greil marcus on criticism as getting carried away.
I think criticism, or a critical engagement with history, has a good deal to do with a willingness to be fooled, to take an idea too far, to bet too much on too small an object or occasion, to be caught up and even swept away.
— Greil Marcus, The Dustbin of History, h/t David Cantwell, “Greil Marcus’s Critical Super Power,” New Yorker, 2 December 2015.