I agree, but I think it is dependent on the direction in which the intuition is directed and that the results are correctly interpreted. This does require reaching an accommodation with yourself, along with a sufficient understanding of the psychology and character traits of yourself. So a kind of negotiation and understanding in which you can work with and on one's self.

What do you mean by "intuition"?

My understanding of intuition is innate knowledge. Instinctive truths that are our subconscious pilots in life.

But doesn't morality deal with attempting to control such instincts? Don't we determine that some instincts are not good, so we attempt to curb them, opting for a course which is better? Isn't this how we evolve to be better beings, by suppressing such instincts in favour of principles which we have determined with reason, to be a better source of direction? So to be a better being is to analyze the good and bad of such innate knowledge, replacing the bad with newly developed principles which are understood to be better.

The key to being genuine is being honest! :-*

;)

Authenticity

Often me, myself, and I can't agree,
Over how divided we've become again!
Who is doing all of the arguing this time!
And who, exactly, is in charge around here!
Cast adrift upon more passionate seas of life!
Castaways on lost horizons bereft any anchor!
Waves, threatening to swamp small life rafts!
We all set aside our metaphysics and politics!
Where all can agree, upon knowing nothing;
Except all know, the others know nothing!
Ego, not really possessing self-awareness,
Whilst, suffering the slings and arrows,
Of outrageously episodic misfortunes!
Yet, amongst the noblest of all qualities!
Those even damned fools, can comprehend!
Even those amongst us crapping their pants!
Even those, pretty clueless to what's going on;
Highly regarded by any in cartoon Wonderland!
Well regarded, by any on our stairway to heaven!
Which even the duller among us, may comprehend!
Which the most thoroughly confused can yet grasp;
Heralded throughout the entire known multiverse!
The splendor and glory, abiding within humanity!
Plausibility yet only probable to a certain extent!
Who we become, is all a matter of perseverance!
Within the usual peanut gallery of caricatures,
Some of us, yet more triumphant than others!
Even, in the usual confusing pandemonium!
Of sulky profligates remaining anonymous!
Of clowns with the lowest lowbrow taste!
Of the current, peanut gallery's assembly;
Of the more unusual, motley characters!
Clarification a dispersing effervescent luminescence, in midair!
Accompanying entertaining laughter fading off into the distance.
Does anybody really know what time it is, does anybody really care?
Mama always said, she didn't raise no damned fools!
Tell others I worked hard, to become the idiot I am!
Watched clocks never boil, or some-such nonsense!
I never really could follow everything mama said!
Mama always having, a warped sense of humor!
She apologized, insisting styles are here to stay!
Whereas fashions like ignorance, come and go!
While nothing may beat becoming authentic!
No one can do better than to be themselves!
Reckoning whether outside or in all authenticity comes from someplace,
Reckoning, knowing without knowing all I really know is nothing;
Regardless of more extremely pressing immediate consternation!
Regardless of whether or not, aliens are invading our earth!
Regardless of whatever some damned fools might desire,
Regardless of what any other damned fool may say;
Regardless of any vocal protests which come up,
Any invasion conspiracy, not withstanding,
Most can yet agree upon, One Great Truth!
Silence is golden, if nobody actually listens!
Talking to ourselves, without even listening!
Merely confirms that nobody wants to listen!
Like a blinking light, showing our stereo is on!
When nobody, is really using the damned thing!
Just in the hope, it might make a real difference!
Just in the hope some might actually understand!
Rather than blinking like a deer in the headlights!
Hello, hello, hello, hello is there anybody in there?
Knowing, you are playing around with yourself!
Knowing its nothing more than masturbation;
Knowing there really is no point in talking,
When there really is just no one listening!
However many may be inside your head!
You are what you is, and that's all it tis;
Become what you wish to be perceived as!
Become, what you might truly want to be!
Become someone, you would enjoy meeting,
Always know thyself and think for thyself!
Learn how to listen well to your own heart!
Become content as who you want to become!
Become content that none may do you better!
Become content, just to become more yourself!
Become content bumbling a road less traveled!
Become content, simply to take your next step!
Always take care of one another and be happy!
Discover contentment, in each other's company!
Discover joy in sharing life's greatest adventure!
Keep communities small, with just a few people!
Yet ensure, that all learn how to read and write;
Practice the arts and celebrate any achievements!
Keep all weapons you may possess, always secure!
Know all your neighbors, yet, remain independent!
Be prepared, to deal with any unforeseen exigency!
Celebrate the ability, to appreciate any eccentricity!
Celebrate any ability, to always laugh at yourselves,
Celebrate humanity's, enduring freedom to celebrate!
Remember the unexamined life is never worth living!
Knowing thyself the world feels like your own home!
Know thyself, all the world feels like they know you!
Knowing thyself, all the world tends to invite you in!
Knowing thyself, all the world may learn their hearts!
Knowing thyself, your joy spreads to the whole world!
Nothing provides, greater satisfaction or contentment!
Nothing provides superior insight, virtue, and wisdom!
Nothing is more rewarding, than becoming who we are!
To know your own heart is to know what love is about!
To know your own heart is to discover our true freedom!
Follow the silence of beautiful words, as if a siren voice!
Follow your heart witnessing the world following theirs!
Knowing thyself, is how you may become more authentic!
Only knowing thyself, might we all become who we wish!
But, guard your good name as you would a precious jewel!
The richest of jewels, you can ever have in your possession!
Any reputation is like a fire that can be arduous to rebuild!
For us to be all that we can be each heart must first be free!
For us to be all we can be each must free their loving hearts!
Set your heart free, and it will reward the favor many times!
Set your heart free if you want, to experience actual freedom!
Never underestimate what all humanity may still accomplish!
Never make the mistake, of underestimating any contribution!
Not when the smallest amongst us, might yet move mountains!
Not when a miracle to believe in abides forever inside everyone!
Forever the way shapes the world, as the world shapes the way!
For we are simply the children of God, and citizens of the world!
Just begging for love, on ascending the great stairway to Heaven!
Babes lost in the wilderness of space, on their loving mother earth!
Dazed and confused on our difficult journey which has just begun!
Who can frequently lose sight of their marvelous mother and father!
Who may easily forget all the love and joy in our hearts is a blessing!
Who easily forget, that we are the world we are the Children of God!
Constrained to encouraging ourselves, as well as, each other to think!
Constrained to helping each other up, instead of, doing all the lifting!
Authenticity is when any distinctions between our hearts and brains,
No longer matter anymore because harmony neither acts nor reasons;
Knowing without knowing the only thing we can know is but nothing,
Being incapable of ever straying far from the path lost and all alone!

