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Today, we seem to care more for perception than truth. Popularity and attention can often bring success where honesty and hard work do not. We have huge industries built on crafting the perfect image, and we have convinced ourselves that marketing is more important than the product. Our problem with truth is not new but is fundamental to human nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Self-Reliance,” took on our obsession with popularity, and he explained the dangers with trying to become popular. The desire for the adoration of others, and the creation of a false public image, is a poison that erodes the mind and weakens the will.

Often, we desire to be seen as great to compensate for our own feelings of inadequacy. We are envious of the natural talents or beauty of others, and we seek to fake those attributes. Online social networks are used to promote a lifestyle that we are not actually experiencing; product reviews are flooded by fraudulent claims; and self promotion trumps all other consideration. We become false images, mere imitations, of a real person, and we are truly empty.

To Emerson, we naturally arrive at an understanding that virtue matters more than image: “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. “

True happiness can only occur when a person is true to himself, and only hard work can lead to true happiness: “The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none… A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.”

There are great people in the world, and not all media depictions are false. However, greatness and success can only manifest when you have integrity: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.”

When we fake our public image, we are acting like children. We are overly sensitive, and we demand protection from reality. Our society is filled with those who are unwilling to face reality because they do not match the status they desire. Many of the political and societal disputes we witness are childish squabbles by individuals who are unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. They want attention more than they care about a specific issue, and they will trample over others to get it. They are completely dependent on other people, unable to exist on their own.

Although it is natural for humans to recognize truth, often the lesser individuals seek to undermine our individuality: “These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

Society naturally wants to destroy an individual’s ability to rely on their own self because it seeks to promote a structure built on fake images. Those who live outside of the system cannot prop up those who are empty and lack substance.

Emerson continues with his assertion that we should never conform: “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world… I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass?”

Often, the words of sympathy, charity, and praise are used as justifications for control. Discussions are filled with those who try to pull at the heart strings, and they often abuse others with false desires for “civility” while they seek to destroy the integrity of others. What matters is not the way something is said, but the true character of the individual, and an individual’s character needs to always be analyzed and discussed. Those individuals bully with kind words, feign offense when rebuked, and seek to destroy those who refuse to comfort to their delusions.

Although to rebuke such individuals may seem incivil, it is more civil to break their false image: “Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, — else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines.”

Even charity can be used as a weapon to force the conformity of others, and often the social bully uses the idea of helping others to crush all other considerations, especially those of logic: “Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies.”

By conforming to society, we weaken ourselves and any good at that we might create. Goodness is transformed into a mechanical act done solely to gain esteem among our fellows. Often, goodness is exaggerated and few actually benefit: “Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world, — as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances.”

What matters to Emerson, above all other considerations, is to live a life that is true to himself: “I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.”

Public image is meaningless. Although it might get you some immediate gain, a faked image will only cause you more loss in the end. Those who have something great do not need validation or have to play the same game as others: “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Conformity is not solitary or existent on only one side, but it is the nature of politics as a whole. Often, issues are divided, and people must take one position or another, with no compromise allowed. Those who conform to a political side are often caught in their own deception, and they are never willing to change their view: “Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.”

Ultimately, you should not even conform to yourself if you find new information that contradicts your previous belief: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”

We need to be individuals, because there can be no greatness when we are not true to ourselves: “Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design; — and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients.”

When we recognize our individuality, we gain power over those who are the conformists. We have control over our opinions and our thoughts, and we have control over how we express them: “the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, ‘Who are you, Sir?’ Yet they all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise.”

We should not turn over our opinions to others or we will lose our natural power. Integrity will provoke some minor backlash, but only among the childish conformists who are unable to think for themselves: “The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides.”

Ultimately, Emerson was not optimistic about his own words of wisdom. Instead, he believed that few are capable of integrity, and it is easy to see that the weakness of his day is the weakness of ours: “The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and do lean and beg day and night continually.”

Emerson leaves us with the claim that greatness cannot be faked, nor can the frauds ever have greatness, “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique.”

It is easy to craft a fake image, but convincing the whole populace of a lie will never make you great. Often, only superficial aspects of life, such as physical beauty, are the easiest to fake, yet faking beauty will not lead to any true benefit. When we lie, we know that the praise heaped upon us is false. An individual or product may look great on television or in pictures, but the reality will disappoint even more.

Integrity will always win out in all aspects of life. In sports, there is a lot of pressure to win, yet drugs and cheating leaves one hollow and is easy to expose. How many athletes have had medals and awards stripped away? How many are left with an asterisk next to their names? How many educators have faked test results to promote their schools while their students must take remedial classes in college? How many plagiarists or fabricators are there that claim expertise and have no clue what they are talking about when challenged?

Our society is childish, but our society has always been childish. Great men rise above the childish state to achieve their goals. The non-conformists might not be powerful or rich, but they will create something true, and there cannot be greatness when there is fraudulence. Death is the great equalizer, yet integrity lives on.

This essay was originally published as Emerson And Integrity Over Conformity on March 5, 2015.