Introduction
Should We Always Say What We Think?

We should always say what we think. This is the precept of authenticity hypocrisy calls into question and the reason why it is condemned, as it reveals an intentional disconnect between what is thought and what is said. The hypocrite is therefore viewed as a silent saboteur of the moral order (but not a revolutionary) who lurks in the shadows and erodes the very foundations of trust, because if hypocrisy were the rule, how could we believe those accusing others of being hypocrites and how could we believe a friend really is a friend?

Who Is a Hypocrite and Who Is Not?

Without trust there is no society, friendship is impossible, love cannot exist. 'Hypocrisy is dangerous . because it undermines trust and fidelity to moral values - friendship, love, or faith.'1 But society, friendship and love cannot exist without some measure of virtuous hypocrisy. The question cannot therefore be considered in the black-and-white terms of allow or deny, justify or condemn. Rather, we must understand in which settings and within which limits hypocrisy can be justified.

A society that is absolutely authentic and one-dimensional (let's call it uni-vers) might well be the worst in which to live, because the absolute nature of its principles would inevitably be accompanied by cruelty. Furthermore, such a society would render hypocrisy not a considered choice but a systematic strategy for self-defence. The fear of persecution, of being the object of discrimination and violence, would render hypocrisy omnipresent and uncontainable, transforming it into duplicity and lies, phenomena that though close to hypocrisy are distant and distinct from it. The worst inquisitors declared themselves the total enemies of hypocrisy except when making a living from it (if indeed they wanted to live). Galileo Galilei's abjuration cannot be described as hypocrisy but as necessary duplicity - terror renders hypocrisy a blunt weapon. On the other hand, freedom as 'tranquillity of the mind' (believed by Montesquieu to be at the heart of moderate government), protected by law, leaves space for hypocrisy as the 'tribute that vice pays to virtue'.

This book focuses on the idea of 'doublethink' as a choice rather than as something forced. It does not aim to praise hypocrisy (wouldn't that be hypocritical?) but to show its classical and modern forms to advance the following theory: in a society based on respect for the other, people should be capable of exercising some level of hypocrisy, to understand that the insistence upon authenticity is not always the closest ally of those who have principles and who believe. Hypocrisy can be both a means of self-control and a shield with which to protect ourselves from control. Reflected in this dualism is human vulnerability.

In this context, the issue of hypocrisy is not viewed in terms of consistency with the truth, as is the case with lying, but as a style of discourse, as a circumstantial suspension of correspondence between what we say and what we are thinking or what we believe in the moment we speak. This book treats hypocrisy as a performative issue. Hypocrisy concerns what we say and how we say it (speech is a form of action that reaches not just reason, but sentiments and emotions) in connection with what we could and would like to say. The decision to remain silent or not say exactly what we think or would like to say is controversial, for the agent first and foremost.

Let's begin with two examples taken from everyday life.

First example. I am at my friends' house at a dinner party with some people I know and others I have never met before. Over the course of the evening, a discussion begins on a subject that is not 'radically controversial' and that sits well within the bounds of tolerability and compromise. During the discussion, some of the guests defend positions I do not share. As my participation in the conversation grows increasingly lively, I hear a voice inside me suggesting that I let it go and give up saying what I actually think, or, if I really can't bear to keep quiet, that I at least try and say it in a moderate way. Instead, my passion for controversy causes me to stray from the path of prudence and I end up saying exactly what I think in a way that best communicates the strength of my convictions, unleashing a debate that leaves no one feeling relaxed (least of all me).

Walking home later with a friend, I confess I feel uneasy about the situation and regret having lost my self-control and having been incapable of keeping quiet or speaking in a more judicious fashion. Both the hosts and the other guests had felt embarrassed about the broken harmony that was never truly restored over the course of the evening, not even when we said our goodbyes. My friend, however, says: 'I think you were absolutely right to say what you thought; it was up to the others to be able to defend their own opinions and not up to you to adapt to their narrow mind. Would you rather be a hypocrite?' This comment gives us a sense of the hypocrisy I intend to deal with here: a matter that is pertinent to relations of civility, and that also refers to the individual's character, calling into question the education and formation of our second nature (the mores).

Second example. When I was a little girl, my mother would tell me off because, in her opinion, I was nicer to strangers than to her or the other people in my family. But was her rebuke an invitation for me to be more authentic, or for me to behave the same way at home as I did out in the world? The question is entirely rhetorical, as the accusation of behaving in parallel ways really should clarify to which parallels the person is expected to conform. Good manners, it would seem to me from my mother's reproach, should be more than 'good manners', meaning they should be an external expression that truthfully reflects my intention. Essentially, what my mother was saying was that my strength of character should be such that I would not be tempted to compromise, regardless of the environment and situation. My mother was not asking me to engage with my family in the same way I engaged with strangers, but urging me, in radical fashion, to always be the same. From me she expected almost heroic conduct. In fact, according to her logic, I should have viewed life as a constant battle in which there was no place for considerations of opportunity.

If we consider these two examples lifted from everyday life, we can conclude that authenticity is, in essence, selfish, and that hypocrisy is a correction of this, like a kind of 'selfishness well understood', to borrow Alexis de Tocqueville's definition of ethics in democratic citizens.

My two examples make hypocrisy seem like a wound inflicted both on the person's authenticity and on the society deprived of that dash of passion and aiming for the perfectionism that comes from training ourselves to be authentic.

And so being ourselves, even at the risk of hurting others, and defending our own soul, even if this means exposing the other to the rigidity of our authenticity, are the two guiding imperatives of those who declare themselves against any form of hypocrisy. We might say that the prerequisite for this unequivocal use of thoughts and words is that there should never be a need to 'bite our tongues' before speaking. Hypocrisy, however, recognizes the existence of a weakness.

When I mentioned to a friend, who is an excellent historian of Protestantism, that I was going to write a book about hypocrisy, she pointed out that we should not feel the need to 'bite our tongues'. According to her, our starting principle should be that people must be respected, and that someone who must 'bite their tongue' has morally unjustifiable thoughts. Hypocrisy would be equivalent to recognizing an unjustifiable fact, it would mean accepting weakness. However, while it admits this weakness, hypocrisy can play an educational role and serve civil living well.

Children are taught to say 'please' and 'thank you', and if they ask why they must obey this rule, the response is usually 'because it's what we do'. End of story. The first step in this education in politeness is, therefore, hypocrisy: teaching how we must behave, training from childhood, building habits.

On the other hand, it is undeniable that all moral or ideological lessons preside over the gestation of both hypocrisy and its condemnation, because the more we entrust ourselves to a demanding and dogmatic belief system, the more difficult it is to decide which rules must remain steadfastly unviolated and which we can transgress in order to find some accommodation with the world. In trying to carry out this operation (almost always dictated by the desire to live in peace), rigidity gives way to hypocrisy.

Does purity of heart come before civility? Are we willing to admit that intransigence should come before a good relationship with others, as a starting point from which to create respectful relationships? Should we declare war on our next-door neighbour living in a non-heterosexual relationship or should we try to politely interact with them? And does acting politely require us to accept ideas we do not share? In short, does hypocrisy have something to do with the truth or is it a behavioural practice used to ensure we can all live side by side? In this book I consider hypocrisy as a...