The single authentic self is a social construction at odds with real social practice.

Evidence

Idealizing openness implies that there should be no difference in self-presentation regardless of circumstance. Under this particular definition of authenticity, an honest and forthright person will be who they “really are” consistently, regardless of who is listening. But this view does not reflect the realities of how people differ in the ways they use gesture, language, and tone to manage impressions face-to-face. The idea of a single, “authentic” self, although it carries a great deal of currency in contemporary American culture, is a social construction, one at odds with actual social practice. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 617

Categorization

• DEFINE: Provides the critical counter-definition: authenticity as context-sensitive self-presentation, versus the flattened publicity version.
• XREF: Echoes Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical model of self-presentation across contexts. — connects to: Authenticity is a socially constructed ideal defined only against what it is not. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 651; Individual identity forms dialogically through a constitutive outside, not autonomously. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 363; The social self splits into individual, relational, and collective forms, not one continuum — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1613 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Authenticity is a socially constructed ideal defined only against what it is not. #corroborates (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 651
• Humans are constituted by their social relations rather than an intrinsic essence #corroborates (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2517
• Individual identity forms dialogically through a constitutive outside, not autonomously. #corroborates (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 363
• Social identity is constituted by one’s free manner of adopting it. #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1238
• Clique-dominated society demands self-representation as a type rather than as an individual. #corroborates (0.75)
• The social self splits into individual, relational, and collective forms, not one continuum #expands (0.72) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1613
• Identity is both a source of agency and increasingly constructed rather than given #expands (0.72)
• Everyone is composed of multiple social identities that position them differently #corroborates (0.72)
• Social structure and individual agency are mutually constitutive, not opposed #complicates (0.72)
• The self divides into personal, relational, and collective layers #expands (0.70) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 909
• The self’s seeming uniqueness is a mass-produced commodity falsely posed as natural #complicates (0.70) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 117