New Rules for the New Economy (via azspot).

This quote is really interesting, because it blends a sort of futurist optimism with a total misunderstanding of how art works. There’s no reason to think that a great filmmaker existed before film. Isn’t the existence of the medium the thing that creates the gifts? That’s like saying “I’m so lucky I was born in America, because I’m so good at speaking English!” It’s at least a little backward. But the difference is that this quote actually is kind of inspiring and clever. So I guess it gets at least a partial pass.

(via starsblinkout)

I’m not sure I completely agree.

The quote isn’t meant to suggest that Beethoven or Van Gogh wouldn’t have created art if they hadn’t had the tools they had, but would they have created the art they did? Art that would be remembered? If Van Gogh had, for instance, been tied down to pencils, we’d never have Starry Night. The man was frustrated enough trying to convey how he saw the world, if he hadn’t had the tools he may not have ever tried, but more than likely he’d have just given up on it a lot sooner than he had. And certainly we’d have never heard of him.

A slightly less bleak example: Lucas gets mentioned up there as well. When Lucas first made Star Wars he was tied to puppets and miniatures and film. What he made was great, obviously, but it wasn’t what he wanted, it didn’t achieve his vision. The advancements in computer aided imagery have helped him achieve that vision (for better or worse).

It reminds me a bit of a scene in Mark Twain’s last published story, Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven. Stormfield and his guide are discussing the hierarchy of heaven, specifically the order of greatness of the Prophets, who also count among themselves poets, philosophers, and other (would-be) non-military world changers:

“Was Shakespeare a prophet?”

“Of course he was; and so was Homer, and heaps more. But Shakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from Tennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind a horse-doctor named Sakka, from Afghanistan.  Jeremiah, and Billings and Buddha walk together, side by side, right behind a crowd from planets not in our astronomy; next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other worlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and Confucius; next a lot from systems outside of ours; next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster, and a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt; then there is a long string, and after them, away down toward the bottom, come Shakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named Marais, from the back settlements of France.”

“Have they really rung in Mahomet and all those other heathens?”

“Yes—they all had their message, and they all get their reward. The man who don’t get his reward on earth, needn’t bother—he will get it here, sure.” 

“But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way, and put him away down there below those shoe-makers and horse-doctors and knife-grinders—a lot of people nobody ever heard of?”

“That is the heavenly justice of it—they warn’t rewarded according to their deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank. That tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry that Homer and Shakespeare couldn’t begin to come up to; but nobody would print it, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they laughed at it.  Whenever the village had a drunken frolic and a dance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage leaves, and pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was sick and nearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned him, and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and everybody followed along, beating tin pans and yelling.  Well, he died before morning. He wasn’t ever expecting to go to heaven, much less that there was going to be any fuss made over him, so I reckon he was a good deal surprised when the reception broke on him.”

The “young geniuses” aren’t waiting for the technology that will finally let them use their gifts. They’re waiting for the technology and the opportunity that will let them use that gift to the fullest. As such, the quote is also a bit of a lament of those who didn’t have that opportunity.

Not “I’m so lucky I was born in America, because I’m so good at speaking English!” but “We as society are so lucky that the convergence of talent and technology came together at just the right time, because if it hadn’t, we’d not have these greats.”