The Rise of Conspicuous

Authenticity •Andrew Potter

•Managing Editor, Ottawa Citizen

•apotter@ottawacitizen.com

My Argument

My Argument (II)

The search for authenticity has become a

form of status-seeking, and is the

successor to "cool" as the dominant status

good in contemporary urban culture.

Stages of status-seeking

1. Conspicuous Leisure

2. Conspicuous Consumption

3. Conspicuous Rebellion ("cool")

4. Conspicuous Authenticity

Veblen on the Leisure Class

Two human instincts

Instinct of workmanship: An appreciation for

useful and efficient work and skill

Predatory Instinct: Pride, status,

dominance, exploitation

Leisure Class

Vestigial Leisure

Conspicuous Consumption

What mattered was showing that you had

material success.

- big house, big car, big lawn, big barbecue

Keeping up with the Joneses

The rise of cool

By the late 1960s, the values of the

counterculture had taken hold.

Everyone wanted to be hip, edgy,

alternative, cool

Cool as Political

What made cool political was the critique of

mass society

Society as a cultural system of social

control and conformity. To resist, you

formed a counterculture

Beats

Hippies

Anti-globalization protesters

Gangsters

The end of cool

What killed cool?

Answer: The internet

The idea of a culture and economy that was

opposed to the mainstream ceased to

make any sense

Flash Mobs

The End of Cool

The Search for Authenticity

We live in a world of artificiality, fakery,

truthiness

Reality TV, Facebook “friends”, rampant

plagiarists, suburban sprawl, lying

politicians...

Life seems increasingly packaged, shallow,

alienating

The Age of “Authenticity”

•Between 2005 and 2008, John Zogby

found:

“a deep-felt need to reconnect to the

truth of our lives, and disconnect

from the illusions that everyone from

advertisers to politicians makes us

believe are real”

People are looking for “authenticity”

Authentic as opposed to what?

As opposed to modernity

Secularism -- the disenchantment of the

world

Liberalism -- political individualism

Capitalism -- the market economy

What is authentic?

Nostalgia for childhood and "old ways"

Fetish for poverty, or the exotic

Love of “nature”, “the environment”

Visceral dislike of markets, marketing,

consumerism, the cash nexus

Authentic Royalty

Autentico Cuba

Authentic yoga in authentic

cuba

Conspicuous Authenticity

The key now is to show that you are socially,

environmentally, and spiritually conscious

But the same Veblenian dynamic is at work:

Organic everything

Local everything

Artisanal everything

Authentic Rugs

Authentic Living