Jeet Heer has a post up about Why We Need Criticism. His basic premise, as near as I can tell, is that criticism is just people talking about art — so whether or not we “need” criticism, we’re unlikely to get away from it.
I don’t have any problem with that per se, but…well, look at this:
If we define criticism narrowly as analytical essays on an art form or particular works of art, then it’s true that criticism is a minority interest. But if we define criticism more broadly as any discussion of art or works of art, including conversations and the response of artists themselves to earlier art, then criticism is as unavoidable and essential as art itself. To be more concrete, some of the best comics criticism has come in the form of interviews done by artists like Gil Kane, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, etc. As Joe Matt mentions elsewhere in the discussion, he turns to interviews in The Comics Journal before anything else. Without these interviews, our entire sense of comics would be very different. (my emphasis
For Jeet, the ultimate justification for criticism seems to be that artists do it. A second post privileges the criticism of artists even more strongly when Jeet says “you can learn more about art history by listening to Gary Panter and Art Spiegelman talk than from reading a shelf-full of academic books”.
I don’t deny that artist interviews can be interesting and valuable. And some artists, like James Baldwin and T.S. Eliot, were first rate critics as well. But…looking to interviews and artists for criticism is like looking to critics for art. It’s not totally crazy, but it’s not the best strategy either.
Criticism is a genre of writing. It’s a craft and an art, with its own history and its own integrity as a discipline. That doesn’t mean it has to be professionalized — on the contrary, I’d prefer that it weren’t. But it does mean that to write criticism, it does help to be interested in criticism, just as to write comics it helps to be interested in comics. When Gary Groth conducts a long interview in which he nails down where artist x was and who he worked with for every month of his life over the past four decades — that’s great and worthwhile work, but the result is not exactly criticism as criticism is generally understood. When Alan Moore makes some off the cuff remarks about Steve Ditko, that’s cool and Alan Moore is an insightful guy — but it’s not the same as an actual essay with an actual thesis which actually attempts to engage with a critical tradition.
So…who cares anyway? If folks wants to read interviews instead of criticism, where’s the harm exactly? If Jeet thinks people will get more from a Comics Journal interview than form one of his own essays, why should I kick?
Well, two reasons. The first has to do with this, again from Jeet:
“The simple fact is that because of the intellectual poverty of most writing on comics, infected as it is with fannish boosterism and journalistic glibness, the interview form has been the crucial venue for comics criticism and comics history. ”
For Jeet, then, interviews fill a critical gap. Comics journalism is so bad that we need interviews to save us.
Unfortunately, Jeet has this exactly bass ackward. It isn’t interviews that are saving us from critical poverty. It’s the fetishization of interviews that has led us into this critical difficulty to begin with. Critical comicdom is obsessed with interviews not because there’s nothing else, but because, historically, critical comicdom comes out of the fanzines. The reliance on interviews as critical touchstones is the result of “fannish boosterism” — and it’s also a cause, as critics scuttle around gathering up pearls of wisdom from the horse’s mouth rather than kicking the horse in the teeth, prying off the skull, and making out of it a thing of horror or beauty or ridicule of their own. And as for “journalistic glibness” — substituting five or ten sentence sound bytes by famous artists for an “analytic essay” seems to me to fit the bill.
And the second reason that substituting artists for critics is not ideal is that, besides being bad for criticism, it’s not especially good for art. One of the things criticism does is open up the conversation, both directly, by making artists communicate with people who have different interests and backgrounds, and indirectly, because ideally critics are connected to other critical communities, which are connected to other artistic communities. If you are always turning inward to have artists interpret themselves for an rapturous audience, you end up with a closed circuit — a world in which R. Crumb is not just a talented cartoonist, but a major Biblical scholar; a world in which a shelf full of books about, say, Buddhist ink painting won’t teach you as much about art history (or about the right art history?) as a few hours listening to Gary Panter.
I’m not saying that people should respect criticism. Criticism, like art, deserves not respect, but unremitting hostility. The real problem with Jeet’s discussion is not that he elevates art over criticism, but that he allows his fannish enthusiasm to cast a nostalgic glamour over both. Unless art and criticism are separated, it’s impossible to hate either with sufficient malice. Clubby amity is for interviews; what we really need from criticism and art is more and higher quality loathing.
Update: In reply to some comments below, I have a follow-up post here.
“It’s the fetishization of interviews that has led us into this critical difficulty to begin with.”
Noah, you baffle me.
I think it would have worked the same way, Eric, if it’d had been fannish fetishization of something else. It’s not inherently a problem with interviews, just a problem with their disproportionate (and generally uncritical) valuation. There’s nothing intrinsic to an interview that requires the consumers of interviews to make the “glib” substitution Noah describes.
I do prefer the metaphor of a good old pugilanimous pub-style punch-em-up to Noah’s “hostility and loathing.” (I once read a statistic about some strikingly high percentage of Englishmen who prioritize “getting into a fight” as an essential vacation activity.) But that’s probably just because I actually like Jackson Pollock.
But BARF to the “fannish enthusiasm casting a nostalgic glamour.” Even the lovely turn of phrase, Noah, doesn’t quite interfere with the visceral yuk response that approach inspires in me. :mrgreen:
Eric, you can join Tom Spurgeon. Nobody understands me!
As Caro says, though — I don’t actually have problems with interviews qua interviews (heck, I’ve conducted some myself!) I think setting them up as the epitome of criticism is not ideal — and it’s something to which comics crit seems inordinately prone.
And I don’t dislike Jackson Pollock! Just think he’s sometimes overhyped…..
I’ve always found the interviews one of the least interesting parts of TCJ. There’s only so much I can hear about biographies and “how did you start reading comics” and things like that.
I think about literature. I’ve never read interviews with most of the authors I love most, and I don’t care. But I have read great criticism on a lot of those authors (hell, the criticism is often the stuff that got me to the great authors (I never would have read Borges without Calvino’s essay on him, ditto Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pecuchet, ditto The Recognitions, etc. etc.)
<<>>>
No disrespect meant but Jeet Heer is giving Art and Gary a little too much credit there, isn’t he? I mean, they ARE intelligent artists, but no.
And interviews with and by practitioners are valuable, but cannot supplant objective criticism.
To be fair, he may have gotten a bit carried away and failed to edit. These things happen with blogging….
I don’t know about Gary, but I have learned a lot from listening to Art Spiegelman speak. I interviewed him for Publishers Weekly a while ago and just met him in person at the ALA midsummer meeting, and both times I was left with a lot of new insights. The thing is, creators don’t just talk about their own work, they talk about the medium as a whole, and other creators’ work, from the point of view of someone who is engaged in it themselves.
Yes, you can have a boring interview where you ask the creator some softball questions (How do you manage to be so consistently wonderful?) and get regurgitated press releases for your answers. Sometimes it can’t be avoided—some creators just don’t speak very articulately about their work or the work of others.
But a thoughtful creator and a well-prepared interviewer can come up with something much deeper. I love asking a question the creator has never been asked before, or asking them to discuss their work in a different light or a new context. Sometimes a work raises questions in my mind, and an interview allows me to ask them directly rather than speculate. That can illuminate the work in a way that criticism alone can’t.
On the other hand, criticism can do things that interviews can’t; artists aren’t always aware of every aspect of their work. I just see them as complementary, not in terms of one being intrinsically better than the other.
I’d agree with that overall. Creators can have lots of interesting insights, whether in interviews or through other means (their own writing, anecdotes, etc.) But I don’t think that that can substitute for a critical tradition.
I don’t know; as an example, I’m currently reading a book I just found called “Between Women” by Sharon Marcus about female friendships in Victorian England. I’m hoping it will help me make sense of some aspects of the Marston/Peter Wonder Woman run which I’m interested in. Marcus is engaged with a whole body of writing and theory that most working cartoonists aren’t interested in, or even, in many cases, aware of. Yet it seems to me that it has some worthwhile things to say to comics I’m interested in. Elevating interviews the way Jeet seems to want to do just seems to shut down a lot of possibilities of what criticism can be and what it can talk about.
Speaking as a comic book writer, we are all very interesting and if we are not interviewed constantly we steal your garbage and get your dog pregnant. That is how you know it was us. It is both a comic creator’s weakness and sustenance.
At least you don’t steal the dogs and impregnate the garbage. I have too much recycling already.
“Criticism, like art, deserves not respect, but unremitting hostility.”
I can’t deny that that sentence has a certain appeal, but I think I must be getting old and tired. These days I think that thinking about (and talking about and writing about) things is an art in and of itself.
Great thinkers allow us to appreciate the things we care about (positively or negatively) in new ways. After reading a good review I might hate something I hated more, but I’m much more likely to appreciate a quality in something – whether I liked it or not – that I had missed.
I think critics are much like the artists we talk to or about – we can’t really stop ourselves. It’s a compulsion, just as art itself is.
Crit should start a conversation – comments should, in the best of all possible worlds – further that conversation.
Cheers,
Erica
I don’t care too much for softball stuff. As I said on the Comics Comics Mag blog post, I dislike how clique-ish and “fannish” it all gets when the discourse is between artists, peers and colleagues. Most artists aren’t in a position where they can afford to be 100% open about their opinions. Face it, we all love some stuff and we all hate some stuff. But in an industry as small as comics, it’s career suicide to go raging on against this person or that one. Even if what is being said isn’t an “attack,” the outspoken artist is better served being inconspicuous.
