Barrel Strength

Study shows: greens are pious hypocrites.

The more you assign yourself moral superiority because you shop “green”, the more inclined you are to cheat in a number of different ways.
“Co-authors Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, professors at the university’s Rotman School of Business, set up tests for a sample of university students, which asked them to purchase a basket of goods at either a hypothetical organic shop or a typical grocery store. Those who bought more green items were found in separate tests to be significantly less likely than their conventional counterparts to share money with an anonymous recipient and more likely to cheat on and lie about the results of a simple quiz.”

We have all noticed this about lefties and fundamentalists: their self-attribution of a vast reservoir of moral superiority, so that they can be ruder, nastier, more arrogant, less tolerant, than their sinning conservative or less fundamentalist neighbours.

“Grant us, mother Gaia, the grace to be more ecologically conscious and concerned, and to pardon us our sins against our fellow humans, for thy Name’s sake”.

The tendency to assign oneself moral superiority is universal. The greens are only the latest manifestation.