ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the normative foreclosures by considering the cultural logic of authenticity in the context of postmodern capitalism. It argues that the pursuit of authenticity within contemporary activism provides both the basis of a further tyranny of structurelessness and a normative extension of the very market dominance that movements like Occupy were attempting to challenge in the post-crash moment. By 'authenticity' it means the attempt to establish a critical distance from complicity with the corrupting and stifling influence of capitalism, the state, or other large institutions and organisations which might discipline their actions. The first problem that the pursuit of authenticity caused for Occupy (in) London is that it became yet another source and basis of hierarchy and preclusion – another 'tyranny' within the 'structureless' democratic space. The activists of Occupy (in) London demonstrated varied and relatively sophisticated reflections upon their complicity with consumerism, which demonstrate how both the pursuit of authenticity and the attempt to avoid hypocrisy.
