Disney has killed the porn industry.

Hello.

   I was in the square earlier today. "But it's not square, it's a rectangle!" is my younger daughter's observation every time we go. So, I was in the square and the topic turned to porn. The usual "What would be your porno name?" ensued. Basically, one needs to apply the simple rule: first teddy + mother's maiden name. I, having an Italian father, could have been the next Stallone. Or Siffredi. But my mother is Irish.

   My first teddy, having a father from the Alps, was a St. Bernard. I named him Barry. After the most famous of his breed. A dog who saved over 40 lives. A story I found fascinating. And still do. So, the answer to the acting name is 'Barry McGreal'. Who would watch a film starring Barry McGreal? I knew from very early on, with a name like that, I would never be a porn star. But, being a father of two girls, I also realised that in about fifteen years time all 'actresses' will be called Elsa or Anna or Rapunzel or Moana. Because as parents we tend to buy the little rotters the teddies they want. Thanks, Disney! Thanks for killing imagination! On the upside, my eldest daughter called her first teddy 'Space Monkey', so I can't see that name popping up in any future films. Because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles!  

Back to creativity.

Hello.

   Once upon a time I did an MA in Mass Communications. My dissertation was entitled "I will survive!: The Future of the Music Industry in the Information Age". I added a 3-page afterword to my final cut - see below - which led to an offer of a PhD but ultimately led me to study law and follow up with a PGDip in UK, US and EU copyright law at King's College. However, I now believe it is time to return to the initial thought from the afterword, which I summarise as 'Creativity does not exist'. Or does it? Does it even matter? Because in the end...

...it's all a load of Bovine Skittles! (or is it?)

AFTERWORD

Parallel Reflections Made During The Completion Of This Dissertation

   The initial idea of this dissertation – once informed that the dynamics of the music industry was a study worth pursuing – was that of attempting to better understand the influence major record labels have on musical creativity and how copyright laws have limited a musician’s fair use. Little did I realise the difficulty of such an argument until I tried to lay down a definition for ‘musical creativity’. Creativity, as Keith Negus states, “is one of the most important yet unexplored issues in the study of popular music”. Therefore, from a sociological stance, a clear-cut understanding of musical creativity cannot be found as it mixes the “mystical and metaphysical with the material and mundane, the elevated with the profane” (Negus, 2002, pg 180). This difficulty to put a finger on creativity has led one set of scholars – more precisely Steiner – to conclude that only Plato, Dante and Hegel were truly creative, while on the other bank of the academic abyss there are those – namely Joas and Willis – arguing that all everyday actions are potentially creative. For these very reasons it was decided to pursue an argument perhaps slightly more manageable: The Future of the Music Industry in the Information Age. Nonetheless – purely out of personal curiosity – I did not give up on the question of creativity and discovered a glimpse of an answer in the writings of the contemporary philosopher, Robert M. Pirsig. These reflections are added to the dissertation as they were borne from the argument pursued herein, they do not however have any influence on the dissertation itself.

   

   I want to briefly summarize what Pirsig stated so as to then reach my conclusion on creativity – although I believe that his observations need some reflection. Pirsig occupied himself principally with the metaphysics of Quality. He was led to believe that with our dualistic way of thinking (subject-object) we fail to see a certain omnipresent Quality, which is the very element that produces a ‘later awareness’ of subject and object. That is, at the ‘moment of pure Quality’ both subject and object are identical, and it is only from a pre-intellectual awareness of Quality that subject and object are then separated. That is to say that Quality is the source of the subject and object, not vice versa. It is this pre-intellectual sense of Quality that leads us to choose one solution from the infinite solutions that actually exist, usually perceiving the solution that seems most Quality-ful. It must be noted that some people have a stronger awareness of Quality and therefore are better at perceiving this Quality than others, however it is this striving to perceive this Quality that has brought mankind this far. It was only when Pirsig understood that Quality should not be defined that he was then able to prove that it exists and thus arrive to these conclusions.

   

   To prove it exists one simply must envision a Quality-less world. This world would be completely different as, for example, banging a table and a Beatles’ song would be perceived as the same as we would have no sense of Quality. It is our innate sense of Quality that allows us to distinguish. Therefore Quality exists, but above all it is the basis of craftsmanship in all the technical arts which, however, is lacking in the modern, dualistically-conceived, technologic world. The creators, as in producers, no longer feel any particular sense of identity with their creations, as in productions. With such a well-documentated accumulation of human experience the modern world has practically ceased to see pure Quality, as now when it is the moment to choose which solution is the ‘right’ one we already know (i.e. we assemble a bookshelf by reading the instructions). We have been dualistically trained. (Pirsig, 1974)

  

   Pirsig’s philosophy led me to think of the correlation between his Quality and the meaning of creativity that I had so wanted to try and describe. I believe that creativity, following Pirsig’s line of thought, is the solution, in a ‘moment of pure Quality’, that one perceives without been told which of the infinite solutions to take a priori. Consequently, two persons could perceive the exact same solution, without been told of its existence, unbeknownst to themselves and without having ever interacted and therefore be equally creative. This becomes mind-baffling if we are to follow this train of thought as then it could be stated that nothing is created but rather perceived in a new way – the solution having existed all along only not seen before. This would fall straight into the scientific approach to energy which states that nothing can be created or destroyed and also the theological way of thinking wherein only God can create. At this point, if we do not create it would be a case of deriving from what we see around us and finding new ways of perception. Therefore, how can we claim ownership to a solution that was there all the time? Are copyright laws, following this approach to creativity, simply a legal form of intellectual imperialism: claiming that which is not yours simply because you “saw” it first and commercially benefiting? Mark Twain made a notable comment on the issue, “only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet”. 

   

   But Pirsig’s insight on the matter of Quality leads to another important observation. In this ‘post-modern’ (although a Roman was post-modern in respect to a Spartan, as a Spartan was modern at the times of the Spartans), information Age, both producer and consumer feel no sense of Quality in the products they make and use, which includes the music industry, and thus the overall dullness of these is overlaid with ‘style’ so as to make them acceptable. This only makes things worse as now not only are the products – or in the case of the music industry, the artists – dull (lacking in Quality) but also false (stylized so as to be acceptable). So what we get, to use Pirsig’s words, is “ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style.” I believe this best describes the state of the music industry at present. However, this was not the aim of my dissertation.

   

   In this dissertation I was looking at the surge in new business strategies that have evolved since the Napster trial in 2001 in the distribution of music through the Internet: iTunes, Myspace and Radiohead. As for the question of creativity, I will pursue it solely for a personal understanding in the hope of always striving for the all-important, omnipresent Quality.

Reference

Pirisig, R.M. – Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintainance: An Inquiry Into Values – HarperTorch – 1974 – New York