Phony philanthropist,
humanitarian hypocrite,
deceptive do-gooder,
fraudulent altruist,
charitable pretender -
however you describe them, one thing's for sure:
There are few things in life that we hate more
than moralizing hypocrites,
people who ask us to do charitable acts but are themselves hypocritical.
Now, in my line of work,
working with charities,
social enterprises,
foundations, and aid agencies,
I hear the word "hypocrite" all the time.
When Bono,
the sunglass-wearing, tax-avoiding, mansion-living, jet-setting Irishman,
when he asks people to donate to charity,
what do we say?
We say, "Hypocrite!"
When Al Gore campaigns on climate change,
a man who many years
has had a utility bill more than 20 times the average household,
we say, "Hypocrite!"
When the CEO of the Kony campaign
was, on one hand, asking us to donate money
and saying he cared
but, on the other hand, was taking home a charity salary of $90,000,
we said - you guessed it - "Hypocrite!"
You see, we hate hypocrites.
We hate people who purport to have certain beliefs
that we don't actually think they have
when their actions don't reflect those beliefs.
And I want to ask us, "Should we call out people for hypocrisy?
People who we think are hypocrites, should we give them that label?"
Now, I hate genuine hypocrisy as much as the next person,
but I want to suggest - and this is a big "but" -
I want to suggest that calling out people for hypocrisy
is misguided at best,
downright dangerous at worst.
The key problem here
is that often when we accuse people of hypocrisy,
it's not actually hypocrisy.
And there's a few common mistakes that we make time and time again.
The first mistake that we make
is that we assume that all charitable acts are equivalent.
Say someone tells you that they support a carbon trading scheme.
We interpret that as just that person supports the environment,
and so if they don't recycle, we say, "Hypocrite!"
If someone asks you for money for water purification tablets
for a country like Myanmar,
we assume, oh, that person supports fresh clean water,
and so if they don't themselves give money to build water wells,
we say, "Hypocrite!"
But the reality
is that there are multiple different ways of solving every problem,
some that are far more effective than others,
and just because you support some approaches to problems
doesn't mean you can or should or will support every approach.
That's the first mistake we commonly make.
The second problem that we often come across,
the second mistake that we make
is that we compare to the extremes of selflessness and selfishness.
Say you walk into a cafe,
and there's a sign on the wall that says, "We donate 20% of our profits to charity."
You'd probably think, "What a great café! What good people!
Donating a bit of their profits to charity."
And so when we have mostly profit-making,
mostly selfishness but a bit of altruism,
we like it, we think of it as a good thing.
But then if someone works for a charity,
if someone dedicates their entire career to a good cause,
if someone is mostly selfless
but then takes home a reasonably decent salary,
we say, "Hah, hypocrite!"
So we're fine with mostly selfish with a touch of altruism
but not mostly altruistic with a touch of selfish.
You can be 10% altruistic,
but you can't be 90%,
which doesn't make any sense.
We prefer honest greed to imperfect generosity.
We compare to the extremes
rather than comparing people to other people.
That's the second mistake.
The third mistake we make
is that we assume
that because someone supports a collective response to something,
individual action must follow.
And so if a politician says
that they support government-provided education,
but they send their kids to private independent schools,
we say, "Hypocrite."
If someone was to say they supported a global ban on meat consumption,
and yet they themselves ate meat,
we might say, "Hypocrite."
But the reality is it's totally rational
often to support a collective response
without necessarily wanting to be the one to act alone,
to act individually, to bear the cost.
It's very rational.
For example, if you act in a certain way,
such as by taking really short showers
or taking the train instead of a plane to save on carbon emissions,
you bear the full cost of your action,
and yet the benefits are dispersed by seven billion people.
And so in order for it to be rational for you to do that,
the benefits really need to be seven billion times the cost,
which is rarely going to be the case.
That's why initiatives such as Earth Hour often don't have a sustained impact.
It's not hypocritical to be rational.
The fourth mistake that we often make
is that we assume that if someone really cares,
if someone really wants the best outcome,
they'll necessarily support the ideal policy.
So when Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia,
said climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time,
and then he supported watered-down environmental legislation,
we said, "Hypocrite."
But the reality is sometimes you need to be strategic.
And if that ideal policy, if the ideal situation
would not receive parliamentary support,
if that would be scrapped by the next Parliament in a year or two,
then sometimes opting for the second-best approach
is actually more sustainable and actually better
and actually has a greater impact.
Another common mistake we make is that we conflate legality and morality.
If someone was to stand up and say they opposed prostitution,
they thought prostitution was wrong,
and yet then they voted for it to be legal,
we might say, "Hypocrite."
But questions of legality and morality are very different.
You see, if making prostitution legal
meant that victims of abuse could come forward
without fear of persecution or prosecution,
then it might be the right thing to do,
irrespective of whether you thought it was morally right or wrong.
Likewise, it's entirely consistent for someone to say
that they themselves, say for religious reasons,
don't believe in gay marriage,
but for that same person to say they think it should be legal.
Because questions of legality also take into account
other people's beliefs and opinions and sexual preferences.
We shouldn't conflate legality and morality.
And the final mistake that we often make
is we just don't distinguish between different circumstances.
