There is Only Good & Evil - Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: "There is Only Good & Evil" – Detailed Summary

Release Date: January 22, 2025

Host: Armstrong & Getty
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

Introduction

In the episode titled "There is Only Good & Evil", Armstrong and Getty delve deep into the growing polarization and black-and-white thinking prevalent in today's society. They explore the psychological and social factors contributing to this division, drawing from personal experiences and observations.

Main Discussion Points

1. The Emergence of Black-and-White Thinking

Armstrong initiates the conversation by addressing the trend of reducing complex issues to mere binaries of good and evil. He remarks:

"Manicheanism. The reduction of the world into only good and evil and everything must be one or the other."
(12:45)

Getty concurs, emphasizing the dangers of such dualistic thinking in both personal relationships and political discourse:

"There's no budging him off of it. It’s just no."
(15:30)

2. Psychological Underpinnings

The hosts explore the psychological aspects behind this phenomenon. Getty references Freud's concept of "Freudenshad," a playful term blending Freud with Schadenfreude, to describe taking pleasure in others' misfortunes. He elaborates:

"She is so freaking excited. I mean she's just crying with joy. I think just a simpleton."
(05:20)

Armstrong adds that this rigid thinking might stem from an inability to handle ambivalence—the coexistence of conflicting emotions or thoughts about a single subject.

3. Personal Anecdotes and Observations

The duo shares personal stories illustrating the impact of polarized thinking:

Armstrong discusses his son's strong political views causing friction and lost friendships at a young age.

"I have one kid who's got very black and white strong political views on a controversial topic... he's outspoken about it, and it's caused him problems."
(22:10)

Getty recounts his divorce, attributing it to his ex-wife's inability to accept any flaws or differing viewpoints:

"She puts our dog in coats, and I don't like that. So we're through."
(18:55)

4. Nature vs. Nurture Debate

The conversation shifts to the age-old debate of nature versus nurture. Armstrong expresses his leaning towards genetic predispositions influencing behavior:

"I'm so far down the road of nature for almost everything. Every kid's a blank slate. It's just an expression of how their parents raised them."
(27:40)

Getty shares his skepticism about external influences, suggesting that even with parenting, inherent traits play a significant role.

5. Political Polarization

Both hosts critique the current political climate, highlighting how compromise has become increasingly difficult:

"Our entire political system is based on differing ideas, factions, whatever. But people are reducing everything to good or bad, making compromise nearly impossible."
(30:15)

They discuss the impact of social media on exacerbating these divisions, where nuanced discussions are often replaced by binary attacks.

6. Coping with Polarization

Armstrong and Getty offer insights into managing relationships amidst such polarization. They advocate for understanding and empathy, even when disagreements arise:

"It's part of the package. You just realize there's flaws, but on the whole, you like them and deal with it."
(19:50)

Notable Quotes

Armstrong:
"The most terrifying place you could ever go is into somebody else's mind for five minutes."
(14:30)
Getty:
"If you don't like this personality trait they have, it's impossible that you like every personality trait of your people you're close to."
(20:05)
Armstrong:
"Nothing is perfectly pure. Your own husband, wife, or kids aren't."
(21:00)

Insights and Conclusions

Armstrong and Getty conclude that the binary perception of good versus evil is detrimental to both personal relationships and societal harmony. They stress the importance of embracing complexity and ambivalence in thought processes. By acknowledging that individuals are multifaceted, society can foster more meaningful dialogues and reduce unnecessary conflicts.

The hosts also highlight the necessity for political systems to accommodate diverse viewpoints, facilitating compromise rather than entrenching divisions. They advocate for personal introspection and empathetic understanding as tools to navigate and bridge the growing chasm of polarization.

Final Thoughts

"There is Only Good & Evil" serves as a poignant exploration of the challenges posed by polarized thinking. Through candid discussions and relatable anecdotes, Armstrong and Getty provide listeners with a thought-provoking analysis of modern societal dynamics, urging a shift towards more nuanced and empathetic interactions.

