Would you say that hypocrisy is inherently wrong? Just wondering.

@Laserlawyer - 

Well, yes, I think it is-- although of course we're all guilty of it, knowingly or not. But I think we should try to expose it and remedy it where possible, in ourselves and others. What is your view?

@upsidedownkingdom - 

Generally, I would agree. However, I think when we talk about hypocrisy, we tend to just assume that the standards we fail to live up to are inherently good ones.

But what if the standards we subscribe to are inherently and demonstrably evil, and we are hypocrites for failing to live up (or down?) to them? In that case, our hypocrisy would actually be a morally righteous act. For instance, to take an extreme example (just to make the point) if I were a nazi sympathizer in Germany in WWII, but I decided to harbor Jews and keep them safe, I would be a hypocrite, but it would be a righteous hypocrisy.

@Laserlawyer - 

I'm not sure how Germans protecting Jews has anything to do with this discussion.

I believe that the whole human race is flawed. The Bible said millennia ago. "There is none that doeth good, no not one." Even when turning to God for His help and enablement to be completely honest and upright, I believe that He does not turn us into 'puppets' where our ever move and word is controlled totally by Him. God expects us to "work out (our) own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God Who works in (us) both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

If we have been growing in our personal 'walk with God,' over a period of time, I believe that when we find ourselves thrust into unexpected circumstances, we are more likely to behave in a way that is not hypocritical.

How about nations? Well, they depend for leadership on certain highly-respected members of
the national community. And we, the citizens have the responsibility of praying to God for them that they will make wise, informed decisions so that we may all live in peace and harmony!

Peace!
David

@upsidedownkingdom - 

I used that example to illustrate a problem that I often see when hypocrisy is viewed as being inherently wrong. The only thing that makes hypocrisy wrong is the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the standard that the hypocrite is violating. If I am the Marquis de Sade, or if I am Nietsche, then I subscribe to certain standards in which qualities such as human compassion are viewed as weaknesses to be avoided. If I then violate my own standards by demonstrating human kindness, then -- although I am a hypocrite -- my hypocrisy is not wrong. Quite to the contrary, my hypocrisy is righteous.

@Laserlawyer - 

Okay, but I still don't see what this has to do with the issue at hand. In this case, all sides claim to have "good" intentions, but in reality it's a complicated issue of petro-politics where no one's interests are what they claim.

@upsidedownkingdom - 

You said at the beginning: "Everyone involved was acting somewhat hypocritically." That's what got me started. It's not enough to create some equivalence of immorality by saying that all parties were acting hypocritically, and therefore conclude that they are all in the wrong. One has to go a step farther, and evaluate the espoused standards that each actor hypocritically violated.

Personally, I don't know enough of the details of what happened when Russia invaded Georgia. I couldn't say which nation was the aggressor, nor could I identify key flashpoints. So, I'm really not in a position to apply the discussion in any more detail to this situation. But I would be interested in your articulation of the values that Russia and Georgia each claim to be pursuing in this conflict so we can begin evaluating those values.

@Laserlawyer - 

I don't know everything about the conflict, but both sides claimed to be acting for the good: Georgia and its Western allies claimed that this was blatant Russian aggression against a smaller, democratic nation. This is problematic because, as the article shows, it was in fact Georgia that took the first military action, and as far as democracy goes, it is a fact that huge majorities in the two breakaway Georgian provinces want (and have always wanted) to be independent of Georgia. And Russia, for its part, claimed to be protecting the democratic interests of the people of these two provinces, which actually is a plausible claim, except that the Russians acted the exact same heavy-handed way against Chechnya when it tried to secede. Plus, we all know how "democratic" the Russians really are.

And neither side is willing to mention the elephant in the room: huge natural gas resources in the region, including an important pipeline to Western Europe that runs through Georgia. While I'm not claiming that either side did this "just for the gas", I also would argue that you can never ignore fossil fuels as a political motivator in that region of the world.

@upsidedownkingdom - 

It sounds like a dispute that hinges on the principles that were established by the Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the 30-years war in Europe. Those principles established a mutual recognition of the independent sovereignty of recognized nations in the international community. If the breakaway provinces in Georgia have not yet achieved the status of an independent and internationally-recognized nation (and they have not), then I would say that Georgia was probably within its rights to put down the internal rebellion, and Russia was probably trampling on Georgia's sovereignty by interfering.

As for the elephant in the room, I do not recall any exceptions in the Treaty of Westphalia that were set aside in the event that there are large deposits of natural gas to be had by trampling on another sovereign nation's territorial rights. That was obviously the kind of motivation that prompted nations to go to war for generations in the past, but Westphalia was supposed to draw a line in the sand to discourage that kind of expansionist warfare.

@Laserlawyer - 

OK, let me be clear. I'm not saying I support the breakaway provinces; but I would argue that the situation is far more ambiguous than the American politicians/media have made it out to be. See, these provinces are not uncontroversial parts of Georgia; they were sort of "taken" by Georgia in '91, and there have been large popular revolts against that ever since. So it's a far less clear-cut issue of sovereignty, especially when you consider that a large number of South Ossetians are Russian citizens. Please, don't set up a false dilemma where I'm pinned into a corner and made to seem like I'm defending Vladimir Putin, because I'm saying that no one's the "good guy" here.

You're taking exactly the opposite of my intended argument about the gas. Rather than justifying anyone's actions, what I'm saying is that this is mostly an issue of "our petro-interests vs. theirs". Russia and NATO both have interests in the fossil fuels of the region, which makes both sides' "humanitarian" claims ring hollow; after all, do you really think America would put soldiers in Georgia if it weren't for that?