I’d also say it’s kind of sweet that you assume that people who are pursuing the arts find it to be rewarding, or that the camaraderie that keeps these communities knit together is a pleasant experience.
Actually, that was an element that you introduced. “We don’t want people working a job primarily because it’s fun and they like their coworkers.” and “the occasional bright spots of camaraderie when they do manage to get some sort of project going”
But given your description of “a slowly-developing psychological exaggeration of how meaningful their ‘work’ is”, I guess I’m more inclined to give the people being described the benefit of the doubt than you are, which I admit is a bit cheeky considering that they’re not people I’ve ever met. Still, I think it’s worth at least considering the possibility that their values are not your values, and what you describe as exaggeration might be actual meaning to them.
Re: bullying, I’ve seen plenty of bullying over the internet, and some types of bullying are much more prevalent in online spaces. I don’t really see any argument for bullying going away when more things are virtual. And for obnoxious people, I wonder if they might be more obnoxious, based on virtual things being generally more awkward. Obnoxious and awkward might be worse than just obnoxious?
Re: artist vs. shoe salesperson, there is one difference that seems especially salient to their influence on their respective scenes. Artists are expected to bring their uniqueness to what they do, while most shoe salespeople are limited in how much they are allowed to do so. So the loss of an artist to the art world is more likely to be the loss of something unique than the loss of a shoe salesperson to the shoe world.
When you describe the arts by saying “Their community as a whole knows how to create a false sense of glamour that draws in artist and audience alike. Chasing this glamour is a big motivator for the whole enterprise.” and then go on to talk about “collective self-delusion that perpetuates deep deviations of work from social value, or even from genuine sustained happiness or achievement” and “a lot of that ‘camaraderie’ looks like FOMO, jealousy, inferiority complexes, extreme competition for scarce resources, and a sense of identity defined by victory in a zero-sum status competition, and to top it all off, it has to come with the pretense of liking others in the scene (and the scene itself)”
… sure, you’re examining the idea that being alone is better, but you also seem to have an axe to grind against the arts. I am not reacting against the idea that sometimes being alone is better. I’m reacting against the idea that the world would be better off without much of the arts, and that the arts are in some sense perpetuating a fraud against hopeful artists and audience alike—that they are just glamour and illusion—that any value is the exception, not the rule, and most claimed value is deception. I believe your argument relies on your own sense of what is valuable, and I do not believe that your sense of what is valuable captures all value.
On a different note, if you haven’t already seen it, you might find this interesting:
Actually, that was an element that you introduced. “We don’t want people working a job primarily because it’s fun and they like their coworkers.” and “the occasional bright spots of camaraderie when they do manage to get some sort of project going”
But given your description of “a slowly-developing psychological exaggeration of how meaningful their ‘work’ is”, I guess I’m more inclined to give the people being described the benefit of the doubt than you are, which I admit is a bit cheeky considering that they’re not people I’ve ever met. Still, I think it’s worth at least considering the possibility that their values are not your values, and what you describe as exaggeration might be actual meaning to them.
Re: bullying, I’ve seen plenty of bullying over the internet, and some types of bullying are much more prevalent in online spaces. I don’t really see any argument for bullying going away when more things are virtual. And for obnoxious people, I wonder if they might be more obnoxious, based on virtual things being generally more awkward. Obnoxious and awkward might be worse than just obnoxious?
Re: artist vs. shoe salesperson, there is one difference that seems especially salient to their influence on their respective scenes. Artists are expected to bring their uniqueness to what they do, while most shoe salespeople are limited in how much they are allowed to do so. So the loss of an artist to the art world is more likely to be the loss of something unique than the loss of a shoe salesperson to the shoe world.
When you describe the arts by saying “Their community as a whole knows how to create a false sense of glamour that draws in artist and audience alike. Chasing this glamour is a big motivator for the whole enterprise.” and then go on to talk about “collective self-delusion that perpetuates deep deviations of work from social value, or even from genuine sustained happiness or achievement” and “a lot of that ‘camaraderie’ looks like FOMO, jealousy, inferiority complexes, extreme competition for scarce resources, and a sense of identity defined by victory in a zero-sum status competition, and to top it all off, it has to come with the pretense of liking others in the scene (and the scene itself)”
… sure, you’re examining the idea that being alone is better, but you also seem to have an axe to grind against the arts. I am not reacting against the idea that sometimes being alone is better. I’m reacting against the idea that the world would be better off without much of the arts, and that the arts are in some sense perpetuating a fraud against hopeful artists and audience alike—that they are just glamour and illusion—that any value is the exception, not the rule, and most claimed value is deception. I believe your argument relies on your own sense of what is valuable, and I do not believe that your sense of what is valuable captures all value.
On a different note, if you haven’t already seen it, you might find this interesting:
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/05/20/pretending-to-care-pretending-to-agree/