To Kill Another

Inquiry into Projections and Intentions

12.12.2020 

Does one choose to do good because one truly wants to do good or does one appropriate good to feed one’s inner narcissist?

Ethics can degenerate into aesthetics and aesthetics can degenerate into devices that inflate one’s self-image. Perhaps it is wise for one to consider that one’s virtuous actions, endorsements, and adoptions of aesthetics may all be inauthentic and merely projections. Through these inauthentic projections, one may like to convince others and oneself that one is good. However, one perhaps more closely resembles an evil being guised in virtuous projections. Is not one guilty of partaking in virtuous actions more for the sake of being perceived as good rather than doing good for good’s sake? If the main incentive is to gain validation from an audience, is one not fake? 

How is one different from parasites that benefit from something while disregarding its soul? One tends to endorse an idea, an aesthetic, or movement only when there is utility to endorsing it. One is likely to dispense of once glorified virtues, ideas, aesthetics, and movements when no more utility is extractable. In that case, did one truly identify with or believe in that virtue, idea, aesthetic, or movement? Or did one just appropriate those things? Could one have actually cared less that a virtue or movement per se was fundamentally good or bad? Ultimately, one’s choice to identify with these things seems to be heavily influenced by one’s desire to be perceived as someone who is virtuous, beautiful, brave, revolutionary, unique, or admirable. How many things is one willing to endorse even if it means no praise from others? One inherently seems to be slaves to the approval of others rather than to the virtues themselves.

Perhaps one’s desire to be seen as virtuous stems from humanity’s fundamental desire to want to belong to a meaningful narrative; all humans want to make sense of their lives. It’s upsetting that one’s inauthenticity springs from one’s deep desire to find meaning. However, is seeking validation the appropriate path in finding meaning? 

As digital interfaces compete with physical reality as the main medium of social interaction, ingenuine behavior seems to have evolved simultaneously. Ingenuine behavior has not fundamentally changed, but it has become more facile, visible, inflated, and susceptible to manipulation. Individuals can now make false projections in a more convenient and inflated way. Increased accessibility and the potential for virality incentivizes one even more to create false projections. One may now think that one’s self can be important and want to be important. 

Perhaps one can transcend inauthenticity by acknowledging one’s continual struggle with inauthenticity. This is not to say that one should be nihilistic and not exert an effort to become true; it is to say that becoming true is an eternal journey. It is to perhaps say that even if one is truer in comparison to the past self, one nevertheless is still fake in comparison to the truest self. It perhaps allows one to constantly improve oneself and move closer to perfect authenticity. Maybe authenticity can become a god, an ideal, or a star; it could become something that one seeks for the rest of one’s life.

This piece of writing will have been published on an interface and is probably influenced by the desire to be seen as authentic, self-aware, and virtuous. The writer of this piece struggles to be truly authentic and this writing too is diluted with impure intentions. Is inauthenticity simply an inescapable problem? How does one resist the urge to display?