(If you wish to learn more about Colin, follow this link to his record label).
The conversation began June 6, 2008.
I would like to thank Colin for taking time out of his busy schedule and indulging me in this discussion.
Arnold Schoenberg once wrote that is our "duty to reflect on the mysterious origins of art." I'd like to break the concept of art into a few areas: creativity / inspiration, talent, and application (work approach, method, dedication).
I wonder to what extent Arnie's maxim is true for everyone — especially those struggling masses who don't get too much free-time for philosophy — but yes, I personally have moments of pondering great unanswerables.
I certainly wonder what stuff creativity is made of, for instance. Is it special like magic, or natural like mucus?
Re-phrasing the question in this crude fashion gives me the pleasure, when anyone delivers a statement on what creativity might be, of being able to reply "No, it's snot".
My own position, thus far, holds creativity as a completely natural and shared aspect of humankind which is rooted in our three defining characteristics of goal-directed problem-solving, the creation of order, and the need for play.
I'm sure it doesn't apply to everyone. We're talking about art. I suppose we could take a more philosophical tack and ask "What is art?" Surely there is a difference between the kind of self-reflective process an artist goes through in the creative process (that process intrinsically involved in the production of art) versus "general creativity." There must be a difference between Michelangelo and Bob, who has decided to paint racing stripes on his boat because this pleases him. If we allow the idea that there are artists and that an artist is someone who produces art (in some capacity) then there must be a way to discuss its production. Perhaps the impetus lies in the idea of intentionality or curiosity or some hybrid of both. Perhaps it is the inherent relationship between artist and viewer / participant / listener. Schoenberg's comment, I believe, came at a time in his book on harmony in which he was questioning the idea of eternal rules or laws in the production of art. It seems to me that his is a statement of awareness: looking for a source that may be outside the current limits of understanding rather than viewing art as a series of self-enclosed systems.
Oh, I thought the constituent elements you posited (creativity / inspiration, talent, and application (work approach, method, dedication) were well able to satisfy any philosophical jones either of us might have had. Maybe we can get back there later.
Addressing the "What is Art?" question is a formidable challenge that has beaten back far better men already. And identification according to some 'self-reflective process' raises its own issues. There may indeed be a different order of activity happening when Bob puts stripes on his boat. But who's to say there isn't another aspect of his life where such mundanity is transcended ? And how are we to deal with that contemporary current wherein it often seems that the ability to articulate 'self-reflection' has usurped the place of art itself, and debate is not about the thing, but rather the idea of it?
Traditionally, my personal response to this has taken two directions. First comes the "Art is what they tell us it is" point of view. Even as a tiny nipper in a 'culturally-deprived' environment, it was still somehow handed down to me through atmospheric osmosis that the Mona Lisa was iconic, for example. So was opera and 'classical' music generally. And Shakespeare, of course. Stuff usually found in art galleries and grand theatres and great museums. 'Art' as a social historical political construction. Manufactured.
None of this is news. Naturally. It's a perspective with history and traditions and literature. It already enlivened us with Dada and nihilism, Piero Manzoni, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, and their splendid parodist critiques of consumerism and art-markets. Right up through Dali and Warhol even to the present wave of Brit-Art installations and conceptual pieces excreted by the Goldsmiths' College generation with their blithe re-cycling of used ideas.
Ironically, in perfect po-mo style almost, despite the radical postures, these guys had real sophisticated advance understandings of the black arts — publicity wizardry, slick media manipulation, celebrity notoriety — an area of expression which I now view as a legitimate arena for art in its own right. Communications arts, I guess. Though I often think of it as simply 'packaging' in recognition of that core process for elevation, or reification, of actions into symbols — like 'lifestyle', or 'values', or 'happiness', 'youth', 'freedom, 'democracy'... even 'Art', I guess. It's certainly a phenomenon, in all seriousness, which I include as one of the three singular creative forms of the twentieth century: alongside jazz and cinema.
So there we are, recognition that "Art is what they tell us it is" becomes entertainingly synchronous with the recognition that the veritable act and style of telling us what Art is can also be an art-form.
It's that pesky self-referential post-modernist narrative again.
And its bastard beauty.
