Then again, many religious people don’t use religion to get their lives together. Rather, so far as I can tell, many of them use it to avoid getting their lives together.
That’s not to pick on the religious. Most people don’t have their shit together (I’m not sure I do). And most of them don’t try, or genuinely try to get it together. Either they do not even know they don’t have their shit together, or they do know but their efforts to get it together are illusive or half-assed in some way.
When people don’t try to get their shit together, or they make a show of trying without really trying, they often offer up lies and excuses that justify not having their shit together. They cling to false narratives about how they really do have their shit together when they actually don’t.
Oh yeah, I have my shit together, just look at this . . .
or, Yeah, I’ve struggled, but I’m well on my way now, see? . . .
Sometimes, if they’re financially successful, they’ll hide behind their money. If they’re married and raising kids, they might trot out their family. And some will confidently point to their religious faith and affiliation.
I’m not rich, I don’t have any kids, and I have absolute faith in nothing but my own mortality. Maybe that allows me to better recognize that I don’t have my shit together, and realize that I probably never will. And perhaps it allows me to better see other people’s shit even when they try to paper it over with money, family, or God. Or maybe I’m just a cynical bastard. Either way, I have some capacity to see through you and me. And I’ve lost my patience for moral posturing.
When using money, family, or God to justify one’s shit, there can be a fair bit of moral posturing. In other words, some people not only offer these things up as evidence of having their shit together, they also insist that having God, money, or family is proof, in and of itself, that they are doing something good for society. Listen closely, and you will hear this kind of self-aggrandizement echoing through American society: Me worshiping this specific god in this specific way makes the world a better place; me banging out a kid or two or five makes the world a better place; me accumulating wealth makes the world a better place.
There really is no limit to what people can believe in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Many of us readily associate moral posturing with religion, more so perhaps than we do with raising families, and certainly than with being a rich prick. But moral posturing can take many forms. People who want to brag about or feel superior because of their morals and/or belief systems have plenty of options beyond religion. In our modern, individualized, semi-secularized world, there are all sorts of secular, non-religious avenues of morality that one can travel down, and then subsequently use as false proof for having one’s shit together. For example, one can take high minded stances against racism, sexism, poverty, and countless other ills and sins. To do so earnestly is to do God’s work. But to do so disingenuously, as a way to boast that one has their shit together and firm moral standing, is what conservatives refer to and deride as virtue signaling.
Conservatives, like all political partisans, tend to be ideological and myopic, so they typically finger a very specific and narrow type of moral posturing when referring to virtue signaling. However, virtue signaling can take many forms. Indeed, one might argue that Christians invented virtue signaling some two thousand years ago . After all, is there a bigger form of nanny-nanny poo-poo, I have my shit together because I have the right beliefs and morality than I’m going to Heaven when I die because I believe in Jesus, and you’re going to Hell because you don’t.?
But just because Christians may have invented this kind of moral posturing (and to be fair, I doubt they actually did), and have been annoyingly and even murderously insistent about it for two millennia now, doesn’t mean they have a monopoly on it, or that other, secular moralists can’t be equally infuriating.
Have you ever had the jarring experience someone manufacturing a phony moral high ground, and then seizing it for the purpose of making you seem not just wrong, but “bad” and themself as not just right, but righteous, when the issue at hand was not a moral one? It happened to me last month.
A very minor issue between two cars on a residential road. No one did anything immoral. There were no moral decisions to be made. And no one was ever at risk. But the other person defended their poor driving by pretending they were moral and that I was immoral. I considered their bad driving to be worthy of a sigh, an eye roll, and a slow head shake. But I considered their disingenuous moral posturing to be shockingly fucked up, and a sign that they were a deeply damaged person who cannot be trusted.
And such is the risk of moral posturing. When it comes across as manipulative or disingenuous, it leads to a loss of respect, an erosion of credibility, and an evaporation of goodwill in ways that simply being wrong do not. I tell you you’re wrong, and you probably get defensive. I tell you you’re wrong because you’re a bad person, and you probably hate me, and turn it around, believing I’m the immoral one.
In this way, moral posturing can incite partisanship, one of our era’s great plagues. And don’t get me wrong; I’m not offering up yet another misguided both-sides argument in the Age of Trump. To the contrary, I think Donald Trump is a monster, and I wouldn’t shed a tear if someone dragged him behind a pick up truck until he was hamburger. But my hatred of Trump is not based on the contention that I’m morally superior to him. Maybe I am (hopefully), but maybe I’m not. Rather, I hate Trump’s monstrosity on its own terms; I hate him for who he is and what he does. But hating him doesn’t make me a better person. If anything, it drags me down a little closer to his putrid level. Which, frankly, I’m okay with. I don’t need to be a saint. I can get my clothes dirty and tell it like it is without pretending I deserve a halo for it.
Of course there should be, limits. I’m not advocating active immorality. The world’s a difficult and complex place, and we all need to cross some lines sometimes, but we shouldn’t feel good about that. And we definitely shouldn’t do unjustifiable shitty things. However, I am suggesting that as we move into the next Trump administration, let’s stop insisting that our politics make us morally superior. At this point, no one from either side is buying that line of argument, and everyone is downright put off by it. People get alienated, not convinced. So just shoot straight.
If you think Trump is piece of human filth, a narcissistic moron, a racist sexist scumbag who cynically shits on everyone, including his own supporters, to get whatever he wants, just say that. And if you think he’s the second coming of the donkey that the Jesus fetus rode to Bethlehem, and everyone one of his noxious brays is a sign of better times to come, just say that, the way you’d say it, and don’t expect me to say it for you or agree with you. But most of all, no matter what you’re saying about American politics, there’s no need to dress any of it up in I’m a righteous person and have my shit together. Because you’re probably not, and you probably don’t.
And if you are, if you do, then you didn’t need to read this essay anyway. I’ll see you when I catch up.
This essay first appeared at 3 Quarks Daily.
“Your innovative approach to marketing evolution stands out! At ExplodingBrands, we’ve been tracking similar developments in brand behavior. The findings we’ve shared on explodingbrands.de complement your observations perfectly. Outstanding contribution!”