Gammelost²

Once in a while some journalist really shoots himself in the foot:

Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author’s (or filmmaker’s or painter’s) entire body of work, among other qualities.

the old
codgers
this tripe
usually comes from
sincerely believe
their own illogical rantsI read the article from top to bottom (as a good critic should), and could I find the criteria used to distinguish “disciplined taste” from everyday, run-of-the-mill taste? No, I could not. Nor could I discern what exactly constitutes “a fairly deep sense of the author’s [...] entire body of work”.

What I found instead is the tired old circular reasoning that those insecure souls who find themselves (accidentally or no) in positions of power use to hedge their positions: “You can’t do what I do as well as I do because I can do it better. Nah nah nah!”

It’s a comical yet sad spectacle. Comical because the old codgers this tripe usually comes from sincerely believe their own illogical rants, and even consider themselves quite clever for putting it to the rest of us; sad for the very same reason.