"This is total nonsense, but it may be helpful"! That quoter from Stefan Molyneux says alot about the total muddle that is Stefan Molyneux. Rationality and objectivism seem to have been jettisoned by psuedo psychology and pithy witticisms driven by a massive ego.

Being a Randian myself, I was intrigued when I was recently introduced to FDR. In my visits to the website looking for some intellectual insight or at least health debate on important ideas I was sorely disappointed. Instead what one finds are a lot of lost sheep who wouldn't know a philosphical principal from a hole in the wall. So while philosophy is not Molyneux's strong point, the site might have merit if it helped its members vocalise their thoughts, fears and emotions in a free forum. Instead, one gets the sense of a rigid orthodoxy of psycho babble where Molyneux is the Big Daddy or Guru and no one dares to challenge him for fear of being bullied by devoted henchmen of limited patience or being exiled by the devine guru himself.

The only thing somewhat novel (although experimented with by the Nazis and Soviets) is the concept or practice of "defooing". Must admit that I have still not got my head around the concept except to isolate the defooers from anybody who might contradict the Fuehrer - oops, I meant St Stefan! Do the defooers actually confront their parents, seek truth, reconciliation or closure - no, they run and hide. Maybe sometimes a separation is useful, for all sorts of reasons, but that separation can really only be temporary in the end. So far I have not seen a possibility of a "refoo" (reconnect it family of origin). Without the possiblity of a refoo, defoo at best makes no sense and at worst self destructive.

But the Leader is not about helping his charges, but using them as foils to his own ideology and ego. A recent example was a podcast with a young fellow who lost his job as a journalist (FDR_1342_Quit or Fired). The basic story is that the fellow started his position a year ago with great promise and initially success. Then around Christmas he breaks up with his girl friend, starts feeling depressed, starts getting rundown and feeling unwell, starts seeing a therapist and starts making serious a series of important mistakes that led to his dismissal.

All of this is terribly sad, but in well over an hour do we actually hear Reverend Stefan actually help the fellow. No way! we hear the Pastor Molyneux dominate the proceeding by fast rewinding to the fellows childhood (no doubt difficult), wear the young fellow down by pompous speaches, wild generalities, mis quoting Nietzsche, and inane analogies (lions, gazelles and one armed clappers). Molyneux extended use of leading questions, imposition of his experience, transference of memories and an exhausting monologue should qualify him for the role of chief "torturer" at Gitmo should the CIA start it up again. Maybe the FSB can make use of him in the interim.

Because I was so shocked at the podcast I had to listen to it several times to really appreciate what was going on and shared it with a couple of professionals. Putting Professor Molyneux's peculiar family counselling ideas aside, it seems pretty clear the Dr Molyneux's approach was dangerously off the mark.

Accepting the young man had a very difficult childhood (who hasn't?), he had more than enough going for him to get the job, which he admitted was over his head. Even being in over his head the fellow performed well. Then the tragedy of the break up occurred at a Holiday time. As I assume he is a defooer, he had no family or friends to turn to ie no support network except his internet life. That is enough to make one depressed. No friends, no girl friend he probably let his diet go and started being less than healthy. That is bound to reflect in his work. Of course the nature of the mistakes was most interesting. Spelling, mistakes on words, inability to see mistakes when proof reading - all pretty critical for a writer. All of that is classic signs of a latent dyslexia. My bet was that he suffered from dyslexia as a child and managed over the years to overcome it. However the stress of the job, the lonliness and the break up with his girlfriend were more than enough to trigger it.

OK. Its a theory, but a heck of alot more plausible than the muddle Dr Stefan was dishing out. Rather than jumping on his family hobby horse, he should have, if he was going to play amatuer psychotherapist (which he should leave to the professionals), his first question should have been focused on something like dyslexia. Rather that retreat to the fellows deep past, the natural place to start examining the situation was the obvious trigger event. The break up with his girlfriend, the nature of their relationship, the reasons for the breakup and how he has been coping with that since. That event is by far the most relevent, but was totally ignored by Molyneux. Probably because it was beyond his narrow intellectual capacity and St Stefan's ambition to pontificate on his cherished but flawed dogma . Focusing on the trigger event would certainly have been more helpful to the young fellow and probably to other listeners - but that was clearly what Pope Stefan was not there for.

I will continue to look forward to observing the FDR website as Molyneux is a source of much entertainment, humour and pathos. Its too bad that it is not really entertainment but is screwing with real lives.

Hi Niall,

You say in your post that you shared this with a couple of professionals. I would be very interested in hearing what their responses were to what they heard Molyneux doing on the podcast.

Hi Niall, and welcome! I haven't had time to read through your post yet, but I look forward to talking with you!

Hi Niall,
Just read your post and you quite clearly understand what steffy boy is about and you are quite right on the point of not helping the hapless chap. I am related to a person who has done the defoo thing for whatever reason and I know those reasons to be quite feeble. I also know that steff did nothing to improve the situation which he could have quite easily done. Maybe he could have asked for a donation for helping remedy the situation instead of cadging of people who, as a result of the defoo, can be left with little financial support and at such a low ebb having been driven to despair by listening to his teachings if you can call them that.
Welcome to LIMI Niall.

True, I did refoo, but not at the encouragement of anyone at FDR (obviously). I had to leave FDR, and go through some deprogramming, if you will.

Many thanks for the comments. As mentioned I'm somewhat new to both FDR and Liberating Minds so my observations on the FDR culture are not based on alot of experience. It seems to me that FDR purports to a forum dedicated to Philosophy & Psychology based libertarian principles. In discussing these ideas with a cross section of friends, not just in the abstract but in the context of self development, politics, religion &economics. When I come across such dangerous drivel, as is evident in the podcast, it certainly merits a spot light of discussion among my group. It was in this group, which includes people with psychology and education backgrounds that prompted the observations made. Following this discussion, it was interesting to listen to the podcast again and with it the observations seemed to have far greater validity that the nonsense Molyneux was spouting. " You see where I'm going" to quote the great man. Clearly the man has huge internal issues that he has never really resolved and hides behind his dogma and uses others to mask his inferiority complex by posing as superior.

You are perceptive to make all of these observations when so new to FDR and Limi. You have picked up on a lot in a very short time. I hope that you will read the pieces by QuestEon mentioned by Patience in her thread (Defoo-the first anniversary) this evening. They are extremely helpful in sorting all of this out.