We are honest hypocrites, aren’t we?

Though honesty might be the best policy, hypocrisy and sycophancy are the most practised and profitable pursuits of today. In the old days, honesty and integrity reigned supreme over all other motives. Today, these values are losing their lustre in the minds of people.

A thorough psychological analysis of social interactions and their underlying values depict a rather grim and gloomy picture of our society, which has rapidly transformed into one with dichotomies and paradoxes — in order words, we are moving towards extremes. Integrity, originality and authenticity are in decay. Truthfulness, trust and sacredness once attached and attributed to kinships are fast becoming the values of the past. Selfishness defines most of our relations. Morality, values and social ethos are being replaced with scheming and conniving conducts. Wealth and belongings chiefly define a person’s value.

We are honest to the extent of judging others. We are truthful to the level of our own benefit. We are ready to trade our principles, values and even our conscience for little materialistic benefit. We put our personal interests above all else. We profit on other’s pains. We scrutinise other’s faults and shortcomings. Even though our conversations are carried out in a divinely soft tone, it is in these sugar-coated words that we hide our evil intentions in. We adore sweetly glazed hypocrisy. We detest naked and caustic truth. We love to live in a world built on herd mentality and impoverished intellect. We radiate negative energy. We display hypocrisy with utmost honesty and integrity — we are honest in being dishonest. That is, our deception is cloaked in the honesty of the finest level. We are overly partial to and prisoners of our egoistic selves. We judge other’s actions and advocate our own. While we preach, sing and exhort exalted humanistic and transcendental values, we don’t really believe in them. Most of us are self-employed sages and self-proclaimed saints. Though we glorify good character and behaviour, we love to befriend those that are immoral and affluent. Wealth conceals evil, we think.

We are avid dreamers but reluctant doers. We are comfort seekers. We wish to move mountains from our cosy couch. We expect epic outcomes with little effort. For most of us, our failures are divinely planned but triumphs are our own miracles. We are inflicted by the malady of intellectual dishonesty. Fears and egoistic tendencies drive our actions. Fear of failure. Fear of ridiculous. Fear of social stigma. Fear of trying. Fear of landing in a new milieu that might shatter our long-established beliefs. We love stagnation. We suffer from a serious identity crisis. We hate what we are and love what we aren’t. Inferiority complex is deeply embedded in our subconscious. We desperately try to add to our self-worth by taking a selfie with notoriously prominent personalities and posting them on social media.

It is time we mourn the death of our consciousness and sing the elegy of life. We need to deeply introspect on what we have become, as an individual and as a collective. Let us not forget that there remain a few who still have not succumbed to this modern mindset, who still practise the finest level of honesty, integrity and originality with utmost dedication They are the generous, altruistic souls that we must idolise. Our society is in a phase of social and moral decay. If not interrupted, these evil tendencies will plunge our coming generations into a great degenerative decline

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2022.

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