From 2006:
Alas, I’ve found over the years that many people (especially midwesterners, who are trained to say “sir” and “ma’am” and be polite to strangers) become uncomfortable whenever they’re confronted with strongly expressed opinions on any subject whatsoever–even positive ones. It took me a long time to figure out the reason why, which is that all positive opinions have negative implications. If the Copland Piano Sonata is the best piece of piano music written by an American, then it follows logically that the Barber Sonata isn’t as good….
Read the whole thing here.
