Omar Usman – Grandstanding The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk Interview the Authors
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Mhmm.
Okay. So we're joined by Justin Tosi and
Brandon Warmke, authors of the book Grandstanding,
The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk.
Thank you guys for coming on. We wanna
talk about your book. So just to start
out with, if you if you guys could
maybe just a brief
intro,
not necessarily who you are, although definitely share
that, but
how you got into this particular topic because
it's one of those things that you see
it everywhere. And then when it's finally labeled,
you're like, the light bulb goes off like,
oh, that's what I've been seeing all this
time. That's the hope. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Omar,
for having us. We're happy to be here.
Justin and I went to grad school together.
We did our PhDs at the University of
Arizona. And around 2014
or so, I think Justin and I both
noticed
what appeared to us anyway, like a trend
on social media
of people using political and moral discourse on,
say Facebook,
to draw attention to themselves. You know, ostensibly
they were having conversations about the poor or
about immigration or about health care,
traditional family values, you know, abortion, whatever it
was. But
the sense that we got from these conversations
in these sort of slogans, it's like they
were like PR releases, you know, they were
like trying to trying to draw attention to
themselves, trying to make sure that they could
communicate, they had the right values, a lot
of self centered sort of,
talk. And
so we did we started thinking about this,
you know, what's going on?
And, at the time, the only term for
this sort of sort of
status seeking,
behavior
was grandstanding.
So,
believe it or not, this is before the
term virtue signaling. If you or some of
your,
listeners are familiar with the term virtue signaling.
Very much so. The term that's kind of
become cache. I think it it makes you
feel sound sound smart when you use it.
But back then in 2014, this is the
only term that that was sort of in
the public vernacular. And so,
so at that point, we started writing, you
know, doing some research, doing some writing, and,
eventually it turned into a paper, and then
it turned into a book.
But I think the the
the kernel of this project was just and
I looking at people
behaving and including ourselves, to be honest Yeah.
And talking about morality and politics,
using it as a vanity project, using it
to seek status, using it to impress other
people.
So, you know, when you look, you you
know, you look online, you look even prior
to, let's say, the social media aids, that
type of self promotion and whatnot, it's not
uncommon. Right? Like, you have people that will
hype themselves up, get rich quick schemes, all
those kinds of things.
What did you find unique about moral talk
in particular?
Well yeah. So so as you note,
there's nothing there's nothing unique either about this
happening just with social media, and there's nothing
unique really about,
at least in in some ways,
about,
about people,
using
any kind of forum where, you know, your
qualities are displayed to impress people.
So
because we're kind of hardwired to behave this
way,
it's just sort of to be expected that
that when people have an opportunity,
to distinguish themselves,
they take it.
I guess what makes the moral arena so
interesting to us is is not just that
that we're trained as moral philosophers,
but that I think you can see,
the competition between people,
in a way that's just so inappropriate,
when when people are talking about, you know,
important,
matters of of of justice
or,
or whatever, you know, issue of moral concern,
it's
it seems to us just so transparent
that people are engaged in a kind of
competition
so often,
with their friends, in a way that they
would be
over things that don't really matter
so, I mean, you know, for instance, it
doesn't really matter
that much who has, you know, the best
or loudest singing voice. Right? So, you know,
you can go to, like, a a religious
ceremony and you'll see people, like, trying out,
you know, out outdo one another or be
the most taken with the spirit or,
or or whatever,
depending on on your your mode of worship.
So, I mean, that's mostly harmless. But but
when you get people talking about some, you
know, contested moral issue, it's important that we'd
be able to see one another as
trying to get it right, you know, just
trying to figure out what justice requires of
us,
trying to figure out the right thing to
do, for its own sake.
And instead,
what we get is
behavior that's more at home in
in,
kind of arenas where where it doesn't matter
so much, but, you know, people using
something that that is bigger than themselves,
and turning it into something that is just
about themselves.
And I guess, you know, Brandon and I
wanted to write about this because we found
this so ugly,
and we think, you know, it's so important
that we'd be able to have these conversations,
and, you know but it you know, in
the meantime,
we have people,
abusing moral talk,
making it, a kind of vanity project instead.
So what
and I and I know you guys talk
about recognition desire in the book, but what
is it that you think that really drives
people from,
you know, if we discuss, let's say
and you gave a good example. Let's say
we talked about,
rent control. We wanna have a discussion about
rent control. Right?
