by David Arthur Walters

Created on: November 22, 2007

Hypocrisy in its pejorative sense can be a depressing subject. No-one likes to hear the hypocritical refrain constantly repeated over and over, that everyone including himself is a hypocrite proudly putting up a false pretense of universal goodness to hide the original evil, the particular selfishness within. After all, calling someone a hypocrite is tantamount to calling him a selfish bastard who pretends to be otherwise. The Alexandrine Jews translated hanef, denoting a godless person, into 'hypokrite'; until then, 'hypocrisy' simply meant to play a part, hence a hypocrite was merely an actor. Since God is the universal father who provides the patriarchal community with its unity, a godless person is a bastard; and a selfish bastard at that, because he thinks of himself and does not have the good of the community at heart.

Moreover, the hypocrite would rather not do his moral duty, which is a social duty or duty to the universal - the community. He would rather be true to his individual will, which is essentially anarchic because it would persist forever if only it could, without resistance, without any leadership but its own freedom unbounded. But alas for the individual; he is not the omnipotent, universal god. He is a particular, part-time, demigod who must occasionally spell his name backwards and tag along with the others if he would survive as a human being. Wherefore we don our masks and play our parts for our own good. Thus is the social interest a selfish interest. To call a married woman a hypocrite for playing a wifely role because she wants the benefits of marriage is hypocritical. The term would be more fairly applied if she took her vows and gave a command performance of the duties of her role with evil intent, say to get herself in her husband's will, then arrange for a seeming accident. Madonna played that role quite well in Body of Evidence; the protagonist married wealthy men with weak hearts and literally screwed them to death; lawyers debated whether or not a woman's body could be legally defined as a 'deadly weapon.'

So we think 'hypocrisy' is an abusive term, and we take pause to apologise for calling people selfish bastards. Augustine, whom many Christian scholars claim is the founder of modern Western intellectual history, received the impression from his misinterpretation of Paul that man is a selfish bastard or godless man because he fell from grace into sin and must be redeemed or burn in hell. Even innocent babies are tainted by

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