
The idea that critique is diminishing is a valid one, and one that I believe in. Critique brings truth and it keeps authors honest about the product that they’re giving to the people. Critique is failing because everyone wants to be right in what they say, no matter the blasphemy that comes with their notions. Critics if they are honest do a service to the people when they put forth their thoughts on the work of an author or a scientist. If the public was less gullible then critique would still have a place in society. One question to be asked is, what is the job of the critic? A better question is, what has happened to critique is this new age of misinformation? John Oliver took a comedic yet responsible attempt at criticism of scientific studies and the media. Scientific studies in this day and age are very rushed. Scientists are pressured to submit any new information in the name of discovery. This causes for scientific studies to have very little useful information but just slight correlations. 

The job of the critic is to be unbiased and truthful. A critic should never be too critical with their judgement. Being overly critical can do as much damage to writing as not being critical at all. John Oliver does this well in his segment on scientific studies. He not only points out their sensationalizing titles but backs up his claims with facts from the articles. He is not overly critical but instead a fair critic. Critique has been made small by those who cannot stand to be wrong or want to have their spot in the limelight. Critique has also been made small by critics who are too biased to see the good or bad in something. Some critics become famous for their inability to be objective. Critique is starting to look like a distant memory from a time when people felt it important to uphold truth to the public. There was also a time when the public wasn’t so easily led from the truth or decided not to accept the truth.

The media is guilty of sensationalizing the most minute scientific studies. They take key words from the articles and create and eye catching title for the viewers to see, just for television ratings. One example used by John Oliver in his segment on scientific studies was Time Magazine having the headline that read “Scientists Say That Smelling Farts Could Prevent Cancer”. The article was really saying that some sulfide compounds are “useful pharmacological tools to study mitochondrial dysfunction”. Not only does that title not even seem scientific but also doesn’t explore the actual study the article is based on. No one is held accountable for this type of behavior anymore, there are not enough responsible critics around to contest the idiotic claims. The viewers are also to blame for claims like these being publicized. Most of them are too blind to see an article for what it is instead of what it says. Stephen Colbert did a Comedy Central segment on “truthiness”. Colbert says several times over the course of the video that he goes with his gut feelings not facts. An example was when Colbert says “There are more nerve endings in your stomach than in your brain and if you think that’s wrong, you probably read it in a book.” This is a common theme that rises behind conspiracy theories. There are theories out there like that the Moon landing was fake and that the Earth really is flat. If there was an embodiment of “truthiness” it would be conspiracy theorists.

Latour writes “What has critique become when a French general, no, a marshal of critique, namely, Jean Baudrillard, claims in a published book that the Twin Towers destroyed themselves under their own weight, so to speak, undermined by the utter nihilism inherent in capitalism itself- as if the terrorist planes were pulled to suicide by the powerful attraction of this black hole of nothingness” (Latour 4). The American public would know better than to believe this but the French public would be misled about the events that occurred and yet there is no criticism applied to his claim. What does it say about today’s critic that books similar to Baudrillard’s can become bestseller’s? Criticism has hit its lowest point in history.

To me criticism is a necessity. There were times in my life when I didn’t take criticism very well at all. Part of my growing process was learning how to take criticism without offense and also being able to give objective criticism. Reading Latour’s essay was refreshing to me because it felt like someone was really speaking to the direction I feel the world is heading into. When I see news stories that do not make sense, I always wonder where the skeptics are but they are always silent. There is no attention given to the critics who are only trying to help improve the pool of information available to everyone. Sometimes I have felt afraid to speak up when I do not agree with something because of the repercussions of disagreeing but Latour’s essay has really stressed to me the importance of speaking up. We all have a duty to speak up when it could be beneficial. There is a greater responsibility I feel from reading this to make sure to put my point across. “Is it really too much to ask from our collective intellectual life to devise, at least once a century, some new critical tools? Should we not be thoroughly humiliated to see that military personnel are more alert, more vigilant, more innovative than we the pride of academia, the crème de la crème, who go on ceaselessly transforming the rest of the world…” (Latour 19). It is the job of the scholars to be the fair critics in the world. It cannot be left in the hands of those who cannot see the best interests of the people. Over the years, scholars have been put to shame those who choose to make their own uninformed conclusions. Critique is too important to be left in the hands of anyone else. We are quickly heading to a time when criticism is dead and unnecessary. Everyone wants to have an opinion yet no one is brave enough to have that opinion judged. People want to get it right the first time but trial and error has not posed a problem in the past.