“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” —
Carl Jung. I think this sentence ought to be inscribed in whatever spaces cultural critics occupy while scribbling their attacks on this or that generation, this or that movement. All of us ought to bear it in mind; we’d be less brutal in our judgments, more self-aware, less contented with ourselves, more forgiving of others.
A problem: criticism is a crucial part of reaction, of experience; one cannot limply allow all that happens to wash over one without a response. Indeed, a central problem in our culture seems to be a paucity of criticism: nothing is interrogated, dissected, contextualized, explained, partly because nothing is even heeded. Everyone is disgorging opinions and works in such a torrent that there is no time for real, contemplative criticism.
(A theory: relativism triumphs in the contemporary West not because most decide on it but because for various technological reasons there simply isn’t enough time or mental space to sort through so many competing, dissonant streams of information: better to let them pool, puddle, and evaporate).
Is it senseless to oppose the criticism that springs from irritation? Shouldn’t I be irritated by hypocrisy, by mendacity, by false art, by superficiality, by deliberate obfuscation in culture and politics? Is it really the case that my irritation isn’t driven by righteous outrage at the violation of moral or aesthetic principles so much as discomfited recognition of my own hypocrisy, mendacity, and so on?
I believe it is. I believe this explains why “hypocrisy” is the favorite charge of this indignant age: we are disgusted by hypocrisy because we recognize all our condemnations, all our judgments, as fundamentally hypocritical; hypocrisy is the essential quality of human outrage -which is always hypocritical-, and therefore it is our most severe accusation. We often hear: “I wouldn’t object to so-and-so doing such-and-such, it’s their denial of it, the hypocrisy of it!”
We know that we all disguise our motives, falsify our behavior, depend on various private selves, and since we are ambivalent about this necessary and constant form of dissimulation, we despise it in others. I have come to think of this loathing of hypocrisy is a coded request for forgiveness; whenever we savage someone for their flaws, we disclose what we detest about ourselves, what we hope to be forgiven for.
(via mills)
- Alice Hoffman
allisonwonderlandd:torialikesyou:walkingstraightintocircles:youhadmeathello-:suptanisha:mikechrysleryap:profaneinsanity:yuvallosism:ambermonzon:popgoesherheart:steffinlove:stressedchocolate:dialelove:michaii:fill in please? :)@youknowwhoyouare
allisonwonderlandd:torialikesyou:walkingstraightintocircles:youhadmeathello-:suptanisha:mikechrysleryap:profaneinsanity:yuvallosism:ambermonzon:popgoesherheart:steffinlove:stressedchocolate:dialelove:michaii:fill in please? :)@youknowwhoyouare
omg.
“Stories in books are unlike the story that plays out in front of your eyes.
You are main character in your story but you will always be a supporting character or even an extra in others.”
(via dropdeadgorjess)
(via artpixie)
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
OH MY GOD :o
I wish my charmander was that cute:)
(via ragetoons)