Honoré Victorin Daumier: The Emperor of Morocco in Consultation With the Famous Magician Desbarolles. “- This small line here indicates to me that you are going to get a royal thrashing!,” plate 126 from Actualités (1859)

"They ultimately only manage to fool themselves."

Some things I firmly believe that I can see might not actually exist. Belief provides more than adequate evidence to convince almost anybody that almost any nonexistent entity probably exists. Beliefs can be remarkably incorrigible beasts, so they must be held with a certain circumspection. They might support unshakeable conviction in absolute fiction. I concede that many of the worst indecencies I’ve ever witnessed fed on just such convictions.

Furthermore, few who held those convictions were ever considered to be felons, though the damage they inflicted might well have supported criminal indictment. Their InnerIndecencies often came cloaked in outwardly Decent appearances. Maybe they’re clergy, elderly, a doctor, a lawyer, or even an Indian chief. I’ve grown wary, wondering who harbors nefarious inner beliefs. I’m, frankly, scared of those lacking inner governors capable of staying the more extremist tendencies and beliefs. There might have never been such a thing as common sense, but I still cling to some vestiges of belief in common Decencies.

So much the worse for me. So much the worse for anybody still clinging to reassurances. It might be better to listen closely to those skeptical inner voices when they whisper warnings. It’s not necessarily cynical to refuse to accept anybody merely on their face value, for we all know, or should have learned by now, that inner lives always accompany face values. Those inner lives might not be discernible from any outward perspective, and we have nothing but outward perspective to rely upon at first. No need to necessarily presume the worst, but it seems prudent not to necessarily rely upon presuming the best of any stranger or friend. They need not be anybody’s Pollyanna to prove trustworthy, but presuming anybody, sight unseen, to be Pollyanna within seems more delusional than cautionary. Prudence might prove to be indistinguishable from cynicism.

Better for me to presume they have an inner life and that it’s not necessarily congruent with what they outwardly present. Almost everybody maintains their little secrets. For many, their privacy will always remain their most important product. Solely on appearances, I can sense—or I fancy that I can sense—incongruencies between inner and outer lives. I believe myself to be so perceptive that I can perceive what no combination of my five senses could ever register. Even allowing for a sixth intuitive “sense,” which might not make any logical sense, most of the subtleties I believe I perceive probably amount to clever projection, clever enough to fool me, anyway. I see what I expect, and I attribute that to the hapless other I stand before. However innocent my resulting misperception, it becomes an element of my inner existence that I leave for others to imagine they perceive.

I believe that I can see InnerIndecencies by the products of whoever hosts them within themselves. Few can help but disclose in their works the beliefs they hold within. The more deeply and passionately such beliefs are held, the more likely they are to significantly color the accompanying outward presentation. The whore with the heart of gold, a standard stock character in American theater, glows with an inner goodness regardless of the nefarious outward activities she performs in her business. Likewise, the preacher who spews disdain for immigrants discloses his twisted inner belief system, perhaps without recognizing what his words disclose. Our incumbent seems to possess nothing but InnerIndecencies, since his outward performance in the execution of his War on Decency seems unrepentantly indecent. I will grant anyone that he might possess vestigial Decency in there somewhere, though it appears to be held hostage and incommunicado.

It’s funny—but not funny ha-ha—how those with overwhelming InnerIndecency promote themselves as more Decent than thou. Their righteous speeches might seem, to some, indistinguishable from those attributed to Jesus in their Bible. Some might even swear that our orange incumbent embodies their Second Coming. In that context, it couldn’t possibly matter how any less delusional and more Decent anybody might counter their arguments. It must require an unimaginably enormous volume of InnerIndecency ever to imagine oneself a second coming of any Jesus. It might take only a little less faith to believe that they’re witnessing that second coming in their lifetime, and by a washed-up, garbage-spewing, self-described real estate tycoon and third-rate ex-television performer cast as their president. This scenario couldn’t even qualify as believable fiction for most, thank heavens. Some InnerIndenencies require no magical perception to perceive, for these are worn overtly, proudly on somebody’s sleeve who apparently honestly believes they’re infallible. They ultimately only manage to fool themselves.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz