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Intrinsic Defense

When Mistrust is Default

I recently wrote a note that said, “We should treat ambiguous communication with charitable grace rather than offense-tilted.” Although I often get hate, mockery, and uneducated pub-style rants denouncing my “so-called knowledge,” this one seemed down the middle. Yet, almost predictably, it returned disdain. And I thought, why is that?

I pictured that guy who walks into every conversation slightly armored. I’ve been that guy. He listens carefully, scans for disrespect, assumes hidden motives, and reacts quickly when something feels off. An unanswered text becomes rejection. A vague comment becomes criticism. Disagreement is threat. In modern psychology this is often framed as defensiveness, hypervigilance, or cognitive distortion. But that explanation alone feels incomplete, because the instinct itself did not appear out of nowhere. Human beings, especially men throughout most of history, survived by noticing danger early and responding before it was too late. It’s a primordial instinct.

The problem is not the instinct to protect. The problem is when protection becomes the dominant lens through which all social interaction is interpreted.

Balanced Reciprocity

A healthy life requires balance. Enough caution to avoid genuine harm, but enough openness to allow trust, cooperation, friendship, and intimacy to develop. Too little defense makes someone naïve. Too much defense makes them isolated. The challenge is learning how to distinguish real danger from imagined threat, meeting the balance required for optimal socialization.

Sigmund Freud argued that much of human behavior is driven by unconscious defense mechanisms designed to protect the ego from pain and anxiety. While Freud focused largely on internal psychological conflict, his observations apply powerfully to social behavior. A person who constantly assumes hostility from others may not simply be thinking negatively. He may be unconsciously defending himself from vulnerability, embarrassment, rejection, or humiliation. The mind often prefers suspicion over uncertainty because suspicion creates the illusion of control. Defense mechanisms are real.

This helps explain why some people react aggressively to harmless ambiguity. If someone laughs across the room, the defensive mind assumes mockery. If a spouse becomes quiet, the defensive mind assumes contempt. If a coworker offers criticism, the defensive mind interprets attack. The brain fills in gaps with threat because threat feels safer than unpredictability.

The Cost of Imbalance

Human relationships depend on reciprocity. It’s the willingness to exchange trust, patience, and goodwill without demanding certainty beforehand that breeds air into our social lungs. Friendships, marriage, virtually all social life requires risk.

A man who cannot lower his guard eventually sabotages his own relationships. Others begin to experience him as combative, suspicious, or emotionally exhausting. Ironically, the very behaviors intended to protect him begin creating the loneliness and conflict he fears most. It’s the dad on Talladega Nights. He senses the night going smooth, it crawls straight up his nerves because it doesn’t feel familiar, predictable, or safe. So he blows the evening up by getting kicked out of an Applebee’s… on a date night.

Jordan Peterson often discusses the importance of integrating strength with restraint. In his framework, mature people are not harmless. They are capable of danger but disciplined enough to control it. Someone who lacks any defensive instinct becomes passive and easily exploited. But someone ruled entirely by defensiveness becomes destructive. Peterson repeatedly emphasizes that courage is not the absence of danger, it is voluntary engagement with uncertainty in spite of danger.

That idea cuts directly into the modern tendency toward constant psychological self-protection. Some people attempt to eliminate all social risk from their lives. They avoid difficult conversations, avoid vulnerability, avoid disagreement, and avoid trust unless absolute safety is guaranteed first. But absolute safety does not exist in human relationships. The attempt to achieve it often produces emotional paralysis.

Calibrated Judgment

Not every criticism is abuse. Not every disagreement is disrespect. And not every ambiguous situation is a hidden attack. Maturity involves developing the ability to pause before reacting. To ask whether the perceived threat is real, proportional, and worthy of such defense.

This does not mean abandoning caution altogether. There are certainly situations where suspicion is wise. History, crime, betrayal, and personal experience all teach that human beings are capable of manipulation and cruelty. Evolutionary psychology is not wrong when it suggests that men, in particular, evolved protective instincts tied to territory, family, status, and physical safety. For most of human history, failing to recognize danger carried severe consequences.

But instincts developed for survival in extreme environments can become maladaptive in ordinary social life. A nervous system calibrated for warfare, scarcity, or betrayal may interpret ordinary discomfort as existential threat. The body reacts before the mind has time to reason.

Trade-Offs in Interpersonal Connection

Thomas Sowell frequently writes about the importance of trade-offs and the danger of utopian thinking. One of his recurring insights is that human problems are rarely solved. They are managed through trade-offs. That principle applies psychologically as much as politically. There is no perfect formula where a person can be completely safe and completely socially open at the same time. Every social interaction involves trade-offs between caution and connection.

If someone becomes entirely trusting, he risks exploitation. If he becomes entirely defensive, he sacrifices intimacy and cooperation. Wisdom lies in navigating the middle ground rather than pursuing an impossible extreme. It’s that crossroad of order and chaos.

This balanced approach requires emotional discipline. It means resisting the urge to interpret uncertainty as hostility. It means allowing room for misunderstanding before assuming malevolence. It means recognizing that people are imperfect communicators, but not necessarily enemies.

It also means understanding that strength and openness are not opposites. In fact, secure people are often less reactive precisely because they do not experience every challenge as catastrophic. That balance may be one of the clearest markers of maturity.

At the deepest level, defensiveness is often an attempt to avoid pain. But pain cannot be eliminated from human relationships. Betrayal will sometimes happen. Rejection will sometimes happen. Misunderstanding will happen constantly. This shuts down vulnerability. But we can only love and be loved to the degree we are vulnerable. This comes with its share of unpredictability and risk of pain. The goal of life is not to build an impenetrable psychological fortress. The goal is to become resilient enough that openness no longer feels fatal.

