
The End of Hypocrisy - markmassie
http://cryptome.org/2013/10/end-hypocrisy-with-leaks.htm
======
eevilspock
In our society many of us subconsciously or sometimes consciously turn down
the volume of our own conscience, because we'd rather not come face to face
with our hypocrisy, our complicity with banal and not so banal evil [1],
because we don't want to give up the benefits. In the Internet tech community,
its ultimate manifestation is how we pretend we do not earn our livelihoods
from advertising, something most of us deep down know to be evil [2].

[1] The Banality of Systemic Evil,
[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-
banality...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-banality-of-
systemic-evil/)

[2] No free lunch, no free web,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624666)

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
> In the Internet tech community, it's ultimate manifestation is how we
> pretend we do not earn our livelihoods from advertising, something most of
> us deep down know to be evil [2].

Thank you for calling out this one. I've been harshly criticized in the past
for pointing out Google, which is beloved amongst geeks, is ultimately an
advertising machine, and the reason they push many positive/geeky initiatives
is because they have total consciousness of that ("Don't be Evil") and don't
want to lose their talent pool.

------
diego_moita
> most U.S. politicians do not recognize just how two-faced their country is.

> Hypocrisy is central to Washington’s soft power -- its ability to get other
> countries

> to accept the legitimacy of its actions -- yet few Americans appreciate its
> role.

> Liberals tend to believe that other countries cooperate with the United
> States because

> American ideals are attractive and the U.S.-led international system is
> fair. Realists

> may be more cynical, yet if they think about Washington’s hypocrisy at all,
> they

> consider it irrelevant.

This is just astonishingly brilliant. It is exactly the perception of the rest
of the world but I never saw it so bluntly articulated in the American media.

~~~
notahacker
I'm not sure about that. The claim that [insert political force here] is able
to claim legitimacy only through hypocrisy is one of the oldest in politics,
and the article does little to sustain the questionable assertion that most US
politicians don't recognize the power game they're playing.

It also misses the obvious corollary: other countries' hypocrisy is key to
their willingness to accept US soft power when it generally aligns with their
interests. (And yes, they're being just as hypocritical when they do
_selectively_ draw attention to America's hypocrisy) The article's claims that
pre-Snowden "Chinese officials, although well aware that the Americans were
acting hypocritically, avoided calling them out directly" are easily falsified
by a quick search of Xinhua
[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-01/24/c_131...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-01/24/c_13148512.htm)
[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-04/10/c_138...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-04/10/c_13822179.htm)

There's nothing remotely novel about other countries' willingness to assert
that the US is hypocritical (particularly when on the defensive) and nothing
to suggest they won't continue to maintain the relationship despite the "shock
revelations" of the last few years, which, if anything, are rather less
surprising and compelling than the "shock revelations" of the generations
before. If half a century of coup d'etats sponsored by American spooks can't
dent the prestige of America's push for "global democracy", it's hardly going
to be dented by hard evidence that American spooks also _spy_.

Just because Snowden woke up some of those so uninterested in politics they
find claims of US hypocrisy novel doesn't mean the rest of the world was
asleep.

~~~
platz
'The claim that [insert political force here] is able to claim legitimacy only
through hypocrisy is one of the oldest in politics,' and it sounds like
something from Noam Chomsky's playbook too.

------
rayiner
> That’s because most of the world today lives within an order that the United
> States built, one that is both underwritten by U.S. power and legitimated by
> liberal ideas. American commitments to the rule of law, democracy, and free
> trade are embedded in the multilateral institutions that the country helped
> establish after World War II, including the World Bank, the International
> Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and later the World Trade Organization.

Gee, all of this sounds pretty good! But as the author acknowledges, this is
all "underwritten by U.S. power." I couldn't have put it better myself. If the
cost of maintaining that power is some hypocrisy, then I say: there is nothing
wrong with hypocrisy.

The article reaches the core issue but has trouble grappling with it. Would
any other approach be better than the one the U.S. is currently taking? Would
it be beneficial to the developing nations of the world for the U.S. to
abdicate its hegemony, leaving a power vacuum for Russia or China? Or would it
instead be better for the U.S. to stop with the hipocrisy, and be clear about
its naked intentions to maintain its power? Would the existing multilateral
order survive that revelation? Or is the current, if hypocritical, state of
affairs the best: for the U.S. to foster the current international order while
acting behind the scenes to maintain the power that "underwrites" that order?

~~~
betterunix
"Would it be beneficial to the developing nations of the world for the U.S. to
abdicate its hegemony, leaving a power vacuum for Russia or China?"

The US is not limiting itself to keeping Russia and China in check, and that
is the problem. Hardly anyone would claim that the US should abandon Taiwan to
its fate. Yet at the same time, why is the US military being used to expand
the reach of US businesses? Why are we in the business of support cruel
dictators, and even overthrowing democratic governments in favor of
dictatorships? Why continue the embargo on Cuba? Why do we ignore the UN when
it suits us, then use the fact that a country ignores the UN as a pretense to
attack it?

~~~
tptacek
The answer is that we shouldn't be doing these things, but that the 50 years
that have elapsed since the peak of the Cold War, in which both the Soviets
and the US had influential voices espousing _preemptive nuclear strikes_ , is
in world-historical context the blink of an eye, and it's going to take time
and effort for us to shake off the strategies and positioning we (often
foolishly) adopted to win that war.

Except for the UN thing. While I agree that the UN is used (on all sides) as a
fig leaf, we haven't waited for countries to disobey the UN as an excuse to
attack them, but rather used the UN fig leaf as part of a justification for
wars that had already been decided on. In the case of Iraq II, that was a
grave mistake on our part, but the mistake has little to do with respect for
the UN. The UN is simultaneously important and undeserving of much respect.

------
jfmercer
I wish HN contributors were more careful with their link titles. The actual
article title, "End Hypocrisy with Leaks," is altogether different, and
inestimably more reasonable, than the absurdly titled "The End of Hypocrisy."

~~~
jrajav
"The End of Hypocrisy" is the actual title of the article, as you can see a
few lines down in the linked post and wherever it is published elsewhere:
[http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140155/henry-
farrell-...](http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140155/henry-farrell-and-
martha-finnemore/the-end-of-hypocrisy)

"End Hypocrisy with Leaks" is in fact the editorial title of this Cryptome
site.

~~~
001sky
The FA Title is (actually):

The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks

You can't discount the context of the subheading in a written/paper published
title. IMHO. I don't think this is pedantic, as the linked article made it fit
(which is why HN guidelines say you should try not to editorialize).

------
firstOrder
I think there is another element in this and that is a form of self-deception.
Obviously the US establishment tries to put a good propaganda face of some of
its seamier actions. It can, and I think does, reach the point where there
becomes too great a cognitive dissonance, and people begin to fool themselves
and their own intellectual community with their own lies.

For example - is the US for or against Islamic extremism? Is it for or against
a more secular society in the Middle East and Muslim countries? Most people
here, or college-educated NPR or Fox News listeners I know think it is against
it, and that the US wants to promote a more secular, moderate form of Islam
around the world, as do allies like Israel. The problem is that all evidence
over the preceding decades is against this. The US and England threw out the
secular, democratic Mossadegh in Iran in the 1950s, and then the CIA helped
the Shah's Savak jail or kill off anyone in the country supporting a return to
a secular democracy. Almost unbelievable nowadays, Israel supported, including
financially, the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah against what it saw as the more
existential threats of the PFLP and the PLO.

What has the US been doing in the past few years? Supporting the most
theocratic countries such as Saudi Arabia, where as it has been in the news
lately, there are crackdowns on women who want to drive cars. The remains of
the secular, pan-Arabist, Nasserite parties have been what the US has attacked
in recent years - Iraq and Libya. Obama recently made the call for more
intervention in the secular, Nasserite government of Syria and , surprisingly,
some mainstream opinion noted he would in some fashion be supporting Al-Qaeda
- which is true. Which is yet another case - the US supported the overthrow of
the secular, socialist Afghanistan in order to put into power the mujahideen
forces which later became Al Qaeda.

All of the historical evidence, from World War II until recent months shows
the US opposes secular governments in these countries and supports Islamic
fundamentalists and radicals. Yet for some reason, not only does US propaganda
say the opposite, not only do Fox News watching blue collar Americans believe
this, even NPR or Fox News listening college educated Americans believe this.
College-educated Arabs know what the truth is, but somehow the reality hasn't
penetrated the US.

Usually propaganda is just shading the truth, but for the Arab world, the news
just openly lies. I watch talking head shows where they still say that
Ahmadinejad said "Israel should be wiped off the map". I've heard this
repeated for years over and over and over. It's just not true, a look at his
remarks in Persian said he absolutely, certainly never said the word map, and
even the rest of the translation is somewhat shaded. It's too good a lie to be
bothered going into that, so this lie, which is now widely known to be a lie,
is still endlessly repeated on in the US news media.

~~~
camus2
First i want to make clear when i say USA i'm talking about US government and
US politicians, not it's people or the US "nation".

> is the US for or against Islamic extremism?

USA is neither for or against something , USA has interests. If islamic
extremists could be manipulated easily , they would be USA's best friends. The
truth is they use to be,during the cold war. USA "won" the cold war in
Afghanistan by helping the Mujahideen. USA used to back Saddam Hussein , heck
, USA used to sell weapons to Iran too. USA has no problem with dictatorships
as long as it serves US interests(south america). And it still supports the
Saudi regime , which is not very democratic to say the least.

The issue is , you cant act that way abroad and not damage things at home on
the long run. That's happening now, all these NSA programs would have been
shut down (officialy) if they were exposed 30 years ago. Now most politicians
think it's for USA's own good.

IMHO Ben Laden and his crazy folks, won their war against USA somehow. They
did not weaken USA with the attack, USA did weaken itself with its response,
and exposed itself as hypocrite and not exceptional.

9/11 should have made core US principles stronger , it weakened them. Remember
after 9/11 99% of the nations on the earth were behind USA, even most middle
eastern countries. Is it still the case today?

Still i dont believe in USA downfall. As a nation, USA has something no other
nation has ,the capacity to re-invent itself over and over. That's what will
save them, not it's politicians.

~~~
devx
> USA is neither for or against something , USA has interests

Sure, but his point and the point of the author was that they have been
_hypocritical_ about it, and making people believe that they _are_ for certain
things, such as democracy, and so on. They were very convenient excuses to
start attacking other countries.

Now they say they are "against terror", while causing themselves terror to
many others in Middle East, and creating situations that instead of making US
safe, they put it in _more_ danger with their actions.

So their points are that the leaking age, is the age where such hypocrisy will
have very short lifespan.

------
zcarter
What we are seeing now is the end, not of hypocrisy, but of credibility.

The prediction that institutions founded in a limited information environment
(and their extant policies specifically) will simply continue in an unlimited
information environment by simply changing rhetoric, are exactly that:
predictions.

That is to say, if a hypothetical swindler cannot profitably swindle when the
veracity of her lies are easily checked. The article proposes that our
imaginary trickster need simply start telling the truth to continue
prospering.

------
jvdh
This article is being hypocritical in itself.

The main reason that the US is losing face is not because it can't maintain
the hypocritical position it had before. The main reason is that most of the
revealed behaviour of the NSA is either illegal or entirely unethical. This
goes far beyond hypocrisy.

