Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Thank you for joining us today. I'm Scott Schiff with the Atlas society with, uh, senior fellow Rob truss and, uh, JAG. Our CEO is here. Thank you, uh, for joining us, Rob. Um, I'd like to ask everyone to share the room and please raise your hand. If you want to join the conversation, uh, we're gonna be discussing pathological altruism and the age of trauma. Uh, Rob, thanks for doing this topic. What is pathological altruism? And, uh, when did the age of trauma start?
Speaker 1 00:00:34 <laugh> okay. All good questions. All right. So excuse me. Um, I actually planned this out this topic because I'd seen something recently, a news item recently that suggested it to me. And I did that before, knowing that JAG was gonna be interviewing, uh, Barbara Oakley. Now Barbara Oakley is among other things. She, she was one of the people who develop, who helped bring attention to and popularize the concept of pathological altruism. Uh, so there's an interview right on the, on the society site right now with Barbara Oakley, you can check that out. I haven't had time to listen to the whole thing. I've just a little bit of it. I'm gonna get to it soon because it's a topic I really like. And it's a really interesting, um, I think addition, you know, to, to our understanding of how the culture works and what goes wrong with various things in our culture. All right. So I'll briefly catch up what pathological altruism is about. I wanna make a point that for those who are familiar with objectiveism and with iron Rand's arguments, iron Rand, the, the pathological altruism in iron Rand's philosophy is a redundancy. All altruism is pathological.
Speaker 1 00:01:51 And what I, Rand argued in what she pointed out is by the very nature of saying to people, you shouldn't pursue your own happiness, you should pursue the happiness of others. Altruism creates immense problems. Uh, and the great example of that in her literature, in her fiction, uh, the one that jumps out at me most is an example, a good example of what you would call pathological altruism or the pathologies of altruism is, uh, in, in the fountain heads, she has the character of Peter Keating. Who's sort of this ultimate conformist, the guy who, you know, goes out and tries to find out what's popular. What, what, what do people want him to be? And then he goes out and to become that, you know, to do whatever's popular, to do whatever people, to become, whatever people want him to become. But he learned that at home, he learned that at home from his mother.
Speaker 1 00:02:41 So the relationship here is the relationship between Peter Keating and his mother Louisa Keating, uh, and the way the relationship works. And it's see if this sounds familiar at all, because there's a lot of this that happens out in the world, which is that she is, she is constantly sacrificing her happiness for the sake of her son, trying to get him in a better position in the world, trying to help him rise up and become more successful. And of course, she's constantly reminding him of how much she's sacrificing for him, what we would in my, in my era, we called this a guilt trip. So she's constantly giving him a guilt trip about how much she's sacrificed for him to, to help make him successful and pursue this brilliant career. But here's the thing he doesn't want the career. She's, you know, she's pushed to become an architect.
Speaker 1 00:03:27 He doesn't want to be an architect. He's only doing it because he feels guilty. So he's doing it to make her happy. So the way this sort of toxic relationship works between these two people is she's sacrificing every, her happiness in for his sake in order to make him happy while he's sacrificing his happiness for her sake, in order to make her happy. And the actual result is they're both sacrificing and nobody's, uh, nobody's happy. Everybody's miserable. All right. So this is how iron Rand, one of the ways in which iron Rand, I sort of diagnose the pathology of altruism as, as, as a moral philosophy, as, as an approach to life. Uh, the pathology is that, uh, uh, by giving up on your own happiness as a goal and making your primary goal of the happiness of someone else who is in turn also expected to give up his own happiness, to sacrifice for somebody else.
Speaker 1 00:04:27 You basically create a system in which everybody sacrifices and nobody enjoys anything. And this is, you know, she works this out thoroughly in the fountain head. She takes new directions and, and deeper analysis in Atlas truck. Now, this is something that's considered though radically, uh, uh, wrong and radically, uh, different from the standard view people have where selfishness is viewed as synonymous with evil and self-sacrifice or altruism is viewed as synonymous with, with morality, with decency, with virtue. All right. So the closest that people have gotten in the mainstream to identifying, uh, the pathologies of altruism is in the coinage of this. The closest that I've seen is in the coinage of this term, pathological altruism. Now what Barbara Oakley used it, uh, she used it in a narrower sense, and I, I'm gotta curious to see Jay's interview to see how far she's willing to take it.
Speaker 1 00:05:28 Uh, but she used it in a more narrow sense that well, altruism is okay wanting to help other people is okay, there are good versions of that, but it can go wrong. And therefore there are bad versions and the bad versions are the source of things that, uh, uh, have actually become sort of familiar to us in psychology, like in pop psychology, uh, the idea of a codependent relationship or an enabler. So one of the examples of pathological altruism would be, if someone you love is a drug addict is addicted to drugs. And so, and you, you know, you notice and, and they're, they're out of money. They're down and out. They're, they're, they're down on their luck and you give them money to help them out. Now, are you really helping them well, what are they gonna do? If you, if somebody's a drug addict and you give him money, what's he gonna do?
Speaker 1 00:06:17 Well, he's gonna go out and he's gonna buy drugs and he's become, become even more addicted. You know, the, the behavior that's destroying his life is you're going to enable that to continue. And there are, you know, the concept of a codependent relationship. As I understand it is that the person who does the enabling, who does the helping for the person who's dependent on drugs or alcohol, that person is themselves dependent on their codependent, on the alcohol, their dependent on the sense of virtue they get from being the person who helps out who comes to the rescue all the time. Right? So we understand, you know, there's some under understanding a seep into the culture of how this idea of supposedly having good intentions by wanting to help somebody else can become toxic. It can be toxic to both people that you are, you know, it becomes that Peter Keating, Louis, a Keating relationship where you're both sacrificing for the other and everybody's sacrificing and nobody's, nobody's actually benefiting.
