Windbag alert and attention conservation notice

[substitute]

I have developed a manifesto-sized idea and am about to blog it out. You have been warned. Long essays making a large cultural point can't be sold and published conventionally unless the author is a respected and eminent intellectual or a rock 'n' roll star. Those who can, do; those who aren't, blog.

This may fizzle or may be several essays; I'm not sure where I'm going to pinch off the blog yet. Because of TL;DR in this post-literate medium I present some bullet points below for those who aren't going to plow through the thing.

• Irony is worse than dead, it's suicidal.
  
  
• Stop celebrating bad art, bad food, and evil. There's a place for enjoying things that are so bad they're good. It isn't the place called "the entire culture." Giving up on quality of any kind has more serious consequences than we might think.
  
  
• Phony postmodernism kills. Take the risk of being well-meaning and sincere. A couple of poorly understood Cultural Studies classes does not confer the privilege of detached Godhood.
  
  
• Permanent adolescence is no improvement over permanent childhood. Living our lives fully and meaningfully is a duty to others and not just to ourselves.
  
  
• Subcultures, fandoms, and gaming worlds are eating a generation of privileged and educated people alive when we could and should be doing well and doing good. Come out of the couch fort and live.
  
  
• Cheap fatalism is a crime of privilege. Admitting defeat in advance hurts many, many people less fortunate than we are before it touches us.

I freely admit in advance that I will be didactic, pretentious, and annoyingly prescriptive. It's likely that I'll also be irrelevant and that I will make a fool of myself. I have no formal training in philosophy or sociology and will probably reinvent various wheels poorly.

But sometimes an idea just arrives and possesses me. This one has sat on me for years, and is at the root of a troublesome fiction project that won't budge. Tormenting my small audience with an unsaleable vanity-press think piece is the best I can do with it right now.

Further material in this series will be tagged "ironyproject."

Comments

[kiteflier98.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad I found you and friended you. I'll be looking forward to these posts.