Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Head Shop >

Creativity, Productivity, and Feminism (with non-debate rules)

17:20 / 19.12.02

Ookay.

"Non-debate rules" comes from Lyra's non-debate thread, which I enjoyed & which I hope isn't over, and is an idea that I'd like to continue to experiment with. There are not really "rules" per se, only perhaps a sort of spirit that I think I shall not express better than Lyra already has:

So this is an experiment. The mode of discussion on barbelith is very debate-oriented at the mo. Especially in the Head Shop. We mostly sit around and pick holes in each others' statements and sometime this is interesting and sometimes it isn't. Well this thread is a discussion about stuff. Doesn't matter what stuff, but it's a non-debate, 'kay? Nobody wins, no point of view is proven. Take ideas and move 'em on, take ideas and mutate them, take tangents. But don't backtrack by contesting a point. Just roll with it. The central focus of the discussion does not have to remain constant, only the style remains constant. If you like, this is like a non-fictional narrative corpse...

"Creativity, Productivity, and Feminism" is a spin-off from halfcent's thread The effect of Role playing games on modern literature, in which I threw out the terms creativity and productivity that I think could be fun to play with. For starters, grant's just brought up in the other thread that RPGs are similar to improv theater games and is it art if the creators are only doing it for themselves and not an audience. Which really contains multitudes...

And feminism... *fear, again* ...yes, I am jacking feminism into the works. How feminism fits into this. See here, I'm envisioning the term "productivity" as something different from and ascendent to "creativity." Also as something material and economic. And as it happens, I tend to associate ascendent, material, and economic with something that I refer to as "masculine" not because I hate men, but not that men are uninvolved in this.

*sinking into the bog*

Fuuuuck, my feminism is totally impossible...

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:24 / 19.12.02

(On a metatangent, I'm interested in the advantages and disadvantages of the "non-fictional narrative corpse". What is the consequence of saying, in effect, come one come all, nobody is allowed to disagree with you?)

It strikes me that perhaps l'ecriture feminine is something that maybe has relevance here - the idea that writing as it stands is too rooted in masculine forms, one of which may be the compulsion to have a *product* at the end of it, and that a feminist, actually *woman's*, writing would look completely different and be created in a totally different way?

And how long can we hold off before talking about fanfic?

01:41 / 20.12.02

Two points:

The gamemaster of an RPG might have no qualms about outright theft of a plot, character, concept, etc., from a TV show or book. The gamemaster might apply some inventiveness to the element (perhaps enough to surprise and entertain the players, but not enough that there's a new publishable work), or she might rip it right out of it's original context and drop it right into her game. And no one cares--this is entertainment for a handful of people, with no money changing hands. (If one were to mention fanfic--I would never do such a thing--one might note a similarity here.)

From another angle: What if the creator is doing it for the sake of utility, not for an audience? I'm talking about handicrafts here--pottery, quilting and textile arts, for example. Traditionally, these are ignored by the "serious" art world, and coincidentally (ha!), they tend to be historically associated with women. So far as I'm aware, no one who is quilting is attempting to wow the quilting world with a never-before-seen scalloped binding (barring, of course, members of Quilting Society)--is there something to do with the romantic view of the tortured artist pushing the envelope going on near this discussion?

02:12 / 20.12.02

It sounds to me like your use of feminism here and masculine and feminine has more to do with the escoteric meanins of the terms than that of the more political use of feminism. That is, masculine as outward, discrete, logical, mobile and tangible, and feminine as inward, abstract, emotional, limiting and experiencial. It is the classic use of feminine not as to mean "of woman" so much as of Yin, Binah, negative, passive, dark, and this half of the classic duality in which all things understood by man can be divided.

The application here being in art created for the experience of it rather than for the production of it. Femenine art in this sense created spontaneously, received by its audience, but not recorded. It is not captured or codified into discrete structure. It was, and then it was gone. If you were there to see it, it is a part of you. If not, you never shall know it.

If art is the mimic of life, and the recording of art the recording of life, then this art without recording is life itself unspoiled and original. It is the moment, and those touched by it are touched alone, and it is for them only to remember in their hearts.

