Many great writers of fiction & poetry are otherwise VERY BAD at discussing literature

Being good at writing does NOT imply being a good literary critic or thinker on writing in general

Google “Ad Hominem”: E.g., “If he’s such a good writer, then he must know what he’s talking about when he talks about writing!”

No

Seems necessary to state this, having just read Noah Cicero proclaim, “Literature is basically done. It is like porn, there is enough porn.” (If you are unaware, ‘the death of literature’ has historically been claimed very many times, decades ago.)

& having many times read Tao Lin’s dribble about good & bad in art, full of false analogies (e.g. saying one book is better than another is like saying one color is better than another), straw man (e.g. criticizing art is ‘shit-talking’ / mean) & red herrings (funny blog posts saying “I’M AN ARTIST / A FUCKING ARTIST,” the ‘arbitrary nature of the [entire] universe’, & ‘acceptance of death’ have little to NOTHING to do with actual living humans’ literary judgments)

& having read people’s mindless adoption of these positions toward literature without the slightest skepticism, probably because these positions are all encompassing and readily convenient to adopt when you are confused (i.e., if you are confused about your feelings toward different art [most people are], you free yourself from having to do work & think seriously by just ignoring the whole issue and telling yourself everything’s equal, literature is basically done anyway, etc.)

I like Tao Lin & Noah Cicero & [other similar writers]’ art itself, but TBQH I find their literary/aesthetic theories and comments on writing in general to be utterly stupid.

tl;dr I encourage people to think about “ad hominem” before whitewashing their literary thought with hip catchall phraseology like, “Literature is basically done” & “There is no good or bad in art.”

That is all.

Thank you.