What is it that's motivating people to instead
of, let's say, hash the issue out, maybe
evaluate both sides, come to some sort of
reasonable conclusion even if we disagree.
Rather than that being the objective, why has
the objective shifted so much to
me just trying to outdo you somehow or,
like, when imaginary inner point Internet points or
something?
Yeah. I think that's that's a good question.
I think the
what's at stake is social status.
And when we can get into a discussion
where, you know, I might forward some boring
view,
some real boring, you know, moderate
centrist take about rent control.
That's not gonna impress very many people. What
people tend to be impressed by are vivid,
extreme
claims that reveal
that have a kind of expressive value
about their moral about their moral insight, about
their moral commitment to these to these values.
And so
what's at stake is social status.
And we've turned a lot of social media.
It's not just people on social media, you
know, it could be,
cable news hosts,
it could be politicians.
Their social status to be had. And and
the reason is because a lot of us
care about the way people see us.
No. If the 3 of us get into
a conversation about, say, rent control, and each
of us think that we care deeply
about affordable,
housing or the poor.
And and then, you know, Omar chimes in
and says, you know, we should, you know,
we should cap the rent at this. And
then Justin says, are are you kidding, Omar?
If you really cared about the poor,
you know, you'd you'd cap the rent even
lower. And then I come in and say,
I'm absolutely disgusted by all of you. If
you truly cared about the poor, you'd endorse
a universal basic income.
And so and so I win. Right? Because
I it looks at least to many,
who were involved in this conversation that I
have the most sort of severe, most impressive
commitment to these values.
And the problem is that
what gets status and what expresses value often
diverges
from what's true. Because what's true is often
what's boring. What's true is often what's uninteresting.
And, so a politician, for example, can get
up there and, you know, wax wonkily about
the ins and outs of how of, housing
policy,
and and people are gonna tune them out.
Another politician can get up and, you know,
give a fiery speech about punishing landlords and,
and making housing affordable, and we're gonna pass
this law and that law. And it's a
vivid solution to a problem.
And voters just like the rest of us
on social media are taken in by these
sorts of claims. And so, you know, one
way to think about your question is, what's
a stake social status and how do people
get that by putting their values on display?
Because that gets more attention than than being
boring. And what is what is the social
status
giving people? Like, when I when I look
at especially social media. Right? I say the,
you know, the currency of social media's attention.
The more
eyeballs, likes, views,
comments, whatever that you get, the more that
you're winning in a sense. Right?
What's is there any real driver beyond just
I just want the attention, and so that
means I'm winning at this game?
Kinda like what are you may have another
way. It's like, what are how are they
getting rewarded that makes them keep doing it?
Yeah. I think there's there's a lot of
rewards.
Some of it,
is emotional. So one thing we know is
that expressing outrage feels good.
In various studies, if you give people the
option
of reading a story about an injustice that
makes them mad, and then you say, would
you like to read a nice story or
another story about injustice?
They tend to choose the story about injustice
because they like the way,
it feels to feel outrage. It makes people
feel morally superior. So, you know, one thing
that that's driving this is just the the
feeling the feeling of outrage. It's it's, it's
satisfying.
Philosophers for centuries have noted this that it
that it feels good to be mad at
people when they when they mess up, and,
because it makes us feel better about ourselves.
Another thing that's driving this is,
you know,
a lot of
us think that we're morally good people. If
you look at studies,
most people think that they're morally better than
average.
And to maintain this vision of ourselves
to ourselves,
we often have to behave in public in
certain ways to confirm to ourselves that we
are who we think we are. A lot
of our self conception has to do with
how we measure up to others. You know,
you might think you're really funny, and then
you meet some, like, friends who are, like,
really hilarious, and you're, like, oh, I guess
I'm not not not that funny. And then
you go home, and you're, like, the funniest
guy that, you know, your family's ever seen.
And so a lot of the ways that
we think about ourselves are, calibrated to whoever's
around us. And so if you think of
yourself as caring deeply about the poor or
caring deeply about piety,
and then you get around a bunch of
people who seem to care about these things
as much or more than you do, then
you have to behave in certain ways to
as it were,
put on a show to yourself. So that's
another reason why we do these things. And
then I think one that you mentioned,
is is is the status. We want to
be seen as morally good.
