Phoniness: the application of applicability, or lack thereof. And, the world is full of it. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, flees from his phony school into the adult world; however, the ubiquitous phoniness prevails there, in New York City. Throughout his adventure in the late 1940s, his cynicism propels his precarious situation to his detriment, but his childish endeavor reveal something new about the world’s phoniness: why the dictators? This world’s dictators are the adults. The seemingly masterminded creatures, who are fully knowledgeable and competent of the world, fail to dictate. Although they possess valuable and shareable information of their world, they sometimes forget to apply where