Confusion about the compouding sentences with 'not to say'

If a sentence is formed like this,

There is a deep ambivalence, not to say hypocrisy, when we notice that ..

I am confused what exactly the author emphasizing. Is he saying, the hypocrisy is obvious but I am highlighting the ambivalence; or is he drawing readers attention to 'ambivalence' and asking them not to confuse it with 'hypocrisy'?

Solution 1:

not to say:

used to introduce a stronger alternative or addition to something already said:

it is easy to become sensitive, not to say paranoid

not to say:

Even; perhaps; almost.

At first Marc was somewhat shocked, then he burst out laughing and finally came to the conclusion that actually it was all rather sad, not to say stupid.

Depending on the context, you could mean that the alternative is definite or simply a good possibility. In the OP's example, the writer is leaning towards the definite.

Solution 2:

In OP's context, not to say means and possibly even or if not (i.e. - not definitely, but maybe).

In effect, whilst the writer is definitely prepared to say there is deep ambivalence (felt by observers), he's diffident about going so far as to say there's hypocrisy (being observed).

One could say this is a mild form of paralipsis, typified by "not to mention xxxx". In that more overt form, the speaker claims he won't mention xxxx in the very act of so doing (but he definitely and explicitly means "xxxx really does apply here"). In OP's case, the writer shies away from explicit accusations of hypocrisy, he simply raises the possibility in the reader's mind.

I'd also say that to me the sentence is poor English. The "ambivalence" is an attribute experienced internally by the writer and/or other observers, but the hypocrisy (if indeed there is any) would be an externally assigned attribute of whatever/whoever is under consideration. I think it's bad style, if not downright unsettling, to conjoin attributes with totally different referents in this way.