Authenticity is a socially constructed ideal defined only against what it is not.

Evidence

In Carl Elliott’s Better Than Well, he discusses “the notion of authenticity as a moral ideal: the idea that we each have a way of living that is uniquely our own, and that we are each called to live in our own way rather than that of someone else.” But “authenticity” is a social construct that is always defined against something else; it is a slippery concept that is impossible to pin down. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 651

Categorization

• DEFINE: Blue-ribbon definition of authenticity as a moral ideal and as an undefinable social construct.
• XREF: Connects to Lionel Trilling’s Sincerity and Authenticity and to Marwick’s broader thesis that authentic-self discourse is produced selfhood in Status Update. — connects to: Authenticity is only definable against the inauthenticity it struggles against, not as a state — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 545; Genuine experience resists definition and is only negatively describable against routine emptiness. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 776; Authenticity’s ambiguity is functional because it serves many objectives — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 288 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Identity is constituted through exclusion of what it is not #corroborates (0.85)
• Identity is defined oppositionally, against those one is not. #corroborates (0.85)
• Modern identity is constituted through the exclusion of its own opposite #qualifies (0.80)
• Individual identity forms dialogically through a constitutive outside, not autonomously. #corroborates (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 363
• Identity is constructed through opposition to a continuously reinterpreted other #corroborates (0.75)
• Identity construction is an exercise of power through exclusion #expands (0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 371