Caleb Crain asks, "[Along] what axis, if any, is a critic allowed complete freedom?"
The answer that comes to mind is that a critic should be free to offer his or her own opinion. But suppose a critic is completely persuaded by a book that champions the conservative economic principles of Friedrich Hayek, known today as a hero to Libertarians. Is the critic free to express his or her positive opinion in, say, The Nation? I have no doubt that if The Nation ever assigned such a book to such a critic, its editors would do their duty and brace for letters to the editor. But it isn’t probable that the editors would choose to feature such a book in the first place, let alone send it for review to someone likely to endorse it.
True, the constraint occurs before the critic enters the picture, but it’s still a constraint. Reviewers who want to keep writing for The Nation will be sensitive to it. I don’t mean to pick on The Nation, which I write for and am very fond of. Every publication has similar constraints. It’s rare, for example, to see a multigenerational novel praised in the New Republic as heartwarming. Do readers of reviews resent these constraints as a pernicious impediment to freedom of expression? I’d argue, to the contrary, that readers choose their favorite publication in part because of these constraints—because they trust that its reviewers share certain political and aesthetic touchstones.
The Dish 