Movements

  • In the city you can be unusual and still find like-minded people - or let yourself be found by flaunting in a public arena. Rather than being suppressed, idiosyncrasies can develop into new movements, individual's masks fusing into an emblazened shield.
  • Some movements become associated with national identity. In particular, Romanticism, with its emphasis on self-expression and self-exploration, frequently led to a quest for roots, heritage and nationalism. This was more common in music (Wagner, Sibelius, etc) than in literature, perhaps because translation is not needed prior to exploitation. It's also more common where national identity underwent change.
  • "Since the advent of Modernism there has been a tendency amongst artists and cultural critics to valorize indigenous cultures and art", James Sheery in Boundary 2, 26:1, 1999, p.241.
  • Revolutions seldom begin as mass movements. As in evolution, rapid change occurs in small isolated populations. Retreats and Artists colonies were used in the past, but the WWW makes control of contacts easy. One can join a mailgroup for a while, hunt out like-minded people, have a short intense exchange of messages, then disappear. One can maintain a temporary communication black-out rather than hire a Lake District cottage.
  • Consequently movements will be less dependent on locality and may (like avant-garde art movements) be more tolerant of linguistic diversity.

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