The Waldo Ultimatum

Alan Moore on culture and responsibility

“I think our mistake has been thinking, in the 20th and 21st century, of the big cultural providers, like television or Hollywood, as culture. They’re not. They’re commercial entities which may occasionally or accidentally produce culture. But, they’re not culture. We are culture. Just ordinary people, what they do. You’ve only got to look at all sorts of areas around the world at present to see people taking things into their own hands. That seems to be the trend politically and I think it’s a very good one.

“Taking responsibility for something is generally a good way of gaining some measure of control over it. That’s certainly true when it comes to one’s own life. You take responsibility for it and all of a sudden you have control over it. And I think it extends to other things as well. If we take responsibility for the way we’re governed and the way that we’re ruled economically and the way that the Anonymous and Occupy protesters seem to be doing, then that potentially can have a huge world-changing effect. That’s the same whether you’re talking about politics or whether you’re talking about the arts. If I hadn’t believed that it would be possible for me to have some sort of effect then I’d never have tried. As it turns out, my ideas have been communicated to a fair number of people. But back at the beginning, that was far from obvious. All that you had was your own belief in yourself. So yes, it’s vital that individuals believe that they can have an impact upon society. For one thing, it’s historically true. For another thing, it is the best thing to believe because if you believe otherwise that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is the philosophy of a natural-born slave in many respects.”

Alan Moore, from an interview with Honest Publishing (December, 2011)

02/21/12

Alan Moore on nostalgia

“Nostalgia, if handled wrong, can prove to be nothing more than sloppy and mawkish crap. In my opinion, the central appeal of nostalgia is that all this stuff in the past is gone. It’s finished. We’ll never see it again… and this is where the incredible poignance of nostalgia really comes from.”

Alan Moore, from his original proposal for Marvelman, reprinted in Kimota!: The Miracleman Companion, edited by George Khoury

02/17/12