You Realize That This Means Culture War

In the wake of the 2016 election, we have come to see the rise of the alt-right. The alt-right is the answer to the question “What if the obnoxiousness of the liberals was combined with the blatant racism and conspiracy theories of right-wing radio hosts?” though a more concise way to see it is as one commentator put it, “fascism but with memes”.  I would say that’s the weirdest thing to come out of this year but this year has already brought Brexit causing a mini-global financial panic, a senseless violence conga from the West to the East and the most hated people America could offer being the nominees to run the nation into a second civil war, among so many other insane stories. Rest assured though, the alt-right is still in the Top 10, because it’s not exactly something that’s easy to talk about with sensible, normal people. It’s about as weird as explaining some sexual slang that Stephen Colbert uses to my mother. I mean we’re all adults here, but there’s just something so immature and bizarre about the whole thing. Much like the alt-right.

Like any modern political movement, the alt-right came about from the recesses of 4chan and Reddit, happily listening to Alex Jones grunt about globalists and sneering at progressives for being no-good cucks. At the time, there wasn’t much to be said – they just kind of seemed like disgruntled white dudes who wanted to use the privilege of anonymity to say terrible things. Then the election saw that Trump, a man who had a hatred of anyone who wasn’t white (yet had no problem with his own reflection) was not only winning, but he was being as politically incorrect and aggressive as all fuck. Thus, the alt-right came out of their basements and goose-stepped out on the streets to rally behind the man who would bring about the promise of a greater America.

Once the nomination was a lock for Trump, the alt-right could happily dance on a fractured GOP as they laughed uproariously at Sanders supporters who either sighed deeply and went with her or want to see what a lame-brain libertarian or consistently-losing green could offer them. The left pretty much wasn’t left much to retort – no matter how many times they shouted Donald Drumpf, it didn’t stop the incessant cuck-calling. They were free to spam their intolerant, nationalistic garbage around the internet, filling the media up with so much bile that Ann Coulter could come out of the ooze and plug her new book The Liberals Are A Bunch Of Fucking Cunts.

The alt-right found itself a powerful ally in Milo Yiannopoulos, an only-gay-because-I-hate-women-so-much media commentator, who fought the good fight for Gamergate despite making it very clear he fucking hates those fat virgin loser gamers. Milo knows that the way to get people to listen is to be outrageous as possible. Saying that you want to be straight as a gay guy might not be all that shocking, but saying that you want to be straight to become more oppressed? That’s gonna draw the eye…and a ton of laughs, but nevermind that– they won’t laugh for long. He turned the whole ridiculing spectacle from the left-leaning entertainers and the flamboyancy of the LGBTQ community into tools for the alt-right to use and abuse, ensuring that they would get significant attention for their batshit crazy thoughts and for their incessant spamming of the death of one particular gorilla who I’m so fucking sick of hearing about.

The alt-right has a significant amount of footing in place and they’re not as different as their more measured folks in the same political wing. Both after all agree that Obama and Hilary are a mistake, Islam is a threat to the West, and that the illegal immigrant issue needs some serious reform. The only difference is that the alt-right will call you a shill and a cuck if you disagree with them. They’re far more intense about their beliefs and they don’t fuck around despite how much of a joke I may make them out to believe. They’re a strong virus from the partisan plague that has continued to fester in the US, with this year being the moment that it turned into a complete epidemic. After all, it’s not like nationalism or insane right-wing politicians are only a US thing.

It’s a shame that we’ve gotten to this point where moderates, compromise and nuance are as absent as the headphone jack on an iPhone 7. But I suppose it’s hard to expect unity in the US unless we get horribly attacked. Even then, good luck trying to get us united. It’s not to say that the alt-right is the sole culprit of the division or even one of the greater pushers. Sure, they’re a radical bunch who’d happily tweet out KKK quotes under the handle of AryanWhitePower1488, but the Tea Party hasn’t helped in bridging that divide. The deadlocked congress hasn’t helped. Real Time With Bill Maher or The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight or really any political comedy show hasn’t really helped. But the alt-right certainly has shown that we’ve taken our division to another level.

I guess I can’t exactly pretend like I don’t have my own passionate political biases. Anytime I hear someone praising Hugo Chavez, I restrain myself from wanting to choke someone to death. Politics are always going to end up stirring enough emotion among people to get them to hate long-time friends or family members. And certainly this year is going to bring that divorce rate up higher than the number of emails that Hilary has deleted. Even when the election ends, there’s going to be a whole lot of anger about who wins and people will still be at each other’s throats. There seems to be no grey in the black and white world that has been created. Certainly the alt-right sees itself on the white side and will do it’s best to maintain this simplified world along with the smug left. I hope that things aren’t as grim and divisive as they seem. But if not, at the very least I hope they stop saying cuck so damn much.

Types of hypocrisy

“The hypocrisy about hypocrisy is that it’s only hypocrisy when you’re not the hypocrite” - Anonymous

Hypocrisy! We’re all guilty of it. Whether we’re having a fun time with friends or trying to conduct ourselves as professionally as possible, we all seem to have fallen into that all-too-human error of acting in contradiction to ourselves. It’s something that we chastise others for doing but try to justify when we do it. Hypocrisy is what makes the follies of man all the more interesting. It’s what keeps the world both rotten to its core and functioning effectively. But hypocrisy is not some simple phenomenon. In fact, there’s a variety of ways to express hypocrisy. That’s where this comes in.

Mind-game hypocrisy

Mind-game hypocrisy is hypocrisy that focuses on the hypocrite using quite a twisted set of logic that leaves their audience in a daze over their hypocrisy. It’s a hypocrisy that mostly finds its way in politics because it thrives on misleading and confusing people and lord knows that's all politics is about.

Flip-flop: Perhaps the most well-known form of mind-game hypocrisy, flip-flopping focuses on switching sides on a position very often. It makes it seem as though the hypocrite really has no true opinion on a matter since flip-flopping tends to be seen as a reaction to shifts in environment. It could be the case that they are in the process of informing themselves on a subject but never are able to properly plant themselves on a side. So when they’re asked about it on multiple occasions, they’ve found themselves swayed by different information each time, leading to a different conclusion. It may also be a reaction of peer pressure that stops them from standing firm on their opinion in certain places.

Rick is running to be mayor of the city. When asked about the issues with infrastructure, Rick says that he will fix it by putting private companies to take care of it. However, when he goes to districts where union-workers live, he says that he will only let the unions handle the infrastructure issue. But realizing that he’s angered private companies, he then says that he’ll allow for both of them to work on certain projects. With both sides pressing him as well as non-union workers, Rick tries to gravitate more to them, despite not really having much of an interest in the infrastructure issue itself.

Doublethink: Doublethink comes from the George Orwell classic 1984. In it, he describes doublethink as simultaneously holding two beliefs that contradict each other as being true without being torn by cognitive dissonance. Now, while it can be argued that doublethink is not exactly hypocrisy (since hypocrisy is more on the contradiction of actions or statements rather than accepting the contradiction), it certainly is a tool of the hypocrite since it does rely on a false appearance. For doublethink serves to paint the acceptance of a contradiction not as a fault but as a positive.

Jane is an advertising executive for a soda company. She makes the point that the soda is the best thing in existence one day, never drinking the soda at all on that day. The next, she remarks to a client that the soda is the worst tasting thing ever, having already downed twelve bottles of it. Each day her claim will be inversely proportional to how many sodas she’s had, but she is equally as confident in saying either statement despite this.

Mystery-box hypocrisy: This form of hypocrisy is somewhat similar to flip-flopping in that there is a lot of sides that are switched around. But where as flip-flopping tries to create a semblance of a belief being cemented to mask the lack of an actual opinion, mystery-box hypocrisy makes it clear that there is some belief that actually exists but it’s unclear to the audience which one is the true belief and which one is the contradiction.

George is a stockbroker whose talking to his friends about how the market is doing. In one conversation, his friend is asking if he should try to push for any stocks in mining companies. He advises against it saying that those stocks are always risky. A week or so later, another friend asks George about stocks in mining companies and he says that he should go for it as they’re very stable and safe. George himself keeps very hush-hush about his stocks, so neither friend is sure of what his actual stance on stocks are. 

Preferential hypocrisy

Preferential hypocrisy is hypocrisy which hinges on preference playing a factor into it. It’s the sort of hypocrisy that can be boiled down to “well if X does it, it’s wrong, but if Y does it, it’s a-okay!”

Dismissive hypocrisy: This is when a hypocrite makes the point that their act of hypocrisy is not that big of a deal because the matter itself was not something that they were incredibly passionate about. It tries to minimize the damage of the hypocrisy by making it seem as though there wasn’t much damage or effect on the act itself.

