I like (ha ha) this quote by Auden: > Bad art is always with us, but any given work of art is always bad in a period way; the particular kind of badness it exh

I like (ha ha) this quote by Auden: > Bad art is always with us, but any given work of art is always bad in a period way; the particular kind of badness it exhibits will pass away to be succeeded by some other kind. It is unnecessary, therefore, to attack it, because it will perish anyway... The only sensible procedure for a critic is to keep silent about works which he believes to be bad, while at the same time vigorously campaigning for those which he believes to be good, especially if they are being neglected or underestimated by the public. In other words, most bad things will be forgotten eventually anyway; the tragedy is when a good thing is also forgotten. So, it's more useful to call attention to what you like rather than waste time spotlighting what you don't. In my own life, I noticed that, no matter how much I like something, I'll forget 95% of it after a year anyway. Most movies I've seen, most books I've read, video games I've played, whatever: I can tell you the outline of the plot, and a couple things I found interesting. Everything else, all the little details, are gone. Over time, I've just learned to accept that frailty, and now I focus only on spotting the few interesting things I want to take away from a work, whether or not I liked it as a whole. Those things are, in effect, the work's legacy for me. And if a work gives me one interesting new idea, or new image, or whatever, then it was worth my time in the long run. I also think that, at least some of the time, when we say we don't like something, we're trying to tell people something about our identity and affiliations. We're really saying "I'm not the kind of person who likes this thing". So, the review is not of the work itself, but of what we view as its larger semiotic or cultural position, with respect to our own. We get caught up in proxy wars, and sometimes make unfair evaluations of works of art based on characteristics they can't be blamed for having. Grading them on a test they didn't know they were taking.