This Popular Moral Formula Weakens You

Socrates famously argued that all people want to be good. Much as I respect Socrates I think he’s wrong. People don’t necessarily want to be good; people want to appear good by whatever local standard. People might even think that appearing good is all it takes to be good.

There’s a simple intuitive and overwhelmingly popular formula for appearing good. I’ll call it tuck and duck: Just pay attention to whether words sound good or bad, positive or negative. If they sound good, tuck yourself under them. If they sound bad duck away from them. Steer yourself into positive connotations; steer clear of negative connotations. It’s super simple and totally intuitive.

No matter your culture, you can follow this formula. If you culture regards “woke” as good, tuck yourself into “wokeness.” If your culture regards “woke” as bad, duck it and say you’re “anti-woke.”

“Woke” means “seen the light.” So does “born again.” If you’re in a culture that regards “born again” as good but "woke" is bad, tuck yourself into ‘born-again” and duck “woke”. If your culture regards "woke" as good but "born again" as bad, proclaim yourself "woke" but not “born again.” Super simple. Again, it doesn’t matter what the words mean. All that matters is their connotations, positive or negative.

Same for all positive or negative connotations. Where “conservative” sounds good and “liberal” sounds bad, say you’re "conservative" not "liberal" Where "conservative" sounds bad and "liberal" sounds good, say you’re "liberal" not "conservative." Never mind what the words mean, just keep tucking under the positive and ducking away from the negative.

It’s as simple children’s game “getting warmer getting colder” but played with word connotations. Move toward the warmer, positive connotations and away from the colder, negative connotations.

Bacteria do it with sugar. They can sense differences in sugar concentrations around them. If there’s sugar to the left, they move toward the left. People do that with sweet and sour words. That way they can appear sweet and good.

The duck-and-tuck formula is exploited by bullies and tyrants. Their charisma is often nothing more than the appearance of never being wrong or bad, the appearance of a permanent winning streak built of nothing but this tuck-and-duck formula. If it sounds good it’s always about the tyrant. If it sounds bad it’s about the tyrant’s rivals.

This formula is often all it takes to gain power—power enough to even control word connotations. If someone attaches a negative word to the powerful, they can flip it and make it sound positive. If rivals use a positive word about themselves, they can flip it and make it sound negative.

Many people claim to oppose name-calling because “name-calling” sounds bad. It sounds “negative” which they also duck because, again, it sounds bad.

Is name-calling always bad? Is it bad to call someone smart or kind, a man or an adult? Those are positive names. Is the problem a negative name? Is it always bad to warn someone that someone is a criminal, a child molester, a con artist?

The real moral problem with name-calling is the tuck-and-duck formula, mindless moralizing for self-affirmation, the appearance of being good.

Following the tuck-and-duck formula, one doesn’t notice one’s inconsistencies. You can be for complete openness and for boundary-setting, total honesty and total kindness, total realism and total hope, simply because they all sound good.

These pairings are often opposites, but why notice? Both terms in these pairings sound positive, so, sure, you’re all for them. Never mind that there are no boundaries in complete openness, that sometimes honesty is unkind and kindness is sometimes dishonest, that sometimes hope isn’t realistic and realism isn’t hopeful.

The duck-and-tuck formula encourages hypocrisy. Like everyone, you’ll still be alternating between openness and boundary-setting, honesty and kindness, realism and hope. You’ll just rationalize and moralize to cover your tracks.

When you resent a boundary imposed on you, you’ll say everyone should always be open. When you want to set a boundary, you’ll say everyone should set boundaries. When you don’t like someone’s honesty, you can say everyone should always be kind. When you’re unkind to someone, you can say you’re just being honest. When you’re hopeful, you’ll declare hope the highest virtue. When someone’s hopes annoy you, you’ll say realism is the highest virtue.

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And you won’t notice the hypocrisy because at any given moment, you’re just tucking yourself under anything that sounds positive and ducking away from anything that sounds negative.

Arguments between people stuck using the duck-and-tuck formula are morally meaningless, just opponents trying to make the negatives stick to each other and the positives stick to themselves, no one thinking about what the words mean.

Perhaps the worst effect of the duck-and-tuck formula is that it weakens those who are working to resist domination by bullies and tyrants.

If you’re trying to keep a bully from dominating you but you’re still stuck in the duck-and-tuck formula, they’ll beat you every time. They’ll shame you for not agreeing with them, and you’ll try to defend yourself against the shade they're throwing. Defending yourself feeds the bully.

Source: Created by author.

Remember, bullies don’t care what the words mean. They’re only paying attention to connotations. As long as the bully speaks with confident authority about their virtues and your vices, they’ll look right and righteous always.

If you defend yourself against their accusations, you enable them by treating them as caring about what their words mean.

Elsewhere I advocate what I call Inverse Psychology as the sane, strong alternative to the mindless duck-and-tuck formula. If you’re dealing with a bully, it’s worth considering.

Here's a video on how easy it is for bullies to employ the tuck-and-duck formula: