Authenticity and Compromise.

September 16, 2008

In this presidential election year, the issue of authenticity is on people’s mind. Seth Gittel of the New York Sun wrote, "no current candidate is deemed more authentic than Obama."

Mike Allen, the White House correspondent of Time magazine said that the reason people in the past have liked McCain was his authenticity.

Authenticity is sometimes presented as something extraordinary when it really should be the minimum expected, not only of politicians, who ask us to trust them with our vote, but from anyone of us.

"Personal authenticity is one of the few ideals that are nearly universally praised in mainstream American culture," says David Flory, in his review of Charles B. Guignon’s book "On Being Authentic."

However being true and faithful to oneself is not always easy.

Why?

We live in society and not in isolation and therefore it is not always possible to say exactly what you think or do what we know would be the best. That is why we sometimes have to compromise. Comprise is very much part of our lives because we never or rarely agree with each other on everything.

However compromises can become a slippery slope. How can we make sure that the compromise we make do not threatened our integrity and reputation?

Here are a few ideas:

1. We should not be afraid to recognize and acknowledge a compromise when we face one.
2. We should make sure we can justify to ourselves and to others the reasons for making the compromise.
3. We should identify the values that we will not compromise. In other words, we should draw the line between comprises that are acceptable and those that are not. We should not compromise on fundamental moral principles.

Ayn Rand once said with humor:

"In any compromise between food and poison it is only death that wins."

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