Invasion of the Moral Busybodies

I don’t know much about Cody but I found him engaging, though I didn’t listen to any of the other parts of his presentation yet. Take note of the social contract as the “big other” theory he brings up. It’s a tool of what C.S. Lewis called “moral busybodies“—bureaucrats, activists, and other state-as-religion believers use to encourage (browbeat) citizens to a collective national goal above all other goals.

Ed posted similar thoughts here recently. Being a disruptive force in itself isn’t terrible, but only in the proper context, though I’d think most of the situation is read incorrectly and you’re just acting up for a response. If you’ve ever been “offended” (and said as such) by words on a screen, or use the phrases “advocate for” or “bring awareness to,” or employing “trigger warnings” (the latest craze), you might be a moral busybody. These words are the engine bells that inform us down the tracks that the moral busybody train is barreling down, aiming to butt up against the activist’s version of “sin,” which in reality things that are categorized as bad thoughts—racism, sexism, bigotry, “hate.” The language manipulation of 1984 comes to mind here.

Sure, one could present a case that holding to any of those is a destabilizing force but it reality, bad beliefs affect the believer only and maybe a few close associates. They don’t incur a “social cost” inasmuch as it the phrase implies. People just basically want to control other people, and doing so toward a perceived good—the “big other” mentioned—can give the moral busybody a goal. Modifying others’ conscious mental though life is not as verboten as modifying others’ behaviors. We see former as an infringement on material liberties but the latter as accomplishing an Enlightenment duty. That’s all fine if that’s what gets your jimmies in a rustle, but things have consequences, always. There’s an inevitable blowback to mass social conditioning schemes once the subjects awaken to the experiment.

EDIT :: Part 2 of Cody’s presentation is here.

EDIT 2 :: Another coincidence…Captain Capitalism recently published a post on key words of moral busybodies, though they are for a specific context.

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