synonyms: sanctimoniousness, sanctimony, pietism, piousness, affected piety, affected superiority, false virtue, cant, humbug, pretence, posturing, speciousness, empty talk; insincerity, falseness, falsity, deceptiveness, deceit, deceitfulness, deception, dishonesty, dissembling, dissimulation, duplicity, imposture, two-facedness, double-dealing; informal phoneyness;
rare Pharisaism,Tartufferie
I have learnt that… occasionally the very people that claim to scorn hypocrisy are Hypocrisy incarnate. Perhaps they really do believe that they are not this way at all… perhaps they genuinely do not see how their actions defy their vehemently verbal avowals… how their deep-dyed inconsistency does not, indeed, breed trust. But I feel compelled to help them see in today’s missive. All that remains is whether or not they will or actually wish to see it.
Two similar examples of such displays of hypocrisy shall follow… both middle-aged, more judgmental than they give themselves credit for, sporting a definitive superiority complex (perhaps created purely for survival?)… both cases set in similar milieus, that of social media.
Exhibit No. 1:
He/She is many things… but now also following his/her dream of being a recognized and accomplished artist. He/she captures his/her journey, his/her navel-gazing, his/her work and his/her self-professed empathy online via a blog. He/She is also on Twitter and Facebook. Correction: he/she was on Facebook. Without elaborating to any great extent (and there are several tangents which would make for interesting context and further reading), a concatenation of events led to a dramatic action on his/her part, as it does. This action was eloquently, almost beautifully, documented and justified... how he/she made a decision to extricate himself/herself from Facebook in honour of his/her authentic self. How he/she no longer wished to traipse through a real-time screen of feigned interest and friendship, stroking fragile and pathetically lonely egos with likes and validations and indulging others their self-preoccupation. Whoa… serious stuff…and so on. The funniest part of all was that despite the thespian deletion from Facebook, he/she remained on Twitter and became more active on it than ever before. Bear in mind, too, that Twitter is much less of a private online space than Facebook… on Facebook you can at least control your Privacy Settings, select who sees your stuff, select or delete your ‘Facebook friends’, and select what you want to see. Twitter, on the other hand, is like a public toilet without a door! Anyone can follow you and look at your posts and you can pretty much follow (even stalk) anyone you want to. And this person, who developed such a sudden and powerful aversion to Facebook and pretty much insulted all those whom he/she left behind in this wretched, sorry cyb-urb, tweets every day, several times a day… favours validating, in particular the young ones' tweets and has a penchant for the artistic, promiscuous ones in particular, and… wait for it… posts ‘selfies’ regularly. No, frequently.
Me, all sweaty after a run.
Me, all wet after a shower.
Me, sleeping in yet another power failure (Ja, you can take a selfie of yourself when you are sleeping, eyes closed and all…)
Me after working all day.
Me feeling sad.
Me feeling happy.
Me in the newspaper.
Me...
No more words necessary.
Exhibit No. 2:
He/She is a proud cynic and almost boastful about his/her anti-establishment essence. He/She finds anyone who doesn’t have her kind of looks unattractive, and thinks that most things will look better on him/her. If he/she doesn’t like someone, he/she likes to play people (like one plays Chess) with the aim of driving that person out or making their life miserable. He/She speaks badly of others behind their back and shams loyalty in front of them. He/She claims nobility and justifies it with his/her supposed love for animals and nature, but treats humans who do her no wrong and are living creatures too worse than anyone would treat their pet. He/She believes she has an excuse for being rude or thoughtless because he/she has had hard times and because that is the way he/she is, take it or leave it. He/She makes herself look good by making others look bad. When you’re sad, he/she’s a Good Samaritan… when you’re happy and it doesn’t have anything to do with him/her, he/she hates you and puts a dampener on everything. When his/her animals are badly behaved, they’re just being natural and innocent. When others’ animals are being badly behaved, he/she screams at them as though they put his/her life in danger. When he/she prepares a meal for others, they graciously partake and show their appreciation. When others prepare a meal for him/her, he/she tells them at the last minute that he/she will not be partaking and even pulls a face. When everything suits him/her and is as he/she would have it, he/she can be very nice indeed… but as for the contrary, he/she does not care to do anyone any favours. The revelations continue, but we are off course.
While he/she certainly keeps an eye on Facebook (I dub them Perchers – those who seemingly are never on Facebook based on lack of interaction, but are always watching), he/she oft expresses how much it galls him/her… how people splash their personal lives all over Facebook… how attention-seeking he/she finds it. How pathetic and BORING it is… all his/her expressions punctuated with rolling-eyes, vomiting sounds, tongue out with eyes squinting, forefingers circling the temples indicating madness.
Yet… in a recent status update… he/she lamented the fact that posts on Facebook are hardly personal these days, and that he/she would like to share some good advice. That if anyone needed to go to hospital, that his/her local hospital (and the staff there) is fantastic. In other words… hey Everybody out there who normally posts boring, pathetic, personal things… why are you not doing it anymore so I can laugh at you and mock you? And, by the way, I was obviously in hospital recently. Don’t you want to ask why and feel sorry for me? Even though I never feel sorry for any of you because I don’t like humans (humans suck) and only like animals that I keep imprisoned, can never tell me how they feel, have to love me because I feed them (and feeding them makes me feel so good) and they can never leave.
Curtains closed.
I don’t deny them their humanness. God, we are all plagued with it, aren’t we? I just find it sad that they are so cruel about others’ humanness.
Anyway… just as it is my party and I’ll cry if I want to… they may carry on. The theory of Relativity remains a 4D lesson in itself. My discernment comes from what I learn… and from there I choose which monsters I let stay, and which monsters I let go.
As soon as I recognize it, Hypocrisy can go.
No more words necessary.
Exhibit No. 2:
He/She is a proud cynic and almost boastful about his/her anti-establishment essence. He/She finds anyone who doesn’t have her kind of looks unattractive, and thinks that most things will look better on him/her. If he/she doesn’t like someone, he/she likes to play people (like one plays Chess) with the aim of driving that person out or making their life miserable. He/She speaks badly of others behind their back and shams loyalty in front of them. He/She claims nobility and justifies it with his/her supposed love for animals and nature, but treats humans who do her no wrong and are living creatures too worse than anyone would treat their pet. He/She believes she has an excuse for being rude or thoughtless because he/she has had hard times and because that is the way he/she is, take it or leave it. He/She makes herself look good by making others look bad. When you’re sad, he/she’s a Good Samaritan… when you’re happy and it doesn’t have anything to do with him/her, he/she hates you and puts a dampener on everything. When his/her animals are badly behaved, they’re just being natural and innocent. When others’ animals are being badly behaved, he/she screams at them as though they put his/her life in danger. When he/she prepares a meal for others, they graciously partake and show their appreciation. When others prepare a meal for him/her, he/she tells them at the last minute that he/she will not be partaking and even pulls a face. When everything suits him/her and is as he/she would have it, he/she can be very nice indeed… but as for the contrary, he/she does not care to do anyone any favours. The revelations continue, but we are off course.
While he/she certainly keeps an eye on Facebook (I dub them Perchers – those who seemingly are never on Facebook based on lack of interaction, but are always watching), he/she oft expresses how much it galls him/her… how people splash their personal lives all over Facebook… how attention-seeking he/she finds it. How pathetic and BORING it is… all his/her expressions punctuated with rolling-eyes, vomiting sounds, tongue out with eyes squinting, forefingers circling the temples indicating madness.
Yet… in a recent status update… he/she lamented the fact that posts on Facebook are hardly personal these days, and that he/she would like to share some good advice. That if anyone needed to go to hospital, that his/her local hospital (and the staff there) is fantastic. In other words… hey Everybody out there who normally posts boring, pathetic, personal things… why are you not doing it anymore so I can laugh at you and mock you? And, by the way, I was obviously in hospital recently. Don’t you want to ask why and feel sorry for me? Even though I never feel sorry for any of you because I don’t like humans (humans suck) and only like animals that I keep imprisoned, can never tell me how they feel, have to love me because I feed them (and feeding them makes me feel so good) and they can never leave.
Curtains closed.
I don’t deny them their humanness. God, we are all plagued with it, aren’t we? I just find it sad that they are so cruel about others’ humanness.
Anyway… just as it is my party and I’ll cry if I want to… they may carry on. The theory of Relativity remains a 4D lesson in itself. My discernment comes from what I learn… and from there I choose which monsters I let stay, and which monsters I let go.
As soon as I recognize it, Hypocrisy can go.
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| Image from http://zoosmatter.com |
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