#10 - Origins of Authenticity
Authenticity. An increasingly popular virtue in our society with so few.
*A series of works written in one sitting — inspired by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Authenticity
Authenticity. An increasingly popular virtue in our society with so few.
To be authentic is to be genuine, sincere, and real, not fronting or living by someone's standards. Striving for authenticity means striving to discover and express your true self. While we imagine our focus on authenticity is part of our grander moral progress, the reality is our conception of authenticity could have been very different.
Interestingly, our modern conception of authenticity comes from the Enlightenment thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In The Social Contract from 1762, Rousseau offered an optimistic view of human nature countering other thinkers like Hobbes’s view that human nature is naturally brutish and short. He argued humans were born good and free but were corrupted by society. These ideas are best summed up in his famous quote: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Naturally if man is naturally good, then reasserting one’s authentic desires over any social pressure is the highest good. Rousseau popularized his value system of authenticity with what was perhaps the best-selling novel of the 18th century, Julie. Julie is a medieval, forbidden, love story between an aristocrat and commoner where Rousseau explores the self-betrayal and self-alienation from suppressing one's deepest desires. In Rousseau’s view, external influences from society, instuitions, moral systems, and desire for esteem from others dimished personal authenticity.
Now almost 300 years later, we can a quick google search of "authenticity substack" to see how it’s usage has evolved. Here's some direct quotes from the first result:
“Your authenticity is all that matters, everything else is fake news”
It cites Merriam-Webster's definition of authentic, the 2023 word of the year: “of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine”
“Your story is exactly that, yours; you don’t need to invent a different version of it for somebody else to consume via a different lens; being authentic comes naturally, the outpourings of writing being the very definition of authenticity.”
Here we have a simple version of this same idea of authenticity with its natural self focus.
The first order of authenticity is good, simple advice: Don't listen to what others think and ask yourself what you truly want. This is great advice for the many people with a lifetime of people pleasing and track following. However the second order effects of taking authenticity seriously becomes more complicated. What if I seem to have some true lustful or power-seeking, dark desire? Isn't my passion for education or coding socially and environmentally dependent, so not true to myself? Is there something real underneath the mask or just more masks, how would I know? For the overly analytical like myself, there's some semblance of truth and resonance but with some big question marks. And the very search process changes you and what once resonated may someday no longer.
"The underlying assumption that considers the individual separate from the environment is an absurd assumption that erodes that bond between the individual and community, which ultimately is the source of the authentic self" - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy