Morally superior
“Acting all Morally Superior”.
This used to be a term said with disdain, indicative of great ego, hubris or self-delusion. Now, it can easily be said without a hint of arrogance. In my case, I cannot yet say these things without sadness or bewilderment, but I do say them as seemingly irrefutable truths:
“I believe I am morally superior to many, because I do not perform or endorse harmful genetic experiments”.
“I believe I am morally superior to many, as I’m not actively fighting for Intrinsic Human Rights to instead become Privileges allocated by the most corrupt as they see fit.”
I must use the word ‘believe’, because not all moral codes agree with the above statements.
Facism, for example, might endorse that “I am morally superior because I fought for the cohesiveness of the state, even if they are killing and injuring millions”.
The Imperial Cult, prevalent for much of the past ten Millennia over much of the world, might applaud the subjugation, torture or imprisonment of an individual in service of the Deified Emperor. The exception has been, at least in theory, pursuit of equality in the modern West.
This is why Douglas Murray calls the chaos of recent times a ‘War on the West’.
Instead of seeing the social progress since the 1940’s as mostly good, mixed with a little bad, there are forces acting to undermine the collective beliefs we have. Including Gender, Separation of Powers, weather patterns, Physics or basic Anatomy and Physiology.
Those forces would have us believe that a return to serfdom might yield any sort of improvement for anyone at all (even the Oligarchs working so hard on it). I cannot see this being possible. Prior to 2019, it could be claimed that the average person lived better than the Kings or Queens of a few generations ago. Average Joe had more access to education, food, healthcare, protected freedoms, safer living standards, travel, and variety of individual pursuits than even the late Queen Elizabeth II at the start of her reign. Pre 2019, a modern Bank Clerk on award wage in most countries had more access to material goods and services than Ghengis or Caesar, with the exception of military might.
There is the crux of the new morality. While enough people collectively believed in the rule of law, individual freedoms, or equality, there was the threat of public uprising should citizens come under attack. Now there is no reasonable way to posture that anything past ‘Might is Right’ holds sway in the post 2019 world. Militaries, police forces, judicial systems, hospitals, education systems and media were all turned against those they purported to represent. There was no counterbalance. There was no armed citizenry or even foreign power to act as a martial enforcer. Although I applaud, and joined the protests, marches, civil disobedience and other attempts made the world over, the net result is zero dictators toppled, zero institutions or globalists held to account. There hasn’t even been a doctor charged with negligence or a school teacher charged with bullying or discrimination to my knowledge.
There has only been the barest shade of guilt expressed by perpetrators, advocates or deniers of the crimes against humanity over the past 3 years. Shame, it seems, is far weaker than we thought as a motivator. Shame is so easily silenced by distraction, so easily shared amongst the group until it becomes inert. Morals get replaced by compliance.
So let’s hope the zeitgeist moves away from persecution, psychological warfare, arbitrary imprisonment, genetic experimentation and medical apartheid. Let’s hope that historically miniscule period of ‘the free West’ returns even stronger. Yet let’s recognise that a large majority actively fought for such things, over a long period of time, with appeal to authority, fear, convenience or cowardice as their justification. According to almost every system of ethics or moral reasoning across the ages, these things were morally inferior even before the realisation that all of it was based on fraudulent first principles.
However you believe you aquitted yourself during the recent global power plays, the story is not over. After all, “It is not our mistakes which define us. It is our response to them”.
It’s for each of us to decide alone if this is inspiring - the ranks of moral titans could easily be swelled by simply stopping the genocide, apologising, speaking truth to oneself or to power and resuming a life of tolerance and equality. Or if this is soul-destroying - why have so few chosen to respond admirably to their mistakes?