One of the recurring themes in the philosophical critique of Western society is the claim that modern people are losing their authenticity. We are said to be cut off from genuine experience, alienated from our own lives, reduced to commodities or objects. From this diagnosis flows a whole industry of advice, projects, and moral exhortations telling us how to resist, how to “reclaim” ourselves, how to become authentic again.
There is, of course, something real behind this complaint. Less emotionally charged, it might simply be called the external point of view.
I can look at myself as labor power traded on the labor market. I can calculate my market value, think about optimal strategies of self-presentation, ask what kind of “product” I actually am.
I can do the same on the marriage market. I can coolly assess where I stand, and—if my wife were no longer interested—estimate my statistical chances of attracting a younger model or a wealthy heiress.
As a sociologist, I can observe myself as a typical aging member of a declining middle class, apply various analytical models to my own situation, compare probabilities, evaluate trends and risks.
A biologist, a geneticist, a neuroscientist, a physician—anyone with a bit of training—can subject himself to similar objectifying descriptions. In each of these perspectives, the person really is reduced to a thing: an object of analysis.
So far, the philosophers seem to have a point.
And yet.
The picture changes once we take seriously what psychology has been discovering for decades: people who are capable of stepping outside themselves in this way—who can observe their own mental states, impulses, and emotions from a certain distance—tend to be more resilient. They suffer less from depression and anxiety. They cope better with emotionally charged situations. They are, on average, happier.
Paradoxically, they are also better able to immerse themselves in experience when they choose to do so. Distance does not kill intensity; it makes intensity optional rather than compulsory.
So is this “loss of authentic experience” really such a catastrophe? Or is it, on the contrary, one of the quiet inventions of modern civilization—an internal technology of self-control, flexibility, and psychological robustness?
Perhaps we should leave the philosophers to savor their authentic inner turmoil and existential anguish, while the rest of us make pragmatic use of a skill that actually improves human functioning and well-being.
After all, not every romantic lament deserves to be mistaken for wisdom.