#91: What Is Moral Grandstanding with Justin Tosi & Brandon Warmke

[@drdaverob]

Every psychological tool created or deduced for better self understanding is automatically applied to others... Humans can't help but do that. So the book is basically: "Sometimes people are publicly judgemental to increase their social moral capital, but that's not moral so don't do it and calling them out on it also reduces yours, so don't do that either." So when *should* we talk about it? Only about ourselves? How about telling others to make sure they're not doing that? Isn't dunning kruger gonna make the grandstanders worse and quiet the rest of us more? Are we supposed to NOT call out "call out culture"? Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone, etc? "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski

[@troubadourblues]

I haven't read the book, and so this may me covered more fully in there, but I find the distinction being drawn here between grandstanding and hypocrisy to be interesting because, while we currently use the term "hypocrite" to mean "someone says one thing and does another thing" or "a person who doesn't live up to the standard they hold others to." But, originally, the term was simply the Greek term for a play actor, and became an epithet to refer to those who were more interested in getting attention and showing off then in doing what was right -- thus Jesus's condemnation of the Pharisees, who twisted the Law so they could break the spirit of the Law and still appear to be just (hypocrisy). In other words: Hypocrisy is related to grandstanding, and grandstanding may even be a subset or type of hypocrisy, even for those who really believe what they preach and appear to practice what they preach! [NOTE: I suspect that our current understanding of the term "hypocrite" comes from one of the many accusations Jesus leveled against the Pharisees and scribes: "for they say, and do not" (Matt. 23:3). Read the rest of this sermon, however, and we see that it was their pretension to righteousness that was being condemned.] It is equally interesting that Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, seems to have no illusions about a person's capacity to refrain from their performative nature, and so rather than telling people not to be public performers, he told them to simply refocus their attention and ask: Who are you performing for? "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. 6:6). I don't mean to sound preachy here, but I think this idea provides some potential focus for the authors' discussion of motive in grandstanding and a way to purify our motives and check our motives: to his disciples, Jesus suggested focusing on your motives by refiguring your audience: don't be concerned with what people think; be concerned with what's true. And, of course, one implication of such a call to focus on the truth is a coequal call to humility in our discourse: because we can't be 100% certain what's true, we should act with all due humility in case we're wrong!