A Creative Revolt

 Professor J,

Reading several books at once, a "bad" habit? Well, it's one I share with you, then. I generally have at least 3 or 4 going at once all from different genres so I know how you feel. There seems to be usually some lengthy tome lingering around while self help, thrillers, biographies, etc. rotate a bit more quickly.

Rationality is indeed a gift from the Creator and can certainly be infused with the warmth of divinity. It takes on a particular chill however when the possibility of anything other than it is discounted, Ayn Rand style.  You and I would probably agree on John Donne's quote "Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right." Both things are useful to move us forward toward revelations of truth God is trying to impart.

Now, excuse me while I jump parsecs to another subject, we can always jump back to this one if you want.

If you have read lengthy reviews of Cognitive Surplus and Drive then you have the main idea. I love these kinds of works where the author takes available information and looks at it in new and fresh ways. Freakonomics and The Tipping Point come to mind.

"The People Formerly Known as the Audience" is a term coined by NYU professor Jay Rosen, and he describes them thus:

"The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another-- and who today are not in a situation like that at all."


If it's true as author Clay Shirky asserts, that Americans spend 700 Billion hours a year watching TV one must wonder what could be accomplished with those hours. The tide seems to be turning with this generation though, the number of hours they spend watching is going down, and when they do watch they are not passively absorbing programming. They post opinions, share clips, piece together their own creative tributes and post them via Youtube. How many masterpieces are being created? Probably few, but the author makes a point which I thought was key, that it is the leap from doing NOTHING to doing SOMETHING  that is transformational.

He asserts that  "Creating something personal even of a mediocre quality has a different appeal than consuming something made by others, even something of high quality."  To me this struck home and related to our other book, Drive. This idea (largely ignored) that people are doing things, often complicated and time consuming things for the intrinsic value alone explains, for instance, our blogs. There is something rewarding in the creation of the thing as well as  having a place for thoughts and ideas to land, and call home, which is somehow satisfying.

In the past this motivational component has been overlooked as is evidenced in an the attitude of a friend's husband.  She has a delightfully entertaining and informative food blog, her husband however doesn't "see the point" since there is no monetary reward in connection to it.

Sadly, it boggles the mind to imagine all of the thoughts, inventions, art, ideas, and other bursts of creativity that have been lost because millions spent their cognitive surplus doing the only thing that was both widely available and accepted, watching television. If they were doing something else it was difficult to connect to a group of others who shared their interests or were interested in discussing the same ideas.

The gatekeepers are losing their power and have taken to writing books like, The Cult of the Amateur in which the author says "Shared, unmanaged effort might be fine for picnics and bowling leagues, but serious work is done for money, by people who work in proper organizations, with managers directing their work."

Interesting to this housewife that he has just belittled all the work I have been doing for the last twenty years. Again, I have problems with the "experts".

Aside from reading anecdotal near-death experiences, sifting religious/spiritual writings and contemplating on them, and applying some thinking, experiences, and in-born predispositions toward love, I must confess to being unable to provide much in the way of citations that would satisfy an entry for all this in a cognitive-surplus vehicle such as Wikipedia. :)  Fortunately, all that you have listed here is perfectly adequate for a cognitive-surplus vehicle such as this blog. :)