"Our accepting what we are must always inhibit our being what we ought to be"
About this Quote
Self-acceptance is supposed to be the modern cure-all; Fowles treats it like a sedative. The line turns a comforting mantra into a provocation: the moment we fully “accept what we are,” we risk embalming ourselves inside a flattering story. “Must always” is the ruthless move here. He’s not warning that acceptance can occasionally breed complacency; he’s insisting the danger is structural. To accept is to stop arguing with yourself, and for Fowles that argument is where the future lives.
The subtext is aimed at identity as a trap. “What we are” sounds factual, even humble, but it’s usually a bundle of habits, defenses, and social permissions we’ve mistaken for nature. Calling it “accepting” smuggles in moral approval: if this is me, then it’s fine. Fowles pushes back with “ought,” a word that makes contemporary ears itch because it implies standards, responsibility, a self not yet actual. He’s less interested in guilt than in movement. “Ought” is the pressure of possibility.
Context matters: Fowles wrote out of postwar British skepticism toward conformity, class scripts, and polite resignation, and his fiction often stages freedom as both seductive and terrifying. This sentence carries that existential spine. It’s not anti-compassion; it’s anti-settlement. He’s needling the comfortable version of authenticity that celebrates the self as-is, instead of treating the self as raw material. The sting is that “acceptance” can be another way of opting out of change while still feeling virtuous about it.
The subtext is aimed at identity as a trap. “What we are” sounds factual, even humble, but it’s usually a bundle of habits, defenses, and social permissions we’ve mistaken for nature. Calling it “accepting” smuggles in moral approval: if this is me, then it’s fine. Fowles pushes back with “ought,” a word that makes contemporary ears itch because it implies standards, responsibility, a self not yet actual. He’s less interested in guilt than in movement. “Ought” is the pressure of possibility.
Context matters: Fowles wrote out of postwar British skepticism toward conformity, class scripts, and polite resignation, and his fiction often stages freedom as both seductive and terrifying. This sentence carries that existential spine. It’s not anti-compassion; it’s anti-settlement. He’s needling the comfortable version of authenticity that celebrates the self as-is, instead of treating the self as raw material. The sting is that “acceptance” can be another way of opting out of change while still feeling virtuous about it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
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