Categories and correlations
- Good citizens, claiming to obey pseudo-morality and laws. The vast majority of people. Although some might be "genuine good citizens", most are usually guilt-ridden hypocrites or even "bad citizens", especially in the strict sense in which no one obeys all laws although he accepts the general political order, and no one follows the extreme puritan version of pseudo-morality. They vote for laws they disobey. They defend principles they don't respect. They purport to abide by a pseudo-morality they don't abide by. They just love things like the double standard and dozens of rules and principles they don't have even a glimpse of explanation for. If someone tells you "I/we shouldn't do this", and then does it, or if he explains something leading to doublethink, you can be pretty sure he or she is one of them. Lewdness, obscenity and perversion* are their favorite anti-concepts.
- Nihilists. They reject all laws and rules, morality and pseudo-morality alike.
- Rational human beings. The Remnant. They abide by a coherent set of rational principles, such as Natural Law, the Golden Rule and Pareto-optimality.
So these are the categories. So now to correlations: people tend to be educated into good citizens or bad citizens. If for some reason (and the reason can be a bad reason leading to other bad correlated consequences) they reject the crap they've been filled with, they usually become nihilists. Therefore, the abiding with some stupid set of pseudo-principles is often correlated with positive qualities. Tough, innit.
*Good pretext to quote Szasz's definition:
Perversion: Sexual practice disapproved of by the speaker.
2007-02-19