I found the last part so interesting especially when talking about Identity, trauma, and authenticity. It seems like there is a real resistance to our trauma being our identity. I find that resistance suspect. I think about, 'flame/fire' (I think here about 'flame' in it's original reference in the queer community -I'm inserting this idea - I don't know if that was intended), and then the reveal, a charred and bleeding body revealing "all that pain" underneath. As a person who has suffered trauma - I am constantly told, "That is not you." "You can heal." "You can rise above it." ....and the last: "It does not define you..." And That is precisely what it does do. In some cases it redefines you, in my case I was too young to have any defined sense of self and so if defines and pervades my entire sense of self (identity). Of course, there are so many things that come up: Art (as in the example of Rupaul's Drag Race), Performance in daily life (we perform our selves "authentically"), We are authentic in juxtaposition to ...the 'they'. And the stage (I started reading A Critique of Everyday Life - In the first section Part III Charlie Chaplin and others - not going to get into that here but so much pertains). Words like Real or True...
Agree with the above comment. This is also my favorite episode so far. When I was reading existential classics such as Being and Time, I was very confused with the question: “what’s so good about authenticity?”. This episode answers it for me. I also think that the debate between David and Ellie is the highlight of this episode. Both perspectives strike me as well-thought and informative.
@36:00 ish, I too find it hard to separate the work for the writer, especially when they are talking about things pertaining to how to live or our identity. Did ye ever talk more about this?
Writing this comment as I’m listening. I’m a full believer in authenticity, but sometimes I wonder if it’s really possible to be fully authentic in a world (even before social media) based on conformity at some level. From birth to death, there seems to be a need to conform to something (no matter what that something else). I’m not saying authenticity is not possible at all, but I do feel like 100% authenticity is not possible in a society where conformity is expected in some way, shape, or form.
Have yet to listen to the episode, but I wonder if you discuss Judith Butler and her concept of gender as constituted by performative acts. If not, she has an interesting adition to this conversation: for her gender espression can never be authentic, as the very notion of authenticity implies some inner truth, essential core, etc. that is being expressed, and that therefopre the expression can either be authentic or inauthentic - true or false. Gender is not expressive for Butler, but performed: our acting out of gender is gender, there is nothing more to it. The question of gender authenticity (especially the questioning of wheather queer gender is "authentic" or not) is thus an interesting one.
This is just to say that re Heideggerian authenticity, the social and the place of ethics there, while initially finding David’s argument compelling, I’m with Ellie. I don’t clearly see how Heidegger could’ve implied that the social is a hindrance of some sort to authenticity, particularly because it had been established that there is no core self to speak of. That said, how beautiful to insist that authenticity _must_ (ethically) be interested in ethics, in happiness. And yeah, Heidegger’s thought itself is not ethical. You guys are awesome.
Boundless suspicion is the last hiding place of self-styled authentic personalities even as they decry it. Question marks become a type of absolution from pretention. Through suspicion we establish distance from life. This formlessness is a fear of life. Too many philosophers warn us about a death denial when it is life they flee. The greatest ejection button of the mind has been turned into an award of humility. Is it possible to know all things? None can answer yes with a straight face. However, is it possible to know some things. The fear of LIFE, not death, postulates a negation of even partial knowledge. Without certainty there is no judgement. This is an unspoken war that academics wage. Suspicion is a tool to arrive at more perfect states of knowledge. Yet the philosopher has made truth subservient to it's refinement. It would be the irony of spending all your gold on a state of the art sifter. That is what philosophers do. Tools usurp the place of outcomes. The compass becomes direction. The shovel becomes depth. The pen becomes literature. Why? We fear true direction, true depth, and true literature. Suspicion is supposed to eliminate dross. It peals away all that is superfluous to essence. However suspicion that becomes professional kills beauty. It does not allow for truth to stand. Neither will it allow wisdom to take shape. It becomes a furnace where nothing survives but a drive toward destruction.
I found the last part so interesting especially when talking about Identity, trauma, and authenticity. It seems like there is a real resistance to our trauma being our identity. I find that resistance suspect.
I think about, 'flame/fire' (I think here about 'flame' in it's original reference in the queer community -I'm inserting this idea - I don't know if that was intended), and then the reveal, a charred and bleeding body revealing "all that pain" underneath.
