A note to Roger Ebert on art and video games.
I love Roger Ebert. He is, in my view, not only the finest film critic of all time but also a tremendous social critic, political gad-fly and general Fan of Life Well-Lived whose stories and commentaries on everything from rice-cookers to Russ Meyer films utterly intrigue me.
I hold his opinions in high regard. That is not to say that I AGREE with them all the time, but I find that he regularly displays an extremely difficult-to-balance mix of advocacy and objectivity in his writing. Objectivity, contrary to the notions put forth by cable news outlets and the like, is NOT simply the act of “presenting both sides” or of creating a bullet list of positive and negative aspects of the thing being considered. Objectivity allows you to (even DEMANDS that you) take a stand and defend your position, so long as you are willing to have your mind changed by a reasonable counter-argument.