The effect is that  cut adrift from richer, intercultural and deeper interpretations crowds will like anything, listen to anything and in fact do anything. Art, in turn, is banalised by either catering to the critic (and thus, public) mind by construcing sub-par work on the pre-approved themes of Gender, Race and Class – or, in puerile denial of fact will tend to gravitate towards easy answers such as chock value, aeasthetics of transfer, or worse.

The critics, and the hive mind of the media (much fuelled by… well, the so called online social revolution) undermine the aesthetic value of art, killing the first impressions of the audience by superimposing petty political interpretations on it. In turn, this turns art into a meaningless, heritage-free babble (remember the renaissance? no? neither do the artists…). This is true in much of the current output of theatre, film, music, drama, literature. Cut adrift from a native structure, art becomes an orphan. A sitting duck waiting for orders. This is a much more useful tool than say, censorship. The latter at least is honest in its intents. Political correctness for its own sake is a clandestine tactic aiming at a far worse outcome – namely, self-censorship.

Piecemeal, art critics, commentators and modern intellectuals are deconstructing our carefully and painstakingly collected cultural heritage, paving the road forward with unreason. I shiver whenever I hear our old masters reinterpreted through this modern narrow prism. A renaissance painting becomes racist (or serves other purposes, depending on the agenda. It might be pro-sexual, for instance), a 18th-century play is turned into a social class commentary and in just about on every occasion, the fairer sex is for some reason of course violated.

What is not said is that some of art is open to interpretation. Sure. Some of it, however – is not. You need to know your culture and you need to know your background. This is your passport to the world of critique. In order to have an opinion you need a solid foundation of knowledge. Personal taste should be a function of knowledge, not the other way around!

By viewing art, and culture, through a narrow, politically set agenda – you are led to believe that taste, just pure taste, is enough. And certainly. When you’ve arrived at all the wrong conclusions to begin with, it doesn’t really matter what you think. Therefore you are allowed to say it. Encouraged, in fact. I’m sure that future artists will have a online commentary of their works, hardwired to the very clay they sometimes work in.

Good art is seldom self-referential. The same is true for critique. Good art is seldom “relative”. The term of relativity is fairly new in both art and conceptual theory. You need to know at least this before making any lofty claims of interpretation. Any pompous form of obfuscation then filtered through the modern trinity of Gender-Race-Class is a dead giveaway that you are witnessing a hoax.

Furthermore, note the way critics and media are imposing the superiority of emotions over intelligence and reason. How one feels is advocated over how one reasons. Once the audience is firmly set in this belief, they will swallow just about anything, because should one critisise anything there is always emotion to fall back on. X is valid because Y feels that it is valid. Looking back on two thousand years of cultural theory just 50 or 60 years ago, a statement like that would be laughable. Today, it is the given truth.

Feelings are important as guides towards reason, not the sole tool of it. Sometimes, feelings are the end result of reason, yet, still not the sole tool of the process of forming an opinion. Western civilisation is on a slipperly slope of intellectual incompetence; perhaps, for geopolitical reasons if no others,  just when we need it the most. Obscurity gets away with nonsense, and the public holds it for truth.

A feature of the modern critic (by now you understand that “critic” means just about any politician, media profile, etc) is the shameless and selfabsorbed reference to science. Making claims that sound researched, or are only superficially researched is often given in abscence of proper evidence (amuse yourself by counting references such as, “the study said”, “in the poll”, etc). Long established rules of what counts for scientifically valid  results become the function of any PR-firm memo or would-be critic online commentary – all the while having nothing at all to do with any real findings, or properly researched issues.

Finally, these mechanics of unreasonable thought enable would-be neo-dandy art critics (no names, this is not the evening press) to dish out hollow, superficial advice to artists and their curators – and get away with it. A crime, if there ever was one. And  far more serious than meets the audience at a passing glance. What goes on in art, is only a sideshow to the heavy damage sustained to western culture.

We need to be level-headed and careful in our judgments – and not give in to feelings as sole means of interpretation.