Hypocrisy

I confess that I am guilty of hypocrisy. Often. After a lifetime of resorting to hypocrisy when it suited my purpose, I will do so again, several times, in the next few pages. I can’t help myself. But first a plea to the judge and jury:  I humbly ask that you not selectively prosecute and condemn me; after all, who is not guilty of hypocrisy at some time or other?

In my second act of hypocrisy in this post, I will turn to Merriam-Webster, a source I have maliciously accused of inaccuracy and failings when it suited my purpose, for a definition of the word: “1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not: behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel; especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.” M-W gives a quote from Lucius Garvin, a late 19^th and early 20^th century Rhode Island politician, according to Wikipedia. According to M-W the great statesman stated: “our conventional morality often serves as a cover for hypocrisy and selfishness.” I have no desire to denigrate Rhode Islanders. I have but limited knowledge of the Ocean State—I have gleaned some facts from watching Family Guy, and I passed through the state, in the blink of an eye, once or twice when I lived in New England—but why a quote from this particular Rhode Islander? And isn’t the example twisted wrong way round? According to me, adopting conventional morality to cover selfishness is hypocrisy, not a cover for it. I don’t know what Peter Griffin would say. 

And isn’t “a feigning to be” rather awkward phrasing? M-W’s definition 2: is a tautology and not worth repeating. Still, I concede that the failing M-W’s definition 1: gives us something to work with.

Curiously, while we mere mortals feign to disdain hypocrisy we often let hypocrites get away with it. We might call them liars or frauds, but we rarely charge them with hypocrisy, especially politicians and preachers. Because we expect nothing better? Because it’s difficult to distinguish dishonesty from hypocrisy?

Hypocrisy was a gift born by Greeks, the word, not the act we feign to disdain. That Achilles heel in our virtuous personas is far older than any ancient Greek. Hypocrisy is, no doubt, as old as humankind. Well, to give our progenitors a break, it might have taken Homo sapiens a few generations to learn to lie, an essential first step in hypocrisy, and possibly H. neanderthalensis never did. But once H. sapiens evolved into H. mendatiousensis, can there be any doubt that they quickly became hypocrites? To speculate on early human behavior, we often look at modern or recent hunter gatherer societies in the belief that many cultural practices will have remained unchanged through the millennia. But if I ever read an ethnography about lying and hypocritical hunter gatherers I have forgotten it. On the other side of that coin, I do remember one famous, relatively, ethnography that completely condemned the tribe under the microscope, while failing to mention several personal problems the ethnographer had with the people he studied, as well as their persecution by a neighboring group that had more advanced weaponry. Then, to top it all off, he neglected to mention the source of his funding: a generous international corporation that wanted to exploit the tribe’s land. Neglecting to mention certain problematic conditions in what purports to be a comprehensive and detailed study is not necessarily a lie, but is certainly dishonest and hypocritical. At least in my world view. Perhaps not in Peter Griffin’s

As the hunter-gatherers have failed to enlighten us re the hypocrisy of early H. sapiens, I will resort to personal experience. I have reason to believe that the first hypocrite, that pioneer in the field, was a young boy hoping to escape punishment. To demonstrate his artistic superiority, he ruined a cave painting with childish smudges. When confronted by an angry elder, he adopted an air of innocence, denied having smeared that excess of charcoal over an exquisite, fleeing bison, and claimed that his older brother did it. When asked about all the charcoal smears on his face and hands, he protested that he was merely trying to clean up his brother’s mess so that dear brother wouldn’t be harshly punished. I have no doubt that this early cave-child learned a valuable lesson: Clean up the crime scene before laying the blame on the fall guy.

Possibly my first lesson in hypocrisy came from my father who had a completely different lesson in mind. When punishing me for some minor misdeed, which I mentioned he was also guilty of, he commanded, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say.” Throughout my childhood I had trouble with that commandment, not because I condemned it as hypocritical—I had never even heard of the word, much less knew the meaning, and, as a rule, I was not concerned with ethical considerations—but because there seemed to be a malfunction in my obedience genes.

I don’t know how old I was when I learned to lie, but I proved to be precocious in that endeavor, and lying was the gateway sin that inexorably led to my addiction to hypocrisy. Several times when I tattled on my brother, I assumed an angelic pose, hoping that my father could see or imagine a halo hovering over my head. To my unending dismay, my father proved to be incapable of such advanced vision. Now that the statute of limitations has expired, I freely and hypocritically confess that I was a hardened hypocrite, often and outlandishly so, but on a small potatoes level. I was just a kid and had no access to the elite levels of hypocrisy that preachers and politicians have.

