Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Genealogy of Unmasking: Antiquity to Modernity

  • Published:
The American Sociologist Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Unmasking is a rhetorical device that involves exposing another’s true motives. But in effect, it often entails imputing motives and imposing a caricature of the mask behind which one allegedly hides—hence its reputation as a hyperbolic style. Despite these dangers, unmasking plays a central role in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s methodology, as well as those of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. In this article, I identify three concepts necessary for the style’s emergence: the pre-social individual, hypocrisy and autonomy. These concepts are not unique to modernity. As such, I show how their evolution from antiquity to modernity makes unmasking possible; in so doing, I also explain why the ancient and Christian moral frameworks preclude it. More precisely, I will demonstrate how Rousseau constructs his social theory—the very same one that Claude Lévi-Strauss regards as the “foundation” of the social sciences—from these concepts, and thus gives birth to the unmasking style. Peter Baehr’s claim that Rousseau fired “the opening salvo in the unmasking war” is therefore substantiated. While I do not intend to argue that unmasking is part of the basic foundation of the social sciences, this article should at least permit us to consider its pervasiveness.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. It might also be mentioned that unlike the mask, the veil has a religious implication in the Abrahamic religions, and serves either to protect what is sacred or to guard virtue (e.g., the burqa). Marx’s use of the word ‘veil’ reflects the religious nature of his object of critique, whereas ‘mask’ is typically applied to secular institutions. For more on the distinction between the mask and the veil, see Peter Baehr, “The Image of the Veil in Social Theory,” in Theory and Society, 48 (2019a): 535–558.

  2. See Adorno (1950: 675): “The idea is that the potentially fascist character, in the specific sense given to this concept through our studies, is not only on the overt level but throughout the make-up of his personality a pseudoconservative rather than a genuine conservative. The psychological structure that corresponds to pseudoconservatism is conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness on the ego level, with violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere.”.

  3. In contrast with his contemporaries, Nietzsche does not condone the mask, and inspired by heroic virtue, even embraces it. As he writes: “Every profound spirit needs a mask” (Nietzsche, 2001: 39).

  4. See MacIntyre: “The word aretê, which later comes to be translated as 'virtue', is in the Homeric poems used for excellence of any kind; a fast runner displays the aretê of his feet (Iliad 20. 411) […]” (Macintyre, 2007: 122).

  5. “[…] here the conclusion which results from the two premises is the action. […] What I need, I have to make; I need a cloak. I have to make a cloak. And the conclusion, the "I have to make a cloak," is an action. […] Now, that the action is the conclusion, is clear” (Aristotle, 1978: 40).

  6. “You too must be of good hope as regards death, gentlemen of the jury, and keep this one truth in mind, that a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods” (Plato, 1997a: 36).

  7. It is clear from the Crito that Socrates does not believe that the individual somehow precedes the state, and even chooses to die based on this conclusion: “‘Reflect now, Socrates,’ the laws might say, ‘that if what we say is true, you are not treating us rightly by planning to do what you are planning. We have given you birth, nurtured you, educated you; we have given you and all other citizens a share of all the good things we could.’" (Plato, 1997b: 45).

  8. All translations from French works in this article are mine.

  9. “Written style is most exact; the agonistic style is very much a matter of delivery [hupokrisis]” (Aristotle, 2007: 1413b).

  10. “It is said that in addressing the public he did not employ the actor's art [ἄνευ ὑποκρίσεως], that he merely related the facts of the case […].” (Plutarch, 1960: 850a-b).

  11. As Harold Knutson writes in “Three Characters in Search of a Vice: The Hypocrite in Theophrastus, Joseph Hall and La Bruyère”: “The Greek word rendered as "dissembler" is eiron, not hypokrites, as one might expect; the latter still carried in Classical times the relatively neutral meaning of ‘one who acts on the stage’” (Knutson, 1994: 55).

  12. As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in Summa Theologiae: “Hence it is clear that humility excels over justice. Now justice is the most splendid of all virtues and embraces them all. Aristotle makes this evident. Therefore humility is the most excellent of them all” (Aquinas, 1972: 105).

  13. “It is hardly too much to say that Paul invented Christianity as a religion” (Siedentop, 2014: 58).

  14. “Hence there are by nature various classes of rulers and ruled. For the free rules the slave, the male the female, and the man the child in a different way. And all possess the various parts of the soul, but possess them in different ways; for the slave has not got the deliberative part at all, and the female has it, but without full authority, while the child has it, but in an undeveloped form.” (Aristotle, 1959: 1260a5-7).

  15. “Instead, Paul wagers on human equality. It is a wager that turns on transparency, that we can and should see ourselves in others, and others in ourselves” (Siedentop, 2014, 60).

  16. As Holbach writes in Le Christianisme dévoilé ou Examen des principes et des effets de la religion chrétienne: “[…] c'est le souverain seul qui peut ramener les peuples à la raison; […] il les détrompera peu à peu de leurs chimères […] en autorisant la tolérance des différentes sectes qui se battront réciproquement, qui se démasqueront, qui se rendront mutuellement […]” (Holbach, 1972: 142–143).

  17. “J’en ai tiré cette grande maxime de morale, la seule peut-être d’usage dans la pratique, d’éviter les situations qui mettent nos devoirs en opposition avec nos intérêts, et qui nous montrent notre bien dans le mal d’autrui, sûr que, dans de telles situations, quelque sincère amour de la vertu qu’on y porte, on faiblit tôt ou tard sans s’en apercevoir, et l’on devient injuste et méchant dans le fait, sans avoir cessé d’être juste et bon dans l’âme” (Rousseau, 1959: 56).

  18. “For Augustine, it was a fundamental mistake to suppose that the church could become a conspicuous society of ‘perfect’ Christians. Grace did not work like that. […] No human institution could attain perfection. Augustine’s insistence on the complexity of the human will—and the role of grace in human motivation—would leave a permanent mark on later Christian thinking about the self” (Siedentop, 2014: 108–109).

  19. “Philinte est le Sage de la Pièce; un de ces honnêtes gens du grand monde, dont les maximes ressemblent beaucoup à celles des fripons; de ces gens si doux, si modérés, qui trouvent toujours que tout va bien, parce qu'ils ont intérêt que rien n'aille mieux; qui sont toujours contents de tout le monde, parce qu'ils ne se soucient de personne; qui, autour d'une bonne table, soutiennent qu'il n'est pas vrai que le peuple ait faim […].” (Rousseau, 1995: 36).

  20. “la Cour de France est la plus grande et la plus belle, qui nous soit connuë, et qu’elle se montre souvent si tranquille, que les meilleurs Ouvriers n’ont rien à faire, qu’à se reposer; il y a toûjours eu de certains Faineans sans mêtier, mais qui n’étoient pas sans mérite, et qui ne songeoient qu’à bien vivre, et qu’à se produire de bon air” (de Méré, 2008: 69–70).

  21. Nowhere, for instance, in Fontenelle’s “Du bonheur” (1690) are virtue and pleasure at odds with one another. (de Fontenelle, 1990).

  22. Harold C. Knutson writes the following in “Three Characters in Search of a Vice: The Hypocrite in Theophrastus, Joseph Hall and La Bruyère”: “French criticism invariably refers to La Bruyère's portraits, a practice all the more justified as the author often had real people in mind in his satirical images. A whole literature of clés followed in the wake of the book's success; while many of the attributions are conjectural, a number seem entirely convincing” (Knutson, 1994: 58–59).

  23. As Rousseau writes there: “Défiez-vous de ces cosmopolites qui vont chercher loin dans leurs livres des devoirs qu'ils dédaignent de remplir autour d'eux. Tel philosophe aime les Tartares, pour être dispensé d'aimer ses voisins.” (Rousseau, 1965b: 249).

  24. “Celui-ci avance qu'il n'y a ni vertus ni vices, et que le bien et le mal moral sont des chimères.” (Rousseau, 1964: 27).

References

  • Adorno, T.W., et al. (1950) “The Authoritarian Personality”. In Studies in Prejudice. Volume I. Edited by Max Horkheimer and Samuel H. Flowerman. New York: Harper.

  • Aquinas, T. (1972). Summa Theologiae. Volume 44. Translated by Thomas Gilby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Aristotle. (1959). Politics. Volume 1. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • Aristotle. (1978). De motu animalium. Translated by Martha Nussbaum. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Aristotle. (2007). On rhetoric: a theory of civil discourse. Translated by G. Kennedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Augustine. (1955). Hippo. Confessions. Translated by Albert C. Outler. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.

  • Baehr, P. (2019a). “The image of the veil in social theory.” In Theory and Society, 48, 535–558.

  • Baehr, P. (2019). The unmasking style in social theory. Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barclay, W. (1974). New Testament Words. Westminster John Knox Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Fontenelle, B. L. B. (1990). “Du bonheur.” In Fontenelle : Œuvres complètes. Volume 3. Paris: Fayard.

