I finished this review during LessGov’s extended downtime, so I first posted it at Blogspot. Now it’s here, albeit belatedly.

—

It seems self-evident that a free society requires free individuals. Likewise, oppressed individuals tend to produce oppressed societies. From Stefan Molyneux’s perspective, the core of this problem is a person’s willingness, consciously or otherwise, to cling to destructive fantasies regarding his or her personal relationships. As such, the purpose of On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion is a frank exploration of this issue.

I will also be frank in this review and express up-front that the manner of personal conflict and reflection referenced in the book is not something I am familiar with. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a very stable family and perhaps the best parents an individual could ever hope for. My friends are few and far between, but they are all people whom I would trust with just about anything, without reservation.

With that being the case, I almost felt like an outsider while reading On Truth. Mind you, this has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of anything posited by Molyneux, but I could not personally identify with the philosophical crises being addressed. In this sense, perhaps one might consider me a neutral observer, and maybe that’s a good thing. Or maybe my lack of relation to the issues disqualifies me as a valid critic. Nonetheless, I’m seldom without an opinion.

As I’ve come to expect from Stefan Molyneux, the writing in On Truth is top-notch. The text is clean, logical, easy-to-follow and simply could not have been constructed in a more organized, concise fashion. Indeed, the work is so brief and to-the-point that it reads more like a long essay, rather than a book.

The early portions of the exploration focus on parents and quickly extrapolate to the family as a whole. From start to finish, the principal and crucial concepts that Molyneux attempts to convey are truth and integrity (which he defines as “consistency with reality”).

As the title might suggest, On Truth pays much attention to identifying and eliminating hypocrisy and contradiction within relationships. One notable section is titled “Detonating Mythology” and is followed by an in-depth look at the idea of love, what it means to love (as a verb) rather than just speak of the idea and how love is so often used as a mere mechanism by which one party imposes artificial obligations upon another. This all gives way to larger applications, such as religion and society as a whole.

Ultimately, through illustration and what might seem like pure common sense upon consideration, Molyneux presents a relatively sound case for the existence of what he terms “the tyranny of illusion.” At the same time, he leaves little room for excuses, no rational justification for continuing to perpetuate illusion and fantasy once the prevalence of such things has been established.

Should John or Jane Q. Public read this book? Probably. The oppressive condition of society alone suggests that Molyneux’s thesis is at least close to being correct (whether one agrees with his larger philosophy or not — i.e. Universally Preferable Behaviour, anarchism, etc., which are related but separate issues). In essence, a reader will have three possible choices after delving into On Truth: she can choose to dismiss the ideas entirely, acknowledge the validity of the ideas but ignore them, or admit that there is something in the ideas worth exploring further. And I say “exploring further” because On Truth in and of itself does not necessarily reach any sweeping conclusions. Whether that was intended, I cannot say. Given the brevity of the work, I suspect the open-ended nature was deliberate. From my perspective, it is meant to encourage the reader to realize that philosophy goes beyond reading a book and knowing things. Philosophy is about finding what is true, in turn allowing one to live a life that is based on integrity, which will in turn result in happiness.

In fact, Molyneux himself seems to state as much on the final page:

“This book is not a call to meditation, but to action.”

Anyone who wants a direct, honest examination of what it means to find integrity in his or her own life will, in all likelihood, benefit greatly from On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion. Even if you have trouble relating to the conflicts presented (as I do), you will have still learned something and will know what to avoid in the future, lest you at some point come to relate to the described conflicts all too well!

–

Special thanks goes to Mr. Molyneux for generously providing a copy of On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion for review.

Stefan Molyneux’s books, Podcasts, articles and message board are all available on his website, Freedomain Radio (http://www.freedomainradio.com).