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Holy Joes
"Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." -H.L. Mencken

My least favorite display of human emotion is sanctimony. Self righteous moral certitude really cheeses me off. Like they said in Repo Man; "don't want no commies in my car; no christians neither."



Arrogance, disdain, and plain old vanity is refreshing by comparison. At least arrogant, disdainful vain people are not trying to impose their ridiculous folkways on others. When I was younger and dumber, I was happy that the world was turning away from religion, as I assumed it meant less sanctimony about stupid things. Unfortunately, the number of things people get sanctimonious about have only increased with the death of religion. People used to just be sanctimonious about following the 10 commandments, which are actually reasonably sensible rules. Now people can be sanctimonious about race and gender politics, the environment, what kinds of light bulbs they use, what kinds of cars they drive, political candidates, their high state of consciousness about the horrors of the world, what kinds of foods they eat, what kinds of music they listen to, the fiber content of their clothing, the types of fuel they burn: there are taboos for everything, and everything has a taboo. It isn't even the taboos which bother me; it's the smug feelings of superiority for following the imaginary, almost certainly worthless "party of one" taboo. I feel much more comfortable with arrogant wealthy people: at least they have more money than me.

"I think this guy has almost all his bases covered; looking like Ezekiel, keeping hydrated, saving the earth mother, pacifism, and really empty and meaningless gestures"


Catholics used to get self righteous about eating fish on Fridays, Jews about abstaining from cheeseburgers and Muslims about not eating healthful pork chops and tasty bacon. Now the spectrum of self righteousness is endless; simply taking the unloved pork chop as an example: when you eat a pork chop now, the categories of people who might be offended at least include vegetarians, animal rights activists, people who believe pork is ruining the 'ecosphere,' organic food fetishists who wanted porky to have a free range life before I ate him, people who believe that pork chops cause heart disease and are tantamount to suicide, and people who think it is insensitive to muslims to eat pork chops.



Holy Joes are not only obscurantist moralizers, they're quite mainstream. Since what they advocate is presented as goodness, rather than a ridiculous witch hunt, it's easier for them to get others to internalize their puritanism. Not many people would argue against MADD these days, despite their turning america's roads; once a symbol of limitless freedom, into a police state. Sure, there were and are some perpetual drunks on the road who cause problems, but now they're going after any poor slob who had a beer after work. Not many people would argue against anti-racist activists, or feminists who fight against those evil hairy backed men keeping the wymyn down, despite their turning america into a nation of snitches and thought criminals. Hell, you can't even light up a fucking marlboro any more without some prune faced moralizing twerp wagging their finger at me that I am violating the sanctity of their virginal (probably pot-and-candle-smoke grey) lungs with clouds of zyklon-B Pall Mall.



In a healthy society consisting of adults, the Holy Joe is recognized as an adolescent dirtbag who needs to get over himself, or an unsavory Elmer Gantry who is making a living preying on the weak minded. The attitude of the Holy Joe is one of a superannuated adolescence. Who else but an adolescent would rationalize not flushing the toilet to save water? I don't mind that sort of bad behavior in kids as much, so long as they eventually grow up and shed their preening sanctimony. When it turns into something so widespread and accepted it can be mandated by law, like screeching feminism, or leaving a bogey in the toilet, or Alcoholics Anonymous .... get a rope.


"The problem with the Elmer Gantry story is he was more or less condemned for being a hypocrite, which was actually one of his better qualities; his being a Holy Joe is what really made him odious."


The self-righteous inevitably become frauds. In particular, the professionally self righteous: Al Sharpton, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the feminist who invents a rape in a desperate attempt at relevance, the anti-gun historian who falsifies data; it's not much different than Cotton Mather inventing witches. Fraud after fraud; even on a small scale -the sanctimonious whose self esteem lies in calling the rest of the world evil knows on some level that their sanctimony comes from their fundamental worthlessness, and that their ideas are a tissue of adolescent lies. They know it isn't really the man keeping them down: it's the fact that they're basically undistinguished useless people who never did anything with themselves, so they invent imaginary evils; windmills as dragons. Windmills at least are useful. Knights errant who destroy functional industrial objects to avoid facing their fundamental worthlessness; not so much.


"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure."


Holy Joes are the enemies of fun. Holy Joes hate it when people enjoy themselves. They hate Christmas and MacDonalds. They hate tobacco and drinking not because these things are any more unhealthy than their own vices, but because they're earthy and fun and anyone can enjoy them. They make smug, self-congratulatory films about it, in hopes of making you, the unenlightened as prim, life-sick and hateful as they are. They talk about death as if it is something only they, the smug, can help you avoid. When that fails, they tell you the skies are falling, and that you're ruining the whole wide world by not eating enough soy. It annoys me that people can condemn the sanctimonious dimwits who attend NASCAR races and megachurches for being sanctimonious dimwits, then go on to further damn them ... sanctimoniously ... for smoking cigarettes, being fat and eating red meat which ruins their colon health. That's real sanctimony; crawling so far up someone's ass, you dare upbraid others for their treatment of their colon.