Ep9 - Authenticity
Welcome to the Rebrand Revolution. In a world where it is increasingly hard to pick the real from the fake, it seems only natural that we've all become obsessed with Authenticity. In this episode, Sidonie asks what is helpful and harmful about the idea of authenticity and being your authentic self, and reminds us that even the ancient Greeks knew that virtues are only good when in balance with the world around them.
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In this episode, I reference the following:
Lionel Trilling (1905 – 1975) was an American academic, literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, and political implications of literature.
Links
Book: Sincerity & Authenticity (1972)
Feudalism
The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection. -
This podcast is recorded on Kaurna Country. We acknowledge and pay our respects to the Kaurna people as the traditional owners and custodians of this land.
You are listening to Rebrand Revolution, the podcast where we take today's pop culture cliches and turn them into tomorrow's empowered call to action. My name is Sidonie Henbest. Thank you for joining me. Open your eyes or any news feed any day of our lives, and you'll see a dizzying number of stories about AI, deep fakes, CEOs selling a dream that never actually existed, politicians behaving like feudal overlords... In this world full of fakes and flakes, it is no wonder that realness has become a very real call to action for us, and in this episode of Rebrand Revolution, I want to get real with you and talk about Authenticity - and how a concept that has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks is one of the biggest buzzwords of today.
Well, let's get right on and look at some definitions. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers this. "The term authentic is used either in the strong sense of being of undisputed origin or authorship, or in a weaker sense of being faithful to an original or a reliable, accurate representation. To say that something is authentic is to say that it is what it professes to be, or what it is reputed to be in origin or authorship. But the discussion between authentic and derivative is far more complicated when discussing authenticity as a characteristic attributed to human beings. For in this case, the question arises, what is it to be oneself, at one with oneself, or truly representing oneself." The idea of personal authenticity can be traced back to ancient Greeks, and some of their philosophy is still very present in our language to this day, in phrases such as "to thine own self be true" or "Know thyself". When I say the word authenticity, words like real, true, sincere and trustworthy come to mind. And I think that we can all agree that we seek out alliances, whether they are personal or professional, whether they are with loved ones or leaders, we seek out people who display these qualities of realness, trueness, sincerity, trustworthiness, and who behave according to these principles. So how do we know when we are in the presence of an authentic person? Well, we are likely to see these qualities of sincerity. We are likely to experience the quality of trustworthiness. And it makes sense that we value authentic relationships above all kinds of others, because so much of our world these days is uncertain and untrustworthy, and therefore the idea that we seek those things out and that we hold them in a high stead, well makes sense, right?
A 1970s academic by the name of Lionel Trilling asked the question, when did authenticity emerge as one of the vital goals in our society? According to Trilling, the concept of sincerity is actually what appears first as a precursor to authenticity, and it appears in the 16th century as a result of the end of Feudalism and the gradual breakup of the traditional face to face relationships of traditional European society, one that had kin living next to each other for generations. So people knew each other extremely well. Their families knew each other, and they knew absolutely whether or not people were trustworthy. With the dissolution of the Feudal system and people moving to live in cities, into bigger townships and off the land that they had lived on and worked with their families, you suddenly have this randomness of cities, the randomness of big villages where people come from elsewhere. And it's at this point that we think that humans started to need to identify or have a system to work out who to place trust in. And this is where the idea of authenticity, broadly speaking, comes into usage in modern English. So authenticity, it would seem, arises as part of the social currency we need to measure whether or not people are any good, or whether or not we should trust them. It becomes a way of quantifying and maybe qualifying people in a rapidly changing world. Makes sense then, at a time like this, when we are in a rapidly changing world, this comes back and is something that we are really, really vested in understanding, and in that sense, our interest and even our fixation on the idea of authenticity is a really good one.
So we know that in terms of authenticity, we are seeking to understand and recognize in others when they are trustworthy, when they are real. If we go back to this idea of what it is to be oneself, that is one that is not deeply compromised in who we are, for the sake of other people. To be at one with ourselves is to say that we accept ourselves and that we are, whilst not anywhere near to being perfect beings, we are still someone that we can accept and love. Perhaps the hardest of all is this idea of a version that is truly representing oneself, and perhaps that's almost impossible to measure in the moment, and is something that we can only see through the lens of hindsight.
But all in all, so far so good. I mean, hardly surprising that authenticity has a lot going for it in terms of good. So what I hear you ask could possibly be bad about authenticity? Well, picture this. It's a very special day for you. Maybe it's a significant birthday or a graduation or even a wedding. And your sibling, knowing how important the day is to you, turns up wearing ripped jeans and a tatty t-shirt, hair unbrushed, whilst everyone else is in suits and smart clothes. And then your sibling gets out their phone and checks social media whilst everyone else is sitting there waiting for a service to begin. You get the picture. On one hand, your friend might say, "well, that's just Jimmy, and he's being his authentic self", and you might say, "but he is disrespecting me and our family", and you'd both be right. And that is where I think we start to see a problem with this idea of authenticity having become such a significant virtue in its own right as an end game of its own. At some point in the recent past, the idea of being true to oneself, or truly oneself, if you like, stepped out of the philosophical arena and became directive. And with the simplicity of that directive version, something shifted. So instead of it being about a question that we ask of ourselves, a question that we ask of others, this became an instruction. Be this! And it's a subtle but I think, quite important difference, because asking whether we are living a life that is true to ourself is to ask questions about things like courage and purpose and intent.
