You’d think that someone with a high Moral Self Identity would be least likely to do bad things but you might be surprised to know that, the more tightly you are attached to your Moral Self Identity, the more likely you are to be self-righteous and the more likely you are to use justifications that enable you to do bad things without having to reassess your own view of yourself as a good person. Oops…
We see what we wish to see to support our fixed views Check out the graph below. You see, aspirations live in the future, while stories and who we believe we are live in the past. Someone who has a strongly held view of who they are will fight to defend that view by telling a supportive story that leaves them in the position of being RIGHT — hence self-righteousness. Complicated huh? What makes it
even more complicated is that we have an inherent self-serving bias which leads us to perceptual blindness — in other words we see what we wish to see in order to support our fixed view of the world. A ‘supportive story’ then won’t be
based on all the facts. It will be based on a selective view of the world and will justify why the action needed to be taken and why it is fair. Some moral justifications for doing things, however, actually neutralise the very values that we say we aspire to uphold. There are seven common ones: • It’s not my responsibility (e.g. Nazi Germany ‘I was just following orders’)
• It’s not hurting anyone (e.g. graffiti)
• They deserved it (e.g. Israel v Palestine) • Condemning the condemners (e.g. ‘If you think I’m bad you should see them’)
• Appeal to higher loyalties (e.g. I did it for family, country, God…)
• Everyone else is doing it; so I had no choice (e.g. bribes in developing countries)
• I deserve it (e.g. ‘I’ve worked back for the last two weeks so I deserve to take whatever stationery I want’) Now this article is about self-
righteousness — so let’s put it all into perspective. The more attached you are to being RIGHT, the more willing you will be to use these justifications which neutralise morals, to ensure that at least in your own mind (and maybe to your supporters) you remain RIGHT. Good for you. However, in your
determination to be RIGHT you may have violated the very values that you aspire to uphold and in doing so have well and truly trapped yourself in the past and closed
the door to creating the possible future you want — go figure? — and all because you are determined to be RIGHT… Right/wrong thinking traps us in the
past and holds us in an ever-spiralling cycle of ego-based conflict. If you find yourself in this cycle try
reframing by asking better questions — What is it that you actually want? What do you need to do to create this? What do you need to let go of to allow
you to move forwards? Most importantly, as hard as it may be,
sometimes it’s incredibly empowering to be able to simply say, “I’m sorry”. n
A.C. Ping is an existential philosopher, author and teacher whose work focuses on answering the question, ‘How does one lead to a
happy, fulfilling and good life that follows an enlightening path and contributes to the greater good?’
APRIL 2015 21
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