"Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation"
About this Quote
In one neat sentence, Cooley strips the halo off innocence and shows the wiring underneath. The line reads like an aphorism you might want to frame until you realize it’s accusing the framer. “Charming” is the bait word: it names a socially approved reaction, the warm glow people feel around naivete, youth, purity. Cooley’s turn is to argue that the glow isn’t evidence of goodness at all; it’s evidence of appetite.
The real punch is the passive construction: “is thought charming.” No one is explicitly doing the exploiting, because polite culture rarely names itself as predatory. Instead, the collective “we” hides inside a neutral-sounding judgment. Innocence, in this view, functions like an open door in a neighborhood that congratulates itself on trust. The charm isn’t innocence’s property; it’s the spectator’s fantasy of access and advantage. Innocence promises pliability: fewer boundaries, fewer questions, fewer consequences.
Cooley, a writer of barbed, compact observations, is operating in a late-20th-century register where sentimentality is suspect and power is the real subject. The line lands especially hard in cultures that romanticize the “fresh,” the “authentic,” the “unspoiled” - from sexual politics to celebrity to consumer marketing. Think of how “ingenue” is both a compliment and a job description: be new, be malleable, be grateful.
The subtext is blunt: when innocence is celebrated, ask who benefits. Cooley’s cynicism isn’t nihilism; it’s a demand for adult honesty about desire, control, and the ways affection can be a mask for extraction.
The real punch is the passive construction: “is thought charming.” No one is explicitly doing the exploiting, because polite culture rarely names itself as predatory. Instead, the collective “we” hides inside a neutral-sounding judgment. Innocence, in this view, functions like an open door in a neighborhood that congratulates itself on trust. The charm isn’t innocence’s property; it’s the spectator’s fantasy of access and advantage. Innocence promises pliability: fewer boundaries, fewer questions, fewer consequences.
Cooley, a writer of barbed, compact observations, is operating in a late-20th-century register where sentimentality is suspect and power is the real subject. The line lands especially hard in cultures that romanticize the “fresh,” the “authentic,” the “unspoiled” - from sexual politics to celebrity to consumer marketing. Think of how “ingenue” is both a compliment and a job description: be new, be malleable, be grateful.
The subtext is blunt: when innocence is celebrated, ask who benefits. Cooley’s cynicism isn’t nihilism; it’s a demand for adult honesty about desire, control, and the ways affection can be a mask for extraction.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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