But the thorniest reasons for this cutback, the ones that deal with internal fractures within criticism itself, are just now beginning to be addressed. In his provocative, enormously informative new book, "The Death of the Critic," Rónán McDonald dives into this territory with both sleeves rolled up. He traces the current suspicion of the critic's role to debates that have raged since Plato. Forget about bloggers, cut-rate publishers, and amazon.com (the usual suspects); the critic's killer, McDonald argues, is criticism itself.
The argument typically leveled at this point goes something like this: Most criticism is so poorly written, it's no wonder people move on. Or: The advent of critical theory at universities has become so specialized that it is irrelevant. McDonald acknowledges both arguments but persuasively argues that at heart they are essentially ridiculous, and lumping all critical theory into the unreadable, irrelevant camp is unfair.
Rather than take on the jargon of today's academic theory, though, McDonald is content to describe historical trends, in particular the movement opposing the use of value judgments. What is a critic besides an arbiter of value, though? At the same time as this attack on judgment was being made on criticism, McDonald says democratizing forces within our culture - from the upheavals of the 1960s to changes in our economy, to, yes, the rise of the Internet - have opened the doors to many new voices, many of them young, who now have much more say about the culture we live in.
This has refracted back onto academia. Cultural studies programs have arisen to challenge once (but not always) traditional disciplines like English. In this environment, McDonald argues, voice is more appealing (since the number-one goal is to maintain your attention) than expertise.
