We usually think of double standards as differential rules of the road from which we exempt ourselves while holding others to unsparing scrutiny—as parodied in the phrase “Do as I say, not as I do.” In practice, such unconscious duplicity is just as often employed against the self: call it reverse hypocrisy. I often ask people, “If your friend said no to some request because that’s what felt true to them, would you condemn them as ‘weak’?” The answer is, predictably, “Of course not.”
