Insincerity

Sometimes people don't quite seem to get me. They complain that I treat different people in radically different ways, I behave differently, I speak in a different tone, I act in completely different ways. Well, the only answer to that is it's pretty obvious why.

Every person behaves in a particular and different way when interacting with different people. It's a fact of life. As Goffman would say, we take a different line and construct a different face for every individual social interaction. The problem then is to maintain internal consistency. Ok, tossing social theory aside, doesn't this ring true? You behave differently with your parents as compared to your friends, and a further differentiation as compared to your work colleagues, or your romantic partner, or some random kid on the street. And so on, you get the idea. It's a continual assessment by the self to make the appropriate adjustment for each interaction. Nothing profound or complicated there.

Some people will of course protest that this smacks of insincerity and hypocrisy. Hey, guess what? That's true. If you're talking about hypocrisy as the failure to express your particular individual personality without any influence or flavouring by external considerations of social, financial, whatever implications, then it is evident that practically every person is a hypocrite. Before getting all worked up about being insulted, let me clarify.

It is virtually impossible to be completely genuine at any time. There will always be something motivating you. So long as there is something you want to get out of an interaction, then you will adjust the persona you are presenting to allow you to take the actions that will get you what you want. Note that the definition of motivation can be very broad here. There is of course financial motivation, for example a car salesman who acts friendly and interested in order to make a sale. There might be social motivations, such as a politician who presents a particular face that has nothing to do who he actually is. Then there are a broad range of minor things that every person has, whether it be simply an enjoyable time with your friends, or keeping your parents happy so they will support you through college. Then there are the automatic impulse controls conditioned into you by society. Say you feel like punching a guy out for some reason. Most of the time, you will not do that, because you believe it to be wrong and dangerous for yourself. That is already an act of hypocrisy. You feel like doing it, you want to do it, but you do not because of external motivations. Your personal desires are suppressed. You are not presenting the true you. Same thing for drives like sexual desires or laziness or any number of other things.

If you disagree because you think that being called a hypocrite is offensive, then you're trapped in a socially constructed concept of pride. Hypocrite.