The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr Kenner.com, and @amazon.com

Ever since I was a little girl, I'd wake up in the middle of the night afraid of the dark, like the whole house was upside down, and if I didn't hang onto the mattress, I'd fall out into the sky. I wanted to run to you, have you tell me that I was safe, that everything was all right, but I was always more afraid of you than of father. It's the same way now,

and I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner, and that is from Inherit the Wind. And listen to her passion. She's trying to reach her father, and she's trying to finally tell him how she feels about him and listen to his evasion. He's pushing it out of awareness. He doesn't want to feel. He doesn't want to hear. He's not open to hearing an evaluation of himself. And today, that's our topic. We're talking about justice, and I have the wonderful pleasure of having Dr. Tara Smith with me. She's a specialist in ethics, and she's a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas in Austin, and she currently holds the Anthem Foundation Fellowship. She's the author of several books: Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, The Virtuous Egoist (it's a must-read), Moral Rights and Political Freedom, and Viable Values: The Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality. And Dr. Smith has published many articles and lectured on topics such as self-interest, your interest, objectivity, how to think clearly, business ethics, pride, how to feel good about yourself, justice (which is our theme today), forgiveness (we?ll touch on that maybe), and romantic love. Dr. Smith has also presented seminars on clear thinking to businessmen and welcome to the show, Tara. Great to be here. Thank you. When you heard that clip at the beginning from Inherit the Wind, when she's judging her father, Paul, tell me what went through your mind.

Well, I mean, it sounded good. I have to say, I wasn't familiar with the clip. I don't even think I've seen the movie. I certainly know of it. It sounded like she was trying to very honestly confront feelings, not the most positive feelings. And as you said, he wanted nothing to do with it. He was trying to push it away. ?Let's not go there.? In effect, ?Let's not think about that. Talk about that.? And if we pretend not to know that this was the way you felt in the house, maybe then it won't be real. It won't have been real.

He wants her to fake her own mind. He wants her to fake that he was better than he was,

yes, and if she can, let's pretend. Let's have this sort of complicit make-believe.

And if she continues throughout the rest of her life to pretend, as she did in childhood, that he was better than he was when she was actually terrified of him, then what happens to her happiness?

Well, first of all, their relationship, the relationship between those two people, is just doomed. I mean, they can't have a good relationship because they can't have an honest relationship. And he's obviously, and he's probably been doing this from the time she was a small child, sending her all the wrong signals about how to deal with life, how to deal with some unpleasant things that come up. That is the message, and the model that he's conveying is evade, pretend. Awareness? Out of sight, yes. Push them completely out of awareness. And anybody who adopted that policy, even to some extent (as she perhaps has for many years and is now kind of breaking through it, at least in confronting him in this way), anybody who's adopted that policy has adopted really a recipe for failure. Yeah, because faking things, including faking our own thoughts or faking our own feelings, doesn't change what they are. The thoughts, the feelings, are most importantly a fact on the ground, as we say, and it's really only when you get in touch with what the facts are that you're in a position to make good decisions.

And you can feel powerful emotions, both good and bad. I mean, I?d see that in therapy all the time, where someone said that, you know, I've been trying to pretend that my son is better than he is and he's been lying, he's been cheating, he's been mean to the girlfriends he dates, and I've been telling myself he's good all along. It's a very poignant moment to face facts of another person's character. But there's also some relief. Now I understand. You're not at war with reality anymore.

So I think we, if I may, we often engage in that sort of pretending to protect ourselves or to protect somebody else, but it's a very short-range, short-sighted kind of protection. For instance, the parents who evade knowledge of a child's irresponsibility or bad behavior, right? In the moment, she might feel better thinking, ?Oh no, he's really a good boy.?

He's just going through a phase. All kids do this, boys,

right? But by trying to make herself feel better now and not have to even entertain these very discomforting feelings or thoughts, she's setting herself? I mean, she's not addressing the problem. She's not asking him to address the problem, even figure out if she, you know, is her feeling justified or not. So she's really only abetting the problem and asking for a lot more bad feeling, both her own and her son?s and perhaps others who have anything to do with him in the future. So it's, you know, to some extent, in a very limited way, I think we can empathize with the person who doesn't want to feel bad. It's no fun to feel bad, but it's much?you know, that kind of temporary attempt to insulate oneself now from feeling bad really carries much more destructive consequences long-term, both in terms of feelings and the facts of someone's behavior.

So it's almost like taking a drink or a Valium. When you refuse to think and you fake reality, it's like, I don't want to feel, I don't want to go there. I don't want?there are facts of reality about my son that I don't want to know about. Judging other people's character. Why is that important? You know, people tell us to be fair, that we should judge, and I know there's another camp that tells us not to judge, but we'll go there in a moment. Why is it important to judge another person's character?

Hey, I gotta interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick Ave, and then Ellen will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Ah, here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

You know, people tell us to be fair, that we should judge, and I know there's another camp that tells us not to judge, but we'll go there in a moment. Why is it important to judge another person's character?

Well, I think there's a very simple fact, again, that gives rise to the need to judge other people's character, and that is?maybe we can say it's a two-part fact. Individuals are different from one another. They're not all equally good or equally honest or equally reliable or equally skilled at certain things or competent or trustworthy or whatever. We are all different in myriad ways from one another. And even more importantly here, those differences between different individuals carry effects, right? And they differ in their effects on one's own well-being. For instance, you know, my happiness, my advancing the things that I really value in life, that depends largely on my actions, but it also is affected by other people's actions and other people's character. Therefore, it makes sense for me to be sizing up other people in various respects,

right? Because, and that's because they have choice-making, right? Exactly. You don't judge them on things that they have no control over, like their height or something else?not in a moral context.

Right, right? I mean, there are reasons for which you might want to judge someone as not as well equipped to be on the basketball team or something if he doesn't have a certain height or ability and so on, right? When we're judging.

But it's important. We need to judge our babysitters. We need to judge our romantic partners. And when people say, ?Judge not and be not judged,? what would you say about that in the last minute?

Well, that is such an inversion of a rational policy of helping one's own values, one's own happiness along, and helping that other person as well. But A: we all do judge. B: we do so because we have to judge.

And you want that courage to be able to speak it like that woman had at the beginning. Listen, I'm talking with Dr. Tara Smith, thank you so much for joining us today. She's the author of Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist. You can get that at aynrand.org A-Y-N-R-A-N-D.org, and she's a specialist on rational ethics, using your mind well to achieve what, Tara?

To achieve your happiness. To achieve your happiness, your love of life, your flourishing in life. I think you've used that term before. Thank you so much for joining us today.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke:

You cannot value romance if you don't have other values in your life. Some of the other areas in which you can pursue values are friendships. Choose friends whom you value and who value you. Don't acquire them by chance. Terminate friendships that cause boredom or pain and don't spend a minute longer with people who make you unhappy. Also hobbies. Find fun activities you can spend your free time on. Some can be solitary, like reading or painting. Others can be social, like tennis or dancing. If you can afford them, treat yourself to lessons with a professional to give yourself a growing sense of accomplishment. It's a special bonus if some hobbies can be shared with your partner.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at amazon.com