Again, Trump has brought all this to the surface. Where are the creative types willing to openly embrace Trump? There are a few, like James Wood and Jon Voight and Clint Eastwood, but they continue to have careers (if they do: Wood’s career seems to be over) only in spite of and not because of their political beliefs. They exist as atoms in places otherwise hostile to them and their beliefs.
Where is the awakening? Where are the smart people of good will willing to ask hard questions about their core assumptions? I can’t go to New York, or back to Chicago, or the Bay Area. As near as I can tell, I am going to need to be the attracting particle in something new.
Avant-Garde, in our current cultural context, consists neither in privileging the past, nor trying to destroy it. There is a Third Way, a somewhat overused but still numerically accurate phrase. It is still possible to bring humility and goodwill to the problems of humanity.
And it seems to me doing something other than shout through a megaphone, in our current situation, would be a big part of doing something actually different and new.