Authenticity is the act of being authentic that is meeting certain quality standards in life. According to Kierkegaard, authenticity is based on an individual finding out authentic faith and becoming true to oneself. This is where a person is not influenced by any factor in becoming themselves, but instead, they develop their character (Ashman, 2007). Kierkegaard argued that the social media news and the Christianity faiths play a significant role in presenting a challenge in hindering human beings from becoming authenticity.
He sees that the church, and the media as the intervening blocks which hinders people’s way to real experience, God, and authenticity. He argues that the mass culture creates an environment which makes human beings lose their true themselves in an attempt to blend in and fit in instead of standing out as the society believes there are certain particular right directions (d’Anjou, 2010). Media supports a society that does not form its opinion but instead relies on the news.
Religion also affects human beings thinking as it is a tradition that has been passively accepted by people without the inclusion of an authentic thought. According to Heidegger, human beings are born in a world full of conformity as everything we say, do, think, or believe have been said, though and believed before. The society controls human lives, and human decisions are controlled by cultural forces. His idea of authenticity is that people live in a world that moves away from transcends or in some way reflective challenges the inauthentic mode.
For people to be authentic, they have to make their stand about their being. People must first acknowledge their ontological anxiety and keep it alive. Ontological anxiety will later become the light of human beings being purifying, refining, and integrating (Ashman, 2007). According to Sartre in authenticity, existence precedes essence which means man lives his life first before he is defined by who he is.
She proposes that human beings should take control of their lives which is their choices and responsibilities he states that human beings are born out of circumstances, but they have the power to change these conditions. The media have defined how human beings should dress in particular occasions which make them lack the authenticity of making their choice as their thinking is influenced by the current trends in the social media(Cleary,2015). Anguish according to Sartre is the act of making every decision by thinking that all of the humanity is watching.
According to her, anguish is what we feel when we realize that we must choose for everyone and not just for ourselves but we cannot have any proof of being right. She also states that anguish can be experienced when an utterly captured realizes that is actions cannot be predicted. According to Kierkegaard, anguish is the same as suffering in the sense that everyone wants to know the truth, but it takes pain and suffering to find the truth. According to him, anguish goes beyond a simple mood to become an important and decisive experience in human life.
Anguish is related to sin and the urge to have freedom. It is defined as the feeling that accompanies all human decisions (Lawler, & Ashman, 2012). According to Heidegger, anguish is the awareness of one’s freedom. Human beings experience anguish when they realize the amount of liberty they have and the little they have done using the free will they have. About bad faith, Heidegger argues that human beings have the tendency of allowing themselves to be lost in the present concerns which lead to people becoming separated from themselves and their actions.
Bad faith is where human beings believe so much that they tend to forget about their freedom. Bad faith hinders individuals from creating and redefining themselves and well as creating an authentic existence (Farahmandfar, & Samigorganroodi, 2015). Sartre states that bad faith is a situation where human beings are placed under pressure from social forces to adopt false values and hence do away with their freedom of making decisions and choices in life. This leads to human beings starting to act inauthentically.
She further explains that people can pretend to themselves that they lack the freedom of making choices, but they cannot pretend to themselves that they are not themselves (Lawler, & Ashman, 2012). According to Kierkegaard, faith is not a matter of rehearsing church dogma, but a question of a person’s individual passion which cannot be understood by the human artifacts. Bad faith is where human beings are thinking, and freedom is limited, and instead, they are required to act and conform to certain norms some of which they don’t believe in but are expected by the church to have faith in them (Cleary,2015).
Bad faith is wen human beings have to act in a particular manner at work and even speak with an own accent when on a professional call which they don’t believe in but because it is the culture they have found, they have to adopt. I identify with Kierkegaard view of an authenticity of finding my faith and becoming true to myself. I tend to believe that human beings should not be influenced by any factor in growing themselves, but instead, they should find their faith and truth.
