At one moment, I thought that everyone is a poseur. And the next moment, it seemed to me that I was the biggest poseur of all. Unless it were an axiomatic truth that all humans pose. Then, the ethical or judgemental value of posing would have to lie in its degree. Then I'd certainly be the biggest poseur if being judgemental is the biggest "pose". Which is not incorrect in a sense, because the person has assumed its position as the sole arbiter of something or someone else's actions or words, which is a very weak assumption. The other thing to do is be non-judgemental. Both being judgemental and non-judgemental have their uses. At the level of individual functioning as well as at the level of a group. Of course, there are other more familiar ways of being the biggest poseur. Like playing the Mr. Know-it-all misplacedly or taking oneself too seriously.
So then if I am not the biggest poseur, I still run the risk of being the biggest hypocrite because when I pass a judgement on posing, then I better adhere to it in future. If I say that the upper bound on the degree of posing is ten out of hundred(if I can measure that !), I better remain below the self-decided bound. But I can safely say that I'll perhaps transgress the bound in future unless the bound is hundred out of hundred. This is not the case for me and hence I have to think where I place my bound, roughly at the least. And then I have to stay below the bound, else I would be a hypocrite. But I can alleviate the risk of biggest hypocrisy, in principle, by applying a similar kind of argument as in the previous paragraph to hypocrisy. I aim to conclude that for hypocrisy too, as with posing, the ethical or judgemental value would lie in the degree.
"At one moment, I thought that everyone is a hypocrite which is a bad thing. Period. And the next moment, it seemed to me that I was the biggest hypocrite of all. Because I have passed a judgement of virtue on hypocrisy. And I know that I have acted hypocritically in the past and will do so in future.* Unless it were an axiomatic truth that all humans are hypocrites. Then, the ethical or judgemental value of hypocrisy would have to lie in its degree." This argument can nullify the abolutist notion of "biggest hypocrisy" by allowing for smaller degrees of hypocrisy.
The two recurring arguments point to the essence of this piece. A continuous variable allows fluidity or latitude. By allowing the possibility of conversion from a binary to a continuous variable while talking about the moral value of objects or actions under ethical enquiry, by having broken out of the following construct - "X is either good or bad", by allowing constructs of the following kind - "For me, X is 10 % good, 90 % bad" or "I'd be happy with myself if I can be good 99 % of my life", by introducing this kind of fluidity** to the process of attachement of ethical value to anything, including "posing", "hypocrisy", etc., can we get out of the maddening positions we get ourselves in. Positions that arise by trying to paint a sometimes-grey-sometime-colourful world in absolute black and white.
This result, if you will, calls for a good meal and maybe a glass of wine in fine solitude or in friends' company.
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* For example, an act of hypocrisy would be : I knowingly enter in to a contract that states I work for ten hours every week, yet there will be weeks where I would not work for ten hours or even finish the required work.
** I would say the justice systems in various countries are fluid in this sense, which is nice.
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