The critic can only induce us, and therefore it is we, the readers of criticism, who demand the critic's compliance with certain of our expectations. We expect the critic to see things for us that we are unlikely to see for ourselves until the critic has called them to our attention. That means that we expect the critic to tell us things that we do not already know. So, far from encouraging critics to be objective all the time, I hold rather that a critic can be excessively objective. Indeed, excessive objectivity is a failure that occurs with unfortunate frequency in criticism.
Impersonal criticism is, by definition, objective.
Objectivity, therefore, is manifested in more than just a passive facticity. Objectivity inheres in the substitution of any apriori method for the critic's own perceptions and judgments. It follows, then, that the application in criticism of a political or ideological program that is not the critic's own invention is an exercise in objectivity. And such exercises frequently display the deformities common to excessive objectivity in criticism, which are predictability and pedantry and wearisome uniformity. Political judgments are certainly relevant to criticism, and political presuppositions are probably unavoidable in criticism.