One of the most traumatic days of my youth was when I went into JC Penney's and on the rack saw the hippie jeans that I had been purchasing from head shops and surplus stores.
I should never have gone in there. I hope nobody saw me! Will explains it all to us. Barack Obama may be black but Clarence Thomas isn't.

nice topic, a little facile now and then but enjoyable enough. It is surely easy to do some beating up on "authenticity" these days but I would have liked Will and Potter to address how much the discourse of authenticity these days is itself a product of the prevalence of corporate branding rather than simply some passe quasi-Rousseauian quest for "nature." BTW, the suburbs ARE alienating and nihilistic! How the hell Potter can say otherwise by referring to Baudrillard of all people is glib beyond words...as well as wrong.

Quoting Toryentalist: ALL HAIL THE BEARD

it's looking good this week, right?

I'm afraid that any anti-modernism is self-defeating. You cannot choose to be premodern; the division between a modern and something before it is preconditionally modern. If you are choosing, you're at least modern, and maybe postmodern, depending on your stance towards the way you are choosing.

Also: it is a bit weird to advocate enforcing democracy on someone and call it freedom. Also: some people like the suburbs. Some don't. For some they are alienating. For some they aren't. They are neither objectively alienating nor objectively not alienating. Such things can't be said to be "false on their face" as they are dependent on who's being asked.

Also: the enforcement of optimism, again and again and again. So, so tired.

Quoting Toryentalist: He's a lumberjack and he's okay,
he sleeps all night and he works all day.

ALL HAIL THE BEARD

As Moličre, or one of his characters, said: Du côté de la barbe est la toute puissance (L'Ecole des femmes). Loose translation: Omnipotence is on the side of bearded men.

A. Was it 'most' Black Americans that supported Clinton or Black females (around 65%) and the 'Black establishment? When those numbers started to sway, that's when you saw the big bump. Also the 'Black establishment' or civil rights era leadership wouldn't have been a good test for attitudes of ordinary Black Americans. It's why what you heard from the 'Black establishment spokespersons' didn't jive with the celebration/outburst. To get a clue about the dynamics of that, look no further than what happened to Tavis Smiley. B. "Black Authenticity" isn't connected to the slave heritage. John McWhorter links it to a new attitude post 1967 or as he says; if you look at Black American history as a clock, around 11pm something happened, something changed. He attributes this new attitude (or pose as it were) to something else.

Quoting SeldomSeen: [...] To get a clue about the dynamics of that, look no further than what happened to Tavis Smiley.

What did you mean by that?

Nice beard but he's still got nothing on this guy.

The discussion of Rousseau, for those who have never read him, was replete with journalistic clichés. Rousseau had nothing to say about "authenticity," alienation, or capitalism. The words as well as the concepts were unknown in 18th-century French. Rousseau has been blamed for many things, including the French Revolution, but no one in his right mind would blame him for the inauthentic and alienated Sarah Palin. Or only two Canadians would.

First, let's retire the word "modernity". Sooo pretentious! There has been progress in many areas but not all: we are a less middle-class society than we were, too many children are born into families without fathers, you can't afford a decent place to live in NYC or San Francisco, the traffic is worse in big cities, it is not safe for children to play unsupervised in most metropolitan areas, dying in nursing homes is probably not such a great idea, there are no more full-time Moms and Dad can't support the family on 40 hours pay, families have scattered to the four corners of the world, young people worry a lot more about how they are going to make a living (or get into a good college) than they did in the generation after WWII, you can't be white and dream of being a college running back (ouch! -- please don't attack me, I'm just stating the facts. . .), paperback books no longer cost a quarter, the liberal arts curriculum has gone completely to hell (is there one anymore?), affirmative action is playing havoc with the idea of equality under the law (how

Quoting BornAgainDemocrat: First, let's retire the word "modernity". Sooo pretentious! There has been progress in many areas but not all: we are a less middle-class society than we were, too many children are born into families without fathers, you can't afford a decent place to live in NYC or San Francisco, the traffic is worse in big cities, it is not safe for children to play unsupervised in most metropolitan areas, dying in nursing homes is probably not such a great idea, there are no more full-time Moms and Dad can't support the family on 40 hours pay, families have scattered to the four corners of the world, young people worry a lot more about how they are going to make a living (or get into a good college) than they did in the generation after WWII, you can't be white and dream of being a college running back (ouch! -- please don't attack me, I'm just stating the facts. . .), paperback books no longer cost a quarter, the liberal arts curriculum has gone completely to hell (is there one anymore?), affirmative action is playing havoc with the idea of equality under the law (how

Quoting nikkibong: oh, and before i forget

GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!1!

Heh! To BAD: "Modernity" has a pretty specific meaning, and its useful, too. I'm not sure how that makes it "pretentious."

This was a fascinating topic for me. As Will and Andrew pointed out, the idea of “authenticity” has many different connotations. As a harkening back to a simpler time, I think the idea goes back at least as far back as the pastoral poetry of the Greeks, and certainly was picked up on in a big way in the Renaissance, when the idea of the pastoral life was commonly idealized and romanticized as reflective of a lost Golden Age. In a way, I think this relates to the idea of “Real America” promulgated by Palin et al. insofar as the phrase seems to be a sign for a simpler, more rural way of life – another imagined and idealized lost Golden Age. Another angle that caught my attention was the discussion of “authenticity” as an ideal to be aspired to, and the sense of competitiveness that inevitably comes with that aspiration. As soon as something becomes an ideal to be striven for, it becomes corrupted – as Potter points out, the ideal of authenticity breeds the desire to be more authentic than others. This is true of any ideal – the ideal of humility

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/275...1:50&out=32:57 Actually I don't think he does at all. But he does display some interesting - nay "pernicious" - cultural ignorance here. "B. "Black Authenticity" isn't connected to the slave heritage. John McWhorter links it to a new attitude post 1967 or as he says; if you look at Black American history as a clock, around 11pm something happened, something changed. He attributes this new attitude (or pose as it were) to something else." I'm glad you brought this up because it was something that really bothered me. Both of these gentlemen are clearly out of their depth here - as am I. But I think it is exactly right that "black authenticity" isn't connected to the slave heritage. Actually, I should say *necessarily*, because the legacy of discrimination certainly is. The main problem is that it defines black ethnicity down, which is actually a larger racist notion (let me be clear that I think racism is a part of all our consciousnesses, black and white). Potter literally says that you can "decode" the way black men walk and dress by assuming that "they are trying to signal one of three things: that they don't have a job, they've been to jail, or that they

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: Nice beard but he's still got nothing on this guy.

I think we can all agree on the greatest beard ever to appear on BhTV.

Quoting Stapler Malone: I think we can all agree on the greatest beard ever to appear on BhTV.

Win. Contest over.

Good points.

Quoting listener: Another angle that caught my attention was the discussion of “authenticity” as an ideal to be aspired to, and the sense of competitiveness that inevitably comes with that aspiration. As soon as something becomes an ideal to be striven for, it becomes corrupted – as Potter points out, the ideal of authenticity breeds the desire to be more authentic than others. This is true of any ideal – the ideal of humility perversely turns into the ego trip of “I'm more humble than you”; the ideal of enlightenment becomes the competitiveness of “I'm more enlightened than you are.” Likewise, my sense of being authentic is dependent upon my perceiving others as less authentic than me.

only true to the extent that your desire to compete is greater than your desire to be authentic/humble etc. Authenticity is aspirational to the extent that your desire for it is inauthentic.

Quoting popcorn_karate: only true to the extent that your desire to compete is greater than your desire to be authentic/humble etc. Authenticity is aspirational to the extent that your desire for it is inauthentic.

Or is desire for an ideal in itself inauthentic? An ideal is a projection of the mind; it it not real. I see that I am prideful; therefore I create an ideal of humility that I aspire to live up to. By doing so, I only create conflict within myself between what is and what "should be." And I hope that through that conflict I shall achieve humility. But by following an ideal, I am avoiding actually looking at what is. We have had the ideal of non-violence for years; yet it has not stopped us from being violent. We have had all the political ideals, the religious ideals, the "love thy neighbor," etc., and none of those ideals have worked because they turn our attention from the reality of what is to the ideal of what should be, which is not real but merely a projection of the mind. But if I have no ideals then there will be no projection of the mind to escape

Quoting AemJeff: Win. Contest over.

Still accepting entries?

Quoting Toryentalist: The origin of THE BEARD.

Do you think it's a coincidence that Will seems to have decided to take this facial hair thing seriously at the very same time he diavlogged with BhTV's most epically bearded regular?

Quoting nikkibong: Still accepting entries?

An admittedly impressive entry. But Aubrey's has unbeatable, biblical, gravitas. But, then, I'm just a guy with a goatee.

Shorter BornAgainDemocrat: Get off my lawn! ETA: I swear to God I didn't see Nikki's post before I posted this.

Excellent diavlog. And apropos because just yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that a bunch of fake "authentic" restaurants are springing up here in Portland. These uber-chic, organic, "green" restaurants are all about simulating old-world, prole food: there's the Jewish deli, a bagel shop, a restaurant devoted to Asian "street food." The food at a lot of them is tasty, but they mostly project a fake authenticity that leaves me feeling quite nauseated.

Quoting nikkibong: Still accepting entries?

I have been tempted to say BUT WHAT ABOUT KLEIMAN???* this whole thread, but I call yours the winner. How did you ever remember? ========== * [Added] Glad to see another great mind, thinking alike.

And, of course, worth at least, and honorable mention.

I have about five minutes to write and teach, but WHAT?! I think Wilkinson wants to be a hippie who dreamed of being a Washington insider. But, Rousseau? There's this strange kind of reverse exegesis where any author with an ax to grind can stuff any author post-French Revolution into Rousseau, and no one bothers to read J.-J. Almost every commentator blithely ignores the conservative reading of Rousseau to bury him for what the socialists did to him - never having read him either. Government stymies the disaggregating tendencies of modern society. Rousseau opposed a theater in Geneva. He also depicted married life as the first step in building society. But, it's so much more fun to blame Rousseau for everything.

Quoting bjkeefe: I have been tempted to say BUT WHAT ABOUT KLEIMAN???* this whole thread, but I call yours the winner.

How did you ever remember?

==========

* [Added] Glad to see another great mind, thinking alike.

I wonder whether men don't realize the effect the overabundant beards have on women or whether they just don't care. I tend to think it's the latter.

Quoting Ocean: I wonder whether men don't realize the effect the overabundant beards have on women or whether they just don't care. I tend to think it's the latter.

I take it that you are referring to this phenomenon.

Quoting listener: Or is desire for an ideal in itself inauthentic? An ideal is a projection of the mind; it it not real. I see that I am prideful; therefore I create an ideal of humility that I aspire to live up to. By doing so, I only create conflict within myself between what is and what "should be." And I hope that through that conflict I shall achieve humility. But by following an ideal, I am avoiding actually looking at what is.

We have had the ideal of non-violence for years; yet it has not stopped us from being violent. We have had all the political ideals, the religious ideals, the "love thy neighbor," etc., and none of those ideals have worked because they turn our attention from the reality of what is to the ideal of what should be, which is not real but merely a projection of the mind. But if I have no ideals then there will be no projection of the mind to escape from realities, and I may be able to tackle what is - pride, greed, envy - actually as it is; then there may be the possibility of freeing the mind from the ideal.

I generally disagree with your take

Quoting popcorn_karate: I generally disagree with your take on this stuff

this is the nut of the issue for me:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/275...1:39&out=23:22

basically, you can be a douchey striver on any scaleable characteristic - but that doesn't mean that you have to be.

sure you can be an annoying pseudo-hippie holier than thou poser, but you can also be authentically into having a life based on ideals of simplicity and community - the question is whether that is a pose or you aligning your outer conditions to your inner desires.

the short form of Potter: any idea that takes on social value can be used as a platform for competition, in which case those in competition substitute the goal of winning for the actual ideal that defined the competition. (and if you are sufficiently superficial, like potter, you then devalue the ideal in question because there are a bunch of douchebags competing over it)

I actually don't disagree with what you say here -- I think it's a matter of semantics; that is, the word "ideal" can have different meanings or connotations. In my original post, I was talking about what happens when "authenticity" becomes an "ideal to be

Quoting nikkibong: Excellent diavlog.

