Generation Bubble

The Jargon of Authenticity: Modern Parents Keepin’ It Real

I sense that people have conceded that trying to cultivate an identity outside market relations is self-defeating (something my preppie-punk teenage self and friends only learned bye the bye), so the best thing to do is to accommodate oneself to the consumer profile that best suits one’s proclivities and sentiments. The existential question is not whether to conform or not, but whether to conform to one prêt-à-porter lifestyle or another. This latter question at least relieves one of having to confront to the dreariness and tedium of living a life of categorical refusal — of “tarrying with the negative” as Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, following German idealist philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, might say. After all, one has only one life to live, so to throw it on the pale fire of one’s scruples seems a waste indeed.