Cultural invention historically arose from small creative enclaves insulated from commerce

Evidence

Restoring cultural invention doesn’t even require dismantling the entire culture industry—it just needs a small vanguard to get things going. Throughout history, the human race has been blessed with dedicated creative enclaves—bohemianism, the avant-garde, the counterculture, Native Tongues, nineties alternative—that pursued creative invention without the promise of immediate financial rewards. Pearl Jam, in 1992, lived by an honor code that made it easier to resist money and fame. If you’re an artist, find peers who share these aspirations. If you’re not an artist, encourage aspiring artists to make art, not immediately indulge in commerce. First and foremost, artists crave esteem, and this once gave critics a central role in promoting creativity. Then the poptimists decided to withhold respect from anyone who didn’t harbor grand commercial ambitions. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 851

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the recorded thesis structure — the vanguard/status mechanism for recovering cultural invention pairs with the omnivore monoculture diagnosis. — connects to: The modern cult of creative genius was invented to legitimize bourgeois distinction — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 436; Many honored traditions were invented recently for commercial reasons — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 649; Marginal figures more naturally produce radical symbolic invention — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 828 (+1 more)
• SEED: Angle: an essay arguing that artist esteem, not money, is the real incentive designers of culture should be optimizing — with critics as status-granting infrastructure.