Lie to Me Baby!

I would like to take a moment to speak in favour of hypocrisy.  At first glance hypocrisy may appear indefensible.  Two faced dishonesty and a personal flouting of the moral strictures one claims to uphold are fundamentally bad things.  Time and again we sigh with weary disgust as some public figure or other turns out to have feet of clay.  We mutter angrily as police are revealed to be corrupt, religious figures turn out to be depraved maniacs and our business leaders show themselves to be two bit crooks in expensive suits (and with far less likelihood of gaol time).  Hypocrisy degrades the good in this world, tarnishes our achievements and makes the light of our civilisation shine a little more dimly in the night.  Hypocrisy is a bad thing!  But it's also a good thing or, at least, it's a useful thing which is frequently more important.  It isn't only the good things in this world hypocrisy degrades, it also degrades the bad things.

Imagine a world without hypocrisy for a moment.  A world of unrelenting honesty and refusal to compromise.  A world where our political leaders said exactly what they meant and (assuming any of them could get elected afterwards) would attempt to implement their policies without fear, favour or concern for consequences.  Imagine speaking the unvarnished truth to your friends on every occasion and now try to imagine how many of them would still be your friends afterwards.  If we have a friend who's a police officer we don't necessarily expect them to fix a speeding ticket but we certainly don't expect them to arrest us for inducing corruption if we bring the subject up.

Hypocrisy is what enables people to fight for what is good when they aren't that good themselves and defend principles they don't necessarily believe in because they recognise the worth of those principles.  On a deeper, less conscious level hypocrisy is what enables a racist to run into a burning building to save a child from a race different to their own.  It is hypocrisy that allows campaigners for freedom and justice to accept an imperfect solution if the alternative is nothing at all.  Similarly it is hypocrisy which allows their opponents to make concessions while assuring supporters they have conceded nothing at all.

We lie, we dissemble, we compromise.  We accept second rate solutions as being better than no solution at all.  We fail to live up to our ideals on a daily basis but the ideals are still there and we reach out towards them even if we do so with one hand deliberately behind our backs.  To be a hypocrite is to be human and the less hypocritical we are the less human we are likely to be.  To be without hypocrisy is to be without pity, without empathy and without mercy.  If you are right then why bother to concern yourself with those who are wrong?  If we were without hypocrisy the very best we could hope for is a world rather like that of Judge Dredd.  For those who rail against the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of our politicians I would point out that the only politician of modern times who can legitimately claim to escape the charge of hypocrisy is Adolf Hitler.

If you read this blog entry and roll your eyes and tell each other that I'm talking rubbish I really don't mind, as long as you say you like it to my face.