Is Hypocrisy What’s Wrong?

In the past few years the word hypocrisy has been used increasingly in political discussions. The author of a column last year in the New Yorker wondered, for example, whether some good might come of America’s recognition that the Vietnam war is a catastrophe: “Such an admission and recognition,” he said, “has helped create a generation that will never entirely lose its disgust for hypocrisy or abandon its search for a sweeter life.” Such vague moralizing has become increasingly common in American journalism, perhaps because many journalists cannot resist the temptation of becoming more “significant” writers by giving us their reflections on American life. The issues they touch on are se...