Anyway, what I would just like to confess at this juncture of paranthetical diversion is that, for a whole bunch of philosophical considerations and ideological reasons not entirely unrelated to all of the above, I spent a lot of young life rejecting the traditional canonical status of many very fine pieces of work. A prejudiced dismissal built steadfastly upon ignorance... Which brings us quite conveniently to the "Art is what I say it is" position.
And I think there may be an echo here of your earlier reference to the "inherent relationship between artist and viewer / participant / listener" in that I make these identifications through ostension.
It will probably be no surprise to you that subsequent to my explorations it turns out there is considerable overlap between what I have been told is "Art" and what I have come to label "Art" by my own obstinate devices. Direct encounter is the key, I think. When you confront great art it will brook no denial.
I like the purity of ostension.
I also like the way it can handily illustrate my views of creativity as a universal condition.
I must confess that although I like your position(s), I'm torn. On one hand, I do agree that, on some level, the personal (whatever we call that sense of "self") encounters art and recognizes it as art immediately. There is a sense of otherness about it. But this doesn't work so well if we consider it in an epistemological or ontological sense. In a facile mood, I'd say that such a response often substitutes for "that's beautiful," or "that's complicated" or "I like that" (or any of a number of responses generated from the object as a form of stimulus). The interesting thing, here, is that this is very nearly the kind of ostensive definition that Wittgenstein described (indicated by "that" or "this") and the thing pointed to becomes, by virtue of characteristics ascribed to it, the thing named. In this way it seems to share roots with the impetus for language itself. And yet, this (form) cannot be the answer because it is tautological. And yet, I find this, on a personal level, a satisfactory idea because it involves a direct encounter between object and subject, which is really the only way art can be effective.
On the other hand, we are all taught "this is art," which of course falls under the category "Art is what they say it is." In this sense, it is art because it is part of a canon or has cultural or historical significance (or, as in the case of your Dada comment, anti-art — though I might argue that the whole anti-art movement was successful precisely because it was art, and challenged common assumptions about the "objectness" of art; in some cases, the art as sign signified another media, such as Ray Man's Lautgedichte). Sometimes this (the status of "art") is conferred afterward; handy examples of this might be Henri Rousseau, whose early exhibitions were laughed at for their primitiveness and childlike characteristics; and Vincent Van Gogh, who, obviously, had a very troubled life — both men were not accorded the status they are today in their own lifetimes. This idea (art that is art) becomes problematic once you move past obvious examples. It becomes even more problematic once you consider different mediums and genres. Can a song be considered art? Does form destroy its ability to do something different?
In this sense, a public conception of art is difficult for the same reason that a personal definition of art is: it is (or can be thought of as) tautological. Therefore, it seems that unless we want to get mired in the characteristics of or definitions for art, ostensive definition is probably the best we can do.
Perhaps what I should do is delineate my original question. If we allow that there are artists and that artists produce art (leaving off the question of "is it really art"?) is it possible to discuss the process by which art (as an object) comes into being?
When we were bandying about ideas, you sent me an email with a quote I particularly liked. It reads:
"Any professional author will scoff at the implication that he spends his time hoping and waiting for a magic spark to start him off. There are few accidents of this kind in writing...
A term like inspiration annoys a professional author because it implies, in its common conception, that ideas and words are born in his brain as gifts from heaven and without effort. All who write know that writing is very, very hard work. Most of us do some work every day. Some get up early in the morning, as I do, and go straight to their studies as other men do to their business offices. Some writers prefer writing at night and work very late, but all of us are trying to write something nearly all the time. Nobody waits to be inspired. Some days the work comes easier than other days, but you keep going because he chances of getting good ideas are more likely while you are trying to get them than when you are doing nothing at all."
— Oscar Hammerstein II
Strange question, that last one.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it does not seem credible that one would approach a known painter poised brush in hand before a blank canvas and ask the same question, “When do you know that it is to be a painting?” For myself, I would have to offer the same response I imagine coming from the painter – “that it is what I have determined it will be”: I know what I am working on will become a song because that is my intention when I start out on it. For how else other than through the strenuous application of intent does art comes into being ?
You posed a couple of other questions that also gave me pause: “Can a song be considered art?” and “Does form destroy its ability to do something different?” My immediate response to the first was “Yes, of course it can” - with a brusque “No, of course not” to the second. We’ll have to get back to these in more detail, of course, because I know you’re not seeking such facile replies and that there just has to be something else on your mind in asking. Oh — and I wouldn’t mind getting back to epistemology and ontology sometime later if we get a chance, either, because in my view ostension lies at the core of both.
