On Hypocrisy
We live in a world where sincerity and authenticity are no longer the norm, rather a facsimile, a wrapping.
Below the surface, stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say we feel-below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel-there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed.
- Matthew Arnold
Sincerity and authenticity are two cultural beliefs and features that have for the last few centuries been at the core of our social behavior. It is not just “to thine own self be true”. We also, in our social compact agree to be true in front of others. To be sincere and our true self. Not mere actors on a stage.
This above all: to thine own self be true
And it doth follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- Polonius speaking to Laertes, Hamlet.
Yet, I see this fractured into a million pieces. The evidence in our social lives and world is plentiful. Insincerity and being inauthentic used to be confined to university departments and the stuffy, rich, show-off elites. Now, it is among us, among us all. Cancel culture. Twitter rage. Townhall tantrums. Public purges of all sorts.
We’ve divorced ourselves from reality with our signaling, our claims of righteousness, our wish to make everything absolutely pure and without harm. So safe. In doing so, our society is unsafe. In breaking our bonds of sincerity, we are unleashing a horrible immorality and hypocrisy into the world we live in. Never before do we have so many hypocritic parasites; self-absorbed, narcissistic, shallow, entitled buffoons running around as role models and making decisions for the dignified, respectful, people who every day go to work and get on with real living, embracing sincerity in whole.
I’m being very abstract. Let me get down into the mud and be a little practical and clear the air.
First, a story. I used to teach at a teachers’ college at a university. During one year, there were umpteen meetings and edicts from the “woke” administrators that we were to refrain from calling it a “teachers’ college”. That is not right! We must refer to where we taught as a “faculty of education”. This was a serious matter and with the utmost urgency. We needed to set ourselves apart from the men and women working “out there” - you know, the riff-raff that pick up the shovel or pour the coffee. “Teachers’ college” was just too low-brow.
Hypocrisy is more than just the standard definition of “claiming to have moral standards to which one’s actions do not conform”. It is also a lack of sincerity and a pretending to be that which we aren’t.
It is those who walked into restaurants, all vaccinated up and then as soon as they sat down, unmasked - leaving the lowly staff to breathe their own fumes. It is a Justin Trudeau and his babble about democracy and freedom in society meanwhile practicing despotism. It is Will Smith’s crocodile tears and fake harm by a simple joke. It is Madelaine Albright saying Putin is a war criminal while her 79 days of bombing in Serbia and the 1,000s of deaths - lawful action. It’s the holier than thou ism we see in our public discourse. It is public figures like Biden or Fauci, lying straight to our faces about laptops, about emails, about health. It is those saying “it is for your own good” when they really mean otherwise.
Without sincerity, hypocrisy runs rampant. And the catch is that when we “try” to be sincere, we in fact are not sincere nor authentic. And it is the cause of our ills, this “trying”. As Lionel Trilling makes so clear in his important speech and book - Sincerity and Authenticity. As Bukowski once wrote, “Never try. The trying gets in the way.” This video of a Democratic Socialist convention, drives home this point.
‘we play the role of being ourselves, we sincerely act the part of the sincere person, with the result that a judgement may be passed upon our sincerity that it is not authentic’ [p.11] Lionel Trilling
What’s happening throughout society is a shit load of this, the inauthentic. Full-scale hypocrisy that we can’t even see, so far past knee-deep in, most of us are. The Will Smith “smack” was heard around the world yet, so much more important needs our attention. Bread and circuses are the results of insincerity. Violence too. The contradictions rise to the top as troubled waters.
We need to get back to the center. Refuse to be spoiled brats. Remember that we aren’t working in coal mines or swinging picks (most of us) and wash away our righteousness which is just our own selfish hypocrisy. Get our hands dirty and embrace the many views and people out there. Instead of pretending with our selfies and Instagram accounts to be something we aren’t.
We need as a society to get back to basics. Listen to the regular Joe. I’m not asking for a Maoist cultural purge - just some common sense. Let’s begin to say what we feel without the need to think of who is listening and how they’ll feel about “me”. Take out the cork - that is what sincerity truly is.
And all this will begin when we truly, sincerely begin to live authentically. Not by the dictates of anyone’s drummer but that of our own.
Sincerely,
David - Naked & Alive
No Schaudenfreud
The question is –
why is our happiness
so conditional on
our subjective belief
that we are better than
someone else?
I mean – holy shit!
Just think of it.
Our whole culture one
piss den of evil ego –
crabs clamoring over each other
to get out of the bucket.
Narcissists anonymouses
selfish worth
Dorian touch of gray.
It’s everything.
It’s everywhere.
No wonder we don’t
have a word for it.