Paste your essay in here…Introduction
In this essay I will argue in favour of the claim that adopting a traditional view of authenticity as a virtue is not conducive to a good life. Authenticity in the traditional sense relies too heavily on the belief in the existence of the ‘true’ self which is problematic when examined under philosophical discussion of personal identity. I will show that Butler’s theory of performativity is more promising but not without fault. I will agree with Bialystock that Butler’s theory is perhaps too radical but will give more credence to her theory than she does. This is because of its strength in acknowledging social pressures and their effects on identity, as well as abolishing the concept of the ‘true’ self.
Problem:
Bialystock outlines the issue in conflating authenticity with sincerity in her paper and from this she comes to a new definition of authenticity. This contrasts the more traditional view that suggests authenticity is about correctly ordering your desires and aligning them so they reflect your ‘true’ self, as Frankfurt suggests (Bialystock, 2011:215). Bialystock believes that authenticity is actually “an intrapersonal disposition that requires … wholeheartedness, self-knowledge and intentionality”, therefore it require self-reflection rather than engagement with others (ibid:220). Sincerity, on the other hand, is interpersonal because it requires representing yourself to others as you believe you are.
Each definition of the view assumes that being authentic is to be true to oneself and to others. The problem with this view is that it assumes there is an independent self that you can be true to.(ibid:228). Doris (2005) has shown that small situational changes can make large differences to behaviour, implying that there is no such thing as robust character traits. People who have just found a dime are 22 times more likely to help a woman who had dropped some papers than people who did not find a dime, for example. That such a small influencing factor can have an impact on behaviour shows that our idea of a robust, immutable character is flawed.
The idea of the true self is problematic because it presents an essentialist account of identity which seems detrimental to the view that identity is malleable to circumstance. Adopting the ‘true’ self philosophy, may encourage the view that there is a continuous personal identity through time but it seems redundant in promoting any kind of self-improvement. To suggest, as this concept does, that there is a “sharp division” between ‘who I am’ and ‘what I tell others I am’, indicates that there is an identity secular to external influence or social pressures. Feminist philosophers in particular, have cause to doubt the concept of a true self because of this essentialism. Examining the effects of social norms is important to feminist philosophy. The feminist charge is that there is a performative element to our identities, that suggests there is no such thing as a ‘true’ self and that all identities are constructed by the actions we perform (Bialystock, 2011:221).
My Claim:
Judith Butler’s work Gender Trouble proposed the idea that gender identity is performative. This means that gender identity is simply the gendered behaviours and repetition of style (dress, posture, speech) that formulates gender over time. Gender is nothing more than the repetition of these acts, actively constructing the gender they are acting out (Butler, 1999).
Feminist philosopher Catherine MacKinnon (1992) often uses arguments from other philosophers and applies them to feminist issues; one instance of this is her discussion of pornography as a speech act. This particular theory has been adopted from JL Austin (1979), who discusses different types of speech that perform different actions. Butler is aware of MacKinnon’s work, although she is not always in agreement with her, so it seems plausible to suggest that she has mimicked the use of applying Austin’s theory in other areas (Osborne and Segal, 1993).
Butler suggests performativity is like a perlocutionary speech act: it enacts the thing it is saying. In the context of a wedding, for example, the phrase “I now pronounce you man and wife” creates a marital partnership. Butler uses this approach to talk about gender, arguing that gender is not ‘real’ but creates itself as it is being acted out. Therefore, gender is to “produce a series of effects … that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman” (Big Think, 2011). As with the wedding example, the act of ‘doing’ gender is like a speech act because gender is formed by acting in gendered ways, reinforcing itself. Just as “I am a vegetarian” has associative behaviours of not eating meat or wearing leather, saying “I am a woman” has a constructive value. The identity is formed by the statement and is continuously formed by repeated actions that give the impression of a ‘woman’.
We must be sure to distinguish between performance and performativity, however. Performance implies that this is an active action and that there is someone doing this performance; Butler does not say this. In Butler’s words, performance “presumes a subject” while performativity “contests the very notion” of one (Big Think, 2011). There is no “internal reality” to gender, therefore there is no ‘true’ self behind it. It is also important to note that while this theory focuses on gender, it is applicable to personal identity more broadly (Bialystock, 2011:221). If identity is performative, ‘the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fiction’; rendering the idea of a ‘true’ self completely defunct (Butler, 1999:180).
