I, as a part of the human race,
am prone to hypocrisy. I criticize the meat industry, yet I am often guilty
partaker in the joys of eating fast food when it is offered to me. I proclaim
the benefits of aerobic exercise, but I despise running. I preach the benefits
of starting papers early to allow time for revision, but I am writing this
opinion piece the day before it is due. I complain about not having free time,
and then proceed to spend six hours making danishes. Hypocrisy is an ever
present thistle in our individual lives, and it is even more exemplified in the
larger purview of humanity. Groups, religions, and cultures all contain
features in which the values and the actions are inconsistent. We cannot view
of culture through black-and-white lens, either all good or all evil, because
such a lens allows us to defend and dismiss the negative aspects of our own
culture.
Across a wide range of different
regions in the world, many cultural practices defy the values held by that same
culture. Homosexuality is traditionally viewed as sinful by
practicers of the Muslim faith. In the conservative Islam world, punishments for openly
practicing homosexuality are very severe. Saudi Arabia and Iran have even
instituted the death penalty for anyone who is proven guilty of sodomy. Yet, “gay life flourishes” in Saudi Arabia, the only
country in the Middle East to claim the Islamic law as its sole legal code. It
is much more culturally acceptable for two men to meet alone, than a man and
women who are unmarried to one another. Yassar, a twenty-six year old gay
artist who lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, explains, “It’s a lot easier to
be gay than straight here. If you go out with a girl, people will start to ask
her questions. But if I have a date upstairs and my family is downstairs, they
won’t even come up.” In trying to prevent premarital relations, the culture
effectively condones same-sex relations, a much more severe offense.
Many priests within the Roman
Catholic Church similarly fail to practice their teaching of purity within the
clergy. Only celibate, unmarried men can be appointed to priesthood within the
Catholic Church. This policy leaves little room for the natural sex drive
present in humans, which was created by God according to the religion. Hundreds
of Catholic priests have been accused of committing sexual abuse on children,
especially young altar boys, in the past few years. The problem is so widespread within the
Church that the New York Times even has a page dedicated to sex scandals within the Church. The
combination of the limited transparency and the priests’ unfettered
access to the boys in one-on-one sernerios has proved rampant breeding ground
for abuse, and the Church has done little to change its current policies. By
attempting to allow priests to “more easily
remain close to Christ with an undivided heart”
through celibacy, the Catholic Church has excused the unaccepted behavior of
priests towards children, and scarred many victims for life.
Even in non-religious cultures,
there is deviation between what is preached and what is practised. The United
States may have once been dominated by Christianity, but American society is
becoming more and more secular. Where homosexuality was once a
crime in almost every state, it is now widely accepted and celebrated. Many Americans no longer attend Church
every Sunday, instead sleeping longer or going on trips. However, the topic of
sex is still taboo in our culture. The word is whispered, rather than discussed
maturely, as if it were a point of shame not a healthy, natural process. Yet,
the numbers show that the subject is not far from the minds of the American
public. Every second, there are more than 28,000
users watching pornography, generating more than $3 million from internet pornography views.
As a result, there are more than 200,000 Americans addicted to porn, and 40
million regular porn viewers. The porn industry is extremely detrimental to
families. Forty percent of people addicted to pornography lose their spouses.
Even more shockingly, “Pornography use increases the marital infidelity rate by
more than 300%.” The list goes on, but the consensus between these statistics
is that porn is harmful to society, and even if we can’t talk about it, America
has a sex problem.
We must recognize these
hypocrisies in the world around us. Failing to do so lends the danger of simply
dismissing an immoral action because it is “part of a culture” or just “who
they are.” As we need to held personally responsible for our actions so that we
can be constantly improving, we need to hold cultures responsible for their
actions. It’s almost always easier to accept and ignore imperfections, but it
almost never yields better results. No one is perfect, and because cultures are
comprised of people, no culture is perfect. Once we are ready to acknowledge
this fact, we can begin to judge even imperfections by a more fair and
understanding lens.
