Afflicting the Glowerful

Diplomacy, even more than early twentieth century English house-parties, requires hypocrisy

-Henry at Crooked Timber

Well, no. Dominance requires hypocrisy. And to be fair, diplomacy is generally in the service of dominance, either those who currently have it, or those who are currently seeking it. Hypocrisy in this context has to do not at all with polite fictions, but rather with deliberate, ongoing, and calculated dishonesty in the pursuit of advantage and power. Pretending not to hear an inadvertant fart at the dinner table is obviously not the same thing at all as, say, the US and Saudi Arabia hatch backroom plots, or while European governments secretly urge America to act in their own martial interest even as they publicly crow about how much more peaceful they are than the trigger-happy Americans. The people who read the latest wikileaked documents and proclaim that they simply show what we already know--that diplomats' delicately crafted public stance of politesse do not reflect their true feelings or the honest positions of the governments they represent--are making the same claims as those who read the dumped Iraq War documents and proclaimed that therein was found nothing new. But obviously in both cases what is "new" is not the plot, but the documentary evidence.