 In The Ethics of Authenticity, and the more fully articulated Sources of the Self, Taylor makes a case for retaining the concept of authenticity (and the practices associated with it) on the grounds that the original and undistorted idea of authenticity contains an important element of self-transcendence (Taylor 1991: 15; Anderson 1995).  Unsatisfied with the widespread criticism of authenticity as an adequate ethical orientation, Taylor sets out to prove that authenticity does not necessarily lead to aestheticism or self-indulgence: the justified criticism of self-indulgent forms of the ideal does not justify the complete condemnation of the ideal itself (Taylor 1991: 56). This would mean extricating aestheticism, subjectivism, individualism, and self-indulgent interpretations of this ideal from what Taylor (Ibid.: 15) holds to be an original understanding of that concept as achieving self-transcendence (Anderson 1995). Restoring an undistorted version, Taylor says, could guard against meaninglessness, which is one of the “malaises of modernity” that Taylor regards as tied to trivialized forms of the culture of authenticity. Self-transcendence, which once was a crucial element in the ideal of authenticity, is practically lost from the contemporary version, giving rise to cultures of self-absorption, which ultimately deteriorate into the malaise of absurdity.