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a more nuanced discussion of creative class
22 Feb 09
Yesterday’s post about joining the creative class was kind of meant as a joke, but kind of not. The amazingly successful pecha kucha night held at Artcite last Thursday (and organized by my hunny, Jodi Green) inspired me to start getting better connected to what’s going on in Windsor.
All the talks went really well, and the energy and excitement both in the gallery and at the after party were remarkable. Phog’s Tom Lucier taped and uploaded all six Pecha Kucha Windsor talks. Tom, also one of the presenters, subtitled his talk “Growing Windsor’s Creative Class”, and this expression, creative class, was picked up by others over the evening.
During the discussion afterwards, I was tempted to challenge everyone to think beyond the term “creative class”. It makes me uncomfortable, but at the time I couldn’t think how to articulate exactly why, and I’m still not entirely sure. It reminds me entirely too much of knowledge worker, but being a member of the creative class sounds so much less like being a line worker in the manufacture of “knowledge”.
Years ago, I read Paul Fussell’s Class: A Guide through the American Status System (Leddy Library: HN90.S6 F87 1983), in which he lays out a persuasive statement of what is obvious to any non-America: that America has a well-defined and fairly rigid class structure. But he also posits the existence of an “X” class of people, usually either impoverished artists or wealthy drop-outs, who (sort of) live outside the class system. These are the Bohemians in Florida’s formulation of the creative class, but note that they make up a small minority. The majority of this creative class are defined by the nature of their contribution to the economy, mostly in the private sector. Which isn’t to say that creative economic activity isn’t what Windsor needs, lord knows we need all the economic activity we can get.
Thursday night a very diverse group of people were brought together by their love of this city (this polis). To me, the unifying theme of Pecha Kucha Windsor’s six talks turned out to be citizenship. What does it mean to be a part of a city, to love that city, to be hurt by that city; how can we make that city better, how can we get more people thinking about, talking about, and making the change we need; how do we encourage residents to interact with their city as active participants, as citizens, rather than as passive consumers of utilities and services? And how can we live up to that ideal ourselves?
Posted by pzed on February 22, 2009 at 1.22pm
Categories: metawords, self, twitter, windsor :: Tags: artcite, creative class, jodi green, pecha kucha, twitter
Comments on "a more nuanced discussion of creative class"
Ah, I still have Class in my personal library. It’s obvious to Americans that there is a very rigid class structure, here, as well: I laughed my way through it upon first read, recognizing that finally, someone was standing up to say what we all knew. Many simply choose to mouth the mantra that there isn’t, because that’s part of the religion of Americanism. You would be thr first person I know who has also read this.
It’s true that I am secretly class x. ;-) It’s also true that I am so isolated from that sort of enviornment that I just sort of drift along doing what I do and trying not to be too obviously not mainstream. Alas. The nature of my daily job propels me into Florida’s Creative Class, but I hate to be using all my creativity there.
Actually, I am intrigued by the recognition of a creative class, but uncomfortable with the structure imposed by appending the concept of class to it. Humans are, by their nature, driven to creativity. I recognize that we are talking about a group of workers/producers who are by nature creative and intelligent, not necessarily artists and writers only. On the other hand, the concept of creativity as something we each own in ourselves is something that the American education system has tried to both squelch and encourage, and thus, has completely manhandled a brilliant thing and resulted in a certain and sizable number of kids walking around with inflated esteem and jack for ideas. The thought of a creative class as something definable and actual in Western society seems, to me, to suffer from this same sort of dissassoiative identity disorder: a class of people rigidly defined as creative while at the same time denying the creative capacity of people who fall outside the demographic boundaries.
I don’t know if this is sufficiently elucidated to make my point; I have the vague sense that something is not right here with an apparent inability to put my finger on it or ponder it to d3th before I start shooting off my mouth.
I was flipping through the Onion last night, noted that Milwaukee had its own Pecha Kucha talks 24 February, and was sorry I missed it. Of course, the topics were advertized as subject random, so I’m sure there was not the sort of tie-together that Jodi was able to organize. But it would have been a good way to spend an evening.
People tend not to think of Milwaukee as the sort of place where that might happen. While Chicago remains my great city love, it will go on and thrive without me. Milwaukee is exciting to watch as it changes. We are so often considered a bunch of blue coller beer factory workers, but the Laverne and Shirley era is long over. Most of the manufacturing left Milwaukee a long time ago, and the transition from that era was tough. Now, however, the local state university (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) is looking to open a new school, the School of Freshwater Sciences–quietly, while no one was looking, Milwaukee became a world hub for water technology, and the proposed school is a reflection of that. How exciting. In this economic disaster, Milwaukee is doing better than much of the country, in large part because it already sufferred through the loss of its former “personality.”
If a bunch of beer-swilling, hog-riding, blue-collar Lenny and Laverne’s can do it, so can Windsor.
Posted by Merouda on March 1, 2009 at 7.37pm :: link
