I think people are often too quick to charge others with hypocrisy; a lot of the "He said A here, but did B there" is explicable by some quite sensible distinctions between A and B. But I'm especially bugged by overconfident claims of hypocrisy -- "He said A, but I'm positive he would have done B there had the situation only happened." This is especially so when the claims name some particular person. If you're going to accuse someone of being a hypocrite, it seems to me that you ought to have pretty solid foundations for your accusation. Your guess as to how the person would have reacted in a hypothetical situation will only rarely qualify.
A concrete example: My post about the Halloweengate press release drew this comment:
By the way, I wonder how many people (ahem--Instapundit) would have taken the exact opposite stance on this issue if this had come out first.
A request for some clarification yielded this from the same commenter:
As we discussed in the prior thread, there is no obvious political valance or statement involved in this costume. So, I think what likely would have happened is that people who were looking for an excuse to bash an Ivy League university president would have become outraged at her taking offense and issuing a statement about it.
In fact, here was Instapundit's last line of his last update:
"I remain skeptical that a Klansman costume would be received in the same fashion, or that an Ivy League university President would be comfortable being photographed with someone wearing a Klan costume."
What I think we would have been reading instead is something like:
"I remain skeptical that a Fidel Castro costume would be received in the same fashion, or that an Ivy League university President would be uncomfortable being photographed with someone wearing a Castro costume."
OK, is there any real justification for assuming that Glenn Reynolds would have "taken the exact opposite stance on th[e] issue" if the press release had come out first, by "becom[ing] outraged at her taking offense and issuing a statement about it"? Is Reynolds noteworthy for thinking in other contexts that suicide bomber costumes are great, and that it's outrageous for university presidents to take offense at them? Is there any real support for the suggestion that Reynolds would have behaved this way?
And this isn't just this comment; I see it all the time, about what the ACLU or the Left or the Right or who knows who would surely have done in some hypothetical scenario. These people or groups are apparently so bad that we can accuse them of likely inconsistency even without their having actually done half of the internally inconsistent pair.
In rare circumstances, the targeted person is indeed so predictable that such a prediction is likely right. But my sense is that much of the time (including here) this just isn't so. The claims of hypothetical hypocrisy are based simply on the claimant's hostility to the target, rather than on any real evidence that the target would have indeed acted the way claimant alleges. It's basically argument by a presumption of bad faith -- not, in my view, the most enlightening form of discourse.
As AF pointed out, this is exactly the argument InstaPundit made himself.
Okay, so this has never happened to me, and seems to happen only on TV. But the situations seemed analogous to me. Or would have been analogous if the second situation had ever really happened.
Asking if the University President would have posed with a KKK costumed party-goer forces such a choice. A KKK costume would be horribly offensive to many, therefore, it would be wring for the Univerity President to give it her endorsement. It would be hypocritical, however, for the University President to refuse such a picture when she has already been photographed with a suicide bomber, something also offensive to many. The person making the argument does not care which she chooses. The University President is either a "hypotherical hypocrite" or a "hypothetical endorser of the KKK." Either one is wrong.
The argument breaks down like this.
A did X action. X action is similar to Y action. Y action is clearly morally or legally wrong. If A was presented with a choice either to do Y action or to refuse to do Y action A is either 1 - a hypocrite (refusal to do Y) or 2 - clearly morally or legally wrong (doing Y action). If being a hypocrite is a wrong in itself, A's original actionw as wrong because it created a scenario where any future decision by Y is to be wrong.
I am not saying I agree with the argument, but I think you missed its rhetorical value. The forecast of the University President's action is irrelevant to the argument.
You can be wrong in many ways -- for instance, you might wrongly believe Y is right; you might wrongly dispute the similarity of X with Y; you might have done X accidentally. None of that involves hypocrisy.
To validly making a claim of wrongness into a claim of hypocrisy means, you have to show "A was wrong by doing X because A chose X deliberately, A recognizes that X is relevantly similar to Y (or should recognize it because the similarity is obvious), and A recognizes that Y is wrong."
