A Business Doing Pleasure with You

There are nefarious forces at work in the sphere of taste. Dislike and possibly judgment itself have been outlawed. Phalanxes of stans stand ready to dox critics and unbelievers. Haters are held at post-point until they recite, and believe, that article of anti-critical faith: “Shhh. Let people enjoy things.” Those endowed with a special sensitivity to great and obscure works are identified and converted to MCU fans, perhaps via a mechanism resembling the government-mandated “handicaps” in Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron.” A few renegade tote-bag-carriers on the train hide their NYRB Classics behind the latest Sarah J. Maas novel.