The Authenticity Trap

We think we’re being real but we’re just borrowing from the crowd. It's time to take The Sniff Test.

Jeans and Genes

I had to look up who Sydney Sweeney was. My newsfeed is full of outrage, either about a jeans advert or the reaction to it. American Eagle has a winner, while most of us wonder what the fuss is about.

Identity is changing. Celebrities admit to boob jobs, ChatGPT is becoming a best friend and TikTok demands your true self. The kids crave authenticity. But a crowd-sourced identity isn’t authentic.

A community is bound together by shared values. There is little room for dissent and the group becomes more fervent through time. Communities become cults, religions become radical and politicians become polarised. Where is the space for the individual?

Individualism is a damaged creed. It’s associated with greed and symbolises the haves over the have nots. The alternative is identity and there is nothing individual about it.

The demand for an authentic identity erodes individual agency, inflames polarisation and sours the social contract, especially among credentialed young people shut out of work.

Lesser Qualifications and Lower Morals

The UK Labour Force Survey revealed for the first time that 639,000 people with an honours degree or equivalent are claiming benefits. These are people whose identity is tied up in achievement and yet cannot get a job. The production line is broken and the societal glue of transitioning from study to work melts away. This is the overproduction of elites that Turchin warns heralds the collapse of societies.

Starting work is a challenge. You step from the top of the tree to the bottom of the pile. It’s humbling and at times humiliating, with the significant compensation of your first proper pay check. This is when we come of age. Academic life is sheltered, while earning a living is not.

Take this away and what is left? People who still see the view from the top of the tree. Students who studied for themselves while assuming society had something for them. Resentment builds in the idle time of unemployment.

This is the problem with identity. When we have a rigid of view of what it is to be us then we are threatened by people and events that take it away. Alexander Douglas, in his book Against Identity, warns that too strict a view of ourselves leads to violence, whether psychological, physical or economic.

Education exists to produce productive members of society. When over half of people get a degree then not all can have an above average lifestyle. The experience of higher education sours even for those in work. The only people to take it out on are those in authority.

A similar idea explains the upper middle class vote for socialists like Zohran Mamdani. His supporters took the proven path to prosperity and yet are surrounded by vulgar displays of wealth and power. The rhetoric is protection of the poor, while the motivation is missing out on riches afforded those with lesser qualifications and lower morals.

Three Parent Babies

The successful birth of babies with two mothers was announced this month. In response, The Free Press asked what makes us human? The answer gets harder once our bodies become vehicles governed by social norms.

Richard Dawkins’ 1976 Book The Selfish Gene transformed the way we see evolution. The fundamental units are genes, while organisms are the vehicles genes use to get copied. Humans are transport for genes with the sole intention of replicating.

Dawkins did not argue that we should be selfish, nor dismiss the role of development, environment and physiology in selection. Biologists today adapt his thinking into a theory of coevolution based on genes and culture.

Mitochondrial donation allows parents to provide nuclear DNA for a child, while an egg donor provides the mitochondrial DNA. While this is headlined as three parent babies, the donor DNA is around 0.1%.

Mitochondria are inherited almost entirely from your mother. They determine energy generation and metabolism in every cell. When they misfire, organs can malfunction. Mitochondrial DNA donation helps offset some serious inherited diseases.

When we see our body as a transport vehicle, it makes sense to have the best one available. For millennia this was achieved by selecting a mate, while today it can be done by selecting the characteristics of a mate. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, while others see it as an extension of nature.

At this point morality intervenes, by which I mean societal norms. These are determined by government and the law. Gene editing is illegal, other than mitochondrial donation in the UK. Embryo selection is allowed, on medical grounds in the UK and at the discretion of the clinic in the US. This allows parents using IVF to select gender.

Society is therefore deciding how much influence we have over the transport vehicles for our genes. But what else are our bodies transporting? What lies beyond our physical form?

The Source of Identity

One answer is our identity. This is both assumed and given. Examples of a given identity are my nationality, the qualifications I earn, and the social status of the work I do. I like to think that a name is not what they call you, but what you reply to, but the truth is I am defined by my past choices, achievements and failures.

Assumed identity is harder to pin down. We are told to be authentic and there is a vast well-being industry centred on finding the inner you. The phone apps and books are recurring revenue for the gurus because the search is never-ending.

Humans are social creatures defined by interactions and identities are borrowed from those we admire and aspire to be. My personal identity is a jumble of influences experienced over my life. If this is hard to accept, then try defining what is unique about you and what you believe. The reality is that by individuals we mean bodies. What we carry in our minds are the reflections of others.

The problems arise when we confuse these beliefs with individuality.

Trump as the Master and Bully

My elder daughter graduated last week. The ceremony revelled in the significance of the moment. There were repeated references to graduands, until with one final wave of the Chancellor’s arm, all became graduates.

The university champions its progressive values. It is unclear whether students arrive with these, or receive them while studying. Either way, the departing message appeared to be that the world was a dreadful place, but we should hope nonetheless.

The Chancellor is actor and one-time comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar, who most students seemed not to know. His closing address emphasised the importance of imagining yourself in another person’s shoes. Except fascists, he’d never met a nice fascist.

An ad hominin attack is one on the person rather than what they are saying. In polite society this is frowned upon, because we are supposed to be debating ideas and not dismissing people out of hand. This is difficult when identities are bound up in what we believe and influenced by our peer group. It is all too easy to label someone as not worth listening to because you know better than them.

The problem of borrowed identity is that it becomes rule-bound. If you define yourself as progressive you are supposed to believe that climate change is an existential threat, abortion is an unfettered good and you support Palestine. Conservatives prioritise other risks, are pro-life and favour Israel. These issues aren’t related but they come as a package.

Rules are rigid. When we define ourselves by shared beliefs we oppose those with the opposite view. We twist any argument by saying they would say that wouldn’t they. This is the stuff of conspiracy theories, where truth is denied because it must be a lie, because it does not agree with your truth.

As we define ourselves we label others. Trump is a master of this, choosing demeaning nicknames for opponents that stick. His strategy of personal attacks reinforces his image as an outsider.

Amateurs label groups of people. Consider white male privilege. This looks real when you meet an old Etonian working in the City, but not a jobless youth on a council estate with poor education and healthcare. Attack a group and you alienate them all. Attack a person and you isolate them. It’s bullying and continues as long as onlookers permit it.

Societies were first formed to resist those who would impose their will by force. They require the individual to submit to the collective in return for protection. If you can’t find a job, stress about undeserving others lauding it over you, and feel your identity is not respected, you rebel against society.

Acceptance of Change

Rebelliousness is a feature of coming of age. Standing on your own two feet requires you to shake off those who support you. Resentment over how hard this is to do is driving the search for an authentic identity.

When graduates cannot find a job, when remote work stymies the transition to employment and when a home of your own is a distant dream, you will question the path society prepared for you. Yet if identity is just a reflection of others, how do you break from the mould?

Alexander Douglas argues that adaptability and acceptance of change is the essence of individual identity. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Many people find this easier through acceptance of God’s Will.

Douglas argues that we should embrace the inevitability of change to escape the polarisation that rigid identity is causing in society. Maybe coming clean about cosmetic surgery is lighting the way. We need politicians who step into the other side’s shoes and pause before attacking. The challenge, as with all change, is who moves first.