Do Not Do As I Do
by Anne Loucks
As a culture, we have a weird problem with hypocricy. Someone might say that they simply love eating babies, and they do it all the time; if true, we might throw that person in jail and have them executed. Then, if someone, states "I have never eaten a baby, and never will, eating babies is evil" we will be very suspicious of him. Later, if he is found to have eaten any babies, he will be derided even more for the "I never ate a baby" comments while our open psychopath will receive less flak simply because he admitted it outright. In a strange way, the honest baby eater would get more respect simply for following his publicly stated beliefs.
Personally, I would prefer a baby eater who tells other folks not do it instead of glorifying such an activity. One might say, "Babies are succulent and delicious. They are just like veal, human veal." It might even be true, but frankly, I feel that person is worse than the baby eater who says it is wrong. At least the person who derides such a practice knows they are doing evil.
At its worst, hypocracy is a minor form of evil, specifically lying. As a culture, we value forthrightness and honesty a great deal, but sometimes it feels like we take it too far. Disrespecting someone who smokes and says others should not is silly. That person is simply not stupid. Regardless of why he still smokes, he knows better now, and is attempting to advise others against it.
It is like that old saying about peer pressure "If your friend jumped off a bridge would you?" Except in reverse. The best part is that sometimes it works in exactly the wrong way. Tell kids not to steal from the cookie jar on top of the fridge, and they will be standing on a chair reaching for it the moment you leave the room.
I think maybe our hatred of hypocracy comes mostly from the behavior of politicians. At first, their job is to talk and get elected. Once elected, we don't really know what they will do, but only rarely does a politician actually make good on his campaign promises. George Bush Senior received huge amounts of flak for saying "No new taxes" and then implementing some anyway. Bill Clinton recieved no end of grief for saying he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky. The hypocratic sins of George Bush Junior are far too numerous to outline in full, but suffice to say a Republican who accumulates several trillion dollars of national debt is not holding well to his stated beliefs. In a way, we seem to revel in the failures of these larger than life figures. We know a politician lies every time his mouth moves, but we still hold him to the standard set by his mouth so we get to deride him.
In a strange sort of way, campaign speeches represent a candidate at his best. He stalwartly espouses his party's views, and the views of what he hopes are enough people to get him elected. During his campaign, a politician can be a populist. He can actually represent the beliefs of more than half of the voters. He may never make good on his promises, but for the moment, he says what the people want to hear. If he actually followed through with the promises, his term would be impressive, to say the least.
In the end, I kind of like hypocracy. It can be a good thing, a form of reaching to be one's best. I can say I will go to the stars, but if I only get to Jupiter, my accomplishments are still quite impressive.
