The Personal Harm in Putting Others Down (Morality Aside)

Admit it. It’s fun to feel like others are beneath us. For self-reassurance, sneering is just the ticket. We all do it. Even those who won’t gossip. They’re doing it in their heads, and if they say they aren’t, as though sneering is beneath them, well, there you have it.

There are only two ways to feel superior: Elevate yourself or demote others. Sneering down is uplifting, especially when we’ve hit a ceiling and can’t elevate ourselves higher. If you can’t get to the top, dissing others is the only other way to feel like you have. Besides, sometimes we’re right. Plenty of people deserve to be taken down a peg, though of course that could include us when we’re sneering.

Morality aside, sneering, gossiping, and casting aspersions come at some personal, practical costs. For one, every time we put someone down, we block our own options. It’s fun to say, “Eww, I’d never want to be like them!” But what if, later, we end up wanting to be like them?

Closing options is often why we’re doing it. We’re trying to deepen the groove we’re in, blocking exits out of it.

But what if our groove becomes a rut? What if we’ve sneered for years at some lifestyle that our heart ends up wanting? That happens a lot.

For example, when married I accumulated reasons why marriage was for winners and divorce was for losers. I told myself what I needed to hear to keep flowing in the current of my matrimonial groove. When we divorced, I had to swim upstream against that current of my own making. It took a while to not feel like a loser.

Then there’s saying “I’d never want to be like them” when you’re actually already like them. In other words, hypocrisy.

But morality aside, what are the personal, practical consequences of being a hypocrite? Well, there are a lot of positive consequences. You get to have your cake and sneer at it too.

They say crime doesn’t pay. Actually, it pays well if you can get away with it. The same goes for hypocrisy. Integrity is expensive, not walking your talk is cheap. Hypocrites, released from having to walk their talk, have a lot more freedom. In power struggles, they can gain the upper hand against people whose hands are tied by trying to maintain their integrity.

That’s why hypocrisy is so popular, and easy. Just say you have integrity and you can be as hypocritical as you want. Hypocrites are consistent only in their insistence that they’re consistent.

So of course, we all indulge in some hypocrisy, which raises the question: What distinguishes a hypocrite? My guess is that non-hypocrites treat their hypocrisy as a problem that they have to manage; hypocrites treat hypocrisy as the solution to all their problems.

But again, morality aside, why is hypocrisy a problem we have to manage? Obviously, it can damage your reputation. But not with like-minded hypocrites. Cult members enable each other’s hypocrisy and thrive on not walking their talk. Think Russia, China, North Korea, MAGA.

OK, so morality aside, really what does being a total hypocrite really cost you personally and practically? I’d say it’s the risk of a delusional death spiral.

Hypocrisy is so addictively fun because it frees you from self-doubt. Just dismantle your capacity to tell when you’re bullshitting yourself and you’re permanently safe and free. But that’s like flying blind.

Hypocrisy junkies retire their inner BS detector and let their inner weasels run wild. The gap between their walk and talk widens. They preach the loftiest superhuman standards and sneer at anyone who doesn’t meet them without ever trying to meet them ourselves. They blare our police sirens at others so loud it drowns out all awareness of our own behavior.

Meanwhile, reality continues to exist. It doesn’t hear or care about our talk but will whup the shit out of you if you if you defy it.

Hypocrites who pretend they can do no wrong do lots of wrong. The more wrong they do, the more they lean on hypocrisy as the solution to all their problems, which in turn frees them to make more mistakes, which in turn motivates more hypocrisy. That’s as deadly as a heroin addiction, which can be fun while it lasts but doesn’t last long.

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Now for the record, there have been plenty of hypocrisy junkies who lived long, satisfying lives. Pol Pot killed 2 million and died at 72. Stalin killed 9 million and died at 74. Morality aside, you could say their absolute hypocrisy paid off.

This is one of the paradoxes of morality and mortality: Death is the same whether you’re good or evil. If there were a God, heaven and hell would be the least he could do to make things equitable. Perhaps that’s why so many people believe in God.

But morality aside, more often than not, sneering and its side effect hypocrisy will cost you in the long run. To say nothing of how it ruins things for others. But then that’s about morality.

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