Re: Davidow on "Transmigrations"

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

On Thu Apr 3 07:56:09 1997, Dan Kazez wrote:

> Poor Wolf Krakowski has shot himself in the foot. Krakowski's rebuttal to
> Ari's review reads like the ravings of a lunatic. Knowing nothing of the
> situation, but seeing Ari (who I don't know personally) publicly skewered,
> allow me to lend a strong vote of confidence to Ari.

Let me state clearly at the outset, I don't know Dan Kazez, I don't know
Ari Davidov, I don't know Wolf Krakowski, I haven't heard Wolf Krakowski's
CD, I haven't ever heard one note of Wolf Krakowski's music, and I haven't
read Ari Davidow's review.

I have, however, read Wolf Krakowski's rebuttal to Davidov's review, and I've
read Dan Kazez's defense of Davidov.

Despite the lack of context, reading Krakowski's rebuttal did bring me one
definite conclusion: the place of the critic on the Internet is different
from that of the critic in the print media, because on the Internet the
subject of the review has as much access to the medium, and thus to the
reading public, as the critic. In other words, the roles are reversible:
the critic can be judged as a performer by a performer acting as a critic.
The public can be the judge.

That's why I don't think it's very helpful for members of the audience to
"take sides" "knowing nothing of the situation." A "vote of confidence" is
beside the point. This isn't to be handled like a political issue. 
Krakowski's rebuttal, while strongly worded, does not read "like the
ravings of a lunatic." It raises issues of real substance which are
recognizable as leitmotifs in the cultural debates that have been going on
within the Ashkenazic Jewish world for the last 50 years. Whether these
issues really have any connection with Davidov's response to Krakowski's
CD I don't know at this point. But I think we ought to find that out before
coming to any conclusions. And by the way, coming to a conclusion, or at
least formulating questions, does not necessarily mean taking one person's
side or the other. We are perfectly capable of coming to independent 
conclusions, that some points are valid and some are hot air, no matter
which side they come from.

Itzik-Leyb Volokh (Jeffrey Wollock)