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Sincerity: How a moral ideal born five hundred years ago inspired religious wars, modern art, hipster chic, and the curious notion that we all have something to say
What do John Calvin, Sarah Palin, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, and Bon Iver have in common? A preoccupation with sincerity. With deep historical perspective and a brilliant contemporary spin, R. Jay Magill Jr. tells the beguiling tale of sincerity's theological past, its current emotional resonance, and the deep impact it has had on the Western soul. At a time when politicians are scrutinized less for the truth of what they say than for how much they really mean it, Sincerity provides a wide-ranging examination of a moral ideal that remains a strange magnetic north in our secular moral compass.
274 pages, Paperback
First published July 16, 2012
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391 people want to read
About the author
R. Jay Magill Jr.
3 books4 followersR. Jay Magill, Jr. is an independent scholar living in Berlin, where he works as a writer, editor, translator, and a host of a radio program on NPR Worldwide. He is the author of Chic Ironic Bitterness, published in 2007, and Sincerity: How A Moral Ideal Born Five Hundred Years Ago Inspired Religious Wars, Modern Art, Hipster Chic, and the Curious Notion that We ALL Have Something to Say (No Matter How Dull), published by W.W. Norton in July 2012.
Magill holds a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Hamburg and served as as staff writer and eventually executive editor of the National Magazine Award- winning DoubleTake Magazine from 1999 to 2005, during which time he was also a teaching fellow at Harvard University. Magill has written for, among other publications, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Policy, American Prospect, Der Spiegel, Boston Globe, and Print. As an illustrator he has drawn political cartoons and caricatures for a variety of periodicals, including The Believer, and since 2005 he has been a staff illustrator at the political bimonthly The American Interest. Since 2008 has been the editor of the Berlin Journal.
Magill holds a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Hamburg and served as as staff writer and eventually executive editor of the National Magazine Award- winning DoubleTake Magazine from 1999 to 2005, during which time he was also a teaching fellow at Harvard University. Magill has written for, among other publications, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Policy, American Prospect, Der Spiegel, Boston Globe, and Print. As an illustrator he has drawn political cartoons and caricatures for a variety of periodicals, including The Believer, and since 2005 he has been a staff illustrator at the political bimonthly The American Interest. Since 2008 has been the editor of the Berlin Journal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
January 16, 2016
A big exploration of the idea of sincerity, alongside irony, with which it is curiously twinned. Magill argues that irony is a way of piercing veneers and returning us to authenticity.
I was most interested in the early history in the first part of the book. The later part goes into the modern era and investigates pop art and hipsterism.
The word sincerity's proposed origin from the Latin sine cera, "without wax" (referring to marble that isn't cosmetically patched) is dismissed by the Oxford English Dictionary. Rather, Magill writes, "That Latin word is built from the prefix sem- or sim-, which means 'one,' as in 'simple' or 'single,' and the root crescere, which means 'to grow...'" (p. 28)
Middle French had sincérité by 1237. The first recorded use of the English word "sincere" was by John Frith in 1533, as a compliment to John Wycliffe, a Christian reformer who rejected the Pope's authority and translated the Bible from Latin into English. Wycliffe had died a natural death in 1384, but, decades later, Pope Martin V had his remains dug up, burned, and dumped into a river to make a point. "John Frith's choice of the word 'sincere' to describe the besmirched Oxford heretic was thus its own act of dissent," Magill writes (p. 24) Only months after making the comment, Frith was burned at the stake.
Subsequently, the ideal and expectation of sincerity played an important role in Christianity.
Or, as Magill puts it later in the book:
I was most interested in the early history in the first part of the book. The later part goes into the modern era and investigates pop art and hipsterism.
The word sincerity's proposed origin from the Latin sine cera, "without wax" (referring to marble that isn't cosmetically patched) is dismissed by the Oxford English Dictionary. Rather, Magill writes, "That Latin word is built from the prefix sem- or sim-, which means 'one,' as in 'simple' or 'single,' and the root crescere, which means 'to grow...'" (p. 28)
Middle French had sincérité by 1237. The first recorded use of the English word "sincere" was by John Frith in 1533, as a compliment to John Wycliffe, a Christian reformer who rejected the Pope's authority and translated the Bible from Latin into English. Wycliffe had died a natural death in 1384, but, decades later, Pope Martin V had his remains dug up, burned, and dumped into a river to make a point. "John Frith's choice of the word 'sincere' to describe the besmirched Oxford heretic was thus its own act of dissent," Magill writes (p. 24) Only months after making the comment, Frith was burned at the stake.
