DOI: 10.

3966/168451532013090046002
46 2013 9 37-79
SOCIETAS: A Journal for Philosophical Study of Public Affairs
No. 46, September 2013, pp. 37-79

From Authenticity to the Imagination of

Authenticity: An Alternative Point of Departure for
Societys Self-Observation
by
Yu-Cheng Liu
Residential College of International Development,
National Chengchi University
ycliu15@gmail.com

Chia-Rong Tsao
Department of Sociology, National Chengchi University
pastor.tsau@gmail.com
* 2012 11

2012 12 4 2013 6 21

38

authenticity

Charles Taylor David Harvey

Vattimo

39

2012 7

The dinner is estimated to be free of charge including authentic

Turkish desserts and beverages.
authentic
Authentic

inauthenticity

40

authenticity

authenticity
TaylorHeidegger

authenticity

authenticity inauthenticity

authenticity

41

authenticity
authenticity

1
authenticity

Vattimo
Taylorauthenticity
BenjaminUrryHarvey
Vattimo

42

Vattimo The Transparent Society

generalized communication
Vattimo, 1992

Vattimo, 1992: 14-15

Marshall McLuhan
McLuhan, 1994/1964

Manuel Castells2000 James Beniger

1998
Castells

Castells2002
193 Beniger

43

reciprocal communication
Beniger1998 12
Paul Virilio
generalized
arrivalVirilio, 1997/1995

Vattimo
Michael
Heim

erosHeim, 1993Katz
Aakhus
perpetual contactpure
communication
Katz and Aakhus, 2002

Vattimo

Vattimo, 1992: 4

44

Lyotard
Historygrand narratives
Vattimo
1992: 5
Vattimo

1992: 9

Vattimo
inconstancy
superficiality
reality

society of the spectacle

Vattimo, 1992: 59

45

Sherry Turkle
Life on the Screen: Identity
in the Age of the Internet

Turkle1998
Jean Baudrillardsimulacra
Vattimo

1992:
7
Scott Lash technological forms
of lifeflattened

Lash, 2002: 16Lash

Garfinkel Lash

knowledge

2002:
17

Vattimo
1992: 9

46

immediateim-mediate

Vattimo

demythologization

1992: 40

47

Urry

Vattimo

authenticity
moral ideal

Taylor, 1991: 22-23

inauthentic The Ethics of Authenticity

18

political individualism
Taylor, 1991: 25
18
Taylor, 1991: 26

48

ref. Huntington2008/2004
being true to
myself
Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, and that
is something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am
also defining myself. I am realizing a potentiality that is properly my
own.Taylor, 1991: 29

self-fulfillmentself-realization

2
2

authenticity

49

Taylor, 1991:
44-45identity
in dialogue with others1991: 45
1991: 48

18

self-same

50

Garfinkel

Garfinkel, 1992/1967
accounting practices
1992/1967:
8 Garfinkel reflexivity

2011 70
When we come to
understand what it is to define ourselves ...... we see that we have to take
as background some sense of what is significantTaylor, 1991: 35

1991: 35

51

differencediversity
multiculturalismTaylor, 1991: 37

significance

1991: 38-39

immediacy

aura
Baudrillard, 1983

creation
constructiondiscoveryoriginality

openness to
horizons of significancea self-definition in dialogue

52

Romantic personalism
authentic life
Crowe, 2006: 9

pulled into

pulled into
Crowe, 2006: 79-80 pull into

unity

unity

Crowe, 2006: 87

53

interruption

pull into
3
3
pulled into

Facebook

54

Das Man The One

Everyone is the one, and no one is himself. The one, with which
the question about the who of everyday Dasein answers itself, is the
nobody to whom every Dasein has indeed already surrendered itself
in being among one another.Heidegger, 1996/1927: 128/165f.
The One
not being ourselves means being enslaved
by the public world, being victims of the dictatorship of the one
Heidegger, 1996/2927: 126/164; Crowe, 2006: 97

The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological

55

Reproducibility
Benjamin, 2008
here and now
here and now
2008: 21
here and now here and
now

The authenticity of a thing is the quintessence of all that is

transmissible in it from its origin on, ranging from its physical
duration to the historical testimony relating to it.Benjamin, 2008:
22
aura

What, then, is the aura? A strange tissue of space and time: the unique
apparition of a distance, however near it may be
Benjamin, 2008: 23

Namely: the desire of the present-day

masses to get closer to things, and their equally passionate concern for
overcoming each things uniqueness by assimilating it as a reproduction
2008: 23

56

uniqueness

here and now

here and now
here and now here and now

Handler Linnekin
The origin of cultural practices is largely irrelevant to the experience
of tradition; authenticity is always defined in the present. It is not
pastness or giveness that defines something as traditional. Rather,
the latter is an arbitrary symbolic designation; a designated meaning
rather than an objective quality.Handler and Linnekin, 1984: 286

here and now here and now

here and now
here and
now

57

reframing negotiation

2012 11

John Urry The Tourist Gaze

gazeUrry, 2002

Urry
socially organized
and systematized2002: 1Urry

2002: 1Urry

Such practicesinvolve the notion of departure,

of a limited breaking with established routines and practices of

58

everyday life and allowing ones senses to engage with a set of

stimuli that contrast with the everyday and the mundane.Urry,
2002: 2
Urry
Urry
Urry,
2002: 114
5 Urry
2002: 12

