The book is clearly envisaged at least in part as a reaction to Judith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices, which this author sees as groundbreaking, even as he takes issue with it: “Shklar makes the case for ranking the vices according to the nature of the threat that they pose to liberal societies. The vice that emerges as the worst of all, and by far, is cruelty…. she wants us to stop spending so much time worrying about hypocrisy, and to stop minding about it so much. But it is difficult not to mind about hypocrisy, for two reasons. First, it is so very easy to take a dislike to it — on a basic human level, there is something repulsive about hypocrisy encountered at first hand, since no one enjoys being played for a fool. Second, for everyone who does take a dislike to it, it is so very easy to find. … Because people don’t like hypocrisy, and because hypocrisy is everywhere, it is all too tempting for democratic politicians to seek to expose the inevitable double standards of their rivals.” (p.2)

“Hobbes would have us believe that the reason he cannot stand Presbyterians (the primary focus of his fury in Behemouth) is because they are hypocrites, but it is just as likely that the reason he thinks they are hypocritical is because he simply cannot stand them.” (p.18)

“Any politics founded on the idea of equality will produce politicians who have to be of a type with the people they rule, and yet recognisably different, given the fact that they also have to rule them.”

Runciman introduces me to a writer I haven’t previously encountered, Bernard Mandeville, best known for his The Fable of the Bees, first published in 1714, and the subject of much scandal in 1723. He seems to have been a man who really grasped the nature of early capitalism, saying that there really couldn’t be too much “real virtue” around, since that involved constraint and conquest of the passions, particularly greed, pride an avarice – all essential to keep the economy thriving. But pretending to be virtuous (what Runciman labels first order hypocrisy) was fine, since it would help you get ahead – and indeed the possibility of scorn and opprobrium would teach people to be hypocritical rather than honest.

Believing your own publicity, however, what Runciman calls second-order hypocrisy, was dreadful and dangerous, because it meant succumbing to the very thing you were trying to control and manage.

In Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church and National Happiness (1720) “Mandeville makes it clear that politicians are bound to appear to be hypocrites to the wider public, because all politicians are scheming men of fashion. This is what makes them suited to their role, but it is also what makes them so hard to take.” (p. 64)

Similarly Orwell sees good and bad hypocrisy, Runciman says: “The first is the relatively innocent hypocrisy of demoracy that is underpinned in the English case by the sentimentality of the working classes and the stupidity of tose who rule them. This innocent stupidity is exemplified for Orwell by the ‘morally sound’ willingness of the English upper classes to get themselves killed in wartime. Even the Bertie Woosters of this world, who can’t be relied on for much, can be relied on for this … the playacting is taken seriously, and so helps to preserve the system from the degradation that comes from merely going through the motions.” (p. 180)

Putting this into a modern context, Runciman relies particularly on Mandeville in stressing the essentiality of distinguishing between the two orders of hypocrisy. He contrasts Bill Clinton, “a faith-based politicians, his faith being limitless faith in his own goodness of heart”. (To which one might add this was Blair’s fault too – added in this case by a frightening belief in a personal hotline to god.)

He says the virtue of Hillary Clinton, however, is that she is unlikely to lose awareness that her public persona is a construct. Following Mandeville, Runciman says that hypocrisy consciously designed to pander to the electorate and support personal ambition ” politicians who are forced to combine these different forms of hypocrisy are less likely to be deveiced about their own characters, or at least about the character of political hypocrisy, than politicians who believe themselves to be sincere”. (p. 216)

The great and the good have got together and concluded we might not be doomed. But it is worth focusing on the fact that huge advances have been made in many areas – and that the world is more peaceful than probably ever before.

But you’ve got to wonder about what hopes there are when in Australia, a land wracked by drought and afflicted by climate change household energy use is still increasing. “Last year the total amount of energy used by residential consumers grew by 3.9 per cent, above the long-term average rise of 2.5 per cent and the biggest jump in four years.”

But to be positive – another attempt is being made to deal with the legal issues of cohabiting couples – which tends to particularly cause problems for women. This is an obviously sensible plan that the religion-infected, cowardly government we now have dropped earlier this year. (The same government that has put a medically important bill on hold — and with it the prospect of positive abortion law reform — for fear of the effect on a byelection.)

And also in the positive line, advertising methods that have been used for wholly pointless consumerism are at least being applied to basics that save human lives. (In a piece that provides an interesting insight into advertising psychology.)

And who says heterosexuality is “normal”? Seems the Anglican church should read a survey from Scientific America reveals its frequency of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, and considers its potential evolutionary benefits.