Speaker 1 00:07:17 Uh, now I Rand's case was that all altruism is pathological by the nature of altruism, by the nature of saying that you it's bad to pursue your own interest, it's bad to pursue your own enjoyment and everybody should sacrifice for somebody else. You are inherently creating that situation across the world. This is a, the villain of the fountain head says across the globe, Peter, this is how it's going to be. Everyone's sacrificing for the sake of the person next to him. Who's sacrificing for the sake of the person next to him, and all will SAC all will suffer and none will enjoy. And that's the, the actual result of altruism as a phlo as a moral philosophy. All right. So I thought pathological altruism be a great, great formulation of this. And like, like I said, the closest people have gotten, they're still not going all the way, but the closest people have gotten to understanding the pathologies of altruism as, you know, the, the, the comprehensively pathological nature of altruism as iron Rand, um, identified it.
Speaker 1 00:08:18 Uh, and if you say, oh, well, you know, what does ultraism really mean? Let's put that into the discussion. I think that'd be a good question to bring up, but what I wanted to talk about was the main way we see that, particularly in our current era, uh, and it's an article, another, a good article, uh, that came out in the New York times and you know, that doesn't always happen. So we should, you know, take a moment to acknowledge this, a good article that came out in the New York times. Uh, this was February 4th, uh, by Jessica Bennett. Uh, who's written some interesting things recently actually. And, uh, the title is if everything is trauma is anything, and it's about the overuse of the word trauma. You probably see this, people talk about their emotional trauma. Uh, one of their examples is a, uh, leads out with an example of some sort of social media phenomenon, a couple months, a year or so ago of some guy who was, you know, like this serial dater, who would, uh, um, you know, date girls, uh, go out with them for a while and then, and then ghost them and dump them and go onto somebody new.
Speaker 1 00:09:24 Right? And, and back in the old days, would've just said, oh, the guy's a CAD. You know, it, it was not exactly a new personality type, but there was some woman writing about this guy that she knew who was like this, and it was all talking about the trauma of it. And she points out Ben, Jessica Bennett points out that trauma it's original, meaning it's for medicine, right? A gunshot wound is trauma, right? It means a major, uh, uh, a major wound, a wound that causes this major damage to the body. And, but by sort of the pop culture seeping through, uh, trauma has come to mean pretty much anything that discomforts you, anything that, that, uh, uh, any bad thing bad or, or uncomfortable or annoying thing that happens, you has suddenly become trauma. And, uh, the phrase used here is semantic creep, uh, to describe how the meanings of words change over time.
Speaker 1 00:10:25 And so, um, this quotes a psychologist saying Nick Haslam from the university of Melbourne and Australia who talks about trauma creep when the language of the clinical, or at least the, uh, the clinical adjacent, you know, the psych psychological is used to refer to an increasingly expansive sense of everyday experiences, right? So we have lots of things that just happen everyday, annoyances, what we used to call a pet peeve, right? And everyday annoyance of, you know, bad things that, that just sort of happen within the normal course of life when those become described as trauma as serious harm, uh, and, and the pro and where the concept is as they put it medicalized here in this article. Um, and <laugh> apparently there's, uh, to, in one of these social media sites, there's, uh, a little sub-community called trauma talk where people talk about their trauma and, uh, uh, all the different things that, that, that, you know, that they can find that going on in their life, that they are able to characterize as trauma.
Speaker 1 00:11:34 And it's a great article, talks about this and talks about some of the reasons why this is a problem, uh, which is that if you are convinced that every single little bad thing that happens to you, like, you know, dating a guy who isn't really that interested in you and moves on to somebody else pretty quickly, if every little thing like that becomes trauma, one of the things that's gonna happen is how likely are you to bounce back from it and to be able to cope and to be able to move on with your life? Well, you're actually far more likely if you view it as trauma, you're far more likely to experience it as being traumatic, to experience that as being something that you'll take you months to get over with. And, uh, as somebody put, uh, um, and, and that it, it will actually reduce your resiliency.
Speaker 1 00:12:26 And this is something that, you know, and, and that in criticisms of the, sort of the woke trigger warning kind of culture, it's something people have been pointing out that this is increasing the psychological fragility of people who take this stuff seriously. Um, because if everything in your life, every little Illinois is a trauma, you're going to be constantly view yourself as an invalid, as a cripple. Uh, well, I probably can't use the word cripple as differently abled. Uh, you're gonna view yourself as constantly recovering from some fresh new assault, uh, uh, that seems insurmountable. So it's a way of, of making people more fragile of taking away their sense of their own resiliency, their ability to deal with the various problems of life. Now, in talking about why this is so popular. One of the things they point out is, uh, here's the quote from the article.
Speaker 1 00:13:18 We also know that victims of wrongdoing tend to be perceived as more moral or virtuous than others. Uh, and it's not a huge leap then to imagine that the deploying the language of trauma or of harm, or even of personal struggle carries cultural capital. And there's a, she quotes somebody else saying there's an economy in knowing that people will have a highly emotional outsized response, there's clout in it. And somebody else says, um, where's this quote here. Uh, if you say, you know, this, my boyfriend hurt my feelings. Nobody really cares. But if you say he's an abuser and this is trauma, then everybody will care. So this is, you know, the, the reason why this has a certain appeal, the reason why people adopt this language of trauma, despite that sort of infantalizing fr um, uh, uh, that, that infantalizing effect it has on them of reducing their resiliency.
Speaker 1 00:14:16 And that struck me as being a great example. Now, the connection is not made in this article, but it struck me as being a great example, that we can see wide spreading the culture right now, this, in this particular form, a great example of the pathology of altruism that an altruism teaches you. The best thing you can be is somebody who is sacrificed somebody who is a victim. It's going to cause people to search out ways to be victims. There will be, as they put it in here, cultural capital in being a victim, it will give you a sense, a sense of being virtuous. It'll make everybody care about what's happening with your life. So it will cause people to search out ways to view themselves as victims. But it's an example of how in doing that, you know, altruism is supposedly to, is supposed to be the, the supposed appeal of altruism is about, everybody's going to care about you and everybody's going to help you.
Speaker 1 00:15:11 But in doing that, what it's actually doing is it is taking away your ability to cope with everyday life, with even the simplest things in everyday life and costing you to become much more fragile and basically to live in a world of constant harm and constant trauma, where you feel constantly like you are an invalid, who's trying to overcome something rather than a person who's trying to go out and accomplish something worthwhile in life. So I think that's it. I want to bring that episode of as, as I think the preeminent, uh, contemporary form of the pathology in which the pathology of altruism is experienced and acted out, uh, in the culture at this particular time. Um, and then I think I wanna open for discussion this question of, you know, is there a good version of altruism as, as Barbara Oakley tends to think, is there a good version of altruism? Why, why, why did iron Rand take the position? Why do I take the position that it's altruism as such that is the, that is the pathology and not just a, uh, a sort of a, a misguided version of it, right? So that's open for discussion.
Speaker 0 00:16:17 Great. Thank you. You know, I just wanted to add, uh, one personal story that I, I, that what you said reminded me of, I had a friend who, uh, you know, she had, uh, brain surgery for epilepsy and she got on disability. And the doctor told her that, uh, she should maybe go back to work part-time she was a hair stylist, and it was going back to work that actually got her removed from disability. And I, I thought it's kind of almost like the policy of trauma that they want you to continue to say that, you know, you're unable to work to, to keep getting money.
Speaker 1 00:16:55 Oh yeah. Social security disability, by the way, is one of the major forms of pathological altruism in our society right now. Cause the idea is supposed to be, oh, it's for people who have, you know, suffered some sort of entry and they're unable to work. It's going to temporarily help them to support them and help them to get by while they're unable to work. But the open secret about disability is people go on it temporarily and they never come off that the huge number of people who go on social security disability basically never go to work again. They never go back into the workforce because you can get a, a check coming to your, uh, a check coming in automatically into your account every month, uh, to provide everything you, you know, to provide a basic, not a very good living, but a, a basic minimum, you get that coming in.
Speaker 1 00:17:40 But if you go back to work, you lose it. So it creates that perverse incentive for people to remain helpless and to remain, oh, my back still isn't good enough. I can't go back to work. And now a whole bunch of people by the way, go on disability. And they continue to get work on the side under the table <laugh> while also getting the check. Um, but you know, I had a, I had some years ago, last time I had a, uh, before they tore down the house in which he was living, it was in that bad of shape. I had a neighbor who was, um, uh, probably 15, 20 years ago, plotting to get on social security disability. Now, what is his disability? His disability was that he was a drunk, right? So, uh, you know, he saw that does social security ability was the land of opportunity for him because he could, you know, make up some, sorry about, oh, back pains or this or that or anything. And he couldn't work. And they basically he'd get a check every month and be able to go out and buy liquor. Um, so it it's another example of how, you know, in this case we talked about somebody being codependent with a person who's addicted to drugs or alcohol in this case, the codependent party is the United States government and, and, and the American taxpayer.
Speaker 0 00:18:51 Great. Well, uh, I wanna recognize TAs, founder, David Kelly. Uh, David, I don't know if you had a question or, well, if not, um, we'll go to, uh, I, I think Roger was originally up here first and, uh, then we'll go to Alan. Roger, how's it going?
Speaker 3 00:19:12 Um, glad, I'm glad you guys are doing this room. Um, there's been a lot of talk on, on this app, uh, about altruism and, uh, but, but I love this tie in to the age of trauma. Uh, and, and it's funny, cuz I've just read an article yesterday talking about the breakup between Pete Davidson from Saturday night live and uh, Kim Kardashian. And in this article it was talking about Pete Davidson is seeking help for what, for the trauma that was caused, uh, because of harassment by Kanye west. And I, I don't wanna dismiss that somebody could experience trauma from legitimate harassment, but when I see, uh, people that publicize their romance, uh, and then, uh, receive criticism over it and are now seeking help for the trauma that that created. I think this speaks to the, the, uh, the way that we've overused, this concept of trauma.
Speaker 3 00:20:14 And, and I think the worry around that is that there are some people that legitimately do suffer trauma and, and in order to make sure that people get the help that they need. It's, uh, it it's important that we don't, uh, confuse, uh, you know, just, uh, the normal trials of life, uh, with, you know, with, with, with, uh, with trauma, whether it's acute or chronic or whatever version of, of trauma you might be associated with, not every problem bubbles up to that. And, and it reminds me of a, um, uh, a thing that, uh, George Carlin talked about in his standup where he said that, you know, once upon a time before we, we referred to soldiers, uh, experiencing trauma as having post traumatic stress syndrome, uh, we, we used to call it shell shock and the softening of the language and the overuse of the language almost makes it seem less severe. And, and, and I'm just curious to tie this into a question for you, Rob, is, is how do we, how, how do we get back to a world where we could get people, the help that they need when they're, when they're suffering trauma and, and, and maybe tell people, uh, that aren't suffering trauma to suck it up, like, is there a polite way of doing that?
Speaker 1 00:21:33 <laugh> I think you just said it, suck it up, but no, no, I, uh, you know, it's like, okay, Pete, David, I, I have baby. I have only the Vegas idea who Pete Davidson is. Um, but you know, okay. He dated a hot chick who has a, an angry ex-husband, well, that's not, you know, that that's ordinary life. That is not trauma, but what you're talking about, people who legitimately suffered, I think one advance we've made in the, um, uh, in the last few decades is the recognition of PTSD or what used to be called shell shock was now PTSD, post traumatic chest disorder. The recognition of that is a real thing, cause it used to be, oh, you know, suck it up. Uh, you know, that's wars, hell, uh, you know, you, you should, you should just, you know, go on with your life, realizing that this is something that is a real psychological problem.
