The Fragile Line: Morality, Friendship, and the Choices That Define Us

Title Friendship, Betrayal, and the Fragile Line Between Good and Evil In this episode of Our Friendly World with Fawn and Matt, we explore how ordinary people can become complicit in harm when fear, propaganda, or survival instincts override empathy. From historical lessons to personal stories of betrayal, Fawn and Matt discuss the importance of moral anchors, the power of friendships, and how courageous conversations can help us resist division. Together, they remind us that kindness, compassion, and meaningful debate are essential for building trust and preventing betrayal in our communities. friendship and betrayal, fragile line between good and evil, preventing betrayal, empathy and morality, trust in friendships, moral compass, compassion in society, friendship podcast, resisting propaganda, importance of debate #FriendshipMatters #TrustAndBetrayal #FragileLine #GoodAndEvil #CompassionCounts #MoralCompass #KindnessIsStrength #FriendshipPodcast #EmpathyFirst #CourageousConversations Title: The Fragile Line: Morality, Friendship, and the Choices That Define Us Description (short paragraph): In this thought-provoking episode of Our Friendly World with Fawn and Matt, we explore the fragile line between good and evil and the moral choices that shape our relationships and society. From lessons of history and Holocaust survivors to modern-day debates on empathy, propaganda, and authority, Fawn and Matt examine how compassion, friendship, and ethical anchors can prevent betrayal and violence. Together, they discuss the importance of stable moral identity, questioning authority, honoring traditions of kindness, and keeping conversations alive to build stronger, more resilient communities. Keywords: friendship podcast, morality and ethics, fragile line between good and evil, empathy and compassion, questioning authority, propaganda and fear, Holocaust lessons, moral dilemmas, stable moral identity, role of friendship in society, ethical anchors, resilience in community, power of conversation Hashtags: #FriendshipPodcast #MoralityMatters #CompassionInAction #EthicalLiving #PowerOfFriendship #StableMoralIdentity #EmpathyAndCompassion #QuestionAuthority #CommunityResilience #KindnessIsStrength #ConsciousConversations #OurFriendlyWorld Why People Turn Against Each Other FAWN: [00:00:00] Even in the darkest times, even, even in the darkest times, the friendship reflex, seeing someone as part of our human family can override fear and propaganda. The whole idea. Of trust for me. Mm-hmm. I've been looking at that more and more, and I've found myself thinking, I don't trust anyone except for you. And then I saw an interview with a couple who used to be CIA. The woman was asked. Before CIA and after CIA. What's, what was your worldview? Mm-hmm. And she said before, I'm, I'm totally paraphrasing, but before CIA, she had a kind of a rosier picture of humanity. But at, but then after, no, she doesn't trust anyone. And I've heard both of them, say that before, and I thought, well, it's just because of their job. You know, they were definitely put into situations never [00:01:00] to trust anyone. That's just how it goes. That's part of the job, right? If you're like a spy it's inherent in the job. Yeah. It's inherent. Mm-hmm. MATT: Well, if you're put in that pressure cooker situation FAWN: mm-hmm. MATT: You, your view of humanity certainly changes. FAWN: She said why? She worked in a lot of refugee camps said that hearing people's stories of how people said. It would never happen here because my friend would never turn on me. Right. My neighbor would never turn on me. Right. And it was exactly those same people who ended up killing Right. Their friends and families, neighbors. And so, you know, certain things happen in the news and, and we, we get fearful and we get. Understandably so, like, you get scared, right? Mm-hmm. So I was thinking, and I said something out loud to you and the kids, and I saw how all of you paused. And that for, for me, that pause lasted a very long [00:02:00] time. Like it just stopped time for a bit. Okay? And I'm like, uhoh, I shouldn't have said that, but I'm glad I did because I think the shock of being so, um, disappointed. In people is just as bad as the crimes that they do against you sometimes. Right? Do you agree? MATT: Yes. It can be, FAWN: the shock is just as shocking, MATT: right? Well, if people who you felt like, you know, metaphorically speaking, you fought next to, you've bled, next to you've died next to, and then they just, either they abandon you or. They even turn on you. FAWN: I've just seen it for myself too many times. Like, you know when when we had to call the ambulance and they were taking you away, the neighbors were just like, it was a soap opera. They were just watching it. They didn't come out to help. MATT: Right. FAWN: And then three weeks later, when I finally came back [00:03:00] from the hospital, The kids were with strangers. The only reason they talked to me was they wanted to know the gossip. What's the hot gossip? Right? Like what happened? And when I did tell them what happened, thinking to myself, why? Why didn't he come out? He was obviously looking at us and he was right there, right? Just sitting back with his tea looking. As soon as he found out what it was, he's like, oh, and then he walked away. I'm like. Wow. It, I felt so, like, just talking about it right now brings this acidy feeling in my chest. Mm-hmm. Um, so I was telling you and the kids, the whole thing about the pausing, so that stayed with me. That, that, that kind of behavior so I said, okay, so one of our neighbors across the street who seems very loving and caring and all this. Out of the blue. I said, don't get it twisted. Let's say I get picked up or I disappear somehow. She's like, oh no, what happened to your mom? And you tell her what happened, MATT: [00:04:00] right? FAWN: She'll be like, oh no. And then she'll go right back to picking her tomatoes. So I said, don't get it twisted. She would not do anything MATT: right. FAWN: So she just was there to hear the gossip. And I've been talking a lot about gossip lately. It's just really getting to me because. I I, I've been seeing more of that kind of behavior, that kind of disappointment where you think someone's your friend, but they're not, they have an ulterior motive, whether it's they wanna keep control of the community. You move in, they just wanna like make sure that you do the things their way. So they pretend to be your friend. Do whatever it takes, right? MATT: So they can manipulate you into doing what they want you to do. Right? So FAWN: that's what I've seen the past couple years here. And, um, so yeah, I don't trust anyone. And, we've been talking about like how they'll always ask us questions, but they won't share anything. And now I'm like, I, I don't even ask me any, I [00:05:00] won't even answer you. I think now they get that vibe from me, so now they're not even talking to me. Do you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. Like, they're, it's just like, hello. And I won't even look at them anymore. I'm just like, hello? Right. And I'll walk away. Very unfriendly of me. I know, but I, so my question was, what makes someone do that? What makes someone. By that, I mean, I'm talking about war. Like what? What makes a friend's neighbor, right next door neighbor, someone you grew up with all of a sudden be willing to kill you or completely destroy you? What happens What. How psychologically, sociologically, like how does that happen? So I had, you know, I tried to do some research and I have some notes here of like psychologists that just describe it. Mm-hmm. And like, should we just go down the list really quick? MATT: We can, we can go through that for sure. We can [00:06:00] also spin back just for a minute and talk about basically pressure cooker situations. Like really we're gonna have to deal with the real extremes so that we can start isolating the not extremes. And by extreme, you know, not extreme, I mean the neighbors, by extremes, I'm talking about Hitler. When he put the Jews into ghettos, he said he wanted everybody over the age of 60. They were all gonna go to wonderful old people camps, but everybody knew that Hitler was gonna kill 'em. FAWN: Did they? I don't know if in the beginning they did know. MATT: Well, did they? They had a very excellent sense of it. Mm. Because Hitler wasn't exactly saying he was gonna pat these people on the head and send them on their way. People turned in their grandparents. People turned in their parents because better them than me. You [00:07:00] can't fault them for that is the worst part. It was a horrific thing to do, but they didn't have a ton of choice. FAWN: I don't know if that's true. Matt, how do you know that? MATT: How do they knew every, they knew where all the old people were. FAWN: But how do you know that people, and they knew who, whose parents that were, how do you know children actually turned in their parents, children being like adults that whatever. How old, MATT: how did all these people go? And more specifically, the one anecdotal story I can tell you is these parents hid their, hid their parents. They, they made a bunker for them. It was all super secret and everything else. And the German said, well, where are they? And they said, we don't know. And they said, well, if you don't give them to us, we're gonna take you. FAWN: Okay. MATT: So welcome. And that's the pressure cooker extreme. And we're getting super serious, super fast today. You know, but what are you gonna do? That's, that's one of the many kind of stresses that, that you, that gets put onto it. [00:08:00] FAWN: Mm-hmm. MATT: You know, and that absolutely, once again, extreme, extreme case, but you know, that starts to really give you a sense of human nature FAWN: and, and the whole discounting. Like, that's not really happening because that is happening right now. In the United States, like you go to certain friends, I go to certain friends, I'm like, oh my God. They're like, what are you talking about? What news are you reading? What news are you getting? That's not happening When I'm like, Hey, people are disappearing. People being rounded up and taken. MATT: Right. FAWN: And then they're, they make me feel like I'm crazy. MATT: Well. And that's, again, that's kind of the second one. And it's, it's FAWN: happening MATT: everywhere. That, that's the second one though. What did you say? You said people are getting, they're illegal immigrants. They're not people. FAWN: Oh my God. [00:09:00] Yeah. Right. Yeah. MATT: That's, that's the second way that this thing happens because we, they, they are the others. They are no longer, that's just it part of, so we were talking about this part of us. They're not us, they're FAWN: them, but we were talking about this and you know, I said. Hey, like, 'cause you know, I'm a person of color and they're just rounding everybody up. That looks a certain way. But you know, so I was like, Hey, like it don't get it twisted. They seem like they care about us, but in the end she'll go back to picking her tomatoes. Mm-hmm. 10 seconds after you say whatever happened. Right. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. Like if that happens. Right. MATT: Right, and again, you make the moral justifications though. Welcome to you do things and then you later morally justify whatever it is you just did, which is the really fun part, right? There's a disconnect in your brain and your memory and your everything else. So guess what? They, you know, what's the easy, what's the easiest answer I can have [00:10:00] that'll make it easy for me to sleep at night? I guess she was illegal. Regardless of whether or not you were or not, they can define it that way and they can go to sleep. How scary is that? FAWN: So getting into the sociological forces, so. There's group identity and othering, which is what you're talking about, and that's what I just said. Yes. Humans have a strong tendency to divide into groups, us them. And that's what's happening now here, especially when political, religious, or ethnic lines are emphasized. People can be conditioned to see even in their neighbors as outsiders. I mean, I've always felt like an outsider wherever I've gone. And I saw this starting to happen way more than ever before. Starting in 2016 was the, the whole, you're dehumanizing people by calling [00:11:00] them cockroaches or calling them dirty or violent, low lifes. Uh, even like in, in all groups like un, those, those people are uneducated. They're, you know, they're stupid, they're crazy. It's just you are othering them. So it makes it easier to commit terrible acts upon these people. It makes it easier to discount them. And when bad things happen, then you are not as empathetic . Then there's, also social pressure, a lot of bad things are not necessarily done by quote unquote evil people, but by regular people that are under a lot of pressure. Yeah. There have been so many, studies, the Stanford principal, MATT: um, prison experiment. Absolutely. Right, right. That was where they basically, during the sixties, they got a group of, I think men, they split 'em in half. Your guards, your prisoners. You have to [00:12:00] keep the prisoners from escaping. You have to, you have to be a prisoner. And the first thing they did to the prisoners is shaved their heads, boom. And so they completely othered them. And it turned into, they were told at the beginning of the experiment as a prisoner at any moment you can say, I'm done and you can leave. None of them did. They all accepted a quote unquote prisoner's mentality, and the guards accepted the guard's mentality. The guards became abusive. The prisoners became submissive. ' FAWN: cause it's addictive. That kind of feeling. MATT: It's just, there was so much, again, social pressure, conformity. There's, and that's what they discovered. You know, this wasn't, this was a real experiment and a really messed up one, by the way, but this was a real experiment and it, it came down to, um, people from the outside tried to free the prisoners and break in. And that's when the, and that's when the people in charge said, this experiment's over. FAWN: So here's the next [00:13:00] thing that really scares me Now, you know, because people are so scared about things getting really bad in the United States. Right. And like civil War again and everything, MATT: things are possible. FAWN: What's happening now, and I'm afraid of it getting worse with the dollar, losing its value and everything, and so many people are without jobs. Mm-hmm. The whole, the scarcity and competition thing. Because that's when you are in competition for food, right? For, for shelter, for, anything, right? Or for survival, MATT: right? You're in a, you're in a scarcity mind you, you enter a scarcity mindset and FAWN: that's when you, you can just throw everything out the window and go, I don't care if I look bad. I don't care if I'm losing a friend. I, you know, whatever. Right? I'm here to. Survive. Exactly. And bad things happen in survival mode. MATT: Really bad things. FAWN: And then going to psychological factors. There's the fear and survival instincts. The instincts of it, like fear [00:14:00] is the most powerful weapon. Most. MATT: Most is weird, but it's a very strong one. FAWN: Okay, you're right. Love is the most powerful, but fear can control people. Some years ago, someone said to me, they use fear to make you buy things. Fear runs the economy, MATT: fear of missing FAWN: out because once you start fearing something, you tend to buy more. Think about it, you're like stocking up on food, on guns, on whatever. Mm-hmm. Alcohol, like whatever it is. Like when people get scared Yes. They, you, you tend to hoard. Yes. Right. So it's actually good for the economy. So whoever runs us. Governs us. Like it's best for us to be fearful and also to obey. Like, if I'm fearful, I'll obey you because I'm scared. Right? Like, oh, you're gonna