Linguistic narcissism?

Michael Hartl — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 13:30:00 -0700

I have a hypothesis that some brilliant writers are afflicted by a kind of linguistic narcissism: their writing is so beautiful that they manage to convince themselves of bad ideas. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, wrote persuasively in favor of the Marxist view of human biology. Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, crackling with wit and anecdote, advances the thesis that people are surprisingly good at making snap decisions on precious little information—except when they’re not.

Today I read the obituary of John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist known for his “witty and acid-penned” writing and critiques of consumerism and corporations. The brilliance of his writings may have blinded, not only his readers, but also Galbraith himself, to the flaws in his thinking.

To take one example, Galbraith once said that “I am struck by our superb capacity to manufacture consumer gadgetry, including electronic games, versus our capacity to produce schools.” His apparent astonishment is an indictment of “our” society’s priorities, but a simple rephrasing might ameliorate his confusion: “I am not struck by the superb capacity of private companies to manufacture consumer gadgetry, versus the capacity of governments to produce schools.”

My hypothesis could be wrong, of course; bad ideas might have nothing to do with verbal fluency. There are, after all, plenty of excellent writers whose principal ideas are not obviously wrong. But I suspect that some people’s capacity for self-deception is enhanced by their falling in love with their own (literary) voice.

Eikonoklastes by Michael Hartl: Linguistic narcissism?

Linguistic narcissism?