Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Hmm, the word "authentic" feels fine to me; it seems simply to say that the material isn't subject to approval by anyone not the author; it's not written by a committee; it doesn't conform to any organization's styleguide. It may be a scurrilous, badly-written pack of lies but it's authentically from whoever's name is at the top of the column.

I agree with you. Authenticity is impossible to define exactly, but I know it when I see it. If we don't stand up for it as a word, how do we challenge inauthenticity when it abounds?

I also agree about the assumption people make about an inner self. I am wary of talking about working "more deeply" with people as it often carries an assumption about deep meaning more real.

Then again, maybe that's like authenticity and is just a useful word with a difficult to define meaning.

Bring on the Ordinary Language Philosophy I say!

Profound subject matter. In fact, profundity and authenticity have a lot in common. I don't agree with Tim that the by-line makes a piece of writing authentic in any larger sense than attribution or provenance. But Tim broadens that meaning to include a sense that the author is being true to himself/herself, unbent by externals (even if profoundly personally twisted.) While this moves closer to my understanding of authenticity, I think there's an element of writerly craftsmanship that's being overlooked.

"Authentic voice" as we talk about it has everything to do with distinctive style or expression. A pretentious dishonest hypocrite might contrive an authentic voice in his writing that carried none of those qualities that define him in his daily life. Similarly, a sincere person who walks through life devoid of pretense might, in his writing, fail to mask the contrivance inherent in the nuanced translation of his true feelings from his heart to the printed page. We would say that this person doesn't succeed in creating work that is authentically voiced because he isn't a very good writer.

Coming back to who is authentic and who is a phony, I'll submit that it isn't easy to sort out... particularly since, if my experience is generalizable, we each have some of both in us and very few people walk uncompromised through this life.

This of course brings us to Tina Turner's question: "What's love got to do with it?" And I think that the answer is a that love has a lot to do with it, since if we love the asshole as we love ourselves, and if we really do love ourselves, and if we sense love coming from the work of others, especially if we were to sense it from our bete noir of the moment, there's a lot of friction that will or would or can or could naturally be avoided (...or at least it will be that good friction, warm and slippery - not at all abrasive and painful).

I like "genuine." (verus disingenuous). Genuine voice, whether what is being said is assaholic or loving, resonates.

To get there, you don't climb, you don't force elevated discorse, you step down. Down the ladder. Down into you. That doesn't mean you have to write *about* yourself. It *does* mean you have to write from yourself. To be genuine, I think, you have to show yourself, define your edges. That doesn't mean you have to tell the world you're in therapy, although, what the fuck. It does mean, for me, that when I start writing, I stop and go in. I write from a place that's informed by who I am, no secret about that.

I was on my float in the pool yesterday watching the clouds through some really good sunglasses. At the way-up-high level were the stark white sheets of clouds, whispy, interesting, but not really. One blended into the next until there were no lines discerning them--just a mass of whiteness.

A layer down were these fast moving, jagged puffs of varying greys and whites and browns. They were purposeful in their movement, and one bunch didn't look like the rest. That layer beneath--I liked watching them move. They were *doing* something.

The mainstream, reportage, blah blah blah, voice-muting clouds--are the ones at the top. They reinforce one another, they blend and complement, and one looks just like the next because of the homogeny. It's what we've ALWAYS had.

It's white noise.

I want thunder. I want gentle showers. I want the sun to contrast against something when it comes out from behind. I want jagged edges, I want one different from the next, I want to see and feel happens in the space between, in the gap from one to the next, among the difference in things.

The inner/outer self is akin to the idea of private/public personas. The public persona is usually carefully crafted to be in accordance with many many behavioral codes, some of which are so constricting that many social escape valves are necessary simply to get halfway accurate information conveyed.

This leads many people to glorify the private self, as a reflief from the burden of the public one.

But the private self is not good just BECAUSE it is not the public one.

That is, there's really no glory in seeing an asshole be an asshole. It gets old real fast (no specific personal reference intended in this remark, I mean it generally).

It is a tough one and as it cuts to the heart of the whole blogging phenomenon... and given the direction *some* commercial folks want blogs to go, this is a discussion destined to run and run because it really does matter

It's not generally about seeing an asshole in an asshole, Seth. Sometimes it's seeing the asshole in oneself.

