Most of the podcasts I hear about Charlie Kirk drive me crazy because they focus on morality.<\/p>\n
Everyone has their morality. Unless we share a moral referent, I’m not particularly interested in your views on morality.<\/p>\n
Stephen Turner’s book Explaining the Normative<\/a> helps.<\/p>\n ChatGPT notes: You\u2019re frustrated that political\/moral language\u2014freedom, justice, dignity, fairness\u2014is treated as if it were self-evident, when in reality its meaning depends on the hero system (Becker\u2019s term) or tradition in which it\u2019s embedded. Turner comes at the same issue but from a sociological-philosophical angle:<\/p>\n What Turner means by \u201cthe normative\u201d<\/p>\n Turner has argued that the \u201cnormative\u201d is not some timeless, universal set of moral rules.<\/p>\n Instead, norms are socially sustained practices: patterns of expectation, sanction, and shared background that make certain terms and judgments intelligible.<\/p>\n Words like freedom or justice only have force because a community sustains a practice that gives them that meaning.<\/p>\n How that connects to your point<\/p>\n When you say \u201cfreedom means nothing without reference to a hero system\u201d, you\u2019re describing the same dynamic Turner tries to unmask. Norms aren\u2019t floating universals\u2014they are anchored in traditions and communities.<\/p>\n The \u201cendless moralizing\u201d you find exhausting is, from Turner\u2019s lens, people talking as if their normative framework were universal. But because we no longer share one, the language becomes friction and noise.<\/p>\n What you\u2019re longing for\u2014people describing their experience of reality\u2014is closer to Turner\u2019s own corrective: don\u2019t treat \u201cthe normative\u201d as metaphysical truth. Treat it as situated practice, grounded in lived life.<\/p>\n What Turner\u2019s book adds<\/p>\n It gives you a vocabulary for why moral debates feel futile: the normative order that once made terms like justice and freedom \u201ccommon currency\u201d has fractured.<\/p>\n It shows how sociology of norms explains the emptiness you\u2019re pointing to: norms require communities, sanctions, and practices. Without shared anchoring, the same words get filled with different meanings.<\/p>\n Turner is less moralizing, more descriptive: he asks what sustains normative expectations in practice, not which morality is right. That lines up with your preference for \u201creality over morality.\u201d<\/p>\n In plainer terms<\/p>\n Turner helps you understand that the shouting match isn\u2019t just bad faith. It\u2019s that Americans no longer live inside one shared normative universe. Words that once carried a stable meaning because of a common story now float free, open to endless reinterpretation. That\u2019s exactly why you hear \u201cfreedom\u201d used three ways in one debate\u2014and why it drives you crazy.<\/p>\n GEMINI says: The book explores why public discussions centered on moral terms like “freedom” and “justice” often feel like a “waste of time” and “talking past each other” when a shared moral universe is absent.<\/p>\n The text you provided outlines a key problem: words like “freedom” and “justice” are “empty vessels” without a common reference point, or as you put it, a “hero system”. Turner’s book delves into this very concept, calling it the problem of normativity. He explains that normative terms are ubiquitous, but there is “huge disagreement about the source and the authority of norms”.<\/p>\n Here is how Turner’s work can help you understand the situation:<\/p>\n The “Double Game” of Normativity: Turner explains that normativists often play a “double game” by explaining social realities in terms of a deeper, hidden, non-empirical reality. This “hidden reality” provides the normative standards, which are different from what actually occurs. This is similar to your point that a word like “freedom” is not “self-evident” but is “tethered to a story, a tradition, a framework of meaning”. Turner argues that this double game provides the opening for “disenchanters”\u2014like social scientists\u2014to deny that there is anything “intrinsically there”.