You write your essays, and send them in. They get rejected, because, oh, something is just not on that person’s horizon or calendar, or they just don’t know you. So if you are to succeed as a writer, you must figure out what that person wants, what makes them tick, then conform to that. Over time, it seems to me, this self censorship becomes so habitual that you forget about the spontaneous obsession for truth and order.
This has been my experience. I send things in, they get rejected, and I know quite well what I am supposed to do. I can see quite well how the game is played, and if I had a different temperament, I would play it. But what I like about myself is inconsistent with that game. If they don’t want my ideas as they exist–subject to reasonable stylistic changes–then fuck them. That is how I view it, for better or worse.
Here is the thing: if one looks at HOW the game is being played, it is being played with profound and distressing mediocrity. Virtually no segment of the mainstream conservative establishment has made auditing the Fed a priority. Nobody is pointing out how banks steal money, or that their structure is inimical to free enterprise and Capitalism outright. Very few are waging the culture war with vigor, other than the occasional lament at how far we have fallen. NEWSFLASH: a return to antique religiosity is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Alternatives are needed. I have proposed my versions, and would certainly love to see more.
But I want to be clear: being nice, never “criticizing, condemning or complaining” is not the path to excellence. Anyone worth their salt WANTS to be criticized; they actively seek out alternative paradigms and TEST them.
Thinking is an agonistic enterprise. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not for people who take pleasure in other people agreeing with them. In my own view, it is for people who take pleasure in facing any and all comers in contested environments and whose arguments–definitionally based on logic and verifiable or at least strongly plausible facts–fare well. You must always be looking for hostile contact. You must WANT to expose your ideas, over and over and over, to people who hate you and everything you stand for. That is where progress is made.
It is not made over the coffee pot with friends– not paradigmatic growth, at any rate. We do not need details: we need new big pictures.