Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year: Authenticity

Listen to Episode

Please note, this is an A.I. transcript of the podcast Thinking Out Loud Together. As such, it will lack the polished quality of an actual blog post. It’s provided for those who prefer reading to listening. Special thanks to Mark for volunteering to humanize the process by shaping the wording into a more readable format.

Introduction

Nathan (00:01.296)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.

Cameron (00:04.714)

and I'm your cohost, Cameron McAllister.

Nathan (00:06.868)

And Cameron, today we're going to be talking about Merriam-Webster's word of the year. Some years it's entertaining, some years it's eyeball rolling, and this one maybe is somewhere in between. But I've long had a fond memories of Merriam-Webster's word of the year, because I used to play a fun game with an old office mate of mine using Merriam-Webster's word of the day. 

The way that this would work is each morning we would get to our offices, get settled in, and then we would look it up, and then we would try to use the word of the day in a telephone conversation with somebody. And there were two of us in the office, so clearly you can hear what the other person was saying on the phone. And I thought it was great fun, but it was a little difficult to work the word pachydermatist or philoprogenitive or something like that into a normal sentence at times. But, then we kind of got points on whether or not you could pull it off in a casual way in a sentence on the phone. I guess all that to say is I am somebody who enjoys words and playing with words.

I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this year's Word of the Year, according to Merriam-Webster, highly sought-after word for definition, and the word is this. Get ready. The word is "Authenticity". And it surprised me a little bit because I knew Authenticity was a buzzword, but I thought it sort of had its heyday. But now it's back. There are some reasons for that but what are your first thoughts? Surprise you or not?

Cameron (01:39.118)

Surprised me, the same reason as you. I thought, authenticity, haven't we been there, done that? I've been hearing about that for years. I suppose it makes sense because this is a time where there's massive institutional distrust and you've seen a lot of corruption in all sectors of society. So, it makes sense that a lot of people would want authenticity and sincerity and would be looking for integrity in people. But at the same time, there's an irony that hangs over this because you just think about all of the different brands, all of the different companies who cynically want to use this word to exploit people. So yeah, I think it's understandable, I was a bit surprised, and I also think there's a bit of irony mixed in here.

Definitions of Authenticity

Nathan (02:33.772)

Some of what I read on it is that authentic or authenticity actually does have quite a wide range of definitions. And that's part of the reason that when people start to think about it, they look at up. Obviously, a lot of this was driven this year by the development of AI (artificial intelligence algorithms), or Chat GPT, particularly of trying to decide what's actually real.

And that is the first and most common use of the word authentic or authenticity is real/not false or an imitation. And so, at a point where an algorithm can write an essay for you or generate a picture or a deep fake video or something like that; certainly, I think it's a good sign that we're once again curious about what's real and what's not an imitation.

On the superficial level, I would say this is a good sign that people are starting to push back against what I would consider to be fake and falsehoods. Although some people would say maybe "the new reality is generated in this way". So, there's that authenticity side, "it's just real, it's not fake". So, we can pursue that if we want to on the technology front. 

And there are a couple of those topics like the idea of Twitter or "X" formerly known as "Twitter" now charging people to have an authenticated account so that you're sure this is really who it is. You also have social media trends where people like #BeReal where they're encouraging people to post photos of themselves that aren't doctored, aren't filtered, or don't use a beauty filter on the photo. Where people are saying "this is what I actually look like". So that's one level of authenticity when you say what's real/what's not false? What's not an imitation of something else.

Then the other boost in authenticity is connected to more like a Taylor Swift type performer of celebrities who people feel like they are authentic or they're speaking about things that actually match their lives or encouraging them to be their true selves. So, if definition one of authentic or authenticity is about being real, the second one is about being true to oneself, one's personality, one's character, or one's spirit. And take that for what it is.

I think that also summarizes our time of what it means to be authentic is to be "true to yourself", "your own being", "unique just like everyone else". Can you help me think of examples or do you see how that split could be there; where one is like "here's what's not false" but then "here is being true to yourself". Those sort of seem like they're in some tension with each other which would lend credence to the breadth of the use of the word authentic.

