On Authenticity in Life
A Critique of the Concept and Against Abandoning the Dilemma
Just be yourself. You’ve heard it before– from a well-meaning friend, parents or maybe from a self-help book. It’s a go-to line for romantic situations, job interviews, or any instance of self-doubt. What kind of wisdom does it actually contain, is it more than just supportive encouragement? Of course, one should be themselves when trying to court another, it wouldn’t make much sense to present a false self to someone you truly desire (despite how seemingly commonplace this is), and in the long term that is a rather untenable balancing act. Although, when you hear this advice it feels like someone has said nothing at all. It’s self-explanatory you should be “yourself”, it isn’t like you can be anyone else.
Another variation of this is that you should “follow your heart’s desire”. There’s an underlying idea or concept beneath these truisms: they seem to insinuate the idea that beneath it all there is a “true self” to be expressed. It might be helpful if there was any indication of how we could tap into this or discern it from all the chaos of the mind. However, the concept remains: there is a sort of will inside of us that reflects authentic desires. The self is a mysterious and primordial thing under this vague conception and it could be an inheritance from our spiritual tradition. According to data collected by the Pew Research Center, 83% of U.S. adults believe in the existence of a soul alongside our physical bodies. If the genealogy of authenticity is spiritual, then vagueness and intangibility is only a logical consequence.
Authenticity and the self are about as vague as the soul. The conception of the self expressed in these sayings seems to share some traits classically held by the soul. It is a higher thing–above the pressures or falseness of the external world and a thing to be tapped into by us. It should also reflect something higher, truer or more correct in itself.
This turn inward is not solely from human spirituality and is clearly present at the very start of Western philosophy. Although, it is difficult to even clearly separate spirituality and philosophy; as much as those post-enlightenment have attempted to. Plato, the father of idealism advocated for a turning inwards. We should turn away from the falseness and imperfections of the material world. In our minds we connect with higher truths and towards perfection. Although, it would be inaccurate to say that the sayings referenced above are implying there is perfection in the self. Still this conception of the self is a purer thing or a more desirable way of being.
How Would We Access Authenticity?
I would rather there not be an authentic self; to even begin to think about how to access it or discern its presence is daunting. For starters, we are sensitive instruments, constantly taking in stimuli. How can we keep an authentic sense of self? How can we avoid being constantly and unwillingly shaped by circumstances? We are always in a state of flux, and the present is always leaking into the future. We also exist in a present shaped by a past—one that we had no influence on—but despite that, it pushes us forward and conditions the present and, as a result, the future.
To exist in the present is like leaning against a concrete wall that’s pushing you forward into another wall. The present is basically a hydraulic press (especially when our ancestors have destroyed the planet), and the past smashes you into the future. Our past shapes us in a cruel and unfair way. On a material level, the past exists as factual events, but it is represented through the minds of humans—oftentimes those who have not experienced it. They can only hope to piece together something akin to reality from it. These conceptions themselves shape our collective memory and our imagination of the present. From the start, we are born into a world we had no choice in shaping, and it shapes us, along with the recollection of this past.
It would be difficult to claim that, in these conditions, there is some sort of authentic self slumbering from the start. In all likelihood, it should be something that one develops. You would then have to develop a self in order to be true to it. However, if you are both the sculptor and the statue, where is the authenticity? If it doesn’t hold shape, can be easily changed, and has such flexibility, I wonder how we could seek to tap into it. Is the authentic thing whatever I am choosing to do? Surely, I must be “being myself” in this case. There are obvious exceptions—if one is under extreme pressures, like the potential loss of life. In that case, yes, someone can manipulate your behavior through threats. But that is a rather extreme example.
I think a common reading of “being yourself” would be being in line with your values. This itself may also have a philosophical origin. It is quite similar to the ethics of Aristotle—the whole idea that excellence is a habit. We should always seek to be in line with excellence, and we can discern what is excellent and good through our rational prowess and observations/experience. Although he would not use the language of “being yourself” or “true to yourself,” it is a philosophy of self-actualization. There is not as much room for a self because there is an element of universality within it. It would be inaccurate to say he is fully dogmatic—there is still room for individual capabilities—but his rationality is universal.
Therein lies the problem: to think that rationality is universal. Rationality itself is shaped; it is not some eternal thing detached from humans. It exists in the mind and is also a product of the mind. It is shaped by experience and circumstances. This becomes clear when we judge the “rationality” of past generations. Different people clearly seem to develop different selves based on different truths, which they should hypothetically strive to be true to. This creates a problem again for a concept of the self that is based on developing a self that we should be true to. We reach different conclusions on a collective level from past generations, between different cultures, and finally between individuals within all these generations and cultures.
There is still ultimately room for a universal truth within all this chaos and difference—that is certainly within the realm of possibility. Yet, given these conditions, should we tell people to “be themselves”? Many people, in my view, have a very rotten self. A serial killer is being himself and living in line with his values, based on his twisted rationality. According to the psychoanalysts, we all have a repressed self somewhere that we subdue. Should we be ourselves and tap into this? Are we denying ourselves when we resist a bizarre or perverted intrusion? Or perhaps you truly have tapped into the universal truth through your individual rationality. I would say bravo to someone who is willing to stand up and proclaim this for themselves. I would have to ask them to teach me how.
In the Digital Mass Society
To this point, I have thrown mud at the concept of the self. Now, I’d like to bring in a newer and more contemporary factor. The self is a great product. There is a whole industry built around finding what you desire in order to profit from it. It’s not only about finding it—it seeks to create it. When you scroll, you are constantly bombarded with advertisements, ideas, and products that play off what you already believe or desire, but at the same time, there is an attempt to create what does not yet exist. Infinite demand is needed, and so demand must be created.
There are sophisticated algorithms designed to identify who you are. Once they have a picture of what and who you are, they can grab your attention. In this way, the self can become trapped in its own self-constructed hall of mirrors. Ultimately algorithms are not showing you things arbitrarily most of the time, it comes from you. It’s fishing to show you what keeps your attention. Your algorithm is a monster of your creation.
In an interesting way it is showing you a reflection of desires, ideas and self-conceptions that technology has discovered through your interactions with it. It also stunts the self that is in flux as I have previously described it. Algorithms and AI to this point cannot truly create something new. They take in that which exists, they feed off existing data. AI specifically is an incestuos thing and it’s beginning to feed off itself.
However, I digress. The main point is that we have sophisticated technology developed to identify you in order to make money off you. When you stare into the void that is the smartphone screen, you see yourself—whether it is powered on or off. It does not have to be that way. Yet, it is quite easy to stay trapped in whatever realm the technological godhead has placed you—or rather, into whatever "authentic self" it has identified for you and through you.
You are ultimately the sculptor. But as we increasingly pass more and more tasks onto technology, with AI as the highest expression of this tendency, should you surrender your role as sculptor? I have no easy solutions for identifying your own authentic self, but I do believe that we ought not to surrender our role in the task.
Eternal creation, eternally seeking—these are the most human things. Something that technology would vampirically drain from us. It could be the case that “authenticity” is an illusion or an unachievable goal, whether it is soul-like and permanent or self-sculpted. What matters is that we grapple with the question and retain our humanity—a fate given to us alone, not to machines and not to the simple beasts of the Earth.
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