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To: Kaslin
Hypocrisy is to pretend you do something but don't.

Knowing what is right but failing to do it is not hypocrisy.

I wish people knew the difference.

3 posted on 02/02/2017 3:54:39 PM PST by virgil283 ( avoid hubris, tread carefully, expect the unlikely, and distrust the self-acclaimed wise...)
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To: virgil283

I respectfully disagree:

Hypocrisy literally means “to under-judge”: to judge one person by a lesser standard than another person; that first person is often oneself, but not necessarily so.

A perfect example is the way the Left judges William Clinton by a lesser sexual standard than they do any Republican. The hypocrites who defend him may themselves be relatively upright sexually; they are nevertheless entirely hypocritical.

The kind of pretense so often called hypocrisy (i.e., being a phony) is actually more correctly termed imposture: pretending to be or do something one is not or does not.

Another way to look at it is this: Some of the Sanhedrin were themselves very devout, and did just what they advocated; however, they may have overlooked it when one of their own did not, while expecting the common Jew to observe it completely. That was hypocrisy.

Therefore, to be a hypocrite does not necessarily make one an impostor.

This has long mattered to me not only as an ordained minister, but as a writer who values Standard English.

Yes, the use you cite is common; that does not mean it is accurate or preferable.

(I refuse also to abuse the term “gay” for a homoerotic person, even though many would say that it is too late to salvage the meaning of such a word; I refuse to meekly submit to the degradation of our language - just as I refuse to submit to the linguistic taboos that the Mohammedans are attempting to impose upon Americans.)

P.S.
I assume you were contrasting this with what is often termed a sin of omission.


9 posted on 02/02/2017 6:05:00 PM PST by YogicCowboy ("I am not entirely on anyone's side, because no one is entirely on mine." - JRRT)
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