anneapocalypse:

Critical reading and textual analysis are really good skills to have, and I definitely do get tired of the “English teachers are liars and nothing actually means anything and if a writer did anything cool it was accidental” attitude I see batted around on here, but to say that if everyone had better analytical skills we’d all come to the same conclusions is… really reductive and missing the point of what critical analysis actually is.

Also it’s important to understand that critical analysis involves applying a theoretical framework or interpretive lens to a text–and because there’s a near-infinite number of potential frameworks or lenses, two equally rigorous critical approaches can draw completely different conclusions from a text.

Critical analysis is subjective. You should be skeptical anytime you hear, “If you just knew how to think critically, you would agree with me,” even if you do happen to agree with the viewpoint being put forth.