Cameron (05:34.494)

I think the one that makes the most sense to me involves the proliferation of AI technology. Because I hear more and more people say, "I have the distinct feeling I'm not talking to a person" when they're in an online chat or something like that. I hear more and more teachers saying, "you wouldn't believe the number of essays that I get that are clearly Chat GPT". And so, I've mentioned this before, this tends to lead to a diminishment of humanity in some sense and it makes us feel lonelier and it's just creepy. There's a sense in which you're just longing for actual human contact. That's a weird thing to say right now, but yes, I think it makes perfect sense, it makes a lot of sense when you think about the social media landscape where you can put out a persona more effectively than people have been able to before. And you can curate that image. And it’s true, there is a trend in social media now to highlight the dirty laundry on the floor, what you look like without makeup, what you look like when you first wake up in the morning, and all of that. And this is done ostensibly in the name of authenticity. Now, I want to step aside for a second Nathan and point out again - this is still a kind of social performance. You're still doing this for an audience. In your actual day-to-day life, you don't usually have an audience; unless of course you're making your life a kind of work of art and broadcasting it for the world; which some people do. 

Nathan (07:22.291)

You're saying you don't have an audience in your laundry room?

Cameron (07:26.874)

I hope not, I sure hope not. But I think there's a weird sensation that people have these days. It's a relatively novel mindset where we tend to live as though we're performing in front of people, or we tend to have an audience in mind. Social scientists and sociologists have pointed to this in recent years, that's a very unique frame of mind. And I think that has a part to play here also. The most powerful pop icon on the planet being a symbol of relatability and authenticity strikes me as pretty funny. I'm gonna leave it at that for right now because I don't want Swifties chasing me down the street.

Nathan (08:22.308)

Oh, Goodness. Yeah. Well, so one other place I saw Authenticity was my late high school/early college years when you'd go to a youth conference or a camp and there was this huge focus on authenticity. And what that turned out to be was- you'd get a bunch of young guys together and then the leader would come in and basically share all his dirty laundry of his own life and be like "look, I'm just as messed up as you guys. Here's what I'm struggling with". And that was like, "oh, this guy's really authentic in telling us the truth". And what I quickly realized there is that authenticity alone was becoming the goal even within the church. So, what we were missing was authenticity and holiness. That's not to say that people shouldn't confess their sins and be honest about who they are, but we shouldn't say that just simply doing that is what makes you virtuous. And that to me seemed to be a missing feature that I would say was not an authentic representation of what the church was about. And maybe that's just my experience, but I think it wasn't. So, all that to say the church has its own history here of using authenticity as a tool or an idol.

Cameron (09:48.106)

To press into one of the thorny issues that you brought up earlier, you said, "there's a press for us all to be unique, just like everybody else", and I think there's the rub. Imitation, emulating someone, is at the heart of human life. And just very briefly let's make a quick case for that. We come back to this point over and over again on thinking out loud, but we have to stress it because by default, most of us tend to think very individualistically. And I think serious individualism is a key feature of the current discussion on authenticity because it's very much about you finding your path, your way, your church. And by the way, "your church", may not be an actual traditional church at all. I've heard plenty of people say the "gym is my church", "this is my sanctuary", that kind of thing. But this isn't new, just consider the forest being a sanctuary, Emerson and Thoreau, this is already in the DNA of America. So, nothing new there, so the point is, we're going to follow somebody. We're gonna emulate somebody. So, what I want to suggest, Nathan, is that part of a tension that we're gonna feel is that imitation is going to be totally and completely inevitable. Now, holy imitation is at the heart of Christianity. We are to be imitators of Jesus Christ. 

Authentic to a Standard

Nathan (11:25.68)

Ooh, hang on. You're beating me someplace. Yeah, right, because there are three definitions of authentic and I only gave you the first two. So, number one was "real, not false". Number two was "being true to yourself, personality, character, spirit, or whatever". Number three is the less often used version of it, but this makes sense and fits exactly with what you're saying. The third definition of authentic is "conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features". So, what does it mean for something to be an authentic Van Gogh? Or an authentic Stradivarius? Or substitute your own architect or artwork. Think of authenticity in that category and now we're getting somewhere where maybe this becomes a useful phrase for the church.

Cameron (12:29.642)

Think about that, an authentic Rubens or an authentic Van Gogh. You set me up for a kind of Jesus-juke, Nathan. But, usually, how do we authenticate a precious piece of artwork? Well, you have the signature. Christian men and women, (it's hard to say this without laughing) we have the signature of our Lord on our lives. Okay, that's a little bit too precious and a bit too cutesy, but it's true though. So, a mark of authenticity in this sense would be men and women who faithfully lead their lives in the spirit in which Jesus Christ did. Now, if you're okay with it, Nathan, let's linger here just for a second because I want to make an important distinction. And this is a challenging point from...

