The idea that hypocrisy makes you incorrect or makes your point incorrect. I’m not sure where this idea originated from. Perhaps it started on the internet or it was exacerbated by the presence of the internet. It’s a way to take down someone by ignoring their claims and just saying they’re hypocrites.
If someone complains about high gas prices, and yet fills his car with gas, some might look at that and dismiss him altogether as a hypocrite. But that has no bearing on what he complained about. His hypocrisy doesn’t make his statement about high gas prices any more or less true. You can be a hypocrite and still be right. Whether a hypocrite made this argument or a non-hypocrite, it has no bearing on the validity of that argument.
Now, calling out hypocrisy is important. It’s not like that’s a logical fallacy in itself. The fallacy arises when you dismiss the entire argument based off that person’s hypocritical actions which don’t even prove it wrong.
It’s like intellectual McDonald’s. People don’t want to prove each other wrong, because that’s too hard. They just want quick takedowns of their opponents, and an easy way to do that is by labeling them has hypocrites. The internet has greatly popularized this, and it’s interesting to see where it will go from here. It’s a culture that values consistency above everything else.
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