"Affectation is certain deformity; by forming themselves on fantastic models, the young begin with being ridiculous, and often end in being vicious"
About this Quote
Affectation, for Blair, isn’t a harmless style choice; it’s a moral injury that starts as comedy and metastasizes into character. The line snaps because it treats pretension as bodily distortion: “deformity” suggests something not merely fake but warped, a visible mis-shaping of the self. That metaphor does quiet ideological work. If affectation is a deformity, then “natural” virtue becomes the implied baseline, and social performance becomes suspicious by default.
Blair’s real target is youth culture - and the adults who panic about it. “Fantastic models” points to the borrowed selves young people try on: fashionable poses, imported manners, the glamor of whatever is newly admired. The phrase “forming themselves” is key; identity is framed as a craft project, and Blair is alarmed by the materials. Start with the wrong template, he argues, and you don’t just look silly. You get trained into dishonesty, then into appetite, then into “vicious” behavior. It’s a chain-of-causation argument that turns taste into ethics, a classic move in moral poetry and sermon culture.
The subtext is anxiety about imitation in a society where status is performed. In early 18th-century Britain, “affectation” was a loaded word: it policed class mobility (don’t speak above your station), gender expression (don’t be too refined, too adorned), and urban cosmopolitanism (don’t bring the theater into the home). Blair’s warning reads like a defense of sincerity, but it also defends a social order: if trying on new models is “deformity,” then staying in your assigned shape becomes virtue.
Blair’s real target is youth culture - and the adults who panic about it. “Fantastic models” points to the borrowed selves young people try on: fashionable poses, imported manners, the glamor of whatever is newly admired. The phrase “forming themselves” is key; identity is framed as a craft project, and Blair is alarmed by the materials. Start with the wrong template, he argues, and you don’t just look silly. You get trained into dishonesty, then into appetite, then into “vicious” behavior. It’s a chain-of-causation argument that turns taste into ethics, a classic move in moral poetry and sermon culture.
The subtext is anxiety about imitation in a society where status is performed. In early 18th-century Britain, “affectation” was a loaded word: it policed class mobility (don’t speak above your station), gender expression (don’t be too refined, too adorned), and urban cosmopolitanism (don’t bring the theater into the home). Blair’s warning reads like a defense of sincerity, but it also defends a social order: if trying on new models is “deformity,” then staying in your assigned shape becomes virtue.
Quote Details
| Topic | Honesty & Integrity |
|---|
More Quotes by Robert
Add to List