But where were we… ? I’m glad you like that quote from Oscar. There are other quotes from other folk saying pretty much the same thing, aren’t there ? Somebody famous once described art as being made from 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. In an ironic instance of the fleeting nature of fame, I plain don’t recall who that was right now, but I do think that 5% could be a serious overestimation.
And for practical workaday illustration let me first offer two of the guys I particularly admire: Pat Metheny and Bill Evans — both singular heavyweights in the pantheon of great musicians.
Metheny, for a first example, is an absolutely supreme player, I am sure you will agree, and yet one who has often explained that, because he lacked a natural physical facility for the guitar, playing his chosen instrument was something he really had to work hard at. In some ways I think this may help illuminate the level of pure musicality in his playing — that this lack of natural physical talent saved him from getting tricked and trapped into falling back on flashy displays of technical virtuosity and instead allows him to free his focus for just the right notes.
Similarly for Bill Evans, the quiet revolutionary, who might not be at all well known amongst the masses but sure had an indelible and profound impact on contemporary harmonic approaches and conceptions. He was a major figure. Very influential. Miles Davis’s modal concept for the seminal ‘Kind of Blue’ came right out of the way Evans played piano. (‘Blue In Green’ is so clearly an Evans’ tune, despite the given credit.) Yet he’s another guy who recognised very early that he had only comparatively modest talent which would require him to work harder than his contemporaries as a result.
What I’m cacking on about is my chosen belief that while passion and desire are the necessary impetus, the achievement of mastery depends on the embrace of discipline. Art is always the product of work. Great art is the result of putting in great work. Sweat. Not some mythical mystic inspiration.
Now, while I would never dare to compare my own meagre attainments with those of the real cultural heavies we’ve been speaking of, I have learned to take notice of lessons from the masters and recognise that I have to work at what I do if I expect it to be even half-way to decent.
Moving towards practical examples, as you suggested, of how this shakes out through my own personal process, maybe a first thing to note is that my collaborations with composers (I am the lyricist part of the equation) are always goal-directed — there has to be a motivating reason.
Perhaps we have someone specific in mind who we think can use a song, or maybe someone has asked for one. Occasionally, if there is no express client on the immediate horizon, I may set playful game-style lyric challenges for myself as exercises for keeping in some kind of verbal shape. Or I may pick or be given a tune from a collaborator and begin beavering away from that direction.
If writing to an extant tune, there is a primary need to express what Johnny Mercer called ‘the sound of the music’, with an accompanying responsibility is to honour the form as well as conform to the spirit. Rhyme, for instance, must fit the given rhythmic patterns of melody.
If working through the process of one of my ritual exercises, these all involve tangles with a range of similar constraints over shaping elements defining the form or vocabulary or internal structure and, in seeking effective lyrics appropriate for being set to music, I am ever conscious of the traditional or standard conventions in song-forms.
If writing for a client — whether lyric-first, music-first, or through more organic reciprocation — we will not only agree on concept, character, feel, tempo, style, sentiment and subject, but will also evolve a suitable defining structure.
But, whichever style of approach is operating, there is always an over-arching ‘design-brief’ like that to work to, a specification of one kind or another, some meaningful pattern governing project-direction rather than just “an idea that you are fooling around with”.
Random doesn’t make it for me anymore. Form is fundamental, essential, and unavoidable.
So, when you ask “Does form destroy its ability to do something different?”, I have to admit that doing “something different” is not really a valid goal for me. I have never even thought about it. My goals are simply to write as well and as authentically as I can. And I have no problem at all working within rule-bound environments. On the contrary, I find it highly productive.
I have been inspired in this by the games and strategies employed by ‘Oulipo’ cabal members like Raymond Queneau, George Perec, Italo Calvino and Harry Mathews, who each demonstrate exactly how liberating and fruitful it is to work from within literary constraints. Similarly, the confinements of musical form, rather than being restrictive, may also, in the words of Oscar Hammerstein II once more, “force an author into the concise elegance which is the very essence of poetry”.
