RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: The Menace of Moralism: Egalitarians seek the radical transformation of our society  Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:17 pm | |
| One of the maxims inscribed on the pediment of the sanctuary at Delphi was “Nothing in Excess.” It expressed the ancient virtue of sophrosyne—what we call moderation or restraint. Moralism is morality carried to an immoderate excess. And it is that excess with which egalitarian ideologues now menace us. They aim to transform our society so as to bring it ever closer to what they regard as the ideal of equality, on which, they claim, the well-being of humanity depends. They arrogate to themselves the moral authority to pontificate about what we should, or should not, say or do. And those who do not follow their moral imperatives they condemn as sexist, racist, and white-male-heterosexual oppressors of women, blacks, and homosexuals.
They tell us, for example, that it is immoral to go out for dinner when people in Africa are needy; they set up committees charged with designing speech codes for how precisely we should phrase an invitation for sex; they monitor the jokes that we tell so as to stamp out “hate speech”; they prescribe the right attitudes to cross-dressing, sex-change operations, and which bathrooms transgender people should be using. They have made it illegal to inquire about the age, marital status, drug use, or alcoholism of job applicants. They suspect child abuse if we spank our tantrum-prone child or hug our neighbor’s. We find ourselves censored if we use words such as “mankind,” “fireman,” or, when referring to God, “He.” Discrimination against blacks and women is (rightly) condemned, but discrimination in favor of blacks and women is praised. We are permitted to make fun of fundamentalist Christians, WASPs, and conservatives, but the sky will fall on us if we dare to laugh at the absurdities of deadly serious egalitarian moralizers. Attendance at sensitivity-training sessions has become mandatory for many teachers, police, civil servants, and blue-collar workers. At these sessions, ideologically reliable instructors tell their captive audience, as if they were children, how they should think, talk, and behave. Ideological indoctrination has become part of compulsory courses at universities and colleges, and more and more high schools as well.
False accusations permeate the menace of moralism. Free speech becomes costly. Egalitarians harangue their suspected targets in lectures, speeches, and the media. The freedom of the press, which should be a bulwark protecting our liberty to say or write what we think, is now used by politically correct journalists to misrepresent their biased views as news. Moralism has become the Newspeak of much of the media.
The few bold enough to speak out against the egalitarians risk their jobs, expose themselves to malicious innuendo, and can often wind up hounded by unscrupulous reporters, who are rewarded with prizes and promotions for digging up discreditable episodes in the private lives of their selected victims. They have no way of removing the stain on their reputations caused by unproven charges that reporters disseminate via unnamed “sources.”
https://www.city-journal.org/the-menace-of-moralism |
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