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Viliam_Bur comments on Self-deception: Hypocrisy or Akrasia? - Less Wrong
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Related quote from The Diamond Age:
The Neo-Victorians in that book certainly have a very interesting take on hypocrisy.
For the sake of those unfortunates who haven't read it, the argument is that the current popularity of condemning people for hypocrisy is a consequence of cultural and moral relativism. Because it's supposedly not allowed to criticise someone for breaking your moral code (because they may have a different code which must be considered equally valid), you can only criticise people when they break their own moral code. The idea is that we, as people, enjoy moral condemnation, but in a culturally and morally relativist society, the only form of moral condemnation acceptable is accusations of hypocrisy, so it grows to a disproportionate significance.
I'm not sure I buy it entirely, since most people have very little trouble with condemning others according to the judger's moral code. But I think it is likely to be a factor.
(Note for those who haven't read it: the Vics aren't depicted as "the good guys" all in all, although they have badass moments. Actually, it might be a good "scary eutopia" by Eliezer's standards, but the major factions are optimized to look simply scary to the intended audience of geeks, with the exception of - surprise! - the ones based on "hacker values" such as CryptNet or the Distributed Republic.)
I'm not sure I agree with you on that. CryptNet and the Distributed Republic have quite minor roles in the story, and pretty much every single major character (with the exception of the Confucians) is a Neo-Victorian. It's too good a book to have Righteous Kind And Noble Heroes Beyond All Reproach, and the Vicks have their problems, but I'd say they are basically "the good guys", and if not that then certainly the protagonists, of the story.
But Stephenson himself hardly comes across as anything close to a Neo-Victorian, that's why I said that. Hell, from the interviews he sounds like a multiculturalist to me (or at least a rather non-judgmental person), while Lord Finkle-McGraw is the opposite of one in DA.
http://reason.com/archives/2005/02/01/neal-stephensons-pastpresent-a/singlepage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/nov/04/onlinesupplement
Oh jeez, just screw it. Seems that I can't say even a slightly, tangentially ideological thing without fucking up.
I don't think you fucked up. Down-votes aren't from me.
Anyway, yeah I agree, Stephenson's own position is very different from the Vicks'. I still think they're the "good guys" in the story though, even though their opinions aren't held by the author.
Oh, it's just that I'm in avoidant passive-aggressive mode and behaving all spineless. My social AT-field has worn thin on this side after two confrontations with the LW opinion in a row, so for a while I'm uncomfortable with further exposing my beliefs to scrutiny - here, it's a factual belief ("The author likes and endorses / hates X"), but of course it's hard to detach from my unspoken ideological biases ("X is such an Y thing, clearly anyone smart likes/hates it!").
(In-story, I thought the most "heroic" of the movers and shakers was Dr. X; after all, he was a solitary visionary who challenged two opposed factions, and the relevant tropes demand that such characters aren't to be simply deluded nutjobs. It's more or less the "Take a third option" fallacy.)
That argument is not at all unique to that book.
I've heard it made many times in real life, typically by American conservatives to condemn American liberals.