 Culture Criticism

Ms. Katrina Stuart Santiago is an independent culture critic and an opinion writer from
Manila, with a decade of work in print and online. She talked about “A Heritage of
Smallness: The Crisis of Criticism in the Philippines”. She discussed how smallness culture
interconnected from the book of Nick Qoaquin is still existing in the Philippines. For her, the
heritage of smallness is the crisis of criticism in the Philippines and in general.

She mentioned “the cultural cliques” isn’t just having a circle of friends gathering together
and sharing information about arts, rather it is more about the position of power that they
earned or inherited. In addition, she also acknowledge the smallness of barkada in terms of
concentration of power in one group which will always realized that it is problematic in
different terms. And by that, we must be aware who is more powerful, because if we are
unaware then we don’t know who will command what to do, or why we actually doing
someting. In “the creation of an echo chamber” she explained that it is difficult to disagree
when there are a lot of other people who agreed on a specific topic, and she used twitter as
an example of echo chamber. Her experiences as a young critic is in lined with “familiarity as
a form of silencing”, since she knew people it’s either her workmates, classmate or even met
in an event it is more easier for then to criticize her since they are close to her, she can
possibly be attacked personally. And since there is echo chamber and familiarity, it is difficult
to criticize and might possibly end up second guessing yourself.

“Criticism is not welcome here (and self-criticism is oh so different)” she explained in this
idea that her as a critic, she can be attacked or questioned as a person and can experience a
lot of confusing decision especially when you knew who did the job. And it is hard for her to
criticize and write criticism because of how people can easily judge her piece, because they
might not be okay with what she saw, but she knew that there will be people who may not
agree with what she said. In her idea that “criticism within the smallness is difficult” because
there are acceptable criticism, but people might take your criticism in a negative way. She
also shared that the unwelcomeness of criticism is what kept her writing.

In the article she wrote entitled “Slim pickings at Manila’s lit fest 2011” she knew that time
that her criticism and her piece can affect her relationships with her friends and the people
she knew or that knew her. She realized that criticism is an uncomfortable and unwelcome
conversation that people don’t really want to be engaged. Because the reaction that was
kept in smallness will still spread. In her another articled entitled “Burn After Reading” she
still experienced negative reactions for example is she was questioned about her milestones
and achievements from people and what’s worst is those reactions came from her friends or
people that was really close to her to the point that it’s unexpected to receive negative
reactions from them, because they are close to her it’s easier for them to hit her personally.
After that she realized that “Criticism is an expansion on what exists, towards what it could
still become” since criticism is a very conscious practice, we let criticism abuse us that is why
criticism must be thought and learn as well as understand first before talking about the
specific criticism. She discussed that “Criticism can and will be taken personally (and so brace
yourself) especially in social media since there will be tons of different views and opinions
from different people. “You will often feel like a voice in the wilderness (Your inbox will
serve the T.) She asserted that the more you talked about something, the more you have
alone voice. And she shared her inbox is full of messages asking her to talk about specific
topics from readers, even that voice is alone, that voice is powerful.
Why do they continue to do criticism? Even if they lose their friends and if doesn’t pay well –
“Because criticism is necessary: how do we build new houses without a sense of what’s
wrong with old ones” she explained to understand what’s already existing, to be able to do
better. Another reason why they continue to do criticism is “Because criticism is critical: the
muscle we flex to critique cultural works is the same one we need to critique politics and
governance” even the popular criticism is something huge it is still needed to be criticize.
And the last reason why they still do criticism is “Because criticism is an act of hope: it carries
with the belief that we can do better, and we owe it to each other to be so.” And this is
important as a critics even other people see and say that it is destructive and it’s negative
but those are old misconception about criticism. She also added that many people still
believe that criticism is essential, and still see that criticism believes in being better and
that’s important in any aspects.