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Nov
15
Creative Tension In Free Markets [Long Post]
Filed Under Future of Music, Mysterious Music, World Culture |
One of the things that’s fascinating to me as a direct parallel between artistic and free market environments is the use of Creative Tension.
Take Banking. The banks trade off one another, forever heightening the peak of their work in order to stay competitive in a fast-developing arena. They bounce back and forth against the regulator, trying to push the boundaries as much as possible within the limits that are imposed on them, in the way that a string quartet would see how far they could take their interpretation without abusing the music’s stylistic framework.
Again, like a musical ensemble, there are internal tensions. Just as the melody will push against the pulsing ostinati, just as the instruments will gyrate and syncopate wildly through clashes and dissonances, so will the salespeople rage at the strictness of the credit controllers, and the new markets division rail against the lack of empathy coming from the bean-counters.
Sometimes things push too far. The line is crossed. There is nowhere left to go. Styles break. Credit lines die. Musical tastefulness is compromised. Everything around comes crashing down, and there’s a panic-retreat back towards the last known comfort zone.
Had those at the top of Northern Rock ever heard John Cage’s 4′33”? Did they know about twentieth century tonality?
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Free markets make for uncomfortable and risky living. There’s always a possibility that you can fall, and fall a long way. You can get hurt. I have, and I’m sure I will again. Maybe you have too.
But would you rather have a state where comfort is manufactured, rules are important for their own sake, creativity is something that happens within established comfort zones, and it’s taboo to rock the boat?
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I’m writing this on the way home from an former Soviet Bloc city that shall remain nameless (no, not Berlin). Even now, the conservatoire can be easily understood in terms of attitude - and yes, it does stem from the remnants of East and West. The faculty of one discipline is new, exciting, American-trained, innovation-orientated, development-focused. The faculty of another is doing a job; it turns up every weekday, makes music from nine to five, has a few cups of tea, then goes home again.
The latter, perhaps we can call it the Old Order, is no less experienced of course; in fact, because of the average professorial age, it is probably more so. They are no less exceptional musicians; for goodness sake, they are conservatoire professors, so of course they are good musicians! It would probably be foolish and naive to make grand pseudo-political pronouncements about legacies and stereotypes. But it is fair and important to ask in a modern context: are these people great artists or great educators?
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Heh. I know what I think.
When a new professor is needed, the departments recruit accordingly. That is why, in some places, there is still a status quo. But at some point, everything dies, and if something resists change, it often dies sooner rather than later. More painfully, too.
A faculty that does not foster creative tension is not a free market. That may suit some people perfectly, but it doesn’t suit others. Personally, it’s not for me. I imagine it is important for some circumstances, though I can’t think of them now.
Components of free markets need balance much more than a heavily protected top-down hierarchy, a dictatorship, or autocracy, where weight and strength are what counts. There are severe dangers for the free market that loses balance when creative tension spills over into other tensions (ego-tension is so often a root cause here). That’s why it’s so important that every part of a free market has the right management, including in the cultural sector.
Modern culture is not 1700s Vienna - it is Guerilla warfare. There is no ‘right’ or ‘proper’. There is no reverse gear. There is no defined overall goal. Suddenly, creative tension becomes not desirable, but essential.
Talking of which, I hope you’ll excuse me, as I need to go and attend to my overdraft. 