utilitarian values

[Peter Kropotkin]

When I was shopping my book around, and got plenty of rejections
in doing so, one such rejection letter wondered if I had other
platforms to base my work on... in other words, If I could
promote the book via some public means, social media or
tv show or radio... If I had a platform to promote the book...
and the rejection letter was fairly clear, that without another
platform, means to promote the book, they weren't going to
publish me.... and other rejection letters hinted as much...
to be published meant I had to already have a name of sorts
that was already publicly noticed before they would publish me.....
and therein lies the barren nature of our world...

even if I wrote the great American novel, I wasn't going to be published
because the only interest that publishers had was in making profits...
this utilitarian understanding of art, that ART, was meant to create
profits, not to be ART... ART FOR ART SAKE... there is no profits in
that...and thus, it is rejected... and what of ART, that isn't made
public? It just whither aways in someone's desk or closet...

and what books, for example, are published today... strictly
utilitarian books, books that serve a function... self-help books,
weight loss books, books that tell us how to be rich or famous
or skinnier, or even that occasional autobiography or biography
that is about some famous person... Obama's book was a NY times
bestseller, because was written by Obama... did it have anything
other than utilitarian value? I doubt it... (I freely admit, I didn't
read nor have I ever read a book written by Obama)

so, in the creative world, a book, movie, play, it won't get into
the marketplace unless there is a strong chance it will make money...
utilitarian usage only... ART can only be practical, useful,
utilitarian, it must make money..... if not on the level of
being created, but at the level of being made public...

a play for example, to get noticed must be produced... someone,
somewhere must produce that play, to put it on stage, authors
don't do that.. authors write, producers produce.. and the same
goes true for books and movies... someone somewhere must invest
in that to get it made... and that requires capital.. the point of
ART today is to make money.. a very utilitarian concept...
does that ART create beauty? no one cares, unless it makes money...
does that ART bring us some wisdom, no one cares, unless it makes money...
does that ART bring about better human beings? I think you know the
answer already...

Most posters on this site, and other website, focus on the negative..
the world is fucked up.. we see that all the time on this website and
others... or they post variations of the world is fucked up in
specific aspects of the world... politics is fucked up.. or
the economy is fucked up, or even people are fucked up...
aspects of the world seen negatively...

but there is beauty and joy and love and possibilities in the world...
but who notices that? do proclamations of the beauty of the world,
make money? nah, thus no one cares to be that advocate.. there
is no money in it...the advocates of our society today,
do so because it fits some utilitarian aspect of our society...
not because it may makes the world beautiful or that we see
that the world can have joy or love or have some Artistic value,
nah, that doesn't have any sort of utilitarian value and thus remains
silent... unspoken, ignored... forgotten....

we judge the world and all the aspects within the world by
utilitarian values... and therein lies the poverty of the world...
we are soulless because we only have utilitarian values to comfort us,
and the only values we pursue are utilitarian values....

does it make money? yes, then we pursue that...
if it doesn't make money? no, we don't pursue that...
it is as simple as that.....

the alienation of our world, the disconnect we feel within the world,
of being disconnected from the society, the state, other people
and ourselves... comes, in part, from this pursuit of utilitarian values...
to the exclusion of all other values.. values that don't make money...
like beauty, love, hope, justice, peace, joy, and yes, happiness..
unless it marketed as, buy our product and you will be happy...
utilitarian values, once again...

what do you pursue? utilitarian values or other values?

Kropotkin

[Harbal]

I wasn't going to be published because the only interest that publishers had was in making profits...

And how long do you imagine they would stay in business without that attitude,?

[Peter Kropotkin]

one example of utilitarian values, is an example set
by the Catholic church...

the point of sex... sex is expressly for the creation of babies..
and casual, fun sex is strictly forbidden by the church...
sex only has a utilitarian point, for the creation of children...
and the current conservative drive against gay sex and trans people
and even the ban on the destruction of human embryos, stems
from this utilitarian approach to sex.. sex is not suppose to be fun
or stem from play, but the sole duty of making babies...
at one, not too long ago, that even masturbation was considered
a sin, and many conservatives are returning to that idea...
self pleasuring is a sin... dam, my life from 13 to 30, was
a sin... that is disappointing to say the least... wait, upon
reflection, at 30, when I met my current wife, at no point
did we attempt to create a child, thus even after 30,
I was living in sin for having fun sex, enjoyable sex....
dam, I can't win.....

anyway, life being spent in such a utilitarian fashion,
takes away much of what it means to be human...
a life solely for actions take for purely utilitarian uses is frankly,
not worth living... what about finding joy in life? that apparently
is a sin... and what about just watching the sunset? that isn't
''producing'' something, so that is, again, a sin......
the act of play is a sin.. thus the longtime ban on watching plays
and the puritan act of banning anything fun, like card games..
that is being utilitarian.. work, work was considered to be
the point and meaning of life... and play, fun was not...

to quip a fake Shakespearian quote...