Who am I going to quote? Who do I quote so often on here? Who's it going to be?

Nathan (13:29.358)

I quoted Dallas Willard the other day and somebody said that I was supposed to check with you first before I did that. That's all I'm saying.

Cameron (13:36.194)

How dare you? I'm so glad that they brought that up because I was incensed. But yes, it is Dallas Willard.

Nathan (13:41.237)

But I also told the people that if you ever quote my grandpa, I'm charging you $2. So, I think we're even.

Cameron (13:47.554)

There you go, absolutely. Yeah, if we don't have Grandpa Rittenhouse and Dallas Willard show up in an episode, something's deeply wrong with the universe. So, Dallas Willard actually has a very helpful way of exploring this theme. He says, first of all, Jesus was a Palestinian carpenter who lived 2000 years ago. So imitating Christ doesn't mean trying to be exactly like him in every conceivable way. The phrase he uses is, (it's a bit cumbersome, but I think it's helpful because he's trying to spell out a key distinction here) "I want to lead my life the way Jesus Christ would lead it, were he me". In other words, "you with your weird personality and your gifts and talents and your quirks leading your life under the empowerment of Jesus's spirit". Now, obviously there are certain common features; we follow Jesus's commands, that sort of thing. 

I'm saying this because I'll do deference to authenticity here. This doesn't mean that your personality is ejected and you suddenly become this sort of droning, blind, carbon copy of Christ. Such a thing wouldn't even be possible, by the way. Try it. But it means that you are you because the Lord made you. And to imitate Christ is to become what he made you to be. And yes, that is in conformity to his image but that still honors your personality because your personality after all was no accident and the Lord made you. So, I think we should explore that for just a second. I've said enough to get us into some interesting territory there.

Righteousness

Nathan (15:49.224)

Yeah, okay, I'm going out on a limb here with a theory. I want to connect authenticity and righteousness, so let me begin my case. Somebody, I forget who it was, pointed this out to me that based on the primary way in which the word righteousness is used in the Bible, that a good functional general definition for righteousness is conformity to a standard. If you think all the way back to covenants in the Old Testament; God reveals himself, he sets out a stated order of being and a certain set of do's and don'ts and ideas for worship. And the degree to which someone conformed to that revelation is the degree to which they were considered righteous. So then, by the time you get to Jesus and the "hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" and "seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and these things will be added to you", that if you think of righteousness as a conformity to the standard, and you think of Christ as the standard to which we should be conformed. Here's Romans 8, "we're predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son". If you think of righteousness as conformity to a standard, and you think of authenticity as conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features, then all of a sudden being Christ-like does not mean walking in sandals everywhere, because that's not an essential feature of what he was doing or teaching. It doesn't mean crafting tables or building walls or whatever Jesus was doing as a carpenter. But if you're reproducing essential features, then when he says, "be merciful", "forgive as your heavenly father has forgiven you", then all of a sudden, the things that he says become the essential features that we are to reproduce. And that is essentially what Scripture is preserving for us; the essential reproducible features that would mean us living authentic (and I'm using the word there in the third definition sense) and righteous (using the biblical sense). So, I don't know what do you think about that? Is that shoehorning it in there or is this just a nice parallel to say that actually the biblical use of authenticity is actually righteousness?

Cameron (18:09.826)

No, I think that sounds right. That's in line with what I was suggesting as well. So, a good question, I think, to bear in mind nowadays is who is it that you're imitating? Or what is it that you're imitating? So, the irony, Nathan, in so much of this is that in popular culture, a lot of pictures of authenticity or images of authenticity are being sold to us. This is a decidedly cynical vision of authenticity; we're imitating some image that really is just a source of profit for somebody else.

Nathan (18:56.752)

Okay, yeah, but what about when we like the imitation better? So, um, General Tso's chicken is not an original Chinese dish. I like General Tso's chicken. I mean, you can go right on down the list of knockoff versions of things that aren't actually what they're advertised to be, and we all know it, but we still like it. That's a thing.

