Where does the critic get off?

Where does the critic get off?

putting himself above, making judgments

taking others' art and push, shoving it into

boxes where he (pronoun yours) so

eloquently, ignorantly knows

it goes?

you ask

a challenge. I

Well, first:

do not put myself above. A critic

does not look down from above
on art. A critic looks not down,
not up,

but at.

And for some reason thinks what
he (pronoun mine, in my case) sees

allows him
to have an opinion
on this. And that. And
everything else. Which he does,
which he is - allowed. To express,
and not just to have. What makes critics
so special? What makes them have say? Well, they say

and that's that.

There's no badges or hats
or helmets or guns required,
and you won't be sworn in (but
be prepared to be sworn at!). People

don't like a person with an opinion. Well,
people afraid of their own opinion, don't.

So. There's that. But - you're perfectly
allowed to dismiss criticism as a form of literature!

Which it is - quite equal in rank
to novels,
and scripts,
and poems,
and epic ancient classic dialectics,
and drama,
and tragic or comic romances,

Criticism, the form - is
Art. And it stands

to reason that you can like, or
dislike the form, and say so. You are
quite entitled to your own accounting for tastes. And you do
dismiss, with distaste,
criticism

- and say so.

So,

what does that make you? Well,
a critic. For one. And

a hypocrite (two). To
answer the original question:

in your face.