Is creative work a basic human want?

That's true when they get to your age. Staying regular is an imperative.

 

I believe that the pursuit of art to the exclusion of survival, is a factor in what has gone so horribly wrong with First World societies.

While it IS possible to be paid for your art, the vast majority of those who pursue it become a burden on society in one way or another. Only the very richest of us can truly afford that life, yet 99% of those who attempt it are not rich. That's a level of self-indulgence no society can sustain.

 

No it doesn't. For many observers, 'creative talent' reduces the individual's social standing.

 

Utility art is done for very different reasons. It's not done to elevate the artist, or indulge some purposeless personal 'urge' to create, it's done to praise, appease, worship, story-tell, chronicle, enhance etc .. something EXTERNAL to the self. When its expression is a part of the ordinary anonymous individual's 'daily chores', the end product acquires a beauty far more powerful than the purposeless self-indulgence of art for art's sake.

 

An example?

 

There are huge swathes of humanity who regard the 'artist' as a flawed individual, and therefore beneath ordinary regard.

How are you unaware of this? Have you spent your entire life amongst people who are impressed by rock stars?

 

I'm going to get a purple sprinkle donut. I'm going wild, baby!

 

Maybe I'm unaware of that fact because it is entirely in your head. And yes, I am impressed by musical talent but the arts are not entirely the scope of the "creative talent" outlet. Innovators, creators of new ideas generally rise above the fray, are more successful than those without creative talent. They're usually more admired and respected even if it's just among their particular clique.

Okay, but I hope it doesn't upset your "regularity", to be polite.

 

thats actually a great point, especially when someones creativity runs contrary to existing honey pots. (cancer for instance)
Creativity is only welcome when it comes from the 'right' people! (those who can maintain their honey pot intact)

 

Ageist!!!!

Will report you for that.

 

You are quite the nasty individual.

 

Dude, get out and travel. You'll find I'm right.

And in this instance I'm ONLY talking about 'art'.

 

If you know what this means, that makes one of us.

 

I've been quite out and about and I don't know what you are talking about. Can you give me a real example rather than the "huge swathes of humanity who regard the 'artist' as a flawed individual"? Who are the swathes?

 

No, I got your vulgar, ageist, offensive and disrespectful "joke." I was just biting my tongue and then changed my mind because I decided that someone has to tell you that you can't honorably disrespect people on the grounds of their age, any more than you can on the grounds of race, sex or sexual orientation. I am incapable of changing my age or the attending infirmities.

You can tell the moderators whatever I did to personally disrespect you this way, assuming they call you on it.

 

Error

 

Many cultures regard the pursuit of art as a 'career' an act of irresponsibility (in any but the very wealthy), and thus the individuals involved are often considered rather dumb, selfish, and lowbrow. Adding weight to that is that the hedonism and dissoluation found in many art scenes (music, etc). EG try telling your NE Asian parents you've decided to be an actor, and see what happens.

 

Is all change good? No, but it is inevitable. As they say, the one constant in the universe is change. This is where conservativism always fails. They want everything to stay the same, when it is not possible. Progressives/liberals on the other hand, embrace change and instead of using their energies to try and stop it, they use it to make things better.

 

Well, we can start a debate on the "purity" of art, but creativity is creativity regardless of what the intent was for and what the real debate of this thread is whether the need for creative work is a fundamental element of human nature or not, and I think I have adequately shown that it is.

 

I don't know any cultures that have a particular aversion to the arts. All appreciate and encourage the arts. Individuals in every culture may want their child to be a doctor rather than a rapper, because only the very best are successful and because of the difficulty getting there.

For all I know I am older than you. I hope, when I grow up, I don't become a humorless geezer.

 

Always fails?

I remember hearing this anti traditionalist talk during the hippie days, when revolution was all the rage. Down with the pigs, make love not war, tune in, turn on and drop out. I was too inexperienced to really know why it was wrong headed, but still I knew.

Then along came Ronald Reagan, who was elected and then re-elected by winning 49 states. Count 'em. 49.

But Bill Clinton resurrected liberalism with his folksy charm concealing the mispgynist within. And then back came the conservatives and GW Bush, with mom and apple pie.

Then came flag waving Trump and "make America great again."

Of course, Biden is now so well, and Trump is so bad, that no conservative can ever win again, amirite?

Conservatives recognize the inevitability of change. We are just suspicious of spasmodic lurches to the left based on feeling, because what is traditional has became so after decades, and sometimes centuries, of trial and error.

 

Oops, my bad, I meant to say "This is where conservativism ultimately fails". "Always fails" is most definitely false as we just saw with the SCOTUS. See, if conservativism actually worked, we would still have the same cultural values as the people from the 1780's, but as I said before, change is a constant.

 

Anarcho-syndicalism?


Twice now you've started interesting threads for me, the other being the one about standard deviations.
The amount of stuff to unpack from this OP is just plain sick.

Noam Chomsky? I've heard of this guy and I don't have a particularly favorable impression of him and I suppose if I were to attempt to explain why then I'd hazard to opine that he seems to me to use his above average intelligence almost as a weapon. Such that he elevates his use of language to describe fundamental concepts in terms that most folks likely struggle to grasp. And that I suspect he does this largely as an act of shameless self-promotion. Can't Foucault the guy for trying and succeeding though - I suspect that it takes some skills to leverage a PhD on something as mundane as the rules of grammar to become a tenured prof at MIT.

Wrapped around this we have your proposition that a guy like Chomsky and his assertions in this debate offer a shining example of why leftists suck.

Then, you go on to further complain of leftist libs by asserting that Clinton exemplified the stuff you dislike about the left that thankfully ended with the election of W.

Well, first, I suppose it was necessary that I watch the clip. Quite entertaining. Was that Joey Ramone featured in the opening segment? If so, how did he get to Eindhoven? And why where when how what seem almost insufficient investigative questions to begin to unravel whether or not there may have been a prescient message on behalf of the creator of this clip to include Joey as proof that Art is of no value. Suffice it to say that I find Anthony Bourdain's respect of the Ramones to be misguided at the least and possibly complete proof that Bourdain's opinion regarding what is and isn't worthy of admiration is not to be trusted. But perhaps I'm being overly dramatic. Suffice it to say that I find the Ramones to be largely overrated and I don't understand why they were so prominently featured in the video. But maybe that just looked like Joey Ramone, and I've completely lost the plot by following this line of thought.

But, since this OP raises the question of the value of Art, I suppose I'm somewhat on topic by pursuing my interest in music with respect to this thread. There is probably nothing that comes close to the value I have for the Arts more than music. And as it so happens, the music of the 60s and 70s remains a prominent and steadfast favorite of mine. Amusing it is to me then when I notice that this debate occurred 4Q71 - the exact same time that arguably the greatest work of musical Art was ever released: Led Zeppelin IV. Now, this is of course an impossible thing even for me to assert, that Zeppelin IV sits at the top of my personal choice as the greatest album of all time. Abbey Road was released two years prior and Sticky Fingers was released about half-a-year earlier. All of this music I suppose could be categorized as leftist and I haven't even mentioned Pink Floyd yet.

My my hey hey conservatives seem to have won the day. Noam's idealistic perfect techno future of anarcho-syndicalist society remains only a glimmer of inspirational grunge heaven in a William Gibson dystopian science fiction future, but we may get there yet given science fiction's propensity at predicting it, the future that is.

Was/Is disdain for the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon hippie commie leftist tripe? And all the hippie music that went along with it? There are folks that hold this type of view to this day. Dismiss such complaints as Lib bullshit.

Are you making the argument that what we really need more focus on is respect for the value of work that contributes to efficient production for the needs of the people? Seems almost Marxist that does to me. Communist as true as it gets. Values held in high esteem by the former Soviet Union, yes?

The relative value of Art and the truth of what it means to be human are interesting subjects of discussion to some folks, but not so much to me. Specifically you offer the example of little kids enjoying drawing and coloring and ask whether or not it represents a primordial and serious urge that needs to be satisfied and does it have political implications.

The last time I had any formal education in political science was back around 1990 and my prof offered up that there were two distinct theories regarding what governments should do: justice or utility. Now, as I write this, I struggle somewhat to align what I recall as his description of utility meant with the plain meaning I have in my mind of the word. His description of what it meant was more along the lines of a theory that on the one hand there were some folks that argued that the only goal government should strive to achieve is to create a society where its inhabitants can be assured of justice under the law and that the other folks believed that it was necessary that government implement additional control to direct the inhabitants of the society toward some type of common goal, or something like that. It remains an unclear distinction to me.

I believe that it is essential to establish justice as the foundation of government's first and foremost responsibility. Without it nothing else can be achieved. As an example, I do not believe that the US has always established this and has in fact violated this principle numerous times. Most egregiously in my view it failed to establish justice with respect to enshrining slavery in its Constitution and in its treatment of the indigenous population of the country.

Debating the relative importance of human creativity with respect to political agendas is pretty low on my list when someone like Michael Milken remains with a net worth of something like $3B. Glaring examples of injustice abound within the US, the per capita leader of prisoners on the whole f'g planet. Might be a good metric worth looking into, eh?

 

Exactly. There is so much which is unhealthy and/or irresponsible associated with the arts, that this is an almost universal position in non-Western cultures.

I can't think why you bothered to deny it.

 

Sure. Creating a really efficient dwelling, or a highly productive garden, or a beautiful place of worship. All these things are essential to the human experience.