Authenticity, once a virtue, now risks societal fragmentation. In seeking to be wholly oneself, detached from cultural norms, the self becomes a closed system—narcissistic and unmoored.
Yet aligning with external values (culture, religion, tradition) renders authenticity derivative: the unique self cannot be a performance of borrowed ideals. Thus, the pursuit fractures social cohesion.
Consider that if authenticity moves into rejection of mimicry, it is a negative bias that learns can only exist by pushing against normative structures, pursuing only new paths instead of time-tested wisdom. In essence, the individual must continually isolate, stretching for self-constructed novelty, which diminishes social trust as they, by definition, become unpredictable and in constant flux.