The insincerity dilemma
Subtle feeling that is familiar to everyone sufficiently grown up, and yet so hard to describe — insincerity. What is it exactly? Sometimes you are being insincere, other times people are to you. Are there any social circumstances that would justify such behavior? Let’s try to get the question answered by the end of this essay.
Imagine that you are asked to explain what insincerity is to an 8 year old: what would you say?
It’s like when someone is telling you not what they really think.
Oh, a lie?
Well, not exactly…
I think there is a reason why certain words have many synonyms: because there are just too many forms of the same phenomenon, it can get hard to convey the exact meaning under the general term. As in the case with insincerity, the difference between its manifestations lies in details. For example, flattering is a form of insincerity. Flirt is like flattery, but is distinctly used with the romantic goal in mind.[1] And insincere laughter is the most apparent yet versatile case, as it can be used to express irony, sarcasm, fear, respect, or disguise. However, the umbrella term for all these occurrences is insincerity.
The difference between a lie and insincerity seems to be in what they refer to. For instance, if the school teacher asks you whether you have done your homework and you respond with “yes” although you actually didn’t, that’s a lie, but barely an insincerity. On the contrary, imagine being asked “Do you love me?” by your partner who you have already considered to dump but haven’t decided yet. If your response is affirmative, that’s a very obvious case of insincerity. So in my view, a lie necessarily features a fact that is untrue, whereas insincerity shows a lack of authentic feeling or emotion.
What are some rather unobvious cases of insincerity? For example, when you don’t want to tell exactly what you think but cannot silence. Then you need to say something in order to stick to social customs, but because what you really think can be inappropriate, you aren’t left with something except a standard response. This may happen in public, e.g., at the conference where you are asked to evaluate somebody generally respectful, or in private, just when you don’t want to tell your honest opinion because the truth could be offensive to the person.
Now that we are acquainted with what insincerity is, and what forms can it take, let’s talk about circumstances that cause its appearance. I bet people predominantly interact insincerely in big corporations, social networks, and night clubs, among other environments.[2] This happens because communication in those places has its barriers. In a large enterprise these are rules and hierarchy, online are the absence of a personal contact and sometimes also of an identity, and in a night club we are mostly surrounded by imperfect strangers. The fact that all of us are supposed to feel chilled and have fun together even though we are not close causes the majority to act pretentious.
You should probably be tempted by now to hear the conclusion. Although it is generally perceived that insincerity is a bad quality, I cannot fully agree with that. Because in my opinion, these are the matters of trust and betrayal that are primarily responsible for its bad reputation. However, upon the cases described, not always telling what you really think may actually cause more virtue than harm. This is also in line with another common flaw such as being outright, which will create you more enemies than friends.
Consequently, although each of us, including myself, would wish to call themselves a sincere human being, I would not attribute this quality to something either good or bad. There exist many cases where it will create problems to you and never ever will anybody thank you for that, and there are certain situations where you got to be sincere if you pretend on having any sort of dignity. Personally, I think that everybody acts insincere at some point.
[1] The problem with flirt is that someone is always acting more sincere than another.
[2] The list obviously is non-exhausting. However, the examples above have a good illustrative power since they are broadly familiar to general public.
