No matter your religious / spiritual views, no matter your political affiliation, no matter your cultural roots, no matter your location – a common thread exists through out the world: That common thread is the rampant problem of moral thuggery.
What exactly is moral thuggery? It is turning a blind-eye to tyranny, treachery, corruption – all pernicious behaviors that divide people into those who are despaired for change and those who are so morally apathetic, that they become psychotic. It is the ultimate form of Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde.
All over the world, as societies continue to progress and fight against extreme poverty, cold and hot wars, and make sense of their government and economic systems, people have ironically become equally complacent. Or they have become so entrenched in their personal agendas, that all that matters is how and when they will get their way. Just look at the rise of populist governments in recent years. We are engaged in a massive tug-of-war over whose ideology will reign supreme.
A quite apparent example is the large percentage of Trump supporters here in the U.S. This article is not to sling mud at Trump supporters, nor any supporters of populist movements for that matter – but it is to breakdown a mentality that has grown so pervasive — not only among Trump supporters, but among all radical groups, Left and Right — that we have enabled our society to sacrifice human values and rights for personal gain and exhibit rancor towards each other’s beliefs.
In Fall 2016, when the 2005 Access Hollywood tape was released — clearly revealing that Trump is the epitome of moral contradictions – I, like many other people, thought that pretty much terminated Trump’s run for presidency and any possible decency that he had within him. However, the opposite happened: By the grace of a highly questionable electoral college system, Trump pulled ahead and won the presidency.
Media outlets, of course, already go into painstaking detail about all of the misleading information and flip-flopping that has defined Trump as either a brilliant player in the game of political chess, or the biggest conman and manipulator of the U.S. Constitution that we have ever seen in a person holding such a high position in political office.
Let’s say, as many of Trump’s supporters defend, that Trump is in fact a brilliant business man who is “draining the swamp” and purposely pitting person after person after person against each other, as a way to show that anybody who doesn’t agree with him is the real problem. Except the real problem is that anyone who does support this tactic is participating in moral thuggery.
Why? Because the moment that people pledge allegiance to underhanded tactics — while simultaneously pointing out all the corruption in society, that we need wholesome values again – those same people instantly become moral thugs. That is, they sacrifice their own humanity for what they think will solve our complex societal problems.
However, complex problems are just that – complex. The U.S. has built much of its might and perseverance on being practical and sticking to fundamentals whenever possible. That is why a big portion of the U.S. population is Center-Right or full-on conservative: The general mentality tends to be a perverted form of Occam’s razor: The more the simple the answer, the more correct. Yet that thinking quite often falls flat on it face. Many people feel more secure with simple absolutes: This correlates with my article “Why Facts Matter”, which highlights the lack of critical thinking education in this country, and the pressure to be a “just roll up your sleeves and get to work” person, instead of properly analyzing all sides to a topic.
Meanwhile, those on the extreme Left have become too wrapped up in analysis paralysis. They often *overcomplicate* societal issues by trying to appease every possible type of sensitivity to dogmatic thinking. Yet, hypocritically, the extreme Left are building their own dogmas surrounding groups rights and entitlement. Safe space advocates, social justice warriors, and sexual identity manipulators are just a few of the groups imposing agendas on society. And just as with the extreme Right, it becomes an even bigger problem when any tribalistic type movement expects their views to be legislated.
Point being: Just as church and state should be separate, so should be the case with any form of authoritarian movement that imposes beliefs, speech, or any other agenda that strong arms people into adhering to an ideology. This includes gender identity, misguided militias, and the overall nature of the mob mentality.
In general, moral thuggery is most pervasive among people who have a fundamentalist or apathetic approach to ideology. For example, when a Trump supporter says, “I don’t care what he does in his personal life, as long as he does what he promised to me” – that is moral thuggery.
Or when a person says, “We should bomb the hell out of <fill in the blank>” – even if it means many innocent people dying in the process – because what matters most is that we are safe”, that is also moral thuggery.
As much as some people want to think they can have it both ways with morality, it is actually – and always will be – a one or the other choice. Either you care that a leader has integrity, is a good role model, is the type of person you would want to date your son or daughter – or you are a moral thug. The in-betweens are destroying, brick by brick, our moral fabric. And the more that gets destroyed, the more that other leaders who enable moral thuggery will rise up and continue to sell their brand of “making society better”. That approach is so disgustingly wrong, it **must** stop.
Do you see now why moral thuggery *IS* the root of all evil? If so, are we ready to stop enabling it?