I don’t know whether what I get up to meets any criteria for being ‘art’ though… There are sure a whole pile of great songs I love which I would consider pieces of art. My focus is on craft — trying to do it so the sweat and hard work is imperceptible.
I don't think it is a strange question; perhaps, more accurately, I should say that I didn't intend for it to be a strange question. In poetry, which is a world I am pretty familiar with, there is a commonplace that always generates a few chuckles whenever a serious poet is asked, "How do you know when a poem is finished?" The answer, of course, is that a poem is never finished but abandoned. In my own musical world it is very similar, I don't really know when a song is done. At some point I stop working on it. I throw out about 95% of what I work on. I guess I assumed that others did something similar. Also, many artists do sketches and a lot of "prework" before the painting itself. It never occurred to me that someone would sit down and say "now I'm going to write a song". But again this is probably due to our differences in backgrounds and approach. I only know that something might turn into a song once it crosses the two minute mark.
I should probably say, too, that quite a bit of what I'm asking are genuine questions that I ask myself. I do try to work against form, or against the idea of "song," for several reasons. One is that I am interested in the way in which music dictates form — so I work with a combination of planning and happy accident. Two, I'm probably not a musician in the truest sense of the term. I've been playing all my life, and I know the basic scope of traditional theory, but I only think about theory and work with it when I get stuck. I am interested in the notion of "song as a form of art," and ask myself "well, what does this mean?" I often approach making music like I do writing poetry, and that is to let the content find itself and only guide it as it progresses. I do find myself working repeating motifs and sound units and such. And it occurs to me that if it is music and has a beginning and an end and is comprised of musical phrases, then it is a song. And then I ask myself am I working against tradition just for the sake of it? That is, does the rubric "art" serve as a lens or guiding mechanism for what I do.
I think the difficulty we are experiencing is similar to the rift in the poetry world between free-versers and formalists, each claiming the other is not "really poetry". This, of course, is a gross simplification, but not far off the mark, I fear. My goal with turning it into a practical discussion was so that we wouldn't get mired down in the isoterics of art, art-making, and the production thereof.
I just wanted to say that the questions I posed were largely rhetorical and are ones that I ask myself. I have a great amount of respect for you, your art and your craft. In a bit of meta-dialog, you mentioned that you "hope your music becomes art through performance," which I find intensely fascinating.
What I'd really like to do, at this point, and I'd love to return the heady stuff later, is talk about the nuts and bolts of creating a song. Let's put everything else aside. Do you write for an audience? Do you write for a given set of expectations? Do you attempt to subvert them in any way? What are your goals when writing a song? How do you know if a song is too long or too short? How long does it take to write a song? Is there an instrument that you prefer? Do you write lyrics exclusively? What do you look for in a collaborative partner? Do you write music as well? (I know that you are well versed in theory). And I know that the concept of "song" is essential to what you do. Feel free to take this wherever you want.
In the context of the environment where you and I met, it might easily seem otherwise, but my grasp of musical mechanics is actually quite basic. In the context of the calibre of players I get to work with (who are well-versed) it’s plain foolish to pretend I could be anywhere at all up to speed. It does mean I know enough muso-speak to get by, though — which is very practical, very useful. And a functional working knowledge of what’s going on has also been fundamental to my progress on the lifetime Lazzerini teach-yourself-arranging course.
But while I may be now happily able to deliver rhythm sketches and horn parts for small-band — writing in the sense of arranging music — I couldn’t claim to be a writer in any real compositional sense. My harmonic vocabulary is far too limited to muster much beyond the prosaic and pedestrian, I fear. And whatever small ideas do populate my mind’s ear, I can pretty much guarantee they’ve all been out-sourced from someplace else. The ironic lullaby ‘I Hate Babies’, for example, is simply Jimmy Cracked Corn with the bridge from Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. I think that’s a very fair indicator of my actual composing skill.
So yes I pretty much write lyrics exclusively. My collaborators take care of the music. You know it makes sense.
What do I look for in a collaborative partner?
