Hypocrisy

This article by David Runciman has an intriguing proposition: hypocrisy is not a bad thing for a politician:

Hypocrites, in constructing an electable persona for themselves, are clearly demonstrating that they understand their personal limitations. They recognize the need to adapt what they happen to believe to what is politically prudent. So it’s possible to see hypocrisy as evidence of politicians who will do what they say once in office because they set no special premium by their private preferences.

Our instinctive dislike of hypocrisy can get in the way of seeing what is really at stake when it comes to choosing a leader. Indeed, we might even make better decisions if we could realize that far from being a liability in a leader, hypocrisy is an essential part of democratic politics.

I agree with his argument to some extent, we’re all hypocrites to some degree so it shouldn’t disqualify anyone, but this part is unconvincing:

To understand why, we need to ask what exactly it is that we think we prefer to hypocrisy. If the contrast is with consistency – if we worry that hypocrites will turn out to be flip-floppers who won’t stick to any position once it ceases to be convenient – then we might ask what is so inherently desirable about consistency. Hypocrites tailor their public face to suit the needs of the moment, true. But at heart, that amounts to adaptability – a crucial trait in a political leader.

By contrast, politicians who set great store by personal consistency have to do one of two things, both of which may be worse. They can maintain their honesty by constantly changing what they actually believe to suit changing political requirements. A politician whose true beliefs shift so easily never needs to lie about them, but may be far less reliable than the hypocrite.

The other alternative is the leader whose beliefs are simple enough to run through everything they say. If we don’t want our politicians to change their minds, we have to ensure that their minds are uncluttered by anything that might force them to rethink. An uncluttered mind is occasionally an aid to clear thought and effective decision-making, but it would be naive to see it as the supreme qualification for leadership.

It leaves out fairly large classes of people: people who are consistent but are willing to compromise or follow the wishes of their constituency even if they don’t agree with it; people who are consistent but can change their mind;… . The problem I find in the definition used for hypocrisy and the way it is reported. If a politician wants to pass a bill, they might have to change it a bit to get more support and might have to support other bills that they wouldn’t others. That to my mind is not hypocrisy, it’s the way the world works–it’s compromise. When they run for office, their challengers will try to claim it’s hypocrisy but that doesn’t make it so, even if reporters pass it along.

The first thing to do is to more exactly say what hypocrisy is. To me, a person is a hypocrite if they say one thing and do another or push for a rule for most people but not apply it to their personal life. The first, to me, is worse for a politician. Let’s say a politician says they support reducing poverty, here are a few possibilities:

• the politician only votes for or writes bills that they think will reduce poverty
• the politician writes bills that they think will reduce poverty but is willing to change it a bit to get it passed and will also support bills for causes they don’t believe in to get it passed.
• the politician is the same as those in one of the first two, but does not personally give to charity.
• the politician does not write or vote for bills that they think will reduce poverty.

It seems that Runciman would call all but the first person a hypocrite, while I would not call the second a hypocrite either. I also don’t have a big problem with the third, they are a hypocrite but their bills can have a much bigger impact than their personal action. The last type is the problem. You can easily think of examples–Bush campaigns as someone who will act in a bipartisan way, but governs in a very partisan way (there are a lot, but I’m going to be lazy and stop there, if you don’t know any more you haven’t been paying attention). The reason that the charge of hypocrisy is so powerful is that we don’t know who will try to act on what they say.

Let’s look at Obama and health care as an example. He says he is for universal health care, but is against mandates. If he’s elected, here are some possibilities:

• he doesn’t push for universal or even expanded health care;
• he pushes for universal health care, but can’t get anything passed to move towards it;
• he pushes for universal health care but only can get a bill passed that includes mandates;
• he pushes for universal health care and gets a bill passed without a mandate.

The problem is that we have to guess which is most likely and so we look to his other actions–if we think he is a hypocrite in other areas, then we would be more likely to think he might be a hypocrite here. What we need to remember is that my second scenario is worse than the third if we want universal health care. We need to ignore the charge of hypocrisy for the third case, because politics (and pretty much everything in life) involves compromise.