You can see this as nothing but loss. Or perhaps some of our most intractable debates are now suddenly shaken free of their old moorings.

By Douglas McLennan: “Given the scale of the national crisis facing all sectors of the economy in the months and years to come, the pandemic is a historic disruption that represents an existential crisis. What to do?

I’ve come to think of it in the following frame:

The world is settling loosely into two camps: Restorationists, who believe that this was a catastrophic event we have to survive until we can resume the important work we were doing before, and Opportunists, who believe that everything has changed going forward and that we have an historic opportunity to reinvent.

Restorationists are deeply invested in their business models and want to rebuild as quickly as possible. They have built, often painstakingly over generations, pipelines to talent and support and the means to reach audiences. They’re terrified that the infrastructure that supports them will collapse and they’re desperate to shore it up and get back to work.

Opportunists have long seen cracks in the cultural infrastructure and suddenly find themselves (along with the rest of us) in a place where all the usual rules and structures have been turned upside down. They see a world that could look considerably different AV (After Virus) and perhaps opportunities to rewrite better rules going forward.”

Source: Arts Journal, Diacritical