Catch 22 (& humor)

Well, I found a humorous website. It's funnier (probably) if one is at all aware of the groups being satirized, but probably funny anyway. Here was a personal favorite: http://larknews.com/april_2005/secondary.php?page=3.

Elsewhere, the following discussion on transparency caught my attention: http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/2005/06/22.html#a516. It reminded me of a couple other quotes. I don't remember the authors of either, so the following are rough paraphrases. The first was something like "I'm often glad that people are hypocrites and succumb to societal pressure. When my neighbor walks into my garage and covets my power drill, I'm glad he doesn't take off with it at the earliest opportunity. When I start a fight with my wife, I'm glad she doesn't shoot me even though she might wish me dead at that particular moment...much of the time, we want people to be hypocrites because otherwise life is far too chaotic."

The other quote (by Larry Crabb, perhaps?) was on how we want partial authenticity in pastors/speakers/etc... "There's a "cool" level of vulnerability where speakers seem "real". But when speakers go beyond showing that the apple might be a bit bruised and is downright rotten and worm infested, people dive for cover."

While much of the above is written in the context of speakers and presentations, I've been pondering how it applies to less public interactions. How much transparency is a good thing? Do I really want people to be fully authentic, or am I appreciative that people's actions and thoughts don't line up?