Raphael Sassower examines the concept of hypocrisy for its strategic potential as a means of personal protection and social cohesion. Given the contemporary context of post-truth, the examination of degrees or kinds of hypocrisy moves from the Greek etymology of masks worn on the theater stage to the Hebrew etymology of the color adjustment of chameleons to their environment. Canonical presuppositions about the uniformity of the mind and the relation between intention and behavior that warrant the charge of hypocrisy are critically reconsidered in order to appreciate both inherent inconsistencies in personal conduct and the different contexts where the hypocrisy appears. Sassower considers the limits of analytic moral and political discourses that at times overlook the conditions under which putative hypocritical behavior is existentially required and where compromises yield positive results. When used among friends, the charge of hypocrisy is a useful tool with which to build trust and communities.
Author(s): Raphael Sassower
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 238
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Introduction
References
Contents
1 Degrees of Truth
1.1 The Context of Post-Truth: The Trumpian Age
1.2 Critiques of Scientific Truths
1.3 The Politics of Post-Truth
1.4 Perspectival Truths
References
2 Greek Masks and Hebrew Chameleons
2.1 Greek and Hebrew Etymologies of Hypocrisy
2.2 Five Examples
2.2.1 Israel, Nuclear Weapons, and Iran
2.2.2 Celibate Clergy in the Catholic Church
2.2.3 President Obama’s “Code Switching”
2.2.4 President Trump’s Torture Comments
2.2.5 WeWork’s CEO on Community Building
2.3 Some Standard Views and Their Limitations
2.4 Alternative Readings
References
3 Complicity and Compromise
3.1 Political Economy
3.2 Individuals and Communities
3.3 Organized Hypocrisy on the Political Economic Stage
3.4 The Price of National Security: Loss of Identity
References
4 In Search of the Self
4.1 Acting, Reacting, and Posing
4.2 Group Psychology
4.3 Krasner on the Modular Mind
4.4 Caillois and Nietzsche on Mimicry
References
5 Misrecognition and Passing
5.1 Religious Precedence
5.2 Passing and Code-Switching
5.2.1 The Predicaments of Passing
5.2.2 Code-Switching
5.3 Visibility, Invisibility, and Identity
5.4 Morality at Work
References
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
