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How to Feel Morally Superior at No Cost to You

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Normally, if you wanted to feel like a hero or feel morally superior to others, you would have to take some risk or pay some price, but what would you think if I told you that there is a way for you to feel like a hero with little or no cost to yourself?  Does it sound too good to be true? Please indulge me by reading further and judging for yourself.

Here is the recipe for moral superiority on the cheap: 

          First:  Choose a cause.

          Next:  Lobby the government to promote your cause at someone else’s expense.

What could be easier?  Now let’s consider some causes you could select.

1.       Beautiful rural views

          Let’s say you enjoy beautiful rural scenery – farms, forests, mountains – and you consider subdivisions and big box retailers to be a blight on the landscape.  If so, you might want to choose beautiful rural views as your cause.  The way to promote this cause without cost to you would be to lobby the government to establish land use regulations that make it very difficult or impossible for rural landowners to develop their property.  These regulations might be called “zoning”, “scenic easements”, “smart growth”, “protection of endangered species”, “protection of wetlands”, or some other term that is politically appealing.  

          Regardless of what they are called, the function of these regulations will be to prevent the owner from developing his land.  By getting these regulations passed, you can feel that you have made great strides in protecting rural scenery without having to take the risks or engage in the expense of buying the property yourself.  Instead, you will have shifted all the costs onto the current property owner, whose property values will be severely reduced due to the restrictions that have been placed on the property.

          While these regulations probably will deprive the property owner of the nest egg he thought he was building up for his retirement or for his grandchildren’s inheritance, you don’t have to think about that.  Just say to yourself that anyone who owns land must be rich enough to be able to afford the loss, think of what a great thing you are doing for the scenery, and feel good about yourself!

2.       Public Health

          Suppose you really care about protecting other people’s health and want this to be your cause.  Since just about everything affects people’s health, the possibilities are endless!  You could join the anti-smoking forces and work to get the government to ban smoking on other people’s private property such as restaurants and bars, or you could lobby for laws that require other people to wear helmets or seatbelts.  You might try to ban transfats from restaurant food or lobby the government to spend other people’s tax money on stem cell research.  Again, in each case, you would be using the government to take away other people’s rights, property, or freedom in order to promote your cause.  And, again, you need not think about the costs you are shifting onto other people.  Just feel good about yourself, because you care!

3.       Global Warming

          One cause that is currently in vogue is called “global warming”.  This one is a bit tricky for several reasons.  First, while it does appear that global temperatures have risen slightly in the past 100 years, it is not clear exactly why.  The most likely cause appears to be increased solar activity, but there is nothing you can do about that.  If you want to make this your cause, you will need to attribute the increased temperatures to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, which causes an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Don’t worry about the fact that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide does not correlate with the temperature increase or that, no matter what you do, you cannot have much effect on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Don’t think about the fact that natural things like rotting wood, anthills, scampering woodland creatures, and even your breathing exhaust carbon dioxide into the air.  The important thing is to find something you can do to make yourself feel morally superior.

          So, here’s what you do:  Lobby the government to regulate the burning of any carbon-based substance, such as coal, oil, or wood.  Of course, any serious regulation will have a substantial negative effect on the economy, making life even more difficult for people at the bottom of the economic ladder, but you need not worry about that, especially if you are wealthy.  Like Al Gore, you still can jet around the world, burning lots of jet fuel and giving speeches about global warming to let people know how morally superior you are. 

I hope these examples have provided a springboard that will help you imagine the numerous opportunities for things you can do to make yourself feel morally superior at little or no cost to you.  You will not have to donate your own money to a charity or spend your own time to help other people.  It won’t matter whether the programs you promote have the stated effect or whether they only make things worse, because the real goal is to make you feel better about yourself.  Just remember to choose a goal that makes you feel morally superior, ask the government to do the job for you by shifting all the costs onto other people, and then sit back and feel virtous!  

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