Why Hypocrisy Isn’t as bad as you Think
We’ve all met a hypocrite. At times, we all are hypocrites. And while your immediate reaction to hypocrisy might be “here we go again…” followed by intense frustration and a prolonged zone out, you probably don’t stop to consider the validity of the offender’s words. And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong to react this way. Why listen to someone who can’t even follow their own advice?
First, let me preface this by saying that even writing this article is somewhat hypocritical — I’m no saint and certainly don’t react very well to hypocrisy myself. But ask yourself this — does my admitted hypocrisy make my advice any less valid? Your answer to that question will inform your take on this whole article.
That’s why hypocrisy, defined as the “failure to follow one’s own expressed moral rules and principles” by Wikipedia, is such an interesting concept to me.
Let’s consider an example. You’re at the dinner table with your parents. Due to a minor slip up, they find out about the C you got in calculus class.
Mom starts to get upset. “Why aren’t you trying harder?” she says.
Fed up with the unfairness of it all, you outburst — “I am! Why don’t you try integration by parts!” in that tone of yours that you know she hates.
She then yells at you — “don’t raise your voice in this house!”
At last we’ve arrived at the crux of the issue — the hypocritical act. Is mom wrong? Clearly not. Raising your voice rarely achieves anything and she — although with raised voice — has just imparted some sage wisdom. So why even care about her hypocrisy? Just because she can’t follow her own advice, doesn’t mean you can’t.
Let’s consider another example — Peter Thiel. Bare with me.
Thiel graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in philosophy in 1989 and as if that weren’t enough, he received his JD from Stanford Law School in 1992. By all accounts, Thiel is a very educated man. And obviously, he’s found lots of success — first at PayPal, then at Palantir and Founders Fund, and then as an early investor in Facebook. Thiel is now worth $7 billion. Today, he pays students $100,000 to drop out of college and build something as part of the Thiel Fellowship. He is a vocal opponent of college. What happened?
Now, you could argue that Thiel’s education has played a huge role in his success. And you’re probably not wrong. So why is he being so hypocritical? Why are all of the successful entrepreneurs suddenly telling us to ditch school when they themselves didn’t do the same? It’s not even survivorship bias, since they didn’t survive dropping out of school — they survived and thrived after sticking with it.
The only possible answer that upholds their argument is this — it was a different time and things are just not the same now. Back then, you needed a college education and degree to be taken seriously by anyone. Today, that’s arguably not as much the case. You could go start a company without a high school diploma and very few people would care. While getting hired is a slightly different story, things are changing. I’d say Thiel’s advice holds some merit, and while I don’t want to get stuck in the complicated issue that is the value of a college education, his hypocrisy does not void his message for me.
We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity
– Thomas Fuller
So next time you hear some good old fashioned hypocrisy, chalk it up to advice so good that only the best of the best (a.k.a. you) can follow it.
