Transcripts For CSPAN2 Justin Tosi And Brandon Warmke Grands

The moral language to draw attention to their moral superiority to illustrate how selfaggrandizing damages public conversations. We are joined by the books author and specializes in the six watching this event justin and brandon thank you for joining us. To began briefly what is grandstanding . If you want the simple Bumper Sticker description, it is using discussion of Public Discourse and grant standards use morality and justice and family values and tradition to draw attention to themselves. They want others to think of themselves as morally ally and in something more detailed is grandstanding but the first part is the grant standards want a certain audience to come to believe those certain moral qualities. And they Say Something and what they say typing into cable news or some speech or politician. Thats called the grandstanding expression it is motivated in a significant way and a desire for praise on the side of the angels. Turn and in terms of equation with a primary or significant motivation to be seen as morally impressive. Whats the difference between grandstanding and virtue signaling . To differences. They talk about virtue signaling they could just as well be talking about grandstanding. And virtue signaling is not an ideal term for capturing what is going wrong when people use talk in the way we describe. Its not about virtue. Its thought to be of excellent character. Showing people that you are decent enough. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. You dont treat women that way they are trying to show that they have certain moral qualities. And not trying to claim any virtue. And another problem is more serious that signaling is overbroad. But the signal anytime to make any moral claim at all. But we dont object to every instance. But typically that is a narrower term. Yes and just to add. And with grandstanding in 2013 and in the public discussions and with this ostentatious moral behavior. And there are lots of reasons why its not the most helpful terminology to pick up a discussion of selfinvolved egoistic moral talk. What has been picked up in the cultural wars. And with that complaint all the research we have done over some studies. And equally bipartisan just as much as people on the right. Of those ideological extreme do it much more. And what most people have in mind they are accusing someone of using moral talk for selfpromotion so whenever you do something virtuous in public that equivocation that now we have this discussion of the arguments coming out of the 1980 a book and baseball with the idea and they were playing to the grandstand. It is a very intentional use of moral talk for selfpromotion. So that idea virtue signaling of the choices and decisions that may not be made for political grandstanding purposes but you have chosen to specific focus on moral talking conversation so why the focus on speech . And to communicate someone has been wronged and worthy of trust. And then for improving the world. Its easy to abuse and take for granted so we might think that people would naturally want to take care of this and preserve it and use it for appropriate purposes. And that you could also abuse this resource. Like a public park and it can be used for proper for those purposes and grandstanding is one of those uses of moral talk to degrade those social currencies and the ability to have conversations with each other over what matters grant standards find a way to turn these discussions of important problems about themselves. So our focus on public conversation given the rise of social media occurs is the time to have a conversation. And to bring action into the conversation and talking about action with the hundred Million Dollars for Cancer Research you might not care as much if they want a wing named after themselves because the amount of good they do is so much greater than the amount of good. You can have a fairly major speech. Another reason just to focus on speech instead of action but the model for what we are trying to do is give the account of a certain speech act. You probably notice again and again with the comparisons to lying. To focus on dishonesty dishonesty and forms of expression and different areas of life but you learn a lot that talk about dishonest speech we took that as a model and then to shed some light. The core of the book the taxonomy of grandstanding for me was an interesting section it has a sense even if we call it virtue signaling but the separating it out is clarifying. So maybe you can read run through the different types of grandstanding in the way people do it . Sure. This is one of our favorite parts of the book. To run through a field guide of grandstanding. At the outset there is no foolproof test to identify when someone is grandstanding one of the first questions we often get is tell me what grandstanding looks like. Because they want to go out to facebook and twitter. Thats not the way to solve the problem. And with a roadmap for a field guide of what type of discourse in each of the five. Piling on saiz one saying something to get it on the action just to show your heart is on the right place and that primary motivation is to show you are one of the good guys or at least and those who engage in the huge shaming pylons for example. But then they want to be seen as having certain kinds of values and tough on the out group and so on. A lot of grandstanding involves pylon. And just to be seen as taking a certain stance. The second form of grandstanding is called ramping up when and more discourse takes the form of an arms race. We know from social psychology the way we think of ourselves in terms of how we match up to others. So what happens with Public Discourse if i care deeply for the poor or the factory worker and someone says something that implies they care deeply have a choice to make. I can allow them to be seen as important or impressive there are a lot of