The Whimsical Charm of Ignorance
Blogging is a great medium for infectious obsessions. Recently, the Bang has been enchanted with VH1's celebrity wives program, delving into that timeless philosophical question, "Why do successful men marry dumb women?"
This thread had some intersection with some thoughts I've been having myself lately, so I thought I'd take the time to pontificate. The fact is, it goes both ways. I myself, as profound and as soulful as I am, have fallen under the spell of the dumb before. And to cite again my book of the year, Swann's Way, so too did Swann. That was the entire basis of his love story: he was brilliant and cultured and charming, and she was a blundering idiot with the most vulgar tastes and the worst pretensions. He adored her to distraction, and she was only using him, in a sense, for his cultural refinement, as if to acquire it herself by osmosis; to become less vulgar, and to back her pretensions with some substance. In short, he was her opportunity for personal growth. Odette's, too, is a side of love I've been on - it's not only the stupid and shallow (quote?) that I'm attracted to! I can understand loving someone because they seem to hold the keys to an intellectual world that is beautiful, mysterious, and forbidden. This is the kind of crush one has for, say, one's teachers.
Interestingly, once you attain a certain intellectual height, the world of ignorance suddenly starts to look beautiful and mysterious, too. The more ignorant (sexism? homophobia?) the better, almost. Like Swann, you don't even bother to try to correct the ignorance, but you sit back and encourage the person as she makes a total ass out of herself. It's not a malice thing; on the contrary, you cherish the blunders as the most delightful charm.
Let me emphasize that this does NOT describe the kind of crush a professor would have for a student (I'm convinced that such professors are just pathetic). Why? Because when loving the ignorant, they have to be HOPELESSLY ignorant. Once they become enlightened through your tutelage, where's your vacation? You're right back where you started from, which is your own exact world, your own sphere of knowledge. So much of the idea of love, I believe, is about an escape from yourself into something new.
This thread had some intersection with some thoughts I've been having myself lately, so I thought I'd take the time to pontificate. The fact is, it goes both ways. I myself, as profound and as soulful as I am, have fallen under the spell of the dumb before. And to cite again my book of the year, Swann's Way, so too did Swann. That was the entire basis of his love story: he was brilliant and cultured and charming, and she was a blundering idiot with the most vulgar tastes and the worst pretensions. He adored her to distraction, and she was only using him, in a sense, for his cultural refinement, as if to acquire it herself by osmosis; to become less vulgar, and to back her pretensions with some substance. In short, he was her opportunity for personal growth. Odette's, too, is a side of love I've been on - it's not only the stupid and shallow (quote?) that I'm attracted to! I can understand loving someone because they seem to hold the keys to an intellectual world that is beautiful, mysterious, and forbidden. This is the kind of crush one has for, say, one's teachers.
Interestingly, once you attain a certain intellectual height, the world of ignorance suddenly starts to look beautiful and mysterious, too. The more ignorant (sexism? homophobia?) the better, almost. Like Swann, you don't even bother to try to correct the ignorance, but you sit back and encourage the person as she makes a total ass out of herself. It's not a malice thing; on the contrary, you cherish the blunders as the most delightful charm.
Let me emphasize that this does NOT describe the kind of crush a professor would have for a student (I'm convinced that such professors are just pathetic). Why? Because when loving the ignorant, they have to be HOPELESSLY ignorant. Once they become enlightened through your tutelage, where's your vacation? You're right back where you started from, which is your own exact world, your own sphere of knowledge. So much of the idea of love, I believe, is about an escape from yourself into something new.
posted by Rex at 12:18 PM
2 Comments:
Hm, that's interesting... Maybe the allure of ignorant people has to do with their removal from the endless games of self-consciousness that intelligent people get caught up in. Like, there is a certain charm to their obvliousness... Maybe?
Anyway, this made me want to go back and read Volume 1 of Proust again, but I should probably focus on finishing the last books before I reread any.
Yeah, that actually sounds more right than my theory.
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