Fitzcarraldo Editions . + the guardian
Being pretentious is rarely harmful to anyone. Accusing others of it is. You can use the word “pretentious” as a weapon with which to bludgeon other people’s creative efforts, but in shutting them down the accusation will shatter in your hand and out will bleed your own insecurities, prejudices and unquestioned assumptions. And that is why pretentiousness matters. It is a false note of objective judgment, and when it rings we can hear what society values in culture, hear how we perceive our individual selves.
What we are reluctant to admit is that culture would have no colour without pretension. It would be a lifeless shade of Gap store beige. The doors to imagination would be kept locked tight in fear of finding behind them something that violates the consensus over what is an acceptable creative act, what is an acceptable bar to drink at, what is an acceptable pair of shoes to wear to work.
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