A Strong Condemnation of Your Enemies Encourages False Allies.

I’ve noticed a consistent frustration within myself over the last couple of years revolving around authenticity.

Most people when asked, will of course say that they value people being honest and authentic in their interactions with others; however, this seems to be deeply incompatible with how they act.

People often completely reasonably avoid what feels bad and pursue what feels good. There is however a contradiction between asking for authenticity and the above. You create a demand for the behaviour you react positively to and discourage the behaviour that you react negatively to. Unfortunately, the truth found in somebody's authenticity is the same as all truth; it does not care how it tastes and will on occasion, taste rather bitter.

“I will only interact with people whose authentic selves match mine so completely that there is no chance I would ever discourage them from telling me what they believe to be true”

Clearly this is practically impossible, but it also seems to be a surprisingly commonly attempted tactic if you observe people. There is a slight leap of logic that leads you to somewhat conclude that always reacting to people based on how you feel, will encourage falseness in your environment. People create a persona attempting to meet the market demand for positivity, affirmation, and validation.

You may presume that I therefore believe we should all be infinitely tolerant of others in order to promote people being their actual selves. This is again practically impossible. Clearly nobody (very much including myself) would believe that no matter what action another person took, an individual would not react negatively in order to promote authenticity and truth. I think it is very reasonable to allow people to adopt a slight persona when interacting with other people so that every person you meet is not a black hole of infinite human variance.

Of course, for better and for worse, the personas will have a human soul. Meaning personas, often in a rather anthropologically cute fashion, lean towards the accumulation of sexual attractiveness, status, and validation. We need an agreed game to play so that the maths doesn’t get too hard. It means that the less socially gifted among us can learn to play the game instead of learning people (learning people being a lifelong endeavour for those brave enough to attempt it). This allows them, at the very least, to interact with society.

So why would I be frustrated if I do not believe that we should all be hugely tolerant of human behaviour as long as that behaviour is true?

My frustration comes from the inability to acknowledge that your reactions and peoples’ authenticity is linked. The thickness of other people’s personas around you, is in many ways proportional to the strength of your positive reactions to falseness or negative reactions to authenticity. You only need to watch a meeting between an explosive tyrannical boss and their terrified employees to see this on display. You will quickly see that all but the bravest, will smooth over any jagged edges to keep things running, well, smoothly. You, in my view, give up some right to complain about people not being truthful with you if you are too quick to reward the excessive adoption of a persona or condemn somebody's ugly truth. I have no answer for the exact proportions that I think people should adopt. I would simply like people to consciously pick their poison and understand that they were in some part a cause of the world around them.

I myself have chosen to try and be as tolerant as I can handle and try to apologize quickly when I slip. I’ve somewhat concluded a strong condemnation of your enemies encourages false allies and therefore is not worth it.