New at Reason

David Weigel | April 28, 2006

Jeremy Lott defends hypocrisy after criticizing others for doing the same thing.

Comments

|4.28.06 @ 9:12AM|#

What a funny opinion piece. I thought libertarians were NOT supposed to care how much money OTHERS make? I'm sure with a little digging anyone could come up with some dirt and hypocritical political maneuvering spewed by Rupert "Cato Institute" Murdoch. Shit, the "Reason" Institute (little reason, a lot of propaganda) constantly bumbles up it's stances on war and peace. It all depends if they can make money off of a given conflict, right?

How many millions of books has Nick "I'm not a propagandist" Gillespie sold? Chomsky has out sold every Reason "contributor" flat out... Jealous of the competition?

When you losers walk the walk, then you can talk the talk.

|4.28.06 @ 9:45AM|#

Uh, I don't thing Mr. BSing understood anything he read.

For starters, it isn't hyposcrisy for a pro market organization to capitalize on funds available through the market. It is hypocrisy for an anti trust zealot to set up a trust for his own assets.

To follow up on that, did Mr. BS read to the end of the article? Lott was saying that hypocrisy after a fashion is okay.

Just out of curiosity, what should an organization like Reason do to 'walk the walk'?

How idiotic ...

|4.28.06 @ 10:02AM|#

When you losers walk the walk, then you can talk the talk.

I am confident that if I had been born in the Soviet Union yet somehow held the same political philosophy I hold today I would nonetheless have been a card carrying member of the Communist Party. It would, after all, have been irrational not to do so.

Few things are more laughable than the notion of strict libertarian orthodoxy in the first place, but regardless of one's pet ideology it is a given of the human condition that we mere mortals either fall short of our moral aspirations or else we have set them too low.

In any case, I also wonder if the first commenter actually read the article. I don't find where Mr. Lott took any issue at all with how much money others make. And as for comparing the sales of Messrs. Chomsky and Gillespie (whose mention seems entirely gratuitous in any case) or any other such puerile comparison, does the commenter mean to suggest that the measure of an idea is its popularity?

Timothy|4.28.06 @ 10:03AM|#

Hard-line politicos are often liars who don't keep true to their mantras? I'M SHOCKED!

|4.28.06 @ 10:11AM|#

joe:

Eh, I don't think the selection of Chomsky is as bad as all that. I think liberalism, like conservatism, can be indicted on its preferences. The truth is that Chomsky is overwhelmingly popular on the left. He, along with Galbraith, is the source of a great deal of the talking points.

To indicate that this is in any way an exclusive feature of liberalism is where the author is silly. Libertarians collect social security checks, after all.

|4.28.06 @ 10:12AM|#

Excellent article. My father used to refer to the La Rouchfocould quote often, but with the addendum that "virtue deserves the tribute." I am quite thoroughly in favor of hypocrisy so long as the hypocrite chooses to tout good behavior while engaging in its opposite. Perhaps one day he'll feel bad enough to start matching his walk to his talk. It's the ones who are completely honest in their advocacy of their own rotteness that bother me. Somehow guys like the author of this book never consider that their targets might decide to be completely authentic, but authentically dreadful. (And no, I'm not going to defend Michael Moore, at least not until he starts wearing clean, pressed clothes and removes that hideous cap. He can afford a good haircut.) Finally, when can we expect the book by this guy on "family values" advocates who gamble, commit adultery, dump their aging wives for 25-year-old assistants, use drugs, &c?"

Baylen|4.28.06 @ 10:30AM|#

From Lott's very good piece...

A Google search at the end of last October for the joined terms �liberal� and �hypocrisy� produced 2,570,000 results.

You know, Google's still marketing its search engine these days. It's still free, and they let you use it more than once or twice a year, even. ("Liberal" + "hypocrisy" now returns "about 6,560,000" results.)

Zubon|4.28.06 @ 11:57AM|#

The professor saw no problem in railing against the entire defense establishment while he drew a salary from same and conducted research that the generals found useful.
That sounds like good sense to me, rather than hypocrisy. If I can get someone to pay me to call for their destruction, I am winning on all counts. When a company calls Scott Adams to do a speech, they are paying him to mock them: he wins twice! If I ever run for political office, I will proudly take money from everyone and may publicly mock anyone who pays me to work against their issues.

Back to the specific example, don't you have more credibility if you are calling for policy changes that would be against your interests on moral grounds? "Please, America, put me out of a job." Say, John Stossel talking about how stupid it is for the federal government to subsidize the sort of beach-frount housing he owns. "I am getting away with this. Here is how you can stop me and everyone like me. Care to do so?"

|4.28.06 @ 12:22PM|#

I think "hypocrisy" is when you hide the fact that you benefit from/exploit the evils against which you rail. It implies that you're selling something that you don't actually believe.

I prefer John Stossel's approach where he uses himself as a case study of the flaws in the system. "Look what I got away with. Aren't you mad?" Everybody wins.

|4.28.06 @ 4:23PM|#

Although this has little to do with the theme of Jeremy Lott's article -- "It's a good thing these people are a little bit hypocritical, because if they really lived up to the ideals they espouse, they'd really be major dangerous assholes" -- any discussion of hypocrisy makes me think of this passage from The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It takes place roughly 100 years from now, in an era when Victorianism has made a bit of a come-back, in response to the rampant moral squalor of the preceding era (i.e., our own):
-----------------------------

"Mr. Hackworth," Finkle-McGraw said after the pleasantries had petered out, speaking in a new tone of voice, a the-meeting-will-come-to-order sort of voice, "please favour me with your opinion of hypocrisy."

"Excuse me. Hypocrisy, Your Grace?"

"Yes. You know."

"It's a vice, I suppose."

"A little one or a big one? Think carefully-much hinges upon the answer."

"I suppose that depends upon the particular circumstances." ...

"You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices," Finkle-McGraw said. "It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others -- after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism? ...

"Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others' shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour -- you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.

"You wouldn't believe the things they said about the original Victorians. Calling someone a Victorian in those days was almost like calling them a fascist or a Nazi."

Both Hackworth and Major Napier were dumbfounded. "Your Grace!" Napier exdaimed. "I was naturally aware that their moral stance was radically different from ours -- but I am astonished to be informed that they actually condemned the first Victorians."

"Of course they did," Finkle-McGraw said.

"Because the first Victorians were hypocrites," Hackworth said, getting it. ...

"Because they were hypocrites," Finkle-McGraw said, after igniting his calabash and shooting a few tremendous fountains of smoke into the air, "the Victorians were despised in the late twentieth century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefandous conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves -- they took no moral stances and lived by none."

"So they were morally superior to the Victorians --" Major Napier said, still a bit snowed under.

"-- even though -- in fact, because -- they had no morals at all." There was a moment of silent, bewildered head-shaking around the copper table.

"We take a somewhat different view of hypocrisy," Finkle-McGraw continued. "In the late-twentieth-century Weltanschauung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception -- he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy. Of course, most hypocrites are not like that. Most of the time it's a spirit-is-willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing."

"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code," Major Napier said, working it through, "does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code."

"Of course not," Finkle-McGraw said. "It's perfectly obvious, really. No one ever said that it was easy to hew to a strict code of conduct. Really, the difficulties involved -- the missteps we make along the way -- are what make it interesting. The internal, and eternal, struggle, between our base impulses and the rigorous demands of our own moral system is quintessentially human. It is how we conduct ourselves in that struggle that determines how we may in time be judged by a higher power." All three men were quiet for a few moments, chewing mouthfuls of beer or smoke, pondering the matter.