Originality
Feb. 1st, 2008 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerSome time ago I wrote a song (yes, it's true, I used to write songs. With notes and everything) called Song of the Tyrants, in which I contrasted the artist's never-ending quest for originality and freshness with the public's continuing demand for more of what they enjoy, plus I got to sing in a funny accent over an accordion accompaniment with a bassoon solo. (If I sing in a funny accent nobody notices that I can't actually sing.) I came out on the side of the public, mostly, not only because I am completely devoid of originality myself but because I identify as a member of the public rather more than I do as an artist. I like what I like, and I like as much of it as I can get. If people who were making something I like start making something I don't, it makes me sad and I probably won't go to those people again. Which is not to say that I don't give new things a chance, or even a second chance. Just probably not a third or a fourth.
But it seems to me that the quest for originality as an end in itself is quite a recent development in human cultural evolution. When Beethoven started writing, his work was very little different from that of his predecessors and teachers. As time went by, it developed and became unique, but I don't think that was necessarily because he was trying to be different. He explored new ways of doing things because that was a way to do what he was doing better. Even then people were very down on him for it, but not nearly as down as they would have been if he'd abandoned harmony and melody entirely and produced something akin to Schoenberg or Webern in the seventeenth century. (He got close in the last few quartets, I believe, but those who came after him were less adventurous.) I'm sure people can think of other examples.
More recently, and in a different field, the Goons pioneered a kind of surrealism in comedy, which was taken up by such as I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and Hello Cheeky, but the surrealism was always subordinate to the comedy. With Monty Python the balance started to tip the other way, and the quest to do something different started to outweigh the need to be funny. This led to series like The Boosh, which as far as I can see is pure surrealism without benefit of jokes, and The Office, which ditched the boom-oo-yatta-ta-ta, I mean the surrealism, but didn't put the jokes back. Nowadays we laugh nervously at something embarrassing, or out of shock at something disgusting, but shows which allow us finally to laugh at a joke because it's funny are derided as unoriginal. "Cosy" (and when did that become a dirty word?). Safe (ditto). I don't know about anyone else, but I find cosy quite comforting in the cold wind of reality, and I'd certainly rather be safe than not.
The search for originality necessarily proceeds outward, from the centre where most of us still are. As it does so it gets further and further away from us, and no matter how we run to keep up, we can never stop. Some of us don't change fast enough, either because we can't, or because we don't want to. Sooner or later the searchers must either stop and turn back, or leave us behind entirely. If they're happy to do that, then they have, I think, forgotten what they are doing it for.
What does the team think? Am I a reactionary old fart just wishing for things to be like they were when I was young? Or do I maybe have something resembling a point here?
But it seems to me that the quest for originality as an end in itself is quite a recent development in human cultural evolution. When Beethoven started writing, his work was very little different from that of his predecessors and teachers. As time went by, it developed and became unique, but I don't think that was necessarily because he was trying to be different. He explored new ways of doing things because that was a way to do what he was doing better. Even then people were very down on him for it, but not nearly as down as they would have been if he'd abandoned harmony and melody entirely and produced something akin to Schoenberg or Webern in the seventeenth century. (He got close in the last few quartets, I believe, but those who came after him were less adventurous.) I'm sure people can think of other examples.
More recently, and in a different field, the Goons pioneered a kind of surrealism in comedy, which was taken up by such as I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and Hello Cheeky, but the surrealism was always subordinate to the comedy. With Monty Python the balance started to tip the other way, and the quest to do something different started to outweigh the need to be funny. This led to series like The Boosh, which as far as I can see is pure surrealism without benefit of jokes, and The Office, which ditched the boom-oo-yatta-ta-ta, I mean the surrealism, but didn't put the jokes back. Nowadays we laugh nervously at something embarrassing, or out of shock at something disgusting, but shows which allow us finally to laugh at a joke because it's funny are derided as unoriginal. "Cosy" (and when did that become a dirty word?). Safe (ditto). I don't know about anyone else, but I find cosy quite comforting in the cold wind of reality, and I'd certainly rather be safe than not.
The search for originality necessarily proceeds outward, from the centre where most of us still are. As it does so it gets further and further away from us, and no matter how we run to keep up, we can never stop. Some of us don't change fast enough, either because we can't, or because we don't want to. Sooner or later the searchers must either stop and turn back, or leave us behind entirely. If they're happy to do that, then they have, I think, forgotten what they are doing it for.
What does the team think? Am I a reactionary old fart just wishing for things to be like they were when I was young? Or do I maybe have something resembling a point here?
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Date: 2008-02-04 03:50 pm (UTC)I find a whole load of 'modern' music to be like 'modern' art of the same period, a triumph of form over function. The forms praised originality and getting away from anything which had been done before, but most of the time the purpose of the art, to communicate, was lost. If the audience can't understand the new 'language' then there is no communication, they might as well listen to the sounds made by an AM radio set next to a computer or some other fairly random noise. Beethoven's genius, like Bach's, Dali's, and many others, was that he was able to talk both 'languages' and communicate in both, so that we both understand what he is saying and also see how he expresses it in new ways.
Humour is a funny thing. The puppeteers' description of is as an "imterrupted defense mechanism" explains some kinds of humour, especially the type you describe which is a form of embarassment, but not all. A particular exception is original wordplay, at which the Goons excelled (the "running gag" however is back to the expectation of interruption).
I have no idea when 'cosy' and 'safe' became bad terms, but I think it was a long time ago that they became associated with 'boring' and 'predictable', and they are usually the opposite of humour or at least can become so. With most of the arts I think it's dependent on fashion, some things being 'in' and others being considered 'old', I think humour often does that. Although using sex and smut for humour is probably the oldest humour there is...