«The goal of Leftism is to do everything it can to ensure people stray from living righteous lives. Leftism replaces righteousness with self-righteousness, and seeks to make that the foundation and altar of life»
I agree but not completely. The foundation of Leftism is selfishness. It is a religion where the PLEASURE or the SELF is the Supreme God. You say «Leftism urges people please themselves instead of God» The self-righteouness is very important but it is only a byproduct. Bruce Charlton put it very well here
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2019/02/leftist-motivation-how-resentment-and.html
«Self-righteousness can take many forms in the language of Leftism – social justice, equality, human rights, and so forth.»
The key is that this is not perceived as self-righteousness. Leftism is a religion (in fact, a sect of the Enlightenment religion) that denies it is a religion. So the labelling of virtue signaling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling) in the areas of social justice as self-righteousness is very difficult to understand. The Pharisees, the church ladies that said that were the best Christians, the modern leftist are different in the religion they practice but not in the attitude (which is self-righteous and virtue signalling).
«And in my darker moments, I become one of them. Those times I rise from my chair and glare banefully at the world, convinced I can do no wrong as I mercilessly place others on the scales.»
We all do this from time to time. Me included. The key is to learn and to strive not to do it. I think the key is to try to love the moral law independently of oneself. I am a sinner and ask for the mercy of God. This does not mean that the sin is good, even if I fall into it. The moral law is the thing to follow and, if I fail, I am wrong an the moral law is right. I cannot be proud because I am a sinner, but this does not mean that the sin is good.
The leftist goes in the opposite direction. Since I cannot stop sinning and I don’t want to feel a sinner, I redefine «sin» as good, so I am good. Hence, I can feel self-righteous. But you can’t turn off conscience. So when they see something striving for the good (let’s say, a Christian), they know DEEP INSIDE that the Christian has the good attitude and the Leftist have the evil attitude. This makes them uncomfortable and they try to stop this cognitive dissonance by attacking the Christian person.
«Leftism also deftly wields self-righteousness as a weapon and uses it to attack those striving to be righteous. In a deft sleight of hand, the Left accuses everyone else of being infected with self-righteousness.»
This is a fundamental trick. If you strive to be better, they will attack you for it. They are not against you. They are against the moral law. You are a collateral damage. They cannot attack the moral law so they will attack you to prove that the moral law is wrong.
Thank you for a good post, Francis. Take care.