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Proyecto Visión 21

Should we recognize the right to our own hypocrisy?

Francisco Miraval

We all agree that everybody has the right to his or her own opinions. It is also increasingly evident that everybody has the right to his or her own fact and that those facts may or may not agree with what others believe or accept. However, could it be possible that now everybody has the right to his or her own hypocrisy? It seems the answer is yes.

Last week, I received an email from a certain person who told me I forgot to send a report that was due the day before the email was sent. The message included a long list of commentaries about the need to meet all deadlines and to be a good team member.

I replied saying that the report was sent before the deadline. In fact, it was sent hours before the deadline. Of course, I did not receive any apologies. In fact, I did expect any apologies, and I did not want them.

However, I did receive another email, from a different person, asking me for a copy of a report I prepared and sent in February 2012. They asked me to resend that report because the person who sent me the previous email lost the report and, almost three months later, that person has not processed my report.

In other words, the same person who could not tolerate somebody who sends a report one day after the deadline (even when that was not the case) is the same person who lost a previous report and did not say anything for almost three months.

What, then, I should do with that long message telling me I should meet all my deadlines and I should remember I am part of a team? This experience taught me it is now acceptable and almost assumed that everybody has the right to his or her own hypocrisy.

In ancient times, somebody spoke about how easy is to see the speck on somebody else’s eyes at the same time that the same person fails to see the plank on his or her own eye. However, in our narcissistic society, that old saying that used to be an invitation to self-examination and it became a self-justification game where what “others” do is always wrong, while what “we” do is always acceptable, even if it is the same behavior.

It is obvious that hypocrisy can be found everywhere and in all levels of life, from those who talk about economic prosperity at the same time who cut funds for programs benefitting the most vulnerable people in our society to those who proclaim themselves to be followers of a certain behavior, only to the discover sooner or later that the preacher does not follows his or her preaching.  

In all honesty, there is always a level of hypocrisy inside us. For example, with amazing frequency we teach our children to avoid certain bad behaviors that we do not avoid.

Sometimes I wonder on which side of the asylum walls we live.

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