I think I’m talking about a different concept than you are talking about. Here’s what I take to be hypocrisy that is probably/definitely bad:
When someone’s brain is really good at selective remembering and selective forgetting, remembering things so they are convenient, and forgetting things that are inconvenient. And when the person is either unconsciously or only semi-consciously acting as an amplifier of opinions, sensing where a group is likely to go and then pushing (and often overshooting) the direction in order to be first to score points. This is where flip-flopping gets its bad reputation. At the extreme the person may fail to distinguish, in terms of mental motions, between what is their actual opinion vs. what opinion they expect to earn praise.
Some of these may not always come together but I think they often do, and the common theme is self-deception and little introspection. For instance, something many people do without noticing: Everyone’s opinions fluctuate over time; sometimes you feel lukewarm about an idea, at other times you’re an ardent supporter. If it later turns out that the idea was great, you remember mostly the times you supported it. If it turns out the idea was absolutely horrible, you’re tempted to specifically remember this one 2-week window half a year before the idea fell out of fashion where you felt lukewarm about it and voiced doubts to someone (or were “almost” going to do that), and you then tell yourself and others that “you called it” even though, in reality, you totally failed to pay attention to your doubts.
Another example: You fail to understand or spot a good idea when you first hear it, then later once the context makes it more obvious that the idea was great, it occurs to you and you think it’s entirely your own idea, so much so that you’d enthusiastically tell it to the person you first heard it from. (Often this is innocent, but if it happens an uncanny number of times maybe it’s a reason to start paying attention.)
I think this type of hypocrisy hinders self growth, can prevent the right people from getting credit and amplifies group biases. So I’d say it’s very bad. But norms against hypocrisy have to be careful because it’s something that everyone might have to some degree, and the costs of enforcing norms need to be kept smaller than the actual problem. Keeping score or arguing over whose memory about something is right can create an atmosphere with effects just as bad as extreme hypocrisy itself. Sometimes hypocrisy is fueled by a desire to be held in high regard, and then being accused of hypocrisy may also worsen the mechanisms at work.
Yeah, I agree that this is a coherent cluster, is pretty bad, and probably needs to be a named concept (unless making it into a named concept makes everything terrible for reasons related to the concerns you mention).
I would be surprised to hear someone say this is the central meaning of “hypocrite”, but here I am, surprised.
So, it seems like there are four aspects here which you’re clustering together:
Selectively remembering when you were right and not when you were wrong, or the degree to which you were right or wrong, and (perhaps implicitly) asking other people to remember this next time they doubt you.
Getting credibility by predicting which way the group will swing, in a way which doesn’t actually add information to the system.
Cryptomnesia, remembering others’ ideas as your own.
Self-deception / lack of introspection.
(If the last item is not present, a person could be consciously implementing all of these strategies (ie, they don’t actually have selective memory or cryptomnesia, but act like they do anyway).)
I might add to the cluster:
Being obsessed with who gets credit for ideas.
Not building a global model, to a degree far beyond separate-magisteria style mental compartmentalization: like the students Feynman discusses in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, they’re operating like a chatbot: putting their effort into playing the social game of saying the right words, without seeming to consider that the words have meaning. Easily detected by asking questions which would not come up in the context of the social game they’re accustomed to.
(Again, with the understanding that everyone does these things to some degree.)
I think I’m talking about a different concept than you are talking about. Here’s what I take to be hypocrisy that is probably/definitely bad:
When someone’s brain is really good at selective remembering and selective forgetting, remembering things so they are convenient, and forgetting things that are inconvenient. And when the person is either unconsciously or only semi-consciously acting as an amplifier of opinions, sensing where a group is likely to go and then pushing (and often overshooting) the direction in order to be first to score points. This is where flip-flopping gets its bad reputation. At the extreme the person may fail to distinguish, in terms of mental motions, between what is their actual opinion vs. what opinion they expect to earn praise.
Some of these may not always come together but I think they often do, and the common theme is self-deception and little introspection. For instance, something many people do without noticing: Everyone’s opinions fluctuate over time; sometimes you feel lukewarm about an idea, at other times you’re an ardent supporter. If it later turns out that the idea was great, you remember mostly the times you supported it. If it turns out the idea was absolutely horrible, you’re tempted to specifically remember this one 2-week window half a year before the idea fell out of fashion where you felt lukewarm about it and voiced doubts to someone (or were “almost” going to do that), and you then tell yourself and others that “you called it” even though, in reality, you totally failed to pay attention to your doubts.
Another example: You fail to understand or spot a good idea when you first hear it, then later once the context makes it more obvious that the idea was great, it occurs to you and you think it’s entirely your own idea, so much so that you’d enthusiastically tell it to the person you first heard it from. (Often this is innocent, but if it happens an uncanny number of times maybe it’s a reason to start paying attention.)
I think this type of hypocrisy hinders self growth, can prevent the right people from getting credit and amplifies group biases. So I’d say it’s very bad. But norms against hypocrisy have to be careful because it’s something that everyone might have to some degree, and the costs of enforcing norms need to be kept smaller than the actual problem. Keeping score or arguing over whose memory about something is right can create an atmosphere with effects just as bad as extreme hypocrisy itself. Sometimes hypocrisy is fueled by a desire to be held in high regard, and then being accused of hypocrisy may also worsen the mechanisms at work.
Yeah, I agree that this is a coherent cluster, is pretty bad, and probably needs to be a named concept (unless making it into a named concept makes everything terrible for reasons related to the concerns you mention).
I would be surprised to hear someone say this is the central meaning of “hypocrite”, but here I am, surprised.
So, it seems like there are four aspects here which you’re clustering together:
Selectively remembering when you were right and not when you were wrong, or the degree to which you were right or wrong, and (perhaps implicitly) asking other people to remember this next time they doubt you.
Getting credibility by predicting which way the group will swing, in a way which doesn’t actually add information to the system.
Cryptomnesia, remembering others’ ideas as your own.
Self-deception / lack of introspection.
(If the last item is not present, a person could be consciously implementing all of these strategies (ie, they don’t actually have selective memory or cryptomnesia, but act like they do anyway).)
I might add to the cluster:
Being obsessed with who gets credit for ideas.
Not building a global model, to a degree far beyond separate-magisteria style mental compartmentalization: like the students Feynman discusses in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, they’re operating like a chatbot: putting their effort into playing the social game of saying the right words, without seeming to consider that the words have meaning. Easily detected by asking questions which would not come up in the context of the social game they’re accustomed to.
(Again, with the understanding that everyone does these things to some degree.)