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authenticity

What Use Are the Politics of Authenticity?

(Photo: Gage Skidmore) Not much argues Rich Yeselson over at Crooked Timber in a long post about Mitt Romney that’s getting a fair bit of attention on the interwebs today. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here are the highlights.  Yeselson suggests that “authenticity” is a mirage, both because people don’t have single, “real” selves and because, even if they did, there is simply no way for others to judge who a person is in his or her heart of hearts. Citing the work of Erving Goffman (be still my 20th-century USIH heart!), Yeselson argues that far from presenting Read more