Better Living Through Criticism -A.O. Scott

I like what I like but why do I like it? Well when I read this, and took away from this chapter of Scott’s book I thought okay well why do I like half the things I do or half the stuff I like? Scott the took us into philosophy with Immanuel Kant. Kant who I had just recently learned about, taught the Categorical Imperative type of philosophy dealing with only one rule we all must go by. I thought this chapter as Scott put it is yeah this is about what I like and how if I had a rule to follow I couldn’t like what I wanted to. So I though he had a point and I liked how he use Kant’s way of thinking to show we have our autonomy, our right to do what we pleased.

This made me reflect on my own writing and how I need to show more of why I like certain movies or certain books or certain classes. This taught me to understand the rule of showing in the critiques. I never was able to show why I liked it dealing with words was a hard point for me but describing everything scene by scene so vivid readers like myself can experience what I enjoy. I enjoy reading certain things and visualizing what the author is trying to say. This is where I think Scott is trying to tell us be yourself, but by showing who we truly are through descriptive writing and critiques.