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Walking around in a pair of moral platform shoes does make it harder to get up when you fall. ~Benedict Carey
New research shows that we over estimate our own moral superiority but assess it accurately when assuming the lesser virtue of others.
One way to test whether people live up to their virtuous self-image is to set them up. In one study, for example, 251 Cornell students predicted how likely they would be to buy a daffodil at Daffodil Days, a four-day campus event to benefit the American Cancer Society. Sure enough, 83 percent predicted that they would buy at least one flower but that just 56 percent of their peers would.Five weeks later, during the event, the researchers found that only 43 percent of the same students actually bought a daffodil. In other experiments, researchers have found that people similarly overestimate their willingness to do what’s morally right, whether to give to charity, vote or cooperate with a stranger. In the end, their less generous predictions about peers’ behavior tend to be dead-on accurate — for themselves as well as others in the study.
Stumbling Blocks on the Path of Righteousness - The New York Times
Perhaps this explains why hypocrisy, judgment and schadenfreude seem rampant these days. It's on our TV screens when we revel in the scoldings of the women of Charm School and enjoy, smugly, how much better than they are we. Or when the marital troubles of Jon and Kate allow us to sit back on our sofas with a bucket of popcorn while proclaiming all the ways in which we would never do that with our kids (the irony arrives, of course, when the kids are sitting there watching and listening along with us).
Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, was recently fired because instead of being the bathing suit, tiara and state fair role model she signed up for, she prefers basking in the glow of becoming the new poster queen for "opposite marriage."
We witness it in our politicians and pastors so often it's almost become boring. Those who posture, preen and position themselves as the morality police while violating their own laws at home, in bathrooms, in hotel rooms, on live TV (well, perhaps not that yet) help us feel good about how good we are.
And then there is the third rail of the holier-than-thou syndrome: our own passions. Hardcore advocates of any side of thorny issues often and easily slip into those moral platform shoes Benedict Carey warned us of. Breastfeeding, child rearing choices, animal rights, abortion, gay marriage, health care treatments, organic foods... These are just a few of the hot button issues that when some get up on their soapboxes, somehow the rarefied air up there leads them to believe their poo has been rendered odorless.
Now that we are aware of our inflated sense of goodness perhaps we can practice compassion as BlogHer CE Mata H. writes of or salute the love in others as Marianne Williamson suggests. At the very least, if we each work to recognize the reality of our righteousness and strive not to blow it out of proportion we can begin to meet on common ground.
Do you ever find yourself teetering on those moral platforms and looking down your nose? Do you ever talk a good game about doing good and then conveniently forget to lace up your shoes? What strategies do you find work for helping you dismount from that high horse?
Related Reading:
Jeanna Bryner at LiveScience: Oddly, Hypocrisy Rooted in High Morals
"The principle we uncovered is that when faced with a moral decision, those with a strong moral identity choose their fate (for good or for bad) and then the moral identity drives them to pursue that fate to the extreme," said researcher Scott Reynolds of the University of Washington Business School in Seattle. "So it makes sense that this principle would help explain what makes the greatest of saints and the foulest of hypocrites."
Cristina at Working Mom, Democrat, Patriot: The Demonization of Kate Gosselin - Backlash Against a Working Mom
How dare she get a tummy tuck after carrying sextuplets! (My God, have you seen the photos of her pregnant?) How dare she insist that Jon take a turn at staying home with the kids? That's the mother's job! Never mind that Jon got hair plugs or that Jon worked outside the home for
