Speaking of tools of cultural defiance,  in past periods of political drift and relative stability you could at least make an argument for retreating from the news space in order to write a book or think about pretty things. Right now, with Donald Trump in the presidency and the unprecedented unfolding of scandal and chaos in the federal government, it’s hard to think of much else. It raises the question, frankly, of duty: those of us with expressive ability, with special knowledge, with access to media, we more or less have to do more than just speak up. We have to consider changing our lives: seizing positions of responsibility, public office. We have to think of reorienting our lives toward a decade or more of struggle to reclaim all that may be lost over the next few years.

Finishing School is actually a relevant tool in the political struggle as well as the creative struggle. It’s a kind of getting-things-done method for the rest of us.

The point is that the creative artist does not work in a cultural vacuum, nor usually in a culturally benign space. The creative artist works in opposition to the given environment; we live in conflict, in open warfare, with the tangible world we must live in. How we accommodate, how we buckle under or openly revolt or quietly subvert … these are the various guiles and styles we use. But the essential point is: We live in opposition to the given.

On page 48 in our book Finishing School: … Danelle Morton and I make the point that, at least in the wealthy, consumer-oriented West, one mammoth evil we must fight, elude, or accommodate, is the omnipresent marketing machine.