摘要：Few challenges of understanding today¡¯s culture and mentalities can be more central than those
associated with understanding authenticity. Sincere persons speak so as not to betray others, says Lionel
Trilling, while authentic persons speak so as not to betray themselves. The virtue of "really being oneself"
and being "true to oneself" in the face of "mere role playing" seems an extremely pervasive one. Perhaps
this is a Western notion, perhaps a Protestant one: certainly it seems dominant where the two coincide, as
they do in the U. S. and in Scandinavia. Anders Johansen relates the anecdote that Norwegians tend to be
stricken by bad conscience when saying "How are you?" to a stranger. Given that we do not really want to
know how the other person truly feels, it feels as if that the right thing would have been to just shut up.
Although this is a light-hearted swipe at the stereotypical Norwegian (silent, boorish, suspicious of
mannerisms) it also points toward a more serious insight. By demanding that one's actions must spring
directly from one's inner feelings, authenticity causes difficulties both in our relations to ourselves and to
others.
