This is absolutely correct. But you fail to see one possible conclusion one can draw from hypocrisy: that the hypocrite doesn’t really care about the rightness or wrongness of the action, but just doesn’t like the object of criticism and wants to attack him with whatever ammunition seems available.
Consider the case of China. The United States criticizes China for human rights violations, and China call us hypocrites. The hypocrisy doesn’t make us wrong about the criticism–in point of fact, we are right, even if we are hypocrites. But it does cast doubt about whether we really care about, say, the religious freedom of cults, or whether we just want to bang a potential rival over the head with things we hope others will perceive as wrong.
That’s an excellent example. In this case, I don’t think that China’s cries of hypocrisy are particularly meaningful, as their human rights violations appear to be widespread, and systematic, whereas the US failings are relatively sporadic and exceptional by nature, at least IMO.
Similarly a habitual liar may defend himself to a relatively honest man who is sick of his lying by calling him a hypocrite and pointing out the rare instance where the relatively honest man dissembled.
I don’t beleive that I habitually participate in pile ons, nor do I habitually insult people who are not present though it’s true that I’ve done both at some point. So, I don’t think my hypocrisy particularly validates any objection.
The possible conclusion that you may be missing is that cries of hypocrisy are often simply the attempt at redirection by a party who otherwise cannot defend their position.
The point of the China example was that the hypocrisy undermines the message, even when the message is right. So when you say that “[h]ypocrisy isn’t such a big deal for me,” you concede that you don’t really care about your message. Your hypocrisy invites us to conclude that you chose to pit elucidator and Lobohan not because you care about what they did, but because you just don’t like them (which is quite similar to the way the US picks on China instead of Saudi Arabia).
No. That is not a fair interpretation. I do care about the message. I simply recognize that I am imperfect. I think lying is bad, but I have lied. I still don’t like habitual liars and I still think it’s a generally bad thing.
So no, you’re conclusion does not follow, at all.
I don’t know Lobohan. He never really ever said anything that made an impression on me. I didn’t know he existed until I read his comment. And, though we have argued, I actually like elucidator and have said so several times.
Also, I did come to Lissener’s aid in the thread I linked to and I don’t like him very much, so I don’t think your thesis holds water.
But again, the motivations are hardly germaine. It’s either good form and ok to engage in unprovoked attacks against non-participating posters, or it’s bad form and not ok.
My stance is that it’s not cool.
The fact that at some point I did it myself, doesn’t make it cool.
Ok, so you do actually care about hypocrisy insofar as it affects whether people take your message seriously. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim to not care about your hypocrisy and simultaneously maintain that you care about people disregarding your message as mere mud slinging.
Also, you seem to suggest in your repeated use of examples involving habitual behavior that while you merely slipped once or twice, elucidator and Lobohan do this habitually. Is that your intention? If not, what purpose does the habitual aspect serve in your argument?
They are hardly germane to whether the behavior is right or wrong. They are entirely germane to whether to take you seriously in this thread. If a follower of Bill Clinton pits George Bush, rejecting Bush for lustily leering at women, you wouldn’t take that poster very seriously even though his abject hypocrisy has nothing to do with the rightness of his argument. And the reason you wouldn’t is not because you don’t think he is sincere, or correct, but because you don’t believe he actually cares about the lusty leering.
Similarly, I think the content of what they said ruffled your feathers a bit. You don’t actually care that they posted about you even though you weren’t in the thread. I suspect, in part from your hypocrisy, that you pitted them because of the content.
Re-reading that, I don’t think it makes very much sense. I think I’ve got a point somewhere in there, but it ain’t coming through. Forgive me for posting while sleepy. Carry on.
Once, there was a Scylla. Stubborn as a cast-iron mule. Slippery as a three-card monte dealer, tenacious as a bulldog. No, the bulldog is a palsied chihuahua in comparison. Anti-tank rounds fired at his adamantine opinions whimpered before impact.
I’m guessing it was daughters. Daughters are the sappers of the Fortress on Manly Dignity. They undermine the walls, the turrets, the redoubts. Rearrange the stones for Barbie’s cottages, dismantle the trebuchet for a swing set, confiscate the flagons made from enemy’s skulls, clean thoroughly, box and relegate to some distant attic.
Kinda reminds me of the times when Esprix and Scylla used to subtly work one another’s names into posts in order to get the other one to read a boring thread. Damn, that was what? eight years ago? More? Before the Winter of Our Missed Content.
Hello. I’m called Lobohan. I find you narcissistic and blowhardy with just the right tint of arrogant gravitas to mostly pull it off. Nice to meet you.
Might I suggest if I’ve wounded you to the core that you can purchase a pair of trucknutzand wear them around your neck as a talisman from which to draw the strength to brave the hurt.
Now there’s a possibility I hadn’t thought of. I have seen an occasional “Paging so-and-so” remark in a thread. Course, no one ever solicits my opinion.
Just for giggles, yesterday I did a “vanity search” (limiting it to the past month so as not to annoy the hamsters). Got just six threads, all of which I had participated in. So there seems little point in using the technique myself.
This is bizarre. Scylla is an occasionally articulate and entertaining and wrong, but mostly dull and wrongheaded and still wrong, person of ideas (or at least, an idea), who is, as a practical man, willing to defend his most virulent detractors when they are attacked for defending (on liberal grounds) his most virulent and wrongheaded bigotries. This sometimes confuses people into thinking that fair-mindedness is in play, when really it’s just a spring-loaded trap baited with a whiff of egalitarianism, set for someone who likes that sort of thing, waiting to be sprung.
Scylla, if there aren’t already enough posters here to have either infuriated or inflated your ego (I can’t tell which you prefer), at least quit pitting those who still are willing to try – otherwise even those who don’t know you will get the hint that it’s not a prize worth striving for.
