"What Kind of Fool Am I?"

From Devo to Jackson Browne, the theme of blissful ignorance winds on. But there’s a difference. Devo’s “Mongoloid” is happy with his hat and his job. There’s no thought of what it’s all for. Jackson Browne’s “Pretender” is more like me. He has to decide to be dumb, and the dumbness he’s looking for is what Winston Smith had to find in 1984, an ability to let the cheap substitutes provided by society make up for the lack of freedom and love.

I'm gonna be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
where true love could have been a contender

In America, we don’t live in quite as politically tyrannical a society as Winston Smith did (leaving aside all recent revelations of NSA spying on Americans), but we are ruled by money and that has its own tyranny. It’s an addiction. The more things we buy, the less we feel the inauthenticity of our lives.

But that begs the question of what an authentic life would be. The Oxford English Dictionary gives several definitions of “authentic” as an adjective.

1.      Of authority, authoritative (properly as possessing original or inherent authority, but also as duly authorized); entitled to obedience or respect. Obs.

2.      Legally valid, having legal force. Obs.

3.      Entitled to acceptance or belief, as being in accordance with fact, or as stating fact; reliable, trustworthy, of established credit. (The prevailing sense; often used in contradistinction to genuine, esp. by writers on Christian Evidences, while others identify ‘authentic’ and ‘genuine.’

4.      Original, first-hand, prototypical; as opposed to copied. Obs.

5.      Real, actual, ‘genuine.’ (Opposed to imaginary, pretended.) arch.

6.      Really proceeding from its reputed source or author; of undisputed origin, genuine. (Opposed to counterfeit, forged, apocryphal.)

7.      Belonging to himself, own, proper. Obs.

8.      Acting of itself, self-originated, automatic.

What is strange to me is that definitions 1,2, 4, and 7 are considered obsolete, and 5 is archaic, yet those senses of the meaning seem to all be included in our understanding of the word “authentic.” In fact, numbers 5 and 7 seem the most relevant to the idea of an “authentic life”. Definition 5, however, just puts us back on the Escher staircase, because what actually is real is as difficult to determine as what actually is enough. On the other hand, definition 7 says that an authentic life is one that belongs to itself. The person who lives an authentic life is the author of her life. If I am the author, then if I don’t want the latest electronic device or the in shoes or the dinner at the hottest restaurant -- if, let’s say, I believe that I already have enough, so I don’t need or want any of those things -- that’s fine.

Or is it? Unless I go live under a rock, I will constantly be badgered by the ads which “take aim and lay their claim” on my desires. It’s not quite as bad as this scene from Minority Report, but it’s getting there. Ironically as I looked for that clip on YouTube, I had to sit through a number of ads to get to it. Still more ironically, when I moved to the Adirondacks, it was partly in hope of escaping from the world of stuff and more. But as I’m sure those of you who live here know, this American “dream” follows us everywhere there is TV or internet.

One of the reasons I stopped watching television, years ago, was that I wanted everything I saw, especially food. I remember seeing a commercial for Wendy’s new spicy chicken sandwich. The next day I walked several blocks out of my way to get to a Wendy’s so I could get that sandwich. I knew I was being manipulated. I knew I was being stupid, but I had to have it. Seeing that commercial had clarified everything. I did not have enough in my life. Only after I had the sandwich would I have truly lived.

Even without TV telling us what to buy, all we have to do is look around and see what everyone else is wearing, buying, eating. What generation iPhone do they have? Why don’t I have one?

Which brings us back to Jackson Browne. Isn’t it easy to buy the line that more stuff will make us happier? Buy the line and then buy the stuff. Finding the perfect pair of shoes has got to be easier than not just finding your true love but staying with each other forever. The shoes don’t talk back. They don’t get sick or do things you don’t like. They’re reliable. So why not be a happy idiot and work for the legal tender so you can then go and patronize the shoe vendor?

I don’t want to be this kind of happy idiot. I want to be the Devo kind, who doesn’t even know this world of competitive spending exists. Does anyone else, reading the following exchange from 1984, think that in the last quote from Syme, he’s referring to “1-Click” shopping on Amazon?

Winston Smith: How's the Newspeak Committee?
Syme: Working overtime. Plusbig waste is in adjectives. Plusbig waste is timing the language to scientific advance.
Winston Smith: ...yes.
Syme: It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. You wouldn't have seen the Dictionary 10th edition, would you Smith? It's that thick.
[illustrates thickness with fingers]
Syme: The 11th Edition will be that
[narrows fingers]
Syme: thick.
Winston Smith: So, The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect?
Syme: The secret is to move from translation, to direct thought, to automatic response. No need for self-discipline. Language coming from here
[the larynx]
Syme: , not from here
[the brain]

 

All we have to do is change “language” to “spending”, “larynx” to “fingers”.

In Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, music promoters of the future work to engage the “pointers”, small children who use their iPads to point to music they like and buy it. The parents don’t have any place in the process other than, presumably, to enter the credit card number into the computer. Three-year-olds point and buy. They will not grow up knowing that instant purchasing is a substitute for life, that dreams of nice cars have been substituted for DREAMS, those things we used try to accomplish in our lives, as people, to live up to our human potential. They will think that consuming IS life.

Here is the OED’s third definition of “authentic”.

Entitled to acceptance or belief, as being in accordance with fact, or as stating fact; reliable, trustworthy, of established credit. (The prevailing sense; often used in contradistinction to genuine, esp. by writers on Christian Evidences, while others identify ‘authentic’ and ‘genuine.’

Writers on the “Christian Evidences” thought that perhaps something “genuine” might not in fact be “authentic”. Even if that purse is “genuine leather”, the life that goes along with it might not be, and the fear that it is not is what drives us to buy even more of those purses, gadgets, cars, TVs, etc. Given that “How to Know If You're Working (and Living) With Purpose” is the title of a recent article in Inc., apparently people can’t tell if they are or not.

I don’t want to worry every time I buy something whether I am being authentic or whether I’ve simply succumbed to advertising. Jackson Browne’s Pretender has succumbed. Devo’s Mongoloid is authentic. I know which life would be enough for me. Now I just need to go find a rock big enough to live under, so I can follow through.