The Politics of Authenticity

This is a book about a new language born from the experiences and necessities of modern life. Its story begins in 18th-century Paris, where a dynamic economy and a fluid, open, and pluralistic way of life were just emerging. This marks the beginning of a paradoxical era: the emergence of suppressed impulses and energies, and the development of human skills and abilities, are accompanied by self-alienation. Socialized man transforms into a citizen consumed by his social role. The self disappears into the world it emerged from. Here, "you don't need to know a man's character to guess what he will say; you only need to know his interests."
Guided by Marshall Berman, author of "All That Is Solid Melts Into Air," this time we embark on a journey through the ideas and works of Montesquieu, Pascal, and Rousseau, who, with an understanding specific to their era, demonstrate the politics of the problem of personal authenticity, and how tightly intertwined the destinies of the self, society, and the state are in the modern age. In this journey, which reflects the paradoxes of contemporary life, Berman reveals how alienation and the search for authenticity emerge from one another; how the ideal of authenticity is in radical opposition to the bourgeois notion of "self-interest"; and the enduring relevance of these works, from Existentialism to Marxism, from modern psychology to the political turns of the 20th century.