by Michael Barry

Created on: May 09, 2008

The role of criticism but is it fulfilled?

Critics have approached the arts in a variety of ways, some more useful than others.
At the simplest level, we often get a description of the work itself for those who have not experienced it, combined with the critic's personal, subjective response to it and maybe to various elements in its makeup, production or presentation [ e.g. the abilities of various members of a film's cast, the technique used by a painter in wielding his brushes etc].

However it's the highest, and arguably most complex, level of criticism that is also the rarest, and, equally arguably, most useful to us.

This is the type of criticism:
- that examines a comprehensive and consensually established set of criteria to establish the quality of production/ execution,
- is able to factor in the value of originality/creativity,
- then examines the moral value of the work against accepted norms
- and thereby arrives at a judgment as to whether the work is good or bad or more likely somewhere in the middle.

Describing a work as "interesting" is to my mind an intellectual cop-out, as it admits there is a challenge in recognizing inherent quality, and that this challenge is not being met.

The ultimate quality of a work of art, I am saying, rests on consensual moral values. Therefore I have to admit this quality will be judged variously within different cultures.

I am positing for "our" Western culture a morality that may seem simplistic but that for this reason is more likely to be acceptable to a majority of people. This is the moral value that I can call "life enhancement". The key criterion is the promotion of the maximum amount of good to the maximum amount of people. By this principle, killing and harming others is viewed as morally wrong. Such actions are not, of course, wrong per se within the context of a work of art. They are only "bad" if they are promoted as acceptable. "Guernica" clearly illustrates the pain and agony caused by the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. "Hamlet", like most revenge tragedies, is littered with dead bodies but the moral debates within the play are so fundamental to how we live life that even the killings arrived at in order to seize or retain power contribute to a powerful overall argument in favor of life itself. The result is clearly good.

Even when Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis wade through corpses up to their rippling armpits, right is on their side, even if the issues are painted (a Hollywood tradition!) with extreme

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