If you want to witness the peak of human irrationality, look no further than moral justifications. Yesterday, I argued that going along with the tribe might be the most rational thing you can do, but what happens when it clashes with your ability to have integrity? I don’t know about you, but integrity is a big deal to me. It’s a personal value, it’s something I look for in others, and it’s something I’m teaching my son.
Unfortunately, moral justifications can take a person’s integrity and throw it right out the window. What’s worse is that most people don’t even realize they’re doing it because it’s so automatic.
“Kill Yourself”
In 2019, I was canceled, and it’s what made me want to start researching morality. To this day, it’s still one of the most important topics, and I’ll never stop grabbing new books on the topic. Whether it’s moral psychology or moral philosophy, I’ll keep reading these books.
When I was canceled, the reason was that the mob believed that I made a moral transgression. They believe I was causing harm, and when we perceive someone is breaking some kind of norm and causing harm, we punish. The punishment is to not only show the person this is wrong, but it shows others that they better not do the same.
Although the punishment was unjust and largely based on misinformation, it’s not what interested me. What interested me was the actions people took and believed were justified.
I was flooded with comments and messages telling me to kill myself, and those were the nicest ones. People found and messaged my girlfriend. Someone tried to convince her that they were a woman I was cheating with. I assume to get her to break up with me.
People found my mom’s place of work and started harassing her and leaving reviews. She’s a psychologist and was speaking at a conference, and they ended up contacting the conference to try and get her kicked off the lineup.
Worst of all, people messaged my mom threatening to rape and kill her via cutting her throat.
This is where moral justifications take you.
The mob believed that I caused psychological harm, so they believed it was justified to do all of this.
I knew that in their mind they still believed they were good people. As they say, “Everyone’s the hero of their own story.” How could these people think that this was so bad that threatening physical harm was justified?
We justify a lot of terrible things because of our moral compass, and rarely do we reflect on how irrational it is. But moral justifications go much further than that, and that’s when it clashes with our consistency and integrity.
If you want to learn more about what happened to me, I suggest you listen to my conversation with moral psychologist Kurt Gray on the podcast. I also wrote a book titled Canceled when it was still fresh.
Moral Dumbfounding
What really helped me understand why morality makes people act so strangely was Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind. I’ve read it twice, and I’ve been wanting to read it again.
Jonathan Haidt explains how based on how we’re raised, typically in different parts of the country and political households, our morality is different. He came up with a moral matrix to show what conservatives value the most vs. what liberals value the most.
This made sense to me. I’m a liberal, and this sounds about right when I look at my personal values as well as the values of other liberals. We want things like universal healthcare to take care of more people. We don’t like people being oppressed. When we feel like someone is cheating or the system is unfair, we get pissed.
But the other part of Haidt’s theories on morality that really stuck out to me was what he calls “moral dumbfounding.” He has a twisted thought experiment he gave to people that made him come up with this theory:
"Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night, they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least, it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom, too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love, but they decide never to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other. What do you think about that? Was it okay for them to make love?"
He designed this question carefully to eliminate virtually all aspects of harm.
“It’s not okay because they could have a baby.” But Haidt made sure to explain they used protection.
“It’s not okay because people might find out and it hurts the family.” But Haidt explained that it’s a secret.
Eventually, as Haidt brought up each of the ways he covered his ass, most interviewees would just say, “I don’t know. It’s just wrong.”
When a person can’t use logic to explain their moral stance, they’re experiencing moral dumbfounding.
In my conversation with Kurt Gray, he explains why he isn’t completely sold on Haidt’s theory. Kurt made some pretty good arguments, but I still think something is here. Kurt argues that even if we can’t explain it, there are reasons we find these things wrong.
My main takeaway is the fact that people can’t explain their moral logic. This is especially true when it comes to their moral justifications.