  • de La Bruyère, J. (1836). Les Caractères de la Bruyère, suivis des Caractères des Théophraste. Paris: Librairie d’Abel Ledoux.

  • de Méré, C. (2008). “De la vraïe honnêteté.” In Œuvres complètes du Chevalier de Méré. Saints-Geosmes: Klincksieck.

  • de Montaigne, M. (1965). “De l’inconsistance de nos actions.” In Les Essais de Michel de Montaigne. Edited by Pierre Villey. Paris: PUF.

  • Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dumarsais, C. C. (2020). “Philosophe.” In Encyclopédie. The ARTFL Project. Accessed 7 Nov 2020. https://portail.atilf.fr/cgi-bin/getobject_?p.92:22./var/artfla/encyclopedie/textdata/IMAGE/

  • Freud, S. (1904). The psychopathology in everyday life. The Macmillan Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldschmidt, V. (1982). Anthropologie et politique: Les principes du système de Rousseau. Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G. W. F. (2005). Philosophy of Right. Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holbach, P. -H. (1972). Le Christianisme dévoilé ou Examen des principes et des effets de la religion chrétienne, in Premières œuvres. Les Classiques du people.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knutson, H. C. (1994). “Three Characters in Search of a Vice: The Hypocrite in Theophrastus, Joseph Hall and La Bruyère.” In Dalhousie French Studies, 27(Summer 1994), 51–63.

  • Lévi-Strauss, C. (2020). “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: fondateur des sciences de l’homme.” In Maison de Rousseau et de la littérature. Accessed 20 Jul 2020. http://www.espace-rousseau.ch/f/textes/levi-strauss1962.pdf

  • MacIntyre, A. (2007). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.

  • Marcuse, H. (1955). Eros and civilization: A philosophical inquiry into Freud. Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1972). Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie, in Marx-Engels Werke (Vol. 1). Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthew, T. B. (1997). Authorized King James Version. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molière. (1725). Le Misanthrope. In Les Œuvres de M. Molière. Volume 2. The Hague: Pierre Husson.

  • Molière. (1894). Tartuffe, ou l’imposteur. Paris: E. Flammarion.

  • Nietzsche, F. (2001). Beyond good and evil. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pascal, B. (2010). “Honnête homme.” In Pensées, opuscules et lettres. Paris: Garnier.

  • Plato. (1997a). Apology. In Plato: Complete Works. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

  • Plato. (1997b). Crito. In Plato: Complete Works. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

  • Plutarch. (1960). Lives of the Ten Orators. In Plutarch’s Moralia. Volume 10. Translated Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • Rousseau, J. -J. (1959). Les Confessions de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Œuvres complètes. Volume 1. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin et Marcel Raymond. Paris: Gallimard.

  • Rousseau, J. -J. (1964). Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inégalité parmi les hommes, in Œuvres complètes. Volume 3. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond. Paris: Gallimard.

  • Rousseau, J. -J. (1965a). Discours sur les sciences et les arts. In Œuvres complètes. Volume 3. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin et Marcel Raymond. Paris: Gallimard.

  • Rousseau, J. -J. (1965b). Émile, ou de l’éducation. In Œuvres complètes. Volume 4. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin et Marcel Raymond. Paris: Gallimard.

  • Rousseau, J. -J. (1965c). Préface à Narcisse ou l’Amant de lui-même, in Œuvres complètes de J.-J. Rousseau. Volume 2. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond. Paris: Gallimard.

  • Rousseau, J. -J. (1995). Lettre à d’Alembert. In Œuvres complètes. Volume 2. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin et Marcel Raymond. Paris: Gallimard.

  • Scudéry, M. (1685). Les Conversations sur divers sujets. Amsterdam; Daniel du Fresne.

  • Siedentop, L. (2014). Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, C. (2014). The sacred project of American sociology. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tacitus. (1914). Agricola. In Dialogus, Agricola, Germania. Translated by Maurice Hutton and William Peterson. London: William Heinemann.

  • Theophrastus. (1957). The characters of Theophrastus. Translated by J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge: Harvard University.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grove City College, Modern Languages, Grove City, PA, USA

    Paul J. Jackanich

Authors
  1. Paul J. Jackanich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul J. Jackanich.

Ethics declarations

Ethics Approval

Not applicable.

Consent to Participate

Not applicable.

Consent for Publication

Not applicable.

Conflict of Interest

Not applicable.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jackanich, P.J. A Genealogy of Unmasking: Antiquity to Modernity. Am Soc 52, 762–781 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-021-09519-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-021-09519-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation