From Op-Ed by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster, The Gospel According to 'Me'
"here’s the rub: if one believes that there is an intimate connection
between one’s authentic self and glittering success at work, then the
experience of failure and forced unemployment is accepted as one’s own
fault. I feel shame for losing my job. I am morally culpable for the
corporation’s decision that I am excess to requirements.
To take this one step further: the failure of others is explained by
their merely partial enlightenment for which they, and they alone, are
to be held responsible. At the heart of the ethic of authenticity is a
profound selfishness and callous disregard of others. As the ever-wise
Buddha says, “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe,
deserve your love and affection.”
A naïve belief in authenticity
eventually gives way to a deep cynicism. A conviction in personal
success that must always hold failure at bay becomes a corrupt
stubbornness that insists on success at any cost. Cynicism, in this
mode, is not the expression of a critical stance toward authenticity but
is rather the runoff of this failure of belief. The self-help industry
itself runs the gamut in both directions — from “The Power of Now,” which teaches you the power of meditative self-sufficiency, to “The Rules,” which teaches a woman how to land a man by pretending to be self-sufficient. Profit rules the day, inside and out.
Nothing
seems more American than this forced choice between cynicism and naïve
belief. Or rather, as Herman Melville put it in his 1857 novel “The
Confidence Man,” it seems the choice is between being a fool (having to
believe what one says) or being a knave (saying things one does not
believe). For Melville, who was writing on the cusp of modern
capitalism, the search for authenticity is a white whale."
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