"The priceless galaxy of misinformation called the mind"
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Barnes turns the mind into a luxury object and then immediately sabotages it. Calling it a "priceless galaxy" borrows the language of awe and appraisal: priceless as in beyond value, galaxy as in vast, glittering, spiritually significant. Then she drops the pin: "misinformation". The effect is a kind of modernist bait-and-switch, a refusal of the comforting idea that consciousness is a clean instrument for truth. What we carry inside is not a library but a cosmos of bad data, half-remembered scenes, inherited prejudices, misread cues, and narratives we keep polishing until they feel like fact.
The phrasing is also slyly defensive. If the mind is a galaxy, no single observer can map it from the outside, and no single self can map it from within. Barnes, writing out of an era shaped by psychoanalysis, propaganda, and the shattering disillusionments of the early 20th century, understood how readily "inner life" becomes a rehearsal space for delusion. The mind manufactures meaning the way a city manufactures noise: constantly, indiscriminately, and with a confidence that outruns accuracy.
Subtextually, Barnes is taking aim at the cultural prestige of intellect. "Priceless" reads like a compliment, but it functions as an indictment of what we excuse because it's beautiful or complex. A galaxy can be breathtaking and still be hostile to human survival. In Barnes's hands, thinking is less a path to clarity than a glamorous hazard: radiant, infinite, and permanently unreliable.
The phrasing is also slyly defensive. If the mind is a galaxy, no single observer can map it from the outside, and no single self can map it from within. Barnes, writing out of an era shaped by psychoanalysis, propaganda, and the shattering disillusionments of the early 20th century, understood how readily "inner life" becomes a rehearsal space for delusion. The mind manufactures meaning the way a city manufactures noise: constantly, indiscriminately, and with a confidence that outruns accuracy.
Subtextually, Barnes is taking aim at the cultural prestige of intellect. "Priceless" reads like a compliment, but it functions as an indictment of what we excuse because it's beautiful or complex. A galaxy can be breathtaking and still be hostile to human survival. In Barnes's hands, thinking is less a path to clarity than a glamorous hazard: radiant, infinite, and permanently unreliable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
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