guitarbuddha -> RE: Examples of good English. (May 30 2013 0:55:41)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen quote:
That is a terrific piece of humbug. You could replace 'menu items' with heroin,socks,banjo's,earwax.......and still you wouldn't be lying. OK then, since you prefer to be serious: how about this one? It is often stated that we owe much to originality, creativity and imaginative innovation, and value it highly; I suggest that only the first part of the sentence is true. We owe much to creativity, but we seem to value it only in hindsight. There are many horrifying stories in the history of science and art about the fate of the innovator; I have mentioned some of them already, like that of Semmelweiss. But that is all history, readers may say; nowadays we worship the great minds who create new theories, new works of art, new concepts. This has not been my experience. The major grant-giving bodies tend to support routine work that can safely be predicted to have positive outcomes; they shy away from true novelty. Novelty emerges from an individual mind; when it is judged by a committee, orthodoxy will usually prevail. H.J. Eysenck, Genius Another worthy musing. It is too easy to say that a clique/committee is the enemy of the artist. They are also often the enemy of their own growth. Often people band together and share favours based on the ability to support each other in foolishness, shallowness, meanness and intellectual laziness masquerading as orthodoxy. And they begin to believe that their proximity to this orthodoxy is in fact evidence in itself of superiority. But it is hard to stay creative on that path. For if one believes oneself to be 'finished' where is the originality. Like you said Paul, better to appear a splendid fellow. Never challenge a man who might get you work. D.
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