"What hast we to do if we are not allowed to be truly human,
to jest and play and find fun in our dreary lives...
is getting old, not a dark enough purpose to existing...''

existence is not fun... with work and the fears of being
human, hanging over us like a deep, dark fog bank....
the surprise for me, is not that people commit suicide,
but that more people don't commit suicide... existence
is a dark thing... and what lifts it from being enough
to being a choice of ''to be or not to be'', is the joy and
beauty we can find in our lives... that gives existence
a presence that allows us to bear it, all of it...

without beauty or joy or happiness or love or hope,
is life worth living? does strictly utilitarian methods and values,
make life worth living? I for one, says no....

and what says you?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I wasn't going to be published because the only interest that publishers had was in making profits...

And how long do you imagine they would stay in business without that attitude,?

K: and that is why we see the loss of beauty and love and hope...
it has to make money or it has no value... that is a very sad way
to live our life... our modern society is an indictment of
strictly utilitarian values... we are unhappy, and angry
and alienated from just about everything and everybody...
and that is the result of seeing everything in a utilitarian
viewpoint... and we are diminished as human beings by
not seeing the other possibilities of existence...
of joy and love and hope and beauty and a thousand
more values that stand away and apart from strictly
utilitarian values...

Kropotkin

[Harbal]

I wasn't going to be published because the only interest that publishers had was in making profits...

And how long do you imagine they would stay in business without that attitude,?

K: and that is why we see the loss of beauty and love and hope...
it has to make money or it has no value... that is a very sad way
to live our life... our modern society is an indictment of
strictly utilitarian values... we are unhappy, and angry
and alienated from just about everything and everybody...
and that is the result of seeing everything in a utilitarian
viewpoint... and we are diminished as human beings by
not seeing the other possibilities of existence...
of joy and love and hope and beauty and a thousand
more values that stand away and apart from strictly
utilitarian values...

Who, then, should bear the financial cost of making beauty and the other values you speak of readily available to the public?

[Iwannaplato]

When I was shopping my book around, and got plenty of rejections
in doing so, one such rejection letter wondered if I had other
platforms to base my work on... in other words, If I could
promote the book via some public means, social media or
tv show or radio... If I had a platform to promote the book...
and the rejection letter was fairly clear, that without another
platform, means to promote the book, they weren't going to
publish me.... and other rejection letters hinted as much...
to be published meant I had to already have a name of sorts
that was already publicly noticed before they would publish me.....
and therein lies the barren nature of our world...

What is the topic of your book?
If it is non-fiction, then it is, yes, competing with books for limited and every more limited numbers of buyers. If those other books are written by known journalists, for example, then their reputations will, yes, get the book read.
So, they could publish an unknown person or a known person.
I suppose one would hope that if your book was better than the books written by professionals, they would risk publishing it.
Is it better than those other books, by known people?

And then it was actually kind of them to suggest things to you, though I understand the frustration. There are ways to get a name for yourself from your own home on the internet. It takes work, you have a job and a family, not easy. But there it is.

And then hopefully you gave your books to smart friends and peers and used their feedback to improve the book. If not I suggest doing that also.

Then contact people online. Try to get reviewed by blogs. Or start a blog. You write a lot here. You could switch to a blog format, if you haven't already. Then contact other blogs. Link to blogs you like and ask them to look at your writing. Network online. Gain an audience.

Feedback from these people can help polish the way you present ideas.

I have no idea how you write in book form. If it is like how you write here, it needs organization and polishing. But it may not be like that at all.

So, here you are. In the situation you described.

What's your next step?

[Iwannaplato]

I wasn't going to be published because the only interest that publishers had was in making profits...

And how long do you imagine they would stay in business without that attitude,?

K: and that is why we see the loss of beauty and love and hope...
it has to make money or it has no value... that is a very sad way
to live our life... our modern society is an indictment of
strictly utilitarian values... we are unhappy, and angry
and alienated from just about everything and everybody...
and that is the result of seeing everything in a utilitarian
viewpoint... and we are diminished as human beings by
not seeing the other possibilities of existence...
of joy and love and hope and beauty and a thousand
more values that stand away and apart from strictly
utilitarian values...

Kropotkin

But there are ways to get your work out, if it has value, that do not require, now, the huge outlays of investment of a publisher publishing your book.

YOu are, essentially asking them for money, a huge loan.

You entered a money game and are surprised it is a money game and complaining that it is a money game.

You went to people you did not know and asked them to loan you a huge amount of money. Or more literally, to give you some money, a modest amount most likely, and to invest a lot of their money in your book.

There are, now, more than any other time in history more options for spreading your writings without money contracts and huge up front investments. And lots of people put in the day to day work of getting their ideas out there.

They blog every day. They make youtube videos every day. They do these things for years. They try to get interviewed. They write emails to people in all sorts of fields.

It's good that you managed to get through a number of rejections. some people stop at one. But there are a million ways to move forward.

If you don't like the capitalist, money approach well don't approach people for money.

Use the other channels.

You follow their advice and people are interested, then later you can come to them again.

