The Writer’s Blade

Shame on Times art critic Christopher Knight for expecting readers to buy the vitriol he levels at the New Criterion and its editor, Hilton Kramer (“The Little Journal That Can’t,” Dec. 29). How can one take Knight seriously when he employs the very tactics he is chastising?

Kramer is prone to jeremiads, as are most writers whose work appears in his magazine. But just because he is paranoid does not mean people aren’t out to get him all the same. One of those is clearly Knight, who seems obsessed with proclaiming the error of the New Criterion’s ways.

One must ask, however, if the New Criterion is indeed misguided in its lamentations. Perhaps we should be concerned about the disintegration of a shared culture in America. Maybe the tyranny of “political correctness” that now looms on the not-too-distant horizon is cause for some worry.

Knight makes several references to Kramer having an ax to grind. That may be, but it appears the New Criterion is not the only journal where sharpening blades is accepted practice.

DAVID MERMELSTEIN

Los Angeles