Wonderfully written and essential reading for anyone who cares about creativity and honesty.
I'm of the mind that pop culture, music in particular, has run its course and we need new forms of expression. If we can break this era's suffocating censorship by self-appointed boundary beaters, there might be something truly remarkable on the horizon, but only if a significant portion of the population understand its importance.
I'm not sure who offends me more, the cowards or the puritans.
I’m afraid the censorship is also a punishment by the mediocre upon the most creative. Those who can’t, administrate, and their envy has a nice outlet on whom they choose to spend their particular pot of public money, and on whom they don’t. The fig leaf du jour is then to pretend you are “protecting’ the over-indulged souls that could not possibly live in a world where your demonised artist is allowed to thrive. When excellence is actually demonised as elitist, the very best of our artists are facing discrimination for the crime of being better than those failed artists who hand out the money.
I loved this short but beautifully written book when Andrew first released it in 2021. I never grasped just how prescient it would turn out to be. Our virtue signalling society seems to have lost sight of the fact that free speech and free expression lie at the heart of all healthy, progressive cultures.
The Renaissance, Baroque, Mannierism (and on) artists were dependent either on private mecenate (kings, princes, magnates) or the Church. And painted and sculpted what they were told to. Otherwise no comissions were given to them. Yet those epochs gave us some of the most powerful art. I guess the freedom of expression started with the Impressionists of the late XIX Century? So is this really about the freedom?
I might as well have missed the point of this piece, so forgive me.
Wonderfully written and essential reading for anyone who cares about creativity and honesty.
I'm of the mind that pop culture, music in particular, has run its course and we need new forms of expression. If we can break this era's suffocating censorship by self-appointed boundary beaters, there might be something truly remarkable on the horizon, but only if a significant portion of the population understand its importance.
I'm not sure who offends me more, the cowards or the puritans.
I’m afraid the censorship is also a punishment by the mediocre upon the most creative. Those who can’t, administrate, and their envy has a nice outlet on whom they choose to spend their particular pot of public money, and on whom they don’t. The fig leaf du jour is then to pretend you are “protecting’ the over-indulged souls that could not possibly live in a world where your demonised artist is allowed to thrive. When excellence is actually demonised as elitist, the very best of our artists are facing discrimination for the crime of being better than those failed artists who hand out the money.
I loved this short but beautifully written book when Andrew first released it in 2021. I never grasped just how prescient it would turn out to be. Our virtue signalling society seems to have lost sight of the fact that free speech and free expression lie at the heart of all healthy, progressive cultures.
The Renaissance, Baroque, Mannierism (and on) artists were dependent either on private mecenate (kings, princes, magnates) or the Church. And painted and sculpted what they were told to. Otherwise no comissions were given to them. Yet those epochs gave us some of the most powerful art. I guess the freedom of expression started with the Impressionists of the late XIX Century? So is this really about the freedom?
I might as well have missed the point of this piece, so forgive me.
A really nice read, Andrew, and a nice Segway into the dilemma of comedians at present.