Some life-events are just "big", and it can be very-difficult-to-impossible to relate to that experience if you haven't had one of a similar scale yourself. I still struggle with expressing the emotion "I have fortunately not had that happen to me, but what you have lived through is awful."
Can you even define "best" for creative media? Sure, there's obvious junk that most people will agree can be discarded, but culture is very subjective. So instead of barriers to getting published at all, there are barriers in the form of curation and gatekeeping.
I assume the parent comment's last paragraph is why every fantasy novel I've read in the last decade has a five-page-long lesbian romance; the author has to play ball with the publisher in order to get marketed.
>Can you even define "best" for creative media? Sure, there's obvious junk that most people will agree can be discarded, but culture is very subjective.
I think all disciplines start “hard” and objective, getting into the subjective at a more advanced stage - at the very least it is easy for a knowledgeable reader to know when an author is actively choosing to disregard an established rule and when it is incapable of following it.
Saramago, the novelist, is famous for writing unconventionally, with long phrases and sparse punctuation, but nobody doubts he could have written conventionally. Same for Picasso rejecting realism.
Many famous authors right now would clearly have a hard time following the “base” rules, and that for me warrants judging them by hard rules. If they could, and got into the twisting rules phase, then I agree it becomes a far more subjective matter.
I mean, foods like soy sauce and yogurt and sauerkraut predate industrialization, but are very processed. I wouldn't worry too much about MSG in particular, since it is also mostly made by fermentation:
Salt is more fundamental for the body than just flavoring. I'd hesitate even to call it a spice. That said, umami ingredients like mushrooms and seaweed are certainly used together with salt.
The Pope directs the spiritual priorities of his Bishops and thereby all Catholics, a lot of people. He's not going to be able to say "Kill, fornicate, and steal now!" without losing all credibility, but he can say, "We're going to ask for contributions monthly for X good cause." There's also money and diplomatic effort to be directed to dioceses around the world.