Protection matters. Instinct matters. Caution matters. But so do trust, reciprocity, and generosity. Human flourishing depends on D, all of the above.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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What Forgiveness is Not

Letting Go Without Losing Yourself

If you know anything about me, you know I talk often about forgiveness and its benefits. There are many studies detailing the physiological benefits of forgiveness. I cover some of it in this article. Recently, after writing about what forgiveness looks like, I received some feedback regarding what forgiveness is not. I collected my thoughts on the validity of this idea, and this is what landed.

Forgiveness is Not Restoration

Restoration is the reunification of two people. Someone does you wrong, you want to forgive them and reignite friendship with each other. This requires both parties’ consent. Forgiveness can be involved in this transaction, but restoration is not required for forgiveness. Forgiveness only requires one person. That’s because unforgiveness only affects one. We should not feel obligated to restore to someone while forgiving them..

Forgiveness is Not Transforming Into a Doormat

Forgiveness does not give the offender the right to inflict further abuse. He slips up one night and after too many beers, he smacks her. He is visibly upset and remorseful. He apologizes. She says she forgives him. He thinks, “Good, then I can do it again.” Absolutely not. Forgiveness is not a license to continue damage. One can forgive, standing strong in their conviction that they have done nothing wrong and will not stand for such calamity any longer.

Forgiveness is Not Manipulation

Forgiveness cannot be coerced. It must be voluntary. Often, a child is the target of physical or verbal abuse and the parent cries and asks for forgiveness. When the parent commits such an action later, they remind the child, “You forgave me, remember? So you have to forgive me again!” This is nothing short of manipulation. Remember, restoration and forgiveness are not the same. Yes, you could forgive the parent again, but you will feel much less inclined to restore that relationship. This maneuver also involves a bit of vulnerable narcissism (different from grandiose narcissism).

In vulnerable narcissism, the subject must be the center of attention, and in order to get this attention, they draw attention to the negativity in their life. Even (and especially) if they are the instigators of such dysfunction. This is what some parents do.

Forgiveness Doesn’t Justify the Infraction

Erica Kirk publicly forgave her husband’s killer. This does not make the murder acceptable. There still remains consequence. Moses needed forgiveness from God for placing himself too high on the spiritual ladder. God forgave, but Moses did not enter the promised land.

  • Justice = getting what you deserve
  • Mercy = not getting what you deserve
  • Grace = getting what you don’t deserve

True forgiveness typically stems from the recognition of grace extended to me, through mercy, while remaining entangled in the justice I invited.

Forgiveness is Not Forgetting

The idea to “forgive and forget” is absolute nonsense; not tangible, reasonable or, in many cases, possible. Forgetting may seem insurmountable, but the sting doesn’t have to linger. How does one remove the sting? By shaping the mindset from “you did this to me so I hope you get what you deserve” to “I feel sad for you and what your decisions have cost you.” It’s seeing the humanity in people. Remember, victims perpetrate, survivors heal. Victims say, “Now it’s your turn to get what you deserve.” Survivors say, “I hope you get the help you need. But I forgive you.”

Keep in mind there is an amount of determinism involved in certain malevolent actions. They got here through a series of events they had no control over, leading them to make decisions that were mostly in their control, but heavily influenced by what they could not control.

Example: A young man doesn’t have a father. Mother is an addict. Raises himself. Gets connected with people who are addicts and in gangs. His grandfather was also an addict and stayed in trouble. And his grandfather’s father was in and out of prison. This young man literally has no example of what normality or proper functioning looks like. One could even include the man that had parents in the home but threw money at their son so he’d go away. He wasn’t parented. He doesn’t have an example of how to act either. So he turns to nature’s way, which is hungry for acceptance through power, greed, and tyranny.

Forgiveness is Not Emotional Numbness

Some people believe forgiveness means becoming unaffected by what happened. It does not. Forgiveness is not the absence of pain, anger, grief, or disappointment. In fact, attempting to forgive too quickly often results in emotional suppression rather than genuine healing. A person says, “I’m over it,” while resentment quietly festers underneath the surface. Avoidance helps no one and paralyzes the progress of forgiveness.

Healthy forgiveness allows room for emotion. Jesus wept. David lamented. Job grieved. Emotional pain is not evidence of spiritual failure. It is evidence that something meaningful was damaged. The goal of forgiveness is not to become cold or indifferent, but to prevent pain from transforming into hatred, bitterness, or revenge.

A scar may remain tender long after the wound closes. That does not mean healing has failed. It means you are human. Forgiveness says, “This hurt me deeply, but I refuse to let the injury harden my heart or define my future.” Forgiveness doesn’t mean being conformed, it’s means not being consumed.

What It Comes Down To

Forgiveness is release without denial. Mercy with delusion. Compassion without sacrificing truth. Freedom from hatred without freedom from consequence. Should you forgive? Absolutely. Should you relinquish all agency over it? Absolutely not. That’s what forgiveness is not.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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I. A. B. P.

Identity-Anchoring Belief Persistence

I’ve noticed a pattern in discourse lately, the refusal to be wrong. Ok, not lately, always. We grip tightly to preserve “street cred.” The psychology behind this has plagued me for a while. So I did some research on it, coupled with recent online dialogue. I channeled my inner-PsyPhi, invented a diagnosis (no different than what they did in the DSM-V), and this is what came out.

There’s a strange paradox at the heart of human intelligence. We are capable of learning almost anything while being highly skilled at refusing to learn. This is less about intellectual fervor and more about protective adaptation. I call it Identity Anchoring Belief Persistence. It’s the tendency to connect our previously held beliefs so tightly to who we are that new information feels like an attack. When that happens, the goal of critical thinking shifts. It’s no longer about getting smarter. It’s about keeping it together.

When Being Wrong Feels Dangerous

Imagine someone presents you with solid evidence that contradicts something you’ve believed for years. You attempt to simply process it cognitively, yet you find that you actually feel this information. Your chest gets tight. Defensiveness rises up, at times, evidenced by an increase in your blood pressure. There’s an urge to push back or at least retreat. That reaction is pure psychological self-defense.