But you entered a money game, asking people to spend money and then complain that it's a money game
when compared to Emerson - a near random example - you have a million ways to get your ideas read and heard.

[Peter Kropotkin]

perhaps I should have been a bit clearer....
the book in question was about 10 or more years ago...
I wound up putting the book on sale on one of those
internet sites... sold exactly 13 copies.. and of those
13 copies, my family bought 11 of them... just an advantage
of having a large family... the book, as far as I know, is still
listed online... and I haven't even thought about this book
until recently.. little less check on the book status... the
important thing to realize is the pathway of books being sold...
that ART, my book was fiction, isn't as important as the
ability to sell that book... that is why we get shitty books
from well-known people, they have a name which can be
used to sell that book.. it is not about the quality of the book,
but the ability of that book to make money was my point...

and because I may not have made that very clear, that is my fault...

Kropotkin

[Harbal]

perhaps I should have been a bit clearer....
the book in question was about 10 or more years ago...
I wound up putting the book on sale on one of those
internet sites... sold exactly 13 copies..

So you were trying/hoping to make money from your book?

[FlashDangerpants]

When I was shopping my book around, and got plenty of rejections

Was the book pointlessly tall and thin by any chance?

[Peter Kropotkin]

perhaps I should have been a bit clearer....
the book in question was about 10 or more years ago...
I wound up putting the book on sale on one of those
internet sites... sold exactly 13 copies..

So you were trying/hoping to make money from your book?

K: not at all.. which is why I finally put it online... in fact, the book
wound up costing me several hundred dollars.. and I was ok with that...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

When I was shopping my book around, and got plenty of rejections

Was the book pointlessly tall and thin by any chance?

K: given the book was finally online, I have no idea about any
sort of physical presence the book may or may not have had...
since it was online...

Kropotkin

[FlashDangerpants]

When I was shopping my book around, and got plenty of rejections

Was the book pointlessly tall and thin by any chance?

K: given the book was finally online, I have no idea about any
sort of physical presence the book may or may not have had...
since it was online...

Kropotkin

You are the master of getting the joke Peter.

[Peter Kropotkin]

in thinking about utilitarian values, that seem to dominate our
lives today.. if it isn't useful, it has no value, and that
attitude seems to be what has destroyed the ARTS and literature...
Literature has value because it brings to us, in unmistakable
terms, that shows us what is possible in literature...

for example, Anna Kerenina by Tolstoy... it shows us one possibility
if we were to do as Anna did, which is to cheat on her husband...
and the consequences of that cheating... she kills herself...
which is, of course, just one possibly outcome of infidelity....
but therein lies the value of Anna... it brings out what is
possible in our actions, good or bad...without us suffering
those possibilities... and therein lies the value of literature
and plays... it brings us to what is possible in our actions...
let us take another ''classic'' .. Crime and Punishment..
that classic of Dostoevsky... if I were to act like Raskolnikov...
and murder someone, just to murder someone.. because I felt like
a ''superior''' person... but that is the point of ''Crime''
that no matter how ''superior'' we feel, we can be brought down
by our unconscious self.. that we are... condemned... to
to our feelings and emotions over which we have no control over...
and the interesting part is that Dostoevsky never thought about
a psychopath who has no remorse over killing...

Which is basically the plot of an ''American Psycho'' I see these
two ''American Psycho'' and ''Crime and Punishment'' as companion
pieces...people killing without remorse or care, does seem
to be a ''modern'' problem... and we have to wonder why?
and through ART and literature, we can see the possibilities
of why some can murder without a care, and some cannot....
but this idea of one having a conscious or not, is
something that is outside of utilitarian values...
and hence not explored in that way.....

Kropotkin

[Age]

I wasn't going to be published because the only interest that publishers had was in making profits...

And how long do you imagine they would stay in business without that attitude,?

K: and that is why we see the loss of beauty and love and hope...
it has to make money or it has no value... that is a very sad way
to live our life... our modern society is an indictment of
strictly utilitarian values... we are unhappy, and angry
and alienated from just about everything and everybody...
and that is the result of seeing everything in a utilitarian
viewpoint... and we are diminished as human beings by
not seeing the other possibilities of existence...
of joy and love and hope and beauty and a thousand
more values that stand away and apart from strictly
utilitarian values...

Kropotkin

Yet here you are whinging about not having some book published, by others, for you, while complaining that they will not do it, for you, because of money. The only reason you want your book published is so that you can 'sell it' "yourself", also 'for money'.

The hypocrisy here is blinding.

you also appear here to be very unhappy, angry, and alienated from others, which you say and claim is an indictment of so-called 'strictly utilitarian values', yet it is your own seeking of 'more money', which is why you are very unhappy, angry, and alienating 'yourself" from 'others'.

Again, the hypocrisy here is blinding.

If you really want your own words spread and shared, then just do that. If you stopped being so greedy, exactly like the "publishers" are, then you will also stop being so unhappy, angry, and thus stop alienating "yourself" from others here.

Also, what do you perceive is so important in your writings, which you want to share, for money?