examples of this going from police needs, serious reform, to abolish the police that masks dont help if you wear a mask you are part of the deep state. There is a competition that can occur to show how much they care or how sensitive they are with the moral considerations. Also trump being up on no relation to the current president that is trumping up charges take morally innocent piece of behavior or a slight moral wrong and trump of the charges make it really big and important morally egregious. That signals to others you have a sensitive moral compass and intolerant of any moral behavior so a lot of grandstanding involves taking behavior to moralize and run through this machine with a huge problem so others can see how impressive you are. It also takes the form of excessive emotions in terms of outrage so we know from psychology expressions of outrage signify your moral conviction. Than that implies you care deeply. So grant standards can exploit this. We know from psychology they alleviate guilt or avoid suspicion about their own bad behavior, so they use outrage to show how much they care and how morally impressive they are with Public Discourse. The final form is dismissiveness. If you cant see hamilton and the musical that i have time for you. With his dismissive attitude towards people even if i were you would not appreciate it these are the five forms that grandstanding can take but we do think they shed a light. I will book and that answer. This isnt guide to spot that instance of grandstanding in the world. Without doing any of those five things you can do those without grandstanding. To the point is to help people understand what this account can explain and they should expect to see a lot of this behavior. As you went through these what occurred to me your definition is like mens rea requirement. With the intent to do it trying to use moral talk to accomplish something. It seems a number of the grandstanding we might see not necessarily trying to get other people to think a certain way but it feels good to do these things so its good to get outraged or to pylon because you feel righteous and better about yourself is that a distinct behavior or is it grandstanding that your audience is yourself . Attorneys question. There isnt a onesizefitsall. You are right a lot of people engage in these behaviors like excessive outrage or domineering Public Discourse simply because it feels good they really enjoy a dominating other people and to give them satisfaction you dont have to grandstand to do that is not the only poison in Public Discourse there is surely a lot of people some philosophers there is a real nice paper called moral outrage and the idea is a lot of people use moral outrage to satisfy their desires and make themselves feel good. That being said, i do think one reason why they feel that is because they reaffirm to ourselves how good we think we are. Decades of Research Show most people think they are morally better than the average person we think of ourselves with high grades morally speaking and typically we want others to believe those things as well so it feels good to have these visions reaffirmed in public. You are right the only audience just as and the other person reading my post online or as a cable talk show host. We are our own audience sometimes so to think we play to ourselves to reassure ourselves we are as good as we think we are. Yes. We recognize of course motivations are complicated people almost never have one pure motivation but even if we are often acting because it feels good, we might also be trying to promote our social status. So you might think if someone goes after someone and tries to shame them, they are also trying to be someone to be reckoned with. That you dont mess with him this is a friend i want to have and someone. So taking the mens rea element, how do we distinguish grandstanding from attempts to lead by example when you genuinely feel you can act as a moral guide for others and by a demonstrating a correct course of action in your personal life others will follow along . Yes. Thats good. Motivations for our behavior are complex but heres a simple way to think about the different ways we can be motivated in Public Discourse so one broad category we have could be altruistic engaging in Public Discourse. We say what we say because we truly care about other people and try to help and Say Something to promote understanding, seeking the truth, evidence, you say things because you have a good reason to think it will be helpful. Thats one kind of motivation. Those are perfectly a lot of all motivations another has to do with the duty. Maybe youre not trying to help but promote the right moral principles to articulate the moral truth and gave reasons or evidence of what we ought to do together and those are virtuous motivations for discourse. The third category is that causes trouble motivations engaged in discourse for selfinterested reasons. The reasons we are primarily interested in the book deals with social status. So our worry is when you engage in Public Discourse that doesnt just hold constant what you say but to motivate and cause you to say things you wouldnt otherwise say or do if you were not selfishly motivated. So even with motivations that causes all kinds of problems leading to polarization in Public Discourse and outrage exhaustion and its disrespectful and treats people to conscript them into a morality play to show how good you are. Free rides on other peoples wellintentioned use. And also using Public Discourse in the selfish egoistic way ways, its not what morality is for. Is not there to try to impress people is not to dominate peopl people. Its a cheap pathetic way thats not what morality is for. For all those reasons egoistic the Public Discourse will lead to a lot of problems that we see the case is made easier to look at Public Discourse nobody thinks its going well we all think it could be going better but think how they are contributing