Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is Philosophies This. Patreon.com slash philosophize this,

Philosophical writing on Substack. It philosophize this on there. I hope you love the show today.

So the philosopher Charles Taylor once said that authenticity is the moral ideal of the modern world.

We all kind of know what he means when he says that, because we can just look around us

and listen to what a lot of people say in the modern world. Be yourself, they say. Which means,

first of all, find out who you are, deep down inside of you, then figure out what kind of person

you want to be, and then find a way to express yourself out there in the world in an authentic

way, whatever that is.

Could be a bumper sticker on your car.

You know, really let people know who you are and the kind of things you and your car care about.

Could be just you speak in your mind and making sure that what you say is a true reflection of you.

Definitely don't want to be saying stuff just because someone else gave you the idea.

People say these things about how important it is to be authentic. And because someone else gave you the idea. People say these things

about how important it is to be authentic. And it's often seen as wisdom about life. They'll even

post these things on social media and people will like it. In fact, whether or not someone's

an authentic person is how a lot of people determine whether or not someone's a good person.

Again, authenticity becomes the moral ideal of the modern world.

But why are there so many other people out there who will say that thinking like this is just a

poorly disguised brand of narcissism that pollutes how modern people see themselves? Why do people

like Bianchial Han say that authenticity, as most experience it these days, is just a neoliberal sales pitch

designed to get you hyper-focused on yourself like you're some kind of a product that needs

to increase its market value. Is authenticity just a trap that really has nothing to do with

...