The principles of Rousseau did not make their first appearance in the 1960s. One hears strong echoes of them in Emerson’s ethic of self-reliance, and in Thoreau’s quest for inner harmony through solitude. Rousseau is the guiding spirit of bohemia, and early in the twentieth century one could find bohemia on the Left Bank in Paris or in Greenwich Village in New York. But the bohemian spirit was confined to intellectual and artistic enclaves. It defined itself against the prevailing norms of society, which were mainly bourgeois and Christian. What changed in the late 1960s and 1970s is that the bohemian culture became part of the mainstream culture. It is not the only culture: One can still find, especially in the heartland, recalcitrant remnants of the old culture. Orthodox Jews, Catholics, and Protestants continue to affirm the existence of an independent moral hierarchy. But the bohemian culture now sets the tone for the society at large, and it commands a strong allegiance among the young.
Why did the ethic of authenticity win such widespread acceptance in America? Because the drive that sustained the generation of the 1930s and 1940s could no longer sustain its children. The people in the “greatest generation” worked hard to triumph over scarcity and to win the freedom to make their own life—exactly what powers immigrants to the United States today. For those who grew up during the Great Depression, the conquest of necessity was a moral imperative—to own a house, to put food on the table, to save for the children’s college education—and when they succeeded in this they felt a profound sense of achievement and satisfaction.
But their children found themselves in a different situation. They took comfort and security and opportunity for granted, and sought something more—something to give uniqueness and significance to their lives. In this quest, they often viewed the dogmatic rules, social conformity, and materialistic preoccupations of their parents as soulless and alienating. At this point they became prime candidates for conversion to Rousseau’s way of thinking. He offered them a way to find originality and moral purpose, yet in a way that did not compromise their freedom. The success of Rousseau reflects a failure on the part of the “greatest generation”: it failed to replicate itself. The children of the World War II generation emphatically and often bitterly repudiated the moral code of their parents. They rebelled by defecting to Rousseau’s camp.
Today we can see the triumph of authenticity in the enormous importance that American society grants to the “artist.” I use the term to cover not just painters but also writers, sculptors, actors, musicians, even athletes. In our time a large number of Americans aspire to be artists. I can’t tell you how many orthodontists, venture capitalists, housewives, and limousine drivers have greeted me with the sentence, “I too am writing a book.” I sometimes find this annoying: when I meet a cardiologist at a cocktail party, I don’t say, “I too am thinking about doing heart transplants.”
But I cannot blame the aspiring authors: being an artist is cool. And rich people who cannot be artists frequently try to identify with artists in some way. Tom Wolfe has pointed out that in America today it is much more fashionable to donate a million dollars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art than to give it to the Presbyterian Church. The CEO’s wife would much rather sit on the museum board than on the parish committee. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that art has replaced religion as the leading cultural institution in America.
The reason that we admire artists is that they draw upon resources within themselves to express something that is distinctively their own. Think of such American originals as Ernest Hemingway, Elvis Presley, Allen Ginsberg, Muhammad Ali, Jack Nicholson, and Oprah Winfrey. It is hard to see these people bearing a close resemblance to their parents. They seem to have sprung out of their own self-conception; they have created their own public identities. We cherish them as pure originals. Historically, of course, art was not seen as producing anything new or unique; indeed, the artist was viewed as an imitator—one who makes copies of nature. The Greeks had a story about an artist who was so skilled that when he painted grapes the birds would peck at them. But today art is not admired for its fidelity to nature but for its fidelity to “inner nature.” Contemporary art is seen as a vehicle for self-discovery and self-expression.
Our society attaches great prestige to this quest for authenticity, even when it takes strange or controversial forms. For instance, who can deny that there is something bizarre and even repulsive about people like Dennis Rodman, Howard Stern, Madonna, and Prince? At the same time, most Americans find them fascinating. There is something vibrant, creative, and distinctive about them; they live their lives in italics. Moreover, their outrageousness marks them as nonconformists who refuse to change their ways in order to satisfy social convention. Their personality says to the world, “Whether you like it or not, this is the way I am.” Americans recognize the voice of authenticity here, and this is why they are so tolerant of such extremities. Indeed, the United States gives more latitude than any other society to the claims of the loner, the dissenter, and the eccentric. In other countries these people are viewed as losers, malcontents, or crackpots. In America, however, they are seen as undaunted souls who are following their inner convictions even at the cost of social rejection.
It is practically a definition of the cultural mainstream to say that the idea of authenticity—of being “true to oneself”—is now the new morality. We see it in corporate advertising: “Just Do It.” “Think Different.” “The Greatest Risk Is Not Taking One.” Rousseau’s influence is also evident in the rise of “victimhood” and “compassion” as political principles. As Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarcov write, “It was Rousseau who taught us to think of ourselves as good and to blame our sufferings and crimes on society.”23 As for the politics of compassion, Democrats have been displaying moist eyes in public for at least three decades, but now even the Bush administration proclaims its allegiance to “compassionate conservatism.”
