Hypocrisy, the gateway of sins. Who
knew? Who cares, right?
Given all the different ways that
people mistreat each other, a person might think that hypocrisy is so
insignificant as to not be worth considering. When compared to lying,
cheating and stealing, and especially when compared to assault, arson
and murder; what is little old hypocrisy? But bear with me for a
moment and I think you will see that what the behavior of hypocrisy
lacks in apparent depth, it
makes up for in breadth.
If you've not
thought much about hypocrisy before, let me quickly give the
definition that I use when confronting it; Hypocrisy is using a
double standard, or put another way, saying one thing and doing
another. So what has that to do with other bad things that people do
to each other?
To answer that
question and show why it is important to keep an eye out for
hypocritical behavior I refer you to the diagram shown.
On the diagram you
can see four different areas of people:
First,
there are 'Non-hypocrites'; these are people who genuinely try to be
consistent and fair in their behavior. They may not always succeed,
but they make a real effort to not be hypocritical. This is most
likely not because they have any aversion or obsession with the idea
of hypocrisy but rather because they want to treat other people they
way that they would
like to be treated. Does that sound familiar? I hope it does, because
that is the essence of 'The Golden Rule'. 'Treating other people the
way that you would like to be treated', or 'not treating other people
in a way that you would not like to be treated' is a fundamental
ethical principle found across cultures and throughout the world. And
it is why it is worth paying attention to hypocrisy and people who
behave hypocritically. Notice the second group of people:
The Hypocrites.
Obviously, these are people who behave hypocritically. Again, it is
most likely not because they embrace hypocrisy, but rather because
they unaware of the full extent of their own behavior or it may be
because they choose to behave hypocritically rather than make the
effort to be more consistent and fair in how they treat others. The
point here is in remembering that these people are using a double
standard when they interact with other people. They are saying one
thing and doing another when they are dealing with others. It is in
the behavior that they exhibit in how they treat other people that is
showing the inconsistency and the unfairness. And ultimately, it is
calling into question if they are consistently ethical people at all.
Which brings us to the clearly unethical people in the third group:
The
Bad Actors. These people are the ones who lie, cheat and steal. They
are the ones who destroy, assault and murder. They are people who I
will call the 'Bad Actors' because their actions are clearly bad.
Now, are they bad all of the time? Certainly not. Some of these
people will only do a few overtly bad things a couple times out of
the year, others will do bad things every day. But if the bad things
that they do are examined for even a moment, one will see the
connection to hypocrisy. Consider lying. Is lying to someone,
treating another person in the way that the liar would like to be
treated? Or cheating, would the cheater like to be treated that way?
The pattern is obvious, all of the 'more serious' bad behavior has
hypocrisy built into it.
When a person is abusive to someone else, that are being and abuser
and a hypocrite. When
are person steals from another, he is a thief and
a hypocrite. So it is with all of the bad things that people do to
one another. So what, right? So Bad Actors are also Hypocrites. Big
deal, right? It is a big deal, but not because Bad Actors are also
Hypocrites, but because Non-hypocrites are not
Bad Actors. Except for group number four and we will get to them in a
moment.
That is really the
point of this essay, people who go out of their way to treat other
people in a consistent and fair manner are not people who will lie,
cheat, do the other other 'more serious' bad things to other people.
This is because Non-hypocrites recoil from treating other people in a
way that they wouldn't want to be treated. Alright, I can hear some
people saying, 'Well, duh!', so let me take all of this one tiny step
further so you can see why the whole subject is so important.
People see and
remember what the other people around them do. They see when that
person didn't treat another person fairly. Or when someone clearly
said one thing, but then did quite another. Or that time when someone
paused and considered that what they were doing wouldn't be fair and
then changed and did the fair thing for someone else. People see all
those things and they make estimations about what the people around
them will do in future based on what they have already done. Obvious
and intuitive, right? Right, it is. But my point is that when a
person exhibits hypocrisy then that is a clue to the other behaviors
that they have done that you may not have seen. So too, when a person
goes out of his or her way to not say one thing and do
another, that also is a clue to what the person does –or doesn't
do-- the rest of the time.
And
that is my point. If you observe and sort out the people around you
by whether they are hypocrites or not, you will also be sorting out
those people who may
be doing more serious harm to others from those who are not. To a
Non-hypocrite, hypocritical behavior is something that they really do
notice and recoil from. But to Bad Actors, who know
the things that they have done to others, hypocrisy is 'little stuff'
and they treat it as such. They know that they have done much worse
things and they see hypocrisy in comparison to those other
things that you may know nothing
about. But the prevalence of them saying one thing but doing another,
or having one standard for some people and another standard for
others—hypocrisy-- is the clue that there is other 'bad stuff' that
they are also doing and to be forewarned of it.
Now, I know that
there are some people who are extremely adept at hiding their bad
behavior and pretending to be nice the rest of the time. They know
that behaving ethically most of the time will throw other people off
to their 'darker side' and I don't pretend to think that what I have
said here will reveal them. (but if you check out my essay: the Lamp
of Diogenes, you might find a tool there) Nor am I saying that
someone who is hypocritical in one area is secretly a Bad Actor that
needs to be avoided. These are just some observations and comments to
help others in thinking about and navigating by the people in the
world around them, I hope you enjoyed it.
Oh.
group number four? You remembered them? Well, they are a strange lot,
if they even exist. They are the very small number of people who
would are Bad Actors, but they are not
hypocritical about it. They freely admit that they what they do is
stuff they wouldn't want done to them (or maybe they don't care?) and
do not try to hide the bad things they do. I included them, just
because I have, on occasion, heard of such people and wished to be
thorough in my diagram. As I said, I'm not sure if they even exist.
And maybe they would still be hypocrites in any case. But there you
have it.
for
more essays and for short stories, check out http://www.MHHickey.com
for talk about books,
swords, and nerd hobbies, check out http://www.Booksandswords.com
