Thus, I conclude authenticity is a crock of BS — schopenhauer1

A fully "authentic" life may be near impossible for at least two reasons
1) Knowing what makes one "authentic" is difficult.
2) Implementing aspects of your authentic desires might be difficult.

He understood life's constraints- survival, boredom, discomfort. — schopenhauer1

We know, in principle, how to overcome these constraints. There's never been a better time in many ways, than the present given the levels of technology we have developed. Of course, the nature of our society withholds freedom as much as possible, and in any case people are often reluctant to embrace freedom. But as a concept, authenticity should not be so casually dismissed.... self actualization is for all, I believe.

Thus, I conclude authenticity is a crock of BS. — schopenhauer1

I agree with the gist of your opening post, but not with your conclusion, which I think goes too far. I agree that, in practice, it can be difficult - perhaps very difficult - to live up to such ideals as authenticity. The person who says that playing the role of employee is inauthentic faces the dilemma of unemployment or a largely inauthentic life. But even then, one could strive for authenticity in other respects, of which there are surely numerous, and of which you've mentioned but one. Perhaps they'd have greater success in other respects, as the obstacles to overcome might seem miniscule in comparison to those faced in your example.

But, to again take your own example, one needn't conclude that playing the role of employee is inauthentic. One could, to borrow your own wording, make their own decision to obtain employment, with the understanding that that decision is based on personal choice and not on living up to a role in society because it is ordained. One could recognise that for other employees, it might be otherwise. Others might not have given it due consideration, and are merely following the path they're expected to follow, playing their role in society without consciousness, whilst you recognise it for what it is, have gained consciousness, and ultimately play by your own rules, so to speak.

However, how can one live in any society and live an authentic life? — schopenhauer1

That depends where you set the bench mark. What counts as an authentic life? If absolutely everything you do in life must be consistent with a purely authentic life, then it's obvious that virtually no one can, in practice, live an authentic life. But that's not how virtues, goals or ideals are supposed to work, and that doesn't mean that authenticity is bullshit and should be thrown in the dustbin. It means that you need to revise your thinking. How about a life lived with as much authenticity as one can manage? There's no need to jump to extremes or to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's about getting the right balance, as is often the case with this type of concern.

As you yourself say:

The idea of not identifying as a role may be the only saving grace of the philosophy. In other words, don't take your roles so seriously- know it's an act. However, the act still must be played as this is required to have a functioning society. — schopenhauer1

There's a nice Aussie saying, which is that something is, or is not, 'fair dinkum'. Being fair dinkum is being genuine, being the real deal, something or someone being what they appear to be, and not putting on an act or pretending to be what they're not. And I would have thought 'personal authenticity' is close to that. I think, actually, there's a link between 'authentic' and 'author'.

So, no, don't agree - I think there are more and less authentic people. I would rate myself not particularly high in that regard, although I might have done worse. Trying to think of some public figures that I would categorise in terms of being authentic - always felt Dylan was that (not that I'm a big fan). The opposite is a phony - who's a real phony? Well, Donald J comes to mind straight away. But I don't want to drag the thread into politics. Of course the entertainment industry has thousands of them. But anyway, they're people who are great at pretending they are, or know, something, that they're not, or don't. World's full of them. Then there are authentic people - they might be artists, or many walks of life - but they're fair dinkum, they're authentic and true to themselves.

Probably criticizing the coherency of authenticity is a form of authenticity.

But as a concept, authenticity should not be so casually dismissed.... self actualization is for all, I believe. — Jake Tarragon

Is self-actualizing itself a form of authenticity or buying into what makes "a good person" in an individualistic modern society? That sounds like cultural ideals that have been embodied by the individual- a role if you will, of the self-actualizer.

Inauthenticity, in large part, it seems to me, comes from caring too much about what other people think of us, whereupon we internalize and behave according to values that are not really our own, or which, perhaps, we even disagree with. It is a failure of courage, self-respect, and wholeness, even a kind of weak neediness. We don't act for the sake of the good, as we see it, but rather for the sake of the approval of others. Even the fear of homelessness or being a free-loader might well be rooted in the same fear of disapproval. A truly authentic person might not care that he is seen as a loser or whatever. He isn't playing that game. Here, the practical and physical problems of survival and comfort present the real difficulties. But he might not want to be homeless or a free-loader for other reasons, perhaps seeing it as wrong to become a burden to others, for one thing. Such a person might need to work hard to become self-employed somehow, earning money in way that is in accord with his values and doesn't damage his dignity.

Maybe the world makes it impossible for someone to thrive while really attempting to live their real, examined values. Such a person, in refusing to compromise what is good, and maybe dying in the process, lives a noble life, it seems to me. Such a person is a warrior and hero in the best possible sense!

