How Retrospective Moral Judgment Creates Societal Stagnation
The Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) Pyramid of Hate (link) is a conceptual model that assumes a linear, escalating link between low-level bias (Level 1: Jokes, Stereotypes) and high-level violence (Level 5: Genocide). The core flaw of this structure is its False Causal Determinism.
This flaw dictates that any instance of Level 1 expression will inevitably, necessarily lead to violence, thereby justifying the censure of the initial expression. This rigid structure allows any dissenting opinion or expression of dislike to be falsely categorized as the precursor to societal catastrophe.
This approach mirrors the structural danger identified in Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies, where the doctrine itself becomes an authoritarian ruler without the need for a singular leader, enabling censure by labeling disagreement as an "enemy".
Societal success, and even survival, is fundamentally dependent on Constructive Selection. This is the necessary social cognition required to evaluate and select superior norms while rejecting harmful ones. The critical skill is distinguishing between the two types of rhetoric:
| Rhetoric Focus | Philosophical Root | Link to Pyramid Flaw |
|---|---|---|
| Old Rhetoric (Bias) | Targets a Group (e.g., "overweight people," "violent society"). | Enables the charge of False Causal Determinism, easily dismissed as the *cause* of violence. |
| New Rhetoric (Constructive Selection) | Targets a Norm or Systemic Behavior (e.g., "sedentary lifestyle norms," "systemic failure to sustain infrastructure"). | Justifies negative evaluation by pointing to a specific, measurable positive consequence (Consequentialism). |
When we look at something like the Sydney Sweeney American Jeans ad, and we see the celebration of fitness and beauty, that’s just a normal, good thing. That’s society saying, "Hey, this is a desirable norm for us." That is exactly what Constructive Selection looks like in the real world—it's how we nudge the culture toward better outcomes, like prioritizing health.
But then look at how the other side does it: the Old Rhetoric. If you hear a high-profile person criticize conditions in Somalia by essentially insulting the people themselves, that's just a lazy, distracting kind of talk. It’s easy to dismiss because it targets a group instead of the systemic collapse of infrastructure and cooperation. That kind of talk gets everyone yelling at each other, and we all forget about the real problem—the need for cooperative societies. The difference between those two approaches is just common sense. One is how we get better; the other is how we just stay stuck and angry.
The true danger lies in the abuse of the Hierarchy of Hate doctrine by well-funded entities. The Archive Economy—where NGOs like the CCDH, GDI, and SIO pay a high premium for the full X archive—is the operational tool for this abuse.
The NGOs use their access to commit Context Collapse—stripping past expressions of their temporal setting—to find instances of Old Rhetoric that violate today's moral code.
The greatest harm is that they harm social cognition by enabling the weaponization of Retrospective Moral Judgment.
By judging yesterday's expressions by today's loudest moral standards, the current moral code is effectively frozen and enshrined as an absolute, unchallengeable authority. This prevents the moral progress that relies on the ability to critique past systems and norms.
The entire operation becomes an enforcement mechanism for moral stagnation, keeping the culture war in a zero-sum stalemate of mutual name calling and preventing society from consciously advancing.
See my The Archive Economy.
The Rhetoric of Constructive Selection is the essential, missing link for societal survival. It is the conscious, intentional protection of the right to express negative evaluation toward harmful norms and systemic behaviors, while rigorously avoiding the denigration of groups.
To defeat the cycle of Retrospective Moral Judgment and the abuse of the Hierarchy of Hate, society must defend the freedom to use the New Rhetoric, allowing the natural processes of social intelligence and progress to flourish.
Beware of those who block access to Rhetoric of Constructive Selection. Suspect those who promote a blank slate and flat rendering of reality, such as unhealthy people are equally beautiful, or a subsistence society is as equally desirable as an infrastructure and institutions society. These sentiments might be a form of tenderness or esoteric on a personal level, but when the blockage of constructive selection is done with belligerence and on a mass scale, it very much is a horrific authoritarianism without a leader, a social contagion hating the beautiful and the good.