In the 1990’s I wrote a little piece that used spinning circles to explain culture. You can find it on this page. (and there are a few more here…)
In the fringe is where everything exciting happens, never in the center. Cultures are like spinning circles. In the center they don’t move very much, that’s where the traditionalists live, the conservatives. Towards the rim is where the action is, that’s where the artists hang out. Life is a little more out of balance there sometimes and the spinning can make you dizzy there. What is most exciting is that many of the culture circles overlap and if you can stay in a spot where several things overlap you can find new clouds of ideas. Ideas are not bound to any individual, there are bound to a time. Many people in that spot will come up with similar ideas. Sometimes this cloud of ideas forms a new circle and the center of it hardens and becomes a new tradition. The longer it can remain liquid the more alive it will remain. Life is change.
Today I am reading a new post from Ted Gioia and he arrives at a similar conclusion:
These things don’t happen in the center. They happen at the fringes. So the creative ferment takes place in a port city like Liverpool—just like opera came out of Venice, another port city. Jazz came out of New Orleans, another port city.
Musical innovation tends to happen at crossroads and port cities. It’s spurred by outsiders not insiders. It rises from centers of multiculturalism and diversity—where different ideas come together.
The ruling class recognizes this, but it takes about 40 or 50 years. So fifty years elapse from Bob Dylan emerging as a rebel critic of the system, to becoming a Nobel Prize laureate. Almost fifty years elapse between Mick Jagger getting censored and becoming Sir Mick Jagger, an honored knight.
You eventually have this process of legitimization but the new style always starts on the outskirts—in the port cities and border cities.
The Next New Thing in Music Will Not Come from New York, Los Angeles, or London
The fringes, the borders, are where innovation happens. History has shown this over and over.
We get rid of the fringe at our cultural peril.
life is so complex now.
fringe vs center re innovation/change??
time will tell, i suppose ..unlikely, any time soon.
our kids & grand kids are left to sort it out now
(deeply disappointed)
>We get rid of the fringe at our cultural peril.
I fear … that the majority of people in ‘the west’ really aren’t interested in culture anymore. That’s not me being hyperbolic … for your consideration:
Historically, the fringe was a genuine cultural boundary: punks, Dadaists, Situationists, beat poets, radical theologians and philosophers, DIY tech hobbyists in garages. These people were not trying to appeal to mass culture—they were reacting against it. They operated under the radar, often hated or misunderstood, and their ideas slowly trickled inward over time. The center borrowed from the fringe. Now, the relationship has inverted.
Today, the dominant culture (especially online) feeds on the fringe like a parasite. Aesthetics, language, and even dissent are harvested instantly for clicks, clout, and branding. There’s no time lag anymore—once something is cool or subversive, it’s productized before it has time to grow legs. Look at how fast “alt” becomes a category on Netflix or how “anti-establishment” rhetoric is now part of mainstream marketing.
The culture industry eats its young.
Social media gives everyone the tools to appear “edge” without ever paying the price of alienation or commitment. Many influencers cosplay as fringe (or “fringy”) while working comfortably within the architecture of profit and visibility—artists who brand themselves as “outsiders” while being fully monetized through Patreon, TikTok, or Instagram sponsorships. Its all about monetization of the fringe. Which is kind of antithetical to the fringe in the first place. But … that’s why I say, most in ‘the west’ aren’t interested in the fringe anymore: unless it turns a profit.
The *aesthetic* of the fringe is everywhere. The *ethic* of the fringe is severely attenuated … or pretty much gone.
I don’t think we are disagreeing at all. I suggest these are two sides of the same coin.
1) using fringy (I like your word!) ideas to turn a profit
and
2) destroying the starter culture because some people deem it un-American. Once upon a time America itself was a rich starter culture but now we are at that point in the historic cycle where the cleansing begins. Of course that removes the rich soil as well and only hastens the culture eating itself. Eventually, like sourdough starter that hasn’t been fed….
I see these two thoughts as happening at the same time. At some point there won’t be any fringe for influencers to harvest. What happens then will be interesting.