Stop Creating and Go Do Some Work!

“What are you thinking for, go do some work” is for me one of the most obnoxious and primitive Slovenian idioms. It brings back memories of bullies in primary school, teenage pimples and stale sweat. The insinuation—if I may use such a complicated word for something so dumb—that there is a conflict between thinking and working seemed primitive to me then, as it does today. Actually, especially today, because it is no longer just the quip of juvenile thugs, but a political and ideological discourse that creates and stokes revolt against thinking and creating “elites.” Today, “what are you thinking for, go do some work” is part of the standard repertoire of what many call common sense, about which Albert Einstein already said that it is nothing but the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. It is no coincidence that the Trump administration proudly calls its rampage through American institutions a “common sense revolution.”

My aversion has several layers. First, it gets on my nerves because these are, quite simply, bullies, and mistreating one’s fellow human beings is something I personally can’t stand.

Second, because it is a construct. Not only because thinking (and creating) is work, but also because people who do (physical) work are not by default incapable of thinking and creating. In my life I have met quite a few fools with doctorates and even more people whose life circumstances may not have allowed them a longer education, but who inspired me with their ideas, thinking, creativity and values.

My third reservation is political. Incitement has clearly defined goals. As a rule, those who stoke the revolt of the “people” against the “elites” themselves come from political and economic elites and merely exploit the often real hardship and discontent of workers and other socially, economically and politically marginalized groups to promote their own political and economic interests. Rotten, but it works.

All this goes through my head as I follow debates on the role of culture, art and artists in today’s Slovenia. What is happening here is, of course, nothing exceptional. The fight against “elites,” whether artists, scientists, journalists, civil society, judges, doctors or political competitors, is the driving force of authoritarian populism everywhere.

Culture has a particularly important place in the populist ideological paradigm. While the liberal part of the political spectrum often has trouble understanding the importance of culture and art for democracy, those on the illiberal fringe understand it much better. They have deformed—actually turned upside down—the concepts of culture, art, tradition and identity, and are now using them successfully in their campaign to undermine democratic and humanist principles. In the hands of populists, “culture” becomes a uniform by which, on the battlefield of the culture war, we tell “ours” from “theirs,” and a club with which we beat the nation’s dangerous misfits over the head.

From this perspective, every artist who does not fit the populist mold of nationally conscious creation is disruptive and dangerous. Artists who create not just to be liked, but follow their calling, which is not always adapted to market or political expectations, become targets for whipping up the masses and scoring political points. Greedy leeches on the breast of a nation that doesn’t think but only works. Artists who are too lazy and not Riefenstahl enough. They become part of what, in times we believed would never return, was called degenerate art, and for which some today—with an evident lack of, or contempt for, historical memory of green valleys soaked in blood—use the same term.

It is not a matter of dividing artistic creation into what people like and what suits only the “elites.” In both you will find all sorts, from creative excellence to trash. De gustibus non est disputandum, said the ancient Romans, but people who haughtily sneer at “popular culture” get up my nose too. Personally, I am moved both by “Tam kjer murke cveto” and by Maja Smrekar. OK, not in the same way, but still. And I’m perfectly cool if one or the other isn’t your thing. But the fact is that we cannot and must not restrict freedom of artistic expression on the basis of personal preferences, reservations, prejudices and least of all political interests.

And it is not only a matter of taste and personal preference. It is about freedom and success, including in development and the economy. Years ago, we invited the longtime director of the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Gerfried Stocker, as the keynote speaker at a conference of European education ministers. The theme was education for a digital society. The assembled ministers were surprised not only by Gerfried’s long hacker hair and crumpled T-shirt, but above all by his view that culture is one of the most important components of preparing for a digital future. The key to a humane and humanist future, in which technology and artificial intelligence will play an ever greater role, is human creativity that creates, comments, challenges and criticizes. Gerfried’s message is clear. Go think and create if you want to keep working. Most of today’s children will in future do jobs that don’t yet exist. If we want to work and be successful tomorrow too, we need not only digital skills but also critical thinking and creativity. That is why we need culture. Not only the pleasant kind, but the annoying kind too.

Slovenia built its state and its democracy on the foundation of its culture, among other things. Throughout history, this culture was co-created by many artists who were not to everyone’s liking, still less to the liking of every regime, but who nevertheless, or precisely because of it, made an important contribution to who we are and what we have achieved as a nation, a society and a state. That is exactly what the quarrel about the importance of culture and about real and fake artists in today’s Slovenia is about. Whether we will be independent and successful in the future too. And above all, whether we will go on thinking, creating and working. Not as day laborers for artificially intelligent bullies, foreign bosses and populist fools—but freely and for ourselves.