Look out, phonies and fakes: “Authentic” is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023. From celebrities searching for their “authentic selves” to the flood of fabricated content on social media to the exploding use of artificial intelligence to create equally artificial images and expressions, authenticity is increasingly scarce, which makes it increasingly valuable.
Though social media and AI may be recent innovations, this is nothing new for politics. For decades candidates have been judged by their ability to project authenticity to voters. But while authenticity is sometimes important — you really want to know whether your new Rolex was actually made by Rolex — just as often it’s a trap. The more we obsess over authenticity, the more we can lose sight of what really matters.
It’s worth asking what authenticity is actually supposed to produce.
Most of us have an instinctive reaction against politicians whose presentation seems too practiced, their words too contrived. When every syllable uttered by Mike Pence sounds like it was rehearsed a dozen times in front of a mirror, the result is off-putting whether you agree with the words or not.
But that doesn’t mean Pence is less honest than other politicians. All politicians are performers. The “authentic” performance is the one that doesn’t seem like a performance at all. In other words, it’s a convincing performance, enacted with natural ease, carried out by a skilled performer.
When your only opportunity to hear a national politician talk was when he shouted from a stage a hundred yards away, authenticity was irrelevant. Newspapers didn’t run headlines saying, “Lincoln May Be Right on Slavery, But Is He Authentic Enough?”
Today we see our politicians on all our screens, talking in intimate settings. So just as the transition from stage to screen eventually produced a more naturalistic style of acting, we demand a more naturalistic performance from politicians — less…
Read the full article here