There is an ecosystem of artists, an unknown underground, and the successful ones that we see copied the unknowns and yes, are able to make it when the culture is ready. Elvis with bluesmen who often toiled in obscurity for decades....THEN its time has come to the culture when it's sanded down and offered to the greater culture at large. Even Elvis' hips were too much at first... until they weren't.
We used to have genius gatekeepers who knew when culture was ready, or thought they knew.
But now, yes, everything is for a paycheck which changes the dynamic, and the secret weirdos can't live cheaply and there's no more underground as we've been priced out everywhere and everywhere is for sale.
So your theory is only taking in the age of internet, which has made us all whores.
However I believe people get tired of crap culture at some point, and that's when the thinkers and artists already on the fringe become the pretty people again because we get desperate for a new idea story or way out or around. Then they'll be copied by someone more relatable palatable and famous, and it will seem that they came out of pop culture, when they were carrying other underground ideas forward that had already been discussed much earlier and tested in the underground few know about.
I'm not at the beginning level myself; I just know to look for them. The weirdos no one knows and people think are mad.
I know one or two in real life, and John Michael Greer is an online example. He's considered hella pretty now.
Nice article. You alluded to it, but it would have been interesting if you highlighted some of the downstream effects of economic incentives on politics, art, culture, morality etc. Much of this can be arguably be attributed to the high-time-preference fiat monetary system which encourages debt, borrowing and consumption over productivity, savings and long-termism in general.
Your idea that environment preceeds culture which preceeds art reminds me of the Talebian (and Matt Ridley amongst others) notion of practice (tinkering and trial and error) preceeding theory with respect to innovation and discovery. Art is like a cultural observation / feeling, which is in turn a reaction to environmental conditions. In the same way, a fancy formula describing the stability of a building may be a theorisation of processes developed organically by master-apprentice relationships over generations.
thank you very much for reading and sharing these thoughts.
high-time preference rules everything around us, unfortunately. to fix this, we must return to valuing that which is not immediately measurable. rationalism overwhelms societal decision making, and it does not understand the unquantifiable. a terminal flaw.
Dear Dmitry,
There is an ecosystem of artists, an unknown underground, and the successful ones that we see copied the unknowns and yes, are able to make it when the culture is ready. Elvis with bluesmen who often toiled in obscurity for decades....THEN its time has come to the culture when it's sanded down and offered to the greater culture at large. Even Elvis' hips were too much at first... until they weren't.
We used to have genius gatekeepers who knew when culture was ready, or thought they knew.
But now, yes, everything is for a paycheck which changes the dynamic, and the secret weirdos can't live cheaply and there's no more underground as we've been priced out everywhere and everywhere is for sale.
So your theory is only taking in the age of internet, which has made us all whores.
However I believe people get tired of crap culture at some point, and that's when the thinkers and artists already on the fringe become the pretty people again because we get desperate for a new idea story or way out or around. Then they'll be copied by someone more relatable palatable and famous, and it will seem that they came out of pop culture, when they were carrying other underground ideas forward that had already been discussed much earlier and tested in the underground few know about.
I'm not at the beginning level myself; I just know to look for them. The weirdos no one knows and people think are mad.
I know one or two in real life, and John Michael Greer is an online example. He's considered hella pretty now.
Always a good day when I see JMG get a shout-out on Substack.
Nice article. You alluded to it, but it would have been interesting if you highlighted some of the downstream effects of economic incentives on politics, art, culture, morality etc. Much of this can be arguably be attributed to the high-time-preference fiat monetary system which encourages debt, borrowing and consumption over productivity, savings and long-termism in general.
Your idea that environment preceeds culture which preceeds art reminds me of the Talebian (and Matt Ridley amongst others) notion of practice (tinkering and trial and error) preceeding theory with respect to innovation and discovery. Art is like a cultural observation / feeling, which is in turn a reaction to environmental conditions. In the same way, a fancy formula describing the stability of a building may be a theorisation of processes developed organically by master-apprentice relationships over generations.
thank you very much for reading and sharing these thoughts.
high-time preference rules everything around us, unfortunately. to fix this, we must return to valuing that which is not immediately measurable. rationalism overwhelms societal decision making, and it does not understand the unquantifiable. a terminal flaw.
Is Mr Beast the artist of 2010s / 2020s?