If you think you’ve got yourself all figured out, you might be authentic.
If you accept the good and bad aspects of your personality as equally valid, you might be authentic.
If you share your every thought and opinion without regard for how others might receive them, you might be authentic.
If you shun the affected and contrived in favor of the natural and spontaneous, and if you make a point of not doing anything that other people think you should do, you just might be authentic.
“Just because you think something doesn’t mean you have to say it… ”
Gen Z thinks it invented authenticity, but really it inherited it from the Millennials, who didn’t invent it either. In concept, the Life Authentic goes back at least as far as the Romantic philosophers of the 19th century. Kierkegaard believed the course of an authentic life must be dictated by the Self, rather than Church or State. Expanding on the theme, Nietzsche said that personal authenticity requires one to rise above mass culture and conventional morality, that authentic persons can decide for themselves what’s good and what’s bad. Also a fan, Sartre said the reward for genuine personal authenticity is absolute freedom, but that absolute freedom is so miserable that most people would rather toe the line.
The Romantic philosophers proposed authenticity as an alternative to uncompromising Christian ideologies and stifling bourgeois scruples. A lot of Millennials got interested in it as an antidote to late-century materialism. Gen Z, which is embracing authenticity with the same fatalistic passion it embraces everything, seems to be motivated in large part by a steady diet of social media, which is replete with falsity, artificiality and hypocrisy.
“ …society wants you to be happy, and a lot of its common codes and customs are designed to help you do exactly that.”
As currently practiced, authentic persons must be at all times their true selves, good and bad, without regard to external validation or approval. They must always be completely truthful with themselves and others, without regard to personal sensitivities. They eschew any activity, entertainment or enterprise that is scripted, simulated, affected, or in any other way less than genuine. And their every choice and decision must be compatible with their personal values, whatever those happen to be, without regard to societal expectations or social pressures. With today’s practicing Authentic, what you see is what you get, and what you’ll get is mostly what they think about anything and everything. Setting aside the possibility that by adopting a new, authentic lifestyle one could potentially be abandoning one’s true self, behaving authentically requires a substantial mental and emotional commitment. On the upside, it frees you from the burden of considering any feelings but your own.
Certainly the Authentic philosophy has much to recommend it. Nobody ever came away the worse for a thorough and honest personal inventory. The problem with the present flavor of authenticity is that nobody will come away the better. The purpose of self-examination is self-improvement, and simply accepting our faults absolves us of the need to correct them. For that matter, humans are hardwired to interpret reality in self-serving ways, which tends to make honest evaluation of one’s own authenticity a most uncertain business.
As to unqualified frankness of speech, honesty is only a virtue until it’s rude, hurtful or obnoxious. Just because you think something doesn’t mean you have to say it and, as often as not, the best policy is to say nothing. A recent study on self-professed Authentics in the business world found that interviewers are less likely to hire them, they are less prone to promotion, and they’re less popular around the water cooler. In all three cases, the reason is the same. Authentic people overshare.
In Joseph Conrad’s classic novel, “Heart of Darkness,” the hapless Marlow is dispatched far up the Congo River to retrieve a missing company agent named Kurtz. Deep in the jungle, Marlow discovers that Kurtz has set himself up as god-king to the native population. Kurtz is more callous than cruel, an introspective tyrant who, wholly without malice, inflicts terror and bloody death upon his subjects for no better reason than because he can. There is no authority to stop him, no peer to judge him, no church to condemn him. Conrad’s conclusion is that the individual human animal isn’t naturally benevolent, which is why we collectively construct checks on individual behavior. Family, law, religion and, yes, societal expectations exist to rein in our baser impulses. They’re the essential framework that makes civilization possible.
Twentieth century social psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm thought so, too. Fromm believed that any behavior, even lock-step conformity with societal standards, is perfectly authentic so long as a person understands and approves of its purposes and origins. The problem with the disaffected Authentic is that they’re more concerned with simply escaping restraints than with being their true self. Sartre’s concept of absolute freedom, Fromm said, offers only the illusion of individuality, as opposed to the genuine individuality experienced by the reasoned Authentic.
Knowing your mind is a marvelous thing. Dealing squarely with yourself and others is just good policy. Charting your own course is the American Way. Rejecting society’s expectations is contrary, self-indulgent and counter-productive. It’s not surprising that today’s earnest young Authentic finds the latest brand of authenticity appealing, because it’s a logical extension of their unwholesome, unhealthy, and unfettered mania for self-care, a narcissistic doctrine that elevates garden-variety selfishness to the greatest of all human virtues.
Believe it or not, society wants you to be happy, and a lot of its common codes and customs are designed to help you do exactly that. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. If you find a flaw in your character, fix it. If you can’t say something nice, keep your trap shut. Programmed fun is still fun, and it’s remotely possible that you can please somebody else without sacrificing your own soul. Being an authentic person is a fine thing, but being a good person is even finer.
To be truly oneself is to be free of the need to be someone else.
—Erich Fromm
