Now, most theorists of authenticity prefer to speak of authenticity as the product of continuous self-creation and development and not of an inherent, fixed self-essence. But if there is nothing 'inherent' about the authentic self, then the question arises as to whether we can even speak meaningfully about something--a self--that is at risk of being corrupted from the outside, in the first place. If authenticity requires the self to be fully autonomous--that is, not subject to any external influences, being completely self-determining--then that self-determination--if it is even possible--has to consist, by definition, of influences that are inherently present 'in' that self. In other words, the whole idea of an authentic self (over against the outer-directed ideal of sincerity) seems to depend on the implicit assumption of a profound, internal purity of the self that differs fundamentally from the impurity that lies outside it.

Deconstruction turns the ideal of being an autonomous, immanent self, free from external influences, against itself

this evidence can never present itself to me as apodictic

[...] In Infinite Jest it is exactly this abhorrence of 'unsophisticated naïveté', this 'transcendence of sentiment' through hyperreflexivity and irony, that leads to emptiness, to 'anhedonia, death in life'. The desire to avoid naïveté at all costs is itself a form of naïveté--the 'queerly persistent U.S. myth that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive'--that has catastrophic consequences for the self.

[...] despite being the most empathetic character in the novel who is always perceptive of other people's pain and suffering, Mario himself does not feel pain. [...] this neurological deficit seems an unmistakable reference to Wittgenstein's question [...]: what determines the meaning of the utterance 'I am in pain'?

not the product of dialectic but sui generis: Truth!

infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map