Book Review: BETTER LIVING THROUGH CRITICISM by A.O. Scott

Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth by A.O. Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"That everyone is a critic means, or should mean, that we are each of us capable of thinking against our own prejudices, of balancing skepticism with open-mindedness, of sharpening our dulled and glutted senses and battling the intellectual inertia that surrounds us. We need to put our remarkable minds to use and to pay our own experience the honor of taking it seriously."

I've been thinking a lot lately about my hobby, which is writing a few paragraphs about what I read, or what I've seen, and immortalizing them forever in my own small space in the internet. I used to think it was just an online scrapbook of sorts, mainly for an audience of one.

Lately I've come to realize that it could mean so much more, but also there comes the self-doubt... why do we put ANYTHING out on social media?

New York Times film critic A.O. Scott has written an entire book that pays tribute to his profession and those that came before him, and yet manages to also be a polemic against his naysayers, couched in what seems to be polite and philosophically neutral language. It was a bit of a shock for this reader to find that he would alternate in tone from serious, near-academic writing in some chapters, to a tongue-in-cheek interview in the next one. He would interview himself! LOL.

Still, for its imperfections, there is much wisdom to be gleaned from one who loves his craft passionately, and thinks of it in the most ideal way possible. We are all critics, Scott says. It's just that some folks spend more time and effort on making sure their critical thoughts reach more than just their family and friends.

Scott also describes the current art world and the role of a professional critic. In an era of professional hype creators and marketing campaigns, he writes that an objective voice is necessary in order to help the truly great become recognized, because if everyone is awesome, then no one is.

"How are you supposed to choose, in the face of this abundance? What will guide your choices? There are really only two options: marketers, whose job is to sell—that is, to spin, to hype, to lie—and critics, whose job is to tell the truth."

Why should we even care about art, when there are bigger problems? This was the question I think Scott failed to answer, taking it for granted that anyone picking up his book would already care so much about film and music and theatre and books.

I think we ought to care about art the way we should care about politics, about our transportation system, the systemic moral corruption everywhere. Art reminds us of the best that humans can be, even when it chooses to highlight the worst. And the fact that I'm reflecting so much about it is already a point in favor of Scott's book.

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