Authentically yours

From Total Energies’ claim to “have always been driven by an authentic spirit of pioneering” to Volvo’s promise of “an authentic offer”, authenticity has become a ubiquitous catchword in advertising. Understood as “rustic”, it promises consumers a pleasant feeling of escaping the claws of globalisation; as “honesty”, it preempts accusations of greenwashing. But that’s not all: authenticity has also become a crucial attribute in the workplace. As if today, the most sought after soft skill is to not care about soft skills at all… So has the time come when you can “come as you are” to the office as you would to McDonalds?

‘The democratic age […] paved the way to the legitimation and valuing of singular individuality’

—Gilles Lipovetsky, philosopher

Authenticity didn’t wait for globalisation and its big brands to have its revolution. “The ideal of conducting one’s life by only obeying oneself is inseparable from the ‘democratic revolution’ and the advent of a political and moral culture which recognises the universal principles of liberty and equality,” writes French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky in his book The Consecration of Authenticity. In the traditional disciplinary societies, individuals dissolved in the masses couldn’t consider themselves as autonomous entities. “Throughout the time when societies functioned under the control of the laws of ancestors and gods, it was the scrupulous obedience to collective prescriptions, rather than the need to be oneself in one’s subjective singularity, which imposed itself as the principle of action of beings.” The end of the great instances of authority and the advent of human rights allowed everyone to be the authors of their lives. “The democratic age ruined the principle of subordination of beings to the collective rules received from the outside [...]. In doing so, it paved the way to the legitimation and valuing of singular individuality.”

Rousseau’s rigour

If there’s one philosopher who embodies the revolution of authenticity, it’s Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For him, the social world is one of falsehood, which forces us to pretend rather than to be; and to “alter, change, deteriorate my being.” (Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques, 1782). To consider another person’s opinion is to bury our own authority: “As soon as you are obliged to see with another’s eyes you must will what he wills.” (Emile, 1762)

According to this understanding, authenticity has a sacrificial dimension. In Julie, or the New Heloise (1761) Rousseau insists on radical transparency, no matter how much social friction it might cause: “Never do or say anything which you would not want anyone to see or hear; as for me, I’ve always regarded as the most highly estimable of men that Roman who wanted his house to be built in such a way that whatever happens inside it could be seen by all.” So if you think your colleague’s accent might compromise an opportunity with a client or that another colleague’s work is subpar when they come back from sick leave following a burnout, you should tell them, and in no uncertain terms!

‘What does it matter to me if men want to see me other than as I am?’

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Paradoxically, …