Hypocrisy and violence- a brief comment

Think of an undeniable case of hypocrisy.

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I’m guessing that you probably thought of a preacher or a conservative politician having an extramarital affair, or perhaps using drugs. A sin, then, of appetite.

I’ve been paying attention to hypocrisy, especially in politics, for a long time. What’s become apparent to me is that hypocrisy is often violent, it often comes from the enraged, especially those whose sense of self has been damaged in some way.

Let’s review a conservative and a liberal example.

This contrast of images courtesy of the delightful @JamesFromTokyo. Here we have Madison Cawthorn condemning “forever wars”:

Then later, after Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, and the only possible thing that could have happened, happened:

Any concern with the pointless loss of blood and treasure, gone. Filled instead with rage at the shame of defeat. I’ve chosen Cawthorn, but I just as easily could have chosen any number of conservatives who once decried adventurism in international affairs, but suddenly find themselves braying for another 20 years in Afghanistan, or at the very least a lot of drone strikes. So many “based” “nationalists” suddenly hypocritically concerned about the distant wars of the security deep state they decried. Hypocrisy here born of rage, rage here born of shame.

Now let’s move to the liberal example

Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of killing Bobby Kennedy -the great hope of a generation of young liberals- in 1968. Now, over 50 years later, he is likely to be released on parole.

Boomer liberal Twitter wasn’t pleased:

The attempt to root this in concern about “danger” is laughable. It’s a naked lust for revenge overcoming all scruples of criminal justice liberalism.

This respondent, whose name and image I have blotted out as he is not a public figure, agrees with Laurence Tribe and is even more clear on the role hurt and rage plays in his desire for vengeance:

Among the respondents were blue check luminaries and ordinary, aging boomer liberals. I won’t go through all of the hundreds of tweets but the tenor of them is that Sirhan should remain in prison forever because Bobby Kennedy was a unique man who represented the hopes of a generation. In killing Kennedy, Sirhan struck a blow against that generation, and thus deserves indefinite punishment. Some of the respondents even seemed to express the view that the boomer generation had the potential to change the world for the better but it was lost when Kennedy died etc. etc. All of this aside the broad picture is the same, the death of Robert Kennedy was very hard on me, I was very angry and this is more important from the point of view of liberalism than, say, any commitment to mercy in criminal justice.

Hypocrisy here born of rage, rage here born of narcissism.

Watch for it. You’ll find rage born of a wounded self is far more likely to make people breach their own principles, more likely even than greed, gluttony, lust, or envy.