Is critics’ inluence declining? Who cares? “Just as we don’t need bigger, more powerful and intrusive government, neither do we need fewer, more powerful critics. Today’s profusion of self-appointed critics, publishing via blogs and Podcasts and e-mail lists, is a great thing indeed, bringing the truest form of democracy to the once rarified world of arts criticism. Instead of having to work their way through the academic and corporate-media gauntlet, the best critics simply need to say their piece. If it’s solid, it will eventually rise to the top n just as the best art has done, for millennia. And if this means that there eventually won’t be any jobs left for paid, professional critics, so be it.”