You can’t change your mental filters by willpower alone; you have to engage in activities such as meditation or cognitive therapy that train the elephant. But at least a depressed person will usually admit she’s depressed. Curing hypocrisy is much harder because part of the problem is that we don’t believe there’s a problem. We are well-armed for battle in a Machiavellian world of reputation manipulation, and one of our most important weapons is the delusion that we are non-combatants. How do we get away with it?
