Zachary K. Rothschild and Lucas A. Keefer write,
we test the counter-intuitive possibility that moral outrage at third-party transgressions is sometimes a means of reducing guilt over one’s own moral failings and restoring a moral identity.
Pointer from Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who nicely summarizes the studies. Brown writes,
Ultimately, the results of Rothschild and Keefer’s five studies were “consistent with recent research showing that outgroup-directed moral outrage can be elicited in response to perceived threats to the in-group’s moral status,”
In other words, you lash out at Trump in part because of your own status anxiety.
My thoughts:
1. Be cautious. Remember the low replication rate of these sorts of studies.
2. Counter-intuitive? Not so much. I think that many people suspect that expressing moral outrage is a cheap way of trying to raise one’s status.
3. When I was younger, psychological reductionism (e.g., Freud) was quite popular. There was widespread suspicion that the “true believer,” in Eric Hoffer’s terminology, was wrestling with personal demons. Back in those days, if you were to suggest that, say, a politician who spoke up for family values was probably plagued by guilt about his own sexuality, everyone in the room would have nodded their heads.
Status anxiety is also a great explanation for blue collar Dems defecting to Trump. It’s status anxiety all the way down!
While undoubtedly working as a motive, I have a doubt whether it is sufficient to relieve “status” anxiety in the moral sphere simply by raising one’s status.
As Smith put it, “Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely.”
If I really, deep down, have every solid reason to doubt that I am a good person in the full-bore teleological, metaphysical sense of what that means, that fact that I managed to convince others that person T[rump] over there is a worse man than I am is not going to keep that gnawing doubt away for long.
Don’t misunderstand, the fact that it is only a temporary fix doesn’t mean it isn’t a temptation. But since it is not a cure, I have reason to worry over what the next presentation of the disease will be.
I think the end is something like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit
This is true, but incomplete.
Do you think Genghis Khan thought he was a fraud? Likely not. His actions weren’t repugnant within his value system, and he was clearly the best at executing his value system. Our judgement of that system is irrelevant to him.
Let’s say you have an SJW. To us they might seem like a do nothing failure with a shitty degree. But if social justice is the equivalent in their moral system as nation conquering was to Genghis Khan, then maybe they are the most virtuous person they know.
There is a difference between “I’m a fraud by my own standards” and “my own standards are a fraud.” Both are statements to which people rationalize around, but in different ways.
The problem is that there really isn’t much of a way to bring someone to heal on telling them their standards are wrong. Some discussion of facts or logic can be used, but usually those are secondary to core values. Conversations between those with different core values are pointless.
For example, when you debate transgenderism its useless to talk about whether transitioning leads to better life outcomes. Those are certainly relevant facts, but if the underlying value your debating is “people should be whatever they want to be” then the facts aren’t going to get in the way of that. They want it, ergo its the greatest good.
You would need a different core value such as “people should try to live fulfilling lives.” Then you could ask, “does transitioning tend to lead to fulfillment.” Clinical data would be relevant to one value system but not the other.
Don’t get confused when people debate facts in the name of values. Sometimes that seems infuriating, especially when the other side is getting the facts wrong in a particularly egregious way. But that’s just a proxy way of fighting over the core value (which many can’t or won’t say).
Or Obama or Clinton. Outrage is cheap.