[MD] Hypocrisy and Belief (and Action)

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Ian (Khaled mentioned),

[Ian]
J'accuse Arlo - first degreee sarcasm, no less.

[Arlo]
Et j'avouee, Ian. Forty lashes and off with my head!

[Ian] 
But you make a great point.
Hypocrisy is my current buzzword (seemingly necessary hypocrisy in a
pragmatic organisational / institutional context, where complex
situations require dealing with)

[Arlo]
This word, "hyprocrisy", is my lexical arch-nemesis. Somewhere deep in my
cognitive core is a blindness to the letters in this word. While I have, at
times, struggled with "separate" (because it is colloquially pronounced
"sepERate") and interestingly "maintenance", which I have found myself warping
in various ways. At the least, I can point to this word, hypocrisy, having made
Oxford's list of Commonly Misspelled Words. Sigh.

Without being adequately versed with Brunsson's book (on Organizational
Hypocrisy), a quick review reminded me directly of Peirce's essay The Fixation
of Belief. To sum, for Peirce "doubt" is an irritable condition of the mind,
and one to which the mind seeks immediate relief. Among the ways proposed to
handle doubt, the two "quickest" (not Peirce's term) ways are "tenacity" and
"authority". On the episodic level of the specific doubt, this can create a
holistic dilemma whereby two distinct doubts are resolved in such a way as to
create an internal conflict (externally perceived as "hypocrisy"). The
individual can then add another layer of "tenacity" or "authority" in an
attempt to resolve the "meta-doubt" (again, this is my term extending Peirce a
bit). Peirce had, of course, felt that eventually, these conflicts would lead
the individual to resolve their doubts in such a way as to look for an relief
that would not only solve episodic doubt, but integrate holistically and
without conflict into the larger structure of belief.

Hypocrisy, then, is evidence of episodic doubt being handled in such a way as to
result in holistic inconsistency, and evidence that the individual has not
(yet, Peirce would add optimistically) sought doubt resolution via more
"superior" (his word) means ("a priori", which is still inferior to,
"scientific methodology"). A "post-Peirce Pirsigian perspective" (say THAT four
times fast) would suggest Peirce was operating in an SOMist perspective
(Peirce-spective?) and should be appropriately extended.

Peirce, too, felt that doubt was a powerful force and should NOT be seen as
irritable, but as the first step towards growth. Without "doubt", we do not
progress. As Data paraphrases Holmes in Star Trek, "The most elementary and
valued statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is 'I do not know.'"

Pirsig calls the inability, or perhaps desire to stay free of doubt, the
"gumption trap of value rigidity". In describing this, he presents a scenario
where doubt is positive, "Watch it the way you watch a line when fishing and
before long, as sure as you live, you’ll get a little nibble, a little fact
asking in a timid, humble way if you’re interested in it. That’s the way the
world keeps on happening. Be interested in it."

This segment, of course, leads right into the topic Khaled had proposed, namely
the monkey-caught-in-a-trap. You could say, oddly worded but correctly, that
the monkey is in a state of "hypocrisy". That is, two of its "beliefs" are in
internal conflict, one being the desire for food, and the other being the
desire for freedom. Externally, we see this as hypocrisy, internally it is the
result of the monkey fixing his beliefs in a way that has proven holistically
contentious.

We could say to the monkey, besides Pirsig's advice, "your holistic belief
structure is in conflict because you have fixed two beliefs via means that are
incompatible in the whole, and you have to make the choice to either
re-evaluate the manners in which you've resolved your beliefs, or you can add
another layer of tenacity (stubborn clinging to) your beliefs." One way would
free the monkey, the other leaves it ensnared. The same could be said,
metaphorically, about those who appear hypocritical. They have two choices. To
either seek holistic resonance, or remain ensnared by avoiding doubt via
tenacity and authority.

Some thoughts anyway.

Arlo