Being Anti-Woke Rots Your Brain
Everything I’ve discussed thus far is how I hopped on the anti-woke bandwagon. Like many from this realm, I’m all for free speech. I don’t think words are equivalent to physical harm. I think the “woke” punishes in a disproportionate way based on the severity of the harm.
The problem is that the anti-woke has become just as bad, if not worse, and nobody seems to notice or care.
Not to toot my own horn, but I try to stay as consistent as possible in my principles and values. It’s something Alcoholics Anonymous taught me. So, when I tell you I don’t think someone should be fired for something they said on social media, I mean it. I don’t care if the person is from the “other side”, I stand firm in this belief.
And before you freak out on me and give me all these extreme examples of free speech issues or people getting fired, calm down. I’m up for nuanced debates and conversations because each situation is different.
What I’m talking about is that if you pay attention, 90% of what we witness is people picking and choosing when their principles matter. This is where people lose integrity.
The Libs of TikTok phenomenon is something I’ve never seen before, and I really wish we could do some psychological studies on people who love the account. I have seen some of the smartest people I know just have their brains completely rotted when it comes to defending Libs of TikTok.
The first time I noticed this was around the topic of misinformation. I saw so many smart, honest people say, “Libs of TikTok does not share misinformation. She just shares TikToks.” This is false, in fact, it’s become worse. The account rarely shares TikToks anymore. On a regular basis, she’s spreading the anti-woke (often homophobic and transphobic) moral panic, and it’s often completely false information.
She has over a million followers that she’s spreading this misinformation to, and nobody seems to notice. This is why, as often as possible, I try to ring the alarm bells when she shares misinformation or questionable misinformation.
Why? Because her followers believe they’re on a moral crusade, and they do everything in their power to harass people and get them fired.
Do you understand that the anti-woke movement was largely started because people were getting fired for insanely stupid things? Now, everyone is totally fine with Libs of TikTok regularly getting people fired.
Libs of TikTok literally tags a person’s place of employment as often as possible to send her mob to their accounts in the hopes of getting people fired. Her body count is larger than any “woke” brigade you can imagine.
Just the other day, she got a woman forced to resign:
When this happened, I made it a point to share the fact that this woman was harassed for something she said and not something she did. The problem is, I’m a nobody. I tagged people who should care that this is happening (some who defend LoTT regularly), and none of them shared the story.
What set me off this morning is that a large political commentator (I don’t even know how to define her) @shoe0onhead spread the word that some young man was fired due to the harassment of the woke mob.
The tweet has been deleted since I started writing this, but here’s another tweet from the thread to give you an idea:
I am just baffled that stuff like this goes viral every single time, but we never talk about how Libs of TikTok and so many other right-wing grifters do this regularly. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they now do it more often.
Do you have any idea how many LGBTQ teachers they’ve gotten fired in the last year?
But brains have been rotted, and the moral justifications come out in full force. Why is it okay for these people to be fired but not others? Well, the others don’t align with their morals, so it’s completely okay.
When you ask a person why one is okay and not the other, they’ll just try to explain why one is morally worse than others. There’s a complete disregard to the fact that people have different morals and values.
I’m a lifelong meat-eater who went vegetarian about five years ago. There are people who don’t eat mean who lose their shit because they see meat-eaters as literal killers. I’m not one of those people. I understand that we have different moral views on eating meat, and that’s totally fine. I try to keep my bullshit moral justifications to myself.
All I’m asking is for people to be honest. I know you have to sell people on the fact that you believe someone should lose their livelihood, but don’t act like it’s because of some principle you hold. That’s when you lose integrity.
Just say, “I’m tribal. If it’s someone in my tribe, I defend them. If they aren’t, I attack them.”
The problem is that people don’t realize they’re doing this most of the time. I guess the only solution I can think of is a little bit of empathy. Understand that people were raised differently from you and think differently from you. If not, we’re all just going to morally justify ourselves into oblivion.
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Preposterous.
I alone hold the holy grail of moral justification. ;)