When, as a recent college grad I worked for the New York City Department of Welfare, I confronted a disappointing reality. I learned that morality could be used as a weapon that undercut moral aims. Instead of doing good, it often did the opposite.
At one point, my fellow caseworkers decided to go on strike. They legitimately felt underpaid so they voted to walk out. As their colleague, I knew they were motivated by money, but that is not what they told the public. The purported reason for their action was to help our clients.
Time and again, people put a moral face on selfish conduct. They seek to manipulate outsiders by appealing to their internalized commitments. In the welfare case, the goal was to use sympathy for the poor to attract allies. In other instances, guilt is elicited to motivate a less desirable response.
I should have understood this beforehand. Having previously been exposed to both Jewish and Catholic guilt, I knew how compelling these could be. My own mother was an expert in getting me to stop clamoring for treats by making me feel egocentric.
In any event, we are currently in the midst of a moral emergency. With liberals and conservatives at dagger points, each side reaches for the weapons in which it places the most confidence. For liberals, who pride themselves on their compassion, guilt, shame, and moral outrage come readily to hand.
The obvious example is the current hysteria over dealing with illegal immigrants. Modifications in the policy of separating parents from their children became a flashpoint in the culture wars. Suddenly those involved in policing our southern border became Nazis and goons.
Now it must be admitted that splitting families apart is an unpleasant affair. No doubt some children are traumatized. But is this more devastating to their psyches than the trip they endured in getting to our doorstep? The answer is not self-evident.
So how does it help to call the detention centers concentration camps? Can comparing them to Auschwitz advance our understanding of the best correctives? Of course not! But that was never the intent. The goal was always to make those in favor of regulated borders experience guilt and shame.
The same applies to labeling president Trump a cruel con man. This in no way elicited his cooperation in negotiating a reasonable settlement. That, however, was never the objective either. It was always to paint him as a villain whose moral opinions carry no weight.
But why did this escalation in the intensity of a longstanding dispute occur? The reason is clear. It is because liberals felt at a moral disadvantage. They needed a diversion from the recent gains made by their archenemy. If Trump received too much credit for his successes, their relative standing might suffer.
Hence when the economy began to heat up, it was time to change the subject. Likewise when it seemed possible North Korea could be denuclearized, the public attention could not be allowed to linger on this. It might make the president look like a good guy.
Nevertheless, most in need of a distraction was the growing FBI scandal. The more information that came out; the more this smelled like an incipient coup d’état. The DOJ’s IG report made it plain that a cabal of left-leaning agents were determined to control the outcome of a democratic election.
This was strong stuff. If it were perceived that liberalism is associated with an attack on our political traditions, it could prove fatal to the prospects of the Democratic Party. It could be hurt as badly as the Republicans were in the wake of Watergate.
Something had to be done. It was therefore time to bring out the big guns. Despite charges of hypocrisy and opportunism, supercharged moralism was summoned to the rescue. Only it held the potential for neutralizing the advantages of the other side.
But where does this leave the rest of us? In this attempt by partisans to score moral points, we have been submerged in a sea of lies and obscenities. As a result, our communal atmosphere has been poisoned. This is not conducive to genuine problem solving.
Not even my Jewish mother would approve of this exercise in moralistic malpractice. So let us cool the rhetoric and abstain from vain posturing. Being good is grounded in doing good, not in pretending to be morally superior.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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