Comments Elsewhere

“Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. THEREIN LIES ITS IMMENSE VALUE. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man [sic] to the level of a machine. . . . Selfishness is not living as one wants to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it.” ~Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” (1891). Emphasis mine.