09-08-2015, 02:41 AM
Well, define original, right? On the one hand, every fingerprint is unique. On the other, if fingerprints weren't basically iterations of the same genetic idea, there would be no such word as "fingerprint."
So, on the one hand, there "just is" originality. It's a brute feature of the creative universe. If that weren't so, copyright, patent, and trademark would all be non-issues.
On the other, originality is impossible, because attempts to defy preexisting categories while working in an extant medium are absurd. So, for instance, even the most idiosyncratic narrative shares something with every other narrative—otherwise, you'd call it something else. You'd call it "Here's a potato," or something. And if you insisted on calling whatever-X-thing-is a "narrative," your audience would balk.
To me, the thought that there's nothing new isn't pessimistic. It's not saying to the would-be innovator, all your efforts are a vanity. What it means to say isn't "don't try to express new ideas," but rather, a certain amount of redundancy is a regular feature of technology and art. That is, it's an effort to dislodge notions of authenticity from any unhappy impulse toward uneconomical/pointless/excessive self-differentiation. (Otherwise, you're trying to assign utility to aesthetics, which is a maddening idea . . .)
Simple as I can say it, my thought is, the only meaningful way to distinguish originality and destiny is to say that destiny houses a set of obligations, and originality does not. A destiny is a set of honorable forces that shepherd a work toward its maximal agreement between the authors identity and its expressive embodiment. Originality is a set of accidents that account for only the most primitive version of the work.
Something like that.
So, on the one hand, there "just is" originality. It's a brute feature of the creative universe. If that weren't so, copyright, patent, and trademark would all be non-issues.
On the other, originality is impossible, because attempts to defy preexisting categories while working in an extant medium are absurd. So, for instance, even the most idiosyncratic narrative shares something with every other narrative—otherwise, you'd call it something else. You'd call it "Here's a potato," or something. And if you insisted on calling whatever-X-thing-is a "narrative," your audience would balk.
To me, the thought that there's nothing new isn't pessimistic. It's not saying to the would-be innovator, all your efforts are a vanity. What it means to say isn't "don't try to express new ideas," but rather, a certain amount of redundancy is a regular feature of technology and art. That is, it's an effort to dislodge notions of authenticity from any unhappy impulse toward uneconomical/pointless/excessive self-differentiation. (Otherwise, you're trying to assign utility to aesthetics, which is a maddening idea . . .)
Simple as I can say it, my thought is, the only meaningful way to distinguish originality and destiny is to say that destiny houses a set of obligations, and originality does not. A destiny is a set of honorable forces that shepherd a work toward its maximal agreement between the authors identity and its expressive embodiment. Originality is a set of accidents that account for only the most primitive version of the work.
Something like that.