Research on what’s called the backfire effect shows that when people encounter evidence that challenges deeply held beliefs, they don’t always correct their thinking. In some cases, they double down, becoming more convinced they were right all along (Nyhan & Reifler, 2010).

Why? Because beliefs are more than ideas. They’re part of the value-system makeup inculcated into our very fabric, often defining our existence. It’s the rooted internal dialogue calibrated to be right. One way of putting it is our belief systems function like a “house” that our identity lives in. Threaten one piece, and the whole structure gets shaky. So we defend it with everything we’ve got.

Protective Cognition

Most of you reading this are educated, or at least intelligent. This is where things get a bit surprising. You might assume that more intelligent or more educated people would be less vulnerable to this. They’re not.

Research on identity-protective cognition shows that people often use their reasoning abilities to defend the beliefs of their group or identity regardless of truth being presented. In fact, those with higher analytical capabilities can be better at rationalizing their existing beliefs. They dismantle new information like an angry lover with a baseball bat, ridding themselves of acute pain. At times, they reinterpret new information, find flaws in it. Selectively accept parts of it, while feeling completely objective.

This is what psychologists call motivated reasoning. The tendency to process information in a way that aligns with what we want to be true, as opposed to cognitive bias where we search for what we already believe (van Doorn, 2024). In other words, intelligence doesn’t guarantee openness. It often simply equips us with better defenses.

It’s Possible I Might Be Inadequate

Jordan Peterson describes this fear as the “specter of possible cataclysmic characterological inadequacy.” It’s a mouthful, but the idea is simple:

  • If I’m wrong about this, what else am I wrong about?
  • And if enough of what I believe is wrong, what does that say about me?
  • Am I broken, delusional, or just severely misguided?

That’s the real threat. The limitless implications. So instead of integrating the new information, we reject it completely. Because accepting it feels like it would unravel us, even and especially if it’s true.

Why Some Grow and Others Don’t

To be fair, not everyone reacts this way. Some people encounter new information and feel curiosity instead of threat. They lean in instead of pushing away. What’s the difference? It’s not raw intelligence, education level, or even exposure to facts. It’s psychological safety.

If your identity is too rigid, built on the need to be right, to belong, to maintain a certain self-image, then new information is destabilizing to say the least. But if your identity is flexible, you have the ability to see yourself as someone who learns, rather than someone who is right. New information looks like an opportunity.

The same fact lands differently depending on the view of the self it encounters. This is often established and developed early in life. It explains why it is so hard for those who didn’t develop this flexibility early to reintegrate a proper view of the self.

The Hidden Cost of Being “Right”

Here’s the uncomfortable truth, the stronger your attachment to being right,

the more difficult it will be to become right. Because learning requires a temporary willingness to be wrong. One of the things I learned in counselor training was that I needed to accept being wrong. I could not hold on to any rigid formation of my ego, as it would devour any therapeutic potential presented in the moment.

If being wrong feels like a threat to your identity, you’ll avoid it, even at the cost of truth. This is why debates often go nowhere. People aren’t exchanging ideas. They’re protecting identities. And when identities are on the line, facts lose their importance.

Why This Matters Now More Than Ever

In a world saturated with information, we enjoy proclaiming the problem is ignorance. It’s not. The problem is our filter by which we accept newness. Information isn’t passively pursued like the church we attend. We actively select information, interpret it, then defend against it the moment we feel rattled by our ego.

According to research on misinformation and belief persistence, even when new, correct information arrives, it often continues to influence our thinking because it’s been integrated into a person’s mental framework, known as the continued influence effect (Ecker et al., 2022). Once something becomes part of your identity, removing it is a full-scale reconstruction project.

A Different Way to Think About Thinking

If you want to become someone who actually learns, updates, adapts, and grows, you have to change nature of the game. Stop asking:

“Is this true?”

Start asking:

“What happens to me if this is true?”

Because that second question reveals the real barrier. And if the answer is:

“I’d feel embarrassed” or

“I’d feel worthless” or

“I wouldn’t know who I am anymore,”

…then you’ve found the real problem. And the problem isn’t the information. It’s the insecurity.

Final Thought

Most people truly believe they’re seeking truth. But more often, they’re seeking stability. And when truth threatens stability, stability wins. Until you consciously take steps to decide otherwise. Because growth requires a radical paradigm shift from defending who you are to becoming who you want to be in the face of a challenged ego. It’s difficult, but possible. You got this.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

References

Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Schmid, P., Fazio, L. K., Brashier, N., Kendeou, P., Vraga, E. K., & Amazeen, M. A. (2022). The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(1), 13–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y

Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2010). When corrections fail: The persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32(2), 303–330. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2

van Doorn, M. (2024). The skeptical import of motivated reasoning: A closer look at the evidence. Thinking & Reasoning, 30(4), 548–578. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2023.2276975

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Tennessee’s Education Paradox

Spending vs. Educational Outcomes

My wife is a teacher at a public school as one of her many careers. I get a firsthand account of the state of public school education in Tennessee. So, when this article came out, I dove in. And I heard the same, tired song.

Tennessee’s Rank in Public School Spending

The newest rage in Tennessee is that the state registered lowest in the country in public school spending. This predictably outraged various groups of uninformed, rage-baiters into the playbook manual of feelings of over facts:

  • Feel angry
  • Call it out
  • See evidence-based refutation
  • Name-call and scream louder

Rather than look to see why, or if this is even something to be concerned about, how bad it is, they just came out swinging. I dug into it a little. Questions I had were:

  1. Where did Tennessee rank in educational outcomes?
  2. Does spending correlate to educational outcomes?

Educational Outcomes

What I found- Tennessee is slightly above national average

Tennessee ranks:

  • 25th in combined proficiency
  • 24th in 4th grade reading
  • 21st in 8th grade reading
  • 13th in 4th grade math
  • 20th in 8th grade math
  • One of the fastest improving states in the country.

