Naming the Real

Fear comes to play an important role in an over-stimulated culture of entertainment such as ours. In this episode, we explore the nature of fear and its development in our society—how it breeds a lust for certainty and ultimately breeds polarization and tribalization. Specifically, we examine the role that the internet and social media play in promulgating fear. And—most importantly—we chart a path towards beyond fear, in patience, curiosity, and resilience.

In this episode, we explore Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, which is even more relevant today than when first published in 1985. Its premise—that technology changes the way we experience the world and can diminish our ability to think—has profound implications for our over-stimulated culture. Indeed, technology and an addiction to entertainment is exacerbating many of our societal dysfunctions. But there is a path out of a culture obsessed with entertainment and into a grounded and flourishing life.

We all have a winning strategy to get what we want in life: an unconscious formula for success. It's part of being human. And yet we can get stuck or lost in our winning strategy. And winning strategies can be at the heart of imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and even self-loathing. In this episode, we explore what winning strategies are, how we can be aware of them (and grateful for them), and how we can live beyond them.

All humans develop strategies for survival, not just physically but psychologically and emotionally. These strategies become our automatic, and even if they make us miserable, we love the certainty and predictability that they give us. Nevertheless, as we grow older, the impulse to not simply survive but to thrive allures us, even if our inability to thrive torments us. In this episode, we discuss the anatomy of survival strategies (from the events that birth them to the vows and judgments that flow from them), and we explore what it looks like to live beyond them, into a life of joy and flourishing.

Are you happy right now? And what do we even mean when we use the word "happy"? Our society has implicit notions of what happiness is and how we attain it, but often these notions are incomplete at best and backwards at worst. In this episode, we explore a rubric for happiness and some practical steps for becoming truly, wildly happy.

Virtue signaling is another feature of a rule-keeping morality and the flip-side to our obsession with calling out the hypocrisy of others. Talk of it is everywhere. What, then, is virtue signaling exactly and, more to the point, what drives it? In this episode (part 3 of a 3-episode arc), we explore the social science of self-justification and the human tendency towards self-flattery. Most importantly, we explore how—by naming and labeling virtue signaling—we can choose a different path to real virtue, beyond mere appearances.

A central feature of a moral culture—like ours—which has caved to mere "rule-keeping" is an obsession with calling out the hypocrisy of others. This is part of our culture's tribalism. And yet this focus on hypocrisy is a symptom of a much larger sickness. In this episode, we explore how cynicism and loneliness ultimately drive tribalism and how our need to scapegoat hypocrites can be interrupted by compassion.

In a culture with few moral narratives or frameworks—and in which there is increasing doubt that that human life can have any true purpose or meaning at all—a huge void is created. This void is increasingly filled by a morality of rule-keeping which, while giving us a sense of purpose and community, often fails to give us a sense of real meaning. Morality-by-rule-keeping, while inviting us to check boxes, does not necessarily demand internal transformation. In fact, far from demanding that we become good, it may in fact lead us to become morally confused and rigidly dogmatic. This episode is part 1 of 3 and explores this moral confusion and dogmatism. The next episode will explore the phenomenon of hypocrisy hunting and virtue signaling.

Virtue, classically speaking, meant doing the right thing in the right place at the right time in the right way. It was highly contextual, requiring wisdom and thoughtfulness. In contrast, we are witnessing, to our detriment, the ascendance of a "morality" based on rule-keeping. This morality (so-called) does not require the cultivation of inner goodness; rather, it simply requires adherence to an increasingly thin band of rules on both the left and the right, which gives rise to an empty moral culture. In this episode, we explore how this morality of rule-keeping plays out in our moral conversation, including in the debate about transgender athletes in the Olympics, the politics of Mitch McConnell, and the use of neopronouns.

Because of a busy travel schedule (and so that episodes don't suffer in the midst of it), I'm taking a two-week pause from posting new episodes. When I'm back I'll be posting an episode on the rise of morality by rule-keeping as part of the Our Cultural Crisis series as well as an episode on happiness. Be back soon!