By Jerry Franklin
Jerry is a retired high-school Government teacher residing in San Diego County, California. A major goal of his teaching was "to install in students a special inner ear capable of detecting either nonsense or unsubstantiated claims.
Jerry is a retired high-school Government teacher residing in San Diego County, California. A major goal of his teaching was "to install in students a special inner ear capable of detecting either nonsense or unsubstantiated claims.
Ethics, Integrity, Self-Interest, and Hypocrisy
The chief support of American middle-class morality is, and always has been hypocrisy! To aver one thing and yet do the exact opposite is a proven characteristic within the social fabric of American life. It is as American as sour apple pie. We like to think of ourselves as good and decent folks and, as Winston Churchill pointed out, “In the long run the Americans will almost always do the right thing.” Still!
In private circumstance hypocrisy is generally punishable in one way or another. As a defensive option it is most often and effectively employed in the world of commerce and politics. In those arenas the substantive issue at question is twisted and distorted by so many voices that in the long run questions of deceit and fault are submerged in a contradictory river of verbiage. Eventually the party or parties injured become not ethical victims but rather merely names within a topical issue in an ocean of many others: an issue du jour, quickly lost to the next day’s headlines. When it comes to the behavior of politicos it is so common as to be hardly worthy of mention.
Polite society dictates that we never sully or denigrate social order with salacious details of our “private” lives. To do so would be to contradict the rules of the American middle-class ethic. We merely cite this behavior as either discretion or a matter of privacy. It is good that this is so, for without such an ethic social order would be somewhere between difficult and impossible. The old radio program, “The Shadow,” used to begin with the portent laden words “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”
Chico Marx having once been discovered flagrante delicto by his wife, turned to her and said “I wasn’t kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth.” Most are not as quick witted as he; nevertheless, we all manage to closet our indiscretions both petty and large. One is capable of lying both by omission and commission. “That’s fine, just don’t mention it” is the largely unspoken mantra for a successful social life in America.
The Grand Old Party is currently busy explaining why they intend to rush through the replacement nominee for the Supreme Court despite the passionate argument issued by them to justify their denial of a fair hearing for Merrick Garland during the waning months of the Obama Administration. With nary a flicker of guile in their voices and facing the waning weeks of the current Trump Administration the current GOP leadership argues that “We should quickly name a replacement in order to guarantee a full court.”
Like an old man slowly twisting his moustache while ogling a sweet young thing, they leer to the side and say, “Hypocrisy, us? . . . never!”
“We can, and so we shall” is the order of the day. Which is to say, we have the power and we will use it to serve our purpose. If EVER there was a better illustration of hypocrisy I cannot recall it!
In private circumstance hypocrisy is generally punishable in one way or another. As a defensive option it is most often and effectively employed in the world of commerce and politics. In those arenas the substantive issue at question is twisted and distorted by so many voices that in the long run questions of deceit and fault are submerged in a contradictory river of verbiage. Eventually the party or parties injured become not ethical victims but rather merely names within a topical issue in an ocean of many others: an issue du jour, quickly lost to the next day’s headlines. When it comes to the behavior of politicos it is so common as to be hardly worthy of mention.
Polite society dictates that we never sully or denigrate social order with salacious details of our “private” lives. To do so would be to contradict the rules of the American middle-class ethic. We merely cite this behavior as either discretion or a matter of privacy. It is good that this is so, for without such an ethic social order would be somewhere between difficult and impossible. The old radio program, “The Shadow,” used to begin with the portent laden words “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”
Chico Marx having once been discovered flagrante delicto by his wife, turned to her and said “I wasn’t kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth.” Most are not as quick witted as he; nevertheless, we all manage to closet our indiscretions both petty and large. One is capable of lying both by omission and commission. “That’s fine, just don’t mention it” is the largely unspoken mantra for a successful social life in America.
The Grand Old Party is currently busy explaining why they intend to rush through the replacement nominee for the Supreme Court despite the passionate argument issued by them to justify their denial of a fair hearing for Merrick Garland during the waning months of the Obama Administration. With nary a flicker of guile in their voices and facing the waning weeks of the current Trump Administration the current GOP leadership argues that “We should quickly name a replacement in order to guarantee a full court.”
Like an old man slowly twisting his moustache while ogling a sweet young thing, they leer to the side and say, “Hypocrisy, us? . . . never!”
“We can, and so we shall” is the order of the day. Which is to say, we have the power and we will use it to serve our purpose. If EVER there was a better illustration of hypocrisy I cannot recall it!
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