NOTES; Analytic philosophy—literary theory (as an independent act)—creative writing courses—DESIGN:

All use the intellect to predict value. All value construction over observation, action over response, control over accident. (The appreciation of accidents that happen to others doesn't count), and a preference for theories of a subject to histories of it. Rawls' forgotten 'History of Justice' etc. 

The vogue for criticism as primary act. Secondary acts/texts structured as such envisioned as primary. The critic as intellectual, logical artist. The myth of praxis. Praxis as implicitly fascist. "leadership' defined cynically, only in terms of manipulation. The superiority of the intellectual, who documents the mistakes of others. Contempt for the vulgar and 'popular.' The dream af a prescriptive political grammar. The model of the the new modernity: The aristocratic leftist, James Merrill as a Marxist literary critic. (Anthony Blunt).

I was raised by academics who made their careers out of their contempt for the authors whose works they loved. The hatred of biography—of the named maker—as the hatred of artists: those who are self-indulgent and intellectually sloppy. [But art that is not intellectually sloppy—does not tacitly admit to being sloppy—is dangerous] Only their works are worthy of study. The Bible has no author. Homer is merely a figure, a symbol of a tradition, a synecdoche. 

If something is worthy of an appreciation, by definition those associated with that thing, not only those asscociated with the act of appreciation, should be deserving not only of respect, whatever that means, but of the same emulation the appreciators expect from their juniors. Yes?