is it for altruistic reasons or dutiful reasons but one way to do that is to ask am i doing this because i want to look good or because i actually think it will do good . So that question is what we should be asking before we engage in discourse. I think a lot of us imagine and grandstanding many of the ones we come up with if not most are in the political sphere that people grandstand on political issues quite a lot im curious of the relationship between politics and grandstanding if is it easier to grandstand about political issues or our current environment or is it the causation and the kinds of issues we grandstand on are the ones that become politicized because moral outrage to politicize the outcome of those issues. Thats a great question. A lot of different ways i could take that. What people expect us to do is to go after politicians. When you think of grandstandin grandstanding, you think first of politicians engaging in publicity stunts. We see it a little different. We think the fault for political grandstanding lies mostly on the people who demanded. Heres a great thing about political actors in democracy. They give us what we want. Why . Because they are rewarded. Politicians face incentives that the rest of us may be our friends will like our post or say things that are pleasing to them but the livelihood generally does not depend on the people around us of our supporters it doesnt depend on whether they think we are good upstanding people. This causes a lot of problems though in politics and theres good reason to stop demanding politicians engage with thes attention grabbing uses of moral talk. Because we encourage politicians to take a stance we see fewer cases of important compromise. Why . Because if someone takes a moral stance on an issue , people tend to punish them and if they change their mind or introduce a new ones into their positio position, they take that person to have been committed. But in token we expect people to be loyal. We dont like it when they give then to the other side. The politician has every incentive not to compromise. Another problem is when we turn politics into a morality pagean pageant, thats basically what we get is a display of everyones Good Intention instead of policies that work we call this the expressive policy problem. Take rent control basically every economist in agrees rent control doesnt work that causes housing shortages it doesnt make it more affordable that yet politicians continue to call for interesting rent control measures. Why . Because on the face it looks like thes policies will promote a worthy goal to make it easier for people to have a home. So, sorry i lost my train of thought. It is a lot easier to give people what they want with these morally flashy policies and to sit and explain you have to understand supply and demand and how markets work. They have their slogan everyone deserves housing and so because the issue was so much grandstanding these policies sound good and dont work. Its easy for most people to see grandstanding from the other side and politicians even motivated on the other side. But every politician does it. We just have to be honest even our beloved politicians on our side are doing this. But they do it because we wante wanted. We want them to affirm our values. Study after study shows people vote because they think someone shares their values or cares about them. But the problem is when politicians point out that support a proposed policies merely because they express those values. That the prevalence of grandstanding today is that aspect of that widespread nature to broadcast a greater ability and how we present ourselves to the world where has this been going on for a long time yes. We argue in the book the basic human ingredients for grandstanding are as old as society. And the desire to impress people and status those very basic human desires come in many aspects of life we can overcome those desires you might be at a dinner party want people to know how much you make or where you went to college, but you can overcome those and keep your mouth shut. Those motivations are features of human psychology if there is anything intrinsically unique about the present moment, what is different is at no time in Human History have people been able to get on their phones and immediately talk to hundreds or thousands or millions of people. For a lot of human beings that temptation to get that positive feedback and impress other people and say things not because you think they are true but itll raise your status with your political movement, that will be really hard to overcome. We dont think theres anything new about human psychology but what is new humans on a scale never before seen can talk to people even 100 years ago you had to stand on a Street Corner to convince people to listen to you. Each of us now has an audience of greater than any ancestor could have imagined any common person could have. Is so much easier to grandstand. Its also easier to find it. So scroll through twitter if he spent 20 minutes today. So social media no question made it easier to act on thes desires to impress others and makes it much easier to find it. So just to interject on an optimistic note and that technology theres no way we can live together with the z the on thes easy platforms let me give you some reason not to think that. And it is plausible its just a case where the norms have not caught up with the social environment yet. Heres an example, look at medieval etiquette, you will see authors writing for adults who can afford books and theres a reason to buy about etiquette the advice is dont knock on the bone but put it back on the serving dish. Dont blow your nose into the tablecloth. It seems so obvious but this is like i need a whole book to explain. What happened the norms cut up so here is a case where maybe people did not have opportunities to blow their nose that often or they were eating outside and not in a refined setting