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Hypocrisy: Saying one thing and doing another .......

At its face value, hypocrisy is typically something that seems abhorrent. Today's world seems to have little if any, tolerance for a hypocrite. You need only open a newspaper or turn on the television and you will soon see a story on someone saying one thing and doing another. This begs the question: "Why on earth would anyone want to be one of these?". Well, the obvious answer is simply that nobody actually wants to be a hypocrite. Rather, hypocrisy is something that happens accidentally. But if you think I am saying that people don't have responsibility for their actions then think again. No, to the contrary, they MUST assume responsibility for their actions. But if you closely study the definition at the link above (courtesy of our friends at bartelby.com and the American Heritage Dictionary), you will see that it refers to the state of being, where a person does not possess the virtues that they themselves profess.

Now notice that this definition never once mentions ill-intent. Instead it describes the STATE of hypocrisy and NOT the PROCESS. Put simply, it merely describes the existence of a difference between the amount of virtue one aspires-to and that which one actually possesses. It seems that by just looking at this fact, the edge is taken off of this word. I will explain this with a simple example:

Say someone is a chronic smoker, gambler, sexaholic, over-eater, or whatever. They might give talks to youth and adults alike, describing the de-humanizing effects of addictive behaviors and they would certainly be acting correctly. Yet being someone who suffers from one or more of these disorders, their own state of "cleanliness" (so to speak) is something that must be won daily on the battlefield of temptation. Since free-will is a mystery in and of itself (as is temptation), there is never a guarantee of success (especially if the addictive person is trying to rely solely on their own strength).

So what happens if this person "falls off of the wagon"? The obvious answer is that the first fruit of "the fall" is alienation between that person and himself (or herself). This alienation almost seems to be the psyche's built-in sense of justice in dealing with incorrect action. But the problem is that once this person has already publicly stated opposition to such behavior, the alienation is "multiplied" by the number of people one has spoken publicly to.

Now at this point, the fallen person has a decision to make.

1) They "confess" it to everyone they have spoken to, thus causing disillusionment in the very people they were trying to help.

2) They conceal it, thus causing neurosis in their self..

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