As a person who has suffered trauma - I am constantly told, "That is not you." "You can heal." "You can rise above it."
....and the last: "It does not define you..." And That is precisely what it does do. In some cases it redefines you, in my case I was too young to have any defined sense of self and so if defines and pervades my entire sense of self (identity).
Of course, there are so many things that come up: Art (as in the example of Rupaul's Drag Race), Performance in daily life (we perform our selves "authentically"), We are authentic in juxtaposition to ...the 'they'. And the stage (I started reading A Critique of Everyday Life - In the first section Part III Charlie Chaplin and others - not going to get into that here but so much pertains).
Words like Real or True...
Agree with the above comment. This is also my favorite episode so far. When I was reading existential classics such as Being and Time, I was very confused with the question: “what’s so good about authenticity?”. This episode answers it for me. I also think that the debate between David and Ellie is the highlight of this episode. Both perspectives strike me as well-thought and informative.
This turned out to be my favorite episode thus far
Cult of victimhood is a phrase that comes to mind about the ru paul section. Underlying this is the connection to sincerity as a form of social power.
@36:00 ish, I too find it hard to separate the work for the writer, especially when they are talking about things pertaining to how to live or our identity. Did ye ever talk more about this?
There's some discussion of this in our Cancel Culture episode: th-cam.com/video/9GmvEMAym40/w-d-xo.html
Writing this comment as I’m listening. I’m a full believer in authenticity, but sometimes I wonder if it’s really possible to be fully authentic in a world (even before social media) based on conformity at some level. From birth to death, there seems to be a need to conform to something (no matter what that something else). I’m not saying authenticity is not possible at all, but I do feel like 100% authenticity is not possible in a society where conformity is expected in some way, shape, or form.
Have yet to listen to the episode, but I wonder if you discuss Judith Butler and her concept of gender as constituted by performative acts. If not, she has an interesting adition to this conversation: for her gender espression can never be authentic, as the very notion of authenticity implies some inner truth, essential core, etc. that is being expressed, and that therefopre the expression can either be authentic or inauthentic - true or false. Gender is not expressive for Butler, but performed: our acting out of gender is gender, there is nothing more to it. The question of gender authenticity (especially the questioning of wheather queer gender is "authentic" or not) is thus an interesting one.
www.overthinkpodcast.com/episodes/episode-13
th-cam.com/video/WOMoM1Fy9JY/w-d-xo.html
We have a podcast episode on Performativity and a TH-cam lecture on Butler :) see above
This is just to say that re Heideggerian authenticity, the social and the place of ethics there, while initially finding David’s argument compelling, I’m with Ellie. I don’t clearly see how Heidegger could’ve implied that the social is a hindrance of some sort to authenticity, particularly because it had been established that there is no core self to speak of. That said, how beautiful to insist that authenticity _must_ (ethically) be interested in ethics, in happiness. And yeah, Heidegger’s thought itself is not ethical. You guys are awesome.
Anyone knows what episode of drag race spain is mentioned here?
Am I an authentic thing? Is it possible? I believe the soul IS an eternal thing.
This is unscrupulous. Jean-Paul and Martin were sociopaths.
Boundless suspicion is the last hiding place of self-styled authentic personalities even as they decry it. Question marks become a type of absolution from pretention. Through suspicion we establish distance from life. This formlessness is a fear of life. Too many philosophers warn us about a death denial when it is life they flee. The greatest ejection button of the mind has been turned into an award of humility. Is it possible to know all things? None can answer yes with a straight face. However, is it possible to know some things. The fear of LIFE, not death, postulates a negation of even partial knowledge. Without certainty there is no judgement. This is an unspoken war that academics wage. Suspicion is a tool to arrive at more perfect states of knowledge. Yet the philosopher has made truth subservient to it's refinement. It would be the irony of spending all your gold on a state of the art sifter. That is what philosophers do. Tools usurp the place of outcomes. The compass becomes direction. The shovel becomes depth. The pen becomes literature. Why? We fear true direction, true depth, and true literature. Suspicion is supposed to eliminate dross. It peals away all that is superfluous to essence. However suspicion that becomes professional kills beauty. It does not allow for truth to stand. Neither will it allow wisdom to take shape. It becomes a furnace where nothing survives but a drive toward destruction.