03:09 / 20.12.02

Oh my God, do you understand what I'm saying?? But what I am talking about is esoteric and political. Just as you say, this is "feminine" as disconnected from "woman" ...except that it *is* connected. But maybe not in the order that people tend to think --e.g., it's not that woman was observed by man to be hysterical, but that there was hysteria that had to be assigned to somebody's body. So yeah, you have this problem of detaching hysteria from the body of woman. But then you also still have this problem of hysteria per se. That's where I am; and I might get farther with this, if I could fucking read. If you set aside the question of men vs. women, then you have this question of,,, pick anything, really... say, light vs. dark. Say that light is masculine (not meaning men, but not having nothing to do with men) and that dark is feminine (not meaning women, but not having nothing to do with women), and say that light is ascendant over dark pretty much for both men and women. Which --this is the struggly part for me-- basically means that we're all masculine. Or to put a finer point on it, we're all men. Except that we aren't. It's sort of like how American Indians get very pissed off at being talked about as historical artifacts.

And so to bed.

12:55 / 20.12.02

Creativity vs. Productivity -

I think the dichotomy between these two terms (and perhaps the reason we seem to sex them as we do) can best be illustrated in terms of completion - the end. It's not quite the process that differs, but rather the outcome.

Think of the people you know whom you think of as "creative." Odds are, these are the people who have many, many "projects" going, some of which will never approach fruitition. Creative people's projects tend to end not with a product, but with a sense of satisfaction at the work that has been done. There's never a time when a creative person's work is outside of her, as something complete, seperate, bounded. Whereas a productive person, he knows when something is finished because he's reached a goal. The product created is outside of him, and he can convert that product into capital. A productive person will sell the fruits of his labor - you can't imagine a creative person profitting (all that much) from her labor.

Take videogames as an example - games such as first person, level-based shooters are sexed male. They have a definite goal in mind. Games like the Sims are sexed female - multiple plateaus, the only goal is self-satifaction.

Why do we sex creativity and productivity is this way? The stereotypical male sex act - one and done - there's physical evidence of the orgasm, and most often the inability to continue on after the end has been reached. The stereotypical femal sex act - sex as a process which can be satisfying if many plateaus are reached, or even if no plateaus are reached.

In my mind, there shouldn't be such an opposition between creativity and productivity. A creative person should be productive sometimes, taking on a project with a definite end and finishing it to pre-defined characteristics. And a "productive" person should embrace the free-play, multiple plateau model of creation, without a definite end in mind.

16:51 / 20.12.02

Like Haus, I'd be interested in the idea behind the "non-fictional narrative corpse". Unlike Haus, I'm probably starting off from a position of seeing the disadvantages outweighing the advantages. In part that is because if I took the sprit to heart, I just wouldnt post on this thread.

Its funny, I've been having a discussion about how gender roles are so ingrained that they are adopted from almost every quarter. To some extent thats what is happening here with the (pretty standard) gender assignment of concepts like creativity and productivity. This process not only acknowledges stereotypes that are arguably constructs that serve patriarchy, but also adopts them, though with a positive spin.

I've made this point in other contexts, so I know I can expect disagreement (unvoiced, presumably?), but I'm all for denying the validity of these typical gender associations. No matter how embedded, implicit and "obvious" they are.

17:50 / 20.12.02

(All I am going to say is, there are other possibilites besides a wootfest on the one hand and the back-and-forth disagreement that you could start or enter any other thread on this board to have a hand in. But this thread is for seeing what happens if the latter is not admitted, as was stated at the outset. It was intended to be taken to heart, and at this moment I ask that meta-discussion and points of debate be shunted to a separate thread.)

18:08 / 20.12.02

I don't buy a gender divide between the act of making and the thing that is made.

Someone's going to have to spell out which side is which and why for me in a really simple way.

I think part of my problem is this: I don't see a difference in *kind* between creativity and productivity (at least not in the sense they're both being used here). More like a spectrum with the vague germs of an idea on one end and a factory-pressed china plate on the other.

All art produces something - whether it's as intangible as a thought or as concrete as the pyramids. The difference is really one of duration and of... what, mass accessibility. An improv theater session produces a narrative or mood that lasts basically as long as the session. That makes it harder to commodify than something that is based on repeatable forms (a well-known improv troupe, say), or on a written text (Romeo & Juliet).

Commodification may (or may not) be "masculine", but it's not quite the same thing as production.

It's also high time someone mentioned Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch. Ooo, and look! I did!! The link is about more than just the book, so check it out.

02:32 / 22.12.02

The gender issue with creativity versus productivity is really one of values. Stereotypical masculine values are called productive, while in actuality they are more productive only in a narrow goal in mind. Why is production of material goods and wealth called "productive," while personal growth is not? Personal growth is far more valuable to me, and probably to most people. If I painted a picture, if might be nice to sell it for lots of money, but it would be far better if the process (there's a key word) helped me to learn something about myself or the world.

