Authentic Orange

Submitted By:

Scott Lantz

Is it possible to truly live authentic to yourself? To be a functional citizen of society I believe that it is impossible to truly be authentic. This is because you cannot always do what you please, either because it is against the law or it is a social taboo, but I will save that for a different day. That being said, the question posted was what I thought it meant to authentically “Be Orange.” To do this to the best of ones ability, one must take in many different points of view. I believe that it is absurd to think that one can label 30,000 different individual people into the same category and tell them, “If you do not believe in these specific guidelines, you are not authentically ‘being orange’ and therefore you do not fit in.” To be authentic, or to be authentically “orange” could mean something to me, which would not be seen as authentic to someone else. Someone who has lived in Oregon their whole life and grew up around Oregon State University, would believe in a different meaning in how they would define authentically “Being Orange” than an international student who came to Oregon State solely for the education and knew nothing about the past, traditions, or social norms of the university. Would someone in this position, who does not know anything about Oregon State, be authentically orange?

This is why I believe that nobody can define what being authentically orange means except for what it means to yourself. I would define authenticity as a journey on becoming who you are. This means that if you live your whole life being unauthentic to yourself, you will never truly become oneself and Sartre would say that you are living in Bad Faith, by denying ones transcendence and denying facticity (Lecture 6/2/2015). An obstacle that makes it difficult to become an individual in not only my community but also the world is giving into social norms. This is something that happens very often and in most cases, nothing can be done about it. Say I want to be authentic to myself and not wear any clothes to class one day; because of the social norm (and the law) I will get punished for doing something that I feel is authentic to myself. This is one example of how social norms are an obstacle for one to become an individual. As humans, we are drawn into being with others and being like others, this is why we have social norms, so we fit in. This is what Nietzsche would call ‘The Heard’ (Lecture 4/28). If someone steps out of the heard, or steps out of the norm they would be seen as someone who has gone mad. Nietzsche said in The Gay Science, “To be oneself, to assess oneself according to one’s own weights and measures – that was contrary to the taste of time. The inclination to do so would be perceived as madness for being alone was bound up with every misery and every fear (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, pg. 131).” What he is saying here is that if you do something that people in your time are not used to they will see that as strange or that you are ‘mad’ when, in truth, you just want to be authentic to yourself and leave the heard.

What does it mean to be authentically “Be orange?” To me, it means to work hard. Do the job you are doing and do it right and the best you can do it. You might not always get recognized for your work but you’ll know that it’s the best you can do. Oregon State was founded upon these ideals when it was established as a land grant school back in 1868 for blue-collar families that wanted their children to have a chance to get some higher education. We are all condemned to be free says Sartre (Lecture 5/25/2015). It is what we do with our freedom that makes us the individuals that we are and this is what makes us authentic orange. This is what being authentic is, choosing to use our freedom in the ways that we want them or just giving into other people and living an unauthentic life. Just as Gregor lost his authenticity when he transformed in the metamorphosis into an insect (Lecture 6/4/2015), Beavers could lose their authenticity by not choosing to use their freedom the way they want to and giving into social norms and the heard.