Gatekeeping Quotes

“When it repudiates a past paradigm, a scientific community simultaneously renounces, as a fit subject for professional scrutiny, most of the books and articles in which that paradigm had been embodied. Scientific education makes use of no equivalent for the art museum or the library of classics, and the result is a sometimes drastic distortion in the scientist's perception of his discipline's past. More than the practitioners of other creative fields, he comes to see it as leading in a straight line to the discipline's present vantage. In short, he comes to see it as progress. No alternative is available to him while he remains in the field.”
― Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

“Why but Learning would not be made common. Yea but Learning cannot be too common, and the commoner the better. Why but who is not jealous, his Mistresse should be so prostitute? Yea but this Mistress is like ayre, fire, water, the more breathed the clearer; the more extended the warmer; the more drawne the sweeter. It were inhumanitie to coop her up, and worthy forfeiture to conceal here.”
― John Florio, The Essayes of Michael, Lord of Montaigne

“Why but Learning would not be made common. Yea but Learning cannot be too common, and the commoner the better. Why but who is not jealous, his Mistresse should be so prostitute? Yea but this Mistress is like ayre, fire, water, the more breathed the clearer; the more extended the warmer; the more drawne the sweeter. It were inhumanitie to coop her up, and worthy forfeiture to conceal her. Why but Schollers should have some privilege of preheminence. So have they: they onely are worthy Translators. Why but the vulgar should not knowe all. No, they can not for all this; nor even Schollers for much more: I would, both could and knew much more than either doth or can. Why but all would not be knowne of all. No nor can: much more we know not than we know: all know something, none know all: would all know all? they must breake ere they be so bigge.”
― John Florio, The Essayes of Michael, Lord of Montaigne

“The fatal problem for the media, the official media, is that it is now in direct competition with social media, the unofficial media. All of the opinions that had been so carefully suppressed by the mainstream have suddenly got an airing and have proved widely popular because the people have been starved of them so long. They always wanted this kind of material, but the media deliberately prevented them from getting it. The West is now having its own Samizdat Moment, and loving it.”
― Jim Lee, In (Unlikely) Praise of Donald Trump: Embracing America’s Shadow

“That gay expereince in Tulsa is just as gay and valid as other, more visible experience in the media, and attempting to police anyone’s gayness sets a dangerous precedent. It equates identity with presentation and prioritizes lifestyle of the conditions of someone’s life. It places even more needless pressure on a population that is already struggling.”
― Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, I Have Something to Tell You