What California Schemin’ teaches us about fakery and authenticity
The new movie about the “fake” Californian rappers from Dundee misses the point about authenticity. Understanding what it means and doesn’t mean is important for survival in today’s workplace.
4-minute read
James McAvoy’s directorial debut tells the story of the two young Scottish rappers – Silibil and Brains – who, frustrated with the narrowmindedness of the music industry, reinvented themselves as Californians, achieving overnight success. There are no spoilers here. The story is well known, and good enough in itself. It’s a cracking yarn and best told in the Netflix documentary “the Great Hip-Hop Hoax.” But the movie can’t resist a rather cloying moral point about being yourself. In doing so, it misses something more important.
We’re counselled to be authentic by life coaches and management gurus alike. The underpinning assumption is that we have an authentic and an inauthentic self. It’s as if we can take the high road or the low road when it comes to authenticity and it’s a binary choice. But the latest neuropsychology tells us that this construct gets it wrong. Authenticity and inauthenticity are not two simple binary states that we can choose to move in and out of.
We are a social species. We tend to invent ourselves, above all, with a consideration to how we come across to other people. Arguably, we couldn’t function without some sort of social mask. And here’s the point, at the bottom of all of these layers of masks, there is no pure and pristine self that we should be aspiring towards. Research shows that there is no point at which our words in deeds are not affected in some way by consideration for how we will come across to other people. Even when you’re entirely alone, your pure self is still elusive.
This was the insight of the groundbreaking evolutionary biologist Dr Robert Trivers. Since he put forward his thesis, experimental psychology has repeatedly backed him up empirically.
In the words of Harvard Psychology Professor Stephen Pinker, “It’s pretty much masks all the way down.”
If that seems like a bleak view of human nature, we encourage you to flip it around. The masks are yours. They have evolved for a purpose. The key is to be aware of them, work at mastering them, and above all stay living in line with your values. This is a far more empowering way in which to approach the idea of authenticity.
And here’s the point, while we human beings are not hardwired for authenticity we are hardwired for imagination and playfulness. And herein, lies the beauty of the Scottish rappers’ story.
This is a theme that screenwriter and playwright David Mamet picks up in his book Heresy and Commonsense for the Actor. Mamet makes the point that the actor cannot simply will herself into a state of authenticity. She cannot authentically summon the belief that she is Hamlet on demand. The mind simply doesn’t work this way. Far better to draw on the mind’s capacity for playfulness and imagination. Mamet argues that the actor should imagine being Hamlet and do as Hamlet would do.
Evolution has equipped us with the capacity for imagination and playfulness, so that we have the flexibility to adapt our style to a range of different situations. When their environment was not working for them, Silibil and Brains used imagination and playfulness to adapt. In doing so, they created a new reality that worked better for them.
In the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, there’s a scene in which Joan Baez asks Bob how he learned to play guitar.
Joan Baez: “Who taught you to play?”
Bob Dylan: “I taught myself, really. Picked up a few licks at the carnival.”
Joan: “At the carnival?”
Dylan: (continuing the story) “Oh yeah… there was singing cowboys that come through… teach me all sorts of funny chords… these chords I learned from a cowboy named Wigglefoot.”
Baez sighs and rolls her eyes. She replies.
“I learned like everybody else Bob, by having lessons.”
The point is not that Dylan wants us literally to believe the Wigglefoot story. The point is it’s a mundane question which would normally invite a mundane answer. Dylan replaces the mundane with imagination and playfulness. Simply because he can.
Like Silibil and Brains, Dylan is not being literally truthful. But like them, neither is he bullshitting. Bullshit requires us to deceive ourselves. And that’s the crucial difference. What compromises the leader and corrodes the climate of the modern workplace is not imagination and playfulness, but bullshit.
The writer and philosopher Henry Frankfurt put it far better than we can in his 1986 paper On Bullshit.
Frankfurt argues that bullshit is more corrosive than lying because the liar still recognises and responds to the truth—he deliberately departs from it—whereas the bullshitter muddies the waters. There are harmless deceptions and harmful ones, but bullshit is always corrosive.
Silibil and Brains knew the reality. In choosing to depart from it, they exposed hypocrisy. They entertained and they lifted themselves out of hardship.
So, lying is okay? Well, here’s the thing. Only if you are within the 4% of the population who are diagnosable sociopaths. We are making the point that evolution has endowed us with a capacity for imagination and playfulness. If you want an effective guardrail, the evidence from clinical psychology points us in the direction of one’s values as opposed to the pursuit of authenticity per se.
In clinical psychology, there is a large and growing bank of research that indicates that we are at our best when we cultivate our “psychological flexibility”— but remain guided by our values. The evidence consistently shows that values-guided action is a key mechanism in leading a productive and fulfilling life. It’s an approach that is empirically supported by hundreds of randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses
We are hardwired to create our own story of self. The most effective people cultivate an awareness of this and freely use the capacity for imagination and playfulness, guided by a clear sense of values.
As usual, Dylan nails it:
“Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about inventing things and inventing yourself.”
Who do you know who has successfully shaped their story with integrity?
To find out how we can help leaders in your organisation to be more impactful, influential and persuasive visit www.threshold.co.uk
