In its root meaning, to say that something is "authentic" is simply to say that it is what it is purported to be. In a sentence like, "This violin is an authentic Stradivarius" the word is redundant. To claim that it is a Stradivarius at all is to claim that it is authentically one. It is a bit like saying, "This violin is really and truly a Stradivarius."
"Authenticity" acquires a different, a greater, significance when it is coming from someone else, a third party to a transaction, for example. If I'm trying to sell you a violin, and tell you it's a Strad, then you may very well decline to take my word for it, and call in an expert on the instrument to determine its authenticity. This means: you want to know whether I'm telling you the truth.
This is straightforward. But the more extended uses of the word aren't necessarily so straightforward. A literary critic, meaning to praise my novel, my call it "an authentic expression of the [name of ethnic or religious group here] experience." It isn't very clear what that means.
But the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has much more to say about authenticity.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/authenticity/
I find "an authentic expression of the [name of ethnic or religious group here] experience" to be as straightforward as "an authentic Stradivarius." It means a true, as opposed to a false or contrived expression. The only difference it has from "an authentic Stradivarius" is that it is more a matter of judgment and of degree; being a Stradivarius, by contrast, is like being pregnant--it either is or isn't.
ReplyDeleteBut that may not be so. Wikipedia states, "A Stradivarius is one of the violins, violas, cellos and other string instruments built by members of the Italian family Stradivari, particularly Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Antonius Stradivarius), during the 17th and 18th centuries." Suppose that a particular instrument was constructed by members of the Stradivari family with the assistance of others, and perhaps is of a lesser quality because of that, the way some paintings are attributed to Rembrandt's workshop rather than to Rembrandt.
Another distinction is that the former example presumes that the phrase "an expression of the Jewish experience" or "an expression of the Armenian experience" MEANS something definite. We have a reasonably definite idea what it is for a violin to be a Strad, whereas one might plausibly say we have no clear idea what those phrases mean, they may merely exist to be an anchor for the praise word "authentic."
ReplyDeleteWhether the author of the novel in question actually IS an Armenian or a Jew is, I submit, irrelevant. Styron was not a slave when he wrote from the PoV of Turner, and I for one don't hold that against him.
OTOH, a Jew or an Armenian could write utter tripe and try to get it published as an expression Jewish/Armenian experience, and even hope for kind reviewers to rhapsodize about its authenticity.
All this seems to be a good deal more complicated than the search for a chain of title for a specific physical object that may go back 300 years or so to manufacturers with a certain family name.
I agree with your second paragraph (which is not to say that I disagree with the others). In it, you take a stand in support of "cultural appropriation," which lately is being attacked. I'll concede that a person writing about another culture must be especially careful to get it right, but it can be done, as I'll assume Styron did. (I twice failed to get through that novel, though I liked Stephen Oates' non-fiction book on Turner.)
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