help, or, oh, I'm, you're gonna hurt me. Okay. You know what I'm saying? And there, there's different [00:15:00] levels until you get to a point where we're like, F it. MATT: Right? But there are, I'm FAWN: ready to lose everything. MATT: There are different levels. You can literally be afraid of being, you know, seen as inferior by your peer group is, is kind of almost the easiest, lightest fear, but it's still very real. FAWN: So here it says, leaders who stoke fear of the enemy within or betrayal can flip trust into suspicion almost overnight. Fear primes, people for violence often justified as self-defense. And then there's, obedience to authority, which is what I was just saying, right? Mm-hmm. Yes. When, when trusted leaders, governments, or religious figures sanction violence, when they're like, yeah, it's okay. Then people have this, uh, moral permission to act against their neighbors, their friends. Like it's even become like their duty to do so. Right, right. MATT: It's, it's illegal [00:16:00] for you to hide Jews. Ethics class. Sorry guys. Ethics class taught me the easiest way to really tear down, um, kind of a lot of the moral and ethical quandaries, even though it's become fashionable now, is the tie to the Nazis. Um, however, in internet speak, that's a terrible thing because we've almost trivialized the Nazis or, or they're brought up too often and, and this subject, I think subject matter warrants that. FAWN: I don't, I disagree with you. I don't think bringing it up too often is the thing. I think making it like, it's no big deal, you know, much like. Just, you know, overusing the word and not really stopping to say to yourself, what does this really mean? I'm just saying this word. Do you know what I'm saying? It, it sounds like you're agreeing MATT: with me. FAWN: Am I? No, I thought you were saying, I'm saying MATT: it's being brought up too often and not in the proper context. [00:17:00] FAWN: Oh, okay. See as a person who, with my background mm-hmm. I hear that as, oh, you shouldn't talk about it that much. Like people just bring up, 'cause you always say to me, if I bring up the Nazi thing, you say if you bring up the Hitler thing, then you've lost the, that's one of those weird MATT: internet memes. Right. FAWN: So, I'm sorry, my brain just went there and thought you were disagreeing with me because. I'm like, no, we need to talk about this. And people don't. Well, but that's just, if, MATT: if you're equating Hitler to you're, you're not getting ice cream. FAWN: No. Yeah. You're being an idiot. Got it. MATT: If you bring it up in the context of how terrible a society can get, FAWN: but even that, then you're, MATT: then you're playing the right, you're on the right field, FAWN: and we're not even really like, totally getting into it. I don't think the kids have been taught, most kids are taught really what happened. That's why I think a lot of people go, well, it can't happen here, which is what everybody says, right? But if you've been through that kind of a thing [00:18:00] as an immigrant, you see it. You see all the signs, you feel it, you know, and this is something I've been telling you for years. I'm like, I am feeling it like, Matt, what's going on? And you're like, oh, you know, you, you've never said, oh, this will never happen here. But I feel like it's been that kind of attitude. So like for me, it's even scarier 'cause I'm like, okay, am I going crazy because I don't feel safe? Like, I feel like, I don't know, I, I totally lost my train of thought. Alright. But anyway, so. Where were we? Oh, so the other thing is cognitive dissonance and, um, justification, right? Like you start doing small things that are harmful and then you just get used to it. So you do bigger and bigger things. Slippery slope. Like you say Matt, all the time, right? Like we're vegan. [00:19:00] And then if, if like honey comes into it, you're like, okay, slippery slope, or like mm-hmm. Once you have honey, then you're like, oh, maybe I'll just have some milk. Then once in a while and then we run into people that are like, oh yeah, I'm vegan, but sometimes I have milk. And then also maybe on Wednesdays, I, I like to have salmon. I'm like, you are not vegan. But you know, it's, it was a slippery slope that led them to whatever. I mean, right. So anyway, take that example as you will to in context to what, what we're trying to talk about here. But do you know what I'm saying? You guys like, it's a slippery slope. We have to remember what integrity is, what friendship is. What is it really? Going back to Nichomachean ethics, the three kinds of friends, the friend, because you just love them as opposed to the friend, because I'm getting something out of this or the friend because they make me feel a certain way. Those don't [00:20:00] last. It's just really important to go back to that and go back to really thinking about being a person of integrity, knowing what's wrong, what's wrong, and what's right. Right. Why are you looking up? MATT: Because I, I wanna bring up, I wanna bring up a word. You hate it when I bring up, FAWN: oh, is it stoic? Yes. Oh my God. What, MATT: what do we control? FAWN: I control everything. MATT: Okay? But stoic believes you really don't control very much. What you control are is your integrity, whatever your sense of integrity is, and you control how you deal