The Critic – Maximizers and Satisficers
By
Francis Raven The purpose of art criticism is to have a rational basis
for art appreciation and to avoid the subjective opinions of individual
taste. Art critics describe,
analyze, and then judge a work by noting whether various criteria apply. One way this rational basis is maintained
is by instituting criteria, which can then be used to guide criticism.
In fact, the words ‘critic’ and ‘criteria’ are both etymologically
derived from the Greek word ‘krinein’ which meant to judge, discern, or
decide. On the surface, this
indicates that the critic’s main job should be to generate criteria and
help her readers decide whether these criteria have been met by a particular
artwork. A distinction that Barry Schwartz makes in his book,
The Paradox of Choice, is
particularly helpful for thinking about the role of the critic. The thesis of Schwartz’s book is that choices have become increasingly
complex and that this imposes huge costs on each of us. To begin understanding how people make
decisions such as which car to buy Schwartz divides people into two categories:
satisficers and maximizers. On the other hand, to satisfice “is to settle for something
that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might
be something better. A satisficer
has criteria and standards. She
searches until she finds an item that meets those standards, and at that
point, she stops. As soon
as she finds a sweater that meets her standard of fit, quality, and price
in the very first store she enters, she buys it—end of story. She is not concerned about better sweaters
or better bargains just around the corner” (78). Satisficers, it should be noted, are not
queens of mediocrity, they merely know what they want, they have criteria
for picking out what they want, and they have a relatively easy time picking
out what they want. In terms
of people’s personal psychological make-up, the basic idea is that being
a satisficer is better for a person’s well being than being a maximizer. On the face of it, maximizers appear to be the better
candidate for being critics. After
all, we want our critics to find the best artwork, restaurant, movie,
etc. We don’t want our critics to settle, we
want them to find something amazing for us. And even if it is better for a person’s psychological well
being to be a satisficer we still want our critics to be maximizers. After all, we do not care about the well
being of the art critic (or any other kind of critic), only about what
they can tell us about art. However, David Hume’s analysis of the ideal critic,
might change our minds concerning whether critics should be maximizers
or satisficers. In his famous
essay “Of the Standard of Taste” Hume outlines how a standard of taste
is possible. He believed that the “true judge of the
finer arts” possesses five attributes: “strong sense, united to delicate
sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared
of all prejudice” (Paragraph 23).
These five attributes are each separately necessary and jointly
sufficient for a person to become an ideal critic.
He wrote that the agreement on aesthetic issues between critics
with these attributes is “the true standard of taste and beauty” (Paragraph
23). Thus, ideal critics
generate standards; they do not attempt to exceed them as maximizers would. Hume’s remarks indicate that the group
of true critics would generate standards of taste that others might follow.
For what we want our best critics to do is to generate criteria
and standards for us so that we can follow them.
We don’t want them to find the best production of Angels in
America; we want them to tell us what qualities would make a production of Angels
in America good (and possibly
even great). Satisficers have good taste, maximizers are merely insatiable.
Taste is, after all, a systematic feature of human aesthetic experience
as opposed to the striving grabbing associated with maximizers and sale-bins. The satisficer generates criteria primarily so that he can
make a decision about what to see and do (given his limited resources). And if the critic is a satisficer these
criteria are extremely beneficial to the critic’s readers because they
inform the reader of the reasoning behind the critic’s regard for a particular
work. This enables the reader
to begin to do a little critical work by employing the critic’s criteria. If the maximizer is taken as the model for the critic
then criticism would consist only in recommending goods to other people. The resulting criticism would consist
merely of top-ten lists, which are merely laundry list of restaurants,
artworks, movies, etc. that the critic subjectively thinks are great. I’m sure everyone knows what a top-ten
list is, but this compendium (http://www.artsjournal.com/issues/Yearend99.htm) of millennial-type top-ten lists is an exemplar of
the form. It’s not that there’s
anything particularly wrong with top-ten lists, it’s just that they can’t
be what we mean by criticism. They
don’t provide us with a rational basis for art appreciation and indulge
in, instead of avoiding, the subjective opinions of individual taste. The main problem with top-ten lists and
with criticism as recommendation in general is that anyone can recommend
art (or wine or restaurants, etc.).
