Krugman on Hypocrisy

Here is a blog entry by Paul Krugman that nails the difference between conservatives and liberals. Since I find hypocrisy outrageous, I guess that nails me as a liberal:

I think Joe Conason gets this wrong:

If they looked honestly at themselves, religious conservatives might notice that they are morally lax, socially permissive and casually tolerant of moral deviancy — just like the liberals they despise.

Yes, conservatives sin just as much as liberals. But they aren’t “socially permissive and casually tolerant” — at least not in the same way that liberals are.

First of all, there’s a difference in what bothers them. When a liberal politician engages in sexual betrayal, what bothers his erstwhile supporters is the betrayal. When a conservative politician does it, what bothers the supporters is the sex.

And after watching a series of scandals unfold, I’ve come to the conclusion that the liberal reaction — that the hypocrisy of the moralizers undermines their cause — just doesn’t come to grips with the conservative worldview.

From their point of view the cause, the need to police what people do in bed, is, by definition, right, because it’s literally God-given. So the fact that some of those trying to police what other people do in bed are themselves doing nasty things does not reflect on the cause itself — on the contrary, it shows just how necessary more bed-snooping is.

It’s also notable that conservatives are, in practice, more forgiving of their politicians’ sins than liberals. John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer ended their political careers; Ensign and Vitter are still in the Senate, and Newt Gingrich is out there on the Sunday shows, speaking for the GOP. Why? Because where liberals see gross hypocrisy, conservatives see men doing the Lord’s work — which partially excuses their own failings. Liberals think that a man who has an affair is worse if he preaches moral values; conservatives think he’s better. You might say that as they see it, if he interferes with what enough other people do in bed, it doesn’t matter what he does himself.

So left is left and right is right, and never the twain shall meet.

I had a relative who was a preacher, so I got a close-up perspective on who some people use religion to get what they want (money & sex) from others who buy a story (i.e. religion). As an adolescent I found I could easily fall under the sway of this character because he had very good dramatic skills, knew enough scripture by heart to be impressive, and was very clever about psychologically manipulating people. This taught me a valuable lesson: religion can be a tool used by some to control or extract resources out of other people.