It’s been 35 years since I read it. But I remember Holden calling many people ‘phonies’. I grew to agree with this part of his misanthropic seeming literature.
I get that too. But I have also come to realize that is a common human failing. Everyone has the potential to either be phony or appear phony at some point, and taking it beyond that shows a degree of immaturity in the observer.
Granted, we all dislike people who are phony all the time-the superior who gives you flat praise but actually could not care less, the person who tries hard to appear superior to what he actually is, and so on.
But we deal with it. We don’t obsess on it like people do today about nearly everything. Well centered people are capable of shrugging their shoulders and saying “Yeah. He’s a phony. I just don’t care to interact with him in any way.”
In my youth we called phonies “plastic people”
Same. I probably need to reread it to see if my aged world-view changes things.