Authentic Creativity vs. Karaoke Culture

In October 2009, Malcolm McLaren delivered a speech discussing the future of education, culture, and anglo-saxon identity in the 21st century. Much of the focus is on his own personal life and experiences with British education in the 1950s and '60s. The talk has been reviewed as "longwinded" and it is a fair accusation to be made. That being said, for anyone who can get over the inserted personal anecdotes (of which I found to be quite interesting actually), the message is a powerful one.

Without struggle, grandiose failure, and the audacity to fearlessly challenge today's culture of immediate fame and success, our world (the Western world, or more specifically, the colonial world) will continue on a self-destructive path where karaoke reigns over invention. What kind of cultural environmental damage are we doing by teaching the message that fame overnight, without years of hard-work, struggle, and failure, should be the aspiration of the young?

The age of the "televised talent-show" is, unfortunately, what propels so much of the world's youth today. It's result? A so-called artist who will tell you herself that she is "famous because of her academic approach to the study of fame itself," rather than her individual artistic talents or creativity. (Lady Gaga in an interview with 60 Minutes).

McLaren eventually brings his argument to the point that creativity is lost in: First - the education system; And now second - the media, including social media. What hope does a child have who is taught to lose all sense of imagination in replace of instant gratification? You better believe this is the message being taught to children by their own cultural ecosystem today.

McLaren is smart to anchor his thesis in Baudelaire, who once wrote, "Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed."

Let us yearn to recapture the value of that childhood genius, analyzed and expressed as adults, and embrace it. May it never be "cool" again, to be stupid, immediate, or an undeserved icon.

I hope you take the time to watch this.