There is an increasing tendency to accept shocking statements by politicians by just saying that they are being authentic and not hiding behind hypocritical statements. Political leaders used to at least pretend that they are doing the right things some of the time. But Trump has been so successful in making people familiar with the idea of not pretending that they now just shrug their shoulders and say that Trump is being Trump.
The global system shaped after World War II was built around open markets, human rights, international institutions like United Nations and cooperation and rule-based norms. A large part of the world did not accept it. There were many situations when the system was ignored more than being followed, particularly by the United States itself. But you still had this as the kind of default operating system of the international world.
Whenever the United States did not live up to those principles, it always tried to frame its actions as if it was trying to uphold them. So for example, for the war in Iraq, the Bush administration went to the United Nations, tried to get resolutions, had inspectors put in place, gathered a coalition of 40 plus nations, went to the United States Congress, and then went to war with Iraq. The war may have been misguided, but there was an effort to put it in the context of this larger international order that the United States believed in and was part of.
Now it has gone from being a country that believed in the international system that it had put into place to one that openly violates it. "Openly violates it" is the part that is important. For the current war in Iran, there was no effort to go to the United Nations or to go to Congress. The United States has exactly one ally, Israel. This was deliberate. The Trump administration doesn't believe in any of those features. It wants the unilateral exercise of American power for American national interests as it conceives it to be.
The practice of filling the government with incompetent loyalists has been going on for thousands of years and people know that it will always be there. But some excuse to show that you're doing it for other reasons will generally be given to cover up the actual reason for doing it. But now even this pretense is often not required. Is this a good thing?
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that hypocrisy is the “practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.” It is generally viewed as a negative trait; a significant moral failing, especially in a leader. It is often seen as a mark of dishonesty and a lack of authenticity. But it easy to miss the good about hypocrisy - even giving lip service to an ideal that you fall short of maintains the idea that the ideal should remain and people should aspire for it.
If people were required to perfectly live up to ideals of honesty and compassion at all times for those ideals to exist, there would be no ideals at all. According to Gandhi, there must always be an unbridgeable gulf between the ideal and its practice. The ideal will cease to be one if it becomes possible to realise it. He argues: "Where would there be room for that constant striving, that ceaseless quest after the ideal . . . if mortals could reach the perfect state while still in the body?"
The maxim that 'hypocrisy is the tribute that vice plays to virtue' makes the same point - you're only truly capable of hypocrisy if you're to some degree accepting the importance of certain norms. It's by reference to those norms that you can be called a hypocrite. Hypocrites who fail to keep their promises but refuse to abandon the ideals they betray help keep those standards in place for society to strive toward. The social condemnation of hypocrisy reinforces moral norms and promotes more authentic and accountable behavior in society.
Some situations may require hypocritical behavior in order to reduce tensions in social relations. When citizens appear to conform to the social and cultural conventions and norms of their communities, where their instincts and desires are repressed, they cannot merely be accused of being hypocritical. Living in a group may require compromise at certain times. When politicians appear hypocritical, they may be performing much better than if they remained steadfast in their consistent adherence to principles. For example, when the leaders of various countries praise Trump to the skies, you know that they are lying but you also know that it is the best way to get a good deal for their countries.
When a person is accused of hypocrisy, it makes both the charging party and those being charged critically reflect on the action. Trump-style dismissal of any appeal to ethics and virtues, or the belief that such an appeal is inherently in bad faith breeds cynicism and a decline in social standards. A cynical agreement in society that hypocrisy is a common occurrence and that we are all hypocrites some of the time reduces the effective functioning of a society.
Anne Applebaum writes that some countries are members of what she calls Autocracy, Inc. - Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia etc. They have spent many years disputing the human rights language long used by international institutions. They dismiss treaties and conventions on war and genocide, and concepts such as “civil liberties” and “the rule of law” as embodying Western ideas that don’t apply to them. They feel no shame about the use of open brutality and send hundreds of their citizens to their deaths.
Once upon a time, the leaders of the Soviet Union, the most powerful autocracy in the second half of the twentieth century, cared deeply about how they were perceived around the world. They vigorously promoted the superiority of their political system, and they objected when it was criticized. They at least paid lip service to the aspirational system of norms and treaties set up after World War II, with its language about universal human rights, the laws of war, and the rule of law more generally. Even in the early part of this century, most dictatorships hid their true intentions “behind elaborate, carefully manipulated performances of democracy". But all that pretense is now not required.
The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics. It was developed in the 1990s by Joseph Overton, a political scientist. The window illustrates the general public’s most acceptable policies in the center and the more untenable policies on the ends. According to the concept, politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support — they generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate policy options. These policies lie inside the Overton Window.
Politicians and others in the political arena might shift or expand the span of the Overton window to make specific policies more or less acceptable in public opinion. Politicians of various countries, by their statements and actions over a number of years, have shifted the Overton window towards reduced importance of a number of moral ideas. Anne Applebaum writes in Autocracy Inc.:
This is the core of the problem: the leaders of Autocracy, Inc., know that the language of transparency, accountability, justice, and democracy will always appeal to some of their own citizens. To stay in power they must undermine those ideas, wherever they are found.
Russia and China would not have dreamt that they would have a person in the White House who would do their job for them. They will be content to follow a famous strategic maxim attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte - "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake".
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