The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves [Hardcover]

The above quote is from this book's seventh chapter. Not only are we all multiculturalists now, but the idea of being 'authentic' is simply part of our every day vocabulary. Bestsellers like The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Dilbert and The Office lampoon the inauthentic desk job, and a robust consumer market of 'authentic' everything (from jeans to organic produce) grows by the year.

So, why challenge it? Andrew Potter gives us several good reasons. First, he suggests that seeking for authenticity is as self-defeating as it is phony. It is self-defeating because when one quests for the authentic, one tends to get lost in the search (which is the opposite of focusing on any 'true self'). It is phony because, all too often, seeking the authentic - buying organic food, appreciating different cultural artifacts, etc - is every bit as much about appearing to be authentic to others as it is achieving authenticity for the self. The first several chapters (minus the first, which explores the emergence of authenticity as an ideal, explore these themes).

Next we come to some chapters that question the very distinction between authentic and inauthentic, on epistemic and ontological grounds. Ontologically, it is simply arbitrary to call x natural and y authentic when, in reality, they may be both made from the same stuff. What makes, say, an original painting authentic and a reproduction inauthentic? Now we get to the shaky epistemology. The original painting is real, says Potter, not because of anything about the painting, but EVERYTHING about our expectations of the painting. Several studies reviewed by Potter, for instance, show that one's appraisal of a thing is often wholly dependent on the background story it is presented with. (Tell everyone a wine is one of a kind, and the bottle of Yellow Tail just tastes better.)

In this sense, Potter suggests that authenticity is somewhat of a sham game. If the search for authenticity was REALLY about authenticity, after all, it would not matter for our enjoyment whether the painting is an original or a reproduction, or the wine is rare and old or common and new. Any search for authenticity that seeks eclecticism, uniqueness, non-conformity, for its own sake isn't a search for authenticity at all, but a drive to feel different, even if it means FORCING oneself to be what one isn't. Ironic, huh?

My favorite chapters are six (Vote for Me, I'm Authentic) and seven (Culture is for Tourists). In chapter six, Potter is skeptical about whether, despite the lip service, we really desire authenticity in politics. After all, while we like to talk about our desire for straight talk, we still devour the sound bites (especially the gaffes). We could say the media is responsible for this, but Potter reminds us that the only reason the media collects sound bites is because we watch 'em. Chapter seven points out the irony that while progressives used to be cosmopolitan, the age of globalization - a cosmopolitan's dream - has now turned many of them into communitarians. Similar to arguments made in Fish's article "Boutique Multiculturalism" (The Trouble with Principle, Potter makes the point that multiculturalism has somewhat become a caricature of itself: when culture is, as he puts it, treated as a museum piece rather than a way of life that one does rather than watches, it becomes a thin replica of itself. Once again, the quest for authenticity is more about appearances than realities.

Put simply, this is an interesting piece of contrarian writing. I am inclined to agree with most of it and despite minor flaws (I think his interpretation of Rousseau in chapter 1 is a bit off), would recommend it to anyone who wishes to see a dominant cultural assumption challenged a bit.

The Bad: Several of Potter's personal positions go unexamined throughout the writing. The writing itself often feels undirected (and unrelated to the core thesis) from chapter to chapter. And Potter often spends so much time explaining previous findings and other arguments that his actual point gets lost.

The Good: There's a huge amount of stuff in here linking a wide range of philosophers to particular societal behavioral patterns that have played out over the years. I suspect that this book would be more valuable for people than most 100-level philosophy college courses. Really, I loved how much large portions of this book shifted my perspectives so that I could think about things in different ways.

The Ugly: Potter seems to run the entire book without tapping either existentialism or absurdism, which is a bit of a problem as they're directly concerned with answering to what is real about humanity, starting with the basic premise that Existence Precedes Essence (a.k.a. You are as you do, not as you think) and, as Sartre wrote "Hell is other people" not because they don't get the real you, but because maybe they do. Also, Erich Fromm might have been mentioned in passing for his work in Escape From Freedom, but not nearly enough to appropriately reflect his body of work on this topic.

This was a pleasure to read. To me, the author's aim is to help us question the assumptions that we either take for granted or otherwise cling to as though they were unshakable truths.

Enter "authenticity," a term that most of us define by describing what "it is not." This contrastive definition is a start, but it makes us come up short when it comes time to actually identify what "authenticity" really is, or at least what we mean by it. The truth is, there is no consensus; "authenticity" is subject to personal bias and psychological "framing," a term that describes the application of our preconceptions to the matter at hand.

Essentially, Potter shows us that to define "authenticity" is to negate it. With several examples, he shows how the "authenticity" we end up settling for is a branded product, courtesy of a consumer culture long tweaked to our psychological needs.

What we are really after, according to the author, is distinction--status disguised and marketed as "authenticity." It's sold to us because we want it--and perhaps even need it in such a fashion, so it is not entirely fair to lay the blame on the corporations that are experts at fulfilling our whims.

To me, the search for "authenticity" also masks a search for the self--and identity is a fragile thing. We might get "lost finding ourselves," but I'm not so sure we know what we're looking for to begin with.

In his chapter about politics, for instance, Potter poses one of the best questions of the book: do we genuinely want honesty? I don't think so. I'm reminded of two observations, one by George Carlin made long ago: "If honesty were introduced into politics, the entire system would collapse." The other one is by Ralph Ellison in his novel INVISIBLE MAN: "The more honest I was, the more hated I became."

Sadly, I have to agree. We say we want "authenticity" because psychologically, it fulfills a need (maybe one for moral status/ superiority?)--but when it comes down to it, we feed on stereotypes that satisfy our prejudices. We crave the familiar and love to place other cultures into nice, manageable, "exotic" categories. We might even feel superior if we eat "organic" foods and others are consuming fast food.

True "authenticity" is far too spontaneous to define. When it happens, it just is. It cannot be packaged, labeled, or purchased. That undermines its essence.
If it's status or self-assurance that we seek, then let's be honest--at least with our own mirrors.

Potter has given us an excellent, unpretetnious philosophy book that effectively refers to popular culture to pose relevant questions. This is one worth rereading.

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