The Righteous and the Self-righteous

"Too many people are getting righteous these days. That's the problem with the world," I declaimed.

You know how it is. One of those days where you feel that only you have the insight into how to make the world a cleaner, better place. Like it happens with all of us every now and then. Of course, if that's the way you feel all the time, you become a social reformer or a politician or, at least, a social media pest...err...influencer.

"Who screamed at you for smoking in a public place today?"

There you go! This is the problem with people...you can hardly discuss anything at a conceptual level without someone making personal remarks.

"That's not what I mean, drat it. What I'm talking of is this thing about getting righteous about the way you dress, what you eat, yada yada."

"Are you talking about being righteous or being self-righteous?"

"What's the big difference?"

I mean, really! This thing about nit-picking on words is getting to be too much.

"Well, being righteous is trying to control what YOU do in accordance to your own morality. Being self-righteous starts where you try to control what OTHERS do in accordance to YOUR morality."

"So, you mean that I'm not allowed to propagate my own morals?"

"I suppose there is no point in having morals if you cannot flaunt them."

You know, somehow, that did not seem complimentary...or even supportive.

"No, that's not what..."

"Or, perhaps, you think that righteousness is when YOU are enforcing YOUR morals. And self-righteousness is when the other guy is."

THIS happens every time. How is it that I cannot even wish a guy 'Good morning' without the conversation ending in a listing of my own inadequacies?

"So, what IS self-righteousness? Is it righteous ONLY when I silently practice my morals and becomes self-righteous if I try to convince another guy to do so?"

"Convince! THAT's the operative word," he said.

I was absurdly pleased. To think that I could contribute as important a thing as an operative word!

He immediately set about taking the wind out of my sails.

"Of course you do not realize what 'convince' means. The idea of 'convincing' STARTS with the conception that the other person may have SOME legitimacy to his view-point, if only that of custom. AND, so, you need him to be convinced to see things a different way. Self-righteousness does not operate that way."

"And HOW does it operate?"

"A self-righteous ass ASSUMES that the other guy is either a fool OR a villain! More often than not, the latter. Self-righteousness does not believe in convincing people, only in judging them."

"In my opinion, that's also righteousness. It's only a play on semantics to call it by a different name."

"Opinions are like arseholes, as someone said. Everyone has them"

"Well, if everyone has them, why can't I?" I said triumphantly. 

He was silent for a second. Aha! Maybe this was going to be one of those rare times when I got the last word!

Then, he said, "The problem with opinions is not where they are the same as arseholes. It is in where they are different."

"In what way?" I asked, incautiously.

"Comes to arseholes, everyone has them but almost noone is eager to flaunt them in public."

Uhoh!