[ericmcer]

Does the author want us to just be spineless bags of jelly, waiting for death? He cuts down the idea of "fixing ourselves" and says righteousness is a dangerous addiction. Of course you can't "fix yourself", there is no point to any of this, but you have to believe something while you are here, you have to have some righteousness or you will be run over.

[tanseydavid]

I do not think the author was being quite so black-and-white, all-or-none about it.

Terms can be tricky with this subject. My interpretation is this:

* "righteousness" is the goal/ideal

* "self-righteousness" is the trap that is so easy to fall into (the addiction)

The problem is that this distinction is rarely made, IOW the word "righteous" gets all the negative connotation of "self-righteous" and confuses people who really pay attention to words.

[323]

Righteousness caused 1000 years of war in Europe - our religion is right, no, our religion is right.

This was ended by the Peace of Westphalia, when nations decided that there is no right religion, and that everybody loses if they fight righteousness wars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty

But then a different kind of righteousness appeared, we are the righteousness people (nazi), or we are the righteousness kind of leadership (communism vs capitalism).