"The success story of a creative economy"...
Here's a quotation I've just read; it's been displayed yesterday on the FB page of the World Economic Forum. It's a quotation from the national leader of one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world:
It is taken from a discussion which can be watched here; I did not watch it: what I find interesting is that the Word Economic Forum takes this sentence as a self-standing and inspiring quotation enough to be landmarked and distributed over Facebook as carrying an inspiring message.
Such sentences are, in fact, dangerous. They have a fuzzy meaning, but nonetheless presuppose a vision of humanity, an ideology, which happens to be seriously problematic. I will not discuss the many problems with this sentence, such as "what is creative economy"but focus on the core message, which is about potential.
Sentences like this one carry irrationality, desires, enthusiasm. They make us feel like smiling with hope for future achievements thanks to humans remarkable creativity, innovation capacity, etc.
But such sentences also carry deep inside a notion of exclusion, and a worldview hat includes a questionable conception about the sources of the inequalities among humans themselves: we all have the potential, so what about those who don't take part of the success story?
Here's why the sentence is problematic, in just a few words.
First, notice that the sentence is simply false if not understood in some fuzzy non-literal sense.
For example, everyone including the speaker trivially knows that a patient dying from cancer in a hospital, or a deeply handicapped individual, a strongly autistic person... etc., etc., is obviously out of the discussion of having the potential of being part of the economy success story. This is trivial, but trivialities always deserve more attention than it seems at first sight. Notice in particular that all these people are indeed members of humanity at the same time.
In fact, there would be a theoretical way to include them in the success story, through a broadening of the notion of potential so that such people would have it. But I don't see what the notion would then be anyway.
Let's go on and look at slightly impaired people. The whole thing becomes then far less trivial and far more loaded with ideology.
People with psychiatric issues, like having phobias, suffering various kinds of deeper and lighter depression, etc. etc., have certainly less success story potential than, let's say, the average healthy wealthy young.
Then, what about those who are not really "impaired" but have their own issues about life, fears, which all vary and affect the capacity to grow a wealth? Sometimes, mere survival needs do simply not allow for anything like "entering in 'the success story of a creative economy'". Examples unnecessary I think.
We are now talking of humans as ordinary as they are, as ordinary as most of us are: each of us has more or less interest into being part of an economical success, and more or less ability to do so.
Humans are (of course!) unequal in terms of having the potential to become members of that success story, unless the word "potential" loses all informative meaning, as if one says that a seed that I hold in my hand has "the potential" to grow a tree regardless of necessary conditions such as planting it into a favorable ground.
Innumerous scholarly studies show that the ability of independance, creativity, economic autonomy, wise decision-making etc., depend of a great number of factors which may push up or down the economic "potential" across humans.
Now, besides being literally false, the sentence is also morally problematic.
It has (at least) a weak and a strong interpretation.
The weak interpretation is problematic as for what conception of the human being it involves. The strong interpretation is problematic in even much deeper ways.
The weak interpretation of the sentence is as follows: we all have a potential but not all of us have opportunities to make use of it. So, in short: take that poor and give him a job for which he has enough qualifications, maybe give him some training, maybe change the environment, add some support and he or she will soon be economically successful. But this is quite an audacious prediction, because it presupposes that economic success is an automatic consequence of tunable parameters in one's life (what is more, for the better, which involves another idea about economic success being intrinsically good).
This view, after all, boils down to the idea that those who have potential and opportunities are expected to be part of the adventure. But then, there's no room left for those who would fail with such conditions. In turn, this means that... it's their own responsibility.
There is another reading, a strong interpretation, very much accessible, where there is nothing about opportunities, and which bears more consequences (that's why I call it strong here in a non-technical way).
Here how it goes.
If it is true that we all have the 'potential', while, still, there are people in misery, it follows that some people make something out of their potential, but other people don't.
In other words: we all have what it needs for someone to succeed economically, but some of us make use of it and some others don't.
Thus, those who do not integrate the success story do not lack potential. They don't use it or they misuse it.
Some could even draw further consequences: people not succeeding seem simply enjoy some lazyness with the help of social benefits, when they don't have a perverse preference for precarious life out of that great success story, which is expected to be seeked for by any normal individual.
Conclusion...
Of course the speaker did not say such things. And certainly she elaborates her thinking with lots of wise things in the speech - this is not my concern. My concern, I repeat, is all about taking this sentence, whoever said it and in whatsoever context, as an inspiring thought and displaying it publicly as such.
Such ideas are typically accessed by hearers when they try to sort out a meaningful sense of this sentence. And this contributes to carry on with the old conceptions driving those policies we know of too well, which actually never ended up in any kind of "success story for everyone", but on the contrary produced justification, implicitly, for economic inequalities, since they appear founded on other types of inequalities (the strength and will to make use of the universal "potential" or the absence of it and ultimately personal responsibility).
Besides all this: isn't this quote astonishingly naive? It seems to me that the sentence simply expresses a shared desire, so that the audience car see itself in a "glorifying mirror" (as ... who was it? said once), and be momentarily relieved from some unpleasant feelings about how it is today and where we are going.
Actually, a far more plausible and meaningful statement would be:
But this is trivial, and wouldn't ever qualify for an inspiring thought happening in the white heights of Davos.
