Frank Kogan

In any event, the "broader culture," which is full of multiple currents and countercurrents and conflicts, the conflicts being as defining as the common values, including even the conflicts over which conflicts should be defining, and including "us," the subculture that you and I belong to that I'm occasionally calling a marginal musical intelligentsia (MMI)* and that I socked with my "PBS for the youth" metaphor back in 1987 (not that you, Dave, and me, Frank, are "PBS" or MMI in all of our aspects)... the "broader culture" can give impetus and support to various movements that move outward and away from a supposed mainstream: so, to survivalist movements, radical right, evangelical, progressive left, feminist, freak, punk, nihilist, and so forth. By "support" I mean that even before this or that "out" group is a presence, someone can be seeded with the romanticism that either propels her out herself or encourages her to give respect to and/or feel intimidated and awed by the person who does go out. This is the question I was asking you and Mark in my notes about social class: where does the MMI and where do freaks get their authority?

*Or "musical marginal intelligentsia," depending on how I happen to type it at the moment.