{"id":45711,"date":"2022-11-26T01:00:47","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T06:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=45711"},"modified":"2022-11-25T09:25:49","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T14:25:49","slug":"qotd-the-search-for-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/11\/26\/qotd-the-search-for-authenticity\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The search for &#8220;authenticity&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 15px 15px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>The search for authenticity is not only futile but actively harmful, both psychologically and socially, for in general, authenticity is thought to require behavior without the restraints of normal civilized conduct, amongst which are the capacity and willingness on occasion to be hypocritical and insincere. Of course, the precise amount of hypocrisy and insincerity that one should indulge in is always a matter of judgment, but authenticity is brutish if it means saying and doing whatever one wants whenever one wants it.<\/p>\n<p>Shakespeare knew that authenticity, in this sense, is for most people impossible and in all cases undesirable. The first few lines of Sonnet 138 should be enough to prove it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>When my love swears that she is made of truth,<br \/>\nI do believe her, though I know she lies,<br \/>\nThat she may think me some untutored youth,<br \/>\nUnlearn\u00e8d in the world&#8217;s false subtleties.<br \/>\nThus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,<br \/>\nAlthough she knows my days are past the best,<br \/>\nSimply I credit her false speaking tongue:<br \/>\nOn both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Should Shakespeare abandon his love because he knows she is inauthentic in what she says? Of course not:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Oh, love&#8217;s best habit is in seeming trust &#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Away, then, with your self-esteem, your true self and your authenticity, and all the bogus desiderata of modern psychology.<\/p>\n<p>Theodore Dalrymple, <a href=\"http:\/\/takimag.com\/article\/lose-yourself\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Lose Yourself&#8221;, <em>Taki&#8217;s Magazine<\/em><\/a>, 2018-11-10.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The search for authenticity is not only futile but actively harmful, both psychologically and socially, for in general, authenticity is thought to require behavior without the restraints of normal civilized conduct, amongst which are the capacity and willingness on occasion to be hypocritical and insincere. Of course, the precise amount of hypocrisy and insincerity that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,41],"tags":[906,592,139,532,1289],"class_list":["post-45711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-quotations","tag-mentalhealth","tag-poetry","tag-psychology","tag-shakespeare","tag-theodoredalrymple"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-bTh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45711"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78208,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45711\/revisions\/78208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}