Mar 30, 2026

As surrounding culture increasingly finds methods of justifying behavior, the pervasive habit of identifying as the victim in any situation (typically contrary to objective reality) creates an environment that renders discourse, disagreement, or debate impossible. How can we free ourselves from this distorted reality in...

Mar 23, 2026

How do we live in a world where everyone sees a different reality? In this episode, Brandon Cook explores the growing crisis of the “post-truth” age—an era where emotional narratives, tribal loyalty, and information overload often overwhelm basic facts. Examining how confusion, spectacle, and the constant flood...

Mar 16, 2026

What happens when basic human decency disappears from public life? When power replaces restraint, the line between stability and chaos grows dangerously thin. In this episode, Brandon Cook explores how tribal loyalty, moral fallacies, and the normalization of cruelty erode the norms that sustain democracy—and keep...

Mar 9, 2026

In this episode of Naming the Real, Brandon Cook explores the dangerous idea that power determines what is right. This “might makes right” mindset divides the world into the strong and the weak and assumes that whatever a person or nation is powerful enough to do must be justified. Cook looks at how this way of...

Mar 2, 2026

What happens when moral reasoning is replaced by comparison and outrage?
In this episode, we name what may be the greatest moral fallacy of our time: the “yeah, but” fallacy—the habit of justifying our own behavior by pointing to the failures of the other side. We explore how this entrenched way of thinking...