Subsequently, the ideal and expectation of sincerity played an important role in Christianity.
"Puritan theology held that without the believer’s sincere repentance and genuine spiritual transformation, not only was heaven impossible but so was belonging to the church. Believers were given the opportunity to explain to church elders the details of their 'sincere conversion experience'...The detection of hypocrisy became something of a sport in the seventeenth century, exemplified by Molière’s poisonous jab at fake religion, Tartuffe, or the Imposter (1664). A century later the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, himself an odd kind of Calvinist, held true to sincerity, believing it was the sole quality that delivered man back to his state of original purity, feed form the false and oppressive protocols of social life. Rousseau’s sentiments helped to motivate not only the French Revolution, but also what would become Romantic thought in Europe and America, a movement in art and music that lasted for five decades and urged individuals to see themselves outside of their inherited roles, and outside of society altogether, as unique beings standing on the precipice of the world.
Over the decades, this ethos of sincerity evolved form seeking the truth of oneself to sharing the whole of that truth with others with unabashed pride, a trait that would come to be called, in modern times, authenticity. This insistence on being who one feels oneself to be at all times eventually found a home in modern art and literature." (pp. 20-21)
Or, as Magill puts it later in the book:
"Given its impetus to move inward and away from the world, Romanticism, one might say, is a cultural evolution whereby an originally Protestant concern for locating the sincere self, once undertaken for reasons of salvation, wanders outside the walls of religion and into the sanctity of nature and the self that resists what is new and saccharine and profane in modern society." (p. 95)
July 17, 2024
Entirely fascinating, beautifully written piece of cultural history. As someone curious about society's inner workings, I found Magill's Sincerity a hugely informative and easily addictive read. Even before I finished it, I kept encountering conversations and other pieces of media that were essentially trying (and sometimes failing) to get to what Magill more clearly and incisively laid out in this book.
He traces the modern understanding of sincerity from the field of sculpture in antiquity (sine cera, from which we get "sincerity," meaning pure marble "without wax," since wax was used to disguise cracks in inferior marble) to the more recent ages of Romantic individualism, postmodernism, irony. It revealed to me the invisible paradigm we are living in right now, especially in regard to an obsession with authenticity—to the point of celebrities needing to fabricate it. Which is what made the wrap-up a bit of an anticlimax, something of a shrug.
Perhaps I misread it in Magill's tone, but I noted he was more inclined toward "irony as the true sincerity," and his distaste for the more ridiculous aspects of hipsterdom is clear. Perhaps also it is unfair to expect a piece of disinterested history to have an underscored declaration of a conclusion. Still because of all that, I felt a bit underwhelmed by Magill's final word in which he essentially claims sincerity is what it is. He brings us to the present day more aware than ever of the complexities, but seems to have little to say at the end of the tour except, "So…yeah. Wild, huh?" The obsession with sincerity/authenticity can get problematic and paradoxically inauthentic, but it's still important to try and be sincere, is what I got at the end of it. Nothing about how people have ever managed to do that.
No matter; it didn't sully what came before. I have no reservations saying I loved this book and intend to revisit it in future to see if it is as exacting in its overview of present times as it seems now.
He traces the modern understanding of sincerity from the field of sculpture in antiquity (sine cera, from which we get "sincerity," meaning pure marble "without wax," since wax was used to disguise cracks in inferior marble) to the more recent ages of Romantic individualism, postmodernism, irony. It revealed to me the invisible paradigm we are living in right now, especially in regard to an obsession with authenticity—to the point of celebrities needing to fabricate it. Which is what made the wrap-up a bit of an anticlimax, something of a shrug.
Perhaps I misread it in Magill's tone, but I noted he was more inclined toward "irony as the true sincerity," and his distaste for the more ridiculous aspects of hipsterdom is clear. Perhaps also it is unfair to expect a piece of disinterested history to have an underscored declaration of a conclusion. Still because of all that, I felt a bit underwhelmed by Magill's final word in which he essentially claims sincerity is what it is. He brings us to the present day more aware than ever of the complexities, but seems to have little to say at the end of the tour except, "So…yeah. Wild, huh?" The obsession with sincerity/authenticity can get problematic and paradoxically inauthentic, but it's still important to try and be sincere, is what I got at the end of it. Nothing about how people have ever managed to do that.
