Responsibility to the Tribe

A few days ago, I wrote a blog about why we must perform, a look at the special place that artists have in the community of our tribes.

Well, I was reading Jeff and Julie Crabtree’s remarkable bookLiving with a Creative Mind (I strongly advise that you read this book, and then buy it for all your non-creative friends and family) and it reminded me of two things. The first is that many of the tribe do not value your contribution and see creative people as weirdos and freaks.

But I think we might have brought this on ourselves. If our art doesn’t reflect the tribe or the needs of the tribe or offer the tribe something, then they will come to consider your contribution as unnecessary or surplus to requirement, they will stop valuing you and thus you become a laughing stock, because if you don’t provide food for the tribe and you don’t take care of the young, and you don’t add value through art, then you are a spare part. You have to add value, that’s your special role in the tribe. As the Crabtrees write quoting Ken Robinson “creativity is the process of having originals ideas that have value.”

So films, plays, art, music that are self indulgent and don’t represent the tribe, doesn’t offer us a reason to respect your special place, it is surplus to requirement. In my experience, sadly that’s the stuff that gets lauded and public subsidy. What an insult to your tribe to make them fund masturbatory art.

Yes, we must perform but we perform out of responsibility and that responsibility is to serve the tribe. Am I reducing the value of arts for art sake, yes I am! Because creative people are special and should be treasured, but they are only useful to the tribe if they fulfil their responsibility to us.