Hypocrisy, Shklar, Bennett.

OK, so my latest read is Judith Shklar's Ordinary Vices, which treats, oddly enough, of ordinary vices, such as cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, betrayal, and misanthropy. I loved the chapter on cruelty ("Putting Cruelty First", which is based on an article in Daedalus, which I read because I had enjoyed an earlier article of hers so much), and I'm halfway through the chapter on hypocrisy and enjoying it hugely. Of course, this all fits in with my recent focus on ranking and prioritizing vices and virtues.

Of course, when reading about hypocrisy in a Book of Vices, as it were, I naturally think of William J. Bennett. Y'all remember the mini-scandal earlier in the year after it was discovered that the 21st Century Cato was a big-time gambler. So, long after everybody has forgotten about it, and certainly long after they lost whatever interest they may once have had, here's Your Humble Blogger's take on the Bennett thing.

In his anthology The Book of Virtues, heads each chapter with a virtue, thus essentially providing us with a list of his virtues, although we shouldn't hold him to any particular rank: Self-Discipline, Compassion, Responsibility, Friendship, Work, Courage, Perseverance, Honesty, Loyalty, and Faith. Now, I haven't read the book, I'm afraid, nor have I read much of what he's written, but I feel fairly comfortable taking the usual loose definitions of those terms as being what he means. I don't think he's a moral philosopher; I believe he considers himself an educator, interested in passing on inherited institutions, values, symbols and rituals (what my Gentle Readers will recognize as IVSRs). My point is that I don't think there's any necessity to be too careful about terms with him, as I don't think he's that careful with terms himself.

Anyway.

Where does gambling fit on that list? Self-Discipline, I would guess, at least if one gambles a lot. If you gamble with food money, then Responsibility enters in; if you cheat, then Honesty enters in; if you gamble with your buddies, Friendship enters in; if you fold an inside straight, Perseverance enters in; if you draw to the inside straight, Faith enters in. Seriously, there are many people and many sects who consider gambling a sin, but if you don't, then heck, gamble all you can afford to lose. And he's a very rich man. 25G a week gambling budget? Why not?

So, is he a hypocrite, and what is hypocrisy, anyway? Is hypocrisy pretending to be what one is not, or is it pretending to believe what one does not? I have no sense at all that Mr. Bennett pretended to believe (or only pretended to believe) that gambling was bad. I have some moderate sense that he held himself up as a role model, while he was in fact flawed, although I don't count the gambling thing as much of a flaw.

Shklar argues that to the extent that the accusation of hypocrisy is about a person pretending to be what he is not, it is an accusation unhelpful to the democratic process; all politicians, to be successful, must put up some pretence or other, simply in order to be persuasive, and therefore all politicians are hypocrites in this sense. Accusations and counteraccusations of hypocrisy are endless, and distract from conflicts of substance.

On a deeper level, to not be a hypocrite by that formulation means to only and at all times strive to appear to be what I actually am. That presupposes not only the existence of some core self, which I don't really know whether I believe in or not, but also that it is possible for me to discover that core self, understand it entirely, and act in accordance with it. I don’t believe that that’s even remotely possible. If hypocrisy is pretending to be what we’re not, we are all hypocrites. I could go on at great length about this (I haven’t already?), but in short, that assessment makes that definition of hypocrisy nearly useless.

There is another idea of hypocrisy, one that doesn’t so much suit the definition, but which is in my eyes the worse sin, and that is acting as if moral rules applied to other people but not to me. We all do this as well, of course, to one extent or other. I cut somebody off in conversation or traffic, but roar about other people being inconsiderate. And some people, avoiding battle themselves, send young men to kill and die. I don’t know if that all counts as hypocrisy, but it’s a Bad Thing, and we should be on the lookout for it, in ourselves first, and in others, and in our institutions, values, symbols and rituals. That’s where I tend to get angry at Mr. Bennett, not at the one-armed bandit.

Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.