I did learn that when the evidence against me was overwhelming the next easiest course was to confess. My father would then invariably ask why I committed whatever the sin in question was, and I would just as invariably reply, “I dunno.” Pleading ignorance was my fallback position in the misdemeanor field, but in fields in which I was truly ignorant, sex, for instance, I could not admit ignorance but always adopted a superior been-there-done-that attitude, when in reality I hadn’t been anywhere or done anything. This particular hypocrisy continues with a twist. Now, in my advanced state of senility I simply plead that I don’t remember how or where.

Looking at modern man to make assumptions about early H. sapiens, I would bet the ranch that early man was many generations ahead of early woman in learning to lie and, of course, hypocrisy.

I beg your indulgence beforehand—sort of like Rep. Gaetz asking for a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card (Presidential pardon for non-Monopoly players) from he-who-shall-not-be-named before he was accused of any crimes—because the topic of Hypocrisy will prove difficult to write about. First, I am reluctant to discuss my own failings or feignings in this field—there are several I am aware of and, no doubt, a great many I am blissfully unaware of. Second, there is such a surplus of hypocrisy these days, so many producers and purveyors of the product, that the market is flooded and the price has plummeted to rock bottom. People, especially politicians, are reduced to giving it away for free. This places a great burden on me. Of necessity I have to winnow out the many, which winnowing leaves me open to the charge that I am picking on the few and am guilty of the same selective persecution I used as a defense in the first paragraph. But perhaps you will see the halo hovering over my head as you read on.

Where to start in this tsunami of hypocrisy currently swamping society? Surprisingly, to me, he-who-shall-not-be-named, now that he is banned from social media, does not elbow himself into the front of the pack, not in my mind. No, M. McConnell takes the lead. He had the gall, or lack of self-awareness, if you want to give him a break, which I don’t, to threaten corporations that are putting pressure on the Peach State to rescind their most recent Jim Crow voter suppression law. He actually claimed, with a straight face, that corporations had no business meddling in politics. This is the Senator who claimed, with a straight face, during the Citizens United battle, that corporations had an important voice that should be heard in politics. That battle, if your memory needs refreshing, was about allowing corporations to donate unlimited funds to politicians and political groups—often conservative and Republican. The Supremes, also with straight faces, hypocritically pretending to be fair and impartial arbiters, ignored stare decisis and a century of campaign finance restrictions while ruling that money is speech and its free flow is therefore protected by the First Amendment. Monetary Mitch’s statement approving of that decision must have slipped his mind for the moment—self-interested forgetfulness being pandemic in politicians and judges—when he admonished corporations to butt out of (Jim Crow) politics. But then he remembered, or his staff reminded him, and he clarified, stating, still with the straight face but with a few worry lines in his forehead, that he wasn’t talking about donations. He wanted to set the record straight: corporations were welcome to donate to politicians, such as him, and campaigns, such as his and his friends’, but other than donations they should butt out.

Mitch’s house of hypocrisy is built on the hypocritical foundation laid by Peach State politicians who claimed that their voter suppression law was necessary to prevent voter fraud just a few months after the Governor, Sec of State and his elections ass’t, after several closely watched recounts, assured he-who-shall-not-be-named and the nation that the 2020 elections in Georgia were honest and fair. Which explains why a law was needed. If he-who-shall-not-be-named loses in the Presidential election and two Democrats, particularly a Black man and a Jew, can win Senatorial elections in an honest and fair election in the Peach State, then something surely needs to be done about it.

Jumping on the Jim Crow bandwagon, politicians in some forty odd states are currently debating voter suppression proposals after what observers universally declared to be free and fair elections. Well, not universally. Quite a number of shysters sued in court to overturn what they claimed was a fraudulent election. He-who-shall-not-be-named raised many millions of dollars to advance this argument. However, they rushed into court without any evidence to support their argument, sort of like Napoleon’s army rapidly advancing into Russia without winter wear. Or even food. He-who-shall-not-be-named’s shysters had nothing nourishing to sustain their arguments. This rogue wave of suits served to irritate judges who dismissed them as frivolous. Which still did not stop he-who-shall-not-be-named from continuing to raise money to overturn the elections. After all, why give up a well remunerated shtick? While I cannot speak for M-W or Lucius Garvin, I smell foul hypocrisy oozing from the fund-raisers and lawyers bringing the frivolous suits like cheap hair dye oozing down Giuliani’s sweaty forehead. Speaking of whom, I cannot categorically state that Rudy G. was guilty of hypocrisy for his role in these suits. After all, he was reputedly billing he-who-shall-not-be-named $20,000 a day for his efforts. Prostitution is not necessarily hypocrisy. Pretending to enjoy sex with a John is not the same as feigning virtue to cover self-interest. I think even the religious right will agree on that. And, Rudy, good luck in getting your money from the John who takes great pride in stiffing honest tradesmen and women.

