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The freedom to pursue creative fulfillment is very unusual in human history. The vast majority of the time it just takes far too much time and energy to surviv

The freedom to pursue creative fulfillment is very unusual in human history. The vast majority of the time it just takes far too much time and energy to survive. On very rare occasions, people have enough time to create art. An example I can think of is the native Americans in the pacific north west, before the arrival of Europeans. The unique combination of: Seasonal salmon runs - very good calorie rich food that's easy to catch. A mountainous geography - keeps population reasonably small. Resulted in a societies that could quickly catch and store enough food for the whole year. And they ended up with a surplus of time and energy - free time. Unsurprisingly that led to a staggering amount of art. Sculpture - totem poles, music, dance, etc. But again, that's very unusual. The only other example I can think of is ancient Greece and they had a lot of free time thanks to slavery. The one entrepreneurial solution to this, that I can think of is robotics. I already have a dish washer and a roomba, but those only save a few hours a week. To really free up my time I need something that will do my work for me, like a robot that can code in C++. I just hope the robots don't rebel or something like that.

jackzombie 18y ago
Thats an interesting explanation for how art comes to be. It reminds me of the novel 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', in which the author talks about the beauty and art in technology, and fixing motorcycles.
jonmc12 18y ago
Well said.. its interesting, a surplus in groups is created by the need to survive and a stroke of luck. With this excess, groups of people could dedicate some time to song, dance, art, and other expressions - initially used solely for the purpose of communication and passing down communication between generations. This is likely how the human mind evolved language processing abilities (http://www.amazon.com/Singing-Neanderthals-Origins-Music-Language/dp/0674021924 http://www.amazon.com/Singing-Neanderthals-Origins-Music-Lan... and http://www.amazon.com/World-Six-Songs-Musical-Created/dp/0525950737 http://www.amazon.com/World-Six-Songs-Musical-Created/dp/052...) It wasn't the only choice though. Maybe some members of the tribe used their free time to kill more salmon. Maybe they killed all the salmon because it was so good, or because they could bag the prettiest girl in the village because they had all the fish. One way (song/dance/art), you are enhancing survival for the group and future generations. Another way (using survival skills to create excess), you are profiting in the short term. Hundreds of years from now our era may be remembered as the generations that killed all the fish, and took all the paint brushes to make more fish hooks and spears.
ahoyhere 18y ago
From what I've read, a lot of studies of "indigenous peoples" contradicts what you are saying. Especially regarding the time spent on necessities. I read an ethnographical book about how tribal peoples in the jungle 'worked' for at most half the day on their basic needs. Granted, the jungle is also plentiful (altho hazardous.) But the masses of people who have to walk hours for water, in Africa and parts of the Middle East, is also a modern thing. Before modernish times, that would be totally untenable. Either they would move on, or they would all die, rather than this in-between state they occupy now. The majority of cultures since the Great Leap Forward seemed to have created quite a bit of art, music and myths, but many of them were trasient and impermanent and so left no trace. And apparently a lot of it was "practical," in terms of beautiful clothing, vessels, "magical" items and weapons. But I don't think I'd call those things uncreative because they were also useful.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  I should have been more specific. Clearly almost every people has created art. It's hard to dig almost anywhere in the world and not at some point hit some magical amulet or wonderfully decorated pottery art, or something like that. My point was about the rather unusual situation of Leonardo, and even more so, jonmc12 question on how to allow more people the same freedom Leonardo had. The large degree of time and effort devoted to art, by a large part of the population, is unusual. Clearly every society has art, and often individuals, shamans, singers, etc, can be full time so to speak. But it's rare that most people can devote most of their time, to activities other then survival.
jacoblyles 18y ago
And then again, the United States has 200,000 professional artists, who earn a living from their craft: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos092.htm#projections_data http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos092.htm#projections_data It seems a recurrent mistake that people underestimate how truly unprecedented and awesome our society is. Also, a large, dense population with lots of wealth is much more art-friendly than your sparse, idyllic native American population. The Indians didn't come up with Beethoven, and there's a reason for that.

jackzombie 18y ago

Thats an interesting explanation for how art comes to be. It reminds me of the novel 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', in which the author talks about the beauty and art in technology, and fixing motorcycles.

jonmc12 18y ago

Well said.. its interesting, a surplus in groups is created by the need to survive and a stroke of luck. With this excess, groups of people could dedicate some time to song, dance, art, and other expressions - initially used solely for the purpose of communication and passing down communication between generations. This is likely how the human mind evolved language processing abilities (http://www.amazon.com/Singing-Neanderthals-Origins-Music-Language/dp/0674021924 http://www.amazon.com/Singing-Neanderthals-Origins-Music-Lan... and http://www.amazon.com/World-Six-Songs-Musical-Created/dp/0525950737 http://www.amazon.com/World-Six-Songs-Musical-Created/dp/052...) It wasn't the only choice though. Maybe some members of the tribe used their free time to kill more salmon. Maybe they killed all the salmon because it was so good, or because they could bag the prettiest girl in the village because they had all the fish. One way (song/dance/art), you are enhancing survival for the group and future generations. Another way (using survival skills to create excess), you are profiting in the short term. Hundreds of years from now our era may be remembered as the generations that killed all the fish, and took all the paint brushes to make more fish hooks and spears.

ahoyhere 18y ago

From what I've read, a lot of studies of "indigenous peoples" contradicts what you are saying. Especially regarding the time spent on necessities. I read an ethnographical book about how tribal peoples in the jungle 'worked' for at most half the day on their basic needs. Granted, the jungle is also plentiful (altho hazardous.) But the masses of people who have to walk hours for water, in Africa and parts of the Middle East, is also a modern thing. Before modernish times, that would be totally untenable. Either they would move on, or they would all die, rather than this in-between state they occupy now. The majority of cultures since the Great Leap Forward seemed to have created quite a bit of art, music and myths, but many of them were trasient and impermanent and so left no trace. And apparently a lot of it was "practical," in terms of beautiful clothing, vessels, "magical" items and weapons. But I don't think I'd call those things uncreative because they were also useful.

biohacker42 18y ago
I should have been more specific. Clearly almost every people has created art. It's hard to dig almost anywhere in the world and not at some point hit some magical amulet or wonderfully decorated pottery art, or something like that. My point was about the rather unusual situation of Leonardo, and even more so, jonmc12 question on how to allow more people the same freedom Leonardo had. The large degree of time and effort devoted to art, by a large part of the population, is unusual. Clearly every society has art, and often individuals, shamans, singers, etc, can be full time so to speak. But it's rare that most people can devote most of their time, to activities other then survival.

jacoblyles 18y ago

And then again, the United States has 200,000 professional artists, who earn a living from their craft: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos092.htm#projections_data http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos092.htm#projections_data It seems a recurrent mistake that people underestimate how truly unprecedented and awesome our society is. Also, a large, dense population with lots of wealth is much more art-friendly than your sparse, idyllic native American population. The Indians didn't come up with Beethoven, and there's a reason for that.