Hypocrisy Unmasked

Download or read book Hypocrisy Unmasked written by Ronald C. Naso and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 2010-03-18 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hypocrisy Unmasked explores the motives, meanings, and mechanisms of hypocrisy, challenging two principal psychoanalytic assumptions: First, that hypocrisy expresses deviant, uncontrollable impulses or follows exclusively from superego weakness; and second, that it can be understood solely in terms of intrapsychic factors without reference to the influences of the field. Ronald C. Naso argues that each of these assumptions devolve into criticisms rather than explanations and demonstrates that hypocrisy represents a compromise among intrapsychic, interpersonal, situational, and cultural/linguistic forces in an individual life. Hypocrisy Unmasked accords a healthy respect to the hypocrite's existentiality, including variables like opportunity and chance, and focuses on situations where the hypocrite's desires differ from those of others and on the moral principles that count in decision-making rather than how they are subsequently rationalized. Ultimately, hypocrisy exposes the ineradicable moral ambiguity of the human condition and the irreconcilability of desires and obligations.