Hypocracy

Very nice article. I agree, hypocracy is one of those tenants that nearly everybody scorns. It's easy to look down on those who are guilty of it because it is so egregious. But not everything can be easily labled hypocracy. I agree with the examples about union leaders and politicians living extravagant lifestyles that they in turn condemn. Or someone condemning adultry while carrying on his own affair and believing there's nothing wrong with that.

But I think it's also worth mentioning that in these gray areas with hypocracy there are individual variations. There are indeed those whose lives have been greatly damaged by alochol or pornography. But at the same time there are many others who do not have a problem with these things. They live perfectly normal and upstanding lives with them and it does not hurt them. But I can tell you as someone who studied psychology in college that it's possible to get addicted and obssessed with pretty much anything.

Those that try to beat their own personal demons by legislating what they think is right on others isn't hypocracy, but it is still very wrong. In a free society, you cannot legislate personal tastes. Some people do find alcohol and pornography deplorable, but others do not and function perfectly fine with it. That's their freedom. For those who feel like they have to go on a crusade, they're only damaging themselves further and the others around them. Is that worse than being a hypocrite? I wouldn't say so, but it is still egregious in a free society.

I have to disagree just a bit. Part of what I am trying to say is that there is a moral and a social component to this issue. Take the example of the wealthy politician condemning the wealthy. Part of his argument, perhaps even the foundation of the argument, is that the rich are morally flawed. They are greedy, selfish, etc. It is because of this that we have the right even duty to take from them their ill gotten gains. This whole argument is a moral one.

That can be contrasted with the alcoholic arguing for some degree of prohibition. There the argument would likely center around a social benefit. We will see fewer people killed by drunk drivers. (This may be debatable, but the point isn't whether the arguments are right, but what sort of argument they are). In this case the alcoholic isn't trying to force his morals on people, but to protect people from a very real danger. As our national prohibition experiment showed, there are a host of problems that arise with prohibition. That is how the alcoholic should be contradicted. Unless he is making a moral argument rather than a social one, he shouldn't be pilloried for hypocracy or pushing his morals.

The same holds true with an anti-pornography argument. If the person is pointing to marriages destroyed, women dehumanized, and children being exposed, he is arguing about the social ills connected to pornography. We can certainly argue over whether these ills are real or imagined, and whether they justify the limitations of freedom that will result from a ban, but the argument is social not moral. Only when the anti-pornographer resorts to we should stop it because it is wrong are we straying into the realm of pushing an individual's morality.

"In this case the alcoholic isn't trying to force his morals on people, but to protect people from a very real danger."

I never did call the alcoholic a hypocrite and I never would in the context you presented. But that's the problem with moral arguments. They're so subjective in a society, especially one with many different cultural influences. I have no problem with someone making that moral argument and trying to persuade people that it is right. That's actually commendable. What I do have a problem with are these same people trying to get the government to make their argument for them and use force to impose morality. That's basically the same as getting a government bailout, only in this case it's bailing out the shortcomings of the argument. The same goes for the anti-pornography crowd.

In a free society, moral arguments should be made through persuasion. Just as capitalism is based on voluntary exchange, moral and social arguments should be the same. Let people convince others through the merits of their own arguments and let the government stay out of it from start to finish. Because when government gets involved, we get the problems we got with alcohol prohibition and nobody wants to go back to that.

I have written on this before.

One thing many overlook is that simply failing to live up to one's beliefs is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is establishing one standard for others and one for yourself. If you simply fail to live up to your standards, but blame yourself for the failing as much as you blame others, you are not a hypocrite, just a fallible human. Failure to live up to your standards is not hypocrisy, exempting yourself form those standards is. There is a difference.

See:

http://andrews.blogtownhall.com/2008/09/02/poor_grasp_of_th e_meaning_of_hypocrisy.thtml

And

http://andrews.blogtownhall.com/2008/11/28/second_thoughts. thtml

And the final entry of this one:

http://andrews.blogtownhall.com/2008/09/03/unanswered_quest ions.thtml

These all cover a lot of the same material you have, but I thought you might enjoy seeing that there are others out there who have the same thoughts you do.

I expect I'll enjoy reading those links when I get around to it.