Interesting. You know, I have never actively gone out in search of one. All are happenstance flowerings of serendipitous relationships. Maybe that’s the key. Because, while I can’t quite meet your request for a shopping list of requirements, the question did prompt me to think about the qualities they possess that I find so fruitful and valuable. And the first one that hit me is simply that they are all great to hang out with. This is the most important and productive thing, I think. We can argue and discuss: but there are no disagreements. I notice too that they all have a sense of fun, a sense of wonder, and a sense of beauty. Encounters are playful. They present different styles of collaborative process, and own an enormous treasury of musical knowledge and experience. Way more than me. So encounters are also like on-going lessons with long-lasting rewards. These guys (they have so far all been guys) are professional in attitude, outlook and expertise — which demands of me a reciprocally more self-disciplined creative ethic to reach for the same high standard. They challenge me to aim for better. They encourage and support my efforts.
Wow ! That just brightened my whole day. Thanks. Stopping to look at how individually brilliant and beneficial these partnerships have been makes me feel like the luckiest guy in the world. A big lottery winner. The guys I get to work with are simply wonderful. Easy company. Inspiring. Solid mates. And world-class. They raise my game. The supreme musicality of Pat Coleman, especially, pushes me to my best work.
Do we write for an audience? Do we write for a given set of expectations? I would initially say so.
Yes.
These are primary aspects of the ‘design-brief’ mentioned earlier as core to the the goal-directedness of our practice. I think…. I believe we must all have visualisations of the ultimate listening experience in mind while making a song. Scenarios, situations and sentiments which may turn out to be little more than a delusional conceit, however. Because when I evaluate the ways we hear music and song — the processes of listening — the working model I end up with is one defined largely and unavoidably by my own personal experience. And the realist-solipsist perspective then insists the real audience is me and all the expectations are mine. But anyway…
My working model for song-hearing assumes that, whatever mode of engagement is happening — from trance to dance, from muzak to main event — it is only once the listener is successfully seduced by the overall qualities of sound in a song that its lyrics can begin to slowly percolate into consciousness. An aural osmosis achieved through repeated hearings. And the primary ingredient, the most memorable element, the part most readily recalled of a song, is melody.
For me, this means that song lyrics are absolutely secondary to the sound shapes which carry them. And consequently one of the many things I strive to avoid is the major unpleasantness of someone falling head-over-heels in love with a song only to discover later that the words are shameless crap. At an absolute minimum, I aim not to provoke such disappointment in a listener.
But we still haven’t reached much actual nuts and bolts yet, have we ?
So maybe at this point it would be appropriate to pick on an innocent and unsuspecting concrete instance of these ideas in practical operation.
Let’s choose ‘Round This Time Of Year’.
Actually, and in the usual fashion of stoned birds, this piece happens to be also the only example of ours I could come up with which allows me to answer “Yes” to another question of yours about whether we attempt to subvert audience-expectations in any way. So we get true double value from using this one song. An irresistably good deal. A two-fer. Our design-brief specified a Christmas song: one that sang the season out loud quite unambiguously and obviously, while containing not one single overt naming moment for the time of year nor reference to the little baby Jesus. A bell-tone was chosen as musical cue and signifier. The arc of Pat’s melody has poignancy and an elegant devotional beauty. A sense of yearning. To these ears, the sound clearly says “Christmas!!”. And thus, in support of that over-all idiomatic impression, I relied for lyrics predominantly on echoes of a somewhat clichéd vocabulary mined from sources in the same traditional seasonal canon…. ‘bells’, ‘ring’, celebrate’, ‘peace on earth’, ‘goodwill to all’, ‘angel’, ‘shine your light’, ‘wisest men’, ‘(un)holy night’, ‘tidings’, ‘rejoice’, ‘blessèd’, ‘let my people’, ‘hark the herald’, and ‘bring my children’. (Using the common language from a small selection of recognisable shared carols like this, by the way, is what I would regard as a classic Oulipian exercise.)
The subversion — given a superficially very pretty little song with a hint of sugary seasonal appeal, and the comforting surface reassurance of language modes we have all heard many times before — lies in our intent and hope for the word meanings to percolate gradually into the revelation of a message far darker than may first appear. That characteristic had also been part of our design brief.
Our goals when writing a song?
First one is to finish the bugger, I guess. We like it to be beautiful. And idiomatically authentic. Then for it to be recognised: to have it sung, performed, recorded. (I just love to watch people dig it.)
