[Aiwendil]

I didn't find the discussion pointless or boring.

I wasn't really talking directly to you (though of course I was responding to your post). If you had quoted me in full:

Naturally, you will find the inquiry pointless and boring if you don't think that the underlying question even exists.

. . . you would see that I was using "you" in the sense of "one". I wasn't sure at the time whether you thought the question was valid or not; I was merely making the point that the entire discussion is irrelevant if one does not agree with the premise.

People blasting published authors who have sold a lot of books. People saying they won't read anything that doesn't have JRRT on the spine or other more obscure authors.

I don't see anything wrong with this. As for the first, certainly it's acceptable to "blast" an author that one doesn't like. As for the second, I don't recall anyone actually saying that, but it would certainly be a person's right to do so.

Popularity seemed to be equated with garbage.

I don't think so. Tolkien has sold far more copies than any other fantasy author. It's actually the less popular ones that are being equated with garbage. And that relation holds true, for me at least, even within the subset of modern, fully commercial authors. I think Robert Jordan is a lot better than, I don't know, the Hildebrandt brothers (yes, they actually wrote a novel - at least the illustrations were good).

I say self-righteous because I'd venture to guess that most of the people in the Rant haven't published word one, let alone a book that sells,

This should definitely not be the criterion by which we judge a person's right to criticize. First of all, there are of course intermediate variables between the ability to write well and the publication of a "book that sells". The Silmarillion never would have sold if it had been published in 1937 as Tolkien wanted. That's not because it was no good, rather because it was not the sort of thing that sells. For that matter, if Tolkien hadn't published The Hobbit (and that happened merely by chance), would we then judge him ill-qualified to criticize published authors? I think not. And he not only had not published any fiction (excluding The Hobbit); he had, in fact, had a good bit rejected.

Second, even if you omit the above consideration, I think it is perfectly reasonable to criticize a piece of art even if you personally could not have done better. If that were true, it would mean that no one could ever assert that Tolkien is better than Jordan; we would be prohibited from saying things like "the plot of this book is too slow" or "the prose in this section is clumsy", etc.

However much I may agree with this statement, it is nonetheless an opinion. Not fact.

A person can take either of two arguments:

1. Art is entirely subjective. It is therefore impossible to say that a given piece of art is superior to another piece of art. It is therefore impossible to argue that one piece of art is superior to another - in which case, you have to acknowledge that, objectively, all art is equal, and you must simply accept whatever someone says as being true for them. Therefore, you must allow people to think that anything non-Tolkien is garbage (and also allow people to think that Tolkien is garbage) without argument.

2. Art is in some way objective. It is possible for work A to be better than work B. Therefore it is justified to say "Tolkien is better than any other author of fantasy", and to support the argument. The proposition may be true or it may be false, but it is not merely an opinion.

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]