Disregarding biology for the moment, masculinity as an archetype (a supermeme?) tends to dictate what we value as a society: wealth, power, progress, hard knowledge, and other things. However, femininity is often valued just as highly in real life, but not as publicised: creativity, empathy, personal satisfaction, and the like.

Perhaps it is in the nature of a meme that strives for progress and power to dominate a meme that strives for harmony and subjectivity. This leaves the feminine meme as a productive entity almost entirely to good thinkers. The "huddled masses" may realize the value of local harmony, but rarely does feminine productivity receive the same attention as masculine.

Here's where biology and feminism come back. Society is set up so that we have to engage in a certain amount of masculine/material effort to live in it. It's hard to live without economics, but we can function fine without empathy (look at American Psycho...and yes, I'm implying that a gender imbalance leads to insanity). I don't think I'm qualified to talk about how this state of affairs is used to subjugate women, but I think it certainly does so. I hope some educated and clever feminist can go there.

18:48 / 30.12.02

Like Grant, I can't get a handle on the difference.

Between creativity and production, where would cooking fall?

16:40 / 13.01.03

example: hollywood is productive, indie is creative.

as a designer this principle is something dealt with everyday. indeed it's usually what separates artists from designers (not that they can't be the same person, just different hats). but it isn't a fixed state of being.

for a functional example from the commercial world: most creative director's are responsible for productivity for example (while many are terrible at this), wheras an art director would be responsible for the integrity of the creativity (execution but also the creation of it as well, while they may not individually be respoinsbile for that generation, but rather responsible for a team of individuals).

creativity is an open-ended thing, it can be never ending. there is no such thing as perfection. but at some point, it has to be functional. that's when productivity kicks in.

i think the highest point that can be extracted from this kind of discussion is to see the *opportunity cost* in a society who obbssesses over notion of productivity.

eg, "damn hippies just want to make music, they need to get a job and be productive for the world", means that the hippy goes off and flips burgers, at the opportunity cost to society, of never having discovered a bob dylan or something.

01:15 / 14.01.03

Are we talking about the difference between being an artist and being as artisan? One creates "art" whether avantegarde or no, and the other services the ideas of others. For example an artisan could carve a chair out of wood but not invent the concept of a chair. Is this propounding of the new seen as being a masculine action and servicing a female? Thus would the masculine creative atmosphere be repressive towards a feminine artist? And are masculine or feminine attitudes or genders?

11:28 / 14.01.03

I am far too bust being "productive" today - well, if shuffling around arbitary pieces of paper of varying degrees of importance counts as "productive" - to contribute properly but I thought I'd chuck in a link to this piece by Hakim Bey which seems relevant to the discussion. Bey seems to be suggesting that collective, creative act, with the deliberate intent of remaining outside systems of consumption, is in some sense revolutionary.

15:43 / 15.01.03

Wouldn't any act outside systems of consumption be revolutionary?

How can you have an act outside of some system of consumption?

posthumous parvenues

19:52 / 18.09.07

Can the literary representation of female subjectivity - if etched out via parody, via humour/ironic 'gaps' in language, via symbolic constellations of oppression or at least a figural blockage - create a phenomenological moment which glimpses outside of the system from which it is produced?

In other words - can the book create the woman?

Thoughts? additions? responses? no need for "the truth"!

All Acting Regiment

09:41 / 19.09.07

It appears to me that here, "debating" is being equated with "winning, beating, being top dog". What about debating as "sharing ideas and knowledge, and helping eachother out"? Because that's what a good debate is supposed to be anyway.

Given that women are pushed into a marginal position where they have little or no power to affect the world (the dark/Binah/etc), it seems to silly to try and work in specifically in this powerless position rather than reclaiming the powerful position and getting rid of the arbitrary barriers around it.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:51 / 19.09.07

The much-missed-by-many Persephone said, all of five years ago:

at this moment I ask that meta-discussion and points of debate be shunted to a separate thread

...and particularly in the absence of anyone trying to push the very much of-its-time "non-debate" initiative, I'd agree. If there's any point to this thread being resurrected it will be to talk about the subjects at hand, not talk about how we talk about them unless specific instances arise which anyone thinks are problematic.

In response to your second paragraph, I'm not clear who you think it is that's being "silly" and trying to work in the dark, as it were, rather than "reclaiming the powerful position" - this before we get into what that would mean, and why someone might want to prefer not to do that.