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Alain Finkielkraut, architecture, authenticity, David Harvey, Karl Marx, modernism, modernity, skholiast (blogger), Søren Kierkegaard, utilitarianism, Zanzibar
Skholiast has an interesting riff on my recent post about happiness, and I’d like to riff right back. Skholiast quotes from Alain Finkielkraut‘s La défaite de la pensée – a book I read long ago while backpacking through France, in the hope of beefing up my philosophical French. And Skholiast’s quote from Finkielkraut got me thinking of a much more recent trip, my honeymoon in Zanzibar two months ago.
As well as spectacular beaches, Zanzibar has a tremendously atmospheric old Stone Town, and crumbling palaces built in the nineteenth century by Sultan Said. On a tour of these palace ruins, our guide spoke mournfully about how the government had destroyed and misused these palaces after independence and revolution in 1964. It is surely worth mourning when a beautiful object from the past is lost forever. In addition to this destruction, the revolutionary government built most of Ng’ambo, the “other side” of Zanzibar town – the part that is completely non-atmospheric, full of concrete blocks designed by East German engineers. It is in Ng’ambo that the majority of urban Zanzibaris live. The tourist guidebooks tend to scoff at Ng’ambo if they mention it at all, which they rarely do – and no surprise, since it is utterly charmless to look at, a generic site that could be anywhere.
And yet driving through Ng’ambo, I could also see what motivated the revolutionary government to build it that way; more than that, I was quite pleased to see it. For much of Zanzibar has little local wealth. It is not like Thailand or India, where local élites are everywhere, and often richer than the scruffy Western tourists who come there on a shoestring. In Stone Town there are the poor locals and the rich tourists. Most of Stone Town, for all its winding, medieval atmospheric charm, is in disrepair. After a while, when one sees a clean building in good condition, one comes to ask “What hotel is that?” – for one realizes that the only buildings maintained well are the hotels for the tourists.
Ng’ambo is a little different. There, unlike both Stone Town and the countryside, one finds modern shopping arcades catering to local residents. From those charmless Stalinist concrete blocks, decaying as they may be, one can see air-conditioning units poking out many of the windows: an expensive luxury, but one very welcome in the humid 35ºC heat of Zanzibar Town. The majority of tourist accommodations in Zanzibar, even huts with thatched roofs on the beach, had air conditioning; Ng’ambo was the only place I saw any local Zanzibaris having access to this delightful comfort when they were not working. Even though those buildings are themselves in disrepair, it seemed to me that for many Zanzibaris they would be a welcome step up.
Old and new Zanzibar Town, it seems to me, express something like Kierkegaard‘s contrast between the aesthetic and the ethical, which Skholiast refers to in his post: the search for beautiful things as opposed to the welfare of the community. (This is not how I prefer to use the term “ethics,” but it will do for the present discussion.) In his The Condition of Postmodernity, David Harvey perceptively links “ethics” with modernity and “aesthetics” with postmodernity, using the terms “ethics” and “aesthetics” in a sense that I think are similar to Kierkegaard’s. (So too, “postmodern” here refers not merely to relativist postmodernist intellectuals, but to the broader cultural trends of the 1970s and after.)
Harvey is concerned with the “aestheticization of politics,” where the personal appeal of a Reagan or an Obama can trump questions of policy, but even that is part of a broader point. Ethical moderns – Marxist, utilitarian, Rawlsian – favoured the new, replacing unruly traditional structures with efficient rational designs for universal benefit. Aesthetic postmoderns instead preferred the old, preserving authentic ways of living from the past. The Marxist Harvey is of course perceptively attuned to the class bias of all this: our love for the old-school privileges the aesthetic enjoyment of rich tourists over the enrichment of living standards for the human multitude. Harvey would have considerably more sympathy for Tanzania’s socialist revolutionary government than for those who want to preserve the palaces of its wealthy sultan.
