We want to be people of principle, or at least aspire to be. What does that mean? It means our attitutde, behaviour, thought processes, choices, preferences etc. are guided by some kind of ideal. For example, my principle is to be a kind person. Even if the regular people I meet that I know will demand a lot from me in the best of time, I will remain a kind person to them. My ways of kindness might be limited, for example, they are constantly on the phone and I could not show kindness to them directly.
However, if I said I am a kind person, or want to be so, as a matter of principle, and then I could not maintain that whenever I meet my usual group of acquaintances, for example they will be more harsh to me if I was kinder to them than before, then my principle cracks. And if there is a pattern where my principle crumbles under such pressure, knowingly or otherwise, then it will be pretentious of me to say I am a person of principle: to be kind.
At a tangent to this, is some of feaudalistic elements where the notion of unequal give-and-take plays a big part in personal relationships. This is probably best described as people who tend to follow a leader; if the leader goes vegan, the followers do so. And two weeks later if the leader learns to speak Dutch and Chinese, the followers will do the same. Let’s say a year later the leader has returned from a trip to the Netherlands and China, no longer a vegan, and now starts to learn Mohawk (ceases learning Dutch and Chinese) as a way to get along with the community. The followers of this leader will also cease to be vegan and began learning Mohawk. A rather extreme example this is, but there are many communities around the world where this is the core essence of life, and some communities will exhibit a limited form of this.
Hypocrite, that’s what we label people who say one thing and do the complete opposite. There is more than that I think. There is a portion of our being to want to follow people, and this portion differs between individuals, and could change at different times. I am not sure what the “take home message” for you as readers, it could be that we should not worry that while we have some fundamental principle, we should not beat ourselves up when there are situations when we could not uphold those principle, when following a leader is an unavoidable but upright and ethical option. Conversely, we should not follow any leader blindly.
