Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

I wrote a while back on the role of the critic, and my disbelief in "objectivity" whenever a critic writes a review. Specifically, I've always found tiresome the people who profess to simply being "objective" whenever they write a negative review. I used to get into lengthy debates with people on Usenet on this topic, people who genuinely thought that they were the arbiters of true greatness in art.

So I'm happy to see today that Roger Ebert agrees with me:

Subjectivity is the only possible approach to reviewing. What is a review but an opinion? Those who call for you to be objective are revealing that they have not given the matter a moment's serious thought. Most times, those calling for objectivity are essentially saying they wish you had written a review that reflected their subjective opinion.

To paraphrase Andrew Sullivan, once again Mr. Ebert gets it exactly right.