Can beauty be trusted?

What do we do when appearance isn't reality? An excerpt from The Soul of Civility

Gracious reader,

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“The Soul of Civility” Excerpt from Chapter 3 on Integrity: The Challenge of Information Asymmetry

For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

—I Samuel 16:7

There is an inherent information asymmetry in life. When it comes to living with others, all we have to go on are people’s outward actions, including how they dress, speak, and act. We cannot ever fully know another’s heart, mind, or character. We can, often do, and often must make assumptions based on first impressions. But first impressions aren’t always reliable, and are often deceptive. A suave and charming couple could turn out to be nothing more than low-stakes con artists. Conversely, someone who is brusque, unkempt, or simply uninitiated in certain proprieties may have a good and earnest heart. Appearances are imperfect stand-ins for reality.

Having a polite and polished exterior is not enough to indicate the goodness of a person. Compliance with norms of goodness and decency can help make us good. But an inordinate focus on polished exteriors—through dressing well or adhering to the rules of politeness—can foster hypocrisy, too. Hypocrisy, a manifestation of our selfish nature, is when one preaches one set of values—the values that one expects others to live by—and then lives by a different standard.

Knowing the rules of politeness—including how to dress, what to say, how to act—is not enough. We must practice civility and cultivate integrity—which will help us flourish both personally and communally.

This quip from George Bernard Shaw, twentieth-century Irish playwright, in his play, Heartbreak House, says it all:

If you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just what you like.

Appearance vs. reality

I’m leading a major renovation of my home due to a burst pipe that destroyed our domus late last year. This puts me in daily contact with contractors who, unsurprisingly, reflect how Blaise Pascal defined the human condition: the greatness and wretchedness of man.

I’ve become relatively jaded by the dishonesty I’ve encountered of late. It’s difficult, because I need an enormous amount of help, and yet letting a new person into my home and life is a vulnerable thing. Can they really be trusted?

Recently, I had a stonemason to my house. Let’s call him A. I told A about a few jobs I needed done, and he brimmed with joy and enthusiasm about the work. “I can’t wait to get started!” he gushed.

Skeptical as I am of new people, I like to start small to build trust, and grow from there. I gave him a relatively small job of picking up a piece of furniture, and gave him a bit of cash to get it.

Anthony told me to trust him. He promised me the world. He told me he was a person of integrity. He gave me his home address—and even offered me his social security number as a show of good faith, and that he was someone I could rely on.

And then, when the time came to put his words to the test, things didn’t go as planned.

When he arrived to pick up the furniture, he tried to negotiate the owner down so he could pocket the difference. And then, when she refused, A absconded—and I never heard from him again.

He had looked me in the eye. He shook my hand. He smiled. He made me a promise.

I believed him. I took him at his word. His unspoken body language communicated trust, too.

And then, he broke his word.

This might seem small to you. But I wrote a book about why the small things matter.

We use the small things in life to draw big conclusions about people. If we can’t trust the small things—if we can’t take people at their word or trust their appearances—it’s difficult for us to know what is true and whom we can trust.

I work with many wonderful people in the construction industry—honest people who do the jobs I ask them for in a timely and honest way.

I have also worked with my fair share of people who do the bare minimum—or nothing at all—in order to separate me from my money.

Exhausted by this recent brush with hypocrisy, I asked my house manager, exasperated:

Do I attract sociopaths?

No, he said flatly. It’s just the construction industry.

I don't quite agree with him.

I don’t want to disparage contractors. The human condition is the human condition in any place, and any vocation.

But I have been burned by dishonest people enough times in recent months that I’ve found it difficult to take people at their word—at face value—at times in general.

Wise as serpents, simple as doves

Borrowing this dueling commandment from Christ, I often find it challenging to stay hard enough to do life in a hard world, yet tender enough to love, to trust—and sometimes, to be betrayed.

To operate in the world requires us to trust others, and to except their external words, actions and appearance to correlate with some inner truth.

We cannot go through life thinking everyone is trying to take advantage of us.

If we treat everyone with the presumption of guilt, we’ll alienate a lot of people unnecessarily—and not give honest people the chance they deserve. It’s not fair to paint humanity with a broad brush.

And yet I still find myself trying to self-protect with cynicism and skepticism.

Here’s one solution I offer at the end of my Chapter on Integrity in The Soul of Civility:

Information asymmetry in social life has always existed, and it always will. We can never know with complete certainty the state of someone’s soul or character…

We can build our integrity and inner character by practicing and forming habits of sacrifice and civility in our lives. We must strive to close the gap between appearance and reality. Character is habit long continued. As individuals, we can each choose what inner character we want to cultivate with our outer actions.

Every choice we make forms our character, and character is important because it determines our destiny. We can also create broader social cultures of integrity and civility. One way to cultivate a culture of integrity and civility is to change what we value as a culture. Instead of focusing on the polish, spectacle, charm, appearance, and form, we can decide as a culture to see beyond that, and to value substance and virtue instead. We can do this by praising and rewarding people who demonstrate character, integrity, and civility wherever we see it—and by creating a culture that honors those who embody the soul of civility.

Don’t forget to order your copy of The Soul of Civility—and claim your $700 in free gifts—here!