In this episode of Feminology, I examine the distinctions between people-pleasing and fawning, discussing how intentions shape our relationships. Through personal anecdotes from my film industry experiences, I highlight the difference between genuine connection and manipulative flattery. I also address the implications of choosing isolation over family, advocating for the maturity that comes with marriage and parenthood. Additionally, I explore the philosophical notion of infinity as an anti-concept, and tackle listener questions on gratitude and balancing work with enjoyment. Throughout, I encourage a reflective and balanced approach to interpersonal dynamics and life’s complexities.
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Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
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LearningTranscript
00:00All righty, righty. Hello, everybody. This is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain. I hope you're doing well.
00:05Questions from freedomain.locals.com, a great community.
00:09I surely hope you will join us.
00:12freedomain.locals.com
00:14All right, so what's the difference between people-pleasing and thawning over people?
00:20And it's a longish question, but let's see if we can sort it out and get to some kind of reasonable answer.
00:29So, being a people-pleaser is fine because it involves having people have a positive experience of you.
00:36I know people-pleaser has a bit of a negative connotation, but not nearly as negative as something like thawning.
00:43So, people-pleasing is wanting other people to have a positive experience.
00:48I aim to please you, the fine, generous, and noble listeners, freedomain.com, if you find what I'm doing to be pleasing.
00:58So, I want to please you, and I want to please my wife, I want to please my daughter, I want to please my friends,
01:03I want to please my conscience, obviously very, very important.
01:06So, being a people-pleaser is fine, but thawning is when you are attempting to provoke a state of unreality
01:15in the mind of the other person in order to gain a benefit.
01:19Right, so I'm trying to please you by bringing you truth, reason, evidence, and all these good things.
01:25That's what my goal is, so that's how I aim to please you.
01:31So, reason, truth, evidence, facts, and these are all good things that we should pursue and we should enjoy.
01:40Right, that's all good stuff.
01:41Now, of course, if I'm fawning, then what I'm doing is,
01:44oh, you're so magnificent, oh, you're so brilliant, oh, you're so wonderful, oh, you're so wise.
01:50Attempting to provoke, say, unreal vanity, or some sense of importance, or, you know,
01:56the people who kind of grovel before you, you know, these vendors, cheesy vendors,
02:02often in resort companies, like, hey, boss, they say, hey, boss, hey, boss, hey, boss, you know,
02:08hey, king.
02:09And so, they're trying to provoke a sense of vanity in you in order to give you a bit of dopamine
02:16based on unreality that then they use to manipulate you to get something positive.
02:22Telling people the truth, making a joke, saying something complimentary,
02:27again, assuming it's true, this is not manipulation, this is not fawning, right?
02:34So, if a woman is shopping for a dress and the saleswoman says,
02:39you look fantastic in that dress, when the woman looks fantastic in the dress, that is not fawning.
02:45But if she says, you look fantastic in that dress, and the woman looks terrible in that dress,
02:50then that would be fawning over someone, a state of unreality in order to extract a benefit.
02:56I'll give you an example from my own life, because far from perfectly virtuous am I.
03:01It's a journey, it's a journey, it's a journey.
03:04So, what I would say, or my experience has been, that in the 90s, I wrote a short story
03:13called After, and it was about a comedian, a man who was a comedian returning home from the
03:19Second World War, and his difficulties in his life until he tells his first joke again.
03:25And I wrote the short story, I adapted it to a screenplay, and I produced a movie,
03:32a short movie, obviously.
03:34And the movie was entered into the Hollywood Film Festival contest, where it did fairly well.
03:39I remember actually, after the first showing of the movie, which is kind of a surreal experience,
03:44right, seeing your words manifested with good actors up there on the screen.
03:48But, and you can find it at fdrpodcasts.com, just look for After, movie, I think After movie.
03:55Anyway, so after it was shown for the first time, an old man came up, embraced me,
04:02like sobbing his heart out, saying that I had perfectly captured what it was like when his
04:06father came home from the Second World War.