And apropos because just yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that a bunch of fake "authentic" restaurants are springing up here in Portland. These uber-chic, organic, "green" restaurants are all about simulating old-world, prole food: there's the Jewish deli, a bagel shop, a restaurant devoted to Asian "street food." The food at a lot of them is tasty, but they mostly project a fake authenticity that leaves me feeling quite nauseated.

nauseated is not something you want to be in a restaurant. PS I used to live in Sandy and then Estacada....talk about authentic! I think of Portland as a livable city with big city aesthetics. Gee, I hope you're talking about Oregon

About halfway through these guys are smirking at black people for saying that Obama wasn't black enough at the beginning of his campaign and then getting all weepy after he won. I'd like to point out that black people aren't identical and interchangeable. For example, if you read some snotty column by a black columnist in the WaPo in November 2007, and then see crowds of black folks crying with joy in November 2008, it may not be the case that people celebrating ever agreed with the snotty columnist. As for the authentic business, I like mashups and hybrid vigor, but I'm happy to have the authentic-obsessed people out there keeping the raw materials in reserve.

Quoting claymisher: ...
As for the authentic business, I like mashups and hybrid vigor, but I'm happy to have the authentic-obsessed people out there keeping the raw materials in reserve.

I think obsessing over authenticity has it backwards. What matters is distinguishing between types of bullshit. e.g.: Stephen Colbert pretending to be a self-obsessed right-wing twit - good bullshit. Mitt Romney in jeans and plaid pretending to be a right-wing populist - bad bullshit. It's not important whether something is inauthentic, but it does matter how it's inauthentic.

Andrew Potter offers some arguments in this piece using "Rousseau" to analyze Oprah. I only wish he had said some of this in the diavlog. I still think he's using Rousseau as a bit of a convenient stick figure. Here's the money quote (that Potter should have attributed with a passage from Rousseau's Confessions):

In Oprah’s world, authenticity is nothing more than a contemporary version of Rousseau’s original idea that the true self is not so much discovered as it is invented.

Here's the part about Rousseau that earned him a place in Nietzsche's pantheon. Rousseau's Confessions is a masterpiece of selection and confirmation bias. But it's also a work of art, not an accurate account. In another graph, Potter also has a useful insight, but I'm not sure about his application.

For Rousseau, the authentic person is one who is in touch with their deepest feelings, whose emotional life is laid bare. Who am I? Rousseau knew the answer to that: Je sens mon coeur, he writes, “I feel my heart.” The key, though, is not to simply be in touch with your deepest feelings, you need to share those feelings with others.

I guess he means Oprah's media

Quoting AemJeff: I think obsessing over authenticity has it backwards. What matters is distinguishing between types of bullshit. e.g.: Stephen Colbert pretending to be a self-obsessed right-wing twit - good bullshit. Mitt Romney in jeans and plaid pretending to be a right-wing populist - bad bullshit. It's not important whether something is inauthentic, but it does matter how it's inauthentic.

Nicely put.

Quoting Freddie: I'm afraid that any anti-modernism is self-defeating. You cannot choose to be premodern; the division between a modern and something before it is preconditionally modern. If you are choosing, you're at least modern, and maybe postmodern, depending on your stance towards the way you are choosing.

You have won the coveted look award. There.

Quoting Freddie: Also: the enforcement of optimism, again and again and again. So, so tired.

You are so mysterious.

A good, solid dv that is falling-asleep-listenable. The gentlemen are well-spoken, with thought-provoking material that is valuable to listen to more than once, so as to catch ideas one misses the first few times. Not crazy about the beard...is Will rebelling against Iowa?

Yet how is this different than the essence of "cool"? It's not, in fact that 'pose' is ENTIRELY about cool and to the extent it isn't it's about toughness which is an element of cool. But their ignorance or misfire stems from their denial of the complexity of Black culture. It is as you say many things.

Quoting SeldomSeen: Yet how is this different than the essence of "cool"?

It's not, in fact that 'pose' is ENTIRELY about cool and to the extent it isn't it's about toughness which is an element of cool. But their ignorance or misfire stems from their denial of the complexity of Black culture. It is as you say many things.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

-Gwendolyn Brooks

There is a recording of the poet reciting this at the link. That's not the rhythm my sister and I used when we would recite it.