Why Men Get No Compliments...

Stefan Molyneux

In this 19th of October 2025 Sunday Morning Live, Stefan Molyneux  explores the themes of choice, communication, and morality through pivotal moments in chapters 13 and 14 of his novel, "Dissolution." It emphasizes the significance of overlooked decisions and the necessity for self-awareness. He reflects on the importance of strong principles in relationships to prevent power abuse and draws parallels between diplomacy and parenting. The complexities of emotional expression and authenticity in interactions are examined, alongside the connection between criticism, love, and growth. The session concludes with a call to prioritize reason and principles in shaping a more peaceful society through everyday choices.  Continue listening to the subscriber-only portion of the show here:  Premium Content Hub: https://premium.freedomain.com/441d0ffa/donor-hour-why-men-get-no-compliments  X: https://x.com/StefanMolyneux/status/1979996928701087966  Locals: https://freedomain.locals.com/post/7379482/donor-hour-why-men-get-no-compliments  Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/2135549  Freedomain Members: https://freedomain.com/donor-hour-why-men-get-no-compliments/  Not yet a subscriber?  You can subscribe on:  X: https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Locals: https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025  Subscribestar: https://subscribestar.com/freedomain  Freedomain: https://fdrurl.com/members  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon!

Transcript

00:00Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Sunday Morning Live. This is a Donors Only. We'll

00:11start Donors Only in a sec. I'll do a little rant for the gen pop. For the gen pop. And

00:16of course, oh yeah, chapters 13 and 14 of your novel Dissolution are super intense. Yes.

00:23Yes. Yes, it is. It is an intense novel. I am trying to, I'm trying to catch the moments

00:32in life when people don't understand the import of the decisions they're making, right? So

00:40this is every novel for me, you know, needs kind of like a purpose and a theme, right?

00:45Otherwise, what's the point? You're just showing off language. So to me, the purpose and the

00:49theme of my new novel Dissolution, which I've never tried before. I want to try something

00:54new. I don't know how Stephen King just writes the same pure trash over and over again. Although

00:59I always remember, I never read the book, but I read the opening. I think it's Firestarter

01:02or something like that, where he had a great sentence, um, uh, women riding shotgun, or

01:08riding herd on a, uh, riding shotgun on a herd of scratchy up too late children. I remember

01:13that phrase. And I even remember in the stand, which I read when I was working up north, there's

01:18some criticisms of feminism. Anyway, it's not a bad writer at all, but just a little

01:24bit copy-paste, uh, too, too much ambition to try new things. So I'm trying a new thing

01:29with this new book, which is, uh, it's sort of related to the conversation I had. I think

01:36it was Friday, no, Wednesday night, the conversation I had Wednesday night with the guy who didn't

01:40really understand the violence of socialism. And I was saying to him, you know, can, um,

01:45can I disagree with you in your system? And he's like, well, no, you can't. Right. And

01:51I tried pointing it out to him a couple of times and he doubled down on the violence

01:54and I told him to F off and kind of moved on. And he will, you know, for him, that's

02:01just a, oh, that was just an annoying debate or that guy was just mouthy and, but that's

02:04a, that's a fork in the road. That is a very powerful fork in the road. And it is

02:10something that later on in life, if he gains any kind of self-awareness, that's a fork in

02:23the road. That's a turning point. And so each chapter, I mean, there are obvious decisions

02:31that you make in your life. You know, should I take this job? Should I go meet this girl?

02:34Should I take this kind of education? Should I start my own business? Should I get a home

02:39gym or whatever it is? Like some, some decisions are kind of obvious in terms of how they play

02:43out over the course of your life, but some decisions are not so obvious, you know, petty

02:47decisions, smaller decisions, you know? So this guy on Wednesday, I'm, you know, I say this

02:53with sympathy. I'm not trying to sort of pick on him or bagging him, but I said this with

02:56sympathy, but that was a fork in the road. And I've really been thinking about this since

03:02that conversation because I have a pretty desperate, intense desire to reason with the

03:07world. And unfortunately, what that does is it gives the world power over me. Now you

03:14can only trust people with power if they have principles. And the entire purpose of modern

03:19education is to strip not just moral principles, but any kind of principles of reality or rationality.

03:25I mean, in the number of people I've called in, I say, do two and two make four. And this

03:30is long, hellacious pause. Well, that's, uh, that's complicated. You know, I don't remember

03:38my math teacher when I was five or six years old saying, well, I can't really mock you.

03:46If you wrote down two and two makes five, I can't really mock you as wrong because things

03:49are complicated. Right? No, I was just two and two is five wrong. Two and two is four. And

03:56so, yeah, so you can't, you can't trust people with power if they don't have any principles,

04:00which is why I say we can only love virtue. We can only love virtue because virtue is the

04:07self-restraint of our monkey brain dopamine dependence on gaining power over people and

04:12principles prevent us from exercising negative power over others. And therefore you can only

04:17trust people who have principles, right? And it's not super complicated, right? We can only

04:21trust people who have principles because without principles, someone who loves you, someone who

04:28is attached to you, someone who's pair bonded with you, you gain power over them. And without

04:35principles, people misuse power and power bribes you with release from principles in order to

04:41get you to misuse power. So this is, I mean, this is a solution to the mystery of why people

04:48treat strangers better than those they live with and married to and claim to love. Why would you

04:55treat strangers? Because strangers are committed to you and strangers, you have no power over

05:01strangers. They're an unknown quantity. You have no power over them. But the problem is if you are

05:06in love with someone and you get married and they move in, then they are committed to you.

05:11They love you. They want to be with you. They've sworn vows to you. And so now you have power over

05:18them. And without principles, you will misuse that power. You will start to take them for granted.

05:22You will be more aggressive with them than you would with strangers. You will be more short-tempered,

05:27more irritable. You will have expectations that they provide you goods and value without necessarily

05:33feeling that you have to do the same in return. And so this is why I really focus on moral principles

05:43are fundamentally about the restraint of power. I could steal, but I won't. So with this fellow I

05:52talked to, and I've really been thinking about this a lot, I had this, you know, I'm yearning,

05:59I'm desperate. I'm desperate. I got a raw, naked, vulnerable, golem in a ring kind of need.

06:06I need him. Like I know the crossroads. I know this. So again, what I'm working into the book,

06:11the crossroads in your life that are not obvious. The obvious crossroads, you can pretty much deal

06:17with them, but it's the non-obvious crossroads, right? So in that port where I say, am I allowed

06:23to disagree with you? Or will you use violence against me if I do? There's that pause. Does a

06:32rock exist? There's that pause. Do two and two make four? There's that pause. Oh man, that's rough.

06:43I desperately, desperately, desperately want, almost like oxygen, for people to shake off this

06:54bewildering, baffling, sophist cobwebs of propaganda and just reach through connecting

07:00contact with genuine reality. Because if they reach through connecting contact with genuine reality,

07:06facts, reason, and evidence, then we can live in a peaceful world. And if they go the other way,

07:10we face oceans of blood. Subjectivism is violence. Objectivism or rationality or universalism,

07:24reason and evidence is peace. And so I feel when talking to people, and I don't know if this is

07:34good or bad. I've been really mulling it over whether it is good or bad. I'd love to hear you

07:37guys' thoughts on it. But I feel like I have five sons of military age. And I am the diplomat

07:49responsible for bringing peace to the negotiating table with my country and another country on the

08:01brink of war. If I can negotiate peace, my sons will live. If I fail to negotiate peace, my sons will die.

08:22The stakes are that high and vivid to me. In the pause between the rational question and the

08:31propaganda answer, the possibility of the manifestation of thought.

08:34People turning away from propaganda, people turning away from lies, people turning away from

08:40NPC talk, the vanity. Vanity. It's vanity. Propaganda is vanity. I know the truth.

08:50The truth is what was told to me. I don't need to explore. I don't need to be humble.

08:55The vanity that the pinprick of the Socratic method all the way back into time of Socrates

09:01burst the bubble of all the Socratic vanity and they retaliated with violence.

09:07To claim to know what you do not know means that the questioner and the truth-teller becomes

09:11your mortal enemy. Bandits kill their bodies or they kill your vanity. They kill your ego.

09:21Which, to the highly vain, ego death is worse than death. It's what they call hell.

09:26So they'll do almost anything to avoid ego death.

09:28So, in that pause, you know,

09:34in that pause where

09:38a man's morality, conscience, and soul hang in the balance

09:43between

09:44a life of propaganda that leads to violence and a life of reason that leads to peace,

09:50you have to let them choose.

09:54I let that pause hang. You have to let them choose. You can't bully or harangue them into

09:58accepting reason. You have to let them choose. It's very well, right?

10:02But I can't tell you how desperately, desperately I want people to choose reason.

10:09And I wonder if I do not shoot my own goals and plans in the foot by having that level of

10:22naked need of desperately, you know, people are watching, like, staring into the camera, like,

10:27please God alive, make the right choice, please, please, please, please, my sons will die, if diplomacy fails.

10:38The world will be a wash in blood, if people reject reason, its philosophy, or mass slaughter.

10:46I'm aware of that. I've been saying that for decades.

10:53Choose peace, not war.

10:58And I wonder if people don't have principles in the face of that naked need

11:02that they choose to assert their power by rejecting what I need.

11:07You know, women say this about guys. I mean, guys say it too, but I've heard it more from women.