ANYway, I do realize now that I was a little bit blind with regards to how well non-cartoonist critics can fare. You’re right in that there’s a lot of fannish behavior and hero worship in the non-artist critical side of things as well. I dunno! All I am certain of is that discussion is vital to the intellectual, emotional and historical survival of the arts. Somebody’s gotta do it.
“At least you don’t steal the dogs and impregnate the garbage. I have too much recycling already.”
Only a really bad person would steal a dog and I already have three.
Noah,
For once you DON’T baffle me here. Jeet’s going down the wrong road here. As valuable as interviews can be, they’re not criticism, and comics history is another thing as well. They can cover some of the same ground or get you to a similar understanding or opinion about something, but interviews, history and criticism are different things. You’re not wrong about the dangers of “clubby amity” and fannish enthusiasm, although good criticism needn’t be hostile. I think the critic who never admits to what he loves, even if he can’t explain exactly why, is basically dishonest and incomplete as a critic. As far as how critics should be treated, it’s hazardous to care either way, respect or hostility. You’re not apt to learn anything if you intend your writing to only anger people.
Noah, you have a prodigious knack for hurling yourself into an argument, inveighing against a distorted interpretation of the original premise, and turning out an intellectual mishmash that’s irrelevant and, literally, beside the point. What this means is that your comments may or may not be interesting or valid in and of themselves, but they have no bearing whatsoever on what you’re purportedly responding to or, more likely,attacking. This failing may evolve naturally from your curious notion that all art and criticism should be met with hostility and that “what we really need from criticism and art is more and higher quality loathing” (which strikes me as both infantile and stupid. but that’s probably a different argument). But, to the matter at hand:
You wrote:
“For Jeet, the ultimate justification for criticism seems to be that artists do it.”
Jeet said nothing of the sort, seemingly or otherwise, in the paragraph you quote to support that assertion. His point, obviously, is that criticism takes place in interviews.
Next, you write that the the result of the form of criticism Jeet’s referring to within interviews is “not exactly criticism as criticism is generally understood.” You write this as if you’re making a subversive observation or scoring a point, but all you’re doing is echoing Jeet’s own point in a weirdly hostile manner. Of course the critical discourse you read in an interview isn’t criticism as many people think of it; that’s Jeet’s point! His point is that criticism exists in contexts that people who profess not to read or like criticism (like Joe Matt) don’t fully understand is in fact a form of criticism.
Next, there are these comments (yanked from an entirely different blog post, by the way, on a different subject) that at least imply you are actually responding to something Jeet wrote: “…The reliance on interviews as critical touchstones ,” and “the second reason that substituting artists for critics is not ideal…”
In fact, Jeet never said or implied that interviews should be relied upon as critical touchstones (although Gil Kane’s 1960s interview with john Benson was precisely such a critical touchstone, so that can happen on occasion, though not, I agree, be relied upon), nor did he ever mention or imply that artist should be substituted for critics. What a weird idea! By that, I mean, it’s positively weird to impute that to Jeet. (It’s also just plain weird as an idea.)
There’s this:
“The real problem with Jeet’s discussion is not that he elevates art over criticism…”
Although this is at least an arguable principle, Jeet did no such thing — at least not in his piece “Why We Need Criticism.” But, that’s what you do: Impute an idea to someone, then attack it as if you’re showing up the naked emperor. But it’s your own arguments that are naked — devoid of logic or reason or coherence.
It’s as if you just want to argue for arguing’s sake and since no one of any prominence is stupid enough to suggest that we substitute artists for critics or justify the validity of criticism on the grounds that artists do it, you extrapolate wildly from an essay so that you have something to argue with. You’re like a precocious 12 year old who hears the grown-ups arguing and has a compulsion to enter the fray without having the wherewithal to know what’s being discussed.
If Jeet has any fault as a blogger, it’s that his posts are virtually impossible to argue with — smart, literate observations that are by and large uncontroversial. Comics are filled with intelligent autodidacts who give great interviews; some artists’ conversation is better than their work; criticism can be part of interviews. But it’s intellectually dishonest to simply make stuff up and impute it to someone in order to argue. And I’m not necessarily saying unequivocally you’re doing that; maybe you’re just obtuse.
Finally, there is this gem:
“I’m not saying that people should respect criticism. Criticism, like art, deserves not respect, but unremitting hostility. The real problem with Jeet’s discussion is not that he elevates art over criticism, but that he allows his fannish enthusiasm to cast a nostalgic glamour over both. Unless art and criticism are separated, it’s impossible to hate either with sufficient malice. Clubby amity is for interviews; what we really need from criticism and art is more and higher quality loathing.”
Virtually every sentence is either factually wrong (Jeet didn’t elevate art over criticism) or intellectually stupefying (everything else).
Speaking of elevating art over criticism, this is surely a false dichotomy —like “elevating” trees over grass— when you clearly need both. True, technically, you can have art without criticism and you can’t have (art) criticism without art, but what good is art if a critical mind isn’t in the vicinity?
My larger point here is that I wish you’d think —and inform yourself— before you write. (I still shudder at your benighted post about Don Phelps’ meaning and prose style.) You don’t have to create straw men to write something interesting or even contrarian.
Hi Gary: Noah’s in and out this weekend so it might take him longer than usual to respond to you.
For what it’s worth, I took Jeet’s opening paragraph, constructed like this –
to mean, or at least to imply, both that analytic essays are not “essential” (but interviews are) and that Joe Matt is free to ignore analytical essays because “those are a minority interest.”
I think there’s quite a bit to argue with in there. The problem for me is that it lets Matt off the hook for what was an exceptionally anti-intellectual statement, and it does so by giving “criticism” a more inclusive rather than a more intellectual definition. It does feel like a populist attack on the genre of writing that is more challenging to read.
I think, at least, that’s the assumption that Noah was going after when he said this:
I’ll have to let him defend why he made the argument this particular way!
Christopher, can’t tell you how much I appreciate someone maintaining the distinction between history and criticism (I think I won’t wade into the interview fray). It’s a distinction that all the major academic disciplines and all the major US bookstores observe and it gets blurred around here a lot.
Darryl, you pinpoint a Comics Catch 22: the comics world is so small it has to be cliquish and fannish, yet it’s that very cliquishness that keeps it small, because there is such a price of entry to the conversation – a fan’s knowledge and way of defining the “interesting details.”
For any number of reasons, I’m loath to take part in this discussion. But for the sake of clarity, I want to make a note about this statement I made: “If we define criticism narrowly as analytical essays on an art form or particular works of art, then it’s true that criticism is a minority interest.” I meant this statement to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is to say, I wasn’t saying that I think it is ideal that only a minority of people are interested in analytical essays on art forms or particular works of art, but rather that in the world as it currently exists that is the case. Conversely, it is the case that if think of criticism in the broad sense (as any discussion of art in whatever form) then it’s fair to say that virtually everyone alive takes part in criticism since the vast majority of humanity consumes art in some form and talks about it in some form. So: I was trying to describe the world as it exists, not the world as it might be or should be.
Hi, Caro. Nice to hear from you. OK, you take what Jeet wrote
“to mean, or at least to imply, both that analytic essays are not “essential” (but interviews are) and that Joe Matt is free to ignore analytical essays because ‘those are a minority interest.'”
But, it doesn’t mean or imply any such thing. All he’s saying is that interviews often contain a critical component and pointing out the fallacy in Matt’s slip-shod thinking; Jeet is in effect saying that he does read criticism, he just doesn’t (apparently) know it. Nowhere do I see or interpret Jeet to be saying that Matt shouldn’t read criticism — or offering any opinion on that whatsoever. Criticism IS a minority interest. He’s simply stating a fact. Perhaps a fact we lament, but a fact nonetheless.
You continue:
“I think there’s quite a bit to argue with in there. The problem for me is that it lets Matt off the hook for what was an exceptionally anti-intellectual statement, and it does so by giving ‘criticism’ a more inclusive rather than a more intellectual definition. It does feel like a populist attack on the genre of writing that is more challenging to read.”
First, I agree that an argument could be made in opposition to Matt’s anti-intellectual pretense of never reading criticism, but Jeet doesn’t let Matt off the hook — indeed, he undermine Matt’s assertion by pointing out that he does read criticism.
“I think, at least, that’s the assumption that Noah was going after when he said this:
“‘looking to interviews and artists for criticism is like looking to critics for art. It’s not totally crazy, but it’s not the best strategy either.'”
That may have been the assumption, but as I hope to God I’ve successfully proved, it’s wrong. But, hell, even this last ‘point” is glib and ambiguous nonsense. Why shouldn’t we look to artists and interviews for criticism — in addition to more formal criticism? Although Noah suggested that my own interviews are nothing more than dates and statistics — “When Gary Groth conducts a long interview in which he nails down where artist x was and who he worked with for every month of his life over the past four decades — that’s great and worthwhile work, but the result is not exactly criticism as criticism is generally understood”— (he’s evdiently never erad an interview I’ve done with Gil kane or Art Spiegelman or Ralph Steadman or Ivan Brunetti or…), why shouldn’t we insist on a critical component to interviews? What does “looking to interviews and artists for criticism is like looking to critics for art” even mean? There have been plenty of good artist-critics (George Bernard Shaw, Gore Vidal, Fairfield Porter, Francois Truffaut), so if you look to artists for criticism, you can easily find it. And what the hell does “it’s not the best strategy” mean? What exactly is the best strategy for finding good criticism? Since he refers to “best,” he’s saying there’s only one “best” strategy — what would that be? And how would it include, say, Shaw and Stanley Kauffmann?
Sorry, Caro, but this is an incoherent pseudo-argument. It’s either badly written or badly thought through, or (more probably) both. It’s the kind of half assed argumentation that gives criticism a bad name. It’s embarrassing.
I agree with everything Gary has written above. I was almost worried that my writing wasn’t clear enough because Noah systematically misunderstood and misstated everything I wrote. But since Gary understands what I wrote (and other people do too) I don’t think the fault is with my writing.
Jeet, thanks for clarifying.
Hey Gary. It’s nice to see you over here (for the first time, I think….?)
It’s hard to know where to start in response. There’s a lot of ad hominem, a fair amount of invective (neither of which I object to, I hasten to add!) and then (ahem) assertions that appear to be attributed to me which I didn’t make.
“Speaking of elevating art over criticism, this is surely a false dichotomy —like “elevating” trees over grass— when you clearly need both.”
I don’t know that you need either exactly, but I certainly didn’t say you should elevate one over the other.
You also seem to be weirdly upset that I responded to two blog posts instead of one, even though I said in the post that I was responding to two blog posts instead of just one. I don’t understand why this is duplicitous on my part. I assume you’ll tell me though.
The last paragraph is more than a little tongue in cheek — I thought it’s hyperbolic nature was clear, but perhaps not. In any case, I do think that comics criticism and art would both benefit from less reverence of various sorts. And I think respect accorded to criticism or art for being criticism or art can be poisonous. It’s not clear to me why any of this is intellectually stupefying though.
I think the crux of your argument (beyond the “Noah is an idiot” overall general point) is this:
“Jeet never said or implied that interviews should be relied upon as critical touchstones…nor did he [Jeet] ever mention or imply that artist[s] should be substituted for critics.”
But Jeet said this:
“The simple fact is that because of the intellectual poverty of most writing on comics, infected as it is with fannish boosterism and journalistic glibness, the interview form has been the crucial venue for comics criticism and comics history. ”
Which suggests that in comics, interviews are (perhaps through sad necessity, but nonetheless) the touchstone for criticism (or as Jeet says “the crucial venue for comics criticism.”)
He also said this:
“you can learn more about art history by listening to Gary Panter and Art Spiegelman talk than from reading a shelf-full of academic books”.
Which suggests that artists are better at criticism than critics are, that interviews (or the related genre of spoken lectures) are better than academic writing, and which overall seems to me to elevate artists over critics in an anti-intellectual vein similar to what Joe Matt does in the quote Jeet discusses in his first post.
“My larger point here is that I wish you’d think —and inform yourself— before you write. “
Ah, well, I feel the same way about you at times Gary. We’ll both just have to keep doing our best, I suppose.
Again, Noah, I think you are reading implications into my writing that weren’t meant to be there (and which other readers aren’t seeing either). I’m not saying that the interview is necessarily better than the essay form, but rather that in comics for a variety of peculiar historical reasons, interviews have been highly important, moreso than in almostany other art form I can think of. If you like, I could amend the sentence you object to so it reads: “The simple fact is that because of the intellectual poverty of most writing on comics, infected as it is with fannish boosterism and journalistic glibness, the interview form has been a crucial venue for comics criticism and comics history. ” Is that any better? I don’t think interviews or spoken lectures are superior to academic essays in general. I just think that in the case of comics, because critics have tended to come out of fan culture or journalism and been slow to do the necessary spade work of scholarship, the interview form plays a greater part in critical discourse than it would in, say, the criticism of film or the criticism of the novel. There have of course been some great critical essays on comics (I’ve edited, as you might know, two volumes that collects some of these essays, and Ben Schwartz has edited a volume with the same aim). But there have also been a number of very important interviews that have had a very strong formative impact on comics criticism. The Gil Kane interview conducted by John Benson that Gary mentions was one; I’m sure if you go back and re-read magazines such as The Comics Journal and Comics Art you can find other examples of powerful and influential interviews.
Jeet: thank you for the clarification; it’s very important to me because I think analytic criticism is besieged enough as it is.
Gary (and Jeet): I agree that Jeet’s argument does “prove” that Matt reads criticism.
But Matt wasn’t actually quoted as saying that he doesn’t read criticism: he was quoted as saying that he “doesn’t need to read criticism because he can decide for himself what’s good or not.” (emphasis mine) That’s clearly a definition of criticism that isn’t targeting interviews; it’s targeting reviews (which also aren’t analytic criticism).
So even though Jeet did, as you say, prove “that [Matt] does read criticism, he just doesn’t (apparently) know it,” that’s still not exactly the “response” to Matt that we were promised in the fourth sentence.
Now, the Henry James is definitely a response to what Matt was quoted as saying. I think Jeet’s post was indeed concerned with the “necessity” of criticism and not just proving Matt wrong by pointing out the limitations of his semantics. The James quote also resonates very nicely with Jeet’s point about artists and critical thinking.
But the post doesn’t articulate why James’ comments, the “response”, “depend on what we mean by criticism.” So the statement “the proper response to this contention depends on what we mean by criticism” is unfulfilled. It’s not clear why it was important to first draw the distinction between analytic and conversational criticism, claiming that distinction was necessary to understanding the response, before giving us the James quote, which seems to apply BOTH to analytic and conversational criticism, regardless of how broadly consumed either is. The argument you’re saying Jeet made could have been made entirely without noting that analytic criticism is of marginal interest — so how does that point fit into the broader thesis?
That’s where my reading came from: trying to figure out how Jeet intended the distinction between analytic and conversational criticism to influence my reading of the Henry James. That didn’t appear to leave analytic criticism in a particularly complimentary place, which is where I got the implication that I stated in my earlier post.
Now, none of that makes Jeet’s point incoherent, although it’s a weakness that his two strongest assertions aren’t tied together. It just creates ambiguity, and there’s an argument that the best blog posts are ambiguous. But a critical reader will try to clarify those connections which aren’t fully articulated, because that’s where the fun is!
Noah’ll have to answer himself for the rest of his post; I myself am quite prone to looking to artists for criticism (Rushdie missed a shout-out in your list) as well as to critics for art (Rosalind Krauss, Umberto Eco…)
Yeah, I gotta say, Jeet, this sentence that Noah quotes
is really not a high point. Not sure what you gain in complementing Spiegelman by dissing Rosalind Krauss (or Clement Greenberg or Norman Bryson or whomever you had in mind).
A shelf-full of crap academic books, sure. But a shelf-full of back issues of October would probably steer you pretty well.
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Oh good lord. I just had an extended comment which got eaten.
I don’t have the time or heart to rewrite the whole thing now. A quick recap I guess:
— Jeet, changing the to a softens it somewhat; I still think you’re missing the ways that interviews contribute to the fannishness you denigrate, though.
— Caro, I actually think that criticism is a genre of nonfiction prose, and so a kind of art. I don’t believe, and don’t think I said, that critics can’t create art in other genres, or that artists cant’ write good (or great!) criticism.
And I should say I have a lot of respect for Jeet as a scholar and critic, and obviously for Gary as well. I am somewhat bemused at the latter’s decision to give me a forum here given his opinions above, but I’m honored all the same.
Honored by being given the forum, that is, not by the opinions!
All right, I’m leaving now….
DARRYLO SAYS: the outspoken artist is better served being inconspicuous.
They wouldn’t be outspoken then, would they?
Anyway for many years comics criticism barely existed, it was only Benson and Richard Kyle and a few others until the rise of Groth et al.
As someone on the Comics Comics responses said, the interviewer needs to be knowledgable about the artists work in order to know what questions to ask. John Benson definitely set a high bar with his interviews with artists like Krigstein and Kane. Kane used the moment to point to artists like Toth and Severin who, in turn, deserved closer examination. But it is still rare for someone to be both familiar with the work and savvy enough to go deeper…as rare, I guess, as the chances of one person being able to both write and draw on a high level. Jim Amash has done his research and has methodically interviewed scores of artists, there would be no record of their voices otherwise in some cases. But he avoids the deeper areas or any theoretical discussion.
BTW I see Groth has been working his way through Toth’s list of who needed interviewing, good for him, don’t forget Irwin Hasen.
But that’s all nothing to do with objective criticism which is done from a reader’s vantage.
I can’t pretend to be an average comics reader, I’m too close to it to be entirely objective.
Jeet: “The simple fact is that because of the intellectual poverty of most writing on comics, infected as it is with fannish boosterism and journalistic glibness, the interview form has been a crucial venue for comics criticism and comics history.”
I would understand the above if written, say, 15 years ago, but now?…
Thanks to Doctor John Lent et al twenty five volumes of _The International Journal of Comic Art_ (with an average page count of 400 pages or even more) proves you wrong. In the UK there are three peer reviewed mags right now: _European Comic Art_, _Studies in Comics_, _Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics_. And this is just comics scholarship in English!…
The latter mags prove that comics scholarship is developing even in countries where the intelligentsia is traditionally very hostile to comics like the UK. The IJOCA alone represents thousands of pages of comics criticism as viewed from an enormous array of approaches: from formalism to communications theory, from cultural studies to the history of the art form in various parts of the world.
Jesus, they’re peer reviewed? Is that to root out crackpot theories about the Hulk/Thing rivalry and unsupported theses on Farting in Early Ryan, or what?
Hi Jack. They’re fairly cerebral – I’d call them journals instead of mags. Part of it is that for academics only peer-reviewed journals count for tenure. But part of it is to root out crackpot theories about Derrida or Nietzsche.
The journal ImageText is open online as an example.
IJOCA isn’t peer reviewed. Sometimes that works against it. Hell, they’re publishing me in the next issue.
I was just gonna ask that, Derik. I almost asked it the other day when their being archived in JSTOR came up — JSTOR won’t take them if they’re not peer reviewed, will they?
