Using established skills, technology and theoretical understanding, the world is full of spectacular creations which have been brought to fruition within the constraints of pre-established formulae... everything from architecture, weapons, paintings, symphonies, sculptures, philosophies, and political, scientific, social and sporting systems. All are entitled to attract and retain whatever adulation the vicissitudes of time and human fashion dictate. In any field of human interest however, there will be a tendency for the younger generations to associate the privilege and dominance of the older generation with the established and venerated brick walls, regulations and creations. Many of the politically and legally inclined of the upcoming generation will attempt to "play the system" by learning the rules and how to manipulate them to their own advantage. For a complex variety reasons however, there will always be a few who choose to break with the system rather than be conformed by it and attempt to grow in the cracks.

Creativity and innovation which steps outside the imprinted models and regulations of an organization or culture, is initially always disregarded, suppressed or rooted out, because of necessity it breaks with comfortable and enshrined forms and assumptions which have provided the establishment with their benefits and advantages. The individual or minority group that chooses to break with established laws and conventions embarks upon a future that is likely to be deprived, persecuted and probably short.

The word "laicasseurism" is intended to describe that widespread phenomenon whereby rules, conventions and assumptions are questioned and "broken" for the purpose of promoting more creative and fruitful possibilities. Individuals exhibiting this attribute are more likely to be "laic"...i.e. "secular"...rather than religious, simply on the grounds that religion is a rule-making rather than a rule-breaking process. The laicasseur is the existential antithesis of the religious fanatic that aspires to subjugate a society to a mindless and convergent regime of intolerant power. They are from the "laity" of a culture and feel obliged or compelled to break with established beliefs and customs in order to create or promote something that is uncomfortably revolutionary to the institutionalized authority.

A laicasseur runs a significant risk of being excluded from professional societies and associations and consequently will probably be deprived of financial resources and any form of recognition. He or she may in fact choose to be deliberately "non-professional" in that they would refuse to "profess" or vow allegiance to the codified laws of the profession involved, and would only be "amateur" in the old original sense of the word, which indicated a "love" of the activity involved. History abounds with examples in all spheres of human activity. Many scientists, artists and social revolutionaries, scorned during their life, become venerated after their death as the newer generations come to appreciate the value of their contributions.

Nurturing traditions, education and social engineering tend to ensure that the bulk of the population have their reality and behavioural models imposed upon them. To the general brain-washed minions of a controlled population, the laicasseur is usually indistinguishable from a mutinous radical, a psychotic delusionary or immoral malefactor. The laicasseur...the little wild "forget-me-not"...gets rooted out from its crevice in the sun and cast on the compost heap. Occasionally, perhaps when a society has already been partially destabilized... by war for example...the laicasseur will resonate with the mood of times and money and recognition will be accorded to them in their own lifetime. As often as not however, although later generations may recognize the laicasseur as having been a promoter and creator of new models and perspectives, their ideas and endeavours remain unheralded and unrewarded until well after their demise.