Today, I have been reminded that morality is a dying art. Itās not that principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad were ever fashionable to begin with: once you accept that stuff like gender and time are constructs created to keep people in specific spaces for particular reasons, everything else can be considered moot. Then itās down to what you want from interaction.
On the internet, itās cool to be morally grey, mostly because by doing so, nobody can ever pin anything bad on you. Except that may soon become a part of an artistās remit if they hope to get funding from the UK Arts Council, who (after consultations with the Government) are now intending to withhold or withdraw funding from anyone who is overtly political in their creation, statements or output.
We know all this because Equity, the actorās union, pushed a āFreedom of Informationā request to obtain the consultation documents. In the last month, my Union (the Society of Authors) were happy to condemn fossil fuel companies buying publishers and AI threatening jobs but werenāt prepared to condemn the genocide in Gaza, despite being quite happy to do the same when the Russians invaded Ukraine.
I think we all know why that is.
I will next week be cancelling my yearly subs to the SoA. Thinking long and hard about making that a political act, the line āafter the latest disastrous EGM (because, letās be fair, thereās been more than one) you no longer represent my moral standpoint as a unionā in my email seems the more succinct approach. Being morally grey is no longer acceptable at my age. If Iām going to stand for anything, it has to be now.
History needs us to choose a side, however uncomfortable the consequences.
All good art is resistance. The whole point of art is to reflect the world as we see it, and to be told the only way that can now take place is to remove contention from the equation isā¦ well, itās laughable. Sexuality is political. Race is political. Every single area of artistic endeavour in the world right now, wherever it is, involves elements of political resistance, and when morally grey standpoints try not to get involvedā¦
We are at the edge of seismic change, or this will be the end of many things. I hear people saying it away from spaces where they might be financially punished for such heresy, but the writing has been on the wall in some industries for decades. Far right stances appear to be gaining traction for no other reason than everyone in these spaces refuses to accept their supremacy lives on borrowed time. So they make noise.
All this noise does is drive people to become more willing to resist.
The biggest casualty, of course, are those people unable to afford to create art, because all the money is with the people who donāt want anyone else to do anything else but make them richer. The Arts Councilās funding portal is the most unfriendly and technically migraine inducing place Iāve ever failed to navigate and given up on. As a neurodivergent person, itās justā¦ nope. There are other ways.
However, if I get myself involved with anybody else who publishes work, and my political standpoint is in opposition with their fundingā¦ there may be a point in the future where I crowdfund. I know how it works. Itās not an issue right now, but looking with an objective lens on where things are heading, taking money from supportive backers is infinitely more practical.
Iām also more likely to establish me as a poet. Thatās all I ask for.
I spent some time this afternoon giving myself space to breathe. I will always write here once a day. After that, there have been some subtle shifts, including moving the discounts on my work behind the paywall, for reasons which should be obvious if youāve read this far. If you donāt want to pay money to Substack, there is now the option to do so via Ko-Fi, which pays me using Paypal:
This offers the Ā£5 a month product, plus two additional levels of support if youād like to help me more (Ā£8 and Ā£10 a month). If you sign up for either of the extra tiers, this will ensure you will be informed of offers and hand-made exclusives well before anyone else. Youāll also be automatically converted to Paid membership here.
I also promise absolutely no morally grey ANYTHING going forward.