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necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 09:37
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one of my very passages from trotsky, the language is a bit, well dodgy translation from early C20 Russian ,but the point remains the same. From the end of Literature & Revolution: [after the revolutuion] More than that. Man at last will begin to harmonize himself in earnest. He will make it his business to achieve beauty by giving the movement of his own limbs the utmost precision, purposefulness and economy in his work, his walk and his play....Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane. It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of one and the same process. All the arts—literature, drama, painting, music and architecture will lend this process beautiful form. More correctly, the shell in which the cultural construction and self-education of Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body 'will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 10:15
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someone writes something i think is wrong, stupid, or just plain weird there is pretty much also always something that raises an interesting point that i hadn't taken into consideration before. and, yeah, its well mannerred - forceful, strongly put, take no prisoners maybe, but never deliberately offensive, unlike yeah, pretty much any other board i wander over. which i s v cool indeed. and if i've come close to failing to match those standards lately it's only cos i still really really REALLY want a bloody CIGARETTE!!! grrrr, (9 days, 9 hours, 24 minutes now). But, back to the polemic, (you lily livered pathetic bourgeoise liberal corporate cock suckers you.....whoops!) Would mostly agree with what you're saying but - 'have you seen how many shoes/crisps/etc there are out there?' not half as many as you think. in fact not 10% as many as you might think. this is capitalism, it offers utterly flase choices. how many crisps? two or three. there are only two or three crisp MANUFACTURERS (which is the point i think, unless you wanna argue that there is a fundamental principled difference between salt & vinegar and worcestire sauce flavours). Pretty much likewise shoes, medicines, hell most of what we buy, theres no real 'competition', tis another capitalist illusion. there are other choices - but it can be incredibly difficult to try to tell your 13 year old kid why they can't have Nike when 'all' there mates are doing. and we may have a technical choice about buying those £1 t-shirts that (you are absolutely right) are made in appalling conditions. unless you are on the dole and need a shirt, then one for a quid makes a hell of a lot of sense. Better (imo) to gtry and tackle the problem at a ore root level - try joining the No Sweat campaign (http:\\www.nosweat.org.uk) - not that the two things are mutually incompatible of course. how is a consumer 'directly respponsible' for the production methods - most of the trime they are prevented from knowing how goods are produced. and for the majority of people finding out just how things are done just isn't practical. there are always many many more things that individuals could be doing to make the world a better place. i think there is a danger with phrasing things in the 'it's your fault!!' way (which is what i think you are saying, even if inadvertently) is that people will just go, 'aah well, what can i do then, fuck it!' and not do anything. bloody hell, was gonna try and be brief.,....failed again
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 10:21
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I am really not sure about your assertion that even conveyor belt jobs or call centre jobs can have an element of creativity. Not artistic creativity anyway. There is certainly no inventive creativity present. UNLESS, of course you break the rules and refund loads of bank charges on your last day :-) or 'break' their rules - the bosses rules. The very ideal of post Victorian industrialisation has been to remove all personal touches from work and remove the status of 'craftsman'. At one time a craftsman was seen as an expert, someone to be revered, someone to be respected, someone with an almost magical ability to create. This also means they are not only a person who needs to be paid more highly thana machine operator, but they are almost an equal to the 'ruling' class, and therefor something to be eliminated. At interviews you always get asked 'where you want to be in 5 years'. I have always answered that I still want to be a computer programmer, NEVER a team leader or management etc.. This is because I am a craftsman and I have always been fortunate enough to have jobs in R&D type roles whereby I can create. I am not claiming superiority over others here with this statement, but am pointing out that even in today's production line based industrial system you can still be a craftsmen. People are constantly being told that they are the same. Everybody loves Coka-Cola and Nike shoes and this car and that quick meal. Adverts constantly tell us that we are all the same, whilst always sneaking in ones that say - "if you want to be different try brand X instead of brand Y that everyone else uses." There is no need to break the mould. Just refuse to be put into it. 'The class mold' is a post birth process that you are forced through from an early age. Your individuality is squeezed out of you in order to make you fit into 'the mold'. All you have to do is reject 'the mold' and regain that individuality. There are certain bits you can't escape from very easily, paying bills, needing money etc, but you can reduce the role of this soul restrictions if you really want to. The first step in this process is to reject the idea of class. That is the first step in the process of fitting you into your place in society. You are working class or lower class, whatever. And then, once you have accepted this as fact - "therefor you will do this and will not do that, because you are working class. Oh and by the way, you will NEVER do this" - follows. Just a long ramble that is probably very disjointed ... sorry.
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 10:45
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we are all creative all the time. when i was on a conveyor belt line stuffing flyers into magazines, i created......flyer stuffed magazines!! not as funky as many computer programmes maybe, but still vaguely creative, (and quite possibly more useful even!). then there was the slipping of notes into packaged goods that pointed out exactly how much they actually cost to make. of course more 'skilled' jobs allow for greater freedom of expression within them, but everyone, EVERYONE who labours creates. i remember when labour were abolishing Clause 4, Tony Benn said he thought it was great, he just wanted to change one little bit - where it said 'to seize for the workers, by hand or by brain...' to '..for the workers, by hand AND by brain...' cos we all always use both. he may be a middle of the road methodist minister, but he's spot on sometimes
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 11:03
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I am not trying to parade being a programmer as a great art or anything. And you're right the end product I produce for money is not that beneficial to society - certainly not to the society I want to be a part of. However, claiming that putting together a magazine is creative is stretching the term to its limits. It is not creating it is manufacturing. There is a big difference in my own personal dictionary. Mass production of anything is not creative. Laying out the original artwork or taking the photos for the mag or writing a report or interviewing someone is the creative part of the process, not printing and stapling millions of copies together. You also said about putting notes in a package telling the end user about how much it really costs. This is something I mentioned earlier - you can only be creative in these industrialised jobs if you break the boss's laws and rules. You have to step outside the predefined role of the job to do it.
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 11:31
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i think you're misunderstanding what i was trying to say, to some extent. every job CREATES something was my main point. and in some way in there there is some creativity. obviously more in some jobs than in others, but there is always some there. to use your example of laying out a magazine....i do that sometimes, but i am not VERY creative in doing so. i follow a template by and large. all magazines want to develop a particualr style and 'look', so they are produced the same way time after time. the lines between 'craft' and 'manufacturing' are very blurred. these days i think every job contains elements of both
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 12:00
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I'm gonna ponder this for a while, but here's my initial reaction: "the lines between 'craft' and 'manufacturing' are very blurred." The lines are blurred because the 'craft' has disappeared and been replaced by robotic mass (re)production. " these days i think every job contains elements of both" I think if you look closely you will see that they don't. I think it is only there in the minds of those who won't face the reality that all jobs are shite these days and that you are working for the man in the manner in which the man wants you to. This is not a direct jibe at you but at people in general. This includes myself - I get up each morning and prostitute myself for a few pieces of gold. If I didn't make myself believe that it was worth while, by conning myself that I am using my creative programming mind to its fullest, for the greater benefit of mankind (blah, blah, blah) I wouldn't get out of bed. When I think of the really good use that my only real (yet discovered) ability could be put to I weap at the waste of it. For instance I could write a world model that could work out the logistics for fair distribution of the world's food resources. Sadly these good things will never pay the bills or feed my children in this unenlightened world. I thought that you would have had experience in the actual design part of magazines and this is why I used that analogy, apart from picking up on your previous comments. Someone as dedicated as yourself to you beliefs and causes usually does end up in this area at some time. I do take your point about templating a mag for image (and ease of finding what you want) purposes and perhaps layout should be re-phrased as initial concept design is an 'craft'. Skilled labour is a thing of the past or at the very best a tool for the rich people to score points against the Smithers-Jones' - "Oh, you bought you kitchen from a shop? We had a little man make ours for us!" That's quite a lot for an 'initial reaction' pending some pondering isn't it!? Anyhow, I agree that all these jobs produce something, but I would never attach the word 'create' to them. Creation is a one off unique thing, not a mass production process. Take Chippendale as an example - the furniture bloke not one of the strippers before anyone says anything :-). He created unique pieces of furniture. He then published the plans for them in books and other people mass produced them. Most Chippendale furniture was not made by Chippendale or the craftsmen that work with him, but it was manufactured from his designs in other factories. He created, the others manufactured to a design. I know this may seem like me being picky and splitting hairs, but semantics are very important when conveying a message, especially on forums and such, where body language and inflection are absent, and things are easily misinterpreted.
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stray 2057 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 12:04
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I usually avoid putting my head above 4Ws parapet but I just can't help myself here. I've worked in IT for 18 years (man and boy, hey, hardest job in the world and all those other facile fast show type statements ;)) and disagree that programming is creative. As the industry has developed the creative input alllowed by programmers has been gradually eroded. This is why I've switched mainly to design, I'm a lucky guy, I work in a company where research is valued over development. I'm currently working on a new OODBMS engine as it goes. But I digress, back to the point. The nature of the work, particularly when dealing with what we used to call mission critical apps basically can't allow too much in the way of creativity. Creativity is risky, dangerous and downright time consuming. The majority of a programmers work these days can be likened to building something with a method akin to Lego. Rapid application development tools are used like paint by numbers sets. The creativity inherent is trying to find the most efficient way of stapling these 'ready mades' together, or trying to make the bastard tools allow you to do something you want. I would argue that this is not actually creativity, it's an intellectual process. It is 'hacking'. Creativity is playing music, picking up a camera, making a sculpture. Creativity is not hacking. Back in the days b4 RAD, formalised methods and other bloatware the proggie had a lot of input that could be described as creative. Those days are long gone (except in the games industry and research labs), 'cos of the costs, time to market requirements of software, quality assurance requirements and a whole heap of other sensible management requirements. Technique is not meaning, methods are not art. Systems can generate art, building the system is not art. The end result if it's a bog standard OLTP, Warehouse or OLAP system infers that any creativity that built it is inherently futile and essentially uncreative. Now, let the 'old skool' vs 'new skool' arguments begin.
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 12:25
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I totally agree with you ... now there's a first! Most programming today is, just as you say - like using Lego. I am fortunate enough to not work with these foul things and work in an R&D area using just C++ and so enjoy slightly more freedom. I agree that flair and individuality are seen as a risk by most people/employers, that is why folks are happy to work with Windows! - everything looks and feels the same - customers are safe with that. But I would strenghthen my argument by saying this is because they don't want to spend the time training people and creating a skilled worker. Companies want software that anyone can use so that they can maintain high levels of staff turnover and keep wages low. Keeping a job simple is not to aid the worker, but the boss. If you start to believe the opposite then you are complying with their evil designs or something. Sadly, even the work I do in an R&D enviroment is restricted to a certain extent by these considerations. I do get to put a lot of 'me' in there but not enough. Quite often a lot of it is ... erm .. Market Trimmed was one term I once heard :-)
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stray 2057 posts |
Sep 06, 2002, 12:25
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OLego is a more a flexible medium than an API, sorry for that analogy.
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