Word: leftist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...exactly something to strive for. Socrates railed against his hypocritical interlocutors, exposing their logical inconsistencies and urging them to strive for a “harmonious soul,” one in which ideology and actions are one. And yet, while Socrates would undoubtedly be critical of leftist hypocrites, he would abhor consistent conservatives. After all, Socrates’ greatest legacy was his ability to question, not only himself, but the norms of his society. What leftists do is question status quos, dream of something better and envision solutions; they challenge their own behaviors in hopes of changing society. Meanwhile...
...this point, you might be questioning my apologist tone. After all, plenty of people own iPods, and plenty of people love gadgets. Well, I’m apologizing because I am a leftist, because I believe in redistribution of wealth, because I am philosophically opposed to hedonism at the expense of those who are hungry. And yet, I still buy gadgets, I still have a cool, small cell phone and I still eat at Darwin’s and High Rise for lunch. Everyone who knows me thinks I am a hypocrite. And I most certainly am. In fact, every...
While it’s not something to be proud of, hypocrisy is an inherent tendency in all idealists; no leftist perfectly matches his behavior with his ideals. But all leftists struggle. Martin Luther King, Jr.—who fought publicly for equal rights while privately engaging in acts of adultery (he was said to have been having an affair at the Memphis hotel the night before he was shot)—once said, “There is a civil war going on within all of us… each of us is two selves...the great...
There are only two ways to avoid liberal hypocrisy altogether. The first way is to eschew all sensory pleasures, dress in rags, and eat saltines every night for dinner. The leftist ascetic who sacrifices everything for his beliefs in social justice is undefeated in the many battles of the civil war of the self; he is the ultimate champion of the higher self. The second route to total consistency is to avoid the civil war altogether. The draft-dodgers (of the civil war of the self, that is) who have no qualms about climbing the corporate ladder and buying multi...
...this war: to follow through on our ideals more often than we abandon them with our actions. Realistically, I’m not asking anyone to pawn their iPods tomorrow to help fund Head Start (which, alas, thanks to Dubya, is well on its way to extinction). Every leftist needs to find his own balance between self-gratification and altruism, but generally, the world needs more of the latter and less of the former...