Type X, type Y: two contrasting views on the topic of “creative work today”- Bad Saarow

X and Y would probably say the same thing about each other:
is a very likeable person: open, interested in many things, clever.

Someone with whom you can have an entertaining discussion about many things at a high level, exchange ideas and engage in a relaxed, passionate rhetorical contest. Someone who can also listen, who also enjoys absorbing the other person’s thoughts – even though they have a lot to say themselves and can draw on a wealth of experience – and questioning them. Someone who has experienced a lot, is the same age, comes from the same socialization, moves on – more or less – the same playing field. It’s exciting to experience the other person’s interpretation of the world and things, to deal with their conclusions and decisions.

Just like 15 years ago, when they first met, there are fundamentally different basic positions, which can be illustrated by the pair of terms “function” – “art/artist” and the definition of “openness”.

Type X sees it as the most important criterion to constantly and openly engage with the zeitgeist in a new and unbiased way, to incorporate new trends into one’s own personality, to be creatively inspired by them and to incorporate this into one’s own work, to be “up to date”. He critically questions the term “artist”, considers it problematic in today’s world, suspects an arrogance behind it, a self-satisfied, “wanting to be above things and others”, also recognizes a concealed cowardice and elitist rigidity in so-called “creative artists”. He sees “art” as an outdated, long unmasked myth and takes a more rational view of the “function” of creative work as a platform to be created as well as possible. For him, what counts is the “offer”, the contribution to the living process of reality. He takes a critical view of the “demand”, the “seriousness”, “the authenticity” of an “artist”: behind the “feeling of being an artist” there is often a pomposity, a self-important sense of status.

Y, on the other hand, assumes that the concept of function has the goal of “functioning”. Behind “functioning” and “being open to current trends”, he sees – cleverly and politically correctly packaged – the acceptance of market laws, the voluntary abandonment of “artistic subjectivity” in favor of a function as a provider of creative goods for the entertainment market.

The “openness to current affairs” is therefore less a critical examination of the world in terms of content, but rather serves to “observe the market” and is a compass and guideline for his own work.

In an act of creative self-censorship, the creation of a work would then no longer focus on personal issues, i.e. content, but rather on style, packaging and form. “Independence” would then be more of an ornament, a “logo” to help one’s own confection gain better market opportunities against the competition among the many similar ones. The existing intelligence, sensitivity, creativity and energy would only be used to position one’s own work within the boundaries of what is “saleable” and “politically acceptable”. If he takes the romantic concept of the independent craftsman as his starting point, he sees type X more as the employed industrial assembly line worker.

For him, “art” lives from observation, reflection and intuition beyond the anticipated “needs” of the buying and sales-oriented environment.

For X, on the other hand, according to this thesis, it is not far to the “concept of genius”, to the exaggeration of ideas and people, to the division into “good and bad”, “above and below”, “justified and unjustified”. In a democratic society, these categories would be redundant; from “art/skill” to “genius/superman”, it is not far to “leader/followership”, i.e. to elitist-fascist tendencies.

But it is precisely this politically correct, “anti-fascist” thinking that only sounds cleverly thought out to Y at first glance: at second glance, he believes it is the classic killer argument of the present: it “regulates” and disavows any criticism of a “democratic” system. Viewed profoundly, it rather proves its totality in a “more progressive form”, it shows how its inhabitants think and do the “right thing”, what the elites “want” – without having to fear obvious physical and psychological repression. How they live in the illusion of acting of their own free will, without noticing how standardized, uniform and system-affirming they act, how pluralistically regulated they subject their being to (market) laws – even in the creative sphere. “Pluralism” would only take place within the boundaries of what is “permitted”.

X replies that he feels completely “free” to pursue his creative activities. No one would forbid anyone from doing what they wanted to do. Ultimately, the audience had to decide what they wanted to see and hear. Y’s argumentation therefore seemed disrespectful to him, tending towards arrogance and appearing to him to be pathetic because it protected his own work from failure in advance.

Y then questions X’s concept of freedom: “Those who feel free and independent will always be those who have no objections to a system, who live “successfully” in and with the existing structures, which, as they are based on market laws, force them to accept them.” He wonders what the people who so proudly affirm their freedom in their system do with this freedom – for example in artistic matters. Ultimately, there are only varying degrees of conformity.

Who can afford to have a wife and children, all the must-haves of the glittering world of commodities AND at the same time a free opinion – and not just on minor matters? This requires money, so much money that you don’t need orders, customers or the goodwill of society. But anyone who has enough money to really be able to afford a free opinion would usually agree with the prevailing conditions anyway.