"The Act of Creation"
“The Act of Creation”
One of my favourite authors is Arthur Koestler. Although he was, technically, a journalist he did write a classic work of fiction, “Darkness at Noon”. Why do I like him? He took complex ideas and made them accessible to a simple reader like myself. Notably, he wrote a book called “The Act of Creation” about the mechanisms of creativity. It was never accepted as meaningful by the academic community and this was, apparently, a major blow to Koestler himself. He was not trained in science, therefore he could not claim to be a scientist. It might equally be claimed that science is defined by method, and Koestler did not deal with that. Can a person can be brilliant without being methodologically correct?
In the sciences there are certain parameters that distinguish a scientist from an amateur, and this is absolutely necessary. We expect our physicians, our lawyers our biologists, chemists and engineers to display and acquire clear and solid criteria. But in the arts, is it very different? There is a killing floor, perhaps, but it’s not so formal. It may be the critics and the marketplace determine who is and who is not a professional.
It is also fashion and consensus that makes successful artists to some extent, although it’s likely even more important that they produce good work. Truth, beauty, skill are the materials that define content; not institutions. Although Arthur Koestler was rejected by the establishment he was embraced by the reading public as a writer.
There are no ‘pure cases’. Freud is acknowledged by many thinkers to be the apex of a new age in understanding human behaviour, but mainstream psychologists in North America consider him misled and irrelevant. This may be, in part, a tyranny of method but is also a reaction to what he found. Psychology is not made up of words. It’s made up of numbers.
What makes a writer, aside from the all important body of work? An article appeared in a local newspaper many years ago profiling two other actors and myself with the angle that we all struggled to survive financially often doing outside jobs. Someone from a city university responded that we were not actors if we did not devote ourselves fully to our ‘art’ and that anyone who delivered pizza (that would be me) could not call themselves and actor.
He was wrong…flat out. But I think about that concept now that I am struggling again to be ‘be a writer’. What are the relevant criteria? When can I think that I am successful? Method, I think, counts, but of course it’s not the scientific method. It’s knowing the genre’s, practicing and practicing putting down words, learning how the internal structures and conventions work and so on and so on. It is no professional community that will say whether this is done. It may never happen. But a person cannot give up their dreams, because it is what ambition is made from and without following your dreams there is no valid authority.
The Act of Creation
Darkness at Noon
One of my favourite authors is Arthur Koestler. Although he was, technically, a journalist he did write a classic work of fiction, “Darkness at Noon”. Why do I like him? He took complex ideas and made them accessible to a simple reader like myself. Notably, he wrote a book called “The Act of Creation” about the mechanisms of creativity. It was never accepted as meaningful by the academic community and this was, apparently, a major blow to Koestler himself. He was not trained in science, therefore he could not claim to be a scientist. It might equally be claimed that science is defined by method, and Koestler did not deal with that. Can a person can be brilliant without being methodologically correct?
In the sciences there are certain parameters that distinguish a scientist from an amateur, and this is absolutely necessary. We expect our physicians, our lawyers our biologists, chemists and engineers to display and acquire clear and solid criteria. But in the arts, is it very different? There is a killing floor, perhaps, but it’s not so formal. It may be the critics and the marketplace determine who is and who is not a professional.
It is also fashion and consensus that makes successful artists to some extent, although it’s likely even more important that they produce good work. Truth, beauty, skill are the materials that define content; not institutions. Although Arthur Koestler was rejected by the establishment he was embraced by the reading public as a writer.
There are no ‘pure cases’. Freud is acknowledged by many thinkers to be the apex of a new age in understanding human behaviour, but mainstream psychologists in North America consider him misled and irrelevant. This may be, in part, a tyranny of method but is also a reaction to what he found. Psychology is not made up of words. It’s made up of numbers.
What makes a writer, aside from the all important body of work? An article appeared in a local newspaper many years ago profiling two other actors and myself with the angle that we all struggled to survive financially often doing outside jobs. Someone from a city university responded that we were not actors if we did not devote ourselves fully to our ‘art’ and that anyone who delivered pizza (that would be me) could not call themselves and actor.
He was wrong…flat out. But I think about that concept now that I am struggling again to be ‘be a writer’. What are the relevant criteria? When can I think that I am successful? Method, I think, counts, but of course it’s not the scientific method. It’s knowing the genre’s, practicing and practicing putting down words, learning how the internal structures and conventions work and so on and so on. It is no professional community that will say whether this is done. It may never happen. But a person cannot give up their dreams, because it is what ambition is made from and without following your dreams there is no valid authority.
The Act of Creation
Darkness at Noon
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