/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8854136]

Is there really such a thing as "authenticity?" One could argue that you are always affected by things like your cultural upbringing, or circumstances that shaped your moral code before you were conscious enough to forge your own meaning.

Essentially, the decision to be "authentic" will almost always be affected by the dominant culture in which you grew up in. How could this possibly be conducive to constructing a unique "meaning?" Is the quest to be authentic a rabbit hole that never results in happiness?

[Anonymous No.8854210]

According to Chinese concept artists authenticity is only possible after stability is achieved.

These men need to be praised as heroes.

[Anonymous No.8854237]

The will-to-authenticity in general begs the question "Aren't our inauthentic acts genuine functions of humanness?"

[Anonymous No.8854533]

First of all, authenticity isn't supposed to result in "happiness". It's about realizing your freedom, taking responsibility for your actions and not lying to yourself that there's anything out there that could relieve you of that responsibility. There's nothing nice or happy about that and there are no rewards.

As long as you consider yourself a part and product of your culture, something that is shaped by it and owes something to it, you are precisely escaping your freedom and abandoning the possibility of living an authentic life.

Of course you could argue - and I'm sure that was your point - that your very notion of what an autonomous, self-creating subjectivity should be is itself a product of a culture. That seems like a reasonable perspective, but I think someone like Sartre would say that it is just an easy excuse. In fact, you are not a product of anything other than your choices. To focus on some external or unconscious mechanisms molding you into something is to deny that you are free at any moment to act and think in the way that would be contrary to the supposed influence of those mechanisms.

I believe this is roughly the existentialist way of thinking. It might be wrong, but if it is, it means that there's no point in seeking "authenticity" and the very concept should be abandoned.

[Anonymous No.8854641]

Also, I'm not sure if it's helpful, but the following just came to my mind:

The question you pose is obviously a valid one from the perspectives of sociology, psychology etc. which try to describe a human being from the outside, as a part and a product of vast network of relations. However, when you adopt such a perspective with respect to yourself, you start to consider yourself as an empirical object (a sociological/psychological/etc. being) rather than the completely free consciousness you deep down know yourself to be. But authenticity isn't something detectable from the outside; it is only relevant from the point of view of the project of your own life.