Earlier this year a meta-analysis in Advances in Psychological Science found a correlation between having a heightened sense of self-righteousness and what is called “third-party punishment,” meaning punishing someone for a perceived infraction, even when you are not the victim of that infraction. An earlier study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people are eager to express outrage and punish wrongdoers even when there is no identifiable personal benefit, because moralistic behavior signals our moral character to others.
Worrying contemporary factors aggravate this phenomenon. We live in a culture that diminishes the role of sin and personal culpability while amplifying our sense of self. Social media encourages the creation of curated versions of ourselves that foreground our “best version of ourselves” while concealing our vices or shortcomings. We inhabit a deracinated, atomized society in which we know and are known by few people, but, ironically, are beholden to an obsession with celebrity – not only actual celebrities, but the cult of celebrity, where we aspire to be celebrated through “likes” and “shares.” Much of this digital culture primes us for both virtue signaling and participation in “cancel culture.”
It’s alarming, not only because of the likelihood
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