Hypocrisy and Authenticity

Samuel Bird

We walked through the front door as I was nervous about what would happen next. My father had a warm smile on his face that turned to a wrathful scowl as we stepped through the broken doorway of our home. Something I had done, some small action or word, or even just him feeling like it, would set him off. My six your old body was shoved down, and thrown into my room for another supper to be withheld. I sat against the paint-chipped wall of my bedroom on my moldy mattress. I looked out the frosted window to a gray world. While my sister had it much better than me, she seemed to think father was justified in how he acted, but from my earliest memory, my cognition was a tool to rebel. If he didn’t like it when mother hit him, what made it okay for him to hit me? This could work if we were so different, but we seemed to be the same kind of being as far as I could tell. It was clear that despite morality being a tool to shame in the family, there was a disparity between what people believed and what they did. I watched my father smile with a chipper voice as I stood, cowering behind him. He would give moral insights and tell people what was good and bad. All the while, I waited with a churning stomach and quivering lips to what awaited me when there was no one to watch. I felt hate for him, not for what he did to me, but that it clearly went against what he believed. I hated seeing that smile that was reserved for impressing when those same lips would tear everything I could gather to think well of myself. I hated his practice of power and vowed to treat those weaker than me with tenderness, and those with more power with rebellion. This is something that I followed through on to a fault. My six year old mind kept going back to those hands that would shake a strangers, online to collide across my young face. I hated this thing that I could not name. I recalled a word I recalled used in a story I had heard about Jesus. It was a word that captured what I detested like few words ever had or did: Hypocrite.

As I got older, I had to sit through countless hours of my parents talking to authorities, police, and medical professionals as they acted a role they seldom played as the concerned parent. They would say that I had yelled, argued, and tried to run away. All this was true, but it was absent from the context that I had been kicked out, punched in the face, and withheld from school. I stayed silent as I vowed to rebel. I planned to rebel against this hypocrisy. Like everyone, I have an idea of what it means to be a good person. I love to share this vision with others, and I don’t think it is a mistake. I do try, however, to make sure I am following through on what I say. At times, we all need to put on some mask to fit into a role we value as good, but we need to be able to take that mask off and see ourselves as more than just that. During these hours of solitude as I was locked in that room, I can see now in my memory like I could see my breath then, I remember sitting there and considering myself. No one was watching me. If the aims and efforts of humanity were nothing more than a show for my kind to win them over, then of course it would not apply here. I found my quest to be and become something more as something that mattered when there were no eyes to see it but mine. I considered for hours on what I would do if there was some apocalypse and I was the only person left. How would I act differently? What would still matter? What goals would I aim for? I found that the ideas of control, strength, intellect, and making something beautiful of my life, would matter even if I was the only one to see it do so. My mind was all that was needed to house these values. 

Much of what we call morality is simply something that is preferable that we then make obligatory. Another large part of it is a social performance based on our perceptions of what others want. A child will often barely keep a rule given by the parent, but that same child will have no problem snarkily telling another child that rule. In the absence of someone to see it, a state to penalize, and a God to judge, the pragmatic role of morality falls flat. If it only mattered when eyes were upon you, all you cared about was to be seen. I have one question I love to ask myself when I am making a philosophical argument. I ask myself why I am making it. I have seen too many people just argue to show themselves as superior or to put others down. I have certainly caught myself doing this and asked myself why I was doing it. Then, rather obviously, I try to stop. I think there is a real danger in constantly checking and digging and deep personal motivations, but I think honest reflection is very helpful. When I know I am making the argument because I think it is a possible fact or I think it has utility, I remove this layer of speaking to be seen and move to speaking to be heard. My language then moved from the hypocritical to the authentic. This hypocrisy is the antithesis of living deliberately, as it is the lack of commitment for what you believe.

