Words and Colors

I wanted to jot some thoughts down about something I’ve been thinking about lately: social investing.

To me, there are two main markets to solve social problems, and by social problems, I mean problems that exist within a society.

First, there’s the government. The government is an extension of the society, a mechanism whose responsibility is the protection and security of the general population. I’d say that’s as far as their responsibilites should extend.

Second, there’s the market system, or what we might refer to as business. Businesses solve problems, too, but if they’re a smart business, they only solve problems that give them a profit.

So, between the government and the business system, what else is there that solves social problems?

That’s where we need to develop another system, and I’d call that system social investing. Social investing is where members of a society get together to invest their time, money, abilities, etc., into solving problems that arise within the society. The social investing mechanism doesn’t care about turning a profit, they just want to solve the problems.

We’ve been overextending the government. They’re really only supposed to be responisible for the safety and security of the people. And we ask way too much of businesses when we expect them to act as societies benefactores. They’re not. They’re sole responisibility is to the profitablity of the business. And I think that’s the way it should be. But that leaves a big gaping whole in the middle of the two systems. Government extends itself too far into solving problems, and business doesn’t do enough. Thus there exists a need for a new system within the market place of problem solutions.

Social Investing.

It’s not all about money. At the end of the day, more 1s and 0s in your bank account doesn’t really matter. Some day, the jewels will cease to sparkle, and the gold will cease to mean what it once did. And then what are you left with? Where do you invest your skills once you’ve made enough money?

Invest it into your own society. Invest it into your social community.

We don’t have a debt to society, we have a responsibility. There’s a big difference. A debt can be paid. A responsibility is always there. A parent never really ceases to be responsible for her child. A police captain can’t pay enough money to lose his responsibility to the people he protects. The responsibility is always there, and that’s ok.

Once we realize that each of us plays a part in the responsibility of the society we exist in, then we can start looking at how to help that society. In the near future, I’m going to set up a society that does just this. I’ll make it so people can invest their money into solving actual problems that their society faces. An itemized list of things that can be done in order to create a better living environment. I think people would be up for that; I think each of us instinctually looks for ways to be a positive part of the collective.

Social investing is the mechanism that allows for people to invest in their community. And instead of getting money back on their investment, they get back quality of life. They invest in the parks around their house. They invest in the paint needed to paint old houses. They invest in the tools for kids to learn. They invest in a system that prevents crimes before they happen. They invest in a system that enables a high quality of life.

Those are some ideas about a new system I’d like to create. Not sure when it will happen, but it’s never to early to get the idea out there.

old flower - print by Daniel Vineyard

Sometimes new doesn’t equal better. Well, most times it does, but sometimes, and perhaps in the terms of fine art photography, new may be worse than old.

What am I getting at?

I love cameras. They enable us to capture slivers of life. You take a photo, and then in an instant, there it is, life, right in the palm of your hand. It’s mind blowing if you really think about it. The camera gives you the power to hold reality in the palm of your hand. You have time in a box.

But the camera is just a tool. And we humans love making tools. This particular tool helps us to capture a snippet of life. We can then print it out on a piece of paper, and have it and hold it. It’s ours to keep forever.

Like with most tools, we want to make the tool better. And when we make that decision, we’re going to go in a certain direction with that decision. By saying, ‘better’ we are making a value judgment. We then have to decide what ‘better’ means. And for the camera, the tool makers have decided that ‘better’ means quicker. It means taking 8 photos in a second. It means using digital memory to quickly capture what you’re looking at. It means instant check on what you’re photographing by looking at the back of your camera.

But is this really ‘better’? Is it? Yeah, it probably is, but maybe for a select few, they don’t want better to mean quicker, they want better to mean something else. Perhaps better should mean more beautiful (largely something you can’t measure, and perhaps that’s the reason better was meant to be quicker; quicker you can quantify, more beautiful is something you can’t necessarily measure).

And as the tool was perfected to be quicker, some photographers were lamenting the change. The beauty makers. The beauty makers, or fine art photographers, were left out in the cold with the new advances in the tool. In fact, the tool had changed the nature of their product so much that many current fine art photographers are going back to the old tools. They’re going back to the old.

Why? Well, in a market sense, the product that is being produced by the tool makers is inadequate for the demands of their desires. So they need to either develop a new tool that does meet their desires, or go back to the old tools. And since most photographers are not tool makers, they go back to the tried and true. Here are a few fine art photographers that either use old camera equipment, or they try to duplicate the process:

Sally Mann
Kerik Koulas
Quinn Jacobson
Ellen Susan
Mia Friedrich

What does that mean?

It means the tools aren’t working. At least not for a certain segment of the tool users. If there was a tool maker that could make a camera that had the convenience of a digital camera but the quality of an old camera, then you’d probably have the right tool for this group of people. Until then, I think we’ll see people wanting more from the current class of cameras. They want something better.

Why is art important?

True art is a check on power.

How is true art a check on power?

Within all societies, you’ll have a ruling class. This is the class that has the power and the class that makes the decisions about what is right and what is not right (usually, these rules about what is right and what is not right will benefit those in power). That ruling class wants followers to do what they say. In order to get followers to do what they say, the ruling class creates a world view for their followers to abide by (or they inherit this world view and take advantage of it). The followers don’t question this world view; they take it as what is, and they act accordingly.