No matter; it didn't sully what came before. I have no reservations saying I loved this book and intend to revisit it in future to see if it is as exacting in its overview of present times as it seems now.
January 27, 2021
This is something like a pop version of Lionel Trilling’s Sincerity and Authenticity. Not that pop is bad, necessarily. It’s not; it’s fun. But then it’s also not as substantive as other fare, like S&A, which came first and tasted, I don’t know, richer somehow. Here, Magill surveys the same concept – even touching on many of the same philosophies as Trilling – but conveys these challenging ideas in a familiar, narrative mode. Hence, pop. So, he goes from sincerity’s religious origins in sixteenth-century England, to its puritanical development in early colonial America, to its political expression from Machiavelli to Robespierre, to its artistic-philosophical position for the Transcendentalists and Romantics, and then on to the Modernists and the postmodernists and today. Of course, I’m most interested in the “today” stuff, as anything after 1970 – so basically all of the most interesting discussions surrounding sincerity and irony – is stuff Trilling didn’t cover. And Magill did this well. He doesn’t have a thesis here, per se, so his largely neutral approach to contemporary debates about sincerity, or New Sincerity, in literature and the arts sounded judicious, and even generous, to my ears. But, then, of course, not having a thesis makes it hard to know how to read his presentation of the material, and whether to quibble with the details of his assertions or to let them slide. Keen, quibbling readers will notice that even though Magill is clear that sincerity is not the antithesis to irony at the beginning of the book (a position that I, for one, endorse), by the end, he treats sincerity and irony as binary opposites (as though he falls into DFW’s gravitational field (it’s hard not to)). If you’re looking for something purely academic, this will frustrate; if you’re looking for a smart discussion on the subject, this will entertain.
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April 6, 2020This is a really fascinating book that takes a subtle and nuanced view of a topic whose complexities are easy to flatten. Magill largely surveys the role that sincerity has played in public and personal life since the Reformation, and the ways that it has defined, empowered, and muted the self. His reading of sincerity's effect on modern-day Protestantism and art history/criticism have left me with a ton to think about, both personally and professionally.
April 27, 2020
This is a good book for people who want to think deeply about their life choices using history and philosophy.
May 29, 2021
Kind of the handbook for it. It’s interesting that all the analysis of post-9/11 hipster culture as somehow being resolved during the Obama presidency as a return to authenticity is now back again.
November 19, 2020
Might come back to do a longer review for this, but for now, Sincerity was a lot of fun. It's also pretty short- definitely worth the time finishing this!
October 27, 2012
This is a great primer on the history of Western values, culture and religion. The concept of the true self, the confessional and the super individualism has a source the author tells us and it is deeply embedded in our history.
An amazing read, here's an example: "Weak people cannot be sincere," wrote the aristocynic La Rochefoucauld. He was right - as he was about nearly everything else. Insincerity, while not intrinsically bad, exhibits an avoidance of confronting others and ourselves with uncomfortable frankness. It thrust forward an image of how things are supposed to be rather than how they actually are. The bolder, more democratic move would be to simply offend. Among the well-bred, at least, it's increasingly hard to imagine a way back to that kind of civil directness. We're all trying to get ahead, and being nice is a big part of the recipe.
Being sincere is not always easy - and it by no means always good, appropriate, relevant, or even interesting. It means skiring hardened social proprieties and rote reactions in order to express something more real and human, more resonant of what we are and actually thinking and feeling; no easy task for any culture, as Allen Ginsberg observed. Timed right, sincerity can give rise to goosebumps and revolutions. Timed wrong, it can lead to uncomfortable silences and ruined careers. True, sincerity is not the best method for forward motion in business, law, entertainment, or politics. But for an individual person to have integrity and moral character - to exist as being without wax, to feel that his or her inner life is a familiar and comfortable place - it is absolutely necessary."
Amen.