Noah – hope you’re having a good day off.
I think that “criticism” is both a genre of writing (nonfiction prose, I agree) and also an activity. A critic writes criticism and practices criticism, in the sense that (s)he takes that critical stance toward art. You can document the practice of criticism in a variety of ways, including interviews but not all those document will be the “genre” we call “criticism.” (Literature used to call it “practical criticism,” back in the days of the Partisan Review and the like. I think that term was deconstructed out of existence…)
But I think you’re absolutely right in that the writing is indespensable – I would strongly hesitate to say that just “discussion” counts. That’s kind of like saying that sitting around the coffee table telling people about this idea you have for a great graphic novel makes you a cartoonist. Talking an idea through might be a precondition for the activity, but it’s not the whole thing. I think that’s a part of why I so strongly object to Jeet’s broad definition: “broadly as any discussion of art or works of art, including conversations.”
There’s certainly a writing process in interviews though. I don’t object at all to actually critical interviews being called criticism, but I object to a definition that sweeps up all interviews. That’s just grade inflation. So I suppose the activity is indispensable too.
Gary mentioned his interview with Ralph Steadman which is, indeed, very critically savvy (and extremely entertaining): but it’s worth noting that he also has a sustained analytical essay on Steadman from a couple of years ago. Jeet’s definition doesn’t help me make any distinction between those two pieces of work, and I think the distinction’s worth making. They’re not the same work, and I don’t quite get the point of saying “oh, but they’re both criticism.” Yeah, and…?
I accept Jeet’s caveat that he was being descriptive rather than definitional – and reiterate that I am absolutely not the audience for Comics Comics in any way shape or form – but I still think it’s the wrong path to go down. You don’t really have to be quite as general as he was to pull in good critical writing from myriad genres.
But in light of those last two paragraphs, I’ve been thinking pretty constantly the last 20 odd hours about Gary’s comment that “Jeet doesn’t let Matt off the hook — indeed, he undermines Matt’s assertion by pointing out that he does read criticism.” It’s an excellent point that just doesn’t feel right to me. I think it’s because Gary’s being a nicer person than I am: I’m really suspicious that if you tell an anti-intellectual person that they’re doing an intellectual thing by means of redefining “intellectual” so it includes that thing they do, all you do is increase their contempt for intellectualism by compromising your standards. I don’t have any confidence that the only thing keeping Joe Matt from sustained argument is that flash of recognition: “Well, damn, I guess I do read criticism already. I’d better go read some Susan Sontag!”
I guess the real problem is that I have an agenda about intellectualism and criticism overall, and Jeet maybe just doesn’t…
Domingos, aren’t you the one who quoted that IJOCA interview about academics to me last week? Are you baiting Gary and Jeet? Good for you! I hope they come back punching.
Hey Caro. Well, damn, I wish Gary would be so nice in regard to me. I guess that ship has sailed though….
I thought I’d return to this paragraph.
To which I said: “For Jeet, the ultimate justification for criticism seems to be that artists do it.”
And Gary replies: “Jeet said nothing of the sort, seemingly or otherwise, in the paragraph you quote to support that assertion. His point, obviously, is that criticism takes place in interviews.”
Jeet’s obvious point is that criticism takes place in interviews. And he certainly doesn’t say that the justification for criticism is that artists do it.
I didn’t say he said that though. I said that that was where the ultimate justification seemed to come from for him. I was replying to the structure of his argument and to his examples, not to his actual argument per se.
Specifically, Jeet starts by ceding ground to Matt in the first sentence:
“If we define criticism narrowly as analytical essays on an art form or particular works of art, then it’s true that criticism is a minority interest. ”
So we’re setting analytic essays on one side. Then he goes on to provide a broad definition.
“But if we define criticism more broadly as any discussion of art or works of art, including conversations and the response of artists themselves to earlier art, then criticism is as unavoidable and essential as art itself.”
Then, as a kicker, he turns to interviews:
“To be more concrete, some of the best comics criticism has come in the form of interviews done by artists like Gil Kane, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, etc.”
To me, that last line reads not just as an example, but as justification (further buttressed by the fact that Joe Matt himself reads the interviews in TCJ.) Jeet isn’t just broadening the definition; rhetorically he’s using the reputation and glamour associated with important artists to show that criticism is worthwhile.
My sense that this is in fact what Jeet is doing — using artists as a buttress for criticism, not just as an example — was clinched by his second post, in which he makes a couple of very strong statements about the worth of artists words vs. the words of other critics (Spiegelman is worth more than a shelf full of books, Crumb’s work should be seen not just as a cartoon, but in the tradition of serious Biblical exegesis.)
Responding to rhetoric, examples, and metaphors as well as to argument is a pretty standard thing for critics to to do. I’m certain Gary and Jeet do it themselves when they criticize comics. It seems to throw some folks when I employ it in analyzing the work of other comics critics though. I presume that’s because (a) I see criticism as a prose genre (as I said above) in a way that they don’t necessarily, and (b) they disagree with me about other my conclusions anyway.
I wanted to respond to one more thing Gary said, but that’ll have to be later….
Haw, Derik, I’m sure that your essay is great!…
I agree that IJOCA is pretty uneven though. Everyone writes there (to paraphrase you: I also published in IJOCA), from practitioners to graduate students and established comics scholars. Since most of them come from backgrounds in English Departments and Communication Studies, I think that art history is the most underdeveloped of all the disciplines. To tell you the truth, apart from history made by fans (they’re obsessed by facts and that’s invaluable, but it’s only the beginning), the only comics history worthy of the name are David Kunzle’s tomes (and I don’t need to add that they don’t touch the 20th century, do I?….
Caro:
I’m duly corrected, but TCJ is still a mag, right?… (Don’t answer that!) And thanks for reminding me of ImageText. As for that IJOCA interview that you mention: sorry, but I don’t recall… You may be right though: my intellectual abilities are going rapidly down the drain these days (it’s the big 5 O, I suppose!).
Jack:
You would be surprised to know that no topic is too outrageous to the truly fearless comics scholar. That’s why once in a while we have to suffer the usual clueless reporter saying something like: Holy something, Batman!, they study comics in Academia, now!…
Hi, Noah, it’s nice to be seen.
I don’t know where to begin, either. Frankly, our response barely addressed what I wrote; your few responses to even the parts of my note that you cherry-picked were, I felt, inadequate — or inconsequential.
You wrote:
“’Speaking of elevating art over criticism, this is surely a false dichotomy —like “elevating” trees over grass— when you clearly need both.’
“I don’t know that you need either exactly, but I certainly didn’t say you should elevate one over the other.”
No, you didn’t; you attributed the assertion, wrongly, to Jeet.
“You also seem to be weirdly upset that I responded to two blog posts instead of one, even though I said in the post that I was responding to two blog posts instead of just one. I don’t understand why this is duplicitous on my part. I assume you’ll tell me though.”
I wasn’t particularly upset; I mentioned it parenthetically. I notice that you mentioned the second blog post, but I think conflating two discreet posts on two two different subjects, replying to them as if they are a unified whole, and building a case, such as it is, a single monolithic position creates an intellectual jumble. Each post had is own point within its own context.
“The last paragraph is more than a little tongue in cheek — I thought it’s hyperbolic nature was clear, but perhaps not.”
Not, I think. To be honest, I think you lack the stylistic finesse to pull this off. It’s unclear that it’s tongue in cheek, though obviously hyperbolic, but to what end? It doesn’t come across as clever or post-ironic or even particularly provocative; it comes across as loutish.
“In any case, I do think that comics criticism and art would both benefit from less reverence of various sorts. And I think respect accorded to criticism or art for being criticism or art can be poisonous. It’s not clear to me why any of this is intellectually stupefying though.”
It’s intellectually stupefying because it’s a series of what appear to be inane or factually questionable assertions — none of which reflect your latest re-interpretation of your own words, which is that art and criticism could benefit from less “reverence of various sorts,” which, though foggy, is at least something that’s not unreasonable, though you don’t choose to elaborate (not that that’s an invitation). Let’s take it step by step because this is such a paradigmatic Berlatskyism:
“I’m not saying that people should respect criticism. Criticism, like art, deserves not respect, but unremitting hostility.”
I could understand why bad art and bad criticism deserve “unremitting hostility” (although I question the need for it to be unremitting; I’d save that for genocide) but why would all art and all criticism deserve “unremitting hostility” irrespective of quality? Is this just a blanket statement of intellectual nihilism?
“The real problem with Jeet’s discussion is not that he elevates art over criticism, but that he allows his fannish enthusiasm to cast a nostalgic glamour over both.”
From the syntax, it’s hard to divine if you’re saying Jeet did elevate art over criticism but that that isn’t the problem or just threw that sentiment in as a ringer, but Jeet is not guilty of “fannish enthusiasm.” As someone who came out of a that context and tried to create a magazine that was its antithesis, I know the difference. Jeet is a pretty sober professional and didn’t come to comics as a googly-eyed fan; this is evident in all of his writing. This observation is as wrong-headed as your observation that Don Phelps writes like an academic when, of course, he never set foot in a University.
“Unless art and criticism are separated, it’s impossible to hate either with sufficient malice.”
The presupposition here is that one is obligated to not only hate art and criticism —presumably all art and criticism— and with a sufficient degree of malice, a sentiment so bizarre on its face that it begs for some sort of philosophical elaboration so that the reader can even digest, much less argue, with it; but none is forthcoming. It’s just thrown out there — another dopey anti-intellectual hand grenade.But, why, first, would it be impossible to hate art and criticism with “sufficient malice” if they were separated, but more importantly, why must one hate art and criticism in the first place, and with “sufficient malice” yet? I suppose this counts as part of your (tongue-in-cheek?) nihilistic credo, but it’s so intellectually vacuous that it’s hard to determine what it means, if anything, or to give it any credence.