Which brings me, finally, to Finkielkraut. In the English translation that Skholiast quotes, Finkielkraut says that postmoderns
do not dream of an authentic society, where people live comfortably in their cultural identities, but a polymorphous one, a multicolored, heterogeneous world in which individuals have many lifestyles to choose from. They have less interest in promoting the right to be different than the right to have access to the differences of others. For the multicultural means a storehouse of options.
Finkielkraut agrees with Harvey here, from a less Marxist perspective. When we rich élites value the old – and there’s nothing like a trip to Africa to make one realize what a rich élite one is, even if one’s means are very modest back home – it is in many ways for our own benefit, even for our own consumption. But I also think Finkielkraut is wrong in saying that this “storehouse of options” is not a “dream of an authentic society.” Rather, it is exactly that. A storehouse of options requires an authenticity that is always just beyond one’s reach, for one’s own choice of the option, one’s own participation in the option, itself makes it less authentic. For in many ways it is authenticity that creates difference. Americanized Thai food tastes an awful lot like Americanized Chinese food – very sweet, mild spice, soy and ginger. Authentic Thai food is much more different from both Americanized Chinese food and authentic Chinese food – a much better option to have in the storehouse. In the original French, Finkielkraut says something a bit different and at least as telling: “Multiculturel signifient pour eux abondamment garni” – for them, “multicultural” means “abundantly garnished.” And there’s no garnish like authenticity. At their worst, the advocates of authenticity effectively want to preserve a human zoo, where others are forced to remain traditional so that we can choose to consume their authentic products.
Where does this all leave us? Well: one of the conclusions that has persuaded me more and more over the years is that there is some truth in everything. As part of the global tourist class, it is very easy for me to see the beauty in the old-school, the authentic, the old and often unchosen ways of living and building that characterize Stone Town. That shouldn’t be neglected, the way it was by the mid-20th-century utilitarians and Stalinists. But there’s also something wrong when that beauty comes at the expense of those who created it or live in it. Sometimes they want a choice too, and they have good reasons for putting other priorities above their authentic ways of life. That, to me, is the lesson of Ng’ambo.
“Finkielkraut is wrong in saying that this “storehouse of options” is not a “dream of an authentic society.” Rather, it is exactly that. A storehouse of options requires an authenticity that is always just beyond one’s reach, for one’s own choice of the option, one’s own participation in the option, itself makes it less authentic.”
F. would perhaps reply that this demonstrates that multiculturalism is in bad faith, and alienated. It needs the “authentic” other only to shore up whatever story-de-jour is being told. It’s a dreamed-of authenticity, and indeed the fact that a bit of comparison often shows just how far it misses its mark (for Americanized Thai food is what most people assume is Thai food) indicates just how alienated it is,and just how little it needs any “real” authenticity– the idea will do just fine.
I don’t want to wax smug here; I am a pluralist of sorts and I too value authenticity despite its being easily dismissed as a kind of McGuffin or obscure object of desire. One thing I like about your post is the way it points out the complexity and real human costs (on all sides of the question) to what could turn into globalization’s reservation system of humanity.
I would take issue with that hypothetical reply of Finkielkraut’s. Most people do assume that Americanized Thai food is Thai food – but they are not the ones who seek authenticity. They’re happy with stuff that happens to taste good to them. The thing is that the quest for authenticity – a quest that they don’t participate in and I do – is itself a problem. People who think volcano chicken and curry puffs are the highlight of Thai cuisine are not the ones who risk creating a human zoo, a “reservation system of humanity.” You don’t need any real Thai people around to get that stuff.
I don’t think the authenticity seekers’ problem is that they don’t seek real authenticity but merely an idea of it. Rather, real authenticity is exactly what they seek; it’s just never what they get, and can’t be. The problem may just be that authenticity, like common sense, cannot be successfully sought; the people who have it are not aware that they have it, because once it is theorized it ceases to be such.
“The problem may just be that authenticity, like common sense, cannot be successfully sought; the people who have it are not aware that they have it, because once it is theorized it ceases to be such.”