Speaker 1 00:22:21 And, and, uh, that there are ways to treat it. And there are ways to, uh, uh, to at least recognize it. And, you know, I think that's something as a positive thing that has been developed for people who went through war, right? <laugh> for people who were shot at, for people who were, uh, under, who were being bombed or shelled, or what have you. Uh, but obviously, you know, that shows the differentiation is that, you know, having a girlfriend with an angry ex is not the same thing as getting shot at repeatedly over a period of months, uh, on the front lines of a battlefield.
Speaker 1 00:22:57 So I do absolutely absolutely think, you know, that the, the, the, the terminology of trauma and, uh, and some of these concepts, like post-traumatic stress disorder developed in psychology often for very good reasons to help, uh, identify cases in which people really do have trouble and need help and need treatment. And there, there are ways to, and, and, you know, there's been some discussion about how to do this, but I think there are, so they've come up with some relatively effective ways for treating this, if you, uh, if you recognize it and understand what's going on, but it was, so it was, it was created for a legitimate reason, but because of pathological altruism, everybody jumps on the bandwagon, oh, there's a new form of tri there's a new form of victimhood in town. Lets everybody sign up because it doesn't, you know, cuz it makes you, it makes you one of the good guys.
Speaker 1 00:23:48 It makes you special. It gives you something to, uh, uh, uh, it gives you something to, to bring attention and value to yourself. And so Pete Davidson can get a couple more, uh, social media cycles out of the, out of the fact that Kanye west was mean to him. All right. So, um, I think as to how you end it, well, first of all, you might, yeah. I, I don't think there's necessarily a polite way, you know, for some of these people, I'm not inclined to find a polite way for other people. I am inclined to find a more polite way, but I think on a culture wide level, I think it, it just shows that we have to reconsider the concept of altruism and try to, to identify what it really means and root out that altruist premise, cuz that's the thing that activates people.
Speaker 1 00:24:31 That's the thing that activates people that when they see some new form of trauma or victimhood or some new pathology that's identified by the psychia psychologist or psychiatrist, they all flock to it and say, oh, that's me too, because I, I need to be victimized. I need to be, I need to be suffering because under altruism suffering is something that adds value and meaning to my life. And that I think is what, um, uh, so it's, it's questioning that underlying. What does altruism mean? Identifying the pathology of it that, that I think is necessary ultimately to, to sort of end this cycle as much as it could be ended.
Speaker 0 00:25:09 Great. Thank you for that, uh, to leave David, you wanted to get in here.
Speaker 4 00:25:15 Yeah, I did. Thank you. Um, first of all, I think, you know, Roger's point is excellent. Um, and it there's a psychological and cultural parallel to the, uh, old saw in economics. It bad money drives out good when a concept gets inflated like trauma, um, it drives out, you know, it diminishes the real meaning of it. And um, you know, that hurts the people who, as Rob was saying who actually have ha experienced like battlefield from a, my, what I wanted to say though, is I was wondering what the connection, uh, Rob was gonna draw between pathological egoism, uh, Al altruism, sorry about that. And, um, and victim, but, and I, I think I, I see now I, I think there are two, two senses of altruism or two themes, uh, or strains of altruism. One is that you should sacrifice to others. Uh, you know, the, um, the that's the form of altruism often confus with benevolence and, um, that's what, uh, Peter Keating's mother, uh, kept an I, she was doing, but there's also this strain of altruism that, um, is, uh, the notion that, um, that it will be, um, uh, I'm sorry, I, there's an article. I wrote, um, some mirrors back on this subject anyway. Uh, the other strain is that the inversion of, of, of values that Iran describing gold that is, uh, reflected in the, um, um, the attitudes blessed are the poor, not the rich, the poor, because they will inherit the, the, uh, you know, evil, I, I'm sorry. They will inherit the, uh, earth
Speaker 1 00:27:33 Earth.
Speaker 4 00:27:33 Uh, they will inherit the earth, um, bless earth more for, they should be comforted, bless the meat for they shall inherit the earth. So it's not this successful it's altruism in this sense, elevates the unsuccessful, the poor, the meek, the poor spirit, the, uh, including, you know, moral stature. And I think that's, that's a strain of altruism that is connected with, uh, at least I'm, I put it as a question to Rob it's, that's a connection that, uh, for that's connected with pat with, uh, victimhood that you make yourself a victim, that's how you get cultural capital, because it, it says you're powerless impetu. So help me, help me help me and those who don't are guilty.
Speaker 1 00:28:28 Yeah. I, I, I, I agree with that. And, and that's part of Iran's analysis of it, but I, I think that it's the connection between those two, that when you create that moral system, you are creating that hierarchy of values where, you know, the, the lack of value, the, uh, uh, the weakness, the, uh, the poverty is not just economic poverty, but spiritual poverty becomes the thing that gets was meaning and value into your life. Um, I I've mentioned before, there's a study done. I never remember the guys' names, but there's two guys who did a study, uh, about 10 years or so ago where they, they had this whole discussion about how different societies are based on different based principles, about what gives meaning and value to your life, what gives meaning value and direction to your life. And they said, you know, for a long time ago, centuries ago, it was the culture of honor.