Jake asks his friend Sandra to set him up with a date with Marissa. Sandra says okay and brings it up to Marissa. Marissa says to Sandra that she’d never date Jake because she’d never date a guy who doesn’t know how to cook. Later on she dates Neil, whom Sandra is friends with. Sandra knows that Neil doesn’t know how to cook and confronts Marissa about her claim. Marissa scoffs at her comment and says that she wasn’t being serious about it.

Contextual icing: The contextual icing is when a hypocrite makes the point of adding a detail to the situation that attempts to justify the hypocrisy. This one is particularly tricky because there are instances where context does have a significant factor in changing a situation, thus rendering the claim that such a belief is hypocritical to be moot. What makes the context a contextual icing is when it is a very minimal factor that gives the illusion that there is more to the situation. Much like how a cake with a thin layer of icing is not much different than an identical one without it since it can be removed with just a pass of a finger over it.

The police arrest two individuals that were charged with the same crime. The first individual gets the standard ten-year sentence while the second one gets a lighter sentence of five months. When a reporter asks the judge why the second one was given a lighter sentence, the chief responds that the second individual was a woman and thus did not deserve such a harsh sentence.

My-Way-Or-The-Highway hypocrisy: You know the saying “my way or the highway”? This hypocrisy is all about that! It’s similar to contextual icing in which the optics are made to seem like the hypocrisy is not actually so. But the difference is that My-Way-Or-The-Highway hypocrisy emphasizes that the hypocrite is only for or against their belief if everything is to their specifications. Furthermore, to make it hypocrisy, they’ve yet to establish those parameters to their viewpoint until it comes true for them.

Bob says that there should be a third party to shake up the politics in his country. When Dave informs him that the Green Party, a third party has managed to get in the national debate and is polling in double digits, Bob pouts saying that he only meant if the third party was the Libertarian Party, had a charismatic Hispanic female leading the helm and had at least 5% control of the parliament in their country.

Self-serving hypocrisy

Self-serving hypocrisy is an odd term because technically all hypocrisy has some form of self-service. What makes this hypocrisy specifically self-serving though is that it particularly focuses on the interests and emotions of the hypocrite. It’s one that puts them at the center of the act.

Sellout hypocrisy: When a hypocrite is essentially letting their core beliefs be replaced by a force that overpowers them. Most of the time it may be due to money, but sellout hypocrisy can be more from pressure to be with an individual to a group. It is essentially a sharp turn from one belief to another simply to receive some reward for it.

An anti-consumerist band gets bought out by a major corporation and begins to appear in person in multiple advertisements because they really need the money.

Disgusting reflection hypocrisy: When a hypocrite has less empathy over others on an action that they themselves would do. It essentially stems from the hypocrite looking upon another person doing something they do and reacting negatively to it seeing how that is reflected. Yet rather than use that reaction to change themselves or accept that everyone faces that same emotional change, they’d much knock others down so as if to say that they have no reason to act the way they do.

Dan feels sad that no one wants to hang around with him at school. He sees a classmate of his that feels the same way and rather than ask him to play a game with him, tells him to suck up it and be more happy.

High-and-mighty hypocrisy: When the hypocrite believes their act of hypocrisy is justified because they have superior ability (or because they can afford to be hypocritical since it’s them that’s committing the act, not someone else).

Paulina runs a store. She learns from the news that employees from another store are complaining about not getting their minimum wage raised. She sides with the employees, saying that the minimum wage should be raised for them. When an employee brings up that she hasn’t raised the minimum wage for them, she rolls her eyes and says that she doesn’t have to do that because she provides far more for her employees than the other store.

Cowardly bully hypocrisy: The cowardly bully likes to push others around and tell them that they have to be a certain manner. But the cowardly bully doesn’t really act the same when their in the same situation as their counterparts. This can also be seen as the boss conundrum as the example below will demonstrate:

Neil and Zack meet together to discuss how work is going. Neil tells Zack that he wants to ask his boss for a raise but is too afraid to do so. Zack responds by constantly telling Neil that he needs to “man up” and go ahead and ask for that raise. Neil keeps chickening out and Zack keeps mocking him for his lack of initiative for it. Meanwhile, Zack too wants to ask his boss for a raise but is too afraid to do so. Yet he insists that Neil is pathetic for not being able to ask his boss for a raise.