On Criticism

From my voice recorder on Friday, April 6, 2018. The text to speech using Dragon was noisy, but ChatGPT cleaned up up the transcription quite handily. Another use!

Here are some thoughts on critics, reviewers, and the average person making evaluative statements, as well as professional reviewers and critics who opine and pontificate on various issues.

You can't go very long in a conversation without encountering someone's opinion on a particular issue. Often, these opinions involve criticism of a group, a performance, or a work. These opinions can come from professionals who claim expertise in a certain area, or they can come from regular folks sitting around at a place like Cracker Barrel, in the mythical general store. They could even come from people you meet for drinks at a pub or the group sitting at the next table. There is no shortage of opinions, nor is there a shortage of opinionated individuals.

If you agree with the opinions expressed by certain commentators, you might consider them smart, wise, and well-informed. Conversely, if you disagree with them, you might view them as unintelligent, uninformed, or lacking insight.

Let's say you're with a group that is criticizing Celine Dion's singing. While many common people enjoy her singing, it has become fashionable for people in the music industry or reviewers to criticize her abilities. I'm not here to evaluate her capabilities, but I personally think she's actually pretty good. However, I don't spend much time listening to her works.

What I believe happens is that critical comments often serve as rationalizations or justifications for personal likes or dislikes. When you have an emotional or intellectual response to something, you feel the need to justify it. So, you come up with a verbal description of why you like or dislike it, which may be a simplistic take or a sophisticated argument. However, ultimately, it's not much more than saying "hooray" or "booh."

Your evaluation of a performance always depends on your prior beliefs, your worldview, and your thoughts and feelings toward the subject at hand. It also depends on your current state of mind, physical well-being, emotional state, and the context in which the evaluation takes place.

I should mention that your physical state can include factors such as substances ingested, recreational chemicals, medications, physical comfort, and undoubtedly other things.

Your emotional state can vary widely based on what has happened to you during the day, how receptive you are to certain types of performances at that specific time, and various other factors. Additionally, there are standard emotions such as fear, anger, anxiety, awe, and sadness, but there are many more emotional states that may not have names or be commonly recognized. Throughout my life, I have experienced many subtle states of mind for which I don't have a name. It's possible that others also experience unidentified states of mind. It doesn't even mean that I have experienced all the states of mind that others have.

The context can significantly alter how you perceive and respond to things. In the early days of LSD experimentation, two factors were identified as relevant to the type of experience one had when taking LSD or other psychoactive substances: "set" and "setting." "Set" likely refers to our emotional and physiological state, while "setting" refers to our expectations of what might occur. I'm not entirely sure if I have this right, but it's clear that the physical setting can influence our perceptions, emotions, and responses. For example, if you're on a beach, sitting by a campfire, listening to a group of people singing and playing instruments, your response will differ from attending a formal concert. When reviewing performances in these different venues, you would undoubtedly apply different criteria to evaluate them.

There are usually criteria that can be articulated when evaluating a performance or a work of art. However, these criteria may be implicit and not explicitly stated. They can be arbitrary or based on some theoretical foundation. Nevertheless, the presence of criteria does not guarantee their quality.

Ultimately, people will continue to make evaluations. These evaluations will often be critical, but sometimes they will be praiseworthy. Many individuals who offer criticism can tell a compelling story. However, like any other form of storytelling, these stories can be either well-supported with facts or well-told narratives. Nonetheless, it doesn't necessarily mean that the story provides us with a deeper understanding of the truth, the reality, or the essential nature of the situation.