Neitzche was right

Humans are too moralistic. They are moralize instead of being moral.

Morality is a principle or intuition that guides you to act beyond your ego's desires.
Moralizing is a narrative justifying your ego's desires.

This culture has far too little of the first and way too much of the latter.

Everyone has a moral narrative going, but these narratives have no commitment to reality or mercy. On a cultural level there is a constant poisonous layer of "moralizing" attacking everyone that is secreted like a corrosive mist by the populace. There are larger political narratives and smaller personal one - but they all work in this strange moral calculus that I'm sick of witnessing.  If I get one "bad thing" I deserve a "good thing". If someone is hurt, then the other side of the equation must be what they did to deserve it. If I have a weakness then I'm absolved of responsibility.

I used to call this 'fundementalist' thinking because those some religions raise this to an art form, but it is too universal to pin on religion alone.

On the larger scale 95% of comments or essays about "the Left" or "the Right" are moralizing justifications that replace dealing with serious political problems like COVID economic crash, the destruction of the middle class and murderous US militarism with 'feel good' comments positioning yourself morally. On the small scale are "here's why I'm too weak to help", "this is why the world owes me", "I wish I was more capitalist", "authoritarian optimism solves everything". The middle ground is all the moralizing market discussions: "here's what I think that real-estate should cost" and "they get paid too much".

And this is just a skimming of the surface chatter. I assume that most humans are like this, but the corporate (social) media is deluging any voices reminding us of higher goals. "Maintain Capitalism at any price" is the only goal out society is allowed. We can morally posture as we wish, we can judge everyone as we want, because our 'moralizing' is just a lifestyle choice.

A society full of mini-judges, quasi-police, and pseudo-moralizing ministers is a nightmare to live in. It might be the bourgeoisie dream. It is clearly the emotional substratum that launches fascism.

@BriohnyDoyler wrote:
1/8 Last year I lost my partner in a tragic and untimely accident. Sometimes it was hard to get out of bed let alone go out in the world.

2/8 When I did drag myself out ... I forgot to indicate while sitting at an intersection and a driver squealed past, arm on the horn, screaming FUCKING DUMB BITCH.

3/8 Too fragile for the dog park, I played fetch in an empty velodrome. When a cyclist arrived, she yelled at me instead of just saying politely that she'd prefer us to leave.

4/8 A couple with a kid lectured me to tears one morning because in my grief haze, I didn't notice that my dog was sniffing around the edge of a playground.

5/8 A well dressed woman sighed and rolled her eyes when I had trouble gathering my change quickly in a grocery store. Even though I was trying so hard, people only saw me as irresponsible, inconvenient and stupid.

6/8 It made me feel like the world didn't want me. Like I should go home and hide. Or just die.

7/8 I'm sharing this because there are a lot of new rules right now. And you may be feeling a anger at perceived transgressions but please, please, remember

8/8 that everyone's lives are complex and made harder by restrictions. Don't viciously police your community. Don't ruin the day of a stranger because you are afraid or righteous.

A quick reminder of what emotion drove the degeneration into fascism: the deep desire to judge other humans

Wikipedia wrote:Fascists criticized egalitarianism and opposed the principle of social welfare, arguing that it "encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and the feeble."  Nevertheless, faced with the mass unemployment of the Great Depression, the Nazis found it necessary to set up charitable institutions to help racially-pure Germans "who were judged to have got into difficulties through no fault of their own." Refering to it as "racial self-help" and not universal social welfare, Nazi programs such as 'Winter Relief' and the broader Nazi People's Welfare were organized as officially relying on private donations - but in practice those who refused to donate could face severe consequences.

Unlike the social welfare institutions of the German government and the Christian charities, the Nazi distributed assistance on explicitly racial grounds only to those who were "racially sound, capable of and willing to work, politically reliable, and willing and able to reproduce." Any non-Aryans were excluded, as well as the "work-shy", "asocials" and the "hereditarily ill."  Yet even Aryan Germans who had obtained assistance feared it because it resorted to intrusive questioning and monitoring to judge who was worthy of support.

Germany Populace: Why does that homeless bum get free food! I work for my food!
Nazi: Universal social welfare is a corrupting Christian/Socialist nonsense. Better to let the weak die than have the 'nanny state' stealing from the rich and intruding into our lives! No charity at all!
Germany Populace: Uh oh! Capitalism is a disaster and without welfare there will be mass deaths...
Nazi: Ummm.... we'll have "private racial charities" .... donations enforced by violent threats .... and distributed by Nazi ideologists armed with forceps, stirrups and Mein Kamph....
Germany Populace: Really???
Nazi: Questioning Nazi policies is "asocial" and "politically unreliable".
Germany Populace: [rolls eyes]
Nazi: Apparently you are a 'useless eater' (unnütze esser) living a 'life unworthy of life' (lebensunwertes leben)... how about a shower to freshen up?
Germany Populace: But I just wanted to moralize against that homeless guy getting some food and feel superior...not lay the groundwork for a murderous empire...

---------------A few years later--------------------

North American Populace: Why does that homeless bum get free food! I work for my food!
Republicrat Party: (clears throat)

[The reference to Neitzche is that he is known for his bitter attacks on 'European slave morality' and the toxic effect of empty moralizing. This much I agree with. His unfortunate solution was to go 'beyond good and evil' by embracing an trans-human (ubermench) ethics based on 'the will to power' to satisfy your superior desires...  a philosophy that only appeals to youthful white males and other sociopaths. Neitzche was totally unable to live up to his own 'master' philosophy and had a mental breakdown watching someone whip an aged horse. Neitzche preached total self-mastery to overcome hollow moralizing ... but what he really wanted was enforced animal abuse laws.]