with events that come at you. So you can choose to get angry and throw a punch, or you can choose to let it roll off your back. And you also choose to act with however it is you choose to define integrity. If that is being a slave owner and it's being a slave owner, if it's, [00:21:00] you know, uh, treating everyone equally, purely and fairly, it's treating everybody equally, purely and fairly. But that's it. That's all you have control over. Everything else is everything else. So yeah, it's all about keeping yourself together and realizing the things that you can and can't affect, and there's very little you can affect. Now, that doesn't mean you're just in a basement somewhere, not doing anything. Stoicism also has a sense of, God help us they call it preferred indifference, and I really wish they didn't. These are things that you'd be a lot happier if they did exist. Things like having a job, being rich, being mega healthy, but these aren't necessarily things you can control. These are things you can influence, but not control. But the things you can control and the things you should control are acting with integrity and how you respond to events. FAWN: So all the people that the held their friends together, their neighbors together [00:22:00] and hid them from the Nazis. Yes. And I'm not talking the ones that did that and then turned them in on purpose because they were getting paid. I'm talking about the people who actually put their lives in danger and saved thousands of people. Or even MATT: just one FAWN: like Albania did that during World War ii. Right. MATT: And there was a, there was a king. Was a king who said, was it the Ns? I'm Jewish. FAWN: Right? MATT: And he wore the star of David as a symbol to say, this is some bs. FAWN: Right? And can we talk about collective trauma? Because there's collective trauma, but we can also take it as collective integrity. Collective trauma is entire communities under stress. They can adopt some really extreme behaviors that they would never have when everything is okay. It's, well, yeah. We were talking, we were talking about, about this, the, your masses with people last [00:23:00] episode. It's a social contagion and. I'm doing this episode today. This was my idea. I'm sorry it's a little dark today. but I'm doing this because I feel like this is what's happening and we need a reminder to not be fearful and not pick sides even, because the way, we can easily turn on each other practically overnight is when we're divided and we're very divided right now, I have friends who just stopped talking to me because they think I'm this hardcore liberal democrat and I'm not even, do you know what I'm saying? Yes. It doesn't even matter. Like I, and I'm not, uh, I'm not anything but for them to just like, they, that was it. Like, and mind you, I never even said anything political. I was always very careful. And even with that, that, well, you, you basically, I, over me, you probably MATT: got othered as it [00:24:00] were. Yeah. FAWN: And what's what's trippy is they're exactly like me, same skin color, same, upbringing, everything, you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So you can look exactly the same and still be othered. Anyway, but if we can turn this collective trauma, like okay, we're all under a lot of stress. I mean, I was spitting mad a few days ago, literally spitting mad. Um. If we can turn that into just thinking, okay, despite everything, I'm gonna figure out what my integrity is, what is, how do I hold my integrity? MATT: Right. Right. How do you hold your integrity? Spoken like a true stoic, FAWN: the stoic business is like, MATT: is driving you crazy? I FAWN: know. No, I, I don't like those words driving me crazy. So the fragile line between good and evil, there's a, a quote from a Holocaust survivor, "monsters exist, but they are [00:25:00] too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries, ready to believe and act without asking questions." Did I read that right? MATT: Yes. Yeah, that was the Nuremberg Trials. Again, with the Nazis, just following orders, I was, I was obeying orders from a lawful government. What a great excuse. FAWN: So in short, people often commit atrocities against friends and neighbors, not because they, they're innately evil. But because fear, propaganda authority and survival instincts override empathy. Once that trust is fractured and someone is redefined as the quote unquote enemy, even intimate bonds can shatter. MATT: So what do we do? FAWN: We need to prevent betrayal and [00:26:00] violence, having a strong moral compass and ethical anchors, so people who have deeply internalized values of kindness, empathy, or faith in humanity, faith and human dignity are less likely to turn against neighbors. So we have to remember all the good things that people have done. You know, like people always say, like to little kids when devastation happens, like, um, during nine 11, the adults who are telling the little kids, look, look for the, helpers. They're everywhere. It's true. when. It was just us at the hospital. There was always an angel somewhere helping. Sometimes it was David. Oh, actually I don't remember his name, but he was a janitor and he saw me crying in the women's bathroom, right, like three in the morning. Um, you have to remember the kind people. All the [00:27:00] help you've