"Rule of art: Cant kills creativity!"

Camille Paglia’s declaration, “Rule of art: Cant kills creativity!” is a concise rebuke of conformity, cliché, and moralistic posturing within artistic spheres. “Cant” refers not merely to jargon, but to trite, rehearsed, and insincere expressions, those pious formulas we repeat to conform to social or cultural pressures rather than to express our own truths. Paglia warns that when art becomes a vessel for cant, it ceases to be genuinely inventive or moving; it becomes predictable, lifeless, even dishonest.

Vital creativity depends on risk, ambiguity, and the willingness to speak truths that may offend or disrupt. Cant, by imposing a set of unexamined moral or ideological rules on artists, stifles this process. It narrows the range of what can be explored or said, replaces authentic questioning with dogmatic pronouncements, and shifts art’s focus from exploration to virtue signaling. Whenever artists feel constrained by what is permissible to express or compelled to recycle safe platitudes, the spark of innovation is lost. The artwork may become technically proficient, even widely praised, but it will lack the unpredictable energy and originality, the creativity, that marks true art.

Paglia’s warning isn’t only about overt censorship; it is also about subtler forms of intellectual laziness or social conformity. When artists, critics, or audiences settle for the comfort of cant, repeated, unchallenged assumptions, they neglect the indispensable uncertainty and experimentation required for meaningful originality. Creativity is not just the product of skill but of courage: the willingness to have unpopular opinions, question received wisdom, and pursue difficult or controversial truths. Cant is the antithesis of this rebellious impulse.

Genuine art emerges in resistance to conformity and rote thinking, thriving instead in the challenging terrain where instinct, technique, and authenticity intersect. To keep creativity alive, Paglia urges a relentless vigilance against cant and a fierce commitment to the demanding discipline of real invention.