Essays

State Of The Art 6

The Winter Of Our Discontent: The Return Of The Creative Clash

It’s a struggle, believe me.

On one hand, it would be truly satisfying to justifiably state and write that everything is fine and peachy; feelgood stories usually get lost in the mix, but when they do filter through, they comfort our troubled psyches, periodically reminding us that we shall prevail against all odds, thanks to our strong spirits and our generous natures. On the other hand, there’s always a compelling reason to point out that something’s not quite right with the soup, because invariably, all soups engage a rotten potential for intolerable levels of stink. There are few things worse than craving a hot, spicy bowl of menudo only to find it unfit for consumption. Consequently, sustaining an unbiased perspective and at the same time tempering frustration with the wry barbs of a skeptical realist-optimist, is a veritable struggle for yours truly. A court jester prancing on eggshells comes to mind, or the Soup Nazi...

When things are going swimmingly we enjoy basking in the warmish glow of well deserved comfort. In our cozy cocoons it’s not an important priority to expound on being OK, unless it involves a self-help book with a publishing deal at the tail end of ‘...visualize your bliss...’. However, when confronted with the harsher, less palatable details of social interaction, we are overcome with an unstoppable urge to alleviate our indignant boil; steaming off, taking names, pointing fingers, hoping to resolve the offending condition. We call on media troubleshooters, write letters to the editor, complain to our condo boards and neighborhood associations, or wax eloquent before city government. In my fortunate case, I get to write a column for this venerable publication.

My premise here is that contentedness is not -never has been- a prime social or civic motivator. Discontent is the fuel that keeps our civic minded motors humming (for confused semanticists I must clarify: there is a difference between being discontented which is an active principle and being a malcontent which is a passive condition).

We are in fact a nation of discontents; founded by a boatload of wayfaring folks, unhappy with the prevailing religious, fiscal, legal and civil impositions at work in the old country. This discontented bunch saw fit to leave their creature comforts behind, pick up roots, and alight on more favorable ground; sowing anew the seeds of discontent that would eventually come to power a grand new nation (or so the scribes would have us believe). For centuries, many more discontented pilgrims from all over the globe have followed suit in their own pursuit of betterment; making of this wonderful nation a continuously fresh and replenished bowl of soup.

Now, there are those who’d argue that maybe -not unlike the Pilgrims- if unhappy, I should contemplate vacating the premises. To them I would point out that discontent is an unimpeachable right, deeply rooted in our nation’s psyche (Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness). We are actually bound by a moral, ethical, legal and civic mandate to pursue better things, better ways of making things work, and better ways of finding how to make things better for us. We are ideologically and spiritually a nation of nomads. We are constantly looking for identifiers and, upon finding a suitable one, we scan beyond our pretty white fences searching for a better option out yonder, just in case. We’re always looking for a better option. We are a nation of discontents in constant search of new identifier options.

When discontents publicly voice their irritating opinions, challenging the precepts of set identifiers which define the current status-quo; the status-quoticians themselves are discomfited, becoming self-serving malcontents. These nouveaux malcontents, finding themselves cornered by inevitable cultural progress; fester and engage in vitriolic insider diatribe, circling their wagons, setting up lazy, feeble-minded defenses; hoping that the hordes of savages will unwittingly pass them by. It would be so much more efficient and tactically favorable to maintain mobility. But that’d be too difficult; too much baggage. Ultimately our friends, the status-quoticians, must eventually come face to face with their own sayonara time. At that point they are our friends no more.

Let’s go back to the notion of being a nation of discontents. The flip side is that discontents are always seeking contentment, eventually arriving at a decent level of comfort, a limited form of bliss. These erstwhile scrappers settle down, grow rotund in their complacency and lose touch; their ears to the ground no longer. Few are able to extricate themselves from the circled wagon train to find tactical higher ground. Most are savaged by the brutal assault of evolution or become diminished by their lame adherence to mediocrity.

One of the most important virtues of discontent is that, in its inherent quest for renewal, it is passed on in organic cultural synapse, from generation to generation, providing contextual renovation and creating a plurality of articulation in its progress. Avoiding home or comfort anywhere, discontent refuses to settle, even as some of its voices do so in time.

Discontent is such an important and vital source of energy that it frequently bears the brunt of suppression schemes within the confines of our über-homeland; enjoying of course, a much harsher and more periodic clamp-down in other countries with less squeamish judiciaries. Discontent, however, can never lose out entirely. Aside from being tightly woven into the legal fabric of our nation, discontent is part and parcel of our universal genetic code; driving the very survival of all species, correcting imbalances in nature. Both the law and The Law embrace discontent as the path of choice for system upgrades.

Even our simple high-school science experiments show us that equal charges of electricity on opposing ends of a magnet create stasis. It is when balance is disrupted that movement begins, only to seek balance again, which must be disrupted anew to find further balance, and so on and so forth. Let the magnet sit unattended, and eventually it loses all its power; becoming a crusty, brittle, rusted old piece of metal.

The point is that creative forces need constant activation to be effective. A build-down of existing structures is equally important as a build-up of potential ones. Those who think that build-up is the only way to go, have lost historic and scientific perspective. They subscribe to the Don’t Throw The Baby Out With The Bath Water formula for progress, and are less likely to understand that there is no proverbial baby in this our contented, warmly glowing community permeated with old gilded bath water.

