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Ha Ha!!

Posted by EBerlin (A) on December 21, 2005 at 07:05:05

In Reply to: Re: Although I certainly don't always agree with him... posted by Victor Khomenko on December 21, 2005 at 05:59:27:

Victor, I imagine any readers who bother to pay attention are amused by any exchanges that take place between you and me. Rarely have I encountered someone who I think is so completely wrong so much of the time. If we were to meet and shake hands I think the perfect match of positive and negative would cause us to cancel each other out and we'd both simply cease to exist.

Although I presume you'll reject the very validity of the analogy, let alone the argument within in, I will counter your (to me) simple minded statement about highlighting what is good as a "sure road to mediocrity," with the following illustration.

Let's say two people sit down to a series of 10 meals. To give the argument more traction lets say these are the only 10 meals available over a 10 day period. Person 1 takes a couple of bites of each dish at a meal and concludes in 7 of the 10 meals that "the food sucks" so they stop eating. And sometimes they take a bite of only one dish but find it so gross that they decline to sample the other offerings on the plate. From that one bite they conclude "the food sucks." They only gain a day's nutrition from three of the available meals.

Person 2 eats perhaps a little more slowly, and makes sure they sample at least some of every dish at every meal. Sometimes they try a dish and don't like it much, but look at it and say "Well I haven't had any of that kind of vegetable lately, so if I eat it my nutrition will be more balanced." To compress this a little, person two moves more carefully through the various meals, trying to find as many dishes as they can to eat, maybe even trying to combine two things that aren't so good in the hope that together they become palatable. This second person is more inclined to say, for example: "Well, in two of the meals there was nothing I liked and I decided to go hungry. In three other meals I ate about half of what was there but couldn't get down the rest. In two more there were a couple of garnishes I could live without but on balance it was a pretty good meal. And in the remaining three the food was really good and I ate everything. And in one of those three it was a meal for the ages." In the end person two gains a lot more nutrition than person 1.

Person 2 is obviously the one who is more on the lookout for what's good in a meal, culinary or cinematic. It is decidedly NOT a recipe for mediocrity. It results in an infinitely more nuanced appreciation for what's on the table. And if I ever need a guide to make sure I don't go hungry, I'd go for person 2 every time. I'd let person 1 feel superior to "all those pathetic cooks who don't know their ass from a pan" and sit down to my meal.

In the end, true criticism should be about helping people better understand and appreciate what they see. The point is not simply to a watchdog for a person take on what's mediocre. If that's all a critic does he or she is the very definition of mediocrity themselves.
Elliot Berlin

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