“Clubby amity is for interviews; what we really need from criticism and art is more and higher quality loathing.”
“Clubby amity” isn’t “for” interviews or useful to any critical thinking, including those of interviewers, and it’s, again, a mystery as to why a higher quality of loathing is required for both art and criticism.
Jeet has clarified what he meant by his remark that the “interview form has been the crucial venue for comics criticism and comics history.” The implication in your response to this was that Jeet was advocating this position rather than asserting what he considers a (possibly regrettable) fact (i.e., due to a confluence of intellectually impoverished historical circumstances, the interview has been a greater repository of critical thinking than criticism per se, which is not quite the same as saying that interviews should be relied upon as a “critical touchstone”); I realize this may be too exacting on the order of splitting hairs, but Jeet never stated that this condition —interviews carrying a lot of the critical weight— was preferable, he simply stated it existed. I now realize that it may have been your innately querulous mode of writing, which required you to inflate what Jeet said —to a “touchstone”— that I found irksome. Irksome as well, I suppose, was this bit:
“Unfortunately, Jeet has this exactly bass backward. It isn’t interviews that are saving us from critical poverty. It’s the fetishization of interviews that has led us into this critical difficulty to begin with. Critical comicdom is obsessed with interviews not because there’s nothing else, but because, historically, critical comicdom comes out of the fanzines.” And so forth.
Admittedly, this assertion is so sloppily written —or thought out— that there are four or five equally plausible interpretations, but none of which, it is safe to say, that make any sense. First, interviews are no more “fetishized” than blogger comments; “critical comicdom” (whatever that is, I’m just guessing) is no more obsessed with interviews than it is with reviews or commentary or aggregators; if by “fanzines,” you mean fanzines of the ’60s and ‘70s, you’re wrong — interviews weren’t fetishized then, either, and virtually no one writing today is even aware of them.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t let this go, now that I think of it:
“The reliance on interviews as critical touchstones is the result of “’fannish boosterism’”
Wrong again. If there’s any reliance on interviews, it’s because, as Jeet noted, that comics criticism hasn’t been sufficiently acute to have filled the void. Can you point to a Pauline Kael, a John Simon, a Vernon Young, a V.S. Pritchard, a Frank Kermode, a Cynthia Ozick of comics criticism? Comics criticism is still in its infancy and it hasn’t reached the point that film criticism, for example, had by the 1950s or so. It occurs to me that Ben’s book was an attempt to prove that comics criticism currently existed, at least in fits and starts.
While I’m at it:
Domingos; Jeet was talking about criticism, not academic writing or scholarship. You’re confusing the two. Which is about the last thing we need.
“I was replying to the structure of his argument and to his examples, not to his actual argument per se.”
That is awesome.
Hey Gary. I’m “cherry-picking” because that’s the kind of conversation you wanted to have. You didn’t really reply to overall ideas in my post (because you thought the ideas were too disjointed and idiotic to respond to in that way, I presume.) Instead, you fisked me. (You can google the word if it’s not one you’re familiar with.) I’m fisking back. It’s a perfectly legitimate tactic, but don’t give me any crap about how I’m not responding to you fully enough.
“but I think conflating two discreet posts on two two different subjects, replying to them as if they are a unified whole, and building a case, such as it is, a single monolithic position creates an intellectual jumble”
That just seems ridiculous to me, Gary. The posts were connected by authorship, by close sequence (they were written close together, and one clearly came out of the other), and by subject (both discussed interviews and criticism.) It’s certainly possible as a critic to look at a work in its entirety, but there’s nothing wrong with looking at what an author says in different works and thinking about them that way. You want to prove that I’m intellectually lazy, and so you’re reaching for evidence. Either that or you’re laughably hidebound and inflexible in your approach to criticism. As I’ve said, I have a good deal of respect for you, and therefore I’d much prefer to think you’re being a dick out of spite. So that’s the theory I’m going to go with.
Much of your commentary on my last paragraph serves to show that it’s hyperbolic — not a difficult point to prove, since I said it was hyperbolic. Most of your other comments are assertions that I’m incorrect which are nice as assertions, but don’t particularly advance the argument, or else they’re arguing points that I wasn’t making. For example:
““Clubby amity” isn’t “for” interviews or useful to any critical thinking, including those of interviewers, and it’s, again, a mystery as to why a higher quality of loathing is required for both art and criticism.”
Yeah — I don’t think clubby amity is good for interviews. I think it’s much more likely to show up in interviews than in analytic criticism — even your interviews, though you’re much more resistant to it than some. (Even my interviews, for that matter, few as they are.)
For the higher quality of loathing — I think there’s a tendency to see artists as special, more worthwhile, more deserving of reverence, than other folks. I think this is really unfortunate, and generally to be hooted at.
And besides, if you’re going to have loathing, it should be of the highest quality, yes?
“First, interviews are no more “fetishized” than blogger comments; ”
That’s bullshit, Gary. Nobody gives a shit about blogger comments. Interviews are widely viewed as uniquely important looks at the mind of the artist, especially in comics criticism. Jeet says as much. Equating them with blogger comments is simply lazy thinking and writing on your part.
“if by “fanzines,” you mean fanzines of the ’60s and ‘70s, you’re wrong — interviews weren’t fetishized then, either, and virtually no one writing today is even aware of them.”
This is a poorly written point; the final “them” could refer to either interviews or the fanzines as the antecedent. I presume you must mean the fanzines, though, since referring to the interviews makes no sense.
In any case, it’s bullshit. Interviews are disproportionately important in comics crit today — because of you, Gary. TCJ, which came out of the fanzines (no matter how much you may disclaim the lineage) put interviews at the center of criticism in comics. That has had a major impact, and continues to do so.
“This observation is as wrong-headed as your observation that Don Phelps writes like an academic when, of course, he never set foot in a University. ”
Just because you write like an academic doesn’t mean you are an academic. You see the little “like” there? That’s a simile. It makes a comparison between two things that are not the same. If I had wanted to say he had been an academic, I would have said he was an academic without the “like.”
“but Jeet is not guilty of “fannish enthusiasm.” As someone who came out of a that context and tried to create a magazine that was its antithesis, I know the difference. Jeet is a pretty sober professional and didn’t come to comics as a googly-eyed fan; this is evident in all of his writing. ”
Jeet isn’t a fan in the context you grew up with, Gary. The world changed, and it was you who changed it in a lot of ways. As a result, Jeet’s a fan in the current context. That’s a context where art comics are established enough that people treat them the same way people used to treat super-hero comics. They talk about who their favorite interviewers are rather than who’s the better, the Thing or the Hulk. Instead of talking about how Superman can beat Batman, they talk about how Art Spiegelman can beat a roomful of academic books. Instead of talking about how nifty Stan Lee’s dialogue is in Dr. Strange, they talk about how cool it is that Gary Groth is beating the tar out of Noah Berlatsky in a comments thread. You gazed into the fannishness, Gary, and the fannishness has gazed also into you. Enjoy it.
In a similar vein, I was interested in this point from your original comments:
“If Jeet has any fault as a blogger, it’s that his posts are virtually impossible to argue with — smart, literate observations that are by and large uncontroversial.”
It’s interesting in two ways. First, I think it does accurately get at the difference between where Jeet is coming from and where you are coming from — Jeet’s taken a lot of the canon and interests from the old TCJ, without your interest in controversy.
But on the other hand…I know for a fact that I’m not the only person who finds many of Jeet’s statements very controversial. In my post, I pointed out several things he said that I think are extremely dubious. Those dubious statements, though, tend to not look very dubious if you agree with Jeet’s canon, and with the reverent attitude he has towards it. In short, you think Jeet is uncontroversial because he’s the current conventional wisdom…and so are you.
I was sure you’d approve, Tom.
Hope you enjoy being on the same side as Gary for this one. More fun to cheer on the biggest kid on the playground from the sidelines, no doubt.
Gary:
I’m sorry if I picked this quote right here and not in on Jeet’s blog, but you seem to be fond of exact language, so, if Jeet wanted to say “criticism” (and I’m sure that the word is also applicable in an Academic context) that’s the word that he should have chosen. What I’ve read was, and I quote: “the intellectual poverty of most writing on comics.”
If Gary and I are on the same side, than why do I disagree — oh wait, I forgot, you just make shit up.
I think your original point has merit (if I’m understanding it correctly) but you applied it with nuclear savagery to a fantasy object and people are going to pick that apart no matter how much you complain to teacher they’re holding your arms down while hitting you. I also disagreed with both of Jeet’s posts. I made one of my objections on one of the comments thread and another of my objections was made loud enough in the recent past I got made fun of for it this week.
At this point, though, you’re just flailing. That “they’re close together and by the same guy” argument for conflating two posts is just weird and sad — why not argue that your conflation makes sense because it makes sense? And calling someone a dick while you tell them what a simile means is the pot calling the kettle a pot. But leaving that kind of thing aside, you’re now making assertions that don’t line up with the facts as I understand them. For instance, suggesting that Gary denies the fanzine heritage of the Journal is wrong, no matter if it’s delightful rhetoric; in fact, Gary’s always been vocal about giving credit to various fanzines and fanzine editors that influenced/inspired him and the Journal. Also, the interview didn’t become central to the Journal in the way you’re describing until like ten-twelve years into its publication history — there’s an easy way to mark this progression: note how frequently the interviews are the dominant cover subject pre-1990 and how frequently they are post-1990. There’s a much greater mix in the early days. The fact is there’s no easy continuity of interview fetishization there on which to rest that kind of argument.
