Reproducing masterpieces in music (i.e. playing) is difficult. Reproducing masterpieces in literature (i.e. copying) is easy. Some train to be performers. Some aspire to be composers. Some like to edit. Some aspire to produce literary works. I’m still not convinced that creativity in music has decreased in the modern world.
What do you think is lacking? And where do you think they should be?
If we are to believe Carl Jung, then it’s a miracle how we manage to live the way we do instead of devolving into complete psychopathic anarchy.
I guess I was mistaken. It would appear that we are quite close in age. But still quite different in outlook.
That’s because online forums are meant to be a place to rant and bitch. I think you’ll find plenty of complaints about Western culture from outsiders that has recently moved into it. Can one really expect a significant number of people that grew up in one culture, moved into a significantly different culture, and have no complaints?
. . . .For revealing how, in almost every conceivable field of scientific endeavour, the Chinese had preceded other nations, Needham was hailed as “the Erasmus of the twentieth century”, fawned on by the Left and feted by international academe. The Fellows of Caius College, Cambridge, made him their Master; Beijing, no less than Taipei, showered him with honours. Yet, boisterous and headstrong, Needham was not without his critics. Cambridge had cause to resent his long absences and reluctance to teach. Washington steadfastly refused him entry following his endorsement of Communist claims that US aircraft had dropped cholera-infected rats on North Korea. Forums designed to further the cause of international understanding were something of a deathtrap for Needham. He was hoodwinked by his Maoist friends – and by a Soviet-laid germ-trail in respect of the rats. It was not until the Cultural Revolution that his faith in Communist China began to waver. His flaws and foibles were legion, and it is these that seem to have recommended him to that connoisseur of bookish eccentricity, Simon Winchester.
Bomb, Book and Compass (these being some of the undisputed products of Chinese invention) is no more a standard biography than was The Surgeon of Crowthorne (Winchester’s book about William Minor and the OED). Instead, Winchester delivers a masterly narrative, rich in description and quirky asides, and as undemanding as it is compelling. Needham, we learn, though a distinguished embryologist, self-taught sinologist and general polymath, was susceptible to distractions. He was keen on steam engines, morris dancing, singing and swimming in the nude. A Communist in all but party membership, he yet remained a devout Anglo-Catholic; and a dedicated husband in so far as his compulsive womanizing permitted . . .[/quote]