So let me get this straight. Tennessee ranks lowest in public school spending but above the national average in educational outcomes? This alone indicates a lack of causation between spending and educational outcomes.

By the Numbers

But don’t take my word for it. Let’s actually look at numbers.

Spending

1980: $2300 per student ($9,000 in today’s dollars)

2023: $16,500 per student (National average is now $18,000. Some states exceed $20,000)

Right away, you would expect to see educational output almost double over this same time period. Unfortunately, this isn’t supported by the data.

Educational Outcomes

1980:

NAEP Testing age 13- reading 258, math 266

SAT testing age 13- verbal 421, math 466

2023:

NAEP Testing age 13- reading 256, math 263

SAT testing age 13- verbal 520, math 508

Here’s a graph of what that looks like:

Spending Per Student vs. Educational Outcomes from 1980-2023

This data is controlling for population changes (SES, racial makeup, neighborhood disparity).

The evidence is clear. Spending has no correlation to educational outcomes. By any reasonable logic, we should expect to see an increase in educational outcomes. There is none. So if money doesn’t matter to educational outcomes, what does?

The Monopoly

Competition. The government has no incentive to produce better outcomes because there is no one to compete with. The other two alternatives to public schools are private schools and home schools. Currently, the average cost per student in Tennessee for a private school education is $13,000 per year. The average cost per student in Tennessee for a homeschool education is $2,000 per year. This means that the public school system is the ONLY FREE education offered in Tennessee. This is the literal definition of a monopoly.

Websters Dictionary: Monopoly- An exclusive privilege to carry on a business or service granted by the government. The market condition that exists when there is only one seller.

Everyone knows that competition drives costs down and quality up. Until government schools have competition, there is no incentive to be more proficient, increase educational outcomes, and reduce teacher inefficiency. You can just keep rolling along with arbitrary teacher tenure, protection for ill-behaved children, and lack of control over violence in schools.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but what I know is spending more money on schools is not the answer, and creating competition is at least one answer.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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What If She Walks In?

When Religion Gets in the Way

This picture has circulated with the headline, “Can this woman enter the church?” Here, I provide no fancy sentences. No backspaces or rewrites. No thought out linguistical creativity. Just typing as fast as I can, on purpose. This post took me almost the same amount of time to write it as it will for you to read it. Straight from the gut. No glitter. No empiricism. Just raw, lived experience with religion getting directly in the way of good decisions.

At First, Everything is Good

You find your favorite parking spot. You are greeted on the way in. You grab your latte. Hug a neck or two. You go in to find your favorite seat. The one you sit in every Sunday. It’s your comfort zone. From that seat, you look over and there’s the gentleman from the grocery store. Over there is the lady who found your dog after he got out. Right behind you is the family you’ve known since the husband and wife were children. Oh, and on the other side is your kids’ former baseball coach when they played little league. You’re comfortable there. These are your people. Then she walks in.

You know, the girl that you watched get arrested last week outside the grocery store for stealing formula. Or the one who you just knew was a bad apple. You told your daughter to never hang out with that girl. She was trouble. But here she is. By herself. Her face says she’s miserable. Her body says she’s been abused. Her hair says she just doesn’t care. But then there’s a tear. Her tears say she’s had enough.

Enough

Enough of whatever brought about this calamity. Enough of trying it the same way and hoping for different results. Enough of the constant drama. Enough crying herself to sleep, wondering what a peaceful night of sleep would be like. Enough looking over her shoulder for her abuser.

Then she sits down, not near your seat, but in your seat. The one you’ve sat in for 20 years. You can’t believe it. What do you do? What if she walks in and you’re faced with the fact that she knows you?

How Do You Respond?

If your response is anything other than sitting beside her, you need to revaluate where God wants you to grow right now. In this moment, she is fragile. She knows she doesn’t fit in. She was certain the moment she walked in she would get struck by lightning. But somehow, that didn’t happen. If you shun her, her preconceived notions about “church people” will be realized. If no one talks to her, her isolation will increase.

It’s in this very moment you must become the only Jesus she may see that day. You may be the only opportunity she gets to see exactly how Matthew felt when Jesus asked him to have a party at his house. You may be the only representation of what it felt like when Jesus told a fouled-mouthed fisherman named Simon to follow him. You may be the only shot she has to experience what it was like for Jesus to look up at Zacchaeus and ask to hang out with him.

What do you do with that opportunity? Do you squander it because you are uncomfortable? Do you miss out on using what God blessed you with? We are blessed to be a blessing, not to hoard it. Or do you introduce yourself? Maybe you hug her. Tell her it will be alright. Smile at her throughout the service. Tell her you’re glad she came and hopes she comes back.

The Difference May Be You

This small, short, simple interaction may be the difference in her life. How do I know? Years ago, two teenage boys saw something going on in their community and showed up. It happened to be a pop-up church service. As they entered, they quickly realized the place was pretty full. They turned to leave. An unassuming usher asked them if he could take a minute to find them seats. They obliged. Seats were found. By the end of the service, one of the boys surrendered his life to the calling he felt from God. This young man went on to be known as Billy Graham. One usher, a 15-second interaction. It changed everything.

You have no idea if that girl you once were repulsed by is the next worship leader somewhere. You don’t know if her calling is into the mission field to change countless lives. And either your kindness propels her in that direction, or your self-righteous religious dogma sends her the other way, back to how she got here in the first place.

A Call To Action

I urge you to wrestle with this scenario. Place yourself directly in this position. What would you do?

I once heard a man say, “I looked at God and I looked in the mirror and the two looked nothing alike.” If your response doesn’t look like Jesus, then this is your next step for growth. We all have areas for growth. This just may be yours.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Mother Knew Best

It’s worth noting that while there are so many great mothers out there, some did not grow up with a good mom. For some it’s a source of pain to even consider. For them I say, there’s a good example to look to.

Picture it, Jesus is hanging out at a wedding. Just trying to enjoy his time. They run out of wine. Jesus’ mom, Mary goes over to Jesus and says, “They have no more wine.” I imagine there was a look that accompanied that phrase. You know the look. The one where a mom says, “your room still isn’t clean” then gives that look.

Then Jesus says, “why are you involving me in this? It’s not my time yet.” She all but ignores his insistence on remaining anonymous. She just turns to the servants and says, “Do whatever he tells you to do.”

The very first miracle Jesus performed took place because mother knew best. She didn’t listen to his desire to stay away. She knew his calling and didn’t let him sit idle.

This Mother’s Day, remembering Mary is a good idea. Her life was very difficult, yet very rewarding. And she embraced the role of a great mother till the very end.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Moral Relativism: The Tyranny We Call Kindness

When Everything is Allowed, Nothing Works

James Orr and Freya India

In Case You Missed It:

I recently watched a podcast where James Orr discussed with Freya India the idea that therapy, and therapy culture, replaced morality. While I believe the current, overall culture of therapy is the location of toxicity in human behavior, which leads me to agree with their take, true therapy or counseling should operate from sound, objective realities, objective truths, and objective morality. The therapeutic endeavor itself isn’t the problem, it’s the improper application of it. When therapy abandons objective anchors, it stops being therapeutic and becomes permissive. It doesn’t heal, it pathologizes. Having said that, the conversation struck a nerve in the realm of moral relativism.

Moral relativism didn’t arrive like a catastrophe, it showed up like a shrug. Do whatever works for you. It’s your truth (which doesn’t exist). We’ve torn down shared moral boundaries and replaced them with personal preference, as if a society can survive on nothing but individual feelings. The psychological fallout is obvious. Confusion, anxiety, lack of direction, and a culture that can no longer tolerate discomfort without calling it trauma. It is the literal breeding ground for the epidemic of apathy we see in Gen Z.

Freya India said it bluntly,

“When everyone makes up their own morality, we end up in separate worlds.”

That’s exactly what this moment feels like. The inability to grip agreed upon values. How did we get there? By wanting the outcomes of moral discipline without the discipline itself. We want the fruits of sacrifice without the sacrifice. We want maturity without constraint. We bought the idea that anything which constrains destroys. The result is a generation that celebrates its authenticity but collapses under the slightest internal pressure.

This is what moral relativism produces. When everyone defines right and wrong according to personal preference, emotional comfort replaces morality. The fear of hurting someone’s feelings now outweighs the obligation to speak truth. People stay silent, not because they’ve thought deeply, but because they’re terrified of being called judgmental. Once emotional safety becomes the highest value, every other value gets downgraded. Responsibility looks oppressive. Boundaries look abusive. Expectations look cruel. Freya said,

“We have forgotten the word morals and replaced it with boundaries.”

Limitations as Liberation

Jordan Peterson, for years, has been saying that we’re being taught that all boundaries are tyranny. But a world with no boundaries isn’t free, it’s chaotic. Everyone understands this at the fundamental level. A child without boundaries becomes anxious. A marriage without boundaries falls apart. A society without boundaries dissolves into factions. And yet, somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves that moral boundaries are uniquely dangerous, while pretending the psychological fallout doesn’t exist.

Jonathan Haidt’s research shows how this plays out. When “safetyism”, or harm avoidance, becomes the highest moral priority, the definition of harm expands until anything can count. Expectations hurt. Standards hurt. Disagreement hurts. This inflated sense of fragility is exactly what we see now. We have a population that is both hyper-sensitive and chronically distressed. A terrible psychological combination. People can’t tolerate discomfort, and they can’t find stability. They’re told to look to the self for their moral compass, but the self is what got them here.

The symptoms are real. The rise in anxiety, the inability to commit, the paralysis around decision making, the hostility toward accountability. When nothing is objectively right or wrong, people don’t become liberated, they become overwhelmed. Every choice becomes existential because there’s no stable framework to lean on.

Freya went on to acknowledge something powerful. Society loves celebrating the milestone of marriage. 25 years. 50 years. But hates acknowledging what built it. Sacrifice, grit, restraint, discipline. Those things require boundaries, and boundaries are incompatible with relativism. If my values and your values are all that exist, then no one is allowed to say that any set of behaviors is necessary for a stable relationship. So we glorify the outcome and denounce the process. It’s delusional and dishonest.

Here’s the harsh truth. Boundaries don’t suffocate us, they stabilize us. They give us a structure to push against so we can grow. They keep our impulses in check so we don’t destroy ourselves. They give meaning to our commitments, weight to our promises, and direction to our choices. Remove them, and you don’t get freedom, you get fog.

The Results

And fog is exactly what we’re living in. A society that treats morality as personal preference will inevitably wonder why they feel so detached. Why kids are anxious. Why adults feel lost. Why relationships crumble. Why communities can’t agree on anything. Why we’re constantly offended yet never fulfilled.

We don’t have a cultural crisis of compassion, we have a crisis of clarity. People are starving for direction while being told that direction itself is oppressive. They’re collapsing under the weight of freedom because freedom without structure is psychologically unbearable. It’s too much choice without any grounding.

Our Next Move

We need to stop pretending that moral relativism is harmless. It’s not. It’s a psychological toxin. It produces confused individuals and fragmented communities. It destroys resilience. It undermines accountability. It dissolves meaning. It rewards fragility and punishes strength.

We need to reclaim objective standards. Not because we want control, but because humans cannot function without them. Children need boundaries. Adults need responsibility. Communities need shared expectations. Society needs a common moral starting point, or it will tear itself apart.

This doesn’t mean returning to some rigid, nostalgic fantasy. It means recognizing the psychological truth that people thrive under clear structure and crumble under limitless freedom. Our greatest liberties are found inside boundaries, not outside them.

We can keep pretending relativism works, or we can face reality. One path leads to stability, resilience, and meaning. The other leads exactly where we are now. Resentful, anxious, and foggy.

