Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
- Nikola Tesla
as much as it can be applied to knit blogging and knitting publishing - and it can - i point you to george will's december 21 washington post column.
i have a few friends who found this column "elitist". they seemed to feel that will was, from his lofty post, discouraging the average joe from creative and expressive outlets, suggesting that he himself was somehow more entitled to them.
i saw the opposite - that will had simply said that people find their own satisfaction through their blogs and YouTube films, but it does not make them automatic geniuses, and that in striving to be thought of as more than just one of the seventy quadrillion bloggers in the world, one might actually have to dig deep and try harder. i never got the message dig deep and try harder from anybody in life who didn't love the hell out of me and so i don't find it particularly offensive. will certainly never said he thought all of america's bloggers were incapable of doing more, or better; he just said they weren't thomas paine. and if they don't want to do more or better, who cares what george f. will says?
i think will is right in suggesting there is no inherent "value" in somebody's livejournal about their knitting and their sleep patterns and their relationships. we've certainly seen that, in the knitting publishing niche, the market has been flooded with books that have put the cart before the horse, and are the result of someone who "wants to have a book published" and will mold and twist that "book" to be whatever will get their name onto it. it's not just knitting publishing, it's all publishing. as a fiction writer, i've never been more disinterested in publishing in periodicals or anthologies. i don't see much i like, and i don't much care, but i do keep writing, even when i'm not thinking about who will see it and what the print run will be and how glossy the cover might look.
the tesla quote at the beginning of this post is, to me, a perfect analogy. when it comes to creativity today - in art, music, knitting, literature - you don't see a lot of experiments, and it's not just because experimentation can fail. it's because experimentation is subject to judgment, and people today seem to think they have earned a pass to never have judgment passed upon them, in any serious manner.
consider american idol. is an american idol winner in any way "the best of the best"? they're showing the commercials for the new season of american idol now, and baiting viewers with - flaunting - the squeaks and honks and bleats of "performers" who wouldn't have made it onto the gong show. yet the lie is perpetrated that these people are reaching for the gold ring - the gold ring that will be awarded, no doubt, once again this season to somebody barely good enough to perform in a small-town dinner theatre. even though the entire concept is based on "judging", there's no significant value judgment being made. that would take guts. that would create risk and loss - and actual triumph.
like tesla says, it's "equation after equation". equating bloggers with thomas paine. equating the wish to be famous, or at least validated, with the endowments of talent and genius.
taking any umbrage at george will's rather politely expressed opinions - particularly in light of how "vitriolic" bloggers can be (and they do seem to love that word applied to themselves, smearing it around like sparkly blue eyeshadow), seems not only rather "harrison bergeron"- esque - since george will is just as entitled to his opinions as anyone else - it's also dangerously close to fishing for his approval.
from the often-interesting blog layers of meaning, comes this post on art and the narrative gap. it's worth a look, particularly for views on why people "make" what they make.
there is always power, and slop, in owning the means of production. YouTube has not proven itself to be as powerful a force as, say, roosevelt's WPA federal art project. wasn't that also about the proletariat, the anybodies? and didn't it provide more lasting contributions than "texting your vote" to make the next nobody "famous"?
my friends who found will's column "elitist" also shared the common belief that it didn't matter how many bloggers, or contestants, or striving units of any sort were out there, anyway - the best work would always rise to the top and be found. i disagree, and i think george will makes it clear that he does as well, and why. the best work has never been known to rise to the top, and sludge - particularly sludge with an outsized sense of its own deservedness - does get in the way. it doesn't just get in the way of the competition. it gets in the way of the world's new people, who have to wade deeper and further than ever before to find quality. and, equation after equation - with well-meaning people standing by at all times to say "but who am i to judge what's really good and what's merely allowable?" - there now exists a structure which, in fact, like tesla said, bears no relation to reality.
and yeah, i mean the good kind of reality. and yeah, i'm fine with my own judgment of that.