It's also not a discussion of public of private. It's not what we write about, it's the perspective from which we write.

I think the more the voice of blogs copies and is fed by mainstream media perspectives, the more diluted this space becomes.

There is a way to cover mainstream topics and issues that still reveals some of the self. It is, inherently, what this space gives us permission to do. Permission that the voices speaking from within corporations (to which mainstream media belong) don't have.

It's also called good writing.

I responded over at Jeneane's place re a similar post. This is a great discussion. Timely, too, considering the gathering flame-freeze.

FWIW, I like the terms, "genuine" and "disingenuous." Even tho they're not technically opposite are perhaps the way to go. And I'm referring more to the intent of post vs. strictly content or style.

Two cents.

Jeneane said:
There is a way to cover mainstream topics and issues that still reveals some of the self.

Oh. I think I get it now. Nevermind. *shuffles off to ponder*

To step back for a moment, consider the artist. Stan Rogers is generally considered one of the greatest modern folk-singers and -composers. His songs, such as "Barratt's Privateers" and "The Field Behind The Plow," are often lauded for their authenticity.

It's not surprising that Rogers, as nearly as I can determine, never sailed on a square rigger nor ran a working farm. But one thing that is often mentioned is that the songs gave little clue, and even provided a misleading impression, of Rogers the person.

On the other hand, I have known people who would pour their bland and earnest hearts into an employer's blog and by so doing provide an authentic voice to the corporation.

I think authenticity and that genuine "feel" we're reaching for has to do with two words. Honesty and integrity. If we're open and honest, we are to some small degree credible, and yes, perhaps predicatable.

Someone nearby here once said we were writing ourselves into existence, and I think that's an understatement. We are building our crediblity. Some of us as individuals, some as professionals, some as troublemakers. Regardless, when we blog, we step on stage for all to see. Some embrace a mask and write from mental process. Some drop their clothes to the floor and write from the gut. Most of us are somewhere in between, hitting both ends of the spectrum at times.

For me nobody is genuine, nobody authentic, the first time I read them. That only comes from a feeling of rapport built over time. And when that rapport suffers, credibility is lost, integrity or honer come into question, some fall from grace.

Aunthenticity is in the end, for each of us, like pornography. We know it when we see it.

Johne makes an important point that amplifies and underscores what I was trying to get at above, when I said,

I think there's an element of writerly craftsmanship that's being overlooked.

"Authentic voice" as we talk about it has everything to do with distinctive style or expression. A pretentious dishonest hypocrite might contrive an authentic voice in his writing that carried none of those qualities that define him in his daily life. Similarly, a sincere person who walks through life devoid of pretense might, in his writing, fail to mask the contrivance inherent in the nuanced translation of his true feelings from his heart to the printed page. We would say that this person doesn't succeed in creating work that is authentically voiced because he isn't a very good writer.

Stan Rogers' work could have the ring of authenticity though he'd never sailed or worked a farm.

You have one aspect of it fp, but there's another -- people often seem to have expected a very different personality than Rogers turned out to have. That is, the fact that he wasn't a sailor or a farmer hardly surprised them. It was that the "inner person," to fall back on inadequate words, seemed entirely different than the one who had written the songs. Not -- and this is a place where it gets confusing -- that he ever seems to have thought of his works as depictions of himself. Nevertheless, there often seems to have been an element of disappointment voiced by his fans, once they met him.

Wow. I stepped into my hotel room after a trans-con flight and found these comments. Too much to think about.

All (?) writing is social. All writing is considered. All writing is mannered. It has to be because writing is impossible without conventions, manners and other people. So, what makes some social, mannered writing authentic and other inauthentic? In blogs, maybe it's simply that nauthentic writing seems to want to do something other than what it purports to want to do. (I want to leave open the possibility of blogs being used to do many sorts of things.)

I don't want to connect authenticity to the expression of inner feelings since I personally - for lots of reasons, some good and some bad - often purposefully try to strip my feelings out of my posts. E.g., I try not to flame even though I often am filled with blog rage(tm). And while I think I do state positive feelings on occasion, I don't talk about the positive feelings that mean the most to me, i.e., my family. But saying that authenticity means that the writing doesn't meet its own implicit purposes seems to work. I think. It feels odd, though, because it disconnects authenticity from the personal qualities of the author.

Anyway, I'm trans-con tired. All I really wanted to say was I love these posts and have been stimulated into incoherence by them.

