File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1997/97-03-08.144, message 47


Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 15:43:20 +0200 (SST)
From: Lubna Nadvi <lnadvi-AT-pixie.udw.ac.za>
Subject: Re: paradox, rhetoric, authenticity



Hi Sebastian,

Yes, I would to some extent agree, that authenticity is paradoxical, which 
is why it intrigues me so much. I quite like the idea of authenticity 
myself, as I have certain, firm (not necessarily dogmatic), beliefs. But 
does that make me authentic because, I believe in certain things, which 
might be true (or at the very least, believable), for me and not 
for others. Is it not a subjective authenticity ? Is it not the same as 
saying there are no universal truths, hence authenticity is not a universal 
truth ? Does it matter ?

Regards 

Lubna Nadvi 
                 *******************************************

On Tue, 4 Feb 1997, Sebastian Gurciullo wrote:

> 
> I have been following the recent authenticity discussion.  I am replying to
> Lubna Nadvi discussion of hegemony and authenticity.  It seems to me that
> the idea of hegemony relies on an idea of authenticity (ie. there is a false
> consciousness determined by a particular complex of power relations and this
> is called hegemony, and then there is my illumination of this situation
> which is not any of these things), but this is not really what I want to
> talk about.  My point has to do with the paradoxes of authenticity,
> precisely the paradoxes one falls into when trying to get free of it, as if
> you could just cast authenticity (or a unified subject, or meaning or
> whatever) off like a piece of worn clothing that you did not like any more.
> If authenticity is hegemonic in some way, or even if it only harbours a less
> pernicious illusion of some sort, and if authenticity were then to be
> abandoned for these reasons, would it be because authenticity was no longer
> thought true?, or because it is incapable of authentically representing the
> actual situation of power configurations (that authenticity is hegemonic as
> a specific instance of the power/knowledge complex)?  Can authenticity be
> ditched in this way without somehow re-invoking it in the process of
> ditching it?  Is it not a further instance of self-purifying and wanting to
> be true to oneself that characterises authenticity, to then want to purify
> oneself of the last trace of that great deceiver authenticity, to then be
> true to oneself in recognising that one cannot be true to oneself, that
> being the authentic truth.
> 
> And yet for all this, despite the difficulty it gives you when trying to get
> free of it, I quite like the idea of authenticity.
> 
> Sebastian Gurciullo
> 
> 



   

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