now they had these opportunities to satisfy the strong urge so they did. People dont do that anymore and the reason is because of the norms so i hope eventually the norms will catch up for grandstanding also people will see it if they get on facebook or twitter with a caption on instagram about whatever social justice or issue, they will tell you its not the sort of thing people do in polite company. Im interested in the Practical Application for this book and the ideas set and it. So to see the intention of how they are implied with the mens rea discussion to recognize when youre doing that. And those of us that have the experience with a roommate who is a psych major and then to immediately diagnose with an all manner of Bumper Sticker<\/a> description, it is using discussion of Public Discourse<\/a> and grant standards use morality and justice and family values and tradition to draw attention to themselves. They want others to think of themselves as morally ally and in something more detailed is grandstanding but the first part is the grant standards want a certain audience to come to believe those certain moral qualities. And they Say Something<\/a> and what they say typing into cable news or some speech or politician. Thats called the grandstanding expression it is motivated in a significant way and a desire for praise on the side of the angels. Turn and in terms of equation with a primary or significant motivation to be seen as morally impressive. Whats the difference between grandstanding and virtue signaling . To differences. They talk about virtue signaling they could just as well be talking about grandstanding. And virtue signaling is not an ideal term for capturing what is going wrong when people use talk in the way we describe. Its not about virtue. Its thought to be of excellent character. Showing people that you are decent enough. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. You dont treat women that way they are trying to show that they have certain moral qualities. And not trying to claim any virtue. And another problem is more serious that signaling is overbroad. But the signal anytime to make any moral claim at all. But we dont object to every instance. But typically that is a narrower term. Yes and just to add. And with grandstanding in 2013 and in the public discussions and with this ostentatious moral behavior. And there are lots of reasons why its not the most helpful terminology to pick up a discussion of selfinvolved egoistic moral talk. What has been picked up in the cultural wars. And with that complaint all the research we have done over some studies. And equally bipartisan just as much as people on the right. Of those ideological extreme do it much more. And what most people have in mind they are accusing someone of using moral talk for selfpromotion so whenever you do something virtuous in public that equivocation that now we have this discussion of the arguments coming out of the 1980 a book and baseball with the idea and they were playing to the grandstand. It is a very intentional use of moral talk for selfpromotion. So that idea virtue signaling of the choices and decisions that may not be made for political grandstanding purposes but you have chosen to specific focus on moral talking conversation so why the focus on speech . And to communicate someone has been wronged and worthy of trust. And then for improving the world. Its easy to abuse and take for granted so we might think that people would naturally want to take care of this and preserve it and use it for appropriate purposes. And that you could also abuse this resource. Like a public park and it can be used for proper for those purposes and grandstanding is one of those uses of moral talk to degrade those social currencies and the ability to have conversations with each other over what matters grant standards find a way to turn these discussions of important problems about themselves. So our focus on public conversation given the rise of social media occurs is the time to have a conversation. And to bring action into the conversation and talking about action with the hundred Million Dollars<\/a> for Cancer Research<\/a> you might not care as much if they want a wing named after themselves because the amount of good they do is so much greater than the amount of good. You can have a fairly major speech. Another reason just to focus on speech instead of action but the model for what we are trying to do is give the account of a certain speech act. You probably notice again and again with the comparisons to lying. To focus on dishonesty dishonesty and forms of expression and different areas of life but you learn a lot that talk about dishonest speech we took that as a model and then to shed some light. The core of the book the taxonomy of grandstanding for me was an interesting section it has a sense even if we call it virtue signaling but the separating it out is clarifying. So maybe you can read run through the different types of grandstanding in the way people do it . Sure. This is one of our favorite parts of the book. To run through a field guide of grandstanding. At the outset there is no foolproof test to identify when someone is grandstanding one of the first questions we often get is tell me what grandstanding looks like. Because they want to go out to facebook and twitter. Thats not the way to solve the problem. And with a roadmap for a field guide of what type of discourse in each of the five. Piling on saiz one saying something to get it on the action just to show your heart is on the right place and that primary motivation is to show you are one of the good guys or at least and those who engage in the huge shaming pylons for example. But then they want to be seen as having certain kinds of values and tough on the out group and so on. A lot of grandstanding involves pylon. And just to be seen as taking a certain stance. The second form of grandstanding is called ramping up when and more discourse