I heard Sam Harris use that phrase first on Eric Weinstein’s show. He was referring to Republican Party in the age of Trump, I believe. The specific context doesn’t’ matter, the phrasing was perfect and was generally referring to the fact that Politicians often engage hypocrisy, often quite transparently. (Although in the particular case he was talking about the flavor of hypocrisy was indeed quite “Delicious”).
Hypocrisy in politics is interesting; a similar dynamic to the Lying stuff I wrote about last month. It’s supposed to be a bad thing, yet there are few there a few real consequences to it. Particularly in politics.
However it’s different than lying because there’s much less of a gray area in hypocrisy. It’s pretty black and white. The magnitude of hypocrisy can vary, but there’s no concept of “white lies” or anything like that with hypocrisy. There can be nuance in a position, but at the end of the day you’re either saying one thing and acting another way, or not.
And yet again, despite the fact we as society denote Hypocrisy as a bad thing, we generally don’t treat it that way. People’s reputations can suffer if they are frequent hypocrites, but there’s a good amount that is generally tolerated, particularly in politics.
In the political context I find this particular interesting: on the one hand they should be the most susceptible to suffering the consequences of hypocrisy. After all, aren’t they elected based on what they say they will do? I’m not sure any politicians have ever been elected by promising to weigh each decisions based on the specific context and go with the best option available. On the contrary, they need strong positions and want to be seen holding those position for long amount of time. When a politician talks about “evolving” their views they are mocked.
Similar to the lying analysis I suggested, where we generally OK if politicians live because the ends justify the means. With hypocrisy, as long as the politician still seems to be promoting the interests of the voter, the particular acts of hypocrisy are not discrediting. To use a concrete example: if a politician runs on a platform of being “Pro-life” and then votes to confirm a judge that is “Pro-choice,” only the voters who cared about abortion strongly would be upset. If people voted for this person based on their position on taxes, and that position remained consistent, the hypocrisy on abortion would not be a big deal.
You might argue that such hypocrisy might cause concern for a voter: couldn’t their issue be next? That would certainly be a rational approach, but my point is that we already see this happening all the time. Politicians are regularly proven hypocrites, yet get re-elected. So while some concern should warranted in theory, in practice it doesn’t seem to trigger any changes in elect-ability.
The broader point of both of these posts is that in practice lying and hypocrisy are more of relative negative traits as opposed to absolute negative traits. Yet as a society, we tend to hold them up as absolute flaws. I think the “ends justify the means” explains our treatment our politicians. and people in power generally. However, I think there is a more charitable explanation when it comes to how we handle regular people in these situations. We all know that “Pobody’s Nerfect.” With hypocrisy, we know intuitively that holding clear positions is way easier said than done. There’s lots of gray in reality, and while it simplifies things to attempt to hold clear moral positions, in practice it is quite challenging. And people change as well. So in practice, we forgive ourselves these hypocrisies.
Intergalactic Dance 