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outsider looking in, the professional revolutionary who needs the struggle, but not the victory. To become the Establishment when you began in opposition to it does seem to be a contradiction that is all too much to bear, especially when it comes to art. Where, then, is the adventure; where is the freedom? The adventure and freedom of making up the rules instead of enforcing them? Once you become the policeman, can you still be the outlaw? I think our academics would like to think so, but the very idea is silly. 
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That, I think, is why art needs something much more transcendent to rely on than politics, social revolutions and the like. In fact, I would go even further and say that politics is the death of both art and thought. Once the political left identified intellect with political and social revolution, it became morally and spiritually bankrupt. Thomas Molnar discusses this extensively in his book "The Decline of the Intellectual." I am not suggesting that art and thought can be divorced from politics.... Politics is a part of life, and art and thought must deal with life... But they must also in some sense be independent of it, contemplative, critical, uninvolved. The watcher rather  |
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