[UenoHDTV80]

Please help me understand. You're saying the NYT has some agenda to keep artists from quiting their day jobs? If so that seems implausible.

For many artists there is no other choice. Art won't pay the bills but for a small few. I for one enjoy the freedom that comes with having a day job. I don't have to worry if people will like my art (because it doesn't need to make money) And I often get good ideas for writing and music when completing some monotonous task in the office.

About your first edit... I think it's absurd to think you need to be jobless in order to question society. In fact, having a job gives you a front row seat to everything wrong with us.

[jadedhacker]

> Please help me understand. You're saying the NYT has some agenda to keep artists from quiting their day jobs? If so that seems implausible.

NYT doesn't specifically have it out for artists, they just are owned by capitalists and advocate the viewpoint that labor should be subservient to capital. Therefore they tend to publish viewpoints that are aligned with their internal ideology. They do publish some dissenting views, but by fraction this is their predominant viewpoint. If you'd like a sophisticated and detailed analysis of this, please read or watch Manufacturing Consent, a seminal work in this area.

> For many artists there is no other choice. Art won't pay the bills but for a small few. I for one enjoy the freedom that comes with having a day job. I don't have to worry if people will like my art (because it doesn't need to make money) And I often get good ideas for writing and music when completing some monotonous task in the office.

Note that this conception of freedom is bound up within the capitalist system. People that do not labor for wages are strangled until they comply. It can be that the particular conditions of wage labor are suitable for your individual situation. That is fine, but is not a comprehensive view of how art and society should interact. Real freedom would be for you to be able to work on your art as you please without want for shelter, food, or transport. Public funding of the arts is one way we can help create those conditions for artists.

It's considered notable that the British system of the dole is what created the conditions for the Beetles to develop. If you want really good art, you have to let artists practice their craft consistently.

> About your first edit... I think it's absurd to think you need to be jobless in order to question society. In fact, having a job gives you a front row seat to everything wrong with us.

That's exactly what I said. Having a front row seat allows you to be a mirror of society and allows you to develop particular kinds of criticisms. However, it is not the bounded conception of all possible kinds of art, many if not most kinds of art have nothing to do with developing a mirror. Instead, perhaps they imagine something totally different. Even producing a mirror does not necessarily require participating every day. Many times, just a taste is enough to develop an idea. Interviewing people can help you develop ideas. Importantly, the latter is inhibited if you have other things to do.

[UenoHDTV80]

I get that NYT has a viewpoint. I know about manufacturing consent. What I'm saying is, if you wanna catch the media serving capitalist aims, you picked a lame example. For your argument to make sense, the times would have to conciously benefit from this story. Does anyone think that the tiny percentage of financially succesful artists makes a dent in the labor pool for NYTs ownership? The impact to capitalism from someone quitting their job as a taxi driver to sell paintings is miniscule. Even on a sub concious level, this is probably on nobody's mind at the nyt board, never mind the editorial staff. A better explanation for this story: its the sort of middle brow gee whiz art stories nyt readers love to click on.

Your argument makes even less sense when you realize that artists who quit their dayjob are still part of the capitalist system, and continue to get exploited. History is ripe with examples of musicians getting screwed by a label or writers getting screwed by their publishers. Even idependent artists still work within the capitalist system and get taken advantage of. So even if nyt was part of a capitalist conspiracy, theres no reason for them to care if the artist has a job or not.

Thanks for quibbling over the semantics of freedom. Yes i know that id be more free if i could just make art all day and not work. Im not independently wealthy though. And we dont live in a socislist paradise. When i said freedom, i meant freedom from making money with art, and i thought that was understood. You cant deny that creative control with no paying audience you must answer to is one type of freedom.

Lastly, im not implying that having a job lets your art mirror society. Its possible to think outside of it. That has nothing to do with whether your employed or not. What it requires is imagination.