On Self-Respect

"It is the phenomenon sometimes called alienation from self. In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the spectre of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that one's sanity becomes an object of speculation among one's acquaintances. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home."

My first Joan Didion! The ideas in this aren’t much of anything that I haven’t heard before but the way this was so carefully written made it hit so hard. Every string of words felt meticulously crafted to convey her message. This was a very poignant read at this time of life for me and overall, I respect it! ;)

“To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.”

Ouch. Lo primero que leo de Joan Didion y me voló la cabeza, pues qué manera tan precisa de transmitir un mensaje— y qué mensaje tan importante. De esos textos que llegan en el momento indicado y sus pocas páginas cambian algo en ti.

I felt a sweet tremor by reading this

“To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect."

Essay on Self-Respect (Joan Didion)

Quotes:

“To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously un- comfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.”

“people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes.”

“people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.”

“Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”

innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself

to have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent'


jesus CHRIST

Why is Didion’s “On Self-Respect” so lauded, 60 years later? There are some takeaways here, but in this case, I'll just leave them where they are, because it’s hard to pretend that the abject racism at the heart of the piece is marginal to the meaning of the essay, although dominant cultural education teaches us that white writers are entitled to this consideration. Readers will continue to glide over whole paragraphs of ridiculousness, and push those parts of the writing to the periphery of "what she's really trying to say," then get poetic about the "larger significance" of this essay, which, yet again, marginalizes the nonwhite reader who sees that there are some gaping problems here. Read carefully for the "hostile Indian," read for her take on Manifest Destiny, read for Didion's concept of "free land" (my eyes bugged out when I saw that phrase, I initially read it as "to free the land," but the sentiment is the same), read for "Chinese Gordon" (her unironic use of the racist name a British imperialist was given by the Brits) and his "clean white suit." She uses the image of the "hostile Indian" as a specter to the ongoing narrative project of white self-referentiality and purpose. She writes, "Indians were simply part of the donnée. In one guise or another, they always are. Again, it is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has its price." She continues, "People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the Indians will be hostile, the venture will go bankrupt….they are willing to invest something of themselves..." She does not invoke the violence of the white settler colonist. We should be more concerned about this, right? This essay isn't simply "of its era."

She also says self-respect must be a "discipline of the mind," which is the kind of mentalist argument about one's identity and inner world that those who have an impatience for the vastness of conscious experience will make. (She said her innocence ended when she didn't make Phi Beta Kappa, which made me laugh out loud.) The subtext here is that Didion has little sympathy for rumination, or flashbacks, or internal replays of the past, or guilt, or anxiety about the harm you may have caused or that may have come your way - the ways in which people cope - well, she thinks it isn't useful. Own up to what you've done, blow into a bag, get some oxygen, give yourself a reality check, show yourself how absurd life is, but don't sit there crying, she says. Take a cold shower because you don't want to come across as hysterical, to others, much less yourself. The message is, get a hold of yourself and your inner narrative, some self-control won't hurt. Sure, it's A piece of advice, a bit stoic, perhaps useful at times, maybe it comes from the depth of her own emotional experience, but imagine saying that to a friend who experiences chronic trauma. This is why I dislike this essay, I thought it completely lacked generosity. I don't know who her audience was, but it reeked of the California elitism and blasé of a certain set of writers, the privilege of their tiny, white, circles in the hills of Los Angeles, their belief that they see things with an important, discerning eye - a snide superiority. But maybe I'm wrong, I often feel that I'm literally not reading the same essay or book as other readers. Still, it's strange to see how writers like Didion continue to be canonized, though sadly it isn't unusual at all.