"Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself"
About this Quote
Humanity, West suggests, gets most cryptic at the very moment it insists it is being clear. “Sphinxlike” is a knife of an adjective: not just mysterious, but deliberately enigmatic, half-riddle and half-guard. The line turns the familiar promise of self-expression on its head. We like to imagine speech, art, confession, even politics as revelation. West points to the opposite mechanism: expression as concealment, performance as camouflage.
The intent is diagnostic, not poetic fog. West, a novelist and journalist who wrote through suffrage battles, two world wars, and the rise of mass persuasion, had ample evidence that public language often thickens rather than clarifies. When people “express themselves,” they rarely deliver raw truth; they deliver edited versions shaped by status, fear, desire, and audience. The subtext is psycho-social: the self is not a single stable thing waiting to be said out loud, but a negotiation. Expression becomes a tactic - to seduce, to deflect, to justify, to survive.
“Sphinxlike” also implies power. The sphinx doesn’t merely puzzle; it tests. West hints that human communication is riddling because it’s transactional: we speak in ways that require others to interpret, to prove belonging, to pick the “right” reading. In that sense, she anticipates modern media culture, where the most “authentic” voices are often the most curated. The deeper sting is that sincerity doesn’t solve the problem. Even our attempts at honesty arrive in symbols, stories, and masks.
The intent is diagnostic, not poetic fog. West, a novelist and journalist who wrote through suffrage battles, two world wars, and the rise of mass persuasion, had ample evidence that public language often thickens rather than clarifies. When people “express themselves,” they rarely deliver raw truth; they deliver edited versions shaped by status, fear, desire, and audience. The subtext is psycho-social: the self is not a single stable thing waiting to be said out loud, but a negotiation. Expression becomes a tactic - to seduce, to deflect, to justify, to survive.
“Sphinxlike” also implies power. The sphinx doesn’t merely puzzle; it tests. West hints that human communication is riddling because it’s transactional: we speak in ways that require others to interpret, to prove belonging, to pick the “right” reading. In that sense, she anticipates modern media culture, where the most “authentic” voices are often the most curated. The deeper sting is that sincerity doesn’t solve the problem. Even our attempts at honesty arrive in symbols, stories, and masks.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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