ANTI-IRONY CHARMS: Some rambling thoughts on “sincerism” and why it’s no fun. So a couple times here I’ve growled at sincerism, without ever telling you what it is! Which… is certainly not the sincerist way, so props for consistency, but I do think at some point I might explain myself. Here are some partial notes.

Sincerism means–probably among other things–requiring a sincere, authentic, honest accounting of one’s thoughts and emotions. It opposes irony, misdirection, self-protection (which, to be fair, I also oppose in most cases!), exaggeration, agent-provocateur behavior, unspoken understandings, WASPish complicity in one another’s secrets, and your mouth writing checks your ass can’t cash.

Think of it as American newspapers’ claim to “objectivity,” by which we mean mainstream conformity, vs. European newspapers’ tabloid partisanship. Think of it as realism vs. “genre.”

Sincerity, as a mode, has its good points. If anything, I think I tend to be much more sincere than I should be! The world does not care about the sparklyhearts authenticity of my feelings; nor does it really need every idea chewed into obviousness and pablum. But there are times when withholding sincerity from another person is prideful and/or cruel. If they need you to say, blatantly and without regard for your own self-image, “I love you,” or, “I think you’re amazing,” you should do that. You don’t always have to disclaim it or quote it (“I’ve known you longer than anybody, Eddie, and anything you do is all right by me–can I borrow the car?”) or make them work for it.

But here are just a few of the many problems with sincerism.

* It’s a genre which thinks it’s the whole of art; it’s a perspective which won’t acknowledge its contingency. If I speak in aphorisms or jokes or provocations, I am actually conveying something about both myself and my view of the truth, just as much as if I *~*bared my heart*~*.

* It’s the privilege of those whose beliefs are basically mainstream to think that “realism” and sincerity are good ways of conveying the truth. Only those whose experiences and interpretations line up with mainstream culture can be guaranteed that their sincere heart-baring tales will be believed; and they’re the ones for whom this language of sincerity was made. To take the boringly obvious example, if I want to talk about Gay Catholic Whatnot, I need to somehow entice or bully straight people (and non-Catholics, for that matter) into learning my language; I can’t convey what I need to say in theirs. And I strongly suspect this is also true of other kinds of privilege, which is why Invisible Man is one of the greatest American artworks ever created.

It’s never joking all the way down.

* Sincerism is the opposite of camp. Camp, as far as I can tell, only works if the thing parodied has some real emotional and personal resonance. Camp is never loveless or rationalist. Sincerism divides the world into “serious” and “oh but you don’t really mean that”… when our actual hearts and lives are much more conflicted, complex, and complicit than that.

If I can think of more to say, I’ll say it; and I do apologize for the deeply sincerist nature of this post! It’s a Mobius strip of ridiculous.