False people, how to recognize them?

It is a serious matter for all of us, particularly when we hold positions of responsibility as well as power.

Listen to what Plutarch thinks about it.

The phony, like an octopus, adapts himself to situations.

He who wants to expose his ruse must show to change his purposes, blaming the lifestyle he was praising until a while ago, and suddenly devote himself to actions, behaviours, and speeches he detested as if they were now acceptable to him.

It will become evident that the false person has no stability or personality: for he loves or hates, he cheers or grieves not based on his personal feelings but by assuming, like a mirror, others’ emotions, and attitudes.

The false person is such that if you criticize a friend of yours in his presence, he will say sentences like:

You came late to acknowledge his nature;
I didn’t like it from the beginning.

But if you suddenly change to praise your friend, he will say he is happy about it, even going so far as to thank you on his behalf and call him trustworthy.

Similarly, if you say that it is appropriate to change life, for example, abandoning public engagements to devote yourself to a solitary existence, the false friend will comment:

Long ago we should have moved away
from confusion and malice.

However, if you again appear willing to engage and take public responsibility actively, he will respond: “You speak in a way worthy of you: disengagement is pleasant, but it grants neither visibility nor prestige”.

We do not need a friend who is constantly changing and always agreeing, but rather

someone with whom we can tell each other the truth
and help us evaluate things honestly.

Summing up Plutarch’s thought, we can say that:

excessive complaisance is an indication of falsity.

What do you think?

If you want to learn more about this, also read this post: The 36 stratagems – 10 – Hide a knife behind a smile