๐๐๐ท๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ฒ๐ผ๐ถ ๐ช๐ท๐ญ ๐๐ธ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ถ๐ธ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ป๐ท๐ฒ๐ฝ๐
๐ซ๐. ๐ค ๐ฆ๐พ๐๐๐ธ๐ฝ, ๐ต๐๐๐๐๐ฝ๐พ๐, ๐ถ๐๐น ๐ฏ๐ฝ๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐พ๐๐พ๐ธ๐ ๐๐ป ๐๐๐๐ฝ๐๐๐๐พ๐ธ๐พ๐๐
Despite their adherence to integrity and authenticity, in Bewesโ terms, figures like Berubรฉ and Wong are no less products of postmodern cynicism than are DโSouza or Trump.ย โCultural obsessionโ with sincerity is a product of โcollective social anxiety around authenticityโ (Bewes 50); the โfetishization of authenticityโ is a direct byproduct of late-20th century subjective fragmentation (50). McDonaldโsโ corporate decision to drop โHave a nice dayโ in โfavour of grater staff โspontaneity,โโ and The Enlightened Tobacco Companyโs โDeathโ brand cigarettes, to Bewes, are equally โbanal instances of a retrospective idealismโ (51).ย They are blunt, unsophisticated โattempts to expunge the signifier from the semantic equationโ and disavowels โof the contingencies of representationโ (51).ย The ham-fisted appeal to spontaneous sincerity on the part of McDonaldโs as well as the Enlightened Tobacco Companyโs โcamp, ironic parodyโ are appeals to a โcheap literalityโ that lend commodities โan air of transparency, of neutralityโ (50-51).
To strive for immediacy (in communication) is to express skepticism toward semiosis:ย it is an attempt to eliminate the boundaries between interior and exterior, private and public, thought and speech, intent and expression.ย The interrogation of sincerity, authenticity, and integrity is also the interrogation of representation as such.ย Desire for immediacy overturns faith in mediation โ this is born of a fragmented, relativistic atmosphere, which Thorstein Botz-Bornstein calls deculturation.ย Deculturation takes place โwhen a particular group is deprived of one or more aspects of its cultureโ (Botz-Bornstein 2).ย Accelerated and spread globally by neoliberalism, modernization, a technologically powerful, but culturally weak force, worked to delegitimize inherited forms of mediation and representation.ย ย Botz-Bornstein points to the rise of fundamentalist religion, which sidesteps ordained ecclesiastical representatives in favor of โpure truths unmediated and unfiltered by cultural componentsโ and treats โreligion as a self-sufficient takeaway cult,โ as a โflagrantโ consequence of deculturation.ย The cultural obsession with sincerity is a response to postmodern deculturation that attempts to do away with systems of representation that are no longer to be trusted.ย
In its cruder forms, the pursuit of immediacy takes the form of kitsch, which Botz-Bornstein ties directly to deculturation.ย Kitsch relies on โexaggerated sentimentality, banality, superficiality, and tritenessโ (43); it is marked as โa tasteless copy of an existing styleโ or โthe systematic display of bad taste or artistic deficiencyโ (43).ย Cynical kitsch does away with questions of eloquence, artistic virtuosity, and stylistic distinction; it instead embraces the bland, the trite, and the mundane as means to pare away the trappings of representation in favor of direct, authentic communication.ย
Borrowing a term from Harry Frankfurt, Botz-Bornstein likens kitsch to bullshit, which he defines as โan alternative aesthetic truthโ (quoted in Botz-Bornstein 44) โ bullshit is not a โnon-truth (a lie) but a new truth aspiring to coexist with other truthsโ (44).ย The postmodern condition that Bewes tracks is fertile ground for both kitsch and bullshit, which โthrive in situations of deculturationโ (44).ย Both McDonaldโs effort to do away with the stilted formality greetings and farewells dictated by corporate policy and the winking frankness of The Enlightened Tobacco Company managing director CEOโs comment that โDeath Trap customers will be buying a full, honest pack of cigarettes, not a pack of liesโ are kitsch bullshit pandering to the Cult of Authenticity.ย For all of their pretense to candor, they are still distortions that create โalternative realitiesโ masked by โeasiness, nonchalance, innocence, and โ sometimes naiveteโ (45).ย A McDonaldโs employee remains compelled to speak to customers in a way that is accommodating and professional, regardless of the slack they may receive for โspontaneity;โ The Enlightened Tobacco Companyโs ad-copy remains a manipulative sales tactic, regardless of its putative probity.ย Brute appeals to authenticity, especially in the hands of corporate advertisers, cynically capitalize on anxieties surrounding deculturation, metaphysical uncertainty, and semiosis.
