Thinking about Kroll's essay, I am reminded of something my MA academic advisor told me: "other critics need not be wrong for you to be right." I have always taken that approach in my own writing, where rather than wasting time in trying to prove others wrong, I rather spend my efforts in showing a different way to consider things. Kroll seems to arrange everything in dualistic opposition though, and try to find some resolution that is in the center. When writing criticism, I certainly don't want to compromise with others--in a way what others think doesn't really matter. But again, Kroll places it into a two sided issues.
I think that there are grievous errors in this very method of thinking, and that this error lies behind all the endless bluster and argument. There is always this notion that there are only two sides to an issue, and that perhaps they can merely compromise, but that's about it.
Well, I suppose things are more stratified in political type issues--which is perhaps why I find political issues so boring. But even there, I think the much more interesting thing is to find a third way--born not of compromise but of oblique thinking.
This is what I teach my students.
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