Objections and Replies
Bialystock takes issue with Butler’s theory because “it calls into question the very intuition that something persists under the manifold behaviours that we attribute over time to a single identity” (Bialystock 2011:222). Butler’s claim is that supporting the view of the ‘true’ self suggests there is “an essential sex”, which is part of “the strategy that conceals gender’s performative character” (Butler, 1999:192). Because our society promotes compulsory heterosexuality, Butler suggests that the freedom to choose subversive identities is illusory (Bialystock 2011:223 and Butler:1999:24)
Bialystock queries whether Butler’s theory is contingent because it seems to digress from how things seem to be and “it renders questions of authenticity moot” (ibid). I feel I should say that sometimes philosophical investigation suggests things that go against the way we perceive ourselves, for example philosophy of mind’s arguments against the existence of the soul. The loss of something we’ve so long believed to be true can feel like a difficult blow to take but that doesn’t mean we should continuously defend it, despite alternative theories presenting logical solutions to the issue.
Bialystock notes that Butler is not criticising the ‘true’ self view by suggesting that identity is “socially conditioned”, but that there is “no such thing as identity in the normal sense of the word” (ibid). This is radical because it so greatly contradicts our intuition. I do not think arguments that appeal to the intuition are successful ones, however, so we must dig deeper in order to refute Butler’s claims.
Bialystock’s second criticism is the critique that Butler’s theory “fails to account for what … determines the gender that we perform” (ibid), and this holds more weight. Much of identity is about self-definition; gender identity in particular seems to be something that is expressive. Butler’s claim says that this connectivity to an identity and the identity we present are in no way linked; genders “have no correlation in the individual’s inner constitution” under Butler’s theory. It is this point which Bialystock rejects most vehemently because it makes terms such as sincerity and authenticity, in relation to identity, nonsensical.
Bialystock’s point here is that there needs to be “a source of our determinations about gender, which allows for gender ‘identities’” (ibid). When someone identifies as something, they are giving certain information about themselves in expressing this identity. Bialystock doesn’t doubt that this information “is a product of the interaction between oneself and external pressures”, but the point she is making is that there is, in fact, “an ‘I’ that chooses … to make that identification” (ibid). She agrees that gender does not have a value outside of social norms, but states that Butler’s theory goes too far in suggesting that identities are constituted only by actions. Further, the basis for all identities, according to Bialystock “must be … something that we can call the individual’s identity” (ibid).
A further problem with Butler’s theory of performativity is that it proves difficult to explain how one’s identity can change. If there is not performer in identity, but simply the repeated actions, how is it that these actions are able to change over time? To view gender as a performance, as some people take from a misreading of Butler, suggests a freeing of the social roles tied to gender. I believe these norms do not lead to a good life. Gender puts too much restriction on people and leads to unhappiness when they are unable to express themselves freely because of the expected behaviours of their gender.
In arguing this, I am refuting Butler because I am suggesting that there is an ‘I’ that identifies with the gender they are performing. In accordance with Bialystock’s criticism, we cannot take Butler’s argument too far because it completely dismisses internal identity and doesn’t seem to competently be able to explain how identities may change. The strength of Butler’s argument, however, is that it rids us of the stagnant and essentialist view that there is a ‘true’ self and it showcases the artifice of gender (Bialystock, 2011:221).
Ultimately, I am in agreement with Bialystock that there must be an individual that chooses their own identity. I believe that Butler shows us that we should be aware of the social influences that go into forming our identities and reject the claim of the ‘true’ self, to allow for a better understanding of personal identity. Bialystock instead, argues in favour of a “plural and open-ended” identity without concluding that there is no ‘real’ identity (Bialystock, 2011:224).
Some “evidence of the versatile and multilayered nature of identity” include the way we take on different roles which do not compromise each other, for example “friend”, “student”, “vegetarian”. Bialystock appeals to the fact that we behave differently to different people, presenting different aspects of our identity without considering this inauthentic. This suggests that we do perceive of identity as complex. The notion of the ‘true’ self isn’t consistent with this view. I behave differently to my lecturer than I would a friend, because in one instance I need to be respectful but in the other I am able to “be myself”. We would not claim that I am not presenting my ‘true’ self to the lecturer, just a different aspect of myself. Authenticity is then a much broader concept than originally believed and it seems essential for leading a good life that we get rid of the assumptions the traditional view makes.
Conclusion
I have shown that there is a problem with our current view of authenticity in that it assumes the concept of the ‘true’ self. I have demonstrated why this concept is problematic and looked to Butler for a way out of this view. Butler’s theory has its strength in acknowledging the artifice or identity, especially in relation to gender, and abolishing the concept of a true self. I have argued in line with Bialystock that identity must be multi-layered, comprised of many different ‘roles’ that are able to exist simultaneously without contradiction. Freeing ourselves of the virtue of needing to be authentic to our ‘true’ self, is more conducive to a good life because it allows for error and change and doesn’t hold us to immutable character traits.