> It may attempt, as the former head of U.S. counterintelligence Joel Brenner
> has urged, to draw distinctions between China’s allegedly unacceptable
> hacking, aimed at stealing commercial secrets, and its own perfectly
> legitimate hacking of military or other security-related targets.

How is hacking another country to steal military or security related secrets
ever "perfectly legitimate"? It may appear to be so from the US side, but it
is never going to be legitimate from the other side.

And I'm sure that the UN (which has been founded by many countries, not just
the US) has something to say about this as well.

------
malandrew
Great analysis both from the original post and commenters. Given everything
that has been said I get the feeling that the most expedient way to promote
democracy and freedom in your country if you have oil is to very clearly align
with the US until you come to power and accomplish your original goals. The
question or not is whether you can be candid/honest about such a policy of
realpolitik with your fellow countrymen while you work towards building a
democratic system.

If you were an iranian revolutionary that wants democratic change, you could
probably go further and craft a foreign policy that plays to equally to the
interests of the US, China and Russia, while crafting a democratic domestic
policy.

------
chum
"programmers who are good at crafting defenses for their own systems know how
to penetrate other people’s computers, too"

This is not strictly true. There is a big difference between
identifying/exploiting bugs in software and defending a network from attack.
Within the context of government spending, this is the difference between
funding reverse engineering/binary analysis/buying 0days and funding the
training of systems administrators.

~~~
nraynaud
at the micro level, it's true that those activities are different, but in the
big picture, they are so close, and those people are interacting so much with
each other.

There is also the big offense/defense hypocrisy, like buying guns and missiles
to protect people (instead of armors and bunkers), and mixing offense and
defense to make some behavior more publicly acceptable.

------
frank_boyd
The hypocrisy elephant in the room:

"NEVER FORGET" but "NEVER REMEMBER" (that 9/11 was the result of the US (CIA)
recruiting and playing Osama bin Laden).

------
jheriko
America is young, and this is no special time in history either...

As a non-expert I was/am unsurprised by the content of these leaks whose
'revelations' in the broad sense are mere common sense - but more surprised
that they happen at all. Are Americans so discontented? Apparently so...

------
saraid216
Why is hypocrisy a bad thing? Entirely serious question, since it's the basis
of the entire article.

~~~
D_Alex
From Wikipedia:

"Hypocrisy is the state of falsely claiming to possess virtuous
characteristics that one lacks. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and
is thus a kind of lie."

And lies are basically bad.

~~~
saraid216
> And lies are basically bad.

Are all forms of deception bad? If so, then okay. If not, then what forms of
deception are bad, and what forms are not, and which class does hypocrisy
belong in and why?

------
lenkite
"signed a formal deal affirming India’s right to civilian nuclear energy
despite its having flouted the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by acquiring
nuclear weapons."

How can India be said to have _flouted_ this treaty when India had never
signed it ??

------
niels_olson
> Although the current administration has curtailed some of the abuses of its
> predecessors, it still has a long way to go.

That sentence is how history will judge 2013.

------
eriksank
"Liberals tend to believe that other countries cooperate with the United
States because American ideals are attractive."

In the ongoing debate between politically-controlled versus theocratically-
controlled law, the majority of the world population finds the "American"
ideal (rather French-revolutionary, no?) of politically-controlled law not
particularly attractive at all. The system amounts to asking the population to
vote every few years for politicians who will invent new laws. The question
then becomes: How many new laws do we need before all our needs for new laws
are finally and entirely satisfied? The theocratically-controlled alternative
on its side says: The only one who can create new laws and further restrict
your freedom, may not even exist. So, my question becomes: What exactly would
be wrong with that?

~~~
saraid216
Yeah, that line confused me too. I've actually never heard anyone make the
claim that people cooperate with the United States because our ideals are
attractive.

I've heard that immigrants immigrate here because of that, and I've heard
patriotism justified by this, and I've heard that our culture is seductive,
but I've never heard that governments find our ideals attractive or anything
remotely like it.

