Over the weekend Molyneux banished a letter to the Inquirer asking th paper to cover Molyneux's Philly recruitment tour, warts and all. as verbal abuse. Contents of that letter are on another topic page hardly seemed abusive, critical yes, but abusive no. Hurling the charge of abuse at everything and anything that suits Molyneux's agenda seems to be a nice weapon, tool and shield for him. However his principal use of the charge of abuse is reserved for indoctrination and control purposes of his troop. Just as clearly to those who observe the manipulation from the outside, those inside cannot seem to see grasp how they are being manipulated and used - and in my view abused - to further his own personal exorcising of his demons, his voyeuristic pleasure and control.

I don't know anybody who has had a charmed childhood. We all have had difficulties of one sort or another and generally as part of the maturing process come to terms with or deal with it one way or another. Is every difficulty a young person has growing up the result of abuse. In Molyneux's vision the answer seems yes. (I pity his daughter.) It seems that even if the young candidate for defooing cannot remember specific instances of abuse, Stef is always there to tell them what to remember - whether true or not or simply exaggerated and distorted for his own purposes. In the simplistic world of the Molyneux's therapeutic practice there is only one real conclusion (abuse) and one solution (defooing).

Of course there is real abuse going on out there in the real world, be it physical, sexual, intellectual or psychological. The abusers can be parents, siblings, teachers, classmates, ministers, police and social workers - and even psychotherapists.

Being untrained, driven and overcoming his own damaged childhood his conclusions and recommendations are unsurprising. SM is clearly ill equipped emotionally to deal with his own issues much less those of his listeners. He is also poorly equipped and experienced academically and professionally to really identify central issues and has no clue about treatment, therapy and collateral damage he is causing. His approach and therapy seems akin to rubbing salt into a wound and stopping a healing process.

Not every bodies problems are about SM and his childhood. But then does he really care? Listening to his podcasts his first jump is to project his own bitterness on to the unlucky guest. Who knows what goes on in his unethical and improper offline skype conversations.

His solution, defooing is about revenge, mostly his revenge! His logic of defooing still escapes me. I can see a case, very rarely for some on to defoo an abuser. But to cut off all family and friends seems counter to any healthy restoration and growth. Even if a limited is defoo is reasonable, reason would also dictate a "refoo" , if only to attempt reconciliation at time when the person was confident enough for it.

The result of Molyneux's psychology experiment seems to be a group of emotionally crippled people that find it difficult to relate to themselves, their family and friends. That of course makes defooing so much simpler. At that point, independent emotional existence is not tolerated and escape difficult and painful.

Against this backdrop I ask all that have had encounters with SM and FDR, who are the real abusers in his listeners / victims lives? From my observations Stefan and FDR find, invent, exaggerate and exploit peoples real pains, hangups, frustrations and socialisation issues for their own gratification and profit. They offer no real insight, except a predictable one that suits a philosophical agenda of dubious merit. SM and FDR then subject its patients to unauthorised private and lengthy off line sessions, they set their prey up on marathon humiliating podcasts and use those podcasts for their own purposes as they have no therapeutic value to anybody. As suggested recently, it appears to me that Stefan Molyneux is light years away from helping anybody and is the overwhelming part of his victims problem and therefore, legal niceties aside, a kind of serial abuser. Am I wrong and he is an enlightened pioneer of a new cruel psychology?

Hi Niall.
I have to say that your post mirror's my personal feelings of the whole defoo busines that I have thus so far encountered.
I believe that you are quite correct in saying that SM does nothing to help famillies. The family situation that is prevalent in my circumstances may have benefited from a little help at the time of the defoo. I suspect that the opposite occurred 'cuz I have a suspicion that weaknesses within a home are exploited by SM to inflame what may have been a minor problem. SM turns this into something it is not and before you know it.......... well we know what happens next.
There is also the other aspect assocaited with defooing and that is the financial one and it is quite clear SM takes money from these vulnerable people who actually believe they are benefiting something. Now I wonder how SM gets them to part with their hard earned cash? hmmm! let me think!
Does he do refunds for bad practice?
Cheers for affirming what I have personally concludued.
Regards,
Jawol(48)

Seems to me people are first and foremost individuals and along with that comes individual hopes, aspirations, foibles, eccentricities, emotional baggage, differences, likes, dislikes, values, weaknesses etc. In examining any individuals situation you have to take all factors into consideration and treat root causes. Molyneux doesn't even address symptons much less causes. He has one answer, abuse and one solution "defoo". Why, because it fits his social engineering theory and now experiment, and gives him a taste of revenge at his parents and family. How else can you explain can you explain including siblings, other more remote family members and friends who have absolutely nothing to do with "abuse". Abuse is his cover. Defoo is his psychological abusive treatment of his patients and of course defoo and how it is executed is effectively inciting his victims to commit abuse in their own right. The reward for the defooers is misery, loneliness, isolation, social dysfunction - for which the Molyneux gives them a pat on the head by making them Philosopher Kings, at a price. Obviously after $20,000 on his own therapy he stopped therapy too soon. So maybe this his revenge on the psychotherapy community.

I agree with a lot, and the revenge bit is excellent, though I think the idea of cutting ties with family is more often sensibly applicable than you think (but of course a lot less than what Stefan thinks (or at least shows in his 'counseling')

If indeed Stef's motivation is revenge why does it have to be so many fold and why on people not associated with his own life?
Does he believe that those of us that are affected by his meddlings are all sitting back relaxing thinking 'oh well never mind' or does he crave for us to seek revenge also?. to be like him, to feel what he feels, to try and make us understand him in some sad way?

Ultimately the link between philosophy and psychology is tenous at best. Philosphy is realm that seeks univerality of truth, fundamental ideas and to an extent behaviour. In short, the focal point is more outward. Psychology is a different realm that is principally inward focused and the factors shaping it are diverse, shifting constantly, dynamic, often uncontrollable and complex. A good philospher can be psychologically disturbed, a psychologically disturbed person can be a genus and a simple person of low IQ can be a highly moral and good person. Where psychology and philosophy are most compatible is when psychology is used as a tool to solicit emotional support for a philosophic construct or for social engineering. Molyneux uses the "abuse" card to stimulate a stripping away of individuality, often leading to a defoo. Friends need to be defooed as much as family as they can distract the defooer from fulfilling Molyneuxs objectives. The fact that friendships are voluntary and not biological as families start out as, is irrelevent to Molyneux. By the time the defoo takes place the FDR l "listener" seems bereft of individuality, humanity and humour. Bit like Moonies are reported to have been in the 70s and 80s. The fact that Molyneux takes so much obvious delight in humilating, bullying and controlling his listeners is where the psychological abusive behaviour really strikes me.

Actually, there are a quite a few areas where psychology and philosophy intersect: philosophy of the mind, moral psychology, philosophy of psychology, existentialist thought, phenomenology, and aesthetics (probably among others) are all intimately related to psychology.

For Stefan's purposes, the most important intersections are related to moral psychology and existentialism. What's really unfortunate, though, is that to my knowledge he doesn't actually engage either of these areas of study. What it seems like he's trying to say is that our conceptions of ourselves and of our relationships with other people (both from a positive and normative perspective) are largely shaped by our psychological dispositions and past experiences. This is true even of our conceptions of right and wrong. In order to achieve personal betterment and satisfaction, Stefan apparently thinks, we must change those elements in ourselves which are incompatible with what we think is right and good. This requires us to understand how our current identities have been shaped, as well as how to actively take control of our identities in order to reshape them for the better.

