I don’t know what it was that had me reaching for my Voltaire a few months ago — probably something in the cultural air portending a dissolution of standards and, yes, a Closing of the American Mind that must be dealt with.
New Rules for Cultural Criticism:
- Don’t speculate about real people’s personal lives, you’ll never get it right.
- Never wish a creative work out of existence. Criticize it all you want, denounce it if you must, but never seek to destroy it or isolate it from other people’s attention.
- “De-platforming,” or whatever the scolds are calling it these days, has more in common with red baiting, blacklisting, book burning and Victorian shaming than it does to liberation or empowerment.
- The first amendment is a subset, and a damned small one, of free speech and expression. It does not define the concept.
- It’s fine not to work on creative projects that offend you morally, but it’s bankrupt to try to hinder them if the creators wish to move on without you.
- While you can reassess works you liked in the past, you shouldn’t ignore what initially attracted you to the art. While you don’t have to laugh at the same joke over and over, you can’t unlaugh at something.
- Everybody has standing to create anything and to comment on anything. This is the essential human right from which all others derive.
- Don’t make lists of ten, they’re too predictable.