Moral Licensing and the Paradox of Progress.

Nkem
Nkem
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

(One step forward, two steps back.)

I was listening to a philosophy podcast a few weeks ago when a psychology professor came on to discuss an interesting topic. She was a researcher at a prestigious university and the conversation soon turned to American politics and the current state of the presidency. The hosts wondered aloud why voters who previously supported the country’s first black president would later support a reality TV star who trades in hateful rhetoric against minority groups. Her answer? Moral licensing.

Moral licensing is the subconscious phenomenon whereby increased confidence and security in one’s self-image or self-concept tends to make that individual worry less about the consequences of subsequent immoral behavior and, therefore, more likely to make immoral choices and act immorally.

Professor Harden* explained that those people viewed their vote for a black president as a public display of non-racist beliefs or inclinations, and therefore proof that they were moral. Subsequently, this view gave them the confidence to support or engage in racist behavior as they were implicitly shielded from criticism for acting immorally.

It’s a strange psychological phenomenon that underscores why change often seems stagnant. Many Americans believed that electing a black president would ease or ‘cure’ race relations but the exact opposite happened. Over eight years, many incidents showed that his election blew up the tension that had been simmering beneath the surface. America refuses to confront and acknowledge its violently oppressive racist past and the consequences continue to be felt by millions of people today. In many ways, things have gotten better but also worse.

We often forget the civil rights era was as recent as the 1950s, so much that heroes like John Lewis are still alive. (As would have MLK and Malcolm X had they lived.) Recently, we were reminded of the horrific lynching of Emmett Till when the white woman who accused him of whistling at her admitted she had lied about the entire incident in an interview with a reporter. Emmett’s mother is still alive and she remembers all too well the day her son was taken from her and the grave injustice he suffered as the three white men who killed him were acquitted.

Today we have a new president who is stoking the worst of America’s racism and bringing it to the forefront. White supremacists, neo-nazis, islamophobes, misogynists, they are people who believe in a white ethnostate and the extermination of everyone else. Some probably voted for Obama. But in the current state of affairs, it is unfathomable because of the magnitude and intensity of their disdain and vitriol. Such is the paradox of progress, are we really moving forward? With the rapid spread of white nationalism and isolationist politics across the western world, from Brexit to the close-call French election, there is no telling where things are headed.

*Not her real name.

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