# The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk **URL:** **By** Justin Tosi, Brandon Warmke, Aaron Ross Powell, Trevor Burrus **Published:** July 10, 2020 --- Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke join the show to talk about how grandstanding affects our day to day political discourse. We want to be seen as taking the moral high ground not just to make a point, or move a debate forward, but to look a certain way - incensed, or compassionate, or committed to a cause. Another word for this type of discourse is grandstanding. Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke join the show to talk about how grandstanding affects our day to day political discourse. As politics gets more and more polarized, people on both sides of the spectrum move further and further apart when they let grandstanding get in the way of engaging one another. ## Further Reading: [Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk](https://www.amazon.com/Grandstanding-Use-Abuse-Moral-Talk/dp/0190900156/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=justin+tosi&qid=1594307259&sr=8-1) , written by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke [The Law of Group Polarization](https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1541&context=law_and_economics) , written by Cass R. Sunstein Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk, Cato Institute online [Forum](https://www.cato.org/events/grandstanding-use-abuse-moral-talk) ## Related Content: [Overdoing Democracy](https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/overdoing-democracy), Free Thoughts Podcast [To Block Or Not: The Ethics and Externalities of Online Discourse](https://www.libertarianism.org/prototype/block-or-not-ethics-externalities-online-discourse), written by Richard Mason [How We Polarize Ourselves](https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/how-we-polarize-ourselves), written by Arnold Kling