Even those who’d fancy themselves on the cutting edge of creative proposals are at times losing out, dragging us with them, sitting pretty, ensconced in their archaic non-profit thrones, lording over kingdoms that tax write-offs begat; measuring performance with the yardstick of correctly completed grant request forms, and measuring success with the number of grants doled out to correctly filled grant applications.

Equally pernicious to forward-thinking progressive-communities-in-the-making are the armchair-savant malcontents, resting on laurels of past achievements -some meritorious, some not so- pronouncing portentous dictums that reveal a serious lack of depth in their understanding of what constitutes a dynamic community, exposing fear and envy; soured because they no longer fuel the winds of change. These restful souls have no passion left. Hallowed in their own time, frozen and dated in their ideals, they have lost that very crucial sense of timelessness. I like to call this the Gravitas-Per-Capita factor. The more unopposed Gravitas-Per-Capita, the less likely we’ll see creative, forward-thinking civic advancement of any kind.

There is a lot of Gravitas-Per-Capita in our fun-drenched city -of both the well-earned and the self-appointed sort; loitering in the vapid brains of old aristocrats and young arrivistes alike. This Once Were Warriors class of assuming old farts and their attentive minions, are on the losing side of the inevitable Return Of The Creative Clash; the ultimate struggle for creative survival and change, which, as usual, is a laggard arrival to SA. It’s the battle of the Atavic Gatekeepers versus the Avatars Of Discovery. Boomers versus X and Y. Windows versus Linux. Proprietary versus Open Code.

On the plus side, the young-spirited Open Coders are not much burdened with definition or direction; their daily lives are filled with unbridled multiplicity, with no need for specific, static identifiers. There is a blanket, unspoken understanding that a shifting plurality of identifiers are necessary, making for a much more interesting and savory cup of soup; eclectic sincretism is the unspoken creed of a creative society. New generations always face a daunting task as cultural bridgers; the current crop more so than any prior generation in the last century.

On the cautionary side, anyone can and should be as creatively daring as possible, but we still need to know how to cook up a soup, a concept that many of the Open Coders still don’t grasp, and a proverbial fly-in-the-ointment factor that frequently gets things all screwed up in the process of concocting The New And The Better. And inasmuch as many of the Open Coders decry globalism, they’ll eventually have to assume their broader civic responsibilities and make things work for the best, within a global world order -like it or not.

The Atavic Gatekeepers on the other hand, knowing how to cook very well with their one proven recipe, are incapable of trying any new formulas. They are at a loss when stale identifiers, propped up by dogma, are devastatingly deconstructed by serious critical analysis, contextual adjustment, or by the simplest So What? proffered by the Open Coders when questioning dogmatic relevance. We Are Hallowed Therefore We Are is the motto of these misguided folks, self-quoting themselves in articles of faith eagerly absorbed by the uninformed masses. I have some olde news for these Alte Fartes: times, they are a changing as they always have, and you chose to stay out of the loop. You’ve obviously settled your discontent and now you’re going to selfishly protect your cocoon, trying to stop the mad rush of outspoken heathens wreaking havoc on your grand designs. You were just lucky enough to have seen the Walk-Ins-Welcome sign when it first went up a while ago, when the only required qualification was being there. You are also one of those who chose to unplug the sign after all the self-anointed made it in. You relish being a gatekeeper. It gives you comfort and solace to see the same old faces and it gives you a false sense of security when you can ostensibly deny access to someone for lack of “proper” credentials. Newcomers aren’t welcome in your tightly wound world. Especially young-spirited, talented, articulate, unbiased, visionary, roguish, sexually driven creative thinkers who see the world in much broader terms than you could ever imagine. Who Let The Dogs Out?... you wonder haplessly as you and your anointed indulge in yet another antiquated, irrelevant, precious endeavor.

It is thus that we go into this The Winter Of Our Discontent, maligned by your dull invectives, our voices temporarily drowned out by the squeaks in your sagging conceptual armchairs. You feel attuned indeed to the pulse of the times, but when you listen closely, what do you really hear? Nothing. Silence. Not a heartbeat, and oh, by the way, your synapses aren’t quite as snappy anymore.

We know you will not leave quietly. You and those who subscribe to your self-serving dictums will put up a fight, availing yourselves of back-door dealings to try and stem the tide. But in the end, I believe, it’s all just a charade. If there is no backbone of conviction, if there is no higher ground, there will be no prolonged resistance.

The most insidious form of conspiracy is the conspiracy of mediocrity. Mediocrity requires no call to action or brilliant mastermind. Most everyone is at fault, engaging in mediocrity with frightening frequency. For Evil To Thrive All It Takes Is A Good Man To Do Nothing. Mediocrity is the real evil and mediocrity just is. It feeds on itself. It creeps all around us, seeping into our lives through the pervasive cracks of unawareness and disinterest, nestled in the fickle foundations of unquestioning, uncritical thought; luring us with its eternal siren song: Lower The Bar, Lower The Bar... Mediocrity is the real Armageddon, the downfall of every civilization. Even excess and lassitude, the historical oft-quoted banes of empire, can’t hold their own next to the ubiquitous blob of mediocrity.

This is why it’s so terribly important for all of us who care about what goes on beyond the tips of our noses, to stand our ground and push forward now, at The Return Of The Creative Clash. Our irritating discontent, our necessary pursuit of happiness, our search for a better way of doing things, a better set of fluctuating identifiers, will define the evolutionary template for generations of creative discontents to come.

Michael Mehl | Winter 2003