The critic and the creator
February 26, 2008 by Abhishek
“It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.”
-G H Hardy, the opening lines of A Mathematician’s apology.
Pretty harsh, no?
Yes, but he explains later. Taken out of context it sounds more scathing than it is, especially the last sentence. Nonetheless the passage illustrates Hardy’s belief in the innate worth of any kind of creative achievement (art, mathematics, writing) and his profound sadness that (at the time he was writing this) he no longer had the ability to create mathematics at the highest level, and he would never get that ability back again.
He is certainly not contemptuous of the acts of criticism or exposition - he recognizes them as fine, necessary activities - he merely asserts that the act of creating something permanent and wonderful (like a great painting) is in a certain sense superior to the act of criticizing or dissecting another’s creation. I agree with that sentiment.