Why? Well, one thing I think is true
is that we just want that. Like, we
just want status. We merely want to be
seen as better. I think that's that's also
true.
But also the kinds of things that status
affords us. So here are some things that
status affords us. People defer to me in
public discourse.
People always want to know what I hear,
or people always want to hear what I,
you know, what I what I have to
say. So if if, you know, if I
have 10,000 followers who think that I'm
I'm, the vanguard of the poor or or
I'm I'm the best feminist, or I care
mostly about the American flag or something. And
they're constantly wanting to know what I think,
you know, that sort of attention feels good.
And so there's lots of goodies,
goodies. Some of them are financial goodies that
come with coming being seen as, you know,
having a great trade. I'm sure,
you know, in the in, you know, whatever
online communities we run-in,
there are there are financial goodies involved. Oh,
yeah. There's notoriety, speaking invites. That's right. All
that good stuff. Yeah. And so all that
stuff comes with and can be purchased just
by,
a ticket
that in in what that ticket says is,
you know, I'm I'm really morally special.
You know, there's one thing that you mentioned
in the book that I wanted you guys
to elaborate on was
and I haven't heard this term before, so
it caught my eye, was confabulation,
that we make up stories to tell ourselves
to cover up our true intentions. So we
might have one intent, but we give ourselves
a narrative to somehow make ourselves feel better
about it.
Could you explain that concept in a little
bit more detail
and how that works? Yeah.
So, I mean, think about all the things
that you that you do going throughout your
day.
Often,
you have some sense of of why you
do them.
You know, basically,
what what you're doing most of the time.
But
if your true motivations for every single thing
you do,
were revealed to yourself,
first, it would be overwhelming,
because it's just so much processing
going on.
It makes more sense to have some some
of it sort of beneath the level of
of your cognitive attention. So, I mean, just
breathing for is, like, the most obvious example
of this. Of course, you don't need to
think about, like, when and how deeply you
breathe every time you do it.
So something similar happens, for some of our
more complicated and less reflexive actions.
We just aren't aware of every single thing,
that motivates us.
Another reason for this is,
that
quite possibly some of our motivations are not
so pretty. So it's easy for us to
to think well of ourselves and continue to
do the things that that we need, to
do in order to to do well and
survive and and thrive, throughout our lives,
without,
all of our our deeper motivations
being,
laid bare before our before our eyes and
accept easily accessible,
in our deliberation.
So because we're like this, because,
we basically
are self deceived,
at least,
about a lot of the things that we
do,
we can do things like grandstand
without being aware
that we're
engaging in in public moral discourse
with the aim of impressing other people.
So there are both winning and unwitting grandstanders.
So winning grandstanders
know what they're doing. They they know,
that,
you know, I'm saying this and I want
people to think well of me. I wanna
get this guy, who's trying to make me
look bad, and I wanna look better than
him instead.
Unwitting grandstanders
come up with some other story that's, to
refer your question, confabulated.
Right? So they they tell themselves,
I don't know. You know, I'm just so
worked up about this. I'm so I'm so
upset that this guy doesn't understand how important
it is to take care of the poor,
and I'm gonna go after him and teach
him a lesson.
Whereas,
at least, a significant part of what motivates
someone who does that, just by hypothesis, we
can say, is at least in some cases,
that they wanna look good. They wanna look
like, as Brandon said, the vanguards of the
poor.
They wanna look like the person who cares
the most in this conversation or in this
friend group, or whatever,
about
some, some group of disadvantaged people say.
But, you know, when you put it this
way, this sounds ugly. And if I mean,
Brandon and I get blowback all the time
from people who get really mad and say,
how dare you say that I or anyone,
am engaging in in moral talk with anything
other than the interest of the people, you
know, who are trying to defend or or,
promote or or whatever.
You know, how dare how dare you say
that anything other than concern for for that
is,
is what's motivating us. And we don't think,
that it's only, you know, it's
we don't think that it's generally,
just a matter of people trying to promote
their own interests, right, to to promote their
status. It can be both,
but it's also quite plausible that people are
are not always aware,
when they're motivated,
by by status seeking.
So one thing and I and I think
both the girl kinda touched on it is
when people grandstand again, wittingly or unwittingly.