Anyway, back to it.
PS: People taking sides against you on a playground? Seriously? Are you a subscriber to Psychologically Transparent Metaphor Magazine or are you still fucking with me?
To Domingos’ point, just to be clear, more than half of the critics Gary named as examples were academics of some sort. Frank Kermode held a chaired professorship at University College London in Literature and is often credited with introducing French theory into Britain; Cynthia Ozick holds an MA in literature; John Simon has a PhD from Harvard; Pritchett taught at Columbia and Smith.
I understand, Gary, that you are saying that they chose primarily not to write “academic writing,” and I admire their choice to systematically engage the public more than I can say. But they certainly could have written academically if they chose, and I feel certain they did (do) READ academic essays.
There’s a much greater distinction now between public criticism and academic criticism than in Kermode’s day, but academic erudition and broad interdisciplinary expertise in the arts is generally still required to produce criticism of that quality. Those people were professional critics, writing professional criticism for a non-professional audience, not journalists and enthusiasts participating in “any [old] discussion of art or works of art, including conversations.”
The reason comics doesn’t have critics like that is because comics is a subculture with a near-dominant anti-intellectual streak. What passes for intellectualism here doesn’t match up with the rest of the art world. Jeet’s post, however unintentionally, did nothing to change that and probably helped it along.
Tom….my apologies. I assumed your original comment was meant as ironic snark. I wasn’t making shit up; I just misunderstood you.
“I think your original point has merit (if I’m understanding it correctly) but you applied it with nuclear savagery to a fantasy object and people are going to pick that apart no matter how much you complain to teacher they’re holding your arms down while hitting you. I also disagreed with both of Jeet’s posts. I made one of my objections on one of the comments thread and another of my objections was made loud enough in the recent past I got made fun of for it this week.”
I’m not complaining. I’m happy to have Gary here, and you as well.
I’d be interested why you agree with me, if you’d care to elaborate.
“And calling someone a dick while you tell them what a simile means is the pot calling the kettle a pot.”
I was indeed being a dick. I thought Gary would appreciate it, actually.
“For instance, suggesting that Gary denies the fanzine heritage of the Journal is wrong, no matter if it’s delightful rhetoric; in fact, Gary’s always been vocal about giving credit to various fanzines and fanzine editors that influenced/inspired him and the Journal. Also, the interview didn’t become central to the Journal in the way you’re describing until like ten-twelve years into its publication history — there’s an easy way to mark this progression: note how frequently the interviews are the dominant cover subject pre-1990 and how frequently they are post-1990. There’s a much greater mix in the early days. The fact is there’s no easy continuity of interview fetishization there on which to rest that kind of argument.”
Gary in the discussion above seemed to be pushing back against the idea of the Journal’s fanzine connection. I may well have misunderstood him, though. The discussion of the Journal interview timeline is interesting. Do you feel interviews weren’t important to fanzines in general? It sounds like they weren’t *as* important to the journal as they later became, but that they were still an important part of the mix. Is that correct?
“PS: People taking sides against you on a playground? Seriously? Are you a subscriber to Psychologically Transparent Metaphor Magazine or are you still fucking with me?”
After attacking you unprovoked, I certainly deserve that. Nice shot, and kudos to you.
Tom, I did see your comments I think; you disagreed that criticism was needed in the first post, and you disagreed that interviewers were that important in the second post. Is that right? Was there more to it than that?
No, my original remark was flat-out snark. That’s a crazy line, Noah, one I think worthy of derision. You brought me up first out of nowhere to Eric so I figured I was due. Plus it was such an astonishing line I felt compelled to pull it out and draw attention to it.
I don’t mind being slammed back, but I think the fact that your slam made no sense — mostly because it was immediately tied into a structure of people rooting and taking sides against you — was worth further commentary.
As to your questions, which seem to me pretty far away from the main content of the thread, Gary’s not going to embrace the entirety of fanzine tradition in all circumstances because a) a lot of it doesn’t apply to the Journal, b) a lot of what the Journal was doing was breaking with other elements of fanzine tradition, c) a lot of similar enterprises that came out of the fanzines embraced things about the fanzines the Journal wanted no part of, and d) the Journal aspired to being more than a fanzine with a thesaurus nearby and the fanzine label could be a pretty potent dismissal. But what Gary feels applies to the Journal, mostly the example set by fanzines of similarly serious editorial intent, he’s always been up front about that, and you’re wrong to suggest that he denies a heritage that includes fanzines.
As far as the other, my reading — and I’m no ‘zine historian — is that interviews were important to comics fanzines, but they were in the mix and not always on top with functions/features like reviews/appreciations of current and older work, publishing news and especially previews of forthcoming work, fan art, marketplace-type features and even letters (the comments threads of their day).
(In other words, I think if you were going to build an argument about the over-valuation of the interview, you should have ditched the historical momentum argument for more emphasis on arguing the potential over-reliance on interviews now. Now, please note that what I’m saying here is that your strategy sucked, and that a different one *might* have been more fruitful. I’m not saying you’re right because there’s an over-reliance on interviews now.)
I’m not interested in describing in detail any objections I had to Jeet’s posts as they don’t conflate with yours other than in the broadest of ways of sharing certain sympathies. I simply wanted to show how silly and revealing it was to lump me in with some conception of teams working against you, and I think I’ve done that. I in no way seek to buttress any of your arguments, which I thought as presented were untenable in the extreme and deserving of the horrific, Story of Ricky beatdown Gary gave them.
Now I’m going to go back to not reading HU threads until the next time someone e-mails me that my name was brought up.
Tom Spurgeon:
Noah’s line
is not crazy; it’s shorthand.
It’s probably too much shorthand to be appropriate and effective for the audience of this thread.
I’m going to assume you don’t actually care, let alone want the shorthand explained to you, but I’d be happy to find some time to if you can convince me you actually want to understand.
Hey Tom. Thanks for the clarification. In that case…your mother wears combat boots!
Seriously, man, I appreciate your comments, and your thoughts on fanzines and interviews are valuable, and something I’ll definitely think about. But…do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? “You brought me up first…” What are you, a six year old? Some sort of skinless demonspawn who appears whining and puking bile whenever someone dares to pronounce your sacred syllables? All I said was that you had said you didn’t understand my writing. Which you have in fact said yourself multiple times. In those words! It wasn’t even a dis. If anything, I was being self-deprecating. So someone went running to tattle and you came over here to make sure you knew I’d heard? To what end?
You say it’s wrong to suggest that you are behaving like a child cheering on a pummeling from the sidelines. Yet, to explain yourself, you say that (a) you don’t agree with Gary and Jeet, (b) you’re not going to talk about why you don’t agree with Gary and Jeet, and (c) you’re instead going to snark at me. If you want to join in the conversation, join in the conversation. If you want to flame me, you can do that too — but then why get huffy when I point out you’re acting like a troll?
In any case, it’s actually pleasing to know I can summon you whenever I want. In the first place — prominent comics blogger on a string! Power! But, more importantly, I’m pretty much always happy to see you here. Though it seems like you’re probably regretting it at this point, I continue to owe you a debt for your longstanding support of the blog. So thank you again for stopping by. Take care.
This is degenerating pretty fast into a tennis match of “you said” “but you said” “but you thought I said” etc. ad infinitum.
Interviews may incorporate elements of criticism, true. Read the TCJ interviews of Kane, Hogarth, and Spiegelman for examples. And interviews are particularly interesting for criticism because they can veer off into unplanned territory at any moment.
However,not all artists are able to articulate their points of view ably. Verbal facility is not their forte (as contrasted with comics scripters; most TCJ interviews with wcripters follow the line of ‘thereason I’m such a genius is…’).
Look up the TCJ interviews with Chester Brown and Curt Swan, to take two opposite ends of the comics spectrum; they are dead on the page.
Interviews should be chiefly raw material a critic or historian can mine; they can incorporate criticism, but this is rarely their raison d’être, unless the interview is deliberately set up as a dialectic clash.
(Hmm…interesting possibilities there, Noah.)
Gary Groth, you should wash your mouth out with soap! (Or, at your age, with cognac, an excellent and agreeable disinfectant.)
Seriously, insulting your opponent does your arguments no good, Mr Groth.
At least you didn’t call Noah egregious, jejune, meretricious or venal; although I confess to a certain nostalgia for these verbal stalwarts of early Groth venom…
Way to be all conciliatory Alex. Don’t you know everyone loves fistfights.
Anyway, I have to say, I kind of resent not being called egregious, jejune, meretricious, venal, or even dyspeptic.
And I’m not even sure he’s reading anymore, but I should maybe add that Jeet couldn’t have been more of a gentleman about this whole thing. Thanks for being so civil, Jeet. I hope I do as well if you ever feel like taking me to task for something I’ve written.
Oh…and I think I am going to try to write more about what it means to look at the logic of an argument (it’s metaphors, examples, and structure) as well as the argument’s logic (how it proceeds form point to point.) I don’t know how much interest it’ll be to Gary or Tom, but it’ll give me a chance to talk about Victorian fashion iconography, which I think will be pretty entertaining for me, anyway.
Also, I think this is the 51st post; if you’re just finding this, there’s a whole big thread on another page; just click the “Older posts” link above.
Am I the only person on this site with an average name. Yeah, I bring nothing to the debate.
