Everyone loves artists. Think of the rock stars, the rap masters, the pop icons. Think of the Picassos and the Monets, or even just that badass local tattoo artist or instagram doodler. In fact, if you sit and think about it almost every celebrity is in the arts, be it cinema, music, or the visual arts. Something about who artists are and what they do seems to draw people to them, and it seems like every angsty teen wants to be an artist.

But why? Sure, a lot of artists seem to get rich, but art is only one path to riches, and it’s a hard one at that. Not to mention that a lot of artists die early and unhappy… seems like kind of a raw deal. Like sure Kurt Cobain made some sweet songs but do I really wanna BE him?

Well my friend, it actually turns out that most every philosopher in history has some kind of answer to the question of why artists are so revered and idolized. In this series of articles we’ll go through a few, and along the way hopefully learn a thing or two about art, artists, and even ourselves (aww wouldn’t that be nice).

First up for discussion is… Karl Marx! A bit risque maybe, but I thought it would be nice to start with something spicy. And in fact Marx has more to say about this than most, since his philosophy can actually tell two very different stories about why thousands of people would dream of being a drugged-up sleaze with a guitar.

The first of these stories comes from Marx’s theory of human nature. On this point Marx takes over and expands a lot from Hegel, but the bottom line is that for both of these philosophers, the act of creation is the very essence of who we are as human beings. If you look around, you’ll actually see this in action all around you. When you first meet people, a natural first question is ‘what do you do?’ which, in other words, means ‘what is your job?’ i.e., ‘what do you create?’ The fact that this question is so central to getting to know someone shows just how much what we create defines who we are. Now, for Hegel this is because humanity is just the spirit of rationality embodied in nature, and by creating things we impose that rational order on the fundamentally contingent and arbitrary natural world, thereby bringing it closer to perfect rational harmony. But you don’t really need to buy into anything as abstract and bizarro as this to agree that what you create is in many ways the fundamental defining feature of who you are.

[insert meme thingy, person is invited to party or go out and says something like ‘sorry, i have to wake up early to impose rational order on the raw contingency of nature’ (i can try to make this if you like)]

But where Hegel just sorta says this and moves on, Marx takes this idea and runs with it, using it to build one of his central arguments against capitalism. You see, under capitalism, you don’t get a ton of freedom to create whatever you want. You have to pay your bills, which means you have to get a job, which means that instead of creating whatever, you now have to create what your boss wants you to create. And to top if off, you don’t even get to keep it when you’re done – your boss is gonna sell it to someone else. Honestly I don’t really see why this is a huge deal though; not sure what a factory worker would do with a 1000 toothpaste tubes anyway.

What is a big deal though, and here we’re gonna use a technical term, is that the worker is alienated from their labor. Alienation here essentially just means separation; the worker is separated from what they create. First they don’t get to choose what they create, then they don’t get to keep it, and last they don’t even get the full profit from the sale. Wow, raw deal buddy.

And the deal gets even rawer once you realize that creation is the essential act of self-definition for each and every one of us. By being alienated from their labor, workers aren’t just alienated from a bunch of toothpaste. They’re alienated from themselves, prevented from choosing who they want to be and what they want to bring to the world because they have to get a job to pay the bills. So if you buy the Hegelian/Marxist definition of human nature, then it turns out that when it comes to markets, freedom sure ain’t free. 

But what does any of this have to do with artists and how much we all wish we could be Jimi Hendrix? Well, I’m glad you asked. If you start with the idea of human nature as essentially defined by creation, then you can begin to see why more ‘creative’ pursuits seem so attractive to people. Compared to people with regular day jobs, artists are far less alienated from their labor, far more free to express themselves, and far more free to participate in the quintessential human action of taking the raw material of nature and working on it to give it a rational form. People who aren’t famous rock stars can enjoy making art as a hobby because it gives them an outlet to actually choose what they want to create, or, in other words, who they want to be. But imagine you could get paid for it!

Of course, artists don’t have perfect lives, and there are a lot of forces trying to compel them into creating something they may not want to, but at least they’re more free than most on this front. Still, you may have noticed that a lot of artists either sell out or die young. This is because, according to Marx, they’re faced with a choice – either surrender control of their creative act (i.e., themselves) to the market, or die. This is actually the choice we are all faced with, but since these people chose to be artists, they presumably have a greater attachment to that creative act than the rest of us. So a lot of them turn to drugs in an effort to deal with the stress that this miserable choice puts on them. The misery of that choice comes out in their music, and in expressing that misery they give a voice to all of us who are in the same position. But they can only do it for so long before they crack. Wow, turns out Courtney Love really was innocent; it was capitalism that killed Cobain.

So there you have it. Why, according to Marx, do we revere and idolize artists? Because they represent to us a form of labor that is not alienated from the worker. In an ideal world, all labor, not just the arts, would have this quality of free rational self-expression. But in our world, that freedom is reserved for artists, so naturally that’s what we all wish we could be. Though if those dastardly record company execs get their way, even the artists won’t be free. 

At the start of this article I promised you two Marxists stories about why we love artists. The second one is coming, and trust me – it’s even more depressing than the first. Stay tuned!