Does suppressing the bad in ourselves actually do anything to get rid of it in humanity or does it just make us acceptable by society? Morality might be a way for us to function as society but it seems to be more of a Band-Aid to the problem rather than a solution

Then your original post makes no sense. If all this is subconscious how can we be in touch with it? Surely that requires that it be brought to consciousness at which point it ceases to be what you say it is. In any case what one Earth does 'genuine' mean in this context? It appears to have no philosophical significance at all.

We can be in touch with it by understanding what our subconscious desires are on a basic level and trusting our subconscious to act accordingly in the moment instead of logically analyzing every instant of living. And by genuine I mean authentic. Being an authentic person. That may have no philosophical significance to you but it is certainly an idea I would like to explore.

I'd say the key to being genuine is to make no effort to be genuine or not to be genuine. There is something inauthentic about the whole approach - as if the genuine being is far away and hard to find. Who, then is trying to find it? It can only be the counterfeit being. Poor thing, the counterfeit being can never be genuine.

That's good. I like that

Does suppressing the bad in ourselves actually do anything to get rid of it in humanity or does it just make us acceptable by society? — MonfortS26

Yes, of course, suppressing the bad in yourself actually does something toward getting rid of it in humanity as a whole. It is one step toward that end, what you must do, personally, if that end is to be accomplished. Think of it this way, if everyone else suppresses the bad, and you do not, it will still exist in humanity, and ridding humanity of it will be all up to you.