Authenticity is also the guiding force behind what Arthur Melzer has termed “the modern cult of sincerity.” As Melzer puts it, “I must ‘be myself’ regardless of what I might be.” This trait reveals itself in the tendency to confess one’s sins in public. From former drug addicts giving church testimonies, to reformed Nazis telling all to Montel Williams, to politicians holding press conferences to acknowledge their indiscretions, Americans are a self-revealing lot. Indeed, the worse the confession, the more eagerly it is promulgated and the more enthusiastically it is received. Melzer dryly observes, “Heroes of sincerity are to be found only among the most unfortunate or depraved.”24
Today even the traditional enemies of authenticity shape their lifestyles according to its code. Successful entrepreneurs and executives sometimes opt out of their businesses when they find the work “unfulfilling.” It is now common practice for vice presidents and sales managers of companies to go mountain climbing in the Rockies, or in Tibet, to “find themselves.” Even the bourgeoisie now concede the validity of Rousseau’s moral critique and seek to live by his precepts. And the staid U.S. Supreme Court a few years ago endorsed the ethic of authenticity when it declared that all Americans have a “right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”25
Whenever there is a battle in the popular culture between the old values and the new ethic of authenticity, authenticity usually wins. Recently I was watching one of the daytime talk shows on television. The guests on the show were a married couple, but with a difference: both partners had had sex change operations. The man had become a woman, and the woman had become a man. The premise of the show was that their sex life was better than ever! No sooner did the couple advance this thesis than an elderly lady in the audience stood up and chided them: “What you people are doing is sick, sick, sick.” And there was a spattering of applause on behalf of this normal human reaction. But interestingly this is not the point of view that prevailed. As the show went on, the guests made their appeal to the ethic of authenticity. “This lifestyle may seem b
izarre to you,” they said, “but it works for us.” “This is something that we felt we had to do, and so we went for it.” “We’re happy, so what’s your problem with it?” “Who are you to impose your morality on us?” And by the end of the show the audience was cheering this position.
Although I am an immigrant, I feel the power of the ideal of authenticity. Several years ago I invoked it in a conversation I had with my father, in which I was trying to convince him to support my decision to become a writer. His instinctive reaction was that writing was a fine hobby, but not something that a serious person should undertake as a career. He felt about writing what I feel about chess: it’s too serious to be a game, but not serious enough to be an occupation. “Get your MBA,” my dad advised, “and then maybe you can do something useful with your life.” I tried to explain that I felt called to be a writer and that I wanted a life that made me feel true to myself. “What you are saying,” my father said, “is that there is a little being that lives inside of you. Let’s call him Little Dinesh. Little Dinesh apparently has the wisdom and authority to run your life. And apparently you communicate and converse with Little Dinesh. You worry that you have lost touch with him, and you are eager to renew contact. You feel that becoming a writer will allow you to stay on intimate terms with Little Dinesh.” My point isn’t that my father disagreed with me; he didn’t know what the heck I was talking about.
The ideal of authenticity now helps to define what it means to be an American; beyond our shores many people find it incredible and incomprehensible. Even within the United States it is controversial: many cultural conservatives react to it with fear and loathing. Irving Babbit’s famous critique of Rousseau anticipates many of the charges we hear today. Babbit sees Rousseau as simply weird, exhibiting “an eccentricity so extreme as to be almost or quite indistinguishable from madness.” The ethic of authenticity, Babbit writes, undermines the Christian notions of sin and individual self-restraint. Self-fulfillment is, in Babbit’s view, another term for selfishness. Babbit alleges that Rousseau is an advocate of a new form of immorality that is all the more dangerous because it is presented in esthetically alluring garb.26 Babbit’s indictment has been echoed in recent years by cultural conservatives such as Allan Bloom, Patrick Buchanan, Bill Bennett, and Robert Bork. These men would like nothing better than to uproot the ethic of authenticity and restore the moral consensus that existed in the 1950s.
The problems with this root-and-branch repudiation of contemporary ideals can be seen by considering an example, which I offer as representative of the whole culture of authenticity. Recently I stopped into my neighborhood Starbucks, and there, behind the counter, was a specimen who probably would not have existed in earlier generations. I surveyed him with curious fascination: the Mohawk hair, the earrings, the nose ring, the studs on his forehead and tongue, the tattoos. I could just imagine Judge Bork entering the room. His immediate reaction would probably be, “Arrest that man.” Since this is not practical, another option would be to grab the young fellow and yell, “What is wrong with you, you demented freak!” From Bork’s point of view there is simply no excuse for some people.
But what good would come of this? The epithets and remonstrations of the conservative have no chance of persuading the Starbucks guy. Indeed, they are likely to have the opposite effect: “Get away from me, you fascist!” From the Starbucks guy’s perspective, the cultural conservatives are enemies of freedom. He would undoubtedly regard Judge Bork as a self-righteous mullah who is trying to tell him how to live his life. The Starbucks guy believes that he has the inalienable right to determine his own destiny, to make his own choices. Thus he regards the conservative approach as presumptuous, coercive, and un-American. And he is reluctant to listen to anything these conservatives have to say.
The Starbucks guy’s objection to the conservatives is valid on two counts. First, many conservatives do sound like they are against freedom. Bork, for example, has urged the enforcement of “public morality” through the censorship of objectionable songs, movies, TV shows, and Internet websites.27 Buchanan heartily agrees, calling state censorship “an idea whose time has come.”28 Some religious and political activists have gone further, demanding laws that enforce Christian precepts or the norms that prevailed in the 1950s. I cannot see how such strategies could possibly work. Is it realistic for a democratic society to enforce norms based on a moral order that is no longer shared by the community? How can a political strategy that defines itself against America’s core value of freedom possibly succeed? Cultural conservatives must recognize that the new morality is now entrenched and pervasive, so that there is no way to go back to the shared moral hierarchy of the past, however fondly that era may live on in their memories.
Second, the root-and-branch rejection of authenticity ignores the moral force of this ideal. Contrary to what the cultural conservatives fear, the new morality is not simply a screen for self-indulgence and immorality. If you were to sympathetically engage the Starbucks guy in conversation and ask him to account for himself, he would probably say, “I am trying to be unique.” “I want to be an individual.” “I am trying to be me.” Some may find these aspirations banal, even comical, but the goals for which the Starbucks guy is striving are legitimate ones. Even at the cost of bodily pain, he wants a distinctive identity, a life that is not simply a copy of other people’s lives. In short, he wants a life that counts.
I do not think that it is either right or prudent to attack him for this. The Starbucks guy is an idealist, and it would be wrong to trample on that idealism. Moreover, his ethic of authenticity is entrenched in his psyche; how realistic would it be to uproot it? A much better approach for conservatives is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the ideal of authenticity, but to make the case that the Starbucks guy has adopted a debased form of it. The Starbucks guy wants to be original, and this is a good thing to be, but it may be pointed out to him that he is not succeeding in this, because every fourth guy at Starbucks looks like him! Perhaps there are more meaningful ways for the Starbucks guy to convey his individuality: through art, for example, or by dedicating himself to a cause he believes in.
Instead of completely denying the value of expressive freedom, conservatives would do better to embrace it—at least in part—and to focus on educating people about the rich moral sources of freedom, and about how to use freedom well. But the conservative is not the only one who needs to change; the Starbucks guy does too. He needs to realize that his bold stance against the institutions of society—against commerce, against family, against community, against morality—is a bit of a pose. Indeed, it fails by its own standard: it is inauthentic. After all, it is our rich, commercial society that makes an establishment like Starbucks viable. It is the legal, social, and moral norms of the community that provide the guardrails protecting the Starbucks guy’s freedom and autonomy. Moreover, it is the hard work, discipline, deferred gratification, and frugality of his parents over the years that now enable the Starbucks guy to enjoy his bohemian lifestyle. True, the Starbucks guy is in a situation different from his parents’, but they are the ones who have placed him there. In short, a little gratitude and understanding should not be too much to expect from the Starbucks guy.
In addition, champions of authenticity and moral autonomy like the Starbucks guy should understand that identity is not completely self-generated and that freedom is not its own justification. Our identity and self-image emerge out of our relationships with others. Even the Starbucks guy’s studs and tattoos are an attempt to communicate something to somebody. Ultimately this expressive freedom must have some underlying purpose. Freedom becomes insignificant if it makes no difference what I choose. Thus the Starbucks guy’s mantra “I can choose for myself” raises the next and indispensable question, “What are you going to choose?” It is not enough to answer, “Whatever my inner self dictates.” Even the inner self needs a compass—it operates according to some substantive understanding of the good life. There is no cause to bel
ieve that this understanding is impervious to reason and cannot be shaped through education and discussion. The grave weakness of the ethic of authenticity is that it evades this fundamental issue and simply stresses the autonomy of choice.
Since the earliest days of Athens and Jerusalem, most of the great figures of Western civilization have regarded the question of the content of the good life as the central one. The American founders agreed with this, and they created a mechanism that allows people to pursue the good life without government interference. Since the triumph of authenticity in the 1960s and 1970s, the emphasis has been on radical freedom, largely to the exclusion of the question of what that freedom is for. The great conservative challenge is to bring this issue back to the forefront. Our freedom and autonomy are precious commodities, and conservatives better than anyone else recognize that it is a great tragedy when they are trivialized and abused. Their mission, therefore, is to steer the American ethic of authenticity to its highest manifestation and to ennoble freedom by showing it the path to virtue.
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