Of "Guilty Pleasures"

I have never liked the term "guilty pleasure," or at least its usage in reference to the enjoyment of cultural works not conventionally held in great esteem. There is about the term a sense of groveling before Authority that I find deeply distasteful--the more in as in the world of culture and the arts Authority has made its prescriptions and exercised its influence in such a self-serving, treacherous way from the start, and with particularly disastrous consequence in our time.

So far as I am concerned people should like what they like, without guilt--and deal with the value judgments after that, with people thinking for themselves rather than mindlessly following the dictates of a priesthood that it seems to is rather less necessary and more avoidable in this sphere than in so many others.