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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Jonathan Haidt writes about the Myth of Pure Evil in The Happiness Hypothesis. There is much to learn on human bias from this book.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Agreement with the basic observation: self-righteousness is addictive. So addictive that whether or not it arises in a religiously-observant context, it takes on a religious flavor, as in numinousness/ritual and a kind of unholy priority. An activist I knew in law school when challenged for his self-righteousness bristled quite sincerely with the all-purpose response: "But I'm right!"

Years ago there was a neurology article in the NYTimes reporting that social dominance (agency + superiority, in my definition) itself was associated with powerful endorphins.

Cruelty is at root, I believe, associated with the question of agency (and survival), "do I exist and have an impact on the world?" probably stemming from perhaps-inevitable deficiencies and excesses in child nurturance.

The work of Rene Girard -- mimetic socialization > envy > cruelty for social cohesion -- probably applies here too.

I am active in a Christian religion, and anyone paying attention recognizes the superhuman tension arising between the arenas of--discriminating between the "Two Ways," and--the obligation to see oneself as "chief sinner" for the purposes of the undertaking.

In view of the anxiety roused by real moral self-examination, there is an inevitable temptation to resort to comparative self-righteousness -- an odd kind of relief in personally "immanentizing the eschaton," unilaterally declaring the desired conclusion without actually meeting the standards. Religious practice addresses this in part by recommending, unless an institutional responsibility requires otherwise, focusing only on ones' own sins.

Even as to those who rationally dismiss religion, any kind of hard-wired conscience qua Natural Law or acquired socialization morality may create a phenomenon that when ones' behavior fails to meet its requirements, the "wrongness" can easily and covertly get projected onto the world at large, IMO.

In short, yes to the description of the phenomenon, yes to the frequent arising in religious contexts, no as to any necessary connection with religious practice and aspiration. It's almost everywhere in small and large degree.

For the purposes of discourse, the ubiquity of the self-righteous bias probably means that the phenomenon should be bracketed, not disqualifying what is said, and facts and logic on all sides be addressed without the red-herring of whether there is self-righteousness displayed or inferred. Otherwise it's one of those receding mirrors, a siren-song of reciprocal self-defining accusations.

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