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Domingos, I finally found that IJOCA reference: it was quoted in a comment Craig Fischer posted to a Charles Hatfield blog post. You did not send it to me: that’s what happens where there are only names and no faces. Here it is, though:
I think Merino does a terrible job in this excerpt — I haven’t gotten a copy of the whole thing yet — of sticking up for academia; the “mere selection is a value judgment” is ridiculous and Gary rightly calls her on it.
But at the same time, Gary doesn’t sound like he’s read anything but the most abysmal academic writing! First-rate academic writers slip value judgments into analytical essays all the time – there’s absolutely no question what Fredric Jameson thinks of Warhol’s Diamond Dust Shoes, what Krauss thinks of Frank Stella, or — in the most palpable counterexample that I can think of, what Samuel Delany thinks of Samuel Greenberg’s Serenade.
The fact that the judgment is often not stated outright as blunt assertion is part of the pleasure of reading that kind of prose, of allowing the insights to aggregate until you have a more “literary” sense of both the work and the reader, rather than the more “journalistic” direct statement. There are journalists who lack voice and literary writers who lack voice – but there is a difference between a journalistic voice and a literary one (the literary is related to the poetic, which Delany himself describes in the linked essay on Greenberg and Crane).
Today, academic critics who have a unique voice will more than likely have a literary voice rather than a journalistic one. That’s what tremendously well-done academic writing after theory looks like, to me.
It’s not really public criticism, though; that’s more journalistic, because the audience is less specialized. I’ll readily grant Gary that, and it may have ultimately been his point in the interview, as it was here. It’d be nice if IJOCA was archived somewhere so I could check. Why more academic writers don’t try to cultivate a journalistic voice — which is easier to get right than the literary voice — is kind of beyond me. They’re probably too busy grading papers.
I really like when art-comic people get into fights. It’s way more interesting than what happens in the forums at Comic Book Resources.
Caro:
I’m glad to know that my intellectual abilities aren’t that bad.
If you need to check anything in IJOCA send me an email.
I agree with everything that you say, but there’s another problem. Most people think like Ana Merino: if this person spent so much time and effort studying, say, _The Lemonade Kid_ s/he must find value in it. (By value they mean aesthetic value.)
The study may be just sociological, and most times, it is so, but it doesn’t matter, they have made their minds: all academicians are wackos.
That’s why I think that Academy has a responsibility. And maybe it took it too lightly these past decades.
Good grief, Domingos – isn’t it, like, 5:30AM where you are?
I agree entirely: my way of putting it is that the academy (in the humanities at least) has been off becoming over-professionalized, publish-or-perish, teach a dozen classes, demonstrate proficiency in something that someone somewhere is hiring a professor in…and everybody’s spread so thin and under so much pressure that the work, especially the writing but the ideas as well, suffers. And in the process the DMZ between academics and everybody else gets wider and wider, and any sense of responsibility — except that which orbits around the classroom — is lost, because nobody has time or energy or even the right skills for it anymore.
I don’t know if that’s really it, though, but it certainly describes my experience. Maybe the still-academics on the blog will have opinions.
I’ve been thinking about the Gary/Merino dispute.
“Academia doesn’t cultivate unique voices that have distinctive perceptions of the work they scrutinize: they more and more specialize in value neutral “analysis,” wholly removed from qualitative distinctions. Instead of learning the virtues a critic believes a work possesses, you know how he applied or imposed certain theories.”
I think the point Merino should have focused on is the assumption that applying certain theories is value neutral, or is opposed to qualitative distinctions.
For example, someone doing a Marxist reading of, say, Great Expectations. You wouldn’t necessarily need to say in such a thing “Great Expectations is great!” in order to have a reading which was not value neutral.
Basically, Gary’s assuming here that the only way value can come into a discussion of aesthetics is through aesthetic judgments. But in fact you can have discussions of “value” in various ways that aren’t really about whether or not the work is good or bad or indifferent.
As an example: this book I”ve been reading, “Between Women,” discusses Great Expectations, and Villette and Victorian fashion plates, among other things. The author, Sharon Marcus, doesn’t ever say, “these Victorian fashion plates lack the formal and aesthetic rigor of Dickens,” because formal and aesthetic rigor is not what she’s talking about in the book. Does that mean that she’s doing a neutral analysis?
Not at all. She’s got multiple axes to grind; most particularly, she argues that lesbianism and (even eroticized) friendships between women are not necessarily on some sort of continuum, and that neither is necessarily opposed to heterosexuality. That’s kind of a complex point, and one enmeshed in academic discussions, of course. But it’s also tied very closely into arguments abut gay marriage (which is often presented as undermining heterosexual marriage.) So it’s very relevant, and I think fairly accessible as she presents it. In a lot of ways, in fact, this discussion seems like it would be *more* relevant to most people than would an argument about the relative merits of Maus and Persepolis — which, while popular, are still basically unknown to a whole slew of people who care fairly intensely about gay marriage.
When I’ve done more academic-like writing, I do tend to try to be clear about what my own likes or dislikes are. But I think you can write really interesting, controversial, engaged criticism that isn’t really about whether work a is better than work b, or even about what the writer’s personal aesthetic response is to either a or b. There are just other conversations you can have.
So I guess my point is that Merino’s mistake is in ceding to Gary the idea that the only value is personal aesthetic enthusiasm.
Yeah, she does a colossally poor job of defending academic writing and describing the ways value’s inscribed in academic readings.
But I think your point that it’s “complex and enmeshed in academic discussions” gets at the heart of why it probably wouldn’t fly: those kind of conversations are still for mostly professional audiences, academics and former academics and critics, rather than the “general public,” because the general public generally reacts with scorn to anything that isn’t presented in a “common sense” way.
I like to think Gary has a more sophisticated opposition to the “counterintuitive” complexity of theoretical arguments as presented in academic writing; he used the theory of suture in that piece on Hitchcock he wrote for the site. It’s just one of those important “intra-critical” discussions: whether it’s possible to be influenced by incredibly complex reading protocols and create incredibly complex arguments without limiting your audience to other professional readers — and if so, how?
I should say “in the excerpt.” She might have covered these points in the rest of the conversation…
But the general public doesn’t read anything! I mean, really, did Gary Groth’s essay on Hitchcock have an order-of-magnitudes larger auience than Marcuse does?
I get your point that there’s a value to popularizing and trying to reach more people — but Gary himself has long been a champion of works regardless, or despite, their relatively low profile.
Marcus really isn’t hard to read at all. Her prose is clear, she’s talking about controversial issues that people care about — I don’t know. There’s no reason that anyone who could read Gary couldn’t read her.
I feel like in some cases the issue is more a problem of marketing and venue than it is an innate problem with academic writing per se. Nobody knows about Marcus not because she’s especially difficult, or because she’s especially dull, but just because there isn’t really an infrastructure in place to tell the general public (or the small portion that would be interested) about books like that….
I thought I would provide a helpful digest of this exchange for the casual reader.
“Let me put it to you simply, Gary. The Internet isn’t going to fall on its knees and worship your tag-spam because you’ve blessed it with your presence… With love, with respect, with hope even, I ask you, stop being a horse’s ass.” -[url=https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2009/12/yesterday-was-always-better/]Noah Berlatsky, December 14 2009[/url]
“You’re like a precocious 12 year old who hears the grown-ups arguing and has a compulsion to enter the fray without having the wherewithal to know what’s being discussed.” -[url=https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/07/dyspeptic-ouroboros-first-thing-we-do-lets-burn-all-the-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-7062]Gary Groth, July 8 2010[/url]
Caro: “Good grief, Domingos – isn’t it, like, 5:30AM where you are?”
Yup! I’m kind of a vampire (I suck the blood of sacred cows), but that’s common knowledge by now, right?
Hey Alan. Ah, yes, a blast from the past.
I wouldn’t necessarily assume though that Gary even read that earlier post. He’s really busy, and it’s not at all clear that he follows HU regularly….(I guess he saw that Donald Phelps piece, though…so it’s possible I guess.)
I thought I would provide a digest version of this for the general reader. I don’t think I lost anything very interesting:
“Let me put it to you simply, Gary. The Internet isn’t going to fall on its knees and worship your tag-spam just because you’ve blessed it with your presence. With love, with respect, with hope even, I ask you, stop being a horse’s ass.” -[url=https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2009/12/yesterday-was-always-better/]Noah, December 14 2009[/url]
“You’re like a precocious 12 year old who hears the grown-ups arguing and has a compulsion to enter the fray without having the wherewithal to know what’s being discussed. My larger point here is that I wish you’d think —and inform yourself— before you write.” -[url=https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/07/dyspeptic-ouroboros-first-thing-we-do-lets-burn-all-the-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-7062]Gary, July 8 2010[/url]
Argh; double post. Sorry about that Alan. Your first one got caught in the spam filter.
If that happens again, the best thing to do is just wait (I’ll probably get it out quickly) or email me (noahberlatsky at gmail) and I’ll fish it out post haste.
I’ll leave both of your posts up, since the first one is followed by my reply, and the second is snarkier — and we wouldn’t want to lose that!
Damn, I’m sorry about that. The internet is murdering me today. I don’t know, I just thought the level of heat went way past the vague subjects being bandied about. is there any way for me to edit these? No.
No need to apologize! I think the point (level of heat > necessary) is entirely reasonable (for me as well as for Gary, probably).