received, because that helps you stay compassionate and hopeful, MATT: Yes. FAWN: so I guess psychologists call this the, um, stable moral identity. Stable moral identity. When someone sees themselves as the kind of person who helps others, they are more resistant to propaganda and pressure. Personal relationships and empathy- when bonds of friendship are shared. when you have friendship bonds and you have a history, a strong history together, that overrides group identity pressures. But here's the thing, I think we've been so separate for so long. Like how many people do you know that actually have that shared bond? Right? People move away. I don't know. We, and that's why it's, that's where the scary thing is right now of being divided. And that's why MATT: it's so important to keep your friendships, especially your older ones, keep your friendships alive. FAWN: and then being courageous enough to resist authority when. [00:28:00] You know, like even our kids, I taught them, look, sometimes I, you have to, question my authority if I'm telling you something. Right? Right. So to not follow blindly and to have this strong sense of agency and question authority, even when you're put under a lot of pressure. Still question authority. and when you see someone do that, like when you do that, guaranteed it's contagious that another person will also act the same courageous and moral way, because much like the opposite. It is contagious. Right? This is contagious in a good way, MATT: Absolutely. FAWN: And then also like, and then I was thinking, well. This is why we need to bring back ceremony and bring back traditions, even like the religious traditions that are beautiful because in a lot of cultures, protecting a guest, a [00:29:00] neighbor or stranger is a sacred duty. That's what they did in Albania, for example, like during World War ii, it's the tradition of, , I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, but Besa Besa, BESA, it's a code of honor led by many Muslim families to shelter like they would shelter the Jewish, their Jewish neighbors, despite the risk of death. MATT: Well, if you were a, if you were a guest in a Muslim home mm-hmm. They're obligated to protect you. FAWN: Right. MATT: Period. End of story. You're done FAWN: having a community, solidarity, like. In certain towns, neighbors made a collective decision not to betray each other. But we're not talking to one another. So we're not even having these conversations. And if we do like, let you know, like I can say, okay, let's not betray each other. Okay, but what does that really mean? Like you, you always think a hundred steps ahead, Matt. [00:30:00] So if someone makes that comment, you actually think about it and we have to say, okay, well what does this mean? I remember, we were somewhere and you said you looked at someone. This was our relatives. And you, there was a friend that came over of one of the relatives and you said, she will betray the friendship for $200. You said that out of the blue oh my God, what does that mean? What? And you know, years later, the same thing happened to me. I had a friend, and again, it was $200, over $200. She ruined our friendship. we were having a really hard time. we were both unemployed, freaking out. I had purchased something on the internet from her, like a, a, an e-course. And it was someone that used to come on our show actually. And I said, Hey, I didn't sign up for this. Now it's an ongoing thing, thing every month. Can you please, um, end it? 'cause you know, Matt's [00:31:00] not working. I'm not working. It's really stressing me out. And she wouldn't do it because she wanted to get paid. She had no empathy for, or compassion for my situation. MATT: Well, here's the problem. She had plenty of empathy for your situation. She just had more empathy for her own situation. FAWN: Yeah, MATT: and that's the problem is people, people have lost the sense of. Moral absolutism and they've gotten into moral relativism. And moral relativism always breaks down. That was the big takeaway from my, um, intro to ethics class, which I keep referring to, of all the courses I took in college. FAWN: Mm-hmm. MATT: Not programming, not gravity. Gra I learned gravitational constance, I learned no. I come back to Sociology of Love, which I haven't talked about on this course, of course, on this podcast, but I also come back to intro to Ethics, and it's, it's important to realize [00:32:00] that you either decide killing is wrong or killing is not wrong. Those are your choices. You can make all kinds of fun-filled decisions around it and say, well, if it's Hitler, well, if it's 2 million people on one side and one person on the other side. No, you're still saying you're still assigning value or weight or anything else. Killing is wrong or killing is not wrong. Take your choice. That's an absolute right. You know, and come up with everything else you wanna come up with because of it. Empathy and you know, to make yourself feel better. But like the kids were talking about it and there's this. Psychological experiment. And the psychological experiment is if you pull a switch, you're gonna kill, you're gonna kill two people. If you don't pull the switch, you're gonna kill 20 people. But that's not the real test. The real test is are you gonna pull a [00:33:00] switch and kill two people? And