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The Righteousness Fix

orionmagazine.org

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Re: The Righteousness Fix

#41

Post by umvi »

cousin_it wrote: post #11

Quoted post unavailable.

> I think a good first step is to reject Christ's innovation, reject every meme that tries to make you into a spreader

I vehemently disagree. I think it's good to "spread" ideas that you think are valuable, but without being a zealot/activist about it. On the contrary if you've stumbled upon some idea, philosophy, etc. that is valuable to you personally, and you decide to secretly keep it only to yourself, that seems a bit selfish.

I think a good first step is to reject browbeating, bullying, pile ons, and other tactics used to force ideas upon people. Another thing that needs to be rejected is the type of idea sharing that mainly generates heat (stokes outrage). So maybe in that sense I think "sharing memes" might be counter productive.

But sharing ideas, philosophies, etc. (religious, political, scientific, or otherwise) human-to-human at a personal level seems valuable to me - at the very least it keeps the marketplace of ideas (and therefore idea discovery) healthy without the heat of stoked outrage.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#42

Post by GavinMcG »

zzzeek wrote: post #32

I would question the author's casual belief that a so-called "righteous" attitude , where one has decided that they have more wisdom on a particular topic than some other particular group of people, necessarily means they therefore lose all their empathy for that group. This is a huge leap and I personally don't believe there is any such necessity: > Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, li…

I don't see where the author said that thinking one has more wisdom necessarily means one loses empathy.

I think the author's definition of righteousness is the loss of empathy. The author wouldn't seem to have a problem with an empathetic wise person being both empathetic and wise.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#45

Post by [deleted] »

zzzeek wrote: post #32

I would question the author's casual belief that a so-called "righteous" attitude , where one has decided that they have more wisdom on a particular topic than some other particular group of people, necessarily means they therefore lose all their empathy for that group. This is a huge leap and I personally don't believe there is any such necessity: > Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, li…

[deleted]

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#46

Post by [deleted] »

umvi wrote: post #41
cousin_it wrote: post #11

Quoted post unavailable.

> I think a good first step is to reject Christ's innovation, reject every meme that tries to make you into a spreader I vehemently disagree. I think it's good to "spread" ideas that you think are valuable, but without being a zealot/activist about it. On the contrary if you've stumbled upon some idea, philosophy, etc. that is valuable to you personally, and you decide to secretly keep it only to yourself, that seems…

[deleted]

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#47

Post by indymike »

cousin_it wrote: post #11

Quoted post unavailable.

> I credit Christianity with the invention of proselytizing; religions before it (including Judaism, its immediate parent) were content to stay with a given tribe and not try to spread.

The credit would be misplaced. I'm pretty sure by the time Jesus was born, there had been an almost incalculable number of conquests and pogroms for some deity or the other.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#49

Post by octopoc »

zzzeek wrote: post #32

I would question the author's casual belief that a so-called "righteous" attitude , where one has decided that they have more wisdom on a particular topic than some other particular group of people, necessarily means they therefore lose all their empathy for that group. This is a huge leap and I personally don't believe there is any such necessity: > Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, li…

It's easy to know what's best for yourself. It's not so easy to know what's best for your children. It's much harder to know what's best for another adult in your tribe. It's practically impossible to know what's best for someone outside your tribe.

So, I would say it is very unwise to claim to know what's best for someone outside your tribe. When you're worrying about them like that, you're assuming you know what's best for them. It's not just about empathy, it's about letting people live their own lives. There's nothing inherently wrong with worrying about them but you can't change them and you shouldn't even want to IMO.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#50

Post by photochemsyn »

The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved.

What the author of this piece calls 'addiction to righteousness' can also be described as 'obsession with outrage porn' or 'wanting to get triggered'. It's an easy fix for the addict to obtain - anyone suffering this malady can just scroll Twitter or Reddit etc. until they find something that does the trick. Then they can add their voice to the chorus of condemnation or commiseration and get the biochemical stimulus they were craving, most likely a dopamine reward. Note that the story they're reacting too doesn't even need to be true, and I always assume at least 50% of the 'anonymous personal testimonials' on social media are just fabricated stories put out for the upvotes (upvote addiction being rather similar).

One way out of that trap is to 'buffer' all the social media information you get, i.e. assume everything is untrustworthy, and if only it's something you think you're really interested in, something worth spending time on, only then move it to the 'active' folder, and do some work to verify the information is actually reliable.

Warning: outrage addicts might suffer some withdrawal from the dopamine release effect if they do this. Long-term mental health will likely improve, however.

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