Many pundits and politicians are fond of hurling hypocrite, explicitly or implicitly, at opponents. In other words, he who does not practice what he preaches shouldn't preach that which he doesn't practice. What is lost in such assertions is context and temporality. For example, a prominent political figure advocates abstinence education; it is claimed (on tenuous grounds, incidentally, but irrelevant to the gedankenexperiment presented here), that this person did not observe abstinence twenty-some years ago. Therefore, either the individual should stop supporting abstinence education, or his or her behavior, decades ago, is fair game for investigation. Such is the "logic" of hypocrisy, or so it seems.
Author Gary Wills produced many conservative writings decades ago, and supported numerous Republican candidates; subsequently he had an awakening of sorts, and became a liberal pundit. Should Wills' writings and actions of forty years ago be held against him, as evidence of hypocrisy? There might be any number of reasons to decry Gary Wills' oeuvre, either early or late. However, he changed, in full public view (much to the distress of William F. Buckley and others), moving from right to left; Wills' transformation was not necessarily hypocrisy. An example of part-playing would have while pretending conservatism early on, and then opening the closet door into a light-infused room.
Regardless of anyone's previous behavior, she or he is innocent of hypocrisy if the current ethic is proclaimed in word and sought to be lived out in deed. Even if a person failed, through human weakness, to live up to the standard they accept, that individual is not necessarily a hypocrite. Look at the definition again: it is a feigning, a pretense. The way that we come to know that hypocrisy is not present in ourselves is when either our words and actions do correspond, or we sincerely confess our failures.
There is another kind of contemporary hypocrisy, that fulfills, and then surpasses the definition above. This is the case of rationalizing "previously" immoral behavior by claiming that moral standards have changed. The best known, and perhaps earliest authoritative assertion of this hypocrisy, is Henry XIII. He, or his lieutenants, invented a new "sin": marrying his brother's widow, Catherine. He desired rationalization of his desired annulment/divorce from Catherine, in order to marry Anne. Present rationalized, "previous" sins included fornication and adultery and related actions and conditions. However, to invoke a Nineteenth Century riddle:
"Father, ... if I should call this cow's tail a leg, how many legs would she have?""Why five, to be sure.""Why, no father; would calling it a leg make it one?"The hypocrisy of the Pharisees, as decried by Jesus, was a conscious act on their part. Importantly, not every Pharisee was a hypocrite; Paul, for example, really believed in the righteousness of the Pharisaic cause, even to justification of the stoning of Stephen. Paul was profoundly wrong, as he subsequently confessed, but he was not a hypocrite.
So it is that there are current, infectious hypocrisies, including the new one that pretends to change moral law. However, those most often accused of feigning may be innocent of the charge, if not fully innocent of sin.
A temporary best-seller of a few years, What's the Matter with Kansas?, questioned why Kansans, and other Midwesterners, did not vote their own self-interest. Were these caricatures hypocrites? Of course, one could question the premise, unselfish voters. But, to complicate the matter, were Kansans conscious of their own "irrationality"? Slippery, isn't this hypocrisy stuff?
