True Love and False Esteem

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian novelist and master at depicting the human condition, once described many of his characters as being both “sentimental and cruel.” At first glance, those two words seem contradictory. The word “sentimental” is often a stand-in for something inane or even harmless, so how could something sentimental be cruel? The answer is that sentimentality is, by nature, two-dimensional. It may appear to be beautiful, but you can’t sink your teeth into it. It may seem like real affection, but it is only an illusion. In short, sentimentality is love without truth.

On the other hand, truth, at least on its own, can often be cruel. It reveals the darker corners of our lives without guaranteeing forgiveness. Although Jesus promised that the truth would set us free, our instincts tell us the opposite, that the truth will condemn and punish. Sooner or later, however, we are forced to face the truth. As the German poet Christian Hebbel once said, “That people, who flee from truth, should have invented the mirror is the greatest of historical miracles.” As the truth holds the mirror up to nature, it’s often not a pretty sight.

Such is the case with the characters of Nicole Holofcener’s latest film You Hurt My Feelings. The entire story hinges on the moment when Beth, a novelist, overhears her husband, Don, giving an honest (and entirely negative) critique of her latest book to a friend. Until that point, Don has been his wife’s long-suffering cheerleader throughout the ups and downs of her career and shaky self-esteem. For Beth, everything is thrown into question when she overhears her beloved husband admit that he doesn’t actually think her work is very good. When Beth accuses Don of lying to her, he says, “I wasn’t lying. I was encouraging,” to which she responds, “That’s not true. You were lying to be encouraging.” Don’s road may be paved with good intentions, but it has been found to be lacking structural integrity.

Beth’s crisis (to which one will either respond with empathy or with an eye-roll) sheds light on how much people conflate love with esteem. We like the idea of being judged objectively under the pretense that we are taken seriously. And yet, the honest truth — that our work is often insufficient and that we’re not as capable as we would like to think — is often too much for us to handle.

Holofcener makes it clear that it’s not just Beth, either. Every character in the film yearns for respect. Beth’s sister, Sarah, is an interior decorator who bends to the whims of the wealthy, perpetually hanging sconces for an impossibly discontent homeowner. Her husband, Mark, an actor past his prime, is desperate for positive feedback which Sarah offers freely, albeit disingenuously. “So the times when you don’t think he’s good, what do you say to him?” Beth asks Sarah. “That he’s good,” Sarah responds. “Well, what if he found out that you were lying?” “He’d croak,” she says. Mark’s identity is so rooted in being a good actor that if you were to take that away, you would essentially be taking Mark away, too.

That each of the main characters in the movie is desperate for approval seems a tad unrealistic until, of course, you consider the people in your own life. Who doesn’t need approval? Every father wants to be told that he is doing a good job raising his children. Every preacher wants to be told that the word of God was effectively delivered. We cannot tell ourselves who we are, but need to be told from someone outside of us. More importantly, however, we want the news about us to be good.

What we do is often so intertwined with our identity that it is inconceivable to think that a person could love us and not respect what we do. While creativity can often seek objective truth, most artists have the same motivations of a preschooler showing off a finger painting to his father, saying, “Look what I made, Daddy!” When Beth’s friend, Sarah, tells her, “Beth, he loves you. Even if he doesn’t like your book.” She responds by saying, “I just need his approval.” Poignantly, love takes a backseat to acclaim, likely because acclaim is something earned. We would rather be justified based on our own work rather than on someone’s love.

Until, of course, the moment when our work is found wanting; when the parent is exposed as a pushover, when the preacher is slightly off his game, when the author is past her prime. We may comfort ourselves with the idea that no one judges as harshly as we do ourselves, but that is not always the case. Consider The Onion’s classic story, “Man Under Mistaken Impression He His Own Harshest Critic,” about local man Nathan Tullman. “‘No one’s tougher on me than I am,’ said an incorrect Tullman, failing to take into account views of him held by his coworkers, wife, extended family, friends, doctors, and financial advisor, among others.” Sometimes the truth is much harsher than we had feared it would be. So what to do? Would the world be a better place if everyone was unabashedly honest with each other? If Twitter gives us any indication, the answer is a resounding “No.”

In practice, it seems as though the world is only capable of offering one or the other: sentimentality or cruelty. For most of this past year, my Facebook feed was either videos of animals being rescued by good Samaritan types — a baby deer being rescued from a mud pit, for example (heartwarming, but nothing that will help you in your personal life) — or it was articles about how the earth is quickly becoming a climate hellscape. Truly, there was not much besides those extreme, opposite ends.

Of course, the intersection of truth and love happens precisely at one point: namely, forgiveness. Forgiveness sees the other for the truth of who they are and loves them still. This is not a sentimental love where the secrets of life are hidden, nor is it a love that is really its opposite that holds one to account and tries to change the other person. No, this is a love that everyone longs for. This is the love of a spouse who remains faithful to the unfaithful partner. This is the love of a parent who knows every message sent from a teenager’s phone but continues to pay the phone bill. It is a love that does not hinge on a person’s actions or feelings, but stands on its own.

When the Bible contends that God is love, it is not a sentimental kind of love, but a forgiving one. As John’s gospel reminds us, “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17). In other words, God is not a golden retriever, blissfully unaware of the problems of the world and the secrets we wish to keep from him. Jesus does not turn a blind eye to our shortcomings, nor does he attempt to distract us from the truth with mere sentiment. The good news does not contradict the bad news — the bad news, after all, is true — but, rather, it overcomes the bad news. Whenever we face the truth about ourselves, whenever the light of truth shines into our lives and we are exposed for all our shortcomings, the light of Christ shines brighter.

If we want to know if God truly loves us, we don’t have to look any further than the Cross, where our fear and God’s love intersect, where the truth about ourselves and the world and the truth about God’s love come together. We may not be justified according to our works. Instead, we are justified by a love that is more reliable and consistent than talent or success, a love that transcends our feelings altogether, a love that sets us free.