Early last year a friend pointed out a way in which I was being a hypocrite. I agreed with her. The conversation led me to a self exploration process that helped me uncover a treasure trove of additional hypocrisies that I had previously unintentionally ignored because they were painful and challenging to reconcile. (I’m working on writing about that whole conversation and experience and will post here when it’s ready)

Painful because I often experience hypocrisy, in-congruence, and contradiction as a felt sense within my body.

When I am out of integrity with what I say are my values, it is like nails on a chalkboard in the background (I’m good at ignoring it though, and I think many of us are), and when I perceive hypocrisy in another person or group, I feel it as well.

Over the past year I’ve been able to identify those areas in my own life and bring awareness to them.

Meanwhile, now that I became more aware of the hypocrisy sensation in my body, I started to notice the glaring hypocrisies in “the field” much more.

What is hypocrisy?

Hypocrisy is being out of integrity with one’s word. Hypocrisy is contradiction. Hypocrisy is falseness. Hypocrisy is lying.

But here’s what really grinds my gears: When a person or group engages in hypocrisy (feigning to be what one is not through contradictory behavior or belief) and uses the particular belief or behavior to signal to others that they are virtuous (and therefore superior to others).

I have lots of compassion for virtue signalers and hypocrites, because it seems to me that often, they are so deeply indoctrinated that they don’t even realize the irony of their hypocrisy. I have humility around my own contradictions and generally feel ready to correct my ways in service of truth, and deeper sense of integrity for myself.

Here are some great recent examples of hypocrisy:

• A liberal who bitched and moaned about Trump becoming president as a result of alleged foreign election interference in the 2016 election, but looks the other way in 2021 when Biden is on the way to inauguration as a result of alleged foreign election interference and massive fraud.
• Anyone who voted for Biden knowing he is an alleged sexual assailant after condemning Trump for being a sexual assailant.
• Anyone who claimed to stand against mass incarceration but cheers for Harris despite her horrible record of making the problem of mass incarceration much, much worse as AG in California.
• A “punk rocker” who thinks the government is going to save her with m@sk mandates and shutting down her business, and blames other people for “not following the rules” enough for the government to open the economy again because if people would “just follow the rules,” this would all be over. Painfully ironic.
• A woman who advocates for a women’s right to body autonomy when it comes to abortion, but shames people who advocate for everyone’s birth right to body autonomy when it comes to personal medical decisions and v@k seens.
• A conservative who advocates for everyone’s right to body autonomy when it comes to personal medical decisions and v@k seens but condemns those who advocate for a women’s right to body autonomy when it comes to abortion.
• People who claim they are for “science” and “trust the experts” but clearly have done zero personal research, don’t realize that the “experts” are billionaires and/or are profiting off of a trillion dollar industry, and don’t understand how public relations works or that the media is owned by six corporations.
• People who claim to be “part of the resistance” yet agree with the mainstream media, mainstream academia, mainstream corporations, and mainstream hollyweird.
• People who preach about “inclusion” but dehumanize and demonize people who don’t have the same opinions as them.
• People who want their sexual and specific gender identity known but lobby to take away any gendered identity terms such as “mother, father,” etc,. Also, those who lobby to erase a woman’s experience by using the term “womxn” and claiming that “men can give birth.”
• Groups preaching about non-binary gender identity, and although not the same thing, the apparent inability of those same groups to consider non-binary *perspectives* (multiple perspectives or truths).
• People calling to “defund the police” who then go and call the police when they’re in trouble.
• Those who called for destruction of local businesses and communities via looting, not considering how it would give more power and marketshare to corporate capitalist entities those same groups claim to despise.
• Those who say not wearing a mask is “ableist,” without considering those who are deaf, autistic, have anxiety, panic attacks, rape survivors, have PTSD, or something else (those who are harassed every time they go out without a mask with a medical exemption).
• Those who support liberal protests but condemn conservatives when they protest.-Women’s teachers who are complicit with abuse of women.
• Liberals calling for “healing” post election after a year of shaming, campaigning for righteous justice through assumptive cancel/callout culture, and burning down their cities instead of taking the time to be curious, ask questions, and understand.
• Self proclaimed “psychics”, shamans, seers, who don’t acknowledge that the veils of illusion in this realm are thinning.

As you can see, I could go on and on.

Why does it matter?

My concern is: you can’t stand for anything when you contradict yourself. This is a major block to “living in alignment” and being in integrity. From a political perspective, it is a major block for activists and world-changers, which is compounded by echo-chambers, bandwagons and group-think of social media.

And it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault: social media is constructed to reward polarity and moral outrage, and to create echo chambers which further divide and pit us against one another so that we can’t even *see* that we are being hypocrites…because everyone else is on our same bandwagon! Thus we have an incentive to argue, condemn + be angry.

*****This is constructed to disempower us.*****

Are you able to consider or explore an opinion different from yours with respect, tolerance, and curiosity? Do you default to moral outrage or think people who have a different perspective from you are evil?

If social media conditions us to be easily triggered into intolerance, arguments, anger + upset, are we even able to discern the truth?

Some claim there is a spread of misinformation, and at the same time Big Tech is on a mission to censor particular groups and voices. Is censorship ok? Are we unable to do our own research and discern our own information? Must Big Tech do it for us? Is is possible that righteous, virtuous liberals could be misinformed? Is it possible that there are some groups that financially profit when we are fearful, confused, or misinformed?

Is it possible for anyone to be free by hurting, shaming, or silencing others? Is it ok or effective to throw away + punish people? Is this not the “language of the oppressor” that liberals so often condemn?

One way to overwrite the big tech programming of censorship, group think, and disempowerment is: I invite you to access your curiousity and intentionally join conversations with people who think differently than you. I think that this will lead to empowerment, alternatives, independent thinking, innovative solutions, community care, and unconditional love.