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The Fatally Flawed Conservative Value of Hypocrisy
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The only vice that can not be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. William Hazlitt
Several people I asked about the failure of conservative values mentioned hypocrisy. Michelle, Owen and Steve brought up areas of conservative hypocrisy in; family values, education, finance, the economy, the occupation of Iraq and in human rights. While we all may exhibit varying degrees of hypocrisy in our lives, it seems that the conservative movement has embraced and institutionalized this value.
Failed Conservative Values: Michelle on Hypocrisy
I’m Michelle Gabriel from Oakland, California. I think that they fail because they say one thing and they do another. Talk about family values – look at all the Republican candidates. They have all these divorces and scandals.
You say family values, yet there is no issue about killing a million Iraqis. I mean, 4,000 of our citizens, you keep hearing about them. You don’t hear about all the Iraqis that got killed also. You hear about the strength of our country and the fact that we have such a great population from immigration. Yet, they have all this immigration reform to stop immigrants from coming in.
They say one thing and they do another. And that’s the real failure. And unfortunately, people listen to the rhetoric, and they don’t follow the reality.
A metaphor for Failed Conservative Values?: I can’t think of an animal or machine. I just think it’s kind of like selling your soul
Hypocrite: the man who murdered both his parents... pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. Abraham Lincoln
Failed Conservative Values: Owen Jackman on Hypocrisy
Hi, my name is Owen Jackman. I am a school teacher in Sacramento. I think of how conservative values have failed is “No Child Left Behind”. I think they have outlawed water boarding as illegal. This is nothing more than torture. We are being set up to fail. We are not serving our children. We are pretty much cutting and slashing the whole of arts, music, physical education.
A metaphor for Failed Conservative Values?: The type of animal? I don’t know. Maybe a hyena as kind of two-faced. You know, we say one thing and we do another. That might be the animal, but really, it’s hypocrisy.
It’s speaking for fiscal responsibility, but spending money crazily. Fighting a war, but not asking people to sacrifice. Wanting to be competitive, but not adequately funding our education system. Saying that they’re for the rights for the unborn, but yet not providing childcare, not providing health care, not providing adequate housing. Saying they’re for fiscal responsibility and yet leading us to our worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
I sense the dawn of a new political era. I sense the birth of hypocrisy!
Most of us are aware of and pretend to detest the barefaced instances of that hypocrisy by which men deceive others, but few of us are upon our guard or see that more fatal hypocrisy by which we deceive and over-reach our own hearts. Laurence Sterne, 1760
Failed Conservative Values: Steve Reed on Hypocrisy
My name is Steve Reid, and I believe that’s a myth. There is nothing of the sort of conservative values. They are a total lie. I think that they’ve had 12 years to show their stuff, and they’ve failed miserably.
Hypocrisy. Definitely. Well to put it in kind of a humorous way, I believe that they are so busy trying to get into everyone’s bedroom, that they’re in the men's restrooms at the same time. And I think they are just bizarre. They are corrupt.
We all have our problems, I’m sure, both parties, but I don’t see the Democrats pointing fingers all the time. I see the Republicans pointing fingers every time. And when you point fingers, you’d better have a clean past, and you’d better live up to what you are pointing your finger at.
They do not do that. Most of them who point their fingers the most are those who have the most things to hide in the closet.
A metaphor for Failed Conservative Values?: I’m sure that they could probably relate to a construction equipment called the Back Ho where they keep digging themselves into a hole every single time that they want to build something.
Self righteousness is a mask for hypocrisy and self importance. Carlos Castaneda
Hy·poc·ri·sy Definition
- a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
- a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.
- an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction
- insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have
Hypocrisy From Wikipedia
Hypocrisy is the act of preaching a certain belief or way of life, but not, in fact, holding these same virtues oneself. For example, a teacher telling students they should not plagiarize, while secretly being a plagiarist himself. Hypocrisy is frequently invoked as an accusation in many contexts.
For linguist and social analyst Noam Chomsky, hypocrisy, defined as the refusal to "...apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others" is one of the central evils of our society--promoting injustices such as war and social inequalities in a framework of self-deception, which includes the notion that hypocrisy itself is a necessary or beneficial part of human behavior and society.
Oh, look! This one offers a course in hypocrisy.Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some Questions for Discussion:
- What examples do you have of conservative hypocrisy?
- What is the progressive alternative to self-righteousness and hypocrisy?
- How have conservative values failed?
Failed Conservative Values
Assist us in systematically building the arguments and telling the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project.
See more Progressive Values Stories:
Failed Conservative Values: Arun Akkineni on Self-Righteousness
Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
http://ProgressiveSpirit.com
and Study Group
Poll: Why do conservatives seem to value Self-Righteousness and Hypocrisy?
( ) They are self deceived and don't even see their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
( ) They know that being self-righteous will get them power.
( ) They can feel superior to others and enjoy their vices at the same time.
( ) Some or all of the above.
( ) They don't value self-righteousness and hypocrisy but instead value integrity?
( ) Others, please explain.
Show: Expand All Reply
- Edwin, The state of hypocrisy is not limited to just the politically conservative mindset.
By Susan Rowe on Jul 6, 2008 5:45 PM EDTPoll: Why do conservatives seem to value Self-Righteousness and Hypocrisy?
( ) They are self deceived and don't even see their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
( ) They know that being self-righteous will get them power.
( ) They can feel superior to others and enjoy their vices at the same time.
( ) Some or all of the above.
( ) They don't value self-righteousness and hypocrisy but instead value integrity?
( x ) Others, please explain.
Hypocrisy exists all across the political spectrum. A belief or a belief structure based on conjecture is a hypocrisy to those who have the living knowledge of a grander experience. The living truth is very different than belief. Superstition doesn't exist in the light of truth. The truth is, closed systems don't evolve in nature. Nature's mind is multi-dimensional.
Value truth not belief.
---
There is shades of hypocrisy everywhere, but don't you think there are maters of degree? some will say that social politeness could be hypocrisy in that it covers up real underlying conflict.
It's just that conservativism has such a major degree of hypocrisy to it in my opinion. Espeically the social and movement conservatives. Most of the progressives I talk with will acknowledge that we all have some hypocrisy in us, so don't point fingers.
I'm not sure of how your using the word truth in this case. There's truth in the sense of the artist expressing what they deeply perceive. Or the intimate sharing with someone you trust.
or the truth as Emerson points out:
Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
...that michele is a friend of mine. she is a dedicted progresive activist who gives many hours of her time for our cause. a better person i can't imagine.
i think susan's post points to the discussion amoungst our camp on this issue. and, i think she states it plainly. edwin, you've also got a point about the gradient and what that means. someone who's simply bad to other people doesn't equal a hitler just as a hitler doesn't equal a person who's simply bad to people. we do have to draw a line in the sand, but it has to be a line drawn of an equal and thoughtout process. the videos might be one way to get at it. i'd be interested if you gave the videos to the ivory tower to see what they think. could be b-sh-it. could be valuable?
In mid-level management at my organization, the ability to kiss up and kick down, with vigor, ensures a healthy paycheck and a parrot's perch at the Wednesday manager's luncheon. Folks unsuitable for real honest work and societal interaction can prosper by playing this game.
The rest of us keep the organization growing and prospering in spite of their negative performance.
Such is life.
there's a lot of that in our state and county party, steve
That, improv, is a sad fact that makes for a real challenge recruiting new people into the fray.
my point exactly, steve. i've been trying to instill a culture of both moving aside and realizing your peter principal. look into your mirror and realize that you're no longer doing it. but, incumbants continue to win at every level, no matter their usefullness. term limits aren't the awnser, that ends with unqualified ghosts running government. just ask any californanian. where from here...its an all fronts battle...
Good thoughts, improv, I' will sleep on the idea of co-chairs or chair o'the month for my own little chunk of the county party. Also frees me up to do more outreach and registration. be well.
there is no greater hypocrisy than an organization founded on "You have the power" to set up a blog where someone at the other end can arbitrarily condemn words to a shredder.
hard to get excited about the stick in Republican eyes with a log in your own
and say one thing do another isn't just a Republican value, look at recent votes by Democrats in Congress
but I do agree most Republicans are self-righteous hypocrites (as are many Democrats) it is an American value to think themselves better than others
sure wish we could send some of the rain to California, stay safe out there
That hypocrisy is a "Value", conservative or otherwise. And it certainly isn't unique to conservatives
Is the reason we're still occupying Iraq, Bush hasn't been impeached, and the senate is preparing to give Bush carte blanche on FISA
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080707_surviving_the_fourth_of_july/
I survive the degradation that has become America—a land that exalts itself as a bastion of freedom and liberty while it tortures human beings, stripped of their rights, in offshore penal colonies, a land that wages wars defined under international law as criminal wars of aggression, a land that turns its back on its poor, its weak, its mentally ill, in a relentless drive to embrace totalitarian capitalism—because I read books. I have 5,000 of them. They line every wall of my house. And I do not own a television.
I survive the gradual, and I now fear inevitable, disintegration of our democracy because great literature and poetry, great philosophy and theology, the great works of history, remind me that there were other ages of collapse and despotism. They remind me that through it all men and women of conscience endured and communicated, at least with each other, and that it is possible to refuse to participate in the process of self-annihilation, even if this means we are pushed to the margins of society.
- Are you in the deep or shallow end of the Bull Sh*t Pool?
By Edwin Rutsch on Jul 7, 2008 1:35 PM EDT
Might be true there's BS everywhere. But, are you in over your head in the conservative deep end of a pool full of Bull, or are you in the shallow end. Just remember that when you're in the deep end, you're in over your head.
There's also the matter of being in the deep end and making a career out of pointing out the BS on everyone in the pool.
.
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- ( x ) Some or all of the above.
By Edwin Rutsch on Jul 6, 2008 4:07 PM EDTPoll: Why do conservatives seem to value Self-Righteousness and Hypocrisy?
( ) They are self deceived and don't even see their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
( ) They know that being self-righteous will get them power.
( ) They can feel superior to others and enjoy their vices at the same time.
(x) Some or all of the above.
( ) They don't value self-righteousness and hypocrisy but instead value integrity?
( ) Others, please explain.