Comments on: The Retreat of the Real http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/08/the_retreat_of.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:17:18 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: A.J. Sutter http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/08/the_retreat_of.html/comment-page-1#comment-47711 A.J. Sutter Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:27:25 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/08/the-retreat-of-the-real.html#comment-47711 1. "This falls into the category of things I think of as true but not worrisome. Anxiety about authenticity is not new" -- Just because the anxiety isn't new doesn't mean it's misplaced. Maybe its persistence should make it more worrisome, not less. Or maybe it's just too important to be complacent about. 2. I recently had occasion to read some Italian and German books about business leadership, along with an anthology of about 40 US articles on the same subject (many from Harvard Business Review), in connection with a magazine piece I was writing. I was struck how the American writers emphasized "authenticity," while the European writers emphasized "trust." Almost without exception, too, the American writers were focused on how the leader projects his or her personality, while the Europeans were focused on making sure that the leader understands the feelings of those who are being led. (A bit ironic, in light of early- and mid-20th Century history.) In this context, "authenticity" suggests merely a plausible appearance, rather than genuineness. So I do find it worrisome that it's "authenticity" that has become so highly prized in American culture. 1. “This falls into the category of things I think of as true but not worrisome. Anxiety about authenticity is not new” — Just because the anxiety isn’t new doesn’t mean it’s misplaced. Maybe its persistence should make it more worrisome, not less. Or maybe it’s just too important to be complacent about.

2. I recently had occasion to read some Italian and German books about business leadership, along with an anthology of about 40 US articles on the same subject (many from Harvard Business Review), in connection with a magazine piece I was writing. I was struck how the American writers emphasized “authenticity,” while the European writers emphasized “trust.”

Almost without exception, too, the American writers were focused on how the leader projects his or her personality, while the Europeans were focused on making sure that the leader understands the feelings of those who are being led. (A bit ironic, in light of early- and mid-20th Century history.)

In this context, “authenticity” suggests merely a plausible appearance, rather than genuineness. So I do find it worrisome that it’s “authenticity” that has become so highly prized in American culture.

]]> By: Patrick S. O'Donnell http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/08/the_retreat_of.html/comment-page-1#comment-47710 Patrick S. O'Donnell Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:41:15 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/08/the-retreat-of-the-real.html#comment-47710 This post calls to mind some remarks of Fredric Jameson in Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991): "the culture of the simulacrum comes to life in a society where exchange value has been generalized to the point at which the very memory of use value is effaced, a society of which Guy Debord [in The Society of the Spectacle, 1967] has observed, in an extraordinary phrase, that in it 'the image has become the final form of commodity reification.'" This is one consequence of the fact that "aesthetic production today has been integrated into commodity production generally." And the alienation of the subject is complemented or replaced by the omnipotence of fragmentation (thus, in post-Freudian psychoanalytic terms, rather than oedipal-level neurotic pathologies we find pre-oedipal, narcissistic, and borderline character disorders revolving around problems of separation-individuation and coherence of the self). This post calls to mind some remarks of Fredric Jameson in Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991): “the culture of the simulacrum comes to life in a society where exchange value has been generalized to the point at which the very memory of use value is effaced, a society of which Guy Debord [in The Society of the Spectacle, 1967] has observed, in an extraordinary phrase, that in it ‘the image has become the final form of commodity reification.’” This is one consequence of the fact that “aesthetic production today has been integrated into commodity production generally.” And the alienation of the subject is complemented or replaced by the omnipotence of fragmentation (thus, in post-Freudian psychoanalytic terms, rather than oedipal-level neurotic pathologies we find pre-oedipal, narcissistic, and borderline character disorders revolving around problems of separation-individuation and coherence of the self).

]]> By: Bruce Boyden http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/08/the_retreat_of.html/comment-page-1#comment-47709 Bruce Boyden Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:25:06 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/08/the-retreat-of-the-real.html#comment-47709 <i>we live in a world where authenticity (whatever that means exactly) can feel overwhelmed by slick substitutes and made-up realities.</i> I doubt authenticity has much in the way of feelings at all. And I'm not just being a grammar nitpicker here -- fixing the sentence makes it much less supportive of the point: "People who value authenticity (whatever that means exactly) are feeling overwhelmed by slick substitutes and made-up realities." That may be true, but why should we care about those people? we live in a world where authenticity (whatever that means exactly) can feel overwhelmed by slick substitutes and made-up realities.

I doubt authenticity has much in the way of feelings at all. And I’m not just being a grammar nitpicker here — fixing the sentence makes it much less supportive of the point: “People who value authenticity (whatever that means exactly) are feeling overwhelmed by slick substitutes and made-up realities.” That may be true, but why should we care about those people?

]]> By: James Grimmelmann http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/08/the_retreat_of.html/comment-page-1#comment-47708 James Grimmelmann Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:39:03 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/08/the-retreat-of-the-real.html#comment-47708 This falls into the category of things I think of as true but not worrisome. Anxiety about authenticity is not new. This falls into the category of things I think of as true but not worrisome. Anxiety about authenticity is not new.

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