A few words on hypocrisy

I was sat in the common room with a group of three other people today, during the uneventful hour I have on Tuesday afternoons prior to catching the school bus. These three were playing Magic: The Gathering, a card game I have never fully understood. I'm sure that if I invested enough time into learning it, I would come to enjoy it as much as any other game, but there are reasons why I opt not to participate in this particular pastime.

Firstly, there is, quite frankly, a social stigma associated with this card game. I'm not the type of person that desperately tries to fit in with the cool - or even socially-acceptable - crowds, as I respect those that do less than the social 'outsiders', as it were. But to risk whatever amount of social acceptability I currently have, in exchange for a card game with no distinct long-term merits, seems a tad foolish to me.

Furthermore, I have heard that it is extremely addictive. Once the rules are clear in your head and the game makes sense to you, it's apparently very hard to escape its allure. My Olympian procrastinating abilities mean that I have very little time as it is without such frivolous distractions, thank you very much!

So I took on the role of barely-conscious spectator, slumped in one of the corners of the square of sofas, glancing optimistically at the seemingly-random collection of cards on the table between fleeting, unavoidable moments of sleep. My mind, being in a perfect situation to do so, started to race.

For example, there was a theory floating around in my head that made perfect sense to me, but I found it impossible to verbalise it and explain it to other people. To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure I've completely managed to explain it all yet, but I managed to extract something from it that made sense, so that's satisfying. It may be the entire theory in a nutshell - it could be, however, just the tip of the iceberg. It's so wibbly-wobbly in my own head that even I can't be sure.

My ponderings concern hypocrites, and our tendency to shrug off criticisms, no matter how correct and valuable, if it transpires that they have been made by a hypocrite. As far as I can see, we are a compassionate species overall - if we see something that's wrong, we get the urge to remedy it for the benefit of other people. Sometimes, our remedial urges can contradict past choices we ourselves have made. If these past choices are known to the person we give the advice to, a response akin to 'what do you know?' is likely to conclude the exchange. But surely such a response is demonstrating a blinkered assumption of our mindset!

The general consensus regarding hypocrites is that they are wrong for offering advice because they can't criticise that which they have done themselves. The only logical conclusion to that consensus is that we think hypocrites are incapable of learning from their mistakes, which is ludicrous. In many situations, I would value the advice of a hypocrite more than that of someone who is basing their advice on secondary information, as opposed to personal experience. A hypocrite knows. They've been there. In many cases, they are there, which may make them an even greater hypocrite but could also give their advice even greater validity.

When we make mistakes, we immediately start thinking about how to shift the blame. This isn't necessarily a bad trait; it's a form of survival instinct. So when someone comes over and offers advice, we immediately target the 'self-righteous goody-goody', if only in our minds at first, and try to find some sort of acceptable motive to vent our frustration out on them. Hypocrisy is a popular excuse, and should the mistake-maker have any such ammunition against the adviser, it is more than likely that they will open fire.
It's a perfectly human thing to do in moments of weakness, but by cutting down the person giving the advice, we may miss out on a valuable nugget of information that could prevent such mistakes from occurring again.

So lay off the hypocrites. But just a little bit, mind. Use a bit of judgement in these matters, because some hypocrisy truly outweighs the value of the advice. In these cases, it is advisable to go with your gut and rip 'em a new one (metaphorically speaking...)!

Tally-ho.