Truth HQ by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T R U T H H Q

Let’s call it AUTHENTICITY.

Let me put the problem like this. If it’s true that we really are led by our bodies and our emotions, then isn’t the AUTHENTIC way of being in the world simply to accept this and to continue acting on impulse, and then responding to this by a continual process of self-justification? Put this way, perhaps it’s more obvious how hideously unsocialised such a person would be! I leave it to the reader to decide how common or uncommon this might be.

But still, isn’t it at least authentic? Is there not something a bit suspect in taking up the reflections of our own past experiences and the testimonies of others through literature, music and art and trying to modify our behaviour accordingly?

The problem is intensified by the fact that we have criticism of the dilemma that point both ways! Sartre pointed out that ‘authenticity’ is itself a learned behaviour that society tries to impose on us – so it is robbed of the spontaneity and freedom that it seemed to promise. Meanwhile, Foucalt suggested that

interpretation of our feelings – what I’ve described as reflection leading to more considered action in the world – is another learned behaviour that society tries to impose. Is there a way out?

To get a handle on this we need to take a big step back.

Let’s ask, what is it that makes people try to behave in ways that are different from the impulses that result from the progression we’ve been examining? And we might also ask why we might choose to act in certain ways for reasons other than just to conform to the customs and mores of the society in which they

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