I am not, by profession or temperament, either of those things. I did bring my twentysomething nephew with me as a control subject, but although he had two margaritas, he liked the show only marginally better than I did.

What I couldn’t control for is taste. Arts criticism is in some ways a paradox, like Marianne Moore’s “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” Critics try to make objective judgments based on responses they know to be subjective.

So when readers are stung (or just annoyed) by my pans, I remind them that fighting about theater is often the best part of the show.

And when they insist, “You’re wrong: I had a great time,” I respond that I’m glad. I don’t need them to agree with me.

But I have to agree with myself, which is why I said that it was my “responsibility” to pan “Escape to Margaritaville.” Not just because the theater needs to set a higher bar for musicals. And not just because — let’s be honest — writing pans is invigorating. Every critic savors Oscar Wilde’s observation, in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” that on certain occasions “it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure.”

What really makes a pan a responsibility is that criticism is a form of journalism, which is, in theory, a form of truth. A critic reports honestly on his own thoughts and feelings, as if they were a war or a trial. They often are both.

So when I see something as objectionable and cynical as “Escape to Margaritaville,” I believe I have no choice but to say so, in terms that match the size of the feeling. That other critics may feel otherwise (though in this case few did) doesn’t matter, because the point is to let readers navigate by a steady aesthetic star.