# Quote — Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays

> Interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness.''' In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.

- Author: [Susan Sontag](https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-sontag.md)
- Book: [Against Interpretation and Other Essays](https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-sontag/against-interpretation-and-other-essays.md)
- Page: 6
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag#Against_Interpretation_and_Other_Essays_(1966)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-sontag/against-interpretation-and-other-essays/interpretation-is-not

## More from this book

> Art today is a new kind of instrument, an instrument for modifying consciousness and organizing new modes of sensibility. And the means for practicing art have been radically extended. ... Painters no longer feel themselves confined to canvas and paint, but employ hair, photographs, wax, sand, bicycle tires, their own toothbrushes and socks. Musicians have reached beyond the sounds of the traditional instruments to use tampered instruments and (usually on tape) synthetic sounds and industrial noises.

p. 296 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-sontag/against-interpretation-and-other-essays/art-today-is-a-new.md)

> What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.

p. 279 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-sontag/against-interpretation-and-other-essays/what-is-most.md)

> The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion.

p. 291 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-sontag/against-interpretation-and-other-essays/the-discovery-of-the.md)