Critical, Not Cynical

There’s something else, too — an undercurrent of condescension. It sounds like this: Let us tell you where you’ve gone wrong, where your leaders have erred. Let us point out the systemic problems in your community. Let us broadcast to all you woefully blind people where you are failing.

In a way, that hurts more. Because we’re not blind to our issues. We know we have problems. We discuss, dissect, and debate them all the time — and even take steps toward solving them. But we also put them in a different context.

A very wise teacher of mine once said that what teenagers attack as “hypocrisy,” adults see as “inconsistency.” Hypocrisy is morally reprehensible, wholly inexcusable, and a reason to tar (and drop) an entire enterprise. Inconsistency, on the other hand, is painful, disturbing — and human. It’s something we all relate to and ultimately find a way to live with. Very few people can live up to their ideals at every moment of every day.

So what’s the dividing line between the outraged calls of hypocrisy in the public sphere, and the sometimes muted acknowledgment of inconsistency inside our own camp?