"The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives"
About this Quote
Lorde turns “light” into an instrument of politics, not mood lighting for self-reflection. The sentence insists that how we see is never neutral: the “quality” of illumination is shaped by power, language, and inherited habits of judgment. Scrutinizing your life under the wrong light means you’ll misread what’s happening to you, blame yourself for structural harm, and call that clarity. Lorde’s brilliance here is the pivot from interiority to outcomes. The light isn’t just for understanding; it determines the “product which we live” - the life you end up manufacturing day by day, the compromises you normalize, the risks you take, the solidarities you can imagine.
The syntax does a lot of the work. “Direct bearing” is blunt, almost technical, as if she’s refusing any romantic escape hatch. Then comes that subtly radical phrase: “the product which we live.” Life isn’t treated as essence or destiny; it’s made. And if it’s made, it can be remade - but only if the tools of perception are sharpened and re-aimed.
Context matters: Lorde wrote as a Black lesbian feminist poet and activist, in a late-20th-century landscape where “objectivity” often meant white, male, straight default. Her work repeatedly argues that the personal is a contested site, and that self-knowledge is not self-help but survival strategy. The subtext is a warning and a dare: if your hopes for change are fuzzy, check your lighting. Someone may have installed it for you.
The syntax does a lot of the work. “Direct bearing” is blunt, almost technical, as if she’s refusing any romantic escape hatch. Then comes that subtly radical phrase: “the product which we live.” Life isn’t treated as essence or destiny; it’s made. And if it’s made, it can be remade - but only if the tools of perception are sharpened and re-aimed.
Context matters: Lorde wrote as a Black lesbian feminist poet and activist, in a late-20th-century landscape where “objectivity” often meant white, male, straight default. Her work repeatedly argues that the personal is a contested site, and that self-knowledge is not self-help but survival strategy. The subtext is a warning and a dare: if your hopes for change are fuzzy, check your lighting. Someone may have installed it for you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Audre
Add to List
