Hypocrisy and Power


Parableman has an excellent discussion about Civil Libertarians and Hypocrisy. Parableman, being the great teacher philosopher that he is, takes on the question of how Larry Flynt and other pornographers are philosophical about the morals of their free speech. I will not repeat his excellent post here but let you follow the link.

Recent discussions I had with some friends of mine help me see how the ideology of modernism only sees moral issues as issues of human will and desire. In this sense we are discussion morals as one would discuss a movie, a gourmet dish of food or a painting, it is merely likes and dislikes. However, if we see morality as actually have more substance to it, then we must apply that criteria to the issue of hypocrisy too. Parableman goes on to ask why Larry Flynt is so against hypocracy given how and what he thinks is moral. My guess is that accusations of hypocracy is sort of a trump card in many debates of morality. It is easy to play and easy to reuse. In the end, my guess is that it is a power issue, not an issue of truly evaluating someone's moral system that Mr. Flynt is concerned about. The reason Jesus attacked hypocrisy so harshly was not to throw the Pharisees out of power, but to bring them to repentance.

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