#selfrighteousness

I prefer people who are raw, authentic, and don't pretend to be good. That's better than those who wear fake smiles, self-righteousness, morals, and verses like a badge yet vote for criminals. You've got to be kidding me right?

You do not defend free speech by demanding it for yourself but by demanding it for others, especially when you reprehend the use to which they put it or what they say. Freedom to agree with yourself is no freedom at all and inevitably ends in tyranny. But increasingly a tyranny of self-proclaimed virtue seems to be the aim of university-trained intellectuals who, in the name of their own beneficence, seek to silence those whose opinions they find objectionable. It is the very class that one might have supposed had most to fear from censorship, both legal and extra-legal, that most strongly advocates it. There has been an astonishing change in cultural atmosphere with regard to free speech in the last quarter century. In the middle of the 1990s I wrote an article which displeased a certain pressure group, one of whose senior members wrote to the chief executive of my hospital to complain, and even to ask for my dismissal. The chief executive replied that he was sorry the complainant was upset, but that it was a free country and I could say what I liked. I doubt whether any hospital chief executive would write—dare to write—in such forthright terms nowadays; a certain robustness in the defence of freedom was then still possible. What seems to me clear is that central governments and the managers of lesser or subordinate institutions, such as the police and universities, increasingly think of themselves in the way that Stalin thought, or said that he thought, of writers: namely as the engineers of souls. This they deem to be necessary because, left to themselves, people are inclined to think the wrong thoughts, and wrong thoughts are very dangerous, especially to those who invariably have the right thoughts. Indeed, so dangerous are wrong ideas that their expression should either be criminalized or those who express them socially marginalized, preferably ostracized; but since prevention is better than cure, children, adolescents and young adults should be immunised against them by indoctrination. In effect, a large number of people, especially in universities, now dream of a world in which nobody has bad thoughts or bad feelings—bad as defined by them, of course. Such a world would have to be highly policed at first, no doubt, but with modern techniques of surveillance, that should pose no insuperable problems.

Trying to be holy from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.

Pride isn’t limited to self-righteousness. Our pride can also be self-preoccupation: being overly concerned with what others think of us and strongly desiring that others would think highly of us. Shyness can result from proudly fearing saying something stupid. Thinking extensively of how we look or act in public can come from a deep desire to impress others. Regularly redirecting conversation to ourselves can be prideful self-centeredness. The bottom line is that when we are proud, we think a lot about ourselves.

The self-righteous man cannot come to Christ; for what is implied in coming to Christ? Repentance, trust in his mercy, and the denial of all confidence in one’s self.

In every generation we who confess the Lord Jesus are confronted with well-established offenses against Him, testing our courage. If we man up, some people will inevitably say we are moving too quickly and causing unnecessary provocation. That might be true. The moral nobility of a cause elevates no one above self-judgment, and crusaders can be the most self-righteous of all. But the lordship of Christ judges everything, including both the offenses He calls us to challenge and our own excuses for not doing so.

The Truth Behind Self-Righteousness | Break Free Now