takes the form of an arms race. We know from social psychology the way we think of ourselves in terms of how we match up to others. So what happens with Public Discourse<\/a> if i care deeply for the poor or the factory worker and someone says something that implies they care deeply have a choice to make. I can allow them to be seen as important or impressive there are a lot of examples of this going from police needs, serious reform, to abolish the police that masks dont help if you wear a mask you are part of the deep state. There is a competition that can occur to show how much they care or how sensitive they are with the moral considerations. Also trump being up on no relation to the current president that is trumping up charges take morally innocent piece of behavior or a slight moral wrong and trump of the charges make it really big and important morally egregious. That signals to others you have a sensitive moral compass and intolerant of any moral behavior so a lot of grandstanding involves taking behavior to moralize and run through this machine with a huge problem so others can see how impressive you are. It also takes the form of excessive emotions in terms of outrage so we know from psychology expressions of outrage signify your moral conviction. Than that implies you care deeply. So grant standards can exploit this. We know from psychology they alleviate guilt or avoid suspicion about their own bad behavior, so they use outrage to show how much they care and how morally impressive they are with Public Discourse<\/a>. The final form is dismissiveness. If you cant see hamilton and the musical that i have time for you. With his dismissive attitude towards people even if i were you would not appreciate it these are the five forms that grandstanding can take but we do think they shed a light. I will book and that answer. This isnt guide to spot that instance of grandstanding in the world. Without doing any of those five things you can do those without grandstanding. To the point is to help people understand what this account can explain and they should expect to see a lot of this behavior. As you went through these what occurred to me your definition is like mens rea requirement. With the intent to do it trying to use moral talk to accomplish something. It seems a number of the grandstanding we might see not necessarily trying to get other people to think a certain way but it feels good to do these things so its good to get outraged or to pylon because you feel righteous and better about yourself is that a distinct behavior or is it grandstanding that your audience is yourself . Attorneys question. There isnt a onesizefitsall. You are right a lot of people engage in these behaviors like excessive outrage or domineering Public Discourse<\/a> simply because it feels good they really enjoy a dominating other people and to give them satisfaction you dont have to grandstand to do that is not the only poison in Public Discourse<\/a> there is surely a lot of people some philosophers there is a real nice paper called moral outrage and the idea is a lot of people use moral outrage to satisfy their desires and make themselves feel good. That being said, i do think one reason why they feel that is because they reaffirm to ourselves how good we think we are. Decades of Research Show<\/a> most people think they are morally better than the average person we think of ourselves with high grades morally speaking and typically we want others to believe those things as well so it feels good to have these visions reaffirmed in public. You are right the only audience just as and the other person reading my post online or as a cable talk show host. We are our own audience sometimes so to think we play to ourselves to reassure ourselves we are as good as we think we are. Yes. We recognize of course motivations are complicated people almost never have one pure motivation but even if we are often acting because it feels good, we might also be trying to promote our social status. So you might think if someone goes after someone and tries to shame them, they are also trying to be someone to be reckoned with. That you dont mess with him this is a friend i want to have and someone. So taking the mens rea element, how do we distinguish grandstanding from attempts to lead by example when you genuinely feel you can act as a moral guide for others and by a demonstrating a correct course of action in your personal life others will follow along . Yes. Thats good. Motivations for our behavior are complex but heres a simple way to think about the different ways we can be motivated in Public Discourse<\/a> so one broad category we have could be altruistic engaging in Public Discourse<\/a>. We say what we say because we truly care about other people and try to help and Say Something<\/a> to promote understanding, seeking the truth, evidence, you say things because you have a good reason to think it will be helpful. Thats one kind of motivation. Those are perfectly a lot of all motivations another has to do with the duty. Maybe youre not trying to help but promote the right moral principles to articulate the moral truth and gave reasons or evidence of what we ought to do together and those are virtuous motivations for discourse. The third category is that causes trouble motivations engaged in discourse for selfinterested reasons. The reasons we are primarily interested in the book deals with social status. So our worry is when you engage in Public Discourse<\/a> that doesnt just hold constant what you say but to motivate and cause you to say things you wouldnt otherwise say or do if you were not selfishly motivated. So even with motivations that causes all kinds of problems leading to polarization in Public Discourse<\/a> and outrage exhaustion and its disrespectful and treats people to conscript them into a morality play to show how good you are. Free rides on other peoples wellintentioned use. And also using Public Discourse<\/a> in