In Waiting for Godot, when Vladimir and Estragon have the insult competition, the ultimate insult is…critic. Yes, it’s a joke, but at the same time it isn’t. There’s a long tradition of seeing the role of critic as…what?…Contemptible? As someone who is unable to create, so they take on the lesser role of critic, but are driven by a kind of hidden envy of the “real artist”. Obviously, that’s in relation to Art. What we also see is the same kind of thing happening in regard to society: those who criticise the way society functions are accused of being negative, of only illustrating the problems without suggesting solutions or, if they do suggest these, of being idealists, out of touch with ‘reality’.
I’ve never really understood this dislike of critics; they seem to have a far more difficult ‘job’ than makars, in that they need to informed ni regard to the whole area under discussion. When a critic offers an analysis, it is based in history, the evolution of the genre in question and the societal dynamic as it exists throughout time. For example, there’s very little point in writing a critique of X’s realist novel, without a knowledge of how the knowledge emerged, how it developed, the kinds of directions it’s taken.
One of the main problems here is the mistake of thinking an opinion is criticism. It’s part of that idea everyone is “entitled to their opinion” which somehow morphs into “everyone’s opinion is valid”. The answer to both of those is ‘No’, unless we give a qualified response. Of course, everyone does have an opinion, but the important question is “How valid is that opinion?” (Which runs both questions into one answer.) Having an opinion is simply being alive, in that judgement is a fundamental component of being human. Judgements are, I would argue, inescapable, from the trivial, “What should I wear today?”, to the crucial, “Which party shall I vote for?” (N.B. Not “Who shall I vote for?”). One can argue that judgement is part of thought, must be part of thought. When we make judgements, we are taking a political position – as we grow older, one might say “grow into our own consciousness”, we realise this, hence, we the change in our judgements over time. These changes are a result of thought and experience; what I mean by ‘experience’ here are the ways in which our knowledge of particular areas grows and develops, thus, informing our thought. Therefore, the more one knows about a specific area, for example, film, the more one should be able to argue coherently for a particular analysis – the more one should be able to construct valid arguments. This is all very Humean: in Of the Standard of Taste, Hume argues precisely this, that one must be immersed in an area, have knowledge of it, and them demonstrate that knowledge/experience in one’s critique. There’s also an unspoken idea here: that one must be sufficiently self-ware to realise when your knowledge is inadequate yet this, in our digital, immediate age, seems to have been forgotten. Look, for example, at the moral panic we see generated by the gaming industry (I’m phrasing this deliberately – moral panic is also good marketing). Every so often a game appears that causes outrage, articles are written about the destruction of civilisation by game X, Y or Z, because these games are brainwashing “young people”. The problem here is the (lack of) knowledge of those expounding these ‘sentiments’ (as Hume would call them). If we look at these articles, they lack historical context: Plato warns that writing will destroy society because no one will remember anything anymore (substitute ‘googling’ for writing); he also warns against Art because it represents things and human persons as they are not; we have the puritans banning plays for the same reason; when the novel first appears in English, dire predictions are made that readers will prefer the fictional existences they read about over material reality; film is seen, initially, as a grave threat to society…followed by television (t is still the case that certain sections of society bemoan the influence of television), followed by video games (Macron, very recently, blamed the riots in France on “young people” gaming). In each of these occurrences, the warnings are issued by those who favour ‘tradition’ or the ‘conventional’. On the whole, they are the same argument, mobilised by right-wing commentators, sharing a common denominator: fear of the power of Art. While we might not go so far as to suggest a direct connection between Art and societal change, what we can see is a correlation between Art and changing the tenor of society, creating a desire for change. Right-wing commentators recognise that Art causes thought, causes consideration of issues, that, in the long run, leads to change. Perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps those who create the moral panic around games recognise the historical links – a historical ‘sameness’. However, what we also need to recognise is the way in which right-wing commentators claim to be representing “common sense”, or “the natural”: that is, they deny that they are writing from an ideological position (that’s something only the left do apparently). They are ‘neutral’, ‘objective’ – sitting outside history. Yet there is no political neutrality in claiming to be outside history.
What we might call “proper critics” state their political position. They do not posit themselves as an ‘everyperson’ figure. They also recognise the limits of their knowledge, and the factors that have a bearing on their analysis. For example, although I might critique games, I have to recognise that my knowledge is general and that my (old) age has a bearing on my thought. Interesting enough, Hume makes the claim that the young are less able to critique because they lack experience – this is in keeping with the assumed definition of rationality at the time. However, this no longer holds in our society where specific kinds of Art are marketed to specific audiences. These kinds of Art require critics drawn from what I suppose we have to call their “target market”, rather than those who will, almost automatically, find these forms wanting (which, one can argue, is a manifestation of fear). Look at the scorn poured on reality tv or soap operas; I’m not suggesting that we examine these forms in isolation but there appears to be a tendency to see these as inferior, to fall victim to nostalgia.
These forms can, however, be used to illustrate another point in regard to ‘opinion’. There appears to be a move towards the idea of ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ as ultimate critical terms. If I dislike something then I can dismiss it – I need give it no more thought. Yet what does liking or disliking establish? Nothing. What’s important is the ‘because’, otherwise we have nothing with which to debate. This is the fundamental point: likes and dislikes are irrelevant. Everything that goes to make up the “cultural web” of society is of critical interest. Likes and dislikes are pointless, meaningless oppositions, that fragment social life, that encourage the separation of subjects – economics from sociology from literature (itself a separation from Art) from philosophy – and the compartmentalisation of life itself. In this compartmentalised world, I can abhor child labour but fail to see the connection with my iphone, sympathise with strikers but moan about the effects on me. (N.B. Look at the way strikes are covered on tv news: the item leads with the effect, not the cause) The real critic sees that, as Derrida puts it, there is nothing beyond the text – and that ‘text’ is how we live as a human person with other human persons, the very thing that motivates Art.
This is why Art is being segregated and marginalised – confined to what is called ‘entertainment’ which we can define as “escapism which takes our minds off the detail of our everyday lives”. In the capitalist society that we inhabit, Art is fast becoming confined to the same kind of ‘exercise’ as weekend drinking sessions – a chance to obliterate consciousness, to forget the circumstances of our material existence.
Murmurs from the Forest 