Authenticity: between the mask we wear and who we truly are

Source: The waiter who was too waiter-like: Sartre's observation

"His movement is quick and pronounced, a little too precise, a little too rapid... His exaggerated behavior illustrates that he is playing the role of the waiter, as one plays with an object."

Jean-Paul Sartre, *Being and Nothingness* (1943); Image: from the musical *Waitress*

Explanation: Bad faith: when we turn ourselves into objects

Sartre describes a cafe waiter who behaves "a little too much like a waiter." His movements are a little too precise, a little too rapid, a little too eager. He is a little too 'waiter-like,' rather than 'just a waiter.' Why? Because he has fled from his freedom to be anything else. He defined himself as a "waiter" and is now trapped inside that role. Sartre calls this mauvaise foi—"bad faith." It is a kind of self-deception: we pretend to be things (a waiter, a lawyer, a mother), instead of recognizing the fact that we are free human beings who chose to fulfill these roles. You are not just a waiter, and you are not just a mother.

Perspective: The modern trap: why we all live with guilt

Sartre was tougher than Heidegger. He says: everyone, absolutely everyone, lives in "bad faith" at least some of the time. The waiter isn't bad; he's only human. But the trouble starts when people identify with their roles ("I am an engineer") and forget that they exist beyond the role. People convince themselves to work overtime out of bad faith. Modern culture encourages this bad faith; the slogan 'find your calling' is essentially a demand: define yourself as an object (doctor, artist, manager) and stay that way. That is why some women go off to work every day feeling guilty that they are neglecting their identity as a mother, while those who stay home with the kids usually feel they are missing out on expressing other identities, like engineer, teacher, or restaurant owner—and so she ends up feeling like neither a good mother nor a successful engineer, because all of life becomes guilt. Being authentic is not living a boxed-in life.

Going Deeper: Simone de Beauvoir: gendered bad faith

Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's partner, extended the concept to "gendered bad faith." Women who adopt the "feminine" definition imposed on them by society ("a woman is X")—instead of recreating themselves—are living in bad faith. In The Second Sex (1949), she writes: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," a claim that has been corrupted by modern progressivism. What Beauvoir meant is that the label 'woman' carries with it narrowing premises and fixed thinking; a woman is not just a mother, and a man is not just a soldier. Everything is a choice, not a decree of fate.

Culture: *American Beauty*: when rebellion turns to tragedy

The film American Beauty, 1999.

Lester Burnham, the film's protagonist, is a classic case of Sartrean "bad faith." He plays the role of the family man, the responsible father—until one day he wakes up and realizes he has hated this life all along. He breaks out, starts acting like a teenager, works out, takes a job at McDonald's. It is sheer whim, but it is also a revolt against the life one is "supposed to live." The film ends in tragedy—a hint that escape sometimes leads only to a bumpy road, and redemption doesn't come so easily. Authenticity is sometimes just pointless childishness, and sometimes 'this life' is actually a calling.