We often justify some stance or action based on a rule of some kind we like. The rule may be well-known or ad doc, something newly expressed. But we are always in fear of that rule also being used to either undermine what we've just used it to support or being applied to a similar stance or action where support is absent. I doubt there is any case where the rule in play is so perfect as to not also be available to detractors of the stance or action. We use the term hypocrite a lot in these cases.
This problem stems from our unfortunate quest for ultimate rules that an always be applied without exception. No such rules--especially ones to justify human behavior--will ever be discovered because they do not exist. No two circumstances are ever alike because history does not ever repeat itself exactly. Our movement through time forbids it. What happened in the past stays there, never to be experienced again.
Even if we could come up with a rule that appears to be applicable to a past set of circumstances, it wouldn't be. We can't know absolutely everything relevant--past or present--leaving open the very real possibility that the rule being applied was invalid even then.
Rules are our enemies if we think we've created or discovered something universal. We can hope to find wisdom and a moderate amount of guidance from past experiences and the rules that were in play, but our past can't rule our present (or future) unless we want to abandon reason and justice.
Our fear of being named a hypocrite has us searching for something that doesn't exist, and, ironically, this search takes us on a journey away from what it is supposedly designed to seek. Hypocrisy should not always be seen as our enemy--not because we don't want to try and be consistent where we can, but because the idea pre-supposes that we always can or should be. The circumstances of our human behavioral existence are too complicated and fluid to apply rigid forms of measurement. Our information will always be incomplete, contain more than a few inaccuracies, and be applied badly.
In order to be on the lookout for new information that is always coming our way, we deserve to give what we now call hypocrisy a way of helping us out. It can be our friend if we take the time to understand how and why.
This problem stems from our unfortunate quest for ultimate rules that an always be applied without exception. No such rules--especially ones to justify human behavior--will ever be discovered because they do not exist. No two circumstances are ever alike because history does not ever repeat itself exactly. Our movement through time forbids it. What happened in the past stays there, never to be experienced again.
Even if we could come up with a rule that appears to be applicable to a past set of circumstances, it wouldn't be. We can't know absolutely everything relevant--past or present--leaving open the very real possibility that the rule being applied was invalid even then.
Rules are our enemies if we think we've created or discovered something universal. We can hope to find wisdom and a moderate amount of guidance from past experiences and the rules that were in play, but our past can't rule our present (or future) unless we want to abandon reason and justice.
Our fear of being named a hypocrite has us searching for something that doesn't exist, and, ironically, this search takes us on a journey away from what it is supposedly designed to seek. Hypocrisy should not always be seen as our enemy--not because we don't want to try and be consistent where we can, but because the idea pre-supposes that we always can or should be. The circumstances of our human behavioral existence are too complicated and fluid to apply rigid forms of measurement. Our information will always be incomplete, contain more than a few inaccuracies, and be applied badly.
In order to be on the lookout for new information that is always coming our way, we deserve to give what we now call hypocrisy a way of helping us out. It can be our friend if we take the time to understand how and why.
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