capitalism and monetary incentives are detrimental to the arts

[Rainbow Dash]

Would anyone like to seriously try to argue to the contrary :]

[thehoodedsmack]

Would you list some examples where monetary incentives have been detrimental to the arts? I'm not taking a side by saying this, but you should probably have some examples to support your claim.

[Rainbow Dash]

I do have a fair bit of backing material which I'll post later on, but what I'd like to see first is if anyone here actually thinks the thread title is false ;)

[thehoodedsmack]

There's probably arguments for both sides, so you may as well post. If I might play Devil's Advocate, a lot of protest art, and anti-consumerism work, some extremely influential over the years ("Imagine", anyone?) wouldn't exist, and you could say, was CAUSED by the side-effects of rampant capitalism. In that sense, capitalism and monetary incentive is BENEFICIAL to the arts, as it created a body of work focused on its rejection.

If your position is that blockbuster film is running out of ideas because studios like to play it safe, sure, spot on, but I'd like to know what other examples you have.

[Rainbow Dash]

There's probably arguments for both sides, so you may as well post. If I might play Devil's Advocate, a lot of protest art, and anti-consumerism work, some extremely influential over the years ("Imagine", anyone?) wouldn't exist, and you could say, was CAUSED by the side-effects of rampant capitalism. In that sense, capitalism and monetary incentive is BENEFICIAL to the arts, as it created a body of work focused on its rejection.


heh, if society is decaying, the arts do reflect that decay. I can't really say I'd describe societal decay caused by capitalism as beneficial, but I definitely see where you're going with this. I should probably have clarified I was referring to the detrimental effects on art of making it "for profit", and the negative effects on artistic work quality and creativity by giving people monetary incentives.



If your position is that blockbuster film is running out of ideas because studios like to play it safe, sure, spot on, but I'd like to know what other examples you have.

That is a big part of the issue, but it goes well beyond that.

I should really have just told you that you'd have to fight the backing content out of me right out, so here you go cutiepie

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[TVTyrant]

Doesnt this belong in the debate section, since the first post literally says "argue with me plz".

[thehoodedsmack]

Sounds like what you really mean is that personal greed is detrimental to the arts. But then, personal greed can be detrimental to any field. The greatest works of art in history have been created by men and women who work within capitalist systems, servicing patrons, playing for thousands of fans, and making films which generated hundreds of millions of dollars.

These people may undoubtedly have continued to produce their work had it not caught on with audiences, the starving artist route, but the fact that they found success exemplifies what you're supporting with your first video link: that taking money off the table allows increased freedom of expression and creativity. The artists and performers we consider to be the greats were and are supported through audience capital.

What your problem seems to be, then, isn't the system, but when the system is extorted, using advertising to sell second-rate product, constantly lowering the standard of music and film, and reaping the rewards when consumers lower their standards accordingly. In addition, the artists, who, in turn, sell out, and leave us with Star Wars prequels, or The Godfather: Part 3.

In conclusion, monetary incentive may rarely influence so-called "real" artists, what your concern seems to be is the proliferation and rise of second-rate mass-produced "art", which, yeah, everyone is well aware of. There's no denying it.

[TVTyrant]

Can't personal greed also be extremely beneficial? I mean, where would many artists be without their aspirations to "make it big"? If we are talking about most people in the painting/comic world, then probably no. But the music industry is one of the biggest, greediest organizations in the world and has been for years.

[thehoodedsmack]

The music industry is dotted by a massive amount of individual corporations and artists, though, so you can't generalize that industry, or ANY industry, since there are still groups today which produce heartfelt, innovative music, regardless of whether they make it big. RD's concern seems to be with the Justin Biebers, or the Pitbulls, or the other artists who are mass-producing hollow sound over repetitive hooks.

[Rainbow Dash]

Sounds like what you really mean is that personal greed is detrimental to the arts.

No, I'm saying that monetary rewards are detrimental to creativity, innovation, and the arts.




The greatest works of art in history have been created by men and women who work within capitalist systems, servicing patrons, playing for thousands of fans, and making films which generated hundreds of millions of dollars.

This is a totally ridiculous statement. Capitalism (let alone modern capitalism) has not existed very long at all. Are you seriously suggesting that no pre-capitalism art was any good lol? You also make zero consideration for art that was either lost, or never happened at all because Capitalism prevented it.



These people may undoubtedly have continued to produce their work had it not caught on with audiences, the starving artist route, but the fact that they found success exemplifies what you're supporting with your first video link: that taking money off the table allows increased freedom of expression and creativity. The artists and performers we consider to be the greats were and are supported through audience capital.

Well gee, in a society where people require capital survive, some artists manage to survive off of their work, while undoubtedly cutting corners to make it more accessible and whatnot.




What your problem seems to be, then, isn't the system, but when the system is extorted, using advertising to sell second-rate product, constantly lowering the standard of music and film, and reaping the rewards when consumers lower their standards accordingly. In addition, the artists, who, in turn, sell out, and leave us with Star Wars prequels, or The Godfather: Part 3.

I don't get it, you're saying my problem is things that are a direct result of Capitalism are occurring and degrading the quality of art?


Can't personal greed also be extremely beneficial? I mean, where would many artists be without their aspirations to "make it big"? If we are talking about most people in the painting/comic world, then probably no. But the music industry is one of the biggest, greediest organizations in the world and has been for years.

Wait a minute, you mean the same music industry who is now trying to nazi the fuck out of copyright laws in an effort to keep art out of the hands of more and more people in the name of profit? Yes that sounds very beneficial to society, and the quality of art!

[DarkHalo003]

What are you arguing? That the combination of the two are detrimental or each at it's own too?

[Higuy]

If your a real artist, the type of economy you live in shouldn't have to matter. As long as you are good you will be making money either way, whether it is in one country or lots of them.

[TVTyrant]

If your a real artist, the type of economy you live in shouldn't have to matter. As long as you are good you will be making money either way, whether it is in one country or lots of them.
Truth.

I will say that Finland, a mainly socialist country, has produced some great musicians lately. Look at Children of Bodom for example. The way they play is absolutely amazing, and they were almost all trained in a socialist school system that focused on the arts for them in particular.

[neuro]

If your a real artist, the type of economy you live in shouldn't have to matter. As long as you are good you will be making money either way, whether it is in one country or lots of them.

whether you're good or not has only a VAGUE correlation with making money with it.

there's 2 sides to the argument, and both sides have valid points.
is capitalism detrimental to the arts? yea, i'd say so.
i don't even want to know how many would-be artists never got to be because their parents told them you can't make a living with it (and they're right, there's only exceptions where people make a living off it, regardless of whether they're good or not)

do moetary rewards incentivise artists to make art?
sure, look at all the beautiful games and music we've got lying around.
some of them were made for monetary gain and some of them because people wanted to make great art.

i could make a long post about this, but in the end it's another one of those double-edged swords.
both sides are right in their own way. which one is more right than the other is mainly subjective.

i myself, can't wait to see the world burn as society collapses.

[=sw=warlord]

People have been predicting the fall of society for thousands of years.
I wouldn't hold my breath.

[TVTyrant]

People have been predicting the fall of society for thousands of years.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
This.

[Rainbow Dash]

People have been predicting the fall of society for thousands of years.
I wouldn't hold my breath.

We live in an infinite growth paradigm that requires constant consumption to function, it will fail eventually. The sooner it fails, the better.

[=sw=warlord]

We live in an infinite growth paradigm that requires constant consumption to function, it will fail eventually. The sooner it fails, the better.

Every time resources in some shape or form become scarce there is either some sort of plague or there is a war.
The only difference is people are much more connected today than they have in the past, more connections generally mean more exchange of knowledge which generally means more co-ordination between groups of people.

If society is going to fall, it won't be because of money, why would money or war be a threat when micro organisms can wipe an entire nation leaving it's infra structure intact?

[Warsaw]

Why don't you put this in the Great Debate section? This is obviously going to be a debate.

Also, here's a pro-tip, and I'd seriously like anybody to try arguing otherwise (c wut i did thar? :v:):

Art does not exist. There is only science. What am I talking about? Here, listen closely!

When somebody creates any type of imagery (visual, auditory, culinary, etc.), they are arranging their medium of choice such that it invokes a desired electro-chemical response in the audience's brain. Everybody is different, of course, but the "artist" is gunning for the most probable average of all reaction possibilities. What separates the good artists and the bad ones is that the good ones understand this and use it to their advantage, and the bad ones just get lucky. Sorry, but throwing paint onto a canvas isn't art. What Chains does isn't art. What I do isn't art, not yet. They are all just pretty pictures because none of them were made with the intent towards eliciting any type of emotional response as pieces and because they don't elicit any type emotional of response as pieces. I'm happy that Chains is a fantastic painter, but I don't honestly give a second thought to the content in the work apart from how well it is technically executed.

Example:
Guernica is a terrible painting. Why? Because it means nothing to most people, because the imagery displayed is too abstracted/crappy looking and most people don't even know what the hell it's about anymore.

The Mona Lisa, on the other hand, is timeless because it's well-executed, mysterious, and the setting has zero bearing on how the viewer thinks about the picture. And it is deliberately made that way, based on all of the tiny tid-bits we've learned about the painting and what we know about Leonardo; he didn't do things by accident.

