I keep hearing about authenticity. It seems to be the go-to description for all who would be bonafide; a self-sticking seal signifying that what you see is what you get, and what you get is worthy.
Anderson Cooper has made it the lynchpin of his daytime persona. I watched Anderson and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, discuss an unimaginable family tragedy; the suicide of his brother. I watched an authentic discussion well promoted in the early days of a new show. I watched the authentic tears in his eyes, as the camera came in for an authentic close-up.
You can't for a second question the pain. But you also can't deny the packaging. I know television is an entertainment medium. To question a lack of authenticity in the medium is to be upset to learn that Gilligan and the Skipper weren't really on an island.
But the current drum-beat of authenticity may be a kind of "doth protest too much" reflection of the national mood, which Comedienne Lilly Tomlin once captured nicely: "Just when I think I'm too cynical, I realize that I'm not cynical enough."
Could it be that authenticity is the oxymoronic adjective for our times? Authentic news anchor? Authentic politician? Authentic religious leader? Authentic celebrity?
We pick our way through a debris field of authenticity's failures. We once believed the government knew how to build levies, that it would only start a war for valid reasons, that the financial system worked in the best interests of the country, and that those who shout from the pulpit about how we all must live our lives, live those lives themselves.
Existential philosophy says that authenticity is the ability to be what we are in the face of external pressures that insist we be something else.
That gets especially tricky in politics, where the pressures are votes, money and power, and authenticity means risking their loss. The religious right is not going to give a smidgeon of any of that to someone who says: I will restore fiscal sanity, but I'm fine with gay marriage. The far left won't hold celebrity-sprinkled soirees for anyone who says: I will help those in need, but I don't really care if people like their guns.
Political authenticity has become an all-in proposition. Either toe the line, or hit the road. Balance is for wimps. Reasonable discourse is for losers. Truth is what we tell you it is.
There have been few more soul-sucking exhibitions of squandered authenticity than President Obama. I watched his nomination acceptance with a pride and hope so powerful I didn't even know I had tears in my eyes. I truly felt, this time, it's going to be different. It's not so much what he said. It's that what he said was so real. This was not a well-tailored suit saying what a regiment of speechwriters and pollsters told him to. This was a real man saying real things born of real belief.
Since then, we have watched his authenticity melt like a candle -- and we lit a lot of them that night -- left out in the sun.
I know, the man has been dealt a bad hand on a Biblical scale. I know he spends his days cleaning up after men who are now on the golf course and penning their justifications.
But he has become a politician, and pretty ordinary one at that. The truly concerning thing is that powerful self that we hoped would stand up to the pressures seems to have developed multiple personalities. One day a unifier, the next day a divider of the classes. One day a determined change driver, the next day a conciliator to those who reject conciliation.
There is that old saying that the essence of leadership is to find a parade and get in front of it. What if there is no parade? What if disillusions and disappointments have left us so disoriented that it's impossible to form up the ranks?
There is a high cost here. When those who have a balanced worldview don't know what to believe, they tend not to believe anything -- or anyone -- at all. That turns over the wheel to the zealots whose belief is unquestioned, unexamined and without nuance.
Absent belief, we default to image, which means authenticity is expendable. What Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott called Mitt Romney's "polished leather insincerity" could work. We don't care if the patent medicine you're selling is colored water. Just give a good show, and convince us it will cure what ails us.
Still, I can't help thinking that authenticity lives. Somewhere there is a self so strong that it will stand up to the incredible pressures of power, money and bloggers; so strong that we'll be drawn to it even if we don't agree with all of its parts.
But maybe that is too much to hope for in these days of firestorm communication's malleable truth. Maybe it's too much to ask.
Follow Dr. Peggy Drexler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drpeggydrexler
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Still, I await the right moment, should it come. I know I can stand the heat and I will always remain who I was and am and forever shall be.
There must be more like me, many more but perhaps we all await the right moment and it has not come.
The only thing we can do in testing shifting authentic states is to see if people move back and forth between contradictory authentic states as it suites them. We can pick up on that kind of thing even though people grow and change all the time they rarely do so quickly or without the intermediary steps like the changing if mask in a sichuan opera.
When conversation turns to how "Someone is authentic", it has turned meaningless - and can be enjoyed for the entertainment possibilities of B.S., braggadocio, and polemic. When someone claims to "be authentic", that person has joined the realm con-men, Nigerian scammers, and similar people who are trying to convince me of something that is harmful to my interests.
Trying to parse (much less make sense of) the use of "Authentic" and "Authenticity" in a social or political sense is just following the rabbit down the hole.
So, like I say - I don't have problems with "Authentic" and "Authenticity".
The only people capable of climbing that ladder are those who will sell out their souls -- and those who are not, who remain true to what they believe in, will be unable to rise.
And while the Skipper and Gilligan may not have actually been on an island, I just can not bring myself to believe that Thurston Howell III was not everything he appeared to be.
If you want to know why, read "On Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt. The claim to authenticity is absolute BS. If there is authenticity, those people don't talk about being it.
The higher consciousness world is full of people claiming to be authentic, yet their actions do not add up to being so. Discernment is necessary to filter through and identify the truly authentic ones ... as in most things.
I completely agree with you and my reply (though very late to this article) above was spurred by your comment here. The only reason I can comment about myself regarding "authenticity" ie because of consistent actions - they are signposts we can look to in helping us not delude ourselves.
Thanks for your post - hope you are well,
RTIII
Death takes your preconceived notions of yourself, your vanity and self-absorption, and wipes it away with a single stroke.
Death is also the great leveler -- the pharaoh as well as the slave wind up dust and are reabsorbed by the earth.
Realizing death is just one step behind you will help make you "authentic."
Authenticity has been equated with vulnerability, or rather that irresistible mixture of vulnerability and strength. Showing vulnerability, whether real or pretend, is the key to appearing authentic these days. But it is a relatively new cultural development, I'd say; 50-60 years ago, being vulnerable in any way, especially in a man, would have been considered a social suicide. Today, we can't get enough of J-B(eohner) crying. (Or, more accurately, he can't get enough of himself crying.)
While the capacity for being vulnerable is indeed a sign of openness and humility, endearing imperfection, and a possibility of personal change and growth (along the Cohen's motto "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in"), it has also been mercilessly exploited by assorted manipulators, especially politicians.
I'm sure the highly paid PR consultants to politicos and media figures (yes, looking at you, Cooper) give them very specific advice on how to cultivate that "authentic" image designed to make everyone go "awww..." and tune in at 4 pm or whenever they come on. Thus the tear-jerking stories of personal ordeals, which, of course, must be followed by triumph, otherwise instead of Authenticity (TM) we'll just have wimpiness -- and who likes that?
That seemingly compulsive desire to be authentic that Obama (like Boehner, Cooper, and so many others) have mastered (and/or had it foisted upon them by their PR gurus) makes them inauthentic, paradoxically -- or maybe just authentic manipulators.
But others who do the same are not?
Sigh!
As for television, it exists to sell you things. Everyone on it knows this and assumes that you, the viewer, have at least some idea that it's a game and are playing along. They think that so they don't feel guilty. Either way, just turn it off.