In Which We Consider Criticism

And Also Make a Request for Subscriptions

by Woodford Yong

As of now, I’ve been posting poems to The Symposium for numerous months, and have for the most part left prose out of this publication. I have many more poems to post, as well as thousands of old poems that can be reposted; but what do I have to say? That is an interesting question.

While there are many topics I can opine on, I have found as a general pattern that people don’t want your opinion. “Maybe they don’t want YOUR opinion,” you might reply; fair enough, but this does not stop people from asking for your opinion, claiming that your opinion matters, nigh DEMANDING your opinion up to the point at which…

Of course, as a person who knows nothing, is of no repute, and has no credentials, I have nothing to say that ought to be said. As Carlyle aptly put it, the art of oratory is the saying well of what needs to be said, and otherwise to remain silent.

Thus, me writing here means I think something needs to be said, then? It does mean that. (If you figured that out before reading this sentence, you are at least one of the smart ones, if one of the less cynical ones.)

Of all of the things I could write about, there is but one thing needful. My other opinions are intentionally those of other people — I do not have my own opinions. I do not even have my own pronouns! This thing is CRITICISM.

The most general approach of the creators of artistic work (antiquely all called ‘poets’) is to deny its importance. “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” is an apocryphal phrase attributed to numerous people (including Frank Zappa.) It’s pointless to come up with a retort to this, it simply is a kind of rude expression of the idea that CRITIQUE is pointless. Of course, when people see the architecture made in the past fifty to eighty years, they DO dance about it — it’s sort of a war-dance or declaration of “intention to tear down this wall”, if a Reaganite. The dancing, I’m saying, is done, and is also CRITIQUE.

In a subjectivist worldview, CRITIQUE must be useless because beauty or the goodness of an object of art is entirely within the human subject or observer, and its qualities only reside in their mind, and presumably, their mind alone. So what a critic has to say about something can be nothing other than the opinions of a popular bully.

In an objectivist worldview, CRITIQUE is the ultimate judgment; what you want is to be approved by the critics, and the critics must be approved by being in tune with the ultimate aesthetic (or otherwise) qualities. In such a case, improper critique is something that works itself out over time, like artists allegedly ‘discovering’ more ‘advanced’ beauty in the late Renaissance. Soon we will refine that aesthetic taste even further, leaving behind even the mighty pre-Raphaelites in the dustheap of history…

HOWEVER: We observe that critique exists and is effective. We observe that some critique appears to be wrong. We observe that some critique is wrong because it misunderstands the values of the work’s creator; we observe that some critique is wrong because it self-servingly ignores bad qualities for personal gain.

I must therefore present a different concept of critique that is not included in what I have written above, yet encompasses these ideas. It is unlikely that I could have invented this concept, you who do know something must know where it came from.

In short, a critique is the judgement of a style. Critiques are based on visions of a style, and they are either knowingly or unknowingly directed towards the development of that style by disapproving of things that deviate from it, and approving things which advance or exemplify it.

Critiques appear subjective because in a liberal empire numerous systems of aesthetic value are in conflict and refuse by their nature to be judged by one another. Critiques appear objective because aesthetic sense is intuitive and trained over time, it is experienced as present to the observer and is concrete, not abstract. This is good. This is cringe. Critiques do not permit judgment by another critique, and internally their value systems are absolute and therefore objective. They have concrete results that are experienced by those who have accepted the vision they promote, and so long as that vision is accepted, their qualities are not merely non-subjective, but can be analytical.

Some critics are likely aware of this reality, but even if they are, most of them do not understand what the vision that they have come to promote is for. Or, perhaps they know the vision they critique toward is likely evil, or would be considered by most of the people who have its objects foisted upon them as such. Such is the exhaustion of this age.

Regardless, like language, the vision has to be part of a consensus, because people must understand its values in experience, not merely as an extended description based on ideology, as Marxists are often wont to do. This also means a critic who realizes his situation could realize that he has the option of either promoting a vision that is somehow improper, or to labor uselessly to try to promote a proper vision, because it likely must differ strongly from consensus? And who has the life and money to convert so many people to their aesthetic vision so that it could become a shared vision? Such is the exhaustion of this age.

Instead, we are left trying to understand the things we cannot change; we have become Emerson’s transparent eye, successful in becoming invisible but now for our invisibility, are also ineffective in the world. Nonetheless, there is more that must be said.

A new critique must be developed. This is not merely a task of finding someone popular and listening to them. If you look at the qualities of various non-establishment artists, you will find that their aesthetics vary greatly. I myself, for having written poems for over 15 years (and thousands of them) find that I am not even able to muster a real response from non-establishment poetry contests. (I do not enter establishment poetry contests.) The difference if you will between my own work and some others you may have seen is very great, and certainly these differences are not merely something that we will, on our own, work out! In fact, the likelihood is that we can’t; that such styles will diverge further and resist being brought together.

What it does mean is that like-minded creators of artistic works must work together. And what must they do? They must develop critiques.

Why won’t it work itself out, you may ask? Perhaps you are still in the objectivist camp. Put simply, the reason why my poetry does not muster a response from some ‘alternate’ contests-that-are-really-critiques (hopefully they admit as much!) is because the artistic values are incommensurate. The things which matter to me in a poem are completely uninteresting to them, and the things which I find terribly optional and peripheral in a poem they find essential. It’s not merely that both of us will agree that our epic poetry should be about the Greeks rather than the Teutons or the Chaldeans - we don’t even agree that it’s necessary to be writing epic poetry at all, or that it matters that we try to revive ancient mythology. I might say, “a poem about this subject is fine, if it is a good poem.” they might say, “A poem about this subject is necessary, for it to be a good poem.” These are not the same visions; they do not even look in the same direction.

Therefore, it is, in a sense, not necessary for us to speak to one another. You are not going to convince someone with different aesthetic values to change them; they are intuitive and embedded. I am not going to ‘overwhelm them’ with my aesthetic presentation; values overwhelming to someone such as me might or might not be interesting to them at all, “yes, but you didn’t describe enough killing…” now you can fully see the problem.

The critique is only this: the shared vision and the means of its promotion by describing works as working toward or against it; made comprehensible because the vision is shared and therefore even a harsh critique is comprehensible to the recipient and indeed welcomed as it builds rather than simply baffles or annoys.

However, it is necessary, in a sense, for us to speak to one another. This is because we may actually share or wish to share the same critique. It is possible that we can understand each other’s critique and contribute to it — as musicians often play in different styles, using different judgments of appropriateness for each.

And each critique is a vision, and each vision seeks to achieve something; it seeks to make a new reality present, one that was always possible but nascent, that can only be made real (if it can be made real!) if the critique shapes the work towards it.

But first of all, it is necessary to understand.

This is what needs to be said.

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This post is also a request for subscriptions. If you know someone who would appreciate this sort of work, give them a link to this publication and ask them to subscribe! Obviously, I cannot do this for you. Since the author is currently unemployed, these are more greatly appreciated than you might ever know. Indeed, if we are able to obtain any decent number of subscribers, I might be able to produce some extra content worth paying for. At the moment this is very far from ever being likely, but here is what such a thing might look like:

• Requests for subjects to write poems about (I have done this many times in the past for friends and it is always greatly appreciated)

• Audio recordings of recitations of poems as they are posted;

• Recitations of any poem (with some rational limits; I am not a mechanical nightengale)

• Requests for poems for other purposes AS PUBLIC DOMAIN WORK. This means although I would be credited, there is no copyright and no royalties.

• Critiques of works / tutoring in general poetics

• Complete books of poetry (there are at least four yet unpublished!)

• Certain as-of-yet unpublished works of fiction.

The sky is the limit.

There will be more posts on critique (and only on critique) that I may write monthly as supplemental material, and some reposts of old poems that are currently unavailable on the internet (though they once were!) This depends on mere levels of free subscriptions, mostly as a thank-you for putting up with me.

Lastly, if you are someone who has read this far and not subscribed, I invite you to subscribe; it’s free and is 100% guaranteed* to make your life more aesthetic.

*this claim is too vague to be legally enforceable.

And don’t forget my friends, to do good and to share, for this is well pleasing to God: