Superiority complex rampant in Aspen
COVID-19 is not the only virus plaguing our valley/country/planet. More prevalent and much more threatening to 99% of the population than COVID-19 is the plague of Self-Righteous Confirmation Bias 2020 (SRCB-20).
Self-righteousness or confirmation bias alone can arrest cognitive development and is generally annoying to other people. However, when mixed together they lead to a severely debilitating false sense of moral superiority and an acute inability to self-reflect, which leads to suffering for the rest of society due to SRCB-20 victims’ outsized influence on politicians and bureaucrats to trample civil rights. Further, many political leaders themselves suffer from SRCB-20 as well. This disease can best be observed around towns like Aspen when you hear victims shouting “mask up” from 50 feet away although COVID-19 is limited to a 6-foot spread. There are five distinct signs of SRCB-20 to look for:
1. Increased repetition of the phrase “trust the science”
2. Inability to empathize with less fortunate economic situations
3. Delusional psychoanalysis
4. Blindness to hypocrisy
5. Acute inability to think past one step
What do these five signs of SRCB-20 look like in action?
First, a mental tick develops stemming from rampant inner monologue. This inhibits the ability to engage in healthy, constructive dialogue with other humans, especially those who present various studies and statistics that might undermine anything they’ve come to believe, especially in regards to COVID-19. SRCB-20 creates an inability to think critically about ripple effects: What will happen psychologically to children when you shut down and force them to remote learning, or what will happen to people with preventable diseases that can’t see doctors?
Sadly, there is no vaccine or herd immunity for SRCB-20. We must learn to live with this plague and empathize with those infected. However, empathize too much and SRCB-20 leads to demagoguery where those infected seek to impose their will and limit your rights as much as possible in the name of “protecting” you and others.
Chase McWhorter
Carbondale
