A critic has some ideas about our critical culture. Feel free to disagree

Let's get one thing out of the way: I am extremely, ridiculously sensitive to other people's judgment, largely because, as the cliché goes, I am my own harshest critic and therefore magnify others' criticism to an absurd degree and use. to demonstrate that my brutal self-assessment is not only correct but possibly not harsh enough. Am I practicing true and sincere “vulnerability” by admitting this? Or am I acting knowing that at least in some circles social capital can be gained through confession? Lauren Oyler, cultural critic and novelist, might say that by sharing this self-knowledge, I am participating in our current era's focus on “the controlled release of intimate details.”

I'm especially nervous about being judged by Oyler because she was the first serious editor I worked with as a baby book reviewer writing for Vice Media. In general about a decade ago. I admired her then and obviously still want her approval. But I am an adult who has taken into account the fact that feelings, as Oyler writes, “are not always rational.” I know that “deciding what to do about judgment is a more productive line of inquiry than worrying about what other people think.”

Because I am sometimes irritable and contradictory, my instinct is not so much to argue with Oyler's new book, “No Judgment” (with which I often agree) but to try to write with the kind of self-aware subjectivity that she doesn't like it: “I think that descriptions of criticism that highlight its subjective nature are defensive maneuvers that allow critics to avoid the consequences of being wrong.”

Would Oyler hate this article about his book? I can assume, due to the particular dispositions I described above, that I have been, am, or will be among the courts, and can now move on to more interesting thoughts.

There really is no alternative anyway, Oyler writes; There is no such thing as “not judging” because judging others (evaluating their behaviors, comparing them to ours, learning from them how to be or not be, etc.) is human. “If we didn't judge,” Oyler writes in the book's fifth essay, “The Power of Vulnerability,” “we couldn't survive. The important thing is whether we express that judgment and how we express it. What we mean when we say 'no judgment' is not that we are not judging, but that we are not withholding judgment against you.” Here's hope!

The project of “No Judgment” as a whole is to explore what it means to care about criticism, in its various definitions, especially, like Merriam-Webster says it, “the act of criticizing generally unfavorably” and “the art of evaluating or analyzing works of art or literature.” Oyler's essays cover gossip (public and private), the proliferation of forums like Goodreads that invite consumers to judge art through star ratings, life in Berlin (and the criticism implied when people wonder about why she or any other expatriate lives there), autofiction (which—a rarity!—she defines herself), the emergence (and commodification) of the notion of positive vulnerability and her own anxiety (as well as the difficulty presented by labels and the fetishization of therapy).

Somewhat strangely, Oyler shares in his introduction that there is an additional theme: revenge “or its simpler synonym.” justice” – runs through the book, though it’s just not clear enough or I was too bothered by the collapse of the terms “revenge” and “justice” (from a writer who cares about nothing less than semantics!) to want to watch it . That, I can't say.

Unsurprisingly, given my occasional (and often quickly deleted) online complaints about Goodreads, the Amazon-owned social media site that tracks books and focuses on the reader experience, I was especially taken by Oyler's second essay, “My perfect opinions.” This essay is about many things: the origins of the star rating system (fascinatingly, the work of an exclamation point-wielding Englishwoman); novelist and critic Adam Dalva's journey to becoming an influential Goodreads user; the supposed (often incorrect or incomplete) power dynamic between the Internet commentator and the minor Internet “celebrity” (i.e., someone with a large following); the rise of pop culture supremacy and the reduction of what could be considered “highbrow” art to mere snobbery and elitism; professional criticism and existential threats to our livelihoods; and more.

I underlined many parts of this essay with enthusiasm, such as when Oyler compares the power of real celebrities, the ones who make tons of money, and the power of cultural critics who dare to poorly criticize those celebrities' work, and where she writes : “ On some level, Goodreads uses a community and wholesome book lover façade to sell things, on behalf of an entity that specifically harms real communities and really wholesome book lovers.” But looking through these pages again, I also found a lot of “huh” and “um?” and “huh?” in my margins.

Although I am revealing my stupid approach to sidebar comments (embarrassing, for a reviewer, to have so many hearts, asterisks and question marks there instead of erudite, or at least articulate, sentences; I actually have the latter, but rarely prove (as useful as shorthand), this holds true for much of “No Judgment”: my excited underlined passages or comments of “haha” and “My God, how true” and “okay, fair” were balanced by many “uh no” annoying. or “okay”.

Oyler's liberal use of the actual “we” at various points in his essays (or, worse still, the strangely accusatory “you” he occasionally resorts to) is irritating, especially since he is clearly excellent at writing from his own particular perspective and is capable of admitting the subjectivity of a first-person statement. There are moments where she is vague in her plot or summaries to the point of causing confusion, but her writing is so good that it's easy to miss them. I was not entirely convinced by her cynical reading of an infamous Online list of men who misbehave in the media industry., For example. Elsewhere, although Oyler claims to have “elaborate rules about gossip,” these are not consistently laid out.

Later in the book, he tells readers that “the critic who praises vulnerability only harms himself: his job is to judge, and the cliché of vulnerability prevents all judgment. And anyway, critics have decided that it is no longer a risk to be sincere, soft, banal. “It is completely safe.” We have? And why do sincerity and sweetness imply banality?

Finally, I am aware that I am among the primary target audience for “No Judgment”: a very online millennial well-versed in the literary dramas and discourses of social media. But being squarely among the book's intended audience means I can also see how easily some parts of “No Judgment” can miss readers who aren't familiar with contemporary online culture or who don't recognize where the dynamics of said culture have seeped into it. in everyday offline life. . This isn't necessarily a problem (not every book is for every reader, and that's okay), but it explains why some critics might, subjectively, consider “No Judgment” too specific.

Ultimately, though, I found Oyler's work stimulating. The fact that at times I was deeply convinced by his arguments and at others I wanted to retort is, for me, the mark of successful critical writing. Reading the book made me want to talk about it, to put it in the hands of my friends so I could ask them, “What did you think?” when they finish it. A collection of essays that invites discussion, dissection, questions, and even counterargument is doing its job well because it makes us think.

“For my money,” Oyler writes, “there are few things more satisfying than encountering a difficult text, film, or work of art and then spending time thinking about it, discussing it, and discovering its meaning.” I couldn't agree more and I was happy to find a text like that in “No Judgment”.

Ilana Masad is a book and cultural critic and author of “All My Mother's Lovers.”