Toni Morrison: On the Source of Self Regard

After Toni Morrison's death last year, I read through most of these essays in a matter of days. But the collection is probably best savored over time. It was no surprise to discover that this luminary writer also has a towering intellect and the scope of this book is rather broad.

Overall, Morrison’s work here examines what the notion of self regard might signify or refuse to signify in the American landscape. How does our national context shape our beliefs about ourselves and the way we create meaning in our lives? What are the values we should strive to preserve, and what are those that stand in the way of a free mind and flourishing spirit?

As a novelist, Morrison is particularly interested in the life of the mind. She sees dreaming and imagination as the essential step before pragmatism and problem solving. What minor thinkers have invented, she asserts in a moment of prescience, can be uninvented. What was constructed, can be deconstructed.

“Dreaming is not irresponsible,” she writes. “It is the first order of human business.”

In a commencement address to Sarah Lawrence printed in the book, Morrison claims she is not interested in the pursuit of happiness. “I don’t think we can afford it anymore,” she said. “I don’t think it delivers the goods.”

She ends her speech with a creative call to arms for the graduates: We humans are the moral inhabitants of the galaxy. As far as we know, there are no others. Why trash that magnificent obligation after working so hard in the womb to assume it? You will be in positions that matter. Your errors may be irrevocable. So when you enter those places of trust, or power, dream a little before you think, so your thoughts, your solutions, your directions, your choices will be worth the sacred life you have chosen to live. You are not helpless. You are not heartless. And you still have time.