Does this really work? Thomas Kinkade shows that can be manipulated quite well.
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That’s an incredibly capitalist-centric view of sustaining one’s self… Of COURSE people consume things like food, water, culture, ideas, feelings, etc. These are interlocked processes that go hand in hand. But “consume” has come to denote a passive, corporate driven process, rather than actual fruitful process taking in the world can be to the creative process.
Dismissing creation because it happens less than consumption is incredibly weird. Of course we consumer more than we create, because the act of consuming is not as complex or sometimes difficult as creating a work of art can be… but to argue that we’re “primarily consumers not creators” is pretty indicative of your views on the matter, or so it seems to me.
Hell, even this interaction here is an act of creation, not just consumption. We create a shared understanding of the world via consuming ideas and trying to create our own to share.
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The audience is part of the production process.
It’s all just three sides of the same coin.
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20 sided dice, or GTHO.
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Ha! Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a man? They are commonly skilled at listening to far less than they “create.” Lol.
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I don’t think you’re responding to my point?
Ultimately my point is this:
Dorothy Parker didn’t have to literally chomp down capsules of gin on the way to her publisher to access the roads.
And she didn’t have to sell them to her readers to earn a living either.
It doesn’t matter what brought you to the abattoir once you are in.
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Not at all capitalistic, if anything social-anarchistic. My lens on this one isn’t looking at the monetary value of art, but more based on Graeber’s “Debt: the First 5000 Years”. Society is built on mutually held debt. Culture is an ongoing collaborative discussion.
Even if you’re not performing any monetary transfer, participation with culture is, first and foremost, adapting how said art affects your life. The artist frequently is frustrated by the variety of interpretations that happen by the audience.
Remove any conditions you wish around “consumption” in this case, but the central point is that the impact on the audience is always larger than the scope from the creator. I don’t think we have sufficient respect for the active role of the audience in forming their own interpretation and how that effects other actions.
All I’m saying is: looking at social network solely from a production side doesn’t take into account the scope of the audience. Lurkers are still participants, and reducing it simply to “likes” is, in its own way, a reductive capitalistic experience.
Edit:
Hell, even this interaction here is an act of creation, not just consumption. We create a shared understanding of the world via consuming ideas and trying to create our own to share.
True, there’s no way for you to see my participation as an audience unless I create something. But, say, if I were consuming Q theories, it doesn’t matter as much if I’m responding or not: it’ll affect my actions in larger society.
The concept of consumption as a central pre-occupation of human beings actually is very much a capitalist concept, such as argued by folks such as Lizabeth Cohen, among others.
I said nothing of your own personal politics. I don’t know what they are, but it’s immaterial to the point you seemed to be making, that we’re primarily passive consumers, not actively creative. I think that Graeber would very much be in agreement that human beings are defined more by their ability to create rather than their ability to consume. MY point is that concepts like consume and produce are very much shaped by the social forces, which are invariable based on the capitalist mindset… another issue that Graeber would agree with, I think.
That’s not what many of us took away from your initial comment. Be clearer in your meaning perhaps. It was very much dismissing the creative impulse to center consumption.
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