Everyone’s a Hypocrite

A few weeks ago, Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton publicly announced that he was going vegan. The reasons he gave for this were threefold – his personal health concerns as he ages, a love of animals and his desire to prevent cruelty towards them, and to avoid damaging the planet. But it was the latter alone that was widely reported and ridiculed in the days that followed.

While a wish to save the Earth might sound silly coming from a man who has made a career and a fortune out of pumping copious amounts of harmful gases into the atmosphere, it’s no more ludicrous than paying to offset our carbon footprint when booking a flight, which a lot of us will have done without question or fear of derision. It made me wonder how many of the people who mocked him are well informed enough to know that the global meat industry actually causes more pollution than all of our driving and flying emissions combined, and I also wondered what they as individuals are actively doing to remedy the situation.

Personally, I don’t believe that the perceived piousness of Lewis Hamilton cancels out his good intentions, and I think he deserves credit for the fact that at least he’s taking some action towards making positive change and upholding his principles. I’m pretty sure that the smug journalists who delighted in pointing out his double standards have at some point in their lives contradicted themselves, and that the virtuous existing vegans who questioned his worthiness of the title don’t live perfectly moral and ethical lives, yet both camps and a lot of people in between felt it was their place to climb onto their high horses, making them instantly guilty of exactly the same crime they accused him of. Because the sad fact is, everyone is a hypocrite.

I absolutely include myself in this – I’m a vegetarian who consumes copious amounts of milk and cheese, even though I know the dairy industry is every bit as cruel and harmful to the environment as the meat industry is. I’m an environmentalist who drives and flies all over the world, and doesn’t always recycle. I’m against human exploitation, yet I buy products from companies I know support this. I could go on and on, and if you honestly think about and research your own lifestyle choices, you’ll find you’re exactly the same.

We’re all so quick to point out hypocrisy in others, particularly politicians and the rich and famous, but ignore it in ourselves. How dare Westminster praise the firefighters and NHS staff who dealt with the Grenfell Tower disaster and then vote against their fair pay weeks later? Who are multi-millionaire, tax-dodging pop stars to tell us, the relative poor, to give aid to those in extreme poverty? How can the religious, who will go to war and kill millions for their gods, then proclaim to be pro-life when it comes to abortion?

Sadly, they’re all symptoms of the inconsistency of human nature, and of living in a fast-paced, out-of-control modern world of convenience that makes it difficult for anyone to stick to their beliefs or even truly be able to choose how they live. Even more sadly, it breeds and raises people who are all talk and no action, who profess to want change, preach about it a great deal and sit in the comfort of their homes ‘raising awareness’ of things that everybody already knows about but chooses to ignore. Nobody wants to be the one to make the huge efforts it would take to bring it. It’s astounding that people then still have the nerve to criticise those who do their bit to try.

The fact is, the modern world makes it impossible to uphold standards and ideals. Walking or riding a bike everywhere is harder and more time-consuming than driving, and makes it difficult to transport people or things where we need them to be. It’s much easier and nicer to travel long distances by plane than to spend weeks at sea, to pick ready-made food and clothing off a shelf, and be selfish with our hard-earned money, and buy everything in our homes from corporate mass-producers. We don’t want to give those things up and make life difficult for ourselves again, and we couldn’t keep up with the rest of the world if we did. Ironically, it’s also often more expensive to attempt to live an ethical, sustainable life, and those who attempt it can be the biggest hypocrites of all. I know people who make very honourable efforts to produce their own food and cause minimum environmental impact and waste, and yet their choice to live in remote areas requires them to drive gas-guzzling 4x4s to get around. They want to live outside of our broken, unprincipled society, yet still demand healthcare when sick, and help from the emergency services when in danger.

Taken to extremes, and even if it’s only through the governments and companies we fund, we are all, on some level, consumers and supporters of exploitation, destruction, cruelty, even murder. Therefore any efforts that anyone makes to live by their opposing principles in the face of this puts them at risk of hypocrisy, and equally anyone who judges a hypocrite for being one is throwing heavy bricks around the inside of a very fragile glass bubble.

While hypocrisy is judged as abhorrent, it is almost unavoidable. It’s inevitable that our views will change as we advance through life, and it’s often people’s worst mistakes that teach them their greatest lessons. Just as ex-smokers, or doctors who smoke themselves are often the loudest advocates of non-smoking, and those who have suffered and recovered from mental illness or addiction often go into counselling others with the same problems, sometimes it’s those experiences that ultimately justify the person’s beliefs, better them, and benefit those around them, and surely they’re the ones with the most right to talk about the issues involved. Preaching about something you have no real understanding or experience of is like a child insisting they dislike vegetables they’ve never actually tasted. It’s every bit as hypocritical as parents who eat and enjoy sweets but then tell their children not to do the same because they’re bad for them. Betraying principles and changing or challenging beliefs as life progresses doesn’t make people’s arguments for the greater good invalid, but often strengthens them. We’re told not to listen to hypocrites, but if we didn’t, we’d never progress or learn anything. 

The fact that we’re all hypocrites doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do better, or be commended for doing so. We should rather use it as fuel for positive change. I’m a great believer that even if we can’t live purely or in total alignment with our values, that we should still always strive to do what we can. A small difference is still a difference, and if everyone made little, achievable changes to their lives, it would have a huge impact overall. While we are only human, and may never hope to adhere completely to our ideals, I think it’s important to uphold what is possible within the confines of our lives. It’s surely healthier than ignoring them completely. So I would encourage everyone to find their own truth and live by that, just don’t impose it on everyone else or worry about their opinions of yours.

Maybe the best we can do is to acknowledge that we are hypocrites, but at least we’re doing what we can, and that’s what’s important; and maybe hypocrisy only becomes hypocrisy when we start to become self-righteous and judge others, so that’s what should be avoided. When unsolicited judgement comes my way, I remind myself that it would happen whatever I do, and I’d much rather be seen as a hypocrite doing their best than a sanctimonious preacher who ignores their own flaws, or an apathetic shirker with no principles whatsoever. And there I go, judging people for judging people. Everyone’s a hypocrite, after all. 

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