Speaker 1 00:29:20 And as we, you know, honor was not just that you had a certain position or reputation, but it was specifically at reputation in the eyes of others. So you had to be treated a certain way and, and have a certain position and status in society in order to maintain your honor. And if your honor was challenged, you had to, you know, you had to do somebody or fight somebody to mean to, to regain that. Um, and then that was followed the setback culture of dignity, whereas your own personal internal sense of your self-worth. So even, uh, like somebody like Frederick Douglas, who was a slave, could still have dignity as something you couldn't, nobody can take from you, cuz it's your own internal assessment of your self-worth. And then they said, what happened is that got in the 20th century that got replaced with a culture of victimhood where victimhood is what gives meaning and value and organization to your life.
Speaker 1 00:30:11 And it's what gives you first status on you. And so everybody has to then find ways to be a victim, right? And that's where this trauma comes in. Uh, but then as far as the connection to altruism, I think it's interesting that altruism is a word that has gone through a kind of modification from its origins. I think there are three sort of steps to it. So originally the term altruism, you know, this is not an ancient term. This is a relatively recent term coined in the 19th century by getting August comped as part of this sort of religion of humanity, he created that was supposed to be a secular replacement for, uh, traditional religion. And in that he created this moral, the idea of a, a moral code called altruism and it comes from the Latin word, meaning others. So it's other, and as the idea that that sacrificing for the sake of your life is the only moral purpose of your life.
Speaker 1 00:31:05 You can only do something for yourself only in so far as, as a necess, the bare minimum necessary basically to keep body and soul together so that you can go on serving others. And of course the contradiction there is, uh, if you, if, if is the one brought up by two E and, and other people, which is if you are sacrificing everything in order to serve others and those other people are expected to also live by this altruist philosophy and sacrifice everything to serve others, everybody's sacrificing in nobody's nobody's, um, uh, nobody's profit, but you know, he pushed this as his, uh, sort of secular religion, um, and, uh, push this idea of altruism as, uh, a, a totalizing CU sort of code of living in which you do nothing but act for the sake of others. And everything you do is, is justify bear reference to how is this, uh, helping other people.
Speaker 1 00:32:03 Now, what happens is altruism, this, this idea that originates in Europe, it comes to America in the late 19th century. And I, I just got a chance to look into that sort of forgotten history on that a little bit. And it was brought in actually more as a social system there, there was these, there was a one guy who were in a series of, of, uh, stories, uh, about Teria, which is this fictional country in w with that's run totally on altruist principles. And he has this Urian traveler who's coming to America and always explaining how things in America are so much worse than they are back in Teria, uh, where everything's run according to this ideal system, right? And it's, it's sort of a preview in the 1890s ass. As I recall a preview a few decades earlier of the later person who would come back and say, oh, everything's better in the Soviet union.
Speaker 1 00:32:52 And we have the ideal perfect, uh, society and the Soviet union. Uh, but this is the fictional uria that they did it from and what happened to alouria or to, to altruism as a movement in the us when it hit here. And from the research I've seen what happened to it, is it dissipated as a move as a social movement because that got absorbed by the, the existing cultural forces in the country. So some of the people who are into altruism in this, uh, in August comp sense, this, all this sort of total system of sacrifice for others, some people who are into it, drifted into Marxism and into, you know, the cinema mainstream of the left, because it gave them a whole economic explanation and an economic system. So they became Marxist. They, they went to the Marxist left and then the other group of people who were, uh, affected by altruism, it was absorbed by traditional religion because, you know, what does traditional Christianity say?
Speaker 1 00:33:47 The, the goal, the ideal person, the ideal way to act in life is Christ on the cross sacrificing himself by allowing this house to be tortured to death for the sake of others. So the, the traditional religious types grabbed onto altruism. And so as a distinct movement, it kind of dissipated, but it got co-opted by the existing social movements that were very compatible with it that were advocating one form or another, either religious form of altruism or a, uh, secular economic form of altruism. All right. So then what happens is that having lost its meaning as a specific movement, altruism then became watered down to now where it's just kind of used in this very superficial and imprecise form. And this is actually how, and, and the stuff I read from Barbara Oakley, this is how she used. It it's mean anything intended to help another person.
Speaker 1 00:34:42 Well, you see the problem with that, which is if you do, if it's anything that's intended to help another person, it includes this, you know, a much broader swath of everyday actions. It doesn't include this idea of the belief that pursuing anything that's good for you is evil. It doesn't include that sort of culture of, uh, uh, that, that lack of value. And that being a victim, that being suffering gives, gives your life meaning and value. So it's a way in which altruism, as a word has sort of lost its original meaning and become this very superficial thing. But the thing is, if you use it in that way of meaning anything intended to help another person, then you can see that you have that sort of August comped version, the pathological version of altruism, which is very opposed to the requirements of human life gets lumped in with any single act of benevolence that you might happen to do for another person.
Speaker 1 00:35:43 Right? So if you see an old friend and you say, Hey, let me bite you a cup of coffee. You know, that, that, that suddenly becomes altruism equivalent to, you know, the, the, the Peter and Louisa Keating, you know, Peter Keating and his mom, uh, <laugh> with, with these are two very, very different things that are going on. One's kindness, benevolence, uh, Goodwill towards a friend and the other is this sort of death spiral of self-sacrifice that these two people are involved in. So that's why I think that, you know, sort of reminding people, the original meaning of this concept and cleaning up the language in that way, uh, I think it is, is extremely, is, is like a, a huge necessary task because if people aren't making differentiations between simple benevolence and this creed of that in which self-sacrifice is the essence of morality, then they're not gonna be able to understand what's really going on. And, uh, they're going to be, you know, that, that fuzzy dividing line put it this way, it'll make a, a future Peter Keating, a lot more likely to sort of be able to be, um, taken in by this sort of guilt trip of, oh, I've sacrificed so much for you, Peter at that, you know, he won't, he, he will think of that as benevolence as Goodwill and not recognize it as the deadly trap that it actually is.
