Is anybody a critic anymore?
I've been reading "A More Beautiful Question" by Warren Berger in which Berger, while exploring how to frame questions in an effort to innovate and implement new ideas, shares an exercise about starting the exploration of an idea by simply asking questions and turning those questions on their heads. I've been thinking about the role of criticism in society, and in an effort to practice that exercise, I'd like ask a few questions:
1/ In a world where everybody is a critic (Yelp reviews, Amazon product reviews, Twitter/X comments, Instagram, etc.) is anybody a critic?
2/ Is a review or a rating the same thing as a critique?
3/ What is a critique? How do we separate something that's critical from a critique?
4/ What does it mean to be a critic?
5/ Have we (collective society) demonized the role of the critic?
6/ Is critique something that is inherently too technical to be of value to general society?
7/ Is critique thriving anywhere?
8/ What role do critics play in society? Is it a valuable one?
9/ Is crowd-sourcing an opinion more useful than a critique? What about a handful of critiques?
10/ How do we know if a critique is good?
11/ How do we set aside our personal beliefs about the critique (e.g. it agrees with my worldview or it disagrees with my worldview) to assess 'goodness' or 'value' of this critique to its field, or to society?
12/ Are awards critiques? E.g. can we think of the Man Booker Prize or the James Bear Award as a form of critique?
13/ Does anyone want to be a critic anymore?
14/ Do we have time to critique?
15/ Does critique have a role to play in general society? Does critique exclusively matter in niche, technical interest groups?