authenticity vs performance

We live in a "cut-paste" culture enabled by technology.

- Lawrence Lessig

The concept of "academic integrity" presupposes wholeness, oneness, "ownness," an identity between the writer and what she or he has written, but this value is not dominant among today's youth. Moral judgments of plagiarism, as we shall see, depend on even more fundamental views of personhood and the relations among selves.

Those motivated by the ethic of "authenticity" insist that their words are theirs alone and that all utterances derive from their own, their singular, their individual, integral truth. Nothing could make them pronounce what is not intended as an expression of their own thoughts and feelings. These authentic selves would never plagiarize because they believe to their core that all they say should be theirs and theirs alone. Their key concepts are own, genuine, essence, integral, means, undivided.

By contrast, those motivated by the ethic of what I call "performance" accept that their behavior is mutable, depending on circumstances. All that matters is the effect of their actions, including their speech and writing. Thus they are not wedded to the notion of a singular relationship between their inner feelings and thoughts and their outer expression. They will say what is expected, whatever suits the occasion, whether it is their personal truth or not. Performance selves say and write whatever works for their practical purposes; it need not belong to them alone. They don't feel a tight connection between their words and their inner being, so they don't sweat it if others use their words or if they use the words of others. For them the notion of "self" is multiple rather than singular and unified. Their key concepts are efficacy, nimbleness, comfort, circumstance, ends, goals.

Technology plays a role in the generational transformation that has occurred between the emphasis on authenticity and the emphasis on performance, but it is not an entirely causal one. The shift from authenticity to performance—with all the accompanying desires for play and so on—has in turn led to the development of certain technological innovations.

The authentic self celebrates uniqueness, individual contribution, essence, fixity, and authorship. It is inner-directed. Its words are its own, and are always meant and sincerely believed. The performance self celebrates collaboration, incorporation, fluidity, appearance. It is goal-oriented. Its words are derived from many different sources and may be spoken or written in earnest or in jest, with conviction or just to get along.

- Susan Blum