We are all endowed with common sense. Even a fool shows linguistic competence, one of the competencies of common sense. So, there is no question of seeking it. One may, however, strive to develop and defend it against the onslaughts of the armies of philosophical, religious, and political darkness or night.
Nothing precludes or prevents common sense from including an element of self-reflection or self-recognition. I am exercising my common sense in avoiding an area full of smoke and nothing prevents me from also acknowledging at the same time that I acted on my common sense and that it was wise to do so.
Common sense has not “ceased to be such” merely because we have philosophies of common sense and common sense philosophies.
It seems to me that authenticity in terms of cultural practices and products is inextricably tied to a tradition and an interpretation of that tradition.
Thus, whether or not something is authentic Thai cuisine or an authentic style of performance of a form of dance or music would depend respectively on a tradition of preparation of that cuisine or a tradition of performance of that form of dance or music.
I am curious about the relationship of authenticity and excellence. If something is authentic, does this imply that it must also be excellent? If a performance is authentic Baroque style performance, does this imply that it must be an excellent performance?
Is authenticity intrinsically valuable? Or is it a means to an end? Is authenticity a means to excellence?
“Is authenticity intrinsically valuable?”
We are not going to necessarily applaud someone for being able to give an authentic Nazi salute in an authentic Nazi uniform. Who would approve a revival of the inhumane Old Testament practice of stoning women for adultery or the old Hindu practice of Sati merely on grounds of “authenticity” or fidelity to tradition?
Authenticity is justified and admirable if it is a means to moral and/or aesthetic excellence.
“Is authenticity intrinsically valuable?”
We are not going to necessarily applaud someone for being able to give an authentic Nazi salute in an authentic Nazi uniform. Who would approve a revival of the inhumane Old Testament practice of stoning women for adultery or the old Hindu practice of Sati merely on grounds of “authenticity” or fidelity to tradition?
Authenticity is justified and admirable if it is a means to moral and/or aesthetic excellence.
Common sense is imperiled not only by the “armies of philosophical, religious, and political darkness”. Some desires and aversions are consistent with common sense, but others can undermine it. Perhaps, it is part of wisdom to remove those desires and aversions which undermine common sense.
Amod, I think you are onto something when you suggest that authenticity, by its very nature, cannot be successfully sought — there seems to me to be a non-accidental similarity to humility here. I wonder whether authenticity can even be successfully defined, or whether this is itself an attempt to track it down and “have” it.
Skholiast, following Wilde’s prescription, I have decided to get rid of the temptation to proffer a comment and a question on your response to Amod by yielding to it!
It seems to me that we must have some understanding of what authenticity is in order to even say that it cannot be successfully sought. Whether or not something is authentic involves interpretation. However, I also think that the constitutive elements of a tradition impose some constraints on the range of acceptable interpretations.
Given your interest in music, and I presume this includes European classical music, what do you think of the authentic performance movement spearheaded, among others, by conductors Christopher Hogwood and Roger Norrington? Is the search for authentic performance of the compositions of the great masters doomed to failure?
How could I resist an invocation of Oscar Wilde?
In answer to your preface, Thill, I can only point to my master Plato, who already indicated that we have to have some sort of experience of the authentic in order to seek it. I note too your mention of the vexed category of interpretation, which I have been thinking a good deal about (it comes up in an upcoming post). The constraints traditions place upon interpretation, and the liberty one has even in pressing against these, are very subtle matters. The musical example you raise is easy in comparison to questions like the evolution of Christianity or Buddhism. I am not a scholar enough of the great classical European tradition, but while I admire the authentic performance movement I think there is in it a temptation to pedantry. I certainly do not believe that only such performances give us “what Haydn meant,” for instance. Every performance is also a translation, and with all due deference to the old (and cynical?) phrase “Traduttore, traditore,” there are still good and bad translations. And of course, as a glance at that Italian will confirm, “tradition” itself means “handing over” and is very close to betrayal.