Authenticity/Individuality - VOTE FOR GOD'S SAKE, VOTE !!!

Hmmm…Arzu, huh? Thanks, I might have messed up with that one. :slight_smile:
I have to hand it to you though, the Turkish girls sure can be pretty…and temperamental I noticed.
:slight_smile:

They aren’t a patch on their families. Seriously, check on Arzu’s collection of big brothers before proceeding. Well, semi-seriously anyway. :wink:

Yeah, I heard her talking…
:-k

Knock knock.
Who’s there…?

Bump.

For God’s sake, somebody vote, please.

b U m P

i think it’s a draw - basically, Tab deftly annihilates the notion of individuality and difference as being indicative of authenticity, but then Fuse disarms him with the simple point that one needn’t be different to be authentic.

Debaitor, insofar as i’ve understood him, has boiled it down to the question of “if a painting can be authentic, then why can’t an individual?” - i don’t find this persuasive, as the standards of authenticity for a painting are (relatively) “objective” (Van Gough either painted it or not) whereas the standards of authenticity for an individual are as yet (despite numerous attempts throughout the forgoing exchange) unsatisfactorily defined and therefore remain, in the context of this debate, (relatively) “subjective”.

so i don’t think either side managed to eke out a clear win here - it was, as Objet points out, simultaneously frustrating and stimulating.

Bum-

Wha…? Holy shit, someone voted.

Thanks UPF, just for the sake of numbers, I’m gonna call your draw as 1-1.

That put’s the score at:

F&D - 1 point

Tab - 3 points.

Hey wait, in soccer if a draw is 1 point for each team, then a win means two point for the winning team. That would make it 5-1!

What’s soccer…?

Ohhhh - you mean football. 8-[

sigh
You native English speakers sure mess things up with synonyms! What are we , not native English speakers to do?
[-(

Thankfully, there is no synonym for cricket. the native english speakers can keep that one all to themselves… :laughing:

Yeah, to be honest, I don’t get cricket at all. I went to a few matches, mainly when I lived in Nottingham, near Trent Bridge, and the only way to sit through an entire match was to literally get so drunk you couldn’t physically move from your seat.

To play though, is terrifying. At school basically it’s target practice. “Hey Martin, in this game you’re allowed to throw that heavy ball as hard as you fucking like at that trembling puke just over there. What…? Stumps…? Fuck the stumps, break his fucking arm.”

Ah, fond memories.

Bifurbicated
umbillicals
mortify
policemen

Bipedal
uroboros
masturbate
perniciously.

Bimorphic
umbrellas
mediate
perspicaciousness

I’m going to give Fuse the win, (with Tab getting a participation trophy because he set up the debate well in his initial post), because I think he took the quality ingredients provided by the other two and turned them into a very palatable dish, ending up with the approach that I found the most prescriptive, for lack of a better word. He seems to have a better appreciation of authenticity as coming from how one develops within, not particularly dependent upon whatever the ‘perceptual or cultural factors’ of the day may be. Or that authenticity is based on outcome rather than process, the former of which seemed to be more Tab’s approach. Tab also asserts that it’s impossible to ‘know thyself’, I think because he believes this can’t happen because we can’t be neutral, can’t separate ourselves from ‘outside influence’. But I don’t see that authenticity is about ‘know thyself’ as much as it’s about ‘know enough about how one exists in one’s world, just as it is.’

This knowing is always process. Fuse claims, “Authenticity [‘born of action’] is rooted in choice” and that it’s about “the process by which they arrived at that end” and, most importantly, that “there is no reason why it must be easy”. With actions rooted in choice, an individual maintains an ongoing state of willingness to assume whatever freedom they need to act according to what they believe is of their best, most well-realized, character. Fuse calls this the individual’s “own ideology–to be aware of how they see the world and go through a process of molding a new view.” Reading this reminded me of Heidegger’s concept of a pulling back from the world, since that being in the world produces angst. That’s the ongoing process and denotes a distinctly individual state of mind. Therefore I don’t see how an individual considered ‘authentic’ according to any outward societal standard per se would give a rat’s behind about it. Other than perceiving it realistically as a cultural pressure of the world in which that individual dwells, perhaps. IMO, the individual instead has to consider their authenticity as something developmental in nature, measuring its achievement according to how they act in terms of being capable of discerning the truth of their existence in the world (Heidegger’s “Dasein”), which is essential to acting according to their highest, most noble nature (and this presupposes a diligent effort at education and fearless self reflection). This can and should encompass a weighing of the costs. Meaning there’s a cost element here to assuming freedom of varying degrees, although I believe it’s mutable without being compromised in terms of ‘authenticity’. And, finally, I don’t believe it’s either reasonable or necessarily noble to determine ‘fatality’ as a value in the authenticity equation, as Tab suggested. Although I can envision circumstances where the ultimate sacrifice could be a possibility, but I don’t think that’s what he meant.

Anyway, I agree that this was a murky one, so you’re all to be commended for tackling it and providing some good food for thought.

Another day, another vote, this time from the delectable debatophile herself, ingenium.

Thanks for your vote, and commentary. Well considered, and thought-provoking in it’s own right.

This puts the tally at:

Tab: 3
Fuse and D: 2

It’s coming down to the wire. If I was a horse I’d be stretching my nose out right about now.

the problem with this debate is that it took place in the “challenges” section - why is that?

Eh, that would be me being a bit thick.

Bosnian
ubiquity
machiavellian
privation