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It almost sounds like the name of a newspaper, doesn’t it? Hypocrisy Today. I don’t know if patterns of human behavior are timeless or not, maybe they are. Or, perhaps, it is only their drives that are unchangeable.

In other words, maybe love, hate, and the desire for power are eternal, whereas courtship, warfare, and hypocrisy depend on a given culture and society. Hypocrisy today might not be the same as it once was.

If something has changed in the way hypocrisy today propagates, that is certainly the levels of audacity it can reach. To put it simply, there used to be a fig leaf covering hypocritical actions. Politicians didn’t dare to lie blatantly. This has changed, drastically.

As any self-respecting author, fiction is for me a way to express the inexpressible, to channel a savage need to understand reality. And so, I’ve been lately working on a novel that is partly about hypocrisy in today’s world.

Instead of writing an article about it, here’s an excerpt from this upcoming novelI am referring to Illiterary Fiction. I have slightly modified it for online use.

Hypocrisy Today: a Literary Excerpt

‘Shall we continue?’ the doctor asked politely, almost reverently. The man turned and looked at him, offering him a frail transient smile. He went back to his plastic chair and sat on it slowly and silently.

‘We can continue,’ he said impassively – there was an odd tone in his voice, revealing not exactly the lack of emotions, but rather their transcendence altogether.

‘Yes, let us continue.’

‘And so, I will continue… I will continue, as I was always asked to. Continue… Because there is nothing else to do. A man can’t just stop, that would be senseless, they say. There are specific, carefully prescribed steps to follow, and you must always continue.

You must go to school, you must go to college, you must find a job, you must marry, you must have children, you must work hard, you must work hard, you must work hard, you must retire, you must die. And who can stop, who can reject the course? A worker cannot deny his supervisor, a pupil does not dare to say no to the teacher. And so, the process is doomed to eternal mediocrity – for who will challenge the one further atop this ancient ladder?

Continue… Professors become fossilized in their thoughts, politicians become entrenched in their corruption, and all of us together – though eternally alone – become imprisoned in our own creation, resentful of the very structures we create, embittered like overwhisked matcha tea.

And you have the audacity to call me insane? In a world that has gone mad, to be insane is the only rational thing left. Continue… You fool yourselves, all of you! Pathetic miserable cowards; you weaklings, who can’t say no to the insignificant morsels you are given, lest those, too, should be taken away.

The level of stupidity and hypocrisy is unbearable. Continue… Decisions without judgment; truth without facts; fighting without war; war without resolution; democracy without justice; torture in the name of humanity; austerity in the name of prosperity; regression in the name of progress; violence in the name of peace; discrimination in the name of equality.

Continue… You disgust me, I will literally feel sick. When you go home tonight, when you get in bed with your spouse or your lover, remember to ask yourself this… How many people have I killed today with my conformity? How much blood have I spilled with my greed?’