Picasso had skill (evidenced by his earlier works), but he lacked intuition into how this whole imagery thing works. Leonardo had both skill and intuition.

So there you have it. Art is not, it's just science, and good "artists" are engineers. People always say "art is subjective;" they are wrong. I've just quantified it in an objective fashion.

[TVTyrant]

Okay Warsaw. Some people love Picasso though, and find Leonardo to be shallow and uncreative. How do you explain that?

[Warsaw]

Those people know about this history of the works. Next?

E: And creativity has nothing to do with being a good "artist."

[TVTyrant]

Those people know about this history of the works. Next?

E: And creativity has nothing to do with being a good "artist."
As a musician, I can no longer respond to these statements. Good day sir.

[Warsaw]

I'm a musician myself, hth. Viola. 11 years.

[Phopojijo]

Consoles are very detrimental to art.

The industry is built around the business model of consumable art with disposable platforms.

[PopeAK49]

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

-Albert Einstein

[TVTyrant]

I miss Mech

[Donut]

i just wrote a whole paper discussing how publisher's desire for money has contributed to the quality of games to decrease from what they were in the 80s and 90s. the discussion was heavily based on egoraptor's sequilitis video on castlevania 1 and 2 where he discusses how much thought, and to quote ICEE, "mental elbow grease" used to go into games, and how you dont see that as much today.

i mean, this is a huge fucking issue that i could write pages and pages on, and obviously there are a LOT of different ways to approach this topic, but my main supports were the points egoraptor makes about castlevania 1 in his sequilitis video, that recent interview with gabe newell where he discusses how developers and publishers should look into free to play and mobile platforms, and a quote from bobby kotick where he flat out states and explains that activision is not interested in funding or pursuing any game that they cannot exploit year after year for profit.

[Higuy]

i just wrote a whole paper discussing how publisher's desire for money has contributed to the quality of games to decrease from what they were in the 80s and 90s. the discussion was heavily based on egoraptor's sequilitis video on castlevania 1 and 2 where he discusses how much thought, and to quote ICEE, "mental elbow grease" used to go into games, and how you dont see that as much today.

i mean, this is a huge fucking issue that i could write pages and pages on, and obviously there are a LOT of different ways to approach this topic, but my main supports were the points egoraptor makes about castlevania 1 in his sequilitis video, that recent interview with gabe newell where he discusses how developers and publishers should look into free to play and mobile platforms, and a quote from bobby kotick where he flat out states and explains that activision is not interested in funding or pursuing any game that they cannot exploit year after year for profit.

this

A great example of a game that was amazing, lots of people loved, and didn't get alot of attention that it deserved was Mirrors Edge. If you didn't have shitty games being mass produced pretty much for profit only (ex: CoD), then maybe games like Mirrors Edge and plenty of other great indie games would quite frankly be noticed, better developers being hired (in terms of creativity), and then in turn hopefully influencing the publisher into what the people like (variety) instead of just "run shoot kill, save usa from a nuke" (<-- generalization) games.

[Warsaw]

Another game that was great and got milked to death was...Halo.

:v:

[=sw=warlord]

I don't know.
MASH 4077 lasted 11 seasons and still remains one of the best shows, Halo isn't too bad, you just gotta take the bad with the good.

[TVTyrant]

i just wrote a whole paper discussing how publisher's desire for money has contributed to the quality of games to decrease from what they were in the 80s and 90s. the discussion was heavily based on egoraptor's sequilitis video on castlevania 1 and 2 where he discusses how much thought, and to quote ICEE, "mental elbow grease" used to go into games, and how you dont see that as much today.

i mean, this is a huge fucking issue that i could write pages and pages on, and obviously there are a LOT of different ways to approach this topic, but my main supports were the points egoraptor makes about castlevania 1 in his sequilitis video, that recent interview with gabe newell where he discusses how developers and publishers should look into free to play and mobile platforms, and a quote from bobby kotick where he flat out states and explains that activision is not interested in funding or pursuing any game that they cannot exploit year after year for profit.
You should post it!!!

[Warsaw]

I don't know.
MASH 4077 lasted 11 seasons and still remains one of the best shows, Halo isn't too bad, you just gotta take the bad with the good.

One good and a half good and three and a half bad? That counts as going downhill to me.

[PopeAK49]

this

A great example of a game that was amazing, lots of people loved, and didn't get alot of attention that it deserved was Mirrors Edge. If you didn't have shitty games being mass produced pretty much for profit only (ex: CoD), then maybe games like Mirrors Edge and plenty of other great indie games would quite frankly be noticed, better developers being hired (in terms of creativity), and then in turn hopefully influencing the publisher into what the people like (variety) instead of just "run shoot kill, save usa from a nuke" (<-- generalization) games.

