The Indie Era

Many readers of my Facebook page know that, in recent weeks, I've been beating the drum about two topics: self-publishing, and the new "Atlas Shrugged" movie. Here, I'd like to draw some connections between the two topics that may not be readily apparent.

Both are "indie" enterprises. Both are succeeding in the face of entrenched establishments. Both are possible today -- for the first time in history -- because of the confluence of two factors: affordable technology and free markets. 

And this is having revolutionary consequences in our economy and culture.

"Do-it-yourself" publishing and film-production technology has become so affordable that individuals and small groups can now create works of a quality equal to that produced by giant corporations. And it has also allowed them to market their wares on an almost equal footing, too. One of the greatest marketing equalizers, for indie authors and filmmakers alike, has been the Internet. The chief advantages that big corporations traditionally have offered to authors and to filmmakers is a giant pool of capital to market their creations to the public. But individual artists, simply by going "viral" with free, targeted online publicity (blogs, websites, social networking, YouTube, links, etc.), are able to neutralize many of the marketing advantages traditionally held by major publishers and Hollywood studios. In fact, they are able to target niche audiences that big corporations frequently overlook.

Moreover, corporations are bureaucracies, with all the lumbering inefficiencies, group-think, timidity, and inertia you find in any large institutions. They take forever to make decisions, and those decisions are usually made by committee and consensus. In other words, they are safe, don't-rock-the-boat decisions that avoid "outside the box" thinking and innovation. By contrast, individuals can respond quickly, decisively, and creatively to seize emerging opportunities, without having to go through channels, ask permissions, fill out paperwork, or pound the table to convince alleged superiors of The Obvious.

An apt military analogy to the competitive marketplace would be "asymmetrical warfare," where small, irregular, guerrilla forces use speed, stealth, and nimble tactics to outmaneuver their much larger, better equipped adversaries.

The world of publishing is being rocked by such tactics. The rise of upstart Amazon.com as an online book retailer has put formerly gigantic, thriving brick-and-mortar bookstore chains on the ropes. And now that Amazon has entered the publishing business with ebooks, it is beginning to threaten the giant publishing houses, too, competing with them for authors, even as it is eliminating their sales outlets (bookstores). In doing so, Amazon and other online publishers are providing platforms where individual authors can now inexpensively and successfully self-publish and market their own works, without the acceptance or support of traditional gatekeepers: agents, the publishing houses, and bookstores.

We're seeing the same thing with the rise of "indie films," such as "Atlas Shrugged." That movie was self-financed, then self-promoted via free publicity online, going "viral" through sympathetic talk-show hosts, columnists, and clever niche marketing to Tea Party groups and other sympathetic demographic segments. This eliminated the need to buy prohibitively expensive traditional media advertising. It then was released by hiring a small, independent distributor to cobble together a network of individual theaters across the country.

In both cases -- self-publishing and indie film production -- the same two factors are making success possible: free market competition and affordable technology. And in both cases, perhaps the greatest benefit for the artists in going it alone is creative independence. Today's author does not have to hew to the latest editorial fashions and fads of the Big 6 publishers, who look to yesterday's bestsellers to make decisions about what to publish tomorrow. Likewise, the "Atlas Shrugged" filmmakers did not have to water down Ayn Rand's controversial ideas to accommodate the Politically Correct sensitivities of leftist Hollywood screenwriters, actors and actresses, studio bosses, and financiers.

Thanks to markets and technology, we are entering the Indie Era: a time where individuals, operating independently, can challenge behemoth institutions and succeed, both financially and creatively. It is a time of unprecedented opportunities for anyone who has what it takes.

And what it takes, more than anything else, is a spirit of entrepreneurial self-responsibility. That is the spirit which built America. It is the spirit that can save it.

My April 15, 2011 "Tea Party" Address

My talk before the "TEA PARTY ON THE BAY," April 15, Grasonville, MD, sponsored by the Queen Anne's County of Americans for Prosperity.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

For too long, you and I have watched helplessly as a clique of politicians, intellectuals, activists, and bureaucrats from both parties have tried to obliterate our Constitution, our capitalist system, and our personal liberty.

This “bipartisan Ruling Class”—as scholar Angelo Codevilla describes it—sees itself as a moral, cultural, and intellectual elite. Oozing arrogance, viewing the rest of us as coarse, unsophisticated rubes who cling bitterly to guns and bibles, this class seeks to impose its own supposedly superior values and visions upon the rest of us, by force of law.

As we know too well, the ultimate goal of this Ruling Class is power. They exist—not to produce, not to invent, not to create—but to manipulate and master others. Ronald Reagan summed up their governing outlook this way: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

By contrast, the rest of us Americans seek power over circumstances—not over each other. We acquire our personal sense of identity and self-esteem through productive work—not through imposing our values and visions on our neighbors. We accept a “live and let live” philosophy.

This is the spirit embodied in our “Declaration of Independence.” That document was more than a declaration of political independence from our European rulers; it was a declaration of the moral independence of every human being. It was a declaration of each individual’s moral right to his own life, his own liberty, his own pursuit of happiness.

This is the vision enshrined in our Constitution. That document grants to public officials only specific, enumerated, and narrowly limited powers. As James Madison and the Framers made clear, their goal was to bridle the power of government, in order to protect our moral right to go about our lives without interference. So the Constitution imposes upon officials a host of constraints: separations of powers, checks and balances, the Bill of Rights. By constraining government, we enjoy the fruits of freedom.

And this explains why, since the early twentieth-century Progressive Era, Ruling Class power-seekers have targeted the Constitution for annihilation.

These grandees aim to impose their wisdom and good taste upon us by force of law—telling us what to eat, what vehicles we should travel in, what fuels should power them, where our thermostats should be set, how we should use our land, what our children should be taught, what we may buy, sell, to whom, and at what prices, what earnings we may keep, what causes we must support, what medical coverage we must have—and on, and on.

It goes on without limit, because the Ruling Class accepts no limits, legal or moral, on its power to “do good” to us. Like missionaries visiting primitive tribes, they view us as savages, whom they must cage and civilize.

We see their boundless arrogance in Nancy Pelosi, who—when asked where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to order us to buy health insurance—replied: “Are you serious?”

We see it in Barney Frank, the only human on the planet who is able to strut while sitting down.

We see it in Barack Obama, who tells his fellow Ruling Class members that “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” with his nose held so high in the air that any passing rainstorm would waterboard him.

Ruling Class programs have plundered trillions from makers, then handed it to takers—supposedly to eradicate poverty, to end unemployment, to prevent disastrous business cycles, to put everyone in his own home. But what do we see? Record levels of people on food stamps; soaring unemployment; a recession longer and deeper than any since the 1930s; a debacle in the housing market. Yet, in response, the Ruling Class demands more power to enact more of the same.

But their excesses have provoked a great awakening. Millions like you now champion the cause of free markets and individual liberty.

Our job began last November 2nd. Now, we have a cultural legacy to reclaim—a legacy often described as American individualism.

From our nation’s earliest days, when our pioneer ancestors blazed trails through forbidding frontiers, we Americans have never viewed ourselves as victims of circumstances. Fiercely self-assertive, proudly independent, we, more than any other people on earth, view ourselves as masters of our fates, as captains of our souls.

The spirit of American individualism inspired the Founders to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of personal liberty.

Now is our moment. So, in the words of Washington, let us continue in the months and years ahead to raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.

Thank you.

The Narratives That Guide Our Lives

Most people of my philosophic persuasion believe that the power that moves individuals and cultures is, at root, philosophy. Specifically, that power lies in the "basic premises" which we accept about the world and ourselves: our beliefs about the nature of existence; about how we know things; about what constitutes good and bad; about how we should live together.

