Faking It

by William Ian Miller

• ISBN13: 9780521613705
• ISBN10: 0521613701
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book is about the intrusive fear that we may not be what we appear to be, or worse, that we may be only what we appear to be and nothing more. It is concerned with the worry of being exposed as frauds in our profession, cads in our love lives, as less than virtuously motivated actors when we are being agreeable, charitable, or decent. Why do we so often mistrust the motives of our own deeds, thinking them fake, though the beneficiary of them gives us full credit? Much of this book deals with that self-tormenting self-consciousness. It is about roles and identity, discussing our engagement in the roles we play, our doubts about our identities amidst this flux of roles, and thus about anxieties of authenticity.

Author Biography

William Ian Miller is the Thomas G. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction: split in two

2. Hypocrisy and Jesus

3. Anti-hypocrisy: looking bad in order to be good

4. Virtues with natural immunities to hypocrisy

5. Naked truth: hey, wanna ...?

6. In divine services and other ritualized performances

7. Say it like you mean it: mandatory faking and apology

8. Flattery and praise

9. Hoist with his own petard

10. The self, the double, and the sense of self

11. At the core at last: the primordial Jew

12. Passing and wishing you were what you are not

13. Authentic moments with the beautiful and sublime?

14. The alchemist: role as addiction

15. 'I love you': taking a bullet vs. biting one

16. Boys crying and girls playing dumb

17. Acting our roles: mimicry, makeup, and pills

18. False (im)modesty

19. Caught in the act

Afterword.