Hypocrisy, many say, is part and parcel of human nature and, sadly, a preoccupation of many.
Numerous examples of this behavior practiced wantonly and with reckless abandon are found in everyday life.
In grade school, you probably had a teacher who taught you good manners and right conduct, but you knew very well that she ran a houseful of kids who exhibited unruly behavior, spoke rudely, and showed no respect to their parents. How about your neighborhood meat vendor who swears to the accuracy of his weighing scale but conveniently does not give you the correct change? Or the traffic enforcer who flags you down for a perceived traffic violation but shamelessly accepts money slipped behind your driver’s license?
The examples are not few and far between that they appear to approximate normal behavior. And the most common offenders or practitioners? Politicians, lawyers, show business agents, and advertising executives who hard-sell their clients or products, according to a keen observer of the human condition.
Simply said, a hypocrite says things he or she does not do. The dictionary is more explicit: “A hypocrite feigns to be what one is not, or a concealment of one’s real character, disposition or motives, especially the assuming of a false appearance of virtue or religion; a simulation of goodness.” Inspirational author Shannon Alder defines hypocrisy as “the moment you tell someone it is not important to be right, in order to look right to everyone else.”
Who can forget that memorable photograph published in the national dailies of a Laguna town mayor, the convicted mastermind in the murder of two university students, hugging a statue of the Virgin Mary in a tight embrace, then cursing everyone in the courtroom following the handing down of his sentence? Or persistent reports alleging that a former provincial governor accused of killing his aide left his prison cell, apparently with the full knowledge of penal authorities, to join the tumultuous Black Nazarene procession in Quiapo. Not to mention that he turned Muslim when he married a second wife.
Then some legislators would frequently call or visit a top executive official to ask for a favor for business transactions but quickly condemn the official should his luck or favor run out and call for a congressional investigation “in aid of legislation?” Or court members who, instead of dispensing justice equally, blindly accept compromises to settle cases, albeit heinous ones, committed by children or relatives of influential members of society.
In most neighborhoods, especially at the height of the Covid-I9 pandemic, you must have run into or read about barangay captains blatantly hauling off to their homes cartons of donated relief goods or ayuda meant for their constituents. Or of rich, “civic-minded” matrons in prosperous Makati villages proclaiming their advocacies for the underprivileged on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to anyone who would care to listen but are otherwise abusive employers who pay their household help or family driver below minimum wage rates.
Worse of the lot are some members of the church hierarchy who preach morality from their pulpits yet tolerate child molesters within their ranks by giving these sexual offenders a mere slap on the wrist, transferring them to other parishes instead of reporting their misdeeds to the authorities. A good case in point was the widely publicized series of articles in the Boston Globe in the early 2000s that zeroed in on abusive priests in the Boston, Massachusetts area. The newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the scandal.
On the local home front, it’s not difficult to identify politicians with self-serving agendas, promising good governance but doing the opposite. You find them everywhere, from the barangay level to the corrupt policeman or military general, to the higher posts in the bureaucracy that line the corridors of power. They are practically a dime a dozen.
The danger lies when a hypocrite “abuses the trust of others and often will play upon that trust to get what he wants”, warns a psychologist. “He is comfortable with deception — so much so that the lie and the truth may become confused in his mind.”
French writer Andre Gide sternly cautions the unwary: “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.”
Are we able to perceive the difference?