to sum up two points, then

To sum up two points, then, on the topic of “symptoms of really serious work”.

1. Really serious work should be respected by a certain number of people who hate it, or who at least disagree strongly with it. If they like you only because they agree with you, then they just want your results (the intellectual equivalent of “just wanting your body”). They want to use your results for their own purposes, and nothing more. But if they dislike your results but still concede that you’ve got something going, then this is a much healthier sign that something is present that is worthy of respect.

2. Really serious work should not just be attacked, but should sometimes be attacked simultaneously for opposite reasons. That is to say, sometimes people take pride, or pretend to take pride, in the mere fact of being attacked. “I must be doing something right. They’re all attacking me.” But this is really nothing but a smug little debating trope. After all, sometimes things are attacked not because they are doing something right, but because they are shallow and stupid. Some attacks are fully deserved, after all, and are not just the product of aggressive envy.

But being attacked simultaneously for opposite reasons… there is an excellent sign that your position is not assimilable to either side of the trench warfare that usually congeals around any given topic.

Indeed, outflanking intellectual trench warfare is really the only thing worth doing in the intellectual professions.