The age of hypermorality

Nah! I don’t live in that world, and today’s world is certainly no more tolerant than the past.

Hyper-hypocrisy more like. A naive sort of "morality" (I get a foul taste in my mouth even calling it that). Where "anti-racists" make every possible effort to emphasize race. Where the "tolerant" accept no other outlook on life but their own. Where people will rise up against "fake news", but have no issue in copying and parroting whatever their own preferred news outlet has to say. Where people will protest for the environment yet still enjoy every luxury they can get their fatty hands on. And this is only the realm of public discourse. Don't get me started on what debauchery these persons get up to in their private lives, whilst still preaching their gospel to the masses. An age of intellectual midgets, for which I have no good words to spare.

Quoting Matias

We are all indignant these days. All the time, with enthusiasm and about almost everything. We live in the age of hypermorality.

I think that this is selective perception. People have always thought to differentiate their group from others by negative delineation. What's different is that we get to see it all real-time via the internet.

Quoting Matias

Morality has mutated into the guiding ideology and religious substitute of our post-religious societies (in the West, with the possible exception of the USA, where morality is still a Christian affair for many people).

This honestly makes no sense at all to me. How can morality be conceptualised as an ideology? And morality is not spiritual. The substitute for religion must take over the functions of a religion, which morality does not do.

Quoting Matias

Morality as hypermorality has become absolute, it does not tolerate any other discourses beside it. Thus morality becomes the tyranny of values: the cult about minorities; insults and "microaggressions" everywhere; identity politics, ideology of equality...

How much of this is new? How much is more than some extreme fringe? And more importantly: What is the difference between this supposed new "hypermorality" and the traditional, strict religious morality? Why don't make examples such as the "pro-life" movement, salfist religious morality or russian orthodoxy make your list?

Quoting Matias

Politics, economics, art - everything is reduced to moral questions. Even consumption must be fair, sustainable and resource-saving. Whoever tries to evade this ersatz religion of total morality will be socially sanctioned. In a moralized world you have to belong to one of the moral tribes and signal your virtue to your comrades 24/7

You mean people like to express their allegiance to a specific religious, political or merely geographic group among their peers? I am shocked!

Quoting Matias

It is a hard time for pragmatists like me who would like to analyze things first (in order to find solutions) before they get charged with moral values. Because once a topic is loaded with morality, it is nearly impossible to have a rational discourse about it.

True, but I cannot remember the mythical time when our discourse was free of this. When were these supposedly rational times?

The age of hyperbolic social commentary where everything that is said and done gains exaggerated significance disproportionate to its importance.

Reply to Tzeentch Quoting Tzeentch

Hyper-hypocrisy more like. A naive sort of "morality" (I get a foul taste in my mouth even calling it that). Where "anti-racists" make every possible effort to emphasize race. Where the "tolerant" accept no other outlook on life but their own. Where people will rise up against "fake news", but have no issue in copying and parroting whatever their own preferred news outlet has to say. Where people will protest for the environment yet still enjoy every luxury they can get their fatty hands on. And this is only the realm of public discourse. Don't get me started on what debauchery these persons get up to in their private lives, whilst still preaching their gospel to the masses. An age of intellectual midgets, for which I have no good words to spare.

I couldn't agree more with this sentiment.

Reply to Matias User-driven new media (smartphones, FaceBook, Twitter, the Internet, etc.) pick up and amplify whatever shrill sounds a noisy group emits. Feedback makes the racket even worse.

I would not use the term 'hyper morality' to describe all of the rights movements that have flowered in the post WWII economic boom: blacks, women, hispanics, native Americans, gays, disabled, and so on have all gained varying degrees of civil equality. Occupy Wall Street highlighted economic inequality. All of this is to the good.

Relatively (or definitely) privileged college students bitching and carping about micro-aggressions, mini-oppressions, and so on have gotten out of hand, aided and abetted by college administrators who are driven by enrolment stats. College is also a time and place when relatively privileged young people can try on roles which they probably will drop as soon as they graduate.

I don't know exactly what it is that makes the hyper-moralists tick. It might be that REAL, economic inequalities and oppressions are just too big for them to fight, so they switch to symbolic enemies -- like people who won't snap-to for whatever odd-ball nouveau personal pronoun they have chosen for their snowflake self.

It's not good to lie, generally speaking. But not all lies are the same. Some lies are more important than others. Same with other moral questions.

Reply to Matias
I'd like to see this, people everywhere pausing and asking themselves "But is it moral?", but I don't, so your post seems to me to be just another rant against some people being obsessed with their public and even personal image of themselves, and of course lashing out at those who are not, nothing to do with morality. I am not aware of a period in history when your complaint wouldn't apply, as I see it, people are always pissed about other people, always finding ways to differentiate and discriminate, no special hard time for anyone in particular, sorry.

Reply to Matias

thanks for posting this.