{"id":72711,"date":"2017-07-13T09:11:54","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T07:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/?p=72711\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:48","slug":"dood-van-de-criticus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2017\/07\/13\/dood-van-de-criticus\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of the critic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Robin\" Robin van den Akker<\/strong> (1992)\u00a0is a Lecturer in Cultural Philosophy and Coordinator which is part of the academic programme offered at Erasmus University College. He is also the founding editor of the research platform Notes on Metamodernism that performs research into modern cultural phenomena which are symptomatic for the post-postmodern condition. His research has been published in English, German, Spanish, Mandarin and Russian and appeared in journals like ArtPulse, Frieze, De Groene and Vrij Nederland. He is also a member of the Philosophical Team (Filosofisch Elftal) of the Trouw newspaper. This autumn, the academic compilation produced under his editorship, Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, and Depth after postmodernism, will be published and he will be defending his thesis on the use of smartphones in the public space.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

I<\/h3>

The myth of the origin of Facebook is well known. Supernerd Mark Zuckerberg, as Claire Hoffman once wrote in a portrait for Rolling Stone<\/em>, created \u2013 coded, hacked \u2013 the software for a website called FaceMash from his student room at Harvard. Socially isolated and abandoned in love, he was aiming at ultimate revenge on anyone who failed to recognise him as, well, a great guy, an equal, if not their superior in many respects. Slightly intoxicated, that evening he wrote in his blog (quoted by Hoffman):<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a little intoxicated, not gonna lie. [\u2026] The Kirkland [dorm] facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous facebook pics. I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive.\u201d And an hour later: \u201cYea, it\u2019s on. I\u2019m not exactly sure how the farm animals are going to fit into this whole thing (you can\u2019t really ever be sure with farm animals . . .), but I like the idea of comparing two people together.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that night, Zuckerberg wrote the software for the website and hacked a university database to take profile photos of his fellow students (for which he later only received an official warning). FaceMash proved very popular. The next day, hundreds of students registered to rate their fellows. Hot or Not? Hot or Not? Hot or Not? Times 22,000.<\/p>\n

The rest is history (see film The Social Network<\/em>, for example): Revenge of the nerd. College dropout. Facebook CEO. World Domination. Trololo.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018It means nothing less than the death of the critic and the loss of a shared idea of Goodness, Truth and Beauty. Not Hot\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

The reason why I\u2019m repeating this myth of origin here is that it can be regarded as one of the key moments in the birth of what can be called the online review culture. An application to rate fellow students \u2013 hot or not? \u2013 can obviously be seen as a prototype and precedent for many of our modern social interactions on social media. Take functionalities like YouTube thumbs-up, Instagram hearts, Twitter Likes, Tinder swipes, Foursquare Check-ins. And yes, Facebook\u2019s Like button, the most successful of such rating functionalities with which we constantly share our opinions and feelings.<\/p>\n

And that, dear reader, is one of the most important cultural formative moments of the twenty-first century. Why? Let me make it really dramatic. It means nothing less than the death of the critic and the loss of a shared idea of (to quote Plato) Goodness, Truth and Beauty. Not Hot!<\/p>\n

II<\/h3>
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Perhaps it\u2019s counterintuitive to link the notion of an online rating culture to Facebook\u2019s Like button and similar functionalities. Your initial thought will probably be about websites specifically devoted to facilitating and aggregating products and services such as Iens (restaurants), TripAdvisor (travel) and RateMyTeacher (education). Next, you will think about websites where the products and services are actually bought, such as AirBnB (accommodation), Netflix (films and series) and Amazon (almost everything else). But let your third thought go to the many rating buttons \u2013 thumbs up, smiley, heart, stars \u2013 that you click on every day.<\/p>\n

Where the like button of Facebook, TripAdvisor and Netflix are similar and start to overlap is in the democratisation of the domain that was previously reserved for the professional critic employed by a newspaper, magazine or guide. Together, the three form an ecosystem in which we are able to surf from website to application to platform whilst constantly being invited \u2013 seduced even \u2013 to rate and share our opinions \u2013 from written reviews to thumbs-up, stars and hearts.<\/p>\n

