Self Righteousness - Blog Posts

Ever notice that both Ram and Prius drivers will take up multiple parking spaces, and double down if you call them on it?

Other similar things people say are:

"Oh, I was just curious."

"I was just asking a question!"

"Apparently you can't take criticism."

"If you can't take a little criticism, you shouldn't blah blah..."

"I'm just sayin'!"

"You need to touch grass."

"You take everything too seriously."

It's all the same redirection trick.

Complicating matters is the fact that not everyone who redirects this way is consciously aware of what they're doing and may not even have genuine malicious intent. People don't want to admit to any bad qualities... some people redirect like this so they don't have to admit to themselves that they were thoughtless or malicious.

That doesn't justify their behavior, however. It just makes it harder to correct.

You're not "too sensitive" for getting upset when someone purposely upsets you. It's not "just a joke". They know what they're doing. They're just hiding their bullying behind the label of joking so they can play innocent.

This has been a major frustration of mine since I noticed it a few months back. I'm so glad OSP Red @comicaurora found such a clear and concise way to express it.

Every time I watch a Miniminuteman video, the comments are full of people just dunking on some random conspiracy theorist or fringe believer, just to make themselves feel better. I don't even think most of them are genuinely concerned, they just want to feel superior.

And I'm also noticing, more and more, that people who clearly consider themselves progressive seem to have forgotten that calling something "stupid" or "crazy," or calling the person saying it those things, doesn't refute or disprove it. All too often I see someone set out to "debunk" something, and wind up descending into a rant about how foolish or demented they think it is, or how mentally ill they think the person saying it is.

Not a good look if you're trying to be an advocate of science, logic, and tolerance.

Red's way is far better. Just focus on the truth, detail it out, and don't even bring up the post-consensus hypotheses, or the conspiracy theories which people build around them.