MacCannel

Urry, 2002:
9MacCannel
tourist spacesstaged
authenticity
5 authenticity

59

2002:
102
Urry Quarry Bank Mill

The mill tries to make explicit what is authentic, although this is

not a straightforward exercise since what is thought to be authentic
depends upon which particular period is being considered. Also, of
course, existing authentic factories contain machines from a variety
of period. What Quarry Bank Mill ultimately shows is that there is
no simpleauthentic reconstruction of history but all that involve
accommodation and reinterpretation.Urry, 2002: 123

being true to myself

pull into
being true to myself
pull into

Urry

accommodationreinterpretation

60

Urry
Urry

2002: 145

This visual sense enables people to take possession of objects and

environments, often at a distance. It facilitates the world of the
other to be controlled from afar, combining detachment and
mastery. It is by seeking distance that a proper view is gained,
abstracted from the hustle and bustle of everyday experience.Urry,
2002: 147

Urry

Urry
romantic
gaze collective tourist gaze

convivialityUrry, 2002: 150

61

place6
Urry

Handler, 1986; Handler and Linnekin, 1984;

Handler and Saxton, 1988; MacCannel, 1973

Grunewald, 2009MacCannel Goffman

Goffman, 1959;
MacCannel, 1973

staged authenticity
social space

authenticity of experience
experience of authenticity MacCannel
authenticity of experience
6

Urry spectatorial gaze

reverential gazeanthropological gazeenvironmental gaze mediatized gaze
Urry, 2002: 150-151

62

show
Michele de la Pradelle
Carpentras Greenmarket

performance
(They) pretend that the produce is local and is being sold by the
farmers who grow it in order to give the social occasion as a whole
and, by extension, the whole town the sense of authenticity. They
collude in constructing the appearance and feeling of local character
so they can experience authenticity.Zukin, 2010: 120

63

ref. OSullivan et al.,

2004
Stearns, 1972

ref. Luhmann and

Kieserling, 2002

planned
stagedformed, constructed7

ongoing accomplishmentcontingency
Grunewald, 2009: 250
place
7 MacCannel The tourist experience that comes out of the tourist
setting is based on inauthenticity, and as such it is superficial when compared with
careful study; it is morally inferior to mere experience. A mere experience may be
mystified, but a tourist experience is always mystified, and the lie contained in the
tourist experience, moreover, presents itself as a truthful revelation, as the vehicle
that carries the onlooker behind false fronts into reality. MacCannel1973:
599

64

David Harvey
spatio-temporality

Cresswell2006/2004
94Harvey, 1996: 261

Cresswell
2006/2004 94Harvey, 1996: 293-294

ethnographyethnic
8
Cresswell Harvey
Harvey

8
ethnic ethnic

Gaytan, 2008;
Girardelli, 2004; Grunewald, 2009; Handler and Saxton, 1988; Livingstone, 1998;
MacCannel, 1973

65

Harvey

Harvey, 1996: 302

dwelling
locale of the truth of being

placeness
Cresswell heritage

66

Cresswell2006/2004 99

Urry, 2002

Harvey
Massey a global sense of
place Harvey

Massey

Massey
Massey, 1997: 113

moment
1997: 113Massey

67

1997: 114Cresswell Massey

Cresswell
2006/2004 121Massey

Zukin
Massey

Authenticity refers to the look and feel of a place as well as the

social connectedness that place inspires. ......The idea of authenticity
is important because it connects our individual yearning to root
ourselves in a singular time and place to a cosmic grasp of larger
social forces that remake our world from many small and often
invisible actions. To speak of authenticity means that we are aware
of a changing technology of power that erodes one landscape of
meaning and feeling and replaces it with another.Zukin, 2010:
220

68

If we appreciate them as authentic, we are speaking from a distance

of space and time, where we no longer participate in the routines and
rituals of their origins.Zukin, 2010: 245

