Biting the hand that feeds us

Biting the hand that feeds us

We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us. Edmund Burke

This book is dedicated to the rule breakers, the troublemakers, and the revolutionaries. Sometimes the hand that feeds you needs a good bite. Dan Wells

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. Eric Hoffer

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you when you’re full, then turn around and expect a hand out when you’re starving again. Zodiac City

An artist should always bite the hand that feeds him - but not too hard. Nam June Paik

Are the words of the prophets still being written on the subway walls or are they only Facebook memes?

As a biographer I am well aware that we do not see things as they are but rather as we are. For it is impossible for even the most truthful among us to eliminate the personal. We are each a creature of time, place, circumstance, interests, predilections, and culture. Samuel Hynes characterised this as people ‘imagining’ competing versions of the same reality. I have ‘imagined’ food as a political act in which biting becomes a metaphor for an engagement with the democratic process through which we question other people’s imaginings.

So what of these words? Do they provide an insight in the men and women who wrote them? Their readers? The publishers? The gallery director? Or do they speak of me … or you? Do Burke’s words resonate with our post-Trump world because they are timeless? Or do we look at his words and see only our reflection … fleeting, ephemeral and very, very personal.