[this push for creativity], it’s all so completely phony. Look at education: There’s this horrible homogenization going on – everybody has got to be special. So if it’s somebody’s birthday in grade school, then you have to celebrate everybody’s birthday, all year long. Everyone gets absolutely equal treatment; nobody is allowed to stick out—whether it’s because they are behaving badly or are brilliantly smart. Everyone has to be of equal value intellectually, artistically, and creatively; it makes me want to scream. There’s this irrepressible drive toward mediocrity; everything seems to be degenerating into a kind of middlebrow “world-class.”