Cameron (19:20.182)

Yeah, that is, and I like General Tso's chicken too. But I would say, it's one thing to enjoy certain food that is a cheap knockoff or an imitation or something like that. It's another thing though, when this begins to encroach on our actual lifestyle, commitments, or our matters of ultimate concern. I think that sociologists still use that phrase when they're talking about people's spiritual habits. So, when this kind of marketing encroaches on our spiritual commitments, then I think we need to be very wary. Also, we need to recognize the irony of that; I've left something unstated here, Nathan, which I think can add some clarity here. Christianity has a lot of things going against it in today's culture. It usually does. Christianity rarely fits in. And if you're a committed Christian, you'll see that that's probably a good thing because as human beings, we tend to be incorrigible idolaters and we like stuff that's made in our own image. 

Nathan (20:41.969)

Who was it that said if you're not conforming to a dysfunctional society, is that actually a problem?

Cameron (20:51.734)

Correct. So, the notion of Christ as Lord who exceeds all your powers and your personal whims and fantasies; that can be seen as problematic. I think one of the many features that people don't like about Christianity is the notion that now you're attached to this dogmatic religion and, according to the world, you're absolutely not leading an authentic life. I mean, "if you want to do that, that's great", "if it meets needs for you, absolutely, but if it stands in the way of some of your desires? If it thwarts your sexual appetites, that sort of thing? Then it's harmful and it's getting in the way of your self-expression". So, I want to just put that out there, a lot of people will see that. I've just voiced some central complaints against Christianity that you'll hear in everyday speech. 

Let me bring back in, imitation is inevitable. Bob Dylan had the song "everybody's got to serve somebody", but you've got to imitate somebody too. There's no way to avoid that. So, the question is, who or what are you imitating? And there, I think we can draw some clarity. If we're imitating a certain ideal or lifestyle or vision, that's really nothing more than a marketing campaign, there's an essential hollowness to it. There's an emptiness to it. If we're imitating an iconoclastic figure like Jesus Christ, yes, it's gonna fly in the face of many of our desires and it will interfere. I always liked how C.S. Lewis points out in Surprised by Joy that Jesus interferes with us, he intrudes on our lives. Yes, all that's true, but these are all marks of something bigger than us. Someone bigger than us.

Nathan (22:54.921)

Yeah, so that is the fundamental distinction then. There's a pretty famous book by Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. So, if you want a classic in spiritual formation, the Imitation of Christ would be it. Okay, so let's just clarify what we're saying here for a second, we're setting up a fundamental distinction between definition two and definition three of "authentic". Definition two is being true to yourself and your own personality and your own character and your own spirit. And definition three is conforming to the pattern of an original and reproducing the essential features of that. So, definition two is an internal standard and definition three is an external standard. So, you can use "authentic" in both ways there, but what Cameron's laying out for us is the fundamental divide between being conformed to my own image and being conformed to the image of Christ. The English language uses "authentic" for both of those, but if we want to truly make that distinction within the church, then we might use a cheap form of "authentic" for definition two, but we're going to use "righteousness" for definition three actually within a religious context. But these are mutually exclusive. The tension that Cameron's laying out for us there is necessarily there because there are two different goals in mind and an entirely different set of means for reaching those goals. So that was just a complicated way of saying "duh, I think that this isn't going to work if you're pursuing one and it's going to seem weird to those who are pursuing the other".

Insufficiency of the Self

Cameron (24:42.762)

And let me just bring in one factor here that I think is really important before we draw our remarks toward a concluding point, this is typical of us here on Thinking Out Loud. What I'm going to introduce opens up a new can of worms, but Charles Taylor often points to (there are a number of different precursors to this line of thinking, Freud would be a big one) the notion that we have these vast inward depths and we have all of these inner riches. That's a big assumption that most of us make. Now, I'm going to agree with part of that, every human being has inner riches in a manner of speaking. This is not because you have some vast, unplugged subconscious full of hidden sexual desires and neuroses as a Freud would suggest. Or in the Jungian sense, you have all of these archetypal spiritual skeletons in your closet, something like that (We could bring Jordan Peterson on to spell that one out for you). But rather because you're a spiritual creature; that's the wonder of human beings. That's also the horror of human beings in some ways, because we're capable of amazing things because we're made in God's image but we're also capable of drastic things, terrible things as well. 