the selfish egoistic way ways, its not what morality is for. Is not there to try to impress people is not to dominate peopl people. Its a cheap pathetic way thats not what morality is for. For all those reasons egoistic the Public Discourse<\/a> will lead to a lot of problems that we see the case is made easier to look at Public Discourse<\/a> nobody thinks its going well we all think it could be going better but think how they are contributing is it for altruistic reasons or dutiful reasons but one way to do that is to ask am i doing this because i want to look good or because i actually think it will do good . So that question is what we should be asking before we engage in discourse. I think a lot of us imagine and grandstanding many of the ones we come up with if not most are in the political sphere that people grandstand on political issues quite a lot im curious of the relationship between politics and grandstanding if is it easier to grandstand about political issues or our current environment or is it the causation and the kinds of issues we grandstand on are the ones that become politicized because moral outrage to politicize the outcome of those issues. Thats a great question. A lot of different ways i could take that. What people expect us to do is to go after politicians. When you think of grandstandin grandstanding, you think first of politicians engaging in publicity stunts. We see it a little different. We think the fault for political grandstanding lies mostly on the people who demanded. Heres a great thing about political actors in democracy. They give us what we want. Why . Because they are rewarded. Politicians face incentives that the rest of us may be our friends will like our post or say things that are pleasing to them but the livelihood generally does not depend on the people around us of our supporters it doesnt depend on whether they think we are good upstanding people. This causes a lot of problems though in politics and theres good reason to stop demanding politicians engage with thes attention grabbing uses of moral talk. Because we encourage politicians to take a stance we see fewer cases of important compromise. Why . Because if someone takes a moral stance on an issue , people tend to punish them and if they change their mind or introduce a new ones into their positio position, they take that person to have been committed. But in token we expect people to be loyal. We dont like it when they give then to the other side. The politician has every incentive not to compromise. Another problem is when we turn politics into a morality pagean pageant, thats basically what we get is a display of everyones Good Intention<\/a> instead of policies that work we call this the expressive policy problem. Take rent control basically every economist in agrees rent control doesnt work that causes housing shortages it doesnt make it more affordable that yet politicians continue to call for interesting rent control measures. Why . Because on the face it looks like thes policies will promote a worthy goal to make it easier for people to have a home. So, sorry i lost my train of thought. It is a lot easier to give people what they want with these morally flashy policies and to sit and explain you have to understand supply and demand and how markets work. They have their slogan everyone deserves housing and so because the issue was so much grandstanding these policies sound good and dont work. Its easy for most people to see grandstanding from the other side and politicians even motivated on the other side. But every politician does it. We just have to be honest even our beloved politicians on our side are doing this. But they do it because we wante wanted. We want them to affirm our values. Study after study shows people vote because they think someone shares their values or cares about them. But the problem is when politicians point out that support a proposed policies merely because they express those values. That the prevalence of grandstanding today is that aspect of that widespread nature to broadcast a greater ability and how we present ourselves to the world where has this been going on for a long time yes. We argue in the book the basic human ingredients for grandstanding are as old as society. And the desire to impress people and status those very basic human desires come in many aspects of life we can overcome those desires you might be at a dinner party want people to know how much you make or where you went to college, but you can overcome those and keep your mouth shut. Those motivations are features of human psychology if there is anything intrinsically unique about the present moment, what is different is at no time in Human History<\/a> have people been able to get on their phones and immediately talk to hundreds or thousands or millions of people. For a lot of human beings that temptation to get that positive feedback and impress other people and say things not because you think they are true but itll raise your status with your political movement, that will be really hard to overcome. We dont think theres anything new about human psychology but what is new humans on a scale never before seen can talk to people even 100 years ago you had to stand on a Street Corner<\/a> to convince people to listen to you. Each of us now has an audience of greater than any ancestor could have imagined any common person could have. Is so much easier to grandstand. Its also easier to find it. So scroll through twitter if he spent 20 minutes today. So social media no question made it easier to act on thes desires to impress others and makes it much easier to find it. So just to interject on an optimistic note and that technology theres no way we can live together with the z the on thes easy platforms let me give you some reason not to think that. And it is plausible its just a case where the norms have not caught up with the social environment yet. Heres an example, look at medieval etiquette, you