I never played Mirrors Edge, and I should. I tried searching (not hard enough), but was it made in japan? It seems as if Japan focuses a lot of attention on art first before gameplay.

The sad thing about today is that games like COD could have been a lot better; but due to our capitalist country, the people who stand on the top of the game development companies could give less than two shits about gameplay and art. As long as it is successful and brings in money, they will remain happy. That is why big game industry buisness is starting to suck right now. That is also why I will probably only purchase games from small game devs in the future; because they don't have to worry about the pig on the top of the company that has no clue or does not give a shit about art and gamplay.


I miss Mech

That is why I'm representing the faces. Not only do they make my day better, but it reminds me of the great old times of modacity.

[Donut]

You should post it!!!
i might, but later on, after i get a grade on it. i had to submit it through one of those anti plagiarism things, so id rather not have to explain why my paper is on this site.

[TVTyrant]

i might, but later on, after i get a grade on it. i had to submit it through one of those anti plagiarism things, so id rather not have to explain why my paper is on this site.
gotcha

[rossmum]

cbf to effortpost, but i've brought up examples like ten times in the last month already. if you give someone a monetary reward for something, it clouds their judgement and stifles their creativity. rather than come up with the best possible solution to a problem, or the best possible creative piece they can, they will do the bare minimum to secure the prize. they want economic safety, not actual innovation. when you give it more than a few moments' thought, it makes a lot of sense.

[neuro]

cbf to effortpost, but i've brought up examples like ten times in the last month already. if you give someone a monetary reward for something, it clouds their judgement and stifles their creativity. rather than come up with the best possible solution to a problem, or the best possible creative piece they can, they will do the bare minimum to secure the prize. they want economic safety, not actual innovation. when you give it more than a few moments' thought, it makes a lot of sense.

this is pretty much what i wanted to say, but i wasn't able to put it in words properly.
in a world where your #1 priority is to make sure you're secured financially, you're just going to make sure you get the mney and then move to the next thing, because you need the money.

not exactly the best way to get anything creative.

[EX12693]

I've turned 18 recently and am sorting my life out right now. If I can get myself secured financially, I'd be more than happy to do creative stuff in my spare time. Not for any monetary benefit, but to contribute to progress outside this broken system of ours.
Would I rather not have to worry about securing myself into any system in the first place? Yeah.
Will we always have to worry about things like this? Well, that depends on what I come up with in my spare time..

[DarkHalo003]

Activision and EA games are good examples as to why Capitalism can ruin artful games. They are also why many critics refuse to count Video Games as art (bastards).

Bungie and Valve, on the other hand, are good examples why Capitalism can promote artful games. Both developers put their heart into their work, whether you like the content or not.

As far as monetary incentive in the aesthetic arts department, I'm afraid most of you are historically inaccurate with stating that money incentives cause deteriorated works. Patrons and Donors are the primary reasons why we have such masterpieces as the Sistine Chapel and David. Those are just two small examples as well. Unless you are talking about monetary incentives and capitalism going hand-in-hand to dictate art just as interest groups dictate priorities in Congress, you're statement can never be an absolute simply because the masterpieces of the past were all (mostly) funded by monetary incentives naturally given by Patrons and Donors.

In the music scene, however, your statement holds ground simply because labels and industries (such as the Christian music industry) can easily limit and confine the expressions that bands/artists are trying to make. Five Iron Frenzy was a direct victim of this, as they were critically acclaimed until they desired to branch out and have more expression in their music (aside from the interest in third-wave ska changing after 2002). Their sounds were poetic and their music was well-crafted. In today's market we have a lot of cliches and terribad music because the music industry is being dominated by corporations and powerful record labels rather than individual artists.

[Phopojijo]

I never played Mirrors Edge, and I should. I tried searching (not hard enough), but was it made in japan? It seems as if Japan focuses a lot of attention on art first before gameplay.

The sad thing about today is that games like COD could have been a lot better; but due to our capitalist country, the people who stand on the top of the game development companies could give less than two shits about gameplay and art. As long as it is successful and brings in money, they will remain happy. That is why big game industry buisness is starting to suck right now. That is also why I will probably only purchase games from small game devs in the future; because they don't have to worry about the pig on the top of the company that has no clue or does not give a shit about art and gamplay.



That is why I'm representing the faces. Not only do they make my day better, but it reminds me of the great old times of modacity.... Mirror's Edge was made by the Battlefield developers.