that's it. It's not, or not. Pull the switch. Not pulling the switch isn't something you have to do. Pulling the switch is a cognitive action. So you are making the decision to kill two people or you're moving on with your life. And that's how I saw that equation, which is why I had such a difficult time understanding it. Now, point of fact, if I was in that, you know, ultimate observer mode where I knew a hundred percent of the whole story, I'd pulled a switch. Life is simple, but it isn't that simple. You don't know what's going to happen FAWN: and it. You just don't know anything because not pulling the switch, is that just like ignoring a problem and saying, you know what, I don't wanna get involved? Is it you hear something out in the street, you hear someone crying for help and you're not even gonna call the police and just [00:34:00] kind of go about and pretend you didn't hear it. 'cause you don't wanna get, because you don't know, you can say, well, I don't know what's going on. I don't wanna get anyone in trouble, so I'm not gonna call the police. And, and welcome to, which is what people used to do, the MATT: decisions that you can make to justify whatever it is you choose to do in hindsight. FAWN: So it, it's, it's those, those, those, what do you call these things? Those moral dilemmas. Those moral dilemmas are impossible. MATT: They can be, FAWN: no, they're impossible. They are impossible to me. MATT: Basically you have to do what you feel is right in the moment. FAWN: Life is crazy. Yes, MATT: it is. But that's why it's important that you have an understanding of what you believe is moral and not moral, and you do your darnedest to hold onto it regardless of the situation. FAWN: And that's just it. I don't think we have leadership, whether it's parental or anything anymore, to, to, to know what's, what our morals should be. To give examples. [00:35:00] I mean, we have a sense of it in our hearts, but I mean, if you're gonna sit there and think about it, there are so many instances where things can go either way. So you, it's not well thought out because we're not thoughtful enough to, or, or we don't have enough vision to understand the consequences of an action Either way, we can't look at every single. Uh, ripple effect of, uh, an action. Most people aren't talented like that. You are. I, I'm not, you know, I, I, I, I go by instincts and I go by emotion. MATT: You muddle through as best you can. FAWN: Yeah, but it's not well thought out. I wish I was more thoughtful. I wish I was smarter. I wish I was more able to like, have the capacity to even, or the concentration, the capacity of like concentration to, [00:36:00] to keep my mind focused on okay, if a gets pressed, then b and C and d and you know, like how mm-hmm. How are things going to line up? Right? I wish I could think like that. I'm purely a hundred percent, I wanna say a hundred percent. Um, uh, instinct, instinctual. Yeah. So anyway, and and that's the last thing on the list was like having role models in leadership. I'm like, I've always said this my entire life. I'm like, my parents didn't know what the hell was up. MATT: Right? FAWN: So I, from a very early age, knew they didn't, these people dunno what they're doing. They're freaking out. Right. So I, I mean, my teachers were, a bunch of them were terrible. I can probably count two teachers my entire lifetime that were amazing. The [00:37:00] rest were criminal. So what are we supposed to do you guys, but have a podcast and sit here in our basement or wherever, you know, like talking about this pontificating on everything and. You know, and I laugh about it all the time. People think, oh, oh, you have a Friendship podcast. Yay. It's all, roses and flowers and daisies. Let's be friends. You know? Instead, here I am talking about, MATT: here we are talking about Nazis the whole time FAWN: life, you know? Mm-hmm. I mean, when we started this podcast, you and I would have major fights and our audience actually thought it was really funny, hell, how we would fight over things. You know, because we had disagreements about race and everything being an interracial couple and I was experiencing certain things and I was fed up and Right. I felt like you weren't understanding me anymore or, or never did. So I was like, how are you siding with these bitches over here? You know, like. [00:38:00] So I feel like I've grown a little bit, or I, or I've lost my steam. So I'm not really fighting that much anymore with you. I you off, I don't know. I'm just, I'm doing my best. I just wish we, I guess we could be each other's role models and have conversations and figure out what our ethics actually mean. What are they even, do we have any, MATT: or we find role models out there in the world. Epictetus, Nelson Mandela, John Stockdale. Those are some good candidates. FAWN: Okay, so let's just end it with a quote that we began. MATT: Can I, oh yeah. One more. So this past week in England, 'cause I get all my news from England, um, there was, they're having issues because immigrants, immigrants are coming and they're staying in certain [00:39:00] hotel, they're getting put up by the state into hotels while they sort out their legal status, et cetera, et cetera. There was a protest, and actually I wanna say even this morning there was, uh, people got arrested for going in their mask to do God knows what. Immigrants. So boom. Now we're with, now we're inside of the whole others. So there was 200 people there protesting. There was 800 people there, counter protesting, and the counter protests all say, you are all Nazis. You are all Nazis. For an hour they had a chant that basically called them fascists, called them Nazis. FAWN: Wait, who? Who, who had 800 people? MATT: The counter protestors. FAWN: Wait. I, I don't, that's where I'm, you lost me. So the MATT: protestors are the ones saying, get these immigrants out of our country. The counter protestors are saying they're going through the legal process jerky. Wait, FAWN: so who had the most amount of numbers? The counter protestors. Well, that's a good sign. Yes. MATT: However, the counter protestors basically just verbally assaulted the, um, the protestors for an [00:40:00] hour, whereas they could have possibly educated them. And they chose not to, right. Not chose not to. They didn't. Easier to chant. Easier to, easier to, easier to, right. FAWN: Yeah. MATT: One of the leaders of that whole thing took a step back after it had happened and said, why didn't we educate them? Why didn't we attack them Point by point. Because one of the points being made, and like one of the points being made towards the immigrant crisis here in America is that was in England it is" they're all men and they're all gonna do bad things to the women." That's one of the arguments that they're making in England. And here they're making the argument saying they're criminals, they're here illegally, and they're gang members. Boom, boom, boom. Right? Well, you need to attack on those points. You need to really look at those points and go after those points FAWN: and, and this is what I was saying, not educated enough, not able to have conversations without yelling. Not being able to remain calm and [00:41:00] collected to explain your point of view. Right. And wasn't it Einstein that said if you can't explain something, you don't understand it. True. If you can't explain it to a child, you can't, you don't understand it. MATT: Right. But again, we control how we react to events is one of the few things we control. And so. You know this, this author was saying, well, what we should have said is, guess what? Half of these immigrants in this hotel aren't men. That's a fact. Then you can start with the rest of your points once you start cracking it open. So again, cracking it open and having both sides understand what truth is. FAWN: We need more debate study. We need , to be put into classroom situations where we have to debate one another and to debate opposing sides. Yes. Both sides. Like the sides you don't agree with. Mm-hmm to have us, , practice, in an intelligent, calm way, to see another perspective and to explain that [00:42:00] perspective. MATT: Right. Right. But this world is full of, FAWN: but there no one has time for that. I don't wanna MATT: look foolish. That's what, that's one of the big problems is the world is filled with, I don't wanna look foolish, you know? Um, FAWN: but that's just it. If you study, then you're, you don't look foolish. But we don't have time to study or we're discouraged from studying whether it's because we can't afford to go to school because schools are so expensive or they're not even taught right. You know? Right. So we need to teach each other. We need to teach ourselves MATT: point, FAWN: and we need to have conversations with friends and debate. Debate everything. Healthy, MATT: healthy, respectful debate. FAWN: But you know, it, it's like, um, I, I just feel like it's so medieval. Remember when we were on that train and there was that kid Oh, course. Who, who was on a debate team and you're like, Hey, I'll help you. Like, that's one of my main things. I, I, I love debate. So you said I'll, I'll be the devil's advocate, so I'll [00:43:00] despite how I feel, I'll be the opposing team. And so you guys started going back and forth and the passengers on that train didn't know what you guys were doing. Right. So next thing you know, this poor kid Yes. Was like booed and heckled and practically thrown off the train. MATT: Yes. Because I took the populist argument FAWN: and the populist argument was terrible. Terrible. The kid was basically saying we should give medicine to all the countries that can't afford it. And then you played devil's advocate and all these like very America first and f these people, you know, MATT: they were in a scarcity mindset. FAWN: Yeah. MATT: You know, and, and that's it. But he needed to answer those questions. That was the problem. FAWN: Yeah. MATT: You know, I don't, I don't regret cutting into them exactly the way I did. He needed to be able to answer those questions. FAWN: I wonder [00:44:00] how he did when he actually went to his debate. I don't know. I don't know. But that was a, I MATT: think I popped a little bit of his, he lived in a pure liberal bubble. Yeah. He is so liberal and you need to live in more of the real world. Yeah. Because there's a billion shades of gray. FAWN: Yeah. Yeah. Well, should we stop here? MATT: We can stop FAWN: here. I mean, far as you know. Yes. I don't know how long we've been talking. Thanks for staying with us. MATT: If you have any nominations for heroes, I'd love to hear 'em. FAWN: Yeah. Alright. Have a beautiful, every day MATT: be well.