Gosford Parkour

Hype-and-backlash might seem simply to speed up and democratize the process of criticism; everybody’s a cultural critic now. But this is mistaken. Real criticism of art sometimes attempts the correction of reputations (as when T. S. Eliot encouraged everyone to drop Shelley and pick up Donne), but that’s not its main task. Real criticism can take the form of a monograph or a long review, or just a few words mumbled to a friend. In any case, it judges art with reference to the work’s internal logic and generic and historical situation. And criticism, which relies on impressions and arguments, is always susceptible to opposite impressions and counterarguments.

Now look at the bullying charticles assembled by lifestyle journalists: the approval matrices and hype-and-backlash sine curves that now disfigure even such a once-proud publication as Les Inrockuptibles. Where the critic tells you what you should think—a proposition you’re free to reject—the charticler tells you what you do think, already