On Creating

One of the reasons I enjoy academia is because I am able to use the classroom as a forum for discussion and debate about issues that affect the world and my students. There are many professors, such as Stanley Fish, who disagree with my reason. Fish thinks a university is supposed to do two things: uphold standards and show students a diversity of resources. When it comes to anything else, such as helping the world or affecting people, Fish argues that only those people who are trained in the profession of helping the world or affecting others should be doing that. In contrast, the university should become a sphere of analysis that is isolated from the concerns of the world. In his latest piece, Fish argues that even the act of creating itself must be divorced from the concerns of the outside world. Whether it is painting a picture, taking a photograph, writing a story, composing music, or any other act of creation, Fish argues that the act must be considered on its own terms, no matter what other people think of the final product. Thus, whether the audience likes the product or hates it is no concern of the artist. The artist's sole concern is the art. The affect the art has on other people is incidental.

The best way to understand Fish's stance is to accept two principles: the idea of Platonic Forms and the idea of a division of labor. The idea of Platonic Forms entails a specific conception of truth: According to Plato, truth exists apart from human considerations. In this way Truth is very much like math. It never changes. More important, truth still exists even if humans don't. In order to perceive truth, the effort must be divided into separate tasks. That's where the division of labor comes in. If, for instance, we want to pursue the truth provided by math, we turn to a mathematician. If we want to pursue the truth of literature, we turn to a novelist. Each task has its own standards such that it is a craft that can be perfected. Outside of the academy or the artistic process, this would be like saying Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, is interested only in winning football games and improving the process of winning games. The affect on the crowd is incidental. If a person wants to see a great football game, that person should turn to someone who is specifically trained to play football.

I reject these principles. Truth is highly dependent on human perception. It cannot exist apart from human existence. This is because the only reason we seek truth is to improve human existence. We care about truth because we care about ourselves. In order to pursue truth, we need an improved understanding of the various elements of human existence. This improved understanding can only come through the study of the systems that affect humans. Every system affects every other system, and so we require interdisciplinary study to understand all of them.

In short, we cannot separate all issues from the contexts that produce them. Now, there are some cases in which we do want to separate an issue from the context that produced it. Wise words may be uttered by a person who is clinically insane, just as a sane person may produce falsehoods. It is important to consider the words with the context. They must never be considered in isolation. It follows that art, or any creative work, must be considered both on its own terms and in terms of how it affects the audience. One cannot be separated from the other.