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==Etymology==
[http://nordan.daynal.org/wiki/index.php?title=English#ca._1100-1500_.09THE_MIDDLE_ENGLISH_PERIOD Middle English] ypocrisie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, from [[Greek]] hypokrisis [[act]] of playing a part on the [[stage]], hypocrisy, from hypokrinesthai to answer, act on the stage, from hypo- + krinein to [[decide]]
The [[word]] hypocrisy comes from the [[Greek]] ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means "[[play]]-acting", "acting out", "coward" or "dissembling". The word ''hypocrite'' is from the [[Greek]] word ὑποκρίτης (hypokrites), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_noun agentive noun] associated with υποκρίνομαι (hypokrinomai), i.e., "I [[play]] a part". Both derive from the verb κρίνω, "[[judge]]" (»κρίση, "[[judgement]]" »κριτική (kritiki), "critics") presumably because the [[performance]] of a dramatic [[text]] by an [[actor]] was to involve a [[degree]] of [[interpretation]], or assessment, of that text.
Alternatively, the [[word]] is an amalgam of the Greek prefix hypo-, meaning "under", and the verb krinein, meaning "to sift or decide". Thus the original meaning implied a deficiency in the ability to sift or decide. This deficiency, as it pertains to one's own beliefs and feelings, informs the word's contemporary meaning.[3]
Whereas hypokrisis applied to any sort of [[public]] [[performance]] (including the art of [[rhetoric]]), hypokrites was a technical term for a [[stage]] [[actor]] and was not considered an appropriate role for a [[public]] figure. In Athens in the 4th century BC, for example, the great orator [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosthenes Demosthenes] ridiculed his rival [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschines Aeschines], who had been a successful actor before taking up [[politics]], as a hypokrites whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him an untrustworthy politician. This [[negative]] view of the hypokrites, perhaps combined with the [[Roman]] disdain for [[actors]], later shaded into the originally neutral hypokrisis. It is this later sense of hypokrisis as "play-acting", i.e., the assumption of a counterfeit [[persona]], that gives the [[modern]] word hypocrisy its [[negative]] connotation.
*Date: [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Century 13th century]
==Definitions==
* a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false [[assumption]] of an [[appearance]] of [[virtue]] or [[religion]]
==Description==
'''Hypocrisy''' is the [[act]] of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, [[virtues]], [[feelings]], qualities, or [[standards]] that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the [[deception]] of others and is thus a kind of lie.
Hypocrisy is not simply failing to [[practice]] those virtues that one preaches. [[Samuel Johnson]] made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in Rambler No. 14:
<blockquote>Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that [[expresses]] zeal for those [[virtues]] which he neglects to [[practice]]; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his [[passions]], without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be [[confident]] of the advantages of a voyage, or a [[journey]], without having [[courage]] or [[industry]] to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.</blockquote>
Thus, an alcoholic's advocating temperance, for example, would not be considered an [[act]] of hypocrisy so long as the alcoholic made no pretense of constant sobriety.
Although hypocrisy has been called "the tribute that [[vice]] pays to [[virtue]]"[1], and a bit of it certainly greases the wheels of [[social]] [[exchange]], it may also corrode the well-being of those people who continually make or are forced to make use of it.[2] As Boris Pasternak has Yurii say in Doctor Zhivago, "Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the [[opposite]] of what you [[feel]], if you grovel before what you dislike... Our [[nervous system]] isn't just [[fiction]], it's part of our [[physical]] [[body]], and it can't be forever violated with impunity."
==References==
# François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims
# The Pursuit of Health, June Bingham & Norman Tamarkin, M.D. Walker&Co.
[[Category: Religion]]
[[Category: Philosophy]]
[[Category: Languages and Literature]]
==Etymology==
[http://nordan.daynal.org/wiki/index.php?title=English#ca._1100-1500_.09THE_MIDDLE_ENGLISH_PERIOD Middle English] ypocrisie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, from [[Greek]] hypokrisis [[act]] of playing a part on the [[stage]], hypocrisy, from hypokrinesthai to answer, act on the stage, from hypo- + krinein to [[decide]]
The [[word]] hypocrisy comes from the [[Greek]] ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means "[[play]]-acting", "acting out", "coward" or "dissembling". The word ''hypocrite'' is from the [[Greek]] word ὑποκρίτης (hypokrites), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_noun agentive noun] associated with υποκρίνομαι (hypokrinomai), i.e., "I [[play]] a part". Both derive from the verb κρίνω, "[[judge]]" (»κρίση, "[[judgement]]" »κριτική (kritiki), "critics") presumably because the [[performance]] of a dramatic [[text]] by an [[actor]] was to involve a [[degree]] of [[interpretation]], or assessment, of that text.
Alternatively, the [[word]] is an amalgam of the Greek prefix hypo-, meaning "under", and the verb krinein, meaning "to sift or decide". Thus the original meaning implied a deficiency in the ability to sift or decide. This deficiency, as it pertains to one's own beliefs and feelings, informs the word's contemporary meaning.[3]
Whereas hypokrisis applied to any sort of [[public]] [[performance]] (including the art of [[rhetoric]]), hypokrites was a technical term for a [[stage]] [[actor]] and was not considered an appropriate role for a [[public]] figure. In Athens in the 4th century BC, for example, the great orator [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosthenes Demosthenes] ridiculed his rival [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschines Aeschines], who had been a successful actor before taking up [[politics]], as a hypokrites whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him an untrustworthy politician. This [[negative]] view of the hypokrites, perhaps combined with the [[Roman]] disdain for [[actors]], later shaded into the originally neutral hypokrisis. It is this later sense of hypokrisis as "play-acting", i.e., the assumption of a counterfeit [[persona]], that gives the [[modern]] word hypocrisy its [[negative]] connotation.
*Date: [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Century 13th century]
==Definitions==
* a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false [[assumption]] of an [[appearance]] of [[virtue]] or [[religion]]
==Description==
'''Hypocrisy''' is the [[act]] of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, [[virtues]], [[feelings]], qualities, or [[standards]] that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the [[deception]] of others and is thus a kind of lie.
Hypocrisy is not simply failing to [[practice]] those virtues that one preaches. [[Samuel Johnson]] made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in Rambler No. 14:
<blockquote>Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that [[expresses]] zeal for those [[virtues]] which he neglects to [[practice]]; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his [[passions]], without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be [[confident]] of the advantages of a voyage, or a [[journey]], without having [[courage]] or [[industry]] to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.</blockquote>
Thus, an alcoholic's advocating temperance, for example, would not be considered an [[act]] of hypocrisy so long as the alcoholic made no pretense of constant sobriety.
Although hypocrisy has been called "the tribute that [[vice]] pays to [[virtue]]"[1], and a bit of it certainly greases the wheels of [[social]] [[exchange]], it may also corrode the well-being of those people who continually make or are forced to make use of it.[2] As Boris Pasternak has Yurii say in Doctor Zhivago, "Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the [[opposite]] of what you [[feel]], if you grovel before what you dislike... Our [[nervous system]] isn't just [[fiction]], it's part of our [[physical]] [[body]], and it can't be forever violated with impunity."
==References==
# François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims
# The Pursuit of Health, June Bingham & Norman Tamarkin, M.D. Walker&Co.
[[Category: Religion]]
[[Category: Philosophy]]
[[Category: Languages and Literature]]
