Rebel Rebel

"Another problem with the perception that transgressing norms has an intrinsic value, is that this thinking presupposes that there is a conservative establishment which is rigidly keeping a hold on the norm that one is challenging from an aesthetic and political perspective. In an age when even politicians and the government are struggling to appear as oppositional outsiders, and where bank directors at the weekend don their leathers to dream themselves into the role of rebel on their Harley-Davidsons, indeed in a situation where the left-wingers of 1968 join the neo-liberals in order to break down antiquated structures, those who are attempting to repeat avant-gardist and norm-transgressing magic tricks must continually keep creating the enemy that their aesthetics presupposes: an idol in the form of a traditionalist view of culture which was not wholeheartedly embraced by particularly many people, even in the 19th century..."