When Obama came out and said
that having armed security in every school wasn't the answer to gun violence,
the NRA responded, not by attacking the argument,
but by attacking the person.
They ran ad campaigns, saying that Obama was a hypocrite
because he had armed security for his daughters.
We often don't distinguish different circumstances.
My point here is that often when we accuse people of hypocrisy,
it's simply not hypocritical.
We assume that we know people's beliefs,
we assume we know why people are acting in a certain way,
but it's often arrogant to assume that.
We're too quick to condemn, too slow to ask why.
But let's assume for a moment that it was hypocritical,
that these people did actually act in a hypocritical manner.
The problem here is that the existence of hypocrisy
doesn't actually undermine the argument that is being made.
It's a convenient distraction, but it's not a rebuttal.
I mean the argument that smoking is bad
doesn't change because the person who is making it is a smoker.
You can know right or wrong without being morally perfect yourself.
And you should be able to ask people to do what is right.
That shouldn't just be the purview of the morally perfect.
And so, if we shouldn't call out people for hypocrisy,
if we shouldn't focus on the charitable messenger,
what should we do?
I want to say
that we should discuss and debate and critique the charitable message.
Now, with me I have two jugs.
One of those represents the person,
one of those represents the messenger in question,
and the other one represents the argument, the message.
Now, when we call out people for hypocrisy,
when we use that hypocrisy argument,
when we use it to attack a person,
this is what happens.
It's easy to make them bleed.
It's easy to inflict pain.
After all, they're a fallible person.
But what's interesting
is that we don't discuss, we don't critique,
we don't criticize the charitable message.
And so that's the status quo,
that's the situation we find ourselves in,
where attacking the charitable messenger is all too easy
and attacking the charitable message is often taboo.
Why is this?
Well, I think we often think of charity as somewhat of a taboo subject.
We don't like criticizing it.
Indeed, we just think of it as doing good.
That's why you can do a lot of things in the name of charity.
(Laughter)
If you want an excuse to do a naked calendar,
do it in the name of charity.
If you want an excuse to do a marathon, do it in the name of charity.
If you want an excuse to make three of your friends,
to force three of your friends
to pour a bucket of ice cold water over their heads,
(Laughter)
do it in the name of charity.
You see, we find it difficult to criticize acts of charity.
We think of charity as one and the same,
but not all charities are created equal,
not all approaches to problems are equally effective.
One of the things that the organization I run,
180 Degrees Consulting,
specializes in
is measuring the social impact
of different programs and different organizations,
and it's very clear to me
that some approaches, some charities,
are hundreds, even thousands, of times more effective than other approaches.
And so what that means
is that it's more important to do the right act,
the most effective act,
than to merely do an action.
An action is merely a means to an end.
We focus on it when we accuse people of hypocrisy,
but focusing on the impact is far more important.
It's far more important
because in a world with unlimited problems
but limited time, limited resources, and limited money,
we can't afford to not have the greatest social impact possible.
We can't afford it.
We can't afford for doing good to merely be a feel-good endeavor.
It must be an intellectual endeavor as well.
Let me give you one example.
Say you have $42,000,
and you want to spend that money helping blind people.
You can spend that money in a few different ways.
One way is by not giving it at all.
The second way is by using the money to train a guide dog.
It cost about $42,000 to train a guide dog.
And the third option
is that you can use it to fund a low-cost eye surgery
in a place like India,
which costs about $75 per surgery.
And so with that $42,000,
you can either help no blind people,
one blind person,
or 560 blind people.
I do not think it should be taboo
to argue that you should not give money to training the guide dog,
as cute as guide dogs are
and as important guide dogs are for the people who use them,
and that you should instead give money for the low-cost eye surgery.
I know that sounds bad.
It sounds unethical.
It almost sounds evil.
Once we've done the effective approaches, we can do the less effective approaches,
but I don't think less effective approaches
should come at the expense of the more effective approaches.
Because as long as it is taboo
for us to talk about the impacts of different charitable acts,
more people will be blind,
more people will be poor,
more people won't have access to health, education, and sanitation,
and that is something I cannot stand for.
I want us to have the greatest impact possible,
and I don't think we'd have that greatest impact
by focusing on hypocrisy or focusing on the messenger.
We have it by focusing on the charitable message.
That's the most important thing.
Let me conclude.
Time and time again, when we can,
we target the messenger, not the message;
the campaigner, not the campaign;
the person, not the argument.
The exact opposite should be true.
The key point that I'm trying to make here
is that charitable messengers should not be the target,
and critiquing charitable messages should no longer be taboo.
Small minds rebut people; great minds rebut arguments.
I think Eleanor Roosevelt would agree.
So the next time
that a politician, a celebrity, a friend, a religious leader, a charity worker
asks you to do something that you don't want to do,
I want you to respond by rebutting the message,
not the messenger.
The next time that a friend calls out someone for hypocrisy,
I want you to tell them, "Rebut the message, not the messenger."
By focusing on the hypocrisy of the messenger,
we're being misguided,
but by focusing on the validity of the message,
we're being productive,
we're helping to maximize impact.
And that is a cause worth fighting for.
Thank you.
(Applause)