The authenticity ideal arises only once mass production standardizes everything.

Evidence

The discovery of genuineness as a last bulwark of individualistic ethics is a reflection of industrial mass-production. Only when countless standardized commodities project, for the sake of profit, the illusion of being unique, does the idea take shape, as their antithesis yet in keeping with the same criteria, that the non-reproducible is the truly genuine. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 171

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the dialectic in Adorno and Horkheimer’s culture-industry analysis: uniqueness is manufactured as the counterpart of standardization. — connects to: The self’s seeming uniqueness is a mass-produced commodity falsely posed as natural — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 117

Broader Connections

• The self’s seeming uniqueness is a mass-produced commodity falsely posed as natural #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 117