27 August, 2024
- "Let people enjoy things"
- Dismissal - a weapon
- What we like is who we are
In the architecture, computing, and medical fields, a stress test is performed on systems to observe structural integrity. Buildings, software, cardiovascular treatments, respectively, are subjected to conditions that push each system beyond its limit in order to identify points of stability and collapse. Once identified, the systems are improved until the test is passed and the stress is withstood.
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To “let people enjoy things” (LPET)[1] is to demand, once again, a frictionlessness in the experience of one’s interests. The rejoinder is often parroted back to people who open up avenues of critique online. Someone posts a critical take on a piece of media online and the deluge of “let people enjoy things” and its variants comes shortly after. (To be clear, there’s a distinction between criticism as critical comments, logical arguments that seek to illuminate an issue or a problem with something, and criticism as proclamations of like/dislike. I’m referring to the former.)
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The LPET refrain is a devious rhetorical device. It lets the wielder do the following things: defend their interest in ‘x’ media, rallies other people who like ‘x’ media to dog pile, all while shaming the other person for their supposed high-brow moral high ground.
It is the populist’s ultimate weapon: total dismissal.
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Criticism is rhetoric’s “stress test.” Anticipating potential criticisms allows one to put one’s own argument through the stress of counterarguments. The fewer damages, the more structurally intact. The more structurally intact, the more evidence that one’s argument is strong. The building is standing, the computer runs, and the heart keeps thumping along.
Stress is unthinkable to the LPET-devotee. Instead, LPET forgoes the test altogether. It is the equivalent of a little kid squeezing their eyes shut, plugging their ears, and singing “lalalalala” until the other person stops talking. It is the complete disengagement from critical discussions. It is a total dismissal in favour of preserving the LPET-devotee’s idolatry of a tv show, movie, character, book, etc.
LPET ultimately renders any and all criticism to be the work of unfun spoilsports. LPET paradoxically accuses critics of elitism while vehemently defending that their interests are not unserious. And if they embrace a piece of media’s “unseriousness,” it is somehow evidence that the critic doesn’t know how to have fun and won’t let anyone else have fun. Lighten up! You’re dismissed!
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Stress tests are necessary to ensure safety and reliability. Criticism works in the same way.
But somewhere along the linguistic way, criticism has taken a personal turn. Criticism has become a personal attack (and online, it likely is lol!!). No longer does criticism help strengthen and refine an argument; now, it helps unmask how rotten the writer of the argument is as a person, how their morals are failing, and how laughably bad their taste is.
These days, what we like is who we are. And if what we like can be subjected to criticism, so are we. If what I like isn’t good, neither am I.
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Next up:
- Balance
August 2024
Footnotes:
1. Kate Wagner breaks down the LPET mindset much more deftly and expansively in this Baffler piece. I remember reading it a while ago and only pulled it up again after I finished writing this. I credit Wagner as my subconscious starting point!