LIVING & LEARNIN G


The perils of self- righteousness


Is there a difference between being courageous and standing up for what you believe in and being so pig-headed and self-righteous that you are willing to violate the very values you ‘say’ you believe in just to prove a point? We see what we wish to see in order to support our fixed view of the world.


by A.C. Ping


WE ALL LOVE TO BE RIGHT, right? And it can be painful to be wrong, humiliating even. Righteousness compels us to stand up for what we believe in and is associated with being courageous. See Martin Luther King Jnr. — “The


ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Or John Paul Mellencamp — “If we


don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything.” Or JFK — “Let the word go forth… let


every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price… to ensure the survival of liberty.” Or Robert Kennedy (1966) — “Each


time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other


20 APRIL 2015


from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” But is there a difference between being


courageous and standing up for what you believe in and being so pig-headed and self-righteous that you are willing to violate the very values you ‘say’ you believe in just to prove a point — or in simple speak — to cut off your nose despite your face? There’s a few things in play here — first


there are values. Values are the things that you believe in that give meaning to life, things like freedom, truth, fairness, equality. The thing about values is that we aspire to live them but most often we fail to actually deliver. For example, most of us would aspire to live by the value of honesty but most, if not all, of us have told a lie. So, our values live in the future as aspirational states of being.


Then there are beliefs about how you


think the world works, what is right and wrong, and the way things actually are. These tend to be absolutist things like — either you believe in God or you don’t. Then there are stories about who we


think we are and how we describe the world to ourselves — especially the past — because we need to be able to make sense of what has happened in the past to be able to reconcile our current reality. The ‘who we think we are’ part is bound up in what’s called ‘Self Identity Theory’ and part of this is our ‘Moral Self Identity’ — in other words how we see ourselves as a good or a bad person. For example a priest is likely to see himself as a good moral person whereas a thief is likely to see himself as a bad person. Now the tricky bit is how these three


things mix together — aspirational values, beliefs and stories.


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