When a face of counterfeit innocence and inauthentically benign conviviality, if not a pretense of benevolence and imposture of prudence, is supposed to be trusted, despite a firehose of actual, manifest, and real proof and evidence that such face is a tool, advanced with a smirk and a mockery -
what does that even mean: "a face is supposed to be trusted"?
A Mockery of Fools
There is a kind of disinformation that dwells behind a mask of -
"Look what I'm doing for you. Isn't it great? Everybody thinks I'm great. Except losers. Losers hate me. But that's okay. Losers aren't great, and I'm a generous winner. I like everybody. Don't you agree? Look how I'm making everything better for everybody. Even losers. Aren't I the best? I think so, and I'm not the only one. Very smart people think I'm the best. Very rich people, too. Everything was terrible, terrible for you when losers were in charge. But now I'm here. Now a winner's running it all. See?" -
a dissembling that insists only somebody deranged would doubt, a deceit that proclaims only somebody disloyal would question, a distortion that vows only somebody demonic would challenge -
what lies behind a mask.
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Because there is a kind of fiction in how people appear versus who people are. Because there is a kind of dishonesty in (1) saying one thing but thinking something else; (2) saying one thing but intending something else; and (3) saying one thing but doing something else.
Because a lie is not worn on the sleeve like a heart.
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So the doubling down on the integrity of mask-wearing by mask-wearers is a kind of saying mask-wearing by mask-wearers is really, in fact, being real.
In defiance of reality.
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Likewise, the doubling down on the innocuousness of what is said by mask-wearers is a kind of saying when people speak, they must not be heard literally. Because such people require translators and mouthpieces and surrogates with astounding proficiency in mask-speech in order that they be authoritatively represented without mistake.
Never mind that mask-speech is not a thing. Which is to say, mask-speech is not real.
When translators and mouthpieces and surrogates own the "authoritative" understanding of what is said, loudly aloud, mind you, this is a kind of narrative that obligates people to lobotomize their common sense and reason
to swallow dumpster trucks of bullshit.
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Moreover, the doubling down on the incorruptibility of what is intended by mask-wearers is a kind of defensive recitation of an ostensibly canonical banality, that the inner goodness and decency of people is above reproach. Such that any skepticism, or perceived attack, of such people's noble and fair intentions is demonized as ungracious and sinister.
As if the innermost reality of people is not only pure and just, but divinely knit and sacred. Not because mortal internal landscapes are perfectly stainless, but because mask-wearers' ostensibly innate flawlessness
is impervious to fingers that penetrate holes that prove or disprove what's bleeding or what's leading anyway.
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Until the doubling down on the legitimacy of what is done by mask-wearers is a kind of explicit complicity.
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Case in point:
there is a kind of confederacy that dwells behind a mask of -
"Look, I am a card-carrying member of an institution that demands my blind and wholesale loyalty. That means your concerns are not my concerns, because I serve at the pleasure of an autocrat that rules the institution that I am a card-carrying member of.
I don't have to like it. You don't have to like it. But that is how the real world works." -
a denial of ruling in tandem with a public servant whose aspirations of a swampy swamp of their own swamp kind, of ring-kissing, boot-licking, belly-crawling, slinkers writhing in warmed-over and over-cooked joy,
is unbridled by guardrails, imaginary or otherwise;
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and there is a kind of corrosion that dwells behind a mask of -
"Look, it is not our mission to impede an institution that enforces blind and wholesale loyalty among its card-carrying members. In fact, when our interests and our causes, align, our... air of cooperation is vital to achieving our respective goals.
Whether you like it or not, that is how the real world works." -
a delusion of skulkers whose windmilling commitment to converting the disillusioned and disaffected by waltzing without a trifle of animus, arm-in-arm with slinkers in their villain era, never minds that
appeasement, by any other name, is brute submission.
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Needless to say, a lie is not worn on the sleeve like a heart,
when a lie is worn as a face.
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So I ask, in the end, if you
(1) say one thing but think something else; (2) say one thing but intend something else; and (3) say one thing but do something else;
are you somebody who is supposed to be real? divinely knit? trusted? is what lies behind your skin-deep-authenticity, the God's honest truth? or
am I a winner, sucker, nay, fool?
More
When a lie is worn as a face
a coterie of trolls can become the "face" of a pseudo-meritocratic-ideology; an insignificant cadre of personalities can become the "face" of an autocratic-leviathan; a handful of millionaires and billionaires can become the "face" of a nation -
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when a lie is worn as a face
people can "be" who they pretend to be; people can "be" imposters of fairness, justness, and praiseworthiness; people can "be" liars who wear the face of verity -
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when a lie is worn as a face
credulity, heartfelt or Machiavellian, in a "spirit" of good faith, in the inner goodness and decency of people,
is how mask-wears mask-wear to effect, to "manifest", if you will, a kind of explicit complicity, with a smirk and a mockery of winners, suckers, nay, fools.
M
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Author's Note
But everybody lives in a bubble! No. Not really. Because really, everybody lives in the tangible, material, real world. A bubble is a kind of make believe where we do not live where we actually do.
As if an intangible, immaterial, imagined world is where we actually live.
smh
Here, we live where lies and liars all the way down, throw away the real world for a narrative, a kind of fiction where the so-called "meritorious" are imposters among us,
pretenders, frauds, cons.
But if we are not who dwells behind a mask, a lie worn as a face, then we can say something better than nothing, we can intend something better than nothing, we can do something better than nothing:
we can be true.
Or.
We can double down on the legitimacy of what is done by mask-wearers, we can "manifest", if you will, like villain era bros and basic bitches, a kind of explicit complicity. Because a mockery of fools is not a mockery of us.
M
