It’s Time to End the Hypocrisy

Claremont, it's time to preach what we practice.

Credit: Elizabeth Thomsen, Flickr

Last spring, Josh Morganstein CMC ‘25 and I took “Dostoevsky’s Russia” with Professor Gary Hamburg. Morganstein then published an article in The Forum drawing a striking parallel between Luigi Mangione and Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. 

Intelligent and well-educated, charming and handsome, both Mangione and Raskolnikov were driven to misery by their conditions. Mangione detested a healthcare system he held responsible for his chronic pain. Raskolnikov, crippled by the poverty rampant in Petersburg, was unable to finish law school. Both found individuals to blame, convincing themselves that the world would be better off if their targets were dead. Mangione found the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Raskolnikov found the local pawnbroker, a miserly and exploitative lender. 

But don’t be so quick to sympathize, Morganstein warns, either with Raskolnikov or Mangione. Dostoevsky makes clear that Raskolnikov’s motives were vile, for he believed that “great men” had the moral right to transgress laws—that he was a Napoleon ridding the world of a “pernicious louse.” Mangione too seemed to have a vigilante complex. 

To fully understand his drive—and the drives of politically-motivated killers in the real world—one must consider the culture in which Raskolnikov was immersed. In Petersburg, bold theories of morality and justice rationalized extreme, often immoral, change. Such action was lauded in the abstract, often by well-established members of society, but—thankfully—never initiated. Sound familiar? 

In the opening scenes of the novel, Raskolnikov overhears a student in a tavern arguing that killing the pawnbroker for her money would benefit Petersburg residents—that thousands of lives would be improved by the death of one. Yet, when asked if he himself would kill the pawnbroker, the student sputters, “Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it…It’s nothing to do with me.”

Later, attendees at a dinner party draw upon fashionable theories of the era, insisting that all societal dysfunction can be reformed by one “mathematical head.” They pin their hopes on a brilliant individual, one great man, who will cleanse Petersburg of its ills. Never does it occur to them that their “self-gratifying chatter”—their idle talk directed towards no tangible action—intensifies the desperation and delusions of men like Raskolnikov.

We see a similar phenomenon today. “One life for thousands.” “Overthrow the oppressor.” “We’re under siege.” Pithy one-liners saturate X posts and thinkpieces, classrooms and podcasts. An opponent is denigrated to sub-human status, just as Raskolnikov viewed the pawnbroker: a louse, “sickly, stupid, and ill-natured.” Soon enough, such grisly ideas possess a mind.

They are “parasites” that “had it coming,” said Mangione. 

“Everyone wants an excuse for not doing the right thing,” said Vance Boelter, a few years before he was indicted for killing Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman.

“I had enough of his hatred,” said Tyler Robinson, Charlie Kirk’s accused killer. 

Every one of these individuals was instigated, in part, by a culture that convinced them they were “doing the right thing.” Yet, in the moment that mattered, in the moment they pulled the trigger, they were alone. Where were their supporters?

The intellectuals that insist upon violent revolution—whether to break the shackles of oppression or reclaim the American way of life—sat back in their armchairs. The most ardent apologists on the Internet move on quickly, leaving only their digital footprint behind. They fan the flames and raise the temperature—but stop there. They won’t pull the trigger. They won’t join a revolution. They won’t join a civil war.

Most people’s privately-held convictions are incompatible with their public, inflammatory rhetoric. In their heart of hearts, they know that no ideology can justify the brutality of killing someone in cold blood. Most people know better. Raskolnikovs don’t. 

My fellow students—both on the left and the right—we are the ones who know better. It is no accident that many of you fail to preach what you in fact practice. You celebrate acts of violence you’d never dare commit. You encourage others to wage vengeful wars in which you’d never fight. 

You are like the members of Petersburg’s elite inner circles. You endlessly pontificate and never follow through, leaving the most desperate, unstable individuals to take matters into their own hands. Your “common and ordinary youthful talk” is what it was in Dostoevsky’s time, and what it will be in the future: pretense.

If found guilty, Luigi Mangione, Vance Boelter, and Tyler Robinson will either rot in prison or be executed by the state. Back in Claremont, all those that cheered them will settle into their lucrative careers and lead cushy lives. You’ll attend Fourth of July barbecues and take a vacation for Memorial Day weekend. You’ll reap the benefits of life in a society you claim to want to tear down. 

I don’t believe that this inaction is mere cowardice or self-interest. Rather, it’s silent proof of the appreciation you’d never voice—appreciation for all that a pluralistic liberal society has to offer. You know this system works, that tolerance works. 

Of course, it’s not convenient for anyone’s politics—be they on the left or the right—to praise the merits of this system and tackle societal ills in accordance with its rules. That’s why you are happy to spectate, leaving agitated individuals to do the dirty work. Because deep down, you know that political violence, that illiberality, is dirty. That it is noxious in all its forms, especially as a means to extinguish free expression. 

To my peers: End your hypocrisy. Bring your words into alignment with your actions. This means defending freedom of speech even when you despise the content and tolerating your ideological adversaries even—and especially—when they diametrically oppose your own convictions.      

I can only hope that we learn this lesson before we produce yet another American Raskolnikov. 

This article was published in conjunction with the Claremont Independent.