Both in person-to-person matters and societally, the closer to a painful truth you get, and especially to one that would be incompatible with a long-established status quo in which the other half has been comfortable, the more violent recoil from that challenge will be. However the challenged can, whether that be flexing of power/influence, breaking spirits, or taking distance, the more shut down from ever attempting to take matters there again they will try to render you.

Most people live in morbid fear of these painful truths. And the oppressive response they live by. It’s one of the first transgressions children inflict upon each other as they move into the social realm. And we don’t stop. Becomes one of the hallmarks of human teenage years, as we’re grow into figuring out how to navigate the space of Other People. And, of course, we continue into adulthood. We don’t want a conversation. All communication and social interaction is purely for validation.

Likelihood of this reaction and retribution renders direct confrontation often ineffective or even counter-productive. The way forward is an assault of subtlety. Nudges. Planting a seed in another and nursing it until the other develops enough fondness for the seedling to take over its care.

What is there to say conservatively that’s more important than working to bolster the existing system? Nothing, until there is enough resistance to incentivize creation of propaganda. Art, where new ideas are explored and old ideas challenged, has always matched liberalism’s idea-openness, and therefore, naturally leaned liberal where there’s been freedom to. And unsurprisingly, because it often addresses painful truths, has faced censure and silencing, sometimes violent and most often by authority. But also from the mob. Even these days; conservatives are busy right now banning books in Florida and Texas.

So art, and importantly by extension entertainment, has historically collectively worked to plant the seeds of progressive and potentially counter-cultural ideas subtly in the public’s collective garden of thought. Entertainment is the common man’s gateway to that garden. Different enough from the system to speak more deeply to us than anything in the system can, but also subtle enough to not generate a repulsive reaction, contributing to slow cultural change over generations.

Art and entertainment is imperative to the steady march of social progress. Unhappy with the world, that’s where I decided, decades ago now, to focus my life’s work, at the expense of all else (including myself), if need be. More specifically, I chose to focus my efforts upon bridging the gap between the art and entertainment I prefer, and the ideas therein that point toward a better world, that don’t move the broader social needle as much as they could, only winning praise within appreciative niches, and the common man, variably open to new ideas but more regularly than not aggressively resistant to change.