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Morality

2025-04-04 · letter vlog · Hank · 8:20 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

Hank argues that morality comes in three kinds: rules by which the powerful control others, arbitrary shared norms (like the taboo on curse words) that bind a society, and real morality about impact and care (taboos on slurs, gambling, scamming, lying) that every society needs; he thanks John and plugs John's book.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank has been rethinking morality: growing up it meant control (hair, words, who you love); curse words versus slurs

  • ★ Hank says he has been thinking a lot about morality, maybe because of John's book or society at large, and his understanding of the word has been changing. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★ Hank says that growing up morality was a kind of dirty word to him: not kindness, honesty or fairness, but rules about hair length, forbidden words and judging whom you love or which god you believe in. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says he was and remains a fan of curse words, but there are words nobody should say, not because they are rude or shocking but because they make society and people worse. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — What a taboo is: public nipples and curse words; norms that control people versus harmless lagging norms

  • ★★★ Hank says other cultures' taboos look like rules, but one's own seem just the way things are: a taboo is so ingrained it feels like a law of nature rather than a rule. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank's example: some public nipples are fine and some are illegal, everyone knows which, nobody questions it, though a society could function with all or none allowed. (playful) — 00:01:32
  • ★★★ Hank says that asking why such rules exist often reveals an effort to control or suppress certain groups rather than to protect anyone. — 00:02:01
  • ★★ Against the claim that there are no dirty words, Hank says curse words exist because things like body stuff and sex are not discussed in polite company, and words for them become taboo too. — 00:02:01
  • ★★★ Hank says some norms and taboos spring from undesirable aspects of culture, like rules controlling women's bodies or whether trans or gay people can be publicly trans or gay. — 00:02:30
  • ★★ Hank says other norms are unharmful and lagging, reflecting an earlier society with more hangups about poop or sex, leaving powerful words that are neither really harmful nor helpful. — 00:02:30

00:02:59 — Arbitrary norms that bind society (he likes the taboo on curse words) and the good morality: slurs, infidelity, cheating, tax evasion

  • ★★ Hank says that when morality imposes controls that stop people living the lives they want, he understands why the idea of morality often has a negative connotation. — 00:02:59
  • ★★★ Hank says morality also serves purposes he likes, one being a society bound together by commonalities, even arbitrary ones. — 00:02:59
  • ★★ Hank likes both cursing and the taboo on curse words: without the taboo a curse word is just a word, and that is no fun. (playful) — 00:02:59
  • ★ Hank says the line between harmful control and binding norms is fuzzy, and finding it includes having some fights in public, which is fine. — 00:03:28
  • ★★★ Hank says silly norms and taboos are good as long as they don't control people in harmful ways: in general it is good to have some weird rules that make us us. — 00:03:58
  • ★★★ Hank names a third, good kind of morality that controls behaviors that actually harm society and people: slurs are taboo because slurs are harmful. — 00:03:58

00:04:27 — Gambling and sports gambling apps, scamming, and lying as cases where taboos should hold

  • ★★ Hank says slurs carry the taboo of hating groups for being different: they are a tool that helps you hate, so we should shun the tool. — 00:04:27
  • ★★ Hank says there is and should be a taboo around infidelity to a partner, cheating on a test and tax evasion. — 00:04:27
  • ★★★ Hank says the once-greater taboo on gambling existed because gambling is bad: it harms society and individuals, most of all the gambling addict. — 00:04:27
  • ★★ Hank says gambling also harms those running casinos and apps: the more manipulative they are the more they are rewarded, and a society rewarding antisocial behavior is worse. — 00:04:56
  • ★★ Hank says people running casinos and gambling apps are usually not marginalized people lacking other options: they have many skills and could run other businesses. — 00:04:56
  • ★★★ Hank says the normalization of gambling through handheld sports gambling apps over the last five years is pretty bad, and he is not sure how we let it happen. — 00:04:56
  • ★★ Hank says it seems we decided for a while that anything that makes money is definitely good. (hedged) — 00:05:43
  • ★★ Hank says he has seen the taboo on scamming people lift a little, with some praise for scamming in certain circles, which seems related. — 00:05:43
  • ★★ Hank says scamming is one hundred percent immoral. — 00:05:43
  • ★★★ Hank says lying to people's faces is so obviously harmful that he is fine with it being an unquestioned norm, and does not want lying to feel like cursing, a harmless transgression. — 00:06:12

00:06:42 — Summary: morality as control, as binding, and as orientation toward being better; the morality societies need

  • ★★★ Hank says real morality isn't about control but about impact, care and actual virtue. — 00:06:42
  • ★★★ Summing up, oversimplifying as a non-sociologist, Hank divides morality into three: the powerful controlling the less powerful, neutral common rules binding society, and orienting us to be better people building stronger societies. — 00:06:42

  • ★★★ Hank says all societies need the third kind: morality that does not nitpick or punish for control but helps us live together more honestly, kindly, equitably and with trust, making the right thing easier. — 00:07:19

    “The kind of morality that makes it easier to do the right thing, not harder.”

00:07:49 — Sign-off; thanks to John and a plug for Everything Is Tuberculosis at number one on the New York Times list

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the video was first more involved in current discourse, prompted by Hank's sense that morality as control has become more powerful than morality helping people order their lives. — video description
  • ★★ The description says a president openly unfaithful to every wife is seen by many as a moral actor because he promises to control people in ways that feel morally imperative; Hank dislikes it. — video description · Donald Trump
  • ★★ The description says this project and community have a deep morality, usually called values, and perhaps it is time to own that morality and be proud of it. (hedged) — video description · Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: gambling · morality · pejorative · profanity · taboo

Also: Works: Everything Is Tuberculosis

Organizations: The New York Times

Concepts: academic dishonesty · confidence trick · infidelity · LGBTQ rights · lie · social norm · Tax evasion · toplessness

Only in the description or credits: Donald Trump

Also centred on gambling: TINY BALLS! Nerds Do Vegas.

Also centred on profanity: F#*%? An Explanation of Curse Words

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