Hypocrisy

In Athens during 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 hypocrites 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.

[8] In the political controversies using sermons, speeches, and pamphlet wars, high churchmen and Nonconformists attacked their opponents as insincere and hypocritical, as well as dangerously zealous, in contrast to their own moderation.

In his famous book Fable of the Bees (1714) English author Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) explored the nature of hypocrisy in contemporary European society.

On the one hand Mandeville was a ‘moralist’ heir to the French Augustinianism of the previous century, viewing sociability as a mere mask for vanity and pride.

He argued that the efforts of self-seeking entrepreneurs are the basis of emerging commercial and industrial society, a line of thought that influenced Adam Smith (1723–1790) and 19th century utilitarianism.

The tension between these two approaches, modes, ambivalences and contradictions—concerning the relative power of norms and interests, the relationship between motives and behaviours, and the historical variability of human societies.

They claimed to be guiding and counseling reforms to prevent the outbreaks of popular discontent that caused instability and revolution in Europe.

Tory and radical critics accused the Whigs of hypocrisy—alleging they were deliberately using the slogans of reform and democracy to boost themselves into power while preserving their precious aristocratic exclusiveness.

Liberal and radical observers noted the servility of the English lower classes, the obsession everyone had with rank and title, the extravagance of the aristocracy, a supposed anti-intellectualism, and a pervasive hypocrisy that extended into such areas as social reform.

In the propaganda battles of World War II, Japan attacked American hypocrisy by emphasizing the injustice of the incarceration camps for Japanese in the United States.

Radio Tokyo emphasized that the camps revealed the hypocritical American claim to democratic ideals and fair play.

[11] American historian Martin Jay in The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics (2012) explores how writers over the centuries have treated hypocrisy, deception, flattery, lying and cheating, slander, false pretenses, living on borrowed glory, masquerading, conventions of concealment, playacting before others and the arts of dissimulation.

[14] In the Buddhist text Dhammapada, Gautama Buddha condemns a man who takes the appearance of an ascetic but is full of passions within.

[15] In some translations of the Book of Job, the Hebrew word chaneph is rendered as "hypocrite", though it usually means "godless" or "profane".

A little less hypocrisy and a little more self-knowledge can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.In New Paths in Psychology Jung pointedly referred to the "hypocritical pretenses of man".

"Dream-analysis above all else mercilessly uncovers the lying morality and hypocritical pretences of man, showing him, for once, the other side of his character in the most vivid light".

[29] Moreover, humans tend to think highly of themselves, highlighting strengths and achievements, and overlooking weakness and failures (the "self-serving bias").

[36] Humans tend to judge others by their behavior, but think they have special information about themselves – that they know what they are "really like" inside – and thus effortlessly find ways to explain away selfish acts, and maintain the illusion that they are better than others.

Defenses of this position have usually focused on the connection between hypocrisy and fairness: the basic idea is that the hypocritical blamer in some way fails to treat the target of her blame as a moral equal.

"[50] On Dan Turner's view, by contrast, the fundamental feature is "conflict or disparity" between a person's attitudes, where this may or may not involve deception.

Political theorist Judith N. Shklar argues, in "Let Us Not Be Hypocritical," we are all too eager to construe even minor deviations from our opponents' professed beliefs as hypocrisy, rather than understandable imperfections and weaknesses to which everyone is prone.