Daily Archives: May 14, 2018

Thoughts on Ethical Jealousy

These past few months I’ve been stewing on the idea of ethical jealousy. There’s this notion that’s been haunting the world of criticism, pretty much since the dawn of the webcomic era, that the work of the critic is echoed with the notional frailty of jealousy. Anyone who examines a creative work, there’s always something of an assumption, is doing it out of a sadness at their own inability to create such a thing themselves.

Now I don’t think that jealousy is never a factor in criticism but I think it is very much not the factor people think it is. In my case, specifically, though, I do know there are times when I swallow jealousy at a work. I don’t really do long-form critiques of some things, knowing that I can’t trust myself to separate my envy of the work from the work.

I don’t think that everything we think of as a vice has to be seen that way. I don’t think I have to see the wish, the yearning to have done something, to be able to do something, as an evil. It’s, in a way, a valuing – I can see the value in that thing, and wish that I had had some hand in it. A healthier way, a more ideal way, would be to see the creation and its existence as worthy, in and of itself – but I see the admission of envy, the acceptance of jealousy, to be in part a step towards that more blessed autumnal state.

And so, when I see myself jealous, I admit it; I accept it; and I seek to not let that jealousy corrode my appreciation, but in its admission, be disempowered. Do not let that you want become a poison that depletes your ability to appreciate what a thing is.

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