I love reading reviews, & I especially love reading reviews that disagree with my opinion. I think they round out my views, because often someone hates a part of a movie, a book, an album, that I totally didn't notice or didn't really care about. In some cases, really good criticism causes you to think about your own criticism, in the same way that open-minded religious folk will compare & contrast different belief systems when confronted with someone else's faith.
& I am not averse to labels - sometimes they're the best way to get you in the door of the small room of understanding. So I'll describe music as "indie pop" or "post-punk" & it's fine as far as it is - although you can sometimes get into trouble with folks who hate that. Describing Pere Ubu as post-punk, for example, might make someone who knows the timeline correctly note that, actually, Pere Ubu began before punk. But in that case, it's not necessarily a chronological description, it's about a sound... But never mind.
Yet I am just as liable as everyone else to be put off by specific labels - labels which are like warning signs about thoughts or ideas I don't agree with. A book I was really interested in reading, which apparently has been getting decent reviews, was described in a negative review as being funded by a "neoconservative think tank." It turns out this is true, the author got a grant from a neocon group. I immediately began to lose interest. Then I started to think about what this made me think about the author - did I believe this person was so weak-willed & greedy that he'd produce whatever the right-wing group wanted him to produce? Did I imagine it always happens this way, money trumping free thought?
I certainly believe every human being has his or her price, & that it's always embarrassingly low. But my point in bringing up criticism is this: if I can read different opinions & not be swayed away from my own, why couldn't I read something from someone who had no affiliation with a deluded money pit but who took the cash offered him? Even if he were corruptible, I'd at least have some information to consider. (& this person is a scholar, not a right-wing blowhard who's better known for being on television or on the corporate dole.)
It may be because he is in fact a scholar with some well-received books under his belt. I personally can't stand what can best be described as the Jerry Springer school of heated debate - it's just too sad to hear someone talk about what they think about the government or god or society without really having any information to back up their idiotic assertions.
I experienced a great bad example of this on the recent 30 Days episode about same sex parenting. A retardedly religious woman opposed the gayness of the two obviously good parent gay men, & neither side bothered to ask her just why homosexuality offended her so. They took it as read that her religion opposed man-on-man action (& though she was a Mormon, she could easily point to the Bible's anti-gay stance) & she just said she opposed it. It was a waste of a very long hour.
A simple chat with anyone who's actually studied the Bible would've made her look like a fool for blindly parroting homophobe talking points. & the same goes for the gay men - their "live & let live" attitude is relativistic quicksand. A slight change of the wind in our nation & their kids are taken away & they're locked up in camps to "cure" their gayness. They may be buoyed by gay liberation's astonishing successes in the last decade, but they haven't really paid attention to how tenuous freedom is. You think they'd know better.
Ah well. What's that? You think I am writing all this to avoid making my show for tomorrow, which is about avoidance? Nonsense! You're only saying that because you don't agree with me. Say! Who funds you?
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