"The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things"
About this Quote
A clean little confession dressed up as moral advice: the critic’s high isn’t free. La Bruyere is pointing at a trade we rarely admit we’re making - that the dopamine hit of judgment can numb the nerves that register beauty. Criticism offers quick mastery. You get to be smarter than the thing in front of you, to stand above it, to win. Being moved, by contrast, requires surrender: attention without armor, time without scoring, a willingness to be affected.
The line works because it frames criticism as pleasure, not duty. That’s the sting. He’s not scolding bad taste; he’s diagnosing an appetite. The subtext is Augustinian: the self loves its own sovereignty, and critique is a tool for keeping the world at a safe distance. It’s easier to pick apart a poem than to let it rearrange you. You don’t risk looking naive. You don’t risk being changed.
Context matters. Writing in Louis XIV’s France, La Bruyere watched salon culture and court life turn observation into sport: wit as social currency, cool appraisal as status. In that environment, the “critical faculty” isn’t neutral; it’s a performance, a way to signal refinement. His warning lands as a critique of the critic-as-courtier: the sharper your tongue, the less available you are to awe.
Read now, it feels eerily contemporary. Hot takes and irony function like prophylactics against earnest response. La Bruyere’s point isn’t anti-intellectual. It’s a reminder that some experiences demand receptivity, and that the habit of constant evaluation can quietly confiscate our capacity for wonder.
The line works because it frames criticism as pleasure, not duty. That’s the sting. He’s not scolding bad taste; he’s diagnosing an appetite. The subtext is Augustinian: the self loves its own sovereignty, and critique is a tool for keeping the world at a safe distance. It’s easier to pick apart a poem than to let it rearrange you. You don’t risk looking naive. You don’t risk being changed.
Context matters. Writing in Louis XIV’s France, La Bruyere watched salon culture and court life turn observation into sport: wit as social currency, cool appraisal as status. In that environment, the “critical faculty” isn’t neutral; it’s a performance, a way to signal refinement. His warning lands as a critique of the critic-as-courtier: the sharper your tongue, the less available you are to awe.
Read now, it feels eerily contemporary. Hot takes and irony function like prophylactics against earnest response. La Bruyere’s point isn’t anti-intellectual. It’s a reminder that some experiences demand receptivity, and that the habit of constant evaluation can quietly confiscate our capacity for wonder.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
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