Hi Alan
I wasn’t trying to address that argument – just questioning whether
education and work ethic are enough to facilitate a meaningful life.
Yes, decent health care is important. A degree of financial security
highly deslirable.
The US spends more of its GDP on health care (16%) than any other
country in the world and yet is the only OECD country not to have some
form of universal care. The outcome of that is that average US life
expectancy is lower than the OECD average (even lower than the UK’s –
whose NHS costs 8% of GDP and has taken such a battering in the US media
recently). What Obama is trying to do with US health care looks way
overdue and only sensible. Those arrayed against him look like selfish
big business protecting its bottom line at the expense of the people.
Mind you, everyone admires American teeth ;)
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@ eca .ac.uk
www. eca .ac.uk
www. eca .ac.uk/circle/
[email protected]
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
*From: *Alan Sondheim <[email protected]>
*Reply-To: *NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
<[email protected]>
*Date: *Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:15:26 -0400 (EDT)
*To: *NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
<[email protected]>
*Cc: *Theory and Writing <[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [NetBehaviour] naughty boy
It's not instrumentalist; it's more fundamental. If you're crazy with
stress because of bad health care, little or no income, you just don't
function well. If you have students, I assume you're full time - my two
courses at SVA won't even pay the bills (adjuncts get next to nothing). I
have nightmares over this, migraines, etc. In other words there has to be
a modicum of feeling you're not going to lose your apartment or your
teeth, you're going to have some sort of stability somewhere. I don't have
that - it doesn't sound like 'naughty boy' does either.
- Alan
On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Simon Biggs wrote:
I always feel guilty seeking to justify to students why they should
persist
with completing their degrees, whether BA, MA or PhD – so I don’t. They
often say they want a degree so they can get a decent job and balance that
with their creative practice. They say they see me, with a job and an
artistic career, as a role model. I point out to them I left school at 15
with no qualifications - to be a hippy. Other than being an artist and
coincidentally securing various positions because of my artistic
activities,
including my current one, I have never had what I consider a real job
in my
life. I’m just a good for nothing artist – at least in the eyes of the
taxi
driver or plumber I often encounter (people with real jobs). It seems that
being good for nothing can be more rewarding than being socially useful.
I find it a worrying that people judge themselves by whether they are
gainfully employed or not. Everyone has something to contribute. We
live in
societies, both poor and wealthy, that historically have tolerated
significant percentages of their populations being what, in todays
terms, we
would consider economically inactive. However, economic inactivity
does not
mean a lack of productivity. There are so many ways that people can
contribute value to themselves and those around them without getting a
job.
I never wanted a job anyway!
We should not allow an instrumentalist view of life to become
paradigmatic,
especially in creative practice. That is the death of the artist.
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
[email protected]
www.eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
[email protected]
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
From: Alan Sondheim <[email protected]>
Reply-To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
<[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:25:23 -0400 (EDT)
To: Theory and Writing <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] naughty boy
My degree's in english, which has been useless all
these years; Azure's is in environmental conservation from NYU (mine's
from Brown). She hasn't been able to get work; I teach from time to time,
part-time, and the stress is incredible; I think about suicide, running
away with Azure, etc. etc.
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland,
number SC009201
| current internet text file: http://www.alansondheim.org/qf.txt
| Alan Sondheim Mail archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
| Webpage (directory) at http://www.alansondheim.org
| [email protected], [email protected], tel US 718-813-3285
! http://www.facebook.com/alan.sondheim
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