Opinions and arseholes, eh. To build on the point made by the author - while it can be a useful label to describe what appeals to a majority of people within a

Opinions and arseholes, eh. To build on the point made by the author - while it can be a useful label to describe what appeals to a majority of people within a certain group, there is ultimately no such thing as good art and consequently no such thing as a critic getting it right. We could of course try to define "a critic getting it right" as predicting and matching the majority opinion within a certain culture/time period, which I suppose the article does and it's certainly a valid approach, but then we come dangerously close to implying that that is equivalent to recognizing the intrinsic value of some work. As astutely observed in the quote by Terry Eagleton, "value" is by its very definition a subjective and transitive term, completely meaningless without context. Critics (so I guess pretty much everyone, this being the internet) tend to shine all light on the subject of their criticism, while themselves trying to stay in the shadows, as if keeping their personal context out of it somehow makes their opinion more objective. I'd argue that the only people this doesn't do a disservice to, are people eager to find a solid, reliable opinion they can subscribe to in order to join in the pretense of knowing what is good art and what isn't. A more honest reader turning to critiques to help answer the question "What is valuable to me?" in an infinite sea of content is much better served by a critic openly exposing their biases, their personal framework and context, clearly showing where they are coming from and how it flows into the image they paint of their subject. When it comes to talking art, any attempt at objectivity is doomed to fail, so I say do away with it altogether. Not only does this make it easier for a reader to better place potentially interesting works within his context by comparing it with the critic's, it would also provide more value to the authors/artists themselves. It's okay being disliked by people you're not trying to reach. The other thing that really gets me is the disrespect of suggesting something is so bad it shouldn't have been created in the first place. It takes passion and courage to put a personal creation out there. It takes a great and exhausting amount of bad work to finally create something good, as anyone who's ever build anything worthwhile can confirm. All it takes to take a dump on it and feel powerful in the act is an internet connection. Then again, maybe destructive criticism creates a necessary hostile environment, testing an author's/artist's resolve and allowing truly great art to emerge, similar to how children need to be exposed to germs in order to develop healthy immune systems. I do not like critics.