In its own way, literature always was, is, and must be intolerant. And the clearer it is, the more intolerant it is—that is part of its nature. We can have lunch every day in the Writers’ Club with anyone we want, or go fishing with anyone we want. But the minute we begin turning a blind eye to what we don’t like in each other’s writing, the minute we begin to back away from our own inner norms, to accommodate ourselves to each other, cut deals with each other over poetics, we will in fact set ourselves against each other, because we will naturally begin to subtract from our own uniqueness and thus retreat from ourselves—until one day we will disappear in a general fog of mutual admiration.
—Vàclav Havel, “On Evasive Thinking”
To be honest, I don’t like most photography and I certainly don’t like contemporary photography–I am intolerant. I go to shows and galleries, hoping to find something interesting, something one can learn from, but with few exceptions it is a wasteland of the common place (the strange having become commonplace). I agree with Ansel Adams who once said something to effect that if he truly admired another photographer’s work he would be doing it himself.
Blog No. 61, Art Must be Intolerant
In its own way, literature always was, is, and must be intolerant. And the clearer it is, the more intolerant it is—that is part of its nature. We can have lunch every day in the Writers’ Club with anyone we want, or go fishing with anyone we want. But the minute we begin turning a blind eye to what we don’t like in each other’s writing, the minute we begin to back away from our own inner norms, to accommodate ourselves to each other, cut deals with each other over poetics, we will in fact set ourselves against each other, because we will naturally begin to subtract from our own uniqueness and thus retreat from ourselves—until one day we will disappear in a general fog of mutual admiration.
—Vàclav Havel, “On Evasive Thinking”
To be honest, I don’t like most photography and I certainly don’t like contemporary photography–I am intolerant. I go to shows and galleries, hoping to find something interesting, something one can learn from, but with few exceptions it is a wasteland of the common place (the strange having become commonplace). I agree with Ansel Adams who once said something to effect that if he truly admired another photographer’s work he would be doing it himself.