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Sincerely Yours
Jun. 4th, 2010 08:15 amAfter posting yesterday about Shaw's quote regarding sincerity, I spent some more time thinking about the subject. What is sincerity? I turned to my good friend Merriam-Webster online to start with:
( The definition is: )
I read interesting thoughts yesterday--is sincerity simply emotion versus non-emotion? Not from this definition. Is it speaking one's mind without regard to the consequences? I don't think so. There's a reason, after all, that "brutal honesty" is called "brutal." Whatever one says, brutally honestly, may be sincere...but it is usually unnecessary.
Sincerity, I would posit, does not have to be overly emotional. I think sometimes that when we think 'sincerity,' we think of someone whose heart is on their sleeve, who says too much about everything--as though, if a thought crosses their mind, they must express it, regardless of time or place or appropriateness.
I think that this is an incorrect understanding of sincerity. Sincerity doesn't suggest a constant window into one's thoughts. Instead, sincerity urges that when those thoughts are expressed, they are expresssed without subterfuge, without cover-up, without 'spin'. Sincerity doesn't try to decipher what you want me to say; sincerity says what my opinion actually is. Sincerity doesn't sit on the fence; sincerity is firm about what it believes. What it says today will be the same thing it will say tomorrow; it would say the same thing whether you were a bootblack or a king.
I think that if we look at sincerity from this angle, we do see why Shaw might call sincerity 'dangerous.' There is a reason why politicians tend to hide behind vagueness, right? Why they tend to hedge? Why they say one thing and then do a slightly (or not-so-slightly) different thing once elected? In theory, sitting on the fence and being a little vague will win both sides of an issue over. It is in a politician's interest to please as many people as possible, so as to win the election.
Sincerity, however, is interested in the truth of the matter--the truth as far as one knows it. And there is danger in knowing one's mind and then hewing to that truth. Not everyone will be happy with what one says or does--even if it's the rightest thing in the world. And our human heart, wanting so badly to be liked, hurts when people aren't happy with us. And so insincerity creeps in to give us some sort of cover.
In the end, I think we lose more by using the artificial cover of insincerity. If we are not to our own selves true, then we risk losing any identity at all of our own. We become only reflections of what we think others want us to be, instead of figuring out and displaying who we are inside...we lose who we are inside.
Sincerity is, perhaps, dangerous--but I think insincerity is infinitely more so.
( The definition is: )
I read interesting thoughts yesterday--is sincerity simply emotion versus non-emotion? Not from this definition. Is it speaking one's mind without regard to the consequences? I don't think so. There's a reason, after all, that "brutal honesty" is called "brutal." Whatever one says, brutally honestly, may be sincere...but it is usually unnecessary.
Sincerity, I would posit, does not have to be overly emotional. I think sometimes that when we think 'sincerity,' we think of someone whose heart is on their sleeve, who says too much about everything--as though, if a thought crosses their mind, they must express it, regardless of time or place or appropriateness.
I think that this is an incorrect understanding of sincerity. Sincerity doesn't suggest a constant window into one's thoughts. Instead, sincerity urges that when those thoughts are expressed, they are expresssed without subterfuge, without cover-up, without 'spin'. Sincerity doesn't try to decipher what you want me to say; sincerity says what my opinion actually is. Sincerity doesn't sit on the fence; sincerity is firm about what it believes. What it says today will be the same thing it will say tomorrow; it would say the same thing whether you were a bootblack or a king.
I think that if we look at sincerity from this angle, we do see why Shaw might call sincerity 'dangerous.' There is a reason why politicians tend to hide behind vagueness, right? Why they tend to hedge? Why they say one thing and then do a slightly (or not-so-slightly) different thing once elected? In theory, sitting on the fence and being a little vague will win both sides of an issue over. It is in a politician's interest to please as many people as possible, so as to win the election.
Sincerity, however, is interested in the truth of the matter--the truth as far as one knows it. And there is danger in knowing one's mind and then hewing to that truth. Not everyone will be happy with what one says or does--even if it's the rightest thing in the world. And our human heart, wanting so badly to be liked, hurts when people aren't happy with us. And so insincerity creeps in to give us some sort of cover.
In the end, I think we lose more by using the artificial cover of insincerity. If we are not to our own selves true, then we risk losing any identity at all of our own. We become only reflections of what we think others want us to be, instead of figuring out and displaying who we are inside...we lose who we are inside.
Sincerity is, perhaps, dangerous--but I think insincerity is infinitely more so.
