Sibling Politics: How Two Brothers Hold Opposing Views

Welcome to Pioneering Paradox.

What happens when two brothers born in the same year under the same roof end up on two different ends of the political spectrum? Owen and Wes Mortensen are two brothers who I have been friends with independently for almost 25 years.

I admire them both and look up to each for different reasons.

One has supported Donald Trump while the other despises him.

So we thought it would be a good idea to have them on to discuss how not to let political forces divide them.

This is not a conversation about who's right or wrong, so this is going to disappoint you if you're hoping for a debate.

Rather than going tit for tat on each point of disagreement, we decided to test out Jonathan Haidt's moral foundation theory as a way to frame this discussion.

Moral foundations theory is a simple way to understand why people disagree so strongly on right and wrong, especially in politics, religion, and culture.

The core idea behind this theory is that humans exhibit six basic moral taste buds, as they call it.

Care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty.

Everyone has all of them, but different people and groups prioritize them differently.

This explains why two good, smart people can look at the same situation and reach opposite moral conclusions.

Moral foundations theory allows us to begin a conversation with the assumption that your political opponent actually has good intentions based on what they see as the most important morals, not because of stupidity or ignorance.

So while we touch on a few issues in this episode, our purpose was to demonstrate how to have a conversation, not who is right and who is wrong.

Because we believe conversations need to take place and people should have voiced their opinions.

But we hope to do so civilly.

Our hope is to inject a new idea into the political arena, the idea that people believe they are making decisions based on morality, not stupidity.

Thanks for listening.