An amazing read, here's an example: "Weak people cannot be sincere," wrote the aristocynic La Rochefoucauld. He was right - as he was about nearly everything else. Insincerity, while not intrinsically bad, exhibits an avoidance of confronting others and ourselves with uncomfortable frankness. It thrust forward an image of how things are supposed to be rather than how they actually are. The bolder, more democratic move would be to simply offend. Among the well-bred, at least, it's increasingly hard to imagine a way back to that kind of civil directness. We're all trying to get ahead, and being nice is a big part of the recipe.
Being sincere is not always easy - and it by no means always good, appropriate, relevant, or even interesting. It means skiring hardened social proprieties and rote reactions in order to express something more real and human, more resonant of what we are and actually thinking and feeling; no easy task for any culture, as Allen Ginsberg observed. Timed right, sincerity can give rise to goosebumps and revolutions. Timed wrong, it can lead to uncomfortable silences and ruined careers. True, sincerity is not the best method for forward motion in business, law, entertainment, or politics. But for an individual person to have integrity and moral character - to exist as being without wax, to feel that his or her inner life is a familiar and comfortable place - it is absolutely necessary."
Amen.
July 20, 2016
Sincerity is a compact but thought-provoking survey of the way in which sincerity has become the premiere moral imperative, inspiring everything from religious wars to the hipster aesthetic. And while Magill Jr. may from time to time take sardonic shots at certain characters in contemporary culture (see the "Hipster Semiotic Appendix" for more), his overarching concern is far more sophisticated and measured. He argues, in effect, that the fetishization of sincerity cheapens and falsifies "what was once an esteemed and hard-won moral quality" (230). To that end, Magill Jr. persuasively reminds his reader that being sincere and authentic does not make someone right. One might argue that Magill Jr. erects a straw man, but I don't think so. Political discourse, for example, is full of players, voices, and arguments that incorrectly conflate sincerity and authenticity with accuracy and precision, or as Magill Jr. writes, "Sarah Palin is certainly sincere in her belief that she is a maverick. She's just not right about it" (232). While Magill Jr. uses Palin to illustrate this point, one could easily substitute Donald Trump as a more suitable and timely example.
Magill Jr. asks several important questions about how we interact with the world around us and how those interactions are influenced by notions of sincerity, authenticity, and truth. In doing so, he does not suggest that one should be either authentic or inauthentic, sincere or insincere. Rather, he emphasizes how slippery and conditional these categories are, and how too often, we forget this.
Magill Jr. asks several important questions about how we interact with the world around us and how those interactions are influenced by notions of sincerity, authenticity, and truth. In doing so, he does not suggest that one should be either authentic or inauthentic, sincere or insincere. Rather, he emphasizes how slippery and conditional these categories are, and how too often, we forget this.
September 6, 2015
Enlightening, entertaining, and all around enjoyable. Highly recommend it to anyone interested in anything. If you are someone who likes staring at walls while chewing on white bread and water, you might find this book lies outside your range of interest, albeit, you are probably a most sincere soul, thus you are apt to find this account of the development of the western understanding of sincerity overly convoluted and desperate. And for that reason, even you might benefit from reading it, if only to stare down from your banal, ivory tower and scoff at all of us desperate fools lost in the complex web of authenticity vs. conformity vs. self expression vs. consumerism vs. religious determination vs. political and economic gain...
All that to say: a fun and engaging look at the development of heresy, delusion, hypocrisy, satire, and earnestness in western culture over the last 400 years as we all wrestle to figure out what it means to be sincere.
All that to say: a fun and engaging look at the development of heresy, delusion, hypocrisy, satire, and earnestness in western culture over the last 400 years as we all wrestle to figure out what it means to be sincere.
August 13, 2015
Pop philosophy/cultural studies are hit and miss. This is an easy read and has some good content. R. Jay Magill Jr. explores sincerity beginning in the Reformation and tracing it up to the present, where he gives a lengthy analysis of the hipster. The content ranging from the 20th to 21st century is quite good. Personally, it's somewhat strange to read someone analyzing something as ridiculed and mocked as hipsters in a critical way (in undergrad I wrote a paper on CCM's role in a Christian's life [a perfect paper!] and examined DC Talk's lyrics; this book felt like that). Being snobbish, there are probably better scholarly books than this. Magill Jr.'s argument sometimes drifts (less is more) and I wish he would have looked at the plethora of blogs online that have radically democratized Internet output while also cluttering the web.
January 2, 2013
This was an interesting read, but as other reviewers mentioned, it seemed a bit unfocused. I did find the topic engrossing and I liked that the chapters progressed in chronological order ( I hate when books that are following an idea or movement through history jump around). Recommended if you are at all interested in the subject of sincerity and how it has evolved over time, and if it still exists. I don't really agree with the last phase of the book regarding modern hipsters and the supposed death of that archetype several years ago. The mall is full of them, I see them every day.
October 13, 2012
Not quite as focused as it could have been. He mentioned a couple times that sincerity, aunthenticity, and honesty don't necessarily mean the same thing but there were at least a few points where I felt like he was using them interchangeably. Still, it was an interesting book! It's kitchen-sink non-fiction; you find one concept and then use it as an excuse to go wandering about different interesting bits of history. I liked it! 3.5 stars
September 9, 2013
Not as compelling as I was hoping, but still, a serviceable overview of the tug of war between the values of sincerity and irony over the course of western civilization from the Protestant reformation through the current day. I liked the beginning a lot and found the middle dragged a bit through the Victorian/mid-century/modern art section. The thing I was most surprised to learn was that apparently the hipster has died - I had no idea. Go figure.
December 10, 2013
Had higher hopes for this book than deserved. Magill's conclusion seems to be that one cannot succeed in capitalism/modern business without sacrificing the virtue of personal sincerity. I'm not so sure they are directly opposed, and, in fact, sincerity may help as much as hurt you in business and personally climbing the corporate ladder.
Other observations: Without having a broader understanding of modern art, it was hard to follow his discussion.
Other observations: Without having a broader understanding of modern art, it was hard to follow his discussion.
September 29, 2013
How "sincerity" made its way into the english language - how it traces its roots to the protestant reformation and what it has meant to the generations since then that have used it to promote change in the status quo. There's a lot more complexity to this little word than you might think. Definitely gets your gears turning.
April 2, 2013
This is an historical perspective of the conflicts between sincerity and insincerity. It gives the reader an opportunity to follow the cultural conflicts through religion, philosophy, salesmanship, music and art. It is an easy read in plain language with a lot of humor thrown into the mix. Well worth the effort.
abandoned
January 25, 2014Abandoned page 102/272. This turned out to be more of a history of the ideal gentleman from Europe in the Renaissance and beyond. The best part was the little black and white drawings at the beginning of each chapter. Maybe it got more interesting/actually insightful after I stopped, but I'll never know...
December 26, 2012
The good:
This book introduced me to unfamiliar history and art. It piqued my curiosity and taught me plenty.
The bad:
The tone is inconsistent and the thesis confusing. He regularly distinguishes concepts that he later conflates. Sometimes his claims seemed unsupported by his evidence.
This book introduced me to unfamiliar history and art. It piqued my curiosity and taught me plenty.
The bad:
The tone is inconsistent and the thesis confusing. He regularly distinguishes concepts that he later conflates. Sometimes his claims seemed unsupported by his evidence.
July 28, 2012
A delightful guide through 500 years of a moral ideal. Fascinating. I won't forget it.
August 29, 2012
For one thing... I found the claim that sincerity was an idea originating 500 years ago to be laughably ignorant of the medieval period and earlier. Weak grasp of history.
November 26, 2012
Really a fascinating look at morality in Europe and America from the 1500’s on. Got a touch unfocused at times, but the detours were entertaining nonetheless.
June 14, 2013
mostly stupit with few good points from 5th grader
June 22, 2013
I'd be lying if I said I did not find this interesting.
December 23, 2013
An interesting journey through humanity's grappling with the practice of sincerity leading to the expected conclusion.
January 18, 2014
It's an interesting compendium of history, and I'd say it's worth reading for that reason, but it didn't seem to really have all that much to say at the end of it.
September 26, 2015
Enjoyable and thought provoking. A little scattered in the middle, still very much worth the time.
Want to read
February 14, 2016book of the year in WSJ 2012
May 17, 2016
an interesting read, and definitely thought provoking. the lovely use of language almost pushed it to 4 stars, but the complete lack of any women really at any point pushed it back down a bit.
September 22, 2016
Could probably be expanded into a whole college course on the subject and make me consider going back to school.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews