Everything about Sincerity totally explained
Sincerity is the
virtue of speaking truly about one's feelings, thoughts, desires. Sincere expression carries risks to the speaker, since the ordinary screens used in everyday life are opened to the outside world. At the same time, we expect our friends, our lovers, our leaders "to be sincere".
Sincerity in Western societies
Sincerity hasn't been consistently regarded as a
virtue in
Western culture. First discussed by
Aristotle in his, it resurfaced to become an ideal (
virtue) in
Europe and
North America in the
17th century; and it gained considerable momentum during the
Romantic movement, when sincerity was first celebrated as an
artistic and social ideal. Indeed, in mid- to late-nineteenth century America, sincerity was an idea reflected in mannerisms, hairstyles, women's dress, and the literature of the time.
More recently, sincerity has been under assault by several modern developments such as
psychoanalysis and
postmodern developments such as
deconstruction. Some scholars view sincerity as a
construct rather than a moral virtue—although any virtue can be construed as a 'mere construct' rather than an actual phenomenon.
Literary critic
Lionel Trilling dealt with the subject of sincerity, its roots, its evolution, its moral quotient, and its relationship to
authenticity in a series of lectures published under the title
Sincerity and Authenticity.
Aristotle's Views on Sincerity
According to Aristotle "
truthfulness or sincerity is a desirable mean state between the deficiency of
irony or
self-deprecation and the excess of
boastfulness."
Sincerity in Confucian societies
Beyond the
Western culture, sincerity is notably developed as a virtue in
Confucian societies (
China,
Korea, and
Japan). The concept of
chéng (誠) as expounded in two of the Confucian classics, the
Da Xue and the
Zhong Yong is generally translated as
sincerity. As in the west, the term implies a congruence of avowal and inner feeling, but inner feeling is in turn ideally responsive to ritual propriety and
social hierarchy. Thus, even today, a powerful leader will praise leaders of other realms as "sincere" to the extent that they
know their place. In Japanese the character for
cheng may be pronounced
makoto, and carries still more strongly the sense of loyal avowal and belief.
Etymology
The
Oxford English Dictionary and most scholars state that
sincerity from
sincere is derived from the Latin
sincerus meaning
clean, pure, sound (1525–35).
Sincerus may have once meant "one growth" (not mixed), from
sin- (one) and
crescere (to grow).
Crescere derives from "
Ceres," the goddess of grain, as in
"cereal."
According to the
American Heritage Dictionary, the Latin word
sincerus is derived from the Indo-European root
*sm̥kēros, itself derived from the zero-grade of
*sem (
one) and the suffixed, lengthened e-grade of
*ker (
grow), generating the underlying meaning
of one growth, hence
pure, clean.
Controversy
An often repeated etymology proposes that
sincere is derived from the
Latin sine =
without,
cera =
wax. According to one popular explanation, dishonest sculptors in
Rome or
Greece would cover flaws in their work with wax to deceive the viewer; therefore, a sculpture "without wax" would mean honesty in its perfection.
The
Oxford English Dictionary states, however, that "There is no probability in the old explanation from sine cera 'without wax'". The
without wax etymology is popular enough to be a minor subplot in
Dan Brown's
Digital Fortress.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Sincerity'.
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