sincerity

Mr. Magill's range is extraordinary, and his wit, erudition and powers of observation give credence to judgments that might otherwise strike us as just a tad, well, insincere. "Our frustration with insincerity," he says, "is itself disingenuous—a kind of performance of upright moral sensibility." For much of this deeply pleasurable work Mr. Magill is properly wary of his subject. The Puritan emphasis on sincerity, he shows, led to a climate of suspicion and misanthropy, as if these energetic divines had intuited Nietzsche's later comment that "the truly sincere person ends up understanding that he is always lying." Ultimately, though, the author comes down in favor of sincerity, if not too much of it. With sincerity, as with most things, it is the dose that makes the poison.

Daniel Akst, reviewing R. Jay Magill Jr.'s "Sincerity'.