will see authors writing for adults who can afford books and theres a reason to buy about etiquette the advice is dont knock on the bone but put it back on the serving dish. Dont blow your nose into the tablecloth. It seems so obvious but this is like i need a whole book to explain. What happened the norms cut up so here is a case where maybe people did not have opportunities to blow their nose that often or they were eating outside and not in a refined setting now they had these opportunities to satisfy the strong urge so they did. People dont do that anymore and the reason is because of the norms so i hope eventually the norms will catch up for grandstanding also people will see it if they get on facebook or twitter with a caption on instagram about whatever social justice or issue, they will tell you its not the sort of thing people do in polite company. Im interested in the Practical Application<\/a> for this book and the ideas set and it. So to see the intention of how they are implied with the mens rea discussion to recognize when youre doing that. And those of us that have the experience with a roommate who is a psych major and then to immediately diagnose with an all manner of Mental Illness<\/a> whatever the lecture had been that day. But that is an example of piling on or to trump up. So what do you see so what would you like to do them with it . The entire last chapter of the book is called what to do about grandstanding. Its hard to do with a couple of philosophers. Were not in the business of telling people how to live their lives. Its the tricky phenomenon. Its not something you can read. You cant look at a piece of text to know if someone is grandstanding. But in this way it is like lying or demagogue or humble bragging. Its not clear someone is doing it or not. Is not a good idea to call people out. Even if you think someone is doing it calling them out for doing it is probably not a good idea. One of the reasons is simply you probably dont have enough information to justify a public accusation but because you dont know enough about this persons intentions is probably unfair to make a public accusation but also a very practical reason is because that is counterproductive. I will accuse you then youll say youre just grandstanding at me then we get an argument for what is in our hearts. The first time that conversation is productive is the first time we dont think calling people out is a good idea. What do we do . He went to change the norm for grandstanding is normal for people dont do it and they know better and they are not impressed. The basic idea set a good example of how we each engage in Public Discourse<\/a> admitting when youre wrong, paying attention to the data and the evidence in the outrage to be harder on yourself than other people its easier to treat her cells with grace and then be critical of others biting Public Discourse<\/a> calls for a division of labor we should be harder on ourselves and others. Theres other tips and tricks. So if i stop thats a drop in the bucket how do we do that . Our advice is instead of calling someone out if you suspect someone is grandstanding, dont give them what they seek imagine writing a very detailed passionate criticism and you really try to show people you care about this issue but nobody responds nobody says you are great. If no one does that it will be embarrassing. So to dis incentivize moral talk even if you thank you see it, avoid it just like chewing on the bone at the dinner table is embarrassing stop that Public Discourse<\/a> as something of the past by making something embarrassing to engage in. A lot of people are often dissatisfied with various parts of the book but the people that are friendly that are least satisfied. They want to get those grant standards. And they shouldnt go after them. Remember why we are here. And remember why grandstanding is bad. And to figure out what is true. So if you go around and try to embarrass them explicitly, you give the grandstand are exactly what they want. And let the make moral discourse about themselves. Even if it did work and we saw them as a joke or whatever youd be doing what they are doing which is talking about the wrong thing. Thank you for the answer. We are running low on times we will go to q a. The first question has been asked by a couple of people , how does anonymity affect the grandstanding expressions . That perhaps the cost in the payoff of grandstanding is lessened if you speak anonymous. Thats a really nice question. Everyone thank you for watching. Thank you for joining us today. Anonymity does change the story a little bit but not by much. If you think about yourself typing on the internet whether you have a name attached or not is not like a random stranger knows who you are even if you use your real name. So the fact you might not attach your identity to your statement but to a random stranger will not make a difference. Heres what the grandstand or his thinking is not very sophisticated they think i will say this i want the people to see this and think of the person that wrote this is morally impressive. Its true they cannot parade and take credit under their name thats right. But they still think i want to be seen as a certain kind of person even if all my audience thinking is the person who wrote that is awesome. Of course is the grandstand or all you might care about they think about the person who wrote it is really impressive that might be satisfying to you as much as anything else. Also to keep in mind a lot of impression management is a term to try to get other people to believe that were the way we think we are it is reflective and turned back on ourselves. The basic idea grandstanding could be done with an eye to impress ourselves to convince ourselves were good and take satisfaction in our own moral greatness. It is true politicians doesnt mean much to incentivize anonymously but those that can still get that satisfaction to just have people think that