No Prisoners

"If the outside puts a value on you and all your inside gets to be outside, yes, you may be a success, but in a way you are a failure." --- Gertrude Stein

You do surrender something when you become an institutionally accepted writer. Those who are so dependent on acceptance, those who believe that their work is being taken seriously just because institutions agree to support them, believe their own press. The most important writers are the ones you don't know, the ones you've never heard of.

You can't oppose the culture and demand to be a part of it at the same time.

Comments

[Scott Walters]

Why is it necessary to oppose the culture? Remember Buckminster Fuller: "You never change anything by fighting something that is already existing. To change something, build a new model and make the existing thing obsolete." To create, it isn't necessary to destroy. Why waste time in opposition?

[Laura]

That's very true. But don't you think that opposition is important to the process of change? The "no, that doesn't work for me" comes before the "I'm going to create an alternative."

I left it deliberately vague, also. Which culture? Heh. I know a number of musicians who oppose today's pop music. Yet today's pop music is institutionally accepted, even while it sinks the music business.

Pondering how many of today's popular artists, writers, playwrights, actors will be truly valued tomorrow is an interesting way to pass the time. ;)