Hmm …

… Commentary: John Simon, Clive James and the future of criticism - Los Angeles Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I almost stopped reading when I came to the palaver about white male privilege, but I soldiered on. "Criticism requires more humanity than connoisseurship." No, it requires both in proper measure. The role of a critic is to accurately and precisely describe his encounter  with what purports to be a work of art. And no, I will not apologize for using the pronoun "his." People from my generation and before understood that in this case it means human, not male.