Hypocrisy
See it for what it is. There’s often a hint of dopamine when we contemplate the hypocrisy in others. It may be the smug satisfaction knowing that Mr. all-men-are-created equal Thomas Jefferson was himself a slave owner. You see, my own moral standing is way superior to that of the founding fathers.
More contemporary politics can be a slugfest of mutually assured destruction gotchas. Those on the right have a field day with the hypocrisy of progressive virtue-signalling as they cite those save-the-planet ideologues on their private jets. Those on the left look to Trump and . . . well, where even to start.
Think of everyday scenes: a manager who preaches work‑life balance while sending late‑night emails; a colleague who posts about “honesty and integrity” while quietly bending the rules; friends who claim to hate hypocrisy yet judge others far more harshly than they judge themselves. These are not just isolated flaws as they mirror the kind of contradictions George Orwell dramatized in 1984, where ministries wage war in the name of peace and language is twisted so that “war is peace” sounds almost normal.
The point is many of us can be hypocritical machines. Look at the guy with the Be-The-Change bumper sticker flip off the car next to him. Besides, see, the jerk didn’t even use his turn signal, while I . . . whoops, did it again.
We’ll discuss hypocrisy—not just as a personal moral failing, but as something that shapes institutions, language, and even the way we think. Many of us feel deeply uncomfortable when people say one thing and do another, and yet, as Michael Hallsworth points out, our obsession with catching others out can backfire, breeding more hypocrisy and emptying the word of its real meaning (click: Hypocrisy).
Maybe look to oneself e.g. how to reconcile the love of animals with the taste for meat – a master stroke of dissociation as one so easily dismisses the thought of what that packaged leg of lamb was once attached to.
After our communal self-flagellation and per the focus article, we might ask: when is hypocrisy trivial and human, and when is it harmful and systemic?; how can we point out contradictions without sounding self‑righteous or turning the word into a weapon?; and how does Orwell’s vision of doublethink and Newspeak help us see hypocrisy not just in individuals, but in the structures and language all around us?
The goal is not to excuse hypocrisy or to project blame, but to use it as a lens for clearer, more honest conversations on our way to the radical authenticity we’d discussed in MM 2/9/26 Getting Real.
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