D-Square Digest on hypocrisy and
politics:
In general, one of the biggest problems with the psychological politics of left and right is the need that people feel to think of themselves as not just having made what looks like on balance the best decision given the things they regard as important, but as morally good people themselves. People in general seem to be horribly uncomfortable with the idea that, by the standards they use to judge political situations, they themselves don’t come out as moral heroes. At base, this is a fairly childish and decidedly illiberal attitude; childish because it demands a sort of moral perfection which everyone intellectually knows can’t exist outside fairy stories (unless you count the way that parents appear to their children) and illiberal because it suggests that you’re only prepared to have normal social interactions with people who pass your own personal moral examination (a rather prominent political philosopher has told me to my face on a couple of occasions that he regards me as morally beyond the pale because of the job I do; I’ve nonetheless been made to feel very welcome at his house).