[davem]

Originally Posted by SpM

Or perhaps it's because they can see better and will therefore be better able to understand and make use of whatever it is they find ...

I think what's 'in the light' for those critics is what they have been told is acceptable, politically correct, 'right'. They can't handle anything else. They have been told that there are monsters in the darkness, & not to go there because its 'dangerous'.

I'm tired of critics who dismiss fantasy & SF as something childish & meaningless & who seem to take pride in not liking it, as if that's the 'grown-up' position, & who dismiss those genres as being only fit for children or inadequates. They can only handle fiction which depicts the world they know. They only want their limited worldview confirmed & will accept nothing else. They have no desire to learn anything, only to be told that they already know everything important, everything worth knowing.

The BBC just broadcast a program, 'Balderdash & Piffle' presented by Victoria Coren, in which this 'right-on' lady dismissed Lord of the Rings in pretty contemptuous terms. The purpose of the programme (if one can dignify it to that degree) was to discover the origin of various words/phrases (ie 'gay' for homosexual, or 'pear-shaped' for something going wrong) & get them accepted by the OED, or to find earlier examples of words already included so that the editors could amend the existing entries. Of course she failed to mention that Tolkien was one of the greatest philologists who ever lived & also worked on the OED itself. A few decades back it would quite possibly have been Tolkien himself she would have been striving to persuade!

I don't think these critics have read & understood Tolkien & then gone on to dismiss him - most of them have done neither. One of his most vociferous critics, Germaine Greer, has admitted she has only read the first chapter of LotR, yet every opportunity she gets to say something offensive about him she grabs with both hands.

I don't see why we should be polite about those critics & say they have a right to their opinions. Only an informed opinion is deserving of respect. Uninformed sneering by supposedly educated people deserves only contempt. They aren't interested in discovering something new (looking in the dark), but they'll take anything they already know (looking in the light) however worthless it may be....