The First Reality

Jon, in fact, no pun intended, we must start with morals as the first "reality," as you point out so well here.

Morals shape how we see facts, process them, and sadly we have become more and more amoral as a society. If we are not careful, it will destroy us.

As the late American philosopher Russell Kirk put it, without moral order first there can be no other order. Hopefully we have in place our traditional morals. The crazy stuff is not working, and it is toxic.