My grand unified theory on people needs your input.

Is it possible to hate yourself, but while at the same time feel like you are essentially a moral person*?

because if it is possible, I think I figured out why everybody ignores the hell out of their problems.

*: I am also assuming that people who feel that they are moral also believe that their morals are necessarily correct.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yes, because I'd wager the average person hates themselves because of something that's not necessarily linked to morality.

Example: Which is more likely?

A) "I hate myself because I'm too shy, socially awkward, and am toting around a few extra weight units."

B) "I hate myself because I routinely murder hobos and use their bones to build Hobone House in the deep woods."

How ya doing, buddy?

Counterpoint: Obesity is almost always considered a moral failing. Shyness is, frequently, as well.

People who consider themselves moral may consider their lack of obesity as part of their moral strength.

Additional Spam:
Or, consider it this way - the moral people mentioned above could see an obese person, and wonder how he let himself get that way. He could see a socially withdrawn, friendless person and wonder why he let himself get that way.

He will probably never see a cancer patient and wonder why they let themselves get so cancer'd.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

They could say it was due to their lifestyle choices that they developed cancer. Isn't that what practically everyone does when someone that smoked for 50 years winds up with lung cancer?

I feel like with the right mindset anything can be considered a moral failing. You burnt the meatloaf? It's because you're a bad wife.

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Originally Posted by RacinReaver

I feel like with the right mindset anything can be considered a moral failing.

And by the same token, with the right mindset any failing can be seen as not moral at all. I'm fat but it's glandular so I want to punch my mirror even though it's not my fault and I'm a good guy.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Do either of you think it's possible to loathe yourself but believe you are, essentially, a moral person?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

How is being fat a moral thing? I can hate myself for being fat, but that's a physical condition, and not something that makes me a good or bad person. It makes me more likely to die young, but it's not going to hinder my chances in the afterlife under the Christian belief system. Well, I suppose there's the whole gluttony and sloth thing, but really, in biblical times, if you were lazy, you didn't survive (or someone else did your work for you). In this day and age, you can be self sufficient but still slothful, but I don't see that as a moral failing.

Anyway, to get back to your original point, sure, it's possible to loathe yourself but still consider yourself a moral person. What if you're someone who has a constant compulsion to do something bad, like steal or kill, but you can keep that urge in check because you know it's wrong. Sure, you can loathe yourself for having those compulsions, but you still can be a moral person because you haven't acted on them.

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I think it's pretty easy to see how someone could loathe himself, but find himself a moral person.

You can always hate yourself for the decisions you've made or how you are as a person, but strive to do better and hold yourself to a better moral standard. Performing outstandingly in a moral sense as penitence or something like that. "I am such a shitty person, I really need to make the best choices I can."

In fact, I think we all may suffer a little bit of this in some sense. Then again, I may have missed the point. As I often do.

How ya doing, buddy?

I like to believe that I've upheld to high moral standards but yeah, I hate myself too.

For example. I don't like lying in general or hearing people lie to me. I don't like lying to anyone either. Basically treat others as you'd want to be treated was my main philosophy. So I try to be honest but yet at the same time, to dodge the uglier parts of the truth, I'd either not answer or dodge the question or worse, candy coat it with something vague. KNOWING that I do this and yet still try to uphold the standard is hard for me.

People can go on and say that everyone's human and such and such. Its silly to be 100% perfect in ideal because no one is. But the fact that you KNOW that you can enforce yourself to uphold the standard is speaking a lot because you're not just trying but because you really believe in it. Rosy colored glasses, glass half full and all that.

Then you have people who do have morals but don't uphold them. I suppose you can label them as hypocrites. You can also say that there's a blind spot in this reasoning too. There's an example of people that do not want to declare themselves wrong... EVER.

http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_sch...ing_wrong.html

So you can say that people that has morals but don't realize that they're wrong in whatever stance they're taking on. And once they do realize it, would they hate themselves? Very much I'm sure. If you look past your actions in the past and such, yeah. But I've seen people move past that real quick and still behave if everything they've done is still justified in some way. LOL people are still too proud.

If everyone can be humble about their mistakes and humble about everything and keep their morals to themselves... maybe the world could be a better place. There's no moving forward without some criticism of oneself afterall. We make a mistake and fix it. Admitting that we can be wrong is the right step forward to having a good sense of morals.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

There is always the possibility of hating oneself for being moral.

There's nowhere I can't reach.