There's that one upsmanship, like, you have to
have a hotter take than the next guy
and then progressively hotter take, otherwise, you're not
gonna get any attention or attraction.
And we see the effect that that's had
on
political discourse, discourse around social issues, whether it's
racism, feminism, abortion, the election,
whatever.
How do
you as let's let's start with the the
mindset of just a consumer. Right? Like, I'm
an average dude. I take out my phone.
I'm scrolling through Facebook or group chats or
whatever. And I see all these people,
you know, engaging in exactly that. What's your
advice for navigating that? Like,
even if I care about some of these
social, let's say, causes,
everything I read just as the days go
go on get more and more polarized.
That's a good question. One thing to do
is to get off Twitter.
Yeah. That
that that you know, we give that advice
all, you know, often and and it's not
very satisfying. We recognize it's not very satisfying
advice.
So here are a couple things that we
suggest in the book in in in and
I think these are generally good
things to keep in mind in navigating social
media or, you know, the larger political climate.
So one thing to do
is to be careful about
how we contribute ourselves.
So one question we can always ask ourselves
when we're about to type into Twitter or
Facebook or whatever,
am I doing this to look good? Or
am I doing this to do good? Like,
is this, is this thing that I'm about
to say, like, can I tell myself a
story about how this is actually gonna help
someone? Like, is this gonna provide,
you know, evidence for something I believe in?
Is this gonna actually help someone actually stand
up for what's right? Or or am I
doing this to look good? And and would
I be disappointed if I didn't get, you
know, 5 retweets or a 100 likes or
whatever? Am I gonna be disappointed if this
doesn't go viral?
If you're gonna be disappointed, that suggests,
at
least in our view,
the wrong kind of priority in engaging in
public discourse. The, you know, we think that
they're good kinds of priorities don't have to
do with status seeking and making ourselves look
good and promoting our brand on Twitter or
Facebook.
These are really important issues, and they call
for more than the promotion of our own
reputation. So one thing that we recommend in
the book is to,
is this sort of look inward. Right? So,
you know, a lot of people read the
book or come across the work, and they
wanna know, like, alright, show me who the
grandstander is. Give me the test for who's
grandstanding.
And it's a perfectly understandable question that people
have, and we totally get it. And in
the book, we do go through some
some ways that grandstanding tends to to rear
its head in discourse. But we think that,
you know, this sort
of response
that people wanna know. Alright. Let me let
me at the grandstand, and let me go
get them. Is the wrong kind of is
the wrong kind of response? What what we
recommend is really turning our moral gaze
away from others and onto ourselves, and asking
ourselves,
you know, what can I do to make
this discourse healthier and less toxic? So that's
that's one thing. Another thing very briefly is
just to,
you know, when you come across stuff on
Twitter or,
Facebook or social media generally,
that looks self serving,
where it looks like someone is offering a
hot take
or offering an extreme hyperbolic
response.
If it looks like something that might be
attention seeking, just ignore
it. Just ignore it. I mean, one thing
that grandstanders want is your attention. That's what
they thrive on. That's what they that that,
you know, keeps them going.
Do you consider people
you know, there's always people who are
it's not you know, we used to say,
like, playing devil's advocate, but I think now
the more sophisticated version of that is people
who want to offer, like, a
nuance contrarian take to the discussion, whether they
kind of believe it or not. Is that
the same or is that a little bit
of a different
Yeah. I don't think it's the same. I
I I think there is is value in
virtue
in people
offering in good faith
reasons and evidences,
maybe for things they don't believe,
in an effort to,
you know, figure out what what the truth
is. I think those are perfectly valuable things.
And I, you know, and one thing, you
know, I think you're
sort of hinting at here is that it's
very difficult to tell when someone's grandstanding. Yeah.
It's very difficult to tell. And the reason
is because grandstanding has two parts. There's the
thing that you say, and there's the reason
why you say it, your motivation.
And that is hidden from us. That we
don't get to see. I don't get to
poke, you know, peer into your head, Omar,
and know why the things you say,
on on Twitter. And so,
it's it can be very difficult, but that's
just part of life. I mean, it's very
difficult to know when someone's lying. It's very
difficult to know when someone's bragging or,
engaging in demagoguery or, you know, this this
thing called humble bragging where Yeah. People, you
know, people say things like, oh, I can't
my my boss gives me all the all
the most important assignments. I just can't believe
it, you know.
