Duplicate Trope: Straw Hypocrite

The article says that this trope is about those hypocrites who preach some ideals but don't intend to in them. That's pretty much the definition of hypocrisy - would the person be a hypocrite if they believed in what they preached? And is it really fair to call a person who does believe in and try to uphold the ideals they profess, but falls short of them a hypocrite? Nobody is perfect, after all, and ideals aren't called ideals for nothing. And if you do believe that such people are hypocrites too, then the Hypocrite trope immediately falls into the People Sit On Chairs category, as it describes pretty much everyone.

edited 27th Nov '13 9:12:22 AM by PRH

TL;DR of OP: Redundant to Hypocrite.

EDIT: Actually, looking at the trope, it's a leader who doesn't actually believe in the ideals he espouses. That's hypocritical, sure, but it's a pretty common variation. Regardless, however, Straw Hypocrite is a terrible Non-Indicative Title.

edited 27th Nov '13 9:06:18 AM by StarSword

That was a fairly ambiguous OP, mate. I didn't understand what you were going for until StarSword explained it.

The (supposed) differentiation is "Unlike a regular Hypocrite, whose behavior fails to square with his or her publicly expressed (and sincerely held) moral standards due to ordinary human weakness, the Straw Hypocrite does not actually believe in their cause in the slightest and merely uses it as a cover to another end."

Is that even a straw character, though? I'd assume it was just a strawman character who was also a hypocrite for no reason other than to make that side look even worse.

No, it's not a strawman. It's more a subversion of a fanatic. A straight example would be the Big Bad of Pokémon Black and White, who espouses the ideals of freeing Pokémon from slavery at the hands of trainers when his real motive is to prevent anyone but him from training Pokémon so he can Take Over the World.

What we have here is a bad title.

"The (supposed) differentiation is "Unlike a regular Hypocrite, whose behavior fails to square with his or her publicly expressed (and sincerely held) moral standards due to ordinary human weakness, the Straw Hypocrite does not actually believe in their cause in the slightest and merely uses it as a cover to another end."

Right. What I'm trying to say is - how can you call someone who does sincerely hold some moral standards a hypocrite? That way everyone, without exception, is a hypocrite, and the term loses its meaning.

A Hypocrite is someone who holds certain ideals or positions, (eg.: "Stealing is wrong." "Lying is wrong.") but acts contrary to them ("It doesn't matter if I take these pens home from the office." "I just won't report that 1000 dollars I got from Aunt Mabel on my taxes. It was a gift, after all and I don't want to pay taxes on it.") Most people are hypocrites to a degree, about something or other.

A Straw Hypocrite professes to hold certain ideals, but doesn't actually believe them at all.

edited 27th Nov '13 9:34:55 AM by Madrugada

While this trope can be used to create a strawman, that's even less inherently part of it than most of our War On Straw tropes. Definitely not a very good name.

I do see this a lot as a Debate and Switch, introducing moral ambiguity by having a bad guy claim to represent a noble ideal and then resolving the moral ambiguity by having him be insincere. Does that have its own trope?

No problem defined, or present, really. Locking this up.