An article by Stephanie Rosenbloom on The New York Times, published on September, 9, 2011:
Authenticity seems to be the value of the moment……
The word has been bandied about for ages, be it by politicians or Oprah Winfrey, who popularized the notion of discovering your “authentic self” in the late 1990s after reading Sarah Ban Breathnach’s “Something More.” But “authentic” is enjoying renewed popularity in an age of online social networking and dating, in which people are cultivating digital versions of themselves. The theme is so pervasive that even one of the oldest institutions in the world has weighed in. In a June statement entitled “Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age,” Pope Benedict XVI said that increasing involvement in online life “inevitably poses questions not only of how to act properly, but also about the authenticity of one’s own being.” He added that “there is the challenge to be authentic and faithful, and not give in to the illusion of constructing an artificial public profile for oneself.”
And therein lies the problem eventually. The more people shill their authenticity, Professor Pooley said, “the more we want something real.”
Or at least some acknowledgment of the artifice.
Why are we not inclined to believe someone when they claim that they are ‘authentic’? Why do we even think about showing how authentic we are if we’re really ‘real’ from within. Do we feel that a sense of authenticity is lacking in ourselves, therefore find the need to make one up? Why would that be? What do we really want to see from ‘authentic’ people, what other words could substitute ‘Authenticity’ to describe that quality/character?
