One of my greatest areas of interest in writing has to do with the idea of collaborative writing. The idea that multiple voices can work together to accomplish a goal is one of the greatest assets of the human experience. And yet, over and over again, I find collective and collaborative writing projects dismissed and treated like frivolities while the “real” writing always happens when the writer is off on HIS own capturing the essence of humanity without ever having to interact with others, especially those different from himself.
I think that sucks. I think that tends to concentrate power and respectability in the hands of a concentrated few that get to act as gate keepers for what constitutes quality writing and what does not. I think it tends to marginalize people that have not been raised since birth to believe that their voice alone was always worth consideration in every conversation. Potentially worst of all, it has contributed to individuals profiteering off of the colonization of the commons by claiming ownership over ideas and art that used to be available to all.
I think that sucks so bad, that I am not even sure that I really believe in individual recognition for artists at all any more.
The problem that everyone will be quick to point out, and to which I agree, is that within a capitalist economic system, recognition is the only way that artists can get compensated for their work and that even worse, it is the 500 years of unrecognized artistic and cultural contributions of marginalized populations that lets European values sit at the height of artistic merit, as they stole and appropriated from every corner of the planet. I think both of these problems are incredibly important to address, but I think framing the response to these problems in terms of trying to find solutions within the existing capitalist structure puts the burden of proof on the wrong people. We should not be making people who have been stolen from generation after generation to go out and point out every single way they have been stolen from.
None of the issues of cultural appropriation and artistic authorship would matter in a system where people did not have to prove their value to society in order to earn their existence. I understand why a lot of people are fighting, tooth and nail, to try to help return credit where credit is due, because they are trying to point out that the current concentration of privilege within writing and artistic communities is a result of this disparity and it is important to challenge that, but when can we just say that the whole system is rotten and ask artists when they are going to stop participating in the power structures that maintain these disparities.
I understand also how much privilege it takes to put me in a position to question the validity of power structures instead of how to mitigate their harm. Just as I understand how easy it will be to dismiss me as an idealist and someone that will never be able to support a family or have enough power to challenge existing institutions, but maybe there in lies my love of the collective poetic. Maybe none of us alone need to have that much power, if we can collaborate and show how much more artistic power we can wield when we wield it together.
When first reading this post, I thought the aspect of collective art had never been something I'd contemplated before. I was confining my thoughts though, and once I thought about it, I realized I've taken part in many varieties of communal art. From graffiti with friends on abandoned buildings, to compounding lyrics in a basement jam session. Its difficult for me to apply this rhythm to certain forums of writing, however.
ReplyDeleteIn my Intro to Creative Writing (way back yonder freshman year) Terry Wright had the class to pass around our binders, and each write a few lines on each story as it came around, continuously building upon each other. This created a very interesting effect, while being a lot of fun. I'm sure what you're talking about would be much more workshop like and advanced, so I'd be interested to hear further examples of way in which to go about this group work, and perhaps opportunities that may be relevant.
I completely agree that trying to find solutions for the problems that plague the system by looking within said system will do nothing but harm almost everyone involved. That being said, I don't believe we need to completely abandon this idea of trying to give credit where it's due nor do we need to go in the complete opposite direction, I think some kind of compromise would be best. This is a great post that has really given me something to think about!
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