There's a David Runciman line that hypocrisy is the fatal thing in politics - eg Johnson's popularity was impervious despite being a lazy vain bullying grasping dishonest clown because he never pretended to be anything else, but whooping it up in private while sombrely imposing puritanical rules on everyone else damaged him.
Really excellent topic that you write about and very well presented. I bring this concept up when working with my high school students - the difference between the appearance of 'genuine' and what is really genuine. One would hope that the issues would be the issue, rather than the appearance of the presenter. It seems like another aspect of Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Message. Thanks for an insightful, thoughtful article.
J.M. Coetzee had a line about this. He says of the difference between 'authenticity' and 'sincerity': 'Being authentic includes being able to lie and steal and cheat as long as you don’t pretend to yourself that you are not a liar and a thief and a cheat. As a society we cut a great deal of slack for ‘authentic’ characters of this kind. I have never seen why. The classic English novelists (Fielding, Dickens, for example) are often prepared to forgive immorality yet are dead set against hypocrisy, the pretence to virtue.'
Sincerity is about telling the truth; authenticity is about being one's own truth. So we are prepared to forgive cynicism and deceit from the genuinely cynical and deceitful, but not from people who seem to be neither of those things. Johnson has built a career on this distinction: his insincerity is authentic. As Starmer positions himself as authentically sincere, he had no option but to offer his resignation if he is fined - otherwise he would seem inauthentic. The sad result is that the sincere are far more vulnerable to the slightest transgressions, because we set such a high price on authenticity.
Recently it seems Johnson has overplayed his hand with this distinction (if James Johnson's polling is anything to go by). In a lower-stakes political world, a little bit of authentic insincerity can be entertaining. 'Trust me,' Johnson could say with a wink. We were in on the joke. Now the stakes are much higher, his insincerity isn't funny anymore.
Authenticity in politics seems to be a bit of an oxymoron - most of the clearest examples appear to be not genuine but constructed. It seems to have more to do with a personal identification with a politician expressing one's own interests of beliefs. Here a certain amount of dissemblement or deceit can be an advantage, allowing ideas to be publicly expressed in a certain way with a degree of personal authority. Thus its provenance may be more in prejudice than in truth. It is thus the natural ally of extreme views rather than moderation, though authenticity in opposition to extreme views is also a possibility.
One can easily be a moderate and authentic--but then one cannot easily be an elected politician. What would motivate such a person to be in this line of work? A sincere moderate could operate as a kind of "mechanical governor" balancing the extremism of the moment, I guess, but that is hard to distinguish between selling votes to collect political rents.
In the age of Facebook, Instagram, etc, everything is about personal branding and nothing is authentic. And as much as you dislike both Trump and BoJo, the US Presidency is not at all like being a PM and has had a strong celebrity element for some time with name recognition being very important.
The canonisation of Pim Fortuyn, the continuing popularity of Geert Wilders and the fast rise (before the fall) of Thierry Baudet suggests absolutely, yes, that works in the Netherlands.
There's a David Runciman line that hypocrisy is the fatal thing in politics - eg Johnson's popularity was impervious despite being a lazy vain bullying grasping dishonest clown because he never pretended to be anything else, but whooping it up in private while sombrely imposing puritanical rules on everyone else damaged him.
Really excellent topic that you write about and very well presented. I bring this concept up when working with my high school students - the difference between the appearance of 'genuine' and what is really genuine. One would hope that the issues would be the issue, rather than the appearance of the presenter. It seems like another aspect of Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Message. Thanks for an insightful, thoughtful article.
Or as the great George Burns said: “the key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that you’ve got it made”
J.M. Coetzee had a line about this. He says of the difference between 'authenticity' and 'sincerity': 'Being authentic includes being able to lie and steal and cheat as long as you don’t pretend to yourself that you are not a liar and a thief and a cheat. As a society we cut a great deal of slack for ‘authentic’ characters of this kind. I have never seen why. The classic English novelists (Fielding, Dickens, for example) are often prepared to forgive immorality yet are dead set against hypocrisy, the pretence to virtue.'
Sincerity is about telling the truth; authenticity is about being one's own truth. So we are prepared to forgive cynicism and deceit from the genuinely cynical and deceitful, but not from people who seem to be neither of those things. Johnson has built a career on this distinction: his insincerity is authentic. As Starmer positions himself as authentically sincere, he had no option but to offer his resignation if he is fined - otherwise he would seem inauthentic. The sad result is that the sincere are far more vulnerable to the slightest transgressions, because we set such a high price on authenticity.
Recently it seems Johnson has overplayed his hand with this distinction (if James Johnson's polling is anything to go by). In a lower-stakes political world, a little bit of authentic insincerity can be entertaining. 'Trust me,' Johnson could say with a wink. We were in on the joke. Now the stakes are much higher, his insincerity isn't funny anymore.
This is why Coetzee is my favourite contemporary novelist! Great line.
Authenticity in politics seems to be a bit of an oxymoron - most of the clearest examples appear to be not genuine but constructed. It seems to have more to do with a personal identification with a politician expressing one's own interests of beliefs. Here a certain amount of dissemblement or deceit can be an advantage, allowing ideas to be publicly expressed in a certain way with a degree of personal authority. Thus its provenance may be more in prejudice than in truth. It is thus the natural ally of extreme views rather than moderation, though authenticity in opposition to extreme views is also a possibility.
Enjoyable article.
One can easily be a moderate and authentic--but then one cannot easily be an elected politician. What would motivate such a person to be in this line of work? A sincere moderate could operate as a kind of "mechanical governor" balancing the extremism of the moment, I guess, but that is hard to distinguish between selling votes to collect political rents.
Adorno wrote a book called "The Jargon of Authenticity". Never read it, but the title has stuck with me - and seems consonant with the article.
In the age of Facebook, Instagram, etc, everything is about personal branding and nothing is authentic. And as much as you dislike both Trump and BoJo, the US Presidency is not at all like being a PM and has had a strong celebrity element for some time with name recognition being very important.
"One US study found that aggressive language led voters to believe that a politician was more authentic, on both the right and the left."
I wonder if this is a US-specific phenomenon. Would such findings be replicated among the more consensual politics of, say, the Netherlands?
The canonisation of Pim Fortuyn, the continuing popularity of Geert Wilders and the fast rise (before the fall) of Thierry Baudet suggests absolutely, yes, that works in the Netherlands.