The Critic
At least, that’s what my expository writing teacher said today. I don’t really agree, because I tend to like most things. It seems like the prerequisite for being a critic is hating the world: I don’t hate the world, just myself. But self-loathing becomes just one of many masks I wear from day to day. It’s the curse of being “above average.” Not outstanding in any way. Just not “regular.” It’s such an awkward space, to not be “great,” but also not to be “average” so you’re uncomfortable with just fitting in. I made the mistake of expressing my displeasure at my GRE results to the director of graduate studies. Her response was:
“Oh please . . .”
That’s why I’m so uncomfortable with being labeled a critic. The notion that critics are those who can’t is a stigma that I subscribe to. I thought of the reasons for it, when I reflected on why she thought I would be a good critic:
“You always have such a unique perspective on things . . . but more than that, you express yourself so well!”
These things are artifacts of being a failed artist. Any artist who wants to do something worthwhile first learns to be a critic, questioning everything. You have to ask yourself, what is special about the thing you’re looking at, or reading, or listening to, first, before you can figure out if there is a way that it might be approached differently, let alone better. This requires paying a lot of attention to things. Of course, the whole point of making art is also learning how to express yourself. When the artist stops, the critic alone remains. It seems almost a bitter thing, a paradise of creativity lost in exchange for evaluation. Why the hell would anyone choose to be solely a critic, unless they were impotent to create?
However, the highest levels of criticism (philosophical in particular) seem almost like an art form. But it seems that only a select few can survive the air up there. Most of us mere mortals just read them in amazement. Artists, on the other had, get all the real thrills. The thrill of making something. Something that wasn’t there before.
Even if it’s just a story.
