Thursday, September 13, 2007

Self-Righteous

"Them's fightin' words, mister," says the cowboy as he spits a thin line of 'bacca juice into the dirt of the dusty street and shifts his gunbelt.

And that's what happens when you start slinging around the word "self-righteous."

According to WordNet, the correct definition of self-righteous is:
  • holier-than-thou: excessively or hypocritically pious

Answers.com gives two definitions:

  1. Piously sure of one's own righteousness; moralistic.
  2. Exhibiting pious self-assurance: self-righteous remarks.

So, when a discussion about board games & plagarism drifted into ruminations on the morality of various actions, the "self-righteous" grenade got tossed into the middle of the crowd. What follows is my slightly edited response.

There is nothing self-righteous about trying to stake out a personal moral position. In doing so, you automatically are placing a value not only on your position but also on other people's positions - and that's not self-righteous. It sounds like what you want is for people who disagree with you to roll over & play dead - in other words, "shut up & let me enjoy what I want to enjoy."In a web-based world where freedom of speech is a "sacred value", that sounds awfully... well, self-righteous.

"Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up..."

  • Choosing a moral position & defending it is not self-righteous... it may irritate others to the point of wanting to stuff a used gym sock in your mouth, but the advocacy of a particular view of morality is not inherently self-righteous.
  • The very act of choosing one moral position over another infers that you are using some criteria in order to make this decision - and that criteria shows clearly that you value one position more than you value other positions. This, too, is not self-righteous.

In conclusion:

  • If I say, "I think you're incorrect when you say that decisions about plagarism & copyright have no moral implications; on the contrary, they have profound moral & ethical resonance and I'm stunned that you would think otherwise," I'm merely advocating a moral position.
  • If I say, "I think you're incorrect when you say that decisions about plagarism & copyright have no moral implications; on the contrary, they have profound moral & ethical resonance... and the fact that you disagree with me shows that you're obviously a degenerate reprobate who's mind is corrupted beyond hope of repair," then I'm being a self-righteous prig.

Let's use our words carefully, please.

4 comments:

MWChapel said...

So if one would say


If I steal the ideas or outright
design of another person and produce a game, you wouldn't care as long as
the game is "good"? I'm truly astounded and disappointed if you really believe this.

Then that would self-righteous by your definition then?

Mark (aka pastor guy) said...

No, Mike, the example you chose is NOT self-righteous.

The person here (and I think I know who you're quoting, but that really doesn't matter) expresses astonishment & disappointment. They have obviously thought through what they believe & have chosen a moral position that you don't agree with. They have then expressed that disagreement in terms that indicate their emotional response but do not set themselves up as the person who can OK your "visa for living on the planet".

That's taking a moral/ethical stand, not self-righteousness.

Here... let me turn the quote you used into a self-righteous statement to see if that is clearer:

"If I steal the ideas or outright
design of another person and produce a game, you wouldn't care as long as
the game is "good"? I'm truly astounded and disappointed if you really believe this, you amoral skunk.

Does that help?

Mark (aka pastor guy) said...

I'm re-posting my comment & using HTML codes to clean it up a bit

===

No, Mike, the example you chose is not self-righteous.

The person here (and I think I know who you're quoting, but that really doesn't matter) expresses astonishment & disappointment. They have obviously thought through what they believe & have chosen a moral position that you don't agree with. They have then expressed that disagreement in terms that indicate their emotional response but do not set themselves up as the person who can OK your "visa for living on the planet".

That's taking a moral/ethical stand, not self-righteousness.

Here... let me turn the quote you used into a self-righteous statement to see if that is clearer:

"If I steal the ideas or outright design of another person and produce a game, you wouldn't care as long as the game is 'good'?" I'm truly astounded and disappointed if you really believe this, you amoral skunk.

Does that help?

MWChapel said...

Does that help?

As long as you Believe it.