So that those sorts of things are all
things that involve a kind of motivation that's
sort of hidden from us, and it's very
difficult to tell. And that's why we
caution, you know, go not not going around
accusing people of grandstanding.
But also, you know, if you if you
see someone that is that, you know, that
you think is grandstanding, you know, maybe you
just ignore it. And the hope is that
we can sort of change
the norms of public discourse so that this
sort of self centered, self aggrandizing moral discourse
becomes a little embarrassing.
So there's another part of the discourse
that happens in that and you see a
lot where people are let's say they are
well intentioned that they're trying to engage and
learn about a topic.
But because all the information has become so
polarized,
they don't like, there's no guidance on how
to navigate it. And I'll I'll give an
example to highlight what I mean. And,
you know, when we're talking about, let's
say,
why do people vote a certain way? Right?
And and I'll try to keep this unbiased,
but you have one side saying, well,
everyone that voted a certain way is racist.
And the other side is saying, well, everyone
who voted this way is trying to destroy
the country or whatever. Right? And so
their
entire
camps of people get painted with
the most extreme views of the other. So
me coming in saying, like, okay, let me
try to understand,
is everyone that
says this or believes this actually racist? And
it's it's hard to navigate those waters because
every issue gets turned into the most extreme
version of it.
Yeah. That I mean, what you're pointing out,
I think, is a huge problem. We talk
about it, a good bit in the book,
about,
so I mean, there there are a couple
of of parts here.
One is that
when
a discourse is is rich in grandstanding,
their status to be gained by talking about
how much you hate the other side.
And when people do that often, you know,
what they do is they
give characterizations
of,
characterizations of of the other side that are
ridiculous, that are caricatures,
basically.
They will say, you know,
that,
all Republicans are are are just rich white
men,
or,
you know, everyone everyone in the Democratic party,
like, half of them are gay.
And there's social science that that we cite
in in the book showing this that if
you ask people, you know, what what
percentage of of people who vote for this
party have this or that trait, they're off
by factors of, like, 10 and 20. I
so
it's really harmful in other words that,
our discourse is overrun
with,
people who are so eager
to paint the other side,
in the most extreme terms
possible,
because it gives everyone else a distorted
view,
of what's really going on, of what people
are really like, who support 1 or another
party or candidate.
So it's just as you say, the the
information,
becomes
kind of politicized or or polarized, I think
you said, or or moralized,
in a really misleading way.
Another thing, the other part,
of this that happens is people get sick
of it.
People don't want to engage in these kinds
of discussions. They're not helpful. They're over the
top. They're very heated.
There's no progress made. And so what happens
is that the people who don't find it
very,
either, you know, emotionally fulfilling,
or who aren't getting status, who aren't very
interested in getting getting status from engaging in
in these kinds of discussions, they check out.
So, so, you know, we have this, discussion
in the book called moderates checkout,
because this is what happens.
People who are kind of in the middle,
who have nuanced views,
who are kinda tired of of, saying, well,
you know, I think abortion's a really complicated
issue and, you know, I'm not sure what
to think about this one wrinkle of it
and or, you know, it seems like the
reasons are are kind of intention here,
and then they get they get dog
piled. So for someone like that, what's the
point in engaging in in a moral discussion
with people who are just going to rush
to villainize you, to show that, you know,
you're supposedly not morally pure?
So these people check out.
So it's it's awful for them, of course,
to to go through that, but it also
deprives the rest of us of reasonable people,
giving reasons and and arguments
that we're otherwise
quite
quite plausibly not going to think of,
that we then won't discuss,
and then people will will further polarize,
I mean, even more,
because they're only hearing, the most extreme views,
and they think, well, it's it's, I guess,
it's either
this group of crazy people or or this
other group of crazy people, and I'm closer
to, you know, this group of crazy people,
so I guess I'm with them.
So, you know, this is another reason to
to think that we need,
to get people to to calm down about
grandstanding.
How do you reengage those moderate voices? Like,
I feel
when I think of people that have those
moderate voices and takes, instead of talking about
politics, they're just kind of they like you
said, they check out and they're like, I'm
gonna dedicate all of my intellectual energy to
fantasy football. Like, you know, ins instead of,
you know, something like that. But how do
you reengage and get those voices back? Because
they, you know, they often do have
a more informed or more nuanced or, you
know, just a more healthier view on a
lot of subjects?
That's a really hard question. I I think
that one thing that happens,
is
people who are interested in in morality and
politics,
will find another forum.
So that we'll find a a private, you
know, more contained community of
of of people who, maybe are more reasonable,
who actually like
following arguments where they lead.
This used to be called the philosophy department,
But
Now it's a WhatsApp group. Not working out
so much for us anymore.
But but then, you know, this is this
is not a great solution because
then maybe those people can have worthwhile discussions,
but then the rest of the world doesn't
hear about them. Or maybe we we hope
that it trickles out somehow.
But,
you know, other than that, I mean, you're
getting into things that are are like,
you know,
tinkering with the algorithm on social media, which
they're not going to do. Right? Because so
there's the study showing if you wanna go
viral on social media,
a great way to do so is to,
invoke various moral emotional terms, hatred,
you know, unjust,
you know, eviscerated,
you know, Ben Shapiro eviscerates this person, John
Stewart.
The entrails are everywhere. Right?
So people know
that
that this is a good way, you know,
to, you know, catastrophize,
to make things, you know, really blown up
and fiery. This is a good way to
to go viral,
and of course, social media firms are are
well aware of this. They could tinker with
their algorithms,
so that, you know, that the stuff is
is demoted and maybe more reasonable,
talk is is promoted.
I think they probably have every reason not
to do that,
economically.
Yeah. But if they, you know, they wanna
get civic virtue all of a sudden,
I I think that would be a great
thing.
And then there was one thing that y'all
mentioned in the book was
one arena where it's a little bit different,
and that was, I think, politics as a
morality pageant where
people are almost expecting
or wanting grandstanding in a sense. Because it's
signaling to them sort of like what side
someone is on.
What have you seen, like,
now that I know that's obviously always been
there, but how is it different now with
all the social media as compared to maybe
even just a few years ago?
One of the things we know
is
what people
say when they're asked, why do you vote
the way you vote? And one of the
things that's really important to voters is to
share the values,
to share the moral
convictions of politicians that represent them. They wanna
know this politician cares about them. They wanna
know this politician roughly cares about the things
that they care about.
This gives an incentive
to
now in the abstract, that's, you know, that's
perfectly fine. You might think it's perfectly fine
for voters to want politicians to share their
values and and agree with them about these
sort of foundational moral issues.
Here's the problem. The problem is this gives,
as you know, this this gives an incentive
to politicians
to put their values on display.
And,
and so we know
that there's really simple ways for politicians to
put their values on display.
They can use a hashtag. They can use
a slogan. They can get on Twitter and
put something in their bio. And what this
does is that it easily encapsulates
this really simple value that they know voters
want.
So, you know, for the left, it might
be something having to do with black lives
matter.
So you'd imagine a voter on the left
thinking, I want a politician to care deeply
about this issue. And so what does a
politician do? Well, they put on their bio
hashtag black lives matter. On the right, it
could be about, you know, you know, enforcing
the border or whatever. And so, you know,
a politician put some slogan in their in
their bio. Oh, I got I got weekly
mailers, like, physical flyers at least 2 or
3 a week for the past month.
All of them were
which candidate was anti abortion or pro abortion.
Like Yeah. That would there was literally, like,
they knew that signaling that one issue would
sway the vote.
Right. Yeah. So politicians collect these sort of,
like, moral trinkets. Right? And they and they
put them in their in their bios. Now,
again, you might think, okay. So what's the
problem? Right? What's the problem with showing that
you care or showing that you're about that
you have these values? Well, here's a problem.
A lot of the times, the policies
that
politicians
endorse
to express their values
are not workable.
They don't actually accomplish
the values
they purport to defend. And here's just one
example, and it has to do with the
rent control that you mentioned earlier.
So a politician might say, look, I really
care about the poor. I really care about,
affordable housing.
And so I unveiled this policy that vividly
and clearly shows that I care about the
poor. I'm gonna make it illegal for landlords
to charge x amount of dollars for apartments
in San Francisco.
That shows vividly that I care.
However, you know, if you if you ask,
you know, economists about rent control to a
person, they will tell you the rent control
laws reduce the quality and quantity of housing.
So here's the problem.
We have politicians
endorsing
policies
for their expressive value in order to get
elected, in order to, you know, raise money,
in order to,
you know, get on cable news at night.