Speaker 4 00:37:06 So Rob, just to, to wrap up, uh, I, I couldn't agree more about the need to distinguish altruism from benevolence. Um, but I still think that the, what you're talking about, the, um, mm-hmm, <affirmative> the, the victimhood, the elevation of victimhood as a virtue signal is, uh, tied in with the other aspect of the inversion of values that we talk about that, um, the bless the poor, et cetera. Um, it's the lack of Val when she, the way you put it, it's the lack of value that gives you, you know, social value. Yeah. Which is, um, I think a big, big factor in, um, um, in fueling envy and, uh, derivatively egalitarianism.
Speaker 1 00:37:54 Um, and also I wanna say that, you know, the, the phenomenon you're talking about that sort of cultural inversion of values, that's also tied into things that are not directly related to morality, but are even like beneath the love, you know, uh, more fundamental than the moral questions. Um, you know, one example I see of that is, um, it it's become sort of a, it was always a thing, but it's become even more of a thing in the last few years in this sort of partly cuz the Trump in the Trump era is this thi this sort of, um, crowing about your, this sort of reverse snobbery of, because I'm a simple person from the country who doesn't, who's uneducated basically. And you know, it, it it's, you, it, I'm not one of the elites I'm, uh, you know, a simple uneducated person from the country who doesn't know all these things that makes me better.
Speaker 1 00:38:44 It makes you be superior. There's that sort of anti-intellectualism that has become very popular. Um, uh, we're in a populist era, right where the, uh, everyone needs to needs to at least claim to be a one of the common man. Um, we get a lot of dubious claims there. I did, was it, uh, Dr. Oz is running in, uh, uh, for Senate in, in, uh, in Pennsylvania and did an ad where he's trying to sympathize what the common man about high prices at the grocery store. And this is obviously a guy who has not shopped in the grocery store for his own food in decades. Uh, and he goes on, you know, talking about sympathizing with the masses about the expensive price of vegetables for a Cru TA platter and as like a parody of, you know, the, the, the, the multimillionaire with, with arm, probably an army of servants to wait on him, hand of foot, trying to pretend to sympathize with the common man, but it's because we're in this populous era where basically being undistinguished and coming from nowhere and, and, you know, not having gone to school and being essentially, you know, um, uh, that your, your lack of value in that sense becomes part of, uh, what gives you value.
Speaker 1 00:39:57 And it, it comes partly from altruism, but it also comes from, cause I think victimhood culture has sort of made us trying to warm its way into the conservative movement. We used to make fun of it, the right people and the right used to make fun of it. Now they're saying, oh, I'm the greatest victim, but it also comes from the anti-intellectualism. And I think it comes from religious roots that there are a lot of, a lot, a lot, a lot of conservatives of, of religious traditionalists who like this idea of basically denigrating, um, advanced sophisticated knowledge, especially scientific knowledge and advanced education is saying, no, the, you know, the, basically the ignorance of the simple common man is superior. And the reason they're doing that is not because of altruism or morality it's because they have a, a sort of a metaphysical and epistemological acts to grind. They want to deny reason to make room for faith. And so, you know, this idea of denigrating knowledge and sophistication, uh, in, in favor of the virtues of the common man comes not just from a moral goal that they have, but from the goal of trying to sort of prop up and rescue religion and give an elevated status to religion. So there's other, you know, I think that's the, what you're getting at is that there's, there are wider issues evolved that are fueling this inversion of values.
Speaker 0 00:41:18 Thank you for that. Um, thanks, Rob. I agree,
Speaker 1 00:41:22 Uh, back to you, Scott
Speaker 0 00:41:24 <laugh> I think, uh, just a quick counterpoint before we go to Alan, uh, I just think it is possible that, uh, some people are reacting to a sense that there's corruption in some of the institutions more than just an anti-intellectual, uh, attitude.
Speaker 1 00:41:41 Oh, but Scott possibly be corruption in institutions. Yeah, you are correct. There are there populism always has this sort of double aspect to it. Right. Um, that is populism as a mass movement. There's always people who are populous for reasons you like, and people who are populous for reasons you don't like <laugh> that it does get mixed up.
Speaker 0 00:42:04 That's fair. Um, Alan, thank you so much for your patience.
Speaker 6 00:42:08 Yeah. Thanks Scott. Uh, I'm I'm going to try and comment, but it's, it's going to be difficult. Having just learned that Pete Davidson broke up with king Kardashian. I, I don't know if I can recover from the emotional trauma of that. Um, but, but I'll soldier on, you know, this, the, the whole link between altruism and victimhood. Um, it all reminds me, um, if you're familiar with the personality typing system called the Enneagram, um, maybe you've heard of it, but within it, there are nine personality types. And one of 'em is called the helper and the idea, and not only with that, but with all the other types that the helper ties his self worth in with his ability to help other people. So he feels he's a good person because he's able to help other people and be benevolent and be altruistic. But it also talk discusses levels of inter integration and in disintegration.
Speaker 6 00:43:33 So at the highest level, an altruistic person will help others, but that helping is not tied in with his self-esteem, as opposed to with the bottom level, that person is helping someone, but expecting something in return and grows bitter and angry. If they're not shown the quote proper levels of gratitude for what they did. Um, and at the heart of it is, and this is an indictment of most of altruism as it occurs in the political stage is that if you really ask the helper or the altruistic person, if they actually care about the people they're helping, their answer will be no <laugh> that they, that they don't care about it. Um, so I just offer that is, you know, uh, this is an extremely brief overview of the entire system, but just as an invitation for possible Explora exploration that it describes perfectly what is going on, both in people who victimize themselves, but also the people like you've discussed who promote this idea that the perfect society would be where people are only thinking of others.
