The Critic
By: Safal Mukhia
Tags: Critical Thinking, Knowledge, Opinion Piece, Crític, Questions

The role of a critic is one that is abhorred by many. There have been many occasions in which I’ve entered group discussions where people have huddled together around a particular belief system or approach. When questions and objections were raised, it created discomfort, which is understandable. But the issue occurs when the questions and objections are swept under the carpet or largely glossed over and ignored, even though it is registered. To make things worse, many of these groups tended to identify themselves within intellectual circles or of having intellectual commitments.

You learn a lot about a person’s character, intellectual honesty and commitment when they are questioned. Discomfort is a natural response, but if a person truly values notions like “truth”, all you have to do is raise legitimate questions and see how they respond. If a person can overcome their discomfort and address the points, join you with the questioning or admit to gaps in their knowledge, then you have greater reasons to trust the legitimacy of this person. But one must also have the sense and education to detect a person who admits to their ignorance merely because they have not put in the effort to learn, from those who have but are still well aware of their ignorance and in search of answers. I have never seen an intellectual worthy of the title who only has answers or who flounders at the sight of challenge.

But to play the role of a critic doesn’t mean just any kind of questioning will do. Contrary to a popular mantra, I believe there are ‘bad’ questions, or at least there are better questions and worse ones. Better questions are built on a certain foundation or path of enquiry. One must be committed to the process of learning and thinking if they are to play the role of a critic in any meaningful way. There are many who speak trouble and shake imaginary castles. But intellectual commitment, I think, demands a degree of precaution and resistance to hasty generalisations. One must at all times be conscious of the limitations and fallibility of the human mind. It is a path of mental toil and struggle, and I have never had any good reason to believe someone who says or behaves like it is otherwise.

We all struggle with the demands of intellectual commitment, but I think we all would like to have the ability to preserve and defend our ideals and point of view with reason without resorting to undesirable tactics such as violence and complete severance of contact with different perspectives. The struggle is apparent because as social and political creatures, we all have at least some vague notion of what we would want the world to be like. So we tend to conflate what is with what we would like. We are all aware of this, but it’s funny how often so many of us do it anyway. The boundaries aren’t always clear, but when it is, it is important to keep them separate. While ideals can motivate and provide purpose to our lives, only an inflexible egotist of a high degree would drill down one garden path when the trail this leaves behind is less beneficial to others or to advancing inquiry than an alternative would be.

So the role of a critic is of someone who wishes to be learned and who takes seriously their place in the world while seeing problems and where things can be improved, either in intellectual or the moral realm. The critic only realises their role when they place themselves against established norms and ideas. Someone who defends ideas that are already embedded and established can also serve an important role, but it is not that of the critic. The critic can only really be of any use when they are up against some current and where the possibility of change awaits. Bravery is something the critic must learn to cultivate, for they are seldom popular. It is probably also for this reason that they cannot be too bothered by others’ opinions of them and it may often be necessary for them to truly value and believe in ideals that amount to more than themselves to withstand backlash and cold shoulder (in some cases, worse).

Why have I confined the role of a critic to this restrictive sense? The simplest answer is because while there are many who can call themselves a critic, I think the role I have highlighted resemble critics who in fact do serve a valuable purpose to improving human condition, knowledge and expanding the reaches of our consciousness. There could be other notions of a ‘critic’, but those that do not try to live up to the standards that I have alluded to, do not serve this important function.

It is also worth highlighting that to play the role of a critic, one must also make their conceptions actionable in some way. There are no easy answers, but we always have the choice to learn from one another and take the steps forward together.

The importance of actionability also highlights, I think, the limitations of the critic. When one plays a particular role too often, it becomes a force of habit. A person must realise this and see that the role the critic serves has to be temporary, but never forgotten. The critic is not always desirable or conducive to upholding or pursuing those flimsy but truly important aspirations like “truth” or “justice” because so far as we know, these ideals themselves aren’t fixed. Time and time again, new ideas and structures must be erected. While the critic highlights where the ills and problems within the current structures lie, it is important for them to then try to build new structures without being too hung up on the problems they have raised. This, I think, encompasses some of what I mean by the importance of the role of action and where further learning must be sought after.

Much of what I have said here is as a witness of others who have played the role of a critic prominently, sometimes to their own detriment. Some of it is my own observations. Someone who has never thought for themselves either out of habit, fear or comfort cannot recognise a critic in the sense I have tried to sketch, let alone play in that role. But the role of a critic must also be supported and balanced by one that is committed to creating something new.