Vulnerability: Best Protection?

On (The Cult of) Sincerity, Emotion, and Trust-Building

There’s some guru out there who’s credited with saying, “Vulnerability—best protection.”

The obvious interpretation is that one is better off being honest with oneself and others, even when it’s scary. For instance, I could tell you that I feel like an imposter writing this sentence and you might find me more relatable.

But there’s a more cynical interpretation of the guru’s words—not consistent with his intent, but consistent with a culture that has turned vulnerability into a buzzword, namely, that the best way to manipulate an audience and protect oneself from true vulnerability is to perform vulnerability.

This isn’t to say that genuine vulnerability isn’t a powerful tool for building connection, but in an age in which vulnerability is a frequent topic of TedTalks and consultantese, it’s hard not to think that most of what passes for vulnerability is fake. As another saying goes, “anything that can be gamed, will be.” This was the suspicion of David Foster Wallace, who thematized the issue in disturbing short stories like “Good Old Neon” and “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.”

One reason why vulnerability used to be powerful was that it was rare, exceptional. But in a time when vulnerability is commonplace and scripted to win trust, does it still work? My hypothesis is that it doesn’t work as well as the vulnerability sellers claim.

Maybe we’ve hit an inflection point—or are about to—where we suffer from emotional hyperinflation.

Emotional hyperinflation occurs when the value of an emotional display is degraded by its over-use.

Is there a hedge against emotional hyperinflation? Yes. Ensure that vulnerability remains a sacred art reserved for special moments, rather than a baseline.

One backlash against pseudo-sincere “uses of self” is what marketers call “reverse selling.” Patagonia puts out an ad that says “don’t buy this sweater” and it sells out. Oatly writes self-deprecatingly on the back of its carton:

“Just don’t expect to be blown away with a reality-defying adjective, because honestly, we are just an oatmilk.”

But performative self-deprecation and reverse selling aren’t really post-vulnerable; they are just vulnerability 2.0. And as more people make post-irony the new sincerity, we should expect the power of self-deprecation to diminish.

The moment you are taking a piece of life wisdom and turning it into a formula for success, you’ve lost the wisdom. Martin Buber would say you’ve turned the “I-you” relationship into an “I-It” relationship.

By all means be vulnerable, but don’t do it because it works, or because it’s the best protection. It may not be.

Don’t read this newsletter:;

Zohar