Dialectics: Hypocrisy and Legitimacy

Hypocrisy has the power to destroy everything, especially legitimacy. Many people believe that the two are actually unrelated or at least the correlation hasn't been that obvious, but as both are so interconnected, they reveal the impact of one over the other. 

        Two ways we can view these two in the same scenario is through Jane Eyre and the two World Wars. Although hypocrisy tends to bring down legitimacy, it also works to build up legitimacy or has the outer skin of legitimacy. As scary as that may sound, we have to look no further than Mr. Brocklehurst for an excellent example. His entire status and the "virtues" he preaches about when he arrives at Lowood is built entirely on hypocrisy. However, he is also a representation of legitimacy and his words were representative of the rules the girls had to follow. Rules that according to Mr. Brocklehurst, Jane had broken among other girls as well. Then his wife and daughter are introduced, and that added hypocrisy simply rips down the wall of legitimacy people had assumed about Mr. Brocklehurst prior to his wife's arrival. It's interesting, because this hypocrisy breaks his legitimacy in the form of Ms. Temple listening to Jane's side of the story and presenting Jane in front of the school as the complete opposite of what Mr. Brocklehurst had claimed. 

       A better example is the legitimacy the world powers (U.S., Britain, and France) had declared for themselves during the 1800s and 1900s. The powers talked of freedom and equality, for example Woodrow Wilson's claim of self-determination, however, realistically the powerful nations still held firmly onto the colonies they had staked out for themselves without backing down. Therefore there was a complete dissonance in their claims, since they were bragging of their "matured, sophisticated" tactics, while denying other people of the same ideals and rights. As a result, such deep hypocrisy led to anger and people like Hitler were born. Making sure at the end, that the fake legitimacy we had built up to come tumbling down. Perhaps if the big powers had not built themselves up on such hypocritical legitimacy, our world could have been spared a lot of bloodshed.


        Hypocrisy seems almost inevitable. Therefore, I believe that by studying hypocrisy and legitimacy and the impact of both, we can further understand human nature and perhaps help us to better ourselves.