“巧言令色，鲜矣仁。” explained!
There are so many perfect people living online!
On platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, we see highly polished resumes, perfect families, and flawless personas. All are telling us wonderful stories, triumphant adventures, and envy-inducing lifestyles. This aura of perfection captivates us and compels us to keep scrolling, while stirring a mixture of admiration, jealousy and a creeping distrust as we compare our own unvarnished realities to these digital ideals.
This distrust comes from a subtle recognition that these perfections are often edited facades or even outright fabrications.
To confront these perfections, Confucius would tell us that, those who speak glib words and put up a pleasing appearance, seldom have true benevolent integrity. His own words, recorded in The Analects of Confucius, are 巧言令色，鲜矣仁。
Let us unpack these terse seven Chinese characters.
巧言
Clever talks or artful flattering words.
It does not mean eloquence. It refers to when people speak insincerely or when they do not speak their mind. It is a technique to manipulate others by words.
令色
Ingratiating or pleasing manner.
It does not mean being polite. It refers to suppressing real emotions and putting up flattering gestures to make other people feel good.
鲜矣
Seldom, rarely.
仁
True virtue or humanity. This is one of the core values in Confucianism. To put it simply and bluntly, it means respect, sincerity and benevolence.
“巧言令色，鲜矣仁” is a serious critique of some bad social or political practices, that people rely on clever speech and charming looks to manipulate others. We have all seen this. Perhaps it is someone at work, or someone in politics, or some influencer on TikTok.
The reason that Confucius criticised “clever talk” and “ingratiating manner” is because they cut off genuine connections between people, replacing truth with performances, and replacing meaningful relationships with transactions.
The damages are three fold.
When facing others, we become skeptics. For instance, reading some people “humble brag” about their achievements on LinkedIn and seeing a string of applause memes that follows prompts us to doubt not only their stories, but also those “likes” that we receive. The low trust environment makes it difficult for us to establish good relationships.
When facing ourselves, we feel obliged to be part of this performances. We also post highly edited and polished images, and give out tons of “likes” that carry very little weight. We put on masks and monitor our online behaviours, which give rise to weariness and anxiety. Our real life and true emotions are slowly being worn out.
When facing society, our desire can never be fulfilled because we are surrounded by all these perfections projected in countless advertisements and commercials. It is an ecosystem, a kind of wellness industry, which is constantly re-enforcing our lack of self esteem, and it is also perpetuating our dissatisfaction.
It is time to use Confucius’s teaching to recognise this phenomenon. By recognising it, we have already won half of the battle.
The next step is self-cultivation. The kernel of Confucius’s teaching is that our inner strength is powerful as long as we are willing to improve ourselves.
Indeed, experiences have told us many times that trying to change others’ behaviour is useless. The most effective and the best method is to change ourselves. There are things that we can do to reduce our own clever talks and ingratiating manner, and to be more truthful to both ourselves and others. In doing so, we get peace of mind, less struggle, and perhaps, genuine relationships with likeminded people.
Conclusion
In The Analects of Confucius, we learn how to self-cultivate us to be 仁. Recognising what 巧言 and 令色 are and trying not to be like that is an important part.
It was difficult then, and it is difficult now.
Today, amid the relentless pressure for us to project success and perfection, Confucius's teaching emerges as a liberating antidote, inviting us to understand why we don’t trust what we hear or images we see, and also encouraging us to peel away the layers of our own perfect facade and embrace authenticity.
Dive Deeper
This article is part of an e-course, The Self: 5 Lessons from Confucius for Cultivating Inner Peace in a Noisy World, which uses quotes from The Analects to help us anchor and develop ourselves in the fluctuating digital world.
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