It’s time to choose.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Why Therapy is So Hard For Men

The Attempt at Growth in an Unwelcomed Room

Men walking into therapy often feel like they’ve stepped into a room designed for someone else. The reasons are so vast, but here, I’ll address nine of them: Face to face communication, vulnerability is mocked, the zero-sum game, imbalanced topics, the feminine standard, socially constructed lies, therapy lacks humor, pathologizing biology, and men feel like no one cares. I invite you to read this with an open mind. Again, this is not exhaustive, just representative.

Face to Face vs. Side by Side

Men tend to communicate best side by side, not face to face.

That simple difference matters more than most people realize. Face-to-face communication, in male psychology, carries two common meanings: confrontation or vulnerability. Across most of male social life, communication happens while doing something. Driving, fishing, fixing a truck, lifting weights, or watching a game. The conversation happens alongside the activity, not in direct emotional spotlight.

  • Put two men shoulder to shoulder and they’ll talk for hours.
  • Put them in two chairs staring directly at each other in a quiet office and the everything changes. It can feel interrogative or emotionally exposed in a way that men aren’t accustomed to.

Side-by-side communication lowers the pressure. It creates breathing room. The activity gives the conversation a rhythm. In many cases, men open up more easily when the focus isn’t entirely on them.

Vulnerability is Mocked

Another barrier appears when a man finally does attempt vulnerability.

Often this moment happens awkwardly and without practice. A man who has spent decades learning to contain his emotions suddenly tries to express them. Then it comes out unclear or the timing is confusing to the spouse.

Then comes the worst possible response.

The spouse, not expecting this new approach, reacts with confusion or even mockery. Not necessarily malicious mockery. Often it’s disbelief. Then comes a comment like, “What are you doing? You’re fine. Just grill the steaks!”

To the man, that moment carries enormous psychological weight. He took a risk. The risk was rejected. The brain quickly learns a lesson… vulnerability leads to humiliation.

The defense mechanism that follows is predictable. He shuts down. Not because he refuses growth, but because the interaction signaled danger.

Zero-Sum Game

Discussions about men’s mental health often trigger an odd cultural reflex.

Some people hear “men’s mental health” and interpret it as an attempt to take attention away from women’s issues. The conversation becomes competitive, as if compassion and understanding are limited resources.

But mental health is not a zero-sum game.

Helping men does not harm women. Helping women does not harm men. Human suffering doesn’t require a ranking system. It simply requires attention and care.

Men’s health advocates don’t want the spotlight shifted from women to men, but rather just broadened to cover both. We can think two things at the same time.

Imbalanced Topics

Many therapists sit down with men and immediately ask about their feelings.

That sounds reasonable. Therapy, after all, deals with emotions. But the timing matters. Sometimes a man walks into therapy and only wants to know why Chris didn’t like his new boat.

On the surface that seems trivial. A therapist may quickly assume there’s a deeper emotional wound underneath. Maybe insecurity. Maybe validation issues.

And sometimes that’s true.

But sometimes the man is just thinking about his boat.

Men often process thoughts through practical details before moving into emotional territory. Jumping immediately into emotional analysis can feel intrusive or premature. It creates a sense that everything must be turned into a psychological excavation.

Write the comment down. Let the conversation breathe. If there is deeper meaning, it will surface naturally over time.

Not every statement needs to become a therapeutic breakthrough the moment it’s spoken.

The Feminine Standard

Traditional couples therapy tends to follow a very specific format.

Two partners sit across from each other. They speak calmly. They take turns describing their feelings. The therapist facilitates reflective listening and emotional validation.

  • For many women, this format feels natural and productive.
  • For many men, it’s exausting and feels like psychological quicksand.

The environment emphasizes emotional articulation, sustained eye contact, and prolonged discussion of feelings. These communication styles generally suit women more often than men.

Many men would rather resolve conflict in a more active setting. Talking loudly over music while shooting pool. Arguing during a long drive. Venting frustration while tossing darts or putting golf balls across the living room/office.

Conversations often become more honest when they’re embedded in action rather than stifled by stillness.

Socially Constructed Lies

For generations, men have been told a story about themselves.

The story says men must have everything together. Real men don’t need help. Real men solve problems alone.

That story is both deeply embedded in culture and deeply false.

Human beings are social creatures by design. Our brains evolved to cooperate, communicate, and share burdens. Isolation is suffocating.

There is nothing weak about asking another person for perspective. Sometimes a man simply wants help understanding why his wife yells so much or why they have a sexless marriage.

Therapy Lacks Humor

Therapists are just too damn serious.

The atmosphere can feel like a funeral for joy. Every comment is analyzed. Every sentence is treated like a symptom. Laughter gets awkward.

But men often process difficult emotions through humor.

Sarcasm, joking, and playful exaggeration are not avoidance mechanisms by default. Sometimes they are emotional pressure valves.

I have a client who laughs when he expresses dissent, frustration, resentment, and he usually does it through humorous sarcasm. I often join him in laughter. Sometimes that’s enough.

Pathologizing Biology

Often couples therapy is led by a woman who knows nothing about what you just read and works solely on how men can be more like women.

Many therapeutic frameworks were developed around communication patterns more common among women. This creates an unconscious bias.

But men and women are not identical creatures psychologically or biologically.

When therapy treats male tendencies, like directness, emotional restraint, and action-oriented thinking, as defects that must be corrected, men understandably resist. The result is more men rejecting the notion that the only solution to their marital problems is if he learns to cry at Hallmark movies. Men do not need to become women in order to become healthy partners.

They Feel No One Cares

After enough experiences like these, many men arrive at a bleak conclusion.

They believe no one truly cares whether they struggle or not.

If society cared, people would try harder to understand how men communicate. Vulnerability would be welcomed rather than mocked. Mental health would not be framed as a competition. Masculine biology would be studied rather than dismissed.

When men feel fundamentally misunderstood, disengagement becomes the logical response. Why participate in a system that feels designed without you in mind?

The tragedy is that this perception reinforces silence. Silence deepens suffering. And suffering, left alone long enough, begins to convince people they are invisible. And this is how we get to the staggering suicide statistics that exist today.

When therapy learns to meet men where they actually are, the resistance often softens, and the conversation that was once impossible becomes tangible. I’ve seen this firsthand. Men can have flourishing lives and fixing the broken therapeutic system is a good step towards this realization.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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According to Research, You and I Are Probably Wrong

Curiosity, Conversation, and the Quiet Collapse of a Divided Society

In Case You Missed Recent Articles

The recent “No Kings” protests garnered less attention than previous rallies. While it seems to be dying out, it still got my attention. I spoke with people who attended them, read write-ups on the protests, and watched various clips covering the day’s events. I was curious as to what exactly they were protesting. The results were baffling.

Some of the main points included:

  • Executive orders
  • Removing illegal aliens
  • Ignoring the constitution

I couldn’t help but think, where were these outcries when Biden was in office? These are some of the same things the other side were upset about when Biden was in office. I thought, why are they mad now, but not back then? And why are conservatives not mad now, but were back then?

Executive Orders

It is fair to say Trump has issued the most EOs in recent history. As of this writing, here are the EO numbers to date:

  • Trump – 220 in his first term and 255 so far
  • Biden issued 150
  • Obama issued 276.

All three president’s numbers warrant a tyranny label. For reference, James Madison issued 1 in eight years. One.

Deportations

Where were the “No Kings” rallies during the Obama administration? As of this writing, here are the deportation numbers by president:

  • Trump: approximately 1 million
  • Biden: approximately 1.5 million
  • Obama: approximately 3 million (Garnering the nickname Deporter-in-Chief)

Where was the deportation outrage among liberals from 2008-2024? There should have either been outrage this entire time, or no outrage now. And where are the conservatives now that were outraged during the terms of Obama and Biden?

When asked which constitutional amendment, provision, clause Trump is ignoring, the only answer I got was “All of them!” They simply could not answer it. They had no defense of their own. The binary approach is what is disingenuous. It’s not that they disagree with tyranny, it’s that their team isn’t in office.

There is a current issue with this on the other side. Conservatives are no better. Why aren’t more conservatives speaking out against the number of EOs? I understand the need for them, but the abuse is rampant and every president uses them like tyrannical building blocks. They have no place in a republic.

For the record, I haven’t seen much in the way of ignoring the U.S. Constitution on the part of Obama or Trump. Biden, however, trampled on it, particularly through Covid.

A Call to Action

So why are we only hearing about the president on the “other side?” (Reminder, you don’t have a side. They don’t care about you. And the sooner you realize this, the better off your mental health will be).

We must find a way to bridge this divide. The reality that we cannot see or understand those on the “other side” is quietly dissolving the moral and social fabric upon which our society depends.

Homophily is common. This is the tendency to interact with those similar to ourselves more often than those considered different. You see this every day. Think about who you’re drawn to.

  • Frequents the same establishments
  • Enjoys the same hobbies
  • Has a similar intellect
  • Similar familial situation
  • Political and religious worldview

What Research Says

Individuals tend to underestimate the extent to which dialogue with those holding opposing views can refine their thinking and enhance their understanding of complex issues. Multiple research studies suggest that individuals may underestimate their level of agreement with a piece of communication from across the political aisle.

  • People expect that listening to opposing views will be unpleasant (Dorison et al., 2019). This was found to be a forecasting error. Their assumption stood directly in their way, subsequently affecting information consumption.
  • They expect that others who do not share their views will respond negatively to them (Wald et al., 2024). They found that people underestimate the degree of common ground that would emerge in conversation and from failing to appreciate the power of social forces in conversation that create social connection.
  • People are afraid they will not feel heard by others during a conversation (Teeny & Petty, 2022). Feeling, in advance, that they will not be heard, they are significantly more reluctant to enter into conversation with anyone with opposing views.
  • Brand new research showed that each participant underestimated levels of depolarization after having a conversation with them about various topics: Dogs vs cats, cancel culture, Biden’s performance as president (Kardas et al., 2026). All had the same outcome. Another finding within this study was that if one was told that it’s been shown that polarization reduces after conversations with others with different viewpoints, their own polarization reduced, without the conversation ever having taken place. Just the idea that someone else may have a different view and that previous experiments showed most depolarized after discussions caused a solid shift in their own polarization. Each participant found unexpected areas of agreement when discussing issues typically viewed as polarized.
  • Todd Kashdan proposed that curiosity itself was a driving factor behind reluctance towards political conversation. His team found that people incorrectly assumed others would be closed-minded towards cross-aisle conversations. Yet when they discovered that their political in-group displayed more humility and open-mindedness than originally anticipated, their curiosity increased, leading to more fruitful and willing conversations across the aisle (Kashdan et al., 2025).

Tribalism Must Go

Moral of the story? You’re probably wrong. And so am I. And that’s ok. Let’s change. Tribalism is a cancer. It does no one any good. It becomes evident that we have misjudged the depth of our own intellectual flexibility, as well as that of others, underestimating our shared capacity to adapt, to remain curious, and to reshape our thinking in response to new evidence. I’ve been as guilty as anyone. I get caught up in, “They’re not going to listen to anything I have to say anyway, I’m not going to waste my time.”

Sometimes this is rooted in a quiet but powerful presumption that we already possess the truth, and that the task of the other is merely to recognize it and follow. In such a posture, curiosity is not only diminished but also displaced, though it may be the most essential element of all.

Such curiosity led me to here. Years ago, I decided to learn. Really learn. And the more I learned, the more I understood the premise behind Socrates’ claim, “I am the wisest among you because I know nothing.” He found that the more he learned, the more he realized how much was out there to learn. And he possessed a small, minute fraction of the information available. For me, this led to openness and curiosity. Which led to anti-tribalism.