This view of the power of philosophic premises is true. However, those of my philosophic persuasion also make an additional assumption: that to change one's own life, or to "change the world," the most important and effective thing is to adopt and advocate the "right" systematic, abstract philosophy. In practice, this means: addressing thinkers and intellectuals, teaching students formal philosophy, planting "our" kind of professors in university chairs, and otherwise engaging in specifically abstract, philosophical pursuits. The tacit assumption here is that the basic philosophic premises that govern our lives are decisively communicated and absorbed in individuals and cultures by means of formal philosophical education.

That premise is mistaken.

We do not suddenly acquaint ourselves with our core worldviews in college courses, after we are already in our teens or twenties. By that time, our basic premises are usually already well-established and, in many cases, set in psychological cement.

So when, and in what form, do we really encounter and accept our foundational beliefs about ourselves and the world around us?

We do so early in life, and in the form of stories -- or what I call Narratives.

The myths that we learn in childhood, at Mother's knee, in church, in schools, in films and novels, represent primitive, fundamental interpretive stories about our world: how it works, what it means, what is right or wrong, who are the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

These Narratives are pre-philosophical; in fact, they are acquired in their germinal forms while we are still far too young to subject them to critical analysis. They thus actually tend to determine which abstract philosophies, ideologies, economic theories, and political policies we later find appealing. These latter "feel right" to us largely because they mesh with the myths, fairy tales, parables, and stories we already absorbed during childhood.

Moreover, the more deep-rooted the myth--either personally and/or culturally--the more desperately we cling to it. We cling to it even when it may sometimes be utterly false, and lead us over a cliff. We cling to it because to challenge or criticize it means to unravel a lifetime of investments in values, choices, relationships, careers, emotions, and money. And who wants to do that?

So, like sleepwalkers, most people continue to be directed by Narratives they have never consciously identified, let alone soberly considered. Here are just a few familiar ones:

"Untouched nature is paradise; human choices and actions only upset the natural balance." That's what the Garden of Eden myth declares. Its eventual philosophical fruit? Environmentalism.

"We should take from the rich and give to the poor." That's what the tale of Robin Hood (at least, contemporary versions of it) tells us. Its eventual political fruit? Communism, socialism, and their many "progressive" variants.

"David is morally superior to Goliath." That's what the Old Testament dramatized. Its eventual global fruit? Decades of disastrous U.S. foreign policy, blindly aimed at toppling powerful regimes in favor of the "little guy" in the streets of foreign nations--even if that little guy is a jihadist wearing a suicide vest, and is eager to slaughter us.

So how, exactly, do each of us arrive at our basic Narratives?

When we're infants, we perceive the world around us strictly perceptually, and we react to "good" and "bad" in terms of raw emotions. We either like the way something makes us feel, or we don't; we're comforted, or we're uncomfortable and fearful. As our ability to integrate our perceptions of things improves, we initially do so in the form of primitive concepts.

The next stage of interpretation, though, is at the level of story-telling and myth. We do not graduate from perceptions into concepts, then go directly into philosophy. Long before we ever arrive at the ability to tie all those concepts together into anything like a systematic, abstract philosophy (for those of us who even get to that stage of thinking), we interpret the world through the stories we are told. Those may be bible stories, Aesop's fables, messages in cartoons and picture books, tales told by our parents, good-guys-vs.-bad-guys TV shows.

These provide us with our foundational interpretive template for understanding the world around us. What binds every culture or subculture together are the value-laden messages conveyed by these tales. That's because Narratives work for a culture just as they do for an individual. Looking at the glory that was Greece, for example, it is instructive to note that Homer, that society's seminal poet and storyteller, preceded by hundreds of years Aristotle, who represented the apex of formal Greek philosophical thought. The former was the true father of Greek culture, while the latter lived during its waning days. If abstract, systematic philosophy were the true fountainhead of a culture--or its salvation--then the sequence of their appearances should have been reversed.

And this should tell us where the true "power of ideas" lies: not in concepts and philosophies per se, but in concepts and philosophies as embodied, enshrined, dramatized, and propagated by compelling Narratives. In other words, the narrative medium is just as necessary and potent as the philosophic message.

This explains the enduring power of religion. Religions communicate largely on the narrative level, utilizing the power of myth, parable, and storytelling. Ask yourself: How many people are attracted to a given religion because of the incisive, intellectually satisfying arguments of its clever theologians? By contrast, how many followers instead find themselves gripped, touched, inspired, and persuaded by the stories and parables that the religion offers?

Therefore, let me offer a word of advice to people who share my own secular philosophic outlook, Objectivism.

It's futile to complain about the intractable hold of "mysticism" on people's lives. Trying to argue people out of their reigning Narrative is almost always impossible, because we all need a reigning Narrative. Instead, you have to replace a person's (or culture's) reigning Narratives(s) with something better--something more persuasive, compelling, and inspiring.

You don't have to believe me; Ayn Rand reached the same conclusion. Why did she write fiction? Read closely her Romantic Manifesto, particularly her essay, "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art." In writing about the power of "art," she is really talking about the vital role and indispensable power of Narratives in our lives.

That is certainly the conclusion I have drawn. Rather than try hopelessly to deprive people of their existing Narratives, mystical or otherwise, I believe the only practical course is to create a rich, compelling, emotionally satisfying counter-Narrative. That is a task Rand began with her own fiction. But it is a task that should be continued by other artists--at least by those artists who wish not only to objectify their own values (which should be their primary focus), but who also would like to help create a better world.

So, a personal note of explanation: If you find less current-events commentary here lately, in part it's because I've found it to be increasingly pointless to argue philosophy, economics, and politics with most people. Why? Because we are talking past each other. You may prove a point with unassailable facts and irrefutable logic. However, the other person replies, "Yes, but . . ." Those words usually signal that you've reached the ultimate barrier to further reasoning and communication: You've challenged his Narrative. And in my experience, that is ground he'll rarely, if ever, concede.

The invisible forces directing the flow and outcomes of such debates, then, are rarely those issues under explicit discussion. Rather, they are the unidentified, unspoken, implicit Narratives that we carry with us, and which are constantly reinforced in the plots of popular novels, films, TV shows, and Sunday sermons. That is the enormous subtext of most arguments, and it poses a virtually insurmountable challenge. After all, it is very, very difficult to joust successfully and intellectually with someone when you are simultaneously fighting Adam, David, and Robin Hood.

That said, I'll return now to the personal pleasure of crafting my own counter-Narratives.

***

Since writing this piece, I've explored the subject of "Narratives" further. See my discussions here (about the "clash of Narratives" in the 2012 election), here (about Jonathan Gottschall's seminal book on this topic, The Storytelling Animal), and here (explaining the career of Barack Obama as a manipulator of narratives).

The cover for my forthcoming thriller

I just received the final artwork for my forthcoming novel, HUNTER: A Thriller, and I thought I'd share it. 

Currently, we're looking at publication in late May or early June. The novel will be available both in print (trade paperback) and ebook editions (Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, iPad, etc.). I'll post more information here and on my Facebook page, in coming weeks.

Meanwhile, I'd love to read your comments.

 

An ex-CIA officer turns vigilante to punish protectors of criminals--unaware that he's being hunted by his lover...or that she's the daughter of his arch-enemy.

 

NEW BLOG UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Friends:

This place will be a new platform upon which I can stand, rant, and shake my fist at the passing scene. Meanwhile, those of you on Facebook can find plenty of that in my posts over there.

Very soon I'll be launching a new blog, devoted mainly to my own fiction-writing, and to broader trends in the world of books, such as the self-publishing revolution via ebooks. For the time being, this site will be a "place-holder" for fiction-related commentary, too, until I get my ducks in a row elsewhere. If you've found this site by accident, please check back in another month for a link to those new blogging digs.

Thanks much for your interest.

--Robert