Authenic or Inauthentic: Choose One

We all know some people we call authentic.  These are friends that we regard as genuine, trustworthy, reliable, worthy of belief, honest and factual.  These persons  “know who they are,” we say, and are not influenced by what others would like them to do or be.

On the other hand, we all know people who are inauthentic. These people are not trustworthy; in fact, they try to deceives us with “fake news” that makes them look good and those who disagree with them look bad.  We often call such people egotistical.

My American Heritage Dictionary tells me that if you are egotistical you are “concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others.”  We all know people like that.  Sometimes they go into politics.

But here is my point.  We are all capable of being both authentic and inauthentic, even though we do seem to pay more attention to the later since they make better “copy” or “visuals.” 

We see authenticity whenever there is a tornado, flood, hurricane, or other natural (or unnatural) disaster.  People of all (or no) political persuasion, and of all, races, creeds, colors or sexual orientations hurry to help their suffering neighbors.  It happens frequently enough that television reporters have to give it some attention before they turn back anxiously to the latest “unprecedented” political scandal.

            And since humans behave both authentically and inauthentically, it is clear that we do have a choice, despite the fact that Flip Wilson, a favorite comic of the 1970s, liked to say about bad behavior that “the devil made me do it.”  My faith puts the blame on humans, not on God or the Devil.

            Our civic life in recent years, however, has been exploding with inauthentic behavior. We have had a President of the United States who has convinced millions of his followers to believe and repeat things that are simply not true—about voting totals, COVID-19, racial behavior, climate change, and  his own behavior.

            Perhaps more disturbing, owners of social and regular media sites have, until very recently, allowed this president to lie without major consequence.  Many media outlets and channels have not adequately responded to Donald Trumps support of white supremacists and his hostility to  “others,” whether they be African-Americans, desperate immigrants from central America, or Muslims.

            But, as politicians like to say today, there  is “enough blame to go around.”  With the exception of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, there has been no sustained national effort by leading Democrats to address Republican voter suppression efforts.  Former President Obama said he was going to work on this when he left office, but we have heard little about this from him for the past four years.

            If it is true that we can choose between authentic and inauthentic (some of my conservative religious friends might prefer words like righteous and sinful),  why don’t we make the better choice more often? 

            I don’t know the answer, but I do know that people whom I would call authentic seem to be in a clear minority. This may be due to the fact that authenticity goes deep in a person’s character, beyond our head and our heart, our thoughts and emotions.

            We cannot be authentic if we listen only to the voice of our “false self,” that part of our ego that is responsible for our selfishness and that draws us away from caring and compassion, and even truth itself. 

            To the extent that we ignore that false self, we are able to embrace honesty, self-acceptance, love of neighbor and even “enemies.” 

            Major religions all espouse a version of the “Golden Rule,” do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” That realistic Chinese sage Confucius reversed it, saying that we should not do to others what we didn’t want them to do to us.”

            It must be hard to do this, or we would not be in the state we are in in America and the world today. Yet, as we turn the political page in Washington this month, we are given one more chance to choose knowledge over ignorance, wisdom over folly, common good over conspiracy, and maybe even  love over hate.