The Most Modern of Vices...

It's rare for both sides in a comment section regarding some recent political event not to call each other hypocrites (a recent example at Althouse can be found in the comments for this post regarding Obama's press conference). Nobody seems to ask the more salient question, 'what's wrong with hypocrisy?'.

Seeing hypocrisy as a great sin is patently childish. It's real playground stuff, realizing that people in authority do one thing while saying another, and have different rules for you compared to themselves is a common complaint if you are 4 or 6 or 8, but you'd think adults would know better than to take hypocrisy too seriously.

I think a couple of quotes (culled from the Quote Garden) well illustrate the pre-modern view of hypocrisy when compared to the post-modern.

For the pre-modern view,

Hypocrisy is an homage that vice renders to virtue. ~François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, 1678

For the more or less post-modern view (or at least Marxist)

The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. ~Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, 1963

How can views regarding hypocrisy have 'evolved' from an "an homage that vice renders to virtue" to "plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices"? I think for all the navel-gazing popular in more or less recent times, folks have developed a massive blindspot to their own weaknesses, while simultaneously developing a hyper-awareness of the failings of others. That's how someone like La Rochefoucauld can say something so forgiving about personal weakness, while recognizing that striving to appear good to others is as important as actually being good, and when we fail, it's not for lack of virtue. Arendt, though, can easily claim that, "only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core". For Arendt, and most other modern and postmodern thinkers who tackle the subject, having good intentions coupled with bad actions, or having bad intentions coupled with good actions is unforgiveable. Having bad intentions followed by bad actions may be perplexing, but at least those people are honest with themselves and the world.

That's why a few bad soldiers in an Iraqi prison doing some horrible things and being stupid enough to take photos of their misdeeds can be reason enough to condemn the entire US Government, while thugs on motorbikes under the direct command of a dictatorial cleric in Iraq aren't really any of our business and even when they murder non-violent protestors, we shouldn't be dissuaded from reaching out diplomatically to that thugocracy.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'll take the person (or government) who strives to be virtuous, but occasionally misses the mark, over the honest rogue any day of the week. There is nothing rotten about hypocrisy or hypocrites, only the rarest of saints, or those without any moral compass whatsoever are able to claim to never have indulged in a moment or two of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the one vice whose opportunities for indulgence increase the more virtuous you are.

Hypocrisy is fine if one is contrite when caught, that's far preferable to those that are utterly shameless and looking to point fingers outward when their mistakes are brought to light.

The Post Which May Cause Bill From So Quoted To Utter Heh, and Indeed

I don't know if Bill at So Quoted should be happy or angry that the Instapundit himself is quoting Neal Stephenson.

(Here are searches of the respective websites with Neal Stephenson as a search term (Instapundit and So Quoted), Prof. Reynolds may have more in number, but as a percentage of the total output of each blogger, and also as to the quality of the mention, I think Bill shines in comparison)

(also, I seem to have only mentioned Neal Stephenson once, and it just happens to be how I earned my first Instalanche)

Either way, I agree with what the Instadude says in his post regarding the ridiculousness of making hypocrisy the greatest of all vices.

Hypocrisy is bad, but it's not the worst sins.

Even if you aren't Christian it's easy to see that we're all fallen creatures with much to atone for (though don't take this as accepting the concept of Original Sin (the Wiki on this concept is decidedly non-neutral), I find that view of humanity as pernicious as moral relativism (this Wiki is also non-neutral, but I guess anyone wanting to defend the concept of moral relativism against charges of subjectivity must recognize the inherent contradiction).

In my opinion there are intrinsic humanistic values that include forgiveness, empathy, and a recognition that redemption is possible.

Given the ideas I just expressed, to excoriate hypocrisy above all else would be, hypocritical.

The Personal Usually Becomes Political

Rep. Mark Foley, Republican from Florida resigned today.

His emails are creepy, and if not criminal, clearly abuse his position as a mentor. Regardless of the gender mix of the two folks involved this would be troubling. There's a way to be friendly to someone much younger than you without being creepy. He's a creep, and most likely has done more than just exchange emails with other willing teenagers.

That he didn't choose to quietly fade away and not seek another term speaks to his narcissism and belief that he wouldn't get caught. These exchanges were more than a year old, and judging from statements earlier in the week he was ready to deny, deny, deny.

Incumbency acts like a mental illness on politicians. It corrodes their judgement and inculcates a belief in an immunity from their own bad judgement.

Nevertheless, I question the timing. Ideally they would have put this off even later so that the Republicans would have no hope of replace him on the ballot. But, maybe this revelation has to do with national as well as Florida politics. It fits within the 'culture of corruption' charge the Democrats have been trying to push but hasn't gained much traction in the polling for individual contests.

It may be dirty politics, but this particular mud being slinged was obviously handed to the Democrats by an arrogant, flawed, conflicted, predatory creep.

We don't need to be represented by saints. But, I'd settle for folks who aren't narcissistic creeps. Safe districts make it easier for creeps, both the sexually predatory kind and the feathering their own nests kind, to escape public scrutiny.