[NEohioPAL] To Steve Wojtas

[Charles Eversole]

To Marcus, based on his reply -

This is very well-written, and on point, too.  

Have you considered being a critic??


----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: neohiopal at listserve.com
Sent: 10/10/2007 11:20:29 PM 
Subject: [NEohioPAL] To Steve Wojtas


On 10 Oct 2007 at 16:14, Steve Wojtas wrote: 
> But what I’d like to know is:  By whose leave do you deign to hold 
> forth in judgment of the artist and his works?  Are you his peer?  Have you 
> studied intensively; have you practiced extensively in the discipline in 
> which you presume to sit in judgment?  For unless you have, your 
> pronouncements are just so much balloon juice and worth as much. ...< 


Hi Steve, 


The notion that one has to be an expert oneself in order to properly evaluate expertise is what you're putting forward here. What you're saying is that if you're not an actor you can't really appreciate, and certainly not criticize, any actor's work. If that were really the case there'd be no work for actors to do, since only other actors could appreciate it. Non-actors, whether the most casual observer or the most acute, would simply dismiss all acting as irrelevant nonsense, as a bunch of liars trying to put their lies across to honest people; as a bunch of frivolous morons wasting the time of serious people. 


We know that's not what happens, though, don't we? 


We know, instead, that the human impulse to art happens in many ways in almost all of us. Some of us create it; almost all of us appreciate it -- some profoundly, some naively, some on the surface only, and so on. 


What critics do is compare and contrast out of their experience of the art they're engaged with -- sometimes out of practice and observation on their own part, sometimes out of observation only. Either way, it is the observation, and the comparisons and contrasts with other observations, that legitimizes the critic's work. Critics can be wrong; they can be as lazy, venal, and mean as anyone. But they can be right, too; they can be as diligent, noble, and generous as anyone. 


The title of "critic", like the title of "actor" or "poet" or any other such title, is no guarantee of good work. It's descriptive of the field of endeavor. 


Though you think for yourself all you please, you cannot engage with every performance of every art. Life is making choices, and choosing to go see this play instead of that one, or that concert instead of that recital, and so on, we all make based on a mixture of knowledge, prejudice, and advice. Critics give advice. Some give better advice than others, and we learn the critics' strengths and weaknesses just as we learn the actors' or the dancers' or the poets' or the singers'. 


Every time you decide to skip the show at this theater because of that director, or the recital at that dance studio because of that lead dancer, and so forth, you're a critic. You're judging the likelihood of your own enjoyment. If someone were to ask you about the show you skipped, you'd be able to tell them why you skipped it, and, thus, why they ought to consider skipping it, too. Everyone's a critic, Steve -- we have to be in order to prioritize the spending of our own time engaged with the various arts -- or any other human activity. 


The critics who write their opinions down differ only slightly in degree, and not at all in kind, from you or me when we decide that life's too short to see a [insert actress's name here] movie or a [insert musician's name here] concert, and so on. 


Critics exist for the same reason artists do: because there's a demand for them. People who are not as well-versed in making artistic judgments as they might want to be look to people who are better-versed for guidance. But for the same reason you don't ask a barber if you need a haircut, you don't ask the lead actor whether his show is worth seeing. 


Marcus 










 
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