Philosophical Dialogues, Is Hypocrisy Necessary?, Hunter and Bain, Jake Jackson

Dialogues | Is Hypocrisy Necessary?

Hunter and Bain watch the evening draw in across the wide river, the pinks and purples of the dying light dragging their heels across the valleys before disappearing slowly towards the distant mountains. Coffee is brought to the little wooden table, under the awning where the two companions settle after an exhausting trip. Idly they watch a venerable old lady, her back bent, her face contorted with the pain of extreme age, helped into a simple wooden craft by a young man, whose clothes suggest adherence to a local religion. Words are exchanged, as the young man steadies the old lady’s progress onto the craft, and he keeps hold of her until he is sure of her safety. She nods, he bows and shuffles backwards a few paces before turning and walking slowly from the shore. As he passes a flow of others and walks toward the cafe where Hunter and Bain gaze out, a grimace betrays some inner tension before disappearing with the light of the evening.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: I wonder what he said to her. Some hypocrisy no doubt.

Hunter: Encouragement, surely.

Bain: Not sure he meant it.

Hunter: Really? How so?

Bain: Let’s just say I’m a little cynical.

Hunter: A little harsh perhaps! You’re thinking of his expression.

Bain, nodded.

Hunter: His actions were straightforward though, and truly helpful.

Bain: But are they valid if he didn’t mean it?

Hunter: Not sure what ‘valid’ means. His actions seem to meet the needs of the older lady, she was happy, being helped. He didn’t impose on her.

Bain, shrugging: True, perhaps it doesn’t matter about the intention, if the effect is good.

Hunter: You humans seem to expect perfection, even while being so imperfect yourselves.

Bain: Haha, that’s true. Perhaps the hypocrisy is just a way of dealing with our weaknesses.

Hunter: That’s a fair assumption. You seem to mind how you appear to others.

Bain: Unlike you, of course.

Hunter: It doesn’t matter to me. I just have a job to do. And you help me with the human stuff.

Bain: You mean talking to people to persuade them, or stopping them slow us down.

Hunter: Something like that. I always avoid talking to people, but that’s a hard line to hold if something needs to be done.

Bain: I’ve noticed.

Hunter: So your persuasive tones, aren’t they a form of hypocrisy?

Bain, puzzled: No!?

Hunter: So when you change your tone of voice and speak calmly to someone you’ve never met before, as though they were a friend, that’s not hypocritical?

Bain: Well, I’m not deliberately misleading them, am I? It’s not as if I don’t like them, I just don’t know them, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Hunter: Don’t they have anything to say in the matter?

Bain: I suppose they must feel the same in reverse, as willing participants in the deception, they don’t know me either.

Hunter: It might not be cynical, but it’s still hypocritical. Your manner is not conveying how you feel: you’re speaking in a way that’s designed to deceive.

Bain: No! That’s not right, I’m suspending judgement, admittedly to achieve an aim, your aim.

Hunter: So that hypocrisy is consensual and necessary.

Bain: Yes, but not by everyone.

Hunter: Are you unusually qualified then?

Bain: No, but some circumstances are more reasonable than others.

Hunter: Such as?

Bain: Well, in families there’s such a gap between the attitudes of the older generations, and the younger, that they could spend all their time disagreeing. Back on my home planet my grandparents, when they were alive used to hate my alien friends, but they held their tongue, mostly.

Hunter: Did you?

Bain: I didn’t ever learn to. My mother was always upset when we argued. I tried to shut up, but couldn’t stop myself. I just said what I felt, didn’t see it was right not to, perhaps, sometimes.

Hunter: So little hypocrisies are a way of keeping people together.

Bain: Assuming that they all want to…

Hunter: So the necessity is based on a desire on all sides to keep the peace, to allow the comforts of relationships to continue.

Bain: Hm, that sounds banal, but the emphasis is on ‘all sides’. It allows the bonds of loyalty to grow.

Hunter: So it’s a positive quality then?

Bain: Seem dangerous to say that, and because it’s so shaky, it’s open to abuse.

Hunter: Well, anyone in a position of authority can use hypocrisy for their own gain. That’s seems to be a different form of hypocrisy, much greater, and more obviously wrong.

Bain: Of course, there’s nothing more dangerous than a hypocrite with any form of power, someone willing to behave one way in public, advocating for a moral life, while behaving precisely the opposite way in private. The contradictory behaviour of the helpful novice earlier might grow into this greater, more powerful hypocrisy if one day he rises through the ranks, and his oh-so human weakness is not challenged. Should someone who’s privately dismissive of those they help be trusted truly to marshall the interests of those they dismiss?

Hunter smiles wryly: Seem a shame to extrapolate so far from such a simple act.

Bain: At it’s worst, this type of hypocrisy seems to tempt the powerful, it’s effects are so much more dangerous. Seductive, addictive, it becomes a way of life, a way of clinging on.

Hunter: So it’s just not the same as the mutual, necessary form you talked about earlier. We should simply call this bigger hypocrisy what it is.

Bain: Lying?

Hunter: I think so.

Bain nods, watching the back of the old lady recede along the river, the craft slow-dancing towards sunset, with ripples shedding gracefully across the dark waters. Still bent over, her bony shoulders seem to shudder. Bain remembers the last time he saw his grandmother, just before the entire family had been killed in a fire, shortly after he’d run away in some childish rage. The subsequent years of drink and regret had only dimly reduced the memories of the bickering home, and he wondered if a little more quiet hypocrisy would have helped them all. He sighed, and turned his gaze to his oblivious companion.

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