The Power and Pitfalls of Moral Crusades

But if the real purpose of social crusades is to proclaim oneself to be on the side of the angels, then such investigations have a low priority, if any priority at all, since the goal of being on the side of the angels is accomplished when the policies have been advocated and then instituted, after which the social crusaders can move on to other issues./nWhen you are in a hot political crusade and full of moral indignation, you often don't have time to check the facts./nThe presumed irrationality of the public is a pattern running through many, if not most or all, of the great crusades of the anointed in the 20th century./nSurrogate decision making is the common thread in the highly disparate crusades, which have captured the imagination and sparked the fervor of the anointed at various times./nBefore trying to figure out what one thinks about a modern-day cause or movement, it is important to consider whether it has the characteristics of a moral crusade./nThe emotional appeal, moral superiority, thrill of being on the side of the angels, and sense of meaning and identity experienced by the proponents of a moral crusade are often stronger than reason, logic, and empirical evidence./nMany polarizing issues of our time have become packaged as moral crusades, making them resistant or impervious to the usual scientific methods of using logic and reason to weigh empirical evidence.