Authenticity and freedom

3.2.1 Sartre on authenticity and subjectivity

A phenomenological perspective on relationships and interactions that differs from Merleau-Ponty’s theories can be found in the works of Sartre. Sartre is known as an advocate for exis-tentialism, arguing that existence precedes essence, meaning that humans are not born with any predetermined essence; our consciousness is pure and self-reflective, and every meaning (or essence) is produced by this consciousness (Cohen, 2003; Sartre, 1958). An example of

Sartre’s existentialist thinking is found in his novel Nausea, in which the main character experiences states of existential dread (or nausea) when questioning what he experiences around him. For instance, when riding a tram, he reflects on the thingness of the seat he is sitting in, revealing the absurdity of how this object, or collection of materials, together form the object that is called ‘a seat’ (Sartre, 1963).

Sartre applies a similar line of existentialist thinking to human interaction. He claims humans are ‘condemned to be free’ – born into existence with free will: an absolute freedom to do and act how we want, inside the laws of nature (Sartre, 1956). This freedom is overwhelming, causing us to look for ways to limit our own freedom. For instance, rather than questioning the nature of the object you are sitting on, you simply recognize it as a seat: an object on which you sit. Instead of waking up every day, asking yourself what you should spend your time on, you follow routines like brushing your teeth and making breakfast.

The act of ignoring and limiting our freedom is related to Sartre’s notion of authenticity (Sayers, 1999; Webber, 2010). Our own authenticity and that of others is a much-discussed topic among phenomenologists and existentialists, with Sartre being among the more renowned thinkers, according to Yacobi (2012). For Sartre, being authentic is recognizing the choices you have and taking responsibility for you actions, whereas being inauthentic is acting in bad faith, meaning denying your freedom by mindlessly adapting to social norms and expectations.

Sartre uses a well-known example of a waiter in a Parisian café to illustrate someone who is acting in bad faith:

Let us consider this waiter in the café. His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the customers with a step a little too quick… All his behaviour seems to us a game. He applies himself to linking his movements as if they were mechanisms, the one regulating the other; his gestures and even his voice seem to be mechanisms; he gives himself the quickness and pitiless rapidity of things. He is playing, he is amusing himself. But what is he playing? We need not watch long before we can explain it: he is playing at being a waiter in a café. (Sartre, 1958, p. 82)

In Sartre’s example, the waiter acts the way that he does because he tries to be something that he and the people in the café expect him to be: the socially constructed version of what we expect from a waiter (see Webber, 2010). According to Sartre, if we were to ask the waiter why he acts the way that he acts, he would likely reply that he is a waiter, and therefore he acts like a waiter. This is inauthentic: not taking responsibility for your actions, but instead claim-ing that you do somethclaim-ing because it is expected of you. By labellclaim-ing yourself as somethclaim-ing,

you make yourself an object; you limit your own freedom to act. To live authentically, the waiter should not care about trying to be a version of a waiter that is expected, but rather the version of a waiter he finds meaningful. In this way, the waiter acts more authentically and consequently more honestly, towards both himself and others. The choice to act a certain way or another is always there, and we are free to choose how to use this freedom (Sartre, 1958; van Manen, 2014).

Briefly summarized, following Sartre’s existentialism authenticity can be defined as a ‘dynamic process of endless becoming in a changing society and world, rather than a fixed state of being’

(Yacobi, 2012). To experience someone as authentic can thus be thought of as seeing them as someone who is willing to change their ways: to be something else. This requires honesty, self-reflection and vulnerability, as it can often be more comfortable to follow routines and established patterns, rather than trying to change. This honesty and vulnerability is recogniz-able; for instance, we may experience politicians as inauthentic when they express opinions based on pre-established party lines and ideologies, while hearing politicians talk passionately about their views on policies can be seen as authentic and inspiring.

To compare Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, we may note the emphasis on choice in Sartre’s phi-losophy. Following his perspective, we are able to choose whether or not to act authentically, to remove ourselves from and question the world in which we exist. This choice reveals a stronger separation of the Self and the world than we find in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, in which we are intertwined with our environment, constantly driven by habits and actions on which we barely reflect. For Sartre, freedom creates meaning; for Merleau-Ponty, freedom is presupposed by meaning (Hall, 1998). To elaborate, Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of our selves being interwoven with the world means that freedom can be understood as a field of possibilities in the world with which we interact. These possibilities are defined by factors such as spatiality, temporality, our historical situation and our relationships to others and ourselves.

It is our body, our history, our relationships, which makes a field of possible actions available to us (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 1964).

To put it simply, Sartre has a more individualistic perspective on subjectivity than Merleau-Ponty, and he argues against the idea that the Self contains a dimension of exteriority or otherness. Consequently, the two thinkers are fundamentally different in their understand-ing of intersubjectivity and empathy (Hall, 1998; Zahavi, 2001). Still, this emphasis on the individual and subjectivity allows Sartre’s theories to touch on topics that are of less interest to Merleau-Ponty, for instance the notion of authenticity.

3.2.2 Authenticity and freedom in music therapy

In the first chapter, I refer to studies showing that adolescents in the Norwegian child welfare services find that adults do not ‘really’ try to listen to them, or that they do not ‘really’ care. In these situations, Sartre’s notion of authenticity may provide us with a theoretical framework for understanding what separates the experience of ‘real’ care from, for instance, a waiter pretending to care about his customers, or a social worker not ‘really’ listening. Yet, looking at the music therapy literature, this notion of an authentic experience is not explored to the same degree as other aspects of authenticity. For instance, Viega (2016) and Yehuda (2013) discuss ‘musical authenticity’, relating the term to cultural expressions, and how music thera-pists may include and use music from other cultures in their practice in respectful ways. Other examples can be found in the texts of Bruscia (2014), Trondalen (2016b) and Zanders et al.

(2018), who discuss authenticity in relationships between client and therapist in the context of debating empowerment and inequalities of power.

Similarly, experiences of freedom are explored in the music therapy literature, but only occasion-ally from the perspective of existentialistic thinking. Norris (2020) discusses freedom in light of systemic racial oppression, Tuastad and O’Grady (2013) describe music therapy as a ‘freedom practice’ for prisoners and ex-prisoners, and Solli and Rolvsjord (2015) describe how clients view music therapy as freedom from stigma, illness and treatment. Seberg (2020) refers to Sartre’s conceptualization of freedom in his thesis on compulsory mental health care, but his focus is predominately on postmodern, critical perspectives on freedom, rather than existential, pheno-menological theories. In short, we may say that music therapy researchers do not discuss freedom on an existential level as much as they write about the societal and political aspects of freedom.