I’m sure all of us, at some point, could legitimately be accused of hypocrisy. But when hypocrisy is on a grand scale right in our faces, it makes our own petty hypocrisies pale in comparison. And maybe it desensitizes us as a society, and teaches our children that hypocrisy is mainstream and acceptable.
I woke up this morning to online news and video sources flooded with the coronation in England. With all due respect to anyone who is British, I could not stop thinking what an obscene waste of money this ceremony represented. They actually put a crown on this guy’s head, as well as on the head of his wife. And this was not some nostalgic Renaissance Faire sort of thing. This was 2023, with people who represent a government in a country where there are children who are hungry and homeless.
Once I waded past the coronation coverage I read about this week’s mass shooting in America. The arc of these shootings is grotesquely familiar – on the day everyone is shocked, in the ensuing days everyone talks how terrible this tragedy was, about how the community is bravely banding together, and about what wonderful people the deceased were. Then it’s forgotten when the next week’s mass shooting occurs.
This rant is less about politics than about hypocrisy. If we are going to raise children who value the importance of standing in their own truth and taking responsibility for their own actions, we have to question a system where “leaders” are so overtly hypocritical. At least be consistent! Let the government in England come out with a statement that they value anachronistic pomp and circumstance more highly than feeding the hungry or housing the homeless. Let the government in America come out with a statement that they don’t actually care enough about the thousands and thousands of victims of gun crimes to stop troubled individuals access to weapons.
If we expect our children to learn to stand in truth, we need to demand the same of our goverments.
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