Monday 9 June 2008

The Fallacy of Hypocrisy

Fuck it. No, seriously. While I won't name names, I've gotta rant here about a girl in my class.
I fucking hate hypocrisy. I think that it's the vice of mankind. The problem is, we're all guilty of being hypocrites at one time or another, regardless of who we are. Some people take it to extremes though.
The worst part is that the girl in particular chose to represent our class at the student body this year, therefore she assumes that this gives her the authority to criticize anyone for any reason at all. She's also repeated the year, so she assumes this gives her the right to tell us how to go about studying etcetera.
Anyways, we're in a class of about twenty people. As you could expect from a bunch of kids in their late teens, we talk in class, chat to each other and generally make a small cacophany which occasionally annoys the teachers. This girl takes it upon herself to tell people to shut up and pay attention to the teacher. Then what does she do? She starts talking to her friend next to her.
In history class the other day, we were studying the 2nd World War, and the teacher asked a few questions. My friend Florian doesn't have a great history grade, but he decided to try and answer the question, and to his credit he got it right! We all gave an encouraging thumbs-up to him, but behind me what did I chance to hear? "Putain, il fait chier!" To save the time of putting all that through Google, it basically means "damn, that's not fair!", because the girl in question (let's call her C) tried shouting out the answer instead of putting her hand up. Flo answered several other questions to the same reply from C. I mean, Jesus, shouldn't she be encouraging him? it's great that he's making progress in class.
Friday in maths, our teacher asked us if we had any questions on what we had studied over the year. I was bored so I jokingly asked 'yeah, what's two plus two?'. It got a few laughs, but C shouted out "Don't be such a fucking moron!". Stupid bitch.

It angers me, because all she does is criticize people. I think being able to take a 3rd person view and look outside yourself and see your faults is an important virtue, because it means you recognize you're not perfect. Remember, it's always easier to criticize others.
Of course, having written this rant, I do admit I'm a hypocrite. Here I am going on about criticizing people, when that's pretty much all I do on this blog. Lol. I guess it's hard to live up to the standards you set for other people. Having said that, at least I am able to recognize that I have faults. Think about that.

So my message for today? Worry about what other people think of you. I generally try to bend over backwards to please people, because I want them to like me. Maybe this makes me weak, but I'd rather people liked me instead of thinking I was an asshole.

1 comment:

Mr B The Tech Teacher said...

If you want to react without hipocracy look at it this way: rather than criticizing her behaviour think about why she acts that way and what you can do to best help / encourage her to grow as a person.
Easier said than done, but if you manage you truly are the better person, a shining example for her to learn from.

If you do manage, please tell me how!

~Shiv