Ultimately, I think that acting with real authenticity amounts to truly acting according to your conscience, regardless of the social or even physical consequences for yourself. If you really believe it isn't right to eat animals, but you have internalized all the judgments you see in the culture around you that ridicule vegetarians, and you eat meat accordingly, you are behaving inauthentically, and you'll be unhappy in this condition. You'll be disappointed in yourself. But that's not the reason you ought to live according to your conscience. You are especially inauthentic if you have gone so far as to convince yourself that you believe and feel as they do, when you really don't.

Inauthenticity is a matter of pushing your real voice down, probably so far that you don't even know that you have one. The real you is unconscious. You live, think, believe, value, and perhaps even feel as one does, as one is expected to in your culture, in ways that your parents, your spouse, your friends, the people on TV, or whatever, would approve of. It is not that it is impossible to be authentic while also gaining the approval of others. Quite the contrary, authentic people tend to be more interesting and are often charismatic and attract admiration. It is just that the approval of others shouldn't be what determines your behavior.

This idea that there is a "real you", deep down, prior to all conditioning and approval-seeking is troublesome and possibly wrong. It seems to me that it might be the case that everything that makes you a particular individual is conditioned by an environment, be it the environment in which your ancestors evolved, or the social environment in which you develop. But I suspect that this misses something.

I tend to think that ultimately, what we are at the deepest possible level is universal, and our highest will desires the best interests of all, and is pure love. To act from the place of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is the highest and deepest authenticity. When speaking, speak the truth! When acting, do what is right! If it is ugly to you, don't engage in it! Create real value as you best see it with honest examination. It sounds trite, but make the world a better place.

All of this requires deep and constant examination of oneself and one's motivations. Some people might think that they are saying what they really believe to be true and might be mistaken about their own real beliefs. Half-unconsciously, they might be trying to look cool or something like that, or might still be trying to find the approval of someone in their life who saw things in that way, and so on. Do I really believe what I am thinking or saying, deep down?

What could be more authentic than the simple truth?

Inauthenticity can also be of a rebellious sort, where your actions are still a function of the opinions of others, even if it is an inverse function. An anti-conformist is just as inauthentic as a conformist. Your actions should be completely independent of the opinions of others and guided by something else, perhaps the dictates of reason or higher love.

As Socrates urged, don't worry yourself about what others might think or do to you. Just concern yourself with doing what is good as you best understand it. If it gets you killed, so be it. Few things involve more authenticity than acting courageously for the sake of the highest and most beautiful things in the face of threats to your life. These things, however, must not be those things that others have pressured you to value, but those things that you truly value, that lift your heart, the sorts of things that inspire you and give you some hope for humanity and the world when you see others do them, the things that make you suspect that there might be some good in this world after all.

In other words, as Gandhi said, "be the change that you wish to see in the world."

Really, it is just another way of talking about strength of character or integrity.

But perhaps all you really want is beer and pizza, or to rape and murder small children. If you examine it deeply though, what doing nothing but eating pizza and drinking beer, or raping and murdering children, really amounts to, is this what you really want for your life and the world? Does this lift your heart? Is this what you want your existence to mean? Aren't you going to be disappointed with yourself? Listen to that deep inner voice! Act to gain its approval! But take care to be sure that this isn't just a voice you've internalized from others! Search for your real voice!

Even searching for your authenticity is to practice authenticity.

Most of all, don't lie to yourself!

What I am talking about is not being brutally honest in a way that hurts others either. Part of acting authentically, I think you'll find, involves consideration of the well-being of others. Do I really think and feel that it would be a good thing to indulge myself and say this hurtful thing? You can withhold your views while remaining authentic when it wouldn't do any good to spout them. You just need to hold on to what is true and good and not be swayed by social pressure. Keep your own voice alive, at the very least, inside your own heart and mind. Share it when the situation calls for it and it would be of general benefit, serving the good and the true and the beautiful. Telling someone you think is ugly that they are ugly is definitely not what I am talking about. That involves a very crass idea of what it means to be devoted to truth and authenticity. It may be true, but doesn't saying it conflict with the higher demands of your conscience? Is it true that I think I ought to tell this person that I find them ugly? There are different levels in such an act. There is truth on some superficial level. But at a deeper level, to say that thing is also to act according to the belief that you ought to do this action. Behind that statement is another statement: "I believe that I ought to tell this person that they are ugly." Do you really believe that you ought to, or are you lying to yourself because you want to indulge some appetite for cruelty and power over others?

But if there is something you believe is true that you also truly believe that you ought to declare as true, then say it!

Deeply authentic acts are those that you'll never regret, that'll never bring a pang of conscience. Instead, they'll make your heart sing. And you'll be forever glad that you found the courage to do these things.

Ultimately, you are the judge of yourself. Nobody else can die in your place for you. Those people whose approval you act for will never take your burden of moral responsibility upon themselves. Act according to your real, examined values and you will find your own deep self-approval.

Few of us, if any, have the courage or strength of character to do this all the time. It is an ideal that we should aim for, however.

The trouble is discovering what it is that you truly value. This requires some honest and courageous examination.

I think all of this has something to do with why Socrates said that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Consider it. If you act all your life according to values that you don't really believe in, or according to no values at all, or actually against your values, of what value is your life to you, or to anyone else for that matter? And a little examination goes a long way. It is easy to see how empty the values of your culture often are. If you live according to them, you'll only find that same emptiness.

Authenticity is a crock.
We live too many narratives to get them all in tune.
Perhaps Socrates did,
that's the way Plato tells it.
Noble lie

think, actually, there's a link between 'authentic' and 'author'. — Wayfarer

Let's get Pedantic, yeah yeah yeah

Authentic:
late Middle English: via Old French from late Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos ‘principal, genuine.’
Author:
Middle English (in the sense ‘a person who invents or causes something’): from Old French autor, from Latin auctor, from augere ‘increase, originate, promote.’ The spelling with th arose in the 15th century, and perhaps became established under the influence of authentic.

I would rate Donald Trump as authentic: an authentic ambitious deceptive egotist, and thoroughly contemptible, but the genuine article.

I was going to say I wasn't being pedantic, but that would've been pedantic....

Trump is a real phoney, I'll give him that. You could hardly pick someone phonier.

Noble lie — Cavacava

If what you say is true, I have no reason to believe you.....

Thus, I conclude authenticity is a crock of BS. — schopenhauer1

BS is piled up, composted and hauled away, but never in crocks. As containers go, a crock is too small, too heavy, and too fragile to be a good container for BS. One wants a truck or a manure spreader for a load of BS.

I consider authenticity to be "congruence between what I wish to be and what I am actually being". In employment, I have, in several jobs, found both authenticity, and inauthenticity. Contriving and conducting an environmental AIDS prevention program was entirely authentic work. Everything I considered important and all my skills came together in that job. I was authentic when I was conducting an open ended discussion group for gay men that ran for about 75 weeks. I worked in a media library for 7 years, developing media for instruction and assisting students. That was authentic work, too. Most of the clerical jobs, and three of the professional jobs felt inauthentic because "what I was being was incongruent with what I wished to be.

I have felt both authentic and extremely inauthentic in religious activity -- at different times and places. Some clothes (boots, blue jeans, sweatshirt or shirt and leather vest) seemed authentic to me. Other items like a tuxedo (I have never worn) seemed extremely inauthentic to me. Trench coats, traditional mens' hats, suits, umbrellas, and penny loafers have likewise seemed inauthentic. Not bad, just not "me".

Authenticity is individually judged and achieved -- groups don't get to be "authentic". There is no inherently inauthentic lifestyle. The suburban family engaged in all the traditionally disparaged suburban activities and clichés may be as authentic any any family anywhere. People who live a hard scrabble life, who have a lot of problems in their lives, who "sing the blues" may be no more authentic than Donald Trump.

No one can casually or remotely identify authenticity and inauthenticity. What may look like a fake from my perspective may be 100% genuine and authentic for the person being judged.

Trump is a real phoney, I'll give him that. You could hardly pick someone phonier. — Wayfarer

Can't someone be authentically bad? Even if it is risky judging somebody else's authenticity, I suspect at least that Donald Trump is congruent -- he is being what he wants to be and what he is. That's unfortunate for the United States and the world, but that's why he's such bad news. He's not going to wake up one day and see the light. He has seen the limelight, and he likes it. He proposes a sweeping tax "reform" package, and it turns out he'll be a winner. Is this Fake? No. It's bad, but it's not fake. He never said he would suffer a tax increase so that others may pay less. (We don't know exactly how much tax he pays, because he, unlike his disreputable predecessors in office, has not released a complete financial statement.)

Being authentic doesn't mean someone will be benevolent, beneficial, and benign. It may mean that someone is more like well adjusted, happy and hell on wheels--a fully congruent son of a bitch.

Of course, when me and thee are authentic, it is like a sunrise over the Garden of Eden.

Thus, I conclude authenticity is a crock of BS. Authenticity is simply self-interest in the bounded constraints of life. In other words, it is simply living life. The idea of not identifying as a role may be the only saving grace of the philosophy. In other words, don't take your roles so seriously- know it's an act. However, the act still must be played as this is required to have a functioning society. — schopenhauer1

This is from ''Self-Reliance" - Emerson, one of my three, along with the Tao Te Ching and the American Declaration of Independence, favorite written works:

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

My favorite quote from "Self-Reliance" or from anywhere - "God will not have his will made manifest by cowards."

I was going to say I wasn't being pedantic, but that would've been pedantic.... — Wayfarer

Pedantry comes naturally to me. I am an authentic pedant.

Fair dinkum ;-) ?

great quote!