Two Cheers for Hypocrisy

John Fielding

“The issue here isn't adultery it is hypocrisy.  I don't actually care who Cain has slept with or what they did in bed though I know Rick Santorum will.  Cain cannot claim same sex relationships are immoral however when he is an adulterer.  He cannot run on "family values" knowing he had a 13 year affair with Ginger White.  The man is a lying phony who lives by the principle of "do as I say not as I do."  He has no moral authority to dictate to me who I sleep with or what I do privately or whether I can be equal with him under law.  He's nothing but a lying hypocrite."

John Morgan, the Pennsylvania Progressive, Herman Cain’s Sexual Infidelity, Tue Nov 29, 2011 at 09:26:10 AM EST


"Hypocrisie est un hommage que la vice rend à la vertu." 
 Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

John Morgan presumes to be a moral arbiter for Herman Cain, despite lack of proof.  After all, a 13 year affair is bound to leave some kind of paper trail.  But a paper trail or the mere necessity of proof or objective evidence has never been necessary for Morgan to libel someone in his blog. More importantly, though, when a person says virtue is a good thing, but is revealed to be flawed, hypocrisy, here, is healthy and good. I encourage it.

Since when did one have to be perfect in order to hold an ideal? I think it’s a good thing to be polite. Am I always polite? Of course not. Am I a hypocrite? Of course. Is that good? Yes: it is better to hold an ideal, even when we fall short of it, than to decide there is nothing worth striving for, there is no good, no bad; no right, no wrong. Hilter and Mother Theresa -- just an arbitrary preference. "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

And in the end, those are the only choices we are left. Morality is absolute, and does not depend on our opinion today, or is relative, and all is just a matter of opinion. You can't have it both ways -- only one.

John Morgan has thrown in with Bill Clinton.  In the end, if you set the bar low enough, you will never be a hypocrite.  One can’t accuse Morgan of that.  Degenerate.  Perhaps.  Dissolute.  Maybe.  But a hypocrite.  Never.  Morgan apparently believes in living down to the lowest expectations.

Some people tout a virtue until they break it. Extramarital sex is wrong -- until we have it! Recreational drugs are bad, unless we are taking them now. Smoking is bad -- but if we're smoking, it’s a right, dang it. Does right and wrong depend on what we did this week? Isn't it possible for us to admit that there are ideals for behavior which are higher than our current ability to achieve? Or must we always set the bar lower than our worst week in order to avoid 'hypocrisy'?

It's odd that John Morgan is so quick to snap at Cain. After all, in Morgan’s universe, extra-marital and, indeed, homosexual sex isn’t a vice – in fact, instead of something to be hidden and apologized for, it is, like slavery once was, proclaimed to be a positive good.

In fact, isn't it a bit hypocritical for Morgan to be claiming there are no absolute morals and then condemning a man for behavior Morgan does not claim to be wrong? That's the kind of hypocrisy for which I have no praise.

To everyone else:  Believe in a few virtues you don't achieve today.

The world needs more of this kind of hypocrisy.

And less of Morgan’s lack of it.