Anyone who writes fiction so as to speak to the contingent aesthetic standards of a specific spatiotemporal location rather than enduring truths is, in my mind, at worst a propagandist and at best a hack.
If someone looks at what people like and makes a calculated choice in writing so that those people will like what they are writing, then they are a hack. If they do so to elicit a particular response, they are a propaganist. Art is created from the heart, I am arguing here, in an appeal to eternal truths--even if, as in my case, the artist would admit under rational reflection that those enduring truths don't exist. Artistic creation requires the artist to act as if they did.
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Date: 2006-05-18 04:29 pm (UTC)Anyone who writes fiction so as to speak to the contingent aesthetic standards of a specific spatiotemporal location rather than enduring truths is, in my mind, at worst a propagandist and at best a hack.
If someone looks at what people like and makes a calculated choice in writing so that those people will like what they are writing, then they are a hack. If they do so to elicit a particular response, they are a propaganist. Art is created from the heart, I am arguing here, in an appeal to eternal truths--even if, as in my case, the artist would admit under rational reflection that those enduring truths don't exist. Artistic creation requires the artist to act as if they did.