Hypocrisy and forgetfulness are useful skills when properly applied to a career in education. More precisely, the delicate admixture of both skills is a recipe for advancement. Taken separately, each skill is often considered a vice. Together, they work wonders.
Everyone is a hypocrite at some point, and yet no one is a hypocrite on purpose. As children, we learn what hypocrisy is from adults, often before we learn what the word means. We learn it the first time we see, let alone hear, Do as I say, not as I do. If you’re lucky, it’s a shocking realization that adults don’t always practice what they preach. If it’s a shock, it means you were fortunate enough to spend a few years in the land of truth and righteousness—the birthright of all children but the inheritance of only a few. If you’re lucky, hypocrisy will strike you for what it is: a sin. Eventually, however, you will have to accept hypocrisy not only as a sin or even as a skill, but as a necessity. This is when you become an adult and realize that, sometimes, children just need to do what they’re told. It may not be fair, but there are times when that’s the way it has to be.
Adults use different techniques but the same spirit when we lie to each other. However we do it, we are always doing a dirty job that somebody has to do, making the tough decisions, telling white lies to hide dark secrets. This job may chafe our souls or roll off our backs, but we will all get mud on our shoes. Some of us, though, become artisans of dirty work.
All you need for hypocrisy to become a decisive skill is the proper dose of forgetfulness. First, you need to forget that hypocrisy is a sin. Then, you need to forget whatever it was you were lying about in the first place. All adults have been tempted to demote hypocrisy from sin to necessity—such is the desire of any honest sinner. However, to achieve this elision is to pave the road to success. Having forgotten sin, there is no reason not to see hypocrisy as a tactic—something that can be used to achieve other ends. Still, even this is not enough forgetting to do the job right.
The problem with using hypocrisy alone as a tactic is that it is self-evident, we know hypocrites because their words do not match their actions. Or, their words do not match their other words. In everything he says and does, the hypocrite leaves evidence of hypocrisy. The solution is a careful infusion of forgetfulness. If you do it right, you can forget one side of the equation—the words or the actions. After all, with all we say and do, it’s not hard to lose track of a variable from time to time. It’s also not hard to replace them with something contemporaneous but not so contradictory. Rather than piling lies on top of lies, isn’t it easier to just forget the right things? You can’t be lying about what you don’t remember.
Working with children, hypocrisy and forgetfulness will reap their own just harvest. Working with adults in education, however, is like anywhere else: there’s a lot of history and a lot of competition. People keep track of what you say and what you do, and use your actions for their own ends. Meanwhile, the world whirls and you have to cut corners to keep up and even more to stay on top. The hypocrite that properly forgets is neither a hypocrite nor forgetful. No, she is a storyteller. She restates history in this moment’s telling, forgetting what doesn’t fit and matching memories to actions. She recreates the world in an instant. Storytelling is a beautiful art, and when well-told, a story can save the world.
Mr. Stickfigure is ready to follow a forgetful hypocrite with a story worthy of the world.
The rest of you, though, are full of shit—no matter how far it gets you.
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