12-11-2017, 07:01 AM
I think of it as a bit like "being cool". Every school has the "cool kids" who look, dress and act in predictable, prescribed ways. They are cool because consensus says that's what cool is.
For the most part, those cool kids peak in high school, when they're living the stereotype that was created for them before they were born. The Great American Novel might well have been written last week, but we won't know it until enough university professors have read it, applied the filter of hindsight, and determined that it did in fact capture the zeitgeist. Then the New York Times will feel confident that it can proclaim it to be excellent, and all the critics will pick it over until there's nothing left to do but read it to see what everyone's talking about and compare your reading experience with what you were told to feel.
For the most part, those cool kids peak in high school, when they're living the stereotype that was created for them before they were born. The Great American Novel might well have been written last week, but we won't know it until enough university professors have read it, applied the filter of hindsight, and determined that it did in fact capture the zeitgeist. Then the New York Times will feel confident that it can proclaim it to be excellent, and all the critics will pick it over until there's nothing left to do but read it to see what everyone's talking about and compare your reading experience with what you were told to feel.
It could be worse