Before critical practices can be expected to change, critical protocols, the rules for following rules, must change. But critics only follow protocols that lead them to the objects of their desires. At present, by making them compete for limited rewards, universities induce conflicting desires and fragmented self-images in literary scholars. For instance, error becomes a heuristic device. Protocols that tolerate difference emphasize agreement and de-emphasize falsification and competition.
Competition divides and segregates, divorces and segments.
It induces paranoia.