Art is David Cameron

At a friend's earlier, discussing the below post on "innovation", I tried to articulate some of the issues I'd brought to bear, and realised she was very sceptical. "Art is basically conservative," she said. I'd not really thought of this; and probably had a degree of disagreement with it. But I knew what she was saying. In literature, it is not revolutionary, but reactionary - comfortable rather than chaotic; always after the fact of scientific or social upheaval, not a precursor to it; and recycling a literate past - therefore "looking back", nostalgic, conservative in that sense. "What a good artist can do," she added, "is extend the form."