For instance, in America we have the world view of moral consumerism. That is, it’s good to consume. It’s a good thing to pay for and buy things constantly. This world view benefits the systems that produces the consumer products. And so, those that are in control and have power in those consumer producing systems want that pro consumption world view to stick in the minds of those that follow.

And that’s not really a bad thing. It is what it is.

So what’s all this have to do with art?

With true art, you have a message. There’s an inherent understanding of life that each artist portrays in his work. The artist usually isn’t aware of it, but it’s always there, influencing their decisions to go this way or that way. And then, with all their body of work, they offer the viewer a particular world view, a unique understanding of life.

And that’s where the threat is to those that have power. The artist’s world view can be contrary to the current status quo world view. And this disrupts those that have power because it calls into question the world view that the followers currently have. This means that if life can be different than the way it currenlty is, maybe we should change it. Maybe we should change the system to something different, perhaps something better. And it’s at this point that the power holders want to avoid. They never want someone to consider that life can be different. Because if they did, they might not be the ones in charge of the new and different systems.

What if life wasn’t about consuming at all? What if life was all about community? What if life was all about living within your means and not consuming? It could be. There’s no reason that it couldn’t be. And that’s what the artist can communicate. Not that true art is contrary to power; it’s just that art offers an alternative to what is. And that can be scary, especially with those that have something to lose if life can be different than the way that it currently is.

And so, when you have powerful leaders that rise through the ranks, they want to capitalize on a world view that gives them the power. And anything that questions that world view becomes a threat to their power.

And this is why we need art. This is why we should support the arts. Because it offers a check on those with power, and because it can give us insight into life that we might not consider.

A supported class of artists is a good measuring stick on the health of a society.

So go for it, support the arts, it does the body good.

What is the purpose of a University within a society?

First, we should probably define what a university is: a university is a central hub of brains. That is, a university exists as a hub for the intellectual elite of a society. It’s where all the smart people go. And it’s where a small group of really smart people stay.

What’s the purpose of a having a hub of smart people?

Within every society, like attracts like. It’s science. When you have individual nodes operating within a free plane of existence, those nodes tend to congregate together with other like-minded nodes (as long as they are free to do so). Birds of a feather flock together.

Smart people want to be around smart people. It’s a natural instinct. And so, when enough smart people get together, you can call that a hub. And then, on top of that, we can give that hub a conventional name ‘university’. But for all intents and purposes, it’s merely a hub for smart people to congregate together.

Ok, so what? What then is the role for that hub of smart people with the context of a given society?

To understand the essence of a university, you can look at our own bodies. We have arms and legs that do the work of the body. We have eyes that see things for the body. We have mouths used to access food and for communication for the body. And then you have the brain. The brain exists as the field commander of the body. It’s where our decisions are made. And it’s where the information we gather from our eyes, mouth, emotions, etc., is turned into understanding that we can use.

In that same line of understanding, the university is the brain of a society. It’s where the variables of nature are analyzed, and then, with some thought, are explicated to make sense of what we see.

The purpose of the university is to help the rest of society deal with its problems. The university has a strong advantage. They don’t have to work. Well, they don’t have to work like everyone else. They have free time to analyze different problems in front of them with their minds. And they do that, then they write a paper, and then perhaps a book. The best universites are engaged in the biggest problems of our society. And because of their free time, they get to think about things that most people don’t have the time to think about.

That’s where their compartive advantage lies: they have time to think about the biggest problems. They can use their time, and their powers of reasoning and deduction, to make sense of and to solve problems that we all face.

What’s the best way to govern a populace?
What’s the best way to form a network of roads?
What’s the best way to live?
What should we do about crime and punishments?
How do we get along with different nations?
What’s the best economic model for a varying class of individuals?

To me, those are a small part of the problems that a university should be trying to figure out. They should make a list of the biggest problem a society faces. Then, they should use their resources to solve the biggest problems. National universities solve national problems, and local universities solve local problems. They are the brains of the society. They are the ones that have the advantage to think through problems. And so that’s their responsiblity, and their opportunity.

At least, that’s my opinion on the purpose of a university within a society.

Why is there an artist statement when artist’s show their work in a gallery exhibit?

What is the purpose of the artist statement? I think the answer gets to the heart of art: intention. Whenever an artist starts to work on a canvas, he has to decide what colors to use, what type of forms to use, what type of brush, what type of canvas, what type of form he should use, etc., All of these decisions are made from a central point of understanding: their intention. The decision to choose this brush over that means there is a reason. There is a reason they chose this over that.

That reason gets to the heart of art. This particular person has a particular way of saying something. They say something for a reason. What is the reason of their art? That’s the purpose of the artist statement. The purpose of the artist statement is to help us understand the meaning of their work.

Why did the artist create that work? What is this artist trying to communicate? That’s what we want to know. And then, with the knowledge of their reason for making the work (which we get from the artist statement), we have the context of the meaning.

Why do artists have more than one piece in a gallery exhibit?

The artist displays more than one piece of their body of work because one piece of their work is a single expression of an overall message. It’s one part of the puzzle. When all the pieces of the work are put together, there’s a context or meaning to the work. There’s an overall message. When we look at the body of work that an artists produces, we start to understand the message. We have an insight into the mind of the artist. And that insight changes are own minds. We come away with a different understanding of the world, and we’re richer for it.

That’s why the statement is important: the artist statement gives us insight into the message.

So, what is your artist statement? What is your meaning? I think we can even have an artist statement for our own life.