And it seems pervasive in other forms of media as well. Movies today are full of unhappy endings–good people die, nice couples get divorced, and so on. And when good people don’t die we go along with it, but we consider it a “hollywood ending,” something that is completely removed from reality.

Of course, we did just get through the olympics, and watching the spectacle by the Chinese does make one consider to what extent our incessant slaughter of fairy tales is related to our freedom and our history of cultivating this view. I wonder what the Chinese thought when they found out the little girl was lip-syncing? Were they more shocked than we were? (Cause we weren’t). I know, I know, they probably didn’t find out.

But we did, and it reminds me of another quote by the Joker–the other Joker–in a different movie, when he uttered those now classic lines “You can’t handle the truth!” Lines that are now commonly quoted in jest–because it turns out we can handle the truth just fine.

P.S. –How cool was it when Jimmy Page entered the bird’s nest and they belted out Whole Lotta Love to signal the transition of olympic attention from Beijing to London? I’ll take that over 8000 years of culture anyday.

Also, Greg, I can’t help reading your commentary and the discussion with Brian and thinking about the current election. I am with Brian that it does at least appear that there is an important mass of people who completley understand the hypocracy needed to govern for exactly what it is. Modern television shows like the Daily Show and Colbert are the direct result of this knowledge — behind their sarcasm is the implicit statement, “man, no one really BELIEVES this junk, do they?”

This is also showing in the presidential election. There was a piece during the primary season in the Atlantic or somewhere (I don’t remember for certain) arguing that a McCain vs Obama election would be the first post-modern election in history because both candidates get the fact that they are being hypocrits when necessary and don’t mind letting you know that they get it. This is actually one of the reasons that the modern press liked McCain so much during his primary bids (though their love has dissapated now now for obvious reasons) — they loved the fact that he would joke with them about how ridiculous the process was and how he didn’t believe half of what he had to say. Obama’s selection of Biden and the reaction of some in the press seems to underline this as well. Only a couple months ago Biden stood right next to Obama on a stage and said that he was just not yet ready to be Commander in Chief, and now he is going to run around making the exact opposite case. From watching cable news over the weekend, it appears that the explicit case that the Dems are making about this is “well, everyone knows that you say certain things in primaries”, and this has become the line in the media. That is, we were supposed to know at the time not to believe what anyone actually says in the primaries. Clearly, this has always been true — but it isn’t so clear to me that it was always not only directly acknowledged that it took place but that it was something that everyone knew about.

Jay: You’re right that both I and the Straussians would say that it’s sometimes OK to hide the truth for the greater good. The difference is in what we concieve to be the greater good! As William F. Buckley once remarked, it’s wrong to draw an equivalence between a man who shoves a little old lady out of the path of a runaway bus and a man who shoves a little old lady into the path of a runaway bus, on grounds that both of them like to push little old ladies around.

And of course you’re right that employing hypocrisy when necessary to preserve the community is dangerous. That’s just another way of saying that power corrupts. But when Lord Acton noted that power corrupts, he was not thereby endorsing anarchy. Power corrupts, but we need it. Thankfully, Madison devised a system that tends to limit the corrosive effects of hypocrisy the same way it limits all the other corrosive effects of political power.

Oh, and for the record, my distinction is not between hypocrisy by “leaders” versus “low level” hypocrisy (presumably meaning hypocrisy by the common man). That is precisely the aspect of Straussianism I reject. My distinction is between hypocrisy that serves the subordination of candor to the preservation of the species, as opposed to hypocrisy that subordinates both those and all other good ends to some private end (such as my desire to feel, and to appear, morally good when I am not in fact morally good).

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

I’ll try to return to my original point now, because it seems like we have developed the notion of these two distinct types of hypocrisy. What I was trying to suggest when I brought this up is that I do not think this hypocrisy is so hidden. Animal Farm comes to mind. There are the pigs, and their hypocrisy is that they say that four legs are good and two are bad, while they secretly walk on two legs. And then we have the sheep, who, to make this analogy work, truly believe that two legs are bad but (and this is my addition) might actually resort to walkiing on two legs if a dire enough situation arose–thus their hypocrisy is in not living up to the principles they claim. I am arguing that in truth, the sheep are like the pigs. They know on some level that societal civility and order relies on a certain amount of mutual assurance and deception. Sure the sheep say “four legs good, two legs baaaad,” but do they really mean it? Or is it a touch of willful doublethink for the greater good? In the end, maybe the sheep aren’t different from the pigs because they truly believe in the four-leg principle, but because the sheep have a little more tolerance for walking on four legs. But they will join the pigs if and when it becomes necessary…and they know it.

Also, Greg, I am no expert on Straussians, but I’m not sure I clearly see the difference (and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing). You are saying that leaders can hide the truth from people as long as it is to promote good. I’m sure the Straussians would think the same of the deceptions they would endorse.

Of course, this is the problem with saying that low level hypocrisy is deplorable while hypocrisy by leaders may be necessary. The human failings that create the former make the selective use of the latter unreliable. Leaders are also human and are liable to fool themselves ino thinking that their high level hypocrisy is for the greater good even when it isn’t.

Also, I just wanted to say that the whole ferry scene still seems wrong to me. It’s completely inconceivable, especially in the context of this movie, that 600 ordinary citizens and 600 crooks, combined, couldn’t turn a key to save themselves. Why they chose to stick a happy ending on that one, when the entire rest of the movie mocks the concept, I have no idea.

Brian: There are two phenomena here that we can keep distinct, which my way of expressing things has not kept distinct. One is the hypocrisy (conscious and unconscious) that we all use to paint ourselves as better than we are. The other is the strategic use of untruths by some (my college friend, Batman) to avoid causing a social cataclysm by disturbing that “original” hypocrisy on the social level. What I’m suggesting is that type one is bad, but type two need not be (provided it’s done in the right way for the right reason).

Let me hasten to add (since this question has only just now occurred to me) that I don’t think this view is the same thing as Straussianism, since the Straussians would grant to themselves, a special elite class, permission to lie to outsiders in order to gain special protection for themselves and their own cherished activity; my point is that all people, simply as people, ought to rank the preservation of humanity higher than candor when the two purposes conflict.

I suppose it is a hypocrisy either way, but it seems there are two ways this hypocrisy can play out. In one case, people are hapless sheep believing in a false world view. When the joker comes along to yank off the emperor’s clothes, all hell breaks loose.

In the other case, the hypocrisy is willful and internally acknowledged–the way your lawyer friend, or Gotham’s politicians view the world. Sure, its a sham, but it makes the trains run. But to me, this isn’t really a hypocrisy. It’s willful and acknowledged. It’s a strategy.

I think most people might fall into that second category. Of course I could be falsely projecting my own view, and the views of most of the people I encounter, onto society at large. But honestly, I think people might deserve a little more credit than the joker–or Batman, or Dent, give them. A good parody of the movie could have the joker’s reveal of human nature met with yawns and ‘duhs’ while eliciting a few laughs in the process.

Or maybe not. But then what? Are most people duped most of the time? What is the breakdown of those that live with the acknowledgement of the hypocrisy and those that are ignorant of it?

“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

This really seems appropriate in regards to the Kant quote, and therefore the movie parallel, as the quote seems one of the virtues (justice) has run wild and could lead to harm entirely because it is taken in a vacuum, independent of the rest of virtue.