Juniemoon, your wonderful article this morning just triggered in me a need to respond with a post.
First of all, my background and personal experience is ironically exactly the opposite of what you are describing, which takes absolutely nothing away from the truth of what you are saying, it just shows how different things can look when your personal experiences are different.
I grew up among people who are artistically talented or have a deep appreciation and also lots of talent in that area. Most are today in the academic world and therefore as part of their research very much connected to their mental / critical side as well as their overall love and appreciation or personal commitment to the arts. Depends on the person we would be talking about whether I would see more artist or more academic in the individual, but both kinds are certainly familiar to me.
Just that I personally was the black sheep, who was untalented and un-gifted in the arts and somehow was looked down as some commoner who has to make it in the gray and destitute world of office cubicles, factories and endless uninspiring labor. As compared to the beautiful world of the arts, where true humanity should exist.
Not in a million years would I have ever heard in my family that traveling to experience the environment of a future novel would be commented with "Get a life". On the other hand I found myself pitied by the artist world I was surrounded by for "not having a life". Real life was to have a calling as a 5 year old and follow that dream and fulfill yourself in doing so. And here I was interested in mathematics and science and technology, things my family knew as little as possible about. On top of it I was a girl and a girl could not become an engineer or compete with the boys. My life was predicted to be a hard one. Probably would not find a husband either....
Why I am telling you all this: We all have our own comfort zones. We tend to react with confusion to things that are outside of our comfort zones and we might react with fear or hostility towards things that we perceive as challenging or threatening to our own world.
Obviously, we all inherently know that it takes all different kinds to make the world go round. In order to create a society with less hostility or hate towards people who are different from ourselves, it is important to widen peoples comfort zones, to widen their horizons.
A society's level of hate is reversely correlated to how much people's minds were opened by their education system and the environment they grew up in.
We also grow up in our time. Wagner did so and Leni Riefenstahl did so and they happened to fall on the side of the art that was appreciated during their time. Wagner's theatrical style and favor-ism of big bombastic production was in sync with what the Nazis wanted, he found himself courted and supported, while other artists were marginalized or even killed for their art. He was sucked into the Zeitgeist of his time and then spoke and wrote the way it was appreciated, down-talking accomplishments from Jewish people, being overcritical towards everything. He certainly did not oppose, may have been blind towards the truth in certain areas. But how much he was antisemitic is actually very much debated today.
And these shades of grey when it comes to opposition are so difficult to analyze. 10 years ago, right after 9/11 I found myself here in the US being told more than once by strangers in the street or airport that "all foreigners should be sent packing". I was neither Muslim, nor middle-eastern looking and I had not even uttered a word yet that I was actually opposed to the Irak war. It was just hatred against anybody with an accent. They tried to talk you into omitting the word French (freedom fries and freedom kisses, remember those days) and political climate got awfully close to not allowing dissent anymore. And of course it was fear and of course the country had been wounded. But people reacted within the spirit of their time and context. Of course there were thousands of other situations that were not like that, but still, the shift was palatable and hostility was openly displayed. Things had changed in people's minds.
It is very hard to overcome the spirit of your time or surrounding. One of the things that I admire about Adam is that he is willing and able to break out and risk the controversy that is associated with that.
When he sent his Gulliano tweet that is what I saw most. Adam noticed that it had become fashionable to beat up on the guy and demonstrate some perceived sophistication in values by distancing yourself from the designer.
Adam's was brave enough to challenge that 'almost mandated' behavior and called it out for what it was.
I have no true opinion in what is right or wrong about the Gulliano situation. I know that I did not remove my picture of Adam in his Gulliano suit just because of the scandal. But then I am not in the public eye. He clearly had to face the topic publicly and I admire his bravery to state what he thinks independently whether some media may chastise him for that or some fans might not like it. He follows his own opinion.
That certainly is one reason I am a fan.