Speaker 1 00:45:07 Yeah. Actually, I'm glad you brought that up because there's, there are certain, especially certain professions where thinking of yourself as helping others would be totally normal and, and healthy and, um, almost unavoidable. Like, you know, if you're, if you're a doctor or a nurse, right. And if you do your job, well, you could be saving somebody's life or making them, you know, helping them recover from a disease. You are helping them. Uh, if you're a firefighter, you know, you do your job. Well, you save somebody from a fire, so you are helping other people. Um, and I think the difference is that issue of, you know, how is this connect to your self-esteem? What is your expectation for what you get in return? And also for the idea that, um, you know, if you're helping other people in a mutually beneficial way where, you know, if you're a doctor you're, you're, you're saving lives, you're also being paid well for it, right?
Speaker 1 00:46:06 So it's, you know, you are prospering by using your skills. You are prospering and at the same time helping somebody else. And that's, I mean, that's not just a description of a, of a doctor. And, and when you talk about a physician or a, or, or a nurse it's in this very obvious way that they're helping other people, but you know, anybody <laugh>, uh, who's performing a productive job is, you know, you're getting paid and some customer somewhere who's getting this product, or, uh, who's the ultimate beneficiary of your actions. That person is also better off. So, but that brings us out of the altruist world, in that, in the competent sense of altruism, where, you know, you are sacrificing purely, you know, where pursuit of your own self interest is evil and you, you, you should purely be oriented towards helping other people. It takes us into the capitalist, uh, enlightenment, uh, enlighten self-interest rational self-interest approach where I'm benefiting and you benefiting.
Speaker 1 00:47:10 We're both, you know, we we're, we're engaging in mutually beneficial action for which we both gain value. So it's taking it out that altruist context and putting it back in that sort of enlightenment rational, self-interest enlighten self-interest, uh, uh, uh, moral framework. And I think that's, that's why that's the fundamental difference. Um, but also, you know, it is true that, that, you know, in that ins pathological form, that I'm helping you, therefore you owe me something in return, or therefore it gives me some kind of control is a major feature of it. Uh, one of the more intrigued wrote that I think recommend it's one that's not well, uh, unless you're, you know, well versed in her, in her works, but it's a, an early, uh, it's a play that she wrote, uh, fairly early on called think twice. Uh, it's, it's a murder mystery.
Speaker 1 00:47:59 And the twist on the, kind of the twist on the murder mystery is that the guy who's murdered is, is known as a great altruist at humanitarian. And so initially when the, uh, um, detective comes to investigate, he thinks, well, this is gonna be the hardest, the hardest case in the world, cuz who could possibly wanna kill this guy. And he starts interviewing all the people around him and discovers everybody hates and resents him because his help to all these other people, as a humanitarian, his help always comes with strings attached. And each of the people he's drawn into his orbit by helping them. He's done it by taking away some aspect of what they really wanted in life. And they all felt, you know, guilty and felt like had they had to put up with it. Cause after all he's been so benevolent, he's been so helpful to me. And so the guy ends up saying, I didn't think anybody would wanna kill him. Now I've got more suspects that I know what to do with, you know, any one of these people could have had a motive to kill him. And that was her sort of trying to identify that aspect of it, that that comes with expectations and strings attached and a sense of control and stifles the person that is supposedly trying to help. And that's, that's, we, that's the pathology of that altruist moral mindset.
Speaker 0 00:49:13 Good. Thank you for that. We've got, uh, three questions. I don't know if we'll have time, but we'll start with Maximus. See if we can, uh, get through them.
Speaker 7 00:49:23 Thanks Scott. Yeah, this is Maximus. So in this discussion I've been reflecting on some thoughts I've had about victimhood and this, this term, I really like this pathological altruism and I'm seeing a kind of distinction here, um, that might be helpful and maybe some references to some ideas. If you haven't read them, uh, you know, any of the attendees might find some interest in them first. I, I I've made some observation that it seems like humans get into a lot of trouble sometimes with pathological behaviors based on kind of a fundamental human instinct. So this victimhood mentality and, um, this culture pointing out victimhood and kind of pointing out personal traumas or struggles seems to be related to maybe more to empathy than altruism, uh, in this discussion I'm reminded of, I think it was a work by Jonathan height, a book he wrote called righteous minds where he talked about like a moral framework for how people make moral decisions.
Speaker 7 00:50:28 And I can't help, but think of this victimhood mentality in this, in the culture, um, being related to what he called care foundation as like a moral foundation of, of humans kind of universally across cultures. If I remember the book correctly and the, I guess the, maybe the underlying human tendency or kind of instinctual behavior, or let's say software that humans run on might be empathy. This idea of, um, you know, if we see someone suffering, it's, it's kind of abnormal to be indifferent to someone else's suffering, it's instinctive to at least empathize with or recognize. And to some extent even feel some of the suffering another human goes through. And that's more of the vibe that I get from this victimhood part of the culture right now is this kind of celebration or elevation or even sanctification of emotional or physical pain. And I remember, um, I think height, Jonathan height had talked about this idea that some of these advocates for the sanctification of, of discomfort or, or pain, even emotional pain, uh, height talks about this conflation of physical violence with, you know, this emotional violence or even if someone makes you feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 7 00:51:44 Can we
Speaker 1 00:51:45 Just wrap this into a question a little bit? Yeah, we,
Speaker 7 00:51:48 Oh, that's okay. Yep. That's okay. So that, I just wanted to point that out. I wonder if this maybe, maybe this might be considered pathological empathy rather than pathological altruism though. I can see like this mark is Marxism might be pathological altruism.