Our major aim is always for making something which is a vehicle for performance. Fit for purpose. Musical integrity — my collaborators’ area of responsibility — is absolutely fundamental for this. And my lesser role, as I said above, is to achieve a lyric which, when the words get through, does not disappoint. Our target is for work with lasting value, if that isn’t too pretentious — songs with the legs to join the repertoire of classic standards….. Yup — that is incredibly pretentious, but still a worthy ambition.
Eventually, and quite naturally, getting paid would be most welcome.
How do I know if a song is too long or too short?
Never thought about that one either much at all. It is what it is — and what it is, is flexible.
Pieces can easily become longer at will simply be extending the arrangement and/or just calling it differently on stage. I mean, if players get exciteably enthusiastic, and have something to say which is going to communicate effectively, then there is never a problem allowing an extra chorus or two to blow on, or letting two guys tear up on a piece rather than using it to feature just one soloist. And maybe some pieces sometimes shine without a soloist — giving shorter pieces a deserved place as little golden nuggets in the varied diet of an evening’s entertainment.
Typically, a song performance will take anything from 2 or 3 minutes up to around 12.
How long does it take to write a song?
How long is a piece of string?
My partner Pat can write the music real fast. It comes easy to him. The bastard. Last time we sat down in the same room together to finish a song, he closed his side of the deal perfectly in a couple of hours. For me the words take a lot longer. One song in particular took years for me to get right. But that’s ok — it took Johnny Mercer twelve months to nail the final lyrics for Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Stardust’. And it was very much worth the wait, I think. Nowadays, though, given a reason and a deadline, I can generally stitch my end of the business together in a small handful of weeks.
Is there an instrument that I prefer?
Depends entirely upon who’s playing it. If you’re talking personal useage preference — then I guess it would be a piano keyboard. Played very clumsily.
Thank you so much for your detailed and thoughtful reply. Tremendously helpful. I see now that the "thing itself" for you is the performance, the art surfacing in the ephemeral experience that is shared through performance. I haven't played live in a very long time, but I do remember the experience and miss it very much. Since I don't play live and because I do not have fans (not in the traditional sense), my "thing itself" is the recording. I never get a reciprocal experience, which is why, I suppose, I'm very conscious of the music as an "object" -- it is very temporal.
I suppose we have probably exhausted this line of inquiry, so it might be nice to return to some of the other ideas we touched on, tangentially, earlier.
It occurs to me that we probably have different world-views (in an ideological sense) and what I sense of yours greatly intrigues me. I would like to depart from the idea of "art" for awhile and return to the idea of creativity itself. Since my conception of art, essentially, is the construction of a "thing" from (or creating the framework for a "thingness"), the focus has been on the object and how to get there. But you've indicated that you believe creativity is a basic component of what it means to be human. This shifts the locus from the object to a kind of innate quality of being. I have been laboring, I suppose, under the assumption that the highest aspiration (or goal) of a creative enterprise is art. But if we remove the idea of art as an object (or realization) then perhaps other lines of inquiry may surface.
I'm thinking at this point in time, instead of my asking you for a response, perhaps you can lead the discussion for awhile. Would you be amenable to that?
Dialogue is a pleasure.
Sometimes I, too, have the impression that our ideological world-views may be very different. And yet somehow at the same time there is always the bright burning glow of intuition that we share much in common. Like a shared assumption that the highest aspiration of creative enterprise is art, for example. So let’s see how divergent we might possibly be elsewhere….
My own perspectives and convictions are planted firmly on the left – rooted in a chosen philosophical starting point which assumes the nature of man to be essentially good, while controlling institutions are essentially corrupting. Those on the right of the political divide, meanwhile, operate to a conviction that mankind is essentially corrupt and needs be kept in line through righteous control mechanisms rigorously applied.
There’s a neat binary opposition to start with.
More than that – if ever required to faithfully record further detail on an ideological visa application – I would be ticking the boxes for ‘anarcho-syndicalist’ and ‘existential-phenomenologist’ as well.
