Does Authentic mean Good?

“Man will become better when you show him what he is like.” Anton Checkov

‘Being who you really are’ is often attached as a goal or outcome of the ‘authentic transformation’ of the individual.

However, being true to oneself and reducing self-deception wherever possible can be seen as laudable even from a purely rational perspective outside of any spiritual or moral import the process might invoke in some people. Better decisions are likely to emerge from a clear-minded, confident and focussed individual.

Individuals who think and act ‘from the heart’ it could be suggested, are more likely to be believed and trusted, which is a good thing for that individual in terms of getting what they want, and for others wanting to associate themselves with warm and trustworthy people.

Authenticity therefore represents a conscious process of rigourous honesty with and a desire to follow one’s whole-hearted intent.

However, there is a mistaken assumption that being more authentic means being a nicer or better peron, whatever that entails. Certainly, the outcome of any worthwhile process of inward re-assessment can be a more contented, focussed, driven, dare we say it, happy individual; but only on the terms through which that individual experiences happiness.

We may not like a dictator’s strategy, but we surely can’t blame everything we don’t like about people on their parents, or look for that repressed period of child abuse that would cause individuals to become ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘deviant’. The point being, that if we can’t condone or explain someone’s actions in a moral context, our only option appears to be to condemn.

Arguments which state that something (e.g. authenticty) leads to good/bad behaviour because humans are essentially good/bad in nature are an example of reasoning which succumbs to the moralistic fallacy.

As Stephen Pinker says in The Blank Slate (1): “The moralistic fallacy is that what is good is found in nature or “What ought to be, is what is”. It lies behind the bad science in nature-documentary voiceovers: lions are mercy-killers of the weak and sick, mice feel no pain when cats eat them, dung beetles recycle dung to benefit the ecosystem. It also lies behind the romantic belief that humans cannot harbor desires to kill, rape, lie, or steal because that would be too depressing or reactionary.”

Indeed, could it be the case that at least some of the people we don’t like from a moral perspective are equally as authentic or inauthentic as us, but just believing in different things. Of course it is one’s duty to stand up and say “this is what I believe in, join me” if one truly believes in one’s beliefs and wants others too as well. What happens when the authentic actions or beliefs of two or more individuals clash? Wouldn’t things just get more, well, noisy?

So, it is dangerous thinking to assume that authentic action implies action which is for example socially and environmentally positive. This is not part of authenticity, but of a wider belief in what constitutes ‘right action’. To invest the term authenticity to this extend involves investing a moral import to the term which is surely not justified.

It can be suggested then that we would not necessarily be nicer towards one another in a world of ‘authentics’. Indeed, authentic behaviour could have overall negative consequences if more people acted authentically using violent or anti-social behaviour than using co-operative of non-violent strategies.

If we wanted to reduce levels of violent competition (2), what we would need to do then is to discover ways of developing more non-violent co-operative behaviour between people alongside helping them become more authentic. Authentic action as realised through a process of individual self-discovery by itself is not enough.

We must not ignore, underestimate or take for granted the complexity and beauty of the human animal and its nature, however uncomfortable that may be. This includes the part of us descended from the millions of violent, inauthentic thugs who enabled me to write this article.

(1) The Blank Slate, Stephen Pinker (2002)
(2) The Evolution of Co-operation, Robert Axelrod is an excellent place to start in this regard.