Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms.
Speaker 2: Flex and Firms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch
Speaker 2: Up podcast. I We've spoken about this previously. FLEXI. I
Speaker 2: feel like we do see that everything has stopped feeling
Speaker 2: real at some point recently. Absolutely, and okay for me
Speaker 2: it was and I'm grew missed to even bring it up,
Speaker 2: but it is pertinent to this. When mister Donald Trump
Speaker 2: did become the president, that is when things really started
Speaker 2: to enter a clown like territory. But in the words
Speaker 2: of Pink, this used to be a fun house, but
Speaker 2: now it's full of evil clowns.
Speaker 1: Whoa she ate.
Speaker 3: It's interesting what you can get away with saying in
Speaker 3: music because the lyrics kind of feel like a haze
Speaker 3: if the beat is good.
Speaker 2: Now it's full of evil clowns.
Speaker 1: Wow. So anyway, and no one took her out for
Speaker 1: that said, she wasn't talking about.
Speaker 2: Me, And so yeah, when that all started happening, obviously,
Speaker 2: mister c mister Covid was occurring. It was all kind
Speaker 2: of like a weird fever dream. And in the time since,
Speaker 2: I mean, we have been speaking about the idea of
Speaker 2: America no longer being the superpower. That's probably been going
Speaker 2: on for the past twenty years. I'd say, like, since
Speaker 2: the new millennium is your idea of history the same
Speaker 2: as that after I say it.
Speaker 1: Was sooner than that, I mean more recent than that. Oh.
Speaker 3: Really, I feel like the America is the center of
Speaker 3: the world, and the peak of our existence would have
Speaker 3: been happening since like would have stopped happening maybe five
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, okay, I just think.
Speaker 1: Of what the Naughties were like, and we were like
Speaker 1: everyone's so cool. Pops us are so cool. In and
Speaker 1: Out is so cool. So four is so cool?
Speaker 2: Su Cream Mate, chrispy Kreme, you know, I mean, Christy
Speaker 2: Creame is still here. But I digress. I've wondered as
Speaker 2: well about this idea of malaise and this kind of
Speaker 2: like feeling of everyone's fighting all the time and like
Speaker 2: everything's bad and the news is bad, and like everyone's
Speaker 2: popping off on each other on social media and the
Speaker 2: news is bad.
Speaker 1: That's why neuroscientists don't watch it.
Speaker 2: I love that little bit. I think about that recently
Speaker 2: because I'm thinking I'm doing a good thing every morning.
Speaker 2: Go on to citny wan in Heroldan Center, my insta.
Speaker 2: My brain's still running, but now just strength. There's no
Speaker 2: pretty pictures say. This's all to say, you guys. This
Speaker 2: article in the Atlantic surmises, or rather suggests that the
Speaker 2: reason there's so much hatred and sadness in America is
Speaker 2: it not because of technology, sociology, demography, or economy.
Speaker 1: People care people today.
Speaker 2: It is because of something so simple. Americans. I no
Speaker 2: longer talk kindness.
Speaker 1: A hah.
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 1: Where are Australians talk kindness?
Speaker 2: I think of us as a connected culture just with
Speaker 2: our guns. Do you not see that? Slightly? I feel
Speaker 2: like we have taken so much of Americas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, That's what I'm saying. It's like, how where where
Speaker 1: are we being?
Speaker 3: I mean I can see that we're talk kindness in religion.
Speaker 1: There might be a little link there.
Speaker 2: Well, they get into it, right, Okay. The number one
Speaker 2: the technology story, which is that social media is driving
Speaker 2: us all crazy. The sociology story is that we stop
Speaker 2: participating in community organizations and are more isolated. The demographic story, America,
Speaker 2: long a white dominated nation, is becoming a much more
Speaker 2: diverse country, a change that has millions of white Americans
Speaker 2: in a panic. The economy story, high levels of economic
Speaker 2: inequality and insecurity have left people afraid, alienated, and pessimistic.
Speaker 3: So this is suggesting that these aren't the reasons why
Speaker 3: Americans are increasingly unkind.
Speaker 2: Allegedly, No, allegedly, they're things that we are told are
Speaker 2: And he thinks that this. Heace thinks that the thing
Speaker 2: is much more simple, and that is that they've become
Speaker 2: sad and rude because we inhabit a society in which
Speaker 2: people are no longer trained in how to treat others
Speaker 2: with kindness and consider Our society has become one in
Speaker 2: which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free reign.
Speaker 2: The story I'm going to tell is about morals in
Speaker 2: a healthy society. A web of institutions, family schools, religious groups,
Speaker 2: community organizations, and workplaces help people form interkinder and response
Speaker 2: more responsible citizens. The sort of people who shot for
Speaker 2: one another, and now we are currently terrible at moral formation.
Speaker 1: I think is that the freelancer economy?
Speaker 2: But like, that's really.
Speaker 1: Confused you people.
Speaker 2: That's what he meant though, right, And I wondered, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is one of them things where you say people
Speaker 2: killing people, dye and type of thing, right, Like it's
Speaker 2: very easy to just say this what's the solution, king,
Speaker 2: mm and kind of what he breaks down as this
Speaker 2: concept of morals two breaks. Oh sure, sure, let's get
Speaker 2: into this further because I think that he has a
Speaker 2: point here that I haven't heard before. And I will
Speaker 2: just reiterate the title of this piece was why are
Speaker 2: Americans Mean? So I think his terminology of mean is
Speaker 2: quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Here we have I said, unkind, and that's not the
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 2: Mean, nasty, and kind, They're all different. And what you
Speaker 2: said earlier, flex is this is kind of like isn't
Speaker 2: that kind of like what religion?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the consequence of not having a religious society or
Speaker 3: some kind of moral institution that's really enforcing the behavior,
Speaker 3: not just teaching it to you, but enforcing it with
Speaker 3: a consequence.
Speaker 2: With a consequence exactly. So moral formation, which sounds very stuffy,
Speaker 2: is what he is alluding to, and he breaks this up.
Speaker 2: He's going to break down the concept, and I'll read
Speaker 2: it to you. Moral formation, as I we use this
Speaker 2: stuffy sounding term here comprises of three things. First, helping
Speaker 2: people learn to restrain the selfishness. This is difficult in
Speaker 2: this social media landscape. I will say, how do we
Speaker 2: keep our evolutionary conferred egotism under control. That's a question
Speaker 2: that we need to answer. Second, teaching basic social and
Speaker 2: ethical skills. How do you welcome a neighbor into your community,
Speaker 2: how do you disagree with someone constructively? And Third, helping
Speaker 2: people find a purpose in life Morally, form formative institutions
Speaker 2: hold up a set of ideals. They provide practical pathways
Speaker 2: towards a meaningful existence. Here's how you can dedicate your
Speaker 2: life to serving the poor, or protecting the nation, or
Speaker 2: loving your neighbor. So beyond the classroom, which is kind
Speaker 2: of what he's suggesting, there's other groups like the YMCA,
Speaker 2: Sunday School, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Settlement House
Speaker 2: movement which brought rich and poor people together and served
Speaker 2: the marginalized. Yeah yeah, yeah, worker protections. This just I
Speaker 2: think you should go for yourself and read this article because.
Speaker 3: Definitely we can make a lot of parallels between American
Speaker 3: culture and Australian culture. I can understand why they didn't
Speaker 3: title the article why is the world getting meaner? Because
Speaker 3: the world is increasingly segregated, and how we deal with
Speaker 3: the nature of just being alive. But this idea of
Speaker 3: emotivism and how what feels good, is right in a
Speaker 3: lot of instances is the correct way to be. But
Speaker 3: having to scale in really micro and then out really
Speaker 3: macro and oscillate between those two thoughts constantly. As the
Speaker 3: article says, it's a lot for one person to do,
Speaker 3: which is why people seek out these institutions to create
Speaker 3: this common way of behaving so I don't have to
Speaker 3: default to critically unpacking every single thing about being alive.
Speaker 1: Someone else do it.
Speaker 2: Give us a rule book, for damn sakes.
Speaker 1: They did that. They've been doing that for a little while.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.
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