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Andrew Potter. The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2010. 296 pp. $32.99.
Everyone goes through their ups and downs in life. It's interesting, though, that sometimes the downs have little or nothing to do with questions of material comfort. You can have all your bills paid up and lead a satisfying domestic life and yet still, at some specific juncture of circumstances, slip into a spell of confusion and general unease with yourself. What's this all about, anyway?
According to one prominent view, this existential problem is linked to one of Western civilization's most powerful codes-what is known as the ethics of authenticity. In having dedicated his latest book to the subject, Andrew Potter helps provide a space of reflection around the functioning of this code. The book begins by describing the context surrounding its historical emergence, then briefly elaborates on its philosophical basis. But the bulk of author's energy is dedicated toward linking the ethics of authenticity to a whole range of pernicious social phenomena in contemporary society.
Like any cultural code, authenticity maps a way of seeing and acting in the world. It does so through a vast array of institutionalized symbols and practices that get passed on from one generation to the next. The effect is to shape individuality by prompting each person to create a style of life that is uniquely their own. The method, we might say, requires that men and women take a distance on conventional social standards in order to cultivate what is best in their own personalities. By taking a step back from what is socially expected, a person's idiosyncratic set of skills, charms, and pleasures can begin to take flight.
What makes Potter's contribution to the subject worthwhile are the linkages he draws between the ideal of authenticity and a range of seemingly unrelated social phenomena. For the most part, the links he draws show how this apparently virtuous ideal can serve to promote a sordid pattern of antisocial behaviour-whether with regard to generalized anti- Western sentiment, competitive forms of consumer display, the distortion of artistic tastes, or a resentment toward business entrepreneurship. In the end, then, what the book seeks to provide is a wide-ranging critique of this...