Weekend ramblings: addiction to virtue signalling, the fear of having power, and the mistake of not taking people with you

This is a post in my Ethics, Lazy Management, and Flawed Thinking series - see https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/11/ethics-lazy-management-and-flawed.html.

If I had the time and energy, each of these would be worked up into a complete post, but for expediency and health's sake, I've decided to put them all together.

Addiction to virtue signalling

Now, people want to feel good. Fair enough, mostly, although there is an entire religion/philosophy (Buddhism) built on examining how to be happy in "better" ways, some people can develop problematic preferences around things that make us feel good (just ask any anti-smoking, anti-alcohol, or anti-sugar/salt campaigners [and I'm in the first three categories]), and there is the extremely annoying and irrelevant furphies around sadism-masochism whenever this topic is raised.

It is possibly for the desire to feel good to lead to bad things - as an example, I have a spiel around World War (part) One that starts with "people want to feel good". There is also the old neochristian-framed saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", and, on neochristianity, things sex-negativity that can be traced back to seeking approval within that system of dogma.

However, there is also a lot of good - including personal growth work, charity (notwithstanding the slagging off at some people's motivations), and social changes for the better.

Wanting to feel good is a complex and nuanced subject, but what I want to focus on is wanting to feel good in the context of working for social change.

Now, keeping in mind the evidence that one of the ways to prevent a backlash (which is the other side of the "win people over" coin, so to speak), is to be pleasant and not metaphorically beat people around the head, one of the problems to be aware of in relation to wanting to feel good while working for a better society is becoming addicted to what we used to term "feelings of moral superiority", and what tends to be covered these days, to some extent, by the phrase "virtue signalling".

It is an incredibly easy trap to fall into, because it feels good, but it is an error for at least the following reasons:

1. You are not inherently better than others, even if you are living a low-environmental-impact or "woke" or some other term lifestyle. To think you are better is an attack on the inherent dignity of every  single  human  being; 
2. You are actually demonstrating a lack of personal "virtue" - read some of Paul K Chappell's book to gain an understanding of this point; 
3. You are likely to drive the victim of your virtue signalling / moral superiority away (or drive their behaviour "underground"); and 
4. You are harming the movement you are trying to support in several ways, including forming a link to other harmful actions (i.e., the aforementioned "virtue signalling / moral superiority") that opponents can use.

It is hard to be aware on this point - and it can raise feelings of being threatened or attacked oneself, much as any criticism or self-criticism can. However, as Dr Ibram X. Kendi said, at around 86m:51s in this talk:

"When we're challenged, it's very very critical for us to really deeply reflect on, not who we are as a person, but deeply reflect on what was said, and what was said to us, and what we just said."

I am making that challenge to those who are addicted to virtue signalling/moral superiority now, just as those people will make valid challenges to others on those topics they are passionate about, and just as I have received valid - and often useful - challenges all my life on a wide range of matters.

The fear of having power

I want to make it clear that, while I am strongly spiritual and religious (albeit not mainstream religion), I am not referring to the sense of the following famous (and often mis-attributed) quote from Marianne  Williamson's work:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

In a personal growth sense, this is something that can be worth considering - people may inhibit themselves out of fear. However, I know people who are strong and confident and either not subject to the above problem, or have overcome it, who still shrink from material world influence.

I've used the word "influence", as it provides a more accurate - or more likely to be accurately understood - meaning than "material world power".

(I suspect Cass  Sunstein's book  "Nudge" may be a good exploration of what I am exploring here, but I have not yet had the opportunity to read that book [although I did guiltily buy it after I wrote the preceding].)

Power, in the context of the material world, often has associations of political-social elites, ultra-wealthy oligarchs, or mafia like mobsters. The truth is, we all have the capability to be influencers, and power can be significant on a smaller scale - for instance, having a well-paying job (if you are that fortunate) and thus being able to support one's family and maybe even make donations.

The organisation 80,000  Hours has some excellent considerations on that.

There are also a wide range of activist  organisations - I first joined Amnesty  International back in the 80s, for instance.

Still, it is possible to be part of such organisations, making a valid contribution, and yet still be dithering on the edges of truly exercising influence.

Where I would like to see more progressively inclined people doing more is political involvement.

The idea of putting oneself out for public evisceration, as most politicians do, is terrifying for many people, and I can understand their reluctance to do so - either for their own sake, or for the sake of their family, for instance.

I won't take on such a role.

However, in addition to writing letters to MPs that are aimed at achieving change (remember Gandhi's exhortation: "do you fight to change things, or to punish?"), there is the challenge of joining a political party and trying to achieve change that way.

I have, and after some time have decided I'm going to focus my efforts in that area on branch meetings - I had been trying to get on to policy committees, but there are logistical challenges for me to get to their meetings, and my health and energy levels are continuing to decline.

It is not easy: you can't just fire off a tweet and sit back and bask in your self-righteousness (and letters I've written have not always ended with the outcome I sought), you have to engage face-to-face with real people - people who may not be as progressive as you like, people who may genuinely hold to an alternative world view, people who are as flawed as you are . . . but, if you can't get people who are at least partly on your side onboard, you have little chance of getting the broader electorate to come on the human rights / progressive journey that you want them to take (more on that shortly).

It can be scary to try to succeed, as you may fail - and that fear of failure stopping people making an effort is what I am concerned about. Take it in steps that you can manage, if you wish, but, as the proverb says, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Other options that people may not pursue out of fear, perhaps of the responsibility that comes with positions, fear of failing to fulfill the aim of making good change, change that makes things better, include:

• joining a community organisation's committee; 
• becoming a Board Director (I'm currently studying towards being able to do this); or
•  taking on a leadership activism role. 

It is all scary, but if you do make the effort, even if you fail, you - and, as a woman, I am including all genders in this, despite TR's sexist language - can share in Theodore  Roosevelt's famous sentiment, known as "The Man in the Arena":

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

The mistake of not taking people with you 

When I look back at my lived experience of the world, I can simplify my experience into growing inclusivity and caring (and, of particular relevance to me, genuine spirituality, as opposed to old, outmoded and rigid religions) from the late 60s through the 70s, and then a growing backlash which started to predominate as agreed in the 80s, and then as the xenophobia and other forms of hate we're now living with.

With the virtuous benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it seems clear to me that the mistake made - by me, as much as anyone else - in the 70s and 80s was to think that once a change had been implemented in some way, whether widespread social acceptance or legislated, that was it: the "obvious" rightness of it would be sufficient to sustain that change for the better.

How naive and stupid I was - I could have learned more from history, and exploring why I didn't is a whole set of posts and currently continuing reflections and meditations. I had other major life issues to deal with, my exposure to history was flawed (our high school history teacher was so demoralised [and European-centric] that he did nothing when the class just went outside to enjoy the sun), I had too few good role models in relevant areas (I had some, but none pushing the importance of learning from history enough), but I could have, and should have, thought better about things.

I consider the debates that are going on now in human rights are a considerable improvement over what we were doing in 60s, 70s, and 80s. They probably should be, as the field of human rights has evolved substantially since the end of World War (part) Two.

Sacha Baron Cohen's speech when accepting the Anti-Defamation  League's International Leadership Award is a perfect example of this. I have never been into Mr Baron Cohen's humour, but that talk impressed me - full kudos to him, and I urge you to watch it.