Authenticity as Grace

Last week I realized that today’s rapid cultural evolution, mediated greatly by youth movements, seems encouraged by the common modern norm favoring “authenticity”. Youths ask their hearts how society should change. So I just read two books on the subject, Lionel Trilling (1972) Sincerity and Authenticity, and Charles Taylor (1991) Ethics of Authenticity. I also read Rousseau (1755) Discourse on Inequality, as many call that the first modern advocacy of authenticity.

Authenticity having your behaviors driven from within you, instead of letting others influence them. Follow your heart, you do you, go with your gut, that sort of thing. It is such a widely accepted norm that the authors who write books on it don’t actually argue for it much; they instead use it to argue for other stuff. My reading was a waste.

But, why exactly is authenticity such a good thing? Yes, there’s this quote about me, “Robin Hanson is more like himself than anybody else I know.” And, yes, my webpage has long said: “I’m not a joiner; I rebel against groups with ‘our beliefs’.” So as a matter of practice I seem to be authentic. Yet I still don’t see why it’s good, per se.

The modern world changes faster, and gives us more options, which puts a premium on agency; we can’t just ride along with our slowly changing peasant village anymore. But that means you need make choices, not that they need to come from within.

We’ve long taken controlling more as a sign of status, so others controlling you lowers your status. But what would this effect be stronger in the modern world?

Maybe in the modern world imitation and social pressures have become easier to see. In the old stable peasant village you acted like everyone else, but so did everyone, and you were not noticeably following any particular other visible models. However, in the modern world choices are more varied and contested, and so we can more easily see who in particular is pressuring or influencing who else in particular.

That wouldn’t necessarily be bad, except that looking too obviously “try hard”, like you are trying to choose actions to impress and please others, shows an unimpressive lack of confidence. Just as the most impressive dancers make their dancing look “effortless”, maybe the most impressive social displays are those that seem to come naturally, with little noticeable effort.

Cultural evolution says that most everything that comes from inside of you was stuff that went there before, from your prior cultural exposures. But seeing you trying to please and conform looks quite different to observers than your seeming to just do stuff from within, even though all of that stuff inside resulted from your prior efforts to please and conform, perhaps as a child. It is like the difference between a dancer who is visibly struggles to do her dance routine, and one for who the routine looks effortless, enjoyable, and even invented on the spot.