Hypocrisy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have
beliefs,
opinions,
virtues,
feelings,
qualities, or
standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of
lie.
Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches.
Samuel Johnson made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in
Rambler No. 14:
Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.
[1]
Thus, an alcoholic's advocating temperance, for example, would not be considered an act of hypocrisy so long as the alcoholic made no pretense of constant sobriety.
[edit] Etymology
The word
hypocrisy comes from the
Greek ὑπόκρισις (
hypokrisis), which means "play-acting", "acting out", "coward" or "dissembling".
[2] The word
hypocrite is from the Greek word ὑποκρίτης (
hypokrites), the
agentive noun associated with υποκρίνομαι (
hypokrinomaiκρίση, "judgement" »κριτική (
kritiki), "critics") presumably because the performance of a dramatic text by an actor was to involve a degree of interpretation, or assessment, of that text.
Alternatively, the word is an amalgam of the Greek prefix
hypo-, meaning "under", and the verb
krinein, meaning "to sift or decide". Thus the original meaning implied a deficiency in the ability to sift or decide. This deficiency, as it pertains to one's own beliefs and feelings, informs the word's contemporary meaning.
[3]
Whereas
hypokrisis applied to any sort of public performance (including the art of rhetoric),
hypokrites was a technical term for a stage actor and was not considered an appropriate role for a public figure. In Athens in the 4th century BC, for example, the great orator
Demosthenes ridiculed his rival
Aeschines, who had been a successful actor before taking up politics, as a
hypokrites whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him an untrustworthy politician. This negative view of the
hypokrites, perhaps combined with the Roman disdain for actors, later shaded into the originally neutral
hypokrisis. It is this later sense of
hypokrisis as "play-acting", i.e., the assumption of a counterfeit persona, that gives the modern word
hypocrisy its negative connotation.