11:11Women say, oh, he's, he's, ah, he's a nice guy, but he's just so desperate.

11:18You know, he's, he's, he's sending me flowers, he's writing me poetry, he's just so desperate.

11:27Well, maybe I'm that guy who's just so desperate that

11:32it empowers the worst aspects of human nature, and then they assert their power by rejecting what I need.

11:39Well, they've rejected what they need, which is their conscience and reality processing sense.

11:44You know, I mean, I'm engaged in this little conversations on X over the last day or two,

11:49just, you know, people trying to hang out, oh, well, you just have faith in your senses, man.

11:53It's like, yeah, yeah, they're using my senses to transmit that information.

11:57Anyway, it's all boring stuff, right?

12:00But I wonder if I'm just more indifferent.

12:01You know, they say that the, I don't know that it's true.

12:04I don't think it's true. It's true for some women.

12:05But they say, you know, the guy who's desperate, you know, this is a horrifying meme of the woman

12:11taking it doggy style, and there's all these guys lined up, and then there's just one guy with flowers.

12:18It's like, don't be that guy who's not naked.

12:21And, you know, there is this sort of belief or thought that

12:25the less you want a woman, the more interested she's going to be in you.

12:30Now, I don't think that's true. I think if you start playing games, you'll never win.

12:35If you play games in relationships, you'll never win.

12:38Because the only people who will be attracted to you are people

12:41who are playing a game themselves, and love,

12:46life, sex, babies, marriage,

12:49and family is not a game.

12:52It's not a game.

12:53But there is almost this feeling that if you're dealing with immature people,

12:59the more you express need to them,

13:02the more they will spurn your need in order to get their flashes of power.

13:07This is not the rant, by the way.

13:08This is just something I was thinking of.

13:10The rant is a little bit different.

13:14I thought life is a game.

13:20Life is a game like war is a game.

13:23You have to play it very seriously.

13:32So, I will let the donors choose.

13:37I have a rant about women.

13:39And it's funny, I just wrote this morning on X.

13:42Why is it women find it so hard to understand

13:43that you can love a woman and still criticize women?

13:46I don't know why it's hard to understand.

13:47Because criticism says you can do better.

13:52Criticism is an act of love, right?

13:55I mean, if you're not a good baseball player,

14:00you won't even be on the team.

14:01If you are a good baseball player but kind of lazy,

14:05you'll be nagged to work harder

14:06because people get frustrated by, you know,

14:08if effort matched ability, you'd be an A-plus kind of thing, right?

14:11So, criticism is a form of respect.

14:14Criticism is a form of encouragement.

14:17But people have become so fragile.

14:20I did a call-in show with a woman last night

14:22who would call her children stupid

14:26and ask, what the hell is wrong with you?

14:28And so on.

14:29And then when I pointed out that this was really bad,

14:31she said, you're trying to shame me.

14:33And I said, well, if shaming is so bad,

14:35why do you shame your children?

14:37She's just trying to, you know,

14:38she has the potential to be better.

14:40I don't criticize my mother

14:42because I don't view her as capable of improvement at this point.

14:46So I will let, hit me with a why.

14:48If you're a donor, like if you're on Locals,

14:49hit me with a why if you would like

14:52the next rent to go to Gen Pop

14:56or if you want to just keep it for the donors.

14:58I will let you, I will let you decide.

15:00I will let you decide.

15:06Hit me with a why if you want public or an N

15:09for just donors.

15:14It's a pretty, pretty significant one.

15:21You'll remember me when the west wind moves

15:26among the fields of barley.

15:30And that was always the song,

15:35I never made promises lightly.

15:40And I thought it was,

15:41an Arabian summer lies broken.

15:43An Arabian summer lies broken.

15:46But it's,

15:47I never made promises lightly,

15:49but there have been some that are broken.

15:53All right.

15:55You want the spice.

15:57It looks like.

16:00Yes, it looks like donors only.

16:03Okay.

16:03So I appreciate that.

16:05And thank you everybody.

16:06If you want to join for FDR URL dot com slash locals,

16:09we're going to go.

16:10Ooh, wrong, wrong button, wrong button.

16:13We're going to go to donors only.

16:15And of course on X, it's donors only.

16:18Supporters only update stream.

16:20We got 30 seconds.

16:23And this will be.

16:25Wait, you voted no four times.

16:27Yeah.

16:27Spice wins.

16:29It's, it's going to be some spice.

16:32It's going to be the spice.

16:35Yeah.

16:38So if you're listening to this later after you,

16:39you can get it later, right?

16:41You can get this, uh,

16:43freedom.com slash donate to sign up for a subscription.

16:46You can listen to the rant and we're going to donor only.

16:50There we go.

16:50All right.

16:51All right.

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