I found these great lectures, the Reith Lecture series, by British intellectuals on BBC radio after WWII. The first series of lectures was given by Bertrand Russell on authority and the individual from 1949. Many of the issues Russell raises are still pertinent today. One thing he talks a lot about is centralization and the way it impacts culture. His main point is that globalization and centralized, industrial culture is bad for the arts because it requires the artist to compete with everyone, not just his/her local community, and it stifles local culture which doesn't grow organically as it would in isolation with competition from neighboring city/states. To quote Russell:
Where art flourished in the past it has flourished as a rule amongst small communities which had rivals among their neighbours, such as the Greek City States, the little Principalities of the Italian Renaissance, and the petty Courts of German eighteenth-century rulers.... There is something about local rivalry that is essential in such matters. . . . But such local patriotisms do not readily flourish in a world of empires. ... In those who might otherwise have worthy ambitions, the effect of centralization is to bring them into competition with too large a number of rivals, and into subjection to an unduly uniform standard of taste. If you wish to be a painter you will not be content to pit yourself against the men with similar desires in your own town; you will go to some school of painting in a metropolis where you will probably conclude that you are mediocre, and having come to this conclusion you may . . . take to money-making or to drink. ... In Renaissance Italy you might have hoped to be the best painter in Siena, and this position would have been quite sufficiently honourable.
So small is beautiful .. but that's not how the world works today and total collapse is probably the only way to go back to that model and the cost is too high. So what about crypto currencies and their promise of decentralization, how can they help culture grow? I don't expect tribal cultures with different stylistic sensibilities will spring up on or off-line around different cryptocurrencies .. that would mean the Steem tribe would have different art than the Ethereum people, or LTC or Nano or whatever. But obviously cryptocurrency has great potential to help artist break away from a gallery model and make direct sales to clients online. Can Steem grow to the point that artist bloggers earn enough from blog posts of their work that they don't ned a day job? Somehow I doubt it, but that would be great. Open Bazaar is one such model where clients and artists can find each other. Does anyone here have experience with it? I'm considering uploading some images there and trying it ...
Can cryptocurrencies revolutionize culture? I think that question rests on the degree to which culture exists online. As a painter I promote myself online but my practice remains fundamentally analogue. That type of culture which Bertrand Russell or Nicholas Pevsner spoke of, is firmly rooted in place and geography. As an immigrant American in Europe I stand apart from my local culture. Does the blockchain have the power to create a new marketplace of ideas and cultural exchange? Many people seem to think so, but I remain doubtful. One fear I have about joining Steemit and approaching crypto is that my thinking will become more libertarian. Cryptocurrency helps ethnonationalists move money around in secret channels, but their belief system is purely rooted in geography and place too, not anarchic decentralization, ultimately. Although I am not a tribalist, I do believe Russell is right that small cultures produce better art. Can we wed global decentralization with local identity and culture? How do we bridge that gap? What do you think?