Authenticity
The world we live in is a world that has given up hope. The general mood has become constantly darker over time these past few years. Strong values such as friendship, family, and duty have all lost their meanings in today’s society where individuality has taken over mutual help and concern for the others. There is no such thing as home anymore. Families have been disintegrated as conflicts between newer and older generations break out, threatening the very foundations that our societies are based on.
Those were the first dull observations that came to my mind while living the unprecedented global crisis. However I was astonished to read these exact same thoughts in a century-old book which was offered to me by an eighty-year-old man. The main character in this book formulates similar observations. The fact that in both our times people felt the same way, embracing despair might be a sign that there is no such thing as decadence and decline of civilizations.
Most societies need a model based on the mythology of a lost utopia. The utopia provides an ideal that we need to achieve, it is necessary for everyone living in this very society to agree on the same rules. Nevertheless, a negative effect of such ideal is that people constantly live in a state of regret and no longer yearn for the initial objective that seems out of reach. Even though, nowadays’s Cassandras keep on claiming life was better before, there are several objective facts that prove otherwise. For example people live linger now, less people starve to death throughout the world, physical labour is reduced compared to the first industrial revolutions.
One counter argument against this optimistic point of view is that all these facts are often related to advances in technology, but if the evolution of society is examined from the point of view of moral and philosophical point of view, then the pessimistic comment might hold true. I haven’t currently found an answer, should we rejoice with the ongoing corruption of our society which is gradually turning all our interactions into commercial services and products? Is happiness a state that can be achieved in a world where looks matter more than ever and where it is all about standing out even if it means making enemies out of your own friends and family?
The book answers this question with a dry solution. If genuine relationships do not exist in this world, if all others do nothing but use you while pretending kindness, then you must seek freedom and authenticity elsewhere. The main character concludes that the only medium that can achieve authenticity is art. Art is what allows humans to connect truly - but with whom ? Tiresome small talks and false confidences with deceptive friends amount to nothing when reflecting back on a lifetime of resignation. None of the previous will be remembered, unlike a touching movie scene - repetitively watched countless times, or a truth-revealing paragraph in a book - where the author pinpoints the exact details that summarizes what it means to live. This is all that is necessary to feel a faithful understanding of the world.