André Spicer > Quotes

“one of the central themes associated with developing a sense of authenticity involves inventing plausible narratives of self. For instance, Charles Taylor (1992) argues that the modern desire for authenticity is often prompted by a feeling that our life is shattered and it is difficult, if not impossible, to piece our life together in a meaningful way. He suggests that reclaiming authenticity would entail the provision of a space where we can once again craft coherent narratives that bind our life together.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“A comic response to the authenticity trap involves a kind of self-deflation whereby we acknowledge not just that we cannot live up to our rather grandiose claims of purity, but that these claims are also preposterous and ultimately empty. This might happen by recognising that our claims to the purity of an authentic sense of self are not achievable. This is because all authentic identities are always riven with contradictions from the start. A comic response involves recognising that these contradictions are innate and irreconcilable. It involves laughing at just how crazy it is to expect that organic apples will somehow make us whole again.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“Such stories of objective necessity involve people trying to ‘create a tragic fate with which to cooperate’ (Basterra, 2004: 36). These are typically narratives that explain why an authenticity seeker cannot make a final break from what makes them unhappy. Narratives of objective necessity are paradoxically crafted by the subject but cruelly place any sense of agency beyond their control. For instance, a potential corporate rebel might explain how they would like to leave the company and pursue a career as a guitarist if they did not have to pay the mortgage and have a penchant for expensive lunches. Similarly, a bored consultant might tell us they would love to spend a year in a Buddhist retreat finding themselves if only this would not damage their career trajectory. In each case, we notice that some desired break with an inauthentic identity is thwarted through an appeal to some external, uncontrollable force. The crux here is that an act of agency actually allows the authenticity seeker to surrender their agency.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“Guilt provides a zone of existential security of knowing that even if we are flawed the world itself is fine and one day we might be as well.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“What is particularly interesting about these authenticity rituals is that they are often particularly elaborate and involve considerable time, energy and emotional investment. Think for instance of the sheer effort people are willing to put into corporate volunteering, or the hours spent making an authentic southern French dish after their visit to the farmers market. The ‘objective’ benefits accrued might seem fairly minimal. However, the real benefits we get out of lavishing our precious time and resources on such rituals is that they make us feel like we are able to express that we care.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“That is, by giving their sense of agency away they will no longer be plagued with the all the pains, anxieties and guilt that come with a sense of liberal agency”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“The modern subject feels that they are denied their true self and seeks to win their authenticity by freeing themselves from an inauthentic structure. However, when they manage to wrench themselves free, they recognise that it is this very structure that gives them a sense of identity.”
― André Spicer

“One of the particularly striking things about the middle class proclivity for authenticity is that it significantly blurs the boundaries between public and private life. It involves projecting the internal search for authenticity into ever more public spaces. Almost any aspect of social life, even the most apparently inauthentic, becomes a potential zone for articulating our true self. For instance, employees seek to express and explore their authentic identities in their place of employment (Fleming and Sturdy, 2011). This encourages employees to bring what had previously been considered as private sentiments such as love, desire, and emotions into the workplace (Illouz, 2006; 2008). At the same time, we also witness the extension of the workplace into all aspects of our private lives (see also Fleming and Spicer, 2004). This can mean the number of hours and effort devoted to work time is radically extended. Many of the activities such as socializing, undertaking leisure activities and even romance become implicated with work. As our private life shifts into the public sphere it becomes denuded of intimacy and subjected to forms of cold instrumental calculation. Moreover, our public life becomes increasingly infused with emotive and highly personal expressions that had once been curbed by reason, rationality and due process.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“we feel guilty because we realize that we are completely dependent on the various social structures that make us so inauthentic. We remain attached to workplaces that give us deadening work, patterns of consumption that deliver us manufactured authenticity, and other social relations that make us feel distanced from our true selves. And to gain some sense of distance from these structures, a nagging guilt develops about our relationship with them. But at the very same time as this guilt allows a sense of distance, it also binds us ever more fiercely to dominant symbolic structures. In short, being guilty allows us to experience authenticity. But at the very same time, it binds us to fake selves. This makes authenticity into a kind of trap that is difficult to escape.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“by representing ourselves as guilty we are able to hold on to the sense that we had some kind of autonomy and agency in the situation. By bearing guilt, we can feel like we caused something and had a heroic role of some sort. Therefore as painful as guilt is to us it also gives a sense of agency. By feeling guilty about work, we are able to feel that we might have a kind of control over it. Guilt gives us a sense that we have a choice. For instance it allows us to think that we choose whether or not we work outside office hours. Guilt enables us to avoid what is perhaps an even more unpleasant feeling that we have no control whatsoever over how much and when we work.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“The result is that they never become a proper subject with a will of their own. Thus by mechanically carrying out the demands which are placed upon them, they are able to escape from the liberal demand to ‘just be yourself’ (Fleming and Sturdy, 2011). This is because there is no self to be, only demands from some higher power to be carried out. Opting for such a position would render us as a passive mechanism of the Other’s desire – an actor without agency.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work

“But this obsession with the most minor activities of our everyday life means that they function as a kind of highly charged political battleground. The result is that struggles are no longer fought over political ideologies. Instead, the politics we become passionately invested in are those that are closely related to our habits and bodies. Indeed we become deeply interested in what some have called ‘bio-politics’ (Foucault, 1978). Broadly put, this involves political contestation focusing on life itself (Esposito, 2008). This means political struggles take place around the most basic aspects such as bodily health and lifestyle. No big ideas here. The pressing political questions are no longer your position on patriarchy – it is how many burgers you ate this month or where you stand on spray-tanning. The increasing importance of this kind of bio-politics can be seen in the fact that many contemporary political movements today are focused on quotidian issues close to the body such as health, food and lifestyle. And one of the central demands which is often bound up with these bio-political movements is a demand for authenticity – real food, real wine, real music and the ability to live a real life which is not artificially clouded by various in-authenticities.”
― André Spicer, Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work