we all want an interesting job by which
we mean one that allows for a high
degree of creativity there used to be
quite a lot of creative jobs around but
they’ve been disappearing since at least
the middle of the 19th century in that
century the English art critic and
social reformer John Ruskin pointed out
that the medieval building industry had
once left its builders– room for a huge
amount of creativity evident in the way
that these craftsmen had had fun carving
gargoyles grotesque animal or human
faces in distinctive shapes high up on
cathedral roofs the stonemasons might
have had to work to a fixed overall
design and their toil was not always
easy but the gargoyle symbolized a
fundamental freedom seen in many kinds
of pre-industrial work the freedom to
place a personal creative stamp on one’s
work nowadays there are some creative
jobs around of course but the majority
of those involved in making and selling
say phones or furniture or buildings
will have no opportunity to be creative
themselves they belong instead to a
highly anonymous army of labour working
with in vast companies and that executes
the creative designs of a lucky few
modern capitalism has radically reduced
the number of jobs which retain any
component of creativity in them take for
example the Eames chair designed by
Charles and Ray Eames which went into
production in 1956 it is a highly
distinctive creation that deeply
reflects the ideals and outlook of the
couple who designed it if they’d been
artisans operating their own small
workshop they would perhaps have sold a
few dozen such chairs to their local
customers in a lifetime
instead because they worked under modern
capitalism many hundreds of thousands of
chairs have been and continue to be sold
that’s wonderful in a sense
but a side effect of this triumph has
been that the demand for well-designed
interesting chairs has been
substantially cornered a new creative
person wanting to make a new kind of
office chair nowadays has to face the
fact that it’s already possible to buy a
very nice example designed by two
geniuses and available for rapid
delivery at a competitive price in other
words you won’t stand too much chance of
success we’re familiar with the idea
that the wealth of the world is being
ever more tightly concentrated in the
hands of a relatively small number of
people
the infamous 1% but capitalism doesn’t
only concentrate money there’s a more
poignant less familiar fact that it’s
only a small number of people are
sometimes overlapping but often
different 1% who can have interesting
that is creative work it’s telling that
we are at this point in history obsessed
with the romance of individual creative
geniuses our society has developed an
ear fetishistic interest in stories of
brilliant startups colorful fashion
gurus and idiosyncratic filmmakers we
might like to think we’re turning to
them for inspiration but it may be more
the case that we are using them to
compensate us for a painful gap in our
own lives just as it was in the 19th
century during mass migration to cities
that novels and pictures about country
life achieved unprecedented popularity
among newly urban audiences the many
interviews and profiles of creative
types in the media at the moment mask
the fact that for almost all of us it
will prove almost impossible to compete
against the forces of standardization
far more than because of anything we may
ourselves have done most of us are
highly likely to find a considerable
portion of our work free of
opportunities to carve our own gargoyles
and therefore will find it distinctly
boring we are certainly richer now than
we’ve ever been and then
we ever were in a pre-industrial world
but our work is arguably a lot less
filled with day to day opportunities to
mark what we’re making with a stamp of
our own creative spark
to join a community of like-minded
people who also enjoy watching and
discussing our videos you can download
our app just follow the link on your screen now
we mean one that allows for a high
degree of creativity there used to be
quite a lot of creative jobs around but
they’ve been disappearing since at least
the middle of the 19th century in that
century the English art critic and
social reformer John Ruskin pointed out
that the medieval building industry had
once left its builders– room for a huge
amount of creativity evident in the way
that these craftsmen had had fun carving
gargoyles grotesque animal or human
faces in distinctive shapes high up on
cathedral roofs the stonemasons might
have had to work to a fixed overall
design and their toil was not always
easy but the gargoyle symbolized a
fundamental freedom seen in many kinds
of pre-industrial work the freedom to
place a personal creative stamp on one’s
work nowadays there are some creative
jobs around of course but the majority
of those involved in making and selling
say phones or furniture or buildings
will have no opportunity to be creative
themselves they belong instead to a
highly anonymous army of labour working
with in vast companies and that executes
the creative designs of a lucky few
modern capitalism has radically reduced
the number of jobs which retain any
component of creativity in them take for
example the Eames chair designed by
Charles and Ray Eames which went into
production in 1956 it is a highly
distinctive creation that deeply
reflects the ideals and outlook of the
couple who designed it if they’d been
artisans operating their own small
workshop they would perhaps have sold a
few dozen such chairs to their local
customers in a lifetime
instead because they worked under modern
capitalism many hundreds of thousands of
chairs have been and continue to be sold
that’s wonderful in a sense
but a side effect of this triumph has
been that the demand for well-designed
interesting chairs has been
substantially cornered a new creative
person wanting to make a new kind of
office chair nowadays has to face the
fact that it’s already possible to buy a
very nice example designed by two
geniuses and available for rapid
delivery at a competitive price in other
words you won’t stand too much chance of
success we’re familiar with the idea
that the wealth of the world is being
ever more tightly concentrated in the
hands of a relatively small number of
people
the infamous 1% but capitalism doesn’t
only concentrate money there’s a more
poignant less familiar fact that it’s
only a small number of people are
sometimes overlapping but often
different 1% who can have interesting
that is creative work it’s telling that
we are at this point in history obsessed
with the romance of individual creative
geniuses our society has developed an
ear fetishistic interest in stories of
brilliant startups colorful fashion
gurus and idiosyncratic filmmakers we
might like to think we’re turning to
them for inspiration but it may be more
the case that we are using them to
compensate us for a painful gap in our
own lives just as it was in the 19th
century during mass migration to cities
that novels and pictures about country
life achieved unprecedented popularity
among newly urban audiences the many
interviews and profiles of creative
types in the media at the moment mask
the fact that for almost all of us it
will prove almost impossible to compete
against the forces of standardization
far more than because of anything we may
ourselves have done most of us are
highly likely to find a considerable
portion of our work free of
opportunities to carve our own gargoyles
and therefore will find it distinctly
boring we are certainly richer now than
we’ve ever been and then
we ever were in a pre-industrial world
but our work is arguably a lot less
filled with day to day opportunities to
mark what we’re making with a stamp of
our own creative spark
to join a community of like-minded
people who also enjoy watching and
discussing our videos you can download
our app just follow the link on your screen now
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