Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue
François de La Rochefoucauld
David Mitchell makes the point that we cannot reasonably expect politicians to have absolute integrity. Very few people reach such a standard, and those that do make poor politicians. To win votes, they sometimes have to say things that aren’t right. It’s a matter of degrees, and some of them go further than others.
What’s more concerning is the type of politician that doesn’t seem to have any standards at all. Being hypocritical means that at least you profess to standards, even if you fail to reach them. How is that worse than not having standards at all?
Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy … Because they were hypocrites, the Victorians were despised in the late twentieth century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves – they took no moral stances and lived by none.
Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age
Nehaveigur 