Note: Advertisements and non-content segments from the transcript were excluded to maintain focus on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly. You don't be silly. People with The Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash back on purchases. Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot. No. The Wells Fargo ActiveCash Credit Card. Visit wells fargo.comactivecash Terms apply cha cha cha cha. Chumba looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play. Experience social gameplay like never before. Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games including online slots, Bingo, Slingo and more. Live the chumba life@chumbacasino.com VGW approved. No purchase necessary Void. We're prohibited by law. See terms and conditions. Hi, I'm John Walsh. Do you suffer suffer from muscle pain due to overuse, exercise or aging like I did? I finally found relief with Omega xl, a clinically proven, natural drug free supplement that helps relieve joint pain and muscle soreness. Take back your life and feel younger like I did with OmegaXL. Visit OmegaXL.com buy now for OmegaXL Spogo Special. That's less than $20 a bottle. Remember, there's a 60 day money back guarantee. Terms apply. Visit OmegaXcel.com buy stop hitting snooze on new tech. Upgrade the whole team@lenovo.com Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device. Win the tech search for business PCs@lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo Foreigners and lunatics are still defending Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. It's one more thing. Armstrong and Getty. One more thing. I got a question before we get to that. Yeah. What percentage of the people on the Price is Right or let's Make a Deal are mentally ill? Qualified as mentally ill because this woman sweat mentally ill. I'm watching this woman. She just got picked out of the crowd by Drew Carey to be on the Price is Right. She is so freaking excited. I mean she's just crying with. I just, I think feel like you gotta be a simpleton. I think just a simpleton. And she's like sound like you hate Joy. She's like she's like in her mid-50s. I mean, you've been around a little bit. You know, you've seen some ups and downs. You've raised some kids. She's probably been watching the show for years, and it'd be great to be on there. Now she's just living her dream. Living her dream. And now she's got a chance to win this joy. That is clearly the case. Katie diagnosed. Now she's got a chance to win this Hyundai. Size of a couch car. Okay. Good luck with that. Hope you win. It's a gas zipper. You know what? It's. It's all coming clear to me now, Katie. He's admitted proudly he thrives on schadenfreude. I do joy from other people's pain. Clearly he gets pain from other people's joy. Whatever the opposite a schadenfreude is. Yes, exactly. Goes both ways. It's funny. Freudenshad. You know what it is? You know what I think? You know what it actually is? Probably. I wish stuff like that made me happy. A lot of the things that make other people happy, I wish it made me happy, but it doesn't. It just doesn't. And I. I'm kind of envious of people that can get that excited about things that just don't do it for me. Yeah, we were talking earlier, Katie, off the air. I'm not sure if you around and heard it, and it has to do with some emails we got on certain topics and some. It would be a distraction, honestly, to go into what topic it was. But there are. I'm trying to figure out if people are just being stubborn and being dicks or they're rigid or whatever, or if there are people who actually can't emotionally deal with if, say, I don't know, an issue or a politician. If you agree with them 85% and there's just 15% that, yeah, I can't quite go that far, or I got to point out this problem or whatever. They are enraged by that or they can't even process it. They, like, can't even live with the idea of, you know, it's mostly good, there's a little bad. And I just. I find myself wondering if there are people who. Because they. It's been said many times the most terrifying place you could ever go is into somebody else's mind for five minutes. I just wonder if there are people that. It doesn't look like it does to me when they have to deal with ambivalence of any sort, because judging by the emails. Unless they're just angry trolls, they literally cannot admit some. Nothing is perfectly pure. Your own husband, wife, or kids aren't. Yeah, I'm not. Who doesn't have something they wouldn't. I don't know the right way to say you don't particularly like about your husband, your wife, or your kids. You don't like this personality trait they have. I mean, it'd be impossible that you like every personality trait of your people you're close to. That's