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TODAY
In our current era, I think we are, today, transitioning from type 1 corporate mimickery of authenticity, to type 2 simulation, a more nuanced and fore-thinking approach to the falsification of the authentic. Here we see this is already somewhat true, with the rise of PR consuming all other concerns, the rise of corporate advisors and "responsible corporate citizenship", the aping of popular trends, and the crafty astroturf engineering of others. There is, at this time, a growing managerialism, an entire class of professionals, who have filled a need, creating an industry for the perception of the authentic. But the observation of for example, western companies taking up some social trends in say america or europe, while admittedly refusing it in say middle eastern countries that are much stricter, suggest the intention was never the authentic. -
The authentic doesn't author contradictory behaviors or outward appearances, because
the pragmatic is never authentic. The very taking of two approaches, two or more 'faces'
depending on the circumstances, betrays any authentic intention beyond the surface and
obvious purposes of profit, not an evil in itself, but not authentic either.
The necessity of simulation, is the internalization of outward appearances, the modeling of a trait or quality which a thing does not have, did not originate in, and was not initially formed *for*.
Therefore it resembles a fun house mirror, and the society that pursues simulation, becomes increasingly distorted, warped, and delusional, fooling even itself that its ends,
purposes or beliefs are genuine, and not motivated by some other cruder factor. -
And it is this very fun house mirror the world has just begun to enter, over the last five years, perhaps going back no further than 2001, or 2008, back to the never-ending wars, or the financial crisis.
But this is true of all sectors of life, as the pursuit of the authentic must first pass through mimickery and simulation, the costs being cheaper than true authenticity, initially the environment becomes one where the careful mimicks out-compete the simulationists. But as the quest by the public not to be fooled, and the demand for authenticity increases, more and more companies and leaders turn to simulation. And as they win out and the mimics realize mere mimickery is insufficient, they are dragged along too.And likewise as simulations benefits eventually hit diminishing returns in the face of emulationists, the emulationists emerge dominate, into the era of true authenticity. -
Now today, we are heading for a great, vast simulation. We see jokes of "living in the matrix". These are the signs of a great dying, and an eventual great rebirth into a new world. Witnessing both great absurdities, abuses, and profanities, against both the old world, and the new. The whole world seems afflicted by some madness.
We enter into a new age, the age of the simulationist, where the professional class becomes the priests, divining the spirits not merely in the public, but even in themselves, apparently seeking after purity--for a paycheck. And having never experienced the authentic, having so-little within them, they, like dying thirsty men in a desert, give piss to others like them, truly believing the worthless piss they are distributing to others is life-giving water--like so much corporate lingo "win-win", "synergy", "equity, social capital, governance", etc.
In other age, one might summarize it all, and write: As the story goes
"Thus spoke zarathustra." -
@retoor *prophet of madness intensifies*
Woo! My first Vulkan window that does buffer swapping (swapchain image presenting in vulkan lingo). It doesn't...
META-LUCK: A Pseudo-Ontology Of An Authentic Future
* * *
I think in the not-to-distant future we will abandon the idea of authenticity (messaging, corporate responsibility, ethos) in favor of other factors, such as cost. We won't abandon it and replace it with fakeness, so much as realize
that we don't, as a society favor it at all, not in the absolute sense, nor in the relative sense like in relation to things like cost.
We will either abandon authenticity entirely, or alternatively, transition to a world where authenticity is the highest valued quality, being adjacent to truth.
Heres why. Authenticity, like all social qualities, can be 1. mimicked, 2. simulated,
or 3. emulated.
In the first case, a corporation, product, leader, organization, or other, apes authenticity simply by its knowable, external features. It mimics the sounds, like a jungle bird copying a jack hammer to scare away predators or attract mates.
There is no understanding, let alone model, external or internal. The successful mimic
is little more than a lifeless, unthinking puppet.
In the second case, the attempted authentic simulates authenticity: That is, an external
model is formed, or pattern, that is predictable, and archetypal. It may have an internal
model even, a set of policies and processes for deciding the external-facing behavior.
But these policies and internal processes and models are all strictly outward facing. It is purely pathological in its goal, desiring only at minimum to achieve *externally attribute* authenticity (public opinion) rather than those internal changes that generate the true perception of the public--a perception not of surface behaviors and shrewd calculating policies and processes, but as a quality of authenticity for its own sake. This is in some sense the difference between the mundane and the atavistic, that the benefit, while not definable strictly, is assumed as a 'matter of course', culturally, within the organization or individual or company. It is to say, a *quality* of the thing, that *generates* outputs of a certain character and nature, rather than a *goal* that is attained 'after-the-fact' by behaviors generated for *other* than being authentic.
Here we reach the limitation of definitions.
Finally, we arrive at the case of number three, the emulation. We have in part already described it, but lets try and summarize a bit.
The Authentic is an *originator* of behavior and outward appearances, being an internal quality of a person or organization. It originates behavior, rather than being the goal of behavior and outward appearances.
Its benefit is assumed, though not always nameable or definable, even though this sounds naive, superseding other factors like cost and profit. As such the authentic does not emerge in a cost-focused environment, not readily, not often, and not cheaply either.
It is in some sense an experimental state of being, of goal-seeking only after-the-fact of "being true to ones origins" is established above and beyond those goals--setting and achieving only those goals which ultimately align with the origin and intent of the authentic.
rant
woo
authenticity
the future
managerialism