A Herd of Independent Minds

To quote Robert Wyatt quoting Noam Chomsky quoting Harold Rosenberg the trivialisation of personal experience in mass media leads intellectuals unwittingly into a conformity of herd-like behaviour both in politics and the arts. I think its simpler and more fundamental than that - we are social animals influenced by the behaviour of others, whether we admire them or not. What's worse, in my view, is that we like to categorise people of independent minds into groups and movements. It's one of the laziest tropes of literary, artistic and musical criticism and it drives me bonkers.I probably belong to the bonkers group.
So then, what is the Bloomsbury Group? An independently minded lady called Vanessa Bell fancied a change and moved house to Bloomsbury. She went with her sister Virginia Woolf (left) and often invited people round to tea. That's about it really.
I'd rather it was called the Charleston group because there is something hugely evocative about the farmhouse where Vanessa and Duncan Grant and others lived during the War years. The painted walls, furniture, garden and every aspect of their daily lives danced with an open minded cosmopolitan optimism. Frances Spalding's biographical gazetteer of The Bloomsbury Group personalities (of which there are many and various) is a good primer but don't be deceived. These people may have known each other, met and loved each other but they are not a hive mind.