The other day, I came upon a Hasidic pamphlet ("The Way of Emunah", which was referenced in a prior post) on the Shabbos Torah reading, and saw a piece there related to the discussion we had. Citing a work בית יהודה, it says that R. Zev Wolf, son of the Zlotchover Maggid, a Rebbe in the early generations of Hasidism, would call every Jew "tzadik", even wicked people (see attached images for more). So evidently that was a chiddush then. But even he realized the limits of such rhetoric, and declined a shidduch proposal from an unsuitable person who presented himself as a tzadik along such lines, and therefore an appropriate match for him.
Nowadays, in the era of great inflation that we live in, evidently R. Zev Wolf's chiddush doesn't suffice, however, and the "tzadik" of yesteryear has become the "big tzadik" of today.
Those who follow old Torah ways and are not in favor of flattery and inflation, on the other hand, hew to the words of the Torah that we recently read, ולא תחניפו את הארץ, which, according to one of our great authorities, is a Biblical prohibition of flattery, as well as to those of שלמה המלך ע"ה, the wisest of men, who taught אמר לרשע צדיק אתה יקבהו עמים יזעמוהו לאמים, the one who tells a רשע that he is a צדיק will be cursed.
See here how Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l put it in a Toras Avigdor Q&A from not long ago - the attitude that 'there are no reshaim' is unacceptable. Such extreme liberalism is not in accordance with our holy Torah.
In the zechus of אמת, and avoiding flattery, may we merit גאולה בקרוב.