Speaker 1 00:52:04 Yeah. Well, I, I think empathy is related to this, but I, I wanna talk about that a little bit because empathy is a, a natural feeling that you have that, you know, you're for your fellow, man. If you see somebody suffer, you think, oh, oh, that's terrible. You feel sorry for them, but here a couple things about that. One is that, do you, then you don't necessarily think, therefore I should uped my entire life in order to serve him. But also here's the thing that I find interesting about it, which is empathy. When you say empathy, you think, oh, somebody else is suffering and I feel a fellow feeling with them, but why would empathy just mean with somebody else's suffering? Wouldn't it also mean that you enjoy somebody else's achievements with them? Wouldn't, you know, mean, you know, and we all know this, this feeling like you're watching your favorite, uh, your favorite team win the game, right?
Speaker 1 00:52:55 And you're jumping up and down pumping your fist. Well, you didn't do anything <laugh> you didn't, you didn't catch the ball. You didn't, you didn't score a goal. Uh, you didn't do anything that you, you don't that elation doesn't come from what you did, but it comes from your empathy with elation of the players on the team that they've, you know, struggled hard and they won the big game and they got the championship or whatever it was that was on the line. So I think it's, it's the altruist and, um, um, sort of victimhood worship attitude that causes you when you think of empathy to immediately go to, oh, somebody's suffering right. As if that's the only way to feel a sense of solidarity with your fellow man. And I, you know, and I'm not giving you a hard time for this, cause this is so common. This is the way the language has been used and the way the attitudes have been shaped around this victim worship that empathy immediately means only I feel bad with somebody else is, is somebody else's suffering and I feel bad for them and what to help them. It doesn't mean any of the good things that, that are evolved in, in empathy or, or in sympathy with your fellow human being. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 7 00:54:07 That's a, that's a good point and a good distinction and maybe a compassion. Would've been better word. That's a good point.
Speaker 1 00:54:13 No, but, but I think that, you know, again, like I said, compassion or empathy is natural and normal. It's the, it's the excessive focus on things that go bad and, and that things that go bad are the real essence of life and that therefore your goal in life should be to help other people who, for whom things grow bad. That that's the only thing that's really important in the world. I think that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the pathological altruism or the, the victimhood mentality that we're talking about where that's become inverted, right. So it takes this natural thing that is actually quite normal, uh, and turns it into a, in a bad direction because it's, uh, uh, it's because of that change in emphasis, we have time.
Speaker 8 00:55:04 Yeah. Kevin, well, I'd like to follow up on what you said, you know, as a counselor, as a, as a school counselor and having been counseling for a while now, um, you know, I, I would, I would venture to say that most counselors that got into it and, you know, during our cohort that we went down on a, um, in which over 1000 psychiatrists and, and counselors were there, we discussed this very thing. And most people that have, are in counseling have actually ventured into pain. They, they ventured into it, they've gone through it and they absolutely are, um, masters of their craft, so to speak. And, and, and it is not so much a ego rather than, you know, an expression of here is a direction, you know, no psychiatrists I've ever heard of are going to tell you they have all the answers. And so you would assume that, you know, this Altru altruism that you're talking about pathological, um, I I'm, I'm a little, um, pushing back against that, that definition, pathological, you know, I'm, I'm of the opinion personally, that when we get into, um, absolutes, we're always gonna get in trouble because there are people, you know, in the hearts that I met people that do what they do because of, um, they want people to avoid, um, the pain. They want them to heal and become better members of society. It's similar to, um, what doctors do, Kevin,
Speaker 0 00:56:53 What they's gotta wrap at the top of the hour. So I just wanna give them a chance to answer you.
Speaker 8 00:56:59 Okay.
Speaker 1 00:57:00 Yeah, we can. I think, I think it's a good point that, you know, I think one, one thing I've observed that maybe this, I don't know if, how this, uh, corresponds your experience, but, you know, I know some people who go into psychiatry or to counseling that sort of thing, because they themselves have experienced, you know, a, a something traumatic or, or I don't wanna say traumatic hack, undercutting my own clubhouse. Uh, they've experienced some sort of psychological pain or distress in their own life. And they figured out how to get through it. And they basically say, I want the next person to experience this. I want to share with them the things they can do to, to, to recover and make it easier for them. And I think, you know, that's a, that's a great motivation to have, but I said, like I said, the, uh, the difference here is in the, you know, I think a lot of people, when I talk about pathological altruism, again, altruism has come to mean benevolence wishing, man.
Speaker 1 00:57:58 But it also has that still that connection to it, an underlining meaning of this idea that you have no right to be happy in your own life. Your only function is to sacrifice for the sake of others and the way that that can twist people into, uh, very unpleasant and, and very pathological relationships. And I think that's the thing that, that, like I said, I have to, I, I'm trying to crusade to root out that association of altruism with this sort of superficially good thing, when it also means something that can be very damaging to people. And you know, what the most damaging thing to, to a person's life is to be told you don't really have a right to be happy, right? That's like the worst thing psychologically you could do to someone because, you know, if they don't think they have a right to be happy, they're not going to do the things that they need to do in order to, uh, in order to become psychologically healthy. And, and, and cope with the problems of life and, and, you know, get to that bene place.
Speaker 8 00:58:58 I see where you're coming from now. So thank you for the distinction and I'll go ahead and, um, parked my <laugh> park, whatever else, response I have. There's other folks on the stage. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:59:12 Thank you. Appreciate that. Unfortunately, we're not gonna have time to get to them, but, uh, I do wanna let everyone know, uh, the Atlas society tomorrow at 5:00 PM Eastern, uh, Rob and David Kelly will be discussing current events. Um, that'll be across all channels. And then, um, Thursday back here on clubhouse at 4:00 PM Eastern Richard Salman's topic will be presumed guilty regulations versus, right. So, uh, I'm looking forward to both of those sessions. Uh, Rob, thank you so much for doing this. Thanks to everyone who participated. This was a great topic and uh, we'll see you this week. Thanks. Take care.