In her book The Culture of Connectivity: a Critical History of Social Media<\/em> from 2012, Professor of Media Studies Jos\u00e9 van Dijck argues that the online ecosystem (and all the various component microsystems) contain norms and values which it communicates to us, the users of social media, and thus becomes rooted in our culture. Technology is never neutral; the medium controls how we view the world and how we behave in the world.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018Platforms and applications in which winners and losers are identified by means of thumbs-up, hearts and balls according to the popularity principle\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Two tendencies are important for capturing the cultural logic which controls the way we review things. Firstly, as Zuckerberg summarised in his recent \u2018Facebook manifesto\u2019, social media is like a \u2018short-form medium where resonant messages get amplified many times. This rewards simplicity and discourages nuance.\u2019 It was a rare lucid moment (followed by the usual ideological lingo). Secondly, as Van Dijck observed, Facebook\u2019s Like button reveals \u2018an ideological predilection: it favors instant, gut-fired, emotional, positive evaluations (and by implication, negative evaluations).\u2019 I feel that this applies to the entire ecosystem of websites, platforms and applications in which winners and losers are identified by means of thumbs-up, hearts and balls according to the popularity principle.<\/p>\n

Because of the low transaction costs and the fairly simple level, together these tendencies ensure that the online rating culture too often simply generates \u2018cheap talk\u2019, as Ray Fisman from the Columbia Business School called it. And such cheap talk is what prices the professional critic and commentator out of the market and submerges them in the attention economy.<\/p>\n

III<\/h3>
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Many an evangelist from Silicon Valley will claim, based on The Californian Ideology, the dominant ideology of this tech region, that this is a good thing. This ideology concerns a framework in which, besides the sense of superiority of the hacker culture which we were introduced to in Zuckerberg\u2019s student room, the apparently opposing ideological blocks come together in a \u2013 more or less \u2013 happy marriage: the ideas about cybernetics from the 1940s and 1950s, the hippie communes of the 1960s and 1970s and the neoliberal investors of the 1980s and 1990s. These groups find each other in the belief that non-hierarchical, horizontal interactions between equal and autonomous actors \u2013 i.e. peers \u2013 will always lead via feedback loops to dynamic networks (such as information systems, communities and markets) which tend towards a harmonious optimum: Goodness, Truth and Beauty.<\/p>\n

IV<\/h3>
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Back to the modern day rating culture. You will now have realised that all rating functionalities \u2013 the reaction fields, the thumbs-up and the hearts, the stars and the balls \u2013 are part of an ideological apparatus in which we are pre-programmed to constantly give feedback to a dynamic network that \u2013 in theory \u2013 should lead to a harmonious optimum. I say \u2018theoretically\u2019 because this should mean that the continuous stream of online reviews, opinions and ratings should produce the most aspirational cultural expressions, the most elaborate (journalism or science-related) studies and the most literary novels, universally well reviewed \u2013 or at least universally accepted \u2013 due to, you\u2019ve guessed it, the Goodness, Truth or Beauty that they embody. And that\u2019s not usually the case. The problem is not so much that no distinction can be made between feedback consisting of cheap gossip or an informed opinion.<\/p>\n

The problem is that in terms of The Californian Ideology, this distinction is by definition unimportant or even undesired. On the free market of expression, everyone is equal. For \u2018hippies\u2019, because democratisation involves the promise of non-hierarchical diversity. For venture capitalists, because consumer preferences are supposed to guide the invisible hand of the market. And for cyber gurus, because it embodies the wisdom of the crowd. And so the threshold for expressing opinions must be kept as low as possible.<\/p>\n

A striking illustration of such low threshold dynamics is Netflix\u2019 recent move from a ratings method based on a comment section linked to a star rating (from 1 to 5) to a review system with a binary choice between \u2018like\u2019 and \u2018dislike\u2019. The old method resembled the way a critic reaches a substantiated value judgement; the new system mobilises the rapid taste judgement, based on consumption preferences.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018It results in echo rooms constructed by algorithms in which we are only presented with what is easy to digest because we have already had a taste of it\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

The reason? Too many reviewers provided arguments for their rating on the star system \u2013 although in the unnuanced, sensational terms of this short-form medium, but anyway \u2013 because they were reviewing for others, an audience. And that isn\u2019t how it\u2019s meant to be. \u201cFive stars feels very yesterday now,\u201d said a Netflix top man at a press conference. By introducing the thumbs-up system, more evaluations must be generated, so that Netflix\u2019 algorithms can make personalised suggestions, in line with what \u2018I\u2019 like.<\/p>\n

