Hypocrisy

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Hypocrisy is the act of persistently pretending to hold beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually hold. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie.

Hypocrisy may come from a desire to hide from others actual motives or feelings. Hypocrisy is not simply an inconsistency between what is advocated and what is done. 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]

[edit] Etymology

The Hypocrite is a well known dance that developed in the clubs of New York City in the late 1970s.

[edit] Hypocrisy and vice

Although hypocrisy has been called "the tribute that vice pays to virtue,"[2] and a bit of it certainly greases the wheels of social exchange, it may also corrode the well-being of those people who are continually forced to make use of it.[3] As Boris Pasternak has Yurii say in Doctor Zhivago, "Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike... Our nervous system isn't just fiction, it's part of our physical body, and it can't be forever violated with impunity."

Noteworthy Comment:

1) Our health will be affected if one engages chronically in this exercise

2) It causes undue stress & remember, the nervous system is connected directly or indiredctly to every cell in the body - eventually the immune system breaks down somewhere & potential cancers can arise. Not worth it in MHO.