I think it might tickle you to know that the term ‘anarchy’ – actually like most of our metaphors for social order – has roots not simply in Ancient Greece but, more inspiringly, in fields of the arts. In this case: Poetry – where anarkos describes verse un-governed by any externally imposed structure but whose form is a function and pure expression of the internal motivic forces. Very briefly, then, and far from the popular misrepresentation of the notion as ‘chaos’, the idea that ‘order’ should instead be a personal co-operative responsibility for each of us is for me a noble and fundamental moral principle. Cynical real-politik, history, and personal experience, all teach us quite obviously, I think, that such an ideal state of communality may have only a gasping chance of even temporary life within small groups – hence the ‘syndicalist’ part of that tick-box equation – and certainly it was at the heart of my guiding principles in managing the career of ‘Loose Tubes’ – a 25 member independent touring company made up of 21 players and 4 road-crew, performing original art-music, in complete contradiction of all informed industry expectations, of a consistently high standard of excellence, on an international circuit, to deserved critical recognition.
Oh – there had to be a lot of planning involved, of course, all the problem-solving goal-directed stuff of a small business, selling and collecting, tour schedules, booking ahead, managing cash-flow…. , but that largely administrative weight operated to maintain an artistically viable organisational culture as a constant enabling crucible. Personal co-operative responsibility. Highly productive magic. Great art. Anarchic. And syndicalist. A turnover of only 7 members in 7 years. Worked well while it lasted.
The ‘existential’ bit makes a natural marriage with an-archos, I reckon. “There are no rules” finding an immediate and direct connection with “Those rules are our own”. Love at first sight. They rub along pretty well ever after. And from there it’s only a hop skip and jump before taking phenomenology into the warm embrace of our company.
Social order has always fascinated me. It’s there. You can feel it, you can know it, but you can’t see it. How does that work ? It demands explanation. And curiosity like mine leads quite easily into questions about the ways in which meaning is created and human order is brought into being.
Phenomenology.
Which is now my opportunity to slap epistemology and ontology back onto the agenda.
I once stumbled across a book from 1932 called “The Phenomenology of the Social World” by Alfred Schutz which contained a lovely description of a common incident I imagine must ring bells of recognition with everyone. An infant, I think in this version of the same old story it was a little girl, is being wheeled around a park and learns the word for ‘bird’. The process involves pointing by a proud parent accompanied by a vocalisation which the kid does her best to emulate. She’s only a wee one taking first baby steps on the road to improved articulation, so it may pop out as “Burr!” or “Brt!” or Buh!”, but the kid grabs the concept straight away and points away unerringly, calling out her own version of the name, at every avian opportunity entering her orbit.
And the significance of the story for Schutz lies in that quality of being unnerring – that once the word, the category of being, has been learned, there are no subsequent mistakes. She does not gesticulate and toss the epithet in the direction of a passing aeroplane, for example, or a kite being flown. She has not only made immediate and correct understanding of what ‘bird’ is but, according to the perspective of phenomenologist Schutz, such an act of epistemological ostension is an expression of the principle of binary opposition: that is, the kid has also constructed a parallel knowledge of what ‘bird’ is NOT.
That’s how we each learn our way through a language and on into culture –according to Lazzerini’s version at least – by constant testing and experimenting with working hypotheses of what things are and what what they’re not, arriving at shared meanings through accumulated steps of individual discovery and direct encounter.
Now, while I believe the actuality of binary opposition itself is a universal quality of mind, and thus natural and unavoidable as an innate tool, the way totally untutored individuals apply it in practice is just so intensely sharp. We take it for granted because it’s something we all did and thought little of it the time and it was all so long ago. But every time I stop and consider what every little kid manages to get sorted-out during that period of infancy in intellect, the enormity of the achievement renews my sense of wonder. A baby listens, overhears, follows sounds that the others say, encounters behaviour… and becomes an infant with both vocabulary and syntactical coherence. A working theory of language. Built without a manual. Absolutely brilliant. Pure genius. The creative impulse on fire.
According to Lazzerini’s version, this making of sense and creation of meaning are our first and most profoundly fundamental creative works.
And maybe the definitive component of what it means to be human.
Not for nothing are they called ‘the formative years’.
Ha! An ideological visa application. Now there's something interesting to ponder. I guess I'd have to check off neo-ideological pragmatist and quasi-agnostic sensualist. It's all about the contradictions (insert appropriate smiley emoticon here).
I think there is a wide gap between considering "man" in an ontological sense and "men-among-other-men" (I should, I suppose, at this juncture, also stop saying "man" as a rubric for "human"). That is, the problem of being is almost always considered through the lens of the singular when being is always an "in relation to." Essentially, this means, for me, that there is no context in which an ontology of being (singular) makes sense. Therefore, a statement like "I believe people are basically good," essentially means "most people I know have good intentions." It's an affinity based on personal experience.
