‘AUTHENTIC’ !

 

 

 

 

 

IF THERE is any one word that can become a negative signature of today’s world or society or life, that is ‘authentic’ -- as per Merriam-Webster’s (Dictionary) ‘word of the year’ 2023. Because that word became a suffix for multiple new and even old words, ‘authentic’ became the most looked-for word -- which the celebrated dictionary has accepted as a symbolism of the fakeness that seems to have descended upon the human community of today. For, when the world is invaded -- slyly or openly -- with so many new things of suspect nature, the word ‘authentic’ becomes an integral part of the inquiry into their integrity. That is how the importance of ‘authentic’ comes across -- almost as a cultural expression symbolising the current context. Is that not a terrible issue to consider -- that so much fakeness gets dished out to us through technology, through political promises, through interpretations of cultural issues and aspects, through different foods that emerge from factories in packaged form, through songs and dance and theatre and cinema, through even science and technology ...!

 

In view of this ugly reality, does not our inquiry begin with the word ‘authentic’ -- ‘Is this authentic’?, so to say! Of course, the world knew this word for long, and had been using it in different manners for very long. Yet, in the changing climes, chimes and times of the current world, the word ‘authentic’ rose to tremendous prominence in our thinking, as if it is the gift of changing -- or changed -- times to us. Of course, this was not a happenstance, so to say. For, was it not for many among us -- the human community -- who first started compromising with their cultural values and moral ethos that the question about authenticity, in the sense of credibility, first started prancing menacingly in our heads and hearts? So, the word ‘authentic’ got ingrained in our thought-process, though through the back-door, if we may say so. True, in the olden times, the case was altogether different. Then, credibility was one’s own property to look after, to conserve, to preserve. So, our own word was the signature of credibility -- ‘because I say so, because I certify this’ ... and the world did not have any reason to doubt that personalised guarantee. But when the humans started entering compromises with their own esteem as well as the larger system, the question came up if whatever the humans handled had the guarantee of being authentic or not.

 

In the past four-five decades, this question of integrity, credibility, authenticity has assumed a front-line seat in our questioning minds (in the most natural manner). This is an all-pervasive issue, of course, covering almost every human activity -- from the personal to the professional, from the individual to the societal, from the spiritual to the material ...! Despite the so-called human progress in every field, what has remained mired in doubt is credibility of human action and its output is authenticity. That is where ‘authentic’ entered the discourse everywhere -- so much so that even advertisers promote their products with the tag of ‘authentic’. That such a tag is required is good enough to show how important has the pervasive doubt become. In other words, the word ‘authentic’ denotes the mutual mistrust the humans have come to harbour about one another in almost every situation. Surprisingly, nobody seems concerned about this negativism that has come to affect the global conversation. It shows how every human interaction for any purpose has been mired in doubt about the other person’s integrity. To those who bask in play of words, this may be ‘nothing much’. For social scientists, this should be a point of worry.