On Hypocrisy
December 01, 2004
Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.
Jeffrey Friedman comments in The New Republic on Bill Carter’s ridiculous NYT piece, “Many Who Voted for ‘Values’ Still Like Their Television Sin,” which sneers at red-stater moral-values voters who like CSI and Desperate Housewives. (Hat tip: GetReligion.) Friedman points out the fallacy of arguments like Carter’s that discredit a claim by demonstrating a contradiction or inconsistency in the person making the claim: “it’s an elementary point of logic that a claim’s validity is independent of the character of those who advocate it.”
This is just obvious. The interesting question is why the “hypocrisy” fallacy is such a standard retort for Americans. It is not just a staple of garden variety liberals. Challenge the moral or intellectual rectitude of an Evangelical or other Christian conservatives, and you’ll get the same kind of retort or variants of it again and again: You are a Pharisee, a hypocrite, a graceless and unChristlike person, a holier-than-thou victimizer of holiest-by-definition victims. (Secular translation: you are an intolerant bigot.) It seems most people would rather push aside the questioning of their questionable ideas and behavior with a “But you and yours really hold to it too!” A demand for a “positive tone” (meaning the emasculation of real criticism) and the right to not be “made to feel bad” trumps any consideration of truth.
We have bags full of this stuff here at tNP. Our forums reeked of it until an antiliberal oligarchic aristocracy was established. Thus we incline to see the nambypambyness of egoistic relativism as the chief cultural crisis of the day. It intrudes into all arenas and undermines even the best sources of order.
Addenda: Astute reader Christopher Collins points us to the insight of Neal Stephenson’s “A Disquisition On Hypocrisy:”
You might be interested in this passage by Neal Stephenson from his science fiction novel The Diamond Age. To set the scene a bit, it is a generation or so in the future, the pendulum has swung back, the Neo-Victorians rule the West. The character Hackworth has, for personal gain, betrayed his tribe, or phile, those very same Neo-Victorians. He is being called to account.
This is On Hypocrisy in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Of Note | Next: Christus Pantolerator | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
Trackback Pings:
TrackBack URL for this entry: