Love the Mask
by MarQuese Liddle | MFA
Guest Author from Wild Isle Literature
If you are reading this article, it is likely you agree with the following: “It is better to be honest, authentic, genuine, and deep than it is to be false, performative, and superficial.” Such a statement is taken as axiomatic by many ancient as well as modern religious and philosophical systems of ethics. It is the foundational principle on which almost all hierarchies of values are predicated, beloved by philosophers, artists, and people of faith of all kinds.
So what if I were to suggest to you that the above axiom is false?
What follows is an impossible pill to swallow, but it is perhaps possible to consume when digested in chunks. That is how I came to arrive at this paradoxical position, one which I hope to help you find through this rather personal article of mine. It is a frightening pose to strike, for sure, and painful to hold. However, I believe it is the necessary arrangement of thought for anyone seeking success at his calling.
Profundity Loves the Mask
many years prior to the writing of this article, I’d read and reread a certain passage from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil:
Everything that is profound loves the mask: the profoundest things have a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the contrary only be the right disguise for a God to go about in? A question worth asking!—it would be strange if some mystic has not already ventured on the same kind of thing. There are proceedings of such a delicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with coarseness and make them unrecognizable;… They are not the worst things of which one is most ashamed: there is not only deceit behind a mask—there is so much goodness in craft…. Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more, around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to the constantly false, that is to say, superficial interpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he manifests. (Nietzsche 35)
Being an author and lover of wisdom myself, I couldn’t digest what Nietzsche meant all at once. My prejudices blinded me to the possibility that anything less than complete transparency at the highest level of detail possible could be virtuous and admirable. I believed that to wear a mask was to identify with a Jungian persona, a false face which was bound to crack, shatter, and reveal the atrophied ego underneath. I did not understand what Nietzsche meant when he said that the mask necessarily grows around the philosopher whether he desires it—or even knows of it—or not.
But then, recently at the time of writing, I watched The Wizard of Oz and read Charlotte’s Web with my step-children. The themes of both works resonated with Nietzsche’s message, and that message began to resonate with what I know of the world.
Both in the book and film, the wizard, Oz, is a charlatan. The brains, heart, and courage he gives to Dorothy’s companions are fakes in the novel; and in the film, they are symbols of societal construction. However, that does not make them any less effective, because what is sought by the scarecrow, the tinman, and the lion are attributes of which they are already in possession. What these three characters are missing is the veneer, the façade. Their virtues are naked, unadorned and therefore not comprehensible to themselves because they have yet to see them reflected back in the eyes of society.
Charlotte makes the case more explicitly to Wilbur in E.B. White’s novel and the animated film adaptation. People believe what they read more readily than what they see when they look upon the thing-itself. Moreover, people don’t even see the thing-itself. They see what they expect or desire to find in it. If Charlotte’s webs says Wilbur is radiant, then any shine to him will become visible to the majority of onlookers. But it goes further; the belief itself can bring about actions by the observers who will make the mask a reality. In Wilbur’s case, he gets a buttermilk bath that makes him as radiant as the masses already believe him to be.
Both cases are self-fulfilling prophecies, but a prophecy which fulfills itself is no less true.
Returning to Nietzsche, we can finally see what the madman was trying to show us. Depth and superficiality are not mutually exclusive. In fact, there is no such thing as depth without a surface. It is the mistake of every integrous thinker, believer, and artist that authenticity is placed in opposition to performativity. The reality is that, no matter how honest, clear, and genuine you are, onlookers will see only the outermost manifestations, the shell, the face—a mask of their own making.
Learning to Love the Mind’s Disguise
The author in me hates the taste this sentiment leaves in my mouth. It smacks of hackery, for which I can have no love or patience. I imagine many of the few of you with stomachs enough to get this far in the article feel the same.
However, Nietzsche has taught me that the truth is most often terrible if not terrifying. Just because I do not like a thing does not make it false. Furthermore, it provides guidance of which I hope all of us can take advantage.
In order to make the above hope manifest, I should listen to my own advice and state the thrust of the discovery plainly:
Being honest is not enough to succeed in life. Honesty sustains us over time; it is necessary in the long run, but it alone will be rejected by others. People do not like the Truth. They find her unpalatable. Fortunately, we can wear masks to protect both ourselves and others. That means we can present our art and wisdom such that they are well-received by the people who might benefit from them—such that we might benefit from their attention and commerce.
This does not mean we should lie, deceive, or mislead. It does mean that manipulation is inevitable. People want to be led by the nose. They desire for life and all its aspects to be delivered in beautiful, comforting, and convenient wrappers. They will seek out art and ideas presented thus. It is up to us whether we provide nutritious options presented in a palatable fashion. It does no one any favors to be bitter about the circumstance, nor does it help ourselves to have disdain for the masses. I have struggled with this. Perhaps you have as well, but I hope that these words help you as much as I am helping myself to learn to love the mask, cultivate appearances, and thereby accord more harmoniously with the Path.
Check out my website, Wild Isle Literature, for philosophy, stories, and more. Our very own Eva Benoit has had a few articles of her own published there as well. And if you’re serious about sorting out your course in life, consider Eva as a potential life-guide.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. 1886. translated by Helen Zimmerman. Enhanced Media, 2017.
