Tag Archives: chicanery

Chicanery

Chicanery: (n) the use of trickery

I keep finding closets.

Little tiny storage places inside my soul where I’ve tucked away mistakes, vices and little lies–so therefore I don’t feel the need to confess
 them.

I was struck recently by the fact that a lie is the absence of the truth, or an evasion. That’s tricky business.

As I’ve traveled across the country putting together press releases, I have adopted some “promo talk.”

What is promo talk?

It is the truth being adorned by a very attractive, but sometimes flamboyant hat.

It is a face which is beginning to wrinkle, disguised by heavy makeup.

It is that little piece of elaboration that makes a story seem more powerful, but may not exactly be the completely factual.

Even though this kind of promo talk is considered normal human banter, it has begun to bother me.

Because once you join into the practice of chicanery–the pursuit of deception–it is very difficult to insist that your chicanery is better than other chicanery.

It’s not so much that the truth is hard to tell; it’s just that the truth just never makes us look as good as we want to look.

If we will cure ourselves of the ridiculous notion that status can be acquired through lies, and we cease to be ashamed of our own journey, we can become liberated from the need to expand our story, in order to impress.

 

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Arriviste

dictionary with letter A

Arriviste: (n) an ambitious or ruthlessly self-seeking person, especially one who has recently acquired wealth or social status.

It’s the classic paradox.

For if you actually run across people who fit the definition of “arriviste,” and you decide to expose them for their chicanery, and you call them an arriviste, everyone in the room will assume you are the actual arriviste.

It’s similar to calling another person a hypocrite. He or she will immediately run through their mind-files and conjure memories of your hypocrisy.

Have you ever had the audacity to tell someone he has gained weight? What is the response? He points out that “you’re a little pudgy, yourself,” right?

It’s probably the greatest problem in religion–every faith has some sort of process by which enlightenment or salvation is achieved, which we then would like to share with others, but in so doing, somewhat have to convince them of their lack.

Then they scrutinize our lives–and often find us wanting.

Is there power in keeping your mouth shut and letting things play out?

I know there are exceptions, and of course, it is the classic Adolph Hitler syndrome. “If we had not stopped him, what would have happened?”

I must be candid. It took four years for the world to defeat him in war, but in 1940, his generals and cohorts were already losing faith in him and probably would have killed him within two.

Now, I’m not saying we wasted our time and energy by knocking off the Nazis. I’m just curious as to whether pointing out all the fallacious activity in the world is the best way to eliminate it.

For a very wise man once said, “The measure we measure out to others is the measure that will be measured back to us.”

Although I must say he used the word “measure” too much, the thought was still there.

Don’t call someone an arriviste unless you’re prepared to be called one yourself.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Appoint

dictionary with letter A

Ap·point (v): to assign a job or role to someone.

Everyone has stood emotionally naked in a gymnasium and endured the indignity, nervous energy and frantic, sweaty sensation of choosing up sides. It is such a ridiculous practice, pursued by adults so that they are not forced to appoint people to teams, perhaps in doing so, creating greater balance.

And it does generate a natural inclination for those who are selected early on in the process as being preferable, to cheat and lie in order to maintain the status of their prowess.

We just love to vote in this country.

  • We can’t sit and enjoy music. We have to pit singers against each other.
  • We can’t even allow a chef to make a meal on television without having a food fight.
  • And we certainly manufacture awards for our children, to extol their macaroni and glue picture.

Although we insist that “all men are created equal,” we privately want to be supreme.

This is why I sometimes believe it would be better to appoint a President. Maybe we would consider things like qualifications, intelligence, resolve and willingness to work with others in the process instead of just how well he fills out a suit or can devise a cute tweet.

I often wonder if I would be further along if I campaigned instead of just created.

What if I promoted myself more than projecting my ideas?

What if I insisted on being given place instead of taking the place I’ve been given, and become insistent on great notions?

I don’t trust the vote. It is debilitated by human preference, the presence of ego and the chicanery of tricksters.

The very best jobs I have seen accomplished happened when people with a mature outlook on life admitted their weaknesses and appointed the right person to the right job.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Ad man

Words from Dic(tionary)

Ad man (n): a person who works in advertising. It is the classic “love-hate” relationship. Basically, capitalism loves it and humanity despises it.

In our society, we require that products be produced, and once manufactured, they must be marketed in the most competitive way possible. Simultaneously, the nervous, apprehensive and often bored consumer becomes the target for all sorts of chicanery, albeit speckled with a bit of cleverness.

Advertising. It is one of those great annoyances that will not go away, similar to the embarrassment one feels on being a grown-up and needing to put baby powder on a summer heat rash. You wish you didn’t, but you guess you’d better.

How can you advertise something without coming across as the classic over-sales-pitching boob?

I experience it myself. Obviously as I travel on the road, I would like people to participate in my writing, my music, my endeavors and even to purchase some of this stuff so that I can continue to my odyssey and perpetuate my childhood whims.

But how can you be an ad man (or an ad woman, for that matter) without appearing callous to those around you, merely concerned about unloading inventory?

Well, there IS the truth. That means that every once in a while, when making your spiel, you realize that what you have to offer is not a perfect fit for the person in front of you, and you might just gain a soul by backing away and letting them know of your product’s limitations for their need.

This was demonstrated beautifully in the movie, Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street. The Santa Claus character acknowledges that Macy’s does not have a certain toy and recommends other locations for acquiring it. Management was in an uproar … until they realized that it worked.

Yes, I guess that IS the key. If you can tell the truth about your product in an enthusiastic way, and then allow the patron to make his or her own decision on whether it fits in to their requirements without insisting that they are either short-sighted or “don’t yet understand the full range of your offer,” then you can be a decent ad man instead of an obnoxious one.

Advertising. It won’t go away.

Actually, it shouldn’t go away. But what we CAN require is our American right … to hear and decide for ourselves.

Abelian

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abelian: adj. {mathematics} (of a group) having members related by a commutative operation (i.e. A x B = B x A)

Sometimes I wish we didn’t live in an A and B world. Actually, most of the time.

And if we insist on living in that separation, I wish we all would be more Abelian. In other words, find out that A x B does equal B x A.

There is a great chicanery going on in our society today. It is presented under the magnanimous banner of diversity. But if you look carefully, you realize the reason we want to extol our differences is in order to publicly or privately refuse equality to those who dare to vary.

It’s really sneaky.

Once you determine that somebody is unique–or at least off the beaten path of your lifestyle–you can smile at them, pretending that you appreciate their choices, while internally feeling superior that your particular inclinations are better.

No, we need to be more Abelian in our approach. Long before we discuss differences, we need to establish the certainty of equality. In other words, you are equal with me. Now, let’s sit down and learn about our individual choices.

If you don’t establish what’s equal first, you will use people’s differences against them.

Case in point: women are not different from men unless they’re first equal. THEN we can study, appreciate, argue, celebrate or even fuss about our variations. The discussion will be fruitful because it will be done in an atmosphere of “even-Steven/Stephanie.” If we joke about the differences before we’ve established an Abelian equality, we will never grant each other the dignity of justice.

Tricky, isn’t it?

Let’s find out what’s equal. We’ll have plenty of time to discover what isn’t.