I am noticing a sociological trend: increasingly there are those who create, and those who destroy. At the poles, their descriptions may be as follows:
Destroyers primary participation in society is through consumerism; they are constant critics; they are sure they know better than you about what’s Right and Wrong and have no shame in telling you so (or writing it into policy). They are often elites: highly educated, urban, liberal, affluent.
Creators primary participation in society is through the act of production. They make things. They experiment. In general they tend to not have sweeping views about what’s Right and Wrong, outside of being against anything that limits their own ability to continue to create. Their thinking and set of practices are diverse, varied, as are their backgrounds.
The Destroyers constitute a perpetual class of critics. Their main contribution is telling people how to think. Critics often target those who are creating, as in this piece below:
(from The Guardian)
I take issue with this particular critique because I am one of these people who promotes getting into self-production, something here derided as “back to the land.” Somehow it is considered a bad thing to be an “earner” or “provider?”
I argue in my book and elsewhere that institutions that once regularly delivered consumer goods such as healthy food and necessary household items are now failing. It is due to that failure that we ought to consider becoming sufficient at the household and community level, which means many of us getting involved in the act of producing.
I argue that production itself is, not surprisingly, generative. In a world in which we are told our main power comes through where we decide to spend our consumption dollars, people are anxious, depressed, and searching for meaning. In the act of craft, of creation, one gains connection to meaning through understanding materials, nature, and physical realities. What’s more, creators often find creative communities, and find meaning in their connection to others.
Put another way:
This is not to discount the fact that there are actual human individuals who have questionable views. Of course there are. There are extreme versions of all these ideologies, including among creators. What’s insidious is that the critic class takes these extreme examples of individuals and then spins up a false boogeyman meant to describe all individuals who even do the same activity as the extreme individual in question.
This is a result of the globalized, 10,000 foot view of the world. What, in fact, does this journalist from The Guardian know about what’s happening with my small farm friends in Wisconsin or Colorado or Uruguay? What does he know about who they are and what they think and what motivates them?
Yet, he casts a wide net, a damning conviction: if you care about having a veggie patch and backyard chickens you have a dangerous “back to the land ideology.” Give me a break.
(Yes I was obviously very frustrated this morning I rarely swear this much!)
This is a divide between critics and creators. To create one must risk, experiment, fail, get up and try again. To critique is to sit idly in perpetual judgment, and to give others the permission to join you in hatred of their neighbors. The more negative the critique, the more critics and consumers of critique revel in their judgment. Fundamentally, they are dealing in the economy of hate.
The only way to combat those dealing in hate is to deal in creation, beauty, love, joy. Often, I advocate for people to show, not tell, about their creation. The actual experience of making things, and being in a creative atmosphere really transcends these silly ideologies that are stuck firmly in the realm of ideas.
I can’t help but think of this monologue from a Pixar film, of all places:
“In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”
(From Ratatouille)
I stand in defense of creators. I will not let you be slandered, or tossed into a category of deplorables. I will stand by you and defend you, and your right to create. Keep on creating, and keep on resisting the forces of destruction.
In the meantime, invite a few neighbors to taste an omelette you made with your backyard chicken eggs. I doubt they will say you have a dangerous “provider” ideology as they enjoy their lunch.
Great piece. Ironic, no, that the same intelligentsia that would push you out of society for not taking a vaccine then deems you a right-winger for not starving to death.
And I realise this is the negative of your positive, many good people are becoming creators because it's in their blood, it's what they must do...but this intelligentsia need to label anyone not complying a fascist...
I just call myself a dissident and let them squirm 🤣
defend the rights to tinker.
Imagine the Dunbar defence strategy.
Our brain is only fit for 120, when we go over we are passive and lost like a dog reading too much ‘pee-mail’, yet when we are connected and in reliable courtship, then confluence has no end point in rescue and sustainable growth of life itself.
Corporate needs use Dunbar, collective intelligence can do the same when basic needs are met.
Even the Venus project considered bottom up, yet unfortunately, corporate speed outweighs the original design and imports more unsustainable failure points from off the shelf purchase power, competition, just to repeat the top down hierarchy and patriarchy of economics.
Even the vikings did a better job as evidenced in shared spaces throughout indigenous led cultures on the land, not the bank machine.