ABSTRACT
Authenticity is a tricky concept because of the way the term can be manipulated and used to convince people they are getting something profound and substantial when they are just getting merchandise. Appropriation occurs because cultural difference can be bought and sold in the marketplace. Within a capitalist economy culture—by which the author mean songs, stories, images, emblems, ceremonies, techniques—has been inserted into a system of exchange in which any element can be abstracted from its social and ceremonial context and assigned a monetary value. Authenticity functions as an ideal, both for the people trying to sell corn-modified versions of culture and for many of those who have taken on the project of criticizing consumer culture. Western culture is permeated with the duplicitous, Christian notion of victimization, which, on the one hand, implies a moral or spiritual superiority and, on the other, a weakness that must be overcome through various kinds of spiritual struggle.
