Critique of Sincerity
His work is late. He made a commitment to himself and others. He has practiced his excuses to deliver them just so. Like a compulsion, he feels a need to offer them like a sacrifice to justify his wrong. It would be unacceptable for others to think the worst of him. He has practiced his excuses so much he has started to believe them. Especially when he is in the sincere mode, it is difficult to say anymore what is the truth.
She understands the symbiotic relationship, perhaps just unconsciously, but definitely practically speaking. He gave her a gift, very generous of him. In turn, she composes a handwritten note. She signs it “sincerely”.
He likes the way it feels to be in charge. The more he connects to people, the more they adore him. He tells them stories that relate to their life, but more importantly, he listens to their stories. When the votes are tallied, he is affirmed.
Sincerity in Contrast to Authenticity
Sincerity comes from feeling. It is pre-reflexive, coming from the immediacy of the moment. The use is to convince others, so it is heteronomous and circumstantial.
Authenticity comes from reason. It is reflexive, coming from critical thinking with examination. It reveals the fundamental principle of being, so it is autonomous and existential, expressing totality of being.
Lionel Trilling wrote of sincerity being the self relating to others, or the social self, and authenticity being the self relating to the self: “If sincerity is saying what you mean, authenticity is being what you are.”
Morals
The sincere person is caught up in the morality of being good. They want to present themselves as moral to themselves and to other people, thus they are stuck in the feeling mode. Morals are a nice shortcut to avoid thinking. If one is following the prescribed rules of nature or society, there is no need to examine choices, since the agreed upon morals have done the work of justification already. So the sincere person lives a life of being satisfied with their morals, which they consider to be universalized principles that are beyond their little world. Of course they are a good person, as they assume they represent an embodiment of some abstract greater good, since what they do and who they are feels instinctually good. But the greater good remains in the abstract, disconnected from their critical examination, because sincerity stays out of any transcendent types of thinking. To be sincere is just about feeling like a good person and feeling honest. It is quite primitive: the sincere just stick to their immediate beliefs and want to express them.
Manners
Parents who want to raise good children think they do so by teaching them manners. Children grow up expressing gratitude, apology, and greetings as habit, it becomes natural. So natural, that it becomes instinctual, and instinctual becomes compulsive, sometimes even phatic. Ironically, what was intended to be sincere, becomes the absence of sincerity, with the façade of sincerity. The sincerity is turned around, where the truth is buried beneath social conventions, and it is impossible to believe the sincere can be honest with the other. Individuals avoid telling someone they are fat, their driving is hazardous, their coworker was the right one in an office disagreement; these honest declarations would be rude to express. They sincerely are your friend, and therefore they will not tell you the truth.
1. Sincerity is a feeling, there is no thinking behind it.
Authenticity involves reflexive thought. Considered, examined, alternatives considered, the individual decides to reveal, be vulnerable, offer his true self to the other. But sincerity is pre-reflexive, in the emotional and impulsive realm, before reason. Sincerity can be offered out of naivety, intuitiveness, or habit. One might offer a ride home on impulse, but be relieved that it is rejected later on reflection. They want to be the sort of person who thinks about the needs of the other, but they are quite content when going to bed on time to reflect on how long it would have kept them up if they were still playing the host.
2. There is no distance with himself.
The sincere feels compelled to be believed by himself and by others. There is no self examination to test or critique the feeling, only the emotion at face value. Because to question or to take distance is already to demonstrate doubt, and there is no room for this doubt in sincerity. Thus the sincere stays on the acting level of being, producing the actions and words of one who believes, not one who questions what they believe. The less distance with oneself, the more sincere. There is a commitment to the belief and therefore if it is challenged one will defend it as if it were an attack to the self. It is their identity, their self.
Caught up in the emotion, there is no transcendence or self examination, only one mode of being: as with rage, there is only the emotion, there is no examining self who is troubled by the rage as a thinking being. The sincere is on the emotional level at the expense of allowing the critical thinking self to question whether the sincerity is authenticity or empty.
