The Scam of Authenticity
Consumers, voters and employees all want “something real.” But what does that mean — and is it even desirable?
The genuine article?
Photographer: Michael Latz/DDP/AFP/Getty ImagesAuthenticity has become a must-have quality in the business world, up there with diversity and sustainability. Advertisers feature “real people” rather than models. Gourmands forsake Taco Bell for taco trucks. Ambitious corporate types attend courses on how to be an authentic leader. As for us worker bees, we are constantly being urged to bring our authentic selves to work, as if work is a primal-scream therapy session rather than an exchange of cash for labor.
In her thought-provoking and beautifully written new book “Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture” Alice Sherwood, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Policy Institute at King’s College London, argues that authenticity is so fashionable precisely because its opposite, inauthenticity, is so ubiquitous. We live in a world of fakes and frauds, knock-offs and con tricks. About 10% of us have handled counterfeit goods — there are more counterfeits on the market than the genuine article — and about the same proportion of us fall victim to a fraud, scam or con every year.