Can Humans Handle Their Own Hypocrisy?

Chaitanya Sethi
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

I recently wrote an article condemning the spate of memes that targeted people of a certain colour, body shape and race in the name of humour. I was heartened to know that a lot of people shared my opinion. In the coming days, I got absorbed in other events and soon put this issue on the backburner. One fine day, I was enjoying an old video of one of my all-time favourite comedians — the Late Ms. Joan Rivers. For those of you who aren’t aware of her comedic credentials, she was the first female to ever host a late night network television talk show and was awarded an Emmy for another of her talk shows. Her standard style involved her razor-sharp and acerbic wit and her ‘take no prisoners’ approach to comedy was undoubtedly controversial. There was nothing that was off-limits as long as it was funny and she was equally harsh on herself, often poking fun at her numerous plastic surgeries and her relationship with her daughter, Melissa Rivers. For those who got her humour, she was the funniest woman. For those who didn’t, she was an insensitive and callous person with absolute disregard for others.

Credits : BuzzFeed

I had seen her videos countless time without ever feeling guilty. This time, however, I felt conflicted. Having just chastised (albeit virtually) others of being insensitive, was I behaving like one of them? Was I reneging on my word? Could I allow these seemingly contradicting ideologies to co-exist? Was I a hypocrite?

Hypocrisy isn’t something unique to us. Day in and day out, we see, hear about, read and experience incidents where our hypocrisy is laid bare in front of us. Whether it is how we rave over romance in cinema but resort to honour killings, how we tweet about our athletes doing well while refusing to pay for our kids’ sports coaching, how we encourage our children to follow their dreams but snicker at the thought of our neighbours making a living out of photography, how we (this can go on for a while). The point is, it’s hard to argue that we aren’t hypocrites.

Which begs the question : Why is it that we all fall prey to hypocrisy? It’s a scientific fact that we judge others harsher on moral parameters than we judge ourselves. In an article on Conversation.com titled ‘Why we all are moral hypocrites’, the writer shares that we all suffer from an ‘ethical amnesia’. He shares,

“We’re less attentive to our own moral failures. Like a rubber band that can be stretched only so far before it breaks, most of us violate our moral codes only to a limited degree. This allows us to continue to believe in our moral self. If we sinned too dramatically, it would shatter this cherished belief.”

As and when we do end up breaking our own moral code, we are quick to rationalize our violation as an extension of some clause of our policy. We often think that the beneficiary of our actions is someone else and not us, therefore we have the license to ‘alter’ our view for those 5–10 minutes. Which basically means that we are all adept at self-deception. And so, when we push past driving license test queues with a tout in tow, we feel we aren’t being uncivilized, we’re helping a man feed his family for that day.

At the same time, we are unforgiving towards the moral shortcomings of others. While we give ourselves the benefit of doubt, we are unrelenting when it comes to our friend who whines about not having genuine friends but is off partying with a different group every weekend or that relative that claims to love all his family members but doesn’t let go of any opportunity to gossip about them. I was reading a thread on Quora about certain celebrities and why they were disliked. I observed that outside of ‘lack of talent’ and ‘nepotism’, hypocrisy was one of the major reasons given by people. For all our shortcomings, we are sharp as a tack when it comes to identifying this in others. It seems as though it is impossible to avoid being branded a hypocrite at some point in your life.

Credits : IndiaOpines

This brings me to another question — Can my hypocrisy help me? Professionally, we value hypocrisy a great deal. We want others to be cognizant of our mood and temperament and act accordingly but we expect waiters and servers to greet us with the brightest smiles and refined courtesies at any cost. We begrudge corrupt people but expect lawyers to argue for murderers and rapists sincerely. Politicians, it seems, are held within their community in high regard as a measure of the ratio of their promises ignored over promises made. We proclaim to stand for education for all but promptly pay our underage maid extra money to come earlier for cleaning the dishes. Turns out, hypocrisy is an integral component of the social setup!

Which brings me to my final question — Knowing that we all tend to be hypocritical, how do we resolve our and others’ contradicting halves? First and foremost, we need to stop setting ourselves in stone. Just because we once were against a practice or belief, doesn’t mean we can’t warm up to it eventually. And embracing this change would not shatter your pride. Secondly, don’t deny when you are called out on your hypocrisy. I’m sure none of us can proclaim to be the paramount of virtue. Thirdly, don’t profess to preach something you know you will have trouble practicing. And most importantly, you don’t have to choose an absolute everytime. While some basic ideals remain fundamental, you can choose to have multiple co-existing viewpoints.

I don’t wish to preach further. I feel I’ve done that enough. I leave you all with a question –If you had to associate yourself with hypocrites all your life, would the ones currently around you make the cut?

References

[1] http://theconversation.com/why-w...

[2] https://rtone.wordpress.com/2008...

A concoction of wit, sacrasm and quirks. Can be easily bribed with books. I write at www.candidwallflowers.wordpress.com.

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