The exhaustion of the unmasking fad

The rhetoric of the "reveal" is tired, and its indiscriminate use has brought us to this mess

Some of the most influential thinkers of the last 200 years—Darwin, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud—launched humanity into an age of unmasking, suspicion of appearances, of looking behind the curtain. Darwin presented compelling evidence and argument that the appearance of design in nature resulted from spontaneous evolution promoted by natural selection; Nietzsche, always more of a poet than a close reasoner, made some grandiose pronouncements about morals and intentions.

Marx and Freud took it from there and ran with it, now with the added complication of labeling their rhetorical flourishes as “science”. In their hands, and those of their apostles, disciples, heretics, and successors, the need for unmasking became a universal given. It was not something to be argued for after a cogent presentation of evidence showing that there were, indeed, things hidden waiting to be revealed. It was not a conclusion to be argued for and painstakingly reached, but an unquestionable point of departure.

More than a given: a test of intelligence and integrity. If it is not immediately evident to you, as soon as someone mentions it, that economic liberalism and/or bourgeois morality are just hypocritical façades for ruthless exploitation or unmentionable unconscious impulses, you are an idiot. Or a dupe. Or an accomplice. Or all three.

This way, grandiloquence substitutes for argument, peer pressure for evidence, shame for conviction, and a priori unmasking becomes a bona fide sign of intellectual fitness.

The problem, of course, is that unrestricted, unleashed unmasking is the universal solvent. It opens a veritable bottomless pit. Like every rhetorical tool unmoored from honest concern with truth, it can be made to work for or against every proposition under heaven. Specifically, unbridled unmasking brings with it a paranoid rot that can take on anything. If you can't see that socialism and/or moral relativism are just hypocritical façades for ruthless tyranny or hideous depravity, you are an idiot. Or a dupe. Or an accomplice. Or all three.

One way out of this conundrum is to establish a “priesthood” that will decide where the “real masks” are, and when it's time to stop the unmasking: to determine, by decree, where the face of truth lies and what it looks like. As philosopher Ernest Gellner wrote:

Freudianism is somewhat better equipped with falsification-evading devices than Marxism: the notion of the Unconscious, by decreeing that things are never what they seem and that the decoding of their real significance is under control of those properly initiated (the equivalent of the Vanguard Party), really makes sure that testing can never take place from the outside. (in The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason)

But this solution is just a temporary stopgap. The problem, again, is that, without any serious aim for truth (except the sacrosanct “truth” of the tribe) or respect for honest evidence, priesthoods can be, and have been, multiplied to infinity. One can be a Freudian or a Jungian, a Leninist or a Trotskyist, a Libertarian or an AnCap or, for that matter, a Flat-Earther or a Homeopath. Masks can be had for every taste and disposition. The bottomless pit quite seamlessly merges with the rabbit hole.

I get it: Saying that “things are not what they seem” and then purporting to “reveal” what they really, really are makes one look smart. People like to feel smart. Being considered smart helps with survival, reproduction, and grants. The press bestows on you edgy, sexy epithets like “anti-establishment", “controversial”, “critic”, or “skeptic”.

Whole academic careers and gorgeous intellectual reputations have been built on that.

But now it’s time to see the finger-snap unmasking gambit for what it is: an old magic trick that has vitiated the audience through indiscriminate use and abuse and has probably been causing more harm than good for quite a long time.

It's not to say that there aren’t things that need unmasking, real façades that really need to be put down. But to say that is like saying some cancers require surgery. The oncologist who instinctively grabs the scalpel and jumps on every single patient who crosses his door should be considered a dangerous lunatic, not a genius gifted with profound insight. It's time to let the exhausted mask of “smart” unmasking fall.