We’re in an interesting position. The future is moving very very fast. But the culture has stopped dead. Politically, the Western world is in absolute stasis at ground level. Cultural distrust is at an all-time high. There’s a palpable sense of “we’re all screwed and there’s nothing we can do” that I haven’t seen since the 80s — and even in the 80s there were voices we considered authentic and that we trusted. There’s none of that any more. In fact, as I’ve recently said elsewhere, we punish people for being real now. These years are rudderless. It’s no surprise that so many arts have been looking back to the Weimar period in the last few years.
And that’s a frightening place to be. Because, in a space where there’s no plurality of speech, one strong clear voice can do terrible damage.
(Warren Ellis on Doktor Sleepless)
