It occurred to me today that the high road is probably pretty light on traffic.

On Monday, I posted a piece about hypocrisy and running one’s mouth. Unfortunately though, it doesn’t seem like our society is going to be going away from the ‘a lot of people talking about a lot of different things’ approach anytime soon.

So perhaps, we’ll just go to the highlight reel. A look at some of the hypocrisy that I’ve been privileged to witness over the past few days.

* * *

The other night, while I was watching a football game, there was a point where the announcers were agreeing with a referee’s call on the field, saying how the call was the right call and that it would have been an obvious call to make, all of this happening while the call was ‘under further review’. Then, when the call ended up being reversed, the announcers changed their tune so quickly that it was jarring.

I wasn’t the only person in the room who noticed.

My daughter turned to me and said, “How could they have been in favor of that call two minutes ago and also in favor of it being overturned just now?”

So, I took the opportunity to mention to my daughter what a ‘talking head’ is, and how people are often motivated to say the things that they believe other people want to hear.

But, that got me to start wondering about the number of people in the world who are subject to the ebb and flow of public opinion, leaning this way when it’s popular to do so, and leaning that way when it’s the more popular choice.

* * *

You may not know who Marina Sirtis is. In fact, you may only be slightly more likely to know her if I mentioned her by the name of one of the characters that has contributed most to her fame; Ms. Sirtis played Counselor Deanna Troi on the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Since I happen to follow most of the actors and actresses from that show on Twitter, as a way to keep current on news about the franchise, I’ve been privy to a lot of information coming from the actress who once played a reserved, intelligent, empathic ship’s counselor.

One of her most recent tweets was anything but empathic, specifically in reference to whether or not it was likely to expect that she would gloat about a recent Republican loss any less than those Republicans gloated about Democratic losses in 2016.

Now, don’t get me wrong, because I am not at all upset when people of low moral character get voted out of office. Ms. Sirtis and I probably can agree on a number of issues surrounding the most recent political elections.

But…

While I was thinking about how great an actress you would have to be in order to play someone so compassionate on a television show, while it turns out to be the case that you are so much less so in real life, I was also thinking about how ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves the world blind.

I was also thinking about storming the field.

* * *

I don’t know if you heard or not, but the Notre Dame football team beat the number one team in the country (Clemson) this past weekend. It was easily the most exciting and satisfying game that I’ve watched Notre Dame play in the last decade, at least. At the end of the game, in celebration and excitement, the students –and probably most of the other people who had been allowed in the stadium– stormed the field to celebrate.

The President of the University, Father John Jenkins –a man that I have often had reasons to admire and respect– issued a statement expressing his disappointment about the decision of the fans to do such a thing, in the midst of a pandemic.

I was hoping he wouldn’t say a word, considering his own predicament.

On September 26th, Father Jenkins was present at the ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House, celebrating the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, an event that Dr. Anthony Fauci later described as a “superspreader event”. In fact, Father Jenkins’s attendance at that event was a direct violation of instructions that he’d given to members of the Notre Dame campus community, asking them to restrict travel in the best interests of the University’s health and safety.

That particular choice of his, most certainly motivated out of a level of excitement about the nominee’s connection to the University, has caused much consternation for the President, from the students and faculty members at the University. Calls for the President’s resignation, and the threat of a vote of no confidence from the faculty, loom large for Father Jenkins.

His excitement lead him to poor decision-making in the same way that those students most certainly stormed the field without safety in the forefront of their minds.

Can someone please take the off-ramp to the high road? Anyone?

* * *

I guess, at the end of the day, what I’m trying to get at is this: hypocrisy is a plague among us. Its rampant destruction results from our inability to master our own tongues; the truth of the matter is that you’re not likely to find many silent hypocrites roaming around.

Talk is cheap, so cheap in fact that it seems to be what people are most likely to do –> in fact, what’s even cheaper than talk is social media ‘talk’, where people are free to say all manner of crazy things, things that they wouldn’t dare say in front of someone else in person, for fear of the repercussions.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

If your idea of making the world a better place is posting your opinions on social media, subjecting the people around you to your inflated observations –and that’s all you do in the name of social change– then you shouldn’t be surprised/angry/upset when the world around you doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

Especially if you aren’t living out those opinions in your daily life. I hate to break it to you, but some of the people that you are friends with on Facebook actually get to watch you walk around all day, acting contrarily to what you suggested we should all be doing.

I guess that’s my point, having come around to it in a rather round-about kind of way: it has to start with us, with each of us. Am I responsible for Father Jenkins’s travel plans? No, I am not. Am I responsible for calling people to account for the opinions they profess that seem to be in contradiction to the way they live? No, I am not.

But, I can start with me. If we all just started being intentional about working on ourselves, and our own imperfections and inconsistencies, we’d hopefully improve. And, as a by-product, we’d have less time to be judging each other.