We All Need a Little Self-Criticism, Just Not a Bully

The fine line between being self-critical and self-hating

In The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays, poet Wystan Hugh Auden offers an interesting perspective on self-criticism:

To keep his errors down to a minimum, the internal Censor to whom a poet submits his work in progress should be a Censorate. It should include, for instance, a sensitive only child, a practical housewife, a logician, a monk, an irreverent buffoon and even, perhaps, hated by all the others and returning their dislike, a brutal, foul-mouthed drill sergeant who considers all poetry rubbish.

Auden’s imagined “Censorate”—like a group of critics or judges—offers a brilliant metaphor for the varied and often contradictory voices within us. Each figure reflects the complexity of our self-criticism. Don’t we all have our own version of this inner council?