I am going to be pretty generous to hypocrisy and hypocrites in this post, so the rhythm that I hear as I begin comes from Tom Lehrer's song, "Smut." He introduces the song by saying something like, "The next topic I want to treat this evening is smut. I'm for it." So..."hypocrisy: I'm for it"
As a general matter, hypocrisy is pretending that you are better than you are. That doesn't seem so bad. I have probably had more recent experience with dating than any other old man you know, so let me tell you that dating involves all the effort necessary to appear better than you are. You need to look interested when you are not, for instance, and exchange the normal social compliments because ignoring those social requirements would be rude. I know that isn't really what people mean when they use hypocrisy, but really, how is it different?
Most rationalization involves putting a more positive construction on your actions than impartial analysis would grant. A generally mediocre effort at something is modified by "I did what I could" and "it wasn't really my responsibility" and even "you know, sometimes these things just happen." None of those highlight the careless job you did. All of them make you look better than you really are. Are these really hypocrisy?
Most of the charges of hypocrisy I hear have to do with religion and politics. Religious people try to make themselves seem more religious than they are. Of course, what "religious" means will vary by the religion. Even within Christianity, you want to seem more outraged by an event than your really are in a social action church, more profoundly spiritual in a pietist church, and engaging in more daring forms of "outreach," in an evangelistic church.
Politicians are supposed to have the public good in mind and if they seem not to have the public good in mind, they will lose their next election. But if they actually have the public good too much in mind, they will be disciplined by party leaders in Congress who like the public good, but demand party loyalty; or by the lobbyists who will finance their campaigns, but only if the public good leans significantly toward their own private good; or by the voters of the district, who love the public good, but really need increased defense spending in the district for the jobs it will bring. So...in presenting himself or herself as one who is interested in "the public good," is this representative engaging in hypocrisy? I don't see why not.
The hypocrites we like best are those whose hypocrisy is so flagrant it doesn't raise these more subtle questions. We like a moralistic governor who pushes laws against human trafficking and then gets caught in them. We like senators who are prominently anti-gay, but are gay themselves and get caught at it by their constituents. We like conservative praisers of "the family" whose own families are catastrophically bad.
But treating hypocrisy the way we do is really cherry picking. We say we oppose hypocrisy, when we oppose only the forms of it we can afford to oppose. It hardly seems worth our time. It might be easier just to say that by and large, hypocrisy helps people seem better than they are and most of the time, we are better off because of it.
Hmmm. I'm having a hard time reconciling two definitions of hypocrisy that appear in your article.
ReplyDeleteAt first you define it as pretending to be better than you are. But then, later, you use examples that fit with my personal definition: Berating or deriding a belief or act you share or engage in. That's not official, you understand, but it's a definition I think most people would identify with.
I'm fine with the first version of hypocrisy, and think it has some value. The second version, the one most of us hear about all too often, not so much.
-Doug
I'll need to think about that a little more, Doug. My first thought is that a) pretending to be better than you are and b) pretending that you do not do an act you disparage, are not that different. Plus one and minus one are equidistant from zero.
ReplyDeleteOn the second, you get "I would never do that," but you do. On the first, you get, "I do that" when you don't (always). Is that the distinction you see?
Well, I'm not sure I buy that the boiled down version is the same as the one that appears in the blog.
ReplyDeleteYour first examples of hypocrisy are looking better than you normally do, asking questions you wouldn't normally ask (to appear more interested than you really are), and giving compliments you wouldn't normally give.
I don't see that as hypocrisy so much as lying. It's a mostly harmless lie that we all accept as part of the social contract, but you're representing yourself as something you're not. You're impersonating someone you think might be more attractive and interesting than you are.
Maybe I'm extrapolating your point out further than you intended, but that's how I'm seeing it.
-Doug
You've made a distinction between "lying" and "hypocrisy" that won't hold very long, I think, Doug. Hypocrisy is only a kind of lying, isn't it? Jesus called the show-off Pharisees hypocrits because they gave long public prayers trying to persuade the onlookers that they were "very religious," which, according to Jesus, they were not. They were attempting to mislead (lie to) the onlookers.
ReplyDeleteIf hypocrisy is a category of lying, then we are off on a different road. I agree entirely that we all accept the misrepresentations that make social life possible and that we should. I called those hypocrisy but you did not. Is that right?
Successful Hypocrite/Good Liar
ReplyDeleteI think I should be cautious about entering a father-son debate, but what if we take the "deep read" example as a test. Bette is reading "Five Love Languages," and I have theorized that it is a very non-Dale book. However, Dale the hypocrite decides to read it, first as a shallow read and then even as a deep read - the first time to impress Bette, the second time to, what, mollify Bette? In either case he was in someways presenting himself to be someone who is not, that is, a person interested in self-help books. In doing so,he may have been engaging in berating the act of berating self-help books, an act in which he himself may have often engaged.
Of course, I cannot say with certainty that Dale is a self-help book hypocrite, but I do know that in 25 years of talking about lots of different things he and I have never talked much about self-help books (but I think we have tangentially berated the contents thereof).
So hypocrisy wins the day and the woman.
A deeper question might be "Can hypocrisy lead to integrity?" That is, as per Bonhoeffer in Cost of Discipleship, my enemy-love, or appearance thereof, is, at first, hypocritical, but in time morphs from "taking on the appearances of" to "becoming part of who I am."
Well, Pop, while I don't refute that your definition of hypocrisy fits perfectly with the dictionary version, I'd be hard pressed to remember a time I heard anyone use it that way. Your version fits perfectly with the current meaning of poseur, not hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteSo while you’re not wrong, I think you’d have a hard time selling your version outside the walls of this webpage.
Your humble servant,
Doug
I think you may be onto something there, Bill. I think pretending to be something you're not can change you. In the retail world you hear "Fake it till you make it" a lot. If you're in a foul mood, but act happy, you'll pull out of your mood soon enough.
ReplyDeleteBut I still don't buy that pretending to like reading a book you don't makes you a hypocrite. It's a little white lie, but not hypocrisy by the currently accepted, commonly used version of the word.
Now, if he mocked those self-help books as meaningless tripe and a waste of trees, but secretly loved and devoured them underneath the covers every night (there's an image), that absolutely meets all my criteria for hypocrisy.
I am really tickled by the direction this discussion is going. This is really more than I had hoped for and I'm very happy about it.
ReplyDeleteDoug, you are probably right about how broadly (not very) I could market the notion of hypocrisy I am using. But when people choose to say that the flavor of a word IS its meaning, what can I do?
In fact, however, by bouncing this conundrum back and forth between yourselves, you have led me to a new idea. The charge of hypocrisy is a charge against integrity or, as I more often say, against authenticity. "Authenticity is defined in French Kiss by Meg Ryan, who says: Happy, smile. Sad, frown. Use the corresponding face with the corresponding emotion.
You guys are talking about the effects of hypocrisy. Whole different thing. So we ought to begin to say things like, "Will the effects of this hypocritical behavior be good?" And you may have something like Bonhoeffer or something like "fake it till you make it." I think that would be a much better conversation AND it would allow us to continue using the word hypocrisy.
Doug, thanks for the image of me cowering under the sheets reading self-help books. Wonderful. Bill, the real reason I read Five Languages deeply is that I was afraid I had offended Bette and was performing penance. And look what happened!
I like Meg's version of authenticity, and I'm completely on board with it. It also points to the idea that the opposite of authentic is hypocritical. That's not a change for you--it's perfectly in keeping with your original argument--but it's a new one for me. I never would have chosen those as antonyms.
ReplyDeleteWell, I've sure enjoyed this too, and I think you've inspired me to get going on my own blog. I've had it for a while, but never did much with it. Maybe it's time.
-Doug