I suspect that these lawyers and politicians had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they swore to uphold the Constitution but not when they took the Hypocritic Oath.  

Which brings me to Matt Gaetz who brings out the hypocrite in me. I pretend to take the high ground, or, as M-W would put it, feign to be what I am not, a fair and partial arbiter who waits to hear all the facts before making a judgment, but I confess that I have already convicted Matt of being a sleaze ball. I don’t know him and don’t know all the facts, but there is so much smoke that I believe there’s a fire, and the alarm was sounded under Bill Barr’s watch. I confess that I have tried and convicted Matt of hypocrisy, of feigning to be a family values sort of man, while the reality is that he is a pimp, a porn purveyor (apologies to honest pimps and porn purveyors), and a sex offender. I have no trouble believing that he had sex with a minor and indulged in sex parties with other politicians. I have no trouble believing that when he said, “…I will always stand up for family values,” he was feigning morality to win the vote of the religious right gang, while, at the same time, he was showing images and videos of nude women he claimed to have had sex with to other family-values Congresspersons. I don’t know if he will be convicted of a sex crime, but I find him guilty of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy might have been around since our early man days, but modern man has polished and refined it to the extent that we now have mass media hypocrisy. I’m not talking about the many ugly lies spread on social media with great relish by ugly people who do not feign to be other than what they are, truly ugly people with warped personalities built on a painstakingly constructed foundation of stupidity. I’m talking about the regular programs on the radio and television that purport to be news programs but are nothing of the sort. People like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. They aren’t stupid and they don’t believe much of what they say. In Rush’s case I should use the past tense, and I believe that Glenn has finally confessed that what he purveyed to his listening public about the Sandy Hook massacre was a pack of lies but he kept telling those lies because they sold so well. I suspect that his repentance is not sincere, but merely a feigning to be to ward off a huge monetary judgment. Or was that Alex Jones? I get all these old, faux angry, white hypocrites confused.

Yes, we are in the age of mass hypocrisy. Shouters and screamers are given venues in which they sell outrageous lies to their audience because they make money and because it advances the agenda of those who control the venues, think R. Murdock or the remaining Koch brother. The Republican cult, married en masse as in a perverted ceremony performed by the Rev. Moon, currently chants its bipartisanship chorus, accusing Biden of reneging on his pledge to be a bipartisan President while they refuse to even acknowledge that Biden won and he-who-shall-not-be-named lost the election. They accuse Biden of not working with Republicans while they say that his proposals are DOA. They support the shouters and screamers because they are likeminded liars. They sell the big lie because they know one big truth: if they shout their lies loud enough and long enough their target audience will believe them. And reward them. As will the billionaires.

To be fair—warning: my use of that phrase might be another example of my hypocrisy—I readily admit that not all Repubs have signed up for the cult, but most, with the exception of Liz Cheney are in the closet. And really, through the years a great many Dems eagerly donned the “false assumption of an appearance of virtue” persona The example that springs to my mind, after my late evening cognac, was Reagan’s yearly White Paper certification that the Guatemalan dictators were improving the human rights situation in that battered and bruised country. He even added that they got “a bum rap” on human rights. This at the height of the most recent genocide in the Americas. This to get around the Congressional restriction of military aid to human rights abusers. Dems as well as Repubs in Congress accepted the certifications that they and everyone knew were false. But they were afraid of another Nicaragua or Cuba. And if anyone ever challenged them for continuing aid to those truly evil generals, they could fall back on the claim that the President had assured them that the generals were compassionate conquistadores. In the military this kind of hypocrisy is called CYA.

Well, to be fair once again, possibly one person did not know those White Papers were tissues of lies: Reagan’s Alzheimer’s might have played a greater role than we knew. Anyway, he was such a nice guy, who was going to blame him for supporting a little genocide in some country most Americans couldn’t find on a map? If he-who-shall-not-be-named had adopted a halfway decent-guy persona he might have gotten away with supporting the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, which most Americans couldn’t find on a map. But then if he had projected a nice-guy persona would all the Nazis and fascists have sworn allegiance to him?