None of those ideas are new, and they have been under examination from various angles for well over a century (now approaching two!). But insofar as Stefan does not engage this discourse, he is liable to make a number of really problematic missteps along the way, as no one is perfect, and it's probably true that these missteps could have been avoided by studying what has already been discussed. I'm not familiar enough with Stefan's comprehensive theory on this to comment on particulars, but certain elements of what I've heard from other people have been rather concerning (e.g., regarding his ideas about forgiveness, what constitutes a respectful relationship, and the connection between emotions and reality).

Another problem for Stefan arises from his construction of his theory around the idea that part of being a good person is accepting a proper moral paradigm. This step is not particularly worrisome in itself, but unfortunately Stefan believes in the objective truth of a particular moral paradigm which I and others have found to be incoherent at times and fatally misguided at others. To the extent that Stefan's entire view rests on this moral paradigm, this error has profoundly problematic implications for his system.

In short, I don't think the problem is with Stefan's linkage of philosophy and psychology so much as it is his acceptance of incorrect and incoherent positions, coupled with his apparent refusal to actually sit down and do some research before offering his own opinions.

I really appreciated Danny Shahar's input and found it enlightening and fascinating. The lingering doubt I have with the connection is that Danny is making is that while everything he said is true, it seems to be from an academic and philosophy perspective. From what I see of Molyneux he doesn't have that foundation and operates from a more base emotional level where he manipulates, controls and gets his jollies. In witnessing his work, I am somewhat reminded of a Skinner Box.

Thanks, Niall! I guess all I would want to say is that this is probably an example of where Stefan's rhetoric isn't completely in line with the FDR community practice.

When Stefan explains his ideas, I think he gets into the sorts of issues I discussed above, and I do think he's working with a basic framework that's at least coherent, even if it's not correct or even particularly plausible in some places. But that being said, I do agree that from what I've seen of the day-to-day interactions in the FDR community, there isn't as much existentialist identity reconstruction going on as there is vulgar psychologizing, emoting, and posturing.

I think it's important to see that these things are connected to Stefan's theories, in that he apparently believes that analyzing the psychological explanations for people's current states, sharing emotions, and standing up for what you believe in are all necessary parts of the quest to reconstruct oneself. But I also think you're right to say that what goes on at FDR is not typically the use of these techniques in a process of self-betterment and bettering others, but rather their use as tools to maintain status within the group, enforce ideological conformity, and, often times, to earn Stefan's approval.

And it seems to me that this is a relatively natural outgrowth of the way that Stefan has connected the notion of self-reconstruction to things like morality, happiness, and self-worth. To doubt too much, to disagree, or to fail to live up to expectations would be, in an important sense, evil and irrational within this framework. And it's no surprise to see members of the FDR community reacting to such evil irrationality in much the same way as we continue to see from Objectivists confronted with the anti-mind, anti-reason, and anti-life crowd. Stefan's ideas are basically rooted in a sort of existentialism (though he may not acknowledge this), but his quest is not a search for individual meaning in an absurd and meaningless universe, or a better conceptual grasp on one's own identity in order to direct one's activities and thoughts to personal fulfillment; rather his quest is to actively reconstruct the self in order to conform with the realities of the physical universe and the objective demands of justice and morality. This difference, I think, goes a long way in explaining why members of the FDR community treat outsiders and each other the way that they do. It's not merely a question of self-realization for them; it's a matter of who's objectively better than everyone else vs. who's failing to see the light and is trapped in a state of irrational wickedness. When these are the stakes, and the participants are the sorts of people who are currently involved there, it's difficult to imagine any other outcome.

Well, Stef twists just about every criticism of his philosophy into a personal attack on him.

"Oh, I didn't catch this huge inconsistency in my philosophy, you say? Clearly you think I'm retarded! Why would you even bring this up with a guy who you think is so stupid! Sorry, but I don't debate with @$$holes who insult me like this!"


This is paraphrasing, of course. But I'm pretty darn sure that there is a podcast where he basically says this.

The point is, any counter-point people may make to his ideas is considered abuse by him.