Judge not lest ye be judged; good advice that nobody follows, including me. I am fighting myself tooth and nail to not let this post become judgmental. I won’t succeed but at least I’ll make the effort. There I go judging the people that don’t. Before I fall down a black hole of meta, I better get to the point.
We all know the phrase, “Holier than thou” and know that it is not a compliment. If you are my friend, the odds favor that you are not a member of the religious right. I do have a few friends that are, but they are a distinct minority. The people not on the religious right, see them as the archetype of “Holier than thou.” As true puritans they decry the sins of other people, even if those actions are not sins to the people acting them. It is possible to be deeply religious and try to avoid all sins without being holier than thou. While I might not agree on their view of sins, they are not hurting anyone so not sinning by my view. They deserve credit for self-discipline. On the other hand, I, and I expect most of My Gentle Readers, find the scolds at best annoying. Their sin is the same as those that correct other people’s grammar as they are speaking. Even my English teachers taught me that was rude. Some of course are far worse; they want to punish those they see as sinful. They think premarital sex is wrong, fine don’t have sex outside of marriage. Don’t condemn those that do and try and deny them contraceptives. Many think that contraceptives are wrong, it violates “Be fruitful and multiply,” so they want to ban it even for married people. Do we all agree that it’s not good to act “holier than thou?” I think even my most sincerely religious friends would.
You know I’m not stopping there. Why post what everyone agrees with? Who gains from that? No, the sins I want to discuss are broader, “Holier than thou” is just a special case. The people that correct grammar are more grammatical than thou. I recently posted on Facebook. “Being educated is knowing the difference between less and fewer. Being wise is not correcting people when they get it wrong. If someone corrected me, I would not call them rude. I would point out that the distinction between less and fewer is artificial. It was not a rule until the author of a grammar book said it was. Lots of grammar rules are like that, same for split infinitives. That was never a rule until someone decided that as you can’t split an infinitive in Latin, they are one word, you shouldn’t be able to do so in English. These things get perpetuated partially from creating class distinctions. People could feel superior to those less educated even though it was mainly about who could afford to get educated. Then that feeling of superiority is used to justify the class distinctions.
I’m sure most of you are still with me. The thing is that ______er than thou manifests itself in ways both trivial and meaningful. Baseball fans compete to see who is more purist than thou, while others, to see who can be more analytic than thou. Far more people make the former sin than the latter. We know Republicans fight over who is Trumpier than thou but if we are being honest, we know that many people compete to see who can be woker than thou. That’s how wokeness became a political bogeyman that energizes the right. Scolding is unpleasant even when the cause is just. It’s more unpleasant when the cause is just but people take it to extremes. During the French Revolution people competed to see who was more revolutionary. Things got so bad that if you weren’t considered revolutionary enough you lost your head. The thinking went along with those Republicans who call people like Liz Cheney RINOs, Republicans in name only. I hear plenty of people on the left say the same sort of things. To some Beto O’Roarke is basically a Republican. I bet you’ve heard people say that Biden is not much better than the Republicans. And it gets even worse, if you are not harsh enough in your criticisms of the other side, than you are persona non grata. That one gets me often. I won’t stand for people saying falsehoods or using incorrect logic to criticize even people I totally oppose.
Now we are getting to my point. Look at yourself. People are ______ than thou because it feels good to be _______ than thou. That makes it a temptation to be actively avoided. Just as people should be actively anti-racist, they should be actively anti-judgmental. I wasn’t joking earlier; I really worry that I’m being judgmental now. I don’t want anyone to feel attacked. Am I succeeding? I doubt it, but I won’t judge myself too harshly either. I have to fight correcting everyone’s logic and facts aggressively. There is no excuse to be accusatory or supercilious. It’s just like teaching, you don’t get angry at a student for getting something wrong. Most of all I have to fight being sarcastic. That’s my default mode when people say something I think ridiculous. It’s not that my opinion isn’t more valid than theirs, it’s that we can’t start from that assumption. They always think they are right. As my father used to quip, “You shouldn’t say it even though it’s true.” Your friend comes in wearing something you think is unflattering, no let’s say you think it’s ugly. Would you say, “That outfit looks terrible?” You wouldn’t even though it does. I can handle that. I can’t handle when they say, “two plus two equals four therefore he’s a terrible person.” No matter how much I want to I can’t start off with, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”
I think about this every single day because every day I see someone being _____ than thou and many days I’m tempted to do it myself. Today I am getting it off my chest. My therapist retired and my anxiety is rising so I need an outlet. I’ll end with some appropriate music. This is based on the Flushing Remonstrance; you should read that after listening to the song.
Wise Madness 