Changing Societies & Personalities, 2023 Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 5–10 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.4.248 EDITORIAL Authentic: The Word of the Year 2023 Elena A. Stepanova Institute for Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia Although the tradition to select the Words of the Year (WotY) that have attracted a great deal of interest is fairly recent, it has already become quite popular. Such words are identified by different dictionaries, publishing companies, Internet sites, language societies, individual lexicographers, etc., and are believed to reflect the ethos, moods, or preoccupations of a particular year. For the year 2023, Merriam- Webster—the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States founded in 1831— has chosen authentic as its word of the year. This term describes something that people are thinking and writing about in stories and conversations about Artificial Intelligence, celebrity culture, identity, social media, and other issues. The Merriam- Webster “Word of the Year 2023” page mentions two reasons why so many people look up authentic in the dictionary: first, this word is hard to define, and, second, it is a subject of debate. As a rule, authentic is interpreted as a synonym for something real and genuine, as well as “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Authentic is often connected to identity, whether national or personal, “and with the rise of artificial intelligence—and its impact on deepfake videos, actors’ contracts, academic honesty, and a vast number of other topics—the line between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ has become increasingly blurred” (Merriam-Webster, 2023). In the humanities and social sciences, the term “authenticity” is used in two main contexts. First, in existential philosophy after Martin Heidegger, it describes an ideal way of living characterized by such qualities as integrity, intensity, clarity, coherence, and honesty. Second, the concept of authenticity in the context of virtue ethics was developed by the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his book The Ethics of Authenticity (1991). In his magnum opus “A Secular Age”, Taylor described the generalized culture of authenticity in Western societies, in which people are encouraged to find their own way, discover their own fulfillment, “do their own thing” prizing the individual self-expression of each person in their difference from others against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed Received 10 December 2023 © 2023 Elena A. Stepanova Accepted 25 December 2023 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com Published online 27 December 2023 https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:stepanova.elena.a%40gmail.com?subject= 6 Elena A. Stepanova on individuals from outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority (Taylor, 2007, p. 475). Taylor places the roots of the ethic of authenticity in the Romantic period in Western culture (the late 18th century) and notes that intellectual and artistic élites have been searching for an authentic way of living or expressing themselves throughout the 19th century. At the same time, the ethics of authenticity has penetrated popular culture only in recent decades, in the time since the WWII (Taylor, 2007, p. 299). Taylor even calls the contemporary period in the human history (at least, in its Western part) The Age of Authenticity, when this kind of self-orientation seems to have become a mass phenomenon (p. 473). The ethic of authenticity is accompanied by soft relativism, which lets each person do their own thing, and we shouldn’t criticize each other’s “values”; this is predicated on a firm ethical base, indeed, demanded by it. One shouldn’t criticize the others’ values, because they have a right to live their own life as you do. The sin which is not tolerated is intolerance. This injunction emerges clearly from the ethic of freedom and mutual benefit, although one might easily cavil at this application of it. (Taylor, 2007, p. 484) The transformation of values is one of the key themes of Changing Societies & Personalities. I wish this process to be peaceful and to be based on mutual respect, which is, unfortunately, rarely follows this way. The discussions in the current issue are reflective of our policy of analyzing various cultures in their societal contexts aiming at achieving a better understanding between countries and peoples. In the OPENING THE DEBATE section, Louie Giray’s paper A Case Against the Policy Mandating Vertically-Aligned Degrees in Philippine Graduate Education is published. The author shares his concerns about the implementation of mandatory vertically-aligned degrees in the Philippine higher education system, while universities, by definition, should “not only be viewed as centers of learning and research but also as essential institutions of democracy.” Consequently, obliging students to earn their academic degrees (MA, PhD) violates academic freedom and transgresses their autonomy, generalism, and multipotentiality. Giray believes that making vertical alignment work actually should mean “lecturers coordinating, updating what they teach and how they test, understanding what students need, and regularly checking if their subjects match their goals … showing that vertical alignment is about creating a smooth academic setup, not enforcing what administrators want students to do.” He even claims that imposition of degrees that administrators believe are appropriate make students “slaves to the educational system, forced to conform to a particular set of expectations rather than being able to make their own choices and pursue their own goals”, and universities could become “anti-democratic, tyrannical, and oppressive if they prioritize a rigid system over the needs and aspirations of their students.” Giray’s paper is highly debatable, and I would like to encourage experts in the field of higher education from various countries to give their opinions on the matter. The ARTICLE Beyond the “Death of Research”: Reimagining the Human– AI Collaboration in Scientific Research by Mohammed Salah, Fadi Abdelfattah, Changing Societies & Personalities, 2023, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 5–10 7 Hussam Al Halbusi, and Muna Mohammed is focused on the impact of the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically Generative AI (OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Bard) not only on natural sciences and the humanities, but also on arts, computer science, human-computer interaction, etc. Moreover, we are witnessing a tremendous paradigm shift in understanding of the world and humanity’s place within it. At the same time, as the authors stress, “amidst this remarkable progress, a counter-narrative has emerged, painting a dystopian future where AI’s rapid development potentially marginalizes human researchers, culminating in the so- called death of research”, when human researchers are condemned to secondary roles. The article is aimed at a critical examination of such a view; it is considered to be oversimplified. The authors argue that while AI demonstrates exceptional performance in certain areas, it lacks essential human attributes indispensable to the research process. Therefore, they advocate for a synergistical collaboration of human and artificial intelligence and a carefully balanced approach, “seamlessly integrating AI’s computational prowess with the irreplaceable value of human insight, creativity, and ethical guidance.” Specifically, the article is focused on the human capacity for ethical judgment and decision-making. According to the authors, “while AI excels at quantitative analysis, it cannot interpret data within its broader context and ethical framework. With their deep understanding of cultural, historical, and social nuances, human researchers provide the interpretive layer that transforms AI- generated data into meaningful insights.” The authors call human researchers “the ethical filter” necessary for envisioning societal impact of AI’s predictions. Zuo Wenjun, Svetlana V. Panikarova, Li Zhiyuan, and Zhao Qi in the ARTICLE Working in the “Neo-Liberal Hegemony”: An Investigation on Entrepreneurial Mindset of Internal Labor Market Based on Individual Differences explore the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) in the context of digital nomadic entrepreneurship, employee innovation, intrapreneurship, creative labor markets, the gig economy, etc. The focus of the article is the influence of demographic factors on the development of an employee’s EM, which has attracted insufficient research attention. The research is based on the example of China that underwent market transformation in the late 1970s. The authors argue that “the role of entrepreneurs in the history of China has shifted from non-existence in the early years to becoming a cornerstone of economic growth and innovation in the later years.” They are motivated by the desire “to scrutinize the nexus between EM within the internal labor market and pertinent demographic variables, including gender, income level, educational attainment, and age.” In order to clarify the EM varieties depending on different income levels, ages, genders, and educational levels, the authors have undertaken a study of representatives of business departments from Shanghai and Shenzhen, key economic centers in China with dynamic labor markets and numerous entrepreneurial ventures. For the research purposes, 261 valid responses were collected. The results provide insights into understanding the emergence of EM among China’s native generation in the context of market reform and neo-liberal transformation. The ARTICLE Grouping of Occupations Based on Intragenerational Mobility by Sergey A. Korotaev and Elena N. Gasiukova observes occupation as a key variable https://changing-sp.com/ 8 Elena A. Stepanova in sociology, used as a predictor of a vast number of indicators ranging from political behavior to health, values, tolerance, moral position, sentiments, etc., influencing thinking, feeling, and behavior. As the authors mention, “every research inevitably implies the homogeneity of the analyzed professional groups in terms of properties essential for the work”; for further clarification of the nature of such homogeneity, the research presented in the article was aimed at creating groups of occupations based on mobility data using network analysis as the main methodology, where networks are served to model the relationships between occupations and people. The authors analyzed data from 15 waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of Higher School of Economics (RLMS HSE) from 2007 to 2021. The age of the respondents was limited to 25–60. As a result, the authors identify four communities: the first (being the largest) unites mainly office staff; the second comprises workers, operators, and non- office associate professionals; the third includes occupations in the fields of education and medicine; and the fourth community consists of occupations in the service sector, security guards, and drivers. Vera M. Peshkova in the ARTICLE Types and Development Stages of Migrant Entrepreneurship in Russia analyses migrant entrepreneurship as a relatively recent and complex phenomenon in international migration, focusing on its scale, the factors driving its emergence and evolution, the similarities and differences among migrant entrepreneurs from various countries, and the role of ethnicity in migrant entrepreneurship. Peshkova strives to get insights into entrepreneurial strategies and their interpretation in different situations and contexts. According to the author, “the most productive approach to studying migrant entrepreneurship is based on considering different combinations of interactions between three key factors: personal characteristics of migrants, group characteristics and resources, and the structure of opportunities and constraints, primarily related to the host and then the sending society.” The author presents a comparative analysis of the entrepreneurial activities of migrants from Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan who established their businesses since the 1990s, relying on a number of in-depth semi-structured interviews with public organizations, journalists, and migrant entrepreneurs conducted between 2017 and 2019 in Moscow and the Moscow region. In the ARTICLE Do Personality Traits Play a Role in Supporting Indonesian Islamic State? A Study of Fundamentalist Group Members in Indonesia Tutut Chusniyah, Jas Laile Suzana Binti Jaafar, Hamdi Muluk, Zainal Abidin, and Gebi Angelina Zahra raise a highly important question about the compatibility of Islam and democracy. This issue is considered in the context of the conflict between Islam and the State of Indonesia ongoing for a long time, ever since Indonesia gained independence in 1945. The authors are specifically concerned about those people who support the concept of Islamic political system and whether a certain type of personality does play a role. They underline that there are various views on the factors that influence support for this idea, such as political attitudes and identity, focusing on the relationship between