It illustrates that the democratisation of the value judgement, linked to the free market of expression, leads to a consumer logic whereby Goodness, Truth and Beauty is translated into what feels good, true or beautiful, is nice or not nice, for you and yours. It results in echo rooms constructed by algorithms in which we are only presented with what is easy to digest because we have already had a taste of it.<\/p>\n

All this creates a paradoxical situation. The increased diversity of reviewers leads to an unambiguous experience of the world, built on grandstanding and pleasure. And the democratisation of the value judgement leads to the tyranny of the popular, devoid of critical comments or alternative sensibilities.<\/p>\n

V<\/h3>

The \u2018crumbling of hierarchy and expertise\u2019 in times of social media, as journalist Suzanne Moore described it in The Guardian, has led to an existential debate about the status of the serious criticism offered by the professional reviewer or commentator. When anyone can make a judgement and share an opinion without any real knowledge of the matter, based on personal preferences and expressed in unnuanced terms and the popularity principle based on algorithms leads to the automatic link of people to preferences (in terms of goodness, beauty and truth), what is serious criticism worth?<\/p>\n

The short answer is that serious criticism points to that which is not good, beautiful or true in the popular and moves towards what is good, beautiful or true, but not popular. It thus opens the exit of the echo room to a more varied landscape with a diverse noise. The long answer is that the true critic guards two issues which are essential for a democratic community: the well considered judgement and a shared idea of Goodness, Truth and Beauty<\/p>\n

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The well considered judgement exists by virtue of taste preferences and knowledge of things. The true critic only reviews things that she is genuinely interested in \u2013 even loves \u2013 and about which he\/she has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge. And to arrive at a well considered judgement, the critic first explores \u2013 in a self-reflexive moment \u2013her gut reaction and delays her judgement.<\/p>\n

She then analyses the present (How was it executed? And why exactly this way and not differently? And does it work?) and places it in a historic context (Has this been done, made, claimed before? And is this better, cleaner, more correct?). Only in the last instance does the critic compare it with her own experience. What is its impact on me? What does it mean for me? These are questions which are often not \u2013 and certainly not in that order \u2013 asked in an online review culture in which we find, as Daniel Mendelsohn described it in his A Critic\u2019s Manifesto for The New Yorker, \u2018a lot of heat, but not a lot of light\u2019. By asking these questions, however, the real critic shows how they formed an opinion and offers the audience the opportunity to follow her or not in this judgement. She thus offer a guide for beginners, a training module, so that we can practise our own critical judgement skills.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018Not everything needs to be immediately commented on, liked or shared\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

The light that the true critic shines in an era when we tend to utter judgements via our screens (\u2018hot or not?\u2019) and share in our echo room, makes us, freely interpreted, think of Plato\u2019s allegory of the Cave. He describes a group of people living with their backs to the light, watching shadows of themselves projected on the wall, which are their reality. For Plato, only philosophers \u2013 the relevant critics \u2013 can lead these people to the source of the light and thus to real knowledge. The highest form of knowledge which can be aspired to, you\u2019ve guessed it already, consists of an idea of Goodness, Truth and Beauty. The allegory illustrates that a community cannot exist without a shared (but dynamic) idea of exemplary behaviour in a cultural sense, the beauty in artistic sense and the truth in a journalistic and scientific sense. Because these are the kinds of shared and aspirational values which everyone can test themselves against and in which the community can recognise itself as a community.<\/p>\n

VI<\/h3>

Now that the online review culture is beginning to overshadow the true critic and we increasingly reside in our \u2018cave\u2019 type echo rooms filled with emo-simplism, we gradually lose our critical judgement abilities and a shared idea of Goodness, Truth and Beauty. Populism and polarisation await us.<\/p>\n

What to do? I don\u2019t have a ready made solution. Let\u2019s start with postponing action and thinking, postponing our judgment \u2013 just when we feel the temptation to respond immediately because we think, feel that we have something important to say. Not everything needs to be immediately commented on, liked or shared; most things should first be studied, analysed and considered.<\/p>\n

And then subscribe to newspapers, magazines and guides where critics are still active \u2013 from progressive to conservative, from left to right \u2013 so that we can start seeing and reading them again, and the whole spectrum of Goodness, Truth and Beauty.<\/p>\n

VII\r\n<\/h3>

Is this an elitist appeal for the true critic and the importance of the well considered judgement and the shared idea of Goodness, Truth and Beauty in times of social media? Yes \u2013 you bet. Got a problem with that?<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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