Is Art Boring Or Is It Just Us? William Deresiewicz Returns To The Pod

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2023

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, The Unspeakable welcomes back William Deresiewicz, who enters the pantheon of three-time guest! Bill was first on the pod in the fall of 2020 talking about his book The Death of the Artist and he came back last year to talk about his book of collected works The End of Solitude. He returns now to discuss some articles he published recently about the state of human creativity and the future of creative output. In an article for Tablet called We're All Bored Of Culture, Bill explores how and why the arts have seemingly become so lackluster in the last several decades and why audiences appear to be so bored. In an article for Persuasion, Bill writes about artificial intelligence and why he thinks that, despite all the fuss, AI, will never be a substitute for human creativity.

As with all of his visits to The Unspeakable, Bill and Meghan talk about why it might be more difficult than ever to be an artist–-not just in terms of making a living but in terms of "making meaning" (whatever that means). Are artists afraid to take risks for fear of public rebuke and the financial penalties that can result? Or does the machinery of the marketplace disincentivize originality in any form? They also talk about Bill's early career as a dance critic and Meghan's recent experience revisiting some films that were important to her when she was younger.

For paying subscribers, Bill stays over time to reflect on the aging process and some of his feelings about friendship, masculinity, regret, and (of course) the new gender movement.

Guest Bio:

William Deresiewicz is the author of Excellent Sheep, The Death of the Artist, and The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society. Find him at www.billderesiewicz.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dow. This podcast is coming up on its three-year anniversary, which means there are some guests that have been here three times. One of them is author and critic William Derezowitz. Bill was first here in the fall of 2020, talking about his
0:23.2	book, The Death of the Artist. He came back last summer to talk about his book of collected
0:28.4	works, The End of Solitude. And I brought him in again now because I really liked a couple of
0:34.3	recent articles he wrote about art, about artistic work,
0:39.7	specifically how we experience it as audiences now, how it gets made now,
0:45.1	and this question of whether culture has become boring or if it's just us, audiences that are boring.
0:52.8	We talk about everything, from books to movies, to dance,
0:56.1	music. We also talk about a recent piece Bill wrote about artificial intelligence and why he
1:02.5	thinks that despite all the fuss, AI will never be a substitute for human creativity. We talk also
1:09.5	about his early career as a dance critic, about some of my recent experiences
1:15.1	revisiting films that were important to me when I was younger, whether or not they held up,
1:20.6	and Bill stays overtime to talk about that thing we cover in the bonus portion,
1:25.6	how he feels about being the age that he is.
1:29.1	That leads to some really interesting places, like how he feels about friendship,
1:34.7	masculinity, regret, even the new gender movement.
1:39.1	I kind of shoehorn that in whenever possible.
1:41.6	It's good stuff.
1:42.7	So please join the substack if you want to hear that part
1:46.6	at megandown.substack.com become a paying subscriber. And in the meantime, here is my conversation
1:54.3	for everyone with William Derezowitz. Bill, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me back, Megan. This is your third visit here.
2:06.0	You were here in the fall of 2020, I think, talking about your book, The Death of the Artist.
2:12.6	Has it been that long? That sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. Since that book, yes, yes. You came back last summer to talk about your
	...

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