Huge paradox with authenticity

[Jalextheopenminded]

I have been contemplating tourism lately and have become seriously confused by our human behaIvour, so im gonna ask for some assistance on here. 

Im trying to melt the duality between tourist attraction vs the symbolic complex around the tourist attraction, as well as touristy attraction vs non touristy attraction, and also tourist vs traveller. This has led to me the conclusion that a tourist attraction can only exist because of the symbolic complex made around it, and the tourist is the one who keeps it alive by reproducing the markers and symbols saying its an attraction. We basically all do this to some degree but live in total denial that culture is fabricated. So for me the biggest paradox is that we strive for authentic cultural tourism and are oposed to MASS tourism, but the mass is what creates culture, and all that authetic means is that it alligns with the consensus that the mass has fabricated! What the hell do we want exactly?! 

For some reason we are looking for culture that has been externally created instead of made by ourselfs, even though we are all the same. So we are trying to integrate the whole globe by creating so many distinctions between self and other, to the level that every tourist thinks that he or she isnt a tourist. Is this some global survival stradegy? Does it imply that human kind doesnt want to self reflect? What does all this mean from a metaphysical perspective?

I would be greatful for any kind of insight from you system thinkers regarding this paradoxical search for authenticity. 

 

[mr_engineer]

17 minutes ago, Jalextheopenminded said:

For some reason we are looking for culture that has been externally created instead of made by ourselfs, even though we are all the same. So we are trying to integrate the whole globe by creating so many distinctions between self and other, to the level that every tourist thinks that he or she isnt a tourist. Is this some global survival stradegy? Does it imply that human kind doesnt want to self reflect? What does all this mean from a metaphysical perspective?

The idea is that ultimately, our Absolute God-self is the creator of everything. Including the cultures that are 'externally created'. 

But, as a human self, the way we 'create' it, is by getting someone else to create it for us! If we're in the tourist-role. And, if we're in the tourism-role, we do the creating in and of itself! Humans are finite and limited in what we can do. So, we help each other get what we want, through transactions. #Capitalism. 

And yes, the corruptions of capitalism will affect your creations and the intellectual-integrity of it. Cuz reality is a strange-loop, therefore all the creations will have a 'glitch' in them. Because they're imperfect! 

[Jalextheopenminded]

@mr_engineer is there a tourist role? Isn't the american standing infront of the coloseum taking a picture of it with his phone and sharing it just as mutually involved in keeping it alive as the person writing a book about its history or the tour guide talking about why the building is important? Isnt it irresponsible to blaim capitalism for the creation of mass tourism, when we are all equally involved in maintaining the linguistic symbolic world, in which tourism lays? (Im purposfully trying to look at this from the materialistic paradigm, as an excersise, because i dont want to spiritually bypass the worlds story)

[Jalextheopenminded]

And why does authenticity even have such a strong pull on us?

[mr_engineer]

@Jalextheopenminded

8 hours ago, Jalextheopenminded said:

is there a tourist role?

You were talking about tourism, so that's what I responded to. 

8 hours ago, Jalextheopenminded said:

Isn't the american standing infront of the coloseum taking a picture of it with his phone and sharing it just as mutually involved in keeping it alive as the person writing a book about its history or the tour guide talking about why the building is important? Isnt it irresponsible to blaim capitalism for the creation of mass tourism, when we are all equally involved in maintaining the linguistic symbolic world, in which tourism lays?

All of this is being done for capitalistic, marketing-purposes. Grifters benefit from keeping it alive! 

8 hours ago, Jalextheopenminded said:

And why does authenticity even have such a strong pull on us?

The reason authenticity has such a strong pull on us, in this context, is the fact that humanity, as a whole, has a common history. Cuz the past cannot be changed, whatever happened happened, so a big uniting force is having the same historic worldview being taught across schools all over the world. 

History gives us a collective identity, a collective worldview. We are our past! We are our past memories. No past, no identity! The reason authenticity has such a strong pull on us, is that it calls us to ourselves, our identity. Collectively.