On Authenticity
It seems to me that the crisis of authenticity is a myth. In the same manner that a museum curates exhibits, a painter curates the landscape, a musician curates emotion: people curate themselves. But note something important: a museum cannot display the whole of history, nor a painter the whole of the landscape, nor a musician all of emotion. Choices must be made, elements of reality must be spliced, and creation must have focus. This observation precipitates two questions: is there an “authentic self”? and is to curate oneself an act to be frowned upon?
Whether there is an “authentic self” is primarily, in my sense, a game of semantics. Humans are distinct, biological organisms. We recognise their separation from nonliving objects, other organisms, and, indeed, other humans. To that extent, there must be a self that it is to be an existing and distinct human with experience. That is to say nothing of the mereological nihilists whom seek to make of the world a messy soup of fundamental matter, which is neither useful nor sensible in almost any conversation or thought. Or of the Buddhists, who play similar games with dependent origination and Sunyata. Whether one wishes to define the “authentic self” as the whole of their personality, the sum of their drives, or a combination of the id, ego, and superego, or even their Atman or soul. For whatever it is worth - that is to say, in my estimation, not very much - it seems to me that what most people mean when they say “authentic self” is something like the entirety of their personality. Nebulous, possibly undefinable (at least neatly), but it serves its purpose for most.
Authenticity is lauded in contemporary Western society as a means of reengaging with “who one is” in a holistic manner - it argues, implicitly or explicitly, that to curate oneself is to deny oneself. It is to lie by omission for the purpose of societally expedient conformity and to excommunicate those blemishes in one’s personality to the depths of the private mind. To that end: are museum curators liars? And what of painters, musicians, writers? Are they all lying by omission by taking the liberty of curating aspects of reality? How far does the logic extend? Are we to say that all journalists are liars also because they do not report on every event everywhere all at once? (I’ll happily grant that many journalists are liars, but not in this sense.)
It seems to me that to be “authentic” is an exercise in futility at base, compounded with wanton moralisation, with a false promise of happiness. Indeed, I can imagine nothing more destructive to the fabric of society itself than to fail to realise that not every part of your personality deserves a stage at all times. I can think of a great many aspects of one’s personality that deserve quite the opposite: they are to be confined to privacy, and shared only with the utmost care. Expression of one’s sexual nature in the workplace, especially if one works with children, is a terse but exemplary scenario. But even among friends with sensibilities: is it not merely polite to take care not to upset people for whom you care deeply just for the sake of self-expression?
What of performative curation? What of people displaying only the good aspects of their life and not the bad? What of conformism? What of people hiding the messy, vile parts of their lives to avoid embarrassment? Indeed, I say, what of it? Are the great historical painters terrible for their omissions of the grotesque? Are the great writers terrible for their stories of merriment? Allow me to reverse such questions: is it not a problem of your naivete that you believe such representations are whole, not of the representations themselves? Or perhaps it is a problem of distinguishing: perhaps you are simply not able to tell apart vexatious lies by omission against incomplete representation?
I can only conclude that authenticity is a drug for those so bereft of personal hobbies or creative outlet that they must inflict themselves upon the public shamelessly. That, or they lack the sophistication to participate in public life without a deep confusion about what it is to curate.