impossible. Yeah. If anybody says that, then they're lying. Exactly. You just realize it's part of the package. And on the whole, you like them and, you know, you deal with it and then, you know, they deal with yours. And I don't know if it's like a symptom of dumbness in some cases that they just can't noodle through. There are flaws to this, but it's okay. They just get angry at the idea that there's any, you know, any fudging at all of this has to be 100% good, this is 100% bad, and anything with any more subtlety than that freaks them out. Yeah. It's a very black and white attitude. Yeah. That is a mental thing. That is a state. Like my son, who has a variety of things he takes a lot of pills for. He has a very black and white with a lot of stuff, and there's just no budging him off of it. Yeah. And I'm not coming out of. I'm not coming at this. And I wish I'd, like, gotten my thoughts in order because this would make more sense if I had. But I'm not trying to come at this, like, in a snarky way or to mock people. I'm trying to understand them. And I've got to admit, it's like they're telling me, no, there are three moons in the sky. And that's so foreign to the way I think I'm thinking, all right, I got to figure out why they think there are three moons in the sky. Yeah. And there's. It's definitely more so more common on the left side of politics, too. I mean, just in the last week, the amount of people where I have seen the anti Trump post on Facebook and one person mentions like an executive order that isn't all that terrible, and they get pissed. It's not a conversation anymore. It's an attack. Yeah. Manicheanism. The reduction of the world into only good and evil and everything must be one or the other. Huh. Huh. It Seems like that's something to want to. A tendency you'd want to avoid. Yeah, well. And you have to avoid it in a political system like ours. Our entire political system is based on differing ideas, factions, whatever. They come together in Congress, mostly. They come together and say, here's who I am and here's what I believe. Oh, here's who we are. Here's what we believe. But we gotta run the country. Let's figure out how we can compromise. That is our system. And our system can't stand, you know, that sort of dualism I was talking. So people who do that around politics and issues and stuff like that, that they do that in their personal lives that I was just talking about a little bit ago. Can they accept that? You know, I like my. I like 99% of my wife, but she puts our dog in coats, and I don't like that. So we're through. I don't think so. I moved all of her shit onto the lawn and we're divorced now. Yeah, I don't. I had a friend like this. Oh, really? Emphasis on had. And it was her way or the highway. Every time. Always, always. And for some reason, I put up with it for more than 20 years. And finally, adios, biatch. Yeah. So. But is it. Is it a personality trait? Is it like a kink? Because of the way you were raised? You were abused, whatever. Is it inborn? Well, I know how you feel about the whole nature or nurture thing. Having raised three kids with two kids, man, I'm so far down the road of nature for almost everything. I used to think before I had kids, it was, you know, the way you were raised or your parents or whatever. But, man, every kid's a blank slate. It was just an expression of how their parents raised them. Man, when you have kids that have these very strong tendencies that, you know, they didn't get from your household, it's like, what the hell? Yeah, her parents were great. Both of her siblings aren't like this. She's just nuts. What was. Who did. What was the final straw, if you don't mind me asking? Question, Michael. Good interview. Good gossipy question. Yeah, I love it. She. Oh, boy. I. When I had. I had three strokes back in 2020, and after that happened, she became really judgmental of me, and it just ended. It ended up blowing up pretty much. I told her to off. Did she. Did she feel like you had done something to earn the strokes? Yeah. Yeah, she did and tried to pin it on me. And then when I wouldn't listen to her. She tried to go to my parents to make them get on hearse. It was really bizarre. That was a ballsy move for a woman while you were trying your best to deal with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, even if. Even if she were right, it's just. I don't know what the upside would be of pointing that out. No, I wasn't taking great care of myself. And she tried to blow it up into something it wasn't. And I am very glad that I am no longer dealing with that garbage. Good question. Michael's smiling. Clearly loving the fact that he's pleased with himself. Good sound. The smile on your face, Michael. God, that would