What is Toxic? Konstantin on the Moral Maze
This week on the Moral Maze we discussed toxic workplaces and toxic family relationships. One thing that struck me is both the witnesses I had the chance to question insisted that the way to determine whether something is toxic or harmful was to rely exclusively on your feelings. “If you're not comfortable, it's a toxic environment”.
As I said in the summing up in the end, beneath all this what I hear is the leitmotif of modern Western society: “me, me, me”.
If "toxicity" is determined through the lens of your own perception, then no one will ever perceive himself as toxic and toxic people will perceive healthy feedback as toxicity.
When I listened to this discussion it reminded me of politics in the mid seventies, but now the roles are reversed. Back then the most populist and public facing conservatives overvalued their moral arguments and undervalued or altogether ignored conservative arguments based in solid economic and political philosophy. When a person poses as a rational actor and refuses to admit-especially to themselves-that they are primarily driven by moral ideology, then they are not working with our common agreed upon axioms of truth and logic—so it is difficult to make actual conversational progress. But as KK repeatedly demonstrates, it is nevertheless possible to have a revealing conversation!! I always get the sense that they have unconsciously internalized a false epistemology that makes them seem convincing even to themselves. I may as well go to my local fairground and grab a greased pig. (had to end with a toxic remark 🙂) Thanks KK for doing these interviews…these kind of discussions are extremely important and your approach is unique and thorough. When it comes to getting people to comprehensively state their case and fully reveal their axioms, nobody does it better. Aside from helping the rest of us figure things out, this kind of material is going to be especially valuable as historical record.