Hooray for Hypocrites!

A new book dares to defend the phoney-baloneys behind the drug war and much, much more.

Nick Gillespie | June 14, 2006

Jeremy Lott's new book In Defense of Hypocrisy announces its goal in its title. Reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie caught up with Lott, who has done stints at the American Spectator, the Cato Institute, and Reason (as the 2002 Burton Gray Memorial Intern), via email to discuss the ins and outs of saying one thing while doing another.

reason: What's the thumbnail sketch of your argument? Why should we be defending hypocrisy and, by extension, hypocrites?

Jeremy Lott: If I met someone on an elevator and had to sum up the book in one sentence, I'd say it's about why you're a hypocrite and that's ok.

After interviewing a number of people about it and thinking the issue through, I decided that we should defend hypocrisy for a couple of reasons.

One, it usually forces us to hide and restrain some of our darker impulses in order to keep up appearances.

Two, it creates moral wiggle room for people to acknowledge the right thing—or speculate about what the right thing might be—even if they don't always do that thing.

reason: Who are the biggest and yet most defensible hypocrites in American politics of the past, say, 10 years?

Lott: One character who pops up several times is Bill Clinton. I found it impossible to write a book about hypocrisy without talking about Clinton. He's such a great example of how hypocrisy works and why people hate it so much.

I was definitely a "Clinton hater" in the '90s. I hated how he was so phoney and I couldn't believe it when he walked away from Zippergate relatively unmolested.

But here's the rub: He wasn't a horrible president.

Clinton's hypocrisy allowed him to pay lip service to a lot of dumb policies but not really press for or implement them. And when he decided to brazen it out on the issue of sex and perjury, the hypocritical consensus -- don't ask about sex but, if asked, lie about it—saved him.

It's standard to bring up Newt Gingrich for balance but Newt was a piker compared to Bill. He was either too consistent, or clueless, or inconsistent in really uninteresting ways.

reason: What about other cultural figures?

Lott: Britney Spears is a fun one. Try Googling "Britney Spears" and "hypocrisy."

Here you had young wholesome Baptist girl and former Mouseketeer who was saving it until marriage who suddenly turned into, well, Britney Spears.