Unmasking Charlatans
What is a charlatan? This term, like its cousin "cult", is readily definable in simple terms, but in our era, hard to fully apply in real life, not because the terms themselves are difficult, but because our culture is so rotted with charlatans and cults that any definition offered would be shouted down by the masses who love them. For example, consider the fact that not all religions can be true. This means most of them (if not all of them) are cults run by charlatans. That's a lot of snookered people to get angry and dismissive when you smash their false idols!The question of how to precisely define who is a fool or charlatan and who is not is near to the heart of philosophy itself. Consider that philosophy literally means "love of wisdom", and that the opposite of a wise man is a fool, and it will be clear just how fundamental this question is.The idea of foolishness as fixation with only one side of an issue and wisdom as awareness of every side has a long tradition in philosophy:
"O how they cling and wrangle, some who claimFor preacher and monk the honored name!For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.Such folk see only one side of a thing." – Buddha "The true is the whole." – Hegel "Reflex action is a local response to a local stimulus; instinctive action is a partial response to part of a situation; reason is a total response to the whole situation." -- Will Durant
From my own book, REASON and LIBERTY:
Your philosophic outlook is determined, at root, by your stance regarding the identity of your own thoughts. When one becomes practiced at identifying which thoughts contradict which other thoughts, and also resolves the contradictions by forging new thoughts that fit together well with each other and with reality, then we call that person wise. When a person refuses to engage in this process, then we call that person a fool. And when a person recognizes their contradictions, but believes it a folly to correct them (on the grounds that it will allegedly only yield more contradictions), we call that person a cynic. And when the cynic consciously manipulates the fools at their weakest point -- their obliviousness to their own contradictions -- we call him a charlatan.
The line between charlatan and fool is not always clear, nor is it always relevant whether a scam artist has deluded himself into believing his own scam or not. We are not directly privy to another person's thoughts and cannot discern directly whether the man we're dealing with is a full-fledged charlatan or merely a fool repeating a charlatan's program, or something in between.There are different types of charlatans. A charlatan who peddles wares is far less dangerous than a charlatan who peddles ideas, since the former will nearly always be discovered, but the latter can pass down his mantle of authority to other charlatans, who may go on carrying out his scams for thousands of years.How then do we spot an ideological charlatan?An ideological charlatan has ideas that seem true (to many at least), where the seeming is a mere veneer that lacks substance. Therein lies the key: As cheap veneer furniture won't withstand a heavy blow, a charlatan will not withstand critical scrutiny; at best, he may seem to withstand it.There are no simple rules for detecting a charlatan. Early on in the process, we may think that a person is merely confused or being foolish (as we all are from time to time -- "There is a foolish corner in the mind of the wisest man."). The distinguishing characteristic of the charlatan is that he's doing it on purpose; he aims to buttress the veneer as a veneer, whereas the mere fool considers the ideology as being solid. The fool is sincere; the charlatan, insincere.What is sincerity?Sincerity is within; it can't be directly perceived, but only inferred. It means more than merely "meaning well" or "having good intentions": there has been many a tyrant who lied and committed treachery for what he thought were good reasons. Arguably, Adolph Hitler was convinced that his intentions were noble -- that his heinous crimes against humanity would ultimately bring out the best in humanity (and here we see one of the many disastrous consequences of believing that the moral isn't always the practical). But as they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." The problem here is that the person with "good" intentions doesn't really care about whether it is true that they really are good intentions. He merely decrees them "good" and moves on with what are, in fact, heinous actions, and then has the audacity to give himself a self-righteous pat on the back for it. A charlatan who, for whatever psychopathic reasons, can fake sincerity to this extent is even more dangerous than the more self-aware charlatan who cannot, since he projects an aura of self-confidence that seems genuine; this projection has the potential to fool many.The charlatan's primary concern is with something other than truth. To be sure, he may value truth to some extent, and even must give the term some lip-service. He may even make an appearance that he values truth first and foremost. But his other words and deeds will betray that he does not actually make the pursuit of truth his ultimate principle. Even when he doesn't give himself an explicit "out" concerning the truth, he will certainly take one.Consider the following example (altered from a real-world conversation):
"Verbal abuse is always evil, even when the abusive person is speaking the truth; don't listen to people who don't respect your dignity."
Here we see both the veneer of plausibility combined with the lack of substance. The veneer is created by the terms "abuse" and "dignity." The mind of the inattentive fool immediately latches on to this: "Yes, of course abuse is bad! Down with abusers!" Like the abuse of the term "good" by those of "good intentions", this charlatan abuses the term "abuse", by giving the fool a carte blanch license to ignore criticism, and particularly when the criticism is most needed, i.e., when the receiver has done something undignified that warrants the indignity of it being pointed out to them. This crafty charlatan has also elegantly subordinated truth to something that he can use in future discourse, to conceal the charlatan's own abuses of the truth in the face of earned but harsh criticism[1].There is never a reason subordinate the truth to anything. A person who truly has pride will, at least in principle, accept true criticism from any quarter, even from a hostile person. Indeed, to dismiss criticism merely because one considers it to be abusive is to betray vanity. (I say "in principle", because our time is limited. We can't take the time to listen to everyone's objections, and naturally, we should not waste time with those who we reasonably believe are irrational.) Nor is authentic dignity a function of whether or not one decides to listen to harsh or even abusive criticism. On the contrary, relentlessly pursuing the truth even in the face of abuse is one of the highest forms of dignity.All charlatanism bears the same marks: a dogma having a superficial plausibility -- combined with a lack of what are critical counter-examples or qualifications (as in "Don't tolerate indignity, unless you have earned it -- and be mindful of the fact that you're often not a very fair judge of your own case."). In other words, the charlatan's main message is per se and in a very technical sense foolish: it focuses on one side of a subject and ignores others.Note that some of the common themes we see in politics bear the marks of charlatanism in the key sense that they are one-sided. It is beyond my scope here to substantiate the following, but I consider there to be elements of truth in both sides of the following dichotomies, with neither side having the full truth: conservatism vs. liberalism, capitalism vs. socialism, dogmatism vs. skepticism, anarchism vs. statism, etc. What we see in these narratives is a cartoonish version of one side of the truth, lacking in important qualifications and context, neatly packaged and dispensed for easy consumption by fools, with each side of a given dichotomy appealing to a certain type of fool and in accordance to their particular temperament, experience, and tribal associations. These narratives appeal to emotion, not reason; intuition, not truth.How does one determine that the person propounding the dogma is actually a charlatan and not merely a fool?In the complex matter of judging another's character, no principle can substitute for experienced judgment, and there is never a guarantee that our judgments are always right. Furthermore, a human being is not a fixed object, but evolves over time. However, we may observe that where a fool repeats narratives, a charlatan creates them. He is a generator of that which seems true (to fools), but isn't.
"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry." -- Thomas Paine
I do not know of any other method of unmasking charlatanism than through inquiry, whether by yourself, or from observing his response to someone else's intelligent inquiry. How the person responds to inquiry settles the matter of whether they are merely a fool or they are indeed a true charlatan.A fool can easily be sincere -- and this means that when you rationally dispute his foolishness, his views may change, or at the very least he will become confused. But a charlatan is pseudo-sincere; he fakes sincerity with an aim to manipulate. He may not even be fully aware that he is doing this -- but his self-awareness is not the issue, what he is actually doing when he engages you, is (charlatanism is per se dishonest, so we must expect that charlatans are dishonest with themselves, too). For example, he might feign a change of mind in light of new evidence, but as he goes on about his business, you will find that he didn't really change his mind. It is very typical of an intelligent charlatan that when engaging personally, he comes across as reasonable and open to changing his foolish opinions, but his public persona goes on as if the private discussion never happened.This sociopathic behavior reaches a climax in what is known as "gaslighting", where a charlatan fakes sincerity about his alleged belief in absurd things in order to cause someone in a weak frame of mind to lose their grip on reality, and thus to be subject to the charlatan's control. These absurd things often take the form of metaphysical absurdity, such as the notion that inert oils and chants can cure disease, or that a loved one who has died is "in a better place", or that political authority is imbued into politicians or historic documents by God, or that your own idea happens to already be someone else's property (patents), or that war creates productive economies, or that you don't really know whether reality and other people really exist, or that scientific truth is determined by the consensus of institutionally-anointed authorities, etc. Of course, these noxious ideas are not commonly recognized as "gaslighting" -- see the first paragraph of this article for why not.When you engage the public persona in inquiry regarding his foolish viewpoints, different tactics and personality traits emerge. In every case his aim is to attack and defeat your inquiry, regardless of whether it is well-founded or not. His ultimate aim is, of course, to keep up appearances for his flock of fools. To the extent that he can attack while appealing to truth, he will, but only to that extent.The attack may be passive-aggressive, whereby he gives subtle spin to your motives, not explicitly declaring them to be nefarious but relying on the fool to make obvious connections. He may suddenly become obtuse; from your perspective it may appear as if he is unable to understand your question, but from the point of view of the snookered fool, his pretense has just made your question appear to be stupid. He may try to misdirect a line of questioning by making it appear as if you are very impolite[1]. Or, supposing that you have not addressed one of a charlatan's points and for a good reason, then instead of considering this reason he will say, "If you are afraid to address my points feel free to leave the forum." The possibilities for passive-aggressive attacks are limitless.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." -- Issac Asimov
When he feels that he is in very friendly company, the attack may be direct and shockingly vicious, and even involve direct or indirect violence (the indirect violence may include fraud, such as fraudulent legal action). To you, the attack will seem completely unwarranted and bizarrely uncivil, but to his acolytes, it becomes an invitation to start behaving like pack animals, who bear down with their own vicious verbal or physical attacks. This type of environment makes it very efficient for the charlatan; he need do nothing but sit back and watch. Humanity has suffered through many periods of charlatanism so extreme that physical violence was the normal and expected reply to critics[2], of course.The purpose of all the above is simply to divert attention from your inquiry and thus to protect the charlatan's power over his fools.The strategy used by relatively disempowered charlatans clinging to the last vestiges of their fools is to skulk, i.e. to refrain from inquiry except by acolytes or people who are willing to follow the charlatan's arbitrary rules on what will and will not be questioned or on how it will be questioned. Conveniently for the charlatan, society already has many rules in place that favor the insincere, first among them is the rule: always be polite and respectful. Instead of this, I recommend:
"Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it." -- Virgil
[1] Charlatans very often appeal to "politeness" as a means of shutting down valid criticism, and the more heinous the charlatan, the more he can be expected to squeal like a pig about not being polite to him, or to those who in effect speak for him, his acolytes. While rudeness certainly isn't an unqualified virtue, it is circumstantially valid to be rude. Clearly, much rudeness is condemnable and is itself a means of evading pertinent issues. In any case, it is a far greater sin to appeal to politeness as a means of shielding oneself from the truth than it is to make an error in judging when it is appropriate to convey hostility toward someone's ideas. "Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." – Aristotle[2] http://forindividualrights.com/blog/be_boldReceive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
