A. D. Coleman: Critical Focus

Postmodernism's hostility to and fear of the faculty of sight is a matter of public record. «The gaze», a purportedly ancient, secret technique of domination hitherto practiced only by men, has been widely identified and demonized as a modern version of the «evil eye». The literature abound with side references to «scopophilia», a pejorative neologism that translates as «the love of looking»; in this construct, the very act of seeing stands frequently accused of inherent, pathological voyerism, with photography as its most pernicious instrument.

So far as I'm aware, no one professing these convictions has had the courage to follow the pertinent Biblical injuction, «if thine eye offend thee, cast it out». But small wonder that the art around which this theory circles offers so little that rewards visual attention; in a climate of such hysterical revulsion at optical experience, who would want to be caught giving or receiving pleasure via the retina?