“Some men acquire ideas and knowledge as other men acquire monetary wealth.”
-John Dewey
As an artist/scholar I often hear other artists/scholars scoff at people who make money for a living (as opposed to trafficking in ideas and art). Fucking capitalists, right!?! You know, if half the artists I knew spent half as much time as they do lambasting capitalists and “corporate whores” and instead focused all their attention on their art, they would save the world. I guarantee it.
Now few people would consider John Dewey, the father of American Pragmatism, a performance scholar, but that cat knew what it meant to be an artist and understood that that which we produce is not an art, but a product. So, it’s not that we produce and consume that’s the problem. It’s that we try to limit what some can produce and consume so others can produce and consume more. The investment banker produces a shit-ton of money. The intellectual produces a shit-ton of ideas. Neither ideas or money are real, so what’s the flippin’ difference?!
Yeah man, that's what I'm talking about!
“The fact,” says Dewey, “the scientific fact, is that even in his exercises, his practice for skill, an artist uses an art he already has. He acquires greater skill because practice of skill is more important for him than practice for skill.” You, me, and the five year old hocking lemonade on the street corner can all make money and we can all be artists. The ability is in us already.
A caveat to the save the world statement I made above: Only if you do. In other words, the little kid can spend all day making the best damn cup of lemonade that you’ve ever had, can stand in front of a mirror and practice the most sincere “I’m a sweet five year old who worked really hard on this so you should buy some” face ’til the cows come home, but if that brat isn’t on the street selling his shit, that smile and that lemonade will mean about as much as a snowcone to someone freezing in a blizzard, ’cause the only person who will drink it will be his mom. And maybe his cat.
Now some of you might be wondering what the heck this has to do with this week’s theme, hiccups. I don’t know, dude. Probably not a damn thing, but instead of worrying about it, why not go out and change the world. Damn.
Image Credit: Derek Bridges
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also, anyone in nola know who those kids are? that lemonade sounds legit and i’m always down for a good street corner musical act.
all i can say is, amen.
AND, i hope the kids are this generation’s little rascals.. Alfala just got so much cooler