Jean-Pierre-Xavier Bidauld:
Trompe l'Oeil with Prints and a Butterfly (1766)

"Not even that frenzied moment will last forever."

Perhaps the truest test Decency ever encounters occurs whenever it tangles with Deceit. Deceit deliberately misrepresents. If Decency strives to be on the up and up, Deceit insists upon the down and down. Deceit distorts its position, which effectively negates the possibility of successful negotiation. Deceit doesn’t care so much about winning any particular engagement as long as its opponent loses. It knows no shame. It blames. It shamelessly defames, deliberately leaving Decency in a lurch. Each violation serves as another invitation for Decency to let down its defenses and compromise itself. Deceit wins when it successfully recruits Decency into its ranks. Each invitation might serve as a successful seduction if Decency were in any way similar to Deceit. It isn’t.

Still, it’s difficult for even the most disciplined Decency to quietly sit by while Deceit sways public opinion again. Deceit doesn’t mind lying; in fact, it takes considerable personal pride in whatever it can successfully get away with. Its ends always more than justify its means. The sins or crimes it commits to dominate a situation seem to provide it with great satisfaction. It seems genuinely proud of itself when it cows another Decent opponent. It forgets or never knew any notion of Karmic retribution and firmly believes that it actually gets away with stuff it doesn’t. The deficit builds with each fresh kill. The debt invisibly compounds until it utterly overwhelms. Down never actually ever becomes up, and misbegotten fortunes eventually tend to erase themselves.

Decency steers a steady if temporarily disappointing course. He’d prefer to appear to reliably score winning points instead of so often limping away from another disappointing encounter. He counters with seemingly even more of the same old same old. Even dedicated supporters often wonder when Decency might appear competitive again, but he’s playing a longer game. He doesn’t engage in finite play where simple wins and losses determine success, but in more infinite games, where success most often comes from transcending the usual rules of play. In an infinite game, a player can conveniently encourage an opponent to misrepresent, understanding that the resulting free lunches will ultimately exact a price. This works in the same way that a retailer might make a profit by losing a little on each transaction but recouping those losses with volume. Of course, this doesn’t make sense. The truly transcendent strategy never does.

Decency plays its own game, whatever game an opponent might say they’re playing. Accumulating points seems pointless when viewed from an alternate perspective. What if the true purpose of playing was never winning? What if losing mattered less than how one plays the game? In the long run, we might ultimately be dead, but in the meantime, we forge our heritage. Were we at least Decent, or did we descend into Deceit to appear successful? Appearances seem much shallower than skin deep, and Deceit produces superficial successes that tend to quickly crumble. Lasting legacies employ stronger materials. Decency might be the most potent material imaginable, though Deceit won’t ever disclose that they also know this poorly guarded secret.

Mark Twain suggested that the jackass is superior to humans because there are some things a jackass won’t do. Yet some people manage to maintain a more disciplined existence than do the run-of-the-mill deceivers. Honesty has probably always been the best policy, though it will almost always initially appear to disadvantage. I cannot overstate the discipline demanded to remain Decent when surrounded by Deceit. The promise of some satisfying short-term successes makes nicotine addiction seem manageable in comparison.

It might be that Deceit was always an addiction, a shortcut route to some unsustainable satisfaction. I might longingly gaze at a cigar smoker’s evident self-satisfaction without remembering the months of torturous withdrawal I suffered after I decided to quit deceiving myself. Decency seemed impossible until I finally outgrew my juvenile urge to immediate physical satisfaction. Deceit promises quick rewards, but Decency sustains its promise. When in the middle of some disagreement, the seduction to Deceive seems most prominent. The reward Decency offers in that moment should always seem lame in comparison. Not even that frenzied moment will last forever.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz