what's not to like?

"Sometimes critics don't realize how critical they are,"

Tina Turner said in an interview she gave, either in the late 80s or early 90s.  It was a funny sentence, and I could totally understand what she meant, I thought.

"Criticism" is a multi-faceted -- or at least several-faceted --

specimen?

phenomenon?

practice?

area?

thing?

There are people who are paid regularly for a job, a career, in doing Criticism.
Writing

reviews

of movies, books, plays, ballets, all kinds of arts.

So you think of that, and then the idea of "Criticism" seems like a useful, valid -- thing....

But -- take Criticism and start applying it to the person you're married to, and then save up all the Successes you have -- on the head of a pin ... (!) ...

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We're talking about two different kinds of Criticism.

1 is where someone is telling someone else that they're doing things wrong.
The other is where you're writing a review of something and you're talking about it.  And you could be talking all-good about it.  Like -- if I was a Movie Critic, I could write a review of a movie and say all good (fantastic!) things about it, and I would still be a "Critic."  My review would still come under the heading of "criticism."

on-line dictionary
criticism
1.  the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything
2.  the act of passing severe judgment; censure; fault-finding
3.  the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.
4.  a critical comment, article, or essay; critique

we can see -- two different kinds of criticism;

Item 2 is one kind of criticism;
Items 1, 3, and 4 refer to the other kind -- where you are a theater critic, or a book critic.

The criticism Tina Turner referred to in that interview was, some writers had railed that she had gone away from her R & B roots.
(She can sing whatever she wants to leave her alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! would have been my answer....They NEVER run this s--t by me!!!!!!!!!!)

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When I read criticism, sometimes I see things I would criticize.  (Can you review a Review?  Can you criticize Critics?)

Three things I've determined are Not (legitimate) Criticism:
-- Making fun of the work
-- Taking a snotty attitude toward the artist, personally
-- Gratuitous bitching about the art and/or the artist

and another tendency with which I disagree -- I think it's unproductive, unedifying, and limiting to the writer or commenter himself -- is a tendency to try to "balance" positive points with negative ones.
("Okay I've said three nice things about the concert, now I have to come up with three negative things to say.  To -- make it, uhm, even. ...)  No, there's no necessity to make it "even." 

"It was a great concert have a nice day."
That can be my Review.
I don't have to throw in, "But with the song Bob Dylan's 115th Dream, I believe it would have been better if he'd sung it 30 seconds longer...."  No, ya don't have to do that.

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When Emily Bronte's novel, Wuthering Heights, was published in 1847 critics didn't know what to think of it.  The word "strange" got a work-out:

(The Examiner):  "This is a strange book."
(Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper)  "Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book, -- baffling all regular criticism...."
(Atlas):  "Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story.  There are evidences in every chapter of a sort of rugged power -- an unconscious strength -- which the possessor seems never to think of turning to the best advantage."

And -- some of the reviews, themselves, got a little "strange."...

------------  (Graham's Lady's Magazine):  "How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery.  It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors..." 

["sometimes critics don't realize how critical they are"....]

=== (North British Review):  "...The only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that it will never be generally read."
==========  lol  they assign it in school, to this day - !

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-- "It goes to show you never can tell."
Chuck Berry

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