gatekeepers are not the problem
Book publishing boards, admissions committees, and journal editors are all gatekeepers.
The responsibility of a gatekeeper is to curate and shepherd work they believe will advance the craft and reject everything else.
Unlike sifting salt where the refined bits are guaranteed to make it through, choosing whether an idea passes or not is about uncertainty, estimation and best-guesses. The taste of even the best gatekeeper will occasionally reject good work that the future wants and deserves.
It’s easy to look at the imperfect enterprise of gatekeeping and demand better parts, but the elusive gatekeeper capable of placing the right bet every time does not exist.
Gatekeepers don’t need to have the last word. “Not for me” isn’t the same as “you should quit”. It’s an invitation to improve the work and looks elsewhere if you believe in the work.
The journal Physics Letters said “no thank you” to Peter Higgs’ paper on the boson theory (Higgs Boson, TIME’s 2012 Particle of the Year), so he submitted elsewhere.
38 people said “no thank you” to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind before 30 million people decided it was for them.
Rupi Kaur said “I can’t be held back by this gatekeeper who was never going to pay attention to me anyways” and decided to self-publish Milk and Honey for over 2.5 million people.
If the work is important enough and you believe that it exists for someone, then it deserves the tenacity, advocacy, and willingness to reinvent the rules required to deliver it.