Gary is the fierce heir of an old, rapidly disappearing lineage of debaters. Back in the 19th century these things were a lot more interesting ending up in the field of honor. Things started to degenerate when matters were solved with a few cane strokes. Now, in the Internet age, people just swipe insults… Very sad!…
In conclusion: Gary trains his marksman abilities for naught!…
Yeah, so every time I come to this site, the comment threads are just the worst sort of snark and condescension. Berlatsky, my man, do you ever wonder why all these smart ass people keep taking issue with the way you construct yr arguments?
Anyway, the shit is funny, so thanks for that and stuff.
Side question: I have read here a bunch of times about what is, I guess, a pretty heavy philosophical difference between y’all and the comicscomics people. Outside of the fact that they tend to just go crazy for old strips I have no interest in, I don’t see what they are doing that is so hard to “get”.
I mean, they’re all comics, right?
Hey Mateo. If you came over for this thread in particular, it seems possible you are searching out snark and condescension, yes?
In any case, recently there’s an interesting and not particularly acrimonious discussions about epistemology here, if that sort of thing interests you.
I’m going to post about critical arguments and how they’re constructed later this week hopefully. So, yes, I think about it, though I probably don’t come to exactly the conclusions you’re hoping for.
I talk about what I think are the differences between HU and Comics Comics here. I certainly respect what they do, and I wouldn’t say I don’t “get” them, but the sites have a somewhat different focus.
Anyway, glad you were amused. Talk to you soon.
well, noah, I actually got linked over here because it regarded posts by Jeet I had read, a post I actually didn’t really agree with either, but posts I had read, because I check in with ComicsComics pretty regular. I wasn’t aiming for snark intentionally, although it is what I found.
Honestly curious, you don’t feel like your response to my comment was snarky and condescending in and of itself? Defensiveness just always seems like a fallback position for you every time I show up, although to be fair, you do seem to get attacked pretty regular, so I suppose that is somewhat understandable.
Anyway…moving on, I have a couple of questions. I read your link about the difference between the two sites as you see it and am curious about two points.
A) what do you mean about not being as concerned or interested as comics as a medium? Isn’t that why you do what you do, an interest in the form?
and
B) what would you say are the particular differences between y’alls canon? I mentioned above that the CC folk have a huge regard for older comics (especially strips) which I just don’t care about, but what in particular, do you admire or consider your canon?
at the risk of setting you off, I do want to say that I have noticed a tendency for these comment discussions to descend into a parsing of sentence structure, a mutual back and forth accusations of misquoting and misattributing/ misunderstanding. Please believe that is not what I am attempting to get into here, I am honestly just curious.
Bertlasky is still the Galactus of critic’s last names, something I continue to have a large admiration for.
You came in the door with a chipful of snark on your shoulder, son. I answered your questions politely and gave you a few pokes. If you feel that that’s overly defensive and condescending, that’s the way it goes.
A. I don’t really write about comics out of an interest in the medium. I have nostalgia for it, because I grew up reading them, but I don’t find them innately more interesting than music or movies or books (all of which I also write about when I can.) In fact, in general, I”m not especially interested in particular mediums in themselves, though I’m interested in various works of art in particular mediums.
I write about comics largely because Dirk Deppey gave me a forum, both by letting me in TCJ and by linking to my blog. So I write about comics out of historical happenstance and shallow careerism, basically.
B. Not sure I actually have a personal canon per se (unlike Domingos!) Canon formation isn’t something I’m super committed to. But there is a more or less admired art comics canon of sorts (Clowes, Ware, Hernandez Bros., Spiegelman, Crumb, Pekar, Eisner, etc. etc.) and I’m pretty disinterested in all of them. I’m much more enthusiastic about, say, Ariel Schrag or William Marston or various manga (Dokebi Bride or Nana or Paradise Kiss for example). There’s not a complete disconnect — I love Peanuts and Winsor McCay and Alan Moore, for example, all of whom have pretty solid critical cred. But still, the differences are big enough to leave room for a lot of argument.
Berlatsky means “barge hauler” in Russian, by the by. A Galactus -worthy sobriquet!
I can’t speak for Noah but I actually just responded to Robert over at the never-ending Frazetta thread about something that’s related to this point:
The gist is that for me, reading or looking at anything isn’t inherently an end in itself – I’m always curious about what the art object teaches us about our culture. In that sense criticism is always less about the medium for me than about culture in general.
Hola a Todos!!
Is great to see how you can get punch with style for a short quote of an interview from years ago…and looks like I end doing a terrible job… Wow…!! Muchas gracias.!!
Umm I remember that back in that times…I was very focus on the idea of Gramsci idea of the intellectual an the comic artist as an intellectual.
The argument was between the critic and the academic and the sense of memory and recollection.
If you don’t want to read any academic books because you mistake the sense of knowledge and you feel you don’t need it go ahead. Academia sometimes has a talent to preserve lots things. Comics is not just an USA thing, some countries are been able to preserve the memory of their comics thanks to the tenacity of scholars.
That means my argument is not about criticism, is about a deep concern about saving comics from getting lost because there is not yet a strong tradition that vindicates them and preserve them. My sense of thing, is a sense of urgency. And my experience as scholar show me that in countries like Cuba for example.
In any case that interview is from ages ago…and my English was much worse than today….because Gary despite been born in Argentina..forgot to learn Spanish..I wish I can argue en Español..with him and all of you.
abrazos y besos a todos
xox
Ana
PD And keep this argument…is perfect for summer evenings..
Hola Ana. Thanks so much for stopping by.
I like a lot of academic writing, as does Caro. And your English is infinitely better than my Spanish — though we do have several polyglots on the blog….
Hola Ana, muchas gracias para su contribuciones! Su Ingles es mejor de mi espanol. (Gracias a mi amigo, K.J. para escribirlo para mi). Usted puede escribir a mi en espanol si quieres. Puedo leer poquito y yo tratara de translatar lo que no puedo leer. Sera mejor a leer lo que Usted escribire en su lengua nativa.
Gracias que Usted toma mi critico que bueno. No creo que usted estaba incorrecta, pero su argumento estaba tanto menor para responder a Gary. Pero no puedo leer la entrevista complete porque IJOCA no es disponible en cualquier lugar. Necesito preguntar a Domingos mandarmelo. Creo que esta mas que necesito entender antes de parecer. Lo siento para algo idea equivocada.
OK, I have to switch to English! I prefer good academic writing to almost any other type of writing – and we agree that Gary is wrong to say it does not express value judgments. But the excerpt was frustrating, because there seemed to be no hope of bridging the divide. Gary was asking for a conviction about the judgment that is rarely found in academic writing today. Selection bias appears on the page as a very oblique value judgement, not a passionate one.
Yet the very best academic writing is rarely oblique and often passionate, and value judgments appear in myriad ways. That is the point I felt needed to be made in response to him.
Preserving the art form for posterity is an extremely valuable thing to do. I share your sense of urgency for 20th-century ephemeral culture more broadly: advertisements and illustrations are also at risk, although less than comics, despite their value to cultural historians.
But I also feel an urgency that academics must speak with the outside world: this is very uncommon in the US. When a society’s academics and scholars only speak to each other, when they hide their ideas behind expensive databases and even more expensive jargon, and ignore people outside of their profession, that is very bad for that culture’s future, as well as for the preservation and appreciation of its past.
Noah-
I called Ethan Hawke “son” once and he wanted to fight over it. And that was right after I told him that White Fang was the fire, so just know it can set the handsomer types off. I’m cool with it personally though. Feo fuerte y formal and all that. I’m a little light on the fuerte y formal, but the feo I have covered.
Caro, I appreciate your answer as well. I guess that maybe this explains why I tend to lean toward the comiccomics people (despite their puzzling preoccupation with old newspaper strips) as opposed to y’all. They definitely have an overwhelming love for comics. Like I do. Comics are fucking great.
I guess I was am a little surprised to see that comics mean nothing more to you than anything else, it seems like a rather small niche and somewhat unlikely to foster any sort of career, but hey, whatever you think.
My only real complaint about your site is that I almost never finish the articles because the words are too big.
The career thing was somewhat tongue in cheek. I don’t actually think I’ll attain fame and fortune. An audience is really all I’m looking for (and, as I said, I write about other things as well when the opportunity presents itself.)
Wow Caro, your friend was kind and all, but that’s a pretty broken Spanish that you’ve got up there (insert one of those smileys, here).
Ana (since we’re writing in Spanish now):
Hablando de patrimonio y de Cuba, hay la posibilidad de organizar una edición antológica del Salomón de Chago Armada? Hace unos años he escrito a Caridad Blanco, pero no obtuve respuesta.
Oh dear. I kind of thought that was probably the case. Sorry, Domingos and Ana! I speak no Spanish at all; my limited ability to read is from half a decade of Latin, and my friends who are actually fluent in other languages besides English only speak German and Russian. That’s what you get from a country that doesn’t teach language until students are 14.
For what it’s worth, here’s what I originally wrote in English:
As it is too often the case when people discuss all revolved around two different meanings of the same word. To go on with my Lemonade Kid example: Gary objected to someone giving aesthetic value to it; Ana found historical value in the preservation and study of said series.
Your post gives me some nostalgia Caro: when I was an high school student (immediately after the outburst of freedom of the revolution: it ended 48 years of Fascist rule) the study o Latin was in decline (I remember my Portuguese teacher with just one pupil). That’s when things started to go seriously wrong (I’m talking about the famous dumbing down): you don’t really know how to write Latin languages if you know nothing about Latin, obviously. But, you know?… Latin’s tough, man!…
Unfortunately I’m not that lone student I mentioned above. Just imagine: to be able to read Virgil and Horace and Catullus and Ovid, etc… in their original language!…