whoever wrote it is morally impressive. Good question. We have another one from nathaniel snow, is there a correlation between the scope of issues and the public debate and the intensity of grandstanding if it is higher expected payoff or to motivate more grandstanding . I thought it was about two Different Things<\/a> one is the scope of the issues and then the part about rent seeking. And what else is at stake. Grant standards are entrepreneurial. So one way you can grandstand is to trump up concerned so in other words there is a status to be had for those who are insensitive and can find moral problems for others see nothing. The thought is if you could spot what everyone else has overlooked, then you must be morally special or wise. If thats right, then we should expect people to do more of this when they are grandstanding and to look at the hyper specialized and unrecognized issues. You might think also that the more payoff there is for this kind of behavior, the more we would expect to see. If we think this is not ideal behavior or a good outcome to have people all lobbying exotic or recently invented claims and to blame one another for violating them, then we want to also give people a little bit less credit for behaving this way the next question comes from joe cobb how do you respond to expressions of grandstanding and wondering if a suppression of response is sufficient . Or to give them any indication if you approve of what they said or not . How is that a general response . This is a nice practical question. We do gives some advice in the book if somebody says Something Like<\/a> you think its grandstanding what should you say in response . Were doing a lot of social scientist several studies the several thousand participants. We went to figure out what kinds of interventions are effective but also to deal with that. So i will say that to say to an open and empirical question so what is helpful with these type of conversations is to gently move the conversation away from the speaker whether its me challenging the grandstand or or the grandstand are themselves to take it away and not make it personal. Its not whether or not we care about the poor but the issue. What is the relevant issue . What is the relevant moral principle or the think of the consequences that could come from this proposal. Any data you can share . I do have a suspicion that those personal attacks and then to make it more enhanced. But as i mentioned earlier but what type of interactions would be helpful . We have time for one more question. Mike is worried that is someone is using moral language to signal their moral views to have wider norm changes that is distinct from what motivates and what about those in support of the cause . Great question. We dont actually get that many questions from people people are usually more interested so i really like these questions. One test we proposed in the book is the disappointment test. And then later i find out later no one cares except for me. Nobody was impressed. Ask yourself would you be disappointed. The answer is yes and then the talk about that will be doing for you and those so it could be that it is that even if you are grandstanding it still the right thing to do but you shouldnt even accept it if you go in knowing that what you are doing is not optimal. It would be better if you werent motivated to seek a status for yourself and primarily just going for helping others. Justin is right. What we didnt point out yet that we discussed in the book is it might be okay in some cases to grandstand. We are perfectly comfortable with that. May be no different that most moral philosophers would say its okay to lie. The doesnt mean its choice worthy or laudable but it could be now there may be cases its the thing to do but we argue in the book but there is a strong moral presumption against grandstanding. Heres a thought if you do so with that status you will be more morally aboveboard and probably more effective than if youre trying to. I think thats an excellent note to end on. We have more questions but unfortunately we have run out of time for today. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you to all of our viewers grandstanding. And then there will be additional material posted on this event page. So thank you again to our guest an audience and have a wonderful afternoon. Of course people say i dont like his tweets so heres the way i can address that. Americans drowning in the middle of the ocean under the decline of Political Parties<\/a> and both parties contributed with the adventurism abroad the country is crumbling and with the rescue helicopter to bring us back to life again the first person you say is that i like your tweet history. We are a grieving again its completely and totally irrelevant. So thank you for triple bypass surgery i hate your tweets but we are breathing again. And that twitter feed sets the cadence and then to keep people accountable and the media doesnt even cover it but now with the realtime accountability measure to see exactly what theyre thinking. I think hes hilarious i like a politician outside of the cocktail parties say one thing to another consensus in washington dc. I dont care if he offend some people i like he punches back twice as hard because our politicians havent been fighting the last couple decades and have been perfectly okay with this manage decline. Time and time again i hear this and say heres the big picture doctrine. When you say give me the bad news first and he was pretty brutal he said we are losing, the borders are wide open, china is laughing at us the economy is in the make obama care is a disaster and this was the first 30 seconds. In the first honest assessment our culture had in a long time. Thats the first part of the doctrine of philosophy straight to the american people. I will not sugarcoat it and second what ideas are rooted in the renewal of a nation. 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