The Challenge: Disinterested Critique
Says Goethe; “the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward and see how much we have yet to do”.
The challenge to criticism is disinterestedness! Why we can and should choose the path to DI (disinterestedness) is the discussion this OP will attempt to initiate.
Criticism can show DI by keeping aloof from the practical view of things; by the free play of the mind on all subjects upon which it touches. “Its business is,…simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas…and to leave alone all questions which will never fail to have due prominence given to them”.
The world is full of partisan and emotional criticism, right and left. It is filled with various sound bites and bumper stickers advocating nostrums that are promoted with bluff, bluster, and bravado. We, who are of the DI critical thinking mind, will remain disinterested to such malarkey and try to take the path less traveled. To take the path of disseminating truth as we can perceive it so as to lay a foundation for new ideas with new approaches to old problems.
The DI critique approach must recognize that its approach is long range resulting in significantly large rewards if successful. This approach creates and nourishes fresh new foundations for the structure of new ideas. This approach lays down a foundation of intellectual grounding that provides for a solid structure but, of course, it will be a painful activity because emotional rage seems to be the order of the day and that rage will express its anti-intellectualism by focusing attacks on those who seek to make a different way.
I think that such an approach must somehow foster an appreciation of the purely intellectual sphere that focuses attention on that which is excellent in human capacity.
Quotes and ideas from “Essays in Criticism” by Matthew Arnold 1822-1888
The Challenge: Disinterested Critique
Moderator: Moderators