Still trying to get my head around this inner-outer stuff. Would someone care to give it another whirl?

Are we trying to determine what constitutes flaming/trolling or are we trying to encourage writing with Genuine Voice ®? Is it a question of finding that line that divides GV from Trolling, like in the way we say the right to swing a fist extends to the tip of someone's nose? Is it something else? Forget the answer (42), what's the question, exactly?

In the heat of battle trolling is seductive. Blood pounding in the ears, you see only red. This soldier's been tempted more than once by the sweet siren cooing, “Oh, me so phony. Me Troll you long time.” But I've resisted, choosing to conserve my limited mental-energy-as-firepower for the real combatants and...

O lord help me. I'm lost in a metaphorical jungle, and I can't get out.

Once again, in the immortal word of Roseanne Rosannadana, nevermind.

-- Muddled Memer

p.s. Jeneane, I suspect the pattern(s) will out. Not everyone needs to be distinct or pure. If each writes as far as they comfortably dare, the Grand Design will take care of itself. And it'll be a looker.

Like Matt Haughey's cool blog design (and many others like it), there's beauty and function in having a repeating, homogeneous, indistinct group as a backdrop. It makes the other stuff stick out better ("oooh! purrrdee!"). Those who truly want/need to externalize the Inner Voice will never be squelched or enveloped by the canvass/place-mat types. Distinct, unique, low-flying Voices like yours are rarer and more precious but, in the end, far more powerful than (and necessary to) the 10K-footers.

So ends the thread's longest post script. Sheesh.

Good writing seems to arise from the fray between the writer and his critical self, telling him, no, not that word, it's more like this. Duelling with words to most keenly address the specific context.

What we often think of as "authentic" has a peculiar force which is usually distinguished by seeming to bend language to the pressure of insight. Cf. AKMA. Contemplative speech is distint from reactionary writing, which is often sloppy, passionate, and boring.

How I read the authentic, genuine, and personal
New York Times.

I open the paper to the inside back page, and I
read the first editorial. Clear and powerful.
Always right on the money.

Gail Collins at work.

Authentic? Yes.

Genuine? Yes.

Personal?

Yes.

You know, someone _does_ write those, even though
they're not signed at the bottom. Quite often, it's
guess who? The editorial page editor.

There's a reason those editorials are almost always
among the most-emailed articles, at least these days.

It's the writing. Coming right out of the crucible of
meeting what is happening head on, every day and
absolutely all you can possibly do is to say something about it.

Then, I read the rest of the paper, ignoring as much as
possible "sources said" citations.

(did you forget I was talking about how I read the
paper? I hope so! ;-)

T: Passionate writing can be boring exactly how? If it's genuine passion, I don't think it can ever be boring.

Of course, I'm listening to Dave's recording of Bill Clinton on 60 minutes, and perhaps it depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

AKMA is probably too humble to remind us of these but he came up with a set of Authenticity Premises at one point. See also, this post

J: "Genuine" passion, like authentic speech, carries the day as a concept, but when we try to parse what we mean, things sometimes get fuzzy. I like very much what you say above about stepping down.

I do think there is a species of "passionate" troll whose problem is not that they do not feel strongly -

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

- but in whom feeling becomes a sort of jet propulsion for repetitive unenlightening rancor.

T. Oh, I just wrote those passionate trolls off as assholes. Except when I am one.

I feel about casting folks as trolls and "flamers" kind of like I feel about the death penalty. (It drives people crazy when I use loaded real world analogies to represent the meaningless blogosphere. Good.)

To save one legitimately irate, passionate fighter or left-field voice, I'll put up with the annoying remainder. I avoid the terms, and I hate that they are now all the rage in the blog world.

I recommend we reserve them for the anonymous. Anyone who puts their identity on the line to (what we now call increasingly) "Flame" is really neither in my book. When I can act like an ass and then cast anyone who calls me on it as a 'troll' or 'flamer' (I've been called both), that's when the genuine, the honest, the real, is diluted.

I agree there is a breed of troll--and they usually are anonymous (either that or infamous) that don't feel passionate. They are there to be noticed, to satisfy a craving for attention.

They need meds.

;-)

Jeneane said:
I recommend we reserve ["trolls" and "flamers"] for the anonymous.
-------

Ouch. Can't say I entirely agree with that, but there's a good point in there somewhere.

