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Sorry Gail,
The context of that is my fight, since conducting
lead and zinc miners on the Indian Reservation from the age of 14, to understand
that music is real work. This is a constant fight and having
just passed sixty, I'm getting discouraged.
Music is work just like any other and it is as
necessary for life as is eating or knowing how to swim in a flood.
You caught the brunt of that and for that I apologize. Music
and the Arts should recieve the same stimulus from the community that all work
recieves. We should ask what kind of world we want to live in
and what environment our children should have available to
them. That was what I meant in the post that I wrote before
the one where I was abrupt. I certainly enjoy your conversations
including the current one. Perhaps we might say the Entertainment is
to Music and Art as Employment is to work. But without money
we don't have time to do Music and Art and if we only do sitcoms for products on
TV we don't do Art. Garbage in, garbage
out.
I long for a conversation where we can discuss
how to get those Chamber Opera Companies up and working in every city in North
America of 100,000 people are more. The Arts in NYCity are a
14 Billion dollar business. 9/11 cut into the Arts and the
whole city has suffered as the people in the businesses that service the Arts
lose their way as well. We simply have to realize that Tourism and
the Arts is not the poor cousin to a factory or a speculative
bank. The Wall Street Journal considers the Arts to be an area
where they write criticisms, not stimulate business, in fact they depress the
business. It is a depressing world and when I encounter what feels
like that old lead and zinc miner hierarchy it makes me seriously depressed at
this age. So forgive my rudeness but I really do need help with
this.
Thank you
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 2:02
PM
Subject: Re: Work and the economy
Hi Ray,
This is interesting. You have surprised me.
I had not expected you to be annoyed by my perspective on artists as engaged
in the activity of pursuing personally responsible self-defining
self-expressive work, and doing so even when support and understanding in the
larger community might be lacking. This is not to deny that, within
narrower parameters, there are forms of art that follow and interpret
established disciplines, but who is to say that the solo self-defining artist
may not be pioneering a new discipline? As in law, it is the extraordinary
cases that establish the boundaries. But never mind.
The issue can be recast: are we willing to
guarantee income to people the "worth" of whose activities we may not
understand, or approve, but don't seek to judge provided we are not actively
harmed by them? I am reminded of a question that I heard someone once ask, in
all seriousness, "Of what worth is a giraffe?"
What interests me more in your post though
is the "am I wasting my time?" I don't think the purpose of our
discourse here is to persuade each other so much as it is "to compare
mythologies" and be illuminated by each others' perspectives. I have
frequently been illuminated by yours.
Best regards,
Gail
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 12:56
PM
Subject: Re: Work and the economy
Gail,
I object, once more, to your catagory of
Artists. Am I wasting my time here?
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002
12:33 PM
Subject: Re: Work and the
economy
Charles,
Two comments in response to your
interesting posting.
1. You wrote: "I
suspect that many of those who have not entered the conversation have
stayed silent because they believe this is just a rather meaningless word
game. Gail to some extent perpetuates
this view by talking about voluntary work as different from employment,
and Keith talks about working for himself as different from
employment. I guess these are differences, but they are not what I
am getting at (at least not necessarily)."
You seem uncertain about distinguishing these
from employment. Could you elucidate, especially with respect to voluntary
action? (I was of course not talking about volunteering which is often
coerced, e.g. students and CEO's needed it for their resumes, young
offenders being sentenced to do so many hours of community services,
churches and other institutions making it almost a condition of
membership, and even friends (or Presidents) putting moral suasion
on people to "volunteer." This of course is not what I meant by
voluntary action.) Do you not see it, and entrepreneuring,
as sufficiently different from employment as to meet your criteria
for "work?"
2. I am intrigued by your "peroration:"
"For me, the alternatives will involve a much
more vibrant local community (by which I mean the network of people and
resources close to us) than currently exists - mostly because nationals
systems simply can't measure let alone control needs and wants at the
local level. In my future for work,
everybody has at least one community with which they can identify and
within which they can sustain themselves. There will still be plenty
of people who interact within many communities and many of the current
economic systems will continue to very very useful in facilitating this
interaction. But they will be meaningless at the local community
level which is where sustainable strength will be based."
In my terms you are speaking about
"meaningful work" in which the work is meaningful both to the person
involved and to the community for which it is done, i.e. doubly
meaningful, what we could perhaps call "work-in community" done by
"persons in community." (MacMurray). Pressing you a little, do you think
something can be called "work" that is meaningful only to the person
involved independent of what others may think of it? Self-defined work? In
short, is work necessarily a social concept or can it be a personal
concept, even perhaps in defiance of community? Who decides what is
"work?" To make this practical, my interest has been in public policy. The
question has relevance for taxation policy (personal income tax,
policies for foundations that give grants, guaranteed basic income),
policies toward education and support for people who say they want to be
students or artists,.. and so on. Where does individualism meet community
in your definition of work?
These are issues on which I would hope this
FW list might not only enter into discourse but perhaps even develop and
spin off some public policy proposals....
Regards,
Gail
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