On Criticism

 

 

 

In a peculiar sense, criticism has taken quite an intellectual decline since the years of yore and is now attributed to bullishness, provocativeness, and raucous behavior. Before, this word was once held by elites and used by scholars. Its casting off is, how shall it be put, plainly unnecessary. That is, unless those who have some interest in doing away with criticism altogether or find its activity a waste of time. Nevertheless, no matter how much the definition is modified, nor how much its true intention is averted, it will always be something of a fine human trait.

Many today, and most perhaps, in media outlets and other forms of information services, look to criticism as something like a sword: a weapon which much be sheathed; for when not, it dangers those in the way of its blade. To simplify matters, criticism harms only those who are delicate enough to spoil at the mere presence of it and may not be of a sound, moral mind. Those spirits, as found in many of us, recoil at the thoughts of reflection, introspection, and thorough fastidiousness. These practices, of course, lend themselves to the more scholarly pursuits that require that of a keen eye and hard-fastened soul.

This may be in part because criticism is a learned man’s term, a scholar’s choice word. Behind the high walls of academia, it was frequently used for centuries amongst the science and arts.  When, at least for a good course of western history, the focus was not on how the self could be harmed, but how society could benefit and push forth. Advancements in medicine, philosophy, engineering, etc; and such, owe their foundation to this practice. Presently, it now seems anyway, that narcissism has rooted its claws in these foundations and impeded their progress. This vanity is a shroud with a coattail lined with benches for the slaves, wombats, and ne’er-do-wells of the world. Whose only purpose lay in opposition to those who’s desire is to wield this word as it properly should: a casting off of impudent and vile dolts who pretend to know something about taste.

Yet, in a house of opinion do we live and those interactions are bound to come under scrutiny soon enough. Lest we have some refinery, we will slink off into profound buffoonery and nonsense will continue, as it has been, to ravage our pristine ramparts until the center lay unprotected and susceptible to attacks upon it by any fool who has a tongue. Criticism demands at least some merit. Otherwise, as pigs play in mud, we can utterly destroy ourselves in the languish of various, subjectiveness and foolhardy sophistry.

Thus, a call is needed and as the bugle sounds its horn can be heard high on hills that stretch far to the ends of the sky, to tall cities and little hamlets that lie near riverbeds. As it once were, a history repeated, those with the mental fortitude that gods demanded in old scriptures must rise from their sleeps, smoke filled dens, and library carousels and hearken to the reverberations of this pipe that plays amidst their solemn squalor. What wasted energy it was to bend the knee to the chained, become supine to the wicked, and lick the boots of charlatans all in the name of justice.

Criticism, as it was meant, as it was supposed, was a tool to be honed, forged, and fired to become the poker of the dedicated gadfly. However, the strong cowered, and became bent on a prevention of Nietzschean moral superiority. The result can only find itself in an unnecessary abundance of mass appeasement, societal decay, and submissiveness to false prophets that dare to pretend to know anything of virtue.