Of hypocrisy and truth

We may all be the product of our upbringing, over and above what we as humans are naturally imbued with. Perhaps our natural faculties are much more subtle in the way we perceive "rights" and "wrongs" - to put it simply. The natural understanding of what is right and wrong may have more to do with personal safety, ability to resist, and laughter. The cultural influences that civilisation exerts on our thinking today through beliefs, communal interaction and trade, had built layers over the innate and natural knowledge we possess. So, we can accept the idea of some sort of primitive wisdom and that of a developed wisdom, but essentially all wisdom of any sort is based on the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another.

In Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 21, verses 28-31, there is a very brief parable given by Jesus which is easily overlooked because it does not have the usual poetic form. Instead, this parable seems to be an idiomatic argument to press a point. Here is the quote from the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB):

'What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He went and said to the first, "My boy, go and work in the vineyard today."

He answered, "I will not go," but afterwards thought better of it and went.

The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir," but did not go.

Which of the two did the father's will?' They said, 'The first.' Jesus said to them, 'In truth I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. Obviously, what we do and how we affect our community with our actions is how we will be judged somewhat. But the kernel of this parable is about understanding what is expected and asked of us, and choosing how we will react to that expectation. Those who understand what the expectation is and deliver are those who act in truth. And those who know what the expectation is and decide not to act accordingly, are plain hypocrites: that is, to say something and other another thing. There are leaders of all sort in human history who are hypocrites: emperors, judges, priests, generals, fathers and so forth. This free will to act in truth or hypocrisy is so real that it pervades all human behaviour and activity. Being brought up a certain way reinforces in us this notion of truth and hypocrisy. As a child, my parents will recount at home whom acted this way or that and these would be our own familial lessons with neighbours and people in the news as characters in the parable. Of course, as one grows up, you realise that a great deal of what is expected of us by friends, neighbours and family is often let down by disappointment caused by a refusal on our part to act according to those expectations. Some of those expectations  are built upon the personal benefits and selfishness of others, and we have a right to refuse to cooperate. Other times, the expectations are intended to hurt another person's dignity or possessions, and again, we are responding to a deeper well of expectations on the morally appropriate behaviour when we refuse to act to hurt another. At the deepest level of our conscience or thinking, we will have to anchor ourselves on where this moral ground is.  The abandonment of modern society of these classical ideals and virtues as a result of a renewed belief in the "splendour of Enlightenment in the 20th Century" has brought about the rise of "relativism". The consequence is that many of today's young people believe more in their own personal moral compass than that of a commonly held ideal. Oddly, atheism is a leading cause of this belief in the moral self, partly an off-shoot of the Protestant concept of self-revelation and interpretation, partly the development of Humanism in the post 17th Century Enlightenment framework, and the development of modern industry, which made class distinction more painful to the masses as cities grew as a result of bludgeoning trade and infrastructure. Many people have little trouble saying one thing and doing another. Consistency is no longer a virtue. We are expected to be nimble-minded, liberally inclusive and flexible in how we relate. This is both true and good, as well as terrible and sad. The reason why it can get so confusing is because of the context. There are times and ways nimbleness, flexibility and inclusiveness are beneficial, and in other occasions, these give rise to hypocrisy and unfairness. There was a time when the right thing to do meant what would bring about good. But in the minefield of relativism, what is "good" and to whom, simply depends.