On Beauty

by Zadie Smith

‘Dr Belsey, if I may refer you to one of your own liberal lodestars, Jean-Paul Sartre: “We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.” Now is it not you, Dr, who speaks of the instability of textual meaning? Is it not you, Dr, who speaks of the indeterminacy of all sign systems? How, then, can I possibly predict before I give my lectures how the “multivalency”,’ said Monty, enunciating the word with obvious disgust, ‘of my own text will be received in the “heterogeneous consciousnesses” of my audience?’ said Monty, sighing heavily. ‘Your entire line of attack is a perfect model of my argument. You photocopy my article but you do not take the time to read it properly yourself. In that article I ask: “why is there one rule for the liberal intellectual and another rule entirely for his conservative colleague?” And I ask you now: why should I offer the text of my lectures to a committee of liberal interrogators and thus have my own – much vaunted in this very institution – right to free speech curtailed and threatened?’