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it is exactly this general opposition that i was referring to, ustwo:
it says nothing historically, offers nothing in terms of understanding any aspect of the state and its functioning, and serves to occult the relationship between initiaves undertaken by Individuals or small groups (almost always the latter--rarely the former--no-one works in isolation) and infrastructure--which renders the notion of the entrepreneur totally afunctional.
creativity is a social act. in most places, you find a tight relation between conentration of funding--available publically through one or another state undertaking--and research/creativity.
it is america that is the exception.
your viewpoint would first presuppose that the american example is universal, when it is obviously not if you spend even a little time looking into the matter.
therefore, no series of platitudes about the state like those above can possibly account for this diversity of roles adopted by various states in sponsoring creative activity--the state is not a metphysical entity, not a category--its functions are diverse as its situation: but one thing that is common to all modern forms is that it makes activities accountable to the public, if the public mobilizes and brings pressure to bear on it. private wealth, private initiatives are those which have no mechanisms in place to assure accountability.
since the entire worldview that valorizes atomized private undertaking, and opposes then to the state, is also suspicious of public mobilization (the fifth column, the commies do that sort of thing--righteous americans sit alone watching tv) and even of the public itself (pace margaret thatcher for summing this up--"i look around me and i do not see society: i see individuals), i suspect that conversation along these lines might be difficult. but we'll see.
caveat: i am not collapsing creativity into state functioning--to do that would be to simply argue for the same binary i am trying to criticize from the opposite side. it would simply be the reverse of the position outlined above.
what i am saying is that entire logic is wrongheaded.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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