A phoney painting: the name on it does not correspond to its "true" creator. A phoney Van Gogh was not painted by Van Gogh. A phoney 20 dollar bill was not issued by the Federal Reserve. What in the hell is a phoney person; is he or she not a person; a member of some other species pretending to be homo sapiens. What is the "real" which presents the phoney appearance. What does it mean to be a "real" human being rather than a fake human being? As soon as the concept is subjected to any analysis whatever it simply dissolves.
^^^^ CB: In US law, there is a fiction that corporations are persons. This is a sort of phony human. The main phony people today are "Capital".
Also, "The" Individual of fundamental bourgeois metaphysics is an important phony person who is in every cell and pore of bourgeois social ideology. The "there is no society" but only a collection of individuals principle theorizes The Phony Individual as at the basic and determining element of capitalist population. Sartre even says we are condemned to freedom, i.e. individual freedom of will and choice.
So, in a sense most people are phony human beings , Alienated and Isolated, Lonely Individuals , under capitalism; or have an important aspect of how they conceive of themselves that is phony, inauthentic humanity. . Humans are authentically social individuals.
We are victimized by our phony conceptions of ourselves; and the bourgeoisie take full advantage of our division of ourselves into individuals, not solid with each other.
The whole concept of the Self is another locus of this contradiction. It is not insignificant that Self-reference became the root of paradoxes that undermined philosophical mathematical projects aim for absolute consistency and logicality. Even mathematics is social. Then there's "I". (smiles)
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Incidentally, the same is true of other inventions of Time/Life, such as "Hippy" and "Yuppie." Equally empty of content when examined. They fail to identify any actual persons, but seem to give some sort of comfort to those who toss the terms about.
Carro