3. There is no critical thinking.
The ignorant can be sincere in what they say because they genuinely do not know any better. They can think about being sincere, but they do not critically examine their sincerity or what it means to be sincere. The other prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave sincerely believe the freed prisoner to be crazy when he speaks of color and space. They can not imagine what he speaks of, and can not imagine being able to imagine, so they stay in their safe realm of the shadows. Sometimes we intentionally stay in the shadows because life is too heavy, the suffering of the world is too much for a sincere soul to consider, so we focus our attention on the injustices we can handle one at a time. We can take a genuine interest in cancer research, or protesting animals in captivity. But notice that the interest in these topics become frail if they become too varied. As well, someone who volunteers to work for cancer research will be asked for the story of which of their close loved ones suffers from cancer. It is assumed that to have a sincere interest in something, we have been personally affected by it. If we cared about every little injustice in the world as much as they each deserve attention, we would be consumed with this emotional task. If we critically questioned the effectiveness of our efforts, we would become depressed or apathetic. The sincere believes it is better to stay ignorant of critical thought so that they can be sincerely devoted to their quests of choice sincerely.
4. He attempts to convince others while attempting to convince himself.
It is important for the sincere to believe and to be believed. It is a game, conscious or usually not, of storytelling where both parties connect over the shared definition of the situation, if that shared concept is to hold and promote the belief. The more the sincere believes himself, the better he sells the idea. He works hard to build the case, and to believe what he is saying, so that his passion can testify to the truth he preaches. The more he is believed by the other, the more he feels accepted. He can rest assured that he need not be defensive, as long as he is not questioned. He will commit more to the position if he senses skepticism in any dose—as any skepticism is a symptom of not being sincere enough. If the other resists the belief, the sincere does not stop to consider the plausibility of his position, only the failure of the expression of his sincerity. He must not have told the story well. Let him try again.
5. Sincerity does not imply any dialogue, he just wants to speak, he does not want feedback.
As a consequence of the previous item, to convince others is to convince the self, there is a desire for sincerity to be a monologue without feedback. Sincerity is a performance, and a performance requires an audience, of one, even just the self, or of others. But as a performance, there is no dialogue. A dialogue would be to invite thinking, questioning, or critique. As an expression of an emotion, thinking would break the spell of sincerity. The sincere will continue the performance as long as it takes to discourage feedback, because for him feedback is risky, as it is a dangerous opportunity to allow space for doubt.
The point of sincerity is to produce a collective belief, so the sincere just wants you to agree. Belief affirms his position and therefore him; while non-belief is unbearable because it threatens to destroy the mythos. As a result, there is psychological pressure to approve; the sincere may even use emotions to blackmail the other to consent, to affirm him.
6. There is bad faith because there is constructing or maintaining a myth.
The politician is the person in society who is practiced and talented at playing with this sincerity to build a public persona in bad faith. The politician shakes hands, kisses babies, and practices the religion of his people. He avoids speaking down to his people. In fact he does everything in his persona creating power to always speak to his constituents at their level, as if he is one of them. But he does not consider himself one of them. Only power hungry individuals seek out public service positions, which tend to be underpaid and divisive, with about half of the populous considering them the “enemy”. Even the term “public service” is one of sacrifice for the other. But the positions of government allow the politician to make decisions the people are not allowed to make for themselves. So the politician wants to appear relatable. Here we can quote Machiavelli: “a prince needn’t have all the good qualities I have listed, but he does need to appear to have them,” “everyone sees what you appear to be, but few feel what you are,” and “the common people are always impressed by appearances and outcomes.” The politician, in order to sustain his vocation, needs to be warm and relatable. So he creates the mask he shows to most people, one of sincerity and friendliness. If a politician does his job correctly, he actually convinces the others to believe that he is their friend: reliable, relatable, working for their needs. This could be the boss at work who hides the intent of capitalism with treating everyone to lunch occasionally, the cool kid of the school who collects friendships with a smile, or the woman with the keys to the church who is happy to open the doors at the townspeople’s disposal. They use sincerity to present themselves as what others want them to be—a listener and an advocate—while doing so to build a trust of political capital.