Literary Criticism for Humanity

Literary works are appearing in a number of weekly and monthly magazines, weekend newspaper editions and in book forms to satisfy the curiosity and the needs of the people who have not got full satisfaction from the TV serials and Cinema versions of the old and the new literary masterpieces. Literature is not there just to amuse and entertain only but it is there to protest against the wrongs of the government and point out the ills of human society and change them for the better. Indeed literature is a wholesome treatise meant for the true service of humanity in general. It is the only subject that enlightens the mind, enlarges the horizon for human thinking, fulfils the wishes of the heart, satisfies human soul or spirit, makes human beings better human beings and leads everyone towards perfection in life. 

Constructive Social Criticism Necessary

Like literary criticism social criticism is very essential for the maintenance of human values and human excellence in all walks of life in the world. Social criticism is practiced by the critics both negatively and positively. Negative criticism is nothing but fault finding and making unnecessary comments over the social ways and means of the people and so it is harmful, detrimental and destructive to human society and its values. But positive criticism is concerned with the benefit, development and upliftment of the society and its values people cherish most in the world. Therefore social critics of the second type are very important and have got a great job to do to maintain human culture in the world. So, the critiques from this type of critics have to be welcomed.

Social standard dependent on Quality of Intellectuals

Social critics, who are responsible for upholding human culture in order to make peace, prosperity and happiness prevail in the world forever, are the intellectuals belonging to various fields of human endeavor in the society. The intellectuals of the nations are the politicians, film makers, journalists, writers, reformers and the workers of humanity who have direct influence over the minds of the people. It is the opinions of these intellectuals that make the world better or bad. 

As this is so, it has to be said that the tension, turmoil, chaos, wars and other ideological crises are due to the manipulations of these intellectuals rather than due to the backwardness or ignorance of the common men in the world. The quality of administration, justice, education, news reports, film productions and the standards of social, economic and cultural activities of the people have gone down in the present day world mainly due to the poor standards these intellectuals follow in their services for getting cheap popularity in order to capture power in high position. So, the intellectuals have to cherish high ideals and adopt principles and standards to do their respective jobs in the world and administer what is good and great to the human society. 

Solutions by Critics

The job of the critics is not just to point out the mistakes but to suggest means to correct them. Their duty is to interpret the best human values like love, truth, justice and liberty wherever they find, to make judgment over human issues whenever they come across basing those values and to submit their valued and critical comments in times of crises to the world both for the understanding of and the guidance to the people. To do so they should not be just intellectuals but also human beings with human sympathy. In brief, they should be emotionally balanced, intellectually mature, logically skilful and morally straight forward, if they pride themselves to be intellectuals or social critics forever.