Those are the things they really want.
They endorse policies
to do those things, and yet were those
policies to actually be implemented.
They would undermine the values they purport to
care about. And this happens on the right
and the left. And so there's this problem
in democratic societies
where voters care deeply about having their politicians
express their values.
Politicians have a strong incentive to put these
values on display with these policies.
But the problem is a lot of times
these policies that express values
don't actually do what they're supposed to do.
And and voters often don't know that. I
mean, if you if you ask a lot
of voters, do you you know, can you
explain the economics of rent control? They're gonna
say, what? No. I can't. But I know
that this guy has a really vivid proposal
to solve this problem, and so I'm gonna
vote for him. And it almost seems like
the the grandstanding effect makes it
impossible to have the policy discussion.
Because you have to you have to pick
a side, like, you either have to be
for the poor or you're automatically against the
poor. And so
having the policy discussion almost will never happen.
Yeah. It's almost like,
morality trumps everything else.
So so if I say this policy
is the most moral or or this policy
is the
most,
you know, just policy,
and someone asked, well, yeah, but is you
know, what are the economics of this policy?
Like, what if like, what would happen if
we actually implemented that? Would it backfire? Like,
woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Like,
I care about what's the you know, which
policy is moral. Why are you bringing economics
into this? Why are you bringing practical questions?
We're trying to
promote justice here. I don't have time for
your facts and figures. There are a lot
of people, if you spend much time on
Twitter, who talk that way, who don't care
about you know, as you know, who don't
care about the details because those details get
in the way of the kind of moral
advertisement for these policies that they really care
about.
I know we're kinda running on time here.
I had kind of maybe a final question
if you both could Sure. Add your thoughts,
which was,
you know, the more you doom scroll through
social media. Right? You're checking Facebook, Twitter, all
these things, and you keep seeing it get
progressively worse. And I feel especially with, like,
the election, it's like we've seen magnitudes of
worse, like, day by day, you know, more
than in the past couple of months. It's
almost like every day it's a new catastrophe
or crisis.
What you know, what's
the way to instill some sense of optimism
or, like,
things that
I can do
to either de incentivize this behavior or, like,
save my own sanity or, you know, just
some way of saying, like, there is a
way out. There is a way for this
to get better and that the
algorithms aren't going to just keep adjusting and
incentivizing this behavior more and more and more.
Yeah.
Here's here's one one thing that I like
to say.
So think of, like, early dinner parties.
Right? If people are first, you know,
in in, like, in civil society,
eating,
you know, with with the upper crust, you
know, more people are are
doing fine dining, things like this. If you
went to to dinner parties like this or
or to,
restaurants where where people are are, you know,
first being brought into the practice,
you probably would have seen some wild stuff.
Right?
People,
you know,
taking
bones and meat off of the serving dish
and not and just throwing it back, you
know, blowing their nose in the table cloth,
and,
and then, you know, if you read,
early etiquette guides, about dining, from from the
middle ages, you'll see that the advice is
is actually about just this sort of thing.
People had to be told not to do
this stuff.
So stuff that that you and I,
if we were ever told explicitly not not
to blow our nose in the table cloth,
would have learned as as very young children.
You know, people had to learn and it
probably took a while for for people to
to figure this out and have the norm
catch on.
So one thing that you might think,
sounding a a note of optimism
is that we're just very early in
in,
having the whole world interconnected,
in in the way that we are, and
we just need a while to have good
norms develop.
So eventually it will be seen as, like,
really embarrassing,
as, you know, Brandon said earlier,
for people to go on social media in
Grandstand just as it'd be really embarrassing to
see someone at a nice restaurant blowing their
nose in a table cloth.
So, you know, give it some time.
It's it's a sort of thing where where
it's hard to see what you can do
day to day,
to to make this happen, but,
human beings are pretty smart,
on on the whole, and we've solved
bigger problems than this in the past.
So
I think there there's reason to be hopeful.
So, yeah, one thing to add is,
you know, I I don't know how old
you are, Omar, but I I remember so
I got Facebook in, like,
2,005
or so, 2,006.
I'm I'm old enough to have signed up
for Facebook when you had to have a
college email address. Okay. Good. Me too. Alright.
