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The Righteousness Fix
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Re: The Righteousness Fix
#12The big challenge: How to get 2 opposing, self-righteous groups to a place they can talk and learn the fallacies each holds of the other.
I'm not sure that's the right question. It assumes both parties only hold the views they do out of ignorance or "fallacies" whatever that means here. That's not necessarily the case at all, often groups oppose each other out of a clear-eyed understanding of the incompatibility of their values. More understanding won't resolve that conflict.
This is the best and most accurate comment here.
Sometimes, idiots are actually idiots.
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#13"See we’re always doing that. We're always finding a way to be one up. And by the most incredibly subtle means. So you see when you see me and you say I realize I’m always doing that tell me how do I not do that. I say why do you want to know? I’ll be better that way...yeah but why do you want to be better. You see the reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t."
-Alan Watts circa 1965
Prophetic words.
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#14Competition is great, differences of opinion are great. Differences of values are great! All of this keeps the marketplace of ideas healthy!
The problems comes in when people start to develop a righteousness about their ideas and demonize the 'other' and try to force their ideas upon the 'other' because they believe they know better.
That's why I think states rights in America are so great, because they allow places with different values to express those values.
When the federal government begins to force values upon the country en masse problems begin.
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#15The big challenge: How to get 2 opposing, self-righteous groups to a place they can talk and learn the fallacies each holds of the other.
Drop them all into the desert and wait for them to walk back to civilisation. Shared hardship forms good bonds.
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#16The big challenge: How to get 2 opposing, self-righteous groups to a place they can talk and learn the fallacies each holds of the other.
That's not the big challenge. The big challenge is to get people to stop worrying about others' fallacies and start worrying about their own. People need to learn introspection first and foremost. It's always "how are they wrong" and never "how am I wrong".
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#17"Any Self-Righteous Anonymous groups out there?" - Yes, a close reading of the christian bible will tell you that's the indented function of the church. Unfortunately there's a propensity for the opposite.
In early church history, there's an interesting period of basically pious showboating. > Well, I used limit myself to living in the desert and taking a vow of silence back when I first got into Christianity and still was attached to the flesh, but now I abstain from sex, sleep on gravel and wear a shirt made of hedgehog bristles too. Eventually it become obvious this wasn't piety at all, but pride. The first Nicene c…
Right on, but as the OP suggests it's easy to be self-righteous against 2nd century pious showboating as well!
The only solution (again see the article) is humility. The old saying 'There but for the grace of God go I' is apt in this case. Seeing ourselves in every 'bad actor' of any kind from the dude who cuts us off at the lights to genocidal dictators is the only way to avoid it.
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#18Quoted post unavailable.
well you've certainly converted me!
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#19>But in the case of righteousness, such a belief is almost always mistaken. Most of us, whether we be timid or bold, liberal, conservative, or (especially) some version of radical, are prone to imbibing heady infusions of the stuff. Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, literally intoxicated. In this poisonous state of mind we are able to write off others — often literally billions of other…
I had the same reaction. I’m an endlessly skeptical and often cynical person. Whenever I see someone confidently believe they are “right”, I instinctively trust them less. This article made me realize this is just my own flavor of righteousness.
That’s not to say righteousness is inherently bad. The only reason people make decisions is because they believe they’re right. I enjoyed this article but perhaps it’s overly reductive. I don’t know what we can do to cure righteousness, and maybe that premise itself is nonsensical.
Re: The Righteousness Fix
#20So many people are receiving this article very positively but am I the only one here who’s struggling to understand it? Why do the comments here make it seem as if it is impossible to be right but come off as merely being “self-righteous” because one is being engaged by someone else who is wrong and proud? Where do we draw the definition of when someone is being self-righteous? Is it possible to be self-righteous when you’re actually right or can it only happen when you’re wrong but you insist that you are right?