Stefan Molyneux is a Gamma

I have twice written this post and twice deleted it, because there didn't seem to be a point in attacking Stefan, who runs a great vlog/podcast that provides excellent analysis on a number of issues, frequently political and cultural. (Despite it's claim as the world's largest philosophy show, philosophy is rarely discussed). It's a great format and one I hope others will adopt. It helps fill a vacuum in today's discourse: intelligent analysis with no ulterior motives. His stated goal is to filter out the rhetoric and debate in the higher realm of dialectic. His catch-phrase is "not an argument."

However there comes a point when withholding attack becomes a suppression of truth, a willful ignorance of the elephant in the room. Stefan does great analysis but he absolutely fails when challenged, or believes he is being challenged. The major theme of his show is that we must yield to wherever the reason, logic, and evidence takes us. And yet when criticized his face turns beet red and he becomes immensely defensive. If the other party is a guest he will maintain decorum, but he won't hesitate to derail the whole conversation to return to the issue on which he felt slighted. If the other party is a caller then the whole thing quickly devolves into argumentative tyranny. He will interrupt the caller incessantly and then berate them for doing the same. If called out he will remind the listener that it is his show. He will remind the caller that he is the expert, being "trained in logic". He will assault the motives of the caller. He will twist the caller's argument into a strawman and then spend five, ten, fifteen minutes destructing the pretend argument. As the conversation draws long, he will engage in long-winded soliloquies intended to run out the clock, desperate not to give space for counterargument, with the caller too exhausted to try to get a word in edge-wise. All of this behavior is not an argument.

I have seen this a number of times, with many examples. Here is just one, which prompted me to write (again). After this pathetic showing of reasoned debate, Stefan posted the clip to social media as if it was some great victory! Is he really so delusional?

After two minutes of viewing I knew where this was going. I checked the comments, and he was being eviscerated. (I can't speak for what's there, as a number of critical top-level comments have been removed). Throughout the comments we can find both Stefan and his henchman Michael DeMarco responding to criticism by merely stating "not an argument." Their response to the claims and observations posted would seem to indicate that all comments to his videos must be arguments (which are technically claims backed by supporting evidence). Yet the phrase "not an argument" is itself not an argument. The logical inconsistency is baffling, particularly from an entity whose stated obsession is with logical consistency.

The whole thing is a ruse. Stefan has no more dedication to higher principles than even the worst MSM offenders like CNN. Once he has skin in the game (merely his ego), then the discussion morphs into a bitter battle to win the interaction at all costs. I have spent many dozens, maybe hundreds of hours listening to his podcasts. I have never once heard him cede a point or admit to being wrong. Quite amazing that he just goes where the arguments lead him yet he is never contradicted. Quite improbable, to say the least. Every blowhard corporate propaganda peddler makes the same claim, that they go where the evidence takes them. I've not yet seen any outlet claim that they don't merely go where the facts lead them, no matter how ludicrous the claim appears in relation to reality.

I say that Stefan is a Gamma, and I mean that as described by Vox Day. The title could just as easily have been Stefan Molyneux is a Raging Narcissist. Let's look at a few examples of what Vox means by a Gamma. 

From CS Lewis Knew Gammas:

Any time you are dealing with someone who always prefers to argue motive to substance, you have a pretty good clue that you're dealing with a) a gamma male, and b) someone whose communications are limited to rhetoric.
That means the only way you can even try to change their mind is to tell them they're stupid and socially reject them.

Stefan's communications are not limited to rhetoric generally, but they do seem to be when he feels threatened. And I have to wonder if his self-described powers of dialectic aren't overstated. I don't doubt his intellect, but his ability to distinguish his own rhetoric from dialectic.

From The Gamma Self Destruct:

Gammas regularly engage in social self-destruction. Precisely what triggers it, I haven't learned yet, but it is the result of overestimating their own importance to others, most likely as a consequence of erroneously attributing their sense of self-importance to those they feel should appreciate them. .....
Where is the lashing out, name-calling, or most tellingly, a failure to show sufficient respect? Pure, unadulterated Gamma projection.

These all sound like Molyneux. Lashing out at the caller, name-calling and petty mocking (it does come to that sometimes) and probably most significantly the failure to show respect to those who dare challenge him. And then following that up with lashing out at all his viewers criticizing him (which is most of them in the video I linked). This certainly looks like social self-destruction to me.

From When a Gamma Reacts:

1. A Gamma naturally puts himself in other people’s shoes when it comes to conflict and imagines how he would feel. This is true for both reconciliation and conflict. Which is why what he thinks someone should accept as reconciliation is many times out of touch with reality, and he thinks attacks on people’s feelings are much more effective really are. 
2. A Gamma constantly relives adolescent shame, bullying and emotional issues. He likes nothing better than to publicly shame and mock those who he is angry with (except the girl on the pedestal) to the point of losing sight of any other goal he had in mind. Imagine the awkward boy on the playground being danced around and called names, then how that boy would treat people when he is a man and you will understand how they treat others they are angry with.
3. He is a coward and will abandon most everything to save his skin, and this fact gnaws on him internally. Being so narcissistic he is unable to imagine other people not being secret cowards so he will regularly talk of being brave and accuse others of being cowardly.
4. All of this ends up sabotaging relationships for the Gamma including friends, family, coworkers, and even his own children. These bad relationships are not lost on the Gamma and he can feel a deep sense of disgrace about his behavior but cannot admit to being wrong so he is caught in a self-made hell.

This starts to touch on the subject of the Gamma formative psychology. It might seem surprising that Stefan would hold up reason & logic as ultimate virtues and then so recklessly discard them in fits of passion. But it's not surprising at all. The sinner often shrouds himself in the illusion of religious fervor. Molyneux, as a narcissist, hates being contradicted more than anything else. The entire fortress of reason he has built around himself is in reaction to his inability to cope with it. This is made all the more dangerous for Stefan because his powerful intellect makes it very easy to rationalize his motives away. It reveals a moral dilemma. Wrapping oneself in the shroud of reason & logic is the defense mechanism of the intellectual narcissist. And yet reason & logic are themselves virtuous. But so are the supposed virtues of the phony religious zealot. In this blog I primarily make appeals to reason. Is my motivation really a dedication to finding truth, or to insulate myself from ever being proven wrong? Do the motives even matter? Truth is truth, right? I reckon it is, but if the intentions are bunk, then the path towards truth will be obscured. The narcissist won't be lead down the path of truth that says he was wrong. And since we are always learning, we are always, to some extent, wrong.

From How to Create a Gamma:

1. Let a boy fail.
2. Let the boy think or convince him that failing makes him worthless as a person regardless of whatever else he accomplishes.
3. Gamma.

When failure isn’t an option, then the Gamma will no longer compete, lie about his accomplishments, and become delusional about himself. It’s also why the Gamma forever seeks revenge against foes, never forgives himself or others, and is nearly insufferable to be around.
Cowardice and the avoidance of any chance of failure. That's how gammas are made. All the lies and the delusion bubble and everything else will spring from that. 

Perhaps the cure to the narcissistic personality disorders really just comes from motivational cat posters. If you are never proven wrong, you are never learning. If you never fail, you never succeed. If you think you are a failure, you are correct.

All this would likely be dismissed by Vox himself, who would probably hold Stefan up as an exemplar of the opposite of a gamma. He would consider Stefan's grasp of dialectic to be proof enough. But as anyone can see by listening to some of his call-in shows, that all evaporates when his narcissism takes over. The ego never speaks in dialectic.