hollywoodhogan4
Mount Vernon, NY
age: 43
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For the death metal band, see Hypocrisy (band).
Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person, where the stated basis for the criticism is the breach of a rule which also applies to the critic. Though hypocrisy is frequently invoked as an accusation in debates, a few theorists have studied the utility of hypocrisy, and in some cases have suggested that the conflicts manifested as hypocrisy are a necessary or even beneficial part of human behavior and society.
Etymology
The word hypocrisy derives from the Greek ?p????s?? (hypokrisis), which means "acting out"; the word hypocrite is from the Greek word ?p????t?? (hypokrites), the agentive noun associated with hypokrisis, i.e. "actor." Both derive from the verb ?????, "judge, assess," presumably because the performance of a dramatic text by an actor was to involve a degree of interpretation, or assessment, of that text.
Nevertheless, 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. In all this, we do not find the modern idea that the hypocrite is unaware of that his performance or argument stands in contradiction with his self: on the contrary, a hypocrite in antiquity was someone who intentionally tried to deceive others.
Defining hypocrisy
In an act of hypocrisy the aim is to condemn another person or people, not to condemn an act. To preach against an act of which one is oneself guilty, does not in itself constitute hypocrisy, even if one takes efforts to conceal one's behaviour. It becomes hypocrisy when it involves verbal attacks or demands of punishment against perpetrators of the act which one practices oneself. Hypocrisy can be too, simply put, the pot calling the kettle black.
Concealment or evasion is not necessary for hypocrisy; hypocrisy can involve the open practice of a behaviour for which one condemns others. If there is a salient difference between the critic and the criticised which makes the criticised person reproachable for the act, but the critic not, then it is not hypocrisy; e.g. a parent condemning their child for using a dangerous implement which the parent themselves uses is not a hypocrite. If the difference in status appealed to by the critic is bogus, then it is indeed hypocrisy. The term double standard is used, confusingly enough, for both cases, as a simple descriptive phrase in the case of the parents, and as a pejorative phrase for open hypocrisy in the second case.
Whether the criticism is based on the absence of a behaviour or on the practise of a behaviour, the same criteria for hypocrisy apply.
An accusation of hypocrisy may be considered a logical fallacy (specifically that of argumentum ad hominem) because the person carrying out the condemnation is not relevant to the argument used as the basis for that condemnation. A parent who instructs a child not to smoke cigarettes, but himself smokes, could be making an argument that is valid in and of itself, regardless of the parent's behavior.
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 61
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Hypocrisy can be put in a few words DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO.
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