The New Romantics
The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.
The role of the artist
It is a mistake and a misreading of nature to think that you, a living creature, will be flourishing all the days of your life.
I’m not languishing, I’m dormant - Austin Kleon
“People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.”
The God you find in the pub
So this is what’s happened to the world: optimization trumps human preference. The people who want to win the argument are effectively prepared to ignore human truths to preserve the integrity of the artificial model.
Adam Grant • Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent?
"The Chinese say you need three things for paintings: the hand, the eye and the heart,” says the painter David Hockney. “I think that remark is very, very good. Two won’t do. A good eye and heart is not enough, neither is a good hand and eye.”
Head, heart, hands
Do we need to practice being human again?
Karen Rosenkranz • Practicing being human
Simone Weil, writing in Oppression and Liberty (published posthumously in 1955):
“Never has the individual been so completely delivered up to a blind collectivity, and never have men been less capable, not only of subordinating their actions to their thoughts, but even of thinking.
L. M. Sacasas • Attending to the World
I do not want to be in the business of manipulating your split-second attention.
Nishant Jain • 249. Your Art should Reflect your Curiosity
“Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laidwhile you’re at it,” I told them. “Punk isn’t a hairstyle; it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems. And it’s still happening right now, all over the world.” MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what... See more