ENTITLEMENT AND MORAL RIGHTEOUSNESS ABOUT MORAL RELATIVISM.
Attachment to dichotomous thinking, this not that, right & wrong, absolutes.
Acceptance of fluidity, infiniteness, & relativism.
Absolute and Relative are philosophical terms concerning the mutual interdependence of things, processes, and knowledge. 'Absolute' means independent, permanent, and not subject to qualification. 'Relative' means partial or transient, dependent on circumstances or point-of-view.
- Marxist
So, what’s right?
Lately, I’ve found myself in conversations around ISness. ISness -to me- is a state of being. Essence.
ISness is transitory. It is subjective. It is complete as of a point in time, yet at the time of its acknowledged completion, it is whole.
ISness is something we, as a culture, use to define ourselves, others & validity. It is the perspective that supports decisions or determines our availability. It is the root to which we align acceptance & identify Self.
These days it feels like we’re in a dialogue about whose ISness is MOST right.
Is it the ‘woo-witches’ promoting flexibility, unity, numinosity, & wholeness?
Is it the ‘normies’ clinging to data, proof, phenomena & order?
I find this either/or context to be too limiting for my inclusive mind.
Although, I do try to understand & see both sides while maintaining clarity about my perspective. I try to do that not because I have to. Because I think it’s the only way someone like me is going to be able to survive in a World such as this, focused on highlighting differences as a justification for division & often violence.
When I find myself in a steadfast gallop upon my moral ‘high horse’, I actively try to pull the reigns on such behavior to notice why? Not because I doubt my intuition or decision-making abilities. Because I’m a complex human who is aware that I can be affected by emotions, & because there’s a distinction between feelings of conviction.
Conviction as a persecutory ruling of guilt or contempt.
Conviction as a perspective of strong belief.
I can disagree with something without making it absolutely wrong.
I can agree with something without making it absolutely right.
The truth is, I believe that right & wrong are relative, but I understand some believe they are more absolute, finite, & concrete.
I think I understand why that is. I used to operate heavily in dichotomous thinking. I understand it from a fear-based place.
A place that needs absolutes to create comfort through clarity.
A place that feels more settled where there are clear parameters, metrics, rules & expectations around functionality.
A place that grasps presence more easily when one knows they can be, by knowing what to expect or what is expected of them.
I also think I understand why clinging to absolutes about right & wrong is preferred by some.
We’ve been raised in a culture that covets consistency & promotes definites. Absolutes. As a result, we’ve been spoon-fed this dichotomous thinking model outright & through osmosis.
When something is pervasive, anything that counters it can become a threat to not only one’s belief system but a threat to the community that cultivated those beliefs. And, if history’s war-torn story has taught us nothing, it’s that in our culture, anything seen as a potential hazard to one’s absolute attachment of identity is an enemy.
It’s not a new story that when cultures shift & change there can be adversarial reactions or aggressive results.
It’s also not a new story that evolution can lead to safer environments & better ways of living.
The perspective that feels needed now is to collectively create an opportunity for us to allow what is absolute & relative, or otherwise, to coexist together.
Feelings of righteousness are powerful when it comes to clarity. When it comes to identifying our position. They are the anchors of stability that give gusto to consciously proceed in directions most closely aligned with who we are.
It bolsters Empowered Individuated Wholeness. POW-ER-FULL!
Yet, they are also the feelings that, without respect for their power of influence as well as their power to access balance & autonomy, can catapult us into superiority. Domination. Intolerance. Indignation. Oppression. Prejudice. Control.
Superiority about righteousness can fuel ignorance, entitlement, & denunciation. It can prey on fear-based emotions to rally contempt. It can encourage distinctions of inferiority by pitting what is relatively, absolutely, or otherwise favored against each other.
In doing so, entitled righteousness can convince one that it is moral to take corrective action against what one opposes. Thus, involving us in unconscious exposure to what is the real & present danger. Belonging to a society where the only thing we agree on is aggression to diversity. And, the result it produces is a culture that uses stonewalling through moral righteousness about moral relativism.
Pause for a moment to think about a time when you felt slighted in a nonviolent scenario. A situation where you felt mistreated. A moment where you felt like you were tolerating bad behavior.
Is it possible that you were right? You were tolerating what you didn’t want to.
Is it possible that the circumstance was wrong? You were enduring what felt wrong to you.
What do you notice about these right & wrongs?
It’s not that you were right & they were wrong. It’s that you are right about what is wrong for you. However, what is right & wrong for you doesn’t make the behavior & actions endured holistically right & wrong in the World.
You can be right about what is wrong for you. Another can also be right that what you perceive as mistreatment or wrong is actually right for them. This is where the perspective through both/and becomes useful.
Wanting your reactions to be the most right is entitlement.
Wanting your emotional response to be the priority is emotional entitlement.
Wanting how you perceive situations to be the norm for all situations is entitlement with moral righteousness about moral relativism.
It’s taking an unpleasant situation & weaponizing it. It’s allowing a misfire of incongruent human engagement to be used to vilify another’s humanity. Its disregard for dissimilarity, exacerbated by confusion about how ignored particularities, & emotional reactions related to them, can amplify feelings of injustice and perpetuate entitlement.
Have you ever been misunderstood?
Has your actionable intent ever been devalued?
Have your particularities ever been ignored?
I’m sure you have, it has, & they have.
The point is, whether you are someone who operates in absolutes & I am someone who operates in relativity, neither one of us is wrong. It’s the acknowledgment that one of us is MORE RIGHT that creates entitlement. It’s the weaponizing of these things against each other that creates a moral dilemma. It’s forbidding the overlap & allowance for many different perspectives that cause us to view their occurrence as an intentional signal for combat, & green light us to righteous corrective action.
What is right for someone else may not be right for you.
What is right for you may not be right for someone else.
The truth is, there is malice in the world intended to be damaging. But a lot of the time, the damage that is done on a daily basis is not in the difference of our actions or in personality-based arguments on preference. It’s in our intolerance to admit that, in our culture, entitlement exists and our emotions are preyed upon to encourage and perpetuate fear-based division around where dissimilarity occurs.
Feelings of righteousness are powerful when it comes to clarity. By cultivating respect for their power of influence as well as their power to access balance & autonomy, we can birth patience & compassion for individuated expression. We can accept that it is safe to be vulnerably different, together. And, in doing so, we can grow to accept that it is each our responsibility to welcome a perspective shift around making safer environments & better ways of living with diversity.
What is your relationship to difference?
How do you cultivate a positive relationship with difference? Where?
How do you cultivate resistance to difference? Where?
Where are you allowing yourself to be held in contempt for who you are?
Where, in the damage of this contemptuous experience, are you internalizing it & unconsciously projecting it into your relationships?
What opportunity exists to consciously acknowledge entitlement?
What autonomy & levity do you stand to gain by becoming conscious of where you hold moral righteousness about moral relativism?
Be good to yourself. 💋
With Blessings,
