“[My mother] always believed that a career in the arts was a noble profession. And that was a very rare point of view.” Those are the words of Pixar legend (Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, Inside Out, etc.) John Lasseter in Fast Company back in 2013.
To a young person in 2024, Lasseter’s observation about his mother might read as a bit confusing. Really, what kind of parent would break the spirit of a child with negative comments about career passions?
It’s a reasonable question, but the response to it reveals a great deal about how old the responder is. And for obvious reasons.
For the longest time a career in the arts (whether filmmaking, music, or acting) was the stuff of dreamers. And unrealistic ones at that. At which point it was the job of parents to insert reason into unreasonable thoughts. And it wasn’t just parents.
Does anyone remember the film Gosford Park, and the question posed to the successful actor about what he would do once he was done with acting? The implied point of the question was that acting wasn’t a career as much as it was a phase that would be followed by serious work.
Notable about such a view is that it still carries currency today. Think President Biden’s unconstitutional act of canceling student debt, and the responses from Biden’s critics. Instead of just pointing out the obvious, that what Biden is doing is unconstitutional and also just plain wrong (someone will have to pay the debt), some critics have made the point that Biden is subsidizing the bad decisions of “art history” majors and majors like it that have no practical application in the “real world.” Perceptions die hard, it seems.
Particularly to older people, the idea of art history or art anything as a major is the stuff of unserious people who lack ambition, direction or both. Don’t you know, art is a hobby as opposed to a living. Go to college and major in business, pre-law, or pre-med in order to prepare your mind for a time when hobbies are shunted aside in favor of the real work required to support one’s family. It’s a dated perception, and it’s one that will become more dated by the day.
The reason why can be found in the automation of not just production, but thought itself. Ongoing advances with both are set to erase all sorts of jobs (high and low) formerly performed by humans. And of the jobs not erased by progress, those same advances will erase all sorts of work formerly required by humans to do those jobs.
The mass erasure of the work of the past will logically set the stage for booming growth that will render the present very primitive by comparison. Why the confidence? It’s very basic. Just as work divided among humans leads to huge surges in productivity borne of specialization, so will work divided with increasingly sophisticated machines amplify our productivity and skills in ways previously difficult to imagine.
Remarkable abundance will be one of the many benefits of more automated production and thought, and from it will emerge all sorts of jobs that never could have been work in the past. We’re already seeing this now as people are paid very well for uploading their nightly sleep rituals on YouTube, their skills at video games, not to mention the growth of “sorority consultant” as a well-paid profession. The work of tomorrow will be an expression of passion, period.
Which means that no college major, and no ambition will lack a practical market application. As for the great John Lasseter’s mother, she’ll properly be seen as well ahead of her time for embracing what we will soon all embrace, including older people incorrectly of the view that “these kids today” are on the path to menial work.
Republished from RealClear Markets