be a great call. In topic. We don't do that anymore on the radio show. But what broke up your friendship? Oh, that'd be a good one. That'd be a good topic. Yeah. Oh, I've got a great story. I can't tell it, but I don't think I have shame. Mike. Questions. You'll get him. Yeah. I've only, like, really actively ended one friendship, but I. You know what I got. I got a story. I don't know if I'd be willing to tell it on the air. Yeah. I'm sure you're okay with doing it. Yeah. But anyway, to get back to the theme, and then we can either do what we were going to do or not. I think we're out of time. Well, we can do it tomorrow. Is. Speaking of kids. I'm going to bring it all together. That's what I do. I raised three children who, in terms of. While they are, they unquestionably have traits that remind me of Judy and myself. Of course. It's as if they were selected randomly from all the children in the United States in terms of their strengths and not so strengthy strengths and their personalities and stuff like that. And my daughter, who is autistic, fairly mildly but unquestionably, her crap detector does not work. Her vulnerability to scams has been a big problem that we've been working on for a long time, and she's getting way better at it, thankfully. But I. I'm the opposite. You know that the old saying, don't bullshit a bullshitter. The minute I hear even like 3% bullshit from somebody, I'm like, yep, I'm watching and listening carefully. Go on. What were you saying? I mean, it's just. But I didn't earn that. I just. I was born with it. And I. To a large extent, although being in show business as Don Geronimo, the great radio guy would say the lowest rung of show business. But being in show business for a career tends to make you a little more skeptical and cynical. But anyway, I just wonder whether some people are born without the ability to understand ambivalence. Meaning this is true. And this is also true. And I kind of wish it wasn't, but I can accept it. I just wonder. I don't know. I got one kid who's got very black and white strong political views on a controversial topic I'm not going to mention. I mean, just like very strong and outspoken about it. And it's caused him problems. He's lost friendships at a very young age. Or this like, dude. Why do you think this? I don't think it. Your mom doesn't think it. We've never said anything and I have no idea where he came to this, but he just does freaking have no idea type stuff. Maybe. No, I really don't know. And trust me, I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about it. Is it the designated hitter? Oh, yeah. Very strong. He thinks it's an abomination. Wasn't that delicious? So good. 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Well, keep sending your angry, enraged emails that seem to be ignoring major points, but if it's a good vent for you, a good outlet, that's fine. I have a very smart friend, quite possibly the smartest person I've ever known, who would rather die than express anything Trump ever did as being even slightly positive. Wow. And I don't get it at all. I just don't get it at all. You can. You can say, no, Trump shouldn't be president. I don't think he should be. Here's the reasons. But this was a good idea. Why does that bother you when you say they're one of the smartest people you know? Are they like book smart? Oh, yeah. Very, very. Okay, yeah, yeah. Categories of smart. Yep. True Takes all kinds, I guess. I don't know. I ended up friendship guy wouldn't quit bringing up stupid things I did in the past. And I was like 35 and this was stuff in high school and I finally said, you know what? I don't, I don't want to hear this anymore and just left the Chili's restaurant. That was it. Really? Yep. Left my cheesesteak right there. Did. So you said something though. Yeah, I did. I said. Yeah. I said, you know what, I'm sorry. I'm 35 years old and, you know, I don't think about this stuff anymore. So. Wow, Good for you. For one thing, did you leave him with your bill? I put some money down and just walked out of there. I said, here, here's 20 bucks. I've got two examples I'd like to talk about but won't. But in both cases I ghosted them like a coward. Silence is deafening. But I also, I just, I'm not sure it was worth. They weren't. It was worth getting into. You've. What, are you going to fix them? You've entered into the arena of you're not worth my time anymore. So whatever. Yeah, yeah. I love that Travis Kelsey thing. Do the people in your life give you energy or do they SAP you of it? I wonder where he is on Taylor at this point. She's still giving him energy, probably sucking the life out of him. Well, I guess that's it. Hi, I'm John Walsh. 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