Longing for Hypocrisy

martin luther king

“Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays virtue. “ Indeed.

Take for instance the outpouring of rhetorical grief after George Floyd’s brutal murder.  Leaders of companies of all sizes instructed their social media teams to send messages of solidarity, lamentation, and hope too– via the usual channels.  Some even pledged money to help “lift” communities that had been disadvantaged.  Others decided to ask their employees of color to lead the charge, suggesting that it is their voices that were most important at that moment.  Discerning people knew that rhetoric trumps reality, but, still, the small window it opened allowed some fresh air into the stale room. 

With Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s birthday coming up, those of us who live our lives on cringe-alert would normally wait for the gratuitous references to MLK’s greatness and the mindless repetition of the “I Have a Dream Speech.”  Again, discerning people know that this particular speech- by no means his most powerful or radical- is misused more often that not and conveys, at best, an anodyne emotion that any “Liberal” can agree with, even as they defy on a daily most of what MLK stood for.  But to see him honored still feels good.

In India, the same is true of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of modern India.  He is under attack today, with elements of the party in power even celebrating his brutal assassination.  Though, even before the BJP took power, Gandhi’s legacy was honored more rhetorically than in reality, it felt good to see him and Nehru being remembered and honored.  After all, if repetition, even hypocritical repetition, can help soften a polity and make it just a bit kinder, then so be it.  I’ll take hypocrisy. If mere repetition can remind us of the amazing people who sacrificed for -in this case Independence- then so be it.  I’ll take hypocrisy. 

That is, I’ll take hypocrisy over open, celebratory venality.  Any day.

Consider the much-maligned area of DEI.  Though I was never a fan of most DEI rhetoric or programs, I concede that for the most part the intentions were good and that they helped stave off the basest assertions of racism, sexism, and discrimination while they lasted.  Now, the gestalt of the times calls for not only the dismantling of DEI but for outright repudiation.  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has chosen this MAGA-moment to get on the Joe Rogan podcast and suggest that DEI “neutered” corporate culture and that we ought to welcome a “masculine energy,” back into corporate America.  Somehow, working hard to avoid racist language removed our sexual organs, according to this Master of the Universe.  Certainly, the rhetorical focus on DEI was largely hypocritical (did DEI really give us any structural change or question capitalism or inequality?) but to the extent that it provided an oppositional framework to the most venal expressions of discrimination, it was welcome.  Zuckerberg, incidentally, is not alone amongst his oligarchic peers. 

The Right suggests that DEI and wokeness were all-encompassing, almost religious philosophies that determined all outcomes.  DEI, in their capacious formulation, can destroy bridges, burn down major cities, and drop planes out of the air.  How can such an ingrained religion be dropped like a hot potato so quickly?  Perhaps because none of its powerful rhetorical votaries ever believed in it?


Now, unburdened by the need for hypocrisy, they can release their own Kraken- their antisocial and racists/sexist/classist essences.  So, with MLK Jr.’s birthday coming up, cringe-watching will likely give way to something either scarier or more insidious.  Scarier would be an outright rejection of his creed and more insidious would be silence.   Either way, I long for a time of hypocrisy.

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Romi Mahajan

Romi Mahajan is an Author, Marketer, Investor, and Activist

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