04:09I mean, really, just a wonderful moment in life.
04:11Anyway, so the guy who was head of distribution at the Hollywood Film Festival back in the day,
04:17he and I had lunch.
04:19This is before the movies were judged.
04:22The movie that beat mine went on to win an Oscar, so not super bad as far as that goes.
04:28So I had lunch with the distributor who was responsible for getting it on TV, for getting
04:33it put in airplanes as sort of short movies shown before other movies and so on.
04:38And, you know, because I was a young gun and eager for success, I had lunch with him.
04:45And I, obviously, I did not treat him as if he were just some dude I was having lunch with,
04:52because he held to some degree some aspect of my artistic future in his hands and so on.
04:58So I was probably a little bit effusive, a little bit, oh, that's very interesting.
05:02Oh, yeah, yeah, you really get that, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
05:05So unfortunately, that is probably the nature of the beast for people like that.
05:10I probably was completely obvious.
05:11I'm not the most subtle human being in the known universe, as I'm sure you're perfectly aware.
05:17So that's an example of a fawning.
05:20I was exaggerating his positive characteristics in the hopes of getting
05:25favorable treatment in return, which was really a vote of non-confidence on my own movie.
05:30My own movie should have spoken for itself.
05:31But I thought, well, if he really likes me, this might push it over the edge and so on.
05:35So it is, of course, very silly.
05:37People don't make business deals based just on that.
05:39Or if they do, they don't stay in business for very long.
05:42But I was young, hot shot, hot headed, inexperienced, and so on.
05:46So that would be an example of that.
05:50A common scenario, an example of fawning, a common scenario is the guy who's like,
05:56says to the woman, oh, you're just so wonderful.
05:58You're just so great.
05:59You're all that and a slice of bread.
06:01And was it more than a woman?
06:03More than a woman.
06:04What is that, a woman and a six pack?
06:07So I just want a woman.
06:08I don't want more than a woman.
06:10That's not what really I'm looking for.
06:12So a man who says to a woman, you're just wonderful.
06:15I love you.
06:16I could really see us having a future together, blah, blah, blah.
06:19He's, in a sense, stimulating her desire if she desires him.
06:23And he's high status in particular.
06:25He is stimulating an unreal desire in her, which is that he will commit.
06:31And he does this in order to get her into bed.
06:32And then he walks on or moves on or whatever.
06:35So that would be an example of fawning.
06:38Fawning is an act of submission with the goal of dominance.
06:43So fawning is when you pretend to be lesser than someone.
06:49Like those guys in the third world saying, hey, boss.
06:52And what they want is your money.
06:53So they pretend submission in order to gain resources.
06:58And it's very, very common in the world as a whole.
07:01All right.
07:02I'd like to know what your take is on guys who choose the life of isolation.
07:07All the studies that I have seen on negative effects of men who never marry
07:10is ultimately due to alcoholism.
07:12Not sure if it's correlation or causation.
07:14Overall marriage seems to be statistically negative for men.
07:17I'm very curious as to hear your case on missed opportunity cast from MGTOW.
07:21So it depends really on what you mean by isolation.
07:24If you just mean not getting married.
07:27Well, if you don't get married, and particularly if you don't have children,
07:34your life is largely composed of decay.
07:38Your life is largely composed of decomposing, right?
07:42So you hit your physical peak in your 20s.
07:44And after that, brothers and sisters, it's just downhill.
07:47I'm doing all right as a whole.
07:49I'm doing all right.
07:51I took my legs out for a full on wind sprint a couple days ago, and I've still got it.
07:56I still got it.
07:56I won't say for how long I wind sprinted, but I certainly ran full on max.
08:01So I still do the same workout I did in my teens, which of course is nothing massively
08:06strenuous.
08:06I can still do 40 minutes of hard cardio.
08:08I can still do an hour of hard racket sports.
08:11So I'm doing all right, but it ain't the same.
08:14It ain't the same.
08:15You know, sleep is a little lighter, and I get these mid-afternoon lulls from time to
08:20time, where it's just like, oh, Steph bought me nappy.
08:24So it's just not quite the same.
08:26Obviously, I'm going to be 58 this month.
08:28So obviously, there's going to be a couple of wee changes, lad.
08:32So my heart rate is really good, and my blood pressure is excellent.
08:38And all health indicators, as a whole, are doing well.
08:43But there is that decaying thing.
08:46Now, if you get married, though, your relationship grows and strengthens, even though your body
08:52decays and weakens.
08:53If you have children, of course, you see your children grow and strengthen and flourish
08:57and have all of these wonderful things going on.
09:00And that's a beautiful thing to see.
09:03So if you don't get married, don't have kids, life is just downhill.
09:09The uphill is the strengthening of your relationship.
09:11Now, you can say, of course, ah, yes, but I have my male friends, right?
09:16Let's say you're a solitary man.
09:18I have my male friends.
09:19And it's like, well, yeah, but studies are that you change friends about every seven
09:23years or so.
09:24And either your male friends, well, your male friends are almost certainly just like you,
09:30in which case they're decaying, too.
09:32You say, ah, well, but the friendship is strengthening and so on.
09:34It's like, yeah, no, I get that.
09:37But a male friendship cannot substitute for a pair-bonded romantic sexual love.
09:41It just plain can't.
09:43Male friendships are great, but male friendships for a man cannot substitute for romantic sexual
09:49pair-bonded love and lust and desire and all of that.
09:52It just can't.
09:53You just can't get the same love hormones from good conversation that you can from great
09:59sex or cuddling or whatever, right?
10:01It's just sort of a basic fact.
10:03So if you, there's a great divide.
10:06One of the biggest divides in life as a whole is between the people who get married and
10:12have kids and the people who don't.
10:16I'll be straight up honest with you.
10:17I'm not saying this is some sort of objective thing, but I've talked about it with a lot
10:21of people.
10:21It seems to be a fairly universal phenomenon.
10:24To the childless and the unmarried, you all just look kind of like perpetual teenagers
10:29and kind of goofy and immature.
10:31Because, you know, taking on the responsibility of keeping alive and growing an entire human
10:36being or human beings, maintaining a pair-bonded love through the years and decades and being
10:41there and you don't know support until you're married, right?
10:46Male friends can support each other to some degree, but you don't know what it's like
10:49to have a wing person in your life who's there for you 150% no matter what.
10:54I spend thousands of times more time with my wife than I do with even my closest male
11:00friend.
11:01So it's just not the same.
11:03And it just looks like a kind of goofy and frivolous life.
11:07You know, you're going to concerts and a little bit of travel and some work, but, you know,
11:12your problems aren't really that big and the stakes aren't really that high.
11:16And, you know, you just never really grow up until you have kids and really sort of
11:21take care of them.
11:23I mean, I became a father later in life.
11:25So that's sort of been my experience.
11:27It's what I've seen as a whole.
11:29You know, the last time I was sort of in contact, I don't really have much to do with
11:33childless friends from my youth because our lives are just too different.
11:36You know, I've lived their life.
11:38They don't understand mine.
11:39They don't really understand mine at all.
11:42And so there's just too much of a gulf in the distance.
11:46And they're just like, oh, you know, a new season of the show came out and I'm really
11:51looking forward to this concert.
11:52And it's like, yeah, okay, I was 23 once too.
11:55But it's just a little copy-paste Groundhog Day with that kind of stuff.
12:00And it's all kind of decay as a whole.
12:03So I think it's very sad.
12:05All right.
12:05Is peaceful parenting sufficient for ending the immoral practice of taxation?
12:08Paying taxes?
12:09How do we teach our kids?
12:10Blah, blah, blah.
12:11So it doesn't matter.
12:15I mean, yes, I think there's a case to be made.
