Future Critics do not exist yet. They arrive at doorsteps, email inboxes or soapboxes at very specific moments. Those moments always have something in common: they are tipping points. The drops that make the bucket run over. Tipping points happen quite suddenly but still they are predictable, it just takes skill and lots of experience. In predicting their tipping points, we predict the unavoidable arrival of the Future Critic.
When someone is gaining attention, the bucket fills up, when someone is more knowledgeable, the bucket fills up, when someone is more naturally talented, the bucket fills up, when someone is saying things that go against longheld beliefs, the bucket fills up exponentially.
The Future Critic dwells in the shadows, and, instead of living, growing and learning, is preoccupied with preventing Life in others. Often preparing to strike, an internal alarm clock goes off as soon as one of the above mentioned situations arises. The living Life can not be allowed to spread too far and wide.
True artists, scientists, teachers or sportsmen work in spite of their anticipation of the Future Critic. They create in the face of the Future Critic’s ever-imminent arrival.
“It’s not important what other people call you, if you yourself know you’re a fake, that’s tougher to live with.”
~ Bob Dylan, ABC Interview 1985
Future Critics are not interested in learning, logic, arguments or methods of knowledge, even though they pretend to be. They run on free-floating beliefs combined with undisciplined negative emotions. This wouldn’t be so problematic if they weren’t continuously trying to coerce everyone into joining them. This wouldn’t be so problematic if their tentacles didn’t reach into all layers of everyday life.
The modern-day Internet, or more generally mass communication, confronts humanity with a “Future Critic Megalith” – The Anticipated Global Vast Majority – that seems to be consuming the same videos and wallow in the same opinions, ideas and feelings. The Megalith exists at the individual’s expense. Even the most eccentric, self-sufficient lone outsider artist prefers this Megalith NOT to become its Future Critic.
The Future Critic does not like its history told, because its game is very old and unchanging. Within the history of ideas, the trend of the Future Critic’s tactics and influence is unmistakable, it is a red thread throughout the centuries. Anything natural is always in motion, always changing, but the Future Critic is incapable of change because it rejects Life. It stands out in the ebb and flow of history like a sore thumb. This post is therefore not only a celebration of the true artist but also a very warm welcome to the Future Critic of the history of the Future Critic.
Post Scriptum
“Aja” is a Sanskrit word that means “unborn”. Unborn is not an English word that is commonly used nowadays, regrettably so. A Future Critic is an unborn force that has not yet manifested but history shows when and how it regularly manifests. Everything unborn can hold power over us. In ancient times, unbornness was a much more integral part of our consciousness; a part of reality that is fully equal to everything born.