Of Moralizing

In hearing the word "moralizing" I suppose most unfamiliar with the term fixate on the root word "moral" and think that moralizing must be an essentially moral thing to do. However, a closer look at that calls the assumption into question. As the Oxford Languages definition of the term indicates, one does not merely make a judgment, but makes it with an "unfounded air of superiority" as they set about being "overly critical" of the object of their judgment (emphasis added).

The combination of unfounded superiority and excessiveness of criticism makes clear that something beyond calling out a genuine and genuinely troubling moral failing is usually going on. In practice I tend to find that those who moralize at others are interested mainly in suppressing them, and specifically suppressing their protests over something unfair or exploitative.

Considering this John Kenneth Galbraith's concept of "convenient social virtue" comes to mind. The moralizer tends to demand such virtue from others--either obliviously failing, or cynically refusing, to distinguish what is merely convenient for them and people like them from what is actually virtuous in others, and treating a just objection to their own unvirtuous attitude as a want of virtue in that other person. In the process their moralizing proves not a moral judgment but a perverse inversion of morality for what are typically very immoral ends.