FROM May 18 to June 7, Wenhui Daily had published five front page articles and a summary that were harshly critical of literary and art critiques today.

These articles asserted that the "degradation and alienation" of such criticisms is a cultural phenomenon that raises concerns.

At the behest of commercial interests, literary and art criticism has already morphed into a farce divorced from truth and reason, to say nothing of ideas and wisdom.

The May 18 article titled "Art Critique, or Art Advert?" opened with an anecdote.

A middle-aged painter was preparing for an exhibition in Beijing. To publicize the show, the painter asked, via an intermediary, an influential art critic for a preview, and named a price for an article that he considered competitive.

The critic scoffed at it, adding that the proffered sum (several thousand yuan per 1,000 words) was the going rate years back. Upon inquiry, the painter learned that rates now have jumped at least tenfold.

According to those in the know, there has arisen today a fairly well-established pricing mechanism for desired critiques, depending on the critic's title, social status, and prestige.

As art critic Jiang Hong revealed, today there are precious few independent art critiques. They have given way to commercialized encomiums, which intend to mislead art aficionados and collectors.

Forums focused on a specific creation, such as a television show, film or novel, have been similarly degraded. At such forums well-stuffed red envelopes ensure participation of a sufficient number of famous critics, who are very generous with their praise.

Some of the most courted critics have to juggle two or three forums in a single day. Although the critics have little time to study the work in question, this doesn't pose a problem; they are quite expert at multi-tasking.

True, the views expressed are largely predictable, but the critics know how to spice up their cliched appraisal with a fair sprinkling of catch phrases and jargon.

These forums are no more than salesmanship.

In the Wenhui Daily article "Why Scholars Should Keep a Distance From the Media" (May 24), one professor, who asked to be anonymous, revealed that at some forums on a certain TV production, the panel of experts is required to strictly follow the scripts provided.

Those who dare to deviate would be blacklisted, and their remarks would be subsequently edited out.

Emerging now is a new breed of celebrity experts, mainly appearing on TV, who are ready to comment any time on any topic, be it literature, art, cinema, social issues or legal affairs.

Ideally their views are expressed with vehemence, or even violence (fisticuffs and verbal abuse) to make for lively TV presentation, and to boost viewership.

This pattern strictly conforms to the market principle of "demand-led manufacturing."

Hence, the need for critics to keep a distance from the media.

The media practitioners, however, have their own share of grievances to air.

One tastefully produced TV program, for instance, has recently been suspended, to the chagrin of some viewers, for failing the viewership rating target for four consecutive months.

Writer Xiao Fuxing commented that "old critical standards and paradigms quickly disintegrate as cultural critique becomes coopted into the cultural manufacturing chain, and what with the battering of individual desires and commercial tastes, criticism has long lost its edge - not to say ethics - in the orgies of mediocrity."

To remedy this situation, self-discipline is needed, but there is also an urgency to liberate enslaved critics from the shackles of commercial interests.

Xiao went on to say that the cultural industry can manufacture consensus of pleasures, which are rather hegemonic, as these pleasures are imposed upon the viewers by TV drama producers, for the sake of viewership and profits.

China TV viewers are treated annually to an astonishing 15,000 hastily made TV dramas. There are virtually no taboos as long as they cleverly avoid reality.

The leitmotif of the age is neither Confucian precepts nor socialist idealism, but pleasure and frivolity.

Spiritual pollution

This "cultural" fast food or trash is exercising a firm control over the people, by depriving them any time to do anything else.

We have been alarmed by trace amount of melamine or DEHP in our food, but we seem to be so tolerant of the toxins purveyed daily to us by the manufacturers of pleasures. These productions are tyrannically lauded as more liberating than the productions reflecting taboos and constraints during times of political extremism.

This state of affairs undermines the basis for any serious discussion, to say nothing of genuine criticism.

Prior to our critics being taken captive by culture-manufacturing interests, our policy makers had already eagerly prostrated themselves before the altar of the market.

Thus, any attempt to purge our national blood of spiritual toxins would fail if it cannot reassess the wisdom of regarding the cultural industrialization as a vaunted state policy.

Professor Chen Sihe of Fudan University, said of this age, "There is nothing serious about it." ("Is There Any Critique Less Than Frivolous?" May 23).

"This is a highly corrosive zeitgeist. Any serious topic brought up would be quickly reduced into lighthearted entertainment," he observed.

A "critical" seminar simply drowns in the whirlwind of wining and dining, hotel stays, and red envelopes. Critical scholarly debates easily degenerate into personal bickering, and charges and countercharges of cliquishness.

Pleasures galore

The moral ecology has deteriorated to a degree that making relevant remarks is not only difficult but dangerous, lest they hurt commercial interests.

Those who have been putting up resistance for years are succumbing to the dictum of seeking the good life.

Thirty years ago any literary journal could keep me entranced for days. Most have perished, and what remain is no longer recognizable.

In the article titled "Professional Literary and Art Journals Losing Ground" (June 2) it is reported that in the 1980s there were more than 40 journals on drama alone, but less than half survive to this day.

The surviving journals are those that have learned the art of of singing to the cadence of the market.

In particular, they sell their pages to those who are required to publish to earn academic titles, to those who do not mind having their works published at a cost, and to companies that want to see their names in advertorials.

Elusive remedy

There is obviously no simple solution to purge our social system of these toxic elements.

We must seriously consider the myriads social factors that force those experts and critics to prostitute their service to the marketplace.

And some policy architects should be held responsible for this sorry condition.

To remedy the situation, there must be first a manifest sincerity and will to do so. That might come with an assessment of the consequences.

Hopefully, those policy makers who still extol cultural industrialization could sober up by visiting some Confucian precepts.

In one of the first Confucian classics, The Great Learning, it is observed that "When he who presides over a state or a family makes his revenues his chief business, he must be under the influence of some small, mean man. He may consider this man to be good; but when such a person is employed in the administration of a state or family, calamities from Heaven, and injuries from men, will befall it together ..."

As a consequence, "Though a good man may take his place, he will not be able to remedy the evil."

That explains why it is much easier to recover from food poisoning.