Shouldn't repress, should refine. Anger, or violence are strategies, and are always about control. They are last resort strategies when faith has been lost, then force must be applied -- but that force can only make you perform a certain way, it can't make you actually believe it. As such, it is at its very core a denial of the reality of the loss of faith, and a denial of any need for contrition, or to make amends, or to in some way restore their faith.

What do you mean by "intuition"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Amen.

And I would add the question 'what do you mean by genuine?'.

Isn't genuineness a little like naturalness? We say cities are unnatural for humans, yet we regard them as natural for ants and bees. I would argue that anything any human does is natural for a human - thereby rendering the word meaningless. I suspect the same applies to genuine - and to its close Sartrean cousin 'authentic'.

For me the key to being genuine lies in seeing what is specific to each situation rather than what is general. This ties in with intuition. And to answer MU's query about moral rules being used to curb instinctive (which he is apparently, and I would say mistakenly, equating with 'intuitive') desires I would point to the practice of listening to moral intuition or sense as being more genuine than the habit of following generalised moral rules.

And I would add the question 'what do you mean by genuine?'.

Isn't genuineness a little like naturalness? We say cities are unnatural for humans, yet we regard them as natural for ants and bees. I would argue that anything any human does is natural for a human - thereby rendering the word meaningless. I suspect the same applies to genuine - and to its close Sartrean cousin 'authentic'. — andrewk

Yeah, but it's all paradoxical. Natural is contrasted with artificial, but anything a human being does is something artificial. It is natural for a human being to do something artificial, so this is genuine for the human being to do this. But is it genuine for a human being to be artificial, this would appear as contradictory?

Isn't there a difference though, between being as such, and doing as such? "Being" might be how we appear to others, we are as they describe us, such that being artificial would mean that we appear to others as such, and therefore disingenuous (because ingenuous is not opposed to genuine, disingenuous is). But when we act in an artful and skillful manner, to create something artificial, to pull something from within, one might believe oneself to be ingenious, while still appearing to others as disingenuous. Therefore acting in a genuine way does not ensure that one is genuine, though the others who are judging you might themselves be disingenuous by a further standard( that's if you allow the possibility of an "objective" standard of genuineness).

Genuine and Authenticity are synonymous but I think their emphasis is a little different as they are applied to human behavior.

Genuine as what is honestly communicated, as if it were a real existent fact, something that could have objective truth. Directed towards the exterior, more relational than authenticity.
Authentic looking for coherence within, between one's beliefs and one's actions, so directed towards the interior.

Can a person be authentic but not genuine....be true to yourself but at the same time, be perceived as coldly ungenuine in the view of others.

I consider taking off one's masks a "key" to being authentic. Some people wear many masks, some wear only a few. Being authentic is being who we actually are (for better and for worse) without any disguise at all.

Authenticity can't be 'stage managed'. We can not dress in a certain way because "it looks authentic". Authenticity is like taking off one's clothes in public; clothes can not make the naked man.

Authentic isn't a particular mood; sad people are not inherently more authentic than happy person. The inquisitive explorer is not inherently more authentic than the timid man who stays at home. Authentic isn[t "one thing".

What do you mean by masks? How can we be anything other than who we are?

But doesn't morality deal with attempting to control such instincts? Don't we determine that some instincts are not good, so we attempt to curb them, opting for a course which is better? Isn't this how we evolve to be better beings, by suppressing such instincts in favour of principles which we have determined with reason, to be a better source of direction? So to be a better being is to analyze the good and bad of such innate knowledge, replacing the bad with newly developed principles which are understood to be better. — Metaphysician Undercover

Morality and reason are such instincts or intuitive "feelings."

What do you mean by masks? How can we be anything other than who we are? — MonfortS26

That is the question about authenticity, isn't it.

A "mask" is a role or a style we adapt to suit--or discomfit--others. It is a false front (which people are of course entitled to present). I am who I am regardless--I can't really be anything else. But I can become confused about who I am (and who you are) the more often we put on and take off various masks--the more often we change roles.

Being masked does not mean "inauthenticity" until the masks begin to confuse the person who deploys them.

Authenticity is not evident to the casual observer; it may not be immediately evident to one's self either (though it can be with careful introspection). "Authenticity" is a term that should be used with caution, and so should the assumption that someone is wearing a mask. We have to know people well to know if they are being authentic or not. We have to know ourselves fairly well too to judge our authenticity.

I believe that the key to being genuine in life lies in your intuition. Intuition is the core of who we are as a person and everything else is just whatever our intuition chooses to perceive us to be. The way to live in the present is to be in touch with your intuition.

Anyone disagree? — MonfortS26

Harmony neither acts nor reasons and the idea that you can be "out of touch" with your own intuition is self-defeating.

So how can you wear masks without getting confused? And what if you're already confused? Wouldn't any sense of self be a mask?

I am who I am regardless--I can't really be anything else. — Bitter Crank

The problem there is that there is no such "you". There is an accumulated bundle of habits with certain tendencies, and also a capacity for creative unpredictability. But the idea of there being some essential self - a sensing Cartesian soul - as the fixed centre is itself a psychological construct.

So sure, we wear social masks. And they become as much a sign of who we are to "ourselves" as they present a sign of who we are for others to interpret.

Modern life is of course so complex that we need to become skilled at swapping masks to suit the social occasion. We are actors with many roles. And that fact in itself can become depersonalising. It leaves us with no clear "me" when we stop to examine who we are beyond a multiplicity of personas.

The best we can hope for is some generic sense of our tendencies over time as opposed to the moment to moment skill we have at fitting into social roles. And so that might focus on more biological traits like introversion, competitiveness, conscientiousness, etc.

But generic traits or preferences are by definition general and lacking the kind of specificity that seems demanded by the question of "who are we?".

So talk about authenticity is difficult. We know what it means when people really seem to fit their job in life - as a farmer, a parent, a teacher, or whatever. But people striving to be authentic - by visibly standing out against the crowd in some fashion - can often come across as the biggest posers.

So the "social masks" are a bigger part of "being real" as a person than we probably think. It is at that level we need to be most comfortable with "ourselves".

What kind of social masks do you wear?

The problem there is that there is no such "you". — apokrisis

As far as I know, I am. If you find that that the you who doesn't exist is a bundle of habits, the bundle will have have to manage the best it can. Good luck.

So how can you wear masks without getting confused? And what if you're already confused? Wouldn't any sense of self be a mask? — MonfortS26

We begin life, and many of us continue in life for decades, being confused, and we're lucky if we don't look like clowns.

I would get confused wearing masks, so I tend to follow the principle of 'what you see is what you get'.

When I was 24 I grew a beard to look more bohemian hippy (1970). When it got long enough to call it a beard, I recognized it as being ME, not a mask. I've kept the beard for 46 years. (It's now white, where it was then a nice brown.) It is still me.

Clothes are almost always a mask, and this is so whether we keep tuxedos on hand, or whether we are always seen in work boots, blue jeans, and a grey sweatshirt. A business suit or a dashiki, sandals or wing tips, bolo tie, four in hand, bow tie, or cravat, Harris Tweed or genuine Polyester from Walmart--clothes present an image. If the image is honest, and if it matches who we are, it looks right on us. If it is not honest, it doesn't.

As Henry David Thoreau said, "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. ... If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes."

When I was 24 I grew a beard to look more bohemian hippy (1970). When it got long enough to call it a beard, I recognized it as being ME, not a mask. I've kept the beard for 46 years. (It's now white, where it was then a nice brown.) It is still me. — Bitter Crank

Hippy would be an accurate description of me, but I don't want people to associate me with that culture because I feel it would be harmful to my reputation in my future career. I would rather be a "free-spirit" that blends in instead of trying to be different for the sake of appearing different because I feel that would be more beneficial for me in the long run

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I suppose this means that if someone habituates their affectations , they are genuine, and if someone overcomes their fears , its disingenuous.