Episode #239 ... Authenticity and the history of the self. (Charles Taylor)

Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is Philosophize This. Patreon.com/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. And we all kinda 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 wanna 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 and the kind of things you and your car care about. Could be just you speaking your mind and making sure that what you say is a true reflection of you. Definitely don't wanna be saying stuff just 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 Byung Chol 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 whether you're a good person or not? Charles Taylor is the philosopher we're talking about today. And for whatever it's worth, he wouldn't be as pessimistic as these last couple takes I just gave. Should be said, he does think a lot of modern people misunderstand real authenticity and what it takes to get there. But But he's actually a fan of authenticity if it's done correctly. He thinks the fact we focus on it so much these days is evidence of real moral progress that's been made over the years. But he thinks it's critical for anyone living today that wants to not misunderstand it, to know why and how authenticity became the thing we value in the Western world as one of our primary virtues. And if you wanted to do that, you'd need to do what he does in his 1989 book titled Sources of the Self. You'd have to do a genealogy of the …