Sincerity and Authenticity

Sincerity and Authenticity by Lionel Trilling, 158 pages

 

The death of God having severed Western man from his traditional understanding of himself as a being in some state of objective harmony or disharmony with the cosmos, there arose the Enlightenment ideal of authenticity, which posited modern man as a being in some state of subjective harmony or disharmony with himself.  In this series of lectures, Trilling traces the development of this ideal through the writings of Diderot, Austen, Conrad, and Freud.

 

Unfortunately, Trilling is unable to provide a clear exposition of authenticity, describing it only in the most oblique terms.  Perhaps this is necessary in tracing the evolution of the idea, but in the end, his nebulous concept of authenticity seems nothing more than an empty exertion of self-will against the external world.