30 June, 2025

Yes, But Not Today and Not Me: The Lie Beneath the Virtue


I. Introduction — The Pitchfork Paradox

Many years ago, back when the streets of Bucharest still howled at night with packs of stray dogs, a friend of mine said something that never left me.

“Look, I’m all against euthanizing the stray dogs. But if one of them bites my son, I’m going to get a pitchfork and kill them all myself.”

I remember the silence after he said it. Not awkward. Not judgmental. Just… quiet. Something had shifted in the room. Not because I disagreed. I didn't. But because I recognized something in him, in me, in everyone — something ancient, primitive, and true.
Something that smelled like blood under the perfume of our polished beliefs.

His words weren’t about dogs, not really. They were about the line between principle and pain. About how close we all stand to that line and how fast we’ll cross it when it’s our child, our comfort, our little pocket of peace that’s threatened.

And once I saw that line, I started seeing it everywhere.

  • “We must save the planet!” — but don’t ask me to give up my pool or separate my trash.
  • “We must eat better!” — but not if it means cooking, or god forbid, feeling hunger.
  • “We must speak the truth!” — unless that truth offends me, then shut it down.
  • “We must change the system!” — but not if I lose anything in the process.

We live in a time of ideals. But we practice comfort.

It’s not even hypocrisy. It’s something else, a clash between belief and inconvenience. Between ideals and instincts.
This essay is about that contradiction. About the lie we wrap in slogans and hashtags — the lie that says, “Yes, this is important. But not important enough to actually make me change my life.”


II. The Illusion of Virtue Without Cost

Most people aren’t monsters. They’re not villains in some grand drama of hypocrisy. They believe in justice, kindness, sustainability, fairness. They mean well.

But meaning well isn’t the same as doing good.
And what I’ve come to believe is this:

People want the virtue of caring, without the cost of caring.

This isn’t just laziness. It’s deeper than that. It’s psychological, it’s evolutionary, it’s structural.
We’re built to say “yes” to ideas and “no” to inconvenience, and then rationalize the hell out of it.

We say:

  • “I care about recycling, but sorting my trash is confusing and annoying.”
  • “I believe in reducing waste, but paper straws suck.”
  • “Of course I want clean oceans, but I’m not giving up my shampoo bottles.”

We don’t even realize how often we’re doing it. Because we’ve become masters at decoupling belief from behavior. And the modern world helps us do it with social media likes, symbolic gestures, and performance politics that let us feel good without doing good.

As Slavoj Žižek once said:

“We feel guilty for participating in consumerist excess, so we buy organic coffee or donate to a charity — and continue shopping like before. It’s ideology at its purest: a ritual that masks the reality beneath.”

We don't change. We just perform caring. And in that performance, we lie. Not just to others. But to ourselves.


III. The Psychology of Comfortable Contradiction

To understand this phenomenon, we have to go into the basement of the human psyche — the ancient wiring that predates morality, hashtags, or compost bins. Here are the culprits behind the contradiction:


1. Loss Aversion

According to behavioral economists like Daniel Kahneman, humans are far more sensitive to losses than to gains. Giving up the convenience of bottled water feels like a loss, even if the gain (cleaner oceans) is abstract and long-term.
We’ll fight harder to avoid losing a luxury than to obtain a moral victory.


2. Hyperbolic Discounting

We discount future benefits compared to immediate gratification.
I’ll cool down in my pool now. Let future generations deal with the drought.
We know better, but the present feels louder.


3. Moral Licensing

After doing something “good,” we subconsciously give ourselves permission to do something bad.
“I voted green, so I can take long showers.”
“I went vegetarian for a week, so I can indulge now.”
It’s a psychological trade, as if virtue were a currency to spend.


4. Cognitive Dissonance Avoidance

When our actions don’t match our beliefs, it creates inner tension. Rather than change the action (which is hard), we adjust the narrative.

  • “It’s just one plastic bag.”
  • “I recycle most of the time.”
  • “Nothing I do matters anyway.”

The truth hurts, so we reshape it until it doesn’t.


5. Tribal Morality

We don’t always care about what’s right. We care about who’s right.
We align with causes not to make change, but to signal belonging.
That’s why people scream about injustice online but stay silent when it happens at their dinner table.


6. Effort Minimization

Evolution trained us to conserve energy. To avoid unnecessary risk. To seek safety, not revolution.
So we support change as long as it doesn’t change us.


As Jonathan Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind:

“The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant. The rider is our reason, but the elephant is our intuition and instinct. And the rider’s job is usually to come up with excuses for where the elephant wanted to go in the first place.”


IV. The Hydra’s Many Heads: Examples From the Everyday

You’ll see this contradiction everywhere. Not just in others — in yourself. In me. It’s the universal human blind spot.


A. Environmentalism

  • “I support wind energy!”
    — Until a turbine is built near my house.
  • “We must protect biodiversity!”
    — But don’t stop me from spraying my lawn or driving my SUV.

B. Health and Fitness

  • “I want to be healthy.”
    — But I don’t want to cook, walk, lift, or sweat.
  • “I want to lose weight.”
    — But I’m not willing to be hungry, to be bored without snacks, to sit with discomfort.

C. Parenting and Education

  • “Kids need discipline.”
    — But not mine. He’s just misunderstood.
  • “Schools should be reformed.”
    — But don’t remove the system that benefited my child.

D. Freedom of Speech

  • “Everyone should have a voice.”
    — Except that guy. He’s offensive and dangerous.
  • “I support open dialogue.”
    — But only for views I already agree with.

E. Justice and Fairness

  • “We must tax the rich fairly.”
    — But I’ll still deduct everything I can. I’m not rich, just smart.
  • “No one is above the law.”
    — Unless it’s someone I voted for.

F. Empathy and Animal Rights

  • “I love animals!”
    — While eating factory-farmed chicken that never saw daylight.
  • “Ban fur!”
    — But leather’s fine. That’s different.

These aren’t just hypocrisies. They’re fragments of the human condition. And once you notice them, they’re everywhere.
This hydra doesn’t live in palaces. She lives in your shopping cart.


V. Conclusion — When Principles Meet Pain

I’ve thought about my friend’s words many times.

“I’m all against killing the dogs. But if one bites my son…”

He wasn’t being dramatic, he was being honest. More honest than most people who hide their pitchforks behind social media filters and recycled hashtags. And I'll be the first to admit I'd do the same.

That quote is a confession from the edge — the moment where a belief is tested and instinct reclaims the throne.

And that, right there, is the core of it:

We say we want a better world. But not if it means less comfort, less control, less convenience for us.

We say, “Yes, but not today and not me.”

We want to believe we’re virtuous — but we don’t want to pay for it. We don’t want to sweat, or sacrifice, or be afraid. We want to keep drinking from the poisoned well while claiming to support clean water.

And so we lie.

We lie with good intentions.
We lie while wearing the right colors, saying the right slogans, clicking the right petitions.
We lie with the gentlest smile and the best excuses in the world.

And the world burns politely, quietly, while we sleep soundly in our comfort.


The Crux: Belief Without Cost

The most chilling realization?

People don’t want change. They want to feel good about supporting change.

They want to say, “I’m one of the good ones.”
But not, “I’ll pay the price to make it happen.”

This is what my friend’s quote reveals.
The moral stance collapses the second it meets personal pain.
And it’s not just him. It’s all of us.

That’s why it haunted me.

When principle meets threat, instinct wins.

 

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