If you skip some of those steps, for instance if you have no evidence that A recognizes that Y is wrong (suppose the university president would have posed with anyone), or if A might think X is distinguishable from Y in some way, then the claim of hypocrisy is invalid, and you have to stick to your claim of mere wrongness.
By the way, I think you recognize this because you said A is either (1) a hypocrite or (2) clearly morally or legally wrong. So hypocrisy is only one of (at least) two possibilities. (Another one is, for instance, "arguably wrong," depending how clear-cut the similarity between X and Y is, or how deliberate her posing was.) I'd rather be called wrong than a hypocrite any day. So I do insist that people find the smoking gun before calling me, or someone else, a hypocrite.
In the case of Amy Guttman, I think her answer seems to be: "I didn't really pay attention to his costume. The moment I realized what it was, I refused to appear in any more pictures. So, no, I wouldn't knowingly pose with the Nazi."
Sounds like she avoided that Hobson's choice!
I thought the majority view there was that you can't trust Lutherans to do what Lutheran doctrine says they should do.
No kiddin'.
In many cases -- again, don't know about Professor Reynolds -- I can accurately predict how certain opinionated people will hypocritically embrace or ignore X because it doesn't suit them. Tim Blair makes his living doing this. I could, too, but I already have a job.
Good catch on Reynolds.
For Lutherans, the point was that Lutherans don't believe everything from Lutheran doctrine, and that's good. Perhaps the Lutherans at issue are just being inconsistent (you say you're Lutheran, but you don't believe this Lutheran thing) but that's O.K. Perhaps (this is my view) the Lutherans aren't even being inconsistent because it's a fallacy to assume that "being a Lutheran" is identical to "believing Lutheran doctrine."
In any case, the point was to defend Lutherans from the charge that they believe unsympathetic things from Lutheran doctrine.
But if something serious were riding on this in the other direction -- for instance, if someone was running for some high Lutheran theological office, where inconsistency with doctrine would be disqualifying -- then I would change my tune completely, and insist how it's totally unfair to presume that a particular Lutheran disbelieves some portion of the doctrine.
When people claim offense on supposedly politically-neutral grounds, but experience shows that the person's pattern of taking offense correlates more closely with politics than with the person's purported principle, I don't fault people for being cynical.
It could be that the political correlation is something of a coincidence (e.g. most suppression of speech on college campuses these days comes from the left, so someone who takes offense at this sort of thing may be honest and not just a knee-jerk righty), but I'm not too bothered by this presumption of bad faith.
Some people manage to disprove the presumption (e.g. many of the bloggers here, imo) through intelligent discourse, but let's face it, there are a lot of reactionary bloggers out there.
Whither the good faith?
A said X. But A is a hypocrite, because even though he says X, he sometimes does Not X. Therefore, X is wrong.
Whether someone is a hypocrite is purely a personal failing; it has no bearing on whether the position that person takes is right or wrong. This is obvious in the abstract, but when people get into discussion of specific issues, they often forget this. They act as if showing inconsistency is sufficient to discredit the position they happen to disagree with.
And it gets infinitely worse when the hypocrisy is hypothetical. "I guess that so-and-so wouldn't always uphold this principle; therefore, we know this principle is invalid."
Anyway, I more or less stand by my suggestion, although obviously I couldn't indict Instapundit for actual hypocrisy in this case. Indeed, hypocrisy was not my point--my point was that I do indeed think Instapundit was simply looking for an excuse to bash an Ivy League university president.
The primary basis I would cite is the back-and-forth between Instapundit and Professor Volokh on this issue, after which I concluded that Instapundit did not have a consistent underlying reason for objecting to this episode, and in which he ultimately just rested on his supposed intuitions about Ivy League university presidents. I also would note that I think this fits a general pattern with Instapundit.
And indeed, I suppose one could suggest I was treating Instapundit in the same "hostile" way Instapundit was treating Ivy League university presidents. But at least I grounded my opinion in what Instapundit actually said on this issue.
To summarize, again, I'm not accusing Instapundit of actual hypocrisy. Rather, I am accusing Instapundit of acting out of a desire to bash the Ivy League and its presidents.
This actually isn't a suggestion of hypocrisy, since I am attributing a consistent view to Instapundit (that Ivy League presidents are simply driven by liberal biases). Rather, it is a suggestion of triviality (that Instapundit's objection amounts to no more than a statement that Ivy League presidents are biased liberals).
Finally, I just wanted to post here Professor Volokh's request for clarification, so people can see to what I was responding:
"Chumund: If what had come out first? The press release? If you're saying that people would have been calmer had the President's denunciation come out first (not that I think any such denunciation is necessary), then of course that's true; but that's perfectly fine. Or are you saying something else? What stance are you alleging they would have taken if what had happened?"
So, I was trying to answer Professor Volokh's question in an informative way, although I gather in his view I should have refused to do so.
I think using a brightly-colored Supersoaker as his 'gun' might have changed the character of his suicide-jihadi costume some.
How many times do we have to observe Glenn Reynolds acting in bad faith before it's okay for us to presume it?
But to those of us who haven't seen the evidence, a presumption of good faith is proper. So if you use your own presumptions in a public argument, you need to document the past instances of bad faith if you want to convince us that you're not being unfair (or, better yet, if you want to convince us that you're right).
I honestly don't know what Glenn has done in the past -- I'm not a regular InstaPundit reader -- so you need to show me the money. Then we can judge whether this is true hypocrisy, or whether there are plausible distinctions that can be drawn, etc. This requires some research, which is why many people don't bother to do it, and why I then discount their views.
BTW, Pet Peeve #2. Ugly American. In Lederer's book he was the hero. He was kind, helpful and a credit to our country. But he was physically unattractive, hence ugly.
I've met two such people. My father and big sister voted for Gore in that race; both think Bush won fair and square.
"And what of people who prove someone is high-minded or wonderful by suggesting hypothetical good behavior?"
As it, "We should admire 'wonderful person X' because put in that condition of grinding poverty, they would never have stooped to a) prostitution b) taking a bribe c) theft or d) doing whatever bad thing 'horrible person Y' actually did."
In a sense that's true, but it doesn't make much difference. There are actually three possibilities, not two.
1) A doesn't recognize that Y (something obviously wrong) is wrong
2) A does recognize that Y is wrong, and A would be a hypocrite for supporting X and opposing Y
*or*
3) A does recognize that Y is wrong, and is ignorant of the similarity to X in such a way that excuses him from hypocrisy--but then opens him up to criticism for being unable to notice the similarity.
In all three cases, A is criticized.
Of course, maybe Sasha is speaking hypothetically, but he referred back to Professor Volokh, and Professor Volokh in turn referred to my comments. And as Sasha is also suggesting that the argument he has in mind reflects poorly on the person making the argument, I do think it is in my interest to explain, yet again, how Professor Volokh has miscontrued my argument.
I prefer these because we all do things that are arguably inconsistent sometimes. If it's pointed out to us, sometimes we change our ways because we recognize the inconsistency and recognize that it's bad; sometimes we recognize the inconsistency but live with it; sometimes we reject the claim of inconsistency because we can distinguish the cases. Inconsistency based on a mistake that we'd correct if pointed out is just an innocent mistake, not hypocrisy.
To me, hypocrisy is about motivations. If I truly believe that two cases are distinguishable and act accordingly, then it's wrong to call me hypocritical. At most, I'm wrong to distinguish two cases that are in fact similar. So there's no such thing as "objective hypocrisy."
A few minutes skimming through what turns up when you google for Glenn Reynolds wanker should give you a rough idea of Instapundit's MO. Of course, you might be inclined to discount the opinions of people who describe Reynolds as a wanker.