Quote:
Quote by: G. Adams  He is a confessed flesh eater, telling the world his diet for shooting The Machinist. Yet he also claims to have been a vegetarian on ethical grounds since he was 9 years old. |
Adams, I am not sure what you are saying, or trying to say because your tenses don`t jive with each other. You first use present tense to say in fact what he is. Just due to that there is no reason to even use him as an example in the present. He is a flesh eater. Period.
Then you add "since he was 9" in an open ended style. You mean like --- until now? Until when? It is strange because you use the "simple present" tense of "to be" which means he would presently be a vegetarian which we know he is not.
Here look at this concerning a state or action related to the past but continuing to the present:
For example, "I have eaten lunch" implies both that a previous action happened ("I ate lunch") and that a current state resulted ("I am full"). This differs from the simple "I ate lunch", which implies only that an action happened, with no relevance to the present. The form "I have eaten" is referred to as a present perfect, meaning present tense, perfect aspect. (It is considered present tense, not past tense, since the resulting state is in the present.) Reference Source
Now, if you had used the past perfect such as:
... he also claims he had been a vegetarian on ethical grounds since he was 9 years old until he gave it up.
or keep it how you stated it but to not leave it open ended. Look:
... he also claims to have been a vegetarian on ethical grounds since he was 9 years old until he gave it up.[Still however, that makes the present irrelevant to the past in regards to hypocracy. This makes your use of the word "yet" stange as if it is an eclamation or revelation of some kind -- like a "Gotcha!" which it can`t be because he is NOT a vegetarian as stated and admitted to by you and him in the first sentence. See how awkward the whole thing is? Would have been best for you if you had never brought it up. Says nothing about vegetarians.]
or the simple past:
... he claims he was ...
then there would be no issue with you using him. But, that still does not make him a hypocrite, because he was not espousing the vegetarian lifestyle while he was consuming flesh.
I usually don`t use grammar against a person`s post. But in this case it is necessary because the time of his flesh eating and vegetarian lifestyles are relevant to him being seen as a hypocrite or not. You need to get your tenses jiving together to keep them consistant -- which they need to be in order to make the charge hypocrite to stick in regards to actions at the time of proclaiming something.
Quote:
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Does hypocrasy require the hypocrite to understand their untenable position, or is ignorance an excuse?
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No, it only requires that they be in the state of something for which they are behaving in the opposite manner. Since he is not in the state of a vegetarian diet, his action of eating fish or whatever meat does not make him a hypocrite. What is required is that you understand how tenses are accurately and clearly used when arguements rest on time sequences. Ignorance of those grammatical rules is no excuse and cannot rescue your argument of putting him forth as a hypocrite.
Believe me. I am no grammar police and make mistakes myself at time. But again, "time" is very important to this point which you are not catching and therefore it is a must that you see how grammar affects this very technical and rightfully so deserving point of the argument or example you are putting forth.