> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://mereorthodoxy.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Mere Fidelity: What's Wrong (and Right) with "Relatability" - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/mere-fidelity-whats-wrong-right-relatability/
- Published: 2014-08-13T05:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-18T16:56:37.000Z
- Description: What's right and wrong with relatability? Rebecca Mead's critique of the scourge of relatability struck a chord, so we gave it a closer analysis.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Matthew Lee Anderson

> To appreciate “King Lear”—or even “The Catcher in the Rye” or “The Fault in Our Stars”—only to the extent that the work functions as one’s mirror would make for a hopelessly reductive experience. But to reject any work because we feel that it does not reflect us in a shape that we can easily recognize—because it does not exempt us from the active exercise of imagination or the effortful summoning of empathy—is our own failure. It’s a failure that has been dispiritingly sanctioned by the rise of “relatable.” In creating a new word and embracing its self-involved implications, we have circumscribed our own critical capacities. That’s what sucks, not Shakespeare.

[So said Rebecca Mead in her widely-read piece on “relatability.”](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/scourge-relatability?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) We naturally decided that the issue needed further dissection. Go read her full essay, then return and give our latest podcast a listen.

[The iTunes feed is here](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mere-fidelity/id885758537?mt=2&ref=mereorthodoxy.com), if you’d like to subscribe (thanks to everyone who has reviewed us so kindly) and [an RSS feed for the show lives here](http://feeds.podtrac.com/9Q4MSGuK6Gj1?ref=mereorthodoxy.com).

Special thanks to [MK Creative Arts](http://www.mkcreativearts.com/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) for the audio editing.

Finally, as always, follow [Derek](https://twitter.com/DZRishmawy?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) and [Alastair](http://www.twitter.com/zugzwanged?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) for more tweet-sized thoughts.