Pharisaism

His smirking and somewhat subversive accommodation to this Pharisaism is to emphasize the ways in which Black English is more complex than Standard English.

“Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism,” Brooks writes, “an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.”

So why do so many people see only judgmentalism and rejection, even pharisaism?

There was no latent or acquired taint of Pharisaism in his nature.

Everywhere in English society there is a quite unconscious, naive sort of Pharisaism, the unavowed but actual principle of which is that it matters very little if a man does the wrong thing, provided he publicly acts and says the right thing.