sean on November 1st, 2007 at 5:37 pm
vivian sobchack explained to me that a left-leaning student in the 70’s was compelled to specialize in order to avoid being labeled a “dilettante” (so this was a peer pressure more than an institutional one). she continued that specialization has become the “thing to avoid” over the past 30 years, which now has me wondering a little about it all.
part 1. max weber on the role of the dilettante in science: Normally such an ‘idea’ is prepared only on the soil of very hard work, but certainly this is not always the case. Scientifically, a dilettante’s idea may have the very same or even a greater bearing for science than that of a specialist. Many of our very best hypotheses and insights are due precisely to dilettantes. The dilettante differs from the expert, as Helmholtz has said of Robert Mayer, only in that he lacks a firm and reliable work procedure. Consequently he is usually not in the position to control, to estimate, or to exploit the idea in its bearings. The idea is not a substitute for work; and work, in turn, cannot substitute for or compel an idea, just as little as enthusiasm can. Both, enthusiasm and work, and above all both of them jointly, can entice the idea.
part 2. i’ve heard the phrase “the cult of the amateur” a couple of times. once, by scott bukatman when talking about those reality tv shows that are based on experts passing judgments onto amateur performers; the other time by a writer who passed adorno inspired judgments on internet production.
part 3. “architecture as the master of all arts” (or whatever vitruvius said)… a discipline/ art that has historically taken its mission to skim from other disciplines/ arts. in a way i heard dave hickey and rene gabri (two very different thinkers) come to a structurally similar conclusion about art (the artist is able to move horizontally and engage with the world in a way they see fit, as opposed to client-based interactions).
part 4. make magazine - maybe here we can differentiate between hobbyists historically (ham radio communities or the amateur scientists that weber is talking about) and the new market of hobbyists that this magazine caters to (although the later depends on the former for a certain kind of legitimacy).