The cynical Cult of Authenticity, according to Bewes, is also marked by a strong strain of depoliticization โ a depoliticization that, on its face, claims to cleanse civic discourse of disingenuous bullshit.ย Citing Tony Blairโs reorientation of the British Labour Party in the 1990โs (specifically, his 1994 conference speech), which he sees largely as an attempt to launder political rhetoric from civic discourse, Bewes finds three main tendencies that attempt to restore the language of integrity to the party:ย (1) Blair argues that Labour represents โall British people, โacross the nation, across class, across political boundariesโ (69); (2) he favors โvaluesโ over โpoliciesโ (72); and (3) he appeals plain spoken sincerity (โLet us say what we mean and mean what we sayโ [quoted in Bewes 75]).ย Less important than the partyโs reconfiguration itself is โthe degree to which and the reasons why the assurance of sincerity has become such dominant theme in contemporary political discourseโ (74).ย Bewes chalks this up to current cultural anxieties, specifically, those surrounding sincerity, as well as a โperceived political cynicism of the electorate at largeโ (74).ย
Following the release of Virginia country singer Oliver Anthonyโs viral performance of โRich Men North of Richmond,โ conservative political commentator Matt Walsh simultaneously gave voice to the cultural obsession with sincerity as well as the political cynicism indicative of postmodernity.ย Praising Anthonyโs performance, Walsh tweeted, โThe main reason this song resonates with so many people isnโt political.ย Itโs because the song is raw and authentic.ย We are suffocated by artificiality.ย Everything around us is fake.ย A guy in the woods pouring his heart over his guitar is realโ (Walsh).ย He continues, โMost music is essentially computer generated.ย Movies are CGI.ย The news is fake.ย Most of what you see on social media is fake.ย AI, photshop, deepfakes, etc.ย We crave authenticity because we donโt have nearly enough of itโ (Walsh).ย David Harris, of the Christian Ministry organization TruthScript, also praises Anthony for his authenticity: he contrasts him to hick-lib country performers such as Tyler Childers, whose โethics are a form of leftist colonizationโ (Harris).ย Childers, who is โfrom, but no longer of, Appalachiaโ in โterms of values and a basic moral visionโ (Harris), has compromised his authenticity, and, such a compromise, according to Harris is to โgain socially, gain financially, and gain opportunitiesโ by making rural conservatives โfeel surrounded, discouraged, and despondentโ (Harris).ย New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff responded to the song with a similarly, cynical depoliticization, rebuking liberals for โ[dumping] on a blue-collar guy who highlights โfolks in the street, ainโt got nothinโ to eatโ (Kristoff).ย Despite Anthonyโs condemnation of the use of tax programs to pay for junk food, Kristoff goes on to write that โSome of his lines arenโt so different from elements in F.D.Rโs speech about โthe forgotten man or in Robert Kennedyโs elegy for โthe shattered dreams of othersโ (Kristoff).ย
Walsh, Harris, and Kristoffโs responses to Anthony are cynical responses in line with the depoliticized pursuit of authenticity present in Tony Blairโs program.ย Kristoff leans directly into the same โinclusivist fantasyโ as Tony Blair in his attempt to round off the harder political edges of the song to find abstract values in line with the politics of FDR or RFK.ย (Bewes 76).ย It is an aspirational universalism that denies representation of โthe interests of one section of society more than anotherโ (69).ย Kristoff tries to look through the songโs overt politics (and blindly ignores its conspiratorial elements) to underline its blurry, generalized values.ย However, in doing so, Kristoff extrapolates the songโs message to so general a level that it evaporates into banal platitudes (respect workers, show some empathy, etc).ย It is the direct inverse of the Kelvinistic pragmatism practiced by figures like DโSouza and Trump, which runs aground on the depoliticized civic niceties; his diplomatic, even handed pragmatism has a โlevelling and neutralizingโ effect that favors mealy mouthed, kitsch bullshit over concrete political conviction.
Walshโs blanket condemnation of contemporary media is a turn away from โthe alienated, representative, mediated world of the public sphereโ (Bewes 77).ย He brackets the songโs politics and attributes Anthonyโs success to his raw authenticity.ย However, the polarized response to the song broke largely along ideological lines:ย it was met with praise from conservatives and praise from liberals (and bemused confusion from the left).ย Anthony faced backlash after an interview in which he described America as โthe melting pot of the world,โ with one Twitter user suggesting that โcompanies are testing the waters to see if they can create fake republican singers to make more money off the republican demographicโ (@LomzLomz).ย To attribute Anthonyโs resonance wholly to a vague sense of integrity, especially when its resonance (or lack thereof) had such clearly defined political contours, is a cynical appeal to the Cult of Authenticity.ย
Harris, who, despite his openly polemical position, proves to be the most depoliticized cynic of the three commentators. He contrasts contemporary hick-lib performers to liberal or left-leaning classic country singers.ย Unlike the instrumental, political element of hick-lib figures, whose work eschews โthe language of interpersonal relationsโ for โthe crueller, radically insensitive language of realpolitikโ (Bewes 68), for Harris, an โauthenticโ representative of like John Denver, despite his liberalism, embodies values. Denverโs advocacy wildlife preservation remains authentic because it was tied to โmaintaining the distinct ways of life that the regionsโ people had been living for decades or even centuriesโ (Harris). Harris simply extricates inconvenient radicals like Woody Guthrie and Steve Earle as inauthentic โsingers and songwriters with distinctly left-wing appeal who often had much more commitment to communist and socialist dogmas than to their small hometownsโ (Harris). Though Harris encourages up and coming singers to โsing about the old, sing about the new.ย Write about struggle, joy, heartbreak, and victoryโ (Harris), to be authentic, this must be done using a strictly โdepoliticized vocabularyโ that conceals โthe power-politicalโ nature of all social relationshipsโ (Bewes 68). Harris implicitly equates left-of-center ideology with politics, and right-of-center ideology with values: to lean left is to lean toward transactional instrumentality; to lean right is to lean toward home-grown virtue.
Explicit political expression, such as protests against the war in Iraq from moderate liberals like Linda Ronstadt or The Dixie Chicks becomes an opportunistic expression of power politics. In contrast, Toby Keithโs โCourtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,โ in such a framework, becomes an expression of โThe American Wayโ as an authentic value: Keith, who also did not support the war, exchanges the discourse of politics for the discourse of values: โI donโt apologize for being patriotic [โฆ] if there is something socially incorrect about being patriotic and supporting your troops, then they can kiss my ass on that [โฆ] and that has nothing to do with politics. Politics is whatโs killing America.โ The appeal to value over politics, whether from a politician, such as Blair, from a performer, such as Keith, or from a commentator, such as Harris, is a cynical refusal to engage with the world as it is because they so prioritizes the way things should be that they disengage entirely with the way things are.
The Cult of Authenticity, as a political project, is a skeptical melancholy that seeks to โeradicate the boundaries which seem to inscribe privilege and differentiation as social ineluctablesโ and replace โdifferent spheres of life with one all-encompassing and democratic realm: societyโ (Bewes 102). Oneโs motives must remain pure; it is better not to act than to risk contaminating oneโs integrity by engaging with the world as it is. The upshot here, is a paralytic combination of tristitia (sorrow) and desidia (idleness) masked in the garb of hope and high expectations. The medieval Christian theologian John Cassian describes a similar condition in monks plagued by the โnoonday demonโ of acedia (sloth), that led to โa disdain for the brothers who live with him, who now seem to h im carless and vulgar,โ made him โinert before every activity that unfolds within the walls of his cell,โ led him to โ[plunge] into exageratted praise of distant and absent monsteries,โ and ultimately left him in an inert, โsenseless confusionโ (quoted in Agamben, 3-4). Giorgio Agamben explains that such a condition stems not from โthe awareness of an evil, but on the contrary, the contemplation of the greatest goodsโ (Agamben 6). Adherents to The Cult of Authenticity withdraw from the world, from action, and from politics when faced with โa goal that reveals itself in the act by which it is precluded and that is there for so much the more obsessive to the degree that it becomes unattainableโ (6). Possessed by Cassianโs noonday demon, postmodern politics aims โto put a hold on the hazardous exercise of political rationality in the quest for metaphysical stabilityโ (Bewes 8). The cynical search for authenticity is a tool of deferral that allows the noonday demon to defer โhazardous exerciseโ indefinitely.