A Note About Hypocrisy

You're in a courtroom. The bailiff shouts, "All rise!" The judge enters the room, takes his seat, and everyone else takes their seat. 

The judge asks the defense for their opening statement. The defense lawyer stands up, straightens his suit, and begins to explain why his client is not guilty. But halfway through his statement, the judge interrupts him.

"I'm sorry, but there is no way you actually believe that."

"Excuse me?" the defense lawyer asks, befuddled.

"You're only making that argument because your client is paying you to. Last week you were in my courtroom, making the exact opposite argument for a different client. You sir, are a hypocrite. Dismissed!"

Okay, back in the real world.

I see a lot of arguments similar to the above anecdote about hypocrisy. In the context of a courtroom, it sounds absurd. I think that making these hypocrisy arguments absurd should be the norm. If we are concerned with truth, we should approach all debate as if we are in a courtroom.

A recent example is the issue of allowing trans girls (biological males) to compete in girls sports. A conservative will argue against it, saying it's not fair to the (cis) girls and we need to stand up for their rights. A progressive will shout back, "Oh, now you care about women? If you cared about women's rights you wouldn't vote to defund Planned Parenthood. You're only making that argument because you're a transphobe."

The common belief of the social media age is that pointing out someone's hypocrisy is a way to win a debate. It's not.

First of all, it's a very "let he who hath not been a hypocrite cast the first Twitter dunk" scenario. Most people are hypocritical at some point and not in a position to be morally superior in pointing it out in others. Living a morally consistent life is harder than most people think and it's probably a situation where you'd have to worship this belief and compress everything else to be good at it.

Second, so what? If someone mounts a good argument, who cares what the motives are; engage with the argument. 

If you are pro-choice and you read an essay that argues we have a moral imperative to protect a woman's right to choose, do you then search the Twitter history of the writer and try to find a time they were a hypocrite so that you could dismiss the argument you agree with? Of course not. This makes you a hypocrite (Oh, great. Now I'm doing it).

Versions where this line of thinking is acceptable

Jeffrey Sachs does a good job of demonstrating all the instances of conservatives participating in their version of cancel culture. This isn't a good argument that cancel culture doesn't exist, or that it's okay because "people are just being held accountable." BUT, it is a good argument against the idea that cancel culture is strictly a left-wing phenomenon. 

I know it sounds like an argument accusing one side of hypocrisy but it's really a rebuttal of the idea that "Group X is bad because they do this thing I don't like" when in fact Group Y also does the thing you don't like.

This cancel culture scenario is a situation in which impugning motives might be okay. Once you identify the hypocrisy, you then ask: Is the arguer arguing that the Left is bad and using a shoddy example or is the arguer arguing that cancel culture is bad but is blind to all the other instances of it?  

So calling out hypocrisy works if its goal is to change the nature of the debate--what is the person really arguing?

The limitations of this line of thinking

This does not mean that you must engage with every shitty argument on Twitter. But it does mean that you treat good arguments on their merits and do not dismiss them due to the motivations, character, and possible hypocrisy of the arguer. 

A progressive who cares about fairness and women's rights does have to engage with the question of whether allowing trans girls to compete with cis girls is really fair, but they do not have to engage with the person posing the argument if it's obvious they are a conservative who always takes the position: Progressives Are Always Wrong.

In other words, if it's a bad faith argument you do not have to respond to the arguer and get dragged into a culture war debate. But you should grapple with whether there is some truth to the argument, even if that means doing it on your own terms. 

You might end up deciding that a few cis girls not making the cut on their track team is a tradeoff that is worth trans girls being able to live out their true identity, and your original belief will now be that much stronger.

Citing Hypocrites

Christopher Rufo has made a name for himself by being the go-to guy to leak mandatory diversity training sessions that are racially divisive. He is transparent in his belief that Critical Race Theory is bad and has no place in the public square or mandatory training sessions. He's also a hypocrite because he works for the Discovery Institute, which advocates teaching intelligent design in schools.

As someone who believes public schools should teach neither intelligent design nor Critical Race Theory (nor anything that attempts to influence behavior; that's what local, community-based institutions are for, but that's a topic for another post) I can still reference his arguments against CRT even though I'm aware of his hypocrisy. 

He's probably more of the belief that "The left is bad and CRT is a convenient reason why" than "CRT should not be taught in schools because of something something free speech something something racially divisive." But that distinction doesn't matter to me because I still agree with the argument even if the arguer is motivated to think all things from the Left are categorically bad, a position I do not hold. 

I don't trust Rufo's interpretation of what he says these sessions are really about. But sharing screenshots of some of the slides is pretty damning and I don't have any evidence or reason to believe they have been digitally altered in any way. Sure, he's kind of a clown who takes himself too seriously. But despite his smug culture-warrior mentality, he does curate content that I find valuable and no one else seems to be reporting.

A judge's job is not to determine whether or not the defendant is a good person. Her job is to determine whether or not he committed a crime. Likewise, our job in the public arena of discourse is not to determine the motivations of the arguer but the merits of the argument.