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Sunday, February 6, 2011

Adz And It Shall Be Given Unto You: Sufjan Stevens Interviewed

Interesting and intriguing interview with Sufjan Stevens over The Quietus
Besides a bunch of connections to someone like Glen Gould popping out in terms of the relation of the musician to the music and technology, I really like what Stevens has to say about value and investment. About halfway through the interview he drops the following statement in response to the perceived vs. actual value of (digital) music: "There’s an accountability to an object if there’s an investment in it. There’s a correlation between accountability and value and investment and now there’s absolutely no investment, or time or money or even attention." And this quote/idea has direct connection to learning or education. Living in an object-proliferated culture where objects are very easy to get (at) or to be replaced it does indeed lower the overall value and negates the necessity of accountability to a particular object or objects. Whether that object is simple as CD or as complex as a college degree value has become, or perhaps is becoming, transmorgified from the process of deriving value by interacting with that object in order to learn it. I think the same goes for church and spiritual life where I/we do not invest and therefore ignore or dodge the accountability that is generated by the type of investment required of us to live Christ-like lives.