio?
DeFOO Podcasts?
What about the podcasts?
Of the 1,231 Freedomain Radio podcasts, 16 have “deFOO” in the title or description – just under 1.3%
Of these 16 shows, 13 were in direct response to urgent listener questions.
Thus, a grand total of 3 shows out of 1,231 consist of me initiating a deFOO topic – or 0.24%
Interestingly enough, the same percentage as the number of deFOO threads.
Do you notice a pattern?
Enough Facts!
Mr. Ha then writes (grammatically incorrectly): “Mr. Molyneux won't say how much revenues (sic) FDR generates,” and then tries to work out the income. His calculations incorrectly assume that everyone who signs up for monthly donations stays forever, which is not the case at all.
He also refers to the donations as a “monthly plan,” which is a very odd term, since it is usually associated with cell phone companies or other merchants, and not with charities.
More importantly, when he did his search for donators, he was looking directly at a list of people who obviously found Freedomain Radio quite valuable. With a single click of his mouse, Mr. Ha could have instantly e-mailed any of these donators to ask them about their experience of Freedomain Radio.
If Mr. Ha was even remotely interested in objectivity, why did he not contact anyone other than members who have been banned for abusive behavior, and angry parents who have reportedly consistently traumatized their children through long-term abuse?
To ask the question is to answer it.
Mr. Ha then writes:
“Mr. Molyneux describes FDR as a philosophical website with libertarian leanings. However, large parts of it revolve around the idea of withdrawing from what he calls unfulfilling or abusive families.”
“Large parts”? Based on what? Compared to what? What are the facts here? Is 0.24% a “large part” of anything? Did Mr. Ha ask me for any of this information? Does he supply any facts to support this assertion?
Of course not.
Then:
“His critics say he is a meddler with an inflated sense of self-worth, a manipulator who aggravated problems and drove vulnerable people away from their kin.”
Do you see the difference between my statements, and the statements of my critics? My statements are undermined and dismissed (“However, large parts...”) without any proof whatsoever, but the statements of my critics – even blatant falsehoods – are presented without any qualifications at all – or proof, of course.
If the truth of these matters was not so important, such transparent manipulations would be darkly comic.
Banned Members
Next, we have two quotes from people described as “former members.”
This phrase is also entirely misleading – there is no such thing as a Freedomain Radio “membership” – and these are not exactly “former members,” but rather people who I banned from the entire website because of their abusive and destructive behavior.
This is like listing complaints about someone from a “former employee” without mentioning that he was fired for screaming abuse at customers.
Omitting this fact is entirely deceptive and manipulative.
Mr. Ha then quotes someone banned from my website:
“‘I was using FDR as an escape from reality . . . It was an addiction and it consumed me,’” said Rob, a former member from Virginia, who began reading FDR at 16.
While this may of course be entirely true, I'm not sure how it reflects badly on Freedomain Radio. If Rob tried to escape from reality by listening to podcasts, how is that my fault? And why was he trying so hard to “escape reality” at the age of 16, while living at home with his family?
And what does his reported use of my podcasts have to do with me? You used to hear the same nonsense about Dungeons and Dragons. If people get addicted to a television show, does that mean that the show's creators have some sort of nefarious intent?
Finally, Some Proof! Oh wait, false alarm...
Mr. Ha then quotes another banned member:
“‘They invite you to share your history. [Stef] always tries to pick out abuses, reasons to be angry. Whatever problem you have, he'll track it back to your parents,’ said Dylan Boswell, a former member from Arizona. ‘I was at a vulnerable point in my life and I wanted to be part of this community.’”
Ah, finally, an objective criticism of how I interact with people! Surely, in my hundreds of podcasts, books, videos, and thousands of posts, at least a few examples of this all pervasive behavior will now be provided!
Mr. Ha has clearly combed through the Freedomain Radio board in great detail, since he links to individual posts from a variety of members – and so I looked forward to being provided with endless examples on how I barge into debates about, say, Austrian economics, concept formation or metaphysics, and turn them back towards parental abuses, with no evidence at all!
Sadly – and at this point, inevitably – no actual examples of me doing this are provided.
This is most strange. Dylan has been bitterly complaining about Freedomain Radio for months. He knows that reporters are sniffing around looking for dirt, and yet he does not see fit to provide a single example to support his allegation that I turn any and every problem into a criticism of parental behavior? I have responded to literally thousands of listener problems and questions over the past few years. If I redirect every single interaction into a criticism of the listener’s family, then just about any podcast or board thread should be evidence of this unpleasant tendency!
And yet – nothing.
Not one single podcast, not one single video, not one single thread on the board – no evidence whatsoever is given for this “universal” habit.
The banned people at Liberating Minds have been obsessively combing over my podcasts and posts for 18 months, and openly boast about being a source for this article – why can they not provide a single example to support this accusation?
A Stacked Deck
I am sure that the pattern is by now crystal clear.
Whenever I talk about actual facts (“the show is not really about deFOOing”), this reality is airily dismissed without evidence.
Whenever others accuse me of manipulative or bad behaviour, their attacks are accepted without any evidence, questions, context or criticism.
This is quite a low for a newspaper that used to have reasonably elevated standards of reporting.
Outing and Abuse Part 1
Next, sadly, we have a few paragraphs openly “outing” and providing identifying details about adult children who have separated from abusive parents. Parental complaints are blandly accepted and repeated as true, and no questions about the abuse described by their children are raised.
This is completely reprehensible. These people experienced significant and traumatic abuse as children, and spoke to me on condition of anonymity. I did not charge a penny for providing them feedback, and I did not reveal their identity, or the identity of their families. To collude with abusive parents in publicly identifying adult victims of child abuse is beyond loathsome – it is a re-infliction of fear, shame and abuse. These identifying characteristics will now be available forever on the Internet, and represent the grossest possible violations of privacy.
Cloning is Natural?
Then, another completely false statement:
“[Stef] argues relations with parents are artificial, a falsehood from biology rather than one's choice.”
Artificial? Compared to what? Clones? And what is a “falsehood from biology”? The term has no apparent meaning.
It is certainly true that children do not choose their own parents, but how does that result in “artificiality”?
Then, about my book on relationships:
“[Stef] talks of the dread people feel when mother calls.”
To be more accurate – or even vaguely accurate – what I actually do in the book is ask people what they feel when their mother calls. If it is dread, then that is important to understand, and I provide some possibilities as to why that feeling might be present.
Omitting this step is like opening a surgical book on appendectomies to the point where the incision is described, and then reporting that the author intends the reader to hack open everyone in sight!
If you talk about the remedy, and completely pass over the diagnosis, then you are just being irresponsible – or manipulative.
Absentee Father?
Then, Mr. Ha provides us a truly exciting and bizarre sentence:
“He says he grew with an absentee father.”
What could this mean? Does that mean that my physical growth resulted from being tied to an absentee father, like a sapling to a stick? Did my absentee father grow at the same rate?
Then, another inaccurate statement:
“For example RTR (Real-Time Relationship) means you're willing to confront a spouse or parent if you feel they're hurting you.”
The word “confront” has no meaning here, and is used in direct opposition to the more accurate phrase, which would be:
“For example RTR (Real-Time Relationship) encourages people to be honest and vulnerable with others, and talk openly about their feelings.”
Another evasion occurs further along in the article, when Mr. Ha says that I e-mailed the Globe explaining where I got the percentage of sociopaths. In fact, in the interview, Mr. Ha asked for the source of this statistic, which I supplied in conformity with his request.
Outing and Abuse 2
I believe that it is truly vile for Mr. Ha – and the Globe and Mail – to talk about a young listener’s ambivalence about his sexuality. This is just a crude form of “outing” that belongs to a darker and more primitive time. It has no relevance to the matter at hand, and is purely destructive.
The article ends with a jaw-dropping series of abusive parental declarations.
First, Ms. Weed says about her son: “The things he said, he was making them more dramatic than they were, making them worse than they were, for effects.”
If you have heard the young man sob about the endless terror he experienced for years throughout his childhood – as Mr. Ha did – it takes a stone cold heart to accuse him of manipulating his genuine trauma for some sort of “effect.” It is this staggering lack of compassion and blaming of the victim that has undone this family, not my little Internet show.
Then, we read:
“Ms. Weed said she was willing to tell her story because she doesn't think Tom will come back.”
In fact, Ms. Weed told her story to Kate Hilpern of the Guardian months ago, openly identifying her son, and providing childhood photos, while openly saying that, “He is capable of just not coming back,” which is quite different.
Why is this obvious inconsistency not pointed out?
Why does Mr. Ha – who skeptically dismisses the basic facts that I present – blandly report this inconsistent statement without comment?
The Self-Pity of the ‘Victim’
We end with the father.
Mr. Weed – the man who brutalized his child for years with staggering outbursts of violence, kicking in windows, trashing rooms, screaming at the top of his lungs, attacking pets – has now suddenly developed an exquisitely moral sensitivity to the power of words to “cause suffering.”
He seems absolutely unable to comprehend the trauma that his violence has inflicted upon his son, saying only that: “I am one of those damaged parents...”
Do you see that?
The man who violently bullies and abuses his children for 18 years is the only victim he can see. Only his suffering matters.
Words, Damage and Abuse
Mr. Weed continues:
“Words seem so impotent in the face of the widespread and profound harm that the Freedomain Radio site is responsible for.”
Let us pause on the statement for a moment…
Mr. Weed brutalizes and terrorizes his helpless and dependent child, year after year.
When this son asks for help, I express strong sympathy and moral clarity for about 50 minutes, calling such abuse evil – and if rampant child abuse is not evil, there is no evil – and reminding him that adult relationships are voluntary.
Chained in a familial dungeon of fear and brutality, a young man asks for help. I say that his past abuse was utterly immoral, and that since he is an adult, his cell door is no longer locked.
I am virtually thrown aside in his haste to escape his prison – and then I am called an abusive kidnapper.
Conclusion
In essence, there are only two facts that are important in this matter.
One: systemic and repeated child abuse is utterly immoral.
Two: adult relationships are voluntary.
To ignore these two basic realities is to collude with child abusers, and help them re-inflict fear and shame upon these children.
These children have surely suffered enough already.