The ad hominem fallacy is to inappropriately assume a poor quality of an arguer then shows a poor quality of the argument. For example, since I ramble and talk quickly and passionately enough, you could easily assume I am a fool or mad. While this is very possible, that does not necessitate that the arguments I share have those or any other poor qualities. The thinker can have all the flaws in the world and yet the argument could still have merit. Even the devil told the truth every now and again. This is a pretty clear fallacy. However, I do wonder if the opposite would actually be true. While a lesser person could make a good argument, is there a link between a more developed character and a better idea? I think there is an inductive case for this. My two favorite sections of philosophy are the late modern, and then a sprinkling of classical. One thing I have seen too much in modern philosophy is a great idea that comes from someone who does not practice it. I think of Hume getting down to what causation was, and then just playing billiard and forgetting it all, or Sarte and his making of an existential view of life, just to get inappropriately involved in contemporary politics. There is such a weak relationship between the practice of a concept and its conceiver. I then think of Socrates, Plato, the Buddha, and Jesus. Their ideas may be less formal and structured, but they were real ideas that were brought into the lives of the creators. There was no pining after an academic spotlight, but an effort to be a walking illustration of an idea. In Matthew 7, Jesus puts it well when he refers to the fruits of a person showcasing the principle at hand. All things being equal, an idea being convincing and good enough for the creator to strive to live for it, is a strong case for its value in terms of existence. 

The other day I was about to make a choice. It was small and had no victim, but it clearly went against my Esse Maxim. I had just written about the exactness of executing one’s Esse Maxim and realized I would be a hypocrite and a liar with my actions to not follow through on my values. I made the choice to fight uphill and stay within my value system. I am not making any large claims about my character, but when I say Esse Maxim achieves, I say so from one who has lived it. This makes my life much harder, but it also makes it so that when I get to write these ideas down, I can do so with a sense of honesty. I think a largely underutilized teaching method is example. If I think a character trait or philosophy has enough value as to want it for others, I can think of no better way to show them what it is and what it does, than to be a walking billboard for that idea. I have tested this idea on countless people. I will clearly act in accordance with some concept I think worth living, and then be honest in my actions about its effects. I have seen this teach something I could never do with language. This is also the fullness of authenticity. 

Authenticity is a fruit of living deliberately. This authenticity I define as the same process of engagement with the world from the mind in varying circumstances.  There is no facade that guides the makeup of our lives, but a desire unto itself to be and become something more. This desire mixed with a concern for others will then lead us to share these ideas, but never as something we desire for others to do, but rather something tested and forged through the furnace of a racing mind. This authenticity will lead to a life that is without uncontestable regrets. The life lived was the best that reason and action could ask for, and any patterns set by the world around us were nothing more than suggestions and patterns to borrow from and ignore at our will. As a musician, I will learn the theory that undergirds music with all its rules and limitations. I will then use my judgment, and an ear for the beautiful to choose when to break those rules, and when to keep them. The melodies that come from this have a warm originality. Despite anything else you could say about it, it still holds as something unlike other tunes. This authenticity then will be pronounced into our lives as we live without shyness or shame. I have found that when we sail in a direction against the winds and waves, people will look at us with confusion, then hatred, and then admiration. They then seek to join us on our voyage. To those who go boldly into a direction they created, others will be hungry for a leader to follow. I have used this time and time again to lead people toward the goals they desired and a version of themselves they saw only under closed eyes. 

I think the world needs new ideas that balance and build on the human experience, but more than that, I think the world needs more heroes. We need heroes to act on ideas. I have found that to be a hero doesn’t mean you have to be fancy or have a special birthright. All it means is that you act well enough that people can build an honest character in their mind that emulates you such that they can desire to follow that character. I think the world needs and deserves heroes. I think it deserves examples. I think it needs lives lived authentically as a mere invitation for others to do the same. I am asking you to join me in this effort. Before you stress, like me, about your perceived inadequacies, I wish to remind you of all the heroes of old who were not special in any regard other than the choices they made. I ask you to join me in giving the world this image.

More than just about everything else, I want to be a father. I have read books, practiced methods, and worked on myself such that I am preparing for that sacred day that I will hold my child. I see a good parent as one who fosters, invites, illustrates, and supports their child in maximizing the human experience for all it can be. Memories that haven’t happened yet of important lessons about ourselves and the world flow across my mind. First steps, first word, first loves, all something that I will feel blessed to witness. This near-divine support of molding a conscious being is as daunting as it is beautiful. I fear to fail, and I am sure I will in many regards. I won’t always have the right words. I won’t always have enough resources. I won’t always be able to stop the pain I watch them feel. There is, however, one thing a child always deserves: An authentic example and illustration of a life lived deliberatel.