AVOID THE “REFUSAL TO BE PLEASED.”

Posted on February 1, 2009 by Philip

AVOID THE “REFUSAL TO BE PLEASED.” Walter Jackson Bate points out that one of the recurring themes in both Johnson’s writing and his conversation is that it is common for us to believe that we are displaying judgment or taste by “unwillingness to be pleased.” Bate says that: “The ‘refusal to be pleased’…became almost an obsession of [Johnson’s] as something to avoid and fight against, however obdurate his own impatience and quickness to irritability or despair.”

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3 Responses to AVOID THE “REFUSAL TO BE PLEASED.”

  1. Mary Jane Schaefer says:
    February 12, 2009 at 11:51 AM

    For some people, my maternal grandmother and my non-maternal mother, refusing to be pleased was a deliberate strategy, to motivate the surrounding peons to work harder to find something that finally WOULD please. Good luck.

  2. Nick says:
    February 16, 2009 at 1:06 PM

    This is certainly popular amongst Emory students. Enthusiasm, or professing to enjoy something leaves one vulnerable to criticism.

  3. Pingback: “THE REFUSAL TO BE PLEASED” (COMMENT). | Pater Familias

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