Value/Evaluation - Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Smith considers the notions of "value" and "evaluation" in literary criticism. The idea of value itself is, as Smith puts it, "so fundamental to our thinking - so elementary and at the same time so general - as to be both irreducible and irreplaceable." Although value often either refers to monetary value or "something like relative [amount of] positivity" - which would be more than vague enough - it's often thought of "as something residing or embodied in objects themselves," rather than generated by an assessment of the object's functions or uses or other qualities. When people talk about "literary value," they often speak of it in this final, most ethereal sense - they (attempt to) disregard all historical, cultural, and psychological standards and speak of "essential literary value" or a work's "value as a work of literature." Smith thinks it would be most sensible to to think of value as "a general name given to a variety of different positive effects" - to consider, and discern, and, presumably, separate, everything from a work's market value to the aesthetic pleasures it affords certain readers.

Our difficulties defining value inevitably challenge the common notion of evaluation. Evaluative statements about literary works are often thought to "valid insofar as they correctly identify the objective value" of the literary work. But as the notion of "objective value" has been so thoroughly undermined, Smith thinks we should consider evaluation as "a continuous process, operating through a wide variety of individual activities and social and institutional practices" - from the author's own point of view on the work to the reviews of critics to the tastes of readers to the syllabi of universities, and on and on. We need to consider as well how the presentation of a work - if, say, it arrives with the reputation of "an American classic" - affects a reader's reception of a work.

Smith does not think, however, that all of our evaluative judgments need to be rephrased to make explicit the tacit assumptions with which we approach a work. Often those assumptions are understood by those with whom we're in conversation; or they implicity share our assumptions and so want to hear an evaluation that appeals to those assumptions; or, if the assumptions are not shared, they will not listen to or be persuaded by our evaluation anyway.

She ends the essay by suggesting that our interpretation of a text and our evaluation of it are inseparable, as "both depend upon the particular assumptions, expectations, and interests with which we approach the work." We cannot get rid of our assumptions when we approach literature, and, even if we could, we would then be left in a position where no work of art would appeal to us, as we would have no orientation with which to approach literature at all.

Smith's essay seems mostly very sensible to me. I might only add that, while I don't think that we need to make explicit our own assumptions when evaluating a work, we should not try to hide them, either. Some arguments explicitly try to appear objective, and it would be unfortunate if this anyone were hoodwinked. Then we'd have to reason our way out of the concept of value as something existing unto itself all over again. I had a professor as an undergraduate who argued forcefully for his points of view. But he nevertheless made his own biases so striking - every explanation was prefaced with "According to Deleuze...", people who had never heard of Derrida were troglodytes, and he told us that if we continued listening to rock music we'd be working in grocery stores when we were in our thirties - that his lectures were invigorating, even refreshing. Here was a strong and clearly delineated point of view, and though he did not qualify any of his own statements, no one could argue with or accept what he said without the consciousness that it was a very specific perspective.