Against the Compulsive Urge to Interpret By Dorian Vale

Abstract

Against the Compulsive Urge to Interpret

By Dorian Vale

In this incisive essay, Dorian Vale issues a direct challenge to the modern compulsion to interpret everything—especially art that resists it. Against the Compulsive Urge to Interpret dissects the psychological, academic, and cultural forces behind overexplanation, and reveals how this reflex can become a form of violence.

Rather than a celebration of ambiguity or mystique, the essay makes a precise philosophical argument: that some works—especially those grounded in grief, ritual, trauma, or the sacred—must be approached through presence, not penetration. Vale argues that relentless interpretation disfigures the very things it claims to illuminate, replacing witness with possession and flattening mystery into content.

This piece is both a manifesto and a moral warning: not all silence is an invitation to speak. Sometimes, to interpret is to intrude. And in such moments, the most radical act of criticism may be restraint.

Vale, Dorian. Against the Compulsive Urge to Interpret. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17075900

Dorian Vale is a chosen pseudonym, not to obscure identity, but to preserve clarity of voice and integrity of message. It creates distance between the writer and the work, allowing the philosophy to stand unclouded by biography. The name exists not to hide, but to honor the seriousness of the task: to speak without spectacle, and to build without needing to be seen. This name is used for all official publications, essays, and theoretical works indexed through DOI-linked repositories including Zenodo, OSF, PhilPapers, and SSRN.

This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843)

Post-Interpretive Criticism, Dorian Vale, interpretation in art, overinterpretation, ethics in art criticism, restraint in criticism, art and silence, witnessing art, aesthetic theory, non-extractive writing, trauma and interpretation, philosophical aesthetics, contemporary art