openness to experience and negative/positive characteristics or behaviors, and suggesting “that symbolic threat and Salafi ideology are the two psychological factors that mediate both openness to experience and support for the Changing Societies & Personalities, 2023, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 5–10 9 idea of an Indonesian Islamic state.” The symbolic threat and Salafi ideology are used as mediators of the support for an Indonesian Islamic state. The study enrolled 325 male leaders, members, or sympathizers of three fundamentalist groups in Indonesia. In particular, the authors stress that data collection was not an easy process due to the sensitivity of the issue under consideration, although the participants took part in this research voluntarily without rewards. Mostafa Ahadi and Shahriar Shahidi in the ARTICLE Putting Fame and Celebrity in a Psychosocial Framework: A Scientific Analysis pay attention to the impact of fame and such concepts as “celebrity,” “star,” and “influencer” on human life, and note that despite the significant expansion of academic research on celebrity, there is no coherent theory on fame in the field of psychology. The article is aimed at examining “scientific gaps by providing an overview of research trends in the field of celebrity psychology, in terms of research topics and methods used.” The authors use bibliometric analysis as a popular method to visualize trends in various fields, including celebrity psychology and formulate the following research questions: How has fame been psychologically analyzed in the past? How is fame currently studied? What trajectory will fame assume in the future? The data for the study were obtained from Scopus as a comprehensive citation database covering journals in engineering, medical, and social sciences for almost hundred years. English-language articles in the field of psychology were selected if they contained the words “famous” or “celebrity” in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. In the ARTICLE The Concept of the Dark Triad: Effect on Organizational Outcomes and Navigating Strategies, Divya Upadhyay and Hasnan Baber write about the importance of a positive workplace atmosphere for productivity, innovation, and employee retention. At the same time, individuals with a high level of the Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) can foster a toxic culture, because they are known for manipulating others, creating a hostile work environment being characterized by a lack of empathy and a focus on themselves. The authors discuss the concept of the Dark Triad, examine its impact on the organizational outcome in various areas, explain the work strategies needed to work with Dark Triads to manage them along with their organizational outcomes in the workplace, and propose strategies for managing these outcomes, such as screening and selection procedures, training and development programs, the establishment of ethical policies and conduct codes, leadership development initiatives, performance management systems, and creating a supportive workplace. Ekaterina S. Purgina and Andrey S. Menshikov in the ARTICLE Environmental Imaginaries of the Arctic in the 21st Century Travel Writing note that it “provides a diverse and rich repository of narratives, in which our relations to nature are spelled out in a more nuanced and interdependent way.” The authors describe major shifts in the way the Arctic was imagined from the legendary Ultima Thule, “a place lying between the worlds of gods and men,” to “an empty space to which outsiders are entitled,” a frontier, wilderness, wasteland, a “spot on the world’s fringes,” which made a perfect background for hunting and whaling stories where a “white Englishman in a white space” struggled with the elements. Special focus is made on the 20th century’s https://changing-sp.com/ 10 Elena A. Stepanova rise to new, post-colonial visions of the Arctic. The authors argue that “contemporary travel literature deploys complex narrative constructions, reinterpreting some of the old tropes (e.g., the Arctic as an empty, pure, and ever-silent no-man’s land) and introducing new ones.” In particular, they analyze William E. Glassley’s travelogue “A Wilder Time: Notes From a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice” (2018), which, as the authors stress, challenges the “hegemonic” imaginaries of the Arctic as either a space to conquer or an ecosystem to protect. In the ARTICLE Exploring the Factors Influencing Tourist Destination Loyalty: A Case Study of Homestay Entrepreneurs in Thailand, Chaiyawit Muangmee, Kanakorn Sawangcharoen, Veerapan Pongvatnanusorn, Thun Chaitorn, Nuttapon Kassakorn, and Shahab E. Saqib analyze the tourism industry and its role in bringing Thailand a significant income and positively affecting the overall economic system by providing employment opportunities. The authors are focused on the Samut Sakhon Province as a popular tourist destination and one of Thailand’s most well-known coastal provinces with its distinctive features, cultural heritage, and natural attractions that make it appealing for tourists. The article is aimed at highlighting the factors influencing tourist loyalty, which yet to be sufficiently identified and explored, as well as at developing a comprehensive Tourist Destination Loyalty Model specifically for homestays in Samut Sakhon Province and providing actionable recommendations for homestay entrepreneurs to enhance visitors’ satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat visitation. The data for the research was collected from 440 homestay tourists in Samut Sakhon. The sample was selected to be representative of this diverse group, encompassing a variety of demographic characteristics, travel preferences, and geographic diversity. The BOOK REVIEW section includes a review by Andrey S. Menshikov of Thomas Remington’s book The Returns to Power. A Political Theory of Economic Inequality, 2023. The book under review “is a comprehensive overview of the research on inequality that covers, in fact, all—economic, social, political, psychological, and philosophical—aspects of the problem.” Discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. In planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections, or book reviews. For more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ References Taylor, C. (1991). The ethics of authenticity. Harvard University Press. Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Harvard University Press. Merriam-Webster. (2023, November 27). Word of the year 2023. In Merriam- Webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year