“We’re the most permeable membrane in show-business. Anyone who thinks they’re part of Mystic Family Circus probably is.”

– Mystic Family Circus in Freaks & Fire: The Underground Reinvention of the Circus

ok… i’m going to confess: i didn’t read the cult of the amateur (and i’ve read enough reviews of it at this point to be fairly certain that i will never want to) but i’m sure whatever the book is trying to say, it’s got it wrong.

wait, no, that’s not right… we can’t begin this way…

this isn’t even about the book. the book is just a a timely incarnation of a widely-held perspective that there is, and needs to be, a set dividing line to separate creative expression of worth from that which is worthless. and without this line there would be no way to distinguish between that which is moving culture forward, and that which is, as andrew keen says, “killing culture.” what the book is wrong about is this perspective in the first place.

i’m going to give the majority of the credit for why i’m not going to read the book to this fantastically insightful customer review of it on amazon. (i actually can’t think of a more amazingly ironic sort of fate for a book that’s a polemic decrying the worthlessness of the web’s content! can you?):

Although The Cult of the Amateur is highly thought provoking, it is marred by sloppy thinking. For one thing: “Amateur” is never defined. Professionalism is a complicated concept in the fields of literature, music, visual arts, and dance (the last is a field this book does not cover, but it is one I am familiar with as a performer and teacher). Professionalism is often not defined by whether the person makes his or her living as a writer, musician, etc. Most people in most arts fields, including some highly skilled and well-known artists, simply cannot earn a living working in the arts full time because the pay is typically too low. Professionalism is sometimes defined by whether the artist has passed “gatekeepers,” in the form of publishers or producers, or by winning contests.

yes… this is where we should begin.

right there.

artistic expression of worth, i.e. “professional-quality,” as defined by whether the artist has passed “gatekeepers.”

see this is where the cult of the amateur is wrong. in the very concept of its title! there is certainly no lack of amateurs out there–those that haven’t passed through the gate–but the cult isn’t about them. no, all they get is a club. and they’re quite happy with it.

the cult…is about the gate-CRASHERS! these are the people who don’t give a shit about the gate.

see, despite whatever the book is (i’m told) trying to assert, it’s not REALLY about how web 2.0’s proliferation of “amateur content” threatens “our cultural standards and moral values.” it’s not really about how a static volume of books edited by a bunch of white guys who determined what was and was not worthy of inclusion is “better” than a universal wiki-encyclopedia. it’s not REALLY about how news written by a professional journalist working for a publicly-traded corporate-owned media outlet is better than a blog. it’s probably not even about concepts for determining the merit of creative expression in a more complex way than “created by someone who has passed through the gate” vs. “not.” no, it’s not about any of that nonsense…. what it’s really about is a huge degree of fear and anxiety from the cultural conservatives within the gates, who will pay money to read a book that might allay these fears by discrediting the unwashed barbarian insurgents outside threatening to undermine the very foundation of the elite’s worth as artists, not to mention their authority.

hold up a second…. let’s pause for a brief history lesson on “degenerate art“:

Entartete Kunst-

In 1927, the National Socialist Society for German Culture was formed. The aim of this organization was to halt the “corruption of art” and inform the people about the relationship between race and art. By 1933, the terms “Jewish,” “Degenerate,” and “Bolshevik” were in common use to describe almost all modern art.

In 1937, Nazi officials purged German museums of works the Party considered to be degenerate. From the thousands of works removed, 650 were chosen for a special exhibit of Entartete Kunst. The exhibit opened in Munich and then traveled to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria. In each installation, the works were poorly hung and surrounded by graffiti and hand written labels mocking the artists and their creations. Over three million visitors attended making it the first “blockbuster” exhibition. Many of the artists included in the Entartete Kunst exhibition are now considered masters of the twentieth century. The following are some of the better known artists whose works were ridiculed in the exhibit. Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Kandinsky, Die Brücke….

woops. looks like someone messed up on their art history final. oh wait…. hitler was never accepted to art school in the first place…

“All my life I have wanted to be a great painter in oils … As soon as I have carried out my program for Germany, I shall take up painting. I feel that I have it in my soul to become one of the great artists of the age and that future historians will remember me not for what I have done for Germany, but for my art.… As for the degenerate artists, I forbid them to force their so-called experiences upon the public. If they do see fields blue, they are deranged, and should go to an asylum. If they only pretend to see them blue, they are criminals, and should go to prison. I will purge the nation of them.”
– Adolf Hitler

he really really tried to feature picasso’s work in the entartete kunst exhibit too, unfortunately picasso could never be proven to be jewish enough to fit with the theme.

