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<\/p>\nAnyone who took physics or wore a black turtleneck and smoked clove cigarettes will know about \u2018entropy\u2019 \u2013 the tendency of a system to descend into disorder, to lose working energy over time. Entropy is the reason hot things cool down, and the reason philosophy students are such downers at parties.<\/p>\n
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But lately I\u2019ve been wondering if there might be an opposite tendency for complex human systems (like arts organizations, and arts ecologies) that\u2019s equally deadening: a descent into order. Explosive, exploratory, innovative, and passionate groups begin an endeavor with a scramble for new approaches and an openness to new ideas. If successful in gathering resources and supporters, they often become rational, stable, process-focused, and risk-averse. They grow up. They calm down. They get organized, and spend more of their available time getting even more organized — in large part because their funders tell them to.<\/p>\n
Howard S. Becker, in Art Worlds<\/em>, describes this very tendency in some arts ecosystems. Says he:<\/p>\n The originally expressive art works and styles become increasingly more organized, constrained, and ritualized; organizational forms subordinate the artist increasingly to partially or entirely extraneous sources of control; and the world and its activities begin to resemble conventional craft worlds. In this sense, an art turns into a craft.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Becker doesn\u2019t mean that \u2018craft\u2019 is a lesser form of human expression, only that it\u2019s a different form with different rules, roles, and behaviors.<\/p>\n There are moments \u2013 admittedly, often just before I begin a new semester of teaching \u2013 when I wonder if the professional nonprofit arts ecology is trending this way (despite many examples of extraordinary, explosive efforts within it). I sense a growing emphasis on effectiveness and mechanics, and a descent away from dynamic and dramatic expression. And I wonder whether there’s another way to think and work.<\/p>\n In The Ideology of the Aesthetic<\/em>, Terry Eagleton suggests three \u201cgreat questions of philosophy,\u201d which seem a good place to start (the words within parentheses are mine):<\/p>\n In the evolving field of \u2018organizational aesthetics\u2019 (yes, that\u2019s a thing), scholars and practitioners wonder whether those three domains may also be applicable to business. As John Dobson frames the questions for business decisions:<\/p>\n And while most management teams may blink at that final point, Dobson suggests that \u201cwhen beauty is adequately defined, the third question becomes the most fundamental criterion of the three.\u201d<\/p>\n Entropy, philosophy, aesthetics\u2026what the hell am I getting at? I\u2019m getting at this:<\/p>\n I see an opportunity to rethink how we think, act, and learn about collective action in expressive endeavor (or \u2018the arts\u2019 if you prefer). Order and reason and effectiveness are essential, of course. But that particular type of order can dissipate creative and expressive energy over time.<\/p>\n What if we countered the ‘descent into order’ not with disorder, but with MULTIPLE types of order: for a start, why not reason, ethics, and aesthetics…truth, goodness, and beauty? What if we approached the arts organization as an expressive endeavor in itself, as well as a tool to produce, present, and preserve expressive work? What would that look like? What attitudes and aptitudes would it require from its participants? And how might it change the game?<\/p>\n\n
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