We have the inner riches in the sense that we are spiritual creatures. For those who are Christians this will be a truism in some ways, but may I suggest for those who are on the fence or who aren't or maybe are flirting with some of the other stuff; we don't have sufficient inner resources to take care of ourselves. And I'm just suggesting this to you, put this in your pipe and smoke it and think about it, or put it in your incense and light it up. You are a spiritual creature and that's an amazing feature of human life, but it can take you in some very strange directions if you channel this in the wrong way. This is behind the impulse to experiment with the occult. This is behind the impulse to adopt new age practices. This is behind the impulse to experiment with psychedelic drugs. You are a spiritual creature because you were made by God for God, and you inhabit a spiritual world. There are spiritual powers in this world and there are dark spiritual powers in this world as well. So, we want to be careful. The stakes are high. The dark spiritual powers are very real and are very authentic. Well, they're authentic in the sense that they're real (sense one). And you don't have sufficient inner resources to take care of yourself completely. You're not a self-sufficient being. You cannot find fulfillment in and of yourself. That aspiration is just a basic form of idolatry. God alone is the self-sufficient necessary being and you're not a God. And at the heart of so much of this, by the way, is that we behave as though we are God and as though we're masters of our own destiny and control of our lives, and we rule everything. That won't work. And I think we see ample evidence that it doesn't work. That doesn't stop it from being a huge temptation and doesn't stop it from just making a lot of sense to people because that's the spiritual environment of our culture right now. But it's deeply misguided. And so, I think my parting thought here, Nathan, is just that we are not self-sufficient and we don't have sufficient inner resources to take care of ourselves.

Nathan (29:03.168)

Yeah, and I was just thinking there's an additional aspect, let's make it worse. Even if you can determine within yourself the good that you ought to do, you often don't have the will or the power to actualize it. So, it's not even finding the resource within yourself to have the right idea. It's actually going ahead and doing it. And so that's why I think it's pretty important that we attached at the end here that it is God who wills and works (Philippians 2:13). When we're talking about obedience and conformity to the image of Christ, that's not a self-actualization maneuver. That is an act of God working on your life and in your life and through your life. Because I think there is a Christian version of the danger that you just outlined for us. Like, "oh, well, I'm not doing yoga to align my chakra and find my inner spiritual light", but maybe I'm on something that parallels sort of like a self-help Christian discipleship formation sort of thing. Which is basically the same thing where you're the primary agent in the action that's happening there. And that's not how it works. So, I think a lot of people end up in bad spots when they just try to take that type of behavior and then just stick Christian language on it. When it comes to being authentic and being fully human, Colossians is a great book. This idea of fullness pops up all over there. Or Jesus's teaching, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly or have it to the fullest (John 10:10). Therein lies the goal of what we're after. We're looking for something that's real and I think there are authentic people. 

Conclusion

I was thinking of when I visited my grandfather on my mom's side shortly before he died. And I think I've told this story before, I walked in and I said, "Hey, grandpa, how are you doing?", and he said, "you know, what you see is how I am". And I thought, that's a good way to live if you can confidently say to people, "what you see is how I am". So, there is a realness to people, and I think we should encourage and champion and aspire to be people that don't have false pretense, that aren't trying to put on a performance, that are confident enough about brokenness in our lives to share that, but also excited about the goodness in our lives and we're willing to share that. I think there's an attractive quality and feature to that. Don't hear me poo-pooing definition one (the realness or the non-imitation side of authenticity), I think that's great. I think Cameron has outlined for us the dangers of authenticity definition two (trying to be true to yourself). And we've collectively pointed to that the biblical ideal falls more in keeping with authenticity definition three (conforming to an original and replicating the features of that). And in doing so, what else could Christ-like mean? What does "Christian" mean? Like Christ, right? There's an authenticity, a replication, and a righteousness that's baked into the pursuit of doing that.

Cameron and I, I think we speak pretty vulnerably about the things we don't know about and things we're trying to figure out and sort out. And so, thinking out loud's role here is not to say, "we're the experts, learn what we say", instead it's saying, "hey, we're trying to grow and think and be formed in this direction, come journey with us". We're pursuing righteousness here because it's a command of Christ. So, blessings to each of you as you listen to this. As you then try to figure out what that looks like in your lives, we're trying to sort that out ourselves.

And we appreciate knowing that you're on the journey along with us. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.

Cameron (32:49.454)

Thanks for watching!