As stated in my first book, America’s Great Threat: America, America won’t fall from the outside. It will collapse from within, foremost among the causes is a rigid, binary way of thinking that divides people and discourages curiosity.

End Tribalism!

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

References

Dorison, C. A., Minson, J. A., & Rogers, T. (2019). Selective exposure partly relies on faulty affective forecasts. Cognition, 188, 98–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.02.010

Kardas, M., Nordgren, L., & Rucker, D. (2026). Unnecessarily divided: Civil conversations reduce attitude polarization more than people expect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 130(2), 187–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000469

Kashdan, T. B., McKnight, P. E., Kelso, K., Craig, L., & Gross, M. (2025). Enhancing curiosity with a wise intervention to improve political conversations and relationships. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 40272–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-24021-8

Teeny, J. D., & Petty, R. E. (2022). Attributions of emotion and reduced attitude openness prevent people from engaging others with opposing views. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102, 104373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104373

Wald, K. A., Kardas, M., & Epley, N. (2024). Misplaced divides? Discussing political disagreement with strangers can be unexpectedly positive. Psychol Sci, 35(5), 471–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241230005

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The Diary of Existing Beliefs

Skepticism, Faith, and the Fear of Being Wrong

Wes Huff and Steven Bartlett

I watched the new Wes Huff interview on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. Steven is one of my favorite podcasts to watch. He has the best guests and is genuinely curious. This one, however, had a bit of predetermined readiness for a duel. Steven was welcoming as always and asked questions in good faith, but he could not tolerate the way Wes was answering them. So he cut Wes off many times shortly into Wes’ reply.

This showed me he was looking for predetermined outcomes to the questions he was asking and when it didn’t go as planned, he shifted, as if to refocus the conversation on his own skepticism. Wes masterfully put every question to rest with facts and his overall interpretation of the events in question.

Let’s take a few of Steven’s objections for examples of what I’m referring to.

The Great Leap Backwards

The greatest leap was an early one. Steven comes out swinging concerning the time when the gospels were written. John was written approximately 40 years after Jesus’ death. Steven attempts to make the case that this would be hard to remember. If this is the standard, we must throw out almost every text written in the ancient world as fact.

Throw out all of the Roman Empire. All Greek philosophers. Socrates? Gone. His pupil Plato? Gone. Plato’s pupil Aristotle? Gone. Aristotle’s pupil Alexander the Great? Gone. The earliest manuscripts we have of anything being written about Alexander the Great was approximately 250 years after his death. But we hang on every word of it as the undeniable truth.

It would all have to go. But we would never do that. Why? Because we only want to throw out what challenges us.

Both or Neither

Then Steven suggests that there can’t be a God with all of the evil in the world. Here, Wes delicately handles this objection (much more diplomatically than I would have—realizing this interview was a setup for a duel) by illuminating the often agreed upon philosophy that if we acknowledge there is Evil, then we must agree there is Good. And also agree they have origins and authors. Again, he was trying to prove something false only to feed directly into its philosophical objectivity.

The Unmoved Mover

Steven then gets into the evolutionary debate. They both quickly agree on adaptation. But the idea of a transition from chimpanzee to human has yet to be remotely adequately explained. Beyond this, Steven kept referring to existing realities and variations of the existing realities while dodging the origin argument the entire time.

At one point, Wes begins to say that there must have been a beginning and Steven interrupts, again, to shift into his creative brain making sense of the world outside of the need for a God. Wes even alludes to Aristotle’s claim that while moving things are moved by other movers, it could not have begun by a mover. It had to have begun by an eternal, unmoved mover. There has to have been an origin story. But Steven kept dodging it.

The Holy Vending Machine

Lastly, Steven travels into the arena of prayer. He says what many say, “I have prayed for meaningful things that never came true. If there is a God, why would he not answer that prayer? And if He doesn’t answer prayer, then how great of a God could He possibly be?”

This is assuming…

  1. We have asked according to God’s will,
  2. We already know what God’s will is ahead of time,
  3. We somehow have an idea of what should happen regardless of how limited we are in our thinking.

God is not the Holy vending machine in the sky. “A4 – new job!” And prayer isn’t solely asking for things, although at times, it involves that.

The Lord’s Prayer

Allow me to briefly break down the Lord’s Prayer as an example:

  • Our Father who is in Heaven: This lays out that he is revealed to us as a father (paternal authority) and where he currently is. So when we pray, we know exactly to whom we are praying.
  • Holy is your name: This indicates that when we pray, we are speaking to a perfect God.
  • Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven: Here we see the idea that when we pray, we are to ask for what He wants, not what we want. We are also to ask God to bring what is in heaven here to earth. Eternal rewards in the afterlife are not enough.
  • Give us this day our daily bread: When we do ask, we should ask for what we need, not necessarily what we want.
  • Forgive us, as we have forgiven others: This one’s tough. If we haven’t forgiven others very well, we are saying, don’t forgive us either. The opposite is equally true.

It ends with recognition that He is the creator and ruler of all. None of that is easy, nothing suggests indulging the self, and all of it challenge us to aim towards and ineffable telos.

Conclusion

Steven wanted to be right. This is new for him. He usually wants to learn. So why was this different? I think the answer is simple. Christianity calls us towards a better way than the easy path in front of us; the easy path of rejecting notions of delayed gratification. Never mind that delayed gratification is a predictor of economic success. Christianity also rejects the self and requires us to acknowledge the intrinsic deficiencies we all possess. This is often too much for our current self-driven society to handle. Personally, I’m glad I grew up before they invented self-esteem.

Thankfully, Steven eventually gets to a place where he concedes that Wes really is a good guy, knows what he’s talking about, and genuinely means well. It ended better than it started. Maybe next time Steven goes in ready for a fight, he will pick someone less informed so he can win.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger