Power.wbst@Xerox.ARPA (08/21/85)
From: Power.wbst@Xerox.ARPA Here's my dose of gasoline to the critics debate. It's not that I rank a critic as the LOWEST form of parasite (after all, there is Dave Barrys' famous 'slime covered slug that has just vomited on itself' to contend with), it's just that he/she/it comes vanishingly close. I think one of the best things about science fiction is the lack of professional criticism. It has helped the genre stay crisp and innovative, kept it from miring down in the defensive posture exhibited by the struggling authors forever ducking the screeching of critical hags. When a writer starts worrying about the effects of an opinion put forth by some withered peeping tom, he starts writing defensively, working so as not to lose. This leaves less and less time to come up with the new and imaginitive ideas that abound in our genre. Does this mean that I think its wrong to criticize? Of course not. One expects friends to take you aside now and again and warn you that your fly is unbuttoned. Or get drunk with some new acquaintance at a Con and have him tell you the woes of the art, the trouble with these new-comers, and how things were better in the old days. These things can even get nasty or spiteful, and while I don't like it, I still wouldn't put it in the same category as the words of a Critic (capital C). A Critic is a second party, someone on the outside that's talked a third party into paying him a salary for throwing rocks inside. Finally, as you can see by my definition, it doesn't include reviewers, archivists, or SF-librarians. It's more of an attitude than a job title that makes a critic into a Critic. It's someone holding himself seperate from a group, a person who goes to a party and stands on the roof peeing through the skylights at the people below. This definition probably doesn't include many on this net (even those that in the heat of argrument may cross the fine line between debate and insult), or anyone that takes the time and effort to get involved in something they care about. -Jim