Hypocriss

Yesterday, I went to the supermarket, and at the checkout there seemed to be some woman supervising the check-out guy, writing notes on an electronic clipboard.

Because it looked like the staff member was being assessed, I tried extra hard to be polite and look impressed with the service. I stopped short of saying "excellent, really excellent, thank you!" or just shaking my head and smiling in astonishment, applauding.

I'm thoughtful like that. And weird.

Weird and thoughtful.

***

I've been thinking about hypocrisy.

It's strange that hypocrisy is such a terrible quality to have. People seem to tolerate all kinds of behaviour, but not that.

"Well, he killed that kid. But, to be fair, he never said he was opposed to killing kids. So I can't complain."

I think I was started along that track when reading Stephen Fry's blog about an argument he'd had when someone called Al Gore a hypocrite.

I suppose people resent a having standards imposed upon them by someone who can't meet those standards. That seems quite intuitive. But why?

What's to stop us desiring standards above our own? If I rape the Queen mother's corpse, isn't my criticism of someone raping Helen Daniels From Neighbours's corpse still valid? I think it probably is. I don't like the idea of having to embody all of my highest ideals of perfect morality in order to criticise others. I'm not a hypocrite if I want other people to always be friendly, even if I'm sometimes a little tetchy/stabby myself.

It's a war between two (probably substanceless) statements:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
vs
"Do as I say, not as I do"

There is still something unpleasant about hypocrisy though. I think it's acceptable to desire better behaviour in others than in yourself, but it's not acceptable to chastise or punish them for their failure.

If you lash me for talking with my mouthful, and you go un-lashed for taking a shit in the gravy boat, that's just not fair.

But I still feel that the loathing of the hypocrite is a little disproportionate to a crime which is surely not even as bad as lying.

If a drug-addled young mother chastises, cajoles and pleads with her son to ensure he doesn't go down the same road as her, she may be a hypocrite, but I'm happy to shake her by the hand.

Wearing gloves, obviously.