Tuan Yi-Fu

Tuan, 2001/1977: 6

Vattimo

69

Vattimo generalized communication

Vattimo,
1992

Vattimo

identification

general disorientation
1992: 9

1992: 10

Vattimo

70

Vattimo

Appadurai
Appadurai
2009 270

2009 272

2009 271

Appadurai

Appadurai2009
282
Appadurai
Appadurai
virtual presence

71

2009 281

UrryHarvey Vattimo

Vattimo

72

Vattimo, 1992:
40

Vattimo

contingent

73

Appadurai, Arjun
2009

Beniger, James
1998

Castells, Manuel
2002 Pekka Himanen

183-205
Cresswell, Tim
2006/2004

Huntington, Samuel
2008/2004

Turkle, Sherry
1998

2011

36

74

39-86
2012
129 2-27

Baudrillard, Jean
1983 Simulations, trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip
Beitchman. New York: Semiotext[e].
Benjamin, Walter
2008 The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility:
Second Version, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, Rodney
Livingstone and Howard Eiland, in Michael W. Jennings,
Brigid Doherty and Thomas Y. Levin eds., The Work of Art
in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other
Writings on Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, pp. 19-55.
Castells, Manuel
2000 The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford, U.K.; Malden,
Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.
Crowe, Benjamin D.
2006 Heideggers Religious Origins: Destruction and Authenticity.
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Garfinkel, Harold
1992/1967 Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gaytan, Marie Sarita
2008 From Sombreros to Sincronizadas: Authenticity, Ethnicity, and

75

the Mexican Restaurant Industry, Journal of Contemporary

Ethnography 37(3): 314-341.
Girardelli, Davide
2004 Commodified Identities: The Myth of Italian Food in the
United States, Journal of Communication Inquiry 28(4):
307-324.
Goffman, Erving
1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor
Books.
Grunewald, Rodrigo de Azeredo
2009 The Contingency of Authenticity: Intercultural Experiences
in Indigenous Villages of Eastern and Northeastern Brazil,
Vibrant-Virtual Brazilian Anthropology 6(2): 225-253.
Handler, Richard
1986 Authenticity, Anthropology Today 2(1): 2-4.
Handler, Richard and Jocelyn Linnekin
1984 Tradition, Genuine or Spurious, Journal of American
Folklore 97(385): 273-290.
Handler, Richard and William Saxton
1988 Reflexivity, Narrative, and the Quest for Authenticity in
Living History, Cultural Anthropology 3(3): 242-260.
Harvey, David
1996 Justice, Nature & the Geography of Difference. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

76

Heidegger, Martin
1996/1927 Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit, trans.
by Joan Stambaug. Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press.
Heim, Michael
1993 The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Katz, James E. and Mark A. Aakhus
2002 Conclusion: Making Meaning of Mobiles A Theory of
Apparatgeist, in James E. Katz and Mark A. Aakhus eds.,
Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk,
Public Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 301-318.
Lash, Scott
2002 Critique of Information. London: Sage.
Livingstone, David N.
1998 Reproduction, Representation and Authenticity: A Rereading,
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series
23(1): 13-19.
Luhmann, Niklas and Andr Kieserling
2002 Die Religion der Gesellschaft. (1. Aufl. ed.) Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp.
MacCannel, Dean
1973 Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist
Settings, The American Journal of Sociology 79(3): 589-603.

77

Massey, Doreen
1997 A Global Sense of Place, in Trevor Barnes and Derek
Gregory eds., Reading Human Geography: The Poetics and
Politics of Inquiry. London: Routledge, pp. 315-323.
McLuhan, Marshall
1994/1964 U n d e r s t a n d i n g M e d i a : T h e E x t e n s i o n o f M a n .
Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: The MIT Press.
OSullivan, Patrick B., Stephen K. Hunt and Lance R. Lippert
2004 Mediated Immediacy: A Language of Affiliation in a
Technological Age, Journal of Language and Social
Psychology 23(4): 464-490.
Stearns, J. Brenton
1972 Mediated Immediacy: A Search for Some Models,
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3(4): 195-211.
Taylor, Charles
1991 The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Tuan, Yi-Fu
2001/1977 Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. (8th
ed.) Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press.
Urry, John
2002 The Tourist Gaze. (2nd ed.) London: Sage Publications.
Vattimo, Gianni
1992 The Transparent Society, trans. by David Webb. Cambridge,
UK: Polity Press.

78

Virilio, Paul
1997/1995 Open Sky, trans. by Julie Rose. London; New York:
Verso.
Zukin, Sharon
2010 Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.

SOCIETAS: A Journal for Philosophical Study of Public Affairs

No. 46, September 2013, pp. 37-79

Abstract
What is authenticity? Why do we need authenticity? How do
people know whether it is authentic or not? The questions mentioned
above are concerned with the relationships between people, people
and society, and connect closely to how people and society understand
themselves. The experience of authenticity/inauthenticity implies not
only subjective knowing but also objective formation and understanding
of it. This essay examines the concept of authenticity and its opposite,
and suggests an alternative to access it. Through the lens of Charles
Taylor, Walter Benjamin, David Harvey, we extract some shared thoughts
among their discussion of the concept of authenticity/inauthenticity.
At the last part of this article we suggest that, pace Gianni Vattimos
questioning of the transparency of modern/media society, there is no
need to find or to testify authenticity, rather there exists and requires
only the imagination of it. To a great extent influenced by technological
advancements it is not unnecessary to access authenticity, instead the
requirement of it has been broadens and deepens than ever before.
The more we need to pursue authenticity, the more we fall into the
production of inauthentic discourses. This will be another starting point in
understanding how modern society describes and observes itself.

Keywords: authenticity, inauthenticity, place, media society, acceleration,

transparent society