Authentic Orange

Submitted by: Grady Titus

The word authenticity can mean something different for everyone. Everyone has their own opinion and understanding on what it means to be authentic. While most people have different ways of describing what it means to be authentic and to live authentically, most of them would agree that it defined somewhere along the lines of being yourself and doing what makes you happy.  Most people would agree with the definition of authenticity as the act of being true to oneself and acting and presenting oneself in accordance to your own individual beliefs. Oregon State’s slogan, “Be Orange”, ties in closely with the idea of authenticity and living an authentic life.

To “Be Orange” one must be themselves at Oregon State. It is to be true to their own values and beliefs while being at and attending Oregon State University.  However, some find it difficult to be their authentic selves while attending Oregon State and they struggle to “Be Orange”.  With almost 30,000 students enrolled at Oregon State University, it can be difficult to be authentic when there are so many other people around influencing one’s authenticity.  An individual might feel constantly surrounded and never feel fully on their own. They feel like they are in a crowd or in a herd.

Nietzsche writes about this herd feeling in his novel, The Gay Science. One specific topic that he writes about is herd instinct. Nietzsche writes, “…We find an assessment and ranking of human drives and actions. These assessments and rankings always express the needs of a community and herd:whatever profits it in the first place-and in the second and third-is also the supreme measure of the value of all individuals.” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, pg. 116). College students may worry too much about ranking their achievements or activities instead of focusing on being authentic. They may rank how good their grades are compared to others, if they are joining the highest ranked fraternity or sorority house on campus, or ranking how many friends they make. This herd becomes almost a “sickness” (Lecture, 5/5/15). These rankings can easily lead to one not being authentic and living authentically as well as not “Being Orange”.

Kierkegaard also writes about a similar herd mentality that Nietzsche wrote about. He writes about “the crowd”, “There is a view in life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side. There is another view in life; which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry the matter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd, untruth would be once let in.” (Kierkegaard, The Crowd is Untruth, pg. 1). With a crowd as big as 30,000 people at Oregon State, there is bound to be a lot of untruth, according to Kierkegaard.  This untruth makes an individual “unrepentant and irresponsible” (Lecture, 5/5/15).  With a crowd so large it becomes difficult to be responsible for being one’s authentic self.

Some believe that one must transform themselves into their own authentic self. This comes from Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis, and the transformation between body and self. (Lecture, 6/4/15). I take away from this story that in order to be authentic, one must transform themselves. When people come to college, they change. Whether it’s how they look or act. They slowly transform into a new and more authentic person. To “Be Orange” one must transform themselves into the authentic person that they are meant to be and that will make them happy.