One of the worst aspects of the self-righteous is that those most guilty of it most vociferously deny that they are guilty at all. When, therefore, self-righteous groups compete the good of all is quite lost in the presumption each party makes that its own good must be the good of all.
Any group without exception – Cabinet, Party Executive, Company Board, Trade Union, Sports Association, Church, and a hundred others – must possess a sense of cohesion, group loyalty, joint purpose and self-worth. Though all around them have good reason to find fault, no group banded together can afford to lose this sense of common purpose and self-justification. Even the most worthless and evil among men – the Nazis of Germany for instance – never lose this self-image. There is a passage in Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection which perfectly describes this very human tendency.
