A Modest Proposal for Abusive Criticism

Over at The New Republic‘s new book blog/site “The Book,” Rebecca West is not ashamed to preach a new gospel:

[It] is the duty of writers to deliberate in this hour of enforced silence how they can make art a more effective and obviously unnecessary thing than it has been of late years. A little grave reflection shows us that our first duty is to establish a new and abusive school of criticism.

Bookbread fully endorses West’s path towards a non-pacifist kind of criticism.  Perhaps Johnny Rotten would be willing to endorse it.