Why a Bit of Restraint Can Do You a Lot of Good
Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has described our times as the “Age of Authenticity,” meaning an era when people are willing to publicize their secrets and indulge their urges, even if such a drive for personal truth involves transgressing traditional boundaries of self-control. Once, this type of exhibitionism was the preserve of a few celebrities, but now anybody can get in on the act: The quest for authenticity has spawned salacious memoirs, reality-TV shows of escalating disinhibition, and cathartic self-disclosure on social media. Such revelations are supposed to be good for us, because suppressing our thoughts and desires is considered unhealthy and unnatural. In psychology, this way of thinking is sometimes called self-determination theory, according to which we are happiest when we obey our inner drives. I would grant that living inauthentically and being repressed do not sound like a recipe for well-being. But the age of authenticity does not seem to have made us …
