For the defense …

… The Critic's Job and Why It Matters | Books and Culture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Better Living Through Criticism is not a how-to manual for aspiring critics, but something much better: an intelligent, lively defense of criticism itself and, thereby, a backdoor argument for bringing both one's intellect and gut to bear on one's experience of art. Which is simply to say that Scott wants us to act like humans—not merely brains on sticks, not only bundles of emotions—when we encounter the things that other people create.