But this is not what we mean by criticism for if it were criticism
could not be great. If recommending these things were all that criticism
came to then the critic would have no specialized knowledge. Whereas, to the contrary, in fact, the
critic’s knowledge consists in the standards and criteria he generates. Thus, a critic should be a discerning
person not a grail seeker. Critics
should think of earthly delights (of what makes them earthly), not of
possible heavenly delights that might or might not exist. That is, they should live in the actual world and refrain from
contemplating the metaphysics of possible worlds. One great example of satisficing criticism is in the
magazine Cook’s Illustrated. The magazine is like a Consumer Reports
for cooking, aimed at enabling home chefs to know the criteria by which
they can perfect a variety of meals.
For example, in a recent issue, one of the featured recipes was
for pumpkin cheesecake. The article on the cheesecake outlined
exactly which steps were most important (and which steps could be safely
disregarded), these included drying the pumpkin out before mixing the
ingredients and having a water bath for the cheesecake while it was baking
(which prevented the cheesecake from souffléing). Basically, the test-kitchen chefs at Cook’s Illustrated make 400 of whatever recipe they’re attempting to critique
(and improve) and in the resulting articles outline what standards the
home-chef must follow to obtain great results. The Cook’s Illustrated approach is to test a recipe over and over until the set of criteria for
making that recipe are generated.
In fact, in a criticism of their approach, a reader of Cook’s
Illustrated cookbook Baking
Illustrated wrote, “What may
be the best FAST recipe may fall flat on its face for ENTERTAINING or
for MOST HEALTHY. The ‘Cook’s Illustrated’ team generally goes for a good
compromise between fast and tasty.”
(http://books.lockergnome.com/sys/products/item_id:0936184752/search_type:AsinSearch/locale:us
). This is a criticism of
the satisficing approach that Cook’s Illustrated uses. Another example of satisficing food criticism was a
review I saw posted in the window of an Indian restaurant where I once
ate (I wish I could remember the name; it’s in San Francisco’s Financial
District). The review read
(in paraphrase), “I’d eat there every week if I lived around the corner.” This reviewer was outright saying that
it wasn’t the absolute best, but that it was good enough if you lived
around the corner. He was,
in essence, signifying that he was a satisficing critic, not a maximizing
one. And, in this case, his review left a potential
patron of that Indian restaurant with a standard to follow, namely that
if the potential patron lived around the corner he would not have been
disappointed with the Indian restaurant. One might think, however, that even if the critic should
not himself be a maximizer he should nevertheless write his criticisms
for maximizers. This would
be another mistake. Critics
cannot write for maximizers because a maximizing strategy exceeds reason
(which means that sometimes it is inspired, usually not). Critics, then, are also looking out for the satisficer, not
the maximizer. They generate
the standards for the satisficer.
This focuses the task of the critic: it is not for him to find
the best pizza in New York, for this is merely trivia, but to find instead
what makes for a good (or even great) New York pizza. However, critics need not merely be satisficers, but
must also be able to write criticism for satisficers (if, indeed, these
two things are different). That
is, they need not only to be able to follow standards, but must also be
able to generate them. However,
the fact that critics must in some sense be above satisficers might lead
some to wrongly believe that they should be maximizers.
This train of thought will inevitably lead to the disintegration
of standards in favor of top-ten lists. What the distinction between the maximizer and the satisficer
shows us is that the critic’s job should be seen as one of generating
standards for the satisficer to follow.
So critics, stop trying to offer us up the best. Why don’t you give us some rules for choosing
between the objects of your criticism? Why don’t you bring your systems of choice out into the open
for all to see? Don’t worry,
it won’t mean that you will be replaceable; it will only mean that you
will be more useful. |