Essays
The Ethics of Looking Away
A personal-critical essay on spectatorship, distance, and the strange comfort of claiming not to know enough.
Date2024
Statusunpublished
PublicationPortfolio draft
Context
An essay placeholder for a more developed work of personal criticism. It is intended to show reflective argument, tonal control, and intellectual range.
There are forms of distance that look like humility until they are asked to do moral work.
I have mistaken restraint for kindness. I have mistaken uncertainty for innocence. The essay begins there, in that uneasy inventory.
To look away is sometimes necessary. To build a life around looking away is something else.