Where is the sin in sincere?

I'm on the road—sitting in a discount hotel by the highway in Barrie, Ontario as I type this. Besides the highway, you can see several other discount hotels.

Anyway, the long overdue Jane Austen entry. The Serpentine One and I listened to Sense and Sensibility in the car driving over. It got me thinking about sincerity. Sincerity gets a lot of abuse. If we are to trust Lionel Trilling and Alasdair MacIntyre, it isn't much of a virtue at all.

Trilling would have us believe that authenticity is the real virtue. Further, both men would have us believe that Jane Austen is one of the people who first deconstructs sincerity.

And it isn't hard to see why they might think this reading this book and Mansfield Park. In both the man who can read with great feeling is revealed to be a cad and the men who can only be themselves seem better. This reading of Austen is reminiscent of the old show business joke: "Sincerity is the key, once you can fake that ..."

But that is clearly too simple a reading. When Brandon and Elinor discuss Marianne, Brandon says he wouldn't like to see Marianne disabused of her romantic ideals at all. He worries they would be replaced by something baser.

Sincerity arises because we want to know if ourselves and others are really what we say we are. Am I in love? Well, do I really mean it when I say I am? This is a question about feelings.

And that does matter. It matters a whole lot whether or not I am sincere. Take away sincerity from my love and all that is left is animal instincts. That is Brandon's point and it is a good one.

I know what you're thinking:

As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her, and she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead.

But that is a joke. Likewise, it is only as a joke that we would say that a rapist is sincere. Sincere does not mean simply that I really want to do X. It doesn't mean it as in "I must sincerely say I really hate you."

Marianne is right about feelings.