They Have Been Misled | The Road Trip That Put Stoicism To The Test
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. They have been misled. Why do they do it? Why do they support those policies, condone such things, shrug their shoulders at such injustices? It could be because these people are evil and awful. It could also just be because they don't know any better. It could be that they don't know any better because someone told them much worse. Mark Twain grew to hate slavery and those who support it, but his mother, whom he loved and knew as a sweet and wonderful person, grew up as a participant in that system. So how did he square those two contradictions? As he reflected, kind-hearted and compassionate as she was, I think she was not conscious that slavery was a bald, grotesque, and unwarranted usurpation.
As far as her experience went, the wise, the good and the holy were unanimous in the belief that slavery was right, righteous, sacred, the peculiar pet of the deity and a condition which the slave himself ought to be daily and nightly thankful for. In other words, she had been taught to see slavery as something other than what it was. The church, the government, her parents, her neighbors all told her it was right. And like most people at that time, she found it easier to accept what everyone around her believed than to question it for herself, than to see it with her own eyes. And so it has always been thus.
Why does Ryan say 'They have been misled' and how does that frame the episode?
In Meditations, Mark Strelitz talks about how people who do evil often have had their souls cut off from truth. They do not mean to be awful or evil. They were misled. We should remember this today and always, especially if our goal is to bring those people around. We almost certainly are not going to change their minds by arguing with them, and we definitely won't bring them around if we write them off as irredeemable. Instead, we should ask questions. We should listen. We should try to understand what they have been told and why they believe it. And if we want people to change, we have to give them a way to see the truth for themselves. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.
It is Saturday. I'm recording this. I don't know when you're listening, but just got my hair cut. Spent some time with the kids this morning, hanging out. And I thought I'd record this episode. I've been meaning to do it since June when we got back, but... We had kind of a crazy cool experience, some stoic lessons. Basically, school got out, we were home for a couple of days, and then we headed to the West Coast. My wife had gone out there on a girl's trip, the sort of Oregon coast last year, and she just had this like amazing experience. She was like, I've never seen anything like this. It's beautiful, which is one of the awesome things about parenting.
How did Mark Twainβs example explain why people accept harmful beliefs?
When you experience something, you're like, I can't wait to show this to my kids. And so she'd been wanting to do this. And so I thought when she said this, I was like, oh, well, they've been asking me to do some more dates for the Daily Stoic Live things. I'll tell them that that's what I want to do. Let's see what they could line up on the West Coast. So maybe some of you came out. I had a talk in Portland and then a talk in San Francisco. And then I wanted to see my grandmother in Sacramento. So that was kind of the... The loose journey we were planning. So we flew into Seattle in early June and we drove out to Bremerton, Washington, where my wife's friend Holly lives. I'm also friends with her husband.
I don't know if you ever listened to the band MXPX. Mike is the lead singer and the bassist in MXPX. I wrote about him in Perennial Cellar. We've gotten to know each other over the years. But Holly and Sam have become friends, and I'd never been out there. So that's where we started. We drove out there, and it was lovely. The weather was incredible. My son left his backpack on the bus as we were leaving the Seattle airport. We took the bus to the rental car, get in the car.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00β1:41
2
Why does Ryan say 'They have been misled' and how does that frame the episode?
1:41β3:05
3
How did Mark Twainβs example explain why people accept harmful beliefs?
3:05β7:21
4
What practical advice does Ryan give for changing minds instead of arguing?
7:21β11:09
5
How did the family road trip begin and what early mishaps tested their Stoic practice?
11:09β24:03
6
What surprising connection did Ryan find between Bremerton and his Stockdale research?
24:03β27:55
7
How did visiting cemeteries and the Redwoods prompt reflections on memento mori?
27:55β31:32
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Daily Stoic
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