<\/p>\n The Conflict with Social Science: Turner argues that the current philosophical debate around normativity is a self-conscious attempt to reclaim ground lost to social-science explanations. Social science, for example, can explain why certain beliefs are accepted as a causal phenomenon without considering if they are “rationally or justifiably accepted”. This parallels your observation that the focus on “righteous” vs. “evil” in public debates bypasses the more productive discussion of shared reality or a “purely naturalistic enterprise”.<\/p>\n The Problem of Local Normativity: The book specifically addresses the issue of different groups having different norms. It states that what is considered “correct, true, or valid” varies from one social setting to another, which compels us to recognize that this variation is “social”. Your analysis that “freedom means something different to me than it does to a secular socialist and a wounded Palestinian” is a perfect illustration of this “problem of local normativity”.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the book suggests that the breakdown you’re experiencing in public discourse isn’t just a matter of personal frustration; it’s a deep-seated philosophical and sociological problem rooted in the very nature of normative language and the absence of a shared framework to give those words meaning.<\/p>\n Can you expand on this? The “Double Game” of Normativity: Turner explains that normativists often play a “double game” by explaining social realities in terms of a deeper, hidden, non-empirical reality. This “hidden reality” provides the normative standards, which are different from what actually occurs. This is similar to your point that a word like “freedom” is not “self-evident” but is “tethered to a story, a tradition, a framework of meaning”. Turner argues that this double game provides the opening for “disenchanters”\u2014like social scientists\u2014to deny that there is anything “intrinsically there”.<\/p>\n Stephen P. Turner’s concept of the “double game” of normativity is a way to describe how we use normative language\u2014terms like “freedom,” “justice,” and “rights”\u2014in our daily lives. It’s a key part of the problem you’re describing, where moral arguments feel hollow because they lack a shared foundation.<\/p>\n Here’s an expansion on that idea:<\/p>\n The “Double Game” Explained<\/strong><\/p>\n In essence, the “double game” refers to the act of a normativist (someone who believes in and uses normative concepts) doing two things at once:<\/p>\n Observing reality: They see how things are in the world\u2014the “empirical” or observable social realities.<\/p>\n Referencing a hidden reality: They then interpret these observable realities in terms of a “deeper, hidden, non-empirical reality” that provides the standards for judgment.<\/p>\n This hidden reality is not something you can see, touch, or measure directly. It’s the ideal, the standard, or the “hero system” that provides the meaning for the normative terms.<\/p>\n For example, when a person says, “That law is unjust,” they are playing the double game. They are observing the law (the first reality) but judging it against a hidden, non-empirical standard of what “justice” should be (the second, hidden reality). This standard is not part of the law itself; it comes from their specific moral universe or hero system.<\/p>\n How it Creates a Communication Breakdown<\/strong><\/p>\n This is where the concept directly connects with your observation about public debates. When two people from different “hero systems” engage in a debate about “justice,” they are each playing the double game, but they are referencing different hidden realities. They both agree on the word, “justice,” but they are basing their arguments on different foundational beliefs. As a result, they aren’t having a real conversation; they are simply talking past each other, each assuming their own hidden reality is the universal standard.<\/p>\n The “Disenchanters”<\/strong><\/p>\n Turner argues that this “double game” creates a major vulnerability to disenchanters, such as social scientists. A social scientist, when confronted with the claim “that law is unjust,” would not try to find the hidden reality of “justice.” Instead, they would ask a different question: “Why do you believe that law is unjust?” They would then explain this belief in terms of a causal, empirical reality\u2014for example, the person’s upbringing, their social group, their economic situation, or their specific cultural traditions.