Andrew Dubber does a nice job taking Digital Britain minister Stephen Timms to task for claiming that “If people can’t be paid for their creativity, they’re going to stop being creative.”
On the face of it, that’s an incredibly stupid thing to say, and is amazingly offensive to the vast majority of people in the world who are creative amateurs.Note: I did not say “the vast amount of creative people in the world who are amateurs”, though this would also be true. Most people in the world do creative things for no money. The vast majority of music in the world is made for cultural reasons that are not economic. To suggest that the only reason to be creative is with the expectation of payment is utterly offensive.
Beyond stupidity
But it’s not just stupid and offensive — it’s corrupt. It’s so manifestly and obviously false that it could not possibly be the considered belief of a rational human being.The alternative (and indeed, the only plausible conclusion) is that it’s a deliberate falsehood in order to support something that is utterly indefensible when examined with any intellectual honesty.
It’s the direct result of corporate lobbying, it’s entirely disingenuous, and it’s a bald-faced lie echoed to support the interests of powerful and moneyed multinational organisations.
He goes on to suggest that a statement like that, so revealing in how Timms views the world, should get Timms fired, as he’s basically admitting that he’s only there to protect corporate interests, rather than actual creativity.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
