Malcolm McLaren on Authenticity VS Karaoke culture

"The person who knows HOW will always have a job.
 The person who knows WHY will always be his boss."

Alanis (Nadine) Morissette   June 1, 1974

I watched a TED conference talk yesterday by Malcolm McLaren.  I tried to record a portion of the talk and post it onto this blog, but haven't figured out yet how to do that.  I ran across an interview with him, however, and am going to post some of that on the blog today.  The whole point of the talk was not only to describe himself and his life, but to discuss the (in his words) two most important words (concepts) confronting our world today...Authenticity....Karaoke...

He describes in his talk how he was first introduced to the idea of authenticity by his first art teacher.  He also discusses what he terms as our existing "Karaoke Culture".  If, after reading some of the excerpts I have posted here, you want to listen to the entire talk on TED, click on 

lMalcolm McLaren's talk and you can do so.  In the meantime, here are some thoughts of his:

Marco Siebertz: You say that you dedicated your life to being a flamboyant and magnificent failure. What is so beneficial in failing?

Malcolm McLaren: For artists from the 19th century like Blake, Byron, Shelley or maybe even Vincent van Gogh the artistic process was one long eternal struggle, which never ends and never ever succeeds. And the only great art comes out of that struggle. It’s like being on a train. There maybe a destination but you never arrive t here – because when you do, you are dead! So, in this romantic age still prevailing in the 1960s, you were taught that from day one. Today, if people were told that, they’d probably drop dead in front of that lecture because they’re such scaredy-dares now! They can’t cope with such thoughts! Those thoughts are far too deep today.

Being a failure was part of an old-fashioned, authentic, romantic way of life and vision for an artist. Today the process of creativity can be better compared to a Karaoke-like experience – an “Ersatz”-world, where the messiness, where the struggle doesn’t exist. In a Karaoke world everything is made easy, you never fail. But in an authentic world failure is something you embrace. It’s almost a noble pursuit. I come from that world – it supported me in creating the punk aesthetic.