But are they? And what does "good" mean? Do we mean "good" in the sense of an ideal, as in a Platonic form? If so, then we are confronted with the specter of dualism and all the baggage that implies. Conforming to "socially acceptable normative values?" Or something else entirely? Unlike the capacity for language, abstract thinking, and second-order awareness, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong are not innate (though I have a deeply intelligent poet/lawyer friend who disagrees with me on this -- he believes and has presented an argument for "a basic innate morality" (containing, among other concepts, that killing is wrong)). Values, I believe, are always social and thereby conferred by normative processes. They can be adjusted based on age, experience, and other factors, but are categorically subsumed by abstract thinking (which I'll get to in a moment), and exist largely as formative potential. It's a funny way of saying that a concept or sense of morality exists as potential, but not as such. If a moral system is presented to a child, it will be acquired, like language, music, and art. Of course the caveat is that this must be conceived as "authentic" and not mere dogma (in the current sense of the word).
How is it that a boy in Rwanda can take up a machete and kill another boy? That Luther and Calvin could have men killed over disagreements in theology? That the crusades, witchhunts, and other forms of religious cleansing could happen? That gang members kill each other for straying into enemy territory in South LA? That Jews justified killing tens of thousands of citizens in Jericho? That Germans justified killing millions of Jews in Germany and Poland? That Americans delivered cholera infested blankets to Native Americans and forced them into exile? The list goes on and on and on. Of course the counter argument is that these are anomalies, that people are good until corrupted, but isn't it far more likely that people are born neutral and conditioned into their world-views? That something happened in the conditioning process that allowed them to value a belief over a life, the Ideal over the Real?
The problem with groups of people, in general (and institutions, I think, are a subset of this), is that they demand you either agree with their mission, creed, doctrine, or method or that you agree enough to surrender a portion of your identity. Belonging is an intrinsic act of surrender. How many nazis said "I was just doing my job?"
There is a certain sense in which people, perhaps long conditioned by dualistic thinking, believe in the purity of certain ideas (personally I think this is inherited down the Platonic line). These ideas become equal, in a way, with truth, perfection, rightness, goodness, and honor. That is, the belief in the thing is the thing. The problem becomes compounded when this dualistic thinking is "grounded" in religious "truth". In order for truth to be a viable ground (in a God-based, dual system), it comes as a sense of correct action, which correlates, roughly, with goodness. It necessitates recasting history, changing thinking to conform to the current truth (because Truth, in this sense, is immutable, though the apparatus for received truth is not). It stems, I think, from the view that this is a "fallen" state. Sin and all that. Because of this, there is a rift between "the world" and "the given world" which has to be accessed through a divine connection to the immutable and changeless world that exists beyond time and corruption. But it is this mechanism that also enables groups of people (who, in effect, create another form of being that also exists "in relation to") to "otherize" groups of people. They are unbelievers, infidels, corrupt, or in the words of Urban II, "unsalted and stinking."
I suspect, however, that I've strayed far afield of your intention with the dichotomy. Still, I felt compelled to offer a few lines on this topic because under its placid water is a beast. All the old gods cavorting in the waters of chaos. The architecture of power. The mechanism by which reality appears in a way it does not need to.
Language, yes, how beautiful and extraordinary, both spoken and written. And the bird illustration is great. I especially like the term "the creative impulse". It's what has blessed us and damned us all along. It allows to assign categories to physical objects. The word "bird" is never uttered in the sense of "that specific flying thing with wings" but in the sense that a quality of being exists and can be named by its attributes. An object seen, therefore, meets the qualifications of the object and is invoked by its name. An example of this would be that same child, who upon seeing a four-legged creature in her backyard says excitedly, "Doggie!" only to be corrected by her mother, who says, "No honey, that's a deer." At which point further attributes of the object in question are filed -- the uplifted puff of tail, the slender legs. Next time, she gets it right.
I love the confusion of the literal and the figurative that children wrestle with. When my older daughter was five and just learning how to ride her bike, she said "Even the birds are cheering me on." And I thought what a wonderful notion!