So if the idea of authenticity gets a little bit questionable at the point at which it might become unpleasant for others to be around, what makes it something that is so problematic that we could describe it as ugly? It is when the idea of authentic self is one that is defiant and comes with hard edges. Edges that say I will not alter who I am for others, I will not take into account the world I live in and the people I live with. But moreover, it has at its heart an arrogance that says I don't need to be different. And this is one of these funny and really tricky things. Sure, it is one thing to say I am what I am, take me or leave me. Love me as I am. These are all real and true and important ideas, but not at the point that there is no concession or consideration for the fact that we effectively are herd animals, we are intrinsically linked to each other and rely upon each other for survival. We rely upon others for the most profound sense of being alive, which is connection and love and communication. And in an ever changing world with diminishing resources, it is truer now than ever before that survival is not going to be a solo game.
If I was to offer you one thing about the word authenticity, it would be to remind you that authenticity is not a destination. It is something we apply to quantify and qualify whether or not we are leading a life and being the kind of person we would wish to be. And so anything that drives us towards this idea of authenticity, like there is an absolute version of self, is the same problem we have with things like potential. They are not finite end games of their own. They are not absolute destinations on the map. They are an essence that that underpins a human life. That underpins the best parts of being alive.
Think of some of the quotes we see on social media, phrases like, "confidence is knowing who you are and not changing it a bit". Or, "there is nothing more beautiful than seeing a person being themselves". And whilst that certainly can be true, that is not by any means, 100% accurate, because it very much depends on the person and whether or not we think their natural behavior or their authentic self is actually something that we want. This version of authenticity seems to suggest that we are all equally kind, caring and have the best interest of others at heart. It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth that people being themselves is only okay if they are okay, you know? People who treat others kindly, we want to see them be themselves. But someone who actually has deeply selfish tendencies, them being themselves is not only unappealing, it's potentially really problematic for us. We (whilst we forget it, a lot of the time) we actually rely on on a little bit of social fabric here to hold a degree of equilibrium that says we do not show all of ourselves to everyone all at once. And goodness me, nor should we, right?
The pop culture version of authenticity, and being authentic that gives complete permission to the individual to show up and show all of their bits to everybody is a lovely idea, except when you consider that we all live together as herd creatures, as mammals, and in that sense, our ability to be part of a group and to find a harmonious way to get along is an important part of who we are as humans. And whilst it is really important that we are free to express ourselves and that others don't prevent us or make us fear showing qualities of who we are, we have to be aware that there are intrinsically a set of social rules that bind us all together. And we either go and live in a in a cave by ourselves, or we agree on some level to abide by a set of principles that we call society. And in that sense, one of the things that I think can be very tricky when we are talking about authenticity in a pop culture setting is this idea that "I'm perfect and I do not need to change". And just being yourself is a lovely idea, except it is a bit simple. It is an oversimplification of something that we mean to say, which is, listen to yourself, respect yourself, give yourself permission to have consideration for decisions you make, the kind of context and consideration that will say, How will I feel about this decision tomorrow, in an hour, in 10 years time? These are the kind of things that actually show us what an authentic response is. Perhaps, then one of the considerations about what really makes authenticity "authentic" is not that it is a visceral, real response within the moment, but it's actually one that is consistent with our core values. Maybe this is less about the reflexive response and more about consistency over time. When we say an authentic person, do we really mean someone who's swinging hot and cold depending on how they're feeling and how bad the traffic was on their way to work? Or do we mean someone who checks in regularly with who they are, what they believe in, and makes decisions and responds to situations accordingly? My suspicion is it's the latter.
It seems perhaps fitting then in conclusion that we go back to the guys who started talking about this first, and they were guys because they were the Greeks. Let's return to Aristotle and friends and recall that, like a lot of the other great virtues, authenticity on its own is neither admirable nor productive. And like all virtues, it needs to exist tempered by other things, tempered by wisdom, tempered by context and community, tempered by values. By itself, it has the capacity to be the vessel of deep selfishness, of total self centered behavior and of the kind of thing that makes us both dangerous to live with and deeply unstable in our own selves. The answer perhaps lies in the equilibrium here. This is less of a rebrand, but more of a rebalance. Let's rebalance authenticity. Let's allow ourselves to consider wisdom alongside of authenticity, to consider context, the person we want to be, but also the world we want to create and live in, the world we want to leave for others. Authenticity has been around since the beginning, and I have every reason to believe it'll be something we consider until human beings are no more, but let's remember that it is like all of these things, like all words in the way you use it. There is no doubt that authenticity is a really deliciously complex idea, and we have fairly scratched the surface here in in 15 minutes. So many, so many other things to discuss about it and. To wrangle. So get amongst it. Share this episode with other people and start the conversation as I always say, You've been listening to Rebrand Revolution. My name is Sidonie Henbest, and until next time, stay curious.
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