Can we say that Trolls don't add anything content-wise to the debate -- their only mission is to bait others into ruckus?
(Made-up) Example..

"Jeneane's a crazed bee-atch with a hard on for anything DW does."
[Enter Gang of JS supporters]

Mebbe we say that Flamers have a real considered opinion (preferably with examples to back up claim?), but just word it "too" harshly? I don't think anyone considers over-the-top praise as Flaming, right? Or should we (like in the way a lovey-dovey couple pawing at each other in public is in just "poor taste")?

Trolls don't flame, they troll.

Fine line between the two sometimes as a post may be a bit of both. Think I'd rather be a Flamer than a Troll.

So here's the hierarchy?...

Non-anonymous Passionate Contributor
Non-anonymous Dispassionate Contributor
Anonymous Passionate Contributor
Anonymous Dispassionate Contributor
Non-anonymous Flamer
Anonymous Flamer
Trolls (of any sort)

My head hurtz. Don't look now, but might we be inching somewhere?

Cheers,

memer, your friendly neighborhood flamer
(not that there's anything wrong with that)

The written-word “voice” that comes through to you as “me” can craftily be controlled and contrived. And so it isn’t necessarily “authentic.” However, the voices to which we return, again and again, are the ones that ring with truth -- the truth of what’s inside the person who is using that voice as a way to connect what’s inside with what’s outside. It seems to me that voices that ring true to us are honestly trying to connect all kinds of insides with all kinds of outsides.

That's a good point Elaine--the what *sustains* voice over time. I've been harping on being "bored" as the mainstream blah-blah floods through blogland. But your point on the ring of truth -- I see that as resonance.

I suppose we can be attracted to a writer, a voice, by an initial flare of brilliance. But to resonate, that voice has to sustain somehow, and I think it has to be coming from the gut, no matter the topic. It has to be coming from the inside out, not the 30,000 foot level.

The more blogs sound like newspapers, the more removed we are as participants, the more weak the links among us in this sphere become. In a sense, in the blogworld, we are inherently MORE THAN one voice. Everything we say, because we say it in a hyper-connected medium, is attached. The informing from voice to voice is what I first fell in love with here.

My gut to yours, now that's powerful. You reporting on current events detached from what they mean to you or to me, now that's same-ole-same-ole.

hi - linked to your blog from theyblinked (dot) com. very intriguing comments on "authentic" and "integrity."

i wonder if part of the trouble is that "authenticity" and "integrity" are both abstract nouns. perhaps if we talked about "authenticating" and "integrating" - both concrete, demonstrative verbs/gerunds, we might have a bit better time at it. what we do authenticates what we say we are. what we do integrates what our values are.

Excellent point(s), brad. Thing is, how would you use those terms in a sentence?

okay. i'll give it a try. how about ...

"Okay, so you say have compassion, but that look on your face sure doesn't authenticate."

"In *Pitch Black,* Riddick didn't ever say he'd save anybody, but he sure did authenticate that he was part of humanity when push came to shove."

"I don't know about anyone else, but loyalty toward friends makes sense to me, even when they mess up. I'm working to integrate loyalty into how I respond, even if I'm the one they may hurt."

"Integrating the layers of my life authenticates my humanity; always dissecting them kills me."

Maybe I'll be able to come up with more later to authenticate that I'm a philosopher, not just a philologist.

Hmm ... wonder if all these examples really deal with more of a "gestalt" than I realized at first ... the whole is so very much more than the sum of the parts, and when we divide the inside from the outside, we dis-integrate what we should authenticate as not being disparate. (Okay, not such a great rhyme, but hey ... I tried ...!)

Authenticity - is it a peasant's shoes? The crack in a bluesman's voice? I think you get if you get it at all as a writer through disciplined imitation, mastering a craft. The most "authentic" of Pope's poems (or at least those that seem most in own conversational voice) are his Imitations of Horace. "Art concealing art." Authenticity as volanic eruption of the true self is a vulgar Romantic notion, from Byron, the showman. Authenticated speech is what we need. A psychiatrist's letter attesting that the man not only writes like an asshole, but is an asshole. 100%, all the way through, pure and authentic asshole.

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Roseanne Rosannadana didn't say "Nevermind", Emily Litella did. Roseanne said "It's always something.