A provocatively titled essay on the Atlantic web site ("In Defense of Selling Out") argues that there is nothing wrong with artists "finding a way to steadily monetize [their] artistic output" by, for example, participating in advertising. If you have decided to produce art for a living, or if you have bought any bit of artistic expression, you have already acknowledged that art is a commodity. Why, then, not go all the way and put yourself up for sale completely, or almost completely? The author also says "I don't think anyone should have to be ashamed of wanting to be successful, recognized, and to live comfortably." I have to confess I always thought there should be some limits on the extent to which we seek to "monetize" or commodify our existence and achieve worldly success. I even naively suspected that the success of celebrities who earn tens of millions a year is somehow unhealthy for society, and even for the "winners" themselves. Now I get it, so let me think. There is nothing wrong with those young people who sell advertising space on their forehead, shaved skull, eyelids, or any other body part, right? And Ebenezer Scrooge's servant hypothetically undressing him after his death to take - I was going to say "steal," but let's not be judgmental - his best shirt? Dickens wrote about this in order to make some quaint point, and my 13-year old daughter thought it was spooky, but does a dead man really need a pricy shirt? I said the Atlantic piece was provocative, but on second thought it seems not nearly daring enough. I’ll go a step further and argue that not monetizing some of your skills to the full extent the market can bear (maybe because you are held back by some arcane Victorian "values") is plain stupid, even irresponsible. Mother Theresa toiling for free to help all those lepers in India? The dumbest failure to sell out ever. She should have received smarter career planning advice, that's for sure. Of course, some alarmists will say that if seven billion people around the world seize on the impulse to fully monetize their life potential and pursue the lifestyle aspirations promoted through advertising, then Mother Earth will be fully suffocated in maybe 30 years. Have these people learned anything from history? Well, yes, Cassandra was right, but there is a better analogy. How about those armchair/ivory tower doomsayers in ancient Rome who denounced what they one-sidedly saw as an orgy of profiteering and decadent indulgence? They darkly warned that, sapped of the civic virtue Marcus Aurelius futilely sought to resuscitate, the once proud city would one day collapse before those barbarians banging at its gates, but... Woops, bad example. It should be easy to think of a better one, but I have to go now...
P.S. No matter how sloppy my argument, the point I am trying to make should be clear. Imagine those hapless Trojans had listened to Cassandra. What would they have achieved? Most likely, they would have fretted futilely and missed the opportunity to enjoy themselves to the full measure of their potential - while they still could.
