Ian McDonald THERE IS nothing more damaging than self-righteousness. For one thing it is a trait that irredeemably spoils the character of otherwise fault-free people. Much more than that, group self-righteousness is infinitely destructive of any hope of a sane, tolerant, and progressive society since it is utterly narrow-minded and ignores any larger national good.
One of the worst aspects of the self-righteous is that those most guilty of it most vociferously deny that they are guilty at all. When, therefore, self-righteous groups compete, the good of all is quite lost in the presumption each party makes that its own good must be the good of all.
Any group without exception - cabinet, party executive, company board, trade union, sports association, Church, and a hundred others must possess a sense of cohesion, group loyalty, joint purpose and self-worth. Though all around them have good reason to find fault, no group banded together can afford to lose this sense of common purpose and self-justification. Even the most worthless and evil among men the Nazis of Germany for instance never lose this self-image. There is a passage in Tolstoy's novel Resurrection which perfectly describes this very human tendency.
"It is usually imagined that a thief, a murderer, a spy, a prostitute, acknowledging his or her profession to be evil, is ashamed of it. But the contrary is true. People whom fate or their own sin-mistakes have placed in a certain position, however false that position may be, form a view of life in general which makes their position seem good and admissible. In order to keep their view of life, these people keep instinctively to the circle of those who share their views of life and their own place in it. This surprises us where the persons are thieves bragging about their dexterity, prostitutes vaunting their depravity, or murders boasting of their cruelty. But it surprises us only because the circle, the atmosphere, in which these people live, is limited, and chiefly because we are outside it. Can we not observe the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their wealth robbery; when the commanders of armies pride themselves on their victories murder; when those in high places vaunt their power violence? That we do not see the perversion in the views of life held by these people is only because the circle formed by them is larger and we ourselves belong to it..."
Katusha, the prostitute, saw herself as a very important person, and Tolstoy continues:
"She prized this view more than anything else: she could not but prize it, for if she lost this view of life, she would lose the importance it accorded her. And in order not to lose the meaning of life, she instinctively clung to the set that looked at life in the same way she did."
Katusha's fear is the fear of us all, the fear of our own meaninglessness. We all try to defend ourselves against this fear by building up our personal and corporate defences.
Ian McDonald is a regular contributor who lives and works in Georgetown, Guyana.
