Notes on the last post

Just a thought: I feel some people may think that I come across as a little self-righteous in the last post. As far as my thoughts on proclaimed liberals who use cocaine go, I submit that that's impossible. However, one could argue that I am a hypocrite just by my very existence as a citizen of and consumer in the United States. This is not entirely unfair as I'm sure all of us are indirectly responsible for some, if not many, deaths simply because we live in this country. The most important part of Blood Diamond is, I think, when Leonardo DiCaprio's character tells Jennifer Connelly's that despite her motives and intentions, she is also complicit in the violence simply because she writes for a magazine in which the diamond industry advertises. One of the goals of this blog is to figure out how we can avoid such traps (as well as hopefully discover other hypocrisies or inconsistencies I'm guilty of). But while the connection between buying a ring and someone's death is usually difficult to make or understand, the connection between using cocaine and the terror that has gripped Mexico is not.

Hypocrisy and the Real World

If you really want to insult my character, call me a hypocrite. It is, I believe, one of the worst charges that can be levied against someone. And I'm not taking about the "Do as I say, not as I do" variety of hypocrisy. Though lighting up a cigarette while telling someone smoking is bad is in fact stupid, there's something approaching noble about being able to publicly acknowledge your own faults while trying to prevent others from copying them.

Needing to find focus for this post, I turned to Merriam-Webster for some help. I was surprised to find that these gents provided me with not one but two definitions for hypocrite. One is what I think is usually invoked by the term: "a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings." The other is, I believe, much worse: "a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion." For the sake of this post, I consider this definition an extension of the first. Both involve actions that contradict a professed idea, (how else could the 'appearance' be 'false') but the second distinguishes from a "belief" - which could be as trifling as some old proverb someone is fond of repeating - and "virtue or religion": a way of life, or an entire system of beliefs. The first definition is fleeting and limited: a person is a hypocrite about something; whereas the second is a permanent indictment: a person is a hypocrite.

So where am I going with this? Actually, it's taken me three days to figure it out. I think I'm going to talk about two examples of hypocrisy: the first will be uncharacteristically specific; the second will be of the usual general persuasion.

Something that's bothered me a lot lately (it came up again recently in a conversation with a friend) is the pervasive abuse of cocaine at Dartmouth and likely many other residential learning institutions (last month's massive drug raid at San Diego State University, anyone?) Here's the thing: thousands of murders each year are directly related to the trafficking of cocaine from South and Central America to the United States. An entire town in Mexico has been turned into a literal war zone and been held hostage by trafficking-related violence in recent months. All of this means that depending on their location and the length of their supply chain, cocaine users are inevitably and invariably separated no more than a few degrees from someone's murder. That's not to mention their complicity in contributing to the fear that has gripped many of Mexico's innocents, like those in Villa Ahumada, a small town just 85 miles south of the US border.

Cocaine users are more than just associates to murder. The fact that many of them consider themselves politically and socially liberal makes them hypocrites. They'll rail for universal health care and an end to the war in Iraq (presumably because innocent people are needlessly dying), but not give a damn that their habit is turning Mexico into 1980's Colombia. This contradiction shows their projected liberal persona to be nothing but a "false appearance of virtue or religion." They are selfish and weak, and their overwhelming feelings of entitlement and complacency with their own hypocrisy are frankly sickening. I am increasingly saddened and frustrated that I share an alma mater with many of them. I would honestly rather someone profess to not give a damn about people and have a coke habit than claim - often with ostentatious gestures - to care, then turn around and put the figurative ashes of a Mexican law enforcement officer up his nose.

Part II of this post tomorrow.

An aside

After being up at Dartmouth this past weekend for Commencement I find it appropriate to thank my French host mom from last winter, Miki, for giving me a copy of Le Petit Prince. It's always a help in times like these: J'y gagne, dit le renard, à cause de la couleur du blé.

The Little Prince, by the way, may just be the most appropriate book for this blog. If it were any way possible, I would make it required reading for the entire world.