<\/p>\n By doing this, the social scientist “disenchants” the debate. They reveal that the normative term (“unjust”) is not a statement about a universal, objective truth but a social phenomenon rooted in a specific context. They are, in effect, denying that there is anything “intrinsically there” in the normative claim beyond its social origin and function.<\/p>\n In short, the double game is the fundamental move that makes normative debates possible, but it is also the reason they fall apart when the underlying, hidden realities are not shared. It’s the root cause of the “noise” and “endless moralizing” you correctly identified in your initial text.<\/p>\n CHATGPT: <\/p>\n The Double Game<\/strong><\/p>\n Level One \u2013 Social Reality (what people actually do):<\/p>\n We observe people acting, speaking, invoking words like freedom, justice, dignity.<\/p>\n These are empirical: they show up in speech, rituals, institutions, sanctions, practices.<\/p>\n Level Two \u2013 Hidden Normative Reality (what\u2019s said to \u201creally\u201d guide us):<\/strong><\/p>\n Normativists claim there\u2019s something \u201cbehind\u201d the practices\u2014a non-empirical layer of moral reality.<\/p>\n This is presented as the \u201ctrue\u201d standard: the essence of freedom or justice, independent of messy human practices.<\/p>\n Example: \u201cFreedom\u201d isn\u2019t just how a community uses the term\u2014it really means autonomy of the rational will (Kant), or non-domination (neo-republicans), or divine obedience (religious thinkers).<\/p>\n The double game is: you describe people\u2019s messy actual practices, but then posit an invisible, deeper realm of \u201cthe normative\u201d that sits above and corrects those practices.<\/p>\n Why Turner critiques this<\/p>\n Once you posit a \u201chidden normative reality,\u201d you\u2019ve created a gap between lived practice and supposed true meaning.<\/p>\n That gap is an opening for disenchanters (social scientists, anthropologists, sociologists) to say: In other words: by insisting on a transcendental \u201creal normativity,\u201d philosophers actually make it easier for empiricists to dismiss normativity altogether.<\/p>\n Your \u201cfreedom\u201d example<\/p>\n People invoke freedom all the time, but its meaning is tethered to different hero systems: libertarian minimal state, progressive self-expression, religious obedience.<\/p>\n The double game move is to say: but beyond these usages, there\u2019s the real Freedom, the true normative essence.<\/p>\n Turner would say: that\u2019s just smuggling in metaphysics. All that actually exists are the practices and traditions that give the word content.<\/p>\n So what Turner is doing<\/strong><\/p>\n He\u2019s trying to strip away the double game\u2014to say: stop pretending there\u2019s a hidden normative layer.<\/p>\n Instead, treat normative language as socially sustained: tethered to practices, stories, traditions.<\/p>\n This lines up perfectly with your frustration: the endless moralizing feels empty because everyone is pretending their \u201cfreedom\u201d is the \u201creal\u201d one, when in fact each version is anchored in a different framework.<\/p>\n The practical upshot<\/strong><\/p>\n Once you see the double game, you stop asking \u201cwhat does freedom really mean?\u201d and start asking \u201cwhat framework is this person\u2019s usage anchored in?\u201d<\/p>\n That shift lets you drop the illusion of a shared moral universe and instead pay attention to actual lived realities, traditions, and practices\u2014the only place meaning really resides.<\/p>\n LF: Freedom and every other moral term such as justice, law, love, equality, rights, respect, dignity, good, evil, fairness, loyalty, honor, integrity, is meaningless without reference to a particular hero system. The term “Freedom” on its own means nothing.<\/p>\n I am tired of our public discussions centering on morality when we don’t share a morality. I just wish people would share their experience of reality, their view of reality, a little more, and do less moralizing. All these arguments about the morality of public events and policies are largely a waste of time. We have no common referent in America, and so “freedom” means something different to me than it does to a secular socialist and a wounded Palestinian. <\/p>\n What wears people down today isn\u2019t disagreement\u2014it\u2019s the endless moralizing. Every debate is cast in moral terms: who\u2019s righteous, who\u2019s evil, who\u2019s on \u201cthe right side of history.\u201d But here\u2019s the problem: we don\u2019t share a morality anymore. The words\u2014freedom, justice, dignity, fairness\u2014are hollow because they mean different things in different moral universes. So when we moralize, we aren\u2019t actually conversing. We\u2019re talking past each other, shouting into our own echo chambers.<\/p>\n What I long for is less of that and more reality. Less \u201cyou\u2019re evil, I\u2019m good\u201d and more \u201cthis is what I see, this is what I\u2019ve lived, this is how reality looks from where I stand.\u201d We don\u2019t have to agree on a moral framework to talk about the world as it is. We might actually learn something from each other if we compared our experience of reality instead of competing for moral high ground.<\/p>\n Every judgment is a narrowing. To judge is to draw a line\u2014this is good, that is bad; this is true, that is false. It\u2019s necessary, of course. Without judgments, we can\u2019t act, choose, protect, or build. But judgment always comes at a cost. It tightens us. It contracts the field of vision. It locks us into one angle of reality. Your neck and back and spine tighten when you judge and your breath becomes labored. You don’t move as easily and your range of reactions to stimuli are diminished. <\/p>\n Most of the time, life goes better when we spend less time contracting and more time expanding\u2014easing into awareness, letting the world be wide, allowing experience to unfold before we rush to carve it up. In that state, the mind is supple, curious, open. We can see more, feel more, connect more. Our head rises forward and up allowing our back to lengthen and widen and our breath to ease. <\/p>\n Judgment is essential for survival. But expansion is essential for living. The trick is not to eliminate judgment, but to know when to put it down\u2014to return to a world that feels wide rather than narrow.<\/p>\n Moralizing without shared morality is just noise. But sharing lived reality\u2014that at least gives us a common ground to stand on. The more we have in common, the stronger we are and the higher our quality of life. Diversity means we celebrate having next to nothing in common but some woke imperial nonsense. <\/p>\n We live in a world awash with moral language. Freedom, justice, equality, dignity, rights, love, fairness, respect. These words are invoked as if they were self-evident, solid, universally understood. But in truth, they mean nothing on their own. They are empty vessels. To carry weight, they must be tethered to a story, a tradition, a framework of meaning\u2014a hero system, in Ernest Becker\u2019s terms. Without that anchoring, they become weapons in endless cultural shouting matches, where each side uses the same vocabulary but speaks different languages.<\/p>\n Take freedom. For the libertarian, freedom means freedom from interference\u2014no one telling you what to do. For the progressive, freedom often means freedom to live authentically, without systemic barriers. For the religious, freedom might mean freedom through obedience to God. Three visions, three worlds. Which one is \u201creal freedom\u201d? The word alone doesn\u2019t answer. Only the referent\u2014the story in which it sits\u2014can tell you.<\/p>\n The same is true of justice. To some, it means punishment proportionate to wrongdoing. To others, it means redistribution to correct inequities. To still others, it means covenantal faithfulness or divine order. \u201cJustice\u201d does not stand on its own; it hangs on a tradition.<\/p>\n Becker\u2019s insight was that all cultures are \u201chero systems\u201d\u2014shared moral universes that tell people what counts as good, evil, honorable, shameful. Within a warrior tribe, honor might mean courage in battle. Within a liberal university, honor might mean intellectual honesty. Within a religious tradition, it might mean faithfulness to God. Strip away the hero system, and the word itself collapses into vagueness.<\/p>\n This is why our culture wars feel so bitter. Progressives and conservatives both claim to fight for freedom, justice, dignity. But they are not disagreeing about details. They are loyal to different hero systems. To the progressive, canceling a public figure preserves justice and dignity. To the conservative, resisting cancellation protects freedom and truth. Both are sincere. Both believe they are defending the moral order. But because their referents differ, the words no longer connect.<\/p>\n The danger comes when we treat these terms as if they were self-evident universals. That illusion allows them to be manipulated. Equality can mean equal treatment, equal opportunity, or equal outcomes\u2014and politicians slide between definitions to suit the moment. The word looks stable, but its meaning is entirely dependent on context. Without a shared referent, moral terms become unstable currency, open to inflation and fraud.<\/p>\n Healthy societies anchor their moral language. Judaism grounds its terms in covenant. Christianity in Christ. Liberal democracy once anchored them in natural rights and the civic religion of the republic. America\u2019s current fracture comes from losing that common referent. The words remain, but the shared story has dissolved. That\u2019s why we shout the same terms at each other and cannot be heard.<\/p>\n Moral terms are not free-floating universals. They are meaningful only inside a tradition, a people, a story. To argue about \u201cfreedom\u201d or \u201cjustice\u201d in the abstract is futile. The real question is always: freedom according to which story? justice according to which tradition?<\/p>\n Until we face that, we will continue mistaking noise for conversation. Moral language without a referent is empty air. Anchored in a shared hero system, it becomes the glue of civilization.<\/p>\n ChatGPT says: Here\u2019s a list of moral terms that are notorious for having contested, shifting, or deeply subjective meanings depending on culture, politics, religion, or personal worldview:<\/p>\n Justice \u2013 Can mean fairness, equality, punishment, restoration, or desert, depending on the framework.<\/p>\n Freedom \u2013 Some see it as non-interference (\u201cfreedom from\u201d), others as empowerment or capability (\u201cfreedom to\u201d).<\/p>\n Equality \u2013 Equal treatment, equal opportunity, or equal outcomes all pull in different directions.<\/p>\n Rights \u2013 Can be natural, legal, human, civil, or divine, and people disagree on which \u201crights\u201d are valid or fundamental.<\/p>\n Responsibility \u2013 Interpreted as personal accountability, collective duty, or social obligation, often in tension with freedom.<\/p>\n Respect \u2013 Sometimes deference to authority, sometimes mutual recognition of dignity, sometimes tolerance of difference.<\/p>\n Dignity \u2013 For some, rooted in autonomy and choice; for others, in inherent worth regardless of choice.<\/p>\n Good \u2013 Can mean pleasure, virtue, utility, divine will, or personal authenticity.<\/p>\n Evil \u2013 Sometimes absolute wrongdoing, sometimes simply \u201cwhat harms me or my group.\u201d<\/p>\n Fairness \u2013 Can mean impartiality, proportionality, or equal shares, depending on the situation.<\/p>\n Loyalty \u2013 Seen as virtue by some (duty to family, tribe, nation), but as blind allegiance or moral weakness by others.<\/p>\n Honor \u2013 For some, about integrity and self-respect; for others, about reputation, status, or adherence to tradition.<\/p>\n Integrity \u2013 Either strict adherence to moral rules, or consistency with one\u2019s own values (even if those values are contested).<\/p>\n Tolerance \u2013 Can be \u201clive and let live,\u201d or indifference, or even a patronizing stance.<\/p>\n Compassion \u2013 Sometimes unconditional empathy; other times, tempered by justice, merit, or \u201ctough love.\u201d<\/p>\n Obedience \u2013 Seen as moral in some religious or military frameworks, but as morally suspect in others.<\/p>\n Sin \u2013 In secular contexts, just \u201cwrongdoing,\u201d but in religious ones, it\u2019s tied to divine law and eternal consequences.<\/p>\n When people today argue about freedom of speech, cancel culture, or justice after Charlie Kirk\u2019s murder, they talk past one another. That\u2019s because moral words\u2014freedom, justice, rights, equality, dignity\u2014don\u2019t have universal meanings. They only make sense inside a given framework, what Ernest Becker would call a hero system.<\/p>\n A hero system is the moral universe you inhabit, the story that tells you what counts as good, evil, honorable, shameful. Within Christianity, \u201cfreedom\u201d might mean freedom from sin through Christ. Within liberal Enlightenment thought, it means freedom from coercion. Within progressive politics, it often means freedom from systemic barriers that limit one\u2019s self-expression. Each uses the same word, but each is talking about something different.<\/p>\n The Contest of Meanings<\/p>\n Freedom: For the libertarian, it is the absence of interference. For the progressive, it is empowerment to live authentically. For the religious, it may be obedience to God\u2019s law. Which one is \u201creal freedom\u201d? That depends entirely on which hero system you accept.<\/p>\n Justice: Retribution for some, equity for others, divine order for still others. In one frame, punishing the murderer is justice. In another, dismantling the social conditions that bred violence is justice.<\/p>\n Loyalty, Honor, Integrity: To a tribal culture, these are the highest goods\u2014keeping faith with one\u2019s people. To a liberal individualist, loyalty can look like blindness, honor like vanity, obedience like servility.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t disagree because we misunderstand each other\u2019s definitions; we disagree because we live inside different worlds.<\/p>\n Why Universal Definitions Fail<\/p>\n The Enlightenment dream was that reason could give us universal definitions of freedom, justice, equality\u2014valid for all people, everywhere. But in practice, every society embeds these words inside its own narrative. Strip away the hero system and the words collapse into emptiness. That\u2019s why arguments about \u201cfree speech\u201d are endless: people aren\u2019t arguing about speech; they\u2019re arguing about what freedom itself is and which hero system gets to define it.<\/p>\n The Cultural Impasse<\/p>\n Cancel culture, censorship debates, \u201cfreedom of speech\u201d fights\u2014they all expose this hollow core. When a progressive cancels someone, they believe they\u2019re defending justice and dignity. When a conservative resists cancellation, they believe they\u2019re defending freedom and loyalty to truth. Neither is lying. Both are faithful to their hero system. And because these systems are incommensurable, the argument feels existential.<\/p>\n The Way Forward<\/p>\n The question is not \u201cwhat is freedom?\u201d in the abstract. That has no answer. The real question is: which hero system are we living under? Whose story sets the boundaries of meaning? That\u2019s what\u2019s really at stake in the culture war.<\/p>\n If we don\u2019t admit this, we will keep pretending that words like \u201cfreedom\u201d or \u201cjustice\u201d are self-evident, when in fact they are tribal signals. We don\u2019t fight over words\u2014we fight over worlds.<\/p>\n America is not fighting about policies. It is fighting about hero systems. One side believes freedom means protection from offense, safety from harmful speech, liberation from inherited constraints. The other believes freedom means the right to speak dangerous truths, to offend, to resist conformity. Both call it freedom, but they inhabit different moral universes.<\/p>\n The same with justice, dignity, equality. Progressives see justice as equity, conservatives see it as desert. Progressives see dignity in self-expression, conservatives see it in restraint and honor. Each side thinks the other is insane or malicious, but really they are loyal to different gods.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the debates never resolve. They can\u2019t. You cannot argue someone out of a hero system with definitions. The terms only have weight inside their own sacred order.<\/p>\n So when we fight about free speech after Charlie Kirk\u2019s murder, or about cancel culture, we are not fighting about the First Amendment. We are fighting about which moral universe rules America.<\/p>\n This is why the culture war feels like a civil war. It is not a dispute over how to apply the same principles. It is a dispute over what the principles are, and who has the authority to define them.<\/p>\n Until we recognize that every moral term is tribal\u2014anchored in a hero system\u2014we will keep screaming \u201cfreedom\u201d or \u201cjustice\u201d at each other, wondering why nobody hears. We don\u2019t hear because we don\u2019t share a world. And sooner or later, one world will have to give way to the other.<\/p>\n My buffered abstract intellectual self deplores this but my porous bonded tribal self loves it. https:\/\/t.co\/RsDJWP0BV3<\/a><\/p>\n — (((Luke Ford))) (@lukeford) September 19, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u201cWait a second. I don\u2019t see this hidden essence. All I see are practices, sanctions, traditions, stories. The \u2018deeper normative layer\u2019 is just mystification.\u201d<\/p>\n\n