THE FALLACIOUS CHARGE OF HYPOCRISY

“Nothing relieves our own throbbing consciences like the exposure of hypocrisy in high places, but this doesn’t reflect well on us. Indignation over hypocrisy is an adolescent emotion. It supposes no one should honor a higher ideal in words unless one follows it in every deed; it holds out hypocrisy as a sin greater than the actual transgression. Many on the Left, for example, grind their teeth at the mention of ‘family values’ because they think it really means Promise Keepers in feed-store caps beating their pregnant wives with Bibles, or happy, shiny people who always keep a sack of rocks handy in case it becomes legal to stone gays. ‘Family values’ is a rather indistinct concept, and even the people who use the phrase don’t quite know what it means, but let one Republican be caught in a motel getting paddled by a bored call girl dressed up like a UN peacekeeper, and the cawing begins: So much for family values! Just because some people fail to live up to particular ideas doesn’t mean those ideas aren’t important. Getting caught doing something you said was wrong doesn’t mean it’s really right. We’re all fallible mortals down here, but that doesn’t mean no one can offer opinions about how we best might live. There are higher ideals that transcend the clay-footed stumblings of the people who speak in their name. A qualified hurrah for hypocrisy, then.” —James Lileks

You are spot on James. Spot on.