BlogBack: In Defense of Jed Perl

Ken Conley, an artist and teacher from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, responds to my critique of Jed Perl‘s cover story in the Feb. 5 issue of The New Republic.
In other words, here’s a critic of a critic of a critic:
Might you be expressing intolerance for his viewpoint? Why do you feel as though you HAVE TO respond to his positions—to fight back? If he is wrong, conservative, dangerous, etc., perhaps letting his opinions lie there is best? Are you, in a way, proving his points? A more productive position might be to write about specific art with specific ideas that refute or undermine his point of view. Are you attacking him on a personal level, just a little bit?
A Personal Note: In my own blogger’s way of showing respect, I won’t post this, or anything else, in the “Recent Posts” column of the ArtsJournal website, until another AJ contributor posts above Jan Herman‘s Molly Ivins obit.
A tough truth-teller to power.