Is Everyone a Hypocrite, Then ?
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:23AM I have been thinking about hypocrites and hypocrisy and whether they are useful terms any more. My conclusion is that they are; read on if you wish to learn why.
Hypocrisy has no friends. Hypocrites - i.e. the people as distinct from the thing - might be a little more popular but it's a "in spite of" rather than "because of" thing.
My own tolerance for hypocrisy is possibly higher than average, but that tolerance has limits (and maybe it's hypocritical of me to even claim to have any !): I suspect that we humans may be "hard-wired" to abhor the phenomenon.
The dictionary definition of hypocrisy is "the pretence of virtue" but in common discourse, this meaning has been abandoned and the word has, unfortunately I think, come to have two possible meanings, both very similar though subtly distinct from each other. The first refers to not practising what one preaches. The other is holding others to standards which we cannot uphold ourselves.
Using "hypocrisy" as having either of these meanings leads to a similar problem: the word loses its power, because as far as I am aware there is no human being who is not guilty to a greater or lesser extent. No-one is able to conform perfectly to what one preaches, or to always uphold the standards one wishes to be generally followed. I am certainly guilty myself, and I have no doubt that both the Pope and the Dali Lama would also acknowledge that they are not "without sin".
Does this mean that logic demands that all aspirations to do good and to avoid doing ill be eschewed ? Does it even mean that no-one should criticise or hold to account those who have failed to "keep to the rules" because to do so is necessarily hypocritical ?
I say "no". I also say that we should retain the dictionary definition and reserve the label of "hypocrite" for those who pretend to a virtue that they do not in fact possess.
Of course, I do accept that very often those who hold others to standards that they cannot, or will not, observe themselves are in effect pretending an unmerited virtue, and are therefore hypocrites. (Some especially nasty people do this, though, without any attempt to pretend consistency). Similarly, continuously and with great sanctimony preaching what one fails to practise will often be associated with a pretence to possession of unmerited virtue.
However, this is not as common among the usual targets for accusations of hypocrisy as many younger people (influenced by some whited sepulchres given vent in the mass media) believe.
I tend to believe that humility or the Socratic principle (the wise man is conscious of his vast ignorance) in ethical matters is the best course. For all its faults, Christianity's official line is still that "we are all sinners" and I respect it hugely for that, no matter how many of its adherents or prelates often forget it in practice.
Fergus O'Rourke
Having - yes, belatedly - checked on the accepted meaning of "whited sepulchre", I find that it is the worst kind of "hypocrite", a person full of evil but apparently perfect on the outside. I did not really have that meaning in mind. What I have in mind is the kind of shrill outrage of those who are not evil or especially hypocritical themselves - that would be too hard on them - but who, with imperfectly suppressed relish, sternly "shovel" enormous moral indignation on people who have fallen from grace e.g. dismissed bank executives, convicted bouncers, dead bishops, disgraced politicians.
This behaviour makes my flesh crawl, not just because of the lack of a proper humility but because it is usually a case of "kicking the man when he is down".
Reader Comments (1)
I think that the distortions arise out of i) the attempts of others to distort their reality by trying to impose their own belief systems on others (sometimes without thought of the consequences) ii) uncertainty about information and the desire to validate it and iii) the inability of the individual to honestly self-criticize.
I would also agree to being 'guilty' at times, but it is not born out of maliciousness or dishonesty. I don't strive to be a hypocrite and I probably rationalise it by re-balancing my actions and beliefs.