Clarice

This is a very worthwhile article.

It is an attitude that is also useful; It permits those who possess it to combine willful blindness with feelings of moral superiority. The one allows us to put our heads in the sand and pretend away a danger we'd rather not confront; the other allows us to commend ourselves for being so wonderfully tolerant and accepting. "It's just those intolerant boobs among us that rant about Islamic enemies.  We know and are better than that. We don't recognize enemies so we don't have them. We're Kantians." We'll also be dead if we don't change our behavior.  [snip]

The "it's not them; it's us" view is accurate only to the extent one disengages oneself from the "us."  And this is what is done, isn't it?  The willfully blind morally superior being detaches himself from the group even as he admits a kind of distant association with it. It's not me and mine; it's the "them" within the "us" that create all the problems.

"We're good over here."

Indeed.