ok, you know what?…. that was a pretty extreme example. don’t lets get carried away, aight? alls i’m sayin’ is…. it ain’t like discrediting gate-crashing artists out of fear is a new thang. it’s got quite a robust history. ironically, angstily revenging your rejection by the gatekeepers by wiping them out isn’t really what gate-crashers care about. really, more often gate-crashers don’t even care whether they are accepted or not.

that’s part of what makes them so dangerous. see, whereas some “amateurs” really might get all despondent (and in very rare cases…genocidally psychotic) if a gatekeeper won’t let their art through, to a gate-crasher the idea of getting discouraged if they didn’t make it is like getting discouraged from sneezing in the future just because you didn’t get a “god bless you.” they’re going to create art no matter what. it’s a disorder. they generally can’t help it. and i’m not talking about all those poor tone-deaf souls with pop-star delusions that american idol relishes for its gag reel. that’s not about compulsive creative expression, that’s about feeding the fantasies of narcissism. and while the two very often come hand in hand, they are very easily distinguishable.

the self-identified “professionals” inside the gate, however, like to lump all the people on the outside into this one big tragic wannabe “amateur” category. it’s a lot less threatening that way. call them all pestilent “amateurs” and it helps delay the need to critically address any revolutionizing impact of the gate-crashers among them. generally the rule is to scoff at the barbarians with spray cans overtly tagging the walls of the hallowed gate until such time as the side facing out has itself turned into a new kind of canvas, and the gatekeepers have figured out how to move the gate to a more accommodating locati–i mean, monetize the new art.

even arguably the most impenetrable gate on earth (i’m not counting heaven) moved when hollywood was financially forced to stop staring at its on celluloid navel. once upon a time hollywood was adamant that there was no way that any entity but an established studio could produce quality movies. after all, how could they? beyond the impossible hurdles of the huge amounts of money and all sorts of other resources required, producing movies that the public would be interested in seeing was a craft, requiring years of professional training and dues paying. this just wasn’t the kind of thing any amateur could do. that is, until miramax’s independently-produced, $1.1 million sex lies and videotape performed better on a cost-to-earnings ratio than the $50 million batman. four years later disney bought miramax, and now now, over a decade later, the concept of an “independent” film is basically an anachronism. (seriously, like when was the last time you went to see an “independent”?) hollywood’s totally cool with good (profitable) movies coming from wherever it is that they come from now–it’s too busy just scrambling to figure out how it’s going to continue to make money on distributing them to care about defending it’s Ahhht gate anymore.

as the auter’s (not amateurs) of the 1990’s independent film industry attest, “outsider artists” are not necessarily all that interested in paying their dues and waiting in line for the chance to get their shot. nor are they particularly resourceless when it comes to finding innovative ways to create and distribute the fruits of their creativity on their own terms. these things hold true for gate-crashers in all creative fields. from film, to music, fashion, entertainment, to business, and even to the creative expression of lifestyle itself.

this is all a great opportunity to reevaluate the question: is creative expression worthless unless it has prestige? does it have to have “superiority” (i.e. better than the stuff outside the gate) to have value? both the “polish” of industry and “ingenuity” of independence lend their respective expressions different kinds of caché, but is there perhaps a way to decipher the inherent value in creative expression regardless of origin? can expression be judged on how insightful it is? how entertaining it is? how relevant? provocative? fresh? without that measure necessarily being a reflection of how many gates it did or did no pass?cuz see, the funny thing about the gate, is that the gate doesn’t actually CARE about the art. well, it sort of does. but mostly, it just cares about perpetuating itself. this is why it’s so difficult for people on the inside side of it to break out once they’ve gotten too far in. (oh, so you want to be a political essayist but your major success is in illustrated children’s books? roiiiight.) this is also why true gate-crashers are defined not by having been able to do so from the outside in, but rather by continuing to crash through the gate, no matter which side they’re on. see: paul simon’s foray into mbaqanga music of south africa on the Graceland album, 1986. According to allmusic.com, “Graceland became the standard against which subsequent musical experiments by major artists were measured.” totally a gate-crasher move.

i’m not saying that traditional training is unnecessary, i’m just saying that it’s not a consistent enough determinant of quality to rely on too heavily for the judging. “self-taught” is not a separate art category. and i’m not saying that gates don’t matter, they are, in fact, crucial. without them, the gate-crasher could not exist. what i am saying is it’s time to give the gate-crashers their due recognition. the experimenting, the visionary, the curious… these qualities that are ignored, denied and discredited by the word “amateur,” these are the qualities that fuel the innovators that are not only not killing culture, but in fact, have always been the ones reincarnating it.