Art and Culture #59: The Benefits of Rugged Individualism in the Age of Censorship!
-For the Uncensored!
It’s a phrase that many people do automatically but they never find that moment when a wealthy person must make a choice. A choice to accept money over what he thinks as an individual. The power of money is an allure that becomes hard to break once an artist is paid more money than he could dream. To be able to live the dream and be paid for it. It’s a forgotten feeling in America come early 2022. A world that now has seemed utterly forgotten. When the animosity surrounding celebrities, both wanted and not, prove that wealthy celebrities are adored in America.
For the Boomers and Gen-Exers, being a celebrity is a soul crushing defeat. Being an individual in a corporate machine has its benefits. But to consider those benefits of being famous over having the right to speak freely is a deadly game come 2021. Worse than hunting humans, like in the most dangerous game, censorship and rugged individualism is the debate in 2021.
If being a rugged individual comes with a few definitions we as artists have to choose whether or not we “fit in” to the corporate power structure. Theirs’s always a hierarchy. To be your own man is the test of all men and women on planet earth.
If being a celebrity meant being a rugged individual in the 1990’s, when art came first before celebrity, the paradigm shifted in 2000. When corporate structures held many artists to contracts they couldn’t break. To understand it means, as the title of Harlan Ellison’s famous short story goes, “I have no mouth and I must scream” signifies the feelings exactly.
To have no mouth and to not be able to scream is worse than anything I have ever felt and an entire generation have ever. With such corporate pressure growing against the rugged individual, there’s always a need to be silent. There must be corporate stooges in order to churn the fire of hypocrisy. The test of any artist, big or small, is when a society is telling them to think one way.
If science is applied, the question is, “why must I do this?” If that question is even asked in corporate culture, the air gets thick. The corporate shills look at you as if you said something out of turn. To promote censorship is to kill off your artistic integrity. To understand that is to allow yourself the freedom to be understood. But America’s censorship problems doesn’t come from the courts, but in 2021, it’s the MSM, or legacy media.
The media, like big pharma, don’t care about the rugged individual. If Bob Dylan were alive today, he would have sang a song about Pfizer, in that scratchy unintelligible homeless man voice, and telling you to get a Covid-19 vaccine. While the problem is not with vaccine, corporations hire artists to quell any questions the masses have. For a 90’s alternative music fan, this sounds like a wet dream in big brother’s mind, but disturbing to any artist who believes in Individualism. Waking up in there pent house suite in Manhattan, with water from Michael Buble’s sweat glands, and overdosing on world domination.
Buying, consuming products that have no artistic integrity or genuine craft applied to it. The Rugged Individual is the man who has a stick tied with a blanket with his clothes tucked away, walking across the country, finding his own way. But it’s easy to sell out. To betray the fabric of dysfunctional melody over the catchy tune. To give up the wanderers life for a steady stream of income.[i]
The question remains is simply, “Why must I do this?” To be fair there is no money in being a rugged individual. To those who have made there way being a rugged individual is to not expect a paycheck. To not be loved. To be admired only in death, because you made the sacrifice others couldn’t. It’s all part of the plan to becoming a better artist.
But to an age of selfish crybabies with no real artistic ingenuity, or even taking the time to prepare such art, want nothing better than to go along with the corporate group think. It’s not impossible to do it on your own. It’s about putting the time into your work. It’s easier to have a paycheck than disagree with people. Yes, many creators have this problem. To know when to be yourself even when you have a loyal fanbase. Unless it’s completely based in ridiculous idiotic ideological group think that poses a threat to your liberties.
That’s why Rugged Individualist know they have to hold onto their instruments, fix what can be replaced, and remember what made them who they are today. A man can only be apart of a system but for so long. There a bunch of new rugged individuals out there in cyberspace, as many are too many to detail, but the list for me is always the tried and true who have existed on YouTube, long before it was purging artists all over. Minds, Rumble, and every free speech platform can increase your odds every day. Owning your own website with WordPress or Substack is easy for writers to move over to free speech platforms, too.
The moral is, the rugged individual can succeed when companies fail to buy them out. Just keep walking and someone will talk to you.
[i] I don’t disagree that a steady stream of income is a bad thing. Not the point at all.
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 19 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline (and the original text re-released in 2019), Apocalypse Soldier, The Data Chase, Selection: The First Book of the Life and Death Saga, and Blinking Eyes: The Second Book of the Life and Death Saga, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep, The City of Sand, To the Moon and Back, The Villain Lives and The Villain Lives: The Divided Pinpoint, Come Home, Young One. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Phoenix. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Our Freedom Book https://www.ourfreedombook.com/thereallouistbruno17. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His next series, City of Sand is out now:https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/city-of-sand/hardcover/product-rke9jz.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. Subscribe as well so you can get my articles in your inbox every time. Every little bit helps in the war against Big Tech. Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and also get updates sent to your email, so you can tell substack what’s worthwile. If you share my work, this page could be, as Hyman Roth from the Godfather Part 2 said, “We could be bigger than US Steele.” You too, can make a difference as well.
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