Purist Principles Question Change

People who listen to vinyl records are cool again. The simple truth is the fact that they never stopped being cool. Purism is laughed at in some sectors, because people that hold on to older technology  are called  stubborn and backward.  Some advances in technology instantly make sense, while others  should be embraced with caution.  Let’s be honest about something. Some new developments are  completely unnecessary.

Originators are often resented and disrespected, whenever new ideas are allowed to undervalue  the intelligence that make those previous innovations possible.  Contrary to popular belief, innovation is actually accepted by purists. Originators are inaccurately called “inflexible,” without considering the reasons why they prefer to preserve an original idea or style. Just because something is called an improvement does not automatically make it progressive.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, purism is defined as,” Scrupulous or exaggerated observance of or insistence on traditional rules or structures, especially in language or style.”  A purist functions as the curator or archivist of a style, method, or tradition.  The main misconception about purism is that it does not allow improvements. Innovations are allowed, but they are not supposed to recklessly change or disregard the original style.    

David Sax’s book, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things And Why They Matter, contains a story about a Canadian summer camp for children called, Walden.  The idea of ‘transfer of authority’ was at issue since, the camp operates based on a purist approach. Despite technology’s dominance over people’s live, the camp has operated the same way since it was established in 1970. No cell phones are allowed. (There are other Summer camps that do not allow cell phones).  There was a specific instance where some parents wanted to communicate with their children about daily occurrences. 

Although cell phones were not allowed at Walden, some children smuggled them in and were caught, after posting events about the camp’s daily events on social media pages.  The issue was also the fact that their parents did not want to transfer authority to the camp and their staff, and those parents were attempting to control  aspects of their children’s vacation via cell phone, specifically as it pertained to conflict resolution.  Walden refused to allow campgoer parents to dictate the level of authority that could be exercised over their children. Certain parents were calling Walden’s counselors because children were telling their parents about conflicts that they were having with other campers. Instead of leaving the disciplining up to counselors, parents were trying to tell counselors how to discipline the children and how to mediate the children’s social conflicts. Walden stood on its principle of not allowing technology to interfere with how it operates,  and remains one of the most sought after Summer vacation camps in North America (Walden is located in Palmer Rapids, Ontario). 

In a piece for The New York Times published on July 31st, 1988 titled, What Jazz Is – and Isn’t, Winton Marsalis states that, “Despite attempts by writers and record companies and promoters and educators and even musicians to blur the lines for commercial purposes, rock isn’t jazz and new age isn’t jazz, and neither are pop or third stream. There may be much that is good in all of them, but they aren’t jazz.”  Marsalis stood firm on jazz’ core identity and defended against any attempt to dilute the art form.  The purist label is often hurled at those that defend the “integrity” of cultural expression. 

Dan Reilly wrote an article for Fortune magazine, published on October 25th, 2018 titled, A.I. Songwriting Has Arrived. Don’t Panic, where Reilly states that, “The new argument among fans and musicians will be about the use of artificial intelligence in songwriting. According to several estimates, in the next decade, between 20% and 30% of the top 40 singles will be written partially or totally with machine-learning software.” The question is whether songwriting is defined by creating a song naturally. The point is that purist traditions are always open to debate. It can be said that purists are the  vanguards of change, because they preserve the standards of where innovation starts from, and they maintain those original ideals. There is something very intelligent that we can all do. We can use purist standards to gauge our creativity and figure out how that creativity can be built upon.