You're One to Talk: A Podcast About Hypocrisy

What's the deal with "virtue signaling"? What is it? Is it a real thing, or just right-wingers talking crazy? Is it good or bad? Is it hypocrisy? Is it useful or harmful? And are accusations of it useful or harmful? Let's unpack the origins and purpose of this over-used term. Because besides simply being rhetorical tools in politics and social media, accusations of virtue signaling often end up re...

Hypocrisy is all about claiming to have virtues we don’t have. And the Romans were really into virtue. Our journey to explore hypocrisy takes us back to Ancient Rome, a civilization whose values shaped how we perceive virtue (and even gave us the word “virtue” itself). So, how these virtues influence our perceptions of hypocrisy? This list will detail the most well-known Roman virtues, and their r...

To properly spot and judge a hypocrite, we must first spot the virtue they claim to have, and the vice (the bad behavior) they actually have. And nobody crafted lists of vices and virtues quite like Aristotle. In this episode, we explore this Aristotelian list of vices and virtues, from the "father of virtue ethics" himself, to see how they contradictorily clash to create what we would call: a hyp...

This episode introduces virtue : the thing that a hypocrite claims to have, but unfortunately doesn't. Together with its arch-nemesis, vice , virtue has always been an important quality for human beings to know and understand. No discussion about hypocrisy can begin without first defining virtue. Since their origins as the exemplary behaviors needed to follow or avoid in order to kickstart civiliz...

How do we put a number on hypocrisy? In this episode, we'll Frankenstein a formula for hypocrisy, to help us dissect what factors make hypocrisy (or as I call them, the spinning gears and pulled levers in the Willy Wonka hypocrisy machine). Listen to find out how to rate a hypocrite. Here is the formula: Hypocrisy (H) is the observed difference between someone’s claimed beliefs (CB) minus their pe...

This episode introduces our exploration of this sticky and despicable but tragically relatable human trait, and explains why it's such an important topic to explore. In today's hyperconnected age, where we can accuse people of hypocrisy just as easily as we can become guilty of it ourselves, we should dive into fully understanding hypocrisy rather than simply pretend we're above it. Let's crack op...