Me too. We may you may be about
the same age then. Alright. So I I
don't know about you. I don't know what
circles you ran in 15 years ago,
but I don't remember, you know, when I
was on Facebook 2,005,
6, you know, I don't remember anyone talking
about politics. It was like super boring stuff.
Like, I'm going to a party tonight or
I made beans and rice, or I'm watching,
oceans 12 or something. It's just and it
was it was like
it was like people
had to figure out
that things like Facebook could be used
in the way that we now use them.
Basically, to talk about politics and gain status.
That took a while.
And it it's, you know, it it was
a new technology.
And sometimes,
you know, it takes humans a while to
figure out how to use it to technology
for a new purpose. I mean, it took
us 50 years to figure out how to
put wheels on suitcases.
I mean, so so it took us a
while to figure out how to use
this technology
to grandstand. I mean, grandstanding has always been
around, but
it it I I think it took us
a while to catch up to use Facebook
and Twitter for these purposes.
The flip side of that is is basically
what Justin points out is that it it
takes a while to figure out the new
norms
and to coalesce on a new set of
rules
for social media. Now, you know, the optimistic
take is that that we we will develop
norms. And,
and so social media could be cleaned up
a little bit. Whether that's, likely or not,
I don't know. Here are 2 other things
that we often talk about, reasons to be
optimistic.
You
know, one of them is,
to build alternate institutions. And I and I
think this is really important for people,
to get off
to spend less time on Facebook and Twitter
and social media and build alternate institutions where
the incentives to grandstand
are
are,
are lesser. So, you know, maybe you get
together and you and you do a reading
group. Right? Maybe you have an online,
so on Facebook, I'm a part of various
sort of, like, subgroups
where the norms are much different than the
Wild West norms on, like, Twitter and Facebook
because we've it's a smaller group of people
and we enforce the norms. And if someone's
not gonna behave, you kick them out. Right?
And so I think building alternative institutions where
people, even online, can get together
and have these discussions
even, you know, having strong disagreement, but enforce
certain kinds of norms
where these these kinds of important conversations can,
we can can happen. I think that's one
reason for optimism. Another one, and this is
a more extreme one, is
is,
you know, I think we would probably all
do better off by
decreasing the amount of our lives that are
overtaken by politics.
And
I think a lot of us spend, you
know, I think myself included, I think Justin
would say too. I mean, there's too much
of our lives are taken over by thinking
about stressing about worrying about reading about
tweeting about politics.
And, you know, my view is as as
important politics is, and I think it is
important, politics makes us dumb and mean.
And,
I think there are many better ways
to spend our lives doing good for others
even
than investing in politics. I mean, teaching your
kids how to ride a bike, learning how
to play the piano, you know, visiting a
local nursing home or, you know, whatever there
are whatever those things are, those things are
gonna have much better returns in terms of
helping others making a difference in the world
than,
spending 6 hours a day on Twitter reading
about, you know, reading about the election. I
mean, it's
it's it's almost ridiculous to think like, oh,
yeah. I'm actually making a difference by reading
all the stuff on Twitter. You know, it's
like, that's not gonna make you a better
person. It's not gonna make you a better
citizen.
And so I do think carving out larger
areas of our lives that are insulated from
politics,
It's better for our mental health and it
also, you know, encourages civic friendship, where we
can be friends with people,
even if I disagree with someone strongly about
politics, because politics is not allowed to enter
into this relationship. This is a no politics
zone. And I think that that vision of
civic friendship
is,
is really
something to aspire to. And I think, you
know, a grounds for optimism.
Awesome. I think that's a good note to
to close on.
Where can our listeners,
find you guys or follow you? I mean,
we just talked about getting off social media,
but do you have social media that that
you'd want them to follow on or
anything like that? And I know the the
book is obviously available at Amazon, and I'm
assuming other booksellers, but any any other places
that you'd wanna let them know to follow
you guys or stay in touch?
Yeah. We're both on Twitter at at brandonwarrenke
and at justintosie.
You know, we wrote this book and then
now we have to behave on social media.
So it's,
we're I I think we're both very boring
follows on Twitter, but you're but you're more
than welcome to.
And, yeah. And thank you. Yeah. The books
on Amazon. It's there's also, it's on Kindle.
There's an audible version too.
So
lots of ways to, lots of ways to
find it.
Okay. Cool. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks so much, Omar.