12:17Kids who are peacefully parented will grow up to be stable people who can pair bond,
12:22maintain the stability of a family, raise healthy, happy children, not become criminals,
12:27not be dysfunctional, not usually be sick, at least from stress or trauma-related diseases
12:32like ischemic heart disease and certain forms of cancers and things like that.
12:35Not medical advice.
12:35Just what I've read.
12:36And look at bombinthebrain.com for more on that.
12:39But it's the best shot we've got.
12:41And even if it doesn't lead to some perfectly free, rational society,
12:46it's still a good thing to do because any reduction in the number of violations,
12:52the amount of violations, and the degree of violations of the non-aggression principle
12:55is a massive plus.
12:58All right.
12:59Somebody says infinite childhood, infinite resources, infinite escapism, nihilism,
13:03infinite potential, infinite time.
13:05Some might say that the experience of being a baby in oneness with the environment is
13:11being one with the infinite or that moments last for eternity.
13:14But is that just a crutch?
13:15Is infinity an indicator of sophistry and an enemy of rational philosophy?
13:20On a practical level, is it useful shorthand for determining how rational people are to
13:23simply ask oneself the question, in what ways might this person be afflicted by the concept
13:27of the infinite?
13:29So infinity is not a concept.
13:31Infinity is an anti-concept.
13:34It is an...
13:34I mean, does infinity exist in theory?
13:38Yeah, of course, right?
13:39But we are mortal and everything about us is limited.
13:42Our height, our energy, our time, our musculature, our strength, our patience.
13:48Everything about us is finite and we are the products of...
13:54We are literally the products of the opposite of infinity.
13:57If we live forever, we wouldn't need babies.
13:59If we didn't need babies, we wouldn't need sex organs or sexual dimorphism or pair bonding
14:03or sexuality or...
14:05So, and of course, if we were infinite, we never would have evolved and therefore...
14:10So everything about us is the result of the opposite of infinity and so everything that
14:16we understand is finite.
14:19Everything that we comprehend directly, that we can fit inside our brains is finite.
14:24And then you need the opposite of that concept.
14:27Every concept has an opposite, but we really can't fathom it or figure it out or hold it
14:32in our minds.
14:33Like if you close your eyes and picture, you know, a bunch of spinning balls in your mind's
14:37eye, you can get to maybe 9, 8 or 9 or 10 maximum and then you can't keep them all in.
14:42So everything that we are, everything that we have grown from, everything that we used
14:48to evolve is based upon the opposite of infinity and the opposite of eternity or certainly
14:53the opposite of immortality.
14:55And so we can't really comprehend infinity or eternity.
15:02We have it as a tag for the opposite of what is.
15:10And so childhood is not being a baby.
15:14No, it's not being one with the infinite.
15:16No, no.
15:17See, being one with the infinite would be to have infinite patience, right?
15:22But we don't have infinite patience nor should be.
15:25Babies are very impatient and they should be because their needs are immediate and have
15:28to be satisfied without language.
15:30So a baby's hungry, he cries because if he doesn't get food in a pretty short period
15:34of time, he's going to die.
15:35So babies are not at all at one with the infinite.
15:38They really can't predict the future.
15:39They can't figure out the future or defer gratification.
15:42Steph, you look remarkably well.
15:43Did you find a fountain of youth?
15:45It is not so much a fountain of youth.
15:48I appreciate that.
15:48That's very kind.
15:49I agree.
15:50In fact, it's not really a fountain of youth.
15:52It is, you know, good, good, clean living.
15:55I don't drink.
15:56I don't smoke.
15:57I mean, barely drink.
15:58I have like, I don't know, one light beer every month or two.
16:01So I basically, I functionally don't drink.
16:03I don't smoke.
16:04I exercise.
16:06I get my sunlight.
16:07I get, you know, 10 to 15,000 steps in a day as best I can and I stay hydrated and all
16:14of that kind of stuff.
16:14And of course, I have a wife who's, you know, really good with skin care and she helped
16:19me to get the right combination of things to make sure I don't really break out and,
16:23you know, skin stays relatively supple.
16:25I have very dry skin just as a whole.
16:27I went through a terrible itchy period in my early teens before I figured out the lotion
16:30stuff.
16:31It puts the lotion on my skin.
16:33And so I have to moisturize.
16:36I moisturize twice a day and fairly considerably, like not exactly like a shovel face full of
16:41it, but fairly considerably because my skin is dry and tight otherwise.
16:46So I appreciate that.
16:47But you're only as old as your arteries.
16:49So it doesn't really matter how well I look.
16:51It matters how functional my body remains.
16:54Why do a lot of women struggle with being grateful?
16:56It's a great, great question.
16:58Well, if women are grateful, then they can no longer apply negative economics.
17:04So negative economics are, I'm going to nag you until you do what I want.
17:08Positive economics are, I'm going to praise you and reward you and be happy and so on.
17:13But not ever nag or be negative.
17:16And if a woman is grateful, then she gives up the right of nagging.
17:21And there's a lot of women, sadly, and men do it too.
17:23Don't get me wrong.
17:24But there's a lot of women who can't really imagine how they can get what they want from
17:29life without nagging, without complaining, without being hostile, without withholding
17:36sex or affection, without slamming drawers, without calling names, without escalating,
17:40without, you know, that impatience and danger stuff that goes on in a lot of marriages.
17:47In general, right, this is the tipping point.
17:49When a woman is young, she gets what she wants because the positive economics of being young
17:54and pretty, and when she passes over the wall, then she switches from being positive
18:01to, from positive economics, which is maybe you can get a date with me, to negative economics,
18:06which is I'm going to nag you until you do what I want.
18:09So being grateful is to say, I have nothing to complain about.
18:14But if the major way that you get what you want in life is by complaining, gratitude
18:18is the enemy of your resource acquisition.
18:20So I think it would be something like that.
18:22This is somebody saying about his son.
18:24His son is in his mid-teens and wondering whether I should work and build up my money
18:27or play with my friends and enjoy my childhood.
18:30My argument would be always, why not both?
18:32False dichotomies are the enemy of negotiation.
18:35Either you win or I win, or either I make money or I play with my friends.
18:39Well, why don't you get together with your friends and try and do something that makes
18:43money, right?
18:45Maybe you'll get together to do a little lawn servicing business and weeding and mowing
18:48or whatever it is.
18:49Maybe you'll get together and do try and play throughs of video games or funny jokes
18:54that you can make or reaction videos.
18:57There's a lot that you can do that can make you money and you can have fun with your friends
19:03as well.
19:03So try in general to avoid anything to do with a false dichotomy.
19:08Well, I've got this one positive thing, but this comes at the expense of this negative
19:12thing.
19:13And of course, life is a series of trade-offs, but try to have positive things.
19:18So, I mean, sort of one example is, should I exercise or do a show?
19:23Well, I mean, as long as I'm willing to forego video, which I certainly in the case of this
19:27particular recording, I'm willing to forego video so that I can walk around briskly while
19:35I'm doing my show.
19:36I mean, I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but I used to have a standing desk and I still
19:42do in some places.
19:44And I used to say, if people wanted a meeting, I'd say, you know, if it's just two people
19:50or maybe even three, let's go for a walk rather than let's go for lunch and so on.
19:54So should I do this or should I exercise?
19:59I would say, why not work for both and see what you can combine the two in, right?
20:03My daughter, sorry, my wife and I enjoy playing online Catan and because it's a turn-based
20:09game, what I can do is I can play while doing weights, right?
20:15Because I just have to watch the board and then take my turn and all of that.
20:19So you can try and find ways to combine things.
20:22And that's generally the first place to look.
20:24Freedomain.com to help out the show.
20:26Really, really appreciate that.
20:28Love you guys to death.
20:30Talk to you soon.
20:30Bye.