How a moral ideal born 500 years ago inspired religious wars /hipster chic/ modern art/stories and the curious notion that we all have something to say no matter how dull.
Somerset Maugham once stated “ I don't think you want too much sincerity in society," It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards." Extreme frankness is often called "brutal," after all, and unbridled truth-telling at all times and in all places would probably result in bloodletting.
Sincerity—broadly speaking, the alignment of outer and inner selves—would seem to be essential to the modern conception of a virtuous life.Sincerity was eventually elbowed aside by the need for authenticity, a more strenuous moral experience that responds aggressively to receive moral opinion.
Confronting one's innermost thoughts or emotions and relaying them to others straightforwardly, no matter how relevant to the topic, injurious to one's own reputation, or embarrassing—or however correct or incorrect. Freud helped push love and sacred marriage in this direction, by replacing the traditional 'holy space' reserved for the reception of fidelity in wedlock and discovery of God with drives for sex, violence, death, and pleasure. Rousseau, always saw man without civilization and religion as happy and good, you don’t need God or religion to teach you morality.
Our frustration with insincerity, he says, is itself disingenuous—a kind of performance of upright moral sensibility. The Puritan emphasis on sincerity, led to a climate of suspicion and misanthropy, the truly sincere person ends up understanding that he is always lying. Hardly anyone including the Vicar comes close to the ideal of sincerity all the time; yet our false beliefs about our own honesty keep us from lying even more.
Excerpts from conversations and article in Life and culture –Daniel Akst and R. Jay Magill.
Confronting one's innermost thoughts or emotions and relaying them to others straightforwardly, no matter how relevant to the topic, injurious to one's own reputation, or embarrassing—or however correct or incorrect. Freud helped push love and sacred marriage in this direction, by replacing the traditional 'holy space' reserved for the reception of fidelity in wedlock and discovery of God with drives for sex, violence, death, and pleasure. Rousseau, always saw man without civilization and religion as happy and good, you don’t need God or religion to teach you morality.
Our frustration with insincerity, he says, is itself disingenuous—a kind of performance of upright moral sensibility. The Puritan emphasis on sincerity, led to a climate of suspicion and misanthropy, the truly sincere person ends up understanding that he is always lying. Hardly anyone including the Vicar comes close to the ideal of sincerity all the time; yet our false beliefs about our own honesty keep us from lying even more.
Excerpts from conversations and article in Life and culture –Daniel Akst and R. Jay Magill.
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