Louis de Saussure
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| Taken from the World Economic Forum website see here for original webpage |
It is taken from a discussion which can be watched here; I did not watch it: what I find interesting is that the Word Economic Forum takes this sentence as a self-standing and inspiring quotation enough to be landmarked and distributed over Facebook as carrying an inspiring message.
Such sentences are, in fact, dangerous. They have a fuzzy meaning, but nonetheless presuppose a vision of humanity, an ideology, which happens to be seriously problematic. I will not discuss the many problems with this sentence, such as "what is creative economy"but focus on the core message, which is about potential.
Sentences like this one carry irrationality, desires, enthusiasm. They make us feel like smiling with hope for future achievements thanks to humans remarkable creativity, innovation capacity, etc.
But such sentences also carry deep inside a notion of exclusion, and a worldview hat includes a questionable conception about the sources of the inequalities among humans themselves: we all have the potential, so what about those who don't take part of the success story?
Here's why the sentence is problematic, in just a few words.
First, notice that the sentence is simply false if not understood in some fuzzy non-literal sense.
For example, everyone including the speaker trivially knows that a patient dying from cancer in a hospital, or a deeply handicapped individual, a strongly autistic person... etc., etc., is obviously out of the discussion of having the potential of being part of the economy success story. This is trivial, but trivialities always deserve more attention than it seems at first sight. Notice in particular that all these people are indeed members of humanity at the same time.
In fact, there would be a theoretical way to include them in the success story, through a broadening of the notion of potential so that such people would have it. But I don't see what the notion would then be anyway.
Let's go on and look at slightly impaired people. The whole thing becomes then far less trivial and far more loaded with ideology.
People with psychiatric issues, like having phobias, suffering various kinds of deeper and lighter depression, etc. etc., have certainly less success story potential than, let's say, the average healthy wealthy young.
Then, what about those who are not really "impaired" but have their own issues about life, fears, which all vary and affect the capacity to grow a wealth? Sometimes, mere survival needs do simply not allow for anything like "entering in 'the success story of a creative economy'". Examples unnecessary I think.
We are now talking of humans as ordinary as they are, as ordinary as most of us are: each of us has more or less interest into being part of an economical success, and more or less ability to do so.
Humans are (of course!) unequal in terms of having the potential to become members of that success story, unless the word "potential" loses all informative meaning, as if one says that a seed that I hold in my hand has "the potential" to grow a tree regardless of necessary conditions such as planting it into a favorable ground.
Innumerous scholarly studies show that the ability of independance, creativity, economic autonomy, wise decision-making etc., depend of a great number of factors which may push up or down the economic "potential" across humans.
Now, besides being literally false, the sentence is also morally problematic.
It has (at least) a weak and a strong interpretation.
The weak interpretation is problematic as for what conception of the human being it involves. The strong interpretation is problematic in even much deeper ways.
The weak interpretation of the sentence is as follows: we all have a potential but not all of us have opportunities to make use of it. So, in short: take that poor and give him a job for which he has enough qualifications, maybe give him some training, maybe change the environment, add some support and he or she will soon be economically successful. But this is quite an audacious prediction, because it presupposes that economic success is an automatic consequence of tunable parameters in one's life (what is more, for the better, which involves another idea about economic success being intrinsically good).
This view, after all, boils down to the idea that those who have potential and opportunities are expected to be part of the adventure. But then, there's no room left for those who would fail with such conditions. In turn, this means that... it's their own responsibility.
There is another reading, a strong interpretation, very much accessible, where there is nothing about opportunities, and which bears more consequences (that's why I call it strong here in a non-technical way).
Here how it goes.
If it is true that we all have the 'potential', while, still, there are people in misery, it follows that some people make something out of their potential, but other people don't.
In other words: we all have what it needs for someone to succeed economically, but some of us make use of it and some others don't.
Thus, those who do not integrate the success story do not lack potential. They don't use it or they misuse it.
Some could even draw further consequences: people not succeeding seem simply enjoy some lazyness with the help of social benefits, when they don't have a perverse preference for precarious life out of that great success story, which is expected to be seeked for by any normal individual.
Conclusion...
Of course the speaker did not say such things. And certainly she elaborates her thinking with lots of wise things in the speech - this is not my concern. My concern, I repeat, is all about taking this sentence, whoever said it and in whatsoever context, as an inspiring thought and displaying it publicly as such.
Such ideas are typically accessed by hearers when they try to sort out a meaningful sense of this sentence. And this contributes to carry on with the old conceptions driving those policies we know of too well, which actually never ended up in any kind of "success story for everyone", but on the contrary produced justification, implicitly, for economic inequalities, since they appear founded on other types of inequalities (the strength and will to make use of the universal "potential" or the absence of it and ultimately personal responsibility).
Besides all this: isn't this quote astonishingly naive? It seems to me that the sentence simply expresses a shared desire, so that the audience car see itself in a "glorifying mirror" (as ... who was it? said once), and be momentarily relieved from some unpleasant feelings about how it is today and where we are going.
Actually, a far more plausible and meaningful statement would be:
"Members of humanity have more or less ability to become members
of the success story of a creative economy."
But this is trivial, and wouldn't ever qualify for an inspiring thought happening in the white heights of Davos.
Louis de Saussure
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