Sunday, November 14, 2010
Agree or disagree, and why?
"The first thing to realize - though it is difficult in a commercial age - is that what is best in creative mental activity cannot be produced by any system of monetary rewards. Opportunity and the stimulus of an invigorating spiritual atmosphere are important, but, if they are present, no financial inducements will be required, while if they are absent, material compensations will be of no avail. Recognition, even if it takes the form of money, can bring a certain pleasure in old age to the man of science who has battled all his life against academic prejudice or to the artist who has endured years of ridicule for not painting in the manner of his predecessors; but it is not by the remote hope of such pleasures that their work has been inspired. All the most important work springs from an uncalculating impulse and is best promoted, not by rewards after the event, but by circumstances which keep the impulsive alive and afford scope for the activities which it inspires."
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If it is correct to interpret it as saying something similar to the notion that those who are passionate about their subject (and therefore have that incentive, besides the monetary incentive), then yes I agree. In that case, the profit is not just monetary, but whatever personal satisfaction is achieved.
ReplyDeleteTo quote Gordon Gecko:
ReplyDelete"Greed is good."
Jonathan - I suppose pro bono bloggers like us would be hard pressed to disagree :)
ReplyDeleteI'll try to provide more detail and thoughts in a future post. Until then - anyone know where this is from without googling it?
It seems to say something stronger than simply that non-monetary incentive takes the place of monetary incentive for those who are passionate about their vocation. He says, "what is best in creative mental activity cannot be produced by any system of monetary rewards." Monetary or commercial incentive is outright inferior.
ReplyDeleteAnd to answer your question, yes, of course I'd agree. Only a certain sort of ideologue could quibble with this, I think (which is ironic, given that ideology stands with art as pretty well inoculated against the influence of monetary incentive).
...already googled it, so I suppose I can't say. Btu it doesn't surprise me given your reading habits. Probably wouldn't have been my first guess though.
ReplyDeleteI haven't googled it yet. I am guessing Ludwig von Mises.
ReplyDeleteCome on now Richard - what self-respecting economics blogger would cite Mises?!?!?
ReplyDelete:)
True, but don't take it too far. Some tremendous work would be (and is) done even without the promise of fabulous financial reward, and some would be done for free. But probably not as much as this quote suggests. How many scientists would we have if prospective students of the sciences knew they couldn't rely on at least a reasonable, middle class living?
ReplyDeleteAnother way to look at it: Big work is exciting, but there's an awful lot of little (and boring) work that needs to be done to make the big work possible.
Robert - I think that's right. And I think even doing the boring work that you know will lead to the big work can be rewarding too.
ReplyDeleteI would focus more on the argument of your first paragraph. Put simply, scientists and artists need to eat. The task of creation, reproduction, and sharing alone leads me pretty closely to the kind of libertarian anti-IP mentality. However, that doesn't really do much when you have to feed yourself. How to balance those two things is a tough question - charity does a lot of the work. I do my "creative thinking" largely in my lunch break and in the early morning hours too. But it's not at all clear to me that (1.) market forces can produce optimal levels of art and science, or that (2.) acknowledging this will do anything to actually sustain artists and scientists.
But speaking of artists and scientists needing to eat is a lot different than speaking of compensation/incentive for artistic or scientific creativity, isn't it? I mean, everyone needs to eat. I take it Robert's first paragraph seems to say nothing more than that scientists and artists are people. But I'm not sure it says much about art or science as creative tasks.
ReplyDeleteEvan - right. And that's my whole point. Normally we think of income/profit as the motivation for the work we accomplish - and since that also feeds us, there's no real conflict.
ReplyDeleteThe whole problem here is that it's not a motivation on one end, but it's still a necessity on the other. As for the creative task itself, I would agree with you.
There is a question, though, of the extent to which market signals are a signal of artistic or scientific quality. It's certainly not a signal of quality for science... for art it may be a signal under limited circumstances, but I'm not sure it is in most cases.
And I imagine it's also worth considering possible pathologies of individual scientists/artists... the guy that produces great work for the prestige or the income it bestows. Surely there are folks like this around and we can attribute some of their great work to less lofty incentives.
ReplyDeleteSo... when are you going to tell everyone that the quote is from Bertrand Russell?
On a closer reading, the key word "opportunity" (first word of the second sentence in the quote) is probably intended to cover the need to eat. Well, if we assume that scientists and artists somehow will have the basic necessities, then, yeah, the quote makes a whole lot of sense. High quality creative effort probably does come from something other than the promise of wealth. Maybe that's why movie sequels are usually so bad, because they are motivated primarily by earning, not by inspiration.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why movie sequels are usually so bad, because they are motivated primarily by earning, not by inspiration.
ReplyDeleteAnd which sequels are good? The ones that were conceived of as part of a cohesive, multi-volume story in the first place... as a part of the original creative act.
When this is the case, people usually think they improve over time - which makes sense as actors get more comfortable with their characters and technology improves. Return of the King vs. Fellowship/Return of the Jedi vs. Star Wars, etc. We see a reverse relationship in quality - it improves over time - as a result of general progress and technological development in cinema. This is directly observable even over the course of a few years. And it's achievable because the original creation of the art itself - the story - was cohesive.
I can think of one major exception: Indiana Jones. Last Crusade was better than either of the first two, although I doubt they envisioned that from the beginning. But then, that's becasue George Lucas is an especially talented artist. I happened to like the Crystal Skull too, but I understand and accept I'm in the minority on that one.