This week, I had to look hard into my imaginary self-analysis mirror, and admit to myself that I am a giant hypocrite. I know that cigarette smoking is a truly disgusting, deplorable, and suicidal habit, and I preach this fact to many, yet after successfully quitting smoking for more than forty days and forty nights, I found myself right back in the deepest depths of my own personal hypocrisy-hell, and resumed smoking cigarettes. With this familiar bad habit and long time associate back in my life, my meager mind has only two rationalizations to justify this behavior: I can either choose to hate myself, and shroud myself in shame, or I can take it like a man, an American man, and do what Americans do best; “Embrace Hypocrisy.”
By this point in my life, I have fully realized that my personality comes across to others as a giant mixed salad of paradoxes, contradictions, and hypocrisies. But I cannot help it, because I’m an American member of the sarcastic generation, and that means that I’m a master of the hyperbole and hypocrisy. But I am okay with this fact, for the right to hypocrisy is an unalienable American right, as powerful and protected as our right to freedom of speech. (As a matter of fact, the two are so closely related, that our forefathers actually removed the ‘hypocrisy clause’ from the first amendment of the constitution amidst a nine hour debate over whether or not to order olives on their pepperoni pizza).
I find that, as a supposedly well-educated American, I throw out the term ‘hypocrite’ a lot. “Bush is a hypocrite, he preaches democracy while jailing political prisoners and foreign leaders who oppose the American creed of liberty and justice for all.” I’ve read that, and said that, about a hundred times. But you know who else did the same thing, about 150 years ago? That’s right, good ol’ “Not-so-Honest” Abe Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, the hero of hypocrisy, who sits proudly on every penny and five dollar bill, grinning from his throne, while knowing fully well that during the Civil War, he jailed and silenced virtually every political dissident or opponent from the North who opposed his executive decisions, all the while preaching freedom for all.
But hypocrisy goes back further than that! America has been embracing hypocrisy since it’s inception. We wielded hypocrisy like a fine weapon to defeat the British in our Revolutionary War. Think about it: We were a country that opposed the oppressive British monarchy, and claimed that imperialism was unjust. So how did we win that war? In part, we won it with Ben Franklin’s careful foreign diplomatic relations and treaties with France, which was an imperial monarchy that mistreated countless colonies of its own. But maybe Big Ben was still reeling from his self-prescribed kite-n-key electro-shock therapy, and didn’t realize the hypocrisy of his diplomacy. But that makes about as much sense as letting someone declare insanity because they ate a Twinkie Bar.
Hypocrisy is everywhere in America, and it’s about as ubiquitous as a cell phone in Manhattan. For example, this week, I had the ironic pleasure of being an American and watching my fellow Americans attempt to celebrate Earth Day. (By the way, how old is Earth now, and when did we figure out that ‘she’ was born on April 22nd?) An American celebration of Earth is about as hypocritical as if the Klu Klux Klan were to throw a giant gay rights’ parade, while passing out pamphlets to raise awareness about anti-Semitism. America pollutes the Earth more than any other nation, and I had the privilege this week of seeing hundreds of motorists drive and park their gas-guzzler’s on a giant lawn, in order to attend a festival to celebrate Earth Day, all the while carrying plastic water bottles, paper coffee cups, and printing flyers to advertise the gala. That’s like showing up to your eighty-year old grandfather’s birthday party with a euthanasia kit as a gift.
Every day, I realize that I do something, aside from smoking, that is incredibly hypocritical. For example, at work, we’ll make fun of someone who is sitting in such a position so as to bare his or her ass crack to the casual, wandering eye. But moments later I’ll bend down to grab something from a shelf, and feel a distinct breeze that runs just a hair too low down my back, a little too low for comfort, and realize that my poor, helpless co-worker has had to see my ass crack. But the next time any one of my friends squats down and shows his or her own ass crack, you can bet your life on the fact that I’ll be right there to make some sort of plumber joke, hiking my pants up a little bit as I do.
Most politicians are hypocrites; they are men and women with little to no actual war experience, who are too old to fight in combat, and yet they have the power to declare war, conduct battle plans, and demand that people my age go to crazy foreign lands and kill ‘crazy’ foreign people. And then they make the rest of us give up most of our paycheck to fund the fight. But they’re not done there! As soon as their term is up, these same men and women run for re-election, preaching safety, security, and peace in America – and they use tax money to help fund their re-election campaigns!
America has more drug users in it than any other nation in the world, and employs thousands upon thousands to fight this ‘epidemic.’ Very recently, here in Oregon, a local congresswoman, who was a forerunner in legislation to combat Crystal Meth, was pulled over, and subsequently arrested for carrying enough Meth-amphetamines in her trunk to get every junkie in Oregon high for at least a month. It turns out that she had promoted the anti-Meth legislation to drive her competition out of business, and into jail. This is a great example of the government interfering with the free-market; a fine example of hypocrisy – and it also makes for a great bedtime story for young children.
I mean, how can we take ourselves so seriously when we declare wars on inanimate objects, a la ‘The War on Drugs?” Even worse, we’ve recently declared a war on a feeling: “Terror.” Hey politicians, I don’t think it’s possible to defeat “drug”, since “drug” can’t debate, surrender, or sign any sort of treaty, and I think you’ll find the same task even harder if you ever find out where “terror” is hiding, and you try to talk “terror” into surrendering its position. I bet that you could torture and berate “terror”, and hold it captive in some island prison, you could even flush its holy book down a toilet, but I still don’t think you’ll ever defeat “terror”, since terror is a feeling that exists in the mind.
I predict that we’ll eventually become so embedded in our own hypocrisies that we’ll declare war on hypocrisy, (which isn’t even an object or a feeling, but rather a character flaw), and our politicians will force a line up of all the doctors in America on one side, and all the lawyers and insurance reps on the other, and give them each a blunt object and tell them to fight to the finish. This way, the politicians will be the last hypocrites alive.
Many police officers are also hypocrites, citing us for speeding and running yellow lights, yet nearly every day I spy a police car on MLK Blvd speeding to run a yellow or red light, and getting away with it, because, they can. I have even been given pot by a cop who seized it from a kid while on duty. And he was more than happy to smoke with me.
And what about religions, and especially scientology? You know what? I’m just not even going to go there this week. Go ahead, call me a hypocrite; I dare you!
How many times have you complained about some idiot driver ahead of you, for talking on their cell phone, for driving too slow or too fast, or for neglecting to use a turning signal, and then found yourself speeding, to hang an unexpected left, with no turn signal, because your hand is busy holding a cell phone to your ear so you can get directions to where you are going? I did it yesterday, on the way to an Earth Day party!
Believe it or not, I’m not angry, upset, or even calling out for a change in our American ways, because as the title of this column suggests, being an American means embracing Hypocrisy, and I’m tired of swimming upstream and trying to pretend that I’m not a hypocrite. Instead, I’m trying to be proactive and admit that I think we all are doing a great job, and we should keep up the good work! If hypocrisy were a subject on a Report Card for America, then we’d sure be proud of all the A’s that we’ve received by now!
I think we should celebrate our American hypocrisy once a year. We could pick a day, any day, like sometime in the first week of July, and we could celebrate America and our foundations of hypocrisy by getting really drunk, having a bar-b-q and then watching fireworks. So long as we do not celebrate our heritage by learning about the history of our country, holding public debates, reading up on the constitution, or by learning more about our congressmen, we’d be celebrating in fine fashion, because if we did those silly, sensible things, then we would be acting sensibly, and that would be reverse hypocrisy!
The only real problem that we face as a nation of hypocrites is that we often misuse the word hypocrisy. Hypocrisy means “the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess.” So, actually, it’s not hypocritical to create havoc in the Middle East, in order to secure oil, because we’re the same nation that once purposely spread small pox among the aboriginal tribes of this land in order to systematically execute them, to free up their land for our personal needs. So the war in Iraq is actually quite sincere, and not hypocritical. You can take it or leave it, love it or hate it, but I’m taking the high road on this one, and embracing our hypocritical heritage, and that means that I’m proud to be an American, – I mean a hypocrite – ah, whatever. Same thing.
I hope you found this insightful look into hypocrisy entertaining, and more importantly, educational. For further information on hypocrisy, and its etymology and history, contact a local library, log onto www.whitehouse.gov, watch C-SPAN, or the local or national news, or read almost any pamphlet by any organization, or if all that seems like too much effort, just take a quick walk outside your home, and open up your eyes. Or, better yet, just re-read this column, or any of my previous issues; for hypocrisy abounds; so be it!