介绍:
Artistic judgment 艺术判断力
Everyone’s a critic 大家都是评论家
Apr 16th 2016 | From the print edition
Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth. By A. O. Scott. Jonathan Cape
THESE are tough times for the gatekeepers, for those who claim a certain expertise and get paid to pass judgment. The oracular voice of authority is being drowned out by the aggregated voice of the Everyman, the credentialled scholar dethroned by the anonymous Wikipedia contributor. As assessments of quality are increasingly crowd-sourced—through the Facebook “Like” button, the Yelp review, and algorithms predicting preferences based on previous purchases—the professional critic is marginalised as at best irrelevant and at worst the embodiment of an elitist and undemocratic patriarchy.
1 drown out （声音）淹没（另一声音） 2 Everyman |ˈevrimæn| 普通人；常人 3 aggregate |ˈægrɪgeɪt| 总计；合计 4 credential |krəˈdenʃl| 提供证明书（或证件）5 dethrone|ˌdi:ˈθrəʊn; 美 -ˈθroʊn|废黜（国王或女王）；撵下台；免（某人）的职；罢（某人）的官 6 assessment |əˈsesmənt| 看法；评估 7 crowd-sourced 众包 8 yelp |jelp| （因疼痛等）尖叫 9 algorithm |ˈælgərɪðəm| 算法；计算程序 10 marginalize |ˈmɑ:dʒɪnəlaɪz; 美 ˈmɑ:rdʒ-| 使显得微不足道；使处于边缘；使无实权; 11 irrelevant |ɪˈreləvənt| 无关紧要的；不相关的 12 embodiment |ɪmˈbɒdimənt; 美 -ˈbɑ:d-| （体现一种思想或品质的）典型，化身 13 elitism |eɪˈli:tɪzəm; ɪ-| 精英统治；精英主义 派生词：elitist 优秀人材; 杰出人物; 杰出人物统治论的鼓吹者; 14 patriarchy |ˈpeɪtriɑ:ki; 美 -ɑ:rki| 男性统治的社会（或制度、国家）；男权政治；父权制 14 pass judgment 明断 15 oracular |əˈrækjələ(r)| 神谕般的；天书般的；高深莫测的
Yelp是美国最大点评网站，2004年，Yelp在旧金山起步。2012年3月2日登陆纽交所，股票代码为“YELP”，共发行715万股普通股。按照15美元的发行价计算，Yelp融资额为1.07亿美元，目前市值为60亿美元。Yelp创建于2004年，由前贝宝（Paypal）工程师杰里米•斯托普尔曼(Jeremy Stoppelman)和罗素•西蒙斯（Russel Simmons）共同创建。
Few people are in a better position to respond to these slings and arrows than A. O. Scott, a film critic for the New York Times. As he points out in “Better Living Through Criticism”, his newbook in defence of his own profession and of the critical faculty in each of us, “critic” has always been ranked somewhere between “undertaker” and “tax collector” in terms of popularity. Artists tend to regard critics as parasites on real creativity, while the general public asks what gives them the right to pronounce on matters that properly belong to everyone. “Criticism is not nice,” Mr Scott admits. “To criticise is to find fault, to accentuate the negative, to spoil the fun and refuse to spare delicate feelings.”
1 sling |slɪŋ| 投石器 2 slings and arrows 祸殃（指不利的因素、事态）3 critical faculty 批判能力 4 undertaker |ˈʌndəteɪkə(r); 美 -dərt-| 殡葬承办人；殡仪服务员 5 undertake|ˌʌndəˈteɪk; 美 -dərˈt-| 承担；从事；负责 6 tax collector 收税员；税务员 7 parasite |ˈpærəsaɪt| 寄生虫；依赖他人过活者 8 accentuate |əkˈsentʃueɪt| 着重；强调；使突出 9 spoil |spɔɪl| 破坏；搞坏；糟蹋；毁掉
10 delicate |ˈdelɪkət| 柔和的；清淡可口的；清香的 delicate feelings 温情，细腻的感情
But it is also essential. Without thoughtful and disinterested judges, everyone would be at the mercy of the marketers. “Culture now lives almost entirely under the rubric of consumption,” Mr Scott says, and it is the critic’s job to step in to protect the audience from the hucksters, the frauds and the sell-outs. Criticism, then, “is not an enemy from which art must be defended, but rather another name—the proper name—for the defence of art itself”.
1 disinterested |dɪsˈɪntrəstɪd; -trestɪd| 客观的；无私的；公正的 2 at the mercy of 任…处置；对…无能为力；任由…摆布 3 rubric |ˈru:brɪk| 标题，提示，说明 4 consumption |kənˈsʌmpʃn| 消费
5 huckster |ˈhʌkstə(r)| 强行推销的人 沿街叫卖的小贩；上门推销员 6 fraud|frɔ:d| 欺诈罪；欺骗罪 7 sell-outs 脱销货
Despite that, it is often the artists who are quickest to condemn. Among the more creative defences Mr Scott mounts is that artists are essentially critics, paying tribute to or improving upon the work of their predecessors. Quentin Tarantino (pictured) and the Coen Brothers, for instance, are not only film-makers themselves but also students of film, their work informed by countless hours spent analysing images on the flickering screen. “A work of art is itself a piece of criticism,” Mr Scott asserts.
1 condemn |kənˈdem| 谴责，指责 2 mount |maʊnt| 组织;发起;开展 3 tribute |ˈtrɪbju:t| （尤指对死者的）致敬，颂词；悼念；致哀；吊唁礼物 pay tribute 致敬，朝贡 4 Coen Brothers 科恩兄弟5 flicker |ˈflɪkə(r)| 闪烁，摇曳 6 assert |əˈsɜ:t; 美 əˈsɜ:rt| 明确肯定；断言
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