Tell Me Everything

Reflections on the Challenge

When you notice insincerity, consider the causes, stand still and reflect on feelings that arise.

• Experiences

  L had encountered instances of insincerity in media, such as a police spokesmen making promises which were not adhered to, and universtity staff giving false assurances to protect students (which led to one abandoning a course). He also referenced the verse by Confucius:
  
  If there be investigation in the world, there will be completeness in the understanding.
  If there be completeness in the understanding, there will be sincerity in the mind.
  If there be sincerity in the mind, there will be righteousness in the heart.
  
  leading to the final couplet:
  
  If there be order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

  
  T had initially focused on spotting insincerity in others during conversations and media, but soon realized its elusive nature. She defaulted to assuming sincerity but acknowledged the difficulty of truly discerning it in others. She then concluded that self-assessment was the only feasible approach. During conversations, she strove to balance sincerity and insincerity, often reflecting on her own speech. Context played a role, as casual topics aimed at putting others at ease also influenced sincerity. A notable instance involved sheltering from rain with a stranger, where the relative nature of sincerity became apparent, leading to increased compassion for others and herself, echoing the saying, "There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't met yet."

  

  N discussed the prevalence of insincerity in media, particularly in relation to global conflicts like Israel, Palestine, and Ukraine. He said this insincerity negatively impacted individuals and society, leading people to believe that success required insincerity. Over the past month, he had observed media content, and noticed that John Pilger had died, who was a very left wing news person. Some said he was an amazing investigative journalist, but he was quite the reverse, and had propagated falsehoods to support his ideologies. In contrast, N commended Douglas Murray for his ability to call out insincerity.

• Responses

  Responding to T, N said many decent people tended to presume sincerity in others, taking them at face value without questioning. However people were often insincere without realizing it. L said he liked T's quote, but suggested it was based on a specific cultural context and was naive and not universally applicable. Expanding on N's comments, he said that insincerity could begin with ourselves, citing an example of failing to keep promises to oneself. So sincerity might originate in our own thoughts and minds, in being true to oneself.

  

  On N's reflections, T spoke of deliberate lying, especially in politics, questioning its position on the spectrum from insincerity to sincerity. L said that lying might be subjective, dependent on cultural goals and perspectives, making it seem like a lie only from an external viewpoint. It was as if people were playing a game by different rules. N talked about self-deception, highlighting the inconsistency between the 'I' that makes promises and the 'I' that may, or may not, fulfil them. L said that external accountability was helpful to prevent self-deception. It was harder to press the "snooze" button for someone supposed to get to work early.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 30 cont.

With acknowledgements to Harold Good

• Passage

  at first intentionally on the part of their ruminating parts, and later, thanks already to the habit which they had created, there began to be stifled and gradually to cease, ‘self-criticism.’ And so, by reason of this ‘impotency’ arising and always increasing in their organization, which involved, by constant repetition, the whole disharmony of all the functioning of their psyche, there gradually almost disappeared from their common presences such data also infallibly inherent in every three-brained being of all our Great Universe for manifesting sincerity even towards themselves.

• Discussion

  N thought this was trying to say how the process of insincerity came about in us, and that that data which was there for us to recognise insincerity, and so therefore act on it, eventually got blotted out from our consciousness, such that we forgot - we didn't want to self criticise ourselves in the end. So with that disappearance, the sort of voice in us, which could perceive insincerity in ourselves, also disappeared. L thought it was suggesting that just as it was virtually impossible to be awake, for more than a moment, it was also virtually impossible to be sincere.

• Passage

  These two properties consist in this, that they always behave towards each other either, so to say, ‘haughtily’ or ‘servilely.’...

  The said property which already became inherent in their common presences gradually led to this, that they lost the habit and automatically ceased to be able to be sincere with other beings similar to themselves, even with those belonging to their own caste.

• Discussion

  N thought this was very interesting. He had observed it in himself as well, sometimes servility, sometimes haughtiness with other people, and not the ability to be one's natural self. He noted how these structures, such as in schools and workplaces, compeled people to behave in certain ways.

  T suggested that new caste systems were emerging, and highlighted the importance of viewing others as individuals rather than representatives of a social class or group.

  J said that individuals often reacted to others as symbols of a social class rather than as individuals.

• Passage

  to choose, from among the professions existing there, that one which gives the possibility at times of automatically establishing among them those relations by which they can be sincere up to a certain degree, ...

  That is why I then became just such a professional there as is called at the present time a ‘physician’.

  This profession there corresponds somewhat to that profession which those whom we call our ‘Zirlikners’ have.

  ... I did not wish to choose this profession for myself, ... for the sole reason that this profession constantly constrains one to play outwardly a role and never allows one to consider one’s inner real impulses.

• Discussion

  L questioned the meaning of 'Zirlikners.' N suggested it might mean psychologists, referring to the listening psychoanalyst rather than a priest taking religious confession. However, either way it meant the practicianer adopting a role, and hence Beelzebub prefferred to be a physician which allowed for a degree of sincerity.