Dr. John Forbes sighed as he lay down a well ruffled newspaper upon his armrest. Once again, another southern preacher had been brought low, for as a famed proclaimer of family values and tee totalism this gentleman had been caught with a mistress and a mountain of cocaine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHypocrisy\u201d Dr. Forbes pondered, \u201cis seen as a wretched sin. But is it in a sense a virtue?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He spoke to his audience of fellow professors lounging around in the staff room, well rested on good tea. If his lectures weren\u2019t listened to, they were at least a comfortable background noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019d say,\u201d Dr. Forbes went on \u201cHypocrisy is a necessary evil for a functional society. A parent states the old maxim \u2018don\u2019t do what I do, just do as I say\u2019 as a means of maintaining authority. We\u2019ve all done wild, bratty things as kids of course, but our own children need not know it. If the child thinks mother and father were perfect and well-behaved in their youth, well that gives the child something to live up to. It sets a good example.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A cough from a neighbouring chair, as Professor Malcom struggled to stay awake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd\u201d Dr. Forbes went on \u201cthe hypocrite is at least aware that his misdeeds are shameful and by concealing these transgressions, he doesn\u2019t encourage others to partake in them. The open sinner glamorises the sin, all but inviting others to do the same. Because of this I\u2019m sorry to say that I can at least respect the discreet adulterer who tries to keep his affair a secret than the \u201copen relationship\u201d man who makes a mockery of the sanctity of marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Forbes adjusted his glasses to see that a few men were engrossed over their crossword puzzles or raiding the biscuit tin, only Professor Malcom appeared to be listening to his little sermon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d Dr. Forbes went on \u201cthe hypocrite is advocating a virtue he himself cannot achieve but although we may never obtain perfection, we must always strive towards it. If one tries and fails, then one at least accomplishes more than the person who never even attempts it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen again,\u201d Professor Malcom groaned as he sat up in his chair \u201cbeing honoured and praised for your supposed virtues is agreeable but to actually be saintly is rather tedious. And sinning is a lot of fun provided you\u2019re not caught which of course comes with the stigma of the pariah. Hypocrisy gives you the best of both worlds, eh Forbes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou could say that,\u201d Dr. Forbes sniffed. \u201cI\u2019d say we should still strive for virtue even though we may occasionally slip up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. John Forbes sighed as he lay down a well ruffled newspaper upon his armrest. Once again, another southern preacher had been brought low, for as a famed proclaimer of family values and tee totalism this gentleman had been caught with a mistress and a mountain of cocaine. \u201cHypocrisy\u201d Dr. Forbes pondered, \u201cis seen as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211","service":"facebook","timestamp":1791467660,"status":"success"},{"account":"twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305","service":"twitter","timestamp":1791467660,"status":"error"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1792,1923],"tags":[643,114,124,1007,1932,95,8,20,1922,1934,978,1933,71,1549,591],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1792","category-oct-2026-hypocrisy","tag-been","tag-but","tag-do","tag-dr","tag